[1891]
The series of essays, in defence of the historical accuracy of the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, contributed by Mr. Gladstone to "Good
Words," having been revised and enlarged by their author, appeared
last year as a separate volume, under the somewhat defiant title of
"The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture."
The last of these Essays, entitled "Conclusion," contains an attack,
or rather several attacks, couched in language which certainly does
not err upon the side of moderation or of courtesy, upon statements
and opinions of mine. One of these assaults is a deliberately devised
attempt, not merely to rouse the theological prejudices ingrained in
the majority of Mr. Gladstone's readers, but to hold me up as a person
who has endeavoured to besmirch the personal character of the object
of their veneration. For Mr. Gladstone asserts that I have undertaken
to try "the character of our Lord" (p. 268); and he tells the many who
are, as I think unfortunately, predisposed to place implicit credit in
his assertions, that it has been reserved for me to discover that
Jesus "was no better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer!" (p. 269).
It was extremely easy for me to prove, as I did in the pages of this
Review last December, that, under the most favourable interpretation,
this amazing declaration must be ascribed to extreme confusion of
thought. And, by bringing an abundance of good-will to the
consideration of the subject, I have now convinced myself that it is
right for me to admit that a person of Mr. Gladstone's intellectual
acuteness really did mistake the reprobation of the course of conduct
ascribed to Jesus, in a story of which I expressly say I do not
believe a word, for an attack on his character and a declaration that
he was "no better than a law-breaker, and an evil-doer." At any rate,
so far as I can see, this is what Mr. Gladstone wished to be believed
when he wrote the following passage:--
I must, however, in passing, make the confession that I did
not state with accuracy, as I ought to have done, the
precise form of the accusation. I treated it as an
imputation on the action of our Lord; he replies that it is
only an imputation on the narrative of three evangelists
respecting Him. The difference, from his point of view, is
probably material, and I therefore regret that I overlooked
it.[107]
Considering the gravity of the error which is here admitted, the
fashion of the withdrawal appears more singular than admirable. From
my "point of view"--not from Mr. Gladstone's apparently--the little
discrepancy between the facts and Mr. Gladstone's carefully offensive
travesty of them is "probably" (only "probably") material. However, as
Mr. Gladstone concludes with an official expression of regret for his
error, it is my business to return an equally official expression of
gratitude for the attenuated reparation with which I am favoured.
Having cleared this specimen of Mr. Gladstone's controversial method
out of the way, I may proceed to the next assault, that on a passage
in an article on Agnosticism ("Nineteenth Century," February 1889),
published two years ago. I there said, in referring to the Gadarene
story, "Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the
wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and
urbane observations, remarks ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that,
"Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what
anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in
support of that "accusation against our Lord" which he has now been
constrained to admit I never made.
The "point" in question is that "Gadara was a city of Greeks rather
than of Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine was
innocent and lawful." I conceive that I have abundantly proved that
Gadara answered exactly to the description here given of it; and I
shall show, by and by, that Mr. Gladstone has used language which, to
my mind, involves the admission that the authorities of the city were
not Jews. But I have also taken a good deal of pains to show that the
question thus raised is of no importance in relation to the main
issue.[108] If Gadara was, as I maintain it was, a city of the
Decapolis, Hellenistic in constitution and containing a predominantly
Gentile population, my case is superabundantly fortified. On the other
hand, if the hypothesis that Gadara was under Jewish government, which
Mr. Gladstone seems sometimes to defend and sometimes to give up,
were accepted, my case would be nowise weakened. At any rate, Gadara
was not included within the jurisdiction of the tetrach of Galilee; if
it had been, the Galileans who crossed over the lake to Gadara had no
official status; and they had no more civil right to punish
law-breakers than any other strangers.
