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was favored by God, may be read in his life compiled by the pious and learned Mr. Woodhead. It was ascribed to his prayers that the city of Hippo was not taken in that siege which the barbarians raised after having continued it for fourteen months. Count Boniface afterwards hazarded another battle, but with no better success than before. He therefore fled into Italy, and all the inhabitants of Hippo withdrew into foreign countries, abandoning the empty town to the barbarians who then entered and burnt it. The saint's body which was buried in the church of peace (called St. Stephen's, since St. Austin had deposited a portion of that martyr's relics in it in 424, was respected by the barbarians, though they were Arians; and his library escaped their fury. Bede says in his "True Martyrology," that the body of St. Austin was translated into Sardina, and in his time redeemed out of the hands of the Saracens, and deposited in the church of St. Peter at Pavia, about the year 720. Oldrad, Archbishop of Milan, wrote a history of his translation by Charlemagne, extracted from authentic archives then kept at Pavia. He says that the bishops who were banished by Huneric into Sardinia took with them these relics about fifty years after the saint's death; and that they remained in that island until Luitprand, the pious and magnificent king of the Lombards, procured them from the Saracens for a great sum of money. He took care to have this sacred treasure hid with the utmost care under a brick wall in a coffin of lead enclosed in another of silver, the whole within a coffin of marble, upon which in many places was engraved the name Augustinus. In this condition the sacred bones were discovered in 1695. They were incontestably proved authentic by the Bishop of Pavia, in 1728, whose sentence was confirmed by Pope Benedict XIII in the same year, as is related by Fontanini in an express dissertation, and by Fouron in his life of that Pope. The church of St. Peter in Pavia from this treasure is now called St. Austin, and is served both by Austin Friars and by Regular Canons of his rule. His festival is mentioned in the Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome, and in that of Carthage as old as the sixth century. In the life of St. Caesarius, written in that age it is mentioned to have been then kept with great solemnity. It is a holy-day of obligation in all the dominions of the king of Spain. A general council being summoned to meet at Ephesus against Nestorius in 431, the emperor, Theodosius, sent a
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