Luke attests to God's providential oversight by certain ‘miraculous’ means. He refers to the signs and wonders which God performs and reports a number of healings which Jesus is able to perform because ‘God was with him’ (Acts 10.38). This function of emphasizing God's ongoing guidance of history by portentous events shares certain similarities with the way such events are presented in hellenistic histories. Nevertheless, such phenomena are critically evaluated by Diodorus, Dionysius and Josephus, as well as by Luke, who reports that both Jesus and Paul cast out demons which attempt to hinder or oppose the agents of God's plan. Luke thus uses this ‘miraculous’ domain to confirm his presentation of God's providential guidance and to show how such events play a significant role in the plan of God.

Portents in Hellenistic historiography

Signs sent by the gods

The hellenistic historians we have considered demonstrate the popular acceptance of the role of divine interventions in human history. Both Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Diodorus Siculus report many such portentous occurrences, which were popularly considered to have been signs from the gods indicating their will. The science of divination arose as a means of interpreting the significance of such omens, which Cicero divided into two main categories (alterum artis est, alterum naturae, De div. 1.6. II) in order to make sense of the bewildering range of ways in which the gods were believed to have been communicating.