3. We have also incidentally shown that they did not profess to be miracles in the proper meaning of the word, that is, evident innovations on the laws of nature. At the utmost they do but exemplify the aphorism, "Knowledge is power."[343] Such as are within the range of human knowledge are no miracles. Those of them, on the contrary, which are beyond it, will be found on inspection to be unintelligible, and to convey no evidence. The prediction of an earthquake (for instance) is not necessarily superhuman. An interpretation of the discourse of birds can never be verified. In understanding languages, knowing future events, discovering the purposes of others, recognising human souls when enclosed in new bodies, Apollonius merely professes extreme penetration and extraordinary acquaintance with nature. The spell by which he evokes spirits and exorcises demons, implies the mere possession of a secret;[344] and so perfectly is his biographer aware of this, as almost to doubt the resuscitation of the Roman damsel, the only decisive miracle of them all, on the ground of its being supernatural, insinuating that perhaps she was dead only in appearance.[345] Accordingly, in the narrative which we have extracted above, he begins by saying that she "seemed to have died," or "was to all appearance dead;" and again at the end of it he speaks of her "seeming death." Hence, moreover, may be understood the meaning of the charge of magic, as brought against the early Christians by their heathen adversaries; the miracles of the Gospels being strictly interruptions of physical order, and incompatible with theurgic knowledge.[346] When our Lord and His Apostles declare themselves to be sent from God, this claim to a divine mission illustrates and gives dignity to their profession of extraordinary power; whereas the divinity,[347] no less than the gift of miracles to which Apollonius laid claim, must be understood in its Pythagorean sense, as referring not to any intimate connection with a Supreme Agent, but to his partaking, through his theurgic skill, more largely than others in the perfections of the animating principle of nature. 6.