3. Next, it is important to note that the early Fathers, although seeing the miraculous in the incidents of their daily life, place the miracles of the apostolic age on a pinnacle quite above the miracles of their own time. When we go to the 4th cent., we find Chrysostom saying that ‘all the men of his time together’ could not do as much as St. Paul’s handkerchief (de Sacerdot. iv. 6), and he implies that in his day there were no raisings from the dead (ef. Hom. in 1 Cor. vi.2). But, much earlier than this, Tertullian, after saying that the apostles had spiritual powers peculiar to themselves, adds ‘nam et mortuos suscitaverunt quod Deus solus ; et debiles redintegraverunt, quod nemo nisi Chris- tus’ (de Pud. ο. 21) —language which would be strange if such occurrences were even occasional in his day. And of the miracles of the apostolic age, Origen only says that traces (ἴχνη) remain in his time (contra Celsum, i. 2). We find then (i.) that by the end of the 2nd cent. there is a growing suspicion that miracles are dying out, (ii.) that such miracles as are recorded are generally re- garded as different in kind from those of the apostolic age, and (iii.) that in the earliest age of post-apostolic Christianity the ‘miracles’ are almost, without exception, of prophecy, healing, and exorcism.
4, The exceptional cases remain to be mentioned, (a) Eusebius records (JTF iii. 39) that Papias re- lated that in his time a man rose from the dead, as he had heard from the daughters of Philip the Evangelist, and that Justus Barsabbas was once delivered from the effects of drinking poison. The former of these occurrences may relate to some such occurrence as the raising of Dorcas (Ac 9°), which the daughters of Philip may have witnessed, and the latter is not related in sufficient detail to enable us to draw any conclusion from it (cf. Mk 1015). But it is significant that Papias’ account seems to have been silent as to miracles which came within his own observation. The occur- rences he mentioned were in the apostolic age, and he does not profess to speak as an eye-witness.
(b) The often quoted statement of Irenzus is more difficult to explain or to explain away. He speaks of prophecy, healing, and exorcism as im- possible in heretical circles, but as common in the Church, and he adds, ‘ Yea, even the dead were raised and abode with us many years’ (ἡγέρθησαν kal παρέμειναν σὺν ἡμῖν ἱκανοῖς ἔτεσι, adv. Her. 11. xxxii.). All that can be said about this is that no specific instance is produced ; the language is rhetorical, and the statement occurs in the middle of a polemic against heretics. Nor are we furnished with details. Further, when Irenzeus passes from the mention of the more common miracula to speak of raising the dead, the tense is suddenly and un- expectedly changed. Healing, exorcism, and pro- phecy, these are matters of present experience for him ; but he speaks of resurrections from the dead in the past tense. Even the words quoted hardly mean more than that such events happened within living memory. Now Ireneus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of St. John, so that if we view his statement thus it will not appear so extraordinary. The inference, in shoré, from the whole passage is that the major miracles no longer happened —an inference which is con- firmed by all the available evidence.*
* See further, Mozley, Miracles, p. 295.
MIRACLE
MIRACLE 399
5. But if the miraculous powers of the Church miracles are grotesquely absurd and utterly devoid
seem to have grown less and less as the 2nd cent. went on, it must also be remembered that miracles of the most astounding character abound in the records of ecclesiastical history from the 4th cent. onward. On what grounds, it may be asked, do we reject these? Or must we reject them? Is there any reason why these should be rejected and those of the NT accepted? and on what principles is such differentiation to be made ?
6. It is plain, at the outset, that miracles are always possible to the believer in God, and again that there is always a presumption against them to one who believes that God governs the world by general laws. ‘This fact, that His rule is uni- form for the most part, is what gives to miracles their signal character, their character as signs, and so forbids us to see ‘miracle’ in the ordinary activities of Providence. They are σημεῖα, and are therefore a priori unlikely to be of everyday oc- currence. And the remarkable economy in the use of miracle displayed both in the OT and in the NT confirms us in the conviction that there is an antecedent probability against them as a general rule. This antecedent improbability may be over- come by the special circumstances of the case (as we have pointed out is true of the miracles of Christ), or by the strength of the evidence which may be adduced ; bit normally it has considerable force. Further, supposing true miracles occur, nothing is more certain than that they will provoke imitation and imposture, and will encounter the rivalry of a host of false ones. Pascal goes so far as to say that the existence of the false neces- sarily points to the existence of the true as their antecedent cause, without which they would never have gained a footing.* We need not accept this dictum in its integrity, but there is this of truth in it, that it shows on the one hand how unscientific it is summarily to reject the evidence for a given occurrence, merely because somewhat similar evi- dence has proved misleading in other cases; and, on the other hand, that we must always allow for a readiness to believe in miracle arising from previous (real or imaginary) experience of such interpositions of Divine favour. We say then, first, that while we do not in the least feel bound to reject medieval or modern miracles, we start with a determination to test the evidence for them very severely. If we draw conclusions as to the history of the Christian Church from what we read in the OT of the history of the Jewish Church, we shall expect to find miraculous interposition very rarely exhibited, and then only at great national crises, and not merely for the warning and instruc- tion of individual souls.