LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF MIRACLES

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      Let us now, however, proceed to examine the evidence for the reality of miracles, and to inquire whether they are supported by such an amount of testimony as can in any degree outweigh the reasons which, antecedently, seem to render them incredible. It is undeniable that belief in the miraculous has gradually been dispelled, and that, as a general rule, the only miracles which are now maintained are limited to brief and distant periods of time. Faith in their reality, once so comprehensive, does not, except amongst a certain class, extend beyond the miracles of the New Testament and a few of those of the Old,(1) and the countless myriads of ecclesiastical and other miracles, for centuries devoutly and implicitly believed, are now commonly repudiated, and have sunk into discredit and contempt. The question is inevitably suggested how so much can be abandoned and the remnant still be upheld.

      As an essential part of our inquiry into the value of the evidence for miracles, we must endeavour to ascertain whether those who are said to have witnessed the supposed miraculous occurrences were either competent to appreciate them aright, or likely to report them without exaggeration. For this purpose, we must consider what was known of the order of nature in the age in which miracles are said to have taken place, and what was the intellectual character of the people amongst whom they are reported to have been performed. Nothing is more rare, even amongst intelligent and cultivated men, than accuracy of observation and correctness of report, even in matters of sufficient importance to attract vivid attention, and in which there is no special interest unconsciously to bias the observer. It will scarcely be denied, however, that in persons of fervid imagination, and with a strong natural love of the marvellous, whose minds are not only unrestrained by specific knowledge, but predisposed by superstition towards false conclusions, the probability of inaccuracy and exaggeration is enormously increased. If we add to this such a disturbing element as religious excitement, inaccuracy, exaggeration, and extravagance are certain to occur. The effect of even one of these influences, religious feeling, in warping the judgment, is admitted by one of the most uncompromising supporters of miracles. "It is doubtless the tendency of religious minds," says Dr. Newman, "to imagine mysteries and wonders where there are none; and much more, where causes of awe really exist, will they unintentionally mis-state, exaggerate, and embellish, when they set themselves to relate what they have witnessed or have heard;" and he adds: "and further, the imagination, as is well known, is a fruitful cause of apparent miracles."(1) We need not offer any evidence that the miracles which we have to examine were witnessed and reported by persons exposed to the effects of the strongest possible religious feeling and excitement, and our attention may, therefore, be more freely directed to the inquiry how far this influence was modified by other circumstances. Did the Jews at the time of Jesus possess such calmness of judgment and sobriety of imagination as to inspire us with any confidence in accounts of marvellous occurrences, unwitnessed except by them, and limited to their time, which contradict all knowledge and all experience? Were their minds sufficiently enlightened and free from superstition to warrant our attaching weight to their report of events of such an astounding nature? and were they themselves sufficiently impressed with the exceptional character of any apparent supernatural and miraculous interference with the order of nature?

      Let an English historian and divine, who will be acknowledged as no prejudiced witness, bear testimony upon some of these points. "Nor is it less important," says the late Dean Milman, "throughout the early history of Christianity, to seize the spirit of the times. Events which appear to us so extraordinary, that we can scarcely conceive that they should either fail in exciting a powerful sensation, or ever be obliterated from the popular remembrance, in their own day might pass off as of little more than ordinary occurrence. During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age, and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the ever-ready belief. The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme Being had the power of controlling the course of nature, but that the same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate spirits, both good and evil. Where the pious Christian of the present day would behold the direct agency of the Almighty, the Jews would invariably have interposed an angel as the author or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction. Where the Christian moralist would condemn the fierce passion, the ungovernable lust, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned the workings of diabolical possession. Scarcely a malady was endured, or crime committed, but it was traced to the operation of one of these myriad daemons, who watched every opportunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and the sins of men."(1)

      Another English divine, of certainly not less orthodoxy, but of much greater knowledge of Hebrew literature, bears similar testimony regarding the Jewish nation at the same period. "Not to be more tedious, therefore, in this matter," (regarding the Bath Kol, a Jewish superstition,)" let two things only be observed: I. That the nation, under the second Temple, was given to magical arts beyond measure; and, II. That it was given to an easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure."(2) And in another place: "It is a disputable case, whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superstition in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts:—I. There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed more to dreams than they. II. There was hardly any people in the whole world that more used, or were more fond of, amulets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments. We might here produce innumerable instances."(3) We shall presently see that these statements are far from being exaggerated.

      No reader of the Old Testament can fail to have been struck by the singularly credulous fickleness of the Jewish mind. Although claiming the title of the specially

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