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REMARKS
PALEY’S EVIDENCES.
A LETTER
TO
THE YOUNGER MEMBERS (GRADUATES AND UNDERGRADUATES)
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
BY
AN OLD
PUBLISHED
BY
GRADUATE.
THOMAS
SCOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
!
18 73.
Price Sixpence.
�J,
�REMARKS ON PALEY’S EVIDENCES.
TO THE YOUNGER MEMBERS
[GRADUATES AND
UNDERGRADUATES)
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
Gentlemen,
HATEVER may be the truth or value of that
system of doctrine and practice which is
popularly conceived to represent genuine Christianity,
it must be confessed by every candid mind that it
cannot in the long run be confirmed by defective
statement, or by the presentation of illegitimate
evidence.
A meritorious intention is not always a guarantee
of effective execution. It is not an uncommon thing
*
for an eager advocate to damage the best of causes
by his very eagerness, and by his insisting on intro
ducing as testimony that which either is no testimony,
or, in fact, invalidates his own argument. It must
not of course be asserted, without proof, that this is
the case with Paley’s famous work on ‘ The Evidences
of Christianity,’ but we may be permitted to remark
that this is not the first time that the value of the
controversial works of this author has been ques
tioned.
At the end of the last century faith in Christianity
had been reduced in many quarters to such a nebulous
W
�6
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
state by the assaults of the English Deists and French
philosophers, that almost any production was wel
comed which seemed to restore it to a tangible con
dition, and re-establish its “ origines ” in the region
of historical fact. The particular form which Paley’s
lucubrations assumed, both on the subject of faith and
morals, is no doubt due to the influence of the philo
sophy of Locke. This philosopher and his followers
had indoctrinated a large class with a deep-rooted
distrust of all systems based on a priori considerations,
and hence, apart from the natural tendency of his own
mind, it was Paley’s desire to meet the general re
quirement by founding both ethics and religious
belief on the solid logic of facts. His views on
morality have been strongly objected to by many—
in this University by no less authorities than Dr
Whewell and the recently lamented Professor Sedg
wick ; so much so that the ‘ Moral and Political
*
Philosophy,’ which in my younger days was one of
the subjects for the B.A. Examination, has, I believe,
been removed from the list of class-books. His mode
also of presenting the Christian Evidences has met
with no little unfavourable criticism in high quarters,f
both among the fervent Evangelicals and that party
which piques itself upon its orthodoxy and respect for
Church principles. Although, therefore, I approach
the subject from a different standpoint from either of
these schools, I trust it may not be thought pre
sumptuous if I offer what appear to me some addi-
* See Whewell’s ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy.’ Introd.
Leet. p. x., and elsewhere ; v. also his ‘ Elements of Morality,
including Polity.’ Suppt. c. III. See, also, Sedgwick’s ‘ Dis
course on the Studies of the University of Cambridge; ’ Sir
J. Mackintosh’s Works, I., 189 ; De Quincey’s ‘ Essays on
Philosophical Writers,’ I., 77.
f See Coleridge’s ‘ Aids to Reflexion,’ vol. i., p. 278 ; Arch
bishop Trench ‘ On Miracles,’ p. 31; ‘ Tracts for the Times,’
No. 85. See also Erskine’s ‘Internal Evidences of Chris
tianity,’ p. 21 and seq., and pp. 183 and 200.
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
7
tional objections to this production of Paley’s, on the
ground of its ambiguity and inconclusiveness.
I must appeal to your candour to weigh dispas
sionately what I wish to allege in support of these
conclusions. If what I say should wound any per
son’s prepossessions, or seem wanting in respect
for their religious feelings, it will be a matter to me of
regret. I shall endeavour, therefore, to clothe my re
marks in as respectful a form as possible, so far as it
is consistent with a due presentation of truth. The
interests of truth ought to be ample excuse for any
statement, however painful, or before any audience;
but addressing educated Englishmen, and at the same
time members of a University always distinguished
for its love of scientific accuracy and its manly tone of
thought, I feel I need not preface my remarks with
any of those rose-water qualifications or cloudy
euphuisms suited to timid women or squeamish
ascetics. Men of courage and honour will not take
offence at plain words.
Let us proceed, then, to examine a few of the
grounds on which I demur to Paley’s work on the
Evidences, for I must premise that it is only on a few
points that I shall endeavour to lay open the weakness
of his argument. To proceed seriatim through all the
topics to which he refers is beyond the compass of a
brief letter; but I venture to think that the principles
I shall point out will be capable of being applied far
more extensively.
Paley’s treatise commences, as you are aware, with
an introductory chapter, in which he prepares the
way for his argument by attempting to dispel some
antecedent objections, which might be considered to
leave it no place.
His first clause contains an assumption on the
very face of it, one, however, which probably has
much imposed on persons of uninquiring and im
pressible dispositions. He says, “ The question
�8
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
lies between the Christian religion and none: for if
this be not credible, no one with whom we have to
do will support the pretensions of any other.” This
insinuates an “ argumentum ad odium et terrorem ”
on the threshold, and is well calculated to impart a
preliminary fright to weak and well-meaning persons,
lest they must of necessity fall into atheism if they
fail to follow the author’s conclusions.
But the invocation of such a phantom is quite
unwarranted, for the Deists or Theists, with whom
assuredly the writer’s argument largely “ had to do,”
are, in spite of frequent mendacious assertions, many
of them very religious people, although more back
ward than some in supporting their pretensions to
that character : the Jews, moreover, in all ages have
not been lacking in strenuously maintaining the
claims of their own revelation as exclusive and para
mount. Indeed, as far as argument is concerned,
they have always run Christian advocates very hard,
and not seldom have made sad inroads in Christian
*
Churches.
The professors of some other faiths,
likewise, might deem it not altogether candid on the
part of our Christian advocate to shut them alto
gether out of court in this manner, f
* See a list of works, in the controversy of the Jews against
the Christians, in Farrar’s Bampton Lectures on 1 Free
Thought,’ Appendix, Note iv. Their tenets seem at one time
to have spread considerably in the Eastern Church, and they
brought over the Archbishop of Moscow to their opinions.
See Milman’s ‘History of the Jews,’vol. iii., 394. I have
been informed that some of the clergy of Spain at the present
day are Jews, and have brought others over to their faith. In
the eighth century they appear to have converted a whole
Turcoman tribe and established an independent kingdom,
called Khazar, between the mouths of the Wolga and the
Don, ib. 129. There are other similar instances.
t See ‘ The Modern Buddhist,’ by H. Alabaster (Triibner
and Co.); and ‘ A Lecture on Buddhist Nihilism,’ delivered
before the Association of German Philologists at Kiel, by
Professor Max Muller.
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
9
A little further on the author introduces us to
another astounding assumption.
