If the miracle reports were lies, craft fails and madness cannot explain the world's faith
If therefore all those things are lies and fictions, certainly Moses and Paul were not, as the profane charge, crafty dealers and cunning men whose purpose was to deceive men and impose on the world. For no one can be deceived in things about which appeal is made to his ears, eyes, and experience. But it is necessary that they were — far be the blasphemous saying — men plainly raging and insane. And yet their writings, with the atheists themselves as judges, prove enough that they were of sound mind. For they speak things coherent with themselves, and in which much prudence and wisdom is to be discerned.
Next, let us feign they were insane men who wrote with the highest madness or imprudence and presented those lies as true, which they could be charged openly and by all. Whence then did it come about that the Israelites looked up to Moses, and the Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, and others to Paul, as divine and holy men, and received their discipline with so great reverence — although in many things it is ungrateful to the flesh, burdensome, and repugnant to human affections — and that no profit returned therefrom to those who thus willed to be deceived, if the matter is valued from men's sense? Certainly no miracle, nor any portent, is more incredible than this: that the doctrine of insane men, and their thick and foul lies, without any aid either divine or human, obtained so great faith among those very people for whom it was impossible not to recognize and notice their insanity and lies.
And here that ancient dilemma has place: the miracles narrated in the Scriptures are true, or not true. If true, the doctrine and scripture to whose confirmation they were applied are true also. But if they are not true, it is more than a miracle that a doctrine so abhorrent from men's sense, and stuffed with so many lies which anyone was ready to charge, was nonetheless received with so great ardor without any help divine or human, and retained with so great constancy through exiles, crosses, and tortures, while those eminent in the world by power and prudence were raging and indignant.
Since therefore what Moses and Paul recount about miracles done in confirmation of the Law and the Gospel is written in such a manner that those to whom they were writing could at once recognize whether they were saying true or false — since they are things about which appeal is made to their experience and senses — and yet so great faith was given to those writings by those who first received them, and thereafter even to this day, it is plainly necessary that they wrote true things, and that the miracles they narrate are true, and therefore that Scripture and the doctrine in whose confirmation God willed those things to happen are true.
Latin
XXI. Si ergo ista omnia mendacia sunt et figmenta, certe Moses et Paulus non fuerunt, ut profani criminantur, veteratores et homines callidi, quibus propositum fuit homines decipere et mundo imponere. Nemo enim decipi potest in iis de quibus ad aures, ad oculos, et experientiam illius provocatur. Sed necesse est ut fuerint, absit blasphemiae dicto, homines plane furentes et insani. Atqui scripta eorum, judicibus ipsis Atheis, satis arguunt eos fuisse mentis compotes. Loquuntur enim sibi cohaerentia, et in quibus multum cernere est prudentiae et sapientiae. XXII. Deinde, fingamus eos fuisse homines inanos, qui summa cum amentia, sive imprudentia scripserint, et pro veris obtruserint ea mendacia de quibus poterant palam et ab omnibus argui; Unde factum igitur ut Israelitae Mosen, Corinthii, Romani, Galatae, aliique Paulum tanquam viros divinos et sanctos suspexerint, et disciplinam eorum susceperint tanta cum reverentia: licet in multis carni ingrata sit, et onerosa et affectibus humanis repugnet: Nec ullum inde ad eos, qui sic decipi voluerunt, si res ex hominum sensu aestimetur, redierit emolumentum. Certe nullum miraculum, neque ullum portentum magis est incredibile quam hoc, doctrinam hominum insanorum, eorumque crassa et taeda mendacia, sine ullo adjumento vel divino, vel humano fidem tantam obtinuisse apud eos ipsos, quibus impossibile erat insaniam et mendacia eorum non agnoscere et animadvertere. XXIII. Atque hic locum habet priscum illud dilemma, miracula quae narrantur in Scripturis vera sunt, vel non vera: si vera, vera quoque est doctrina et scriptura ad cujus confirmationem adhibita fuerunt. Si autem vera non sint, plusquam miraculum est doctrinam ita a sensu hominum abhorrentem, et refertam tot mendaciis, quae promptum erat cuivis arguere, nihilo minus absque ulla ope divina, vel humana, tanto cum ardore susceptam, et retentam tanta constantia, per exilia, per cruces, per tormenta, frementibus et indignantibus qui in mundo potestate et prudentia eminebant. XXIV. Quandoquidem igitur quae Moses et Paulus memorant de miraculis factis in confirmationem Legis et Evangelii, eo modo scripta sunt, ut illi quibus scribebant statim agnoscere potuerint verumne an falsum dicerent, cum sint res de quibus ad eorum experientiam et sensus provocatur, et tamen scriptis illis tanta fides habita sit ab illis, qui primi ea susceperunt, et deinceps usque in hodiernum diem, plane necesse est eos vera scripsisse, et vera esse miracula quae narrant, ac proinde veram esse Scripturam et doctrinam in cujus confirmationem Deus illa fieri voluit.