order and the style which has most power to move men, and especially
uneducated men, to devotion; and therefore it speaks inaccurately of God and
of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to
attract and lay hold of the imagination. (86) If the Bible were to describe
the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the
masses would remain unstirred, whereas the contrary is the case when it
adopts the method of poetic description, and refers all things
immediately to God. (87) When, therefore, the Bible says that the earth is
barren because of men's sins, or that the blind were healed by faith, we
ought to take no more notice than when it says that God is angry at men's
sins, that He is sad, that He repents of the good He has promised and done;
or that on seeing a sign he remembers something He had promised, and other
similar expressions, which are either thrown out poetically or related
according to the opinion and prejudices of the writer.

(88) We may, then, be absolutely certain that every event which is truly
described in Scripture necessarily happened, like everything else, according
to natural laws; and if anything is there set down which can be proved in
set terms to contravene the order of nature, or not to be deducible
therefrom, we must believe it to have been foisted into the sacred writings
by irreligious hands; for whatsoever is contrary to nature is also contrary
to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd, and, ipso facto,
to be rejected.

(89) There remain some points concerning the interpretation of miracles to
be noted, or rather to be recapitulated, for most of them have been already
stated. (90) These I proceed to discuss in the fourth division of my
subject, and I am led to do so lest anyone should, by wrongly interpreting a
miracle, rashly suspect that he has found something in Scripture contrary to
human reason.