The miracles of Christ and the Apostles, and likewise the promises of Christ fulfilled, in confirmation of the Christian religion

You will ask 1° what a miracle is.

[A miracle is named from wondering, and therefore by force of the word signifies a thing worthy of admiration. Moreover, admiration is caused by anything wonderful, and arises chiefly in a fourfold case: 1° Something is wonderful from the greatness of a thing or the art which shines forth in it. Hence those seven ancient works of the world, wrought with such industry and so often celebrated in song, were called wonders and celebrated as miracles. Miracles taken in this widest sense do not concern us.

2° That is called wonderful which, since it has a cause exceeding the capacity of the perceiver, moves his admiration and impels him to inquire into this cause. Such is, e. g., the aurora borealis, which has not yet been conclusively explained by physicists. 3° That is called wonderful which happens rarely. Deeds of this kind are often called miracles, but are not, because they do not exceed the order of the whole of nature. 4° A work that exceeds human faculty is wonderful, and is called a miracle in a wide sense, although it does not surpass the natural power of certain higher agents, namely angels and even demons. Of this below, comparatively to the miracle properly so called, which is soon to be defined.

Miracle is rejected: 1° by Atheists, who deny that worldly things have a superior cause existing outside themselves. 2° by Deists, who do not admit that God has care of this world, maintaining that God cannot influence the world. At the same time, with providence, the possibility of miracles is denied.

3° Pantheists, who teach that all things in the world come to pass by absolute necessity. 4° Among theists those rationalists who, out of hatred of the Christian religion, devise various antitheses whereby they assail it, and rise up against miracles, that they may remove from the midst the argument drawn from them in favor of this religion. 5° Neoplatonists, who said that he who had learned the theurgic art has no need of the help of God, by which he can sometimes disturb the laws of nature.]

I answer. A miracle is an effect of the divine omnipotence against the common laws and above all the forces of the whole of nature, or, as St. Thomas says, beside the order of the whole of nature¹⁵. Hence neither angels, nor demons, nor any creature whatsoever can by its own power work a true miracle, but God alone; who, since in creating nature he freely established its laws for it, he alone can derogate from them at a nod. Nor does it follow from this that God is changed, as Spinoza foolishly feigns; for he does not change his will by working a miracle, but does in time what he decreed from eternity to do. ¹⁵ I p., q. 110, a. 4, o.

When therefore angels or saints are said to work miracles, the sense is not that they have habitually inherent in themselves a permanent virtue of working miracles¹⁶. For since the principle of working miracles extends to all things that can be done supernaturally, it is nothing other than the divine omnipotence, which cannot be communicated to any creature. And moreover it would follow that they could work miracles whenever they wished, which is false. It is clear from the question of the Apostles, Matt., XVII, 18: Why could not we cast him out? namely the demon. Likewise Eliseus could not raise the widow's son by the application of his staff. Likewise Paul asked that the sting of the flesh be removed from him, and did not obtain it. The sense therefore is that at their petition, or their word, or their contact with something belonging to them, God works the miracle, using those things as instruments. ¹⁶ Ibid., ad 1 ; 2. 2ae, q. 178, a. 1, ad 1.

You will ask 2° whether a miracle is possible.

I answer. Affirmatively.

1° It is of faith. The Vatican Council, session III, constitution Dei Filius, thus defined: « If anyone shall say that miracles cannot be wrought, and that therefore all narratives concerning them, even those contained in Sacred Scripture, must be banished among fables or myths...; let him be anathema. »

It is proved by reason. A miracle is possible if it repugns neither on the part of God the creator nor on the part of created nature. But it repugns on neither side. Therefore.

