And  this,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  the  attitude  which
I  should  desire  to  advocate  with  regard  to  the  miracles
recorded  in  the  Old  Testament.  A  few,  like  the  story  of
a  universal  Flood,  are  definitely  known  to  be  unhistorical :
one  or  two  others,  like  that  of  Jonah  and  the  great  fish,
occur  in  narratives  which  we  now  know  were  not  meant
even  by  their  authors  to  be  taken  as  history  :  a  few
more,  like  the  story  of  Elijah  calling  down  fire  from
heaven  upon  Ahaziah's  soldiery,  seem  definitely  incon-
sistent with  the  character  of  God  as  we  know  it  from
the  New  Testament.  But  of  the  rest,  and  particularly  of
those  miraculous  narratives  which  cluster  round  the  great
moments  in  the  history  of  the  Chosen  People — the  Exodus,
the  Giving  of  the  Law,  and  the  Prophetic  movement —
I  should  like  to  say  this  :  I  do  not  doubt  that  miracles  in
general  did  occur  during  the  period  of  the  Old  Testament
and  especially  at  these  crucial  points  in  the  development
of  Israel's  life  :  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  go  to  the  stake
for  the  exact  historicity  of  any  one  particular  miraculous

LIBRARY  ST.  MARY'S  COLLEGE


142     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition

record  precisely  as  it  stands  in  the  Old  Testament.  And
that  represents  the  exact  amount  of  weight  which  I  should
attach  to  the  consideration  (of  which  I  fully  admit  the
truth)  that  a  long  space  of  time  intervened  between  the
occurrence  of  the  events  and  the  composition  of  the
records.  A  firm  belief  in  miracles  in  general,  and  a  disin-
clination to  commit  myself  to  all  the  details  of  any  one
miracle  in  particular — this  appears  to  me  to  be  an  attitude
to  take  up  with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament  which  is  both
reasonable  in  itself  and  entirely  loyal  to  the  historical
connexion  and  continuity  between  the  Jewish  and  Chris-
tian Ecclesiae.
