but he restores believing Timothy when ill, not by prayer, but by medicine; so that you may clearly perceive that miracles were wrought for unbelievers and not for be- lievers." Even in the thirteenth century, Bernard, com- menting on Mark 16 : 17, asks:29 "For who is there that seems to have these signs of the faith, without which no one, according to this Scripture, shall be saved?" and an- swers just as Gregory did, by saying that the greatest mir- acles are those of the renewed life. The common solution of this inconsistent attitude toward miracles, that the eccle- siastical miracles were only recognized as differing in kind from those of the Scripture, while going a certain way, will hardly suffice for the purpose. Ecclesiastical miracles of every conceivable kind were alleged. Every variety of mir- acle properly so-called Chrysostom declares to have ceased. It is the contrast between miracles as such and wonders of grace that Gregory draws. No doubt we must recognize that these Fathers realized that the ecclesiastical miracles were of a lower order than those of Scripture. It looks very much as if, when they were not inflamed by enthu- siasm, they did not really think them to be miracles at all.30 It is- observable further that, throughout the whole pa- tristic and mediaeval periods at least, it is difficult to dis- cover any one who claims to have himself wrought miracles. "It may seem somewhat remarkable," says Gibbon,31 "that Bernard of Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend, St. Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, which in their turn, however, are carefully related by his companions and disciples. In the long series of ecclesi- astical history, does there exist a single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles?" There is certainly a notable phenomenon here which may be brought to its sharpest point by recalling along with it two facts. First, Christ and His Apostles present a strong contrast with it. Our Lord appeals to His own works, and Paul to his own, in proof of their mission. Secondly, Ber-
MODESTY OF THE SAINTS 49
nard, for example, not only does not claim to have worked miracles himself, but, as we have seen, seems to speak at times as if he looked upon miracles as having ceased with the Apostles.
It is very instructive to observe how J. H. Newman en- deavors to turn the edge of Gibbon's inquiry. " I observe then, first," he says,32 "that it is not often that the gift of miracles is even ascribed to a saint. In many cases mir- acles are only ascribed to their tombs or relics; or where miracles are ascribed to them when living, these are but singular or occasional, not parts of a series." "Moreover," he adds as his second answer, "they are commonly what Paley calls tentative miracles, or some out of many which have been attempted, and have been done accordingly without any previous confidence in their power to effect them. Moses and Elijah could predict the result; but the miracles in question were scarcely more than experiments and trials, even though success had been granted to them many times before. Under these circumstances, how could the individual men who wrought them appeal to them themselves? It was not till afterward, when their friends and disciples could calmly look back upon their life, and review the various actions and providences which occurred in the course of it, that they would be able to put together the scattered tokens of divine favor, none or few of which might in themselves be a certain evidence of a miraculous power. As well might we expect men in their lifetime to be called saints as workers of miracles." There still re- mains in reserve a third argument, which amounts to say- ing that the workers of ecclesiastical miracles were modest men, "as little inclined to proclaim them aloud as to make a boast of their graces."
The whole tenor of this representation of the relation of the miracle-workers of the patristic and mediaeval church to their miracles is artificial. It is nothing less than lu- dicrous to speak of the miracles ascribed to a Martin of
50 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES