It has been argued that, even if there be no evidence for our special
gospels, I admit that gospels very similar must early have been in
existence, and that these equally represent the same prevailing belief
as the canonical Gospels: consequently that I merely change, without
shaking, the witnesses. Those who advance this argument, however,
totally overlook the fact that it is not the reality of the superstitious
belief which is in question, but the reality of the miracles, and the
sufficiency of the witnesses to establish them. What such objectors
urge practically amounts to this: that we should believe in the actual
occurrence of certain miracles contradictory to all experience, out
of a mass of false miracles which are reported but never really took
place, because some unknown persons in an ignorant and superstitious
age, who give no evidence of personal knowledge, or of careful
investigation, have written an account of them, and other persons,
equally ignorant and superstitious, have believed them. I venture
to say that no one who advances the argument to which I am referring
can have realised the nature of the question at issue, and the
relation of miracles to the order of nature.
The last of these general objections to which I need now refer is the
statement, that the difficulty with regard to the Gospels commences
precisely where my examination ends, and that I am bound to explain how,
if no trace of their existence is previously discoverable, the four
Gospels are suddenly found in general circulation at the end of the
second century, and quoted as authoritative documents by such writers as
Irenaeus.
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