The Supernatural in the New Testament, Possible, Credible, and Historical / Or, An Examination of the Validity of Some Recent Objections Against Christianity as a Divine Revelation

by C. A. Row

To what extent Josephus embellished these signs may be a question. Most of them have a very heathen aspect, and it is unquestionable that he was much disposed to conciliate his heathen readers. It is sufficient to observe that the pages of the New Testament contain nothing resembling them.

But the chief source whence these ineffable puerilities are derived, and charged on the contemporaries of our Lord, and through them on the writers of the New Testament, is the Talmud. Probably there are no writings in existence from which a more monstrous set of absurdities can be collected than from those of the Talmudists. But how does this prove that this mass of nonsense was believed in by the Jewish nation in our Lord's day? One portion of the Talmud, the Mishna, was composed between a.d. 180 and a.d. 200, or some years after the date assigned by unbelievers to the Fourth Gospel. The lateness of this date is urged by them as conclusive proof that that Gospel does not embody the real traditions of the early followers of Jesus. How then can it be urged with any thing like consistency that the Mishna adequately represents their views respecting the order of nature? But the other portion of the Talmud, the Gemara, was not put forth in a written form prior to a.d. 500. To quote [pg 297] works thus remote in time as proofs of the superstitions of the followers of Jesus, is to adopt a course which if applied generally to history, would reduce it to a tissue of falsehoods. Bishop Jewell was a believer in witchcraft; but it would be absurd if some future writer were to quote the writings of modern spiritualists as a proof that he believed in their doctrines.

Nor is it true that the opinions of the masses of a nation are at all adequately represented by those of its learned men, especially when learning, as in the case in question, assumed the most unbounded licence of speculation. In most cases the common sense of the masses who are brought into contact with the hard facts of daily life will preserve them from puerilities, into which learning, which draws exclusively on the imagination, is certain to fall. There is sufficient evidence of the superstition of the masses during the middle ages; but nothing would be more absurd than to quote some monstrous opinions held by the great scholastic writers to prove that they were the current opinions of the vulgar. Yet the principle here adopted is to adduce opinions propounded by learned writers, who lived centuries afterwards, as a proof that they were current among the entire Jewish race at the time of Jesus Christ.

The remaining references in proof of this position are still more noteworthy. To establish the superstition of the Jews at the time of the Advent, a set of opinions are adduced which were held by Christian Fathers, whose writings cover a period of not less than four centuries. A list of them will be sufficient. The apocryphal Barnabas and Hermas, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Lactantius, Eusebius, and Cyril of Jerusalem. A number [pg 298] of grotesque opinions are collected from these writers, as though they could have any possible bearing on the question whether the followers of Jesus were able correctly to report what they saw and heard.

I submit therefore that the facts adduced utterly fail to establish the charge of intense superstition and credulity against the followers of Jesus. But I go further, and affirm that they furnish the means of giving a most conclusive proof of the contrary.

These quotations furnish us with a clear and conclusive proof, which is also furnished by the entire range of literature, that when writers are the prey of a definite class of superstitions, their pages will afford abundant evidence not only of their existence, but of their nature and character. This, of course, must be qualified by the supposition that the subject-matter on which they wrote is one suitable to call their latent superstitions into activity. This always happens when the works are of a religious character. In such cases they will faithfully reflect the superstitions entertained by their authors. This is pre-eminently the case with all the writings in question. They are all on religious subjects, on which they allowed their imaginations to run riot. They entertained a number of grotesque opinions, and accordingly we find in their writings a grotesque super-naturalism, exactly corresponding to the peculiar ideas of each individual writer. On the principle that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” we may be quite certain that when an author is extremely credulous and superstitious, it will find expression in his pages whenever he is writing on a subject on which his imagination gives scope to exhibit them.

I put the argument as follows: all writers exhibit in their pages the superstitions to which they are a prey. [pg 299] The writers of the New Testament do not exhibit the superstitions in question. It follows therefore that from these particular superstitions they are free. Consequently the charge against them of intense superstition and credulity falls to the ground, as far as it rests on the evidence in question.

The amount of subject-matter in the New Testament which, independently of a general belief in miracles, the opponents of Christianity can designate as superstitious, is of a very limited and definite nature. It may be said to be almost exclusively confined to a belief in the reality of possession;—a few cases of disease occasioned by Satanic agency;—an occasional intervention of angels, and their power to act on nature;—and perhaps that demonology and heathenism were in some way connected with each other. This is the sum total of such beliefs which appear on the face of the New Testament. They appear in unequal degrees in the works of different writers; and viewing them as mere human compositions, we have no right to charge on one writer the beliefs of another. The book of Revelation, and its imagery as professedly merely seen in a vision, cannot fairly be introduced into this controversy.

If then we concede, for the sake of argument, that the Jews in the time of Christ were a prey to the extravagant superstitions referred to; if they believed that the whole course of nature and human life was incessantly interfered with by an army of spirits in numbers passing all comprehension, and that these interferences were of the most grotesque and phantastic character; if they universally believed in magic, charms and incantations, the non-appearance of such phenomena in the pages of the New Testament is a proof that its authors were not a prey to the current superstitions of [pg 300] the day. No inconsiderable number of supernatural events are recorded in their pages, but unbelief itself is compelled to admit that they are all of a dignified character, with perhaps the exception of the entrance of the demons into the swine, and the discovery of the piece of money in the mouth of the fish. From what is monstrous, grotesque and phantastic, they are absolutely free.

If it be conceded, for the sake of argument, that miracles are possible, then it cannot be denied that those of the New Testament, taken as a whole, stand out in marked contrast to the current supernaturalism of superstition. Their whole conception is lofty; there is in them nothing mean or contemptible; they subserve a great purpose; they are worthy of that great character to whom they are ascribed, Jesus Christ. I put the question boldly: how is it, if the followers of Jesus were a prey to the degrading superstitions above referred to, that we find no indications of them in their pages? Also: how is it possible that men of such a character should have invented such a number of noble creations? Let unbelievers account for this on any principle which a sound philosophy can recognise.