Gesta Romanorum Vol. II (1871)/Of the Soul's Immortality
TALE LXXVIII.
OF THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY.
There was once discovered in a place higher than the walls of the city of Rome, an uncorrupted body, on which the following words were inscribed. "Pallas, the son of Evander, whom the lance of a crooked soldier slew, is interred here." A candle burned at his head, which neither water nor wind could extinguish, until air was admitted through a hole made with the point of a needle beneath the flame. The wound of which this person had died, was four feet and a half long. He was a giant, and having been killed after the overthrow of Troy, was buried here, where he had remained two thousand two hundred and forty years.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the giant is Adam, who was formed free from all corruption. The wound of which he died, is transgression of the divine command. The burning candle is eternal punishment, extinguished by means of a needle, that is by the passion of Christ.