Thus far we have established two points in regard to supernatural religion, namely, the possibility of supernatural revelation and the possibility of miracles. Both are proved by arguments that are absolutely convincing, in as much as the very fact of creation necessarily gives God the right and the power to communicate directly with the human soul, and to suspend, in particular instances, the laws of nature enacted by His own free will. Besides this, it was pointed out that miracles, when wrought in confirmation of any supposedly revealed doctrine, place the truth of that doctrine beyond all doubt; for they are the direct and explicit testimony of God, Who cannot deceive nor be deceived. Now the important question arises, whether it can be proved to a certainty that miracles were wrought in confirmation of any doctrine which was proposed as revealed by God; because if this can be proved, then the doctrine in question must be God's own special message to men, and all, who can attain to a knowledge thereof, must receive it on peril of losing their immortal soul.
As a matter of fact, Christianity has put forward this claim ever since its first introduction. From its very origin it pointed to Jesus of Nazareth, "Who," as St. Peter told the Jews on the first Christian Pentecost morning, "was approved of God by miracles, and wonders, and signs which God did by Him."{1} It announced to the world that this same Jesus had been foretold by the Prophets of the Old Law; that He had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him; that He had of His own free will laid down His life, and had through His own power taken it up again; that He ascended into heaven, and now sitteth at the right hand of God the Father, whence also He shall come to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. It proclaimed to all nations the glad tidings of Christ's divine personality and His saving doctrine, which came down from heaven as God's own special message, making known to all the manner in which God wished to be worshiped and served by His reasonable creatures, whom He made to His own image and likeness, and in whom He restored that image when disfigured by sin. Hence the question, whether any supposedly supernatural revelation was ever confirmed by undoubted miracles, is equivalent to this, whether the miracles which are adduced as proofs of the truth of Christianity can be shown to be so many historical facts to which no reasonable person can take exception.
The question before us is, therefore, of a purely historical character, and its answer must depend upon the value of available documentary evidence. If we can bring forward reliable historical documents in which said miracles are recorded as undoubted facts, Christianity is divine in its origin, and the truths which it announces to the world are God's own special message to man. If such documentary evidence is not available, the claims of Christianity, if true, must be substantiated by other means; the miracles, and wonders, and signs of which St. Peter spoke to the Jews, do then no longer form a convincing argument.
That it possesses such documentary evidence, Christianity has always maintained, claiming that it received from the Apostles and their immediate disciples the title-deeds of the faith which it announced to the world. The principal documents constituting these title-deeds are the four Gospels, which contain a brief yet sufficiently clear statement of Christ's doctrines and the miracles which He wrought in confirmation of His divine mission. There are, indeed, other Apostolical writings, 166 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION
wherein are contained divine revelations and accounts of miracles, yet with them we need not concern ourselves for the present. If we can show that the Gospels are reliable historical documents, the question is settled; for these Gospels tell us in plain terms that many and great miracles were wrought by Christ in confirmation of His divine mission, and therefore necessarily in proof of the doctrines which He proposed to His disciples, and through them to the whole world.{2}
Now to prove that the Gospels are reliable historical documents, we must establish these three points: First, that they are authentic, that is, that they were written at the time to which they are referred and by the men to whom they are ascribed; second, that they are truthful, that is, that the events recorded in them really occurred as there described; third, that they have not been interpolated, that is, that in course of time no new and unauthorized matter has been inserted. If these three points can be proved to satisfaction, the reliability of the Gospels as historical documents cannot possibly be called in question. We shall discuss the matter, therefore, under these three aspects.
