Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

1. The Attack on the Evangelical Narratives.

When rationalism at length arose in the eighteenth century, the miracles of Christ began to be attacked. For since the rationalists denied a priori the possibility of supernatural revelation and consequently of miracles, they rejected a priori the miracles of the Gospels as well. In order, however, to give to this rejection the semblance of historical criticism, they devised in the course of two centuries various hypotheses to undermine the miraculous narratives of the Gospels, namely the hypotheses of fraud, of natural explanation, of myth, of tendency, and of legends.

a) The hypothesis of fraud was devised by Reimarus (1694-1763),¹ who maintained that Jesus favored a purely political messianism, and that in order to stir up the people to sedition against the Romans he feigned messianic miracles. When, however, this political plan was frustrated and Jesus himself had died, the disciples fraudulently declared that their master had professed a religious messianism and had risen from the dead. Moreover, the evangelists fabricated many other miracles of Jesus. This hypothesis of fraud is so absurd that the rationalists themselves repudiated it with one voice. But immediately:

b) The hypothesis of natural explanation was hawked by Gottlob Paulus (1761-1851), who contended that the evangelical history and even the miraculous facts are indeed true, but were so depicted by the evangelists that they appear supernatural without justification. It was the interpreter's task to render the texts in question in such a way that only rational truths and natural facts should remain.² In reality, however, Dr. Paulus, for the sake of this "natural" explanation, corrupted the very miraculous facts and the whole evangelical history, which he had affirmed to be true. Hence by an argument from the absurd he proved his hypothesis to be vain. Therefore, this one having been rejected:

c) The hypothesis known as that of myth was proposed by David Frider. Strauß (1808-1874). The evangelists, Strauß maintained, had unconsciously and without awareness transferred to Jesus all manner of miraculous fables which the Jews had invented about the Messiah to come or the Christians about the Messiah already come. Hence the Gospels are not true history, but a fabulous history of Jesus. And above all, all the miracles attributed to Christ are to be counted among the fables.³ This opinion at first pleased the rationalists greatly; soon, however, even the unbelievers perceived that the disciples could not have unconsciously written a fabulous life of their master, but that such a deed could have been perpetrated only at a later time and in bad faith. Therefore, in place of the hypothesis of myth: d) The hypothesis of "tendency" was invented by Ferd. Christian Baur (1792-1860), formerly himself a teacher of Strauß. Baur, together with the Tübingen school, by means of the "higher criticism" concocted a new history of the Christian religion of the first and second centuries. He dreamed, namely, that from the apostolic age the faithful had been divided into two parties most hostile to one another, namely into a Petrine church of Judeo-Christians and a Pauline church of Gentile-Christians. In the second century peace was at length concluded between the quarreling brethren by the composition of the Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament, which, concealing the earlier dissension, fabricated a "tendencious" history of Jesus and the apostles. On that occasion and with that intention the miracles of Jesus were also invented.⁴ But the falsity of this hypothesis escapes no one. For it labors under all the vices with which the hypothesis of fraud of Reimarus was already burdened, and besides, with a ridiculous audacity, it perverts the whole primitive history of the Christian religion and wrongly asserts that the entire New Testament arose in the second century. Therefore, this hypothesis too having been rejected:

e) The hypothesis of legends is cherished by almost all the more recent rationalists, or, as they call themselves, the "historico-critical" scholars⁵. The historico-critical scholars concede — indeed, against the errors of Reimarus, Baur, Strauß and other skeptics they prove invincibly — that almost the whole New Testament is to be ascribed to those sacred writers of the apostolic age to whom it has always been attributed by Catholic Tradition. They maintain, however, that these writers, and above all the evangelists, did not wish to write the life of Jesus according to the rule of history, but depicted a legend of Christ according to the norm of the Christian faith then in vogue. For the faithful, they say, had within a brief interval colored the merely human and natural life of the Lord with a legendary coating.

To the legendary part of the Gospels belong the supernatural doctrines and especially the miraculous events; the natural deeds, on the other hand, constitute the historical part. By means of criticism the miraculous legends are to be removed from the picture of the "Christ of faith", so that the true figure of the "historical Jesus" may appear once more.

2. The Defense of the Evangelical Narratives.

From what has been said it is clear that today the miracles of Jesus are attacked only by the hypothesis of legends, since all the other hypotheses put forward in the course of two centuries have been destroyed by the rationalists themselves. That the miraculous narratives of the Gospels are by no means legendary, but historical, is proven by their adversaries, their character, their writers, their contemporaries.

a) The adversaries of the narratives by no means prove that those texts of the Gospel which relate miracles are less historical than those which contain natural facts. Rather, the "historico-critical" scholars confess that the miraculous texts are adjudged to legend by pure arbitrariness, according to the saying: "Sic volo, sic iubeo; stet pro ratione voluntas."⁶ Indeed, some add that the miraculous texts are so necessarily interwoven with the historico-natural texts of the Gospels that, once the former are removed, the latter too are irreparably destroyed.⁷ Therefore, on the testimony of the adversaries themselves, the miraculous narratives, if examined without a preconceived opinion, are of the same historical weight as the Gospels as a whole.

