274. Proof. In the books of the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, many and splendid miracles are narrated, performed either by Christ the Lord or by His Apostles. But concerning their historical-philosophical-relative truth in relation to Christian revelation, there can be no doubt. Therefore they are true and certain in every way. But miracles certainly prove that in whose confirmation they are performed (n. 214 ff.). Therefore Christian revelation is truly divine.
275. I. To illustrate the major of the argument, we note first with St. Thomas (III, q. 34, a. 4), “that the miracles of Christ were ordered to this, that the power of divinity might be known in Him for the salvation of men. But it pertains to the power of Divinity that every creature be subject to it. And therefore it was fitting that He perform miracles in every kind of creature.” Hence: Christ performed miracles in inanimate nature. For 1) in Cana of Galilee (John 2.1-11), invited to a wedding, when the wine was lacking, He commanded that six stone water-jars be filled with water. When the ministers had done this, He immediately changed the water into wine, with the chief steward, the bridegroom, the ministers, the guests, and especially the disciples as witnesses; and they believed in Him. 2) A great movement arose on the sea (Matthew 8, Mark 4, Luke 8), so that the little boat in which Christ was with the disciples was already being covered by the waves. The disciples, greatly fearing imminent shipwreck, cried out: “Lord, save us, we are perishing!” Christ, awakened from sleep, “commanded the winds and the sea, and there was made a great calm.” All those present there, seized with admiration at the sudden change of the air and the calm of the sea, said: “Who is this, that the winds and the sea obey Him?” 3) On another occasion (Matthew 14.24 ff.), when the disciples were in the middle of the sea and their little boat was being tossed by the waves, Jesus “came to them walking upon the sea.” Peter also, called by Christ, “descending from the little boat, walked upon the water.” 4) Christ twice (Matthew 14-15, John 6) multiplied loaves and fish in a wonderful way. For the first time, with five loaves and two fish He satisfied five thousand men, besides women and little children; but when so great a multitude of men had been satisfied, “they took up the remnants, twelve baskets full of fragments.” The other time He satisfied, with seven loaves and a few little fish, “four thousand men, besides little children and women; and what remained of the fragments, they took up, seven full baskets.” But the hypothesis of Horus, who imagined that the crowds had brought the necessary food with themselves, is shown to be not only gratuitous but false; for it is expressly read concerning them: “They have nothing to eat”; and concerning Christ: “He gave to His disciples that they might set it before them, and they set it before the crowd.” Christ performed miracles in men, especially by healing their diseases. For 1) (Matthew 4.23) “Jesus went about all Galilee… healing every sickness and every infirmity among the people”; and therefore, as is read (Luke 6.14), “the whole crowd sought to touch Him” (Jesus), “because power went out from Him and healed all.” 2) When Jesus was beside the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 15.30 ff.), “great crowds came to Him, having with them the mute, the blind, the lame, the weak, and many others, and they cast them at His feet, and He cured them; so that the crowds marveled, seeing the mute speaking, the lame walking, the blind seeing, and they magnified the God of Israel.” 3) Christ (John 5) healed one lying sick for a long time, whom physicians could in no way cure. He accomplished this by command alone: “Jesus says to him: Arise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately that man was made healthy, and he took up his bed and walked.” 4) Likewise it is read (Luke 8.43): “There was a certain woman in a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her substance on physicians and could be cured by no one; she came behind and touched the hem of His garment; and immediately the flow of her blood stopped.” 5) Christ, as is read (Matthew 8 and 15; John 4), also healed absent persons, and those placed far away, who could neither hear nor see Him. This was done with the servant of the Centurion, the son of the ruler, and the daughter of the Canaanite woman. 6) To these can be added what St. Thomas has (same place, a. 3): “But nevertheless concerning the souls of men, especially as regards changing the lower powers, Christ performed certain miracles. Hence Jerome, on that passage of Matthew 9, ‘Rising, he followed Him’” (or on that passage, “As He passed by, He saw a man,” etc.), “says: ‘The very brightness and majesty of the hidden Divinity, which shone forth even in His human face, was able from the first sight to draw those seeing Him to Himself.’ And on that passage of Matthew 21, ‘He cast out all those selling and buying,’ etc.” (or on that passage, “The chief priests,” etc.), “the same Jerome says: ‘To me, among all the signs which the Lord performed, this seems more wonderful: that one man, and at that time contemptible, could cast out so great a multitude by the blows of one whip. For something fiery and star-like radiated from His eyes, and the majesty of Divinity shone in His face.’ And Origen says on John (tome 2, according to his order, before the middle) that this is a greater miracle than that by which water was changed into wine, because ‘there inanimate matter subsists; but here the dispositions of so many thousands of men are subdued.’ And on that passage of John 18, ‘They went backward and fell to the ground,’ Augustine says, tractate 112 on John, before the middle: ‘One voice struck, drove back, and laid low so great a crowd, fierce with hatreds and terrible with arms, without any weapon; for God was hidden in flesh.’ And to the same pertains what is said in Luke 4.30, that ‘Jesus, passing through the midst of them, went away,’ where Chrysostom says, homily 47 on John, a little from the beginning, that ‘to stand in the midst of those laying snares and not be apprehended showed the eminence of divinity’; and what is said in John 8.59: ‘Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple,’ where Theophylact says: ‘He did not hide Himself in a corner of the temple as if fearing, or turning aside behind a wall or column; but, by divine power making Himself invisible to those lying in wait, He went out through their midst.’ From all these things it is clear that Christ, when He wished, changed the souls of men by divine power, not only by justifying and infusing wisdom” (which pertains to the end of miracles), “but also by outwardly alluring, or terrifying, or astonishing, which pertains to the miracles themselves.” Christ raised the dead. For 1) (Matthew 9, Mark 5, Luke 8) the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was certainly dead; the father asserted this, the servants announced it, and those standing by the deceased girl so believed it that they laughed at Christ, who indeed did not deny the death, but compared it to sleep, saying: “The girl is not dead, but sleeps.” Yet Christ, holding her hand, cried out, saying: “Girl, arise. And her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And her parents were astonished.” 2) The young man in Naim (Luke 7) was so certainly dead that he was already being carried to the tomb. And indeed no prudent person will doubt that the widowed mother had used every solicitude for her only son, lest he be buried while only apparently dead. But Christ, meeting the funeral procession and moved with mercy toward the weeping mother, approached and touched the bier and said: Young man, I say to you, arise. And he who was dead sat up and began to speak. But fear seized all, and they magnified God. 3) Concerning the death of Lazarus (John 11), which Christ, located far from Bethany, had announced to the Apostles, his weeping sisters and all who had come to console them are irrefragable witnesses. Indeed when Jesus commanded that the stone of the tomb be taken away, Martha, the sister of the deceased, answered: “Lord, by now he stinks; he is four days dead.” Nevertheless Jesus, lifting His eyes upward and giving thanks to the Father, cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. And immediately he who had been dead came forth. But many of the Jews who had come to Mary and Martha, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. The Apostles also performed miracles. Christ the Lord (Mark 16) had promised them the power of performing miracles; and it is read (Acts 2): “Many prodigies and signs were being done through the Apostles in Jerusalem”; and (Acts 5): “Many signs and prodigies were being done among the people by the hands of the Apostles, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and placed them on little beds and couches, so that, when Peter came, at least his shadow might overshadow any one of them, and they might be freed from their infirmities.” And (Acts 9) Peter healed a paralytic; and (Acts 20) Paul raised a dead man; indeed (Acts 19) his handkerchiefs drove away diseases. But Paul’s conversion itself is eminent, and the miracle of Peter which is narrated in Acts 3. There are added the signs by which the Father confirmed Christ’s divinity and His divine mission. For 1) when Jesus (Luke 3) had been baptized by John, “heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven: You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” 2) On another occasion (Matthew 17), Christ, having taken Peter, James, and John, “was transfigured before them. And His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as snow. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them speaking with Him… behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice from the cloud saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him!” By these words Christ was not indeed compared with Moses and Elijah, but preferred before them, as Son; and besides this, as Legate of God and herald of divine revelation, He obtained the most magnificent sanction: “hear Him.” But these are not all, but only certain ones from the miracles which are narrated in the Gospels. Nor have all things which Christ did been written; since it is said (John 21.25): “But there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I think that not even the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written.” Let it be permitted to use the words of Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 10, n. 19): “Among the rivers Jordan is witness; among the seas, the Sea of Tiberias. The blind testify, the lame testify, the dead recalled to life testify. The demons bear testimony, saying: What have we to do with You, Jesus? We know who You are, the Holy One of God (Mark 1.24). The winds, restrained and checked by His command, testify; the five loaves… multiplied, etc., testify.” And Arnobius (Against the Gentiles, book 1, chapter 50): “What of the fact that these powers, which have been brought forth by us summarily and not as the greatness of the matter demanded, He not only accomplished Himself by His own power, but, what was more sublime, permitted many others to experience and perform with affection for His name? For since He saw that you would be future deniers of the things done by Him and of the divine work, lest there should lie beneath any suspicion that He had bestowed those gifts and benefits by magical arts, from that immense multitude of people which followed His grace with admiration, He chose fishermen, craftsmen, countrymen, and that sort of unskilled persons, who, sent through various nations, would perform all those miracles without any disguises and aids.”
