[iv][1] Moreover whatever is brought to full realization with the aid of miracles is willed by God, and consequently comes about by right. And it is clear that this is true because, as Thomas says in his third book Contra Gentiles, a miracle is something done by divine intervention outside the normal order in our created world.

[2] And thus he proves that only God has the power to perform miracles; and this is corroborated by the authority of Moses, where he tells how, when confronted with the gnats, Pharoah’s magicians, using natural principles in the service of their arts and failing, said: “This is the finger of God”.

[3] Now if a miracle is a direct action by the First Cause without the mediation of secondary agents – as Thomas himself proves with sufficient rigour in the book just cited – then when a portent takes place in favour of something, it is wicked to say that the thing so favoured is not ordained by God as something pleasing to him.

[4] It is therefore holy to acknowledge the converse: the Roman empire was aided by the help of miracles to achieve supremacy; therefore it was willed by God; and consequently it was and is founded on right.

[5] That God performed miracles so that the Roman empire might be supreme is confirmed by the testimony of illustrious authors. For Livy tells in the first part of his work that in the time of Numa Pompilius, the second king of the Romans, a shield fell from heaven into God’s chosen city as he was sacrificing according to the pagan rite.

[6] Lucan recalls this miracle in the ninth book of the Pharsalia where he describes the incredible force of the South wind to which Libya is exposed; for he says:No doubt the shields,Which chosen youths bore on patrician necks,Fell before Numa as he sacrificed;The South wind or the North had robbed their bearersOf shields which now are ours.

[7] When the Gauls, having captured the rest of the city, and trusting to the shadows of night, secretly stole up to the Capitol (whose fall would have meant the annihilation of the very name of Rome), a goose never seen there before cried warning that the Gauls had come and roused the guardians to defend the Capitol (Livy and many other illustrious writers concur in their testimony).

[8] Our poet recalled this incident when he described Aeneas’ shield in the eighth book; for he writes as follows:At the top before the temple stoodManlius, guardian of the Tarpeian rock,And held the lofty heights of the Capitol;The new-built palace was rough with Romulus’ thatch.Here flying through the golden colonnadesA silver goose cried warning that the GaulsWere at the gate.

[9] And when the nobility of Rome, under siege by Hannibal, was fallen so low that all that remained to complete the destruction of Roman might was the onslaught of the Carthaginians on the city, the victors were unable to complete their victory because of a sudden unbearably violent hailstorm which threw them into confusion. Livy recounts this among other events in the Punic wars.

[10] And when, during the siege of Porsenna, Cloelia – a woman, and a prisoner – broke her chains and swam across the Tiber with the miraculous help of God, as almost all Roman historians relate to her glory, was her crossing not miraculous?

[11] It was utterly fitting that he who ordained all things from eternity in harmonious order should operate in this manner: that just as he would, when visibile, perform miracles as testimony for invisible things, so he should, while still invisible, perform them as testimony for visible things.