416 PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



of Christians have held them and still hold them. 

 Moreover the oldest records we possess of the 

 early conceptions of mankind in Egypt and in 

 Mesopotamia prove that exactly such demonology, 

 as is implied in the Gadarene story, formed the 

 substratum, and, among the early Accadians, 

 apparently the greater part, of their supposed 

 knowledge of the spiritual world. M. Lenormant's 

 profoundly interesting work on Babylonian magic 

 and the magical texts given in the Appendix to 

 Professor Sayce's " Hibbert Lectures " leave no 

 doubt on this head. They prove that the doctrine 

 of possession, and even the particular case of pig 

 possession, 1 were firmly believed in by the Egyp- 

 tians and the Mesopotarnians before the tribes of 

 Israel invaded Palestine. And it is evident that 

 these beliefs, from some time after the exile 

 and probably much earlier, completely interpene- 

 trated the Jewish mind, and thus became insep- 

 arably interwoven with the fabric of the synoptic 

 Gospels. 



Therefore, behind the question of the acceptance 

 of the doctrines of the oldest heathen demonology 

 as part of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, 

 there lies the question of the credibility of the 



1 The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the world 

 to disturb men ; they entered into the body of unclean animals, 

 "often that of a pig, as on the Sarcophagus of Seti J. in the 

 Soane Museum." Leuorinant, C/taldean Magic, p. 88, Editorial 

 Note. 



