PROF. HUXLEY AND THE SWINE-MIRACLE. 519 



assumption, therefore, is that the large majority, especially of the 

 rural and laboring population, was either of genuinely Hebrew- 

 origin, or was drawn from one of those nations of Canaan who 

 were in prior occupation. As to these, the reader of the Sacred 

 Volume must be struck by the contrast between the pre-exilic and 

 the post-exilic times. In the earlier history of Palestine, we are 

 only too much reminded of their presence by the fatal fascina- 

 tions of their worship. At the later period, when Judaism had 

 set itself firmly against idolatry, they seem to be effaced ; and we 

 are left to infer that unless in Samaria, on which they imprinted 

 a hybrid character, they had either quitted the country or had 

 been drawn gradually within the compass of the more substantive 

 religion, and had come to be reckoned in the number of the domi- 

 nant and stronger race. Over and above these considerations, and 

 that re-establishment of the Jewish law in the recovered cities, of 

 which notice has already been taken, it is known that, after the 

 two captivities, there was a powerful reflux or reaction of the 

 Hebrew element or race in Northern Palestine, which, perhaps, 

 was the means of establishing the broad distinction between it 

 and Samaria. Dean Milman notices this infusion.* Samaria re- 

 mained, he observes, in comparative insignificance. But the north 

 became gradually populous, whether from the multiplication of 

 those who had escaped deportation, or from those who returned, 

 with the aid, perhaps, of families belonging to the southern tribes 

 of Judah and Benjamin. "We might have expected it partially to 

 repair to the neighboring district of Samaria, and to the temple 

 on Mount Gerizim ; but, on the contrary, the inhabitants wor- 

 shiped in Jerusalem, followed the fortunes of its ruling power, 

 and fought desperately at the close for the national cause. He 

 speaks in particular of the two Galilees, but the resistance, as Dr. 

 Edersheim has stated, extended beyond them, and it is plain that 

 in a portion, at least, and evidently the nearer portion, of Decapo- 

 lis strong nationalism prevailed. And here we may admire the 

 wisdom of Gabinius in providing at Gadara and Sepphoris for 

 the local administration of the law, and thus relieving this great 

 population from much of the inconvenience of dependence on a 

 distant center at Jerusalem. 



Quite apart from the conclusive testimony of Josephus, Mr. 

 Huxley has evidently seen that the Synoptical Gospels, in the 

 narrative of the swine, and in other parts, presuppose the pre- 

 dominance of a Hebrew nationality in the population of Gadaris. 

 He is wise, therefore, in not only rejecting the story, but avail- 

 ing himself of the occasion in order to challenge the general au- 

 thority of the Gospels. Conversely, all we who acknowledge their 



* Edersheim, i, 441, 2. 



