COMPETENT WITNESSES.
Another objection which the author of "Supernatural Religion" urges
against the credibility of our Lord's miracles, is that they were not
performed before what he considers competent witnesses.
"Their occurrence [he writes] is limited to ages which were totally
ignorant of physical laws." (Vol. i. p. 201.)
Again, he speaks of the age as one
"in which not only the grossest superstition and credulity
prevailed, but in which there was such total ignorance of natural
laws that men were incapable of judging of that reality [_i.e._ of
miracles]." (P. 204.)
Again:--
"The discussion of miracles, then, is not one regarding miracles
actually performed within our own knowledge, but merely regarding
miracles said to have been performed eighteen hundred years ago, the
reality of which was not verified at the time by any scientific
examination." (P. 208.)
From this we gather that the author of "Supernatural Religion" considers
that the miracles of Christ should have been tested by scientific men;
but we ask, By what scientific men? It is clear that if the testing was
to have been satisfactory to those who think like the author of
"Supernatural Religion," they must have been scientific men who
approached the whole matter in a spirit of scepticism. Our Blessed Lord
(I speak it with all reverence), if He cared to satisfy such men, should
have delayed His coming to the present time, or should have called up
out of the future, or created for this purpose, men who had doubts
respecting the personality of God, who held Him to be fitly described as
the Unknown and the Unknowable; who, to say the least, were in a state
of suspense as to whether, if there be a Supreme Being, He can reveal
Himself or make His will known. In fact, He must have called up, or
created for the purpose, some individuals of a school of physicists
which had no existence till 1,800 years after His time. For, if He had
called into existence such witnesses as Sir Isaac Newton, or Sir
Humphrey Davy, or Cuvier, or Faraday, they would have fallen down and
worshipped.
But, in truth, such witnesses, whether believing or sceptical, would
have found no place for their science, for the miracles of Christ were
of such a kind that the most scientific doubter could have no more
accounted for them than the most ignorant. The miracle of which, next to
our Lord's own Resurrection, we have the fullest evidence, is that of
the feeding of the 5,000; for it is recorded by each one of the four
Evangelists. Now, if this miracle had been performed in the presence of
the members of all the scientific societies now in existence, their
knowledge of natural laws could have contributed nothing to its
detection or explanation. They could have merely laid it down to trick
or deception, just as any of the unscientific persons present could have
done, and perhaps did. The miracle was performed in the open. Our Lord
must have been on some elevated ground where His voice could have
reached some considerable part of the multitude, and on which every act
of His could be observed. More than a thousand loaves would have been
necessary, requiring the assistance of, say a hundred men, to collect
them and bring them from a distance. This, too, is not one of those
miracles which can be explained by the convenient hypothesis of a
"substratum of truth." It is either a direct exhibition of the creative
power of God, or a fiction as unworthy of a moment's serious
consideration as a story in the "Arabian Nights."
It is folly to imagine that such an act required scientific men to
verify it. If the matter was either a reality, or presented that
appearance of reality which the narrative implies, then the scientific
person would have been stupefied, or in trembling and astonishment he
would have fallen on his face like another opponent of the truth; or,
may be, his very reason would have been shattered at the discovery that
here before him was that very supernatural and divine Working in Whose
existence he had been doing his best to persuade his fellow creatures to
disbelieve.
The Scripture narratives, if they are not altogether devoid of truth,
lead us to believe that our Lord performed His miracles in the face of
three sects or parties of enemies, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians;
each one rejecting His claims on grounds of its own. They were also
performed in a populous city, of which all the rulers and the mass of
the inhabitants were hostile to His pretensions. Such a place could
never have been chosen as the scene of a miraculous event, known by
those who promulgated it to have had no foundation in truth, and withal
assumed to have been known throughout the city at the time, and to have
been productive of a series of results, miraculous and ordinary, which
were asserted to have commenced at the moment of its occurrence.
The writer of "Supernatural Religion" would disparage the accounts of
our Lord's supernatural works and Resurrection, because such accounts
are to be found only in the writings of "enthusiastic followers," not in
those of indifferent persons; but the nature of the case almost excludes
all other testimony: for the miracles of our Lord were wrought for an
evidential purpose,--to convince the Jews especially that He was the
Christ, the hope of their fathers, and, as such, was not only to be
believed in, but to be obeyed and followed. The only sign of real true
belief was that the man who professed to believe joined that society
which was instituted for the purpose of propagating and keeping alive
the truth of His Messiahship. If any one who professed to believe
stopped short of joining this society, his testimony to miracles would
have been valueless, for the miracles were wrought to convince him of
the truth of a matter in which, if he believed, he was bound to profess
his belief, and, if he did not, he laid himself open to the charge of
not really believing the testimony.
Now, of course, the reader is aware that we have a signal proof of the
validity of this argument in the well-known passage in Josephus which
relates to our Lord. Josephus was the historian, and the only historian,
of the period in which our Lord flourished. The eighteenth book of his
"Antiquities of the Jews" covers the whole period of our Lord's life. If
our Lord had merely attracted attention as a teacher of righteousness,
which it is allowed on all hands that He did, it was likely that He
would have been mentioned in this book along, with others whose teaching
produced far less results. Mention appears to be made of Him in the
following words:--
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to
call him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of
such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him
both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ.
And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us,
had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first
did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third
day; as the Divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand
other wonderful things concerning Him. And the tribe of Christians,
so named from Him, are not extinct at this day."
Now, on external grounds there seems little doubt of the genuineness of
this passage. It is in all copies of the historian's work, and is quoted
in full by Eusebius, though not alluded to by fathers previous to his
day. [183:1] If it is an interpolation, it must have been by the hand of
a Christian; and yet it is absolutely inconceivable that any Christian
should have noticed the Christian Church in such words as "the tribe of
Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day." It would
have been absurd beyond measure to have described the Christians, so
early as Justin's time even, as "not extinct," when they were filling
the world with their doctrine, and their increase was a source of great
perplexity and trouble to the Roman Government. It is just what a Jew of
Josephus' time would have written who really believed that Jesus wrought
miracles, but expected that nothing permanent would result from them.
And yet there can be no doubt but that the passage is open to this
insurmountable objection, that if Josephus had written it he would have
professed himself a Christian, or a man of incredible inconsistency.
Setting aside the difficulty connected with the acknowledgment of Jesus
as the Christ, inasmuch as this name was frequently given to Him by
those who did not believe in Him, yet how could Josephus state that His
Resurrection was predicted by the prophets of his nation, and continue
in appearance an unbeliever?
But, whether genuine or not, this passage is decisive as to the
impossibility of what is styled an independent testimony to our Lord:
"He that is not with Me is against Me." The facts of our Lord's chief
miracles and Resurrection were such, that the nearer men lived to the
time the more impossible it would have been for them to have suspended
their judgment.
So that, instead of having the witness of men who, by their prudent
suspension of judgment, betrayed their lurking unbelief, we have the
testimony of men who, by their surrender of themselves, soul and body,
evinced their undoubting faith in a matter in which there could be
really no middle opinion.