Matthew 9:1-8

IVChrist healing the demoniacs who profess His name; banished from Gadara; He restores the paralytic, and is accused of blasphemy,—or, the blessed working of the Lord despite the contradiction of the kingdom of darkness.

Matthew 8:28-34, Matthew 9:1-8

( Matthew 9:1-8 the Gospel for the 19th Sunday after Trinity.—Parallels: Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39, Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26.)

28And when he was [had] come to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes [Gadarenes],25 there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man [one] might [could, or was able to, ὥστε μὴ ἰσχύειν] passby that way. 29And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee,30Jesus,26 thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding. 31So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away [send us away]27 intothe herd of swine. 32And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine [into the swine];28 and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently [rushed] down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.33And they that kept them [the herdsmen, οἱ βόσκοντες] fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to [had befallen] the possessedof [with] the devils. 34And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts [borders].

Matthew 9:1 And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. 2And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be3[are] forgiven29 thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This4man blasphemeth. And Jesus, knowing30 their thoughts, said, Wherefore think ye evil5in your hearts? For whether [which] is easier, to say, Thy sins be [are] forgiven thee;or to say, Arise, and walk? 6But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thybed, and go31 unto thine [to thy] house. 7And he arose, and departed to his house. 8But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled [feared]32, and glorified God, which [who] had given such power unto men.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Matthew 8:28. On the discussion about the readings, Γεργεσηνῶν, Γαδαοηνῶν, Γερασηνῶν, comp. the Commentaries.—Bleek (Beiträge zur Evangelienkritik, 1:26): “From Orig. (in Joh. Tom. 6:24), we may infer with tolerable certainty, that, at the time of that Father, Γεργεσηνῶν was not found in any of the MSS. of the Gospels then current. He only mentions it as a conjecture, that this may have been an older reading. From that time it seems to have been introduced into manuscripts. Origen found that the common reading was Γερασηνῶν, that of Γαδαρηνῶν also occurring. The change of the former into the latter word is easily accounted for, but not the reverse. Hence the writer has always been of opinion, that Γερασηνῶν, which Lachmann also has adopted, is the correct reading in all the three Gospels. But as the town of Gerasa, in Arabia, could not possibly be meant, we suppose that the name was incorrectly written by the Evangelists, and that they probably meant the town of Gergesa, as Origen suggests.” Accordingly, we drop the reading Γεργεσηνῶν, and only retain thus much, that Origen was exegetically right in maintaining that Jesus landed in the district of the Gergesenes, whose name at least (Γεργεσαῖοι, Genesis 15:21; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 24:11) is mentioned by Josephus (Ant. i. 6, 2). But the MSS. are divided between the readings Gadara and Gerasa. Hence, judging from the circumstances of this narrative, we are warranted in fixing upon the adjoining Gadara, which was the capital of Peræa, rather than on the distant Gerasa, which lay on the eastern boundary of Peræa, and indeed was considered by some geographers to have been situate in Arabia. So also Winer and Meyer. Besides, the expulsion of the Lord is represented as an event of considerable importance, which would not have been the case had He been banished from Gerasa, and not from the capital of Peræa. Expulsion from a village by the sea-shore would only have induced Him to go farther inland; but banishment from the capital of the district rendered at least a temporary removal absolutely necessary. The pagan character of the district (swine, raging demons) may have led to the evangelical tradition, by which the scene of this narrative was transferred from Gadara to Gerasa. Gadara, the capital of Peræa (Joseph. Bell. Jud. iv. 8, 3), situated to the southeast of the southern end of the Lake of Gennesareth, south of the river Hieromax, sixty stadia from Tiberias, upon a mountain, inhabited chiefly by Gentiles (according to Seetzen and Burckhardt). It is supposed to have been the modern Omkeis (but comp. Ebrard, who places Gadara only one hour from the lake). See Winer and the Encyclops. and von Raumer’s Palestine. On the eastern shore of the lake, comp. Ritter’s Palestine. Ebrard suggests, that there had been a village called Gerasa in the neighborhood of Gadara. Euseb. Onomasticon refers to such a village under the article Gergesa, without, however, pronouncing decidedly on the point.

