Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

The miracles of Jesus are set forth in the Gospels and confirmed by certain extra-evangelical books. Hence there must be presented the exposition and confirmation of the evangelical narratives of the miracles of Jesus.

1. The exposition of the evangelical narratives.

It would be tedious to cite all the passages of the Gospels in which miracles are treated, since they fill no small part of these sacred books. Hence we may give only a brief survey of what the evangelists narrate concerning the miracles of the Lord. And indeed:

a) The works of Christ summarily surveyed. For the most part the evangelists record the miraculous activity of Jesus without describing the individual deeds in detail. E.g.: "And Jesus went about all Galilee ... healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. And his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those seized with various diseases and torments, and those who had demons, and lunatics and paralytics, and he cured them."¹ "A great multitude of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast and Tyre and Sidon had come to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. And those who were vexed by unclean spirits were cured. And the whole crowd sought to touch him, because power went out from him and healed all."² "Many other signs indeed did Jesus also perform, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."³ By these and similar texts⁴ it is established that Jesus, throughout his entire public life, performed very many miracles, of which the brevity of the evangelical volumes did not permit even a list to be drawn up.

b) The works of Christ accurately described. With fuller treatment and added circumstances at least 35 miracles of Jesus are described by the evangelists. Matthew narrates 20, Mark 18, Luke 20, John 8 miracles. Only one is narrated by all the evangelists (the first multiplication of the loaves); eleven are described by all the Synoptics, one by Matthew, Mark and John, three by Matthew and Mark, two by Matthew and Luke, one by Mark and Luke; seventeen are found in only one evangelist.⁵ The individual miracles are related by the individual evangelists in such a way that, the essence of the narrative remaining intact, they differ considerably in circumstances of lesser moment.⁶ From this diversity of the narratives, both material and formal, we conclude that the individual evangelists selected and described the narrated facts not slavishly but freely; nay, that each of them, over and above the common tradition, drew upon sources proper to himself. And thus at last the miraculous accounts of the Gospels rest not on the word of one, but of four witnesses.

c) The works of Christ distributed into classes. The miracles of Jesus belong to four classes: the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, the casting out of demons, and dominion over the forces of nature.

1°. The healing of the sick: Jesus healed many lame,⁷ blind,⁸ deaf and dumb,⁹ and also lepers.¹⁰ Besides these classes of the sick he freed several individual persons from diseases: the man with the withered hand,¹¹ the woman with the issue of blood,¹² the dropsical man,¹³ the feverish mother-in-law of Simon Peter,¹⁴ the son of the royal official,¹⁵ the bowed-down woman,¹⁶ the man held for 38 years by an indeterminate disease,¹⁷ the dying servant of the centurion;¹⁸ finally, he restored to Malchus his severed ear.¹⁹

2°. Three resuscitations of the dead are enumerated: that of the daughter of Jairus,²⁰ of the young man at Naim,²¹ and of Lazarus.²²

3°. Very many castings out of demons are indicated in summary fashion,²³ while four are described in detail, namely, the deliverance of the demoniac in the synagogue of Capharnaum,²⁴ of the demoniac in the country of the Gerasenes,²⁵ of the lunatic boy,²⁶ and of the Canaanite woman's daughter.²⁷

4°. Dominion over the forces of nature: Jesus suddenly stilled the wind and the waves,²⁸ walked upon the waters and upheld Peter as he walked upon the waters,²⁹ changed water into wine,³⁰ twice multiplied loaves for thousands of men,³¹ withered the fig tree by a word,³² and caused a miraculous catch of fish to be made.³³

From all this it is clear that, according to the Gospels, Jesus showed himself the true lord of the world. His works brilliantly confirm the words spoken by Jesus: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth."³⁴

2. The confirmation of the evangelical narratives.

The miraculous activity of Christ described by the evangelists is confirmed also by extra-evangelical accounts of the apostolic age. And to this point pertain the accounts both of Christians and of non-Christians.

a) The accounts of Christians: of Peter, Paul, Papias, Quadratus.