276. II. To confirm the minor of the proposed argument, we first say: Concerning the historical truth of the miracles of Christ and the Apostles there can be no doubt. Although this is sufficiently clear from the demonstrated historical authenticity of the Gospels, nevertheless in a matter of such importance it is useful still to recall a few things. 1) To this purpose serves the observation of St. John Chrysostom (That Christ Is God, n. 17): “The very same men who narrated that He was crucified and struck with blows also told of the miracles. Why, then, do you think them worthy of faith in those things, but in these rebuke them as though they had not happened? But if they wrote these things for favor toward their Master and boasted rashly and vainly, they would have kept silent about those things which were held by many as sorrowful and ignominious. Now they, declaring the truth of these things, dwelt especially on those, and treated all things diligently and abundantly, omitting neither a small nor a great matter; but in signs and miracles they kept silence about very many.” And likewise to this purpose serve the things which Eusebius writes (Demonstration of the Gospel, book 3, chapter 5): “But if these were lies which they had contrived by agreement, it will be worth the trouble to wonder by what means so great a number preserved that agreement among themselves in fictitious matters even unto death, and no one ever, from fear of those things which had happened to those who had previously been taken away, withdrew from the society, nor publicly contradicted the rest, betraying those things which they had contrived among themselves.” Hence he concludes: “Indeed it seems to me rightly said: either one must believe the disciples of Jesus entirely, if also the other writers; or if not these, then not the others either… Or if you say that it is fair to believe others indeed, but not these alone, why is this not plainly referred to envy?” 2) The facts about which we are treating, when their nature and the end toward which they were directed are inspected, were of the greatest moment, and therefore apt especially to excite the attention of all. Certainly the report of them immediately moved all Judaea and existed as the cause of innumerable conversions. They were, besides, sensible facts, several produced in the city of Jerusalem itself, often on feast days, not rarely before a very ample multitude of people, indeed before enemies, who left nothing unattempted so that they might deny their force. Hence Arnobius says (Against the Gentiles, book 1, n. 54) that the witnesses of Christ’s miracles are present: “races, peoples, nations, and that unbelieving human race, which, unless the matter were open and, as they say, clearer than the light itself, would never offer the assent of its credulity to matters of this sort. But shall we say that the men of that time were so vain, lying, foolish, brutish, that they pretended they had seen things which they had never seen? And that they handed down by false testimonies, or confirmed by childish assertion, things which had not been done at all? And when they could live with you with one mind and conduct their connections without offense, did they take up gratuitous hatreds and become execrable in name?” 3) The miracles performed by Christ were such that sometimes a juridical inquiry was instituted concerning their truth, and indeed by His most hostile enemies; nevertheless this very inquiry placed the truth of the event beyond all doubt. This happened as regards the cure of the sick man at the pool (John 5); as regards the man who, from Christ’s command, stretched out his withered hand in the sight of the adversaries (Matthew 12); especially as regards the man blind from birth, whom Christ, about to cure, “spat on the ground, and made clay from the spittle, and anointed the clay upon his eyes, and said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam; therefore he went away, and washed, and came seeing.” But concerning the raising of Lazarus it is said (John 11): “Many, therefore, of the Jews who had come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed in Him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Therefore both the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said: What are we doing, because this man performs many signs? If we let Him go thus, all will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation… Therefore from that day they thought to kill Him.” 4) As regards the Apostles, let us recall that their preaching was public; and that at the solemnity of Pentecost, that is, fifty days from the death of Christ, they announced Christ to the Jews. Behold how St. Peter addresses the multitude of the Jews (Acts 2): “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you by powers and prodigies and signs, which God did through Him in the midst of you, as you also know: this man, delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have slain, afflicting Him by the hands of enemies, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of hell… This Jesus God raised again, of which we all are witnesses.” The most hostile adversaries could oppose nothing to the testimony of the Apostles; on the contrary, a huge multitude believed, certainly not with eyes closed, but on account of the evidence of the facts. Nor did common people alone believe; for Jairus, Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, Lazarus, Joseph of Arimathea, many from the principal men and from the priestly order (John 12.42; Acts 6.7), Crispus the ruler of the synagogue, Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue, Apollo an eloquent man (Acts 18.8, 17, 24), and Paul himself were not men of the common people. 