Supernatural Religion Volume III Part 19

It is argued that the Twelve had not sufficient authority over their followers to prevent such interference with Paul, and that the relation of the Apostle to the Twelve was: "separation, not opposition, antagonism of the followers rather than of the leaders, personal antipathy of the Judaizers to St. Paul, rather than of St. Paul to the Twelve."(3) It is not difficult to believe that the antipathy of Paul to the Judaizers was less than that felt by them towards him. The superiority of the man must have rendered him somewhat callous to such dislike.(4) But the mitigated form of difference between Paul and the Twelve here a.s.sumed, although still very different from the representations of the Acts,

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cannot be established, but on the contrary must be much widened before it can justly be taken as that existing between Paul and the elder Apostles. We do not go so far as to say that there was open enmity between them, or active antagonism of any distinct character on the part of the Twelve to the Apostle of the Gentiles, but there is every reason to believe that they not only disliked his teaching, but endeavoured to counteract it by their own ministry of the circ.u.mcision. They not only did not restrain the opposition of their followers, but they abetted them in their counter-a.s.sertion of judaistic views. Had the Twelve felt any cordial friends.h.i.+p for Paul, and exhibited any active desire for the success of his ministry of the uncirc.u.mcision, it is quite impossible that his work could have been so continuously and vexatiously impeded by the persecution of the Jewish Christian party. The Apostles may not have possessed sufficient influence or authority entirely to control the action of adherents, but it would be folly to suppose that, if unanimity of views had prevailed between them and Paul, and a firm and consistent support had been extended to him, such systematic resistance as he everywhere encountered from the party professing to be led by the "pillar" Apostles could have been seriously maintained, or that he could have been left alone and unaided to struggle against it. If the relations between Paul and the Twelve had been such as are intimated in the Acts of the Apostles, his epistles must have presented undoubted evidence of the fact Both negatively and positively they testify the absence of all support, and the existence of antagonistic influence on the part of the elder Apostles, and external evidence fully confirms the impression which the epistles produce.(1)

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From any point of view which may be taken, the Apocalypse is an important doc.u.ment in connection with this point. If it be accepted as a work of the Apostle John--the preponderance of evidence and critical opinion a.s.signs it to him--this book, of course, possesses the greatest value as an indication of his views. If it be merely regarded as a contemporary writing, it still is most interesting as an ill.u.s.tration of the religious feeling of the period. The question is: Does the Apocalypse contain any reference to the Apostle Paul, or throw light upon the relations between him and the elder Apostles? If it does so, and be the work of one of the [------], nothing obviously could be more

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instructive. In the messages to the seven churches, there are references and denunciations which, in the opinion of many able critics, are directed against the Apostle of the Gentiles and his characteristic teaching.(1) Who but Paul and his followers can be referred to in the Epistle to the Church of Ephesus: "I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and that thou canst not bear wicked persons: and didst try them which say they are Apostles and are not, and didst find them liars"?(2) Paul himself informs us not only of his sojourn in Ephesus, where he believed that "a great and effectual door" was opened to him, but adds, "there are many adversaries" [------].(3) The foremost charge brought against the churches is that they have those that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, "to eat things offered unto idols."(4) The teaching of Paul upon this point is

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well known, 1 Cor. viii. 1 ff., x. 25 ff., Rom. xiv. 2 ff., and the reference here cannot be mistaken; and when in the Epistle to the church of Thyatira, after denouncing the teaching "to eat things offered unto idols," the Apocalyptist goes on to encourage those who have not this teaching, "who knew not the depths of Satan, [------],(1) as they say"

the expression of Paul himself is taken to denounce his doctrine; for the Apostle, defending himself against the attacks of those parties "of Cephas" and "of Christ" in Corinth, writes: "But G.o.d revealed (them) to us through his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of G.o.d" [------]--"the depths of Satan" rather, retorts the judaistic author of the Apocalypse. [------] does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament Again, in the address to the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, when the writer denounces those "who say that they are Jews, and are not, but a synagogue of Satan,"(2) whom has he in view but those Christians whom Paul had taught to consider circ.u.mcision unnecessary and the law abrogated? We find Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians, so often quoted, obliged to defend himself against these judaising parties upon this very point: "Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they Abraham's seed? so am I."(3) It is manifest that his adversaries had vaunted their own Jewish origin as a t.i.tle of superiority over the Apostle of the Gentiles. We

