Miracles.
It is in vain to deny the truth of a miracle on the ground that it is
impossible, and contravenes the well-established laws of the universe.
The power to create, implies the power to suspend; and as the
performance of a miracle is the exercise of creative energy, it is
just as easy to exercise it in one case as another. All efforts to
demonstrate the impossibility of miracles have failed even in the hands
of such men as Hume, because men reason on such subjects in a circle.
Still it would be strange if there was no way to expose a false miracle,
especially where the results claimed from it are calculated to lead men
into error. When some unusual and extraordinary event which amounts to
a miracle is said to have occurred one hundred years ago, at a time when
intelligent and inquisitive minds were around, and no notice is taken of
it by them in giving an account of their own times, nor by any one else,
it is safe to conclude that it never did take place, and that those who
assert it for the first time at the end of the hundred years are engaged
in an attempt to impose some fraud on their fellow-men.
From the death of Christ, A.D. 33, to some time near A.D. 140, we claim
that no writer of profane or church history makes mention or speaks of
the miracles described in the first three Gospels, and not those of the
fourth until long afterwards. It is by negative testimony alone that we
can arrive at the truth. In the first place, did the great Apostle of
the Gentiles perform the miracles that are ascribed to him in the Acts?
It is stated that at Lystra he cured a man who had been crippled from
his birth by his simple word; he exorcised the evil spirit that was in
Lydia; he raised Eutychus, who had fallen from a window; cast from
his hand, unhurt, the deadly viper; and such miraculous powers did he
possess, "that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or
aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went
out of them." (_Acts_ xix. 12.)
Paul, in his epistles, does not mention or refer to any of these
wonderful things, and does any man suppose, if true, he would fail to
make some allusion to them? He neither mentions the miracles ascribed
to himself, nor those described in the four Gospels. Perhaps he did not
disbelieve in the possibility of miracles, for such belief was common
to the age; but to believe them possible, and believe that one has been
performed, is another thing. "Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought
among you in all patience, in signs and wonders, and mighty deeds."
(2 _Cor_. xii. 12.) The signs and wonders here spoken of were made
to appear to the Corinthians alone, and have no reference to miracles
described in the New Testament, nor do we know what they were, for no
notice of them is taken in the Acts. In the 18th chapter and 9th verse,
he says that he had a vision which told him not to be afraid to speak,
and not hold his peace. The "mighty deeds" refers to his works as
an Apostle, and the "signs and wonders" rather to the fruits of his
preaching than to any display of miraculous power.
Had Paul possessed the power attributed to him in the Acts, it would
have been easier for him to have converted the world than to make the
few converts he made after the labor of a life. There were those living
who in the course of nature might have seen Lazarus, or heard of his
resurrection, and had it been in the power of Paul to have cited his
case, or any of the miraculous cures claimed for Christ or any of his
disciples, the conversion of mankind would have been as rapid as the
movements of the earth. Every pagan temple and altar would have been
deserted, and their priests have fallen prostrate at the feet of Paul.
A few pretended miracles and revelations on the part of Mahomet
established his claim to be the prophet of God, and were the means,
backed by the scimitar, of fixing the faith of millions. Paul is
silent on the subject of the miracles. Barnabas was a companion and
fellow-preacher with Paul.
No document extant to-day which relates to the Apostolic age is entitled
to more, if as much confidence and credit, as the epistle which bears
his name. For some reason, it bears less evidence on its face of
fraudulent manipulation than any other writing of that time, and it is
this evidence of its purity which excludes it from the list of canonical
Gospels this day. It has been referred to by a long list of fathers,
commencing with Origen, and coming down to writers of our day, as the
genuine production of the companion of the great Apostle. No one, not
even the Apostles themselves, had more faith in Christ than he, and it
seems to be the burden of his epistle to prove that he was the Saviour
who had been foretold by the prophets, and whom the Jews were anxiously
expecting. Had Christ, in his ministry among men, done or performed any
act out of the course of nature which proved him superior to other
men in his power over the laws of nature--anything like command over
diseases, sickness, to say nothing of death--Barnabas would not have
failed to dwell upon everything of the kind with energy and zeal,
because such powers would establish what he aimed to prove: that is,
that Christ was the one spoken of by the prophets. But, while he makes
the most labored application of the prophecies to Christ, he makes no
allusion to any wonderful work he performed while he was on the earth.
He has not one word to say on the subject of the miracles ascribed to
Christ in the Gospels.
Much may be inferred from the silence of Apollos on the subject of
miracles. The intercourse between the Jews at Alexandria and Judea was
constant. Nothing of importance could occur in Jerusalem without its
being known in a short time on the banks of the Nile. The history of
John the Baptist, the works he did at the Jordan, and the manner of his
death, were all known to Apollos from some source, before Josephus wrote
his history of the Jews; but it seems he had never heard of Christ or
any of his wonderful works. (_Acts_ xviii.) After his conversion he
taught that Christ was the one expected by the Jews, and he undertook to
prove it by the prophecies in the Old Testament. It would have been far
easier to establish this by the mention of the one-half the miracles
ascribed to Christ in the Gospels than by arguments drawn from prophecy,
which were vague, obscure, and doubtful. But he had never heard of the
resurrection of Lazarus, nor of the miracles of the loaves and fishes,
nor of the wonderful things that happened to the swine in the country of
the Gadarenes.
