lex and
difficult 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 threefold tradition presents us
with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its
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
demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there.

Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of
primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is
dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and
the more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not
have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.

It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and
exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual
world may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be
unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting
other matters which appertain to that world.

Those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would seem
to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing to
take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold
tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about
another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually
contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity.

It really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say
more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements
regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate
decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of
testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of
the four gospels. Until such evidence is brought forward, that
refusal of assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause
shown, which is what I mean by Agnosticism, is