Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/535

Rh assumption, therefore, is that the large majority, especially of the rural and laboring population, was either of genuinely Hebrew origin, or was drawn from one of those nations of Canaan who were in prior occupation. As to these, the reader of the Sacred Volume must be struck by the contrast between the pre-exilic and the post-exilic times. In the earlier history of Palestine, we are only too much reminded of their presence by the fatal fascinations of their worship. At the later period, when Judaism had set itself firmly against idolatry, they seem to be effaced; and we are left to infer that unless in Samaria, on which they imprinted a hybrid character, they had either quitted the country or had been drawn gradually within the compass of the more substantive religion, and had come to be reckoned in the number of the dominant and stronger race. Over and above these considerations, and that re-establishment of the Jewish law in the recovered cities, of which notice has already been taken, it is known that, after the two captivities, there was a powerful reflux or reaction of the Hebrew element or race in Northern Palestine, which, perhaps, was the means of establishing the broad distinction between it and Samaria. Dean Milman notices this infusion. Samaria remained, he observes, in comparative insignificance. But the north became gradually populous, whether from the multiplication of those who had escaped deportation, or from those who returned, with the aid, perhaps, of families belonging to the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. We might have expected it partially to repair to the neighboring district of Samaria, and to the temple on Mount Gerizim; but, on the contrary, the inhabitants worshiped in Jerusalem, followed the fortunes of its ruling power, and fought desperately at the close for the national cause. He speaks in particular of the two Galilees, but the resistance, as Dr. Edersheim has stated, extended beyond them, and it is plain that in a portion, at least, and evidently the nearer portion, of Decapolis strong nationalism prevailed. And here we may admire the wisdom of Gabinius in providing at Gadara and Sepphoris for the local administration of the law, and thus relieving this great population from much of the inconvenience of dependence on a distant center at Jerusalem.

Quite apart from the conclusive testimony of Josephus, Mr. Huxley has evidently seen that the Synoptical Gospels, in the narrative of the swine, and in other parts, presuppose the predominance of a Hebrew nationality in the population of Gadaris. He is wise, therefore, in not only rejecting the story, but availing himself of the occasion in order to challenge the general authority of the Gospels. Conversely, all we who acknowledge their