In my turn, however, I may remark that there is a "point" which
appears to have escaped Mr. Gladstone's notice. And that is somewhat
unfortunate, because his whole argument turns upon it. Mr. Gladstone
assumes, as a matter of course, that pig-keeping was an offence
against the "Law of Moses"; and, therefore, that Jews who kept pigs
were as much liable to legal pains and penalties as Englishmen who
smuggle brandy ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274).
There can be no doubt that, according to the Law, as it is defined in
the Pentateuch, the pig was an "unclean" animal, and that pork was a
forbidden article of diet. Moreover, since pigs are hardly likely to
be kept for the mere love of those unsavoury animals, pig-owning, or
swine-herding, must have been, and evidently was, regarded as a
suspicious and degrading occupation by strict Jews, in the first
century A.D. But I should like to know on what provision of the Mosaic
Law, as it is laid down in the Pentateuch, Mr. Gladstone bases the
assumption, which is essential to his case, that the possession of
pigs and the calling of a swineherd were actually illegal. The
inquiry was put to me the other day; and, as I could not answer it, I
turned up the article "Schwein" in Riehm's standard "Handwörterbuch,"
for help out of my difficulty; but unfortunately without success.
After speaking of the martyrdom which the Jews, under Antiochus
Epiphanes, preferred to eating pork, the writer proceeds:--
It may be, nevertheless, that the practice of keeping pigs
may have found its way into Palestine in the Græco-Roman
time, in consequence of the great increase of the non-Jewish
population; yet there is no evidence of it in the New
Testament; the great herd of swine, 2,000 in number,
mentioned in the narrative of the possessed, was feeding in
the territory of Gadara, which belonged to the Decapolis;
and the prodigal son became a swineherd with the native of a
far country into which he had wandered; in neither of these
cases is there reason for thinking that the possessors of
these herds were Jews.[109]
Having failed in my search, so far, I took up the next book of
reference at hand, Kitto's "Cyclopædia" (vol. iii. 1876). There, under
"Swine," the writer, Colonel Hamilton Smith, seemed at first to give
me what I wanted, as he says that swine "appear to have been
repeatedly introduced and reared by the Hebrew people,[110]
notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the Law of Moses (Is. lxv.
4)." But, in the first place, Isaiah's writings form no part of the
"Law of Moses"; and, in the second place, the people denounced by the
prophet in this passage are neither the possessors of pigs, nor
swineherds, but these "which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable
things is in their vessels." And when, in despair, I turned to the
provisions of the Law itself, my difficulty was not cleared up.
Leviticus xi. 8 (Revised Version) says, in reference to the pig and
other unclean animals: "Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their
carcasses ye shall not touch." In the revised version of Deuteronomy,
xiv. 8, the words of the prohibition are identical, and a skilful
refiner might possibly satisfy himself, even if he satisfied nobody
else, that "carcase" means the body of a live animal as well as a dead
one; and that, since swineherds could hardly avoid contact with their
charges, their calling was implicitly forbidden.[111] Unfortunately,
the authorised version expressly says "dead carcase"; and thus the
most rabbinically minded of reconcilers might find his casuistry
foiled by that great source of surprises, the "original Hebrew." That
such check is at any rate possible, is clear from the fact that the
legal uncleanness of some animals, as food, did not interfere with
their being lawfully possessed, cared for, and sold by Jews. The
provisions for the ransoming of unclean beasts (Lev. xxvii. 27) and
for the redemption of their sucklings (Numbers xviii. 15) sufficiently
prove this. As the late Dr. Kalisch has observed in his "Commentary"
on Leviticus, part ii. p. 129, note:--
Though asses and horses, camels and dogs, were kept by the
Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with
the notion of impurity; they might be turned to profitable
account by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food
they were an abomination.
