tion, a standing danger to the city.

Thus Mr. Gladstone's conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the
population of Gadara were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," turns out
to depend upon nothing better than the marvellously complete
misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally
marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and
rectified; while the positive evidence that Gadara, like other cities
of the Decapolis, was thoroughly Hellenic in organisation, and
essentially Gentile in population, is overwhelming.

And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take
the trouble to enquire about what has been said about it, however
obscure to those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the
Gadarene swineherds, or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law
shows itself to be an empty and most unfortunate guess. But really,
whether they that kept the swine were Jews, or whether they were
Gentiles, is a consideration which has no relevance whatever to my
case. The legal provisions, which alone had authority over an
inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws
sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the
only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the
sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their
private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English
magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would
dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more
politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as firmly.
Moreover, in the matter of keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that
Gadarene law left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed
encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. Not only was pork one
of the commonest and one of the most favourite articles of Roman diet;
but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacrificial animal of
high importance. Sucking pigs played an important part in Hellenic
purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance of the Roman
suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.

Under these circumstances, only the extreme need of a despairing
"reconciler" drowning in a sea of adverse facts, can explain the
catching at such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the
swineherds of the "country of the Gadarenes" were erring Jews, doing a
little clandestine business on their own account. Th