SECT. VII. The credibility of these writers further confirmed, from their being famous for miracles.

BUT, on the contrary, God himself gave remarkable testimonies to the sincerity of them, by working miracles, which they themselves and their disciples publicly avouched, with the highest assurance;³⁹⁸³⁹⁸   See the Acts of the Apostles throughout, and 2 Cor. xii. 12. adding the names of the persons and places, and other circumstances; the truth or falsity of which assertion might easily have been discovered by the magistrate’s inquiry; amongst which miracles, this is worthy observation, which they constantly affirmed,³⁹⁹³⁹⁹   The places are quoted before. viz. their speaking languages they had never learned, before many thousand people, and healing in a moment bodies that were diseased, in the sight of the multitude; nor were they at all afraid, though they knew at that time that the Jewish magistrates were violently set against them, and the Roman magistrates very partial, who would not overlook any thing that afforded matter of traducing them as criminals, and authors of a new religion: nor did any of the Jews or heathens, in those nearest times, dare to deny that miracles were done by these men: nay, Phlegon, who was a slave of the emperor Adrian, mentions the miracles of Peter in his annals:⁴⁰⁰⁴⁰⁰   Book xiii. As Origen says in his second book against Celsus. This is that Phlegon whose remains we have yet concerning miracles, and long-lived men. and the Christians themselves, in those books wherein they give an account of the grounds of their faith, before the emperors, senate, and rulers, speak of these facts as things known to every body, and about which there could he no doubt:⁴⁰¹⁴⁰¹   The places are very many, especially in Origen. See the whole eighth chapter of Augustine’s twenty-second book of the city of God. moreover, they openly declared, that the wonderful power of them remained in 132their graves for some ages;⁴⁰²⁴⁰²   The miracles at the sepulchres of holy men then began to be boasted of, when the Christians, having the power in their hands, began to make an advantage of the dead bodies of martyrs and others that were buried in their churches. Wherefore I would not have this argument made use of, lest we diminish from the credibility of certain miracles, by these doubtful or fictitious ones. Every one knows how many stories are related after the fourth century about this matter. But Origen does not mention any such miracles; but, in his seventh book against Celsus, says, “Very many miracles of the Holy Spirit were manifested at the beginning of Jesus’s doctrine, and after his ascension, but afterwards they were fewer; however, there are now some footsteps of them in some few, whose minds are purified by reason, and their actions agreeable thereto.” Who can believe that so many miracles should be done in one or two centuries after Origen, when there was less need of them? Certainly it is as reasonable to derogate from the credibility of the miracles of the fourth and fifth centuries, as it would be impudent to deny the miracles of Christ and his apostles. These miracles could not be asserted without danger; those could not be rejected without danger, nor be believed without profit to those who perhaps forged them; which is a great difference. Le Clerc. when they could not but know, if it were false, that they could easily be disproved by the magistrates, to their shame and punishment. And these miracles (now mentioned) at their sepulchres were so common, and had so many witnesses, that they forced Porphyry to confess the truth of them.⁴⁰³⁴⁰³   See Cyril’s tenth book against Julian, and Jerom against a, book of Vigilantius. These things which we have now alleged ought to satisfy us; but there are abundance more of arguments, which recommend to us the credibility of these books:—