First, then, the Gospels are authentic documents. In reference to this point, however, I might remark in passing, that it is quite sufficient for our present purpose, if it can be shown that the Gospels were written by the Apostles, or under their immediate supervision; for as far as their historical value is concerned, it makes no difference whatever whether, for instance, John and Matthew were the authors of the Gospels ascribed to them, or whether these two Gospels are in reality the work of Peter and James. The one thing of importance is, that the men who wrote the Gospels were eye-witnesses of what they relate, or at least wrote under the immediate supervision and with the approval of eye-witnesses. For other reasons the Church holds, indeed, that the four Gospels are the work of the Evangelists to whom they have always been ascribed, but that view does not enter our present question. Show that the Gospels were written by the Apostles, or under their immediate supervision, and there is not a respectable historian, Christian or infidel, who will object to their authenticity, as far as that authenticity affects their historical value. This being premised, the authenticity of the Gospels admits absolutely of no doubt. The proofs in its favor are so weighty and so clear that neither logic nor learning can reason them away. And first of all, a mere reading of the Gospel narrative ought to convince any one, who is open to conviction, that the writers were either themselves witnesses of the events which they relate, or else received them immediately from such witnesses. When we compare the Gospels with other sources of information concerning these same matters, we find that the laws and customs of the country then in force, the religious and political principles then and there in vogue, the places at which particular events happened, the persons concerned in them, and a thousand other particulars, are so minutely and accurately described as could not possibly have been done except by persons who were contemporaries of Christ and inhabitants of Judea. Higher criticism has exerted all its ingenuity to detect some flaw which might be construed into an apparent proof against the authenticity of the Gospels, but all in vain; "not a single, detail in the Gospel history contradicts any circumstance of place or time or persons." As Dr. F. Hettinger has well put it: "Every word bears the stamp of personal experience; the minute and lucid details, the trifling incidents, the dramatic freshness and intuition, especially in the fourth Gospel, could only have emanated from eye-witnesses of the events." The arguments thus furnished by the Gospels themselves are corroborated by proofs drawn from extrinsic sources. Passages from the Gospels are quoted by writers who were disciples of the Apostles, and who, therefore, were fully informed concerning the source whence the Gospels came. Such writers are St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch, the former being a disciple of St. Peter, and the latter of St. John. To these must be added the authors of three important documents, entitled respectively, The Doctrine of the Apostles, The Shepherd of Hermas, and The Epistle of Barnabas. There is considerable controversy regarding the personal identity of the authors in question, but it is agreed by the most competent critics, that they lived at the beginning of the second century, and that they were, therefore, in immediate touch with the Apostles and their disciples. Equal to these in point of authority, as witnesses for the authenticity of the Gospels, are St. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, and St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.{3} Both were contemporaries of those who had seen the Lord, and St. Irenaeus, who knew them personally, tells us that they were disciples of St. John, the Evangelist.
Again, St. Justin Martyr, who lived in the first half of the second century, therefore immediately after the death of St. John, states explicitly that "the memoirs of the Apostles, called Gospels, were publicly read in the assemblies of the Christians, even as were the writings of the Prophets."{4} And in his dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, he states again that these memoirs were written by the Apostles themselves and by their disciples. Now, as he speaks of the reading of these Gospels as an established custom, it is quite evident that at the beginning of the second century, whilst the disciples of the Apostles were still living, the Gospels were publicly and officially recognized in the Church as Apostolical writings.
These extrinsic proofs are still further strengthened by the fact that the different heretics of the second century cited the Gospels so as to give Apostolic authority to their false teachings. Such quotations would have been utterly useless had it not been generally known that the Gospels had been written by the Apostles, or at least under their immediate supervision and with their approval. Among these false teachers we find Basilides, a disciple of Simon Magus, and Valentinus, a contemporary of St. Justin. Finally, Tatian, another heretic, who lived during the life-time of St. Justin, composed a Gospel Harmony, which, as modern critics concede, was a compilation of our four Gospels. At about the same time there appeared an orthodox Syrian version of all four Gospels which found ready acceptance. Hence we are compelled to say that there is not extant a single historical document of ancient times, the authenticity of which is even half as well established as that of the Gospel narratives. To reject them as unauthentic, in the sense before indicated, means nothing less than universal historical skepticism.{5}
The next point to be determined is, whether the Evangelists were truthful in relating the events contained in their narratives. To prove that they were, we must show that they had accurate knowledge of what they wrote, and that they narrated events precisely as they knew them. Concerning their knowledge there can be no doubt; for as we have seen, at least two of the Evangelists were eyewitnesses of what they related, and the other two received their account from eye-witnesses. Moreover, the events recorded by them were public facts, which had happened in the presence of many persons, sometimes of hundreds and of thousands. It is at times objected that the Evangelists were uneducated, and that therefore their testimony has little weight, but this is mere caviling. All they had to do was to use their eyes and their ears; to hear and see what was happening in their very presence. Unless we suppose that the Evangelists were blind and deaf, and devoid of all common sense, we are forced to admit that they had accurate knowledge of what they related.
