M — Miracles
Original French
Un miracle selon l’énergie du mot est une chose admirable. En ce cas tout est miracle. L’ordre prodigieux de la nature, la rotation de cent millions de globes autour d’un million de soleils, l’activité de la lumière, la vie des animaux, sont des miracles perpétuels.
Selon les idées reçues nous appellons miracle la violation de ces loix divines & éternelles. Qu’il y ait une éclipse de soleil pendant la pleine lune, qu’un mort fasse à pié deux lieues de chemin en portant sa tête entre ses bras, nous appellons cela un miracle.
Plusieurs physiciens soutiennent qu’en ce sens il n’y a point de miracles, & voici leurs arguments.
Un miracle est la violation des loix mathématiques, divines, immuables, éternelles. Par ce seul exposé, un miracle est une contradiction dans les termes. Une loi ne peut être à la fois immuable & violée; mais une loi, leur dit-on, étant établie par Dieu même, ne peut-elle être suspendue par son auteur? Ils ont la hardiesse de répondre que non, & qu’il est impossible que l’Etre infiniment sage ait fait des loix pour les violer. Il ne pouvait, disent-ils, déranger sa machine que pour la faire mieux aller; or il est clair qu’étant Dieu il a fait cette immense machine aussi bonne qu’il l’a pû; s’il a vû qu’il y aurait quelque imperfection résultante de la nature de la matière, il y a pourvu dès le commencement, ainsi il n’y changera jamais rien.
De plus Dieu ne peut rien faire sans raison; or quelle raison le porterait à défigurer pour quelque tems son propre ouvrage?
C’est en faveur des hommes, leur dit-on. C’est donc au moins en faveur de tous les hommes, répondent-ils; car il est impossible de concevoir que la nature divine travaille pour quelques hommes en particulier, & non pas pour tout le genre humain; encor même le genre humain est bien peu de chose; il est beaucoup moindre qu’une petite fourmilière en comparaison de tous les êtres qui remplissent l’immensité. Or n’est-ce pas la plus absurde des folies d’imaginer que l’Etre infini intervertisse en faveur de trois ou quatre centaines de fourmis, sur ce petit amas de fange, le jeu éternel de ces ressorts immenses qui font mouvoir tout l’univers.
Mais supposons que Dieu ait voulu distinguer un petit nombre d’hommes par des faveurs particulières, faudra-t-il qu’il change ce qu’il a établi pour tous les temps & pour tous les lieux? Il n’a certes aucun besoin de ce changement, de cette inconstance, pour favoriser ses créatures; ses faveurs sont dans ses loix mêmes. Il a tout prévû, tout arrangé pour elles, toutes obéïssent irrévocablement à la force qu’il a imprimée pour jamais dans la nature.
Pourquoi Dieu ferait-il un miracle? Pour venir à bout d’un certain dessein sur quelques êtres vivants! Il dirait donc, Je n’ai pû parvenir, par la fabrique de l’univers, par mes décrets divins, par mes loix éternelles, à remplir un certain dessein; je vais changer mes éternelles idées, mes loix immuables, pour tâcher d’exécuter ce que je n’ai pu faire par elles. Ce serait un aveu de sa faiblesse, & non de sa puissance. Ce serait, ce semble, dans lui la plus inconcevable contradiction. Ainsi donc, oser supposer à Dieu des miracles, c’est réellement l’insulter, (si des hommes peuvent insulter Dieu.) C’est lui dire, Vous êtes un être faible & inconséquent. Il est donc absurde de croire des miracles, c’est deshonorer en quelque sorte la Divinité.