The same learned commentator (_loc. cit._ p. 88) proves that the
Talmudists forbade the rearing of pigs by Jews, unconditionally and
everywhere; and even included it under the same ban as the study of
Greek philosophy, "since both alike were considered to lead to the
desertion of the Jewish faith." It is very possible, indeed probable,
that the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first century took as
strong a view of pig-keeping as did their spiritual descendants. But,
for all that, it does not follow that the practice was illegal. The
stricter Jews could not have despised and hated swineherds more than
they did publicans; but, so far as I know, there is no provision in
the Law against the practice of the calling of a tax-gatherer by a
Jew. The publican was in fact very much in the position of an Irish
process-server at the present day--more, rather than less, despised
and hated on account of the perfect legality of his occupation. Except
for certain sacrificial purposes, pigs were held in such abhorrence by
the ancient Egyptians, that swineherds were not permitted to enter a
temple, or to intermarry with other castes; and any one who had
touched a pig, even accidentally, was unclean. But these very
regulations prove that pig-keeping was not illegal; it merely involved
certain civil and religious disabilities. For the Jews, dogs were
typically "unclean animals"; but when that eminently pious Hebrew,
Tobit, "went forth" with the angel "the young man's dog" went "with
them" (Tobit v. 16) without apparent remonstrance from the celestial
guide. I really do not see how an appeal to the Law could have
justified any one in drowning Tobit's dog, on the ground that his
master was keeping and feeding an animal quite as "unclean" as any
pig. Certainly the excellent Raguel must have failed to see the harm
of dog-keeping, for we are told that, on the traveller's return
homewards, "the dog went after them" (xi. 4).
Until better light than I have been able to obtain is thrown upon the
subject, therefore, it is obvious that Mr. Gladstone's argumentative
house has been built upon an extremely slippery quick-sand; perhaps
even has no foundation at all.
Yet another "point" does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone,
who is so much shocked that I attach no overwhelming weight to the
assertions contained in the synoptic Gospels, even when all three
concur. These Gospels agree in stating, in the most express, and to
some extent verbally identical, terms, that the devils entered the
pigs at their own request,[112] and the third Gospel (viii. 31) tells
us what the motive of the demons was in asking the singular boon:
"They intreated him that he would not command them to depart into the
abyss." From this, it would seem that the devils thought to exchange
the heavy punishment of transportation to the abyss for the lighter
penalty of imprisonment in swine. And some commentators, more
ingenious than respectful to the supposed chief actor in this
extraordinary fable, have dwelt, with satisfaction, upon the very
unpleasant quarter of an hour which the evil spirits must have had,
when the headlong rush of their maddened tenements convinced them how
completely they were taken in. In the whole story, there is not one
solitary hint that the destruction of the pigs was intended as a
punishment of their owners, or of the swineherds. On the contrary, the
concurrent testimony of the three narratives is to the effect that
the catastrophe was the consequence of diabolic suggestion. And,
indeed, no source could be more appropriate for an act of such
manifest injustice and illegality.
I can but marvel that modern defenders of the faith should not be glad
of any reasonable excuse for getting rid of a story which, if it had
been invented by Voltaire, would have justly let loose floods of
orthodox indignation.
* * * * *
Thus, the hypothesis, to which Mr. Gladstone so fondly clings, finds
no support in the provisions of the "Law of Moses" as that law is
defined in the Pentateuch; while it is wholly inconsistent with the
concurrent testimony of the synoptic Gospels, to which Mr. Gladstone
attaches so much weight. In my judgment, it is directly contrary to
everything which profane history tells us about the constitution and
the population of the city of Gadara; and it commits those who accept
it to a story which, if it were true, would implicate the founder of
Christianity in an illegal and inequitable act.
Such being the case, I consider myself excused from following Mr.
Gladstone through all the meanderings of his late attempt to extricate
himself from the maze of historical and exegetical difficulties in
which he is entangled. I content myself with assuring those who, with
my paper (not Mr. Gladstone's version of my arguments) in hand,
consult the original authorities, that they will find full
justification for every statement I have made. But in order to dispose
those who cannot, or will not, take that trouble, to believe that the
proverbial blindness of one that judges his own cause plays no part in
inducing me to speak thus decidedly, I beg their attention to the
following examination, which shall be as brief as I can make it, of
the seven propositions in which Mr. Gladstone professes to give a
faithful summary of my "errors."
