ull
verification. Jesus may have been ignorant of the objective reality of
Lazarus's condition, and yet have been very hopeful of being empowered
by the divine aid he prayed for (John xi. 41) to cope with it
successfully.

[23] See pages 28, 29, Note.

[24] Jesus' works of healing are explicitly attributed by the
Evangelists to a peculiar power that issued from him. In Mark v. 30,
Luke vi. 19, and viii. 46, the original word _dunamis_, which the
Authorized Version translates "virtue," is more correctly rendered
"power" in the Revised Version. Especially noticeable is the peculiar
phraseology of Mark v. 30: "Jesus perceiving in himself that the power
proceeding from him had gone forth (R. V.)." The peculiar circumstances
of the case suggest that the going forth of this power might be motived
sub-consciously, as well as by conscious volition.

[25] Acts ix. 36-42.

[26] Acts xx. 9-13.

IV

IV

SYNOPSIS.--A clearer conception of miracle approached.--Works of
Jesus once reputed miraculous not so reputed now, since not now
transcending, as once, the existing range of knowledge and
power.--This transfer of the miraculous to the natural likely to
continue.--No hard and fast line between the miraculous and the
non-miraculous.--Miracle a provisional word, its application
narrowing in the enlarging mastery of the secrets of nature and
life.

At this point it seems possible to approach a clearer understanding of
the proper meaning to attach to the generally ill-defined and hazy term
_miracle_.[27] Matthew Arnold's fantastic illustration of the idea of
miracle by supposing a pen changed to a pen-wiper may fit some miracles,
especially those of the Catholic hagiology, but, if applied to those of
Jesus, would be a caricature. In the New Testament a reputed miracle is
not any sort of wonderful work upon any sort of occasion, but an act of
benevolent will exerted for an immediate benefit,[28] and transcending
the then existing range of human intelligence to explain and power to
achieve. The historic reality of at least some such acts performed by
Jesus is acknowledged by critics as free from the faintest trace of
orthodox bias as Keim: "The picture of Jesus, the worker of miracles,
belongs to the first believers in Christ, and is no invention."

It has already been noted that a considerable number of the then reputed
miracles of Jesus, particularly his works of healing, do not