Section 215
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184 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. CHAPTER V. God sent rain from heaven to Mar OILS Aurelius, the emperor, at the prayers of our brethren. BUT it is said that Marcus Aurelius Cesar, the brother of the former, when about to engage in battle with the Germans and Sarmatians, and his army was sufiering with thirst, was greatly at a loss on this account. Then, however, those soldiers that belonged to the Melitine legion, as it was called, by a faith which has continued from that time to this, bending their knees upon the earth whilst drawn up in battle array against the enemy, according to our peculiar custom of praying, entered into prayer before God. And as this was a singular spectacle to the enemy, a still more singular circumstance is reported to have happened immediately ; that the lightning drove the enemy into flight and destruction, but that a shower came down and re freshed the army of those that then called upon God, the whole of which was on the point of perishing with thirst. This history is related also by historians who are strangers to our doctrine, who, however, took an interest in the writings of those whom we have mentioned ; but it is also stated by our own writers, whilst the wonderful event is also added by historians who differ from our faith, but who do not admit that this happened at the prayers of our brethren. But the fact is handed down on record by our brethren, as lovers of truth, in a plain and undisguised manner. Of these we might mention Apollinaris, who says that from that time the legion at whose prayers the wonder took place, received an appellation appropriate to the event, from the em peror, being called the fulminea, or thundering legion. Tertullian also might be cited as a suitable witness of these things, in the Apology that he addressed to the Roman senate for the faith, the work which has been already mentioned by us, in which he confirms the history with greater and more powerful proof, where he writes as follows : " There are epistles of the most learned em peror Marcus still extant, in which he himself bears testimony that