The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 6

given a colour to their account of events in which the really
transcendental element was less visible and tangible. We cannot now
distinguish with any degree of accuracy between the subjective and the
objective in the report. But that miracles, or what we call such, did in
some shape take place, is, I believe, simply a matter of attested fact.
When we consider it in its relation to the rest of the narrative, to tear
out the miraculous bodily from the Gospels seems to me in the first
instance a violation of history and criticism rather than of faith.

Still the author of 'Supernatural Religion' is, no doubt, justified in
raising the question, Did miracles really happen? I only wish to protest
against the idea that such a question can be adequately discussed as
something isolated and distinct, in which all that is necessary is to
produce and substantiate the documents as in a forensic process. Such a
'world-historical' event (if I may for the moment borrow an expressive
Germanism) as the founding of Christianity cannot be thrown into a
merely forensic form. Considerations of this kind may indeed enter in,
but to suppose that they can be justly estimated by themselves alone is
an error. And it is still more an error to suppose that the riddle of the
universe, or rather that part of the riddle which to us is most important,
the religious nature of man and, the objective facts and relations that
correspond to it, can all be reduced to some four or five simple
propositions which admit of being proved or disproved by a short and
easy Q.E.D.
It would have been a far more profitable enquiry if the author had asked
himself, What is Revelation? The time has come when this should be
asked and an attempt to obtain a more scientific definition should be
made. The comparative study of religions has gone far enough to admit
of a comparison between the Ethnic religions and that which had its
birth in Palestine--the religion of the Jews and Christians. Obviously, at
the first blush, there is a difference: and that difference constitutes what
we mean by Revelation. Let us have this as yet very imperfectly known
quantity scientifically ascertained, without any attempt either to
minimise or to exaggerate. I mean, let the field which Mr. Matthew
Arnold has lately been traversing with much of his usual insight but in
a light and popular manner, be seriously mapped out and explored.
Pioneers have been at work, such as Dr. Kuenen, but not perhaps quite
without a bias: let the same enquiry be taken up so widely as that the
effects of bias may be eliminated; and instead of at once accepting the
first crude results, let us wait until they are matured by time. This
would be really fruitful and productive, and a positive addition to
knowledge; but reasoning such as that in 'Supernatural Religion' is
vitiated at the outset, because it starts with the assumption that we
know perfectly well the meaning of a term of which our actual
conception is vague and indeterminate in the extreme--Divine
Revelation. [Endnote 10:1]

With these reservations as to the main drift and bearing of the argument,
we may however meet the author of 'Supernatural Religion' on his own
ground. It is a part of the question--though a more subordinate part
apparently than he seems to suppose--to decide whether miracles did or
did not really happen. Even of this part too it is but quite a minor
subdivision that is included in the two volumes of his work that have
hitherto appeared. In the first place, merely as a matter of historical
attestation, the Gospels are not the strongest evidence for the Christian
miracles. Only one of the four, in its present shape, is claimed as the
work of an Apostle, and of that the genuineness is disputed. The Acts
of the Apostles stand upon very much the same footing with the
Synoptic Gospels, and of this book we are promised a further
examination. But we possess at least some undoubted writings of one
who was himself a chief actor in the events which followed
immediately upon those recorded in the Gospels; and in these
undoubted writings St. Paul certainly shows by incidental allusions, the
good faith of which cannot be questioned, that he believed himself to
be endowed with the power of working miracles, and that miracles, or
what were thought to be such, were actually wrought both by him and
by his contemporaries. He reminds the Corinthians that 'the signs of an
Apostle were wrought among them ... in signs, and wonders, and
mighty deeds' ([Greek: en saemeious kai terasi kai dunamesi]--the
usual words for the higher forms of miracle-- 2 Cor. xii. 12). He tells
the Romans that