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Evidences of Christianity by William Paley

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CHAPTER V.

THAT THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES ARE NOT RECITED, OR APPEALED TO, BY EARLY
CHRISTIAN WRITERS THEMSELVES SO FULLY OR FREQUENTLY AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN
EXPECTED.

I shall consider this objection, first, as it applies to the letters of
the apostles preserved in the New Testament; and secondly, as it applies
to the remaining writings of other early Christians.

The epistles of the apostles are either hortatory or argumentative. So
far as they were occupied in delivering lessons of duty, rules of public
order, admonitions against certain prevailing corruptions, against vice,
or any particular species of it, or in fortifying and encouraging the
constancy of the disciples under the trials to which they were exposed,
there appears to be no place or occasion for more of these references
than we actually find.

So far as these epistles are argumentative, the nature of the argument
which they handle accounts for the infrequency of these allusions. These
epistles were not written to prove the truth of Christianity. The
subject under consideration was not that which the miracles decided, the
reality of our Lord's mission; but it was that which the miracles did
not decide, the nature of his person or power, the design of his advent,
its effects, and of those effects the value, kind, and extent. Still I
maintain that miraculous evidence lies at the bottom of the argument. For
nothing could be so preposterous as for the disciples of Jesus to
dispute amongst themselves, or with others, concerning his office or
character; unless they believed that he had shown, by supernatural
proofs, that there was something extraordinary in both. Miraculous
evidence, therefore, forming not the texture of these arguments, but the
ground and substratum, if it be occasionally discerned, if it be
incidentally appealed to, it is exactly so much as ought take place,
supposing the history to be true.

As a further answer to the objection, that the apostolic epistles do not
contain so frequent, or such direct and circumstantial recitals of
miracles as might be expected, I would add, that the apostolic epistles
resemble in this respect the apostolic speeches, which speeches are
given by a writer who distinctly records numerous miracles wrought by
these apostles themselves, and by the Founder of the institution in
their presence; that it is unwarrantable to contend that the omission,
or infrequency, of such recitals in the speeches of the apostles
negatives the existence of the miracles, when the speeches are given in
immediate conjunction with the history of those miracles: and that a
conclusion which cannot be inferred from the speeches without
contradicting the whole tenour of the book which contains them cannot be
inferred from letters, which in this respect are similar only to the
speeches.

To prove the similitude which we allege, it may be remarked, that
although in Saint Luke's Gospel the apostle Peter is represented to have
been present at many decisive miracles wrought by Christ; and although
the second part of the same history ascribes other decisive miracles to
Peter himself, particularly the cure of the lame man at the gate of the
temple (Acts iii. 1), the death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 1), the
cure of Aeneas (Acts ix. 34), the resurrection of Dorcas (Acts ix. 40);
yet out of six speeches of Peter, preserved in the Acts, I know but two
in which reference is made to the miracles wrought by Christ, and only
one in which he refers to miraculous powers possessed by himself. In his
speech upon the day of Pentecost, Peter addresses his audience with
great solemnity thus: "Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of
Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and
signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
know:" (Acts ii. 22.) &c. In his speech upon the conversion of
Cornelius, he delivers his testimony to the miracles performed by Christ
in these words: "We are witnesses of all things which he did, both in
the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem." (Acts x. 39.) But in this latter
speech no allusion appears to the miracles wrought by himself
notwithstanding that the miracles above enumerated all preceded the time
in which it was delivered. In his speech upon the election of
Matthias, (Acts i. 15.) no distinct reference is made to any of the
miracles of Christ's history except his resurrection. The same also may
be observed of his speech upon the cure of the lame man at the of the
temple; (Acts iii. 12.) the same in his speech before the Sanhedrim;
(Acts iv. 8.) the same in his second apology in the presence of that
assembly Stephen's long speech contains no reference whatever to
miracles, though it be expressly related of him, in the book which
preserves the speech, and almost immediately before the speech, "that he
did great wonders and miracles among the people." (Acts vi. 8.) Again,
although miracles be expressly attributed to Saint Paul in the Acts of
the Apostles, first generally, as at Iconium (Acts xiv. 3), during the
whole tour through the Upper Asia (xiv. 27; xv. 12), at Ephesus (xix.
11, 12); secondly, in specific instances, as the blindness of Elymas at
Paphos, (Acts xiii. 11.) the cure of the cripple at Lystra, (Acts xiv. 8.)
of the pythoness at Philippi, (Acts xvi. 16.) the miraculous liberation
from prison in the same city, (Acts xvi. 26.) the restoration of
Eutychus, (Acts xx. 10.) the predictions of his shipwreck, (Acts xxvii.
1.) the viper at Melita, the cure of Publius's father; (Acts xxvii. 8.)
at all which miracles, except the first two, the historian himself was
present: notwithstanding, I say, this positive ascription of miracles to
St. Paul, yet in the speeches delivered by him, and given as delivered
by him, in the same book in which the miracles are related, and the
miraculous powers asserted, the appeals to his own miracles, or indeed
to any miracles at all, are rare and incidental. In his speech at
Antioch in Pisidia, (Acts xiii. 16.) there is no allusion but to the
resurrection. In his discourse at Miletus, (Acts xx. 17.) none to any
miracle: none in his speech before Felix; (Acts xxiv. 10.) none in his
speech before Festus; (Acts xxv. 8.) except to Christ's resurrection and
his own conversion.

