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(Parallels: Mat_8:28-34; Mar_5:1-20)
Luk_8:27. A certain man of the city.—So also Mark. According to Matt. there were two. This plural in Matt. which several times recurs when the other Synoptics have a singular, belongs to the peculiarities of his gospel, for whose explanation a general law must be sought for. There is no want of conjecture in favor of there having been two (Strauss, De Wette, Lange), and it is no doubt possible that Luke and Mark mention only one, namely, the most malignant; but on the other hand we cannot regard it as probable that the original two should thus have been reduced to a unity, and we find moreover in the whole account no one proof that the Saviour here had really two demoniacs to deal with. Nor may we forget that the whole account of Mark and Luke as to this event is much more precise and complete than that of Matthew. We therefore give to them, here also, the preference, and have only to inquire now, from whence the second demoniac has come into the narrative of Matthew. The conjecture (Ebrard, Olshausen) that he joins in mind the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum with this one (Mar_1:23) is wholly without proof. More happy appears to us the opinion (Da Costa) that the raging demoniac precisely at the moment when the Lord arrived was involved in strife with one of the passers by (Comp. Mat_8:28 b), so that Matt. relates êáô ̓ ὕøéí , without diplomatic exactness. Or should we assume (Neander, Hase, De Wette) that the plurality of the here-mentioned demons led to the inexact mention of a plurality of demoniacs? Perhaps if we assume that Matthew originally wrote in Hebrew, this difference might possibly be laid to the account of the Greek translator. But if none of these conjectures is acceptable there is nothing left then but to acknowledge here one of the minute differences, for whose explanation we are wanting in the requisite data, and which can give offence only from the point of view of a one-sided and mechanical theory of inspiration. More ancient attempts at explanation, see in Kuinoel ad loc. In no case is it admissible with Von Ammon to explain the variation in this subordinate point by assuming that none of the apostles were personally present, inasmuch as they, when the Saviour disembarked, probably remained on the ship in order to fish; and at the same time also, not improbably to sell some fish in Gadara while the Master preached or performed miracles!!
Luk_8:27. In the tombs.—There are still found in the neighborhood of the ancient Gadara (the present Omkeis) many caves and chalk ranges which served as places of burial, and from other accounts also we know that the inhabitants carried on an active traffic in cattle and especially in swine. No wonder, for they consisted of a mixture of Jews, Greeks, and Syrians, of whom the former stood in very low esteem with their countrymen in Judea and Galilee, because they had assimilated themselves more than the latter to other nations. Only seldom did the Saviour visit these regions, in which He found but few lost sheep of the house of Israel. The first time that we meet Him here, He performed a miracle which more perhaps than any other has been to many expositors a ëßèïò ðñïóêüììáôïò . What the ass of Balaam is in the Old Testament that are the swine of Gadara in the New Testament, foolishness and a stumbling-block to the wisdom of this world.
Possessed by demons.—See remarks on Luk_4:33.
Luk_8:28. Jesus, Thou Son of God.—Perhaps the demoniac was a Jew not wholly unacquainted with the Messianic hope; but certainly it is in the spirit of the Evangelists if we believe that the knowledge of the Lord which the demons usually exhibited had been attained in a supernatural way.
Luk_8:29. For He commanded, ðáñÞããåéëåí .—“Not in the sense of the pluperfect, but like ἕëåãåí , Mar_5:8.” Meyer. According to Luke the Saviour had therefore commanded the spirit to come out before the latter had begged for forbearance, but we do not therefore need to assume that He had uttered this command to the unfortunate man from some distance, even before the latter had come to Him. Perhaps the words of the demoniac in the extreme tension of his mental condition had only been ejaculated interruptedly. First the question: “What have I to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God?” Afterwards the answer of the Saviour, who never accepted public acknowledgment from demoniacs, ἔîåëèå , ê . ô . ë . Mar_5:8. Afterwards the abrupt entreaty: “I beseech thee torment me not,” and then the inquiry after the name.
For for a long time.—A more particular explanation of Luke, which throws into more relief on the one hand the misery of his condition, on the other the miraculousness of the deliverance; comp. Mar_5:2-4.—Seized upon.—So that he hurried him along unresistingly with himself.—He was kept bound with chains and fetters.—Whenever his relatives or keepers had succeeded in bringing him back home for a while, out of the wilderness.
