In like manner, the recognition as genuine of
four Epistles of Paul, which contain his testimony to miracles, renders
it superfluous to discuss the authenticity of the other letters
attributed to him.
The general belief in miraculous power and its possession by the Church
is brought to a practical test in the case of the Apostle Paul. After
elaborate consideration of his letters, we came to the unhesitating
conclusion that, instead of establishing the reality of miracles, the
unconscious testimony of Paul clearly demonstrates the facility with
which erroneous inferences convert the most natural phenomena into
supernatural occurrences.
As a final test, we carefully examined the whole of the evidence for the
cardinal dogmas of Christianity, the Resurrection and Ascension of
Jesus. First taking the four Gospels, we found that their accounts of
these events are not only full of legendary matter, but even contradict
and exclude each other and, so far from establishing the reality of such
stupendous miracles, they show that no reliance is to be placed on the
statements of the unknown authors. Taking next the testimony of Paul,
which is more important as at least authentic and proceeding from an
Apostle of whom we know more than of any other of the early missionaries
of Christianity, we saw that it was indefinite and utterly insufficient.
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