On presse ces philosophes: on leur dit, Vous avez beau exalter l’immutabilité de l’Etre suprême, l’éternité de ses loix, la régularité de ses mondes infinis: notre petit tas de boue a été tout couvert de miracles; les histoires sont aussi remplies de prodiges que d’événements naturels. Les filles du grand-prêtre Anius changeaient tout ce qu’elles voulaient en bled, en vin, ou en huile; Athalide fille de Mercure ressuscita plusieurs fois; Esculape ressuscita Hipolite; Hercule arracha Alceste à la mort; Herès revint au monde après avoit passé quinze jours dans les enfers. Romulus & Rémus naquirent d’un Dieu & d’une Vestale; le Palladium tomba du ciel dans la ville de Troye; la chevelure de Bérénice devint un assemblage d’étoiles; la cabane de Baucis & de Philémon fut changée en un superbe temple; la tête d’Orphée rendait des oracles après sa mort; les murailles de Thèbes se construisirent d’elles-mêmes au son de la flute, en présence des Grecs; les guérisons faites dans le temple d’Esculape, étaient innombrables; & nous avons encor des monuments chargés du nom des témoins oculaires des miracles d’Esculape.
Nommez moi un peuple, chez lequel il ne se soit pas opéré des prodiges incroyables, surtout dans des tems où l’on savait à peine lire & écrire.
Les philosophes ne répondent à ces objections qu’en riant & en levant les épaules; mais les philosophes chrêtiens disent; Nous croyons aux miracles opérés dans nôtre sainte religion; nous les croyons par la foi, & non par nôtre raison que nous nous gardons bien d’écouter; car lorsque la foi parle, on sait assez que la raison ne doit pas dire un seul mot; nous avons une croyance ferme & entière dans les miracles de Jesus-Christ, & des Apôtres; mais permettez nous de douter un peu de plusieurs autres; souffrez, par exemple, que nous suspendions nôtre jugement sur ce que rapporte un homme simple auquel on a donné le nom de grand. Il assure qu’un petit moine était si fort accoutumé à faire des miracles, que le prieur lui défendit enfin d’exercer son talent. Le petit moine obéit; mais ayant vû un pauvre couvreur qui tombait du haut d’un toit, il balança entre le désir de lui sauver la vie, & la sainte obédience. Il ordonna seulement au couvreur de rester en l’air jusqu’à nouvel ordre, & courut vite conter à son prieur l’état des choses. Le prieur lui donna l’absolution du péché qu’il avait commis en commençant un miracle sans permission, & lui permit de l’achever, pourvû qu’il s’en tint là, & qu’il n’y revint plus. On accorde aux philosophes qu’il faut un peu se défier de cette histoire.
Mais comment oseriez-vous nier, leur dit-on, que St. Gervais & St. Protais ayent apparu en songe à St. Ambroise, qu’ils lui ayent enseigné l’endroit où étaient leurs reliques? que St. Ambroise les ait déterrées, & qu’elles ayent guéri un aveugle? St. Augustin était alors à Milan; c’est lui qui rapporte ce miracle immenso populo teste, dit-il dans sa cité de Dieu livre 22. Voilà un miracle des mieux constatés. Les philosophes disent qu’ils n’en croyent rien, que Gervais & Protais n’apparaissent à personne, qu’il importe fort peu au genre humain qu’on sache où sont les restes de leurs carcasses; qu’ils n’ont pas plus de foi à cet aveugle, qu’à celui de Vespasien; que c’est un miracle inutile; que Dieu ne fait rien d’inutile; & ils se tiennent fermes dans leurs principes. Mon respect pour S. Gervais & St. Protais ne me permet pas d’être de l’avis de ces philosophes; je rends compte seulement de leur incrédulité. Ils font grand cas du passage de Lucien qui se trouve dans la mort de Peregrinus. “Quand un joueur de gobelets adroit se fait Chrêtien, il est sûr de faire fortune.” Mais comme Lucien est un auteur prophane, il ne doit avoir aucune autorité parmi nous.