Nor is it less certain that they truthfully recorded the events in question. This is first of all evident from the fact that they could have no motive for deception. We sometimes meet with deceivers, yet even the most notorious of them will not practice their trade except when it affords them some advantage, either real or imaginary. Now that the Evangelists could not expect to derive any advantage from trying to foist upon the world a false account of what they had witnessed, is manifest from the very nature of the case. For the expected advantage must have been either something spiritual or temporal; yet it could be neither. It could not be spiritual; for as they had been trained up in the Jewish religion, they knew perfectly well that God would not reward them for telling a falsehood, especially as that falsehood tended to subvert the divinely established religion of God's chosen people, and aimed at nothing less than to make a God of one whom they must have known to be a mere man. Nor could they expect any temporal advantage; for on account. of what they related they were treated with bitter hatred and contempt; they were imprisoned and scourged and tortured, and nearly all were put to death; and yet not one of them retracted an iota of what he had related, though by so doing he might have escaped all these temporal evils. Consequently, not only had they no motive for deceiving, but they had every motive not to deceive; and hence, unless we make them out to have been insane, we must needs admit that they gave a faithful account of what they knew to be true.
Moreover, the Evangelists could not have misrepresented events even if they had tried. To realize this more clearly, let us transfer the case to the present time. Suppose that a dozen men were to begin here to-day the work upon which the Apostles entered after our Lord's ascension, what a stir it would cause! Suppose they were to accuse the mayor and other city officials, the archbishop and priests, and many of the most prominent citizens, of having put to death a person who was most certainly the Son of God; a person who had cured the most inveterate diseases by a mere word of his mouth or wave of his hand; nay, who called the dead from the grave and restored them in full health and vigor to their friends; do you think that such statements would go unchallenged? And if then in answer to this challenge these same men were to point out the persons who had been cured, or were restored to life; if they were to give their names and places of residence; if they were to appeal to hundreds and thousands of witnesses who had seen these signs and wonders, so much so that vast multitudes were to follow them: is it even conceivable that they should not be contradicted and held up to ridicule if their charges were false and their statements untrue? And if thus contradicted and ridiculed, is it possible that their discomfiture should not be handed down to future ages, especially if their indictment against the city authorities were so handed down? Yet this is precisely what happened in the case of the Evangelists. They openly charged the chief priests and the leaders of the people with the murder of their promised Messiah;{6} they pointed out in detail the wonders and miracles which He had wrought in confirmation of His divine mission;{7} they adduced thousands of witnesses in proof of their statements, and not once were they contradicted or accused of falsehood The authorities thus publicly accused showed indeed that they were extremely annoyed; they had even recourse to the lash in order to impose silence,{8} and after the fashion of our so-called higher critics they tried to explain away the prodigies that occurred in their midst; yet they admitted, however reluctantly, that Christ had worked great signs and wonders.{9} Thus Josephus, a Jew by birth and religion, and the contemporary of Christ, states explicitly, in his book of Jewish Antiquities, that Christ wrought great wonders, that He rose from the dead, and had many disciples both among the Jews and the Greeks.{10} Nay, even the Talmud, a book of highest authority among the Jews, bears witness to Christ's marvellous works, though, of course, it tries to explain them as enchantments.{11} Consequently, we are forced to conclude that the Evangelists related truthfully what they had seen and heard; handing down to future generations a faithful account of the events that had taken place during Christ's stay upon earth.
