(iv.) Tlie Qiifditij of the Evidence. — So far we have spoken of the external character of the evidence. It is speaking within the mark to say that a large part of the evidence for the Gospel miracles, including some of those that are most miraculous, is separated from the facts by an interval of not more than thirty years. We may be pretty sure that before that date, and even much before it, stories of miracles like those re- corded in the Gospels circulated freely among Christians, and were a common subject of teaching
by catechists and others. We now proceed to ask. What is the quality of the narratives in which these stories occur? What features are there in the stories themselves which throw light upon their historical value ';'
(a) We are met at the outset by the Temptation If there is anything certain in history, it is that the story of the Temptation has a real foundation in fact, for the simple reason that without such a founilation it would have occurred to no one to invent it. It suits exactly and wonderfully the character of Jesus as we can now see it, but not as it was seen at the time. Men were trying to apprehend that character ; they had a glimpse here and a glimp.se there ; but they cainiot have had more than dim and vague surmi.ses a.s to what it w^as as a whole. But whoever first tokl the story of the Temptation saw it as a whole. We have therefore already drawn the inference that it was first told by none other than Jesus Himself. And by that inference we stand. There is nothing in the Gospels that is more authentic.
But the story of the Temptation presupposes the possession of supernattiral jiowers. It all turns on the question how those powers are to be exercised. It not only implies the possession of power to work such miracles as were actually worked, but others even more remarkable from the point of view of crude interference w ith the order of nature. The story of the Temptation implies that Jesus co^tld have worked such miracles if He had willed to do so ; and the rea.son why He did not work them was only because He did not will.
The keynote which is struck by the Tempta^ tion is sustained all through the sequel of the history. We can see that the Life of .lesus was what it was by an act of deliberate remtiiciation. When He says, as the end draws near, 'Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, ami he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels'" (Mt 2Q<^), the lesson holds good, not for that moment alone, but for all that has preceded it. The I'ublic Ministry of Jesus wears the aspect it does, not because of limitations inqio.scd from without, but of limitations imiioscd from within.
Here lies the paradox of the Miracles of (Christ. He seems at once to do them, and so to guard against a possible misuse that it is as if He had not done them. The common idea of miracles was as a manifestation of Divine power. Jesus gave the manifestation, and yet lie seemed so to check it from producing its natural effect that it is as though it did not serve its purpose. It really .serves Ills purpose, but not the purpose which the world both then and since has ascribed to Him.
(^) We have seen that the principles laid down at the Temptation governed the whole public life of Jesus. He steadily refused to work miracles for any purely self-regarding end. If the fact tliat He WMrks miracles at all is a syuq)athetic adapta- tion to the beliefs and expectations of the time, those beliefs are schooled and criticized while they are adopted (JIt \2^^ || lO'f-, Jn 4>^), the element of mere display, the element of self-assertion, cvi'U of .self-preservation, is eliminated from them. They are studiously restricted to the purposes of tlit mission.
Now this carefully restricted character in tne miracles of Jesus is uniqvie in history. Among all the multitude of wonders with which the faith, some- times superstitious, but more often simply naive, of the later Church adorned the lives of the saints, there is nothing quite like it. We may say with confidence that if the miracles of .lesus had been no more than an invention, they would not have been what they are. We can see in the evangel- ists a certain dim half-conscious feeling of the self-imposed limitations in the use of the snpef
JESUS CHRIST
JESL'S L'HKIST
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natural by Chiist. But we may be very sure that ilicy liavc this feeliii";, because the limitations were iulirrent in the facts, not because they formed part frniii the first of a picture which they were con- strurlin^ a priori.
(7) There are three kinds of restriction in the miracles of our Lord. The limitation in the sub- ject-matter of the miracles is one ; the limitation in the conditions under which they are wrought is another (Mt 13^8 |l 15-^ 2<-) ; and "the limitation in th(^ manner in which they are set before the world is a tliiril. In a number of cases, after a miracle has been performed, the recipient is strictly cautioned to maintain silence about it (Mk !•" 1| demoniacs, 1" i( leper, 3'- demoniacs, cf. Mt 12''', Mk 7*i deaf and dumb, 8^ blind). This hangs to- gether with the manifest intention of Jesus to correct not only the current idea of miracles, but the current idea of the Messiah as one endowed with su|iernatural power. If He was .so endowed, it was not that He might gather about Him crowds and establish a carnal kingdom such as the Jews expected.