nspicuous, for they were real: both they that were healed, and they
that were raised from the dead, were seen, not only when they were
healed or raised, but for a long time afterwards; not only whilst he
dwelled on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good
while after it; insomuch as that some of them have reached to our
times," (Euseb. Hist. I. iv. c. 3.) Nothing can be more rational or
satisfactory than this.

Justin Martyr, the next of the Christian apologists, whose work is not
lost, and who followed Quadratus at the distance of about thirty years,
has touched upon passages of Christ's history in so many places, that a
tolerably complete account of Christ's life might be collected out of
his works. In the following quotation he asserts the performance of
miracles by Christ, in words as strong and positive as the language
possesses: "Christ healed those who from their birth were blind, and
deaf, and lame; causing, by his word, one to leap, another to hear, and
a third to see; and having raised the dead, and caused them to live, he,
by his works, excited attention, and induced the men of that age to know
him: who, however, seeing these things done, said that it was a magical
appearance, and dared to call him a magician, and a deceiver of the
people." (Just. Dial. p. 258, ed. Thirlby.)

In his first apology, (Apolog. prim. p. 48, ib.) Justin expressly
assigns the reason for his having recourse to the argument from
prophecy, rather than alleging the miracles of the Christian history;
which reason was, that the persons with whom he contended would ascribe
these miracles to magic; "lest any of our opponents should say, What
hinders, but that he who is called Christ by us, being a man sprung from
men, performed the miracles which we attribute to him by magical art?"
The suggestion of this reason meets, as I apprehend, the very point of
the present objection; more especially when we find Justin followed in
it by other writers of that age. Irenaeus, who came about forty years
after him, notices the same evasion in the adversaries of Christianity,
and replies to it by the same argument: "But if they shall say, that the
Lord performed these things by an illusory appearance (phantasiodos),
leading these objectors to the prophecies, we will show from them, that
all things were thus predicted concerning him, and Strictly came to
pass." (Iren. I. ii. c. 57.) Lactantius, who lived a century lower,
delivers the sam