Agreeably hereunto, in thirteen letters ascribed to Saint Paul, we have
incessant references to Christ's resurrection, frequent references to
his own conversion, three indubitable references to the miracles which
he wrought; (Gal. iii. 5; Rom. xv. 18, 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12.) four other
references to the same, less direct, yet highly probable; (1 Cor. ii. 4,5;
Eph. iii. 7; Gal. ii. 8; 1 Thess. i. 8.) but more copious or
circumstantial recitals we have not. The consent, therefore, between
Saint Paul's speeches and letters is in this respect sufficiently exact;
and the reason in both is the same, namely, that the miraculous history
was all along presupposed, and that the question which occupied the
speaker's and the writer's thoughts was this: whether, allowing the
history of Jesus to be true, he was, upon the strength of it, to be
received as the promised Messiah; and, if he was, what were the
consequences, what was the object and benefit of his mission?

The general observation which has been made upon the apostolic writings,
namely, that the subject of which they treated did not lead them to any
direct recital of the Christian history, belongs to the writings of the
apostolic fathers. The epistle of Barnabas is, in its subject and
general composition, much like the epistle to the Hebrews; an
allegorical application of divers passages of the Jewish history, of
their law and ritual, to those parts of the Christian dispensation in
which the author perceived a resemblance. The epistle of Clement was
written for the sole purpose of quieting certain dissensions that had
arisen amongst the members of the church of Corinth, and of reviving in
their minds that temper and spirit of which their predecessors in the
Gospel had left them an example. The work of Hermas is a vision; quotes
neither the Old Testament nor the New, and merely falls now and then
into the language and the mode of speech which the author had read in
our Gospels. The epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius had for their
principal object the order and discipline of the churches which they
addressed. Yet, under all these circumstances of disadvantage, the great
points of the Christian history are fully recognised. This hath been
shown in its proper place. (Vide supra, pp. 48-51. [Part 1, Chapter 8])

There is, however, another class of writers to whom the answer above
given, viz. the unsuitableness of any such appeals or references as the
objection demands to the subjects of which the writings treated, does
not apply; and that is the class of ancient apologists, whose declared
design it was to defend Christianity, and to give the reasons of their
adherence to it. It is necessary, therefore, to inquire how the matter
of the objection stands in these.

The most ancient apologist of whose works we have the smallest knowledge
is Quadratus. Quadratus lived about seventy years after the ascension,
and presented his apology to the Emperor Adrian. From a passage of this
work, preserved in Eusebius, it appears that the author did directly and
formally appeal to the miracles of Christ, and in terms as express and
confident as we could desire. The passage (which has been once already
stated) is as follows: "The works of our Saviour were always
conspicuous, for they were real: both they that were healed, and they
that were raised from the dead, were seen, not only when they were
healed or raised, but for a long time afterwards; not only whilst he
dwelled on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good
while after it; insomuch as that some of them have reached to our
times," (Euseb. Hist. I. iv. c. 3.) Nothing can be more rational or
satisfactory than this.


