knew Jesus, and His Presence seemed to constrain their confession of themselves, and therefore of Him. As in nature the introduction of a dominant element sometimes reveals the hidden presence of others, which are either attracted or repelled by it, so the Presence of Christ obliged the manifestation, and, in the case of these evil spirits, the self-confession, of the powers of evil. In some measure it is the same still. The introduction of grace brings to light and experience sin hitherto unknown, and the new life brings consciousness of, and provokes contest with, evil within, of which the very existence had previously been unsuspected. In the present instance the immediate
effect was homage, [a St. Mark v. 6; St. Luke viii. 28.] which presently manifested itself in language such as might have been expected.
Here also it must be remembered, that both the act of homage, or 'worship,' and the words spoken, were not the outcome either of the demonised only, nor yet of the demons only, but a combination of the two: the control of the demons being absolute over the man such as he was. Their language led to his worship; their feelings and fears appeared in his language. It was the self-confession of the demons, when obliged to come into His Presence and do homage, which made the man fall down and, in the well-known Jewish formula, recorded by the three Evangelists, say: 'What have I to do with Thee,' or rather, 'What between me and Thee', what have we in common (Mah li valakh)? Similarly, although it was consciousness of subjection and fear in His Presence, on the part of the demons, which underlay the adjuration not to inflict torment on them, yet the language itself, as the text shows, was that of the demonised, and the form in which their fear expressed itself was that of his thinking. The demons, in their hold on their victim, could not but own their inferiority, and apprehend their defeat and subjection, especially on such an occasion; and the Jew, who consciousness was under their control, not unified, but identified with it exclaimed: 'I adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not.'
This strange mixture of the demoniac with the human, or rather, this expression of underlying demoniac thought in the forms and modes of thinking of the Jewish victim, explains the expressed fear of present actual torment, or, as St. Matthew, who, from the briefness of his account, does not seem to have been an eye-witness, expresses it: 'Thou art come to torment us before the time;' and possibly also for the 'adjuration by God.' [1 Both St. Mark and St. Luke have it: 'Jesus, Son of the Most High God.'] For, as immediately on the homage and protestation of the demonised: 'What between me and Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God?' Christ had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, it may have been, that in so doing He had used the Name of the Most High God; or else the 'adjuration' itself may have been the form in which the Jewish speaker clothed the consciousness of the demons, with which his own was identified. It may be conjectured, that it was partly in order to break this identification, or rather to show the demonised that it was not real, and only the consequence of the control which the demons had over him, that the Lord asked his name. To this the man made answer, still in the dual consciousness, 'My name is Legion: for we are many.' [2 So substantially in St. Luke, as in St. Mark.] Such might be the subjective motive for Christ's question. Its objective reason may have been to show the power of the demoniac possession in the present instance, thus marking it as an altogether extreme case. The remembrance, that the answer is once more in the forms of Jewish thinking, enables us to avoid the strange notion (whether it express the opinion of some, or the difficulties of others), that the word 'Legion' conveys the idea of six thousand armed and strong warriors of evil. [3 This is one of the difficulties mentioned by Dean Plumptre. Archdeacon Farrar seems to think that the man imagined '6000 devils were in possession of his soul.' His statement, that it 'was a thoroughly Jewish belief that unclean spirits should pass into the swine, I must take leave to deny. One or another disease, such as rabies, were, indeed, attributed by some Rabbis to the agency of evil spirits, but there is no ground for either the general or the specific statement of Dr. Farrar as regards this 'Jewish belief] For, it was a common Jewish idea, that, under certain circumstances, 'a legion of hurtful spirits' [1 The common Rabbinic word for Legion is, indeed, Ligyon or Ligyona, but the expression (Ber. 51a) (Istalginith) cannot mean anything else than a
legion of hurtful spirits.] (of course not in the sense of a Roman legion) 'were on the watch for men, saying: When shall he fall into the hands of one of these things, and be taken?' [a Ber. 51 a.]
