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Now it may be said that the extraordinary nature of this history only increases the improbability of the miracle. It reads like a made story; there is a completeness about it; and there is an extravagance in the notion of the loss of sight by weeping. Yet the same thing happened to St. Francis. "His eyes," says Butler, "seemed two fountains of tears, "which were almost continually falling from them, insomuch "that at length he almost lost his sight." He was seared with red-hot iron from the ear to the eye-brow with the hope of saving it. In his last illness "he scarce allowed himself any "intermission from prayer, and would not check his tears,

though the physician thought it necessary for the preserva"tion of his sight; which he entirely lost upon his death"bed $." However, even though we allow that the history in question is embellished, still the general outline may remain, that Narcissus was unjustly accused and by a wonderful providence vindicated. In this point of view it surely adds to the probability of the miracle before us, that it is attributed to a man, not only so close upon Apostolic times and persons, so holy, so aged, but in addition so strangely tried, so strangely righted. It removes the abruptness and marvellousness of what at first sight looks like "naked history," as Paley calls it, or what we commonly understand by a legend. Such a man may well be accounted "worthy for whom Christ should do this." And if the foregoing circumstances are true, not only in outline, but in detail, then still greater probability is added to the miracle.

Jortin objects that "the change of water into oil to supply "the church lamps has the air of a miracle performed upon an occasion rather too slender t." But Dodwell" had already observed that the mystical idea connected with the sacred lights gives a meaning to it, and particularly at that

Lives of the Saints, Oct. 4.
Vol. ii. p. 103.

"Dissert. in Iren. ii. 49.

season; and Eusebius tells us that the people were in much consternation at their failure.

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Jortin also observes that "in the time of Augustus, a 'fountain of oil burst out at Rome and flowed for a whole day. In natural history there are accounts of greasy and "bituminous springs, when something like oil has floated on "the water. Pliny, and Hardouin in his notes, mention many "such fountains, 'qui explent olei vicem,' and 'quorum aquâ "lucernæ ardeant."" This circumstance perhaps adds probability to the miracle, both as lessening its violence, (if the word may be used,) as the accompanying history of the Bishop's trials lessens it in another way, and because in matter of fact Almighty Wisdom seems, as appears from Scripture, not unfrequently to work miracles beyond, rather than against nature.

Eusebius notices pointedly that it was the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem y. It should be recollected, however, that the tradition had but a narrow interval to pass from Narcissus to Eusebius,-not above fifty or sixty years, as the latter was born about A.D. 264.

On the whole then there seems sufficient ground to justify us in accepting this narrative as in truth an instance of our Lord's gracious presence with His Church, though the evidence is not so definite or minute as to enable us to realize the miracle. This is a remark which is often in point; belief, in any true sense of the word, requires a certain familiarity or intimacy of the mind with the thing believed. Till it is in some way brought home to us and made our own, we cannot properly say we believe it, even when our reason receives it. This occurs constantly as regards matters of opinion and doctrine. Take any point of detail in the religious views of a person whom we revere and follow on the whole; do

* Δεινῆς ἀθυμίας διαλαβούσης τὸ πᾶν πλῆθος.

* ̔Ως ἐκ παραδόσεως τῶν κατὰ διαδο χὴν ἀδελφῶν.

we believe this particular doctrine or opinion of his, or do we not? We do not like to pledge ourselves to it, yet we shrink from saying that it is not true, and we defend it when we hear it attacked. We have no doubt about it, yet we cannot bring ourselves to say positively that we believe it, because belief implies an habitual presence and abidance of the matter believed in our thoughts, and a familiar acquaintance with the ideas it involves, which we cannot profess in the instance in question. Here we see the use of reading and studying the Gospels in order to true belief in our Lord; and, again, of acting upon His words, in order to true belief in them. This being considered, I do not see that we can be said actually to believe in a miracle like that now in question, of which so little is known in detail, and which is so little personally interesting to us; but we cannot be said to disbelieve it, there being sufficient grounds for conviction in the sense in which we believe the greater part of the accounts of general history.

