HKB
was torn by as many schisms then as it ever has been since, who mutually accuse each other of corrupting the Christians scriptures, and of lying, and cheating most abominably.
All reasoning therefore from books published at this time, and whose authenticity is supported only by the testimony of acknowledged liars; and which have been tampered with too as these certainly were, is exceedingly unsatisfactory. And yet such is the basis on which rests the credibility of the miracles of the New Testament. Dr. Middleton, after having shown, beginning at the earliest of the fathers immediately after the apostles, that they were all most amazingly credulous and superstitious: and having demonstrated from their own words, that from Justin Martyr downwards they were all liars, observes as follows, p. 157, Free Inquiry: "Now it is agreed by all, that these fathers, whose testimonies I have been just reciting were the most eminent lights of the fourth century; all of them sainted by the catholic church, and highly reverenced at this day in all churches, for their piety, probity, and learning. Yet from the specimens of them above given, it is evident, that they would not scruple to propagate any fiction, how gross so ever, which served to promote the interest either of Christianity in general, or of any particular rite or doctrine which they were desirous to recommend. St. Jerom in effect confesses it, for after the mention of a silly story, concerning the Christians of Jerusalem, who used to shew in the ruins of the temple, certain stones of a reddish color, which they pretended to have been stained by the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain between the temple and the altar, he adds, but I do not find fault with an error which flows from a hatred of the Jews, and a pious zeal for the Christian faith. If the miracles then of the fourth century, so solemnly attested by the most celebrated and revered fathers of the church, are to be rejected after all as fabulous, it must needs give a fatal blow to the credit of all the miracles even of the preceding centuries; since there is not a single father whom I have mentioned in this fourth age, who for zeal and piety may not be compared with the best of the more ancient, and for knowledge, and for learning be preferred to them all. For instance, there was not a person in all the primitive church more highly respected in his own days than St. Epiphanius, for the purity of his life as well as the extent of his leaning. He was master of five languages, and has left behind him one of the most useful works which remain to us from antiquity. St. Jerom, who personally knew him, calls him the father of all bishops, and a shining star among them; the man of God of blessed memory; to whom the people used to flock in crowds, offering their little children to his benediction, kissing his feet, and catching the hem of his garment. This holy man and light of the church, the great man of his day, asserts upon his own knowledge, "that in imitation of our Saviour's miracle at Cana in Galilee several fountains and rivers in his days were annually turned into wine. A fountain at Cibyra, a city of Caria, and another at Gerasa in Arabia, prove the truth of this. I myself have drunk out of the fountain at Cibyra, and my brethren out of the other at Gerasa; and many testify the same thing of the river Nile in Egypt." Advers. Haeres, 1. 2, c. 130. Middleton's Inquiry, p. 151, 152] "All the rest (Dr. Middleton goes on to say) were men of the same character, who spent their lives and studies in propagating the faith, and in combating the vices and the heresies of their times. Yet none of them have scrupled, we see, to pledge their faith for the truth, of facts which no man of sense can believe, and which their warmest admirers are forced to give up as fabulous. If such persons then could willfully attempt to deceive; and if the sanctity of their characters cannot assure us of their fidelity, what better security can we have from those who lived before them? Or what cure for our scepticism with regard, to any of the miracles above mentioned? Was the first asserter of them, Justin Martyr more pious, cautious, learned, judicious, or less credulous than Epiphanius? Or were those virtues more conspicuous in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, than in Athanasius, Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerom, Austin? Nobody, I dare say, will venture to affirm it. If these later fathers, then, biased by a false zeal or interest, could be tempted to propagate a known lie, or with all their learning and knowledge could be so weakly credulous as to believe the absurd stories which they themselves attest, there must be always reason to suspect, that the same prejudices would operate even more strongly in the earlier fathers, prompted by the same zeal and the same interests, yet endued with less learning, less judgment, and more credulity.