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 {562} good deal of pains to show that the question thus raised is
of no importance in relation to the main issue.[161] 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 tetrarch
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 {563} 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
_Handwoerterbuch_, 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 Graeco-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, 2000 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 {564} reason for
thinking that the possessors of these herds were Jews.[162]
Having failed in my search, so far, I took up the next work of reference at
hand, Kitto's _Cyclopaedia_ (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,[163] 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 those "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 carcases 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 {565} animal as well as of a dead one; and that, since swineherds
could hardly avoid contact with their charges, their calling was implicitly
forbidden.[164] 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 {566} 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 travellers'
return homewards, "the dog went after them" (xi. 4). {567}
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 quicksand; 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,[165] 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 {568} 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 {569} 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 works 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. {570} 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_,[166] 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 {571} 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 the 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. 547 and 553 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 {572} 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 {573} or in its dependant 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 {574} 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 Schuerer, 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, 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
{575} removed the only "consideration which would have been a serious
obstacle" in the way of his belief in the Gadarene story.[167]
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 mediaeval
miracles have been propounded by contemporaries. And in illustration of
this position I wrote a special essay about the miracles reported by
Eginhard.[168]
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.[169]
{576}
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 {577} 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 in 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, having spent their lives outside the political
world, yet take a mild and philosophical concern in what goes on in it,
often find {578} 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.