Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
quotes me, "In this day, and under our present circumstances, we can
only reply, that there is no reason why they should not be." Surely this
is good logic, _provided_ that miracles _do_ occur in all ages; and so
again I am logical in saying, "There is nothing, _primâ facie_, in the
miraculous accounts in question, to repel a _properly taught_ or
religiously disposed mind." What is the matter with this statement? My
assailant does not pretend to say _what_ the matter is, and he cannot;
but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonishment. Accordingly, in the
passage which he quotes, I observe, "Miracles are the kind of facts
proper to ecclesiastical history, just as instances of sagacity or
daring, personal prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to secular
history." What is the harm of this?
2. But, though a miracle be conceivable, it has to be _proved_. _What_
has to be proved? (1.) That the event occurred as stated, and is not a
false report or an exaggeration. (2.) That it is clearly miraculous, and
not a mere providence or answer to prayer within the order of nature.
What is the fault of saying this? The inquiry is parallel to that which
is made about some extraordinary fact in secular history. Supposing I
hear that King Charles II. died a Catholic, I am led to say: It _may_
be, but what is your _proof_?
In my Essay on Miracles of the year 1826, I proposed three questions
about a professed miraculous occurrence: 1. is it antecedently
_probable_? 2. is it in its _nature_ certainly miraculous? 3. has it
sufficient _evidence_? To these three heads I had regard in my Essay of
1842; and under them I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the
miracles of Ecclesiastical History.
* * * * *
So much for general principles; as to St. Walburga, though I have no
intention at all of denying that numerous miracles have been wrought by
her intercession, still, neither the Author of her Life, nor I, the
Editor, felt that we had grounds for binding ourselves to the belief of
certain alleged miracles in particular. I made, however, one exception;
it was the medicinal oil which flows from her relics. Now as to the
_verisimilitude_, the _miraculousness_, and the _fact_, of this
medicinal oil.
1. The _verisimilitude_. It is plain there is nothing extravagant in
this report of her relics having a supernatural virtue; and for this
reason, because there are such instances in Scripture, and Scripture
cannot be extravagant. For instance, a man was restored to life by
touching the relics of the Prophet Eliseus. The sacred text runs
thus:--"And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the
Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to
pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of
men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And, when the
man was let down, _and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived_, and
stood upon his feet." Again, in the case of an inanimate substance,
which had touched a living Saint: "And God wrought _special miracles_ by
the hands of Paul; so that _from his body_ were brought unto the sick
_handkerchiefs or aprons_, and _the diseases departed from them_." And
again in the case of a pool: "An _Angel went down_ at a certain season
into the pool, and troubled the water; whosoever then first, after the
troubling of the water, stepped in, _was made whole of whatsoever
disease_ he had." 2 Kings [4 Kings] xiii. 20, 21. Acts xix. 11, 12. John
v. 4. Therefore there is nothing _extravagant_ in the _character_ of the
miracle.
2. Next, the _matter of fact_:--_is_ there an oil flowing from St.
Walburga's tomb, which is medicinal? To this question I confined myself
in my Preface. Of the accounts of medieval miracles, I said that there
was no _extravagance_ in their _general character_, but I could not
affirm that there was always _evidence_ for them. I could not simply
accept them as _facts_, but I could not reject them in their
_nature_;--they _might_ be true, for they were not impossible; but they
were _not proved_ to be true, because there was not trustworthy
testimony. However, as to St. Walburga, I repeat, I made _one_
exception, the fact of the medicinal oil, since for that miracle there
was distinct and successive testimony. And then I went on to give a
chain of witnesses. It was my duty to state what those witnesses said in
their very words; so I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from
the Saint's death. I said, "She is one of the principal Saints of her
age and country." Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, "Six
writers are extant, who have employed themselves in relating the deeds
or miracles of Walburga." Then I said that her "renown was not the mere
natural _growth_ of ages, but begins with the very century of the
Saint's death." Then I observed that only two miracles seem to have been
"distinctly reported of her as occurring in her lifetime; and they were
handed down apparently by tradition." Also, that such miracles are said
to have commenced about A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the medicinal oil as
having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450, in 1615, and in
1620. Also, I said that Mabillon seems not to have believed some of her
miracles; and that the earliest witness had got into trouble with his
Bishop. And so I left the matter, as a question to be decided by
evidence, not deciding any thing myself.
What was the harm of all this? but my Critic muddled it together in a
most extraordinary manner, and I am far from sure that he knew himself
the definite categorical charge which he intended it to convey against
me. One of his remarks is, "What has become of the holy oil for the last
240 years, Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25. Of course I did not, because
I did not know; I gave the evidence as I found it; he assumes that I had
a point to prove, and then asks why I did not make the evidence larger
than it was.
