The Kernel and the Husk/Are the Miracles Inseparable from the Life of Christ?
XVIII
My dear ——,
From the digressions concerning the growth of the Gospels and the possibility or probability that their truths would be conveyed through illusion I now return to our main subject, the question whether the life of Christ can be disentangled from miracles. And here you tell me that some of your agnostic and sceptical friends quote with great satisfaction the following sentence from Bishop Temple's recent Bampton Lectures[1]: "Many of our Lord's most characteristic sayings are so associated with narratives of miracles that the two cannot be torn apart." I can well believe what you tell me as to the advantage which they naturally take of this admission: "Here," they say, "is a statement made on high authority that, unless you can believe that Jesus worked bonâ fide miracles, such as the blasting of the fig-tree and the destruction of the swine, you must give up 'many of Christ's most characteristic sayings'—in other words, you must give up the hope of knowing what Jesus taught." I wish your friends, who quote this assertion with so much pleasure, would also have quoted the "characteristic sayings" alleged by Dr. Temple in proof of this assertion; for you would then have seen for yourself that many of these "characteristic sayings" are associated not with "miracles" but with "mighty works;" and I am sure you have not forgotten the difference between the two.[2]
For example the first of the "characteristic sayings" is, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Now these words were spoken to the paralytic man; and, as we have seen above, the cure of paralysis by appeal to the emotions—although a remarkable act, and although, if permanent, so remarkable as to deserve to be called "a mighty work"—cannot be called a miracle. But I need say no more of this, as I have treated of cures by "emotional shock" in a previous letter. Now all the other sayings quoted by Dr. Temple refer to "faith" or "believing;" and all, I think, are connected with acts of healing. There may be doubtless in some of our present accounts of the "mighty works" some inaccuracies or exaggerations as to the nature of the disease and the circumstances of the cure. For example, when the cure is said to have been performed at a distance from the patient, either (1) faith must have wrought in the patient by his knowledge that his friends were interceding with Christ, or (2) we must assume some very doubtful theory of "brain-wave" sympathy, or admit that (3) the story is exaggerated, or else that (4) there is a bonâ fide miracle. For my own part I waver, in such cases as that of the centurion's servant and the Syro-Phœnician's daughter, between the hypotheses which I have numbered (1) and (3), with a sentimental reserve in favour of (2); but any one of these seems to me so far more probable than the hypothesis of a suspension of the laws of nature that I do not feel in the least constrained by reason of such "characteristic sayings" concerning faith, to give in my adhesion to a narrative of miracle. On the contrary I say the mention of "faith," and Christ's "marvel" at faith, and His eulogy of the "greatness" of the "faith" in certain cases, all go to prove that these acts were not miracles, but simply acts of faith-healing on a colossal scale. I hope you will not feel inclined to sneer at the reservation in those last four words. You will surely admit that, if Christ did anything naturally, the result might be proportionate to His nature; and if His power of appealing to the emotions was colossal, the material result of that appeal might be proportionately colossal. I begin, therefore, the process of disentanglement between the historical and the miraculous in Christ's life by a protest against a hasty and blind confusion which refuses to discriminate between "miracles" and "mighty works," and calls on us to reject from the history not only the miraculous but the marvellous as well; and I assert that the acts of faith-healing with which, as Bishop Temple truly says, there are associated many of our Lord's most characteristic sayings, may be accepted as generally historical and natural.
This, however, would not apply to such a miracle as the restoration of the ear of the high priest's servant; and the reasons are obvious. The faith necessary for an act of emotional healing is not said to have existed, and is not likely to have existed, in a man who probably looked on Christ as an impostor. Even if it had existed, the case was not one where we have reason to think faith could have healed. Besides, the miracle is omitted by three out of the four Evangelists. It is possibly a mistaken inference from some tradition about an utterance of Jesus, "Suffer ye thus far;" which may have really had an entirely different meaning, but which led the third Evangelist to conclude that Jesus desired His captors to give Him so much liberty as would allow him to perform this act of mercy—a humane and picturesque thought, but not history. It is scarcely conceivable that the other three Evangelists should have mentioned the wound inflicted on the servant; that Matthew and John should have added a rebuke addressed by Jesus to Peter for inflicting it; and that John should have taken the pains to tell us the name of the high priest's servant—and yet that they should have omitted, if they actually knew, the fact that the wound was immediately and miraculously healed by Jesus. The irresistible conclusion is that St. Mark, St. Matthew, and St. John, knew nothing of this miracle.
