Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/171

Letter 14] the Old Testament) is "no longer capable of any sure separation into its parts." This is a very important admission indeed. A plain Englishman may miss, at first sight, the full importance of it. He may be disposed to say, "What does this matter to me? What do I care whether a miracle is told in poetry or in prose, provided only it is true?" But by "poetry" Dr. Temple does not mean "verse;" he means hyperbole, poetic figures of speech and metaphors; in plain English, he means language that is literally and historically untrue. Consequently the admission amounts to this, that it is now no longer possible in the miraculous narratives of the Old Testament to separate what is historically true from what is historically untrue. If this be so, I cannot understand how the question is substantially affected by the New Testament. Let us suppose for a moment that, many centuries after the times of Moses and Samson, real miracles were wrought by Christ and the apostles; suppose even, in addition, that the reality of the miracles wrought by Christ and his followers could constitute any evidence for the Mosaic Miracles or could refute the evidence against such stories as that of the Ass's jawbone; yet even then, what is the use of knowing that there may be a miracle somewhere concealed in an Old Testament narrative in which it is impossible to "make any sure separation" of the historically true from the historically untrue?

But for my part I am quite unable to adopt either of these suppositions. I cannot see how "a distinct preponderance of probability" for the Samsonian myth or the story of the stopping of the sun could be secured by the fact that miracles were really, long afterwards, performed by Christ. All that could fairly be said, as it seems to me, would be this, that since miracles were actually wrought by the Redeemer of the race, who was