It is proved as to the first part. A miracle would be impossible on the part of God if his power either were not extended so far, or were bound by an order already established among created things. But neither can be admitted. Therefore. — Proof of the first part of the minor. He who can do more can do less, in the same genus. But more is to produce all things from nothing than to make an exception, that is, a miracle. Less is it to stop the course of the sun or to shed darkness upon it in daytime than to imprint upon it perpetual motion; less is it to restore lost life to a man than to impart it to or preserve it in infinite thousands of men daily: which facts have been miraculous. Therefore. — Proof of the second part of the minor. The power of God would be bound by an established order, either because this order had been made necessary by creation, or because God, on account of his immutability, could not change it. But neither can be admitted. Not the first. For only that is truly necessary which, existence being supposed, is essentially such. But the order of the world is not essentially such, but merely contingent, because it is conceived otherwise by us, and God freely instituted it, seeing that God is absolutely free in his external operations. Therefore. Not the second. For although a miracle derogates from natural laws, it imports no mutation in God. For when God from eternity resolved to create the world and decreed to give it such general laws, he at the same time resolved to derogate from these laws in foreseen and determined cases, to manifest his glory: whence, as Augustine says most excellently, lib. I Confess., c. 4, « changing his works, he changes not his counsel. » Therefore. — Add that, if we wished to speak properly,

God governs not genera and species, which are nothing but abstract ideas, and as such are immutable, but governs individuals, which alone are real; nor does he govern them by universal laws, which likewise are nothing but in our concept, arising thence, that we perceive God to govern in uniform manner the individuals of any genus whatever, but with a peculiar will he governs individual things one by one: whence, with respect to each single thing, whether he keep it within its accustomed mode, or treat it otherwise, to obtain the end proposed, in either case he commits his eternal decree to execution, and there is ever verified what he said of himself, Malach., I, 6: I am the Lord, and I change not.

It is proved as to the second part, namely that a miracle does not repugn on the part of created nature. For 1° nature depends on God as clay on the potter, and indeed still more absolutely, because God fashioned the world not only out of preexisting matter but freely created matter itself. 2° Matter, as being essentially inert and idle, is plainly indifferent to motion or rest, to this or that figure and disposition of parts. It can therefore take this or that mode, put on this or that form, receive this or that disposition of parts, and so be accommodated to a miracle. Therefore.

You will ask 3° whether miracles have the power of proving the truth of revelation.

I answer. Affirmatively, with St. Thomas, 2. 2ae, q. 178, a. 2, c: Miracles are wrought « for the confirmation of the truths preached. »

It is of faith, defined by the Vatican Council, session III, constitution Dei Filius: « If anyone shall say... that neither by miracles is the divine origin of the Christian religion rightly proved; let him be anathema. »

It is proved 1° from Sacred Scripture. Since supernatural doctrine has no intrinsic evidence, that its extrinsic evidence or credibility may appear, Scripture is full of motives of this kind. And indeed 1° that God alone is the author of a miracle the Apostles testify, that they may show the force and value of a miracle. Thus St. Peter says, Acts, I, 12 [III, 12]: Ye men of Israel, why wonder ye at this, or look upon us, as if by our own strength or power we had made this man to walk? Therefore a miracle is always the work of God. — 2° That it is a testimony of truth appears, because the B. V. Mary received it as a pledge of the truth announced to her. For the angel says, Luc., I, 36: And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age. Christ the Lord proves himself the Messiah by legitimate testimony, namely a miracle, Ioann., I, 51: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. The same Lord Jesus, on the very day on which he ascended into heaven, having commanded the Apostles to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel, adds, Marc., XVI, 17: And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils, etc.

The Apostles too invoke miracles to confirm the divinity of Christ. Thus St. Peter brings forward the miracle of the transfiguration, 2 Pet., I, 18: And this voice we heard brought from heaven, when we were with him in the mount. The apologetic character of miracles shines forth Ioann., 30 and 31: Many other signs also Jesus did... But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. The Apostle Paul, Rom., XV, 19, shows his mission to be legitimate in virtue of signs and wonders, and 2 Cor., XII, 12, says again: The signs of my apostolate have been wrought upon you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. It is certain, therefore, that a miracle by its nature is apt to add strength to truth, not indeed intrinsic, but extrinsic, and that this confirmation through prodigies is sufficient.

It is proved 2° from the nature of a miracle. The Angelic Doctor says, ibid.: « True miracles cannot be wrought except by divine power. » But God is truth itself, nor can he ever either give countenance to error and falsehood, or set the seal of his omnipotence and authority to confirm error sown by others. Therefore a miracle is necessarily connected with truth.