Justin Martyr, the next of the Christian apologists, whose work is not
lost, and who followed Quadratus at the distance of about thirty years,
has touched upon passages of Christ's history in so many places, that a
tolerably complete account of Christ's life might be collected out of
his works. In the following quotation he asserts the performance of
miracles by Christ, in words as strong and positive as the language
possesses: "Christ healed those who from their birth were blind, and
deaf, and lame; causing, by his word, one to leap, another to hear, and
a third to see; and having raised the dead, and caused them to live, he,
by his works, excited attention, and induced the men of that age to know
him: who, however, seeing these things done, said that it was a magical
appearance, and dared to call him a magician, and a deceiver of the
people." (Just. Dial. p. 258, ed. Thirlby.)

In his first apology, (Apolog. prim. p. 48, ib.) Justin expressly
assigns the reason for his having recourse to the argument from
prophecy, rather than alleging the miracles of the Christian history;
which reason was, that the persons with whom he contended would ascribe
these miracles to magic; "lest any of our opponents should say, What
hinders, but that he who is called Christ by us, being a man sprung from
men, performed the miracles which we attribute to him by magical art?"
The suggestion of this reason meets, as I apprehend, the very point of
the present objection; more especially when we find Justin followed in
it by other writers of that age. Irenaeus, who came about forty years
after him, notices the same evasion in the adversaries of Christianity,
and replies to it by the same argument: "But if they shall say, that the
Lord performed these things by an illusory appearance (phantasiodos),
leading these objectors to the prophecies, we will show from them, that
all things were thus predicted concerning him, and Strictly came to
pass." (Iren. I. ii. c. 57.) Lactantius, who lived a century lower,
delivers the same sentiment upon the same occasion: "He performed
miracles;--we might have supposed him to have been a magician, as ye
say, and as the Jews then supposed, if all the prophets had not with one
spirit foretold that Christ should perform these very things." (Lactant.
v. 3.)

But to return to the Christian apologists in their order.
Tertullian:--"That person whom the Jews had vainly imagined, from the
meanness of his appearance, to be a mere man, they afterwards, in
consequence of the power he exerted, considered as a magician, when he,
with one word, ejected devils out of the bodies of men, gave sight to
the blind, cleansed the leprous, strengthened the nerves of those that
had the palsy, and lastly, with one command, restored the dead to life;
when he, I say, made the very elements obey him, assuaged the storms,
walked upon the seas, demonstrating himself to be the Word of God."
(Tertul. Apolos. p. 20; ed. Priorii, Par. 1675.)

Next in the catalogue of professed apologists we may place Origen, who,
it is well known, published a formal defence of Christianity, in answer
to Celsus, a heathen, who had written a discourse against it. I know no
expressions by which a plainer or more positive appeal to the Christian
miracles can be made, than the expressions used by Origen; "Undoubtedly
we do think him to be the Christ, and the Son of God, because he healed
the lame and the blind; and we are the more confirmed in this persuasion
by what is written in the prophecies: 'Then shall the eyes of the blind
be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the lame man shall
leap as a hart.' But that he also raised the dead, and that it is not a
fiction of those who wrote the Gospels, is evident from hence, that if
it had been a fiction, there would have been many recorded to be raised
up, and such as had been a long time in their graves. But, it not being
a fiction, few have been recorded: for instance, the daughter of the
ruler of a synagogue, of whom I do not know why he said, She is not
dead, but sleepeth, expressing something peculiar to her, not common to
all dead persons: and the only son of a widow, on whom he had
compassion, and raised him to life, after he had bid the bearers of the
corpse to stop; and the third, Lazarus, who had been buried four days."
This is positively to assert the miracles of Christ, and it is also to
comment upon them, and that with a considerable degree of accuracy and
candour.