The same conclusion is forced upon us by a mere reading of the Gospel narrative. We find there a directness of statement, a simplicity of narrative, and a conscious portrayal of the truth, even where there are apparent discrepancies, that is altogether foreign to forgeries. This has been strikingly put by J. J. Rousseau, the leader of French Rationalists in the eighteenth century. "Consider," he says, "the gentleness of Jesus, the purity of His morals, the persuasiveness of His teaching. How lofty His principles! What wisdom in His words! How opportune, frank and direct His answers! How can the Gospel history be an invention? My friend, forgeries are not of this kind, and the acts of Socrates, which no one doubts, are not so well attested as the acts of Christ. Besides, this only increases the difficulty. Far more inconceivable is it that several men should have combined to fabricate this book, than that there should have been one living original whom they described. No Jewish author could have fabricated the tone or moral teaching of the Evangelists. So powerful, overwhelming, and inimitable is the impress of truth stamped upon the Gospel, that its inventor would be a greater marvel than its hero."{12}
Hence there remains only one escape for the adversaries of Christianity, and that is the theory of interpolation. According to this theory, the Gos pels are historical documents, but in course of time much has been added that was not in the original narrative. Whatever is more or less ordinary, and can be explained on merely natural principles, may be admitted as true history; but such marvellous events as the restoration of a dead man to life, the instantaneous cure of naturally incurable diseases, and above all the resurrection of Christ, were added at later times, when there was not so much danger of encountering the contradiction of the Jews. Such is the theory much advocated in these days, when all other efforts to discredit the Gos pels have utterly failed. And what are we going to say against it? Only this, that it is utterly absurd. What Rousseau said about the Gospels in general, that we may apply to the narration of these miraculous events in particular: "So powerful, overwhelming, and inimitable is the impress of truth stamped upon them, that their inventor would be a greater marvel than these marvels themselves." The most astounding miracles are related with the same simplicity and candor of statement, and with the same personal indifference, as the common, everyday occurrences of Christ's public life. Not a word of admiration for the Wonder-Worker; not an effort to arrest the attention of the reader. The same style, the same sentiment, the same directness of purpose throughout. "My friends, forgeries are not of this kind."
Besides this, however, the jealous care, with which the earliest Christian communities watched over the Apostolical ordinances and writings, made all substantial change simply impossible. Whilst the Evangelists and many of the other disciples were still living, copies of the Gospels had been obtained by the various churches in Asia and Europe, and were publicly read in the assemblies of the Christians. Now let us suppose that some one had ventured to insert into the original documents accounts of miracles and of other extraordinary occurrences, what would have been the result? First of all, this would sooner or later have come to the ears of the Jews and other enemies of Christianity, and they would simply have held up the Christian religion to ridicule and scorn, because of these false credentials. Secondly, the authors of the Gospel narratives themselves would have protested against such unwarranted tamperings with their work, and like St. Paul, they would have called such additions "old wives' fables to which no one should pay heed." Thirdly, even the Christian communities would have risen up in arms against such innovations, for they were most tenacious of the Apostolical traditions and ordinances. Thus when at a somewhat later date a new translation of the Gospel was read, in which but one passage had been changed, the whole congregation was brought to its feet, protesting that it was not the Gospel delivered to them by their fathers.{13} Fourthly, the bishops, to whose care the different churches had been entrusted, would never have tolerated any interference with the sacred writings. They were the official custodians of the title-deeds of the faith, and in the very nature of things guarded them with jealous care. Hence when certain overzealous Christians copied the original documents, and added to them some pious stories concerning Christ's childhood, they were severely censured and their writings were prohibited.
Lastly, the indisputable fact, that all the copies of the Gospels which have come down to succeeding ages, as well as the numerous quotations from them scattered through the writings of the Fathers, are substantially the same, places this matter beyond all dispute. If the original documents were different from our present Gospels, how is it that not a copy of them has survived? How is it that not a single quotation shows this difference? Did God after all work a miracle so as to enable our higher critics to say that miracles are impossible? For nothing short of a miracle could have so completely obliterated the genuine Gospel story that not a trace of its existence remains. Suppose, for a moment, that some hundred different cities of the United States and Canada and South America had copies of certain official documents, which they guarded with jealous care; suppose that even the private citizens were ever on the alert to prevent falsification, and then suppose that some copies were nevertheless falsified: is it even conceivable that only the forgeries should be preserved, and the genuine documents should absolutely perish? The very idea is absurd, and the fact that our self-styled higher critics put forward such an idea shows how hopeless are their endeavors to throw discredit on the Gospels as we possess them to-day. Hence our present Gospels are reliable historical documents, and the accounts of miracles contained therein are as true as, and much more certain than, any fact in profane history.
But, you may ask, how is it then that men of undoubted learning; men who occupy professors' chairs in famous universities, refuse to accept these accounts? "Hath much learning made them mad?" Yes, so it seems. They start out with the foolish supposition that supernatural revelation and mysteries and miracles are impossible, and consequently, if they wish to be logical, they must reject all that is plainly supernatural in the Gospels, though it be better attested than any fact in profane history admitted by all without dispute. It is not so much in the name of historical criticism, but rather in the name of philosophy, that modern critics essay the undoing of the Gospels. The Evangelists may be worthy of credence, but not so the miraculous stories that have found a place in their narratives; they are simply impossible, and therefore they must be rejected, whatever may be the historical value of the documents in which they occur.
