The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. 1 (of 2) / The Hebrew Trial

by Walter M. Chandler

Again, John xviii. 10: "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." It has been objected that there is nowhere an account of the arrest or punishment of Peter for this assault and resistance to armed authority; and that, therefore, there was no such occurrence. A passage from Luke explains the failure to arrest. "And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far, and he touched his ear and healed him."[24] The healing of the ear explains why no arrest followed; for, if charges had been made, there would have been no evidence of the gravity of the offense. Indeed, witnesses against Peter would have been completely confounded and humiliated by the result of the miracle; and might have been driven from court as malicious accusers. Then, the failure to arrest is a silent corroboration of the statement that the event occurred and that the miracle was performed.

Under the third heading, of the "confirmation of logic or reason," a single instance will suffice.

John xx. 4: "And the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre." The "other disciple" was St. John, who is generally conceded to have been the youngest of the Apostles. And St. Peter, we may judge from John xxi. 18, was already past the meridian of life. What could be more natural than that the younger man should outrun the older and arrive first at the sepulcher? What better proof could be expected of the fact of the existence of that sweetness and modesty in youth which respects old age, and that endeared John to Jesus above all others, than we have here, where the younger man awaits the arrival of the older before beginning to explore the deserted tomb?

Examples similar to these might be multiplied at length, since the Gospel histories are filled with them; but those above mentioned are deemed sufficient to illustrate the theory of corroboration. The instances of internal confirmation in the New Testament narratives are especially convincing. They are arguments and proofs in the nature of undesigned coincidences which, from the very nature of the case, shut out all possibility of collusion or fraud. In most cases they are expressed in a single phrase and represent an isolated thought corroborative of some other elsewhere expressed. Though small, detached, and fragmentary, like particles of dynamite, they operate with resistless force when collected and combined.

Once more attention is called to the fact that these discrepancies negative completely the idea that the Gospel writers were conspirators, bent upon the common purpose of deceiving mankind by publishing a false history to the world. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that men conspiring to perpetrate a fraud, would neglect a fundamental principle underlying all successful conspiracy; that is, the creation and maintenance of a due and reasonable consistency between the words and deeds of the conspirators in formulating plans for carrying out the common purpose. Then, if there was no previous concert, the fact that four men, writing at different times and places, concurred in framing substantially the same history, is one of the strongest proofs of the credibility of the writers and the truthfulness of their narratives. And on this point the testimony of a very great writer may be quoted: that "in a number of concurrent testimonies, where there has been no previous concert, there is a probability distinct from that which may be termed the sum of the probabilities resulting from the testimonies of the witnesses; a probability which would remain, even though the witnesses were of such a character as to merit no faith at all. This probability arises from the concurrence itself. That such a concurrence should spring from chance is as one to infinite; that is, in other words, morally impossible. If, therefore, concert be excluded, there remains no cause but the reality of the fact."[25]

Apply the theory of probability, arising from concurrent testimonies, where there has been no previous concert, to the case of the Evangelists, and we are at once convinced that they were truthful and that their histories are true.

(4) Let us now consider the conformity of the testimony of the Evangelists with human experience. This is the fourth legal test of the credibility of witnesses prescribed by Starkie.

The conformity of testimony with experience is one of the most potent and universally applied tests of the credibility of witnesses. And it may be remarked that its application is not confined to judicial proceedings or to courts of law. It requires no professional attainments to make it effective. The blacksmith and carpenter, as well as the judge and jury, employ it in every mental operation where the statements of others are submitted to analysis and investigation. A new theory being proposed, the correctness of which is questioned, the test of experience is at once applied. If it is not in harmony with what we have seen and heard and felt, we usually reject it; or, at least, doubt it. If an explorer should return from the Arctic regions and tell us that he had seen oranges, such as we import from Florida, growing on trees near the North Pole, we would not believe him. Neither would we credit the statement of a traveler from South America that he had seen Polar bears browsing on the banks of the Amazon. These representations would be utterly inconsistent with what we know to be the essential conditions of orange culture, and with the well-known habits and climatic nature of the Polar bear. An ancient document, purporting to date from the time of Washington and the Revolution, and containing recitals about railways, telegraphs, telephones, and electric lights, would be recognized at once as spurious, because our own experience as well as facts of history would tell us that there were no such things in the days of Washington and the American Revolution. These are simple illustrations of the application of the test of experience in the mental processes of weighing and sifting the testimony of others.

Now, no serious objection to the credibility of the Gospel writers has been made under the test of the conformity of their statements with experience, except in the matter of miracles. It is generally admitted, even by skeptics, that the facts stated in the New Testament narratives might have happened in the due course of nature and in harmony with human experience, except where miracles are related.

A few skeptics have declared that a miracle is an impossibility and that the Evangelists were either deceivers or deceived when they wrote their accounts of the miraculous performances of the Christ; and that, whether deceivers or deceived, they are unworthy of belief. The great antagonist of the theory of miracles among those who assert their impossibility is Spinoza, who has thus written: "A miracle, whether contrary to or above nature, is a sheer absurdity. Nothing happens in nature which does not follow from its laws; these laws extend to all which enters the Divine mind; and, lastly, nature proceeds in a fixed and changeless course—whence it follows that the word 'miracle' can only be understood in relation to the opinions of mankind, and signifies nothing more than an event, a phenomenon, the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance.... I might say, indeed, that a miracle was that, the cause of which cannot be explained by our natural understanding from the known principles of natural things."