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have, however, further evidence of the same attack upon Paul regarding this point. Epiphanius points out that the Ebionites denied that Paul was a Jew, and a.s.serted that he was born of a Gentile father and mother, but that, having gone up to Jerusalem, he became a proselyte and submitted to circ.u.mcision in the hope of marrying a daughter of the high priest. But afterwards, according to them, enraged at not securing the maiden for his wife, Paul wrote against circ.u.mcision and the Sabbath and the law.(1) The Apostle Paul, whose constant labour it was to destroy the particularism of the Jew, and raise the Gentile to full, free, and equal partic.i.p.ation with him in the benefits of the New Covenant, could not but incur the bitter displeasure of the Apocalyptist, for whom the Gentiles were, as such, the type of all that was common and unclean. In the utterances of the seer of Patmos we seem to hear the expression of all that judaistic hatred and opposition which pursued the Apostle who laid the axe to the root of Mosaism and, in his efforts to free Christianity from trammels which, more than any other, r.e.t.a.r.ded its triumphant development, aroused against himself all the virulence of Jewish illiberality and prejudice. The results at which we have arrived might be singularly confirmed by an examination of the writings of the first two centuries, and by observing the att.i.tude

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a.s.sumed towards the Apostle of the Gentiles by such men as Justin Martyr, Papias, Hegesippus, and the author of the Clementines; but we have already devoted too much s.p.a.ce to this subject, and here we must reluctantly leave it.

The steps by which Christianity was gradually freed from the trammels of Judaism and became a religion of unlimited range and universal fitness were clearly not those stated in the Acts of the Apostles. Its emanc.i.p.ation from Mosaism was not effected by any liberal action or enlightened guidance on the part of the elder Apostles. At the death of their Master, the Twelve remained closely united to Judaism, and evidently were left without any understanding that Christianity was a new religion which must displace Mosaic inst.i.tutions, and replace the unbearable yoke of the law by the divine liberty of the Gospel. To the last moment regarding which we have any trustworthy information, the Twelve, as might have been expected, retained all their early religious customs and all their Jewish prejudices. They were simply Jews believing that Jesus was the Messiah; and if the influence of Paul enlarged their views upon some minor points, we have no reason to believe that they ever abandoned their belief in the continued obligation of the law, and the necessity of circ.u.mcision for full partic.i.p.ation in the benefits of the Covenant. The author of the Acts would have us believe that they required no persuasion, but antic.i.p.ated Paul in the Gospel of uncirc.u.mcision. It is not within the scope of this work to inquire how Paul originally formed his views of Christian universalism. Once formed, it is easy to understand how rapidly they must have been developed and confirmed by experience amongst

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the Gentiles. Whilst the Twelve still remained in the narrow circle of Judaism and could not be moved beyond the ministry of the circ.u.mcision, Paul, in the larger and freer field of the world, must daily have felt more convinced that the abrogation of the Law and the abandonment of circ.u.mcision were essential to the extension of Christianity amongst the Gentiles. He had no easy task, however, to convince others of this, and he never succeeded in bringing his elder colleagues over to his views. To the end of his life, Paul had to contend with bigoted and narrow-minded opposition within the Christian body, and if his views ultimately triumphed, and the seed which he sowed eventually yielded a rich harvest, he himself did not live to see the day, and the end was attained only by slow and natural changes. The new religion gradually extended beyond the limits of Judaism. Gentile Christians soon outnumbered Jewish believers. The Twelve whose names were the strength of the judaistic opposition one by one pa.s.sed away; but, above all, the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Christian community secured the success of Pauline principles and the universalism of Christianity.

The Church of Jerusalem could not bear transplanting. In the uncongenial soil of Pella it gradually dwindled away, losing first its influence and soon after its nationality. The divided members of the Jewish party, scattered amongst the Gentiles, and deprived of their influential leaders, could not long r.e.t.a.r.d the progress of the liberalism which they still continued to oppose and to misrepresent. In a word, the emanc.i.p.ation of Christianity was not effected by the Twelve, was no work of councils, and no result of dreams; but, receiving its first great impulse from the genius and the energy of Paul, its ultimate

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achievement was the result of time and natural development.