Two possessed with devils.—Mark and Luke speak only of one. Strauss and de Wette hold, that the account of Matthew is the authentic narrative; Weisse and others prefer that of Mark and Luke. Ebrard suggests, that Matthew joined the account of the possessed at Gadara with that in Mark 1:23; others fancy, that our Evangelist is in the habit of speaking of two individuals when there was only one. Meyer leaves the difficulty unsolved; while Augustine, Calvin, and Chrysostom suppose that one of the demoniacs is specially mentioned, as the principal personage and the greater sufferer. This idea is confirmed by the consideration, that two demoniacs would not have associated, unless the one had been dependent upon the other. For the details of the narrative, the parallel passages in the other Gospels must be consulted.

Coming out of the tombs.—This was their abode, the only one left them, after they had withdrawn from human supervision and society. We conjecture that they chose this haunt not merely from melancholy, but rather from a morbid craving for the terrible. These tombs were either natural or artificial caves in the rocks, or built in the ground. The calcareous mountain on which Gadara was situated, was specially suited for such sepulchres. Even Epiphanius (adv. Hœres. i. 131) mentions these rocky caves near Gadara, which were called πολυάνδρια and τύμβοι.

Matthew 8:29. What have we to do with Thee? מָה לָנוּ וָלָךְ, 2 Samuel 16:10, etc. Grotius remarks ad loc.: “Hoc si ex usu Latini sermonis interpreteris, contemtum videtur inducere. Ita enim Latini aiunt: Quid tibi mecum est? At Hebrœis aliud significat, nimirum cur mihi molestiam exhibes?”33 The ordinary consciousness of the demoniacs was always affected by, and mixed up with, their morbid consciousness. Hence their power of anticipation was morbidly developed. By virtue of this faculty they now recognized the Divine power and majesty of the Lord (comp. Luke 4:34). Hence the question, whether πρὸκαι ρο ῦ means: before the judgment of the Messiah, as de Wette and Meyer suppose. Perhaps they also anticipated that the work of Jesus in the district would be interrupted by them, and that it was not ready for the reception of the Messiah.

To torment us.—The apparent contradiction in the conduct of the demoniacs affords a striking confirmation of the truthfulness of this narrative. On the one hand, they seem to have felt the power of the Lord; they hastened to meet Him; their fierceness was kept in check, and they humbly entreated. But on the other hand, they identified themselves with the demons under whose power they were; they, so to speak, appeared as their representatives, and in that capacity complained that Jesus was about to torment them by healing the demoniacs,—i. e., that He was about to send the demons to the place of torment. De Wette: “Torment us,” by disturbing our stay and rule in man.

Matthew 8:30. A herd of many swine.—The Jews were prohibited from keeping swine, which were unclean animals (Lightfoot, 315; Eisenmenger, Entdektes Judenthum, i. 704). The herd must therefore have belonged to pagans, or else have been kept for purposes of traffic. In any case, it might serve as evidence of the legal uncleanness of the people, and of their essentially Gentile disposition.

Matthew 8:31. Probably the request was expressed in such terms as “Send us, ἀπόστειλον ἡμᾶς,” but the assent of the Lord was couched in the form of a permission, or even of a sentence of banishment. Hence the other reading of the Received Text. The request shows that these demons were antinomian, not Pharisaical; hence their choice of the swine. Possibly, there was also the malicious design latent, in this manner to put an end to the work of the Lord in the district. But in that case, the compliance of the Lord must be regarded as an evidence that at that time the awakening of terror was a sufficient effect. Lastly, the request of the demons implies that they were many (Meyer), which indeed is expressly mentioned in Mark and Luke.