It is proved 3° from the consensus of men. 1° A universal and invincible propensity ought to be held as a firm argument of truth. But men are carried by universal and invincible propensity to judge that miracles are the resplendent signs of the divine will. Hence all peoples have been persuaded that miracles are as it were the voices of God. Hence I. J. Rousseau himself, after confessing that the question « Whether God can work miracles, » if it were not impious, ought to be called absurd, adds that he does not wish to see miracles, lest he should go mad with astonishment. — 2° This is shown by fact. For that has an ineluctable power of proof to which yielded the pertinacious obstinacy of Pharaoh and his magicians, so that they cried out, Exod., VIII, 19: This is the finger of God; to which yielded the superstition of the gentiles grown old through so many centuries, to which yielded the whole world, embracing the faith of Christ. — 3° It is confirmed by this, that all who attempted to spread abroad a religion, even a false one, that they might win faith and authority for it, brought forward certain deeds either supposititious or mendaciously interpreted as miraculous. Miracles therefore have the power of demonstrating truth.

If you object that the demons themselves can by the force of their natural power do certain things which seem supernatural to us, this difficulty will be solved below.

You will ask 4° whether a miracle as such can be known with certainty.

I answer. Affirmatively.

It is of faith. The Vatican Council, constitution Dei Filius, thus defined: « If anyone shall say... that miracles can never certainly be known...; let him be anathema. »

It is proved by reason. That a miracle may be known with certainty as such, two things are required, namely first that some effect be produced exceeding the powers and order of nature; secondly, that it be established that this effect exceeds the powers and order of nature. But both can be had. The first can be known by sense experience, that is empirically, or through the testimony of others, as the other sensible facts are known: and not only probably, but even with certainty; unless the force of the report of senses and the testimony of men be at once denied, in which case all faith, even in the natural order, would have to be denied. The second will appear through a serious examination instituted, when the effect is weighed by comparison with its causes, and it appears that in it the powers of nature have been surpassed and an extraordinary causality was present. By this reason is attained the historical and philosophical truth of the miracle. The former is obtained most easily, as of the other natural facts. For a miracle, insofar as it is a sensible fact, is no less obvious to the senses than a natural fact. The second truth, or philosophical certainty, we reach equally. For testimony is given not concerning the supernatural mode in which the effect is produced, but concerning the effect itself, as regards its physical substance. Where such an effect is had which evidently could not proceed from a created cause, we conclude at once with metaphysical certainty that its cause is God omnipotent, acting outside the accustomed order and derogating from the laws established by himself. Therefore.

That we may pronounce some fact miraculous, it is not necessary that we discern all the forces of nature. It is true indeed that no one, however learned and perspicacious, knows all the forces of nature; but any man, even untrained, led by experience, can see how far nature cannot reach. And that an example may be put in the concrete (from which adversaries always flee, that they may hide themselves within the recesses of abstractions), although we confess that we do not know how far the most noble art of medicine raises itself, yet we know certainly that no physician by the nod of mere will, or by a spoken word, heals any sick man, consolidates a broken bone, recalls a dead man to life, and one indeed already buried four days and stinking; if these things came to pass, who would doubt of the miracle? Would not even the deists and rationalists themselves, abandoning all their abstract and contorted reasonings, proclaim a miracle? We might therefore here imitate him too, who, to solve the arguments propounded to him against motion, began to walk.

And thus is answered the difficulty opposed by Renan, namely that a miracle can never be certain unless a society of learned men, chemists and investigators of nature investigated the fact and pronounced judgment on the reality of the miracle, because otherwise it is impossible to recognize directly divine causality. How ineptly he demands this, is evident per se.]

You will ask 5° whether all things which appear or are said to be miracles are true and properly so-called miracles.

I answer. Negatively¹⁷. For some are not true facts, but fantastic, by which man is deluded, so that there seems to him to be something which is not. Some are indeed true facts, or true things, but have not the character of true miracle, insofar as they are wrought by the power of certain natural causes unknown to us, and therefore are not called miracles simply, but only relatively to us. These two things demons can do, and magicians by the aid of demons. Such were the miracles of the magicians in Egypt, and will be the miracles of Antichrist, of which the Apostle says 2 Thessal., II, 9, that his coming will be according to the operation of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders. But God alone, as I said, works true miracles which surpass every power of the whole of nature. ¹⁷ I p., q. 114, a. 4, o.