“In what way,”
says he, “ can a revelation be made but by miracles ?,
In none which we are able to conceive.” To revealis to unveil, to disclose. A revelation means the
imparting to anyone some truth he did not know
before, in an active sense, or it is sometimes taken in
a passive sense for the thing so imparted. So that,
if Plato or Cleanthes had instructed a Polytheist in
the doctrine of “ one living and true God,” this would
be to the latter a revelation. Is it meant to be asserted
by our author that this truth cannot be accredited
and accepted without miracles ? If so, he appears in
the latter part of his treatise to contradict himself,
for he there asserts that the religion of Mahomet was
propagated without miracles. He would probably
evade this dilemma, by replying that this of Maho
met’s was only a pretended revelation, and that his
statement referred to a true one. As between one
creed and another, however, this reply is a mere
begging of the whole question: and, moreover, in
this article of the unity of God as against Poly
theists and idolaters, I suppose he would not
deny either the verity or the value of the Creed
of Islam.
Mahometanism at least shows that
“we can conceive ” of a revelation without miracles.
But further, we may ask, what was to hinder the
Deity from so constituting the human mind that, at
*
a particular stage of its growth with a definite in
crease of knowledge, it should become intuitively
certain of the personality and unity of God, in the
same way as, when instructed in numbers, it per
ceives that two and two make four. Sight is a daily
revelation to an infant; six and seven are revelations
* Paley contradicts himself again in Part iii. c. vi., where
he concedes this very point: “ For anything we are able to
discern,” says he, “ God could have so formed man as to have
perceived the truths of religion intuitively,” &c.
�io
Remarks on Paley s Evidences.
to a savage whose mental faculties had never before
enabled him to count beyond five. To say the least,
then, it is quite as possible “ to conceive ” a revela
tion to arise from the natural law of progress, as
to suppose it ushered in by cataclysms, which one
would think must have a tendency rather to confuse
than clarify the perceptive faculties, and so interfere
with the very purpose of a revelation, if its object
is to increase light.
Further, it seems to me that Paley does not fully
comprehend the force, at any rate does not fairly repre
sent what he calls the “principle of the objection ” to
miracles, that “ it is contrary to experience that a mira
cle should be true, but not contrary to experience that
testimony should be false.” He says that the alleged
improbability of miracles does not properly arise from
the fact that they are contrary to experience, but
simply that there is a “ want of experience ” respect
ing them : he implies accordingly that the objection
is fallacious, since this “want” is inherent in their
nature; for, if they were matter of frequent expe
rience, they would cease to be miracles. This cannot
be considered a fair statement of the full meaning
of the objection, whose antithetical and somewhat
epigrammatic form Paley seems to have taken advan
tage of. What is evidently meant to be implied is an
inference similar to that which is now come to by
the majority of thoughtful and clear-headed men.
Thoughtful men do not contemplate the subject from
the negative but from the positive side. Their objec
tion is not that there is any “ want of experience ” of
miracles, for, on the contrary, in ancient and modern
times they are “ thick as leaves in Vallambrosa,” but
that there is an enormous positive experience of mira
cles (so called) founded on delusion, fraud, or hallu
cination. All history teems with miracles ; in certain
stages of human growth they spring up as sponta
neously as weeds in a fallow, and in particular states
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
II
of mind accounts of them are imbibed as greedily as
infants swallow sweets. The childish mind naturally
expatiates in tales of wonder, and delights to lose
itself in realms where there is an absence of limita
tion. The vast majority of persons were once but
children of a larger growth ; a large number still are.
Until the mind, by education and the habit of careful
and measured observation, has come to form a some
what clear notion of the order of nature and scientific
causation, it is really more inclined to credit than
to discredit everything marvellous. In the absence
of knowledge we are in a position to believe any
thing. As knowledge increases, marvel after marvel
is explained ; phantoms vanish into thin air; we begin
to see the sources of mistake, or the evidence of fraud
and delusion, as the case may be ; we are aware of the
impossibility of alleged conditions, the incongruity of
asserted relations. We perceive, too, that the ten
dency to credulity, although more general, was not
confined to ancient times, but that it is strictly de
pendent on peculiar conditions of mind and body
which physiology enables us to explain. We have a
large and daily growing experience that a certain
exaltation or excitement, or morbid action of the ner
vous system, either an enthusiastic and ardent or a
depressed state of feeling, with a low and ascetic
habit, of body, especially if there be an external cause
of dejection or triumph in national or domestic affairs,
have remarkable influence in the production of extra
vagant beliefs, and that these beliefs have a constant
tendency to become epidemic. It is not, therefore,
the limitation but the extent of our experience which
indisposes us to a belief in the miraculous. Whatever
marvels may be alleged, we have constantly found,
when we can get at them and obtain a fair opportunity of
observation, that they turn out to have originated in
fraud or mistake. The fair and inevitable inference,
therefore, is, that if we were only allowed proper
�12
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
facilities of examination, we could show others to
have no better foundation. The real meaning, there
fore, that Paley’s objector intended to convey pro
bably was, that while it is contrary to general expe
rience that an alleged miracle, when examined, should
turn out to be true, we have a very large experience
of the falsity of that testimony which is adduced on
their behalf. There is a “ want of experience ” as to
their truth; for, if we can get sufficiently near them
as to be said in any real sense to have experience of
them, we find them untrue, so that, in strict speech,
they may be justly affirmed to be “ contrary to
experience.”
On the other hand, we have on all
sides abundant experience as to the fictitiousness
of vast numbers of miracles.
If men are to be
guided by experience at all, on which side does the
balance of probability lie ?
The author concludes his preparatory considera
tions with his famous “ simple case ” of the “ twelve
men of good sense,” whom he “undertakes to say that
not a sceptic in the world,” except Mr Hume, would
disbelieve. Whether, if twelve men were to do and say
all that these imaginary beings are supposed to do,
there might not still be sceptics I can not undertake
to say ; I should hesitate myself to commit so critical
a question to a “ common jury.” But, as far as
the actual case before us is concerned, the testi
mony of Paley’s consistent and stedfast dozen of
eye-witnesses is no more producible in Court than
the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; we may leave, there
fore, his hypothesis to stand for what it is worth,
and proceed to the consideration of his main pro
position. It is this : “ There is satisfactory evidence
that many, professing to be original witnesses of the
Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers,
and sufferings, voluntarily undergone, in attestation of
the accounts which they delivered, and solely in con
sequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
13
also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of
conduct.”
In a work which assumes so much the form of a
strict mathematical demonstration, we might have
expected the author to have given us a preliminary
definition of the sense in which he uses his terms;
we may, however, collect from what follows that by
“ Christian miracles ” he means those of the Gospel
history on which the main doctrines of the Christian
creed rest, and by “ original witnesses ” those who
were present when these miracles took place.
It is not quite clear what the author considers
satisfactory evidence.
Evidence may vary in its
satisfactoriness, according to the class of persons to
whom it is addressed, or the subject-matter to which
it relates. Evidence that will satisfy a village gossip
may be insufficient for a judge; and a common incident
requires less than an extraordinary phenomenon. If
we look at it in its kinds, there is, first, the evidence
of our own senses of sight and hearing, &c., which
some wise men have counselled us to be rather dis
trustful of in the case of very remarkable phenomena
untestified by general consent. Certainly the senses
are anything but infallible when uncontrolled by sound
reason. There is, secondly, the evidence of other
persons, which may be either Direct, as where the
witness testifies of himself that “ he saw it; ” or
Collateral or Indirect : and this may be in the first
degree, as where the witness says he heard a par
ticular person, A. B., say he saw it; or in the second
or lower degrees, as where the witness says he heard
A. B. say it was seen by somebody, or that he heard
that somebody had said it was a matter of general
rumour, and so on through descending grades of
indistinctness. Now, in a question like the one before
us, we must, of course, be dependent upon the
evidence of other persons, but I think that most
candid persons will confess that, in so serious a matter,
�14
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
nothing less than the most absolutely direct testi
mony can be even moderately satisfactory. Let us
see how much the Advocate before us produces of this
description.
According to the terms of his statement, he has got
to make out, not only that he has witnesses who
can give this direct testimony, but that these same
original witnesses themselves underwent the dangers,
&c., in attestation of it. Even if our author could
make out his case, it will not easily appear to all
minds that his final conclusions would necessarily
follow. He means it to be concluded that, if he
can prove his propositions, the truth of orthodox
Christianity is established.
“ The religion,” he
says, “ must be true.” He does not define the words
“ Christianity” and “ Christian religion,” but it may
be concluded, I suppose, from his position and other
writings, that the sense in which he uses them is that
which is commonly called orthodox; though, indeed,
from certain expressions he lets fall, he seems
inclined, for the convenience of his argument, to leave
it in some places as vague as possible.
*
This is a
point, however, requiring to be alluded to, since the
loose sense in which the word Christianity is used,
and the Christian name claimed in many directions
at the present day may prevent some persons from
perceiving how much the strength of Paley’s argu
ment is disproportioned to his demand upon it, how
little calculated to support the ponderous edifice
reared upon it. If it had simply been a question that
at a certain period in past history a remarkable
person had appeared, who produced a marvellous
moral effect on his own age which has descended
to ours, however great the effect produced, or
however ardent the zeal of his followers, this would
* As, for instance,when he talks of “the substantial truth
of the Christian religion,” “the main story,” “the generals
truth of the religion,” &c.
�Remarks on Paley s Evidences.
15
not have been so much beyond what we observe
of the Providential Government of the world as to ,
demand more than fair historical evidence. Men
inspired with extraordinary genius, and with a force
and elevation of character far above their fellows,
have indisputably at certain times appeared in the
world to give a fresh impetus to the human race in
its onward course, and produce what seems almost
like a new creation. And, if there have been such
men, it is not only not improbable, but it is most
likely, that one of them will far transcend his fellows.
This, at any rate, is a matter of fair discussion, and
is maintainable by such testimony as is possible in
human affairs. But it is a very different matter that
our author undertakes to prove. When we are told
that a philanthropic carpenter, who was born of a
young Jewess 1800 years ago in an insignificant village
in the Roman Empire, was the Eternal God, the
Universal Source of All things, on whom the whole
realm of nature is dependent; or, to state the same
thing in orthodox language, was “Very God of
Very God, by whom all things were made ; ” that this
God, having excited the wrath of the rulers of his
country by declaiming against their hypocrisy and
corruption, was eventually hung as a malefactor and
perverter of the people,—but that after being dead
and buried, he nevertheless lived again in his body, and
therewith “ with flesh, bones, and all things appertain
ing to the perfection of man’s nature,”* ascended into
the heavens in the sight of his followers,—we have here
a story which makes the most tremendous demands
upon our belief, and which no man in the possession
of his senses could be expected to believe, in fact
which it would be utter unreason and madness to
believe, without evidence of the most incontrovertible
and absolutely overwhelming description. It may
* Third Article of Religion.
�16
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
here be said that I am but reiterating, in a round
about fashion, Paley’s assertion that a revelation can
only be made by miracles. Of such a revelation this
is undoubtedly true, for it is itself the most stupendous
miracle that was ever proposed for human belief.
Its very vastness transcends all possibilities of human
evidence, and can only be accepted by some such
moral and intellectual spasm as Tertullian’s “ Credo,
quia incredibile.”* It is impossible for a less miracle
to substantiate a greater one: the belief in the most
improbable event in the world is not assisted by sur
rounding it with those minor improbabilities which
have always accompanied tales of theophany.
The Divine Creator, the ruler of infinite worlds,
becomes incarnate and walks the earth, and first
introduces his claims to his admirers by the trick of a
conjuror ! f The bathos is too terrible.
Let us now, however, examine what this supposed
satisfactory evidence is which our Advocate offers.
When we come to look into it we find that he him
self only professes to bring forward two witnesses
properly and distinctly original, viz., the first and
last evangelists; what their claims are to be con
sidered in this light we shall see presently. Our
author allows that the second and third evangelists
* Tertullian’s words are,—“ The Son of God died: it is
credible because it is absurd. When buried he rose again to
life : it is certain, because it is impossible.” De Came Christi,
sec. 5.
f Turning water into wine was a trick known to ancient
“Wizards ” of the South as well as “Wizards of the North.”
Some of the heathen deities also are asserted to have done the
same. Christian Saints performed a similar miracle on a more
extended scale. Epiphanius affirms that a fountain in Caria
and another in Arabia were turned into wine, and that he
himself had drunk of them. Another holy saint, Narcissus,
according to Eusebius, turned water into oil, and he declares
that some of the oil was preserved to his own time, about a
hundred years after the miracle. Epiphan. adv. Hser. L. 2,
cxxx. Euseb. Hist. Ecc. vi., 9.
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
17
composed their accounts from stories which they had
heard from others, although he implies that these
were persons of the first authority, being the apostles
Peter and Paul. But he gives no solid reason for
his assertion that St Peter had anything to do with
the gospel according to St Mark. The writer of that
gospel does not assert it on his own account, and the
whole supposition rests on the very vaguest tradition.
The connexion of St Paul with St Luke’s gospel
rests on as weak a basis. In fact, as the author of
that gospel prefaces his relation with a statement of
the sources of his information, it is not probable that
he would have omitted to mention his instruction by
so eminent a person as Paul if such a claim had been
correct. On the contrary, the author sets out with
the declaration that he intends to detail such things
as are “ surely believed among us, even as they
delivered them unto us (not me personally), which
from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers
of the word; ” that is to say, the rumours which were
commonly received among Christians, and which,
like all tales of similar kind, were asserted by their
propagators to have come from head-quarters, he
intended to set down for the edification of the
imaginary Theophilus.
