Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions Part 37

[165] 1st Gospel: "And the devils _besought him_, saying, If Thou cast us out send us away _into_ the herd of swine." 2d Gospel: "They _besought him_, saying, Send us _into_ the swine." 3d Gospel: "They _intreated him_ that he would give them leave to enter _into_ them."

[166] See Marquardt, _Romische Staatsverwaltung_, Bd. III. p. 408.

[167] _Nineteenth Century_, March 1889 (p. 362).

[168] "The Value of Witness to the Miraculous." _Nineteenth Century_, March 1889.

[169] I cannot ask the Editor of this Review to reprint pages of an old article,--but the following pa.s.sages sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the extent and the character of the discrepancy between the facts of the case and Mr.

Gladstone's account of them:--

"Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably sceptical if I say that the existence of demons who can be transferred from a man to a pig does thus contravene probability. Let me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no _a priori_ objection to offer.... I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why these transferable devils should not exist."... ("Agnosticism," _Nineteenth Century_, 1889, p. 177).

"What then do we know about the originator, or originators, of this groundwork--of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's phrase) agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to be able to render to their Master?" (_ibid._ p. 175).

I then go on through a couple of pages to discuss the value of the evidence of the synoptics on critical and historical grounds. Mr. Gladstone cites the essay from which these pa.s.sages are taken, whence I suppose he has read it; though it may be that he shares the impatience of Cardinal Manning where my writings are concerned. Such impatience will account for, though it will not excuse, his sixth proposition.

[170] The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the world to disturb men; they entered into the body of unclean animals, "often that of a pig, as on the Sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane Museum."--Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 88, Editorial Note.

[171] In May 1849 the Tigris at Bagdad rose 22 feet--5 feet above its usual rise--and nearly swept away the town. In 1831 a similarly exceptional flood did immense damage, destroying 7000 houses. See Loftus, _Chaldea and Susiana_, p. 7.

[172] See the instructive chapter on Hasisadra's flood in Suess, _Das Antlitz der Erde_, Abth. I. Only fifteen years ago a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal gave rise to a flood which covered 3000 square miles of the delta of the Ganges, 3 to 45 feet deep, destroying 100,000 people, innumerable cattle, houses, and trees. It broke inland, on the rising ground of Tipperah, and may have swept a vessel from the sea that far, though I do not know that it did.

[173] See Cernik's maps in _Petermanns Mittheilungen_, Erganzungshefte 44 and 45, 1875-76.

[174] I have not cited the dimensions given to the ship in most translations of the story, because there appears to be a doubt about them.

Haupt (_Keilinschriftliche Sindfluth-Bericht_, p. 13) says that the figures are illegible.

[175] It is probable that a slow movement of elevation of the land at one time contributed to the result--perhaps does so still.

[176] At a comparatively recent period, the littoral margin of the Persian Gulf extended certainly 250 miles farther to the north-west than the present embouchure of the Shatt-el Arab. (Loftus, _Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society_, 1853, p. 251.) The actual extent of the marine deposit inland cannot be defined, as it is covered by later fluviatile deposits.

[177] Tiele (_Babylonisch-a.s.syrische Geschichte_, pp. 572-3) has some very just remarks on this aspect of the epos.

[178] In the second volume of the _History of the Euphrates Expedition_, p.

637, Col. Chesney gives a very interesting account of the simple and rapid manner in which the people about Tekrit and in the marshes of Lemlum construct large barges, and make them watertight with bitumen. Doubtless the practice is extremely ancient; and as Colonel Chesney suggests, may possibly have furnished the conception of Noah's ark. But it is one thing to build a barge 44 ft. long by 11 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep in the way described; and another to get a vessel of ten times the dimensions, so constructed, to hold together.

[179] "Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine thatige Unwissenheit." _Maximen und Reflexionen_, iii.

[180] The well-known difficulties connected with this case have recently been carefully discussed by Mr. Bell in the _Transactions_ of the Geological Society of Glasgow.

[181] An instructive parallel is exhibited by the "Great Basin" of North America. See the remarkable memoir on "Lake Bonneville" by Mr. G. K.

Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, just published.

[182] It is true that earthquakes are common enough, but they are incompetent to produce such changes as those which have taken place.

[183] See Teller, _Geologische Beschreibung des sud-ostlichen Thessalien_: Denkschriften d. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, Bd. xl. p. 199.

[184] Dr. Langenbeck, _Die Theorien uber die Entstehung der Korallen-Inseln und Korallen-Riffe_ (p. 13), 1890.