Ces philosophes ne peuvent se résoudre à croire les miracles opérés dans le second siècle; des témoins oculaires ont beau écrire que l’évêque de Smyrne St. Policarpe, ayant été condamné à être brûlé, & étant jetté dans les flammes, ils entendirent une voix du ciel qui criait, Courage, Policarpe, sois fort, montre toi homme; qu’alors les flammes du bucher s’écartèrent de son corps, & formèrent un pavillon de feu audessus de sa tête, & que du milieu du bucher il sortit une colombe; enfin on fut obligé de trancher la tête de Policarpe. A quoi bon ce miracle? disent les incrédules; pourquoi les flammes ont-elles perdu leur nature, & pourquoi la hache de l’exécuteur n’a-t-elle pas perdu la sienne? D’où vient que tant de martirs sont sortis sains & saufs de l’huile bouillante, & n’ont pû résister au tranchant du glaive? On répond que c’est la volonté de Dieu. Mais les philosophes voudraient avoir vû tout cela de leurs yeux avant de le croire.
Ceux qui fortifient leurs raisonnements par la science vous diront que les pères de l’Eglise ont avoué souvent eux-mêmes qu’il ne se faisait plus de miracles de leur tems. St. Chrisostome dit expressément: “Les dons extraordinaires de l’esprit étaient donnés même aux indignes, parce qu’alors l’église avait besoin de miracles; mais aujourd’hui il ne sont pas même donnés aux dignes, parce que l’Eglise n’en a plus de besoin.” Ensuite il avoue qu’il n’y a plus personne qui ressuscite les morts, ni même qui guérisse les malades.
St. Augustin lui-même, malgré le miracle de Gervais & de Protais, dit dans sa cité de Dieu; “Pourquoi ces miracles qui se faisaient autrefois ne se font-ils plus aujourd’hui?” Et il en donne la même raison. Cur, inquiunt, nunc illa miracula quæ prædicatis facta esse, non fiunt? Possem quidem dicere, necessaria prius fuisse, quàm crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus.
On objecte aux philosophes que St. Augustin, malgré cet aveu, parle pourtant d’un vieux savetier d’Hippone, qui ayant perdu son habit alla prier à la chapelle des vingt martirs, qu’en retournant il trouva un poisson dans le corps duquel il y avait un anneau d’or, & que le cuisinier qui fit cuire le poisson, dit au savetier, Voilà ce que les vingt martirs vous donnent.
A cela les philosophes répondent qu’il n’y a rien dans cette histoire qui contredise les loix de la nature, que la physique n’est point du tout blessée qu’un poisson ait avalé un anneau d’or, & qu’un cuisinier ait donné cet anneau à un savetier, qu’il n’y a là aucun miracle.
Si on fait souvenir ces philosophes que selon St. Jerome dans sa vie de l’hermite Paul, cet hermite eut plusieurs conversations avec des satyres, & avec des faunes, qu’un corbeau lui apporta tous les jours pendant trente ans la moitié d’un pain pour son diner, & un pain tout entier le jour que St. Antoine vint le voir; ils pourront répondre encor, que tout cela n’est pas absolument contre la physique; que des satyres & des faunes peuvent avoir existé, & qu’en tout cas si ce conte est une puérilité, cela n’a rien de commun avec les vrais miracles du Sauveur & de ses apôtres. Plusieurs bons Chrétiens ont combattu l’histoire de St. Simeon Stilite, écrite par Théodoret; beaucoup de miracles qui passent pour autentiques dans l’église grecque, ont été révoqués en doute par plusieurs Latins; de même que des miracles latins ont été suspects à l’église grecque; les protestants sont venus ensuite, qui ont fort maltraité les miracles de l’une & l’autre église.
Un savant jésuite1 qui a prêché long-tems dans les Indes, se plaint de ce que ni ses confrères, ni lui, n’ont jamais pû faire de miracle. Xavier se lamente dans plusieurs de ses lettres de n’avoir point le don des langues; il dit qu’il n’est chez les Japonnois que comme une statue muette; cependant les jésuites ont écrit qu’il avait ressuscité huit morts; c’est beaucoup; mais il faut aussi considérer qu’il les ressuscitait à six mille lieuës d’ici. Il s’est trouvé depuis des gens qui ont prétendu que l’abolissement des jésuites en France, est un beaucoup plus grand miracle que ceux de Xavier & d’Ignace.