You will ask 6° how any miracle can be discerned to have been wrought by divine power, and not by the power of a nature unknown to us, and therefore to be a true miracle.

I answer. There is a threefold rule. As to the first, I suppose that there exist certain effects which, by the common and constant consent of all men of any time and nation, are reckoned to surpass all the forces of the whole of nature and to be truly miraculous, such is, e. g., the resurrection of a dead man. From whatsoever place, at whatsoever time a truly dead man rise again, as was the case, e. g., of Lazarus, there is no one who does not reckon it a true and properly so-called miracle; whence that saying of the man born blind, Ioann., IX, 32 and 33: From the beginning of the world it hath not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind. Unless this man were of God, he could not do anything. This supposed, I say: When there is such an effect as is judged miraculous by the common and constant consent of all men of any time and nation, it is to be held with certainty to be a true miracle; because this consent, so constant and so universal of all men of any time and nation, the infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity of God being considered, cannot be false. Otherwise God, who is the author of common sense and reason, would either deceive us, or permit us to be deceived, without our being able by any means to discern the error and be delivered from it; which repugns his infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity, especially if there be error about some dogma.

As to the second rule, I suppose that true miracles are divine attestations of some truth to be introduced or confirmed. This supposed, I say: A miracle wrought in the name of God the creator in assertion of some dogma can never be false, nor lead into error; because it repugns the infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity of God 1° that he permit his name to be interposed to substitute a false miracle for a true one; 2° that he suffer his name to be brought in as witness of a lie, whence men would be necessarily and invincibly led into error against that which they owe to God and which is necessary for their salvation; for men have nothing which they can oppose to a miracle wrought in the name of God the creator in attestation of some dogma.

Third rule. True miracles are discerned from the doctrine and morals of those who work them, and from the singular and permanent effects which follow from these miracles: namely if those who work miracles hand on doctrine honorable to God, conformable to right reason, leading to good morals and favorable to social life; if the same accurately fashion their life and morals according to the norm of this doctrine; finally, if from these miracles there permanently follow worship of the supreme deity, the overthrow of the worship of demons, reformation of morals conformed to right reason, concord of citizens and social life. For it is impossible that miracles of this kind be wrought with a demon as author, to his own ruin. This rule is taken from Origen, lib. I contra Celsum.

You will ask 7° whence it can be discerned that a miraculous fact related is not supposititious and fabulous.

I answer. It is then to be judged true and not supposititious, 1° when it is an external fact, open to eyes or ears; 2° when it is a fact wrought before many seeing or hearing witnesses attending, and maturely weighing all the circumstances of the fact; 3° when in memory of this fact public monuments were then erected and obligations imposed, which endure. From these conditions, I say, placed together, the truth of the fact is certainly elicited.

§ II

True miracles have been wrought in confirmation of the Christian Religion.

I have already spoken of the miracles of Moses in confirmation of the law handed to him by God, which was the foundation of the Evangelical law.

The miracles wrought by Christ and the Apostles in confirmation of the Christian Religion are contained in the books of the New Testament, namely the four Gospels of SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Epistles of SS. Paul, Jude, James and John, and in the Acts of the Apostles written by St. Luke.

Three things must here be made good by us against unbelievers: first, that these books are genuine writings of the Apostles whose names they bear; secondly, that the facts related are true; thirdly, that they are true miracles.

FIRST

The books of the New Testament are not supposititious.

That these books are not supposititious, but proper to those whose names they bear, is clear: 1° From public faith and constant tradition, which has always adjudged them to their authors, no one ever gainsaying, whether of the Jews, or of the pagans, or of the heretics, although it concerned them most of all to deny it. To such public faith and constant tradition sure credence is given, unless a conclusive reason prove the contrary, which unbelievers lack.

2° Let the deists say, if these books are not the Apostles', who fabricated them, and at what time: while the Apostles lived, or after their death? Not while they themselves lived, otherwise they would certainly have cried out against the fraud. Not after their death; for there exist the works of SS. Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, who lived with the Apostles, likewise the works of SS. Justin and Irenaeus, who were disciples of the first disciples of the Apostles: and all these attribute the books of the New Testament to the Apostles, and so all in succession down to us.

