It is not necessary to dispute the truthfulness of the report in this and the next sentences on the ground that the events recorded are miraculous in their nature, and therefore cannot have happened. Natural causes may easily have produced some such phenomena as the writers describe, and which they of course regarded as miraculous. Lightfoot refers to a number of similar cases, Vol. I. p. 598 ff. Compare also Harnack in the Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch. II. p. 291 ff.