Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

³ Now we find that three dead persons were raised by the Lord “visibly,” thousands “invisibly.” Nay, who knows even how many dead He raised visibly? For all the things that He did are not written. John tells us this, “Many other things Jesus did, the which if they should be written, I suppose that the whole world could not contain the books.” So then there were without doubt many others raised: but it is not without a meaning that the three are expressly recorded. For our Lord Jesus Christ would that those things which He did on the body should be also spiritually understood.

For He did not merely do miracles for the miracles' sake; but in order that the things which He did should inspire wonder in those who saw them, and convey truth to them who understand. As he who sees letters in an excellently written manuscript, and knows not how to read, praises indeed the transcriber's hand, and admires the beauty of the characters; but what those characters mean or signify he does not know; and by the sight of his eyes he is a praiser of the work, but in his mind has no comprehension of it; whereas another man both praises the work, and is capable of understanding it; such an one, I mean, who is not only able to see what is common to all, but who can read also; which he who has never learned cannot.

So they who saw Christ's miracles, and understood not what they meant, and what they in a manner conveyed to those who had understanding, wondered only at the miracles themselves; whereas others both wondered at the miracles, and attained to the meaning of them. Such ought we to be in the school of Christ. For he who says that Christ only worked miracles, for the miracles' sake, may say too that He was ignorant that it was not the time for fruit, when He sought figs upon the fig-tree. For it was not the time for that fruit, as the Evangelist testifies; and yet being hungry He sought for fruit upon the tree.

Did not Christ know, what any peasant knew? What the dresser of the tree knew, did not the tree's Creator know? So then when being hungry He sought fruit on the tree, He signified that He was hungry, and seeking after something else than this; and He found that tree without fruit, but full of leaves, and He cursed it, and it withered away. What had the tree done in not bearing fruit? What fault of the tree was its fruitlessness? No; but there are those who through their own will are not able to yield fruit.

And barrenness is “their” fault, whose fruitfulness is their will. The Jews then who had the words of the Law, and had not the deeds, were full of leaves, and bare no fruit. This have I said to persuade you, that our Lord Jesus Christ performed miracles with this view, that by those miracles He might signify something further, that besides that they were wonderful and great, and divine in themselves, we might learn also something from them.