Likewise let them say, by what art this fabricator could persuade the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians and Philippians, that the Epistles bearing the name of St. Paul had been written by him and directed to them, of which they had never heard anything?

3° These books contain a Religion than which none is more sublime, none purer, none holier, none more austere. Therefore they are not the work of any impostor. Likewise, they contain truths and mysteries which exceed the grasp of human reason, and which therefore could not have been attained or devised by it without revelation, such as the mysteries of the SS. Trinity and Incarnation, original sin, the resurrection of the dead, etc.

SECOND

The facts related are true.

It is clear 1° because otherwise they could easily and openly have been convicted of falsehood. For they relate these things in the middle of Jerusalem, where very many of them were wrought, and a few years after their occurrence, so that they would have had as many witnesses of falsehood as there still then were men surviving from the death of Christ. For Matthew wrote his Gospel about nine years after the death of Christ, then the others.

2° Because unto asserting the truth of the things they relate they undergo death. But no one is so foolish as to undergo death to assert a fact which he knows to be false, unless he hope for something better after death. But what better could impostors hope for after death?

3° Very many of these facts were acknowledged as true by the enemies themselves of the Christian Religion, Jews and pagans. First of all, as many of the Jews and pagans as embraced the Christian Religion acknowledged all these things undoubtedly as true. These however are and have been innumerable, of every race and condition. Suetonius, concerning the emperor Claudius, cap. 44, narrates that by edict of this emperor the Jews who followed the Religion of Christ were driven from Rome; which fact is read in the Acts Apost., XVIII, 1 [2]. Tacitus, Annal., lib. XV, c. 44, relates that Christ underwent death under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea, Tiberius reigning, as is related in the Gospel. Celsus, than whom there was no bitterer adversary of the Christian Religion, acknowledges that Christ healed the lame and the blind. Behold his words in Origen, who attacked him, lib. II contr. Cels.: « Ye believed him to be the Son of God because he healed the lame and the blind. » Similarly Julian the Apostate, in Cyril, lib. VI, confesses that Christ healed the lame and the blind, and freed the energumens. Phlegon, who flourished in the court of the emperor Hadrian about the middle of the second century, in Hist. Olympiad., lib. XIII, relates the eclipse of the sun and the earthquake which occurred at the dying of Christ, as we read Matt., XXVII, 51; Luc., XXIII, 45. Thallus, another pagan older than Phlegon, lib. III Histor. Syriac., narrates that this eclipse occurred in the year 18 of the reign of Tiberius, in which Christ suffered. These two testimonies of Phlegon and Thallus joined together pressed most heavily Origen, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, St. Justin and others against Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, who fell silent before these things.

4° The truth of these facts is clear from the rule laid down in the preceding §. For these facts are external, open to eyes and ears. They were wrought before many seeing or hearing, attentively and maturely weighing all the circumstances. Finally, in memory of them public monuments were instituted, namely solemn feasts, which from the beginning even until now endure, and obligations imposed, namely of the evangelical law. These assert the truth of the facts, as has been said.

THIRD

These facts are true miracles.

It is proved from the threefold rule laid down in the first § and from other considerations.

1° Among those facts several are which, according to the constant and universal consent of all men, surpass the powers of the whole of nature, and are held as true miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus and of the daughter of Jairus, the resurrection of Christ itself, the multiplication of five loaves wherewith five thousand men are filled, the mission of the Holy Spirit, the sudden transmutation of the disciples into other men, the gift of tongues and of miracles granted to them, etc. These, I say, and the like are held as true miracles according to the common consent of all men. Therefore they are such; for the common consent of all men cannot be false, as has been said.

2° All these miracles were wrought by Christ and the Apostles in the name of God, in attestation of the dogmas of the Christian Religion. Therefore they cannot be false, nor lead into error, as the second rule declares.