We have now patiently considered the "Acts of the Apostles," and although it has in no way been our design exhaustively to examine its contents, we have more than sufficiently done so to enable the reader to understand the true character of the doc.u.ment. The author is unknown, and it is no longer possible to identify him. If he were actually the Luke whom the Church indicates, our results would not be materially affected; but the mere fact that the writer is unknown is obviously fatal to the Acts as a guarantee of miracles. A cycle of supernatural occurrences could scarcely, in the estimation of any rational mind, be established by the statement of an anonymous author, and more especially one who not only does not pretend to have been an eye-witness of most of the miracles, but whose narrative is either uncorroborated by other testimony or inconsistent with itself, and contradicted on many points by contemporary doc.u.ments. The phenomena presented by the Acts of the Apostles become perfectly intelligible when we recognize that it is the work of a writer living long after the occurrences related, whose pious imagination furnished the apostolic age with an elaborate system of supernatural agency, far beyond the conception of any other New Testament writer, by which, according to his view, the proceedings of the Apostles were furthered and directed, and the infant Church miraculously fostered. On examining other portions of his narrative, we find that they present the features which the miraculous elements rendered antecedently probable. The speeches attributed to

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different speakers are all cast in the same mould, and betray the composition of one and the same writer. The sentiments expressed are inconsistent with what we know of the various speakers. And when we test the circ.u.mstances related by previous or subsequent incidents and by trustworthy doc.u.ments, it becomes apparent that the narrative is not an impartial statement of facts, but a reproduction of legends or a development of tradition, shaped and coloured according to the purpose or the pious views of the writer. The Acts of the Apostles, therefore, is not only an anonymous work, but upon due examination its claims to be considered sober and veracious history must be emphatically rejected. It cannot strengthen the foundations of supernatural Religion, but, on the contrary, by its profuse and indiscriminate use of the miraculous it discredits miracles, and affords a clearer insight into their origin and fict.i.tious character.

PART V. THE DIRECT EVIDENCE FOR MIRACLES

CHAPTER I. THE EPISTLES AND THE APOCALYPSE

Turning from the Acts of the Apostles to the other works of the New Testament, we shall be able very briefly to dispose of the Catholic Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. The so-called Epistles of James, Jude, and John, do not contain any evidence which, even supposing them to be authentic, really bears upon our inquiry into the reality of Miracles and Divine Revelation; and the testimony of the Apocalypse affects it quite as little. We have already, in examining the fourth Gospel, had occasion to say a good deal regarding both the so-called Epistles of John and the Apocalypse. It is unnecessary to enter upon a more minute discussion of them here. "Seven books of the New Testament," writes Dr. Westcott, "as is well known, have been received into the Canon on evidence less complete than that by which the others are supported."(1) These are "the Epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse." We have already furnished the means of judging of the nature of the

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evidence upon which some of the other books have been received into the Canon, and the evidence for most of these being avowedly "less complete," its nature may be conceived. Works which for a long period were cla.s.sed amongst the Antilegomena, or disputed books, and which only slowly acquired authority as, in the lapse of time, it became more difficult to examine their claims, could not do much to establish the reality of miracles. With regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, we may remark that we are freed from any need to deal at length with it, not only by the absence of any specific evidence in its contents, but by the following consideration. If the Epistle be not by Paul,--and it not only is not his, but does not even pretend to be so,--the author is unknown, and therefore the doc.u.ment has no weight as testimony. On the other hand, if a.s.signed to Paul, we shall have sufficient ground in his genuine epistles for considering the evidence of the Apostle, and it could not add anything even if the Epistle to the Hebrews were included in the number.

The first Epistle of Peter might have required more detailed treatment, but we think that little could be gained by demonstrating that the doc.u.ment is not authentic, or showing that, in any case, the evidence which it could furnish is not of any value. On the other hand, we are averse to protract the argument by any elaboration of mere details which can be avoided. If it could be absolutely proved that the Apostle Peter wrote the epistle circulating under his name, the evidence for miracles would only be strengthened by the fact that, incidentally, the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus is maintained. No historical details are given, and no explanation of the reasons for which the writer believed in it.

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Nothing more would be proved than the point that Peter himself believed in the Resurrection. It would certainly be a matter of very deep interest if we possessed a narrative written by the apostle himself, giving minute and accurate details of the phenomena in consequence of which he believed in so miraculous an event; but since this epistle does nothing more than allow us to infer the personal belief of the writer, unaccompanied by corroborative evidence, we should not gain anything by accepting it as genuine. We are quite willing to a.s.sume, without further examination, that the Apostle Peter in some way believed in the Resurrection of his Master. For the argument regarding the reality of that stupendous miracle, upon which we are about to enter, this is tantamount to a.s.suming the authenticity of the epistle.

Coming to the Epistles of Paul, it will not be necessary to go into the evidence for the various letters in our New Testament which are ascribed to him, nor shall we require to state the grounds upon which the authenticity of many of them is denied. Accepting the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Romans in the main as genuine compositions of the Apostle, the question as to the origin of the rest, so far as our inquiry is concerned, has little or no interest. From these four letters we obtain the whole evidence of Paul regarding miracles, and this we now propose carefully to examine. One point in particular demands our fullest attention. It is undeniable that Paul preached the doctrine of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, and believed in those events.