This identification of the demons with the demonised, in consequence of which he thought with their consciousness, and they spoke not only through him but in his forms of thinking, may also account for the last and most difficult part of this narrative. Their main object and wish was not to be banished from the country and people, or, as St. Luke puts it, again to 'depart into the abyss.' Let us now try to realise the scene. On the very narrow strip of shore, between the steep cliff that rises in the background and the Lake, stand Jesus with His disciples and the demonised. The wish of the demons is not to be sent out of the country, not back into the abyss. The one is the cliff overhead, the other the Lake beneath: so, symbolically, and, to the demonised, really. Up on that cliff a great herd of swine is feeding; up that cliff, therefore, is 'into the swine;' and this also agrees with Jewish thoughts concerning uncleanness. The rendering of our Authorised Version, [b St. Mark v. 13.] that, in reply to the demoniac entreaty, 'forthwith Jesus gave them leave,' has led to misunderstanding. The distinction here to be made is, though narrow, yet real and important. The verb, which is the same in all the three Gospels, would be better rendered by 'suffered' than by 'gave them leave.' With the latter we associate positive permission. None such was either asked or given. The Lord suffered it, that is, He did not actually hinder it. [2 The verb is used both in the active sense of permitting, and in that of not hindering. As to the latter use of the word, comp. specially St. Matt. xix. 8; St. Mark x. 4.] He only 'said unto them, Go!'
What followed belongs to the phenomena of supersensuous influences upon animals, of which many instances are recorded, but the rationale of which it is impossible to explain. How the unclean spirits could enter into the swine, is a question which cannot be entertained till we shall know more of the animal soul than is at present within our range. This, however, we can understand, that under such circumstances a panic would seize the herd, that it would madly rush down the steep on which it could not arrest itself, and so perish in the sea. And this also we can perceive, how the real object of the demons was thus attained; how they did not leave the country, when Christ was entreated to leave it.
The weird scene over which the moon had shed her ghostlike light, was past. The unearthly utterances of the demonised, the wild panic among the herd on the cliff, the mad rush down the steep, the splashing waters as the helpless animals were precipitated into the Lake, all this makes up a picture, unsurpassed for vivid, terrible realism. And now sudden silence has fallen on them. From above, the keepers of the herd had seen it all, alike what had passed with the demonised, and then the issue in the destruction of the herd. From the first, as they saw the demonised, for fear of whom 'no man might pass that way,' running to Jesus, they must have watched with eager interest. In the clear Eastern air not a word that was spoken could have been lost. And now in wild terror they fled, into Gerasa, into the country round about, to tell what had happened.
It is morning, and a new morning-sacrifice and morning-Psalm are about to be offered. He that had erst been the possession of foul and evil spirits, a very legion of them, and deprived of his human individuality, is now 'sitting at the feet of Jesus,' learning of Him, 'clothed and in his right mind.' He has been brought to God, restored to self, to reason, and to human society, and all this by Jesus, at Whose Feet he is gratefully, humbly sitting, 'a disciple.' Is He not then the Very Son of God? Viewing this miracle, as an historical fact, viewing it as a Parabolic Miracle, viewing it
also as symbolic of what has happened in all ages, is He not the Son of the Most High God? And is there not now, on His part, in the morning-light the same calmness and majesty of conscious Almighty Power as on the evening before, when He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea?
One other point as regards the healing of this demonism deserves special consideration. Contrary to what was commonly the case, when the evil spirits came out of the demonised, there was no paroxysm of physical distress. Was it then so, that the more complete and lasting the demoniac possession, the less of purely physical symptoms attended it?
But now from town and country have they come, who had been startled by the tidings which those who fed the swine had brought. We may contrast the scene with that of the shepherds when on Bethlehem's plains the great revelation had come to them, and they had seen the Divine Babe laid in the manger, and had worshipped. Far other were the tidings which these herdsmen brought, and their effect. It is not necessary to suppose, that their request that Jesus would depart out of their coasts was prompted only by the loss of the herd of swine. [1 This is the view of Archdeacon Farrar. The Gadara of which the poets Meleager and Philodemus were natives was, of course, not the scene of this miracle.] There could be no doubt in their minds, that One possessing supreme and unlimited power was in their midst. Among men superstitious, and unwilling to submit absolutely to the Kingdom which Christ brought, there could only be one effect of what they had heard, and now witnessed in the person of the healed demonised awe and fear! The 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,' is the natural expression of a mind conscious of sin when brought into contact with the Divine, Whose supreme and absolute Power is realised as
