408 PECULIAK CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



Mr. Gladstone's original proposition in "The 

 Impregnable Rock of Scripture " that " the popu- 

 lation of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the 

 population of the neighbourhood/' were " Hebrews 

 bound by the Mosaic law " ? And what is the 

 importance of estimating the precise proportion of 

 H'ebrews who may have resided, either in the city 

 of Gadara or in its dependent territory, when, as 

 Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am careful 

 to say " seems "), the government, and conse- 

 quently the law, which ruled in that territory and 

 defined civil right and wrong was Gentile and not 

 Judaic ? But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared 

 to maintain that the Gentile " local civil govern- 

 ment" of a city of the Decapolis administered 

 Jewish Law ; and showed their respect for it, 

 more particularly, by stamping their coinage with 

 effigies of the Emperors. 



In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me 

 errors which I have not committed, Mr. Gladstone 

 has given away his case. 



PROP. 4. He fatally confounds the question of 

 political party with those of nationality and of 

 religion, and assumes that those who took the side 

 of Rome in the factions that prevailed could nut be 

 subject to the Mosaic Law. 



It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of 

 life ; once more, a " fatal error/' But Mr. Glad- 

 stone has forgotten an excellent rule of contro- 

 versy ; say what is true, of course, but mind that 