*
This is the same kind of
allegation that Irenteus makes in support of his
stories, that he had heard them from somebody, who
had them from somebody else, who had seen some one
or other of the apostles. The introduction of Luke’s
gospel, in my mind, is a clear note of its having
been composed in the second or third stage of
Christian tradition. Let us concede, however, that
Paley’s hypothesis may be correct, that St Luke had
derived his information from St Paul, still the latter
cannot be metamorphosed into an original witness
by any ingenuity of orthodoxy. Paley in his zeal,
* Many think that Theophilus was a real person.' The
point is immaterial.
�18
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
indeed, would make him almost a second founder of
the religion, and attaches immense importance to
him as an “independent witness.” Whether he is so
or not, he is certainly not an original witness, which
is what we are at present in search of. He certainly
allows his imagination pretty free play in developing
the Christian doctrines, for which he may have con
sidered he had obtained warrant in that third heaven
where he could not tell whether he was in or out of
his body, but for early Christian facts he must have
been dependent upon those ordinary hearsay reports
which, as St Luke says, were commonly believed
among them.
It is evident, then, that the authors of Mark’s and
Luke’s gospels were not original and direct witnesses
in the sense previously laid down. Let us see what
can be said for St Matthew.
The most direct
evidence we have concerning this gospel comes
to us from Eusebius, who wrote about three
hundred and twenty years after Christ. He states
that Papias, a writer of the first half of the
second century, said that Matthew “ wrote out
the sayings (of the Lord) in the Hebrew dialect.”
*
Eusebius also relates a tradition of one Pan top,mis,
“ who is said to have gone to the Indians ”f and found
a gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, which had been left
there by the apostle Bartholomew. There is other
early testimony to the fact that the authentic gospel
of Matthew was written in Hebrew. This work seems
to have been preserved for some time among the
Nazarenes and Ebionites, but eventually to have been
lost sight of. These last-named sects were persecuted
and denounced by other bodies of Christians as here
tics, chiefly on the ground of their denying the
miraculous conception of Jesus, and taking altogether
* I.e. Aramaic or Syro-Chaldee.
f Euseb. Hist. Ecc. v., 10.
�Remarks on Paley’s Evidences.
19
a more humanitarian view of his person. The fact
of their especially appealing to the authority of St
Matthew, and possessing the only gospel which had
any title to be considered authentic, raises a very
shrewd suspicion of what was the true original
character of Christianity. At any rate, it affords
conclusive evidence, if the fact were not otherwise
certain, that the gospel they possessed was not our
gospel of St Matthew, since the latter is very par
ticular on the fact of the miraculous birth, and puts
poor Joseph out of the question altogether. The only
document we possess bearing the name of Matthew
is written in Greek, and there is nothing worthy
of the name of evidence to determine who was its
author.
Competent modern critics have made it
clear that it could not have been written by an apostle
or an eye-witness: it is impossible to define its date
with exactness, the balance of evidence seems in
favour of the year 100 a.d. It would exceed the
limits of a letter to adduce proof of this here, for
which I must refer you to well-known works.
*
The only remaining work of a supposed original
witness is the gospel of St John. It may unhesi
tatingly be affirmed that the majority of exact and
competent critics, who have not a foregone purpose
to serve, agree that, whatever value this book may
have as a monument -of early Christian feeling, it
could not have come from the hand of the apostle
John. In thus speaking, I must be allowed to explain
that I cannot consider the work of M. Renan as an
exact criticism. His work is more like a pastoral
romance of the apostolic age thrown into a somewhat
dramatic form; his preference of the fourth, over the
* See the writers mentioned in Mackay’s ‘ Tubingen
School and its Antecedents,’ Part iii. (particularly Baur’s
‘Evangelien’), and Dr Davidson’s ‘Introduction to the New
Testament’ (ed. 1868), vol. i., p. 465, and seq. Note the
edition.
�20
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
other gospels, is explained by the greater facility
with which it would lend itself to such a composition.
I am by no means insensible to the beauty and ability
of M. Renan’s production, but it is not criticism, if by
criticism is meant a due weighing of evidence and
historic probabilities. St John was a Galilean peasant,
and still appears in his old age to have retained so
much of his narrow-minded intolerance and fiery zeal
as to run from the bath that Cerinthus had occupied.
The author of the gospel is full of the spirit of
accommodation, has had his mind filled with the
lucubrations of Alexandrian Platonists, and uses the
words of Philo-Judaeus.
St John is said to have
been a supporter of the Oriental practice as to the
14th Nisan; the author of the gospel supports the
opposite view. Purther, from no Church writer before
160 A.D. can be produced a passage which shows any
clear knowledge of such a gospel, even inplaces where,
if such a document had existed, they must have referred
to it. Paley, indeed, asserts that Justin quotes John,
but this is an error; all that can be truly said is that
Justin makes use of some expressions sufficiently
resembling certain phrases of the fourth gospel as to
make it probable that he had come within the influence
of the same ideas which gave birth to it. But his
tone of thought is, in some respects, so similar to
that of the fourth evangelist, that he would un
doubtedly have made full use of him, and mentioned
him, if he had known of his work. Similar remarks
apply to the heretic Marcion, whose purpose of
*
spiritualising the doctrine of the synoptists the
gospel of St John would have admirably served, had
he been acquainted with it. No writer distinctly cites
the fourth gospel, and ascribes it to St John, before
Theophilus of Antioch (a.d. 176).
The internal evidence is also considered conclusive
* See Neander’s ‘Church History,’ vol. ii., p. 129, and seq. ;
and Bayle’s ‘ Dictionary,’ art. “ Marcionites.”
�Remarks on Raley's Evidences.
21
against the authorship of a native of Palestine at all,
especially from the peculiarity of certain mistakes as
to geography and ignorance of localities in Jerusalem,
and also from an absence of knowledge respecting
some national peculiarities.
*
Our Advocate finally, with great skill, labours
to produce a combined effect by massing his evi
dence in a single view. He endeavours to make
up for the defectiveness of each of his witnesses
taken by himself by rolling them into one; as if
out of four cripples you could make one stout soldier.
He insinuates that among four witnesses the truth
must lie somewhere : “ i/,” he says, “ only one of them
be genuine.” This “ i/” betrays the weakness of his
argument. Neither four nor forty doubtful witnesses
will make up one good one. It is familiar to lawyers
how easy it is to multiply a certain kind of witness,
how difficult to obtain that one thoroughly respectable
man of known character and unmistakable identity who
will come forward and swear he saw the fact himself..
Now this is what we ask; and put the evidence in asmany different points of view as you like, it is not
forthcoming. Four grey horses will never make one
white, trot them round one after another or altogether,,
in any kind of light, as often as it pleases you. In the
dark, indeed, a white may be represented by a grey
or any other colour.
Before concluding my remarks on our author’s
witnesses, I must refer to a rather remarkable fact
concerning the apostle Paul, which Paley himself
alludes to, without seeming to see the inference to
which it unavoidably leads.
Those epistles which
are by common consent attributed to St Paul are
undoubtedly the earliest authentic compositions ad-
* See, for full details, ‘An Attempt to Ascertain the Cha
racter of the Fourth Gospel,’ by J. J. Tayler; or, ‘ Introduc
tion to the New Testament,’ by S. Davidson, D.D., and the
works named in Mackay’s ‘ Tubingen School.’
