It is customary among orthodox Christians to assert that the godhead
of their Christ was fully proven by the many miracles attributed to
him in the New Testament. But one must not forget that the performance
of miracles is one of the most common attributes of founders of new
sects, and one which all religious charlatans claim. Krishna lulled
tempests, cured lepers, and restored the dead; Buddha, Zoroaster
(who walked on water on his way to Mount Iran to receive the law),
Horus, Æsculapius, and innumerable others did likewise. Mohammed, not
content with miracles of the omnipotent physician type, juggled the
moon through his sleeve. Even to-day faith in miracles is not dead,
and miracle-working attributes have been claimed for Mrs. Eddy,
founder of Christian Science, Dowie, founder of Zion City, and
Sandford, leader of the Holy Ghost and Us.
There can be no doubt in the mind of a student of comparative theology
that Moncure D. Conway was correct when he stated in his essay on
Christianity that "among all the miracles of the New Testament not
one is original. Bacchus changed water into wine.... Moses and Elias
also fasted forty days.... Pythagoras had power to still waves and
tempests at sea. Elijah made the widow's meal and oil increase; Elisha
fed a hundred men with twenty loaves.... As for opening blind eyes,
healing diseases, walking on water, casting out demons, raising the
dead, resurrection, ascension, all these have been common myths--logic
currency of every race."
"One of the best attested miracles of all profane history is that which
Tacitus reports of Vespasian, who cured a blind man in Alexandria by
means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot,
in obedience to a vision of the god Serapis," says Hume in his "Essay
on Miracles," and we might here mention the numerous attested cures
resulting from the laying on of royal hands by divinely appointed
sovereigns.
The rulers of France, Aragon, and England touched for scrofula,
this practice being continued by the latter from the period of its
origin with Edward the Confessor until the accession of William the
Third, whose good sense put an end to it. James the Second, the last
practitioner of this art, had so great a belief in his curative powers
that he set aside certain days on which he touched the afflicted from
his throne at Whitehall, while the sufferers came in throngs to kneel
at his feet. The princes of the house of Austria likewise held divine
power and were supposed to be capable of casting out devils and curing
stammering by the touch of their aristocratic fingers.
Numerous cases are narrated in which Jesus, by simply touching the
person of the afflicted, effected instantaneous cures. Such were
those of the leper (Matt. viii, 2-3; Mark i, 40-42; Luke v, 12-13);
the curing of Peter's mother-in-law of a fever (Matt. viii, 14-15;
Mark i, 30-31; Luke iv, 38-39), although in the Luke version he
"rebuked" the fever; and the opening of the eyes of two blind men
(Matt. ix, 27-30). Another method seems to have been by allowing the
ill to touch him or his garments (Matt. ix, 20-22; xiv, 36; Mark iii,
10; v, 25-34; Luke vi, 19; viii, 43-48). At other times he simply told
the patient, or the agent of the patient, that faith had effected the
cure, as with the centurion's servant (Matt. viii, 5-13; Luke vii,
2-10) and the daughter of the Canaanite (Matt. xv, 22-28; Mark vii,
25-30); or told the stricken to hold forth a withered arm or pick up
his bed and walk, by which command the cure was completed (Matt. ix,
2-7; xii, 10-13; Mark ii, 3-12; Luke v, 18-25).
Among all primitive peoples, the principal cause of disease was
supposed to lie in the displeasure of some deity toward the afflicted
person, who was punished by this deity for some offense or neglect
(Psalms xxxviii, 3). One of the favorite methods of the gods in
afflicting was sending evil and tormenting spirits into the body of
the victim. After more was learned of disease, this theory gradually
diminished in strength as regarded some troubles, but for centuries
it was the universal theory that mental derangements and nervous
afflictions were solely due to demoniacal possession, and all priests
and medicine-men resorted to various exorcisms, from the primitive
banging of gongs and tooting of trumpets to scare away the spirit,
to the prayers and sprinkling of holy water of the mediæval church
to rid the patient of the unwelcome inhabitant of his body.
That Jesus believed in this demoniacal possession is undoubted, and
he effected his cures by ordering or calling out the devil from the
body of the possessed. For example, there is a story of Jesus driving
devils into an innocent herd of swine (Matt. viii, 28-33; Mark v,
2-14; Luke viii, 26-34). We also find him casting out and rebuking
devils in various instances (Matt. ix, 32-34; xii, 22-24; xvii, 14-18;
Mark i, 23-24, 34; iii, 11; Luke iv, 33-36, 41; ix, 37-42).
In all probability, these medical miracles of Jesus were copied from
older legends by his biographers. But, even if they actually occurred,
they were not miracles at all, for a miracle must be, in the very
meaning of the word, performed by the suspension of a natural law,
and from all gospel accounts the mental therapeutics of the Christ
were performed, if at all, in perfect accordance with well-established
psychological laws. They had been performed years before his birth,
and they have continued to be performed years after his death,
even to the present time. Through the force of faith, the patients
were placed in passivity (hypnosis) and treated by suggestions being
impressed upon their subjective minds, when present; at a distance,
they were cured by the telepathic suggestions conveyed from the
healer to their subjective mentalities. There is no miracle here;
it is merely a demonstration of telepathic and hypnotic phenomena,
governed by psychic laws, and does not place the Christ on a higher
intellectual plane than modern hypnotists and mental healers, who
consciously and knowingly work within the dispensation of these
laws. They are anything but proofs of the godhead of Jesus.