When the acts of healing are set apart, and considered as "mighty works" but not "miracles," the bonâ fide miracles in the Synoptic Gospels will become few indeed: and I think it will be found that these few are susceptible of explanation on natural grounds. We will pass over the finding of the coin in the fish's month—which is found in St. Matthew's Gospel alone and can hardly be associated with any "characteristic saying" of Jesus—and come to a miracle common to the three Synoptists, the destruction of two thousand swine following on the exorcism of the Gadarene.
This is a very curious case of misunderstanding arising from literalism. It was a common belief in Palestine (as it was also in Europe during the middle ages), that the bodies of the "possessed," or insane, were tenanted by familiar demons in various shapes—toads, scorpions, swine, serpents, and the like. These demons were supposed to have as their normal home an "abyss" or "deep" (Luke viii. 31, ἄβυσσον); but this they abhorred, and were never so happy as when they found a home in some human body. The "possessed" believed that these demons were visible and material; and the juggling exorcist would sometimes (so Josephus tells us) place a bucket of water to be overturned by the demons in passing, as a proof that they were driven out. In a word, the "possessed" could hardly be convinced that he was cured, unless he saw, or thought he saw, the frogs, serpents, scorpions, or swine actually rushing from his mouth in some definite direction.
The explanation of the miracle will now readily suggest itself to you. Some man, perhaps a patriotic Galilean, to whom nothing would be more hateful than a Roman army, conceived himself to be possessed by a whole "legion," two thousand "unclean swine." Identifying himself—as was the habit of those who were "possessed"—with the demons whom he supposed to have possession of him, the insane man declared that his name was "Legion, for we are many;" and they (or he) besought Jesus that He would not drive them into the "deep," i.e. into the "abyss" above-mentioned. But by the voice of Jesus the man is instantaneously healed: he sees the legion of demons that had possessed him rushing forth in the shapes of two thousand swine and hurrying down into "the deep;" and what he sees, he loudly proclaims to the bystanders. It is easy to perceive how on some such a basis of fact there might be built the tradition that Jesus healed a demoniac whose name was Legion, and sent two thousand swine into the deep sea; and from thence by easy stages the tradition might arrive at its present shape.
So far, I think, you do not find it very difficult to separate the miraculous from the historical in the life of Christ, nor feel yourself forced to sacrifice any of the "most characteristic sayings of Jesus." Let us now come to a miracle of greater difficulty, the blasting of the barren fig-tree.
Even of those commentators who accept the miracle of the fig-tree as historical, most, I believe, see in it a kind of parable. The barren fig-tree, they say, which made a great show of leaves but bore no fruit, obviously represents, in the first place, the Pharisees, and in the second place, the nation, which, as a whole, identified itself with the Pharisees. Both the Prophets and the Psalms delight in similar metaphors. Israel is the vine; Jehovah, in Isaiah, is the Lord of the vine, who demands good fruit and finds it not, and consequently resolves to destroy the vine. So here, the Lord comes to the fig-tree of Phariseeism, the tree of degenerate Israel, seeking fruit; and finding none, He curses it, and withers it with the breath of His mouth. Is it not easy to see how a parable, thus expressed in the hymns and earliest traditions of the Church, might speedily be literalized and give rise to a miraculous narrative?