Quoi qu’il en soit, tous les chrétiens conviennent que les miracles de Jesus-Christ & des Apôtres sont d’une vérité incontestable; mais qu’on peut douter à toute force, de quelques miracles faits dans nos derniers tems, & qui n’ont pas eu une autenticité certaine.
On souhaiterait, par exemple, pour qu’un miracle fût bien constaté, qu’il fût fait en présence de l’académie des sciences de Paris, ou de la société royale de Londres, & de la faculté de médecine, assistées d’un détachement du régiment des gardes, pour contenir la foule du peuple, qui pourait par son indiscrétion empêcher l’opération du miracle.
On demandait un jour à un philosophe, ce qu’il dirait s’il voyait le soleil s’arrêter, c’est-à-dire, si le mouvement de la terre autour de cet astre cessait; si tous les morts ressuscitaient, & si toutes les montagnes allaient se jetter de compagnie dans la mer, le tout pour prouver quelque vérité importante; comme par exemple, la grace versatile? Ce que je dirais? répondit le philosophe, je me ferais Manichéen, je dirais qu’il y a un principe qui défait ce que l’autre a fait.
1 Ospinian. p. 230.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation of the 73 articles in the 1764 first edition, made directly from the French and reviewed against the scan-collated French text. The author’s notes, quotations and verse are retained. Historical ethnic labels, including offensive terms, are retained from the 1764 text.
A miracle, in the full force of the word, is something wonderful. In that sense everything is a miracle. The prodigious order of nature, the revolution of a hundred million globes around a million suns, the activity of light, the life of animals, are perpetual miracles.
According to received ideas, we call a miracle a violation of these divine and eternal laws. A solar eclipse during the full moon, a dead man walking two leagues with his head in his arms—these we call miracles.
Several natural philosophers maintain that in this sense there are no miracles, and here are their arguments.
A miracle is a violation of mathematical, divine, immutable, eternal laws. By that statement alone, a miracle is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be both immutable and violated. “But,” they are told, “since a law is established by God himself, cannot its author suspend it?” They have the audacity to answer no: it is impossible that the infinitely wise Being should have made laws in order to violate them. He could disturb his machine, they say, only to make it work better; but it is clear that, being God, he made this immense machine as good as he could. If he foresaw some imperfection arising from the nature of matter, he provided for it from the beginning; thus he will never change anything in it.
Moreover, God can do nothing without a reason; and what reason would induce him to disfigure his own work for a time?
“It is for the benefit of humanity,” they are told. “Then at least it must benefit all humanity,” they reply, “for it is impossible to conceive that the divine nature works for certain individuals and not for the entire human race. Even the human race is a very small thing: compared with all the beings that fill immensity, it is far less than a little anthill. Is it not the most absurd madness to imagine that, for the sake of three or four hundred ants on this little heap of mud, the infinite Being should overturn the eternal workings of those immense mechanisms that move the whole universe?
“But suppose God wished to distinguish a small number of people with particular favors: must he change what he established for all times and all places? Surely he has no need of such a change, such inconstancy, to favor his creatures. His favors lie in the laws themselves. He foresaw everything, arranged everything for them; all obey irrevocably the force he has imprinted forever on nature.
“Why would God perform a miracle? To accomplish some purpose concerning a few living beings! He would therefore be saying: ‘Through the construction of the universe, through my divine decrees, through my eternal laws, I have been unable to fulfill a certain purpose; I am going to change my eternal ideas, my immutable laws, to try to accomplish what I could not do through them.’ This would confess his weakness, not his power. It would seem the most inconceivable contradiction in him. To venture, then, to attribute miracles to God is really to insult him—if human beings can insult God. It is to tell him: ‘You are a weak and inconsistent being.’ Believing in miracles is therefore absurd; it is, in a sense, to dishonor the Divinity.”