In another passage of the same author, we meet with the old solution of
magic applied to the miracles of Christ by the adversaries of the
religion. "Celsus," saith Origen, "well knowing what great works may be
alleged to have been done by Jesus, pretends to grant that the things
related of him are true; such as healing diseases, raising the dead,
feeding multitudes with a few leaves, of which large fragments were
left." (Orig. cont. Cels. lib. ii. sect. 48.) And then Celsus gives, it
seems, an answer to these proofs of our Lord's mission, which, as Origen
understood it, resolved the phenomena into magic; for Origen begins his
reply by observing, "You see that Celsus in a manner allows that there
is such a thing as magic." (Lardner's Jewish and Heath. Test, vol. ii.
p. 294, ed. 4to.)

It appears also from the testimony of St. Jerome, that Porphyry, the
most learned and able of the heathen writers against Christianity,
resorted to the same solution: "Unless," says he, speaking to
Vigilantius, "according to the manner of the Gentiles and the profane,
of Porphyry and Eunomius, you pretend that these are the tricks of
demons." (Jerome cont. Vigil.)

This magic, these demons, this illusory appearance, this comparison with
the tricks of jugglers, by which many of that age accounted so easily
for the Christian miracles, and which answers the advocates of
Christianity often thought it necessary to refute by arguments drawn
from other topics, and particularly from prophecy (to which, it seems,
these solutions did not apply), we now perceive to be gross subterfuges.
That such reasons were ever seriously urged and seriously received, is
only a proof what a gloss and varnish fashion can give to any opinion.

It appears, therefore, that the miracles of Christ, understood as we
understand them in their literal and historical sense, were positively
and precisely asserted and appealed to by the apologists for
Christianity; which answers the allegation of the objection.

I am ready, however, to admit, that the ancient Christian advocates did
not insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have
done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency,
against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for
the convincing of their adversaries: I do not know whether they
themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is
proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they
appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their
doubt of the facts, it is, at any rate, an objection not to the truth of
the history, but to the judgment of its defenders.





CHAPTER VI.

WANT OF UNIVERSALITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE AND RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, AND
OF GREATER CLEARNESS IN THE EVIDENCE.

Or, a Revelation which really came from God, the proof, it has been
said, would in all ages be so public and manifest, that no part of the
human species would remain ignorant of it, no understanding could fail
of being convinced by it.

The advocates of Christianity do not pretend that the evidence of their
religion possesses these qualities. They do not deny that we can
conceive it to be within the compass of divine power to have
communicated to the world a higher degree of assurance, and to have
given to his communication a stronger and more extensive influence. For
anything we are able to discern, God could have so formed men, as to
have perceived the truths of religion intuitively; or to have carried on
a communication with the other world whilst they lived in this; or to
have seen the individuals of the species, instead of dying, pass to
heaven by a sensible translation. He could have presented a separate
miracle to each man's senses. He could have established a standing
miracle. He could have caused miracles to be wrought in every different
age and country. These and many more methods, which we may imagine if we
once give loose to our imaginations, are, so far as we can judge, all
practicable.

The question therefore is, not whether Christianity possesses the
highest possible degree of evidence, but whether the not having more
evidence be a sufficient reason for rejecting that which we have.

Now there appears to be no fairer method of judging concerning any
dispensation which is alleged to come from God, when question is made
whether such a dispensation could come from God or not, than by
comparing it with other things which are acknowledged to proceed from
the same counsel, and to be produced by the same agency. If the
dispensation in question labour under no defects but what apparently
belong to other dispensations, these seeming defects do not justify us
in setting aside the proofs which are offered of its authenticity, if
they be otherwise entitled to credit.