�22
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
miffed into the New Testament Canon : probably the
two latest are the gospel of St John and the second
epistle of Peter. Between the date of the earliest
epistles of Paul (commonly supposed to be those to
the Thessalonians) and these works, we have an
interval of about a century and a quarter (a.d. 55 to
170, approximate dates).
Now it is a singular circumstance that in the earlier
works we have but slight allusion to miracles, whereas
in the latter they crowd upon us, and at the same
time increase in their marvellous proportions. St
Paul, indeed, alludes to the resurrection, but of this
he does not pretend to have been an eye-witness. He
seems to ground his own belief on the fact of his
having seen the Lord in the Spirit in those visions or
revelations which he conceived himself to have of
heavenly things. But to other miracles throughout
his whole epistles, genuine and doubtful, there are
but very few references : Paley himself confessing that
there are but “ three indubitable references.”* He
accounts for this by imagining “that the miraculous
history was all along presupposed: ” does it not
equally, however, give room for the surmise, that the
farther we get away from genuine and authentic
documents the less sense of responsibility we find in
* Paley’s indubitable references are Gal. iii., 5 ; Rom. xv.,
18, 19 ; 2 Cor. xii., 12. In the first, St Paul is reproving his
converts for falling back from faith to the carnal works of the
law. He appeals to their own experience at their first conver
sion, and asks them whether he, then, that gave them the
spirit, and worked miracles in them did it by the works of
the law, or the hearing of faith ? “ Miracles in you,” not
“among you,” as in the authorised version, is here the true
rendering, and evidently has reference to those spiritual mira
cles of sudden conversion which the early Christians described
as the “Holy Ghost falling upon them.” (See Professor
Jowett’s Commentary on the Galatians in loc. and the refe
rences there.) The passages, Romans xv., 19, and 2 Cor. xii.,
12, are equally capable of being understood of “signs and
wonders” of grace, combined with those ecstatical “gifts of
�Remarks on Paley’s Evidences.
23
the writers, the more unbounded scope given to the
imagination and that love of the marvellous inherent
in all half-educated and enthusiastic minds ?
It must be conceded, I think, from what has been
said, that the testimony of Paley’s “ original wit
nesses ” cannot be produced, and that therefore his
evidence, according to what was before stated, not
being direct, is not satisfactory. But now, let it be
granted for argument’s sake that we had “ satis
factory evidence ” of the chief feature of the circum
stance stated, viz., that there was clear testimony to
the effect that certain persons, honestly professing
their belief in a remarkable story, went about preach
ing a new religion, and endured all sorts of suffering
rather than deny their profession; I do not think it
can be asserted that this fact will justify the author’s
conclusions. In the first place, he seems to have
taken it for granted that because they suffered such
things they must have really seen the miracles, for
that no one would have shown such endurance on any
other supposition. But this by no means follows:
indeed, the sequel of the story itself proves the
the Spirit” which seemed to have accompanied the sudden
conversions and the ardent religious exercises of the primitive
believers, as they do even those of modern believers who have
been worked up to a high degree of excitement. Such “gifts”
were what they called “ speaking with tongues,” “ gifts of
healing,” “interpretation of tongues,” “discerning of spirits,”
“castingout of devils;” the notion of some of which arose
from a defective diagnosis of certain diseases, others from an
ignorance of common mental and nervous phenomena, and the
remainder were the result of that high-wrought enthusiasm
which is the invariable accompaniment of all religious out
bursts in their early stages. It is a noteworthy fact that St
Paul does not specify, as within his own experience, even
when it would have been most serviceable to his argument to
have done so, a single miracle of the material and tangible sort,
so often referred to by the other writers of the New Testament.
Probably, if he had been acquainted with the true principles of
physiology, the word miracle would have dropped out of his
vocabulary. For similar manifestations in later times to
�24
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
contrary. For, suppose the first preachers of the
religion witnessed the facts and therefore suffered, their
followers of the next or the subsequent generations
did not see them; but they still, many of them,
continued to endure persecutions with the greatest
constancy. They, at any rate, had only reports or
tradition of miracles to inspire their courage. The
story itself, therefore, shows that men may be worked
up to as high a pitch of belief, and as great a degree
of constancy and endurance, by stories related
about miracles as by those of which they have
ocular demonstration. That is to say, men’s feelings
and imaginations may be as strongly worked upon
through their ears as their eyes, and when enthusiasm
is once thoroughly roused it does not ask for evidence,
and laughs at suffering. Its own innate persuasion
is its evidence, and the answering glow of sym
pathising companions dispels every chill of doubt;
each burning believer incites and encourages the
other and adds to the general contagion; the calm
and hesitating are contemned and cast forth as coldhearted and cowardly, and thus no counteracting
principle is left to prevent the spread of the everincreasing flame. Paley covertly implies that men
those mentioned in the epistles, see ‘ The full and particular
Account of Miracles at the Tomb of the Abbe Paris,’ by
M. de Montgeron, Conseilleur au Parlement de Paris ; ‘ An
Account of the Irvingite Manifestations ’ (I have forgotten the
Publishers); Bishop Layington’s ‘Enthusiasm of Methodists
and Papists Compared,’ passim. Appendix to vol. i.; ‘ The
Miraculous Life and Conversions of Father Bennett, of Caufield, in Essex‘ The Life and Times of the Countess of
Huntingdon,’ vol. i., p. 129, 400; and Southey’s ‘Life of
Wesley.’ ‘ The Life of St Dominic,’ by the Abbe Lacordaire.
‘ Voyage a, Migne.’ ‘ Recueil de temoignages concernant l’Apparition Miraculeuse de la Croix a Migne.’ See Dean Stanley on
‘The Gift of Tongues,’ ‘Comment, on Corinth,’ p. 254, and
seq., and Coleridge on ‘ The Gift of Tongues,’ note to ‘ The
Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit,’ p. 231.
�Remarks on Paley’s Evidences.
25
must have been great fools who acted in this manner.