3. The Miracle wrought on the course of the River Lycus by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus.

Douglas, in his great earnestness to prove that no real miracles were wrought by the Fathers and Saints of the second and third centuries, tells us that the miracles of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, some of which have been detailed above," are justly rejected as inventions of a later age, and

can be believed by those only who can admit the miracles "ascribed to Apollonius, or those reported so long after his “death, of Ignatius. Gregory of Nyssa" [the biographer of Thaumaturgus]," according to Dr. Cave's character of him, "was apt to be too credulous. No wonder, therefore, he (( gave too much credit to old women's tales, as the anecdotes "of the Wonder-worker must be allowed to be, when related, "as we learn from St. Basil, by his aged grandmother

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"Macrina." This is not respectful either to St. Macrina or to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, to say nothing of his treatment of Nyssen; plainly, it can mean nothing else but that St. Gregory did no miracles, and that it is weak, nay, even heathenish, to believe he did. Otherwise thinks a very careful and learned writer, not a member of the Church, and his statement may fitly be placed in contrast with the opinion of one who was a Bishop in it. "His history," says Lardner, speaking of Thaumaturgus, "as delivered by authors of the "fourth and following centuries, particularly by Nyssen, it is "to be feared, has in it somewhat of fiction; but there can be no reasonable doubt made but he was very successful in making converts to Christianity in the country of Pontus "about the middle of the third century; and that, beside his "natural and acquired abilities, he was favoured with extra"ordinary gifts of the Spirit, and wrought miracles of surprising power. The plain and express testimonies of Basil "and others, at no great distance of time or place from Gregory, must be reckoned sufficient grounds of credit with regard to these things. Theodoret mentioning Gregory, "and his brother, and Firmilian, and Helenus, all together, "ascribes miracles to none but him alone. They were all "Bishops of the first rank; nevertheless Gregory had a dis"tinction even among them. It is the same thing in Je"rome's letter to Magnus; there are mentioned Hippolytus, "Julius Africanus, Dionysius of Alexandria, and many others, "of great note and eminence for learning and piety. But "Theodore, afterwards called Gregory, is the only one who " is called a man of Apostolical signs and wonders a."

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These remarks of Lardner should be kept in mind by those who would examine the miracles attributed to St. Gregory. For it is obvious to reflect, that if we once believe that he did work miracles, it is the height of improbability

Page 327. note.

Credib. ii. 42. § 5.

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that in the course of a century all of these should be forgotten, and a set of pretended miracles substituted in their place, and that among a people who are noted for a particular attachment to their old customs, and especially to the rites and usages introduced by St. Gregory. "The people of Neocæsarea," says Lardner, "retained for a long while re"markable impressions of religion; and they had an affection "for the primitive simplicity, very rare and uncommon, "almost singular at that time, when innovations came into "the Church apace"." And if reasons can be given for believing one, a favourable hearing will be gained for the rest, which belong to one family with it, and are conveyed to us through the same channels. All are of the romantic kind, all come to us on tradition committed to writing by St. Gregory Nyssen. That is, we shall have reason for believing his narrative in its substance, for still there is nothing to prevent misstatement in its detail. Against this, indeed, inspiration alone could secure us.

This absence of a perfection, which only attaches to inspired documents, has often been made an objection to receiving the miracles which Ecclesiastical history records. But there is another peculiarity about its existing materials, which applies in particular to Nyssen's Life of Thaumaturgus. That Life does not answer the purpose for which critics and controversialists require it at this day; it is very unsatisfactory as an attestation of miracles, and would not read well in a process of canonization. For in truth the author did not set himself to attest them at all; he wrote a sacred panegyrical discourse,

b Vid. also above, p. xxvi.

"The miracles of Christ and His "Apostles have not escaped the adulte"rations of monkery; and if this were "sufficient to discredit truth, there is 66 not a fact in civil history that would "stand its ground. As to those who

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expect a certain innate virtue in it, "of force to extrude all heterogeneous

"mixture, they expect a quality in "truth which was never yet found in "it, nor, I fear, ever will. Nay, the "more notorious a fact of this kind is, "that is to say, the more eye-witnesses "there are of it, the more subject it "is to undesigned depravation," &c. Warburton, Julian, § 2. n. 3. p. 96. ed. 1750.

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