5) Let us conclude with the words of St. Augustine, who writes (City of God, book 22, chapter 8): “Why, they say, do those miracles which you preach to have been done not happen now? I could indeed say that they were necessary before the world believed, in order that the world might believe. Whoever still seeks wonders so that he may believe is himself a great wonder, who does not believe when the world believes. But they say this so that those miracles may not be believed to have happened then either. Whence, therefore, with so great faith, is Christ everywhere sung as having been taken up into heaven with the flesh? Whence, in educated times, and in times rejecting everything which cannot happen, did the world believe incredible things, too wonderfully, without any miracles?… We cannot deny that many miracles were done which testified to that one great and saving miracle, by which Christ ascended into heaven with the flesh in which He rose again. For in the same most truthful books all things have been written, both the things which were done and the reason for which they were done as things to be believed.”
277. III. There can be no doubt concerning the philosophical truth of the miracles of Christ. This part of the argument also becomes sufficiently known from the things disputed above (n. 220 ff.); but, because of the gravity of the matter, it is useful to renew the argument. And: 1) Several miracles of Christ and of the Apostles are of such a kind that they certainly surpass the powers of nature, art, and demons. The raising of the dead, for example, belongs to Him alone as author, whose role it is to create the soul and, at the time of conception, to unite it to the body (compare On God the Creator, n. 771). Hence it is that, although they have tried by tricks and marvelous works to imitate the works of Christ, it has never been seen or heard that, by means of magnetism, spiritism, or demons, the dead have been called back to life. Nor ought this to seem wonderful; for if there were some natural cause for calling a dead person back to life, a fortiori there would be some natural cause for preventing death, whatever the nature of the infirmity might be. But experience itself establishes this: “The Most High has appointed his” [man’s] “bounds, which cannot be passed beyond.” 2) As regards the other miracles, the manner in which Christ performed them, and the other accompanying circumstances, clearly show divine power. For He often used only the command of His voice. To restore life, for example, to Lazarus already stinking, He cried with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth”; and immediately Lazarus, who was bound hands and feet, obeying the voice of Christ, came forth from the tomb alive. Certainly art and nature need means and time in order to restore health; but Christ, with no means employed, often cured the sick in an instant, those laboring under long disease, and in such a way that the effect remained. Indeed, as we saw, Christ also healed absent persons; in which cases it is possible to attribute the effect to no natural cause. For what cause can produce anything in that upon which it can exercise neither any physical nor any moral influence? Or what possible influence is there upon the absent? Again, if there were some hidden natural cause of the wonderful works of Christ, how would it still remain hidden from us (for the explanations which rationalists force upon us are utterly foolish), when nevertheless Christ knew it long ago? Christ, I say, who in the hypothesis of the adversaries would be nothing except the son of a carpenter, who never learned letters? Finally, let there be considered the ease with which Christ performed miracles; the multitude and variety of wonderful works which He accomplished; the certainty with which the event answered His promise and command; the stability with which the effect of health, life, and so forth persevered; the fruit which followed from Christ’s miracles. Clearer than the noonday light will be the demand of Arnobius (Against the Gentiles, book 1, chapter 43): “Can you designate for us, can you show from all those magicians who ever existed through the ages, anyone who performed anything similar to Christ even by a thousandth part?” Therefore let us conclude with Zachaeus Christianus (Consultation with Apollonius the Philosopher, book 1, chapter 13; ed. Migne, vol. 20, col. 1081): “If an echo is to be equated with one speaking, or foam with fountains, or shadow with true light, then the works of men are joined by no unworthy comparison with the powers of God, since here there is only this delay of remedies, that they are commanded to help” [nothing was required except a nod], “there those things furnished through labor vanish almost before they are perceived.” 3) To confirm these things, it is pleasing to report the eloquent words of Arnobius himself (book 1, chapter 45): “What do you say, O peoples, again? Therefore was He mortal or one of us, at whose command, at whose voice, uttered in common and everyday words, weaknesses, diseases, fevers, and other torments of the body fled? Was He one of us, whose presence, whose sight, that race of demons sunk in the entrails could not bear, and, terrified by a new power, believed it must yield possession of the members?… Was He one of us, who commanded the lame to run?