s are
unanimous in extolling his miracles; one of them, Mark, interpreter of
the apostle Peter,[2] insists so much on this point, that, if we trace
the character of Christ only according to this Gospel, we should
represent him as an exorcist in possession of charms of rare efficacy,
as a very potent sorcerer, who inspired fear, and whom the people
wished to get rid of.[3] We will admit, then, without hesitation, that
acts which would now be considered as acts of illusion or folly, held
a large place in the life of Jesus. Must we sacrifice to these
uninviting features the sublimer aspect of such a life? God forbid. A
mere sorcerer, after the manner of Simon the magician, would not have
brought about a moral revolution like that effected by Jesus. If the
thaumaturgus had effaced in Jesus the moralist and the religious
reformer, there would have proceeded from him a school of theurgy, and
not Christianity.

[Footnote 1: Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]

[Footnote 3: Mark iv. 40, v. 15, 17, 33, 36, vi. 50, x. 32; cf. Matt.
viii. 27, 34, ix. 8, xiv. 27, xvii. 6, 7, xxviii. 5, 10; Luke iv. 36,
v. 17, viii. 25, 35, 37, ix. 34. The Apocryphal Gospel, said to be by
Thomas the Israelite, carries this feature to the most offensive
absurdity. Compare the _Miracles of the Infancy_, in Philo, _Cod.
Apocr. N.T._, p. cx., note.]

The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same manner with respect
to all saints and religious founders. Things now considered morbid,
such as epilepsy and seeing of visions, were formerly principles of
power and greatness. Physicians can designate the disease which made
the fortune of Mahomet.[1] Almost in our own day, the men who have
done the most for their kind (the excellent Vincent de Paul himself!)
were, whether they wished it or not, thaumaturgi. If we set out with
the principle that every historical personage to whom acts have been
attributed, which we in the nineteenth century hold to be irrational
or savoring of quackery, was either a madman or a charlatan, all
criticism is nullified. The school of Alexandria was a noble school,
but, nevertheless, it gave itself up to the practices of an
extravagant theurgy. Socrates and Pascal were not exempt from
hallucinations. Facts ought to explain themselves by proportionate
causes. The weaknesses of the human mind only engender weakness; great
things have always great causes in the nature o