§ 6. HOW ARTEMIDORUS QUESTIONED ME FURTHER, AND OF HIS RELATION CONCERNING THE CASTING OUT OF THE SWINE.
“ARTEMIDORUS TO ONESIMUS, HEALTH.
“Although I could have wished, my dear Onesimus, that you had been able to answer my first questions, point by point, yet your account of the discourse spoken by the Christian priest Lucius was not without interest for me; confirming, as it did, an opinion that I have ever entertained, namely, that no portents how incredible soever, and no absurdities however palpable, can ever deter the multitude from embracing a new belief, if there be somewhat in it of a nature to fascinate the soul and feed the imagination. But still my desire is that you should do your utmost to discover what this superstition contains, of a nature thus to fascinate the multitude; for it is not apparent to me from anything that you have hitherto written, since you describe a religion that has no sacred books, no feasts, no processions, no code of laws that might unite and regulate a disorderly mass of men.
“In addition to this I would gladly receive answers to these two further questions, on the first of which you yourself touched in your first letter but so as to suggest rather than explain: 1st, Does this sect require that all, as many as join themselves to it, Greeks as well as Jews, (for I understand that Greeks also are admitted by them), shall observe the laws of the Jews? Or does it remit the laws for those who are not Jews? Or are they remitted for all, Jews as well as Greeks? 2nd, I cannot understand from the discourse of Lucius whether he supposes Christus to be born of man and woman in a natural way, or in a divine way born of woman only. This question I believe I asked before; but now I repeat it, partly lest you should suppose it to have been already answered by the priest’s discourse, partly because (in conversation with certain Christians of Hierapolis) I have heard that there is some diversity of opinion concerning this matter among the Christians themselves.
“Here might I well make an end; but because I have especially charged you to report to me concerning any portents related of the life of Christus, I will briefly explain to you my meaning and purpose herein. A thousand times, as you know well, I have wearied you with repeating that no religion can ever commend itself to the multitude unless it be first clothed, as it were, in a vesture, whereby the eyes of the many may be drawn towards it. For it is not given to the multitude to love the naked truth; but they must needs clothe her in their purple and set on her brow diadems of their own giving. Well, my friend, even such a clothing, adorning and crowning of religion, are you methinks now witnessing. For it is beyond all question that in a few years, if not already, the believers in this new faith will have clothed or embellished the life of their Leader with all manner of wonders, which in itself it had not. And already I discern this process of clothing, in the beginning and first endeavor. For whereas your Lucius preaches about ‘the Star of Judah’ shining, and the ‘preparing of the table in the wilderness,’ and the stilling of the storm by him whose ‘path is on the deep waters,’ and the testimony of Moses and Elias on the right hand and on the left of Christus, and the giving of the ‘Bread of Life’ and the ‘living Water,’ and the ‘Wine of the Lord’s Blood’—I doubt not but both these and many other figures and metaphors either are, or speedily will be, so interlaced with the tradition of the life of Christus, that his followers will soon believe (even though they believe not already) that he did really and actually walk upon the waves and bestow upon them miraculous water, and miraculous wine and bread, yes, and that a special Star shone forth at his birth, and that saints rose from their graves along with him, and that Moses and Elias did really appear on his right hand and on his left bearing testimony to him, and a thousand other portents which it would be easier for you to enumerate than for me, but equally tedious for both of us. Wherefore, since you assure me that these people have as yet no sacred books, but only an unwritten tradition, I would have you inquire diligently concerning this tradition whether it contain any such wonders as these; and if not, then whether their common talk (which must needs in the end insinuate itself into their tradition, unless there come some let or unforeseen hindrance) have not already begun to imbue itself with miracles and marvels of this sort.
“As touching the transmutation—so let us call it—of things metaphorical into things literal I myself have of late obtained one instance which I will contribute to our common store. Upon receipt of your first letter, discoursing with a certain acquaintance of mine—one Evander, a physician and an educated man, not I think unknown to you—concerning the causes and symptoms of ‘possession,’ he made this observation, that it is the custom of the patient in such cases (his stomach, as well as his mind, being altogether corrupted and diseased) to suppose that he has within his belly all manner of filthy and foul creatures, such as toads, serpents, dragons, scorpions, adders, dogs, swine and the like, which creatures, when the possessed man is suddenly healed, he often sees (or rather imagines and fancies himself to see) going forth from his mouth into banishment or destruction. And he added that among the Phrygians the possessed were wont to suppose that hooded snakes or scorpions were within them, but among the Jews (who have a special abhorrence of certain animals, considering them to be unclean) it was more common to imagine the presence of swine; and not unnaturally, said he, because these animals (having no real existence but being the mere offspring of the imagination) necessarily vary with the imagination that gives them birth. Then he went on relate how a Jew being (as all Jews are) a great hater of the Romans, and also considering swine to be unclean, had imagined himself to be possessed by a Legion, not however of soldiers but of swine; which swine, when they were cast forth into the deep or ‘abyss’ (for by this name they are wont to call the void place wherein bodiless spirits or demons are supposed to roam) were seen by the Jew, the possessed man, to go forth from his mouth and run violently down to the said abyss. This tradition, he said, he had heard some years ago from another physician who lived at Tiberias, not far from the place where the man had been healed; and he that had healed him was, according to the saying of the physician of Tiberias, no other than this very same Christus, who is now worshipped by your friends, the Christians, as a God.
“When I heard this, considering with myself that in all likelihood, if this were so, some story of it would even now be current among the followers of Christus, I went on the morrow to Hierapolis, to that same Tatias of whom I made mention in my previous letter, and questioning him about them that are possessed, whether he knew of many that had been healed by Christus, I recounted to him my story concerning the man possessed with a Legion and asked him whether that was the true account of the matter. To which he replied that in his youth he had heard that account, or somewhat like unto it, but it was not exact; for how, said he, could a legion of creatures of the size of swine, be shut in within the compass of one human belly? But according to him, the true story was, that the Legion of evil spirits having been cast out of the man, assumed the shapes of swine, and were then cast into the abyss. Then another of the same sect who happened to be present, said that neither was that version of the story altogether exact; for why should demons, having shapes already, perchance of gnats or flies or whatever else, assume fresh shapes of swine? But the truth was, that the legion of demons being two thousand in number—for the latest narrator of all, mark you, is assured of the exact number, which was not known in the earliest traditions—finding themselves on the point to be cast out of the man’s body, and fearing to be without bodies and so to be cast into the abyss, besought Christus that it might be permitted to them to pass into the bodies of two thousand swine; which swine happened to be at that instant pasturing—conveniently indeed for the demons but contrary to the laws of the Jews—near to the demoniac. ‘Then,’ said he (for it is worth while to recount his exact words) ‘when the Lord suffered them, behold, the whole legion of demons rushed into the two thousand swine; but they gained nothing thereby. For the swine rushed violently down a steep place into the sea of Tiberias’ (no longer you will observe into the abyss) ‘and were there drowned.’ To this account another companion of Tatias assented, as being the latest and truest tradition; but he added yet a new fact, namely, that those who were feeding the swine being terrified (as how should they not be?) by so great a destruction, fled away into the city, and that the citizens coming together in much fear, besought Jesus that he would depart out of their coasts.
“Meditate much, my dear Onesimus, upon this story; and may it be profitable to you in your search after the truth. But why do I speak of truth in such a case as this, where so few grains of truth are inclosed in so great a mass of falsehood? Sometimes, indeed, I repent of having imposed on you so barren a task; nevertheless persevere, for there must be some powerful cause to produce so great an effect upon the lives of these Christians, even though they be unlearned and superstitious. Farewell.”