This is, for example, the course pursued by the most formidable of all modern Rationalists, Professor Harnack of the Berlin University. In his recent work, entitled, "What Is Christianity?" he puts it down as a self-evident proposition that, understood as "an interruption of the order of Nature, there are no such things as miracles." Acting on this principle, he gives his co-laborers in Scriptural iconoclasm the advice to put every miraculous story, of which they cannot give a natural explanation, quietly aside.{14} This is certainly a very convenient method of getting rid of facts which every canon of historical criticism shows to be indisputable; but what about the objective validity of such a method? As an historical critic, Harnack has, of course, a perfect right to bring philosophy to bear upon the text which he criticizes; but when he does so, his readers have an equal right to demand that he adhere to sound philosophical principles. Gratuitous assertions may be pardoned when made use of by story writers, who do not expect to be believed; but they are a disgrace when resorted to by a man who poses before the world as the highest authority on Biblical exegesis. Yet it is precisely on the strength of such an unproven assertion that Harnack asks us to accept the impossibility of miracles, and, in consequence, to set quietly aside every miraculous story found in the Gospel narrative. Nay, not only is the assertion that miracles are impossible gratuitous, but it is absolutely and manifestly false, as was shown in the preceding chapter. Sound philosophy teaches that God has created the world, and that the possibility of miracles is a necessary consequence of creation. Hence Harnack's rejection of the Gospel miracles, on the score that they are impossible, is absolutely without weight, and only shows that he is but ill equipped for the self-chosen task of Biblical exegesis.
We may, therefore, with the fullest assurance accept the conclusion of the ablest Bible critics of the present day, Protestants as well as Catholics, who affirm without hesitation that the Gospels are, in the strictest sense of the word, reliable historical documents. The title-deeds of Christianity are without a flaw, and hence its claim to be a divinely established religion is approved by God's own infallible word. Its doctrines are not the scientific inventions and philosophical deductions of human reason, but God's own special message to man. They are the supernatural teachings of Christ, the promised Messiah, "Who was approved of God by miracles, and wonders, and signs which God did by Him."
Now from this, as was pointed out at the beginning of the present chapter, it necessarily follows that there exists a particular form of religion, which all men are in conscience bound to profess. For these Gospels represent Christ as the Saviour of mankind, who came "to do and to teach," and who alone by His example and doctrine can lead men to heaven. What particular form of religion this Saviour of mankind has seen proper to establish, we shall investigate in another chapter; for the present we may designate it by the general term, Christianity, without defining in detail what that term implies.
{1} Acts II, 22.
{2} On this point the reader may find some valuable information in Newman's Two Essays on Miracles, the first part of which treats of the miracles recorded in Holy Scripture.
{3} Some of these writers, as St. Clement, St. Ignatius, and St. Polycarp do not explicitly quote any of the Gospels, but they allude to them in such a way that it is reasonably certain that they were acquainted with their contents. Others, however, as St. Papias, St. Irenaeus, and the author of the Muratorian Fragment, which dates from about the year 180, not only quote them, but explain and defend their Apostolic origin. For a detailed account and critical appreciation of this testimony to the authenticity of the Gospels, the reader is referred to Dr. W. Barry's The Tradition of Scripture, pp. 144 foll.; also to Pere V. Rose's Studies on the Gospels, pp. 1-40. This latter writer shows conclusively, against Harnack, that towards the end of the first decade of the second century, therefore shortly after the death of St. John, the Four Gospels were in practically common and exclusive use in the different Christian communities.
{4} Apol. 65, 67.
{5} Professor W. M. Ramsay, an acknowledged authority on archaeological subjects, says very pertinently: "For years, with much interest and zeal, but with little knowledge, I followed the critics and accepted their results. In recent years, as I came to understand Roman history better, I have realized that, in the case of almost all the books of the New Testaments, it is as gross an outrage on criticism to hold them for second-century forgeries as it would be to class the works of Horace and Virgil as forgeries of the time of Nero." The Church in the Roman Empire, before A. D. 170; Preface, VIII.
{6} Acts II, 23.
{7} Acts II, 22.
{8} Acts V, 40.
{9} John XI, 47.
{10} Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 3, 3.
{11} Sanh. fol. 43.
{12} Emile, book 4.
{13} St. Augustine. Letter 71. to St. Jerome.
{14} What is Christianity? pp. 29, 30.