5 i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



quite natural that the Tyrians, a Gentile people, should actively 

 maintain the Roman domination. And the Gadarenes on this oc- 

 casion acted with them. Shall this prove Gadara to be a Gentile 

 city ? Certainly not ; for Gabara was a Galilsean, and, as Mr. 

 Huxley sees, a thoroughly Jewish city, and yet it shared in the 

 overthrow of Gischala. There can not be a clearer proof that, in 

 certain cases, it was not the question of religion or race that deter- 

 mined the balance of opinion and the action of the community, 

 but the question of war or peace. I rely, then, on the strategical 

 movement of Vespasian to show that Gadara, an important center 

 of Jewish population, was also in the main an important seat of 

 Jewish military strength ; most of all, perhaps, as being the cen- 

 ter at which the rural population of Gadaris would muster for 

 war in case of emergency. 



IV. The Jewish Law in Gadaris. Although, in inquiries 

 of this kind, we may speak of Jewish or Hebrew populations, as 

 Dean Milman does, to describe generally those who were adverse 

 to the Roman power, the expressions are not quite satisfactory, 

 because, in themselves, they involve a condition of race ; whereas, 

 to say nothing of those descendants of the ancient Canaanites who 

 had conformed to Judaism, we find that the Mosaic law was im- 

 posed at the time of which we treat, as a consequence of conquest 

 if not on Gentile yet on mixed populations. And the real ques- 

 tion in respect to the Gadarene territory is not exclusively 

 whether the population were of Hebrew extraction, but also, and 

 indeed mainly, whether they were Jewish as being bound by the 

 Jewish law : or, as I should like to call it, whether they were a 

 Mosaic population. To this question let us now further look. 



According to Origen,* Gadara was simply a city of Judaea. 

 According to Josephus in one passage, it was a Grecian city, as 

 were Hippos and Gaza.f But in another place he includes it in a 

 great group of cities which were Syrian, Idumsean, or Phoenician, \ 

 and he then places it in the Syrian subdivision of that group. 

 We are guided by the nature of the case to the meaning of these 

 two last-named designations. There was no properly Hellenic 

 element reckoned in the population of the country,* though there 

 must have been a sprinkling of Greeks concerned in the admin- 

 istration of the kingdoms founded by Alexander's generals. As 

 there were Phoenicians in the earliest Hellas, so now there were 

 important Hellenic settlers in Asia, and, without doubt, a larger 

 number of Hellenized Asiatics. In connection with the name of 

 Gadaris, Strabo || enumerates a few Greek individuals of some 

 distinction. The case has been sufficiently explained by Grote, A 

 who allows as the characteristics of what was, he thinks improp- 



* In Joann., p. 141. % Antiq., xiii, 15, 4. || Ibid., xvi, 2, 29. 



f Bell. Jud., ii, 0, 3. * Strabo, xvi, 2. A Hist, of Greece, xii, 362-"7. 