These philosophers are pressed: “You may extol the immutability of the supreme Being, the eternity of his laws, the regularity of his infinite worlds as much as you please: our little heap of mud has been covered with miracles. Histories are as full of prodigies as of natural events. The daughters of the high priest Anius turned anything they wished into wheat, wine, or oil; Aethalides, daughter of Mercury, rose from the dead several times; Aesculapius raised Hippolytus; Hercules snatched Alcestis from death; Er returned to the world after spending fifteen days in the infernal realms; Romulus and Remus were born of a god and a Vestal; the Palladium fell from heaven into the city of Troy; Berenice’s hair became a constellation; the hut of Baucis and Philemon was changed into a magnificent temple; the head of Orpheus delivered oracles after his death; the walls of Thebes built themselves to the sound of the flute, in the presence of the Greeks; the cures performed in the temple of Aesculapius were innumerable; and we still have monuments inscribed with the names of eyewitnesses to Aesculapius’s miracles.
“Name a people among whom incredible prodigies have not been performed, especially in times when people scarcely knew how to read and write.”
The philosophers answer these objections only by laughing and shrugging their shoulders. But Christian philosophers say: “We believe in the miracles performed in our holy religion; we believe in them through faith, not through our reason, which we take good care not to consult; for when faith speaks, everyone knows that reason must not say a single word. We have a firm and complete belief in the miracles of Jesus Christ and the Apostles; but allow us a little doubt about several others. Allow us, for example, to suspend our judgment on the story told by a simple man who has been given the name of Great. He assures us that a little monk had become so accustomed to performing miracles that the prior finally forbade him to exercise his talent. The little monk obeyed; but when he saw a poor roofer falling from a roof, he hesitated between the desire to save his life and holy obedience. He merely ordered the roofer to remain in the air until further notice, and ran to tell his prior how matters stood. The prior absolved him of the sin he had committed by beginning a miracle without permission, and allowed him to finish it, provided he stopped there and never did it again.” The philosophers are granted that this story should be regarded with some distrust.
“But how would you dare deny,” they are told, “that St. Gervasius and St. Protasius appeared in a dream to St. Ambrose and showed him where their relics lay? That St. Ambrose dug them up, and that they cured a blind man? St. Augustine was then in Milan; he himself relates this miracle, with an immense crowd as witness, as he says in his City of God, book 22. Here is one of the best-attested miracles.” The philosophers say they do not believe a word of it; that Gervasius and Protasius appear to no one; that it matters very little to the human race whether anyone knows where the remains of their carcasses lie; that they have no more faith in this blind man than in Vespasian’s; that it is a useless miracle; that God does nothing useless. And they stand firm in their principles. My respect for St. Gervasius and St. Protasius does not allow me to agree with these philosophers; I merely report their disbelief. They set great store by the passage in Lucian’s Death of Peregrinus: “When a clever juggler becomes a Christian, he is sure to make his fortune.” But since Lucian is a profane author, he must carry no authority among us.
These philosophers cannot bring themselves to believe in the miracles performed in the second century. Eyewitnesses may write that when St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, had been condemned to be burned and thrown into the flames, they heard a voice from heaven crying: “Courage, Polycarp; be strong; show yourself a man”; that the flames of the pyre then drew away from his body and formed a canopy of fire above his head; and that a dove emerged from the middle of the pyre. In the end they were obliged to cut off Polycarp’s head. “What good was this miracle?” the unbelievers ask. “Why did the flames lose their nature, and why did the executioner’s ax not lose its own? How is it that so many martyrs came unharmed out of boiling oil, yet could not withstand the edge of a sword?” The answer is that such is God’s will. But the philosophers would like to have seen all this with their own eyes before believing it.
Those who reinforce their reasoning with learning will tell you that the Fathers of the Church themselves often admitted that miracles no longer occurred in their time. St. Chrysostom expressly says: “The extraordinary gifts of the spirit were given even to the unworthy, because the Church then needed miracles; but today they are not given even to the worthy, because the Church no longer needs them.” He then admits that there is no longer anyone who raises the dead, or even cures the sick.
