y matter, but even contradict
and exclude each other and, so far from establishing the reality of such
stupendous miracles, they show that no reliance is to be placed on the
statements of the unknown authors. Taking next the testimony of Paul,
which is more important as at least authentic and proceeding from an
Apostle of whom we know more than of any other of the early missionaries
of Christianity, we saw that it was indefinite and utterly insufficient.
His so-called "circumstantial account of the testimony upon which the
belief in the Resurrection rested" consists merely of vague and
undetailed hearsay, differing, so far as it can be compared, from the
statements in the Gospels, and without other attestation than the bare
fact that it is repeated by Paul, who doubtless believed it, although he
had not himself been a witness of any of the supposed appearances of the
risen Jesus which he so briefly catalogues. Paul's own personal
testimony to the Resurrection is limited to a vision of Jesus, of which
we have no authentic details, seen many years after the alleged miracle.
Considering the peculiar and highly nervous temperament of Paul, of
which he himself supplies abundant evidence, there can be no hesitation
in deciding that this vision was purely subjective, as were likewise, in
all probability, the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. The
testimony of Paul himself, before his imagination was stimulated to
ecstatic fervour by the beauty of a spiritualised religion, was an
earnest denial of the great Christian dogma, emphasised by the active
persecution of those who affirmed it; and a vision, especially in the
case of one so constituted, supposed to be seen many years after the
fact of the Resurrection had ceased to be capable of verification, is
not an argument of convincing force. We were compelled to pronounce the
evidence for the Resurrection and Ascension absolutely and hopelessly
inadequate to prove the reality of such stupendous miracles, which must
consequently be unhesitatingly rejected. There is no reason given, or
even conceivable, why allegations such as these, and dogmas affecting
the religion and even the salvation of the human race, should be
accepted upon evidence which would be declared totally insufficient in
the case of any common question of property or title before a legal
tribunal. On the contrary, the more momentous the point to be
established, the more complete must be the proof required