… Was He one, I say, of us, who healed, by one intercession at once, a hundred or more afflicted by various weaknesses and diseases? At whose simple voice did raging and mad seas unfold themselves? Did whirlwinds of storms and tempests subside? Who carried an unsullied foot through the deepest whirlpools? Who trod the back of the sea, the waves themselves being amazed, nature passing into service? Who satisfied five thousand following Him with five loaves, and, lest to those unbelieving and hard men these things should seem tricks, heaped up the folds of twice six baskets with fragments of remnants? Was He one of us, who commanded souls long since breathed out to return into bodies, those buried under mounds to come forth, and after the third day of burial to be released from the wrappings of the undertakers?” etc., etc. 4) But that the miracles of Christ cannot be ascribed to the power of demons, besides the nature of certain of them and the other things which we have said, is opposed by the fact that the demons themselves were cast out of bodies; that Christ worked against their will; that He performed miracles for this end, that He might promote virtue and glorify God. For Christ, who was striving to overthrow the kingdom of the demon, was at the same time laboring to spread and establish the kingdom of God. If therefore the demon had worked the works which Christ displayed, the demon would have conferred his power against himself. The Lord Christ Himself used this argument when (Luke 11, Matthew 9), replying to the Pharisees, who could by no means deny the truth of the works and were ascribing them to diabolical power, He answered: “If Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?… But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” By these words He most openly asserted His divine power, which He manifested by casting out demons. Therefore it is permitted to use the words of Origen (Against Celsus, book 1, n. 51): “Therefore if, with every prejudged opinion concerning miracles set aside, it is asked whether He performed them with good or evil counsel, so that we neither condemn all things nor admire and admit all things as divine: is it not clear from the miracles of Moses and Jesus, by which entire peoples were established, that those things which the Scriptures narrate as done by them were done by divine power? For a whole people would not have been established by evil arts and magical tricks, a people which, despising not only images and false divinities which all others worshiped, but also all created things, rises up to God, the beginning of all things, Himself lacking a beginning.”
278. IV. There can be no doubt concerning the relative truth of the miracles of Christ. For understanding this part, it is useful here to observe that the miracles of Christ, whether they were performed directly in confirmation of His divinity, or of His mission, or of His doctrine, equally prove the divine origin of that same doctrine, as is easily clear. Hence: 1) It is read (Matthew 11): “John… when he had heard in prison of the works of Christ, sending two of his disciples, said to Him: Are You He who is to come, or do we look for another? And Jesus answering said to them: Go and report to John the things which you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor are evangelized.” Now both from John’s request and from the response of Jesus Christ it is manifest that Jesus Christ directed miracles toward proving His divine mission. 2) When Christ had replied to the Jews, falsely accusing Him of violating the sabbath, that He worked all things together with the Father (John 5.17), and that He was intimately united with Him, He adds (v. 36): “The very works which I do bear testimony concerning Me.” He asserted the same thing to His disciples at the Last Supper (John 14.10 ff.): “But the Father, remaining in Me, Himself does the works. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.” 3) When He was about to raise Lazarus (John 11), “Jesus, lifting His eyes upward, said: Father, I give thanks to You because You have heard Me. But I knew that You always hear Me; yet because of the people who stand around I said this, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” And in reality “many… of the Jews who had come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed in Him.” 4) Christ very often appealed to miracles in order to show His divine mission. When the Jews, for example, said (John 10): “How long do You take away our soul? If You are the Christ, tell us openly,” Jesus answered them: “I speak to you, and you do not believe. The works which I do in the name of My Father, these bear testimony concerning Me. If you are not willing to believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Rebuking also the unbelief of the Jews (John 15), He says: “If I had not done among them works which no other has done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.” Wherefore St. Augustine rightly writes (On the Usefulness of Believing, n. 32): “For what else do so many and such great miracles do, when He Himself also says that they happen for no other reason except that He may be believed?… Therefore… by miracles Christ won authority, by authority He merited faith, by faith He gathered a multitude, by multitude He obtained antiquity, by antiquity He strengthened religion.” 5) Nor did the disciples and Apostles of Christ understand the matter otherwise. For Nicodemus said to Jesus (John 3.2): “We know that You have come from God as teacher; for no one can do these signs which You do unless God has been with him.” Peter (2 Peter 1.16-18), in order to prove the divine mission of Christ, appeals to His transfiguration and the voice brought down from heaven, “which,” he says, “we heard brought from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” Likewise Paul (1 Corinthians 15) presents the resurrection of Christ as a public and irrefragable testimony of truth. Finally, to omit the rest, St. John (20.30 ff.) writes: “Indeed Jesus did many other signs in the sight of His disciples which are not written in this book. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” 6) All these things will shine with fuller light if we attend to the remarkable character of Christ. For He was so alien from every stain that He could publicly exclaim in the sight of His adversaries (John 8.46): “Which of you will convict Me of sin?” and no one was present who would rebuke Him. The Judges themselves, even unwillingly, confessed His innocence before the people. Pilate publicly protested, “I find no cause in Him”; and “I am innocent of the blood of this just man.” The betraying disciple, driven to despair, said: “I have sinned, betraying just blood.” But after the death of Christ, the religion preached by Him acquired very many adversaries; yet none of them ever rendered His innocence and exceptional virtue suspect, so that the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, confidently proclaimed Him “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners” (1). Now it is Christ Himself who claims for Himself equality with God and universal power; who calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life; who therefore requires full faith in the doctrine which He preaches; and He confirms all these things, as we have seen, by miracles. Could these affirmations of Christ be reconciled with His remarkable character, if they were false? Would He not rather have to be called the worst of men, who, lifted up by remarkable pride, made Himself equal to God, and, confirming this by false miracles, strove to drive the whole human race to ruin? Indeed this testimony of Christ, confirmed by miracles from Him, either is said to be true, and we have what we want; or it is said to be false, and it openly conflicts with the character of Christ admitted by His adversaries themselves. But if it were judged that Christ uttered that testimony unknowingly, how could the sublimity and (1) Rousseau himself (Emile, book 4) confessed this remarkable character of Christ, saying: “What sweetness, what purity in His morals, what touching grace in His instructions! What loftiness in His maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety and what exactness in His answers! What command over His passions! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows how to act, suffer, and die without weakness and without ostentation? Had Jesus Christ taken from His own people this elevated and pure morality, of which He alone gave the lessons and example? From the bosom of the most furious fanaticism the highest wisdom made itself heard, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues honored the vilest of all peoples… Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God.” harmony of the doctrine which He preached be reconciled with so great an ignorance? How would He have spoken as no man ever spoke? (John 7.46). How would He have confounded the Pharisees, so that they did not dare to answer Him a word? (Matthew 12.46). This argument drawn from the character of Christ is remarkable; so much so that even from it alone Apologists everywhere demonstrate the divine origin of the Christian religion. Compare, if you wish, Duvoisin (Demonstration Evangelique, chapter 3).
279. Yet you will say: if Christ produced miracles in confirmation of His doctrine, He ought not to have prohibited but rather to have promoted the promulgation of the miracles. But Christ prohibited the spreading of the miracles produced by Him; thus, for example, to the healed leper He commanded: “See that you tell no one”; to the deaf and mute man, restoring the use of ears and tongue, “He commanded them that they should tell no one” (compare Matthew 9 and Mark 8). Therefore. It is answered. From the cited testimonies it is abundantly clear that Christ gave miracles as signs of His mission, publicly and everywhere appealed to them, and sometimes even expressly commanded the divulgation of a miracle, just as He said to the man freed from demons (Mark 5): “Go to your house, to your own, and announce to them how great things the Lord has done for you.” Therefore there can be no doubt concerning the relative force of miracles for proving the divinity of the Christian religion. Why then did Christ sometimes command that the fame of a miracle not be spread? Namely, the confirmation of Christian truth is not the only possible end of miracles. Hence Christ the Lord, who was not only the Teacher of truth but also the Exemplar of virtue, after His mission had already been proved by innumerable and various signs, wished also to teach us humility, sometimes forbidding that certain miracles be openly manifested; just as He sometimes refused to perform miracles lest He feed the curiosity of those who only wished to see (Matthew 12.38), or rebuked those who refused to believe unless they touched with their own hands (John 20.29). Moreover, this difficulty, which Larroque repeats together with other more recent unbelievers (Critical Examination of Doctrines, etc.), St. Thomas had already proposed to himself and satisfied by the words of St. John Chrysostom, saying (III, q. 44, a. 3, ad 4): “On that passage of Matthew 9, ‘See that no one knows,’ Chrysostom says (homily 13 on Matthew, a little from the beginning): ‘This which is said here is not contrary to what He says to another: Go and announce the glory of God; for He teaches us to prohibit those who wish to praise us on account of ourselves. But if the glory is referred to God, we ought not to prohibit it, but rather to enjoin that this be done.’”
