50. Moreover, by His own
power He not only performed those miraculous deeds which have been
detailed by us in summary, and not as the importance of the matter
demanded; but, what was more sublime, He has permitted many others to
attempt them, and to perform them by the use of His name. For
when He foresaw that you were to be the detractors of His deeds and of
His divine work, in order that no lurking suspicion might remain of His
having lavished these gifts and bounties by magic arts, from the
immense multitude of people, which with admiring wonder strove to gain
His favour, He chose fishermen, artisans, rustics, and unskilled
persons of a similar kind, that they being sent through various nations
should perform all those miracles without any deceit and without any
material aids. By a word He assuaged the racking pains of the
aching members; and by a word they checked the writhings of maddening
sufferings. By one command He drove demons from the body, and
restored their senses to the lifeless; they, too, by no different
command, restored to health and to soundness of mind those labouring
under the inflictions of these demons.3341
| 3341
“They, too,…those labouring under the inflictions of
these:” so LB., with the warm approval of Orelli (who,
however, with previous edd., retains the ms.
reading in his text) and others, reading sub eorum
t-ortantes (for ms.
p—) et illi se casibus; Heraldus having suggested
rotantes. This simple and elegant emendation makes it
unnecessary to notice the harsh and forced readings of earlier edd. |
By the application of His
hand He
removed the marks of
leprosy; they, too, restored to the body its
natural skin by a touch not dissimilar. He ordered the dropsical
and swollen
flesh to
recover its
natural dryness; and His
servants in
the same manner stayed the wandering waters, and ordered them to glide
through their own channels, avoiding injury to the frame. Sores
of immense size, refusing to admit of healing, He restrained from
further feeding on the
flesh, by the interposition of one word; and
they in like manner, by restricting its ravages, compelled the
obstinate and merciless cancer to confine itself to a scar. To
the
lame He gave the
power of walking, to the
dark eyes sight, the dead
He recalled to
life; and not less surely did they, too, relax the
tightened nerves, fill the
eyes with light already lost, and order the
dead to return from the tombs, reversing the ceremonies of the funeral
rites. Nor was anything calling forth the bewildered admiration
of all done by Him, which He did not freely allow, to be performed by
those humble and rustic men, and which He did not put in their
power.
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