miracles were wrought] paucisshni sciunt, ignorantibus csete- ris, maxime si magna sit civitas ; et quando alibi aliisque narrantur, non tanta ea commendat audoritas, ut sine difficultate vel dubitatione credantur, quamvis Christia- nis fidelibus a fidelibus indicentur." Then follows the account of the famous mira- culum Protasii et Gervasii, and of several cures in Carthage and Hippo. Those in Hippo were wrought by the relics of St. Stephen, and formally confirmed. * Comp. Fk. NiTzscn (jun.): Augustinus' Lehre vom Wunder, Berlin, 1865, especially pp. 32-35. (A very full and satisfactory treatise.) § 88. MIRACLES OF THE NICENE AGE. 461 the negative side on the question of the genuineness of the church miracles in a coutribation to the Encyclopaadia Metropolitana, 1830. Ill the face of such witnesses as Ambrose and Augustine, who must be accounted in any event the noblest and most honorable men of the early church, it is venturesome absolute- ly to deny all the relic-miracles, and to ascribe them to illusion and pious fraud. But, on the other hand, we should not be bribed or blinded by the character and authority of such wit- nesses, since experience sufficiently proves that even the best and most enlightened men cannot wholly divest themselves of superstition and of the prejudices of their age.' Hence, too, we should not ascribe to this whole question of the credibility of the Nicene miracles an undue dogmatic weight, nor make the much wider issue between Catholicism and Protestantism dependent on it.^ In every age, as in every man, light and ' Recall, e. g., Luther and the apparitions of the devil, the Magnalia of Cotton Mather, the old Puritans and their triajs for witchcraft, as well as the modern super- stitions of spiritual rappings and table-turnings by which many eminent and intel- ligent persons have been carried along. ^ As is done by many Roman Catholic historians and apologists in the cause of Cathohcism, and by Isaac Taylor in the interest of Protestantism. The latter says in his oft-quoted work, vol. ii. p. 239 : " The question before us [on the genuineness of the Nicene miracles] is therefore in the strictest sense conclusive as to the modem controversy concerning church principles and the authority of tradition. If the miracles of the fourth century, and those which follow in the same track, were real, then Protestantism is altogether indefensible, and ought to be denoimced as an im- piety of the most flagrant kind. But if these miracles were wicked frauds ; and if they were the first series of a system of impious delusion — then, not only is the modem Papacy to be condemned, but the church of the fourth century must be con- demned with it ; and for the same reasons ; and the Reformation is to be adhered to as the emancipation of Christendom from the thraldom of him who is the 'father of lies.' " Taylor accordingly sees in the old Catholic miracles sheer lying wonders of Satan, and signs