Do Miracles Still Occur?
To discredit the countless miracles that had been
given in confirmation of the Catholic faith, the original Protestant Reformers
utterly rejected the idea that miracles had continued beyond the apostolic
age.
However, when the Pentecostal movement began in
Protestantism in 1900, with its emphasis on miraculous healing and other
charisms, the Pentecostals had to find ways to try to explain why such
miracles had "vanished" for so long. The answer is that they never did,
as the following quotes of the early Church Fathers show. Miracles have
always been found in the Catholic Church, and the idea that they stopped
with the death of the last apostle would have been foreign to the early
Church Fathers.
Historian Ramsay MacMullen points out that contemporary
miracles played a central role in Christian apologetics in the early centuries:
"When careful assessment is made of passages in the ancient written evidence
that clearly indicate [a] motive . . . leading a person to conversion,
they show (so far as I can discover): first, the operation of a desire
for blessings . . . second, and much more attested, a fear of physical
pain . . . third, and most frequent, credence in miracles" (Christianizing
the Roman Empire, 108).
"Christian writers themselves . . . portray the
learned and sophisticated as having been won over by sheer force of logic,
and the unlearned, by a sort of stupefaction or terror before the greatness
of God’s power" (ibid., 109).
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
"When he [Polycarp] had . . . finished his prayer,
those who were appointed for the purpose kindled the fire [to burn him
to death]. And as the flame blazed forth in great fury, we to whom it was
given to witness it beheld a great miracle and have been preserved that
we might report to others what then took place. For the fire, shaping itself
into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when filled with the
wind, encompassed as by a circle the body of the martyr. And he appeared
within, not like flesh which is burnt, but as bread that is baked, or as
gold and silver glowing in a furnace. Moreover, we perceived such a sweet
odor, as if frankincense or some such precious spices had been smoking
there. At length, when those wicked men perceived that his body could not
be consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to go near and pierce
him through with a dagger. And on his doing this, there came forth a dove
and a great quantity of blood, so that the fire was extinguished, and all
the people wondered that there should be such a difference between the
unbelievers and the elect" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 15–16 [A.D. 155]).
Irenaeus
"[Heretics are] so far . . . from being able to
raise the dead, as the Lord raised them and the apostles did by means of
prayer, and as has been frequently done in the [Catholic] brotherhood on
account of some necessity. The entire church in that particular locality
entreating with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man has
returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of the saints"
(Against Heresies 2:31:2–4 [A.D. 189]).
Tertullian
"[When a scorpion stings someone’s heel] we have
faith for a defense, if we are not smitten with distrust itself also, in
immediately making the sign [of the cross] and adjuring and besmearing
the heel with the beast. Finally, we often aid in this way even the heathen,
seeing we have been endowed by God with that power which the apostle [Paul]
first used when he despised the viper’s bite [Acts 28:3-5]" (Antidote
Against the Scorpion 1 [A.D. 211]).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"The citizens of that parish [in Alexandria] mention
many other miracles of Narcissus . . . among which they relate the following
wonder as performed by him. . . . [T]he oil once failed while the deacons
were watching through the night at the great Paschal Vigil. Thereupon,
the whole multitude being dismayed, Narcissus directed those who attended
to the lights to draw water and bring it to him. This being immediately
done he prayed over the water and with firm faith in the Lord commanded
them to pour it into the lamps. And when they had done so, contrary to
all expectation, by a wonderful and divine power the nature of the water
was changed into that of oil. A small portion of it has been preserved
even to our day by many of the brethren there as a memento of the wonder"
(Church History 6:9:1–3 [A.D. 312]).
Athanasius
"So take these as an example, beloved Dracontius,
and do not say, or believe those who say, that the bishop’s office is an
occasion to sin. . . . For we know both bishops who fast and monks who
eat. We know bishops who drink no wine as well as monks who do. We know
bishops who work miracles as well as monks who do not" (Letters 49:9
[A.D. 354]).
Ambrose of Milan
"As I do not wish anything which takes place here
in your absence to escape the knowledge of your holiness [my sister], you
must know that we have found some bodies of holy martyrs. . . . We found
two men of marvelous stature, such as those of ancient days. All the bones
were perfect. . . . Briefly we arranged the whole in order, and as evening
was now coming on, transferred them to the basilica of Fausta, where watch
was kept during the night and some received the laying on of hands. On
the following morning we translated the relics to the basilica called Ambrosian.
During the translation a blind man was healed. . . . [Arians] deny that
the blind man received sight, but he denies not that he is healed. He says:
‘I, who could not see, now see,’ and proves it by the fact. . . . He declares
that when he touched the hem of the robe of the martyrs, wherewith the
sacred relics were covered, his sight was restored" (Letters 22:1–2,
17 [A.D. 388]).
Basil the Great
"But where shall I rank the great Gregory [the
Wonderworker] and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among the
apostles and prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they? . .
. For by the fellow-working of the Spirit, the power which he had over
demons was tremendous and so gifted was he with the grace of the word .
