Wesley Corpus

8. But you endeavour to show it is, 'For that surprising confidence,' you say, 'with which the Fathers of the fourth age have affirmed as true what they themselves had forged, or at least knew to be forged' (a little more proof of that), 'makes us suspect that so bold a defiance of truth could not become general at once, but must have been carried gradually to that height by custom and the example of former times' (page 84). It does not appear that it did become general till long after the fourth century. And as this supposition is not sufficiently proved, the inference from it is nothing worth. 9. You say, secondly: 'This age, in which Christianity was established, had no occasion for any miracles. They would not therefore begin to forge miracles at a time when there was no particular temptation to it.' (Ibid.) Yes, the greatest temptation in the world, if they were such men as you suppose. If they were men that would scruple no art or means to enlarge their own credit and authority, they would naturally 'begin to forge miracles' at that time when real miracles were no more. 10. You say, thirdly: 'The later Fathers had equal piety with the earlier, but more learning and less credulity. If these, then, be found either to have forged miracles themselves, or propagated what they knew to be forged, or to have been deluded by the forgeries of others, it must excite the same suspicion of their predecessors.' (Page 85.) I answer: (1) It is not plain that the later Fathers had equal piety with the earlier. Nor (2) That they had less credulity. It seems some of them had much more: witness Hilarion's camel, and smelling a devil or a sinner; though even he was not so quick-scented as St. Pachomius, who (as many believe to this day) could 'smell an heretic at a mile's distance.' (Free Inquiry, pp. 89-90.) But if (3) The earlier Fathers were holier than the later, they were not only less likely to delude others, but (even on Plato's supposition) to be deluded themselves; for they would have more assistance from God.