tten (Wis. 1:4): "Wisdom will not enter into a malicious
soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins." Now it was unfitting that
man should be made righteous unless he willed: for this would be both
against the nature of righteousness, which implies rectitude of the
will, and contrary to the very nature of man, which requires to be
led to good by the free-will, not by force. Christ, therefore,
justified man inwardly by the Divine power, but not against man's
will. Nor did this pertain to His miracles, but to the end of His
miracles. In like manner by the Divine power He infused wisdom into
the simple minds of His disciples: hence He said to them (Luke
21:15): "I will give you a mouth and wisdom" which "all your
adversaries will not be able to resist and gainsay." And this, in so
far as the enlightenment was inward, is not to be reckoned as a
miracle, but only as regards the outward action--namely, in so far as
men saw that those who had been unlettered and simple spoke with such
wisdom and constancy. Wherefore it is written (Acts 4:13) that the
Jews, "seeing the constancy of Peter and of John, understanding that
they were illiterate and ignorant men . . . wondered."--And though
such like spiritual effects are different from visible miracles, yet
do they testify to Christ's doctrine and power, according to Heb.
2:4: "God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders and divers
miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost."

Nevertheless Christ did work some miracles on the soul of man,
principally by changing its lower powers. Hence Jerome, commenting on
Matt. 9:9, "He rose up and followed Him," says: "Such was the
splendor and majesty of His hidden Godhead, which shone forth even in
His human countenance, that those who gazed on it were drawn to Him
at first sight." And on Matt. 21:12, "(Jesus) cast out all them that
sold and bought," the same Jerome says: "Of all the signs worked by
our Lord, this seems to me the most wondrous--that one man, at that
time despised, could, with the blows of one scourge, cast out such a
multitude. For a fiery and heavenly light flashed from His eyes, and
the majesty of His Godhead shone in His countenance." And Origen says
on John 2:15 that "this was a greater miracle than when He changed
water into wine, for there He shows His power over inanimate matter,
whereas here He tames the minds of thousands of men." Again, on John
18:6, "They went backward and fell to the ground," Augustine says