To the Israelites — before the coming of CHRIST the Lord, whether [they] were Israelites by flesh only, or by flesh and spirit (of whom [in] Rom. 9) — never after this ingress into the promised land, and the 17th day of that first month, did manna fall any more, as [is] asserted here (v. 12). Nevertheless, after the coming of CHRIST the Lord, we read [that it] fell several times to true Israelites in spirit. For in the history of the ten thousand martyrs, which I have seen in manuscript, manna is handed down [to have] fallen for feeding them for some [time]. But [there] is another descent of manna, both more noble and more confirmed, which happened in the year of the Lord 418, [with] Honorius and Theodosius [as] Emperors, when in the Balearic islands very many Jews were coming over to the Christian faith. Severus, Bishop of Minorca, narrates it, to Euodius — whom S. Augustine mentions more than once — [in] an epistle which the most Reverend and most Illustrious Baronius dug out from the Vatican library (tome 5). And [there] are the epistle[‘s] words, after [Severus] had related [that] a certain splendid globe, in the likeness of the sun, [was] seen; these words: “At the same day’s hour about the fourth — that is, a little before this sign was shown — a most minute hail, which the natives of that island call, in the gentile tongue, ‘Abgistinum,’ flowed down not everywhere copiously. This [hail], when [it] had begun to smell of the fragrance of honey from it, [was] tasted by many whom [it] had struck along the way, [and] was found sweeter than honey. Many wise [men], therefore, when on the same day [they] saw the sons of Israel — gone out from Egypt by their perfidy, and so from servitude — compared these [things] which happened, by the signs which we read in the exodus, to this people, which, gazing on God [with] a believing heart, merited also the name of true Israel; [and they] believed [that] the manna was renewed — the pillar of fire too, which preceded the fathers in the desert, so that even to sons gone out from the true Egypt and iron furnace (as [it] is written), [it] would furnish leadership to life, [that pillar] was shown [to have] existed [again]. And in very truth (as the reading of Exodus testifies) the likeness of the signs by no means discords. For that too which we believe was snow resembled the seed of minute coriander [and] bore the flavor of honey; and this, which appeared — [that it] had the species of a fiery pillar — is manifest. But [that] each sign was revealed to the brothers dwelling at Jamona too, we know: for the rain of honey many — to whom the understanding of inquiring, and the recognizing through the taste, was given — proved [it]; and the pillar of that most-shining light thrust itself into the sight of many whom the Lord judged worthy. Whence [it] is given to be understood [that] the Jews throughout the whole world [are] to be visited by the light of faith — since to us indeed, who dwell on this island, and in this tiny (so to speak) orb, so great a splendor of celestial grace has shone, that up to the extreme borders of your earth the vision of the signs would arrive.” But that name of hail, which [the] Author [Severus] put as [it were] native and common [“Abgistinum”], [that it] is Punic appears from this — that the two cities of which in the whole history [there] is frequent mention [were] raised by the Poeni [Carthaginians] (as the same author writes); but because from Hebrew flowed the Punic tongue (as [was] shown above—
(col. 624 — right column; printed “631”)
—[shown above], ch. 2, quaest. 24), the same name arises from the Hebrew “gabis” and “elgabis” [gavish, elgavish], which [is in] Job 28 v. 18, Ezekiel ch. 13 v. 11 & 13, [and] ch. 38 v. 22.