confirmed, if 'the evening' when Jesus embarked was what the Jews were wont to call 'the first evening,' that is, the time when the sun was declining in the heaven, but before it had actually set, the latter time being 'the second evening.' [2 The distinction between the two evenings seems marked in St. Matt. xiv. 15, as compared with verse 23. In both verses precisely the same expression is used. But between the first and the second evening a considerable interval of time must be placed.] For, it seems most unlikely that multitudes would have resorted to Jesus at Capernaum after 'the second evening, or that either the disciples or other boats would have put to sea after nightfall. On the other hand, the scene gains in grandeur, has, so to speak, a fitting background, if we suppose the Saviour and His disciples to have landed on the other side late in the evening, when perhaps the silvery moon was shedding her pale light on the weird scene, and laying her halo around the shadows cast upon the sea by the steep cliff down which the herd of swine hurried and fell. This would also give time afterwards for the dispersion, not only into 'the city,' but into 'the country' of them who had fed the swine. In that case, of course, it would be in the early morning that the Gerasenes afterwards resorted to Jesus and that He again returned to Capernaum. And, lastly this would allow sufficient time for those miracles which took place on that same day in Capernaum after His return thither. Thus, all the circumstances lead us to regard the healing of the demonised at Gerasa as a night- scene, immediately on Christ's arrival from Capernaum, and after the calming of the storm at sea.
It gives not only life to the narrative, but greatly illustrates it, that we can with confidence describe the exact place where our Lord and His disciples touched the other shore. The ruins right over against the plain of Gennesaret, which still bear the name of Kersa or Gersa, must represent the ancient Gerasa. [1 Comp. Tristram's 'Land of Israel,' p. 465; Badeker's (Socin) Palestina, p. 267. The objection in Riehm's Handworterb. p. 454, that Gerasa did not form part of the Decapolis manifestly derives no real support from St. Mark v. 20. The two facts are in no way inconsistent. All other localisations are impossible, since the text requires close proximity to the lake. Professor Socin describes this cliff as steep 'as nowhere else by the lake.'] This is the correct reading in St. Mark's, and probably in St. Luke's, perhaps also in St. Matthew's Gospel. [2 In this, as in all other instances, I can only indicate the critical results at which I have arrived. For the grounds, on which these conclusions are based, I must refer to the works which bear on the respective subjects.] The locality entirely meets the requirements of the narrative. About a quarter of an hour to the south of Gersa is a steep bluff, which descends abruptly on a narrow ledge of shore. A terrified herd running down this cliff could not have recovered its foothold, and must inevitably have been hurled into the Lake beneath. Again, the whole country around is burrowed with limestone caverns and rock-chambers for the dead, such as those which were the dwelling of the demonised. Altogether the scene forms a fitting background to the narrative.
From these tombs the demonised, who is specially singled out by St. Mark and St. Luke, as well as his less prominent companion, [a St. Matt. viii. 28.] came forth to meet Jesus. Much that is both erroneous and misleading has been written on Jewish Demonology. According to common Jewish superstition, the evil spirits dwelt especially in lonely desolate places, and also among tombs. [3 See Appendix XIII, 'Angelology and Demonology:' and Appendix XVI, 'Jewish Views about Demons and the Demonised.' Archdeacon Farrar has misunderstood the reference of Otho (Lex. Rabb. 146). The affections mentioned in Jer. Terum. 40 b are not treated as 'all demoniacs;' on the contrary, most of them, indeed all, with one exception, are expressly stated to be indications of mental disease (comp. also Chag. 3 b). The quotations of Gfrorer are, as too often, for a purpose, and untrustworthy, except after examination of the context.] We must here remember what has previously been explained as to the confusion in the consciousness of the demonised between their own notions and the ideas imposed on them by the demons. It is quite in accordance with the Jewish notions of the demonised, that, according to the more circumstantial account of St. Luke, he should feel as it were driven into the deserts, and that he was in the tombs, while, according to St. Mark, he was 'night and day in the tombs and in the mountains,' the very order of the words indicating the notion (as in Jewish belief), that it was chiefly at night that evil spirits were wont to haunt burying-places.
