Galatians whether 'he that ministereth to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [———] among them, doeth it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?' (Gal. iii. 5.) In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, he goes somewhat elaborately into the exact place in the Christian economy that is to be assigned to the working of miracles and gifts of healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29)."(1)
We shall presently examine these passages, but we must first briefly deal with the question whether, taken in any sense, they furnish an instance "in which a writer claims to have himself performed a miracle." It must be obvious to any impartial reader, that the remark made in the course of our earlier argument precisely distinguished the general "assertion of the possession of miraculous power by the Church," from the explicit claim to have personally performed "a miracle" in the singular. If, therefore, it were even admitted "that St. Paul treats the fact of his working miracles as a matter of course, to which a passing reference is sufficient," such "incidental allusions" would not in the least degree contradict the statement made, but, being the only instances producible, would in fact completely justify it. General and vague references of this kind have by no means the force of a definite claim to have performed some particular miracle. They partake too much of that indiscriminate impression of the possession and common exercise of miraculous powers which characterized the "age of miracles" to have any force. The desired instance, which is not forthcoming, and to which alone reference was made, was a case in which, instead of vague expressions, a writer, stating with precision the particulars, related that he himself had,
for instance, actually raised some person from the dead. As we then added, even if Apostles had chronicled their miracles, the argument for their reality would not have been much advanced; but it is a curious phenomenon not undeserving of a moment's attention that apologists can only refer to such general passages, and cannot quote an instance in which a specific miracle is related in detail by the person who is supposed to have performed it. Passing references on a large scale to the exercise of miraculous power, whilst betraying a suspicious familiarity with phenomena of an exceptional nature, offer too much latitude for inaccuracy and imagination to have the weight of an affirmation in which the mind has been sobered by concentration to details. "Signs and wonders," indefinitely alluded to, may seem much more imposing and astonishing than they really are, and it may probably be admitted by everyone that, if we knew the particulars of the occurrences which are thus vaguely indicated and which may have been considered miraculous in a superstitious age, they might to us possibly appear no miracles at all. General expressions are liable to an exaggeration from which specific allegations arc more frequently free. If it be conceded that the Apostle Paul fully believed in the possession by himself and the Church of divine Charismata, the indefinite expression of that belief, in any form, must not be made equivalent to an explicit claim to have performed a certain miracle, the particulars of which are categorically stated.
Passing from this, however, to the more general question, the force of some of these objections will be better understood when we consider the passages in the Epistles which are quoted as expressing Paul's belief in miracles, and endeavour to ascertain his real views: what it is he
actually says regarding miracles; and what are the phenomena which are by him considered to be miraculous. We shall not waste time in considering how, partly through the influence of the Septuagint, the words [———], and [———] came to be used in a peculiar manner by New Testament writers to indicate miracles. It may, however, be worth while to pause for a moment to ascertain the sense in which Paul, who wrote before there was a "New Testament" at all, usually employed these words. In the four Epistles of Paul the word [———] occurs six times. In Rom. iv. 11 Abraham is said to have received the "sign [———] of circumcision," in which there is nothing miraculous. In 1 Cor. i. 22 it is said: "Since both Jews require signs [———](1) and Greeks seek after wisdom;" and again, 1 Cor. xiv. 22: "Wherefore the tongues are for a sign [———] not to the believing but to the unbelieving," &c. We shall have more to say regarding these passages presently, but just now we merely quote them to show the use of the word. The only other places in which it occurs(2) are those pointed out, and which are the subject of our discussion. In Rom. xv. 19 the word is used in the plural and combined with [———]: "in the power of signs and wonders" [———]; and in the second passage, 2 Cor. xii. 12, it is employed twice, "the signs [———] of the apostle "and the second time again in combination with [———] and [———], "both in signs" [———], &c. The word [———] is only twice met with in Paul's writings; that is to say, in Rom. xv. 19 and 2 Cor. xii. 12; and on both occasions, as we
have just mentioned, it is combined with [———].(1) On the other hand, Paul uses [———] no less than 34 times(2) and, leaving for the present out of the question the passages cited, upon every occasion, except one, perhaps, the word has the simple signification of "power." The one exception is Rom. viii. 38, where it occurs in the plural: [———] "powers," the Apostle expressing his persuasion that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God, "nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers [———], nor height, nor depth," &c., &c. In 1 Cor. xiv. 11, where the authorized version renders the original: "Therefore, if I know not the meaning [———] of the voice," it has still the same sense.