“Would men,” he asks, “in such circumstances”
(i. e., of suffering and persecution), “pretend to have
seen what they never saw ?” No one imagines they
“ pretended ” to have seen anything : the early
believers saw with their hearts and souls. Had the
Corinthians, for instance, seen anything, except in
those visions and revelations of the inner man which
ardent spirits have experienced in all ages ? “We
walk by faith, not by sight,” said St Paul to them,
“ though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet
henceforth know we him no more.” Neither the
Apostle nor his hearers had seen Christ after the
flesh, but the moral conviction arising from a grand
idea heartily embraced, the undying aspiration of the
human spirit towards the infinite, supplied the place
of bodily sight. The "Apostle’s frequent language
shows the kind of sight he looked for, and wished to
arouse in his followers. Because the unbelieving
Jews could not see what the Christians saw, he said
a “ veil was upon their heartsbut that when they
turned to the Lord, then the veil should be taken
away. “ The God of this world,” said he, “ hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not,” “ but
God that commanded the light to shine out of dark
ness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God,” &c. This is not the
language of one who was in the habit of appealing to
the visible works of a thaumaturgist, and points much
more clearly to the real power which first gave wings
to primitive Christianity than Paley’s notion of a
machinery of material signs and wonders. There is
no doubt that the spiritual visions of the first founders
and the higher minds of the religion became quickly
materialised in the conceptions of their followers,
and that the gathering mists of mythus soon conglo
merated themselves into solid cloudy forms; but to
suppose that those phantasmagoria were the sole or
�26
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
main forces that so stirred the trodden-down believers
of the first age, and projected their faith across the
centuries, is to take no true measure of the human
spirit, and to vulgarise a majestic episode of the
human drama into the proportions of a tale of hobgoblinry. If we are to believe in a direct divine
agency and a providential re-awakening of the human
race at the dawn of Christianity, it seems to me much
more easy to trace it through the nebular hypotheses
of Strauss than through the wooden machinery and
string-and-wire theories of Paley.
The second assumption to which Paley’s conclusion
introduces us is that a religion founded on the story
of men who were prepared to suffer in the way de
scribed must be true. If this assumption were reliable,
how many conflicting religions in the world’s history
would have equal evidence of their verity ? The
toughness of character which induces men to endure
persecution or undergo toil in support of their opinions
is not peculiar to orthodox Christians, but has often
displayed itself among heretics, infidels, and pagans.
In Church history alone we have abundant evidence
of it; the most admirable trait in the zealous contests
which have so often taken place between rival sects
being the patience and courage with which they
endured the mutual cruelties which each by turn
inflicted on the other, and the no less marvellous
faith with which both regarded their conflict
ing nostrums.
Christians by this time ought
to know pretty well from their own annals how
persecution, instead of killing, gives life to re
ligious beliefs.
Men, somehow, seem to have
got the notion that it is a fresh evidence of
the value and divinity of an object when it is sub
jected to the fierce assaults of the powers of this
world. A race despised and hunted from the face
of the earth naturally looks to the skies for a
deliverer, and thus everything in the nature of
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
*7
religion becomes the centre of all its hopes, and
re-consecrated by every fresh effort and sorrow..
The principle of resistance in human nature first
leads a man to maintain his liberty of thought,
. and then that for which he has suffered becomes
every day more sacred to him.
Christians have
had experience of this over and over again in their
own history. They have attempted themselves to
crush out opinions by measures little short of absolute
extermination. But they have miserably failed. The
growth which seemed stifled has sprung up again,
and often has spread all the more luxuriantly. Let
this teach them how far the endurance of persecution
can be accepted as evidence of the truth or value of
religious beliefs.
The persecution of the Christians by the Roman
authorities, however, was very far from being of such
an exterminating character, though our Advocate, as
in duty bound, endeavours to make the most of it,
and the ecclesiastical historians and apologists have
drawn it in dark colours. But the stories themselves
show frequently that the ruling classes were singu
larly forbearing, and sometimes protected the Chris
tians from the Jews, or from their mutual violence
to one another. Such things as shipwrecks and occa
sional shortness of provisions cannot be considered as
important elements of the question, for a man must
expect to meet his share of the ordinary accidents of
travel whether he sets out to propagate a faith or
puff a commercial firm. With respect to such inter
ludes of fierce and active persecution as really did
take place, we have positive evidence that they were
extremely partial and intermittent. Sometimes they
were brought on by the quarrels oi the Christians
themselves attracting notice; sometimes they were even
sought for by zealots, who thought a crown of mar
tyrdom a sure passport to both heavenly and earthly
glory. We find St Cyprian, in the middle of the
�28
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
third century, even lamenting that the lack of per
*
secution had impaired the faith and morals of the
Christians. “As a long-f continuance of peace and
security,”says he, “had relaxed the vigour of that
holy discipline which was delivered to us from above,
it grew necessary to awaken our sluggish faith, and
rouse up our dormant principles by some smart
dispensation of Providence.He then proceeds
to enumerate the corruptions that had grown up
during the long period of ease. It has often been
shown that, of all things in the world, nothing is
more calculated to stimulate and diffuse a religious
belief than persecution which is occasional and spo
radic ; not enough to efface and eradicate, it is just
enough to create a few heroes and examples, to stir
the compassion of some, and excite the admiration and
emulation of others. It has passed into a common
place that persecution to be in the least effective must
be sweeping and “ thorough.” But in spite of all
that has been said, men do not yet seem to have hit
upon the method of making it sufficiently “ thorough ”
to accomplish its object in the extermination of a reli
gious belief; so that persecutors, now, like the devil,
have
“ Grown wiser than of yore,
And tempt by making rich, not making poor.”
They have found that the best mode of relaxing the
zeal of objectionable religionists is not to proscribe
but to endow them.
Our Advocate endeavours to back up his case by
putting the converse of his first proposition, which
may be in brief stated thus : that there is not satis
factory evidence that other believers in a miraculous
story have endured similar sufferings sooner than
* a.d. 251.
t That is to say, about forty years.
J See St Cyprian’s works, translation by Marshall, Fol. Ed.,
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
29
relinquish it. I have purposely omitted his reitera
tion of the term “ original witnesses,” having already
shown that there is no evidence of the testimony of
such persons, and, if there were, the majority of those
who carried on the propagation of the religion and
endured the consequent sufferings were not original
witnesses, but persons who had accepted certain
stories on hearsay. From what has already been
stated, it must be apparent there is no foundation
whatever for Paley’s statement; but as additional
evidence of its incorrectness, let me ask whether any
people have ever endured such severity of persecution
and for so long a period as the Jews ? They believe
in the miraculous origin of their religion, the thun
ders of Sinai, the fire of Elias, the inspiration of their
prophets, the angel of the Maccabees; they have
maintained this faith in every quarter of the known
world; they have endured an amount and a per
sistency of persecution and proscription absolutely
unparalleled, not merely intermitting through a
couple of hundred years, but steadily continued
through long centuries. Verily, if our test of truth
be the devotion of its followers, here is the people
*
who challenge our comparison and are entitled to our
suffrage! If from Western we turn our eyes to
Eastern Asia, where again will you find in past time
a people more devoted or more successful than the
followers of Buddha F From the time when they were
persecuted, driven out, and actually nigh exterminated
on the plains of India, they went abroad preaching
their faith by land and sea, carried it over a world
more extensive, and subdued before it empires
more ancientf than yet bow before the banners of
* See the account of the courageous martyrdom of Eleazar,
2 Maccab. vi.
f The most ancient races that embraced Christianity fell away
to Mahometanism. The Church has been chiefly recruited from
the nations of modern Europe and their descendants.
�30
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
the cross. It is true this religion has become much
diversified in the various countries to which it has
found its way; but not more so than Christianity.
