E01988: Augustine of Hippo, in his Latin sermon mentions unspecified healing miracles, produced daily at the memorial shrine of a martyr, most probably *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030). Sermon 61A, preached in an unknown city in North Africa, in the 420s.

Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 61A

5. ... Propter hoc admoneo primitus caritatem uestram, quoniam scio, et omnes scimus et dissimulare non possumus: feriunt enim oculos et nolentium, quae hic cotidie fiunt miracula sanitatum per memoriam beatissimi et gloriosissimi martyris praesentis in hoc loco: sed sine dubio aliqui petunt et non accipiunt.

'5. ... This is why I admonish Your Charity, for I know, and we all know and cannot hide it. Even the eyes of those who do not want it are stricken, because here, through the memorial shrine (memoria) of the most blessed and glorious martyr daily miraculous healings are wrought in this place. Yet other seek them too, and do not receive.'

There follow reflections on why not everybody is healed at the saint's shrine, in which Augustine emphasises that the most important healing is spiritual, not somatic.

Text: Lambot 1969, 181. Translation and summary: Robert Wiśniewski.