condition was that of a savageness (in opposition to civilisation). The demoniac suffered no clothes on him; he could not endure to be in the dwellings of men; it drove him out on the mountains, where he stayed day and night, in desert places, in uninhabited regions. But this wildness was joined also with unnaturalness; he did what even an uncivilised man would avoid, for his favourite residence was among the graves (from such a place, according to Matthew, he rushed out to meet Jesus); thus, in places where no one willingly tarries; where, on the other hand, nature experiences a dread, and which were especially an abomination to the Jews (and he was one), on account of their power to make them unclean; yea, he even wounded himself, beat himself with stones, raged against his own flesh. Lastly, He appears full of malice and wickedness; he strives to do harm; it was necessary to bind him with cords and with chains; but the latter had been snapt asunder, and the former broken in pieces. The country where he abode was hence universally avoided; no one could pass that way; he was xaλerós, a true plague to the country. We know that all these appearances, whether in the same individual or not we will leave aside, do occur in cases of insanity and madness. Psychiatry must be in a position to manage such cases. But although the appearances are shown as quite similar, their foundation may be quite a different one. They can be caused naturally and physically, but they can also have a demoniacal origin. If this last is not the correct conception here, the conduct of Jesus would appear as a delusion.

It is certainly a portion of the art of a physician of the soul to enter into the foolish conceptions of the sick; but our Lord was really no psychiatrist as a man is. And that here there is more than merely facing a

madman, from an 'idea' overpowering him (Bleek, Synopsis, ii. p. 374), from a mad fancy, is undeniably manifest in the further representation of the evangelist. In fact, the sick man hastens to Jesus, falls at His feet, and asks Him imploringly, Spare me! Who would undertake to premise such a contradiction from a mere madness? Nothing prevented the suppliant from remaining in the μvýμaow, if he really was afraid of Jesus, and expected torments from Him. Why did he not stay away? By earnest supplication he wishes to be preserved from what he himself can easily prevent; for it was not Jesus that pressed Himself on him, but he on Jesus. It will not suffice here to insist that it is a mere derangement of the powers of thought, a confusion of the imagination; here nothing will suffice but a real duality of the person and of the will. The sick man has still a consciousness of his true self; in this moment it flames up in him without his being able to retain it firmly to the end. While he casts himself at the feet of Jesus, the oppressed, imprisoned will acts for itself; it has restored itself, has freed itself a moment from the bands of the demon. But when he desires to translate the language of signs, in the bending of the knee, into explicit words, the demon makes his power over him available, and compels him to express another request than that which he harbours in the depths of his true consciousness. The man bends beseechingly before our Lord; the demon turns the request in his mouth into the opposite: Leave me in peace; cure, free me not. By the deliverance the man would be redeemed, but the demon would be bound. In fact, the words which Mark relates as proceeding out of the mouth of the demoniac (chap. v. 7), are solely to be understood on this supposition: 6 What have I to do with thee?' In such a tone can no man in need of help speak to Jesus, the Saviour

Such a

from misery, anointed and sent from God. word our Lord could say to His mother, to show the difference of their mutual thoughts; but no sick man could advance such to the physician in the sense of aversion. It has truth in it only as spoken by the demon, who is separated from the Son of God by an impassable gulf. Again, the continuation of the speech does not belong to the demon; neither the acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of the Almighty, nor even the 'I adjure thee,' the Séoμal σov. Indeed, the sick man could not know of himself that He who appeared before him was no other than Jesus, and that this Jesus was the Son of God Almighty; but only the demon.1 But the demon could not as such acknowledge and conjure him, but only the sick man by his compulsion. The recognition, as well as the wish, is the affair of the demon; the acknowledgment and the prayer, that of the sick man. There might be some doubt with regard to the subjective definition in the request that thou torment me not;' but even for this there is good ground, for certainly the sensation of the torment would be experienced, not only by the demon, but by the sick person as well; by the former, because he saw the stronger one over the strong; by the latter, because he (with the longing after delivery in his heart) was obliged to express with unwilling mouth the opposite desire. In fact, there seems a

1 The perplexities into which this view leads those expositors who persistently suppose a natural madness, is evident in the commentaries. According to it, the appearance of Jesus made so powerful an impression on the unhappy man in his excited state, that he looked on Him as a supernatural being. Either the evangelists Mark and Luke must be inexact narrators, in having arbitrarily added the speech in question, or it must be acknowledged that the madman had previously heard something of the person and work of Jesus. The very just remark of Meyer, Matthew represents the matter plainly thus, that the demons recognised at once and immediately, by their nature, that Jesus was the Messiah, their most dangerous enemy,' we cannot reconcile with his views expressed in other places on the demoniacs.

useless persistency in speaking of the confused utterances of madness, when, by simply accepting a demoniacal condition, every expression, every turn, becomes literally correct. At all events, He, to whom the 'confused' speech was immediately addressed, knew how to understand it. He is not as if He has met with unexplainable contradictions, but He knows the sense of the oppressed spirit, He understands its σTevayμoi aλánτoi, and He declares His resolution to take away the unnatural connection. We say, He declares His resolution. This is the real meaning of the words of Luke viii. 29: 'He commanded (Taρyyeλev) the unclean spirit to come out of the man,'-a representation which, for greater completeness, is preferable to the account of Mark, that Jesus said, 'Come out.' If it had been a decisive command, the result would have taken place immediately, and yet it did not occur at once. The παρήγγειλεν (which is to be regarded neither as pluperfect, nor even as an act already proceeding from the request of the 28th verse) points out the announcement to be made to the demon, that henceforth he was to stay no longer in this man. Just as the unjust steward was, by the declaration, 'Thou canst be no longer steward,' not yet really removed, was not yet dismissed from house and office, since he was in a position still to make arrangements, so here it is put to the demon only in a certain sense -Soon thou must depart from this man, thou hast been in possession of him as long as thou art to be; but by it he was not driven out, for there was still space for a discussion before it took place.

1

Our Lord asks, What art thou called? what name

1 The particle yάp comes, therefore, in its proper place; it is intimately related to the 'torment me.' This sentiment was present, was expressed: 'It was, in fact, the unconcealed resolution of our Lord that the demon should come out of this man.'

dost thou bear? The question, as well as the succeeding answer, 'Legion,' demands an explanation. With regard to the first, Olshausen has judged rightly in seeking for its object the strengthening of the consciousness on the part of the sick man: 'Bethink thyself who thou art.' If we consider how the utterances of the demoniac have betrayed just as much of obscurity as of a temporary brightening up of the clear consciousness of his personality, the question, 'What name dost thou bear? who art thou? appears thoroughly appropriate. But with regard to the answer and its reason (Mark says, 'For we are many;' Luke, ‘Because many devils were entered into him'), we learn that not one demon, not even seven, as in the case of Mary Magdalene, but a whole band of them, had taken possession of the man. The expression eyev (it certainly occurs often among the later Jews to signify a great number, but it is foreign to the Old Testament, and dates from the Roman military language) is important to us so far, that we are thereby removed into the Gentile world. However, the conception of an indwelling of so many unclean spirits in one man, is disclosed to us by no analogy at command. The approximate consideration, that many vices can exist together in the one heart, we decidedly put aside, because we will not for a moment allow a relation between the demoniacal state and moral degradation. But the disclosure that our Lord makes in a narrative, which we shall consider further on, of a particular oila of Satan, of a disciplined band who obey their head and leader, as well as the case which he gives as possible, that one 'unclean spirit' can bring in seven others into the careless man, strengthens not only the natural explanation which is immediately forced upon us, but also breaks the force of the statement of Strauss, that the second and third evangelist invented