St. Augustine himself, despite the miracle of Gervasius and Protasius, says in the City of God: “Why do those miracles that used to occur no longer occur today?” And he gives the same reason. “Why,” they ask, “do those miracles you declare to have happened not occur now? I could indeed say that they were necessary before the world believed, so that the world might believe.”
The philosophers are reminded that, despite this admission, St. Augustine nevertheless speaks of an old cobbler of Hippo who, having lost his coat, went to pray at the chapel of the twenty martyrs; that on his return he found a fish with a gold ring inside its body; and that the cook who cooked the fish said to the cobbler: “Here is what the twenty martyrs give you.”
To this the philosophers reply that nothing in this story contradicts the laws of nature; that physics suffers no injury whatever from a fish swallowing a gold ring and a cook giving that ring to a cobbler; that there is no miracle here.
If these philosophers are reminded that, according to St. Jerome in his life of the hermit Paul, this hermit had several conversations with satyrs and fauns; that every day for thirty years a raven brought him half a loaf for his dinner, and a whole loaf on the day St. Anthony came to see him, they may again reply that none of this is absolutely contrary to physics; that satyrs and fauns may have existed; and that, in any case, if this tale is childish nonsense, it has nothing in common with the true miracles of the Savior and his Apostles. Several good Christians have challenged the story of St. Simeon Stylites written by Theodoret; many miracles accepted as authentic in the Greek Church have been questioned by several Latins, just as Latin miracles have been suspect to the Greek Church. The Protestants came afterward and dealt very harshly with the miracles of both churches.
A learned Jesuit1 who preached for a long time in the Indies complains that neither his colleagues nor he himself ever managed to perform a miracle. In several of his letters Xavier laments that he has not the gift of tongues; he says that among the Japanese he is only a mute statue. Yet the Jesuits wrote that he raised eight dead people: that is a great many; but we must also consider that he raised them six thousand leagues from here. There have since been people who maintained that the abolition of the Jesuits in France is a much greater miracle than those of Xavier and Ignatius.
Whatever the case, all Christians agree that the miracles of Jesus Christ and the Apostles are incontestably true, but that one may, if one insists, doubt certain miracles performed in recent times whose authenticity has not been established with certainty.
For a miracle to be well attested, one would wish, for example, that it be performed before the Academy of Sciences in Paris, or the Royal Society in London, and the faculty of medicine, assisted by a detachment of the guards regiment to restrain the crowd, whose indiscretion might prevent the miracle from taking place.
A philosopher was once asked what he would say if he saw the sun stand still—that is, if the earth’s motion around that star ceased; if all the dead rose again; and if all the mountains went together to throw themselves into the sea, all to prove some important truth, such as resistible grace. “What would I say?” replied the philosopher. “I would become a Manichaean; I would say that there is one principle undoing what the other has done.”
1 Ospinian, p. 230.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Plain English translation of the same 73 articles, made directly from the French and reviewed against the scan-collated French text. The author’s notes, quotations and verse are retained. Historical ethnic labels, including offensive terms, are retained from the 1764 text.
A miracle, taking the word’s full force, is something to wonder at. That would make everything a miracle. Nature’s astonishing order is a lasting miracle. So are the hundred million globes circling a million suns, the action of light, and animal life.
Usually, though, a miracle means a breach of these divine, eternal laws. Suppose there’s a solar eclipse at full moon. Or a dead man walks two leagues with his head in his arms. We’d call those miracles.
Several physicists say miracles in this sense don’t happen. Their reasons follow.
A miracle breaks mathematical laws that are divine, unchanging, and eternal. That definition alone makes it a contradiction in terms. A law can’t be unchanging and broken at once. People ask them, “But God himself made the law. Can’t its maker suspend it?” They boldly say no. An infinitely wise being couldn’t make laws in order to break them. They say he’d only disrupt his machine to improve its working. But as God, he clearly made this enormous machine as good as he could. If he foresaw any flaw arising from matter’s nature, he allowed for it from the start. So he’ll never change anything in it.
Besides, God can’t act without a reason. What reason could make him temporarily spoil his own work?
