False miracles may commonly be distinguished from the true by (_a_) their accompaniments of immoral conduct or of doctrine contradictory to truth already revealed—as in modern spiritualism; (_b_) their internal characteristics of inanity and extravagance—as in the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, or the miracles of the Apocryphal New Testament; (_c_) the insufficiency of the object which they are designed to further—as in the case of Apollonius of Tyana, or of the miracles said to accompany the publication of the doctrines of the immaculate conception and of the papal infallibility; (_d_) their lack of substantiating evidence—as in mediæval miracles, so seldom attested by contemporary and disinterested witnesses; (_e_) their denial or undervaluing of God’s previous revelation of himself in nature—as shown by the neglect of ordinary means, in the cases of Faith-cure and of so-called Christian Science. Only what is valuable is counterfeited. False miracles presuppose the true. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 283—“The miracles of Jesus originated faith in him, while mediæval miracles follow established faith. The testimony of the apostles was given in the face of incredulous Sadducees. They were ridiculed and maltreated on account of it. It was no time for devout dreams and the invention of romances.” The blood of St. Januarius at Naples is said to be contained in a vial, one side of which is of thick glass, while the other side is of thin. A similar miracle was wrought at Hales in Gloucestershire. St. Alban, the first martyr of Britain, after his head is cut off, carries it about in his hand. In Ireland the place is shown where St. Patrick in the fifth century drove all the toads and snakes over a precipice into the nether regions. The legend however did not become current until some hundreds of years after the saint’s bones had crumbled to dust at Saul, near Downpatrick (see Hemphill, Literature of the Second Century, 180-182). Compare the story of the book of Tobit (6-8), which relates the expulsion of a demon by smoke from the burning heart and liver of a fish caught in the Tigris, and the story of the Apocryphal New Testament (I, Infancy), which tells of the expulsion of Satan in the form of a mad dog from Judas by the child Jesus. On counterfeit miracles in general, see Mozley, Miracles, 15, 161; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 72; A. S. Farrar, Science and Theology, 208; Tholuck, Vermischte Schriften, 1:27; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:630; Presb. Rev., 1881:687-719.