Note 5 — Chapter XV · THE METHOD OF M. LOISY

The rational argument would be, of course, that the first writer did make the Lord talk figuratively; and that a later redactor, taking the words literally, added the item of the poor, which he could not have done if he took them figuratively. But the irreducible fallacy is the assumption that as a figurative claim the speech is historic, one order of miracle being held allowable when another is not. Schmiedel has exemplified his own saying that “with very few exceptions all critics fall into the very grave error of immediately accepting a thing as true as soon as they have found themselves able to trace it to a ‘source’.”5 It does not in the least follow that by substituting spiritual for physical miracle we acquire a right to claim historicity. And by the claim we simply cancel the “fame” of the records.