In good truth, the holy Thomas, the precious champion of God, was to be worthily glorified.  For if the cause, yea, forasmuch as the cause makes the martyr, did ever a title of holy martyrs exist more glorious?  Contending for the Church, in the Church he suffered; in a holy place, at the holy time of the Lord’s nativity, in the midst of his fellow-priests and the companies of the religious:  since in the agony of the prelate all the circumstances seemed so to concur, as perpetually to illustrate the title of the sufferer, and reveal the wickedness of his persecutors, and stain their name with never-ending infamy.  But so did the divine vengeance rage against the persecutors of the martyr, that in a short time, being carried away from the midst, they nowhere appeared.  And some, without confession, or the viaticum, were suddenly snatched away; others tearing piecemeal their own fingers or tongues; others pining with hunger, and corrupting in their whole body, and racked with unheard-of tortures before their death, and broken up by paralysis; others bereft of their intellects; others expiring with madness;—­left manifest proofs that they were suffering the penalty of unjust persecution and premeditated murder.  Let, therefore, the Virgin Mother, the Church, rejoice that the new martyr has borne away the triumph over the {214} enemies.  Let her rejoice that a new Zacharias has been for her freedom sacrificed in the temple.  Let her rejoice that a new Abel’s blood hath cried unto God for her against the men of blood.  For the voice of his blood shed, the-voice of his brain scattered by the swords of those deadly satellites, hath filled heaven at once and the world with its far-famed cry.

  Thomas shines with new miracles;
  He adorns with sight those who had lost their eyes;
  He cleanses those who were stained with the spots of leprosy;

  He looses those that were bound with the bonds of death.

Ninth Lesson.

For at the cry of this blood the earth was moved and trembled.  Nay, moreover, the powers of the heavens were moved; so that, as if for the avenging of innocent blood, nation rose against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; nay, a kingdom was divided against itself, and terrors from heaven and great signs took place.  Yet, from the first period of his martyrdom, the martyr began to shine forth with miracles, restoring sight to the blind, walking to the lame, hearing to the deaf, language to the dumb.  Afterwards, cleansing the lepers, making the paralytic sound, healing the dropsy, and all kinds of incurable diseases; restoring the dead to life; in a wonderful manner commanding the devils and all the elements:  he also put forth his hand to unwonted and unheard-of signs of his own power; for persons deprived of their eyes merited by his merits to obtain new members.  But some {215} who presumed to disparage his miracles, struck on a sudden, were compelled to publish them even unwillingly.