402 PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



when all three concur. These Gospels agree in 

 stating, in the most express, and to some extent 

 verbally identical, terms, that the devils entered 

 the pigs at their own request, 1 and the third 

 Gospel (viii. 31) tells us what the motive of the 

 demons was in asking the singular boon : " They 

 intreated him that he would not command them 

 to depart into the abyss." From this, it would 

 seem that the devils thought to exchange the 

 heavy punishment of transportation to the abyss 

 for the lighter penalty of imprisonment in swine. 

 And some commentators, more ingenious than 

 respectful to the supposed chief actor in this 

 extraordinary fable, have dwelt, with satisfaction, 

 upon the very unpleasant quarter of an hour 

 which the evil spirits must have had, when the 

 headlong rush of their maddened tenements 

 convinced them how completely they were taken 

 in. In the whole story, there is not one solitary 

 hint that the destruction of the pigs was intended 

 as a punishment of their owners, or of the 

 swineherds. On the contrary, the concurrent 

 testimony of the three narratives is to the effect 

 that the catastrophe was the consequence of 

 diabolic suggestion. And, indeed, no source could 



1 1st Gospel : " And the devils "besought him, saying, If Thou 

 cast us out send us away into the herd of swine." 2d Gospel : 

 "They besought him, saying, Send us into the swine." 3d 

 Gospel : " They inlreated him that he would give them leave ta 

 enter into them." 



