weightiest authorities whom I have consulted to be very questionable; and
no such town is mentioned in the list of the cities of the Decapolis, in
the territory of which (as it would seem from Mark v. 20) the transaction
was supposed to take place. About Gerasa, on the other hand, there hangs no
such doubt. It was a large and important member of the group of the
Decapolitan cities. But Gerasa is more than thirty miles distant from the
nearest part of the Lake of Tiberias, while the city mentioned in the
narrative could not have been very far off the scene of the event. However,
as Gerasa was a very important Hellenic city, not much more than a score of
miles from Gadara, it is easily imaginable that a locality which was part
of Decapolitan territory may have been spoken of as belonging to one of the
two cities, when it really appertained to the other. After weighing all the
arguments, no 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. {546} 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 the other cities of the Decapolis, to
the north, is Hippos, which also lay some seven miles off on the
south-eastern corner of the shore of the lake. In accordance with the
ancient Hellenic practice that each city should be surrounded by a certain
amount of territory amenable to its jurisdiction,[154] and on the other
grounds, it may be taken for certain that the intermediate country was
divided between Gadara and Hippos, and that the citizens of Gadara had free
access to a port on the lake. Hence the title of "country of the Gadarenes"
applied to the locality of the porcine catastrophe becomes easily
intelligible. The swine may well be imagined to have been feeding (as they
do now in the adjacent region) on the hillsides, which slope somewhat
steeply down to the lake from the northern boundary wall of the valley of
the Hieromices (_Nahr Yarmuk_), about half-way between the city and the
shore, and doubtless lay well within the territory of the _polis_ of
Gadara.
The proof that Gadara was, to all intents and purposes, a Gentile and not a
Jewish city is complete. {547} The date and the occasion of its foundation
are unknown; but it certainly existed in the third century B.C. Antiochus
the Great annexed it to his dominions in B.C. 198. After this, during the
brief revival of Jewish autonomy, Alexander Jannaeus took it; and for the
first time, so far as the records go, it fell under Jewish rule.[155] 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 on
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 wholly mistaken estimate of the
magnitude of the Jewish colony has been based upon the notion that
Gabinius, proconsul of Syria in 57-55 B.C., seated one of the five
sanhedrims in Gadara. Schuerer has pointed out that what he really did was
to lodge one of them in Gazara, far away on the other side of the Jordan.
This is one of the many errors which have arisen out of the confusion of
the names Ga_d_ara, Ga_z_ara, and Ga_b_ara.
Augustus made a present of Gadara to Herod the Great, as an appanage
personal to himself; and, upon Herod's death, recognising it to be a
"Grecian city like Hippos and Gaza,"[156] he transferred it back to its
former {548} place in the province of Syria. That Herod made no effort to
judaise his temporary possession, but rather the contrary, is obvious from
the fact that the coins of Gadara, while under his rule, bear the image of
Augustus with the superscription [Greek: Sebastos]--a flying in the face of
Jewish prejudices which even he did not dare to venture upon in Judaea. 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 bearing the effigies of the emperor on the
obverse: while the personified genius of the city is on the reverse of the
former. Further, the well-known works of De Saulcy and of Ekhel would have
supplied the information that, from the time of Augustus to that of
Gordian, the Gadarene coinage had the same thoroughly Gentile character.
Curious that a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law" should tolerate
such a mint!
Whatever increase in population the Ghetto of Gadara may have undergone
between B.C. 4 and A.D. 66, it nowise affected the Gentile and anti-Judaic
character of the city at the outbreak of the great war; for Josephus tells
us that immediately after the great massacre at Caesarea, the revolted Jews
"laid waste 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 {549} Mosaic law," the ravaging of
their territory by their brother Jews in revenge for the massacre of the
Caesarean Jews by the Gentile population of that place, would surely have
been a somewhat unaccountable proceeding. But when we proceed a little
further, to the fifth section of the chapter in which this statement
occurs, the whole affair becomes intelligible enough.
Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up against
the Jews that were among them: those of Askelon slew two thousand five
hundred, and those of Ptolemais two thousand, and put not a few into
bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a
greater number in prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara
did the like, while they put to death the boldest of the Jews, but kept
those of whom they were most afraid in custody; as did the rest of the
cities of Syria according as they every one either hated them or were
afraid of them.