When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Holy See declared
that certain propositions contained in the work of Bishop Jansen were
heretical, the Jansenists of Port Royal replied that, while they were
ready to defer to the Papal authority about questions of faith and
morals, they must be permitted to judge about questions of fact for
themselves; and that, really, the condemned propositions were not to
be found in Jansen's writings. As everybody knows, His Holiness and
the Grand Monarque replied to this, surely not unreasonable, plea
after the manner of Lord Peter in the "Tale of a Tub." It is,
therefore, not without some apprehension of meeting with a similar
fate, that I put in a like plea against Mr. Gladstone's Bull. The
seven propositions declared to be false and condemnable, in that
kindly and gentle way which so pleasantly compares with the
authoritative style of the Vatican (No. 5 more particularly), may or
may not be true. But they are not to be found in anything I have
written. And some of them diametrically contravene that which I have
written. I proceed to prove my assertions.
PROP. 1. _Throughout the paper he confounds together what I had
distinguished, namely, the city of Gadara and the vicinage attached to
it, not as a mere pomoerium, but as a rural district_.
In my judgment, this statement is devoid of foundation. In my paper on
"The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I point out, at some length, that,
"in accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice," each city of the
Decapolis must have been "surrounded by a certain amount of territory
amenable to its jurisdiction": and, to enforce this conclusion, I
quote what Josephus says about the "villages that belonged to Gadara
and Hippos." As I understand the term _pomerium_ or _pomoerium_,[113]
it means the space which, according to Roman custom, was kept free
from buildings, immediately within and without the walls of a city;
and which defined the range of the _auspicia urbana_. The conception
of a _pomoerium_ as a "vicinage attached to" a city, appears to be
something quite novel and original. But then, to be sure, I do not
know how many senses Mr. Gladstone may attach to the word "vicinage."
Whether Gadara had a _pomoerium_, in the proper technical sense, or
not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. But that the city had a
very considerable "rural district" attached to it and notwithstanding
its distinctness, amenable to the jurisdiction of the Gentile
municipal authorities, is one of the main points of my case.
PROP. 2. _He more fatally confounds the local civil government and its
following, including, perhaps, the whole wealthy class and those
attached to it, with the ethnical character of a general population._
Having survived confusion No. 1, which turns out not to be on my side,
I am now confronted in No. 2 with a "more fatal" error--and so it is,
if there be degrees of fatality; but, again, it is Mr. Gladstone's and
not mine. It would appear, from this proposition (about the
grammatical interpretation of which, however, I admit there are
difficulties), that Mr. Gladstone holds that the "local civil
government and its following among the wealthy," were ethnically
different from the "general population." On p. 348, he further admits
that the "wealthy and the local governing power" were friendly to the
Romans. Are we then to suppose that it was the persons of Jewish
"ethnical character" who favoured the Romans, while those of Gentile
"ethnical character" were opposed to them? But, if that supposition is
absurd, the only alternative is that the local civil government was
ethnically Gentile. This is exactly my contention.
At pp. 379 to 391 of the essay on "The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I
have fully discussed the question of the ethnical character of the
general population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who
surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city as
Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara amongst the cities
"that rose up against the Jews that were amongst them," which is a
pretty definite expression of his belief that the "ethnical character
of the general population" was Gentile. There is no question here of
Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews of the Zealot party, as Mr.
Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jewish and anti-Jewish general
population which rises up against the Jews who had settled "among
them."
PROP. 3. _His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile character
of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter_.
