HKB
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.
Such Christian reader, were the fathers, the leaders, and the great men of the church, and the apologists for your religion. And it is upon the credibility of these convicted knaves that ultimately, and substantially depends your belief. For it is upon their testimony and tradition that you receive and believe in the authenticity of the N.T., its doctrines and miracles.
I hope that if you choose to build your faith upon the testimony of such witnesses, that you will not think it unreasonable in me to presume to doubt the truth of opinions and miracles supported by the testimony of men like the fathers. I am willing, because I think it reasonable, to let every man follow his own judgment, and do I ask too much to be permitted without offence to enjoy the same liberty with regard to these things; which I conceive no fair man will now say, (if what has been brought forward be true) are positively provable as true, and worthy of unhesitating assent.
For the case is thus. The gospels are accused of being written by credulous and superstitious authors whose names are not certainly known; as containing too inconsistent and contradictory accounts of prodigies and miracles; and also palpable marks of forgery. Now to convince a thinking man, that histories of such suspected character, containing relations of miracles, are divine or even really written, by the persons to whom they are ascribed, and not either some of the many spurious productions, with which it is notorious and acknowledged, the age in which they appeared abounded, calculated to astonish the credulous and superstitious! or else writings of authors who were themselves infected with the grossest superstitious credulity, what is the testimony?
For the first hundred years after the lives of the supposed authors, none at all. And the earliest fathers who speak of them are all convicted of gross credulity, and incapacity to distinguish genuine from, fictitious writings, (for they admitted as genuine scripture many books confessedly nonsensical forgeries,) but what is worse, are manifestly guilty by the evidence of their own words of having been palpable liars, cheats, and forgers. But, "it is an obvious rule in the admission of evidence in any cause whatsoever, that the more important the matter to be determined by it is, the more unsullied, and unexceptionable ought to be the characters of the witnesses to be. And when no court of justice among us in determining a question of fraud to the value of sixpence will admit the testimony of witnesses who are themselves notoriously convicted of the same offence of which the defendant is accused;" how can it be expected that any reasonable unprejudiced person should reasonably be required to admit similar evidence, i.e. the testimony of such men as the fathers in favor of the divine authority of books which are accused of being the offspring of fraud and credulity; and which relate too to a case of the greatest importance possible, not to himself only, but to the whole human race?!
For my own part, I cannot; and I think I could not without renouncing all those rules and principles of evidence, and of good sense, which in all other cases are universally respected. And when we consider the character of those by whom these histories were first received and believed, the unreasonableness of insisting upon the belief of these accounts will appear aggravated. What was the character of the early Gentile Christians? This we can ascertain from only two sources--the writings of their leaders, and those of their heathen contemporaries. According to the latter they were very weak and credulous. The primitive Christians were perpetually reproached for their gross credulity by all their enemies. Celsus says that they cared neither to receive nor to give any reason of their faith, and that it was an usual saying with them, do not examine, but believe only, and thy faith will save thee. Julian affirms, that the sum, of all their wisdom was comprised in this single precept, believe. The Gentiles, says Arnobius, make it their constant business to laugh at our faith, and to lash our credulity with their facetious jokes.
"The fathers on the other hand, defend themselves by saying, that they did nothing more: on this occasion than what the philosophers had always done; that Pythagoras' precepts were inculcated by an ipse dixit, and that they had found the same method useful with the vulgar, who were not at leisure to examine things; whom they taught therefore to believe, even without reasons: and that the heathens themselves, though they did not confess it in words, yet practiced the same in their acts." Middleton's Free Enquiry. Introduc. Disc. p. 92. Lucian says, "that whenever any crafty juggler expert in his trade, and who knew how to make a right use of things, went over to the Christians, he was sure to grow rich immediately, by making a prey of their simplicity." [De Morte Pereg.]
If we turn to the writings of the earliest fathers; from these writings of the great men of the Church at that time we shall form but a very mean idea of the understandings of the little ones, since their writings are not one whit superior to the "godly Epistles" of the lowest orders of fanatics in the last, and present century, they are remarkable for nothing more than manifesting the extreme simplicity, and credulity, together with the sincere piety of the writers. The fathers who succeeded them were better informed, but not at all behind them in credulity, and enthusiasm. Tertullian, the most powerful mind among them during the first two hundred years, reasons as follows.
"The Son of God was crucified: it is no shame to own it, because it is a thing to be ashamed of. The Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is absurd. When buried he rose again to life: it is certain, because it is impossible." De Carne Christi, Section 5.