CHAPTER XXXV.

VERIFICATION.

What is the Present Tendency of the Age in applying the Rule of Paul," Make the Doctrine prove the Miracle," and the Converse Rule of Trench and Mill, that "No Miracle proves a Doctrine"?

NEITHER to affirm nor deny the possibility of what is called a miracle; to concede with Aristotle the averment of Agathon, that "it is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen"; and merely to declare that "the burden of proof is on the affirmative," that the proponent of an extraordinary allegation must support it by extraordinary proof. It were idle to ask such questions as, Why silent as to miracles of Christ is Philo, the learned Alexandrian Jew, born before Christ and surviving him; or Josephus, the learned Jew, born A.D. 37; or Paul; or his co-worker Clement, who left a genuine Epistle; or Ignatius, who died A.D. c. 107; or Pliny and Tacitus, though they mention Christ? Or whether the feeding of the multitude be not a reminiscence of II. Kings iv., 43?

It is becoming the "Zeitgeist," the time-spirit of the Occident, to trace a truth-sense in every enunciation of the Orient; to find God revealing himself most majestically in the apparently orderly, in the objective which accords rather than discords with the soul's subjective ideal of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good; to enjoy the development of a blooming plant more than stories of fairies that passed over the earth and left flowers in their pathway. Mr. Lowell's prophet, on returning from the mountain whither he had gone in quest of a sign from God, meets his little daughter with an equal sign and wonder in her hand, which, as he says,—

Beside my very threshold
She had plucked and brought to me.

One fruit of this truth-seeking spirit is to discover a rich emblematic significance in many of these wonder-accounts, or in

their probable originals. The Orientals conveyed truth by concrete figures of speech, and not, like Occidental scholars, in ratiocinative, articulated abstractions. It would not be impossible in the East for an oral picture-statement of the calling of four disciples who were fishermen to become, by shifts of coloring from one of its features to another, transformed in the lapse of half a century into the story of a miraculous draft of fishes. But, in this western world, such a transformation would of itself be a "miracle," even in the developments of the most enterprising pantomime troupe, or in the varied activities of a sewing-circle. No less a supernaturalist than Archbishop Trench utilizes the fig-tree story for an apt moral:

Jesus did not attribute moral responsibilities to the tree when he smote it because of its unfruitfulness, but he did attribute to it a fitness for representing moral qualities. The tree vaunted itself to be in advance of all the other trees, challenged the passer-by that he should come and refresh himself with its fruit. Yet, when the Lord accepted its challenge and drew near, it proved to be but as the others, without fruit as they; for indeed, as the Evangelist observes, the time of figs had not yet arrived. The sin of Israel symbolized by the tree was not so much that they were without fruit as that they boasted of so much. Their true fruit would have been to own they had no fruit,— without Christ could do nothing.- Notes on the Miracles, etc., p. 349.

The "improvement" of allegory is especially apparent in the Strauss or Tübingen School. Many beautiful illustrations are given by the Dutch School. Thus Dr. Hooykaas remarks, as to the Cana wine transmutation, that when the Israelite community of God lamented to her great Son that there was nothing left but the water of religious forms, he told her to fill the vessels of stone that stood at hand to meet the requirements of Levitical purity, and the water was turned into wine. Instead of forms, he gave the spirit; for life according to the law, he substituted that free love of God which is the life of the spirit. The joy of the wedding-feast was now secure; the kingdom of God would win its way.*

Again, Jesus, with the slenderest means at his command, fed the souls of countless multitudes: this bread of the spirit increases when it is consumed, and increases still more when imparted to others.† And again, in a tempest, in the midst of dire agitation and distress, Jesus was absolutely at rest. How many storms broke loose upon him in his own personal

*See The Bible for Learners, vol. iii., p. 233.

tId., p. 149. Or, as Milton says, "Good, the more communicated more abundant grows.

