[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 4, ix. 30, 31, xii. 16, and following; Mark i. 44, vii. 24, and following, viii. 26.]
[Footnote 3: Mark i. 24, 25, 34, iii. 12; Luke iv. 41.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark ix. 18; Luke ix. 41.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. xii. 38, and following, xvi. 1, and following; Mark viii. 11.]
We should neglect to recognize the first principles of history if we attached too much importance to our repugnances on this matter, and if, in order to avoid the objections which might be raised against the character of Jesus, we attempted to suppress facts which, in the eyes of his contemporaries, were considered of the greatest importance.[1] It would be convenient to say that these are the additions of disciples much inferior to their Master who, not being able to conceive his true grandeur, have sought to magnify him by illusions unworthy of him. But the four narrators of the life of Jesus are unanimous in extolling his miracles; one of them, Mark, interpreter of the apostle Peter,[2] insists so much on this point, that, if we trace the character of Christ only according to this Gospel, we should represent him as an exorcist in possession of charms of rare efficacy, as a very potent sorcerer, who inspired fear, and whom the people wished to get rid of.[3] We will admit, then, without hesitation, that acts which would now be considered as acts of illusion or folly, held a large place in the life of Jesus. Must we sacrifice to these uninviting features the sublimer aspect of such a life? God forbid. A mere sorcerer, after the manner of Simon the magician, would not have brought about a moral revolution like that effected by Jesus. If the thaumaturgus had effaced in Jesus the moralist and the religious reformer, there would have proceeded from him a school of theurgy, and not Christianity.
[Footnote 1: Josephus, Ant., XVIII. iii. 3.]
[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii. 39.]
[Footnote 3: Mark iv. 40, v. 15, 17, 33, 36, vi. 50, x. 32; cf. Matt. viii. 27, 34, ix. 8, xiv. 27, xvii. 6, 7, xxviii. 5, 10; Luke iv. 36, v. 17, viii. 25, 35, 37, ix. 34. The Apocryphal Gospel, said to be by Thomas the Israelite, carries this feature to the most offensive absurdity. Compare the Miracles of the Infancy, in Philo, Cod. Apocr. N.T., p. cx., note.]
The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same manner with respect to all saints and religious founders. Things now considered morbid, such as epilepsy and seeing of visions, were formerly principles of power and greatness. Physicians can designate the disease which made the fortune of Mahomet.[1] Almost in our own day, the men who have done the most for their kind (the excellent Vincent de Paul himself!) were, whether they wished it or not, thaumaturgi. If we set out with the principle that every historical personage to whom acts have been attributed, which we in the nineteenth century hold to be irrational or savoring of quackery, was either a madman or a charlatan, all criticism is nullified. The school of Alexandria was a noble school, but, nevertheless, it gave itself up to the practices of an extravagant theurgy. Socrates and Pascal were not exempt from hallucinations. Facts ought to explain themselves by proportionate causes. The weaknesses of the human mind only engender weakness; great things have always great causes in the nature of man, although they are often developed amidst a crowd of littlenesses which, to superficial minds, eclipse their grandeur.
[Footnote 1: Hysteria Muscularis of Shoenlein.]