Throughout that order then of nature, of which God is the author, what
we find is a system of beneficence: we are seldom or never able to make
out a system of optimism. I mean, that there are few cases in which, if
we permit ourselves to range in possibilities, we cannot suppose
something more perfect, and, more unobjectionable, than what we see. The
rain which descends from heaven is confessedly amongst the contrivances
of the Creator for the sustentation of the animals and vegetables which
subsist upon the surface of the earth. Yet how partially: and
irregularly is it supplied! How much of it falls upon sea, where it can
be of no use! how often is it wanted where it would be of the greatest!
What tracts of continent are rendered deserts by the scarcity of it! Or,
not to speak of extreme cases, how much sometimes do inhabited countries
suffer by its deficiency or delay!--We could imagine, if to imagine were
our business, the matter to be otherwise regulated. We could imagine
showers to fall just where and when they would do good; always
seasonable, everywhere sufficient; so distributed as not to leave a
field upon the face of the globe scorched by drought or even a plant
withering for the lack of moisture. Yet, does the difference between the
real case and the imagined case, or the seeming inferiority of the one
to the other, authorise us to say, that the present disposition of the
atmosphere is not amongst the productions or the designs of the Deity?
Does it check the inference which we draw from the confessed beneficence
of the provision? or does it make us cease to admire the contrivance?
The observation which we have exemplified in the single instance of the
rain of heaven may be repeated concerning most of the phenomena of
nature; and the true conclusion to which it leads is this--that to
inquire what the Deity might have done, could have done, or, as we even
sometimes presume to speak, ought to have done, or, in hypothetical
cases, would have done; and to build any propositions upon such
inquiries against evidence of facts, is wholly unwarrantable. It is a
mode of reasoning which will not do in natural history, which will not
do in natural religion, which cannot therefore be applied with safety to
revelation. It may have same foundation in certain speculative a priori
ideas of the divine attributes, but it has none in experience or in
analogy. The general character of the works of nature is, on the one
hand, goodness both in design and effect; and, on the other hand, a
liability to difficulty and to objections, if such objections be
allowed, by reason of seeming incompleteness or uncertainty in attaining
their end. Christianity participates of this character. The true
similitude between nature and revelation consists in this--that they
each bear strong marks of their original, that they each also bear
appearances of irregularity and defect. A system of strict optimism may,
nevertheless, be the real system in both cases. But what I contend is,
that the proof is hidden from us; that we ought not to expect to
perceive that in revelation which we hardly perceive in anything; that
beneficence, of which, we can judge, ought to satisfy us that optimism,
of which we cannot judge, ought not to be sought after. We can judge of
beneficence, because it depends upon effects which we experience, and
upon the relation between the means which we see acting and the ends
which we see produced. We cannot judge of optimism because it
necessarily implies a comparison of that which is tried with that which
is not tried; of consequences which we see with others which we imagine,
and concerning many of which, it is more than probable, we know nothing;
concerning some that we have no notion.

If Christianity be compared with the state and progress of natural
religion, the argument of the objector will gain nothing by the
comparison. I remember hearing an unbeliever say that, if God had given
a revelation, he would have written it in the skies. Are the truths of
natural religion written in the skies, or in a language which every one
reads? or is this the case with the most useful arts, or the most
necessary sciences of human life? An Otaheitean or an Esquimaux knows
nothing of Christianity; does he know more of the principles of deism or
morality? which, notwithstanding his ignorance, are neither untrue, nor
unimportant, nor uncertain. The existence of Deity is left to be
collected from observations, which every man does not make, which every
man, perhaps, is not capable of making. Can it be argued that God does
not exist because if he did, he would let us see him, or discover
himself to man kind by proofs (such as, we may think, the nature of the
subject merited) which no inadvertency could miss, no prejudice
withstand?

If Christianity be regarded as a providential instrument the melioration
of mankind, its progress and diffusion that of other causes by which
human life is improved diversity is not greater, nor the advance more
slow, in than we find it to be in learning, liberty, government, laws.
The Deity hath not touched the order of nature in vain. The Jewish
religion produced great and permanent effects; the Christian religion
hath done the same. It hath disposed the world to amendment: it hath put
things in a train. It is by no means improbable that it may become
universal; and that the world may continue in that stage so long as that
the duration of its reign may bear a vast proportion to the time of its
partial influence.

When we argue concerning Christianity, that it must necessarily be true
because it is beneficial, we go, perhaps, too far on one side; and we
certainly go too far on the other when we conclude that it must be false
because it is not so efficacious as we could have supposed. The question
of its truth is to be tried upon its proper evidence, without deferring
much to this sort of argument on either side. "The evidence," as Bishop
Butler hath rightly observed, "depends upon the judgment we form of
human conduct, under given circumstances, of which it may be presumed
that we know something; the objection stands upon the supposed conduct
of the Deity, under relations with which we are not acquainted."

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