THE SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF MIRACLES. 



79 



Avliieh was at full moon ; the disappearing moon at the Ascension 

 was thus a sign of the departure of Christ from the earth. This is 

 in accord with Gen. i, 14, where it is stated that the two great 

 lights are for " Signs " as well as " for seasons and da3's and years." 



((/) The miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit when the 

 Church began its existence (Acts ii, 1— i) was timed to take place 

 on the day of Pentecost. On the same da}' the law had been 

 promulgated by Closes— the practical beginning of the first 

 dispensation. 



It has often been suggested that the Xativity took place on the 

 first day of a feast of Tabernacles, the fifteenth day of the seventh 

 month, one day after full moon ; but want of space prevents us 

 from enumerating the inferences which support this view. Let us 

 assume, however, that it was so. 



(a) The Annunciation to the Virgin Mar}' must have been some 

 iorty weeks liefore the Xativity, and so it could well have been at 

 the holy day of the new moon of the tenth month of the previous 

 year, about the middle of December, when sowing took place. A 

 sign of a new beginning was thus given in the heavens, and the 

 sowers unconsciously proclaimed the same on earth. 



(b) As John the Baptist was five to six months older than Christ 

 (see Luke i, 13, 24, 26), his birth must have been in the month 

 following the Passover (for that feast and Tabernacles are six months 

 apart), just before the harvest was reaped — a time of want to the 

 poorer classes, as the stores of corn of the previous year then ran 

 very low. Christ on the other hand was born (we have assumed) at 

 the glad feast of Tabernacles, when all the fruits of the earth had 

 been gathered in. The condition of things at the birth of the fore- 

 runner and of Christ thus harmonised with their characters described 

 in Matt, xi, 18, 19: "John came neither eating nor drinking 



. the Son of Man came eating and drinking." 

 Several miracles (five or six at least) during Christ's ministr}- 

 were speciall}^ appropriate to the times at which they took place ; 

 for one instance, the feeding of the five thousand was certainly (as 

 the birth of John was probably) at a time shortly before harvest 

 (John vi, 4-14), when consequently the need was greater than 

 usual. 



This appropriateness of the seasons at which the births of John 

 and of Christ and the feeding of the five thousand took place is 