3° Christ and the Apostles and their successors who wrought these miracles handed on doctrine worthy of God, conformable to right reason, leading to good morals and favorable to social life. They fashioned their life and morals most exactly according to the norm of this doctrine, and from their miracles innumerable men of all nations became and remain followers of their doctrine, imitators of their life, religious worshippers of the supreme deity, concordant among themselves in charity, enemies and conquerors of demons. But it is impossible, as has been said in the third rule, that these miracles were wrought with a demon as author, to the destruction of his own dominion.

4° As many of the Jews and pagans as gave their name to the Christian Religion acknowledged these facts as true miracles. Among those however were men of the greatest erudition and most perspicacious genius, such as St. Justin Martyr, Lactantius, Arnobius, Minucius Felix, Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Athenagoras, etc. These, I say, and others, only after exploring the truth of the miracles by accurate examination, as the importance of the matter required, stripped off the ancient religion favoring the senses, that they might put on the new one flatly repugnant to the senses, and for it very many underwent death. Who further of sound mind would not give credence to witnesses of this kind rather than to certain yesterday's unbelievers who assail our miracles only out of depravity of heart, supported by no reason? Add that the pagan emperors themselves acknowledged and venerated the truth of the miracles of Christ. Moved by these, Tiberius brought Christ before the senate, that he might be enrolled among the number of the gods; which the senate refused, because he was not the author of this counsel. So relates Tertull. in the Apology offered to the Roman senate itself. Lampridius, a pagan author, in the Life of Alexander Severus, narrates that the emperor Hadrian erected several temples without idols, with this mind, that he would consecrate those temples to Christ, but was deterred from his purpose, lest, if he did so, all the other temples would be abandoned and all would embrace the religion of Christ, as the oracles had answered. The same Lampridius relates again, ibid., that Alexander Severus had in his palace an oratory in which he adored Christ and offered sacrifices to him.

5° Not only do the Apostles narrate Christ's miracles as true, and offer themselves to death and torments to assert their truth, but moreover they testify that they received from him the power to work true miracles. Either, then, they worked true miracles, or they did not. If they did, that suffices for us; if they did not, then they publicly presented themselves of their own accord as impostors. Who would believe it? Unless you suppose them to have been completely out of their minds.

I pass over innumerable other miracles that the successors of the Apostles and holy men, invoking the name of God or of Christ, at any time and everywhere wrought in confirmation of the Christian Religion. Many are reported by SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, the ecclesiastical annals, and other approved authors. Likewise no one is declared a saint unless it be most invincibly proved that he worked true miracles. If you deny all these things, no true history will stand, and everything will have to be reckoned among fables.

6° Finally, if anyone obstinately deny true miracles in confirmation of the Christian Religion, let him acknowledge the greatest miracle of all: that this religion, which we shall describe in the next article, spread through the whole world without miracles. Thus, after Augustine, the Author argues, Contra Gent. I, c. 6 : « Since it is established, he says, that the Roman empire and the whole world, filled with so many powerful men, philosophers, and orators, at first resisting the doctrine of Christ, was afterwards converted to it: I ask whether this change was wrought by the power of signs and prodigies, away from the rites of antiquity and a religion long observed, into this new and unheard-of religion? If you shall confess that the world was drawn to this persuasion by the force of miracles, which it could by no means resist, you will have to confess that this Religion proceeded from God, the author of miracles, who alone works great wonders. But if on the other hand you deny that the world was summoned to receive this faith by any miracles, then in denying miracles you thrust upon yourself an immense miracle. For what could be said to be more wonderful than that the Roman empire and all paganism should have embraced of its own accord, deserting the rites of their fathers, with no signs seen nor wondrous works displayed, that Religion which they were so bitterly assailing and striving to subvert, and have been so constant in retaining it? »

The deists object miracles wrought by the Gentiles, and thence infer that the truth of the Christian Religion cannot be proved from miracles. Thus, they say, the magicians in Egypt turned their staffs into serpents and produced frogs; thus Vespasian healed a blind man and a lame man; thus Apollonius of Tyana, among many miracles, raised a dead girl to life.

I answer. 1° I deny that any true miracle was ever wrought by the Gentiles: both because none was wrought in the name of God the creator, which is the token of a true miracle; and because those that are reported either do not surpass the powers of nature, or are false and fabricated.

