Collected Essays, Volume V / Science and Christian Tradition: Essays

89

d in most things has dug up the axe and is on the war-path once more. The weapon has been wielded with all the dexterity which long practice has conferred on a past master in craft, whether of wood or state. And I have reason to believe that the simpler sort of the great tribe which he heads, imagine that my scalp is already on its way to adorn their big chief's wigwam. I am glad therefore to be able to relieve any anxieties whic

ifest want of acquaintance with the facts and principles involved in the discussion, no less than with the best literature on his own side of the subject, gave me the uncomfortable feeling that I had my adversary at a disadvantage. The sun of science, at my back, was in his eyes. B

e synoptic Gospels, touching the nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we acc

n by those who are aware that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth in that work. But the warmest admirers of Mr. Gladstone will hardly be prepared to maintai

swine perished in consequence of the entrance into them of the

wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour

sly controverted, I shall assume it to be true, and content myself with warning the reader that neither he nor I have any grounds for assuming Mr. Gladstone's concurrence. With this caution, I proceed to remark that I think it may be granted that the people whose herd of 2000 swine (mor

e principle, I am far from suggesting that he is bound by its logical consequences. However, I distinctly reiterate the opinion that any one who acted in the way described in the story would, in my judgment, be guilty

ipending the man himself. If I say that "according to paragraphs in several newspapers, my valued Separatist friend A.B. has houghed a lot of cattle, which he considered to be unlawfully in the possession of an Irish land-grabber; that, in my opinion, any such act is a misdemeanour of evil example; but, that I utterly disbelieve the whole story and have no doubt that it is a mere fabrication:" it really appea

of the synoptic Gospels" (p. 173). "The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled the Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple souls, thought to honour by preserving such traditions of the exercise of his authority over Satan's invisible world" (p

ust have been exceedingly angry when he comm

portion of the human race, it has been reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no better than a law-breaker and an

us. But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone's leading, but not light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of Wellington's famous st

he provisions of the Mosaic law in the matter of not eating pork-in which, as pork disagrees with me and for some other reason

lf with the labour of inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it. He has thus misse

ected against myself. Now, from the purely artistic point of view (which, as we are all being told, has nothing to do with morals), I consider it an axiom, that one should never appear to doubt that the other side has performed the elementary duty of acquiring proper elementary information, unless there is demonstrative evidence to the contrary. And I think, though I admit that thi

readers to accompany me on a little voyage of discovery in search of the side on which the rapid judgment and the ignoran

y the Mosaic law" (p. 274); and he conceives that it has not occurred to me t

that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of Jews, from whence it

and his ignorance of all the best modern writings on his own side, produced a great impression on my mind. I have had the audacity to suspect that his acquaintance with what has been done in Biblical history might stand at no higher level than his information about the natural sciences. However unwillingly, I have felt bound to consider the possibility that Mr. Gladstone's labours in this matter may have carried him no further than Josephus and the worthy, but somewhat antique, episcopal and other authorities to whom he refers; that ev

by loading him heavily with bales of reading. Those who took the trouble to study my paper in good faith and not for mere controversial purposes, have a right to know, that something more than a hasty glimpse of two or three passages of Josephus (even with as many episcopal works thrown in) lay at the back of the few paragraphs I devoted to the Gadarene story. I proceed to set forth,

ide of the sea over against Galilee," the western shore being, without doubt, included in the latter province. But there is no such concord when we come to the name of the part of the eastern shore, on which, acc

o doubt remains on my mind that "Gadarene" is the proper reading. At the period under consideration, Gadara appears to have been a good-sized fortified town, about two miles in circumference. It was a place of considerable strategic importance, inasmuch as it lay on a high ridge at the point of intersection of the roads from Tiberias, Scythopolis, Damascus, and Gerasa. Three miles north from it, where the Tiberias road descended into the valley of the Hieromices, lay the famous hot springs and the fashionable baths of Amatha. On the north-east side, the remains of the extensive necropolis of Gadara are still to be seen. Innumerable sepulchral chambers are excavated in the limestone cliffs, and many of them still contain sarcophaguses of basalt; while not a few are converted into dwellings by the inhabitants of the present village of Um Keis. The distance of Gadara from the south-eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias is less than seven miles. The nearest of

ish rule.[102] From this it was rescued by Pompey (B.C. 63), who rebuilt the city and incorporated it with the province of Syria. In gratitude to the Romans for the dissolution of a hated union, the Gadarenes adopted the Pompeian era of their coinage. Gadara was a commercial centre of some importance, and therefore, it may be assumed, Jews settled in it, as they settled in almost all considerable Gentile cities. But a w