Josephus is not always trustworthy, but he has no conceivable motive for
altering facts here; he speaks of contemporary events, in which he himself
took 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 reserved for his latest commentator, either ignoring, or ignorant of,
all this, to tell us that Gadara had a Hebrew population bound by the
Mosaic law.
In the face of all this evidence, most of which has been put before serious
students, with full reference to the needful authorities and in a
thoroughly judicial manner, by Schuerer in his classical work,[157] one
reads {550} with stupefaction the statement which Mr. Gladstone has thought
fit to put before the uninstructed public:
Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for stating
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. This 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, and still
less (if less may be) the population of the neighbourhood, and least of
all the swine-herding or lower portion of that population, were other
than Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law. (Pp. 373-4.)
Even "rapid judgment" cannot be pleaded in excuse for this surprising
statement, because a "Note on the Gadarene miracle" is added (in a special
appendix), in which the references are given to the passages of Josephus,
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 can find no mention of
Gadara. In _Antiquities_, XVII. xi. 4, however, there is a passage which
would appear to be that which Mr. Gladstone means, and I will give it in
full, although I have already cited part of it:
There were also certain of the cities which paid tribute to Archelaus;
Strato's tower, and Sebaste, with Joppa and Jerusalem; for, as to Gaza,
Gadara, and Hippos, they were Grecian cities, which Caesar separated
from his government, and added them to the province of Syria.
That is to say, Augustus simply restored the state of things which existed
before he gave Gadara, then certainly a Gentile city, lying outside Judaea,
to {551} Herod as a mark of great personal favour. Yet Mr. Gladstone can
gravely tell those who are not in a position to check his statements:
The sense seems to be not that these cities were inhabited by a Greek
population, but that they had politically been taken out of Judaea and
added to Syria, which I presume was classified as simply Hellenic, a
portion of the great Greek empire erected by Alexander. (Pp. 295-6.)
Mr. Gladstone's next reference is to the _Wars_, III. vii. 1:
So Vespasian marched to the city Gadara, and took it upon the first
onset, because he found it destitute of a considerable number of men
grown up fit for war. He then came into it, and slew all the youth, the
Romans having no mercy on any age whatsoever; and this was done out of
the hatred they bore the nation, and because of the iniquity they had
been guilty of in the affair of Cestius.
Obviously, then, Gadara was an ultra-Jewish city. Q.E.D. But a student
trained in the use of weapons of precision, rather than in that of
rhetorical tomahawks, has had many and painful warnings to look well about
him before trusting an argument to the mercies of a passage, the context of
which he has not carefully considered. If Mr. Gladstone had not been too
much in a hurry to turn his imaginary prize to account--if he had paused
just to look at the preceding chapter of Josephus--he would have discovered
that his much haste meant very little speed. He would have found (_Wars_,
III. vi. 2) that Vespasian marched from his base, the port of Ptolemais
(Acre), on the shores of the Mediterranean, into Galilee; and, having dealt
with the so-called "Gadara," was minded {552} to finish 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, he took that city, whence his
communications with his base could easily be threatened, first. It might
really have been fair evidence of demoniac possession, if the best general
of Rome had marched forty odd miles, as the crow flies, through hostile
Galilee, to take a city (which, moreover, had just tried to abolish its
Jewish population) on the other side of the Jordan; and then marched back
again to a place fourteen miles off his starting-point.[158] One would
think that the most careless of readers must be startled by this
incongruity into inquiring whether there might not be something wrong with
the text; and if he had done so he would {553} have easily discovered that
since the time of Reland, a century and a half ago, careful scholars have
read Ga_b_ara for Ga_d_ara.[159]
Once more, I venture to point out that training in the use of the weapons
of precision of science may have its value in historical studies, if only
in preventing the occurrence of droll blunders in geography.
In the third citation (_Wars_, IV. vii.) Josephus tells us that Vespasian
marched against "Gadara," which he calls the metropolis of Peraea (it was
possibly the seat of a common festival of the Decapolitan cities), and
entered it without opposition, the wealthy and powerful citizens having
opened negotiations with him without the knowledge of an opposite party,
who, "as being inferior in number to their enemies who were within the
city, and seeing the Romans very near the city," resolved to fly. Before
doing so, however, they, after a fashion unfortunately too common among the
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 {554} the passage in support
of Mr. Gladstone's contention seems rather remarkable. Taken in conjunction
with the shortly antecedent ravaging of the Gadarene territory by the Jews,
in fact, better proof could hardly be expected of the real state of the
case; namely, that the population of Gadara (and notably the wealthy and
respectable part of it) was thoroughly Hellenic; though, as in Caesarea and
elsewhere among the Palestinian cities, the rabble contained a considerable
body of fanatical Jews, whose reckless ferocity made them, even though a
mere minority of the population, a standing danger to the city.
