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Evidences of Christianity by William Paley

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II. The story taken from the Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, which is the
second example alleged by Mr. Hume, is this: "In the church of Saragossa
in Spain, the canons showed me a man whose business it was to light the
lamps; telling me, that he had been several years at the gate with one
leg only. I saw him with two." (Liv. iv. A.D. 1654.)

It is stated by Mr. Hume, that the cardinal who relates this story did
not believe it; and it nowhere appears that he either examined the limb,
or asked the patient, or indeed any one, a single question about the
matter. An artificial leg, wrought with art, would be sufficient, in a
place where no such contrivance had ever before been heard of, to give
origin and currency to the report. The ecclesiastics of the place would,
it is probable, favour the story, inasmuch as it advanced the honour of
their image and church. And if they patronized it, no other person at
Saragossa, in the middle of the last century, would care to dispute it.
The story likewise coincided not less with the wishes and preconceptions
of the people than with the interests of their ecclesiastical rulers: so
that there was prejudice backed by authority, and both operating upon
extreme ignorance, to account for the success of the imposture. If, as I
have suggested, the contrivance of an artificial limb was then new, it
would not occur to the cardinal himself to suspect it; especially under
the carelessness of mind with which he heard the tale, and the little
inclination he felt to scrutinize or expose its fallacy.

III. The miracles related to have been wrought at the tomb of the abbe
Paris admit in general of this solution. The patients who frequented the
tomb were so affected by their devotion, their expectation, the place,
the solemnity, and, above all, by the sympathy of the surrounding
multitude, that many of them were thrown into violent convulsions, which
convulsions, in certain instances, produced a removal of disorder,
depending upon obstruction. We shall, at this day, have the less
difficulty in admitting the above account, because it is the very same
thing as hath lately been experienced in the operations of animal
magnetism: and the report of the French physicians upon that mysterious
remedy is very applicable to the present consideration, viz. that the
pretenders to the art, by working upon the imaginations of their
patients, were frequently able to produce convulsions; that convulsions
so produced are amongst the most powerful, but, at the same time, most
uncertain and unmanageable applications to the human frame which can be
employed.

Circumstances which indicate this explication, in the case of the
Parisian miracles, are the following:

1. They were tentative. Out of many thousand sick, infirm, and diseased
persons who resorted to the tomb, the professed history of the miracles
contains only nine cures.

2. The convulsions at the tomb are admitted.

3. The diseases were, for the most part, of that sort which depends upon
inaction and obstruction, as dropsies, palsies, and some tumours.

4. The cures were gradual; some patients attending many days, some several
weeks, and some several months.

5. The cures were many of them incomplete.

6. Others were temporary. (The reader will find these particulars
verified in the detail, by the accurate inquiries of the present bishop
of Sarum, in his Criterion of Miracles, p. 132, et seq.)

So that all the wonder we are called upon to account for is, that out of
an almost innumerable multitude which resorted to the tomb for the cure
of their complaints, and many of whom were there agitated by strong
convulsions, a very small proportion experienced a beneficial change in
their constitution, especially in the action of the nerves and glands.

Some of the cases alleged do not require that we should have recourse to
this solution. The first case in the catalogue is scarcely
distinguishable from the progress of a natural recovery. It was that of
a young man who laboured under an inflammation of one eye, and had lost
the sight of the other. The inflamed eye was relieved, but the blindness
of the other remained. The inflammation had before been abated by
medicine; and the young man, at the time of his attendance at the tomb,
was using a lotion of laudanum. And, what is a still more material part
of the case, the inflammation, after some interval, returned. Another
case was that of a young man who had lost his sight by the puncture of
an awl, and the discharge of the aqueous humour through the wound. The
sight, which had been gradually returning, was much improved during his
visit to the tomb, that is, probably in the same degree in which the
discharged humour was replaced by fresh secretions. And it is
observable, that these two are the only cases which, from their nature,
should seem unlikely to be affected by convulsions.