ar the image of Augustus with the superscription Σεβαστ??-a flying in the face of Jewish prejudices which, even he, did not dare to venture upon in Jud?a. And I may remark that, if my co-trustee of the British Museum had taken the trouble to visit the splendid numismatic collection under our charge, he might have seen two coins of Gadara, one of the time of Tiberius and the other of that of Titus, each bearin

e the villages of the Syrians and their neighbouring cities, Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos" ("Wars," II. xviii. 1). I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," the ravaging of their territory by their broth

ut not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a great number in prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara did the like, while they put to death

k an active part, and he characterises the cities in the way familiar to him. For Josephus, Gadara is just as much a Gentile city as Ptolemais; it was

the needful authorities and in a thoroughly judicial manner, by Schürer in his classical work,[104] one rea

his is not quite the place for a critical examination of the matter; but I have examined it, and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no reason whatever to suppose that the population of Gadara, a

osephus, by the improved interpretation of which, Mr. Gladstone has thus contrived to satisfy himself of the thing which is not. One of these is "Antiquities" XVII. xiii. 4, in which section, I regret to say, I

Sebaste, with Joppa and Jerusalem; for, as to Gaza, Gadara, and Hippos, they were Grecian

a, then certainly a Gentile city, lying outside Jud?a, to Herod as a mark of great personal fav

they had politically been taken out of Jud?a and added to Syria, which I presume was classif

reference is to the

r of men grown up for war. He then came into it, and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy on any age whatsoever; and t

ish with Jotapata, a strong place about fourteen miles south-east of Ptolemais, into which Josephus, who at first had fled to Tiberias, eventually threw himself-Vespasian arriving before Jotapata "the very next day." Now, if any one will take a decent map of Ancient Palestine in hand, he will see that Jotapata, as I have said, lies about fourteen miles in a straight line east-south-east of Ptolemais, while a certain town, "Gabara" (which was also held by the Jews), is situated, about the same distance, to the east of that port. Nothing can be more obvious than that Vespasian, wishing to advance from Ptolemais into Galilee, could not afford to leave these strongholds in the possession of the enemy; and, as Gabara would lie on his left flank when he moved to Jotapata, h

pons of precision of science may have its value in historical studies

he Zealots, murdered and shockingly mutilated Dolesus, a man of the first rank, who had promoted the embassy to Vespasian; and then "ran out of the city." Hereupon, "the people of Gadara" (surely not this time "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law") received Vespasian with joyful acclamations, voluntarily pulled down their wall, so that the city could not in future be used as a fortress by the Jews, and accepted a Roman garrison for their future protection. Granting that this Gadara really is the city of the Gadarenes, the reference, without citation, to the passage, in support of

an the marvellously complete misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and rectified;

inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as fi

ean to suggest that a Frenchman landing at Dover, and coming upon a cask of smuggled brandy in the course of a stroll along the cliffs, has the right to break it open and waste its contents on the ground? Yet the party of Galileans who, according to the narrative, landed and took a walk on the Gadarene territory, were as much foreigners in the Decapolis as Frenchmen would be at Dover. Herod Antipas, their sovereign, had no jurisdiction in the Decapolis-they were strangers and aliens, with no more right to interfere wi

s a deadly sin to work on the "Lord's Day," sees a fellow Puritan yielding to the temptation of getting in his harvest on a fine Sunda

wn hands, fails in the performance of the primary duties of all governments; while those who set the example of such acts, or who approve them

proper for a Jewish Galilean, going back to the time when the land of the Girgashites was given to his ancestors, some 1500 years before, to act, as if the state of things which ought to obtain, in territory which traditionally, at any rate, belonged to his forefathers,

as illustrated therein. This morning, however, I had the pleasure of reading a speech which I think must satisfy the requirements of the most fastidious of controversial artists; and there occurs in it so concise, yet so complete, a delinea

e grossest exaggerations, that he was basing arguments upon the slightest hypotheses, and that his discussio

hief Secretary for Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a natural, as well as a highly cultivated, a

TNO

of Tiberias to "set the villages that belonged to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which

o have been destro

os, he cut them off from the kingdom and added them to Syria.

üdischen Volkes im Zei

chester and then returned to assault Rye, being all the while anxious to reach London, his procee

. ii. p. 771. Also Robinson, Later Bi