But another calculator, long practised in the refined modes of abstract reasoning—expert in leaping with certainty over intervals which others must slowly pace, and capable, by the vigour and comprehension of his mind, of retaining his hold of a multitude of particulars, sees the certainty of such operose demonstrations with as much ease as another finds in comprehending an elementary proposition. Yet the conclusion which perhaps not fifty men in Europe can, with full intelligence, know to be true, is actually as true as the axiom which the schoolboy comprehends at a glance.
Now all evidence on questions of antiquity, whether the facts be historical or literary, thus far resembles an operose demonstration in mathematical science, that it is remote from the intellectual habits, and extraneous to the usual acquirements, even of well-educated persons: very far remote, therefore, must it be from the mental range of the uninstructed classes. The strength of our convictions, as to matters of fact, remote in time or place, must bear proportion to the extent and the exactness of our knowledge, and to the consequent fulness and vividness of our conceptions of that class of objects to which the question relates. By long and intimate familiarity with ancient authors, and by an extensive acquaintance with the relics of antiquity, of all kinds, the imagination of the scholar bears him back to distant ages, with a full and distinct consciousness of the reality of those scenes and persons. Nor is this ideal converse with remote objects like that which is produced by fictitious narratives; for such excursions of the fancy through unreal regions, are disconnected with the rest of our ideas and convictions: on the contrary, the ideal presence of an accomplished mind in the scenes of ancient history is firmly, and by innumerable ties, combined with the knowledge of present realities. The imagination does not flit, on the wing of a fantasy, from the real, to an unreal world; but it tracks its way, with a steady step, on solid ground, from times present, to times past; and the intelligent conviction of truth travels up to the farthest point of its progress.
To those who are thus conversant with history, all facts or events—literary or historical—if they be satisfactorily attested, are held in the mind with a firmness of persuasion which cannot, by any statements, or any reasonings, however conclusive or perspicuous, be imparted to other minds; because, neither its own powers of comprehension, nor its variety of knowledge, can be so imparted.
CHAPTER XIV.
RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
Some copies of Quintilian’s Institutions of Oratory, very much corrupted and mutilated by the ignorance or presumption of copyists, were known in Italy before the fifteenth century. But in 1414, while the Council of Constance was sitting, Poggio, a learned Italian, was commissioned by the promoters of learning to proceed to that place, in search of ancient manuscripts, which were believed to be preserved in the monasteries of the city and its vicinity. His researches were rewarded by discovering, in the monastery of St. Gall, beneath a heap of long-neglected lumber, a perfect copy of the Institutions.
The manuscript, thus discovered, was soon subjected to the examination of critics; it was collated with existing copies, it was compared with the references of ancient authors, and thus was ascertained to be genuine, and, in the main, uncorrupted. And yet the substance of the evidence on which this decision rests might be comprised in a page.
The abridged history of Rome, by Paterculus, has come down to our times only in a single manuscript, and that one is so much corrupted, that critics have despaired of restoring the text to its purity. It happens, also, that this history is quoted by one ancient author only—Priscian, a grammarian of the sixth century. Yet, notwithstanding this scantiness of the evidence, and this corruption of the single existing copy, the genuineness of the work is fully admitted by scholars. The style, the allusions, the coincidences, are such as to satisfy those who are competent to estimate the value of this sort of proof. But now if this proof were formally set before us, and even if it were as much expanded as it would bear, it must look exceedingly meagre; and, to uninformed readers, it must appear slender as a thread, and insufficient to sustain any weighty consequence. But scholars, in reading the book, feel that sort of conviction of its genuineness which is experienced by a traveller, who has spent his life in passing from country to country, conversing with men of all nations: when this travelled person meets foreigners in the streets of London, he does not need to look at passports before he can know whether these strangers, whom individually he has never before seen, are Swedes, or Hungarians, or Armenians, or Hindoos, or West Indians; the commonest observer scarcely hesitates on such occasions; but the old traveller feels a conviction which mocks at the demand for formal proof.
After we have excepted a few doubtful cases, the genuineness of classic authors is perceived by scholars, with a vividness and distinctness that is not dependent upon the quantity of assignable evidence which must be adduced in reply to objectors. On this ground it may be affirmed, that, if only a single manuscript, containing certain of St. Paul’s Epistles, had been preserved, and even if no quotations from these writings were to be found, competent scholars (no practical consequences being implied in the question) would doubt that these writings are in fact what they profess to be. Those minute and indescribable characters of genuineness which meet the instructed eye in every line of these Epistles would be enough, apart from that argument which has been derived from the internal accordances of the history and the letters, as exhibited by Paley in the Horæ Paulinæ.
But although the external proof of the genuineness of ancient books might, in a large proportion of instances, be dispensed with as superfluous, it ought not to be disregarded; especially as it is the kind of evidence which may best be made intelligible to general readers. Yet even this, when adduced in its particulars, is not often duly appreciated; nor is it likely to produce its due impression, unless it be viewed in its place among facts of the same class. We propose, therefore, without troubling the reader with details which are to be found, at large, in many well-known works, and which he may be supposed to have in recollection—or within his reach—to direct him to a few principal points of the comparison which may be instituted between the classical and the sacred writings, in relation to the proof of the genuineness and authenticity of each kind.
The Jewish and Christian Scriptures may then be brought into comparison with the works of the Greek and Roman authors, in the following particulars:—