Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.15

Having spoken of the second birth, by which He revealed Himself to humanity in the flesh, we now turn to those marvelous works which, though they were heavenly signs of power, the Jews dismissed as sorcery. When He first began to mature, He was baptized by the prophet John in the Jordan River, that by a spiritual washing He might cleanse not His own sins — for He had none — but the sins of the flesh He had assumed. He did this so that, just as the Jews were saved through the circumcision they received, so also the Gentiles might be saved through baptism, that is, through the sprinkling of purifying dew. Then a voice was heard from heaven: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" (Psalm 2:7). This same voice had been foretold by David. And the Spirit of God descended upon Him in the form of a white dove. From that moment He began to perform mighty deeds, not by magical tricks that display nothing true or solid, but by heavenly power and authority — deeds the prophets had long ago proclaimed. These works are so numerous that no single book could contain them all. I will therefore enumerate them briefly and in general categories, without naming specific persons or places, so that I may arrive at the explanation of the meaning of His passion and cross, toward which my discourse has long been hastening.

His mighty works were what Apollo called "portentous," because wherever He went He restored the sick, the weak, and those suffering from every kind of disease to full health with a single word and in a single instant. The result was that people who had been completely paralyzed, suddenly strengthened by recovered power, picked up their own stretchers — the very beds on which they had been carried only a short time before — and carried them away. To those crippled or afflicted with defects of the feet He gave not only the ability to walk but even to run. To those whose eyes were blind in deepest darkness He restored their original sight. He loosened the tongues of the mute into speech and conversation, and to the deaf, with their ears opened, He gave hearing. He cleansed those defiled and sprinkled with stains. He did all these things not with His hands or any medicine, but with His word and command, just as the Sibyl had also predicted: "Doing all things by a word and healing every disease." Nor is it surprising that He performed wonders by a word, since He Himself is the Word of God, upheld by heavenly power and authority. It was not enough that He gave strength to the weak, soundness to the frail, and health to the sick and languishing; He also raised the dead, as if freeing them from sleep and recalling them to life. The Jews who witnessed these things charged that they were done by demonic power, even though their own secret writings contained all these events exactly as they came to pass.