("Wars,” II. xviii. 1).  I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of “Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law,” the ravaging of their territory by their brother Jews, in revenge for the massacre of the Caesarean Jews by the Gentile population of that place, would surely have been a somewhat unaccountable proceeding.  But when we proceed a little further, to the fifth section of the chapter in which this statement occurs, the whole affair becomes intelligible enough.

Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up against the Jews that were among them:  those of Askelon slew two thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two thousand, and put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a great number in prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara did the like, while they put to death the boldest of the Jews, but kept those of whom they were most afraid in custody; as did the rest of the cities of Syria according as they every one either hated them or were afraid of them.

Josephus is not always trustworthy, but he has no conceivable motive for altering facts here; he speaks of contemporary events, in which he himself took an active part, and he characterises the cities in the way familiar to him.  For Josephus, Gadara is just as much a Gentile city as Ptolemais; it was reserved for his latest commentator, either ignoring, or ignorant of, all this, to tell us that Gadara had a Hebrew population, bound by the Mosaic law.

In the face of all this evidence, most of which has been put before serious students, with full reference to the needful authorities and in a thoroughly judicial manner, by Schuerer in his classical work,[104] one reads with stupefaction the statement which Mr. Gladstone has thought fit to put before the uninstructed public: 

Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine was innocent and lawful.  This is not quite the place for a critical examination of the matter; but I have examined it, and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no reason whatever to suppose that the population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the population of the neighbourhood, and least of all the swine-herding or lower portion of that population, were other than Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law.  (Pp. 373-4.)

Even “rapid judgment” cannot be pleaded in excuse for this surprising statement, because a “Note on the Gadarene miracle” is added (in a special appendix), in which the references are given to the passages of Josephus, by the improved interpretation of which, Mr. Gladstone has thus contrived to satisfy himself of the thing which is not.  One of these is “Antiquities” XVII. xiii. 4, in which section, I regret to say, I can find no mention of Gadara.  In “Antiquities,” XVII. xi. 4, however, there is a passage which would appear to be that Mr. Gladstone means; and I will give it in full, although I have already cited part of it: