in these undoubted writings
St. Paul certainly shows by incidental allusions, the good faith
of which cannot be questioned, that he believed himself to be
endowed with the power of working miracles, and that miracles,
or what were thought to be such, were actually wrought both by
him and by his contemporaries. He reminds the Corinthians that
'the signs of an Apostle were wrought among them ... in signs,
and wonders, and mighty deeds' ([Greek: en saemeious kai terasi
kai dunamesi]--the usual words for the higher forms of miracle--
2 Cor. xii. 12). He tells the Romans that 'he will not dare to
speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought in him,
to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty
signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God' ([Greek:
en dunamei saemeion kai teraton, en dunamei pneumator Theou],
Rom. xv. 18, 19) He asks the Galatians whether 'he that ministereth
to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [Greek: ho energon dunameis]
among them, doeth it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith?' (Gal. iii. 5). In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
he goes somewhat elaborately into the exact place in the Christian
economy that is to be assigned to the working of miracles and gifts
of healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29). Besides these allusions, St. Paul
repeatedly refers to the cardinal miracles of the Resurrection and
Ascension; he refers to them as notorious and unquestionable facts
at a time when such an assertion might have been easily refuted.
On one occasion he gives a very circumstantial account of the testimony
on which the belief in the Resurrection rested (1 Cor. xv. 4-8). And,
not only does he assert the Resurrection as a fact, but he builds
upon it a whole scheme of doctrine: 'If Christ be not risen,' he says,
'then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.' We do not
stay now to consider the exact philosophical weight of this evidence.
It will be time enough to do this when it has received the critical
discussion that may be presumed to be in store for it. But as external
evidence, in the legal sense, it is probably the best that can be
produced, and it has been entirely untouched so far.

Again, in considering the evidence for the age of the Synoptic
Gospels, that which is derived from external sources is only a
part, and not perhaps the more important part, of the whole. It
points backwards indeed, and we shall see with what amount of
fo