It is true also that it has corrupted itself by many
superstitions; but has not Christianity done the
same? Some travellers have informed us that, if
you go into a Greek, a Roman, or a Buddhist church,
you could hardly tell the difference between them.
The similarity of many of their miracles, their doc
trines, their religious ideas, and their practices, will
easily appear to anyone who will be at the pains to
study them. But we need not carry our view so far
off nor to such ancient times to find how easily simple
people may be induced to undergo labours and suffer
ings in support of what they conceive to be a mira
culous revelation. We need not, in fact, go much
further than our own doors. Read the account of
how death was braved and the terrible hardships
“ voluntarily undergone ” when, their leader having
been slain, the Mormon apostles bid their followers
relinquish their homes at Nauvoo, and seek a pro
mised land across the desert and the Rocky Moun
tains ; then listen to the language of some of
the poor emigrants and their teachers leaving our
ports for what they fondly look to as a “ New Jeru
salem,” a “ Chosen Zion,” and you will see that a
faith like in kind to that of the ancient believers
has
not altogether died out of the world.
You may say all this is but a poor parody on
Christianity.
That is true; but that does not
prevent it from being a convincing illustration of
how easily a certain class of minds may be con
vinced of a miraculous revelation, and how very
slight evidence of its truth results from the fact of
their undergoing suffering in consequence of such
conviction.
I know our author attempts to consolidate his
position by drawing a distinction between “other
�Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
31
miracles, and miracles in their nature as certain as
those of the Christians ; ” so as to be able when other
instances are adduced of persons suffering for a
miraculous faith, to elude his opponent by alleging
“ your miracles are not of my sort, and therefore do
not invalidate my argument.” But this is a mere
artifice founded on a gratuitous assumption. Whether
they are in their nature certain, depends like the rest
of the question upon testimony. What the intrinsic
difference is between the asserted Christian miracles,
and others, no one is able to say. Whether anything
corresponding to such events ever took place or no,
is the point at issue. As I have already said, and
must again reiterate, we have no account of an actual
original eye-witness, and therefore can only compare
such narratives as we have with similar stories heathen
and patristic. And in so comparing we must remem
ber that we look at the Christian miracles with an
educated eye and with the reverential associations in
which we have been indoctrinated from our earliest
days, whereas the strangeness of the style in accounts
to which we have not been accustomed at first
shocks us; but if we saw them for the first
time side by side in a newly discovered book, it
would be a different matter.
A philosopher
from another planet, unacquainted with both, might
find it difficult to know to which to award the
palm for poetic feeling and moral beauty. Each
collection would seem to him to have its grander
features, the cross of the dying God would stand over
against the rock of the benevolent and long-enduring
Titan, the incarnation of Buddha parallels the incar
nation of the Saviour; while both Jesus and Osiris
rise triumphant from the tomb. On the other hand,
on either part, he would find instances of a lower type,
and would have no difficulty in finding parallels for
such grotesque or gratuitously mythical examples as
�32
Remarks on Raley's Evidences.
the possessed swine, the tribute-paying fish, the
*
angel who troubled the pool of Bethesda,f or the
numerous dead who rose out of their graves after the
crucifixion.
By the distinctions he draws, our author means to
allege that there is a perfectly unique combination in
Christianity between the sufferings and the miracles,
which exists in no other instance. But this is a mere
arbitrary method of stating the case, which has no
foundation in fact. The early Christians were not
ready to undergo martyrdom on account of some
theory as to certain miracles, but, like votaries of
other faiths, they had embraced a story miraculous
on the whole, which involved principles that stirred
all the enthusiasm of their nature. They, the poor,
the trodden down of this world, rich in faith, were
the elect favourites of heaven,—their Lord was soon
to come again, when the wrong should be righted, the
lowly exalted, and the proud abased, this impure and
sinful world should be consumed by fire, while the
* Archbishop Trench makes the fish pay tithe instead of
tribute, and evolves a wonderful amount of mystery out of
the fact. He does not seem to think it likely a miracle would
have been wrought to discharge a mere worldly tax. While
referring to this writer I must take leave to protest against the
insolent intolerance and spiritual pride of many of his remarks.
He seems to consider that differing from his opinions is a con
clusive proof of moral obliquity. He not only accuses his
opponents of want of honesty, as he does poor Dr Paulus, but
of hate, malice, and other bad passions. It is futile, however,
to complain of one more instance of the uneven “balance of
the Sanctuary; ” it will be fully justified in the eyes of the
orthodox. When they use rude language, and reiterate their
well-worn jokes at the expense of free-thinkers, it is to be
regarded as holy zeal and pious indignation; when their
opponents retaliate, it is “ coarse ribaldry,” “ stark blas
phemy,” and so forth. See Trench on The Miracles, Pre
liminary Essay, and elsewhere. Passim.
t See Hammond’s curious attempt to rationalise this account.
Comment in loc.
�Remarks on Paley s Evidences.
33
faithful should reign triumphant in the New
Jerusalem. This prospect of a certain and shortly to
be fulfilled future was the motive power that first
set the ball rolling, and similar enthusiastic beliefs
have over and over again carried crowds across
*
continents.
There was nothing astonishing in their
shaping their beliefs in the forms of a miraculous
story; the astonishment would have been had it been
otherwise, since the whole atmosphere of the time
was miraculous; the mass of the people connected
religions and miracles together as a matter of course,
and nobody thought of questioning such things but a
few critics and philosophers. When details, perhaps,
at length come to be questioned, there is never a
lack in these cases of “ credible witnesses ” to state
what in fact they honestly believe, and if their belief
is bound up with enthusiastic religious hopes they
will suffer and die for it. Read the ardent assevera
tions of some of the early fathers and some modern
divines; they were not original witnesses ; these last
most certainly had no ground of their belief
beyond the fact that they had heard it stated again
and again; but it was bound up with their dearest
hopes and all the enthusiasm of their natures,
and, I have no doubt, that whether ancient or
modern, many of them if it had come to the pinch
would have died for it too.
Thus much may suffice to show the inconclusiveness
of our author’s general propositions- Much more
might be said on many of the details of the latter
part of his work, both as to his inadequate manner of
* See the account of the “Brethren of the Cross,” “The
Flagellants,” and the Children’s Crusade in the Middle Ages.
The superstition of the approaching end of the world has
cropped up over and over again. See Milman’s Hist. Lat.
Christianity, iv. 396; do. Hist. Jews, iii. 222. Neander’s
Church Hist. ix. 595. Kingston’s Life of Emp. Frederick II.,
• c. xv. 260. Robertson’s Charles V. “Proofs and Illustra
tions,” No. 13.
�34
Remarks on Paley s Evidences.
stating the objections of opponents, and his ex parte
representation of conflicting facts. I will conclude,
however, after the manner of our author himself, by
putting a simple case. Let it be remembered, as I
have already shown, that in the earliest writings of
the New Testament, and those only which can be
supposed to be genuine and authentic, the references
to miracles are extremely slight, and such as are quite
capable of being explained by the same theory which
Paley employs to discredit those of the Abbe Paris.
