Such eminent Jewish authorities as Kohler, Broydé, Blau and others are of the opinion that the Essenes a Jewish order of monks who pretended to exercise great miraculous powers through the magic spell of the Holy Name, were in a sense the predecessors of the Christian miracle workers and did much to prepare an atmosphere favorable to the acceptance of the wonder working power of the name of Jesus as used by the apostles. They also maintain that rabbinical literature made less of the miraculous than did the literature and practice of early Christianity, and that cures by exorcism and other miraculous means were most common in Judeo-Christian circles.
The belief in such powers they consider a common characteristic of both pagan and Jew at the beginning of the Christian era.
During apostolic times miraculous powers were in evidence but became less prevalent at the close of this period. Beginning with the second century the role of the miraculous again becomes important and continues to be increasingly so till recent times. In many quarters even an extreme belief in the miraculous is still maintained as a true tenet of Christian faith historically established and not to be altered in any particular by the findings of present day science.
Brewer ( 16) has summed up in his recent " Dictionary of Miracles" some valuable and interesting data concerning the miracles of Roman Catholic saints. Beginning soon after apostolic times there are records of the miraculous powers of the saints in ever increasing numbers. At first these miracles were wrought by the saint in person but later the same powers were credited to their relics, tombs, and shrines. The hagiography of the church teems with the miraculous all through the middle ages. There are several notable saints any one of whom, if we are to believe the record, performed miracles the briefest record of which would fill a good-sized volume.
In all of these miracles there is a close resemblance to the Bible records, the example of Jesus and His early disciples being followed both as regards methods and language employed. The demands made upon our credulity are, however, so much greater than those of the Bible records that this in itself discredits many of the accounts. For example the fact that raising of the dead is one of the most common of miracles and the fact that bodies that had been completely dismembered are said to have been restored, that still born children and even roast pullets, partridges and the like could be restored to life tends to discredit the whole record of the miraculous during the middle ages. The same diseases are spoken of as those already mentioned in the preceding section.
Miracles of Healing
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By Charles W. Waddle (1909)
Primitive Christian Worship
Hereditary genius
