The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 7

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 hitherto. The Jewish and Christian literature of the century before and of the two centuries after the birth of Christ must undergo a more searching examination, by minds of different nationality and training, both as to the date, text, and character of the several books. The whole balance of an argument may frequently be changed by some apparently minute and unimportant discovery; while, at present,