took the side of Rome in the factions that prevailed could not be subject to the Mosaic law.
It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a "fatal" error. But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of controversy: say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable, that any one who has read Josephus, or any other historian of the Jewish war, should be unaware that there were Jews (of whom Josephus himself was one), who "Romanized" and, more or less openly, opposed the war party. But, however that may be, I assert that Mr. Gladstone neither has produced, nor can produce, a passage of my writing which affords the slightest foundation for this particular article of his indictment.
Prop. 5. His examination of the text of Josephus is alike one-sided, inadequate, and erroneous.
Easy to say, hard to prove. So long as the authorities whom I have cited are on my side, I do not know why this singularly temperate and convincing dictum should trouble me. I have yet to become acquainted with Mr. Gladstone's claims to speak with an authority equal to that of scholars of the rank of Schürer, whose obviously just and necessary emendations he so unceremoniously pooh-poohs.
Prop. 6. Finally, he sets aside, on grounds not critical or historical, but purely subjective, the primary historical testimony on the subject, namely, that of the three synoptic Evangelists, who write as contemporaries and deal directly with the subject, neither of which is done by any other authority.
Really this is too much! The fact is, as anybody can see who will turn to my article of February, 1889 [Popular Science Monthly, April, 1889], out of which all this discussion has arisen, that the arguments upon which I rest the strength of my case touching the swine-miracle, are exactly "historical" and "critical." Expressly, and in words that can not be misunderstood, I refuse to rest on what Mr. Gladstone calls "subjective" evidence. I abstain from denying the possibility of the Gadarene occurrence, and I even go so far as to speak of some physical analogies to possession. In fact, my quondam opponent, Dr. Wace, shrewdly, but quite fairly, made the most of these admissions, and stated that I had removed the only "consideration which would have been a serious obstacle" in the way of his belief in the Gadarene story.[1]
So far from setting aside the authority of the Synoptics on "subjective" grounds, I have taken a great deal of trouble to
- ↑ Nineteenth Century, March, 1889, p. 362 [Popular Science Monthly, May, 1889, p. 76]
