MIRACLE PLAY 



9445 



MIRAGE 



modes of divine activity, and may 



describe them, in developing an 



v between God and man, as 



il ami ii/m.il. Just as a 



111.111 may in most of the affaire of 



I business follow a routine, 



ami yet. when the occasion domain U 



it. may show, even to the siirp 



uho know him best, a f resh 

 activity to meet a new emergency, 

 n in iy Cod be conceived as acting 

 ui-iicr.illy in tin- fixed order of 

 natiiic. (nit exceptionally depart- 

 ing from that order, not to disturb 

 il, or destroy it, but to meet de- 

 mands of His wisdom and goodness 

 that it could not fully satisfy. 

 Purposes oi Miracles 



The analogy may take us a step 

 farther. If a man is fulfilling a pur- 

 pose for himself or others that falls 

 beyond and above the ordinary 

 occupations of his life, it may be 

 try for him more frequently 

 to depart from his usual habits. If 

 God is fulfilling a purpose of self- 

 revelation in truth and grace for 

 the redemption of man from sin and 

 its consequences in this world, it 

 may be in like- manner necessary 

 that He should act in ways that do 

 not conform to His ordinary working 

 in nature. We should with reason 

 suspect an alleged miracle that had 

 no connexion with, and served no 

 recognizable purpose of, God. 



Further, as in putting right some- 

 thing in his own affairs or those of 

 others which has gone seriously 

 wrong, a man may be forced to act 

 very differently from the way in 

 which he would have acted other- 

 wise, so sin with its consequences 

 may be regarded as so serious a 

 disturbance in God's world that 

 very drastic measures for its re- 

 moval may be necessary. A revela- 

 tion of God which was intended to 

 convoy to man a more adequate 

 knowledge of God than the world 

 can supply, and a redemption of 

 man which aimed at delivering man 

 from sin as nature could not, might 

 altogether reasonably be expected 

 to reach beyond nature's bounds in 

 the means it used, and to draw 

 more directly from the unex- 

 hausted resources of God. As be- 

 longing then to the divine revela- 

 tion and human redemption in 

 Christ, miracles become both intel- 

 ligible and credible. Their possibi- 

 lity is certain, their necessity pro- 

 bable, and we can approach the 

 question of their actuality without 

 any hostile bias. 



Against Hume's contention that 

 a miracle per se. is so incredible that 

 we must regard all evidence in 

 favour of miracles as untrust- 

 worthy, we may set the considera- 

 tions which have just been offered. 

 His bold assertion " it is contrary 

 to experience that a miracle should 



be true," is an irrelevant truism, if 

 what he means is rxpenen. < _TIUT- 

 ally, an the very conception of 

 nun. ! assumes that miracle is not 

 an ordinary event, and it is a reck- 

 less begging of the question if he 



means </// experience vvithoiit any 



exception, since even Mill admits 

 that there is " a certain amount of 

 positive evidence in favour of 

 miracles." His demand that the 

 testimony should " be of such a 

 kind that its falsehood would be 

 more miraculous than the fact 

 which it endeavours to establish," 

 may be met by insisting that it is 

 less improbable that miracles 

 should occur than that the Chris- 

 tian religion should rest on the 

 shifting sand of credulous supersti- 

 tion, and that the Gospel records 

 should be a tissue of falsehood. 



About the miracles recorded in 

 the O.T. Christian faith is not first 

 of all, or most of all, concerned. If 

 the miracles of Jesus are not ade- 

 quately attested, the evidence in 

 the O.T. will still less bear close 

 scrutiny. If the miracles of Jesus 

 are intelligible and credible, the 

 O.T. records can be examined with- 

 out any prejudice. Harnack in his 

 book What is Christianity ? (p. 18) 

 seeks against an extreme scepticism 

 to defend the trustworthiness of the 

 Gospels by admitting the healing 

 ministry of Jesus, and accounting 

 for the cures regarded as miracu- 

 lous by the mysterious power 

 which one personality can exercise 

 over others in certain abnormal 

 nervous conditions, what Matthew 

 Arnold called moral therapeutics. 

