mRACLES, ECCLESIASTICAL 324 MIRACLES, ECCLESIASTICAL
very many saints, and none of those alleged were them- selves canonized. To St. Bridget, moreover, we may oppose St. Catharine of Sienna, who said that the con- trary doctrine had been revealed to her, as the arch- bishop of Florence relates in the first part of liis Summa. And St. Catharine would seem to deserve greater credit, because she was canonized like the other saints, while St. Bridget was canonized in the period of the schism, during the obedience of Boniface IX, in which there was no certain and undoubted pope." Further on he adds the fatal words : " New revelations against so many saints and ancient doctors must seem to the wise to bring in an angel of Satan transformed into an angel of light, to bring in fancies, and even figments. These, truly, with tlie so-called miracles which are cited in this cause, are rather for old women than for the holy synod, whence I do not deem them worthy of mention." " There is need of great caution," writes this great divine, " first on account of the miracle itself, inasmuch as Satan transforms himself into an angel of light, and can work many signs and wonders, such as we might deem that none but God could work — as works of liealing, power over the elements, and the like. Hence it is said that Antichrist will perform so many miracles in the sight of men that, if it were possible, he would deceive the very elect themselves. Secondly, there is need of cau- tion on the ground of illusions, as happens in the case of prophesyings. Tiiirdly, it may be urged that signs (according to 1 Cor. xiv, and St. (ircgory, Horn, x) are given to tlie unbelieving, and not to believers; while to the Church as faithful, and not unfaithful, are given the prophetical and apostolical revelations. Hence the way of signs . . . unless not merely a wonder, but a true and indisputable miracle, is wrought before the lioman Church in the most evident manner, ought not to determine any doubtful doctrine; and the reason is, because we have from God an ordinary way for the de-. termination of matters of faith; insomuch that if an angel from heaven were to say anything contrary to this ordinary way he ought not to be believed (Gal. i, 8). Atld to this tliat the miracles received by the j Church in the canonization of saints, which are most I authentic of all, are not, inasmuch as thej' rest on hu- man testimony, absolutely certain (for it is written, ! ' Every man is a liar') ; although they may be certain j after a human manner. But the certainty of the Chris- tian faith ought not to be certain after a human man- i ner, but ought to have altogether an infallible evidence such as no human being, but only God, can produce. Hence the apostle Peter, after giving his own testimony to the heavenly voice heard by him in the transfigura- tion of our Lord, as a human evidence, subjoins: 'And we have a more sure word of prophecy,' adding that ♦Propliecy came not by the will of man.' Wherefore certainty in the judicial determination of the things of faitli must be obtained by divine and not by human testimony" {De Concept ione B. V. .)/. cap. i).
Wc can even go to tlie chair of St. I'cter and learn from some of its incimibents a like disposition to ignore, or even to reject the miraculous manifestations in the ' Churcli. Tlius pope (ircgory XI, having been persuad- ! cd by the prophecies of St. Catharine of Sienna to re- ! turn to Home from Avignon, '■ when on his death-bed, and having in his hands the sacred body of Christ, pro- tested before all that they ouglit to beware of human beings, whether male or female, speaking under pretence of religion the visions of their own brain. For by these (he said) lie was led away; and, setting aside the rea- sonable advice of liis own peoi»le, had drawn himself and the Church to the verge of an imminent schism, unless her mercifid Spouse, .lesus, should save lier," ■which the dreadful result too clearly jirovcd (Gerson. De Kxnm. JMwtririnnim, pt. ii, consid. iii). Xor need pope Benedict XIV be forgotten. His utterances are clearly laid down in his great work on the Canonization of the Saints (lib. iv, ch. xxxi, f^ '2l-2r>).
If from these celebrated Komish authorities we come
down to our own day, we find bishop Milncr, who is himself an advocate of the doctrine, yet admitting "that a vast number of incredible and false miracles, as well as other fables, have been forged by some and believed by other Catholics in every age of the Church, includ- ing that of the apostles. I agree ... in rejecting the Lcfienda Aurea of Jacobus de Voraginc, the Speculum of Vincentiiis Belluacensis, the Saints' Lives of the pa- trician ]\Ietaphrastes, and scores of similar legends, stuffed as they are with relations of miracles of every description" (AW of Controversy. Lett, xxvii, p. 175, 170).
It is, however, by no means to be inferred from what we have .said that these miraculous exhibitions are con- fined to the Church of Borne. The Protestants have now and then prophets and visionaries who claim su- pernatural power. But while the Protestant Church has always discarded the autliors, or at least, under the most favorable circumstances, has refused to accord to such exhibitions any divine origin, the Church of Kome clearly teaches that these things are so to be. Hence, occasionally, sects departing from the Church of Borne have tried to establish their authority by miraculous signs and works. Thus some of the persecuted Jansen- ists availed themselves of the utility of modern miracles for the purpose of propagating a new doctrine or decid- ing a controverted one, and had recourse to the same weapons of defence against their implacable adversaries. Fran9ois de Paris, the son of an advocate of the Parlia- ment of Paris, became in this sense the apostle of the •Jansenist doctrine, and the prophet against the famous bull Unigenitus. His holiness and mortification of life, and the reaction of public opinion after the cruel perse- cutions of the Jesuits, greatly favored the success of his claim to work miracles, which, according to his biogra- phers, was proved both in his life and at his tomb after death, in a degree that few canonized saints have at- tained to. The learned reviewer of liis life, in the Acta J-Jruditorum of Leipsic, merel}' concludes from his his- tory that the city of Paris was tilled at the time with the followers of Jansenius, and that they were com- pelled to appeal thus to the popular superstition in or- der to lessen the persecutions of the Jesuits, and in a manner to attack them with their own weapons. These miracles chiefly involved powers of healing and restora- tion of outward faculties, and bore (if true) a much closer resemblance to the healing gifts which inaugu- rated Christianity than to the senseless and aimless wonders of medi;cval miracle-working. But the conta- gion which was thus spread over the Church, and throughout almost every age, was by no means con- fined to the Boman Church, its orders or disorders.