Matthew 8:32. Go, ὑπάγετε.—The emphasis rests on the command to go. Strauss and others have raised an objection, on the ground that Jesus here interfered with the property of others. In reply, Ebrard appeals to the divinity and the absolute power of Christ. He also reminds us of the casting out of those who bought and sold in the temple; which, however, is scarcely a case in point, as every Jew might claim the right of reproving and opposing open and daring iniquity. Probably the conduct of Christ, in the case of so manifest a contravention of Mosaic ordinances, might be vindicated on the same ground, as simply the privilege of every zealous Israelite.34 But the text does not oblige us to suppose that Jesus interfered at all with the here of swine. He neither administered justice, nor enforced police regulations, nor took oversight of the herds of swine of Gadara. His only object was to cure the demoniacs, which He did by commanding the demons simply to go. Other objections—such as, that the demons would have acted foolishly by driving the swine into the sea—are scarcely worth repeating. Any such difficulty would arise from the false assumption that demons can never be stupid. It must be admitted that certain morbid states, such as derangement of the nervous system, madness, idiocy, raving, etc., formed the natural substratum of demoniac possessions. Hence there is a marked difference between the possessed, and those who, like Judas and the Pharisees, voluntarily surrendered themselves to the power of evil, as there is also between the demons themselves, and Satan, or between the renunciation of Satan in Christian baptism, and exorcism,—a rite which originally was only applied in the case of the possessed, and only introduced into the ordinary ritual of baptism and confirmation of catechumens generally when spiritual knowledge was obscured in the Church. The demoniacs were destitute of freedom, not merely on account of the psychical ailment under which they labored, but because, while thus suffering, they were possessed by unclean spirits (πνεύματα ). The idea of bodily possession, or the indwelling of the evil spirit in the physical frame of the diseased, was merely the popular notion. The main point was, that they were under the power of some special demoniac influence, or of a number of such influences, which proceeded from real demons, and were so strong, that the persons possessed identified themselves in their own minds with the demons. But it is quite possible that such influences may have proceeded not merely from the kingdom of Satan, in the narrowest sense, but also from the spirits of the departed. Hence Josephus (De Bello Jud. vii. 6, 3) held, that the demons were the spirits of wicked men; an opinion which was shared by some of the oldest of the Fathers, such as Justin Martyr and Athenagoras. Tertullian was the first to turn the current of opinion on the subject, and ultimately, on the authority of Chrysostom, the old idea of the spirits of departed and lost men was discarded, and that of devils adopted. But a closer inquiry into the character of sympathetic influences will show, that while the question, whence these demoniac influences proceeded, is of secondary importance, such influences—even to literal bodily possession—are quite possible, whether the party affected was conscious of them or not. From this it follows, that a demoniac might feel himself under the influence of a whole legion of unclean spirits, as, from the account in the other Gospels, appears to have been the case in the present instance. Hence we must beware of the common mistake, of putting the guilt of the demoniacs on the same level with that of wilful slaves of Satan. In our view, the blame attachable to such persons varied from the minimum, in the case of idiots, to a maximum. The common characteristic of all was cowardice,—a cowardly surrender of a weakened and lowered consciousness to wicked influences. The same remarks apply to the moral aspect of madness generally; and we would adopt the idea, that all madness was connected with a kind of demoniac influence, rather than the view, that the demoniacs of Scripture were merely lunatics, or even that of older orthodox interpreters, who regarded them as a class of persons possessed by the devil,—God allowing it at the time of Christ, and then only, for the purpose of glorifying His name. We do not, however, deny, that at that period, when all human corruption had reached its climax, these demoniac possessions also appeared in a more full and patent manner. But if we consider that the evil primarily depended upon moral cowardice and non-resistance to evil, we shall understand all the better the method of cure adopted by the Lord. The thunderbolt of His power and divine rebuke would once more kindle the ray of life and strength in the soul, fill the spirits who possessed the demoniac with fear, and thus break the fetters by which they held their victims. It snapped, so to speak, the connection between the diseased mind, deprived of its freedom, and the demon; while at the same time the soul was brought under the influence of the Divine Being. Such was the deliverance from the δαίμων, who, although a personal being, is designated as δαιμόνιον, in allusion to the impersonality of the relationship.

They went into the herd of swine.—Of course the demons, not the demoniacs. The commotion in the herd, by which they rushed down a steep place into the sea, is readily accounted for from the well-known sympathy existing among gregarious animals. If one of the herd was seized with terror, all the others would be affected. Probably the horse is, of all animals, most liable to sudden fright, especially from spectral apparitions; but swine are also subject to such wild frights (comp. Scheitlin’s Thierseelenkunde, vol. ii. 486). Perhaps the reason why swine were Levitically unclean, may have been not merely their outward conformation, but their susceptibility for impure psychical impressions. The circumstance, that the demons went into the swine, seems indeed mysterious; but the fright of these animals arose probably from the last terrible paroxysm, which ordinarily accompanied the healing of the possessed (Mark 1:26; Luke 4:35; Mark 9:26, etc.).