In calling attention to this and similar particulars, we repeat, that this must be kept in view as characteristic of the demonised, that they were incapable of separating their own consciousness and ideas from the influence of the demon, their own identity being merged, and to that extent lost, in that of their tormentors. In this respect the demonised state was also kindred to madness. Self-consciousness, or rather what may be termed Individuism, i.e. the consciousness of distinct and independent individuality, and with it the power of selforiginationin matters mental and moral (which some might term an aspect of free volition), distinguish the human soul from the mere animal spirit. But in maniacal disease this power is in abeyance, or temporarily lost through physical causes, such as disease of the brain as the medium of communication between the mind and the world of sense; disease of the nervous system, through which ordinarily impressions are conveyed to and from the sensorium; or disease of both brain and nervous system, when previously existing impressions on the brain (in memory, and hence possibly imagination) may be excited without corresponding outward causes. If in such cases the absolute power of self- origination and self-action is lost to the mind, habits of sin and vice (or moral disease) may have an analogous effect as regards moral freedom, the power of moral self-origination and action. In the demonised state the two appear combined, the cause being neither disease nor vice, but the presence of a superior power of evil. This loss of individuism, and the subjection of one's identity to that of the demon might, while it lasted, be called temporary 'possession,' in so far as the mental and moral condition of the person was for the time not one of freedom and origination, but in the control of the possessing demon.
One practical inference may even now be drawn from this somewhat abstruse discussion. The language and conduct of the demonised, whether seemingly his own, or that of the demons who influenced him, must always be regarded as a mixture of the Jewish-human and the demoniacal. The demonised speaks and acts as a Jew under the control of a demon. Thus, if he chooses solitary places by day, and tombs by night, it is not that demons really preferred such habitations, but that the Jews imagined it, and that the demons, acting on the existing consciousness, would lead him, in accordance with his preconceived notions, to select such places. Here also mental disease offers
points of analogy. For, the demonised would speak and act in accordance with his previous (Jewish) demonological ideas. He would not become a new man, but be the old man, only under the influence of the demon, just as in mania a person truly and consistently speaks and acts, although under the false impressions which a diseased brain conveys to him. The fact that in the demonised state a man's identity was not superseded, but controlled, enables us to account for many phenomena without either confounding demonism with mania, or else imputing to our Lord such accommodation to the notions of the times, as is not only untenable in itself, but forbidden even by the language of the present narrative.
The description of the demonised, coming out of the tombs to meet Jesus as He touched the shore at Gerasa, is vivid in the extreme. His violence, the impossibility of control by others, [1 St. Mark v. 3, 4.] the absence of self-control, [2 'Ware no clothes' (St. Luke viii. 27) may, however, refer only to the upper, not the under- garments.] his homicidal, [3 St. Matt. viii. 28.] and almost suicidal, [4 St. Mark v. 5.] frenzy, are all depicted. Evidently, it was the object to set forth the extreme degree of the demonised state. Christ, Who had been charged by the Pharisees with being the embodiment and messenger of Satan, is here face to face with the extreme manifestation of demoniac power and influence. It is once more, then, a Miracle in Parable which is about to take place. The question, which had been raised by the enemies, is about to be brought to the issue of a practical demonstration. We do not deny that the contest and the victory, this miracle, nay, the whole series of miracles of which it forms part, are extraordinary, even in the series of Christ's miracles. Our explanation proceeds on the very ground that such was, and must have been, the case. The teaching by Parables, and the parabolic miracles which follow, form, so to speak, an ascending climax, in contrast to the terrible charge which by-and-by would assume the proportions of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and issue in the betrayal and judicial murder of Jesus. There are critical epochs in the history of the Kingdom of God, when the power of evil, standing out in sharpest contrast, challenges that overwhelming manifestation of the Divine, as such, to bear down and crush that which opposes it. Periods of that kind are characterised by miraculous interposition of power, unique even in Bible-history. Such a period was, under the Old Testament, that of Elijah and Elisha, with its altogether exceptional series of miracles; and, under the New Testament, that after the first formulated charge of the Pharisees against the Christ.
With irresistible power the demonised was drawn to Jesus, as He touched the shore at Gerasa. As always, the first effect of the contact was a fresh paroxysm, [1 In his endeavour to represent the demonised state as a species of mania, which was affected by the Presence of Christ, Archdeacon Farrar makes the following statement: 'The presence, the look, the voice of Christ, even before He addressed these sufferers, seems always to have calmed and overawed them.' But surely the very opposite of this is the fact, and the first effect of contact with Christ was not calm, but a paroxysm.] but in this peculiar case not physical, but moral. As always also, the demons