More fatal still. But, once more, not to me. I adduce not one, but a
variety of "items" in proof of the non-Judaic character of the
population of Gadara: the evidence of history; that of the coinage of
the city; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited--to mention no
others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those connected with
them--the "classes" and the "hangers on" of Mr. Gladstone's
well-known taxonomy--were, as he appears to admit they were, Gentiles;
if the "civil government" of the city was in their hands, as the
coinage proves it was; what becomes of Mr. Gladstone's original
proposition in "The Impregnable Rock of Scripture" that "the
population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the population
of the neighbourhood," were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"? And
what is the importance of estimating the precise proportion of Hebrews
who may have resided, either in the city of Gadara or in its
independent territory, when, as Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am
careful to say "seems"), the government, and consequently the law,
which ruled in that territory and defined civil right and wrong was
Gentile and not Judaic? But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared to
maintain that the Gentile "local civil government" of a city of the
Decapolis administered Jewish law; and showed their respect for it,
more particularly, by stamping their coinage with effigies of the
Emperors.
In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me errors which I have
not committed, Mr. Gladstone has given away his case.
PROP. 4. _He fatally confounds the question of political party with
those of nationality and of religion, and assumes that those who took
the side of Rome in the factions that prevailed could not be subject
to the Mosaic Law_.
It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a
"fatal error." But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of
controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently
probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable,
that any one who has read Josephus, or any other historian of the
Jewish war, should be unaware that there were Jews (of whom Josephus
himself was one) who "Romanised" and, more or less openly, opposed the
war party. But, however that may be, I assert that Mr. Gladstone
neither has produced, nor can produce, a passage of my writing which
affords the slightest foundation for this particular article of his
indictment.
PROP. 5. _His examination of the text of Josephus is alike one-sided,
inadequate, and erroneous._
Easy to say, hard to prove. So long as the authorities whom I have
cited are on my side, I do not know why this singularly temperate and
convincing dictum should trouble me. I have yet to become acquainted
with Mr. Gladstone's claims to speak with an authority equal to that
of scholars of the rank of Schürer, whose obviously just and necessary
emendations he so unceremoniously pooh-poohs.
PROP. 6. _Finally, he sets aside, on grounds not critical or
historical, but partly subjective, the primary historical testimony on
the subject, namely, that of the three Synoptic Evangelists, who
write as contemporaries and deal directly with the subject, neither of
which is done by any other authority_.
Really this is too much! The fact is, as anybody can see who will turn
to my article of February 1889 [VII. _supra_], out of which all this
discussion has arisen, that the arguments upon which I rest the
strength of my case touching the swine-miracle, are exactly
"historical" and "critical." Expressly, and in words that cannot be
misunderstood, I refuse to rest on what Mr. Gladstone calls
"subjective" evidence. I abstain from denying the possibility of the
Gadarene occurrence, and I even go so far as to speak of some physical
analogies to possession. In fact, my quondam opponent, Dr. Wace,
shrewdly, but quite fairly, made the most of these admissions; and
stated that I had removed the only "consideration which would have
been a serious obstacle" in the way of his belief in the Gadarene
story.[114]
So far from setting aside the authority of the synoptics on
"subjective" grounds, I have taken a great deal of trouble to show
that my non-belief in the story is based upon what appears to me to be
evident; firstly, that the accounts of the three synoptic Gospels are
not independent, but are founded upon a common source; secondly, that,
even if the story of the common tradition proceeded from a
contemporary, it would still be worthy of very little credit, seeing
the manner in which the legends about mediæval miracles have been
propounded by contemporaries. And in illustration of this position I
wrote a special essay about the miracles reported by Eginhard.[115]
In truth, one need go no further than Mr. Gladstone's sixth
proposition to be convinced that contemporary testimony, even of
well-known and distinguished persons, may be but a very frail reed for
the support of the historian, when theological prepossession blinds
the witness.[116]
PROP. 7. _And he treats the entire question, in the narrowed form in
which it arises upon secular testimony, as if it were capable of a
solution so clear and summary as to warrant the use of the extremest
weapons of controversy against those who presume to differ from him._
The six heretical propositions which have gone before are enunciated
with sufficient clearness to enable me to prove, without any
difficulty, that, whosesoever they are, they are not mine. But number
seven, I confess, is too hard for me. I cannot undertake to contradict
that which I do not understand.
