MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHOD. 523 



rable. From my " point of view " not from Mr. Gladstone's ap- 

 parently the little discrepancy between the facts and Mr. Glad- 

 stone'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 attenu- 

 ated reparation with which I am favored. 



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, Feb- 

 ruary, 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 prop- 

 erty is a misdemeanor of evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, 

 continuing his candid and urbane observations, remarks (Impreg- 

 nable 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 descrip- 

 tion here given of it ; and I shall show, by and by, that Mr. Glad- 

 stone has used language which, to my mind, involves the admis- 

 sion 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, f If Ga- 

 dara was, as I maintain it was, a city of the Decapolis, Hellenistic 

 in constitution and containing a predominantly Gentile popula- 

 tion, 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 



* [Popular Science Monthly, April, 1889.] 



f Neither is it of any consequence whether the locality of the supposed miracle was 

 Gadara, or Gerasa, or Gergesa. But I may say that I was well acquainted with Origen's 

 opinion respecting Gergesa. It is fully discussed and rejected in Riehm's Handworter- 

 buch. In Kitto's Bibilical Clyclopsedia (II, p. 51) Prof. Porter remarks that Origen merely 

 " conjectures " that Gergesa was indicated ; and he adds : " Now, in a question of this 

 kind, conjecture can not be admitted. We must implicitly follow the most ancient and 

 credible testimony, which clearly pronounces in favor of VaSap-rivwy. This reading is 

 adopted by Tischendorf, Alford, and Tregelles." 



