In the production of such ideal narratives the same process is observable to-day in the experience of simple religious believers: feeling the ideal truth of the content of the stories, they come to believe also in the reality of the outward history in which the idea has for them been incorporated. But the critical understanding of the historical inquirer is permitted, and indeed is bound, to distinguish clearly and definitely, as the simple-minded believer cannot do, between the spiritual idea and the outward form of its representation, and to find in the former both the productive power and the permanent kernel within the outward husk. This explanation of the miraculous legends of the Bible is not only more correct and profound than Strauss’s from the point of view of historical science, but for the religious consciousness it is far less objectionable, as Weisse observes with truth; inasmuch as in this case the legends do not appear as the worthless product of the idle play of the imagination, but as the normal expression, rationally and psychologically intelligible, of a creative religious spirit, which displays its treasures of ideal truth in this legendary and mythical poetry for the benefit of the originators and the wider world. Nor should it be left unnoticed that Strauss himself had already indicated in a few cases this more profound explanation of myths by means of the religious idea. At the close of his interpretation of the story of the Transfiguration (§ 107), for instance, he says, we may see from this example very plainly how the natural system of explanation, by insisting on the historical certainty of the narratives, lets go their ideal truth, sacrificing the content to the form of the story, whereas the mythical interpretation, by resigning the historical material body of such narratives, really rescues and preserves their idea, their soul and spirit. He might, however, have unfolded the idea of the Transfiguration with greater definiteness and fulness if he had not merely alluded to the dogmatic discussion of Paul in 2 Cor. iii. 7 sq., but had recognised it as the real theme of the gospel story, and had interpreted the latter accordingly. In the same way, in the case of the story of the birth of Jesus (Luke i. and ii.), Strauss laid great emphasis on the analogies and figures of the Old Testament, which, after all, could only contribute as secondary motives in the formation of this birth-story, while its real origin is to be sought in the Pauline Messianic idea of “the Son of God, according to the spirit of holiness” (Rom. i. 4; 1 Cor. xv. 45 sq.), a fact Strauss overlooked. This defect takes a really surprising form when he comes to explain the miracles of the Fourth Gospel, which, in complete independence of any suggestion from the Old Testament, are entirely based upon the dogmatic ideas of the Alexandrian theology, and simply supply their transparent symbolic vestment.