(iii) But if the source of the miracles is thus to be sought in the Sacred Humanity, that Humanity is, after all, the perfect ideal and norm of all humanity. Whatever exceptional powers of genius, whatever special faculties and latent gifts of mind and will have appeared at rare intervals among men, these we should expect to find exemplified, one and all, in the Life of Christ, had that Life come down to us in a complete form. Now, it cannot be questioned that in every age a few individuals have been found, who were endowed with a preternatural therapeutic power, connected generally with a very subtle power of sympathy, but, in some instances, if we may believe what we are told, inherent in a person who had no wish whatever to exercise it.[27] That some such virtue resided in Christ, and accounts for some part of His healing work, need not be questioned. The records may be said to imply it in two passages,[28] that which relates to the act of the woman who touched the hem of His garment in the crowd, and that which speaks of this method of cure as ofttimes repeated. They besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment--and as many as touched were made whole. [27] See an article by Dr. A. T. Schofield in the _Contemporary Review_, March 1909, for examples. [28] Matt. ix. 20 (Mark v. 27); Matt. xiv. 36 (Mark vi. 56); also Luke vi. 19: Power came forth from Him and healed them all. Cp. Acts, xix. 11, 12 and v. 15; the Apostles and, apparently, our Lord sanctioned a sort of sacramental medium of cure to meet the needs of a simple populace. It is possible, no doubt, to account for such cures on a purely naturalistic hypothesis, such as that which Keim[29] accepts, viz. that they were cases of faith-healing; a phenomenon which recurs in connexion with nearly every form of religious belief, and in every stage of social development. The influence of the spiritual imagination on the bodily state is undeniable. Everyone knows something about the phenomena of Lourdes and Bethshan, healing resorts which, theologically speaking, lie at opposite poles. In a cruder form the same effects are found in connexion with holy wells and relics of the saints.[30] We may go back to the ancients and find wonderful cures reported in the pagan world, from the shrines of Asclepius (the patron deity of physicians). A blind man touches the altar of Aesculapides (as he was called at Rome) on the island of the Tiber and receives his sight.[31] The Emperors Hadrian and Vespasian used to touch for the ‘King’s evil.’[32] [29] See Bruce, _op. cit._ p. 275. [30] See chaps. xxvi. and xxxi. in Rev. Percy Dearmer’s _Body and Soul_. [31] O. Weinreich, _Antike Heilungswunden_, p. 63. Scholars will remember how Plutus recovered his sight by incubation in the temple of Asclepius in Aristophanes’ play. [32] Weinreich, p. 75.