Notwithstanding this, the rationalists contend that the miracles of Jesus are not historical, for the sole philosophical reason that they simply deny that a miracle can happen. Against this we do not insist upon the possibility of miracle demonstrated elsewhere,⁸ but we appeal to the principles of sound criticism, which ordain that historical questions are not to be treated in an a priori manner. It belongs to historical criticism to examine seriously the evangelical documents of the miracles. And if these documents are found to be truthful, one must stand by the historicity of the miracles of Jesus, whatever the preconceived philosophy of rationalism may prattle. For: "Contra factum non valet argumentum." Since, however, as has been said, the evangelical documents of the miracles have neither been weakened by the assault of so many enemies nor can be weakened, the very adversaries of the works of Christ, whether they will or not, are their most zealous defenders. But come, let us ourselves see whether:

b) The character of the narratives is historical or legendary.

The literary genre of the Gospels, as the Introduction demonstrates, is the historical genre. This holds above all for those parts of the Gospels which contain miracles. For the miraculous texts are distinguished by a simple and sober diction, a concrete and vivid exposition, an exact and accurate description.

The miraculous narratives of the Gospels excel in simple and sober diction. Whereas poetic legends are wont to affect a certain luxuriance of language, the evangelists relate the unheard-of works of Christ in that bare style customary to history, indeed to chronicle and almost to statistics. They attempt nothing to move the feelings; nowhere do they display their own emotions stirred; they utter no words of admiration or of exclamation.

Nevertheless they make use of a concrete and vivid exposition. Whether they touch in passing upon the works wrought by Jesus Christ or relate them accurately, they always place the matter before the eyes with remarkable clarity. This concrete and vivid mark of style belongs not only to the miraculous narratives of the Synoptics, but also to the last evangelist, who wrote only toward the end of the first century, far removed from the events narrated. Compare e. g. the Johannine account of the marriage at Cana, of the healing of the sick man afflicted for 38 years, of the healing of the man born blind, of the raising of Lazarus.⁹ This manner of writing is not that of a fabled legend, but of strict history.

There is added the exact and accurate description by which the place, time, persons, and circumstances of many miracles are indicated: at Capernaum, in the synagogue that still exists, Jesus cast out demons;¹⁰ in the house of Simon, whose inhabitants were still living, he healed Peter's mother-in-law lying in a fever;¹¹ at Capernaum he healed the paralytic servant of the centurion and raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue;¹² beside the Sea of Galilee, in the desert, he fed four thousand men, besides little children and women, with seven loaves and a few small fishes, seven baskets full of fragments remaining;¹³ etc. With such an exhibition of truth there are not reported imaginary fictions, but historical events, and indeed by competent witnesses. In truth:

c) The writers of the narratives could and would transmit the works of Christ according to historical truth, not according to legendary embellishment.

Matthew and John knew from their own experience and wrote the life and miracles of the Lord. John, speaking of his whole Gospel, says: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the Word of life ... we declare unto you."¹⁴ Toward the end of the Gospel, moreover, we read: "Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book... This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true."¹⁵ The same manifestly holds of Matthew, who also, as an eye- and ear-witness, knew and reported the miracles of Jesus.

Mark and Luke do not indeed speak supported by autopsy, because they had not been with Jesus from the beginning. They rely, however, upon the moral testimony of those who themselves knew the miracles of Jesus by physical experience. Mark composed his Gospel to the exact standard of the catecheses of Peter,¹⁶ the most faithful "interpreter of Peter; whatsoever he had committed to memory he wrote down diligently ... For this one thing he strove, that he should omit nothing of what he had heard, nor affix anything false to them."¹⁷ The miraculous narratives of Mark without doubt savor of the magisterium of Peter.¹⁸ Luke retains with his pen the catecheses of Paul.¹⁹ Moreover, with the greatest diligence he collected the testimonies of the first disciples handed down both in writing and by word of mouth. For he says: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed."²⁰

It is clear, therefore, that the evangelists did not conceive miraculous legends, but, supported by certain knowledge and the most unimpeachable veracity, narrated the miracles of Jesus, which and in the manner in which they were done. Had it been otherwise, they would have been refuted by:

d) The contemporaries of the narratives. The evangelists could not palm off miraculous legends while innumerable witnesses were still alive who had heard and seen Jesus teaching and working throughout all Galilee and Judea. But at the time when the Gospels arose, almost innumerable witnesses of the life of Jesus were still surviving. When John at length wrote, the generation of the contemporaries of the Lord was not yet dead;²¹ while when the Synoptics wrote, a greater number of those who had beheld him discharging the messianic office still lived.²²

In the presence of all these the evangelical miracles are daily preached. Nay, I say, the very Jews and Gentiles who had been contemporaries of Jesus are appealed to concerning the miracles. The native city of Jesus and the neighboring towns are reproached: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes ... And thou, Capernaum, if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day!"²³ It is objected to the whole Jewish people, gathered at Jerusalem in the presence of the Gentiles: "Ye men of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: him ye slew!"²⁴ There are publicly produced those very persons who had been healed by miracle or restored to life. And some of them were still surviving at the beginning of the second century and were seen by all.²⁵ Yet none of the Christians, Jews, or Gentiles dared to deny or call in question the miracles objected to; rather, as we have shown, all with unanimous consent proclaim the historical truth of the miracles of Jesus.

To count these miracles, therefore, among legendary inventions betrays a frivolous mind. But it is the height of recklessness to assimilate the evangelical miracles to certain fables and myths drawn from the "comparative history of religions". The marvels related of Aesculapius, Buddha, Zarathustra, Confucius, Apollonius of Tyana, Mohammed, and other pagan gods or heroic men are as plainly portents of mythology as the miracles of Jesus are documents of history.²⁶