Kvery attempt to treat of the life of our Lord should contribute its quota to the answer to these (|uestions. And it is becoming more and more possible to do this, not merely In a spirit of su|]er- licial apologetics, but with a deep sense of responsi- bility to the truth of history. And the writer of this article strongly believes that the tendency of the researches of recent years has been to enhance and not to diminish the estimate of the historical value of the Gospels.
(fi) This applies to theGospel records as a whole, in which miracles are included. It is natural next to ask, What is the nature of the particular evidence for Miracles ? How is it distributed ? Does the distribution correspond to tlie distinction which we have drawn between the easier and the more difficult Miracles ? If it did, we might suppose that the former class had better claims to credence than the latter.
But an examinati(m of the documents .shows that this is not the case. Without committing ourselves to all the niceties of the Synoptic problem, there are at any rate broad grounds fiu- distinguishing between the matter that is found in all the three Synoptics, In the First and Third, and in one only of the Three. Whether the ultimate groundwork Is written or oral, the IhreefoUl matter repre.sents that groundwork, and Is therefore, if not neces- sarily the oldest, at le.ist tlie most broadly based and authoritative. There is reason to think that the double matter is also very ancient. It consists largely of discourse, but some few naiTatives seem to belong to it. The peouliar sections of the different Gos|iels vary considerably in their char- acter, and it Is natural to suppose that they would have the lea.st antecedent presumption in then- favour. Some confirmatory evidence would be needed for facts which rested upon tlieir testimony alone.
Now, if it had happened that the Nature-Miracles had been confined to .sections of this hist kind, while the Miracles of Healing — and especially the Healing of Nervous Diseases — had entered largely
BliO
JESLS ClIKIST
JESUb CHltLST
inlii tlio Double ami Tripli' Synopsis ; or — iuasiiiucU as iliscourse more often beare the stamp of unmis- taUable originality than narrative — if the niiraoU-s of one class had apiieareil only in the form of narrative, while the allusions in iliscourse were wholly to miracles of the other, then the inference wouki have lain near at hand that there was a praduated scale in the evidence con-cspondinK to a like inaduated scale in the antecedent probability of the miracle.
Hut this is not the case. Miracles of all the diftVivnt kinds occur in all the documents or sources. The Triple Synopsis contains not only the healing of demoniacs and paralytics, but the healing of the issue of blood (Mk 6"||), the raising of jairus' daughter (i6."ll), the stilling of the storm {ib. 4^' !l), the feeding of the five thousand [Jh. tr^H). This last miracle is found not only in all three Synopti.sts. but also in Jn O^"'-. And there is this further point about it, that if we regard the miracles generally as a gradual accretion of myth and not based upon fact, we should undoubtedly assume that the feeding of the four thousand (Mk 8', Ml 1.5'-) was a mere duplicate of it. But it is probable that this story also belonged to the fuiulauiental source, in spite of its omission by Luke. In that ca.se both the fee<liugs of a multi- tude wMuId have had a place in the oldest of all our authorities, and the first growth in the tradition woulil have to be pushed back a step farther still. \\'e should thus have a nature-miracle not only embodied in our oldest source, but at its first appearance in that source already pointing back some way behind it.
(7) It thus appears that the evidence, externally consiJered, is equally good for all classes of miracles. It is not, as we might expect, that the evidence for the easier miracles is better than *.liat for the more difficult, leaving us free to accept I he one and reject the others. Wo cannot do this, because the best testimony we have embraces alike those miracles which imply a greater deviation from the ordinary course of nature and those in which the deviatioti is less.
It does not, however, follow that within the dif- ferent classes of miracles the evi<lcnce for particu- lar miracles is equal. When I'rof. Goldwin Smith insists that all the miracles recorded in the Gospels stand or fall together, he is going in the teeth, not so much of anything peculiar to the study of the (iospels, but of the historical method generally. .\iiil the examples which he gives are unfortunate. ' We cannot )iick and choose. The evidence upon which the miraculous darkness and the apparition of the dead rest is the same as that upon which all the other miracles rest, and must be accepted or rejected in all the cases alike' (Guesses nt the lihh.Ue of Existence, p. 100). No critical student needs to be told that the evidence for the appari- tions of the dead (Mt 27"-'-) belongs just to that stratum which carries with it the least weight. The authority for the darkness is much higher, but its miraculous character need not be magnified. Any unusual darkening of the sky would naturally strike the imagination of the disciples ; and it might be not contrary to nature and yet also not accidental.