On the whole, then, while we maintain that the history of the Jews cannot be truly interpreted unless the special intervention of Providence in many a crisis of their national life be discerned, and while we distinctly recognize the miraculous nature of the Messianic prophecies of the OT, and are not slow to accept the allegation that miracles may have accompanied their progress, we cannot think that the evidence for several recorded mir- acles, such as Elisha making the axe-head to swim (2 K 6°), the speaking of Balaam’s ass (Nu 2275), and the staying of the sun and moon at Gibeon (Jos 1013}. is at all sufficient to compel implicit credence in their literal truth,
vi. CHRISTIAN MIRACLES AFTER THE APOSTOLIC AGE.—1. The last section of this article must be
* See above, vol. f. p. 606%, art, Exvisia,
t See vol. i. p. 234".
tSee Sanday, /napiration, Ὁ. 414 f., and Gore, Bampton Lectures, p. 195 f., aud of, art. Jonau, above, vol. il, p. 751.
394
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i --ἙἈἘςΞὠἐΞ-ς-ΞςἈ---.ςς-ςκςς.- ὉἨῪΙ͵
far too brief for its subject, but something ought to be said of miracles recorded elsewhere than in the OT and NT, if our discussion of miracles in general is to be in any way complete. We have seen that the infant Church is described in Ac as having been favoured with miracles as well as with other gifts of the Spirit. When did these miracles cease in Christian history ? Many different opinions have been held, one branch at least of the Church believing that there has been no cessation and that miraculous powers are still in her possession, it being often urged, on the other hand, that they died with the apostolic company. ‘The chief reason alleged for this latter opinion is apparently based on the assumption that miracles are given only for evidential purposes, that their sole function is to certify the Divine character of revelation, and that when this has been sufticiently established their work is done, and that they may not be expected to continue. And, curiously enough but most un- reasonably, it has been assumed that the apostles could not have worked any miracle save those recorded in Scripture, or at least that no record of such could be trustworthy. Between these extreme views are to be ranked the great body of old English divines, e.g. Dodwell and Tillotson, who held that miracles were occasional in the Christian Church until the time of Constantine, when, Christianity being established by the civil power, it no longer needed such supernatural assistance. ‘Thus Fuller explains that ‘miracles are the swaddling clothes of the infant Churches’ ; and yet another view has commended itself to many, viz. that the power of working miracles extended to but not beyond the disciples upon whom the apostles conferred it by imposition of their hands.*
2. According to Acts, the Divine powers promised by Christ to His Church were at least occasionally exercised, not only by the apostolic company but by other persons as well. It would not be sur- prising, therefore, if we found in the literature of the early 2nd cent. many references to miracles like those in Acts. And yet such references are few and scanty. Our records of the period are fragmentary, to be sure, but it is remarkable that they tell so little on the subject. With a few not- able exceptions, of which something is said further on, there is no trace up to the end of the 2nd cent. of any miraculous gift still existing in the primitive Church save those of prophecy and healing, including exorcism, both of which are frequently mentioned.
(a) In Hermas (Mand. xi.) and in the Didaché the abuse of the grace of prophecy is spoken of, and a little later Justin (Dial. § 82) has the statement παρὰ yap ἡμῖν καὶ μέχρι νῦν προφητικὰ χαρίσματά ἐστιν. We observe here that the earliest notices of the power of prophecy imply also the presence of its counterieit, and indeed prophecy is, of all the Divine ‘gifts,’ that which would most easily lend itself to imposture. And Justin’s statement seems to imply his surprise that prophecy should have continued so long, for he says ‘even up to the pre- sent,’ from which we might gather that instances of genuine prophecy in his day and in his neigh- bourhood were not very numerous.
(b) The gift of healing is also noted by Justin (Dial. § 39), though he does not give any instances within his own observation. Origen goes further (contra Celsum, iii. 24), and says that he has seen many persons rescued from delirium. But the com- monest exemplification of this gift was displayed in the expulsion of demons; exorcism is regarded quite as a thing of course by the 2nd cent. Fathers. Justin (Apol. ii. § 6, Dial. §§ 30, 76) and Ter- tullian (Apol. 23, 37, 48, de Idolol. 11, ete.) speak in extravagant terms as to the certainty with
which demons could be expelled by the prayers of * See Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 49.
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the faithful. They allege these powers to be the common property of all Christian people, and to be susceptible of exercise at any moment and on any occasion. This is going far beyond the language of the Gospels and Acts, but it is here sufficient to observe that phenomena of this sort are often explicable without any recourse to supernatural agency (see above, iv. ὃ 5).