The Acts of the Apostles

MIRACLES AND WORKS OF THE SPIRIT 153
need not discuss the two cases of sudden blinding (St.
Paul and Elymas) and the punishment of Herod by
death. The latter is simply a real event narrated
from a religious point of view ; St. Paul really lost his
sight for a short time ; and the story of the blinding
of Elymas by St. Paul, which certainly did not occur
in the way we are told, has probably some historical
nucleus, though no one if he is wise will venture to
state what it is, for it is possible to conjecture all
kinds of things. It is enough to know that the Pro-
consul's magician lost his eyesight at the time that
the influence of St. Paul won over his patron. We
cannot well imagine that the story is pure inven-
tion ; for why is it that nothing dreadful happens to
Simon Magus, who is painted in much darker colours ?
This negative fact seems to me very important ; for
if St. Luke wished to invent miracles there was no
more fitting place to insert one than here. And for
this very reason I regard the recourse to similar traits
of constant occurrence in novels of those times as
quite uncalled for.
There remain therefore only the Ascension, the
miracle of Pentecost, the Earthquake, and the story
of Ananias and Sapphira. Here also we may at once
eliminate the miracle of Pentecost. The countless
learned essays on this subject are really not worth the
paper on which they are written. There is only need
of a little literary feeling and understanding in order
to recognise that St. Luke the litterateur has here
taken the liberty of dressing up the phenomenon of
« speaking with tongues " in a grandiose style, although
its real nature and its form of manifestation were