When we once clearly realize the emotional atmosphere of the times and the complete lack of the sort of intellectual background we possess, we are not surprised either at the recorded acts of Jesus or at the myths which grew up around his figure. The absence of miracles from the New Testament would be far more surprising than is their presence.
The miracles attributed to Jesus are of two main kinds, the expulsion of demons as a means of curing ills and allegorical fulfillments of supposed Old Testament prophecies. The first kind has been sufficiently examined. The second can be touched upon only briefly. It has been one of the main contributions of the higher criticism to point out how much of the life of Jesus is built up around passages in the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament.
I do not think that I am going too far when I assert that the presence of these tales in the sacred literature of Christianity has done an incalculable amount of { 129} harm. They have given a sanction to all sorts of superstitious beliefs and have helped to carry over into our day an outlook which would otherwise have been more quickly cast off. Had it not been for the miracles related in the gospels, there would have been no problem of miracles to discuss. The idea, itself, would have been outgrown and have died a natural death. And, in the long run, that is what must take place. As a saner view of Jesus is taken and a better knowledge of the outlook of the time in which he lived is gained, the recorded miracles will be explained, not as actual events, but as actual beliefs.
Another period deserves study in this connection. When one examines the literature of the Middle Ages, one gains the conviction that miracles formed the staple emotional diet of the people. They played the part that novels and detective stories do now. Man is naturally dramatic in his interpretation of life, and what can be more thrilling than a miracle? Constance, the heroine of the _Man of Law's Tale_ in Chaucer, is rescued from death when in most perilous plight by that Unseen Hand which frustrates the plots of the wicked. Skepticism and realism are slowly acquired habits of mind. The primary impulse is to believe. And, when religious motives and traditions enter to strengthen the sway of this impulse, it is hard to counteract. When learned theologians enunciate the principle, "I believe because it is absurd," it is not to be wondered at that the mass of the people believe because they do not see that it is absurd. For ages, the world was a sort of quicksand, and it has taken far more courage and sheer intellectual capacity and moral daring than the mass of the people will ever conceive to build dykes out into { 130} the unknown and rescue it for the empire of unswerving law.