7 - Miracles in early Christianity

Summary

The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the conviction of infidels.

Edward Gibbon

Christian apologetic found that appeal to miracles was by no means a trump card to play.

Geoffrey Lampe

These quotations reflect two different perspectives on the importance of miracles for the Christian church in the period following the death of Jesus. For Gibbon they are one of five causes accounting for the rise of Christianity. For Lampe their importance can be overplayed for they constituted ambiguous evidence in favour of Christianity. Against such a background, this chapter will examine the character and nature of the miraculous in Christianity in the period running from the death of Jesus to the middle of the third century ce. The discussion will show that Christians moved in a world full of the miraculous. Miracles were taken for granted, although some scepticism about the phenomenon did exist, relating both to the factuality of the miracle/s described, but also to the character of the miraculous act. In this context, space will be given to the debate about magic and its definition, and the point will be made that every supposedly miraculous event could be construed, negatively, as magic. The miraculous emerges from this as something ambivalent, and it was a continuing problem for Christians to distance both their founder and other Christian miracle workers from the charge of being sorcerers. In the course of the discussion, I shall seek to show how there exist continuities between pagan discussion of magic and Christian engagement with the theme, particularly as this relates to its polemical use. The chapter will also address the question of the function of miracle. Emerging from all of this, there will be a discussion of the importance of miracle for the spread of Christianity