What is the "entire question" which "arises" in a "narrowed form" upon
"secular testimony"? After much guessing, I am fain to give up the
conundrum. The "question" may be the ownership of the pigs; or the
ethnological character of the Gadarenes; or the propriety of meddling
with other people's property without legal warrant. And each of these
questions might be so "narrowed" when it arose on "secular testimony"
that I should not know where I was. So I am silent on this part of the
proposition.
But I do dimly discern, in the latter moiety of this mysterious
paragraph, a reproof of that use of "the extremest weapons of
controversy" which is attributed to me. Upon which I have to observe
that I guide myself, in such matters, very much by the maxim of a
great statesman, "Do ut des." If Mr. Gladstone objects to the
employment of such weapons of defence, he would do well to abstain
from them in attack. He should not frame charges which he has,
afterwards, to admit are erroneous, in language of carefully
calculated offensiveness ("Impregnable Rock," pp. 269-70); he should
not assume that persons with whom he disagrees are so recklessly
unconscientious as to evade the trouble of inquiring what has been
said or known about a grave question ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273); he
should not qualify the results of careful thought as "hand-over-head
reasoning" ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274); he should not, as in the
extraordinary propositions which I have just analysed, make assertions
respecting his opponent's position and arguments which are
contradicted by the plainest facts.
Persons who, like myself, have spent their lives outside the political
world, yet take a mild and philosophical concern in what goes on in
it, often find it difficult to understand what our neighbours call the
psychological moment of this or that party leader, and are,
occasionally, loth to believe in the seeming conditions of certain
kinds of success. And when some chieftain, famous in political
warfare, adventures into the region of letters or of science, in full
confidence that the methods which have brought fame and honour in his
own province will answer there, he is apt to forget that he will be
judged by these people, on whom rhetorical artifices have long ceased
to take effect; and to whom mere dexterity in putting together
cleverly ambiguous phrases, and even the great art of offensive
misrepresentation, are unspeakably wearisome. And, if that weariness
finds its expression in sarcasm, the offender really has no right to
cry out. Assuredly ridicule is no test of truth, but it is the
righteous meed of some kinds of error. Nor ought the attempt to
confound the expression of a revolted sense of fair dealing with
arrogant impatience of contradiction, to restrain those to whom "the
extreme weapons of controversy" come handy from using them. The
function of police in the intellectual, if not in the civil, economy
may sometimes be legitimately discharged by volunteers.
* * * * *
Some time ago in one of the many criticisms with which I am favoured,
I met with the remark that, at our time of life, Mr. Gladstone and I
might be better occupied than in fighting over the Gadarene pigs. And,
if these too famous swine were the only parties to the suit, I, for my
part, should fully admit the justice of the rebuke. But, under the
beneficent rule of the Court of Chancery, in former times, it was not
uncommon, that a quarrel about a few perches of worthless land, ended
in the ruin of ancient families and the engulfing of great estates;
and I think that our admonisher failed to observe the analogy--to note
the momentous consequences of the judgment which may be awarded in the
present apparently insignificant action _in re_ the swineherds of
Gadara.
The immediate effect of such judgment will be the decision of the
question, whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the
demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed
truth, or to reject it, as degrading falsity. The reverend Principal
of King's College has delivered his judgment in perfectly clear and
candid terms. Two years since, Dr. Wace said that he believed the
story as it stands; and consequently he holds, as a part of divine
revelation, that the spiritual world comprises devils, who, under
certain circumstances, may enter men and be transferred from them to
four-footed beasts. For the distinguished Anglican Divine and Biblical
scholar, that is part and parcel of the teachings respecting the
spiritual world which we owe to the founder of Christianity. It is an
inseparable part of that Christian orthodoxy which, if a man rejects,
he is to be considered and called an "infidel." According to the
ordinary rules of interpretation of language, Mr. Gladstone must hold
the same view.