Let me point out to you a curious fact confirmatory of this view. I dare say you may have noticed that St. Luke, although he agrees with St. Mark and St. Matthew in the context of this miracle, omits the miracle itself. Why so? Is it because he never heard of the miracle? Not quite so. It is because he had heard of it in a slightly different form, not as a miracle but as a parable, which he alone has preserved. St. Luke's version of the tradition is that the Lord comes to the barren tree and, finding no fruit on it, gives orders that it is to be cut down: but the steward of the farm pleads for a respite; let the ground be digged and manured, then, if there be no fruit, let it be cut down. A similar thought, you see, is here expressed in two different shapes, a miraculous and a non-miraculous; and it is not difficult to understand how the former may have been developed from the latter.
But I see that your last letter has a remark on this very miracle, and on the difficulty of rejecting it. "It is associated," you say, "with one of the most characteristic sayings of Jesus: for it is in connection with the withering of the fig-tree that Jesus says (Matt. xxi. 21), 'If ye have faith, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig-tree, but even if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done.'" "Here," you say, "we have a characteristic saying of Jesus expressly referring to something done, and done miraculously."
Would it not have been wise, before making so emphatic a statement, to consider how St. Mark, the earlier of the two narrators of this miracle, sets forth the comment of Jesus? The comments run thus in the first two Gospels, and I will add a parallel saying from the third Gospel, not attached to any miracle:
Mark xi. 21-23. And Peter, calling to remembrance, saith unto him, "Rabbi, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away." And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it." |
Matthew xxi. 20-21. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, "How did the fig tree immediately wither away?" And Jesus said unto them, "Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall [not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall] say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done." |
Luke xvii. 5-6. And the apostles said unto the Lord "Increase our faith." And the Lord said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you." |
You see then that the more authoritative (because earlier) of our two witnesses omits those very words on which you lay so much stress, the "express reference to something done, and done miraculously." And ought not this fact to make you pause and ask yourself "Am I really to suppose that the Lord Jesus encouraged His disciples to command material mountains to be cast into the sea, and material trees to be destroyed? Did He Himself so habitually act thus that He could naturally urge His disciples to do the like? Does it not seem, literally taken, advice contrary not only to common sense but also to a reverent appreciation of the law and order of nature?" I would suggest to you that you might weigh the inherent improbability of the words in St. Matthew (literally taken), as well as the external probability—which I will now endeavour to shew—that the whole passage was metaphorical.
We know from St. Paul's works, as well as from Rabbinical literature, that "to move mountains" was a common metaphor to express intellectual or spiritual ability. St. Paul speaks of faith that would "move mountains;" and you will find in Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicae (ii. p. 285), "There was not such another rooter up of mountains as Ben Azzai." Now we know from St. Luke's Gospel (xvii. 6), that Jesus used a similar metaphor of trees, as well as of mountains, to exemplify the power of faith; and this without any reference to "something done and done miraculously:" "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up and planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed." Planted in the sea! Can you dream that so preposterous a portent could have been prayed for by any sane and sober follower of Christ in compliance with his Master's suggestion? Bear in mind that these words in St. Luke's Gospel were uttered a long time before the blasting of the fig-tree is supposed to have happened, and at a different place. Does not then a comparison of this passage with the other two make it probable that Jesus was in the habit of encouraging His disciples to be "pluckers up of mountains" and "rooters up of trees," not literally but metaphorically, meaning thereby that they were to attempt and accomplish the greatest feats of faith?
You will, perhaps, be surprised when you find what it was that Jesus regarded as the greatest feat of faith in the passage of St. Luke just mentioned. It was a feat of which we are accustomed to think rather lightly; partly, perhaps, because we are often contented with the appearance of it without the reality: it was simply forgiveness. He had told the disciples they must forgive "till seventy times seven." The Apostles, in despair, replied "Increase our faith:" and then Jesus tells them that if they had but a germ of living trust, they could become "uprooters of sycamine trees," in other words they could perform forgiveness, the greatest feat of faith. But perhaps you will say, "At all events in St. Mark, the earliest authority for the miracle of the blasting of the fig-tree, there is no mention of forgiveness, and nothing that would indicate that his version of the words of Jesus referred to what you call 'the greatest feat of faith,' i.e. forgiveness." On the contrary, you will find that St. Mark, with some apparent confusion of different thoughts, retains the trace of the original spiritual signification of the words (Mark xi. 22—25): "Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass, he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them; And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father which is in heaven may forgive your trespasses."
