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Mat_8:33-34. Πάντα καὶ , κ . τ . λ .] They reported everything, and especially how it had fared from first to last with the two demoniacs (Mat_21:21).
πᾶσα ἡ πόλις ] the Gadarenes. See Mat_8:28.
παρεκάλεσαν , ὅπως μεταβῇ , κ . τ . λ .] The subject of the request is conceived as the aim in asking (Mat_14:36; Mar_5:10).
The motive for the request was fear lest a greater disaster should follow.
REMARK.
Seeing that all the attempts that have been made to evade the force of this narrative—such as saying that the demoniacs themselves had rushed in among the swine, or that the herd perished through some accidental and unknown circumstance (Neander), or that in the εἰσέρχεσθαι we have merely to think of an operating in some way or other upon the animals as a whole (Olshausen)—run counter to what is clearly recorded, nothing remains but either to take the whole account as real history, and just as it stands (Krabbe, Ebrard, Delitzsch, bibl. Psychol. p. 296 ff.; Klostermann, Markusevang. p. 101 ff.; Steinmeyer, apolog. Beitr. I. p. 144 ff.), in which case it will be necessary to dispose of objections in the best way possible,[435] or else to admit the existence of legendary elements, and then eliminate them. The latter course is imperative and inevitable if we are not to look upon the condition of the demoniacs as a case of possession at all (see on Mat_4:24, note). According to this view of the matter, Jesus is supposed to have cured the two maniacs by means of His wonderful power, transmitting its influence through a humouring of their capricious fancies, and that this yielding to their request to be allowed to enter the swine may have led in a subsequent form of the tradition—a tradition, at the same time, which did not require to be assisted by the supposed recollection of some disaster to a herd of swine that happened about the same time on that side of the lake—to the statement being added about the drowning of the whole herd, which addition might take place all the more readily from the fact that swine were unclean and forbidden animals, and considering also how much is often due to the play of popular wit (Ewald), which, in the death of the swine, would pretend to see the demons going down at length to the hell they feared so much. Strangely enough, Lange, L. J. II. p. 661, inserts in the text that the hideous yell of the demoniac in his last paroxysm has acted like an electric shock upon the herd. Ewald likewise supposes that the last fearful convulsions of the sufferer just before he was quieted may have occasioned such a terror as might readily communicate itself to a whole herd. But in this affair of the demons, not one of the three accounts says anything whatever about last convulsions and such like. Yet Schenkel, too, boldly asserts that, just before the cure took place, there were violent outbursts of the malady, which threw a herd of swine into a panic, and sent them rushing into the water. Keim, on the other hand, favours the view that “the introduction of the four-footed beasts owes its origin to legend, inasmuch as it sought to expound the healing from the life, and with bitter mockery of the Jews to explain and avenge the banishing of Jesus from the district.” If this is to ascribe too much to legend,—too much to invention and wit, had not, indeed, the presence of a herd offered a handle for it,—then, to say the least of it, Weizsäcker followed the more cautious course when he abandoned the idea of finding out the fact on which the obscure reminiscence may probably have been founded,—although, when we consider the essential uniformity of the three evangelic narratives in other respects, the obscurity, if we keep out of view the difference in the naming of the locality, may not appear sufficiently great to warrant such entire abandonment.
[435] Paulus and Strauss object that the demons would have acted the part of very silly devils, if they had gone so far as immediately to destroy again their new abodes. It is observed by Ebrard, on the other hand, that they were unable to control their wicked desires, or (on Olshausen, p. 306) that the shock to the nervous system of the animals was so much greater than was expected. Theophylact and Euth. Zigabenus suppose that their intention was to do damage to the owners, that they might not be disposed to welcome Jesus. Some explain one way and others another. In reply to the objection founded on the morality of the thing, Ebrard (comp. Wetstein) pleads the absolute right of the Son of God, and that the object was to punish the Gadarenes for their avarice. Similarly Luther. Comp. Bengel: “rei erant Gergeseni amittendi gregis; jus et potestatem Jesu res ipsa ostendit;” so Olshausen, coupling with his own the opinion of Theophylact. Schegg contents himself with supposing that what happened was by way of testing the Gadarenes to see whether, to them, the possession of eternal was of more consequence than the loss of temporal things, therefore a matter of discipline and to awaken faith; comp. Arnoldi and Ullmann, Sündlosigk. p. 176. Bleek thinks the whole question of the morality is one with which he is not called upon to deal, inasmuch as the destruction was not the doing of Jesus, but of the lunatic. According to Steinmeyer, it was not the doing of the demons, but of the animals. The only way of deciding this question is to reply that, according to the text, it was not the demoniacs but the demons that caused the destruction of the swine—a result which Jesus did not anticipate. Otherwise it is vain to try further to help matters by the view that it was the Redeemer offering Himself to deliver from the power of Satan and calling for the feeling that nothing was too dear to sacrifice for the sake of this deliverance (Klostermann), in violation of that principle of justice which forbids the use of means so flagrantly unrighteous to attain a holy end.