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Nevertheless, when we declare the miracles which God has wrought, or
will yet work, and which we cannot bring under the very eyes of men,
sceptics keep demanding that we shall explain these marvels to reason.
And because we cannot do so, inasmuch as they are above human
comprehension, they suppose we are speaking falsely. These persons
themselves, therefore, ought to account for all these marvels which we
either can or do see. And if they perceive that this is impossible for
man to do, they should acknowledge that it cannot be concluded that a
thing has not been or shall not be because it cannot be reconciled to
reason, since there are things now in existence of which the same is
true. I will not, then, detail the multitude of marvels which are
related in books, and which refer not to things that happened once and
passed away, but that are permanent in certain places, where, if any
one has the desire and opportunity, he may ascertain their truth; but
a few only I recount. The following are some of the marvels men tell
us:, The salt of Agrigentum in Sicily, when thrown into the fire,
becomes fluid as if it were in water, but in the water it crackles as
if it were in the fire. The Garamantae have a fountain so cold by day
that no one can drink it, so hot by night no one can touch it. In
Epirus, too, there is a fountain which, like all others, quenches
lighted torches, but, unlike all others, lights quenched torches.
There is a stone found in Arcadia, and called asbestos, because once
lit it cannot be put out. The wood of a certain kind of Egyptian
fig-tree sinks in water, and does not float like other wood; and,
stranger still, when it has been sunk to the bottom for some time, it
rises again to the surface, though nature requires that when soaked in
water it should be heavier than ever. Then there are the apples of
Sodom which grow indeed to an appearance of ripeness, but, when you
touch them with hand or tooth, the peal cracks, and they crumble into
dust and ashes. The Persian stone pyrites burns the hand when it is
tightly held in it and so gets its name from fire. In Persia too,
there is found another stone called selenite, because its interior
brilliancy waxes and wanes with the moon. Then in Cappadocia the
mares are impregnated by the wind, and their foals live only three
years. Tilon, an Indian island, has this advantage over all other
lands, that no tree which grows in it ever loses its foliage.
These and numberless other marvels recorded in the history, not of
past events, but of permanent localities, I have no time to enlarge
upon and diverge from my main object; but let those sceptics who refuse
to credit the divine writings give me, if they can, a rational account
of them. For their only ground of unbelief in the Scriptures is,
that they contain incredible things, just such as I have been
recounting. For, say they, reason cannot admit that flesh burn and
remain unconsumed, suffer without dying. Mighty reasoners, indeed,
who are competent to give the reason of all the marvels that exist!
Let them then give us the reason of the few things we have cited, and
which, if they did not know they existed, and were only assured by us
they would at some future time occur, they would believe still less
than that which they now refuse to credit on our word. For which of
them would believe us if, instead of saying that the living bodies of
men hereafter will be such as to endure everlasting pain and fire
without ever dying, we were to say that in the world to come there will
be salt which becomes liquid in fire as if it were in water, and
crackles in water as if it were in fire; or that there will be a
fountain whose water in the chill air of night is so hot that it cannot
be touched, while in the heat of day it is so cold that it cannot be
drunk; or that there will be a stone which by its own heat burns the
hand when tightly held, or a stone which cannot be extinguished if it
has been lit in any part; or any of those wonders I have cited, while
omitting numberless others? If we were to say that these things would
be found in the world to come, and our sceptics were to reply, "If
you wish us to believe these things, satisfy our reason about each of
them," we should confess that we could not, because the frail
comprehension of man cannot master these and such-like wonders of
God's working; and that yet our reason was thoroughly convinced that
the Almighty does nothing without reason, though the frail mind of man
cannot explain the reason; and that while we are in many instances
uncertain what He intends, yet that it is always most certain that
nothing which He intends is impossible to Him; and that when He
declares His mind, we believe Him whom we cannot believe to be either
powerless or false. Nevertheless these cavillers at faith and exactors
of reason, how do they dispose of those things of which a reason cannot
be given, and which yet exist, though in apparent contrariety to the
nature of things? If we had announced that these things were to be,
these sceptics would have demanded from us the reason of them, as they
do in the case of those things which we are announcing as destined to
be. And consequently, as these present marvels are not
non-existent, though human reason and discourse are lost in such works
of God, so those things we speak of are not impossible because
inexplicable; for in this particular they are in the same predicament
as the marvels of earth.
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