797

The style of the gospel is admirable in so many ways, and among the rest in hurling no invectives against the persecutors and enemies of Jesus Christ.  For there is no such invective in any of the historians against Judas, Pilate, or any of the Jews.

If this moderation of the writers of the Gospels had been assumed, as well as many other traits of so beautiful a character, and they had only assumed it to attract notice, even if they had not dared to draw attention to it themselves, they would not have failed to secure friends, who would have made such remarks to their advantage.  But as they acted thus without pretence, and from wholly disinterested motives, they did not point it out to any one; and I believe that many such facts have not been noticed till now, which is evidence of the natural disinterestedness with which the thing has been done.

798

An artisan who speaks of wealth, a lawyer who speaks of war, of royalty, etc.; but the rich man rightly speaks of wealth, a king speaks indifferently of a great gift he has just made, and God rightly speaks of God.

799

Who has taught the evangelists the qualities of a perfectly heroic soul, that they paint it so perfectly in Jesus Christ?  Why do they make Him weak in His agony?  Do they not know how to paint a resolute death?  Yes, for the same Saint Luke paints the death of Saint Stephen as braver than that of Jesus Christ.

They make Him therefore capable of fear, before the necessity of dying has come, and then altogether brave.

But when they make Him so troubled, it is when He afflicts Himself; and when men afflict Him, He is altogether strong.

800

Proof of Jesus Christ.—­The supposition that the apostles were impostors is very absurd.  Let us think it out.  Let us imagine those twelve men, assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, plotting to say that He was risen.  By this they attack all the powers.  The heart of man is strangely inclined to fickleness, to change, to promises, to gain.  However little any of them might have been led astray by all these attractions, nay more, by the fear of prisons, tortures, and death, they were lost.  Let us follow up this thought.

801

The apostles were either deceived or deceivers.  Either supposition has difficulties; for it is not possible to mistake a man raised from the dead ...

While Jesus Christ was with them, He could sustain them.  But, after that, if He did not appear to them, who inspired them to act?

SECTION XIII

THE MIRACLES

802

The beginning.—­Miracles enable us to judge of doctrine, and doctrine enables us to judge of miracles.

There are false miracles and true.  There must be a distinction, in order to know them; otherwise they would be useless.  Now they are not useless; on the contrary, they are fundamental.  Now the rule which is given to us must be such, that it does not destroy the proof which the true miracles give of the truth, which is the chief end of the miracles.