PREFACE XXIX 



rival; and that, around this second narrative, 

 teaching traditions of a totally different order 

 from those in the Synoptics, grouped themselves ; 

 and, under the influence of converts imbued more 

 or less with the philosophical speculations of the 

 time, eventually took shape in the fourth Gospel 

 and its associated literature. 



XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would te 

 out of place, for me to attempt to do more than 

 indicate the existence of these complex and diffi- 

 cult questions. My purpose has been to make it 

 clear that the Synoptic problem must force itself 

 upon every one who studies the Gospels with 

 attention ; that the broad facts of the case, and 

 some of the consequences deducible from these 

 facts, are just as plain to the simple English 

 reader as they are to the profoundest scholar. 



One of these consequences is that the three- 

 fold tradition presents us with a narrative believed 

 to be historically true, in all particulars, by the 

 major part, if not the whole, of the Christian 

 communities. That narrative is penetrated, from 

 beginning to end, by the demonological beliefs of 

 which the Gadarene story is a specimen ; and, if 

 the fourth Gospel indicates the existence of another 

 and, in some respects, irreconcilably divergent 

 narrative, in which the demon ology retires into 

 the background, it is none the less there. 



Therefore, the demonology is an integral and 

 inseparable component of primitive Christianity. 