Whilst, therefore, we shall not pa.s.s over his supposed testimony for the possession of miraculous powers, we shall chiefly devote our attention to his evidence for the central dogmas of Supernatural Religion, the Resurection and Ascension of

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Jesus. We shall not, however, limit our examination to the testimony of Paul, but, as the climax of the historical argument for miracles, endeavour to ascertain the exact nature of the evidence upon which belief is claimed for the actual occurrence of those stupendous events.

For this, our inquiry into the authors.h.i.+p and credibility of the historical books of the New Testament has at length prepared us, and it will be admitted that, in subjecting these a.s.serted miracles to calm and fearless scrutiny--untinged by irreverence or disrespect, if personal earnestness and sincere sympathy with those who believe are any safeguards,--the whole theory of Christian miracles will be put to its final test.

CHAPTER II. THE EVIDENCE OF PAUL

It is better, before proceeding to examine the testimony of Paul for the Resurrection, to clear the way by considering his evidence for miracles in general, apart from that specific instance. In an earlier portion of this work(1) the following remark was made: "Throughout the New Testament, patristic literature, and the records of ecclesiastical miracles, although we have narratives of countless wonderful works performed by others than the writer, and abundant a.s.sertion of the possession of miraculous power by the Church, there is no instance whatever, that we can remember, in which a writer claims to have himself performed a miracle."(2) It is a.s.serted that this statement is erroneous, and that Paul does advance this claim.(3) It may be well to quote the moderate

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words in which a recent able writer states the case, although not with immediate reference to the particular pa.s.sage which we have quoted.

"... 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' [------]--the usual words for the higher forms of miracle--2 Cor. xii. 12). He tells the Romans that 'he will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by(1) him to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of G.o.d' [------]. He asks the

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Galatians whether 'he that ministereth to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [------] 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 a.s.signed to the working of miracles and gifts of healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29)."(1)

We shall presently examine these pa.s.sages, but we must first briefly deal with the question whether, taken in any sense, they furnish an instance "in which a writer claims to have himself performed _a miracle_." It must be obvious to any impartial reader, that the remark made in the course of our earlier argument precisely distinguished the general "a.s.sertion of the possession of miraculous power by the Church,"

from the explicit claim to have personally performed "a miracle" in the singular. If, therefore, it were even admitted "that St. Paul treats the fact of his working miracles as a matter of course, _to which a pa.s.sing reference is sufficient_," such "incidental allusions" would not in the least degree contradict the statement made, but, being the only instances producible, would in fact completely justify it. General and vague references of this kind have by no means the force of a definite claim to have performed some particular miracle. They partake too much of that indiscriminate impression of the possession and common exercise of miraculous powers which characterized the "age of miracles" to have any force. The desired instance, which is not forthcoming, and to which alone reference was made, was a case in which, instead of vague expressions, a writer, stating with precision the particulars, related that he himself had,

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for instance, actually raised some person from the dead. As we then added, even if Apostles had chronicled their miracles, the argument for their reality would not have been much advanced; but it is a curious phenomenon not undeserving of a moment's attention that apologists can only refer to such general pa.s.sages, and cannot quote an instance in which a specific miracle is related in detail by the person who is supposed to have performed it. Pa.s.sing references on a large scale to the exercise of miraculous power, whilst betraying a suspicious familiarity with phenomena of an exceptional nature, offer too much lat.i.tude for inaccuracy and imagination to have the weight of an affirmation in which the mind has been sobered by concentration to details. "Signs and wonders," indefinitely alluded to, may seem much more imposing and astonis.h.i.+ng than they really are, and it may probably be admitted by everyone that, if we knew the particulars of the occurrences which are thus vaguely indicated and which may have been considered miraculous in a superst.i.tious age, they might to us possibly appear no miracles at all. General expressions are liable to an exaggeration from which specific allegations arc more frequently free.

If it be conceded that the Apostle Paul fully believed in the possession by himself and the Church of divine Charismata, the indefinite expression of that belief, in any form, must not be made equivalent to an explicit claim to have performed a certain miracle, the particulars of which are categorically stated.

Pa.s.sing from this, however, to the more general question, the force of some of these objections will be better understood when we consider the pa.s.sages in the Epistles which are quoted as expressing Paul's belief in miracles, and endeavour to ascertain his real views: what it is he