FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921, Page 33

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

[A Weekly Instruction for Young and Old.] lll.—Proof Drawn from Miracles. Christianity has also the sanction of miracles. It is stamped by God, and is obviously divine. To prove the antecedent;

60. It is an historical fact that innumerable miracles accompanied the establishment, of the Christian religion; but, notwithstanding the testimony of history, the unbeliever persists in rejecting miracles. We may ask him to explain how and why the universe has embraced the Christian faith; for if the miracles of the Saviour, proved and confirmed by those of the Apostles, be withdrawn, and if all the prodigious facts, which are attested by the history of the Church be suppressed, he still will be forced to admit the strangest, greatest, and most incomprehensible miracle of all, namely, that the religion of Jesus Christ, without the aid of miracles, has been able to spread itself over the universe, and remain unchanged up to our own time, It is, then, impossible to deny miracles, for infidelity itself is forced to admit them.

The miracles which have been wrought in favor of : the Christian religion may be divided into three classes: (1) miracles of the Old Testament; (2) miracles of the New Testament; (3) miracles of the Gospel. (1) Miracles of the Old Testament.-Striking prodigies, worked in favor of the people of Israel and of the Mosaic religion, are found in the Old Testament—such as the plagues of Egypt, which made even the impious recognise the hand of God; the passage of the Red Sea and the submersion of the Egyptians ; the cloud by day and fire by night, that guided the Israelites and regulated their encampments in the desert: the giving of the Law amidst the thunders on Mount Sinai ; the sojourn of the people of Israel in the desert, where God fed them with manna which lie rained down from heaven, and slaked their thirst with water from the rock—in fine, the conquest of the land of Canaan, and all the series of marvellous events by which the tribes of Israel established themselves and remained in the Land of Promise. These miracles, numerous as they are striking, not only prove the divinity of the law of Moses, but also, though in an indirect way, the divinity of the Christian religion, which had the ancient law for basis. For if the root be planted by the hand of- God, the fruit springing therefrom must equally come from God. Nothing, in fact, is clearer, than the connection between the synagogue and the Church. The first is an introduction, a preparation, for the second. The law of Moses (says the Apostle, has been a guide to conduct us to Jesus Christ, — “Pedagogue noster fnit in Christo” (Gal. iii. 24). The ancient law, says-St. Augustine, carried in its bosom Christ Jesus, whom one day it was to bring forth, —“ Lex a Christo gravida erat” Moses, in proclaiming his law, announces another Law-giver who should come after him—a Law-giver par excellence, who should be believed: “Vrophetam de genie tua, et de fratribus tuis sic it t me suscitabit tibi Domimis DeiPs tuns: ipsum audits” (Dent xviii 15). A . ' ' (2) Miracles of the New Testament.—We read in the books of the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, contained in the New Testament, of the miracles which were wrought by Christ and His Apostles, in testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ and the truth of His doctrine. Those which concern Our Lord Jesus Christ are such as healing the sick, raising the dead to life, and other wonders, which He works to show His sovereign dominion over all nature. He cures the sick—the lepers, the paralysed, the deaf, the dumb, and the- blind; all are restored to perfect health by a word from His mouth, and by a simple act of His allpowerful will. He changes water into wine, multiplies the loaves to feed thousands of men, fills the fishermen s nets with a miraculous draught, quells the winds and the waves of the sea, delivers those possessed by

the devil, and raises the dead, who are already a' prey to corruption, to life again. ■,■':■ '-'■-. .|-| V < These prodigies are clear and indubitable; Jesus performs them in open daylight, without preparation, before thousands of witnesses, on all sorts of subjects —sometimes even on the absent; so that He leaves no room for the slightest doubt or least suspicion of fraud. In order to be convinced, one has but to read, for instance, of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (St. John, chap, vi.); the resurrection of Lazarus (St. John, chap, xi.), of which the Pharisees of Jerusalem were witnesses; and the cure .of the man born blind (St. John, chap, xi.), who was examined by them before a judicial tribunal. Among the miracles of Our Saviour, there is one which surpasses all the others. It shines with a more resplendent lustre, dissipating all darkness and enlightening the whole world. It is His Resurrection—the miracle of miraclesto which we revert in the Apostles' Creed when we say, ''l believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son; . . . , the third day He rose again from the dead."

Jesus Christ worked miracles without number; but this is not all; He gave to His disciples a similar power, to be used only in His name. St. Peter commenced by the curing of a lame man who lay at the door of the temple. “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth,” he said to him, “arise and walk.” At that same instant the lame man *arose, perfectly healed; he walked‘and leaped in sight of all the people. The same Apostle restored health to innumerable sick people, who were brought to him from all parts of Jerusalem. It was sufficient for his shadow to pass over them to deliver them from their infirmities. What Peter did at Jerusalem the other Apostles did elsewhere, confirming their preaching by miracles wherever they went. After the death of the Apostles, miracles still continued amongst the Christians, as ecclesiastical history attests, and as we ourselves witness in our own days. (3) Miracles of the Gospel.—By such we mean, not the Evangelical doctrine, which, considered in itself, is a miracle of superhuman wisdom, but the prodigious effects produced on the world by the preaching of the Gospel. These effects may be reduced to three: (1) the rapid and astonishing growth of the Christian religion, in spite of a thousand obstacles; (2) its preservation unaltered in the midst of persecutions and heresies : (3) the constancy of numerous martyrs under the most cruel torments. (1) In order to see the supernaturalness of this growth, we must take the Apostles for standpoint, and consider, on the one hand, their enterprise and its impossibilities, and, on the other, their prodigious success. The undertaking (a) was to overthrow idolatry, which was established amongst all nations, and sustained by all human power; (b) to destroy Judaism, which had been before divinely established, by declaring it to be annulled by Him whom the synagogue had crucified ; (c) to establish on the ruins of idolatry and of Judaism a new religion, whose incomprehensible dogmas and severe code of morality rendered if difficult of acceptance. The impossibility of such an enterprise, humanly speaking, is manifest when the time, the obstacles, and the means are taken into consideration, (a) The time chosen for realising this strange conception is the age of Augustus and of Tiberius— age of science and refinement, of pride and corruption, when Rome, the queen of nations, ruled by her laws and customs, based on the ideal of paganism, (b) The obstacles were the passions of men, their prejudices and preconceived ideas; the opposition of the synagogue and the formidable power of Rome, armed for the defence of her gods, (c) Of human means, in face of such obstacles, there are none. Twelve poor ignorant fishermen present themselves, armed only with the truth of the doctrine they are come to announce. They present themselves literally, according to the words of Their Master, like lambs in- the midst of wolves, whose prey they could not fail to become. - yi* What was their success ? They triumphed over the wolves, and changed them into lambs. Jews and pagans became humble Christians, emulous of imitating the

Lamb of God, the type of innocence and gentleness. The faith spread so rapidly, not only throughout all •the provinces of the Roman Empire, but even amongst the Parthians, and also in India, Africa, Spain, Gaul, and among the Germans and Britons, that, at the death of St. John the Apostle, which took place towards the end of the first century, there hardly existed a country which had not received the Christian faith.