On the day of Pentecost Peter addresses the Jews thus: "Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you also know: him ... you have slain."³⁵

Soon afterwards the prince of the apostles at Caesarea again appeals to the Jews concerning the miracles of Jesus known to them: "You know the word which was published throughout all Judea ... Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things that he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem ... who did eat and drink with him after he arose from the dead."³⁶ Moreover, Peter does not attribute to himself the miracles which he himself performed,³⁷ but to the miraculous power of Jesus. E.g., he heals the lame man at the gate of the temple "in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth," and says to the astonished Jews: "Ye men of Israel, why wonder you at this, or why look you upon us, as though by our own strength or power we had made this man walk? The God of our fathers hath glorified his Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up."³⁸

Paul likewise ascribes his own miracles³⁹ to Christ: "For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ worketh not by me for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders."⁴⁰ But if Christ conferred upon Paul and the other apostles the power of working miracles for the propagation of the faith,⁴¹ then the author of the faith himself without doubt made use of the same means. Indeed, by an extraordinary miracle he converted Saul himself into Paul and endowed him with faith.⁴²

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, "a hearer of John [the apostle], a companion of Polycarp, an old man,"⁴³ writes "that those who were raised from the dead by Christ lived down to the time of Hadrian (117-138)."⁴⁴ The same relates more at length:

Quadratus, bishop of Athens, in the apology which he presented to the Emperor Hadrian about the year 125: "The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, inasmuch as they were true: namely, those who had been freed from diseases or who had been recalled from death to life. These were seen by all, not only while they were being healed or while they were being recalled to life, but also in the time that followed afterwards. And not only while our Saviour sojourned on earth, but also long after his departure they survived, so that some of them even reached down to our own times."⁴⁵

b) The accounts of non-Christians, namely, of Flavius Josephus, of the Jews, and of the Gentiles.

Flavius Josephus († c. 100 A.D.), a Jew by origin indeed, yet hateful to the Jews because, as a renegade, he favored the Romans, has this to say of Jesus Christ and his miracles: "At that time also there was Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call him a man [ἄνδρα]. For he was a doer of wonderful works [παραδόξων ἔργων], a teacher of men who receive the truth with pleasure, and he drew to himself many Jews and many also of the Gentiles. This was the Christ [Χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν]. And when Pilate, at the denunciation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had first loved him did not cease to love him. For he appeared to them on the third day alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and a thousand other wonderful things about him. And the race of Christians, so named from him, lasts to this day."⁴⁶

The Jews, the contemporaries of Jesus, by no means denied the historical truth of the miracles of Christ, but only their divine origin and cause. For, as the evangelists testify, the Pharisees and scribes attributed the wonderful works of Jesus to diabolical power.⁴⁷ Likewise after the resurrection of the Lord, as St. Justin relates, the rulers of the Jews appointed chosen men and, sending them throughout the whole world, proclaimed through them that Jesus had been "a certain Galilean impostor," i.e., that he had made use of magic to perform his wonderful works.⁴⁸

Afterwards this opinion became common to all the Jews, as we gather from Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, Augustine,⁴⁹ and likewise from the Talmudic writings themselves.⁵⁰ Nay, even:

The Gentiles seem to have received from the Jews the opinion that Jesus performed his wonderful works by means of the magic art. Celsus, in the book "Verbum verum" (c. 178), strenuously contended that Jesus worked his miracles by the magical power of the Egyptians;⁵¹ he did not, however, dare to deny the miraculous deeds ascribed to the man of Nazareth.⁵² The same is reported by Porphyry,⁵³ Hierocles,⁵⁴ Julian the Apostate,⁵⁵ and the other Gentile adversaries. None of all those who attacked Christ in the first centuries called the historical truth of his miracles into doubt.⁵⁶