As for the prodigies of the magicians of Egypt, many hold them to have been mere delusions of the senses. Others, and more commonly, with St. Thomas, judge that they were indeed real frogs and real serpents, not such as the magicians produced above all the powers of all nature, but such as they effected from seeds dispersed in the elements, by applying natural active virtue to passive principles, as can be done in those things that arise from putrefaction, as St. Thomas teaches¹⁸, after Augustine, or else exhibited serpents carried away from elsewhere, which seems more probable. And when it came to the fourth prodigy, the idle art of the magicians came to a stand, and they were compelled to say of Moses's miracles, Exod., VIII, 19 : This is the finger of God? ¹⁸ I p., q. 114, a. 4, c et ad 2. The Angelic Doctor indeed seems, with Aristotle, to admit that living beings are produced from putrefaction, what is today called spontaneous generation. But, if his opinion be attentively weighed, it will be clear that he in no way really attributed a generative power to putrefaction, as though it were of itself a principle of life. For he says of the power of demons, in the place cited : « Corporeal matter does not obey angels, good or bad, at their nod, so that demons could by their own power transmute matter from form to form; but they can employ certain seeds found in the elements of the world to bring about effects of this kind, as Augustine says in III de Trinitate. And therefore it must be said that all transmutations of corporeal things that can be brought about by certain natural powers to which the aforesaid seeds belong, can be brought about by the operation of demons, these seeds being employed : as when certain things are changed into serpents or frogs, which can be generated by putrefaction. But those transmutations of corporeal things that cannot be wrought by the power of nature can in no wise be accomplished in truth by the operation of demons. » The necessity of seeds that our Doctor requires for the production of such beings overthrows the doctrine of spontaneous generation, that is, the system they call transformism ; for these seeds can proceed only from beings of similar species, as the old adage has it : « Omne vivum ex ovo, » which accords with divine Scripture saying, Genes., I, 21 and 22 : God created... every living and moving creature which the waters brought forth according to their kinds... And he blessed them, saying : Increase and multiply. From which it clearly appears that God by creation founded all genera and every species, which must needs be perpetuated by way of generation

What is reported about Vespasian rests on no witness, but on uncertain rumor. Moreover, the lame man and the blind man whom he is said to have healed were not, in the judgment of physicians, naturally incurable, as Tacitus himself relates, Hist. lib. IV, n. 81.

As for Apollonius, one Philostratus more than a hundred years after Apollonius's death wrote his history stuffed with fables, and reports this raising of a certain girl from uncertain rumors, without any testimony; nor does it appear from his narrative that the girl was truly dead. Then, that Apollonius was held an impostor is proved from this, that he had no follower, and made no sect.

I answer. 2°. Given that God, for causes known to himself, might work some miracle in paganism, he would never work it in confirmation of idolatry; for that repugns his goodness, wisdom, and truthfulness, as we said above. But the miracles of Christ, of the Apostles and of their successors were wrought, upon invocation of the name of God, in confirmation of the divinity of Christ, of his mission, and of the religion instituted by him.

§ III

The prophecies and promises of Christ fulfilled.

1° Christ promised that he would rise on the third day, Ioann., II, 19 ; Matth., XX, 19, and elsewhere. 2° He promised that after death he would turn the nations to himself and reject the Jews, Ioann., XII, 32, 40 ; Matth., VIII, 11 and 12, and XXIII, 1 seqq., and Luc. XIII, 24 seqq. 3° He promised to the Apostles to make them fishers of men, Matth., IV, 19 ; Marc., I, 17 ; Luc., V, 10 ; to send them the Holy Spirit, Ioann., XV, 26 ; to grant them the gift of wisdom, fortitude, and tongues, Luc., XXI, 15 ; Ioann., XV, 26 and 27, and XVI, 13. Finally he promised to be with them until the consummation of the age, Matth., XXVIII, 20. None but God alone can make good all these things. Christ made them good : he rose on the third day, he turned the nations to himself and rejected the Jews, these things are plain before our eyes; he made the Apostles fishers of men, he sent them the Holy Spirit. Finally he was with them, is with them, will be with them, that is, with his indefectible Church, until the consummation of the age. Therefore Christ is God. Therefore his Religion is true and divine.