Chapter 11 — Part I — Article IX (Of the Church)
Section 267. Q. What testimonies are there to confirm us in the belief that the saints, after their departure, work miracles through certain earthly means? A. The second (fourth in the Greek) book of Kings testifies that by touching the bones of the Prophet Elisha a dead man was raised to life. 2 (4) Kings xiii. 21. The Apostle Paul not only in his own immediate person wrought healings and miracles, but the same was done also in his absence by handkerchiefs and aprons taken from his body. Acts xix. 12. By this example we may understand that the saints, even after their deaths, may in like manner work beneficently through earthly means, which have received from them holy virtue. Gregory the Divine, in his first discourse against Julian, says: Thou wast not abashed by the sacrifices offered for Christ, nor didst fear the great athletes, John, Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Luke, Andrew, Thecla, and the rest, who before and after these suffered for the truth; who withstood both fire and sword, the torturers, and all sufferings present or threatened, as if their bodies were not their own, or they had had no bodies at all. For what? That they might not, so much as by a word, betray their religion. To whom also great honors and triumphs are with just reason awarded: by whom devils are expelled and diseases healed: who appear in visions, and prophecy: whose very bodies, though separate, when touched or reverenced, have like power with their holy souls; and drops of whose blood, those least tokens of their suffering, like power with their bodies. John Damascene writes thus: The relics of the saints have been given us by our Lord Jesus Christ as salutary springs, from which manifold blessings flow. And as if in explanation of this, he remarks, that through the mind their bodies also were inhabited of God. (Theol. lib. iv. cap. 15, 3, 4.)