It is also the
case with the modern annual exhibition of the liquefaction of the blood
of Saint Januarius at Naples. It is a doubt, likewise, which ought to be
excluded by very special circumstances from those narratives which
relate to the supernatural cure of hypochondriacal and nervous
complaints, and of all diseases which are much affected by the
imagination. The miracles of the second and third century are, usually,
healing the sick and casting out evil spirits, miracles in which there
is room for some error and deception. We hear nothing of causing the
blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the lepers to be
cleansed. (Jortin's Remarks, vol. ii. p. 51.) There are also instances in
Christian writers of reputed miracles, which were natural operations,
though not known to be such at the time; as that of articulate speech
after the loss of a great part of the tongue.
IV. To the same head of objection, nearly, may also be referred accounts
in which the variation of a small circumstance may have transformed some
extraordinary appearance, or some critical coincidence of events, into a
miracle; stories, in a word, which may be resolved into exaggeration.
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