Of course its omission by the other Evangelists might indicate that the words were not uttered by Jesus; but it might also indicate that the precept, being generally misunderstood, was considered so strange and at variance with facts that it had come to be discredited and considered spurious.
XVIII ARE THE MIRACLES INSEPARABLE FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST?
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_[22]: “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.[23]
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.