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

2. Testimony has a general credibility, subject of course to the knowledge and honesty of the informant, when the reports are derived from those who lived during the generation in which a particular event occurred, supposing it to have been one of sufficient notoriety to attract attention, and that the reporter possessed adequate means of information, and investigated it with sufficient care. We are always justified in assuming that he tells the truth unless there are reasons for suspecting the contrary.

3. Narratives of events which a man has heard from his father or his contemporaries, but which happened before his own recollection, are for the purpose of history, (but subject to the requisite qualifications) fair representations of contemporaneous testimony.

History admits hearsay testimony under proper restrictions. The knowledge of the past would be impossible, if it were to allow itself to be fettered by the technical rules which have been introduced into the administration of justice. The all-important considerations with the historian, are the notoriety of the fact and the truthfulness of the informant. Facts that a man may have heard detailed by his grandfather or [pg 389] his contemporaries as having happened in their time stand as representations of contemporaneous testimony in the same position as those derived from the earlier generation.

4. But when a third stage is interposed in the transmission of events, as for instance when we learn from our fathers or grandfathers what they have learnt from theirs, an element of uncertainty is introduced. Still an historian, writing after such an interval of time, if he sifted evidence with care, would be able to report with accuracy all the great events, whatever difficulty he might have in ascertaining the minor details. Within this period abundance of sources of accurate information exist on all points of importance, although the details gradually fade out of people's recollections. After this interval, the accounts of events are likely to receive a certain amount of colouring, according to the prejudices of the narrators; but the interval is too short, and the remembrance of them too recent, to allow of their becoming incrusted with important mythical additions. All the materials for investigation are in existence, and within the reach of the honest historian. He might find difficulty in arranging the details in historical sequence; but if he does not give an accurate account of the great outlines, it is owing, not to the want of historical materials, but to the absence of a desire to investigate and report the truth.

5. The limits of time during which tradition can be considered as a sufficiently accurate medium for preserving the memory of events, may be put generally at from one hundred to one hundred and twenty years. Within this period careful investigation and inquiry will enable the historian to report the main features of events with substantial truth, from the testimony of those who were contemporaries, or who derived their [pg 390] information from those who were. Beyond this period, when the knowledge of occurrences has to pass through three or four media of transmission, tradition becomes an uncertain and untrustworthy informant, and after the lapse of a greater interval, it is utterly unreliable, affording no means of checking the introduction of legendary narratives. There may be a few exceptional cases which have impressed themselves deeply on the public recollection. Occasionally the protracted lives of a few individuals may lengthen the period of trustworthy transmission, but this is an event of such rare occurrence as but slightly to modify the general rule.

It must be observed that there are two cases in which the traditional knowledge of events is transmitted with far more accuracy, and over far longer intervals of time than in ordinary ones, viz., those of families which have an historical importance derived from the actions of their ancestors, and those of bodies of men who have a kind of corporate life, succeeding one another in unbroken succession, especially when this corporate life is founded on the events themselves. This latter case presents the means best adapted for the traditionary transmission of facts, and one in which it is hardly possible that they should fail of being accurately transmitted within a reasonable interval of time. This was precisely the position occupied by the Christian Church during the first century of its existence respecting the chief events in the life of its founder.

An example will illustrate this: If there had been no written memorials of the life of John Wesley, there can be no doubt that the society which he founded would have handed down to the present day an account of the chief events of his life, which would have been accurate in its main outlines. Thousands of persons are now living who have conversed with those who have heard [pg 391] him preach; I myself have done so. It would therefore be impossible to impose upon them a wholly mythic account in place of that which would have been handed down by the Wesleyan body. Yet this society is founded on a set of dogmas, not on the historical facts of its founder's life. The Christian Church therefore was in a far superior position for preserving a substantially accurate account of the chief events in the life of Jesus Christ, yet the interval which separates us from the death of Wesley is greater than that which elapsed between the death of Christ, and the publication of the latest of the Synoptic Gospels, even if we accept the dates which are assigned to them by our opponents.

6. When the knowledge of past events has perished, it is impossible to re-construct them by the aid of conjecture, except within the limits to which I have previously alluded. These limits must be strictly defined, otherwise that which is propounded as history becomes nothing else than a statement of our subjective impressions. Conjectures which cannot stand the test of historical verification cannot be accepted as facts of history.

Nothing is easier than, when facts are wanting, to invent them, and thus bridge over the intervals which lie between others, the connecting links of which have perished. But how are we to know that such conjectural events were real facts, and not mere creations of the imagination? Clearly this can be determined in no other way than by subjecting them to a rigid verification. If they will not endure this, they must be rejected. Historical conjectures have no higher claims for acceptance than scientific ones. Both must be subject to the same tests, and must share the same fate. I do not deny that many such conjectures may have a [pg 392] considerable degree of plausibility; but, unless we rigidly reject from the rank of historic facts those that break down under the test of verification, histories will be converted into novels or poems. If our knowledge of the connecting links between events in the history of the past has perished, we shall not improve it by imagining facts, and calling the result by the name of history.

We cannot be too guarded in this particular subject, because an almost boundless license has been introduced into the present controversy. Pure creations of the imagination, which it is impossible to verify, are constantly propounded as facts in the history of the past. I by no means wish to deny that both parties must plead guilty to the charge of this species of historical forgery. The fact may be unpleasant, but we shall do no good by refusing to recognize it. When the knowledge of past events has perished, and our conjectures break down under the test of verification, we have nothing to do but to remain content with our ignorance.