I can tell him more about it now: the oil still flows; I have had some
of it in my possession; it is medicinal still. This leads to the third
head.
3. Its _miraculousness_. On this point, since I have been in the
Catholic Church, I have found there is a difference of opinion. Some
persons consider that the oil is the natural produce of the rock, and
has ever flowed from it; others, that by a divine gift it flows from the
relics; and others, allowing that it now comes naturally from the rock,
are disposed to hold that it was in its origin miraculous, as was the
virtue of the pool of Bethsaida.
This point must be settled of course before the virtue of the oil can be
ascribed to the sanctity of St. Walburga; for myself, I neither have,
nor ever have had, the means of going into the question; but I will take
the opportunity of its having come before me, to make one or two
remarks, supplemental of what I have said on other occasions.
1. I frankly confess that the present advance of science tends to make
it probable that various facts take place, and have taken place, in the
order of nature, which hitherto have been considered by Catholics as
simply supernatural.
2. Though I readily make this admission, it must not be supposed in
consequence that I am disposed to grant at once, that every event was
natural in point of fact, which _might_ have taken place by the laws of
nature; for it is obvious, no Catholic can bind the Almighty to act only
in one and the same way, or to the observance always of His own laws. An
event which is possible in the way of nature, is certainly possible too
to Divine Power without the sequence of natural cause and effect at all.
A conflagration, to take a parallel, may be the work of an incendiary,
or the result of a flash of lightning; nor would a jury think it safe to
find a man guilty of arson, if a dangerous thunderstorm was raging at
the very time when the fire broke out. In like manner, upon the
hypothesis that a miraculous dispensation is in operation, a recovery
from diseases to which medical science is equal, may nevertheless in
matter of fact have taken place, not by natural means, but by a
supernatural interposition. That the Lawgiver always acts through His
own laws, is an assumption, of which I never saw proof. In a given case,
then, the possibility of assigning a human cause for an event does not
_ipso facto_ prove that it is not miraculous.
3. So far, however, is plain, that, till some _experimentum crucis_ can
be found, such as to be decisive against the natural cause or the
supernatural, an occurrence of this kind will as little convince an
unbeliever that there has been a divine interference in the case, as it
will drive the Catholic to admit that there has been no interference at
all.
4. Still there is this gain accruing to the Catholic cause from the
larger views we now possess of the operation of natural causes, viz.
that our opponents will not in future be so ready as hitherto, to impute
fraud and falsehood to our priests and their witnesses, on the ground of
their pretending or reporting things that are incredible. Our opponents
have again and again accused us of false witness, on account of
statements which they now allow are either true, or may have been true.
They account indeed for the strange facts very differently from us; but
still they allow that facts they were. It is a great thing to have our
characters cleared; and we may reasonably hope that, the next time our
word is vouched for occurrences which appear to be miraculous, our facts
will be investigated, not our testimony impugned.
5. Even granting that certain occurrences, which we have hitherto
accounted miraculous, have not absolutely a claim to be so considered,
nevertheless they constitute an argument still in behalf of Revelation
and the Church. Providences, or what are called _grazie_, though they do
not rise to the order of miracles, yet, if they occur again and again in
connexion with the same persons, institutions, or doctrines, may supply
a cumulative evidence of the fact of a supernatural presence in the
quarter in which they are found. I have already alluded to this point in
my Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and I have a particular reason, as
will presently be seen, for referring here to what I said in the course
of it.
* * * * *
In that Essay, after bringing its main argument to an end, I append to
it a review of "the evidence for particular alleged miracles." "It does
not strictly fall within the scope of the Essay," I observe, "to
pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of this or that miraculous
narrative, as it occurs in ecclesiastical history; but only to furnish
such general considerations, as may be useful in forming a decision in
particular cases," p. cv. However, I thought it right to go farther and
"to set down the evidence for and against certain miracles as we meet
with them," ibid. In discussing these miracles separately, I make the
following remarks, to which I have just been referring.
After discussing the alleged miracle of the Thundering Legion, I
observe:--"Nor does it concern us much to answer the objection, that
there is nothing strictly miraculous in such an occurrence, because
sudden thunderclouds after drought are not unfrequent; for, I would
answer, Grant me such miracles ordinarily in the early Church, and I
will ask no other; grant that, upon prayer, benefits are vouchsafed,
deliverances are effected, unhoped-for results obtained, sicknesses
cured, tempests laid, pestilences put to flight, famines remedied,
judgments inflicted, and there will be no need of analyzing the causes,
whether supernatural or natural, to which they are to be referred. They
may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or surpass the laws