. . that, though only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he
brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to
God. He too by Christ’s mighty name commanded even rivers to change their
course and caused a lake . . . to dry up. Moreover his predictions of things
to come were such as in no way to fall short of the great prophets" (The
Holy Spirit 74 [A.D. 375]).
Jerome
"[A woman with three sick children came to Hilarion
and] on reaching the saint she said: ‘I pray you by Jesus our most merciful
God . . . to restore to me my three sons, so that the name of our Lord
and Savior may be glorified in the city of the Gentiles. Then shall his
servants enter Gaza and the idol Marnas shall fall to the ground.’ At first
he refused and said that he never left his cell . . . [but] the woman did
not leave him till he promised he would enter Gaza after sunset. On coming
thither he made the sign of the cross over the bed and fevered limbs of
each [child] and called upon the name of Jesus. Marvelous efficacy of the
name! . . . In that very hour they took food, recognized the mourning mother,
and with thanks to God warmly kissed the saint’s hands" (Life of St.
Hilarion 14 [A.D. 390]).
John Chrysostom
"[I]n our generation, in the case of him who surpassed
all in ungodliness, I mean [the Emperor] Julian, many strange things happened.
Thus, when the Jews were attempting to raise up again the temple at Jerusalem,
fire burst out from the foundations and utterly hindered them all; and
when both his treasurer and his uncle and namesake made the sacred vessels
the subject of their open insolence, one was eaten with worms and gave
up the ghost, the other burst apart in the middle. Moreover, the fountains
failing when sacrifices were made there and the entrance of famine into
the cities together with the emperor himself was a very great sign. For
it is usual with God to do such things when evils are multiplied" (Homilies
on Matthew 4:2 [A.D. 391]).
Augustine
"In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia,
a very devout woman of the highest rank in the state. She had cancer in
one of her breasts, a disease which, as physicians say, is incurable. .
. . This lady we speak of had been advised by a skillful physician, who
was intimate with her family, and she betook herself to God alone in prayer.
On the approach of Easter, she was instructed in a dream to wait for the
first woman that came out of the baptistery after being baptized and to
have her make the sign of Christ upon the sore. She did so, and was immediately
cured" (The City of God 22:8 [A.D. 419]).
"For even now miracles are wrought in the name
of Christ, whether by his sacraments or by the prayers or relics of his
saints. . . . But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which
was wrought upon Innocentius . . . a cure wrought at Carthage, in my presence,
and under my own eyes? . . . For he and all his household were devotedly
pious. He was being treated by medical men for fistulae, of which he had
a large number. . . . He had already undergone an operation but clearly
needed another. . . . [H]e cast himself down . . . and began to pray; but
in what a manner, with what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood
of tears, with what groans and sobs, that shook his whole body and almost
prevented him speaking. . . . [And when the] surgeons arrived, all that
the circumstances required was ready; the frightful instruments were produced;
all look on in wonder and suspense. . . . [But the surgeon] finds a perfectly
firm scar! No words of mine can describe the joy, and praise, and thanksgiving
to the merciful and almighty God, which was poured from the lips of all
with tears of gladness. Let the scene [of rejoicing] be imagined rather
than described!" (ibid.).
"A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given
his name for baptism and had been forbidden the day before his baptism
from being baptized that year by black woolly-haired boys who appeared
to him in his dreams (and whom he understood to be devils), and when .
. . he refused to obey them but overcame them and would not defer being
washed in the laver of regeneration, was relieved in the very act of baptism,
not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but also of the
disease itself" (ibid.).
"What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise
of finishing this work that I cannot record all the miracles I know, and
doubtless several of our adherents, when they read what I have narrated,
will regret that I have omitted many which they, as well as I, certainly
know. Even now I beg these persons to excuse me and to consider how long
it would take me to
relate all those miracles, which the necessity
of finishing the work I have undertaken forces me to omit. . . . Even now,
therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we
read of [in the Bible is] still performing them, by whom he will and as
he will" (ibid.).
Pope Gregory I
"I determined, through the aid of your prayers
for me, to send . . . a monk of my monastery for the purpose of preaching
[to the heathen in Anglia]. And he, having with my leave been made bishop
by the bishops of Germany, proceeded with their aid also to the end of
the world to the aforesaid nation, and already letters have reached us
telling us of his safety and his work, to the effect that he and those
that have been sent with him are resplendent with such great miracles in
the said nation that they seem to imitate the powers of the apostles in
the signs they display. Moreover, at the solemnity of the Lord’s nativity
[Christmas] which occurred in this first indiction, more than ten thousand
Angli are reported to have been baptized by the same, our brother and fellow
bishop" (Letters 30 [A.D. 597]).
"I have given some instructions to Boniface, the
guardian who is the bearer of these presents, for him to communicate to
your holiness in private. Moreover, I have sent you keys of the blessed
apostle Peter, who loves you, which are wont to shine forth with many miracles
when placed on the bodies of sick persons" (ibid., 26).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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