I contend that, upon the whole, an impartial critic must come to the conclusion that neither the miracle, nor the reference to the miracle, is historical; and that, in all probability, both the miracle and the reference to it arose from a misunderstanding, without any intention to deceive. We must remember that the "short sayings" of the Lord Jesus—as they are called by some early writer, Justin, I think—must have caused considerable difficulty to the compilers of the earliest Gospels in the attempt to arrange them in order. Pointed, pithy, and brief, pregnant with meaning, sometimes obscured by metaphor, many of these sayings, if taken out of their context, were very liable to be misunderstood. Some compilers might think it best, as the author of St. Matthew's Gospel has done in the Sermon on the Mount, to group a number of these sayings together without connection; others, as the author of St. Luke's Gospel, might object to this arrangement, and might make it a main object to set forth these sayings "in order," attaching to each its appropriate and explanatory context. Now to apply this to the particular case of the legend of the fig-tree. It seems probable that the compilers had before them two traditions, one, a parable about a barren fig-tree destroyed by the Lord of the vine-yard because it bore no fruit; another, a precept about the power of faith in uprooting a mountain or a tree, i.e. in achieving the greatest of spiritual tasks, the task of forgiving. St. Luke interpreted both the parable and the precept spiritually, and kept the two distinct. St. Mark interpreted the parable literally and adopted the tradition which made it refer to an actual destruction of a tree; he also appended to it the saying on the power of faithful prayer to work any wonders soever, as being an appropriate comment on so startling a miracle; but he did not think fit to adapt the saying to the miracle by any insertion of the word "tree" ("Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up" &c.); and he retained the old connection of the saying with forgiveness. St. Matthew—of course, when I say St. Matthew, I mean the unknown authors or compilers of the Gospel called by his name—is more consistent. He, like St. Mark interprets the parable literally, and he appends to it the saying on the power of faithful prayer; but he inserts in the latter an express reference to the miracle which, according to his hypothesis, had recently been worked before the eyes of the Disciples and could hardly therefore fail to be mentioned: "If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall [not only do what is done to the fig-tree, but even if ye shall] say unto this mountain," &c. In order to complete the adaptation, he also omits the words that connect the saying with forgiveness, and relegates them to the Sermon on the Mount (vi. 14, 15) which he makes the receptacle for all those sayings of Jesus for which he can find no special time and place.
"All this is shadowy, barely possible, mere conjecture." I maintain that conjecture, fairly supported, is enough to give the finishing blow to all faith in a miracle so different from Christ's other "mighty works" as this of the fig-tree. Before finally and utterly rejecting a story found in a generally truthful narrative we wish not only to know that the story is improbable, but also to answer the question, "How may it have crept into the narrative?" The above conjecture supplies a fairly probable answer to that question; and the combined result of the evidence for the probability of some rational explanation, and against the probability of the miraculous occurrence, is so great that I can feel no hesitation in rejecting the miracle of the fig-tree and in declaring that the "characteristic sayings" of Jesus about the uprooting of mountains and trees were never intended to be literally understood.
And now, before going further, ask yourself once more, "What have I lost, so far, by giving up the miracles of Jesus? Does He sink in my estimation because He did not blast a fig-tree or destroy two thousand swine, or draw a fish with a stater in its mouth to the hook of Peter? Or have I lost a precious and 'characteristic saying' of Jesus because I no longer believe that He really encouraged His disciples to pray for the uprooting of material mountains and material trees?" I am quite sure your conscience must reply that you have hitherto lost nothing. If so, take courage, and follow on step by step where the argument leads you.