In one material respect I allow that the Parisian miracles were
different from those related by Tacitus, and from the Spanish miracle of
the cardinal de Retz. They had not, like them, all the power and all the
prejudice of the country on their side to begin with. They were alleged
by one party against another, by the Jansenists against the Jesuits.
These were of course opposed and examined by their adversaries. The
consequence of which examination was that many falsehoods were detected,
that with something really extraordinary much fraud appeared to be
mixed. And if some of the cases upon which designed misrepresentation
could not be charged were not at the time satisfactorily accounted for,
it was because the efficacy of strong spasmodic affections was not then
sufficiently known. Finally, the cause of Jansenism did not rise by the
miracles, but sunk, although the miracles had the anterior persuasion of
all the numerous adherents of that cause to set out with.

These, let us remember, are the strongest examples which the history of
ages supplies. In none of them was the miracle unequivocal; by none of
them were established prejudices and persuasions overthrown; of none of
them did the credit make its way, in opposition to authority and power;
by none of them were many induced to commit themselves, and that in
contradiction to prior opinions, to a life of mortification, danger, and
sufferings; none were called upon to attest them at the expense of their
fortunes and safety.*

_________

* It may be thought that the historian of the Parisian miracles, M.
Montgeron, forms an exception to this last assertion. He presented his
book (with a suspicion, as it should seem, of the danger of what he was
doing) to the king; and was shortly afterwards committed to prison; from
which he never came out. Had the miracles been unequivocal, and had M.
Montgeron been originally convinced by them, I should have allowed this
exception. It would have stood, I think, alone in the argument of our
adversaries. But, beside what has been observed of the dubious nature of
the miracles, the account which M. Montgeron has himself left of his
conversion shows both the state of his mind and that his persuasion was
not built upon external miracles.--"Scarcely had he entered the
churchyard when he was struck," he tells us, "with awe and reverence,
having never before heard prayers pronounced with so much ardour and
transport as he observed amongst the supplicants at the tomb. Upon this,
throwing himself on his knees, resting his elbows on the tombstone and
covering his face with his hands, he spake the following prayer. O thou,
by whose intercession so many miracles are said to be performed, if it
be true that a part of thee surviveth the grave, and that thou hast
influence with the Almighty, have pity on the darkness of my
understanding, and through his mercy obtain the removal of it." Having
prayed thus, "many thoughts," as he sayeth, "began to open themselves to
his mind; and so profound was his attention that he continued on his
knees four hours, not in the least disturbed by the vast crowd of
surrounding supplicants. During this time, all the arguments which he
ever heard or read in favour of Christianity occurred to him with so
much force, and seemed so strong and convincing, that he went home fully
satisfied of the truth of religion in general, and of the holiness and
power of that person who," as he supposed, "had engaged the Divine
Goodness to enlighten his understanding so suddenly." (Douglas's Crit of
Mir. p. 214.)

_________





PART II.

OF THE AUXILIARY EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY

CHAPTER I.

PROPHECY.

Isaiah iii. 13; liii. "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall
be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at
thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than
the sons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut
their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they
see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who hath
believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he
shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it
were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from
judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out
of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he
stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in
his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in
his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to
grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see
his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with
the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors."

These words are extant in a book purporting to contain the predictions
of a writer who lived seven centuries before the Christian era.

That material part of every argument from prophecy, namely, that the
words alleged were actually spoken or written before the fact to which
they are applied took place, or could by any natural means be foreseen,
is, in the present instance, incontestable. The record comes out of the
custody of adversaries. The Jews, as an ancient father well observed,
are our librarians. The passage is in their copies as well as in ours.
With many attempts to explain it away, none has ever been made by them
to discredit its authenticity.

And what adds to the force of the quotation is, that it is taken from a
writing declaredly prophetic; a writing professing to describe such
future transactions and changes in the world as were connected with the
fate and interests of the Jewish nation. It is not a passage in an
historical or devotional composition, which, because it turns out to be
applicable to some future events, or to some future situation of
affairs, is presumed to have been oracular. The words of Isaiah were
delivered by him in a prophetic character, with the solemnity belonging
to that character: and what he so delivered was all along understood by
the Jewish reader to refer to something that was to take place after the
time of the author. The public sentiments of the Jews concerning the
design of Isaiah's writings are set forth in the book of
Ecclesiasticus:* "He saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass
at the last, and he comforted them that mourned in Sion. He showed what
should come to pass for ever, and secret things or ever they came."

