You must not however suppose that this evidently legendary narrative was added with any intent to falsify. Like many of the miraculous accounts in the Old Testament, this story is probably the result of misunderstanding—an allegory misinterpreted. The death of Christ abolished the gulf between God and man; it tore down the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, whereby Christ took mankind, in Himself and with Himself, into the direct presence of the Father: and this spiritual truth found a literal interpretation in two of the Gospels which mention the “rending of the veil.” But Christ’s death did more than this. It struck down the power of death itself: it broke open the tombs, and prepared the way for the Resurrection of the Saints; and this spiritual truth, being misinterpreted as if it were literally true, gave rise to a tradition (which does not however seem to have been widely received) that at the moment of Christ’s death certain tombs were actually broken open, and certain of “the Saints” rose bodily from the dead and walked into Jerusalem.[17] Footnote 14: St. Matthew ix. 58, “And he _did not many_ mighty works there because of their unbelief.” For a demonstrative proof that the Gospel of St. Mark contains the earliest tradition, see the beginning of the article “Gospels” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Footnote 15: To the same effect is _James_ V. 14, 15: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” There can he no doubt that this refers to literal healing; and it is interesting as an indication that probably these early Christian attempts at healing were often tentative. For it will hardly be maintained that _all_ who were thus anointed were healed: otherwise death would have been exterminated in the early Christian church. Footnote 16: Bishop Temple excepts only the Resurrection, which is not here under consideration. His words are “It is true too that, if we take each miracle by itself, there is but one miracle, namely our Lord’s Resurrection, _for which clear, and unmistakeable, and sufficient evidence is given_.”—_Bampton Lectures_, p. 154. Footnote 17: In the early apocryphal work called _Christ’s Descent into Hell_, a striking description is given of the joy of the saints and the terror of Satan, when Christ descends to Hades and rescues the dead, leading them up to Paradise. In one of the versions of this work, the number of those “risen with the Lord” is mentioned as “twelve thousand men.” XVI THE GROWTH OF THE GOSPELS MY DEAR ——,