388 KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE X 



whether they were Gentiles, is a consideration 

 which has no relevance whatever to my case. The 

 legal provisions, which alone had authority over 

 an inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, 

 were the Gentile laws sanctioned by the Roman 

 suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the only 

 law, which has authority in England, is that re- 

 cognised by the sovereign Legislature. Jewish 

 communities in England may have their private 

 code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an 

 English magistrate, if called upon to enforce their 

 peculiar laws, would dismiss the complainants 

 from the judgment seat, let us hope with more 

 politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite 

 as firmly. Moreover, in the matter of keeping 

 pigs, we may be quite certain that Gadarene law 

 left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed 

 encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. 

 Not only was pork one of the commonest and one ' 

 of the most favourite articles of Roman diet ; but, 

 to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacri- 

 ficial animal of high importance. Sucking pigs 

 played an important part in Hellenic purificatory 

 rites ; and everybody knows the significance of the 

 Roman suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas- 

 reliefs. 



Under these circumstances, only the extreme 

 need of a despairing " reconciler " drowning in a 

 sea of adverse facts, can explain the catching at 

 such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the 