_________

* Chap. xlviii. ver. 24.
_________


It is also an advantage which this prophecy possesses, that it is
intermixed with no other subject. It is entire, separate, and
uninterruptedly directed to one scene of things.

The application of the prophecy to the evangelic history is plain and
appropriate. Here is no double sense; no figurative language but what is
sufficiently intelligible to every reader of every country. The
obscurities (by which I mean the expressions that require a knowledge of
local diction, and of local allusion) are few, and not of great
importance. Nor have I found that varieties of reading, or a different
construing of the original, produce any material alteration in the sense
of the prophecy. Compare the common translation with that of Bishop
Lowth, and the difference is not considerable. So far as they do differ,
Bishop Lowth's corrections, which are the faithful result of an accurate
examination, bring the description nearer to the New Testament history
than it was before. In the fourth verse of the fifty-third chapter, what
our bible renders "stricken" he translates "judicially stricken:" and in
the eighth verse, the clause "he was taken from prison and from
judgment," the bishop gives "by an oppressive judgment he was taken
off." The next words to these, "who shall declare his generation?" are
much cleared up in their meaning by the bishop's version; "his manner of
life who would declare?" i. e. who would stand forth in his defence? The
former part of the ninth verse, "and he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death," which inverts the circumstances of
Christ's passion, the bishop brings out in an order perfectly agreeable
to the event; "and his grave was appointed with the wicked, but with the
rich man was his tomb." The words in the eleventh verse, "by his
knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many," are, in the bishop's
version, "by the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify
many."

It is natural to inquire what turn the Jews themselves give to this
prophecy.* There is good proof that the ancient Rabbins explained it of
their expected Messiah:+ but their modern expositors concur, I think, in
representing it as a description of the calamitous state, and intended
restoration, of the Jewish people, who are here, as they say, exhibited
under the character of a single person. I have not discovered that their
exposition rests upon any critical arguments, or upon these in any other
than in a very minute degree.

_________

* "Vaticinium hoc Esaiae est carnificina Rabbinorum, de quo aliqui
Judaei mihi confessi sunt, Rabbinos suos ex propheticis scripturis
facile se extricare potuisse, modo; Esaias tacuisset." Hulse, Theol.
Jud. P. 318, quoted by Poole, in loc.

+ Hulse, Theol. Jud. p. 430.
_________


The clause in the ninth verse, which we render "for the transgression of
my people was he stricken," and in the margin, "was the stroke upon
him," the Jews read "for the transgression of my people was the stroke
upon them." And what they allege in support of the alteration amounts
only to this, that the Hebrew pronoun is capable of a plural as well as
of a singular signification; that is to say, is capable of their
construction as well as ours.* And this is all the variation contended
for; the rest of the prophecy they read as we do. The probability,
therefore, of their exposition is a subject of which we are as capable
of judging as themselves. This judgment is open indeed to the good sense
of every attentive reader. The application which the Jews contend for
appears to me to labour under insuperable difficulties; in particular,
it may be demanded of them to explain in whose name or person, if the
Jewish people he the sufferer, does the prophet speak, when he says, "He
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; but he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of
our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Again, the
description in the seventh verse, "he was oppressed and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not
his mouth," quadrates with no part of the Jewish history with which we
are acquainted. The mention of the "grave" and the "tomb," in the ninth
verse, is not very applicable to the fortunes of a nation; and still
less so is the conclusion of the prophecy in the twelfth verse, which
expressly represents the sufferings as voluntary, and the sufferer as
interceding for the offenders; "because he hath poured out his soul unto
death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin
of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

