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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 8:27 - 8:27
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27. ὑπήντησεν ἀνήρ τις ἐκ τῆς πόλεως. ‘There met him a man of the city.’ He had been a resident in Gergesa till his madness began. St Matthew (as in the case of Bartimaeus) mentions two demoniacs, but the narrative is only concerned with one. There may of course have been another hovering in the neighbourhood. The variation in St Matthew is at least a valuable proof of the independence of the Evangelists.
ἔχων δαιμόνια. ‘Having demons.’ The δαιμόνια were supposed by the Jews to be not devils (i.e. fallen angels), but the spirits of wicked men who were dead (Jos. B. J. VII. 6, § 3). See on Luk 4:33; Luk 8:2.
καὶ χρόνῳ ἱκανῷ οὐκ ἐνεδύσατο ἱμάτιον. ‘And for a long time wore no cloke.’ He may have been naked, since the tendency to strip the person of all clothes is common among madmen; here however it only says that he wore no ἱμάτιον. He may have had on the χιτών, or under-garment. Naked, homicidal maniacs who live in caves and tombs are still to be seen in Palestine. Warburton saw one in a cemetery fighting, amid fierce yells and howlings, with wild dogs for a bone. Crescent and Cross, II. 352.
ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν. See Thomson’s Land and Book, p. 376. This was partly a necessity, for in ancient times there were no such things as penitentiaries or asylums, and an uncontrollable maniac, driven from the abodes of men, could find no other shelter than tombs and caverns. This would aggravate his frenzy, for the loneliness and horror of these dark rocky tombs (traces of which are still to be seen near the ruins of Kherza or the sides of Wady Semakh) were intensified by the prevalent belief that they were haunted by shedim, or ‘evil spirits,’—the ghosts of the wicked dead (Nidda, f. 17 a, &c.). St Mark gives (Luk 5:4) a still more graphic picture of the superhuman strength and violence of this homicidal and ghastly sufferer.