If antiquity and universality are valid tests of the truth of any
belief, no doubt this is one of the beliefs so certified. There are no
known savages, nor people sunk in the ignorance of partial
civilisation, who do not hold them. The great majority of Christians
have held them and still hold them. Moreover the oldest records we
possess of the early conceptions of mankind in Egypt and in
Mesopotamia prove that exactly such demonology, as is implied in the
Gadarene story, formed the substratum, and, among the early Accadians,
apparently the greater part, of their supposed knowledge of the
spiritual world. M. Lenormant's profoundly interesting work on
Babylonian magic and the magical texts given in the Appendix to
Professor Sayce's "Hibbert Lectures" leave no doubt on this head. They
prove that the doctrine of possession, and even the particular case of
pig, possession,[117] were firmly believed in by the Egyptians and the
Mesopotamians before the tribes of Israel invaded Palestine. And it is
evident that these beliefs, from some time after the exile and
probably much earlier, completely interpenetrated the Jewish mind, and
thus became inseparably interwoven with the fabric of the synoptic
Gospels.
Therefore, behind the question of the acceptance of the doctrines of
the oldest heathen demonology as part of the fundamental beliefs of
Christianity, there lies the question of the credibility of the
Gospels, and of their claim to act as our instructors, outside that
ethical province in which they appeal to the consciousness of all
thoughtful men. And still, behind this problem, there lies
another--how far do these ancient records give a sure foundation to
the prodigious fabric of Christian dogma, which has been built upon
them by the continuous labours of speculative theologians, during
eighteen centuries?
I submit that there are few questions before the men of the rising
generation, on the answer to which the future hangs more fatally, than
this. We are at the parting of the ways. Whether the twentieth century
shall see a recrudescence of the superstitions of mediæval papistry,
or whether it shall witness the severance of the living body of the
ethical ideal of prophetic Israel from the carcase, foul with savage
superstitions and cankered with false philosophy, to which the
theologians have bound it, turns upon their final judgment of the
Gadarene tale.
The gravity of the problems ultimately involved in the discussion of
the legend of Gadara will, I hope, excuse a persistence in returning
to the subject, to which I should not have been moved by merely
personal considerations.
With respect to the diluvial invective which overflowed thirty-three
pages of the "Nineteenth Century" last January, I doubt not that it
has a catastrophic importance in the estimation of its author. I, on
the other hand, may be permitted to regard it as a mere spate; noisy
and threatening while it lasted, but forgotten almost as soon as it
was over. Without my help, it will be judged by every instructed and
clear-headed reader; and that is fortunate, because, were aid
necessary, I have cogent reasons for withholding it.
In an article characterised by the same qualities of thought and
diction, entitled "A Great Lesson," which appeared in the "Nineteenth
Century" for September 1887, the Duke of Argyll, firstly, charged the
whole body of men of science, interested in the question, with having
conspired to ignore certain criticisms of Mr. Darwin's theory of the
origin of coral reefs; and, secondly, he asserted that some person
unnamed had "actually induced" Mr. John Murray to delay the
publication of his views on that subject "for two years."
It was easy for me and for others to prove that the first statement
was not only, to use the Duke of Argyll's favourite expression,
"contrary to fact," but that it was without any foundation whatever.
The second statement rested on the Duke of Argyll's personal
authority. All I could do was to demand the production of the evidence
for it. Up to the present time, so far as I know, that evidence has
not made its appearance; nor has there been any withdrawal of, or
apology for, the erroneous charge.
Under these circumstances most people will understand why the Duke of
Argyll may feel quite secure of having the battle all to himself,
whenever it pleases him to attack me.
[See the note at the end of "Hasisadra's Adventure" (vol iv. p. 283).
The discussion on coral reefs, at the meeting of the British
Association this year, proves that Mr. Darwin's views are defended
now, as strongly as in 1891, by highly competent authorities. October
25, 1893.]