Note 288 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

If the series of strained interpretations which are necessary to a natural explanation of this narrative throw us back on that which allows it to contain a miracle; and if this miracle appear to us, according to our former decision, both extravagant and useless, nothing remains but to presume that here also there is a legendary element. This view has been combined with the admission, that a real but natural fact was probably at the foundation of the legend: namely, that Jesus once ordered Peter to fish until he had caught enough to procure the amount of the temple tribute; whence the legend arose that the fish had the tribute money in its mouth.288 But, in our opinion, a more likely source of this anecdote is to be found in the much-used theme of a catching of fish by Peter, on the one side, and on the other, the well-known stories of precious things having been found in the bodies of fish. Peter, as we learn from Matt. iv., Luke v., John xxi., was the fisher in the evangelical legend ta whom Jesus in various forms, first symbolically, and then literally, granted the rich draught of fishes. The value of the capture appears here in the shape of a piece of money, which, as similar things are elsewhere said to have been found in the belly of fishes, is by an exaggeration of the marvel said to be found in the mouth of the fish. That it is the stater, required for the temple tribute, might be occasioned by a real declaration of Jesus concerning his relation to that tax; or conversely, the stater which was accidentally named in the legend of the fish angled for by Peter, might bring to recollection the temple tribute, which amounted to that sum for two persons, and the declaration of Jesus relative to this subject.