Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/287

240 thical and legendary character, requires no special examination.

This, however, must be admitted, that the facts of the case will not warrant the claim of miraculous and infallible inspiration that is made for them; and that we are to examine with great caution before we accept their statements, which, in detail, have often but a low degree of historical credibility.

These facts cannot be hushed up, nor put out of sight; we must look them in the face. They have pained already many a breaking heart, which could not separate the truth of Religion from the errors of the Christian record—felt with groans that could not be uttered. It need not be so. Christianity is one thing; the Christian documents a very different matter. In them, as in the Old Testament, there is a mythology; the natural and the supernatural are confounded. The Gospels cannot be taken as historical “authorities,” until a searching criticism has separated their mythological and legendary narratives from what is purely a matter-of-fact. Some attempt to remove the difficulty by striking out the offensive passages, and others by explaining them away, and still claim miraculous infallibility for all the rest, which the writers never claim for themselves nor allow one another. Let us rest on things as they are; not try to base our Church on things that are not.

It may be asked: If there is no foundation of fact for the miraculous part of the narrative, why did the writers dwell so much on this part? The question may be asked in the case of the catholic miracles; those of St Bernard; of witchcraft and possessions before named. It is at least difficult to determine what lay at the bottom of the matter. But this is a fixed point, that Devils, Ghosts, and Witches only appear where they were previously believed in, and there they continually appear; “imagination bodies forth the forms of things not seen.” The Catholic sees the Virgin, and the Mormonite finds miracles to-day. Will