Όρμᾷν, cum impetu ferri, irruere, Acts 19:29.—Olshausen suggests, that the demons drove down the herd; Henneberg, Neander, and others, that they were impelled by an unknown, but accidental cause; while Meyer regards this as a mythical addition. We prefer leaving it unexplained, as belonging to the mysterious connection between the world of spirit and nature.

Matthew 8:34. The whole city.—For the moment, the terror produced by this miracle proved even stronger than the indignation excited by the loss sustained. Accordingly, as the heathen were wont to go in solemn procession to the altars of the gods in order to avert calamities, so the people of Gadara went out to meet Christ, humbly beseeching Him to depart from their coasts. They evidently feared, lest, if He remained, they should sustain yet greater damage. The cure of two furious demoniacs, involving the loss of a herd of swine, appears a calamity in a district where swine have their keepers, but men are left uncared for. Jesus departs; but those who have been restored are left behind—more especially he who would fain have followed Him—to bear witness it Decapolis of the power and grace of Christ.

Footnotes:

[25] Matthew 8:28.—Γαδαρηνῶν according to B., C., M., al. Griesbach, Scholz, Tischendorf [Tregelles, Alford, Conant].—Γεργεσηνῶν C. codd. minusc., versions, Origen.—Γερασηνῶν, the ruling lectio at the time of Origen; several ancient versions, Lachmann. [Dr. Lange reads Gadarenes. Cod. Sinait.: γαζορηνων. See Com.—]

[26] Matthew 8:29.—Ἰησοῦ is omitted in B., C., L. [Cod. Sinait.], etc. Borrowed from Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28.

[27] Matthew 8:31.—Ἀπόστειλον ἠμᾶς, in Cod. B., [Cod. Sinait.], most of the versions, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf Tregelles, Alford, Conant]. The lectio recepta, ἐπίτρεψον ἡμῖν , is probably taken from Luke 8:32, and explanatory.

[28] Matthew 8:32.—Εἰς τοὺς χοίρους, B., C., [Cod. Sinait.], Lachmann [for εἰς τὴν ]. Probably taken from the parallel passages.

[29]Ch. 9, Matthew 8:2.—[Ἀφέωνται is the indicative, either the present tense and equivalent to ἀφῶνται (as Homer uses ἀφέῃ for ἀφῇ), or more probably the perf. pass. (Doric form) for ἀφεῖνται, remissa sunt. Comp. Winer, Grammat., etc., 6th Germ. ed., 1855, p. 74. Lachmann and Tregelles read ἀφίενται, remittuntur, with Cod. B., Cod. Sinait., and the Latin Vulgate.—P. S.]

[30] Matthew 8:4.—Lachmann, following B., M., reads εἰδώς instead of ἰσών of the Received Text.

[31] Matthew 8:6.—[Cod. Sinait. reads πορεύου, for ὕπαγε.—P. S.]

[32] Matthew 8:8.—Ἐφοβήθησαν, they feared, is much better supported than ἐθαύμασον, they marvelled. [It is sustained by the newly discovered Cod. Sinaitces and adopted in all the modern critical editions, except the Gr. Test. of Stier, and Wordsworth who adhere to the Received Text.—P. S.]

[33][Comp. Comment. on John 2:4. where Christ uses this phrase in speaking to His mother.—P. S.]

[34][Dr. Alford thus disposes of this difficulty: “The destruction of the swine is not for a moment to be thought of in the matter, as if that were an act repugnant to the merciful character of our Lord’s miracles. It finds its parallel in the cursing of the fig-tree ( Matthew 21:17-22); and we may well think that, if God has appointed so many animals daily to be slaughtered for the sustenance of men’s bodies, He may also be pleased to destroy animal life when He sees fit for the liberation or instruction of their souls. Besides, if the confessedly far greater evil of the possession of men by evil spirits, and all the misery thereupon attendant, was permitted in God’s Inscrutable purposes, surely much more this lesser one. Whether there may have been special reasons in this case, such as the contempt of the Mosaic law by the keepers of the swine, we have no means of judging; but it is at least possible.”—P. S.]