rated from it by the accounts of the
healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew, and of a discussion
with some Pharisees. Again, while the second gospel speaks of the
country of the "Gerasenes" as the locality of the event, the third
gospel has "Gerasenes," "Gergesenes," and "Gadarenes" in different
ancient MSS.; while the first has "Gadarenes."

The really important points to be noticed, however, in the narrative
of the first gospel, are these--that there are two possessed men
instead of one; and that while the story is abbreviated by omissions,
what there is of it is often verbally identical with the corresponding
passages in the other two gospels. The most unabashed of reconcilers
cannot well say that one man is the same as two, or two as one; and,
though the suggestion really has been made, that two different
miracles, agreeing in all essential particulars, except the number of
the possessed, were effected immediately after the storm on the lake,
I should be sorry to accuse any one of seriously adopting it. Nor will
it he pretended that the allegory refuge is accessible in this
particular case.

So, when Dr. Wace says that he believes in the synoptic evangelists'
account of the miraculous bedevilment of swine, I may fairly ask which
of them does he believe? Does he hold by the one evangelist's story,
or by that of the two evangelists? And having made his election, what
reasons has he to give for his choice? If it is suggested that the
witness of two is to be taken against that of one, not only is the
testimony dealt with in that common-sense fashion against which the
theologians of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question
of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all,
is it the testimony of two against one? Are the authors of the
versions in the second and third gospels really independent witnesses?
In order to answer this question, it is only needful to place the
English versions of the two side by side, and compare them carefully.
It will then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in
substance, but in arrangement, and in the use of identical words in
the same order, are such, that only two alternatives are conceivable:
either one evangelist freely copied from the other, or both based
themselves upon a common source, which may either have been a written
document, or a definite oral tradition learned by heart. Assuredly,
these two testimonies are not thos