Luk_8:30. What is thy name?—The answer to the question whether the Saviour here speaks to the demoniac himself, or to the demon tormenting him, depends entirely on the conception which we form of such unfortunates. In the first case it is an attempt to bring the demoniac in a psychological way to reflection and to help him to distinguish his own conceptions from those of the unclean spirit. In the other case it is an inquiry of the King of the personal world of spirits, which He addresses to the author of so much misery, and we must say with Stier: “We interpreters will here modestly remain without when the Son of God speaks with one from hell, only with the just conviction that the two have well understood one another.”—Legion.—The demoniac is in feeling entirely identified with the evil powers that control and torment him. Respecting the name “Legio,” see Lange on Mat_26:53.
For many demons.—Less accurately this reason stated for the name given, is in Mark put in the mouth of the demons themselves.
Luk_8:31. And he besought Him.—The demon, that is; who in this instance was still working with unlimited power upon the unhappy man, and at the same time uttered himself in the name of the whole Legion. Why the demons desire to go into the swine is a question which we, so far as we are concerned, can answer only with a confession of the entire incompetence of our intelligence on this mysterious ground. Only one folly would be yet greater than that of a presumptuous decision: the folly, namely, of those who are as little acquainted with the nature of demons as of swine, and yet at once utter, ex cathedra, the word “absurd; impossible.” Much better: “Potestas Christi etiam super animalia, dœmones, abyssum porrigitur. Idque agnovere dœmones.” Bengel.
Into the abyss.—That is, into hell; comp. Rev_9:11; Rev_20:3. “The evil spirits also have their wishes and understand their interest as well as man. As they therefore in this ever-intensifying conflict between themselves and the Messiah, become aware that they must in some way yield before Him, they entreat at least to be handled in the mildest way and to be permitted to go into a tolerably near herd of swine (and only too fully does their man concur in this wish, because otherwise he fears that he must die): against this wish Christ has nothing to object. But so powerful is yet, from fear before the Messiah (?), the momentum of the evil spirits in going out, that they enter into a corresponding number of swine and drive these again into wild flight; nay more, precipitate them down the cliff into the water, and so against their will must, nevertheless, go out of the dying man (rather the sick man) into hell, while the man, liberated from them, comes to his long sighed-for repose.” Von Ewald. The terror and the precipitation of the herd into the sea, we should, however, rather explain, with Lange and many others, as resulting from the last terrible paroxysm which, as usual, preceded the healing. The number of the swine (Mar_5:13) may moreover be stated in a round number, either according to the reckoning of the spectators or according to the statement of the embittered possessors.
Luk_8:33. And entered into the swine.—It is of course understood that we here have not to understand individual indwelling, but dynamic influence, of the demoniacal powers upon the defenceless herd. But if philosophy declares that such an influence is entirely impossible, we demand the proof for the right of deciding in so lofty a tone upon a matter which lies entirely outside of the limits of experience, and are, therefore, on the contrary, fully in our right when we, after the credibility of Luke is once established, conclude ab esse ad posse. If the psychologist accounts it impossible that irrational beings should experience the influence of spiritual forces, we will wait till he gives us a little more assurance with regard to the souls of beasts than we have hitherto possessed. And if the critic wishes to know for what end the demoniacal power caused the swine to rush so quickly into the lake, we will acknowledge our ignorance, but simply desire that one should not declare incomprehensible and ridiculous to be synonymous. It is indeed possible that the swine were precipitated against the will of the demons into the lake, because the organism of these animals proved too weak to resist their overmastering influence. In this case it plainly appears from the result that the entreaty had been an unintelligent one; but then, does not mental confusion belong to the nature of evil? Enough; one thing stands fast, that it was by no means wholly unexpected or against the intention of Jesus that the swine were controlled by demoniacal influence (against Paulus, Hase, Von Ammon). The Saviour must have known what He conceded with the word of might ὑðÜãåôå ; moreover He afterwards does not excuse Himself for an instant to the owners of the herd by saying that He had not been able to foresee their loss. He simply goes His way and listens to the entreaty of the demons, unconcerned whether the herd shall be able to endure this terror or not. With His special concurrence does it take place, that the possession of the rational man passes over upon the irrational herd. We believe, if we may compare the supernatural with a mysterious natural fact, that here something similar took place to what even now often takes place by magnetic forces, when some bodily evil is transferred from one object to another, even from man to animals. Undoubtedly Jesus found such a miraculous diversion of the malady necessary for the restoration of the sick man, and the possibility that demoniacal conditions may pass over upon others, even upon beasts, appears not to admit of denial. Comp. Kieser, System des Tellurismus, ii. p. 72.