“To benefit people,” comes the answer. “Then he must at least benefit everyone,” they reply. “We can’t imagine a divine nature working for certain people rather than all humanity. Even all humanity counts for very little. Beside all the beings filling endless space, we’re much less than a little anthill. Isn’t it sheer, absurd madness to think the infinite Being would upset the eternal working of those vast mechanisms moving the universe, just for three or four hundred ants on this little heap of mud?”
Suppose, though, God wanted to single out a few people for special favors. Must he change what he’s established for every time and place? He certainly doesn’t need such changes and inconsistency to help his creatures. The favors are in the laws themselves. He’s foreseen and arranged everything for his creatures. They all obey, with no possibility of escape, the force he’s put into nature forever.
Why would God work a miracle? To carry out some plan concerning a few living beings! He’d be saying, “I couldn’t achieve a certain aim through the universe’s construction, my divine decrees, or my eternal laws. I’ll change my eternal ideas and unchanging laws. I’ll try to do what I couldn’t do through them.” That would confess weakness, not power. It would seem the most unimaginable contradiction in God. To dare credit God with miracles, then, really insults him—if humans can insult God. It tells him, “You’re weak and inconsistent.” Believing in miracles is therefore absurd. It dishonors the deity in a way.
People press these philosophers: “Praise the Supreme Being’s unchanging nature all you like. Praise his eternal laws and the regular working of his infinite worlds. Our little pile of mud has been covered in miracles. Histories contain as many wonders as natural events. The high priest Anius’s daughters turned anything they wanted into grain, wine, or oil. Mercury’s daughter Aethalides rose from the dead several times. Aesculapius raised Hippolytus; Hercules rescued Alcestis from death. Er returned to this world after fifteen days in the underworld. A god and a Vestal were Romulus and Remus’s parents. The Palladium dropped from the sky into Troy. Berenice’s hair turned into a group of stars. Baucis and Philemon’s hut became a splendid temple. Orpheus’s head gave answers from the gods after he died. Thebes’s walls built themselves to flute music while the Greeks watched. Countless people were cured in Aesculapius’s temple. We still have monuments covered with the names of eyewitnesses to his miracles.
“Show me a people who haven’t had unbelievable wonders performed among them, especially when they could barely read and write.”
The philosophers just laugh and shrug at these objections. Christian philosophers, though, say, “We believe the miracles performed within our holy religion. Faith makes us believe, not reason. We’re careful not to listen to reason. Everyone knows it mustn’t say a word when faith speaks. We believe fully and firmly in Jesus Christ’s and the apostles’ miracles. But let us have some doubts about several others. For instance, let us wait before accepting a story from a simple man who’s been called Great. He says a little monk performed miracles so regularly that his prior finally forbade him to use his talent. The monk obeyed. Then he saw a poor roofer falling from a rooftop. He hesitated between saving the man’s life and holy obedience. He simply ordered the roofer to stay in midair until further orders. He ran to tell his prior what had happened. The prior absolved his sin of starting a miracle without permission. He let him finish it, so long as he stopped there and never did it again.” People grant the philosophers some grounds for mistrusting this story.
“But how dare you deny this?” people ask them. “Saint Gervasius and Saint Protasius appeared to Saint Ambrose in a dream. They showed him where their relics lay. He dug them up, and they healed a blind man. Saint Augustine was then in Milan. He reports this miracle in his City of God, book 22, saying it happened with an enormous crowd as witness. That’s one of the best-established miracles.” The philosophers don’t believe any of it, they say. Gervasius and Protasius don’t appear to anyone. Humanity hardly needs to know where the remains of their carcasses lie. They believe this blind man no more than Vespasian’s. It’s a pointless miracle. God does nothing pointless. They stick firmly to their principles. My respect for Saint Gervasius and Saint Protasius stops me agreeing with these philosophers. I’m only reporting their disbelief. They attach great importance to this passage in Lucian’s Death of Peregrinus: “A clever cups-and-balls performer who becomes a Christian is sure to get rich.” But Lucian isn’t a religious writer, so he must have no authority with us.
