Miracles And The Incarnation

Mirum non esse debet a Deo factum miraculum: mirum enim esset si homo fecisset. Magis gaudere quam mirari debemus, quia Dominus noster et salvator Iesus Christus homo factus est, quam quod divina inter homines Deus fecit. Plus est enim ad salutem nostram quod factus est propter homines, quam quod fecit inter homines: et plus est quod vitia sanavit animarum, quam quod sanavit languores corporum moriturorum. Sed quia ipsa anima non eum noverat a quo sananda erat, et oculos habebat in carne unde facta corporalia videret, nondum habebat sanos in corde, unde Deum latentem cognosceret; fecit quod videre poterat, ut sanaretur unde videre non poterat Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, In Evangelium Ionannis, Tractatus XVII Source: Migne PL 35.1527

It should not be a matter of wonder that God performed a miracle, for the wonder would be if man had done it. We should rejoice more than wonder that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was made man than that God performed Divine works among men. It is of greater importance for our salvation that He was made for men, than what He did among men. It is more important that He healed the faults of souls, than that He healed the infirmities of mortal bodies. But as the soul did not know Him who was to heal it, and had the eyes of flesh by which it saw corporeal deeds and not yet the healthy eyes of the heart with which it could recognise the hidden God, so He did what the soul was able to see, so that being healed it would see what it could not. Saint Augustine of Hippo, from Tractate 17 On The Gospel of St John