 Interpretation by Science 



As modern medical science fully 

 acknowledges, faith in the healer is 

 in such nervous disorders a real 

 cause of cure. A medical writer, Dr. 

 R. J. Ryle, has, however, shown in 

 an article in the Hibbert Journal, 

 on The Neurotic Theory of the 

 Miracles of Healing (vol. v, p. 585), 

 that very many even of the healing 

 miracles cannot be regarded as fall- 

 ing into the class of diseases cap- 

 able of such treatment. The nature 

 miracles remain unexplained. 



Harnack further justifies his re- 

 jection of miracles by insisting on 

 the credulity of the age in respect of 

 such extraordinary occurrences, 

 and the absence of the modern 

 scientific conception of the unifor- 

 mity of nature. Apart from the re- 

 cords of miracles, the Gospels give 

 the impression of writings in which 

 truth of fact as well as truth of 

 thought and life is valued, and in 

 which the intention to record only 

 what is true is honestly carried out. 

 If the evangelists had been as 

 credulous as is suggested, we should 

 have had not only a greater number 

 of miracles, but the records would 



have been of an extravagant char- 

 acter, not marked by the reserve 

 and sobriety which we do find. 

 See Incarnation ; Jesus Christ ; 

 Resurrection ; consult also Bamp- 

 ton Lectures on Miracles, J. B. 

 Mozley, 1865 ; Miracles in the N.T., 

 .1. .M. 'Thompson, 1911; Miracles, 

 W. Lock, 1911; The Miracles of 

 Jesus, E. 0. Davies, 1913. 



Alfred E. Oarvie 



Miracle Play. Type of medie- 

 val religious drama, usually drawn 

 from the legends of the saints. It 

 cannot be strictly distinguished 

 from the mystery play. The Latin 

 comedies of Hroswitha (q.v.), based 

 on legends of the saints, afford an 

 early example. Miracle plays were 

 from the first less associated with 

 worship than the mysteries, and 

 were usually acted at first in 

 Latin by young clerics, boys, and 

 even girls, on the eve of the saint's 

 day. The earliest dramatic per- 

 formance on record in England was 

 a play of S. Katherine, written for 

 his pupils by Geffrei, a Norman 

 schoolmaster at Dunstable, about 

 1100. Miracles were frequently 

 acted in London about 1170. 

 There are but scanty remains of 

 English plays of this type, which 

 appears to have been much less 

 popular than the mystery. The 

 Christmas play of S. George, still 

 acted by boys in English villages, 

 is a degenerate survival. The 

 Cornish Life of S. Meriasek is of 

 Breton origin. 



Many French miracle plays are 

 extant. Thirteenth century exam- 

 ples are Ruteboeufs Theophilus, 

 and the S. Nicholas of Jean Bodel 

 of Arras. There is a collection of 

 40 miracles of the Virgin of the 

 14th century. These early plays 

 are far more concise and dramatic 

 than the unwieldy mystery plays 

 of the 15th century, but resemble 

 them in the introduction of comic 

 relief. There are also German And 

 Italian miracle plays. The Persian 

 religious drama of Hasan and 

 Hosain, still often performed, pre- 

 sents close analogies to the 

 miracle play. See Drama ; Morality ; 

 Mystery Play ; consult also Eng- 

 lish Dramatic Literature, vol. i, 

 A. W. Ward, 1875; English 

 Miracle Plays, a collection edited 

 by A. W. Pollard, 1890 ; English 

 Religious Drama, K. L. Bates, 

 1893; The Mediaeval Stage, 

 E. K. Chambers, 2 vols., 1903; 

 English Miracle Plays, E. H. 

 Moore, 1907. 



Mirage. Optical illusion pro- 

 duced by reflection and refraction 

 when successive layers of air have 

 different temperatures, and, in 

 consequence, different densities. 

 The most perfect mirages are seen 

 in deserts and on the sea. In the 



