Collected Essays, Volume V: Science and Christian Tradition: EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Religion
Collected Essays, Volume V: Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Agnosticism; Miracles; Religion and science
At pp. 379 to 391 of the essay on "The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I
have fully discussed the question of the ethnical character of the
general population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who
surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city as
Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara amongst the cities
"that rose up against the Jews that were amongst them," which is a
pretty definite expression of his belief that the "ethnical character
of the general population" was Gentile. There is no question here of
Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews of the Zealot party, as Mr.
Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jewish and anti-Jewish general
population which rises up against the Jews who had settled "among
them."
PROP. 3. _His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile character
of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter_.
More fatal still. But, once more, not to me. I adduce not one, but a
variety of "items" in proof of the non-Judaic character of the
population of Gadara: the evidence of history; that of the coinage of
the city; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited--to mention no
others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those connected with
them--the "classes" and the "hangers on" of Mr. Gladstone's
well-known taxonomy--were, as he appears to admit they were, Gentiles;
if the "civil government" of the city was in their hands, as the
coinage proves it was; what becomes of Mr. Gladstone's original
proposition in "The Impregnable Rock of Scripture" that "the
population 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 Hebrews
who may have resided, either in the city of Gadara or in its
independent territory, when, as Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am
careful to say "seems"), the government, and consequently 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 government" 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 not be subject
to the Mosaic Law_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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