The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 7

'he will not dare to speak of any of those things which
Christ hath not wrought in him, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word
and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit
of God' ([Greek: en dunamei saemeion kai teraton, en dunamei
pneumator Theou], Rom. xv. 18, 19) He asks the Galatians whether 'he
that ministereth to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [Greek: ho
energon dunameis] among them, doeth it by the works of the law, or by
the hearing of faith?' (Gal. iii. 5). In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
he goes somewhat elaborately into the exact place in the Christian
economy that is to be assigned to the working of miracles and gifts of
healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29). Besides these allusions, St. Paul
repeatedly refers to the cardinal miracles of the Resurrection and
Ascension; he refers to them as notorious and unquestionable facts at a
time when such an assertion might have been easily refuted. On one

occasion he gives a very circumstantial account of the testimony on
which the belief in the Resurrection rested (1 Cor. xv. 4-8). And, not
only does he assert the Resurrection as a fact, but he builds upon it a
whole scheme of doctrine: 'If Christ be not risen,' he says, 'then is our
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.' We do not stay now to
consider the exact philosophical weight of this evidence. It will be time
enough to do this when it has received the critical discussion that may
be presumed to be in store for it. But as external evidence, in the legal
sense, it is probably the best that can be produced, and it has been
entirely untouched so far.
Again, in considering the evidence for the age of the Synoptic Gospels,
that which is derived from external sources is only a part, and not
perhaps the more important part, of the whole. It points backwards
indeed, and we shall see with what amount of force and range. But
there is still an interval within which only approximate conclusions are
possible. These conclusions need to be supplemented from the
phenomena of the documents themselves. In the relation of the Gospels
to the growth of the Christian society and the development of Christian
doctrine, and especially to the great turning-point in the history, the
taking of Jerusalem, there is very considerable internal evidence for
determining the date within which they must have been composed. It is
well known that many critics, without any apologetic object, have
found a more or less exact criterion in the eschatological discourses
(Matt. xxiv, Mark xiii, Luke xxi. 5-36), and to this large additions may
be made. As I hope some day to have an opportunity of discussing the
whole question of the origin and composition of the Synoptic Gospels,
I shall not go into this at present: but in the mean time it should be
remembered that all these further questions lie in the background, and
that in tracing the formation of the Canon of the Gospels the whole of
the evidence for miracles--even from this ab extra point of view--is
very far from being exhausted.
There is yet another remaining reason which makes the present enquiry
of less importance than might be supposed, derived from the particular
way in which the author has dealt with this external evidence. In order
to explain the prima facie evidence for our canonical Gospels, he has
been compelled to assume the existence of other documents containing,
so far as appears, the same or very similar matter. In other words,

instead of four Gospels he would give us five or six or seven. I do not
know that, merely as a matter of policy, and for apologetic purposes
only, the best way to refute his conclusion would not be to admit his
premisses and to insist upon the multiplication of the evidence for the
facts of the Gospel history which his argument would seem to involve.
I mention this however, not with any such object, but rather to show
that the truth of Christianity is not intimately affected, and that there
are no such great reasons for partiality on one side or on the other.
I confess that it was a relief to me when I found that this must be the
case. I do not think the time has come when the central question can be
approached with any safety. Rough and ready methods (such as I am
afraid I must call the first part of 'Supernatural Religion') may indeed
cut the Gordian knot, but they do not untie it. A number of preliminary
questions will have to be determined with a greater degree of accuracy
and with more general consent than has been done