It is a very disturbing fact further that the very Fathers who record long lists of miracles contemporary with them- selves, yet betray a consciousness that miracles had never- theless, in some sense or other, ceased with the Apostolic age. When Ambrose, for example, comes to speak of the famous discovery of the bodies of the two martyrs, Prota- sius and Gervasius, at Milan, and the marvels which accom- panied and followed their discovery, he cannot avoid ex- pressing surprise and betraying the fact that this was to him a new thing. "The miracles of old time," he cries,21 "are come again, when by the advent of the Lord Jesus a fuller grace was shed upon the earth." Augustine, in like manner, in introducing his account of contemporaneous miracles which we have already quoted, begins by adduc- ing the question: "Why do not those miracles take place now, which, as you preach, took place once?" "I might answer," he replies, "that they were necessary before the world believed, that it might believe," and then he goes on to say, as we have seen, that "miracles were wrought in his time, but they were not so public and well attested as the miracles of the Gospel." Nor were the contemporary miracles, he testifies, so great as those of the Gospels, nor did they embrace all the kinds which occur there. So Chrysostom says:22 "Argue not because miracles do not happen now, that they did not happen then. ... In those times they were profitable, and now they are not." Again:23 "Why are there not those now who raise the dead and perform cures? . . . When nature was weak, when faith had to be planted, then there were many such ; but now He wills not that we should hang on these miracles but be ready for death." Again : "Where is the Holy Spirit now ? a man may ask; for then it was appropriate to speak of Him when miracles took place, and the dead were raised and all lepers were cleansed, but now. . . ." Again: "The Apostles indeed enjoyed the grace of God in abundance; but if we were bidden to raise the dead, or open the eyes of
MIRACLES HAD CEASED 47
the blind, or cleanse lepers, or straighten the lame, or cast out devils and heal the like disorders. . . ." Chrysostom fairly teems with expressions implying that miracle-working of every kind had ceased ;24 he declares in the crispest way, "Of miraculous powers, not even a vestige is left" ;25 and yet he records instances from his day ! Isodore of Pelusium similarly looks upon miracles as confined to the Apostolic times, adding:26 "Perhaps miracles would take place now, too, if the lives of the teachers rivalled the bearing of the Apostles; though even if they did not, such a life would suffice for the enlightenment of those who beheld it." The same significant distinguishing of times follows us down the years. Thus Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century, though the very type of a miracle-lover, never- theless, writing on Mark 16 : 17, says;27 "Is it so, my breth- ren, that because ye do not these signs, ye do not believe? On the contrary, they were necessary in the beginning of the church ; for, that faith might grow, it required miracles to cherish it withal; just as when we plant shrubs, we water them until we see them to thrive in the ground, and as soon as they are well rooted we cease our irrigation." He proceeds to say that the wonders of grace are greater than miracles. Isodore of Seville at the opening of the next century writes in precisely the same spirit.28 "The reason why the church does not now do the miracles it did under the Apostles," he explains, "is, because miracles were necessary then to convince the world of the truth of Christianity; but now it becomes it, being so convinced, to shine forth in good works. . . . Whoever seeks to per- form miracles now as a believer, seeks after vainglory and human applause. For it is written: 'Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.' Observe, a sign is not necessary for believers, who have already received the faith, but for unbelievers that they may be converted. For Paul miraculously cured the father of Publius of a fever for the benefit of unbelievers;
48 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES