{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1892,"date_label":"1892 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1892,"edition_year":1892,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series II Volume III title and contemporary Jackson bibliography, 1892; physical transcription printing unknown; scan/transcription preface dates differ","id":"ws-library-full-note:54fcd4479ad1d7afe04f:cite_note-28","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter uncertain; original source section: Contents and Character of the Extant Works, editorial note cite_note-28","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["(ii) The Religious History, several times referred to in the Ecclesiastical History, and therefore an earlier composition, contains the lives of thirty-three famous ascetics, of whom three were women. The “curious intellectual problem” of the readiness with which Theodoret, a disciple of the “prosaic and critical” school of Antioch, accepts and repeats marvellous tales of the miracles of his contemporary hermits, has been invested with fresh interest in our own time by the apparent sympathy and similar belief of Dr. Newman, who asks “What made him drink in with such relish what we reject with such disgust? Was it that, at least, some miracles were brought home so absolutely to his sensible experience that he had no reason for doubting the others which came to him second-hand? This certainly will explain what to most of us is sure to seem the stupid credulity of so well-read, so intellectual an author.” Cardinal Newman evidently implies that the evidence was irresistible, even to a keen and trained intelligence. Probably in many cases the explanation is to be found, as has been already suggested in the remarks on Theodoret’s birth, in the ready acceptance of the current views of the age and place as to cause and effect. Theodoret believed in the marvels of his monks. Matthew Hale believed in witchcraft. Neither, that is, was some centuries removed from his own age. Neither need be accused of stupid credulity. The enthusiasm which led him to reckon on finding the noble army of martyrs a very present help in time of trouble because he had a little bottle of their oil, probably that burned at their graves, slung over his bed; and his assurance that the old cloak of Jacobus, folded for his pillow, was a more than adamantine bulwark against the wiles of the devil, indicate no more than an exaggerated reliance on the power of material memorials to affect the imagination. And it is curious to remark that with all this acceptance of the cures effected by ascetics, Theodoret made a provision of medical skill for his flock at Cyrus."],"source_library_url":"/library/54fcd4479ad1d7afe04f/#ws-library-full-note:54fcd4479ad1d7afe04f:cite_note-28","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_III/Theodoret/Prolegomena/Contents_and_Character_of_the_Extant_Works#cite_note-28","translator":"Blomfield Jackson","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0062/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"87ac19c66dcf691b7d925a42029bc37a8a4357e5c005fab9223fd715854f7606","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:54fcd4479ad1d7afe04f:cite_note-28"},"verified":true,"work":"Prolegomena","work_id":"ws-npnf2-3-jackson-d2a971243e02713ed703"}