_________

* Bishop Lowth adopts in this place the reading of the seventy, which
gives smitten to death, "for the transgression of my people was he
smitten to death." The addition of the words "to death" makes an end of
the Jewish interpretation of the clause. And the authority upon which
this reading (though not given by the present Hebrew text) is adopted,
Dr. Kennicot has set forth by an argument not only so cogent, but so
clear and popular, that I beg leave to transcribe the substance of it
into this note:--"Origen, after having quoted at large this prophecy
concerning the Messiah, tells us that, having once made use of this
passage, in a dispute against some that were accounted wise amongst the
Jews, one of them replied that the words did not mean one man, but one
people, the Jews, who were smitten of God, and dispersed among the
Gentiles for their conversion; that he then urged many parts of this
prophecy to show the absurdity of this interpretation, and that he
seemed to press them the hardest by this sentence,--'for the
transgression of my people was he smitten to death.'" Now as Origen, the
author of the Hexapla, must have understood Hebrew, we cannot suppose
that he would have urged this last text as so decisive, if the Greek
version had not agreed here with the Hebrew text; nor that these wise
Jews would have been at all distressed by this quotation, unless the
Hebrew text had read agreeably to the words "to death," on which the
argument principally depended; for by quoting it immediately, they would
have triumphed over him, and reprobated his Greek version. This,
whenever they could do it was their constant practice in their disputes
with the Christians. Origen himself, who laboriously compared the Hebrew
text with the Septuagint, has recorded the necessity of arguing with the
Jews from such passages only as were in the Septuagint agreeable to the
Hebrew. Wherefore, as Origen had carefully compared the Greek version of
the Septuagint with the Hebrew text; and as he puzzled and confounded
the learned Jews, by urging upon them the reading "to death" in this
place; it seems almost impossible not to conclude, both from Origen's
argument and the silence of his Jewish adversaries, that the Hebrew text
at that time actually had the word agreeably to the version of the
seventy. Lowth's Isaiah, p. 242.
_________


There are other prophecies of the Old Testament, interpreted by
Christians to relate to the Gospel history, which are deserving both of
great regard and of a very attentive consideration: but I content myself
with stating the above, as well because I think it the clearest and the
strongest of all, as because most of the rest, in order that their value
might be represented with any tolerable degree of fidelity, require a
discussion unsuitable to the limits and nature of this work. The reader
will find them disposed in order, and distinctly explained, in Bishop
Chandler's treatise on the subject; and he will bear in mind, what has
been often, and, I think, truly, urged by the advocates of Christianity,
that there is no other eminent person to the history of whose life so
many circumstances can be made to apply. They who object that much has
been done by the power of chance, the ingenuity of accommodation, and
the industry of research, ought to try whether the same, or anything
like it, could be done, if Mahomet, or any other person, were proposed
as the subject of Jewish prophecy.


II. A second head of argument from prophecy is founded upon our Lord's
predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, recorded by three
out of the four evangelists.

Luke xxi. 5-25. "And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned
with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye
behold, the days will come in which there shall not be left one stone
upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And they asked him, saying,
Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when
these things shall come to pass? And he said, Take heed that ye be not
deceived; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the
time draweth near; go ye not therefore after them. But when ye shall
hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must
first come to pass; but the end is not by-and-by. Then said he unto
them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and
great earth-quakes shall be in divers places, and famines and
pestilences; and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from
heaven. But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and
persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons,
being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. And it shall
turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to
meditate before what ye shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and
wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor
resist. And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and
kinsfolk, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to
death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But there
shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your
souls. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know
that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea
flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart
out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For
these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be
fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give
suck in those days: for there shall be great distress in the land, and
wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword,
and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be
trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled."

In terms nearly similar, this discourse is related in the twenty-fourth
chapter of Matthew and the thirteenth of Mark. The prospect of the same
evils drew from our Saviour, on another occasion, the following
affecting expressions of concern, which are preserved by St. Luke (xix.
41--44): "And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over
it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine
eyes. For the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within
thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because
thou knowest not the time of thy visitation"--These passages are direct
and explicit predictions. References to the same event, some plain, some
parabolical, or otherwise figurative, are found in divers other
discourses of our Lord. (Matt. xxi. 33-46; xxii. 1-7. Mark xii. 1-12.
Luke xiii. 1-9; xx. 9-20; xxi. 5-13.)

The general agreement of the description with the event, viz. with the
ruin of the Jewish nation, and the capture of Jerusalem under Vespasian,
thirty-six years after Christ's death, is most evident; and the
accordancy in various articles of detail and circumstances has been
shown by many learned writers. It is also an advantage to the inquiry,
and to the argument built upon it, that we have received a copious
account of the transaction from Josephus, a Jewish and contemporary
historian. This part of the case is perfectly free from doubt. The only
question which, in my opinion, can be raised upon the subject is,
whether the prophecy was really delivered before the event? I shall
apply, therefore, my observations to this point solely.

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