Finally, as respects the question how far a permission of the Saviour is to be justified which occasioned so considerable a loss, see Lange on Mat_8:31. Some answers to this question have certainly turned out rather unlucky, e.g., that of Hug, that the flesh might have been still fished up and salted and used. Without entirely excluding the thought that here there is a just retribution for the defilement of the Jewish population (Olshausen), the answer suffices us that Jesus’ word: “not come to destroy, but to save,” applies indeed to men, but not to beasts. At any price He will pluck this soul from the powers of darkness. He exerts His miraculous might, not with the immediate purpose of destroying the herd; but if the loss of these is the inevitable consequence of His beneficent activity, this loss can be made good, while the opportunity to save this man is not likely ever to return. He who afterwards gave Himself up for a pure sacrifice does not here account the life of unclean beasts at a higher rate than it deserves. The imputation that He in this way infringed upon the property-rights of strangers, made by Woolston and others, was not once brought forward by the Gadarenes themselves, and the attempt to vindicate their rights more strongly than they themselves in this case thought necessary, may be dismissed with a ne quid nimis. Finally it must not be overlooked that the healing was a benefit not only for the demoniac, but also for the whole region. Comp. Mat_8:28 b.
Luk_8:35. Clothed.—The Evangelist says not from whence or by whom. Perhaps we may here understand the intervention of the Saviour’s disciples, who here also accompanied Him. The healed one moreover now sits ðáñὰ ôïὺò ðüäáò ôïῦ Ἱçóïῦ , as a disciple at the feet of his Master.
Luk_8:36. They also which saw it.—Matthew also speaks, 5:33, of keepers, who had been witnesses of the miracle.
Luk_8:37. To depart from them.—A longer stay of the Saviour could have had little attraction for men who, above all, calculated the material loss, and were seized with superstitious and half heathen fear. The abode of the dangerous demoniac in the midst of them is less burdensome to them than the longer sojourn of such a worker of miracles. A sad contrast to the entreaty of the Samaritans, Joh_4:40. But the Saviour here and there alike yields to the desire expressed.
Luk_8:38. Now the man.—Comp. Mar_5:18-20. The prayer with which the recovered demoniac follows the departing Saviour may serve as an unequivocal proof of the completeness of his healing, as well as of the warmth of his thankfulness. The Saviour does not grant the request, partly perhaps for the reason that for the perfectness and duration of his recovery somewhat more of rest was required. But that He here encourages the one whom He had delivered to a proclamation of the benefit bestowed upon him, while on those who were healed elsewhere silence is imposed, is a proof the more that He had not the intention to return into the land of the Gadarenes; there must, therefore, at least one living and speaking memorial of His miraculous power abide there. Moreover, in Peræa the diffusion of such accounts was less critical than in Galilee, which was so inclined to insurrection. In the directing of the man back to his home, it is at the same time implied that the Saviour remembers his perhaps distressed or anxious relatives, for whom now his untroubled domestic life is to be the theatre of his gratitude and obedience. Yet not only to his own friends, but throughout the whole of Decapolis, does the man proclaim what had been done, so that the astonishment which he at all events awakens, without doubt became a beneficent preparation for the later preaching of the gospel in these dark regions.
Luk_8:39. How great things. Ὅóá .—In a remarkable manner are the great works of God and Jesus at the conclusion of the narrative co-ordinated. Without doubt it is the intention of the Evangelist here to indicate that it was God Himself who in and through the miraculous power of the Messiah displayed in extraordinary wise His workings.
2. The miracle here narrated conflicts in no way with the well-known summing up of the biography of the Saviour, äéῆëèåí åὐåñãåôῶí , Act_10:38. It is no miracle of punishment, any more than the drying up of the fig-tree was one, and that for the reason that swine and fig-tree are irrational creatures, to which therefore as a class the conception of punishment is only very loosely applicable. Moreover, the Saviour acts here as representative of the Father on earth, who daily destroys the lesser that the higher may be nourished and preserved, and has never yet forbidden His lightnings to purify the atmosphere for fear they might perchance strike the trunks of some trees. Had the herd of swine been driven by a tempest into the sea, who would accuse God of the wickedness of having infringed upon the property-rights of legal possessors? How many a murrain has taken off far more than 2,000 victims!