Thus Mr. Gladstone's conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the
population of Gadara were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," turns out to
depend upon nothing better than a marvellously complete misinterpretation
of what that author says, combined with equally marvellous geographical
misunderstandings, long since exposed and rectified; while the positive
evidence that Gadara, like other cities of the Decapolis, was thoroughly
Hellenic in organisation and essentially Gentile in population is
overwhelming.
And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take the
trouble to inquire about what has been said about it, however obscure to
those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the Gadarene swineherds,
or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law shows itself to be an empty
and most unfortunate guess. But really, whether they that kept the swine
were Jews, or whether they were Gentiles, is a {555} consideration which
has no relevance whatever to my case. The legal provisions which alone had
authority over an 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 firmly. Moreover, in the matter of
keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that Gadarene law left everybody free
to do as he pleased, indeed encouraged the practice rather than otherwise.
Not only was pork one of the commonest and one of the most favourite
articles of Roman diet; but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a
sacrificial animal of high importance. Sucking pigs played an important
part in Hellenic purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance
of the Roman suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.
Under these circumstances, only the extreme need of a despairing
"reconciler" drowning in a sea of adverse facts, can explain the catching
at such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the swineherds of the
"country of the Gadarenes" were erring Jews, doing a little clandestine
business on their own account. The endeavour to justify the asserted
destruction of the swine by the analogy of breaking open a cask of {556}
smuggled spirits, and wasting their contents on the ground, is curiously
unfortunate. Does Mr. Gladstone mean 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 with a pig-keeping Hebrew than I
have a right to interfere with an English professor of the Israelitic
faith, if I see a slice of ham on his plate. According to the law of the
country in which these Galilean foreigners found themselves, men might keep
pigs if they pleased. If the men who kept them were Jews, it might be
permissible for the strangers to inform the religious authority
acknowledged by the Jews of Gadara, but to interfere themselves in such a
matter was a step devoid of either moral or legal justification.
Suppose a modern English Sabbatarian fanatic, who believes, on the strength
of his interpretation of the fourth commandment, that it is 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 Sunday morning--is the former justified
in setting fire to the latter's corn? Would not an English court of justice
speedily teach him better? {557}
In truth, the government which permits private persons, on any pretext
(especially pious and patriotic pretexts), to take the law into their own
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, or who
fail to disapprove them, are doing their best to dissolve civil
society--they are compassers of illegality and fautors of immorality.
I fully understand that Mr. Gladstone may not see the matter in this light.
He may possibly consider that the union of Gadara with the Decapolis by
Augustus was a "blackguard" transaction, which deprived Hellenic Gadarene
law of all moral force; and that it was quite 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, did really exist. And, that being so, I can only say I do
not agree with him, but leave the matter to the appreciation of those of
our countrymen, happily not yet the minority, who believe that the first
condition of enduring liberty is obedience to the law of the land.
The end of the month drawing nigh, I thought it well to send away the
manuscript of the foregoing pages yesterday, leaving open, in my own mind,
the possibility of adding a succinct characterisation of Mr. Gladstone's
controversial methods as illustrated {558} 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 delineation of Mr. Gladstone's
way of dealing with disputed questions of another kind, that no poor effort
of mine could better it as a description of the aspect which his treatment
of scientific, historical, and critical questions presents to me.
The smallest examination would have told a man of his capacity and of
his experience that he was uttering the grossest exaggerations, that he
was basing arguments upon the slightest hypotheses, and that his
discussions only had to be critically examined by the most careless
critic in order to show their intrinsic hollowness.
Those who have followed me through this paper will hardly dispute the
justice of this judgment, severe as it is. But the Chief Secretary for
Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a natural, as
well as a highly cultivated, aptitude for the use of methods of precision
in investigation, and for the exact enunciation of the results thereby
obtained.
* * * * *
{559}
XV
ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
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 {560} 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 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.[160]
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 {561} 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.