These philosophers can’t bring themselves to accept second-century miracles. Eyewitnesses may write of Saint Polycarp, Smyrna’s bishop, sentenced to burn and thrown into the flames. They heard a heavenly voice shout, “Take courage, Polycarp! Be strong! Act like a man!” The pyre’s flames then drew back from his body. They made a canopy of fire over his head. A dove flew from the middle of the pyre. In the end, they had to behead Polycarp. None of this persuades the philosophers. “What good was that miracle?” the unbelievers ask. “Why did fire stop acting like fire, but the executioner’s ax still act like an ax? Why did so many martyrs escape boiling oil unharmed but fail to survive a sword’s edge?” People answer that God willed it. But the philosophers would want to see all this themselves before believing it.
People who back their arguments with learning will tell you something else. The Church Fathers themselves often admitted miracles had stopped in their own day. Saint Chrysostom says plainly, “Even the unworthy received the Spirit’s extraordinary gifts, because the Church needed miracles then. Today, not even the worthy receive them, because the Church no longer needs them.” He then admits nobody raises the dead anymore, or even heals the sick.
Despite the Gervasius and Protasius miracle, Saint Augustine himself asks in his City of God, “Why don’t the miracles that happened formerly happen today?” He gives the same reason. They ask: Why don’t those miracles you say occurred happen now? I could say they were needed before the world believed, to make the world believe.
People object that, despite this admission, Saint Augustine tells of an old cobbler in Hippo. He’d lost his coat and went to pray at the chapel of the twenty martyrs. On his way back, he found a fish with a gold ring inside it. The cook who cooked it told him, “Here’s what the twenty martyrs give you.”
The philosophers answer that nothing here breaks nature’s laws. A fish can swallow a gold ring without breaking any law of physics. A cook can give it to a cobbler. There’s no miracle in that.
Remind these philosophers of Saint Jerome’s life of Paul the hermit. He says Paul spoke several times with satyrs and fauns. For thirty years a raven brought him half a loaf for dinner every day. It brought a whole loaf when Saint Anthony visited. They may again say none of this entirely goes against physics. Satyrs and fauns could have existed. Even if it’s a childish tale, it has nothing to do with the Savior’s and his apostles’ true miracles. Several good Christians have challenged Theodoret’s story of Saint Simeon Stylites. Several Latin Christians have doubted many miracles the Greek Church accepts as genuine. The Greek Church has likewise suspected Latin miracles. Then the Protestants came along and attacked both churches’ miracles very harshly.
A learned Jesuit1 who spent years preaching in India complains that neither he nor his fellow Jesuits ever managed a miracle. In several letters, Xavier laments his lack of the gift of tongues. Among the Japanese, he says, he’s like a silent statue. Yet the Jesuits wrote that he’d raised eight dead people. That’s a lot. Still, remember he raised them six thousand leagues from here. Some people have since claimed that abolishing the Jesuits in France was a far greater miracle than Xavier’s and Ignatius’s.
Anyway, all Christians agree that Jesus Christ’s and the apostles’ miracles are beyond doubt. Still, if we must, we can doubt some recent miracles that haven’t been authenticated with certainty.
To establish a miracle properly, for instance, we’d like it performed before the Academy of Sciences in Paris or the Royal Society in London, together with the faculty of medicine. A detachment from the Guards regiment would help them control the crowd. Otherwise the crowd’s thoughtlessness might stop the miracle happening.
Someone once asked a philosopher what he’d say if he saw the sun stand still—that is, if the earth stopped moving around it. Suppose all the dead rose, and all the mountains threw themselves together into the sea. Suppose it all proved some important truth: grace that can be accepted or resisted, for example. “What would I say?” the philosopher replied. “I’d become a Manichaean. I’d say one principle was undoing what the other had done.”
1 Ospinian. p. 230.
About this section
M — Miracles is part of Pocket Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is article 60 of 73 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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