Let it also be remembered that the later the date of
the productions, the more does the miraculous element
predominate, and that none of the books in which it
predominates can be proved to be earlier than the year
110 a.d., their various probable dates ranging from
about 120 to 160, during which period the floating
traditions connected with the religion were “ co-acervating ” and developing, by mutual accretion, until
they were worked up into the form in which the
fathers of the latter part of the second and third
centuries have handed them down to us.
These
fathers, therefore, are the real persons who have
guaranteed the stones to us. Now, bearing these
things in mind, let us suppose that a wondrous
tale were brought, to us from the other side of
the Atlantic, which on the face of it surpassed
the bounds of probability. If, however, it were
brought to us by several men, not merely of ££ pro
bity and good sense,” but of calm judicial minds, ac
customed to weigh evidence, historical and scientific,
who all and each declared they had witnessed the inci
dents themselves, and who had no personal feelings,
affections, or aspirations enlisted in the matter, we
might think it at any rate worthy of our candid exami
nation, and we might, under certain circumstances,
feel ourselves bound to accept their statements as
facts even if we could not explain them. If, on the
other hand, the tale was conveyed to us by persons
�Remarks on Paley s Evidences.
35
of extremely excitable and enthusiastic dispositions
who had given many previous proofs of their extra
ordinary credulity, and who came from a district
greatly addicted to the marvellous, and celebrated
for the credulous and uncritical character of the
natives ; if, moreover, they could not truly affirm that
they were personal eyewitnesses, and the tale was
bound up with many of their strongest feelings and
aspirations, and at the same time added largely
to their personal influence and importance, without
attributing any sinister motives to them, we
should be strongly inclined to say, the story is
so improbable in itself that, under any circum
stances, we should have found it extremely difficult
of belief, but its credibility is altogether out of
the question when we consider the character of the
narrators.
Now these remarks exactly apply to the circum
stances of the case before us. The miraculous Chris
tian story took form in a remarkably and increasingly
credulous age, it received nourishment from such
circumstances as were peculiarly suited to foster it,
and it is presented to us by men who have given
repeated proofs of their want of judgment and critical
discrimination, their readiness to embrace anything
that fell in with their preconceptions, and their en
thusiastic and uncontrollable feelings. This is only
a fair description of the ecclesiastical fathers of the
end of the second, the third, and the fourth centuries,
who are. our only vouchers for the miraculous records.
Here is not the place for multiplying illustrations of
this assertion. I can only say if any one doubts the
substantial truth of my allegation let him read the
fathers for himself!
This uninviting task is now facilitated by the fact
that most of them are translated, so that a sufficient
knowledge of their contents may be obtained without
having to struggle through the contorted Latin and
�36
Remarks on Paley’s Evidences.
bad Greek for -which some of them are distinguished.
I subjoin a few instances of their credulity and want
of judgment.
To draw, then, this somewhat long epistle to a
close, I submit to your candid consideration whether
a work, which grounds on ; so unsatisfactory a
basis the evidences of Christianity, which puts the
material machinery and the thaumaturgic element of
its history into so much greater prominence than the
moral (the really strong point of the Christian religion),
and which, in its critical statements, is so far below
the information and requirements of the present day,
is such a work as should occupy a place on the list of
class-books of this great University. My object in
this letter is to express a hope that members of this
University may, each as far as lies in his power, exert
their influence to obtain its removal from such a
position.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
An Old Graduate.
�Remarks on Paley’s Evidences.
37
NOTES.
Origen, for instance, informs us that in his time it was a
common thing to cure innumerable evils and drive out devils
from men and beasts by adjurations and exorcisms (Conts.
Cels. L. vii. p. 374).
Justin Martyr not only affirms the old fable about the
Septuagint translators, but declares that he had himself seen.
at Alexandria the remains of the cells in which they were shut
up. (Cohort, ad Graec. p. 14.) The same Father tells us that
the Christians often drove out devils after other enchanters
had tried and failed (Apol. ii. 116).
Minutius Felix declares that Saturn, Serapis, and Jupiter,
when adjured by the Christians, confess themselves to be
demons (Octav.).
Several Fathers have fabulous tales of angels begetting
demons on the bodies of women, and indulging in sensual
enormities with women and boys.
Lactantius and the author of the Clement. Recogn. allege,
as proof of the immortality of the soul, that any magician
could call up the souls of the dead and make them foretell
future events, and say that Simon Magus wrought his miracles
by means of the soul of a boy who had been put to death for
the purpose (Fact. Div. Inst. L. vii., c. 13 ; Clem. Rec. L. ii.,
c. 13).
Irenaeus declares that the Dead were frequently raised in his
time by the prayers of the Church, and afterwards lived many
years among them (adv. Haeres. L. ii., c. 57).
Papias alleged the same according to Eusebius (Hist. Ecc.
iii. 39).
St Augustin, that famous Father, goes beyond this, and
relates that several persons were brought back to life by means
of the reliques of St Stephen (De Civ. Dei. L. xxii., c. viii.,
§ 18-21).
St Athanasius informs us that one day, Anthony, the Monk,
going to his door was accosted by a tall meagre person who,
being asked his name, answered that he was Satan. He adds
a large number of monstrous stories, declaring that he kneio
them to be true (Athan., Life of St Anthony).
Gregory, of Nyssa, has a wonderful story of an appearance
of the Virgin Mary and St John.
But, perhaps, the most astounding of all is a story of St
Augustin’s, which he declares he had from credible witnesses,,
to the effect that the ground where St John was buried heaved
�38
Remarks on Paley's Evidences.
up and down regularly according to the motion of his bodycaused by his breathing. This they supposed a fulfilment of
the promise that St John should not die (Augustin in loc., Joh.
xxi. 23).
These are but a few specimens of the marvels testified to by
some of the early Fathers. The other Fathers, not mentioned,
share their superstition and credulity. [I particularly recom
mend to the notice of those who have not read it, ‘An Inquiry
into the Miraculous Powers supposed to have subsisted in the
Christian Church,’ &c, (by Dr Conyers Middleton, formerly
Fellow of Trim, Librarian of this University, and Woodwardian Professor), from which work the above examples are
taken.] The professed historians of the Early Church were
very little better. Refer to Socrat, B. vii., c. 4. Sozomen,
B. ii., c. 1, c. 3, c. 7; B. iii., c. 14 ; B. iv., c. 3, and many other
places. Theodoret is full of superstitious fables. See par
ticularly B. I., c. 7, c. 14, 18, 23, 24 ; B. iv., c. 21, and, in fact,
passim.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Title
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Remarks on Paley's evidences.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 38 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: "A letter to the younger members (graduates and undergraduates) of the University of Cambridge by an Old Graduate." Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The British Library catalogues this article as an appendix to Paley's View of the Evidences of Christianity.
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Thomas Scott
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1873
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CT117
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Theology
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[Unknown]
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English
Conway Tracts
William Paley