It would seem that the Pharisees had some such idea in mind when
they demanded an astronomical miracle and requested "a sign from
heaven." But, unable to comply, he evaded this performance by calling
them hypocrites and "an evil and adulterous generation," and saying,
"There shall no sign be given unto this generation" (Matt. xii, 38-39;
xvi, 1-4; Mark viii, 11-13; Luke xi, 16, 29; John ii, 18, 24; vi, 30).
One of the commonest miracles ascribed to religious leaders of all
sects and times, and one which never fails to convince witnesses and
hearers of the authenticity of such a leader's claims, is that of
restoring the dead to life. Such miracles have been so well attested
that there seems little reason to suppose them entirely fictitious.
Everyone has heard of cases of catalepsy, and medical history teems
with cases of "suspended animation"; in fact, the only actual proof
of death is the entire decomposition of the vital organs; therefore,
the cruelty and crime of embalming corpses before such a condition
is apparent. Some undertakers actually insist upon embalming before
such conditions, because the dead can then be made to "present a
better appearance"!
There are numerous well-proven cases of people lying for days in
cataleptic conditions, even with slight signs of decomposition due
to restricted circulation, and then returning to renewed lives and
perfectly healthy states. All Eastern travelers are familiar with the
practices of Hindu fakirs who allow themselves to be buried alive for
weeks, and are "resurrected" without having suffered. Therefore, it
does not seem improbable that some such acts on the parts of various
religious leaders may have occurred which have excited wonder with
the ignorant, and interest among the educated. The early Christians
proclaimed many such wonderful works, albeit when challenged by a
wealthy pagan to produce even one such case, in payment for which he
would become a convert, a failure was the result.
Orthodox Christians proclaim that Jesus raised from death Jairus'
daughter, in entire forgetfulness of the actual words accredited
to their leader, which were, "The maid is not dead, but sleepeth"
(Matt. ix, 24; Mark v, 39; Luke viii, 52), showing his opinion that
she was in a cataleptic condition. While neither of the first three
gospels says aught of the raising of Lazarus, we find it in John,
who seems to have substituted it for the story of Jairus' daughter,
which does not appear in his gospel. According to this hyperbolical
and probably demented authority, Jesus raised Lazarus to life after he
had been dead four days (John xi, 17), although Jesus maintained that
Lazarus was not dead (John xi, 11). He declared that "this sickness is
not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be
glorified there-by" (John xi, 4), or, in other words, Jesus believed
that the unfortunate Lazarus was obliged to undergo this frightful
experience that his seeming resurrection might cause gaping among
the vulgar, and add to the prestige of the miracle worker. For this
reason, he purposely postponed going to the dying man, whom he might
have saved, that he might later have the glory of bringing him to
life! Excellent ethics! Finally, however, when he did depart, he said
positively, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake
him out of sleep" (John xi, 11). Having arrived at the sepulchre,
he approached it, groaning and weeping, in a most theatrical manner,
such as would appeal to a highly strung audience, and cried in a loud
voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" whereupon the dead man arose and came
out (John xi, 33, 35, 43).
Now, this may have been catalepsy, and it may have been the strong
voice and will of the Christ which caused the awakening, but, in
all probability, if the affair ever occurred, it was a preconceived
dramatic incident. All the actors were partisans of the professed
messiah, and the whole story reads like a play, and undoubtedly the
words "come forth" were the cue for the waiting man to appear.
It is by such contemptible methods that religions are established. If
the tale were due to the imagination of the author of John, it is most
discreditable to him, and places his hero in a very bad light. If
it actually occurred, it shows Jesus as a vain-glorious boaster,
anxious to show his power to the vulgar, and desirous of gaining a
following by charlatanry, either by raising a hypnotized man or by
creating a cheap melodrama.
It had been prophesied (2 Esdras xiii, 50) that the messiah should
be a miracle worker, which probably caused Jesus to affect this
rôle when he accepted the part of the messiah, and to condescend to
soil his mission by charlatanism, even to the raising of the dead in
imitation of the former prophets, Elijah and Elisha (I Kings xvii,
16-24; II Kings iv, 18-37).
It is rather amusing to hear Theodore Christlieb, that well-named,
sturdy old German supporter of orthodoxy, boldly assert in irrevocable
simplicity and straightforwardness, in his "Modern Doubt and Christian
Belief": "However much in other respects our opponents may differ,
they all agree in the denial of miracles, and unitedly storm this
bulwark of the Christian faith; and in its defense we have to combat
them all at once. But whence this unanimity? Because with the truth
of miracles the entire citadel of Christianity stands or falls. [The
italics are his own.] For its beginning is a miracle, its author is a
miracle, its progress depends upon miracles, and they will hereafter
be its consummation. If the principle of miracles be set aside, then
all the heights of Christianity will be leveled with one stroke, and
naught will remain but a heap of ruins. If we banish the supernatural
from the Bible, there is nothing left us but the covers" (pages 285-6).