The pilot of the Galilean lake.

experiences and the frenzied indignation of others,- in the passionate opposition and dark schemes of his antagonists! Yet, in the might of his faith in God, he maintained his own unruffled serenity, and quieted many a storm which the opposition he met had raised in the bosoms of the terrified disciples. John Milton. To the widow at Nain, to Jairus, to the sisters at Bethany,in the house of mourning everywhere,- he sweetly whispered: "Weep not! you shall see the dear departed again. apparently final sleep shall be succeeded by a glorious waking." And another solacing thought may we think, that expressed by James R. Lowell:

With every anguish of our earthly part,

The spirit's sight grows clearer. This was meant
When Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay.

This

Rather than to insist that a sign shall signify too much, it were better to "let well enough alone.”*

Back over the course which his fame had travelled came certain Pharisees from Jerusalem, apparently sent out to spy into his teachings and entrap him into dangerous admissions. They succeeded perfectly. From henceforth it was war to the knife. As if to gather up his energies for the encounter, Jesus betook himself beyond the borders of Galilee, into the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon. Returning to the lake shore, he found his enemies awaiting him with a new stratagem. They wanted a sign from heaven. Was not their wanting it itself a sign that his cures of the possessed were too near akin to the cures of their own exorcists to pass with them for genuine miracles? But these were all he had to offer; and he did not offer these. If miracle had played the part in the economy of Jesus which modern Orthodoxy claims, there would have been no excuse for his not performing such a miracle as would have silenced every demur at his prophetic office. What he did was to blast the Pharisees, and, with them, the pedlers in Christian evidences from that day to this, with the assertion, A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given them." -J. W. Chadwick (The Man Jesus, p. 144).

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In further answer to the main question, it may be observed that the tendency of modern liberals is like that of a moreor-less liberal," born A.D. 1483, who said:

I have seen two miracles lately. I looked up, and saw the clouds above me in the noontide; and they looked like the sea that was hanging over me; and I could see no cord on which they were sus

*See, in the Commentaries of Paulus, ingenious harmonizations of the constancy of nature with truths of Scripture.

pended, and yet they never fell. And then, when the noontide had gone and the midnight came, I looked again; and there was the dome of heaven, and it was spangled with stars; and I could see no pillars that held up the skies, and yet they never fell. Now, he that holds the stars up and moves the clouds in their course can do all things, and I trust him in the sight of these miracles.— Martin Luther.

The life of Jesus was both supernatural and natural. It was natural because it was a pure development of humanity, uncorrupted, undepraved, as God made it, and as he means it to be. It was supernatural as showing the perpetual presence in his soul of the higher world, the world of eternal truth and infinite goodness.- Dr. James F. Clarke (Boston Sat. Ev. Gazette, March 18, 1883).

CHAPTER XXXVI.

RESURRECTION.

What Two Views concerning a Resurrection of the Body of Jesus?

(1) THE supernatural: that, on the third day after the crucifixion, it became reanimate, and, after he had walked on earth nearly forty days, ascended into the sky. The "Acts of Pilate," after stating the arraignment nearly as in Matthew, proceeds: "Then Pilate commanded Jesus to be brought before him and spake to him the following words: 'Thine

own nation hath charged thee as making thyself a king. Wherefore, I, Herod, sentence thee to be whipped, according to the laws of former governors, and that thou be first bound, then hanged upon a cross in that place where thou art now a prisoner; and also two criminals with thee, Demas and Gestas."" In the next chapter, the account of the crucifixion is given very much as in Matthew; save, after stating that the soldiers cast lots and divided his garments, no mention is made of fulfilling any prophecy. The name of the soldier who inserted the spear is said to be Longinus. In chapter xiii., a soldier reports in a synagogue the earthquake, the rolling away of the stone from the sepulchre he was guarding, and the appearance of the angel, very much as in Matthew; and Christ is stated to have appeared to Joseph of Arimathea. In chapter xiv., it is stated that Phineas, a priest, Ada, a schoolmaster, and Agens, a Levite, came from Galilee to Jerusalem and told the priests that Christ had been seen talking with the eleven disciples.

Jacques Saurin thinks nobody doubts that the tomb was fastened after the interment, and that it was found vacant; and he adduces thence a dilemma, one horn of which is a theft (or a removal by Joseph) and the other the miracle.

The Fourth of the Thirty-nine Articles declares “ Christ did

*Ante, chap. ii.