There are now extant, writings which learned men refer to the Apostolic
age, which have no value except as they may throw some light on the age
in which they were written. We may mention the epistle of Paul to the
Laodiceans; the epistles of Paul to Seneca, with Seneca's to Paul, and
the Acts Paul and Thecla. In none of these writings is any mention made
of the miracles of Paul, or those of the New Testament, and the silence
of such works is only of consequence as it shows the universal ignorance
of antiquity, or the Apostolic age, on the subject; for it is not to be
supposed that those things which were standing themes for discourses and
books in the second century, would be unnoticed in the first, if they
did exist, as well at one time as the other. How can we account for
the silence of the fathers of the church on this subject? Ignatius and
Polycarp were so near to the time of Paul and the disciples, and even
Christ, that nothing which concerned any one of them was unknown, and if
the miracles ascribed to them had been real occurrences, nothing could
be more effective in the hands of these fathers for the spread of the
religion of Christianity.
But there is not only no mention by any one of them of the miracles,
but the Gospels have not yet appeared. Up to the beginning of the first
century, there is no mention or reference made in any writing, either to
the Gospels, or the miracles they describe. Allusions are made in some
cases to the Scriptures, in the most general terms; and as the Old
Testament writings were called Scriptures, and there was the Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew, and the epistles of Barnabas, James, Peter, and Paul,
to which the term Scripture might apply, the reference is of no value
in fixing the date of the Gospels. The first distinct and unequivocal
notice of the first three Gospels is found in Justin Martyrs _Apology_;
and he, who speaks of them for the first time, dilates on their
contents, and refers to Matthew, Mark, and Luke each by name: to Matthew
nineteen, to Mark four, and to Luke fourteen times. From this time to
the present hour, every book abounds in references to these Gospels.
As yet the Gospel of John had not appeared. What is remarkable in the
Gospels, referred to by Justin, who makes a most elaborate disquisition
on the prophecies, citing many passages to prove that Christ was a
divine person, whose advent had been predicted, he does not make mention
of any of his miracles, or of those of any of his disciples. He speaks
of Christ's birth from the Virgin Mary, his miraculous conception, and
all the leading acts of his life, as described in Matthew and others,
but seems to have had no knowledge of the miraculous works he performed.
The silence of Justin on the subject of miracles, and his extended
notice of the prophecies, can only be explained by the fact that there
was nothing said about them in the Gospels, and that they were inserted
at a later day. As the quarrels among Christians in the second century
intensified, and as the authority of the church grew to be paramount as
we approach the dark ages, no doubt the Gospels underwent a revision,
and the miracles were added as a means to excite the awe and command
the belief of the Pagan world. The spirit for the creation of miracles
commenced in the church before the end of the second century--was
encouraged by it, and has been continued down to our own times, and
formed the most effective weapon for the conversion of the hordes of the
North, and for the final overthrow of the followers of Arius. Each age
had its own miracles, in each of which was apportioned the amount
of divine energy required to subdue the obstinacy and unbelief to be
overcome.
The silence of what are called profane writers on the subject of the
miracles is equally unaccountable--if they are to be regarded as real
occurrences in history--and none as much so as that of the Jewish
historian, Josephus. Of sacerdotal extraction, and of royal descent,
Flavius Josephus was born A.D. 37. He was alive in A.D. 96, but the
time and manner of his death is unknown. His works comprise a complete
history of the Jews, and omit nothing that was worthy of notice. He was
a youth of great ability and promise, and says of himself, "When I was
a child, and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the
love I had for learning, on which account the high priest and principal
men of the city came frequently to me together, in order to know my
opinion about the accurate understanding of points of law." (_Life of
Josephus_, sec. I.)
Here we have a historian of the right kind, living so near the time that
he must have seen and conversed with those who had seen and known Christ
and his disciples. How are we to regard his silence? Had Christ been the
character which many suppose he was, a teacher endowed beyond all other
men, with a divine genius to declare the doctrines which are to govern
man in his relations towards the Creator and towards each other, we can
well understand why, in A.D. 93, when Josephus wrote the history of the
Jews, he failed to notice him. His ministry extended through a period of
only one year, at a time when the Jewish people were chafing under the
yoke of the Romans, and were preparing for a final struggle with the
conquerors. At such a time, the presence of such a person as Christ,
who taught men to forgive their enemies, to love their neighbors as
themselves, and to cultivate feelings which dispose mankind to peace
and charity, would most likely pass unnoticed. If Christ was more than
a great teacher--if he were the second person in the Godhead, who
condescended to visit the earth to instruct mankind, and while here
performed the wonderful works spoken of in the Gospels, then there is no
way in which we can account for the silence of the Jewish historian. We
are forced to admit that the Son of God, who took up his abode among
men to convince and instruct them, failed to make his presence known and
felt so as to attract the notice of him who undertook to give a minute
account of what happened at the time, and in the country where he
preached and taught.
The attempt in the fourth century to force into history, between the
regular course of events, a passage intended to break the force of total
unconsciousness on the part of Josephus that there was such a person
as Christ, to the eye of the critic is infinitely more damaging than
complete silence. A quarrel, which led to a sedition, sprang up in
Jerusalem, about the use made by Pilate of sacred money, to bring
water into the city. "_About the same time, also, another_ sad calamity
happened, which put the Jews into disorder." A Roman woman called
Paulina, through the connivance of some of the gods of Isis, was seduced
by a person of the name of Mundus. (_Antiq_., book xviii. chap. 3.)
Between these two events, is wedged, or forced in, a paragraph which
contains all the great historian has to say of Christ, and the events of
his life. Twenty-nine lines are taken to tell about the troubles
growing out of the misapplication of the sacred money; one hundred and
thirty-one about Paulina and her misfortunes, and _sixteen_ are all that
the historian requires to inform us of all he knows about Christ. Much
better had he said nothing.
If Josephus makes no mention of Christ and his miracles, where must we
look? It is in vain to search among the writers of Greece and Rome. Out
of the nine reasons given by Dr. Lardner for believing the passage from
Josephus in relation to Christ spurious, the first is sufficient: it was
never quoted, or referred to, by any writer previous to _Eusebius_, who
wrote in the fourth century.