3. “That the diseased life of the soul falls into the duality of a so-to-speak subjective and an objective, of a dominant and a suppressed, Ego, can be a matter of surprise only to him who does not know or does not clearly keep in mind that the Ego even in itself and in a healthy condition is this duplicity of a subject-object.” Strauss, in a review of Justin Kerner’s Essay on Demoniacs of Modern Times.
4. The healing of the demoniac of Gadara is a striking symbol on the one hand of the conflict which the kingdom of God continually carries on against the realm of darkness; on the other hand of the triumph which it finally, although after heavy sacrifices, attains; at the same time a proof how much in earnest the Saviour was in His own declaration, Mat_16:26.
5. In the command with which the Saviour parts from the recovered man, there lies an honor put upon devout domestic life, which is the less to be overlooked, inasmuch as it is a striking revelation of Christianity as the principle of the purest Humanity.
6. Peter, too, had once begged that the Lord would depart from Him, Luk_5:8, and yet the Lord had turned into his house more than ever before; but the prayer of the Gadarenes He accepts in fearful earnestness, because He penetrates their unbelief, their sin. This mournful result of the miracle at Gadara, moreover, is a striking proof how even the most astounding miracles cannot constrain to faith when the requisite disposition of heart and conscience is lacking.
Starke:—Christ neglects no land in the world with His grace.—The angels rejoice over a sinner’s conversion, but the devil is sorely disgusted when a soul is freed from his tyranny.—J. Hall:—Those are no true Christians who deny the Godhead of Christ, since the devil nevertheless acknowledges it, 1Jn_4:15.—God sets the devil also his bounds and says finally: “It is enough,” Job_38:11.—Osiander:—There must an astonishing number of the angels have fallen away from God.—Satan has not even power over irrational creatures except as it is permitted him of God.—Brentius:—God often lets outward possessions escape from us that we may receive spiritual good.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—That is the way of the godless world; they love swine more than Christ.—Brentius:—Christendom is full of Gergesenes.—Quesnel:—It is a fearful judgment of God upon sinners when He hears their prayer to their hurt, as He does the demons’ prayer.—Teachers and preachers must at their expulsion be resigned and content.—New converts are wont to fall into all manner of self-devised ways, therefore they need faithful admonition and direction.—Obedience is better than sacrifice.—Canstein:—To glorify the grace of conversion helps much to the edifying of our neighbor.
On the whole, the treatment of this narrative offers to the preacher peculiar difficulties not less great than that of the Temptation in the Wilderness. It is therefore, unless one is obliged to it by ecclesiastical ordinances, not to be commended to any one at least, who in reference to the Biblical demonology occupies a sceptical or negative position. But even if one in this respect takes the Lord at His word, we have here especially to take heed of being wiser than the Scripture and, in an ill-applied apologetical zeal, of vindicating the conduct of the Saviour in such a way as involuntarily to remind those who think differently of the maxim, “Qui excusat, accusat.” Perhaps it is best to leave the metaphysical question wholly or mainly untouched, and to give especial prominence to the practical side of the deliverance of the soul from the powers of darkness, as to its greatness, its worth, and the like. As an example of an admirable sermon upon this äõóíüçôïí we may adduce les Démoniaques, in the sermons par Adolph Monod. 2 Recueil, Montauban, Paris, 1857. So also, Fr. Arndt, who in his Sermons upon the Life of Jesus, 3 p. 39–52, found in this narrative occasion to preach with wholly practical aim respecting: 1. The character; 2. the causes; 3. the healing of the malady of the demoniac.
Footnotes:
Luk_8:26.—Respecting the different readings: Gadarenes, Gergesenes, Gerasenes, &c., see below in Critical and Exegetical remarks.
Luk_8:31.—Van Oosterzee Las “he besought him,” &c. ÐáñåêÜëåé might have as its subject either ἀíÞñ or the neuter äáéìüíéá . The fact that ðáñåêÜëåóáí in the next verse is used, where äáéìüíéá is the subject, may incline us to prefer the singular subject here.—C. C. S.]
Luk_8:38.—Rec.: ὁ Ἰçóïῦò . [Om., B., D., L., Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]