Article January 3, 1914 Issue

The correspondent whose letter was recently published in...

Frederick Dixon—Ashford, England

Kentish Express

The correspondent whose letter was recently published in your paper seems to have the very haziest idea of what constitutes a miracle. More than this, he seems to think that a miracle is something of the nature of the feats performed by Hindu conjurors; and finally, he seems to regard it as positively outrageous to suppose that there is a God who ever answers prayer. His humor leads him to put it this way: that if he is out of coal and he prays, he will see coal dropping into his cellar, or that if he has no breakfast and he prays, his breakfast will drop through the ceiling. To be quite candid, his idea of prayer is almost as ludicrous as his idea of a miracle, and that is saying a good deal. He reminds one of nothing so much as the elderly lady in the story who, having prayed all night that the mountain opposite her house should be removed, got up in the morning and pulled up the blind with the remark, "I knew it wouldn't be." At the same time, the question of what constitutes a miracle is a distinctly interesting one, and perhaps those of your readers who do not think it consists of automatic supernatural deliveries of coal or bacon, may be intelligently interested in the matter.

The word miracle is derived, of course, from the Latin miraculum, a word which means simply "wonder," and which was adopted by the pagan philosophers to denote their experiments. It had not, until such a meaning was foisted on to it, any supernatural significance, and it never played any part in theology until its first appearance in the later writings of Jerome. Its introduction came about in this way:—

In the Greek Testament there are two words which in the King James version are translated "miracle." The first is dunamis, which means simply an "act of power"; the second, semeion, which means simply a "sign." These are common words in the New Testament, and are by no means always translated "miracle," even by the King James revisers. Sometimes, for instance, as in the famous passage in the last chapter of Mark, the word semeion is translated "sign,"—And these signs [not miracles] shall follow them that believe;" and sometimes the word dunamis is translated "power,"—"And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias." As a matter of fact, dunamis is translated not only "power" and "miracle," but "authority" and even "meaning"; while semeion is translated not only "miracle" and "sign," but also "portent." It is clear, therefore, that the rendering of miracle is purely arbitrary.

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