280. SCHOLION. We have labored according to our powers to demonstrate the divine origin of Christian revelation from the miracles of Christ and the Apostles; and after the things which we have disputed, we would seem to waste time in vain if we lingered in refuting the things which more recent rationalists object. Indeed, in order to weaken the force of the transmitted demonstration, they enter upon a twofold way: 1) they drag down all miracles as myths and legends, and therefore attack the truthfulness of the Evangelists; 2) once historical truth has been admitted, they strive to explain miracles in such a way that they reduce them to merely natural events; and therefore they deny the philosophical truth of miracles.
281. In the mythical explanation Strauss and Renan stand out. But against them: 1) all those things must be repeated by which we above vindicated the historical authenticity of the Gospels. 2) Strauss concedes (Introduction, section XIII) that if the Gospel history had been written by contemporary authors and immediate witnesses, “an argument of this sort would truly be decisive”; therefore let the arguments be repeated to him by which we established the genuineness of the Gospels. 3) Strauss confesses that he adheres to the mythical explanation because, a priori, miracles are impossible; but Renan (Life of Jesus, Introduction LI) writes: “It is not in the name of this or that philosophy; it is in the name of constant experience that we banish miracle from history. We do not say: miracle is impossible; we say: until now there has been no verified miracle.” But in the same place, contradicting himself, he establishes as a principle of sound criticism in history that, since a narrative of a supernatural work cannot be admitted as such, it is necessary that it always involve credulity or imposture; therefore the office of the historian is to interpret it in such a way that he sees what falsehood and what truth it contains: namely, to drag it down as a myth. Therefore the things which we disputed concerning the possibility of miracle must be repeated to them. 4) Moreover the Apostles themselves oppose the facts which they narrate to fables (mythoi), which they themselves reject. Thus (1 Timothy 1.4) Paul exhorted Timothy that he should instruct the Ephesians “not to attend to fables”; and (4.4) he says: “But avoid foolish and old-womanish fables”; and Peter (1 Peter 1.16) writes: “For we have not followed learned fables when we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were made beholders of His majesty”; and he brings forward the fact of the transfiguration, of which he himself had been a witness.
282. But among those who try to reduce all miracles to merely natural events, Paulus stands out, to whom even the most trifling Renan also approaches. Therefore, since these deny the philosophical truth of miracles: 1) all those things must be repeated which we brought forward to establish it in this and in the ninth thesis. 2) They often force upon us a difficulty which is sought from our ignorance of natural laws and powers; we also sufficiently met this difficulty. 3) These things could be confirmed from the very manner, truly ridiculous, which they employ in order to explain Christ’s miracles. When it is said, for example (Matthew 14), that Christ appeared to the disciples tossed by a storm, “walking upon the waters,” Paulus (Exegetical Manual on the First Three Gospels) judges that without doubt one must read “beside the waters”; namely, Christ was walking on the shore of the sea. The miracle of the conversion of water into wine, which Christ performed in Cana of Galilee, and which John (2) calls “the beginning of the signs of Jesus,” according to Paulus was nothing other than a sign of courtesy. And Renan, when he tries to imitate Paulus, explains the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fish (Matthew 14) easily (!), saying that that holy crowd which followed Christ lived with the greatest frugality in the desert; and consequently it was ready for it to recognize a miracle. If there is question of the raising of Lazarus, Renan is in no difficulty at all; for this is reduced to fraud or collusion between Christ and Lazarus! The latter pretended to be dead, in order to provide Christ the opportunity of confirming His mission. Unless the matter were full of sorrow, his explanation of the conversion of Saul could be reported here for exciting and nourishing laughter. But enough concerning these things: simple common sense dictates that these and other similar things are worthy not of refutation, but of derision.