Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (778 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
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In the above history of the-cure of a demoniac, we have a case of the simplest kind; the cure of the possessed Gadarencs on the contrary (Matt. viii. 28 if.; Mark v. 1 ff. ; Luke via. 26 if.) is a very complex one, for in this instance we have, together with several divergencies of the evangelists, instead of one demon, many, and instead of a simple departure of these demons, their entrance into a herd of swine.
After a stormy passage across the sea of Galilee to its eastern shore, Jesus meets, according to Mark and Luke, a demoniac who lived among the tombs,f and was subject to outbreaks of terrific fury against himself | and other,?; according to Matthew, there were two. It is astonishing how Ions harmonists have resorted to miserable expedients, such as that Mark and Luke mention only one because he was particularly distinguished by wildness, or Matthew two, because he included the attendant who guarded the maniac,§ rather than admit an essential difference between the two narratives. Since this step lias been gained, the preference has been given to the stateIn spexe
46fi THE LIFE OF JESUS.
mcnt of tlie two intermediate evangelists, from the consideration that maniacs of this class are generally unsociable; and the addition of a second demoniac by Matthew has been explained by supposing that the plurality of the demons spoken of in the narratives, became in his apprehension a plurality of demoniacs.* But the impossibility that two maniacs should in reality associate themselves, or perhaps be associated merely in the original legend, is not so decided as to furnish in itself a ground for preferring the narrative in Mark and Luke to that in Matthew. At least if it be asked, which of the two representations could the most easily have been formed from the other by tradition, the probability on both sides will be found equal. For if according to the above supposition, the plurality of demons might give rise to the idea of a plurality of demoniacs, it may also be said, conversely: the more accurate representation of Matthew, in which a plurality of demoniacs as well as of demons was mentioned, did not give prominence to the specifically extraordinary feature iu the case, namely, that one man was possessed by many demons; and as, in order to exhibit this, the narrative when reproduced must be so expressed as to make it clear that many demons inhabited one man, this might easily occasion by degrees the opposition of the demoniac in the singular to the plural number of the demons.For the rest, the introduction of Matthew’s narrative is concise and general, that of the two others circumstantially descriptive: another difference from which the greater originality of the latter has been deduced.t But it is quite as probable that the details which Luke and Mark have in common, namely, that the possessed would wear no clothing, broke all fetters, and wounded himself with stones, arc an arbitrary enlargement on the simple characteristic, exceeding fierce, which Matthew gives, with the consequence that no one could pass by that way,-fts that the latter is a vague abridgment of the former.
This scene between Jesus and the demoniac or demoniacs opens, like the other, with a cry of terror from the latter, who, speaking in the person of the possessing demon, exclaims that he wishes to have nothing to do with Jesus, the Messiah, from whom he has to expect only torment. Two hypotheses have been framed, to explain how the demoniac came at once to recognise Jesus as the Messiah: according to one, Jesus was even then reputed to be the Messiah on the 1’erKan shore \\ according to the other, some of those who had come across the sea with Jesus had said to the man (whom on account of his fierceness no one could come near!) that the Messiah had just landed at such a spot ;§ but both are alike groundless, for it is plain that in this narrative, as in the former, the above feature is a product of the Jewish-Christian opinion respecting the relation of the demons to the Messiah. || Here however another difference * Thus Schulz,
iiber das Abendmahl, 8, 309 ;Paulus, in loc. Hase, L, J, § 75, .....I--’-
«
i”>7.* Paulus. L. J, 1, a, .
iiber das Abendmahl, 8, 309 ;Paulus, in loc. Hase, L, J, § 75, .....I--’-
«
i”>7.* Paulus. L. J, 1, a, .
MIRACLES OF JESUS-DEMONIACS.meets u«. According to Matthew, the possessed, when they see Jesus, cry: What have we to do with theef Art thou come to torment us /-according to Luke, the demoniac falls at the teet ot Jesus and says beseechingly, Torment me not; and lastly, according to Mark, he runs from a distance to meet Jesus, falls at his feet and adjures him by God not to torment him. Thus we have again a climax: in Matthew, the demoniac, striken with terror, deprecates the unwelcome approach of Jesus ; in Luke, he accosts Jesus, when arrived, as a suppliant; in Mark, he eagerly runs to meet Jesus, while yet at a distance. Those commentators who here take Mark’s narrative as the standard one, are obliged themselves to admit, that the hastening of a demoniac towards Jesus whom he all the while dreaded, is somewhat of a contradiction; and they endeavour to relieve themselves of the difficulty, by the supposition that the man set oft’ to meet Jesus in a lucid moment, when he wished to be freed from the demon, but being heated by running,* or excited by the words of Jesus, f he fell into the paroxysm in which, assuming the character of the demon, he entreated that the expulsion might be suspended. But in the closely consecutive phrases of Mark, Seeing-he ran-and -icorshijrped-and cried--and said ISuv-’iSpatte-nal TrpoaeitvvTjae-nai, Kpd^ag-eiTre, there is no trace of a change in the state of the demoniac, and the improbability of his representation subsists, for one really possessed, if he had recognised the Messiah .at a distance, would have anxiously avoided, rather than have approached him ; and even setting this aside, it is impossible that one who believed himself to be possessed by a demon inimical to God, should adjure Jesus by God, as Mark makes the demoniac do.J If then his narrative cannot be the original one, that of Luke which is only so far the simpler that it docs not represent the demoniac as running towards Jesus and adjuring him, is too closely allied to it to be regarded as the nearest to the fact. That of Matthew is without doubt the purest, for the terror-stricken question, Art thou come to destroy us before the time ? is better suited to a demon, who, as the enemy of the Messiah’s kingdom, could expect no forbearance from the Messiah, than the entreaty for clemency in Mark and Luke; though Philostratus, in a narrative which might be regarded as an imitation of this evangelical one, has chosen the latter form.§
From the course of the narratives hitherto, it would appear that the demons, in this as in the first narrative, addressed Jesus in the manner described, before anything occurred on his part; yet the two intermediate evangelists go on to state, that Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. When did Jesus do this? The most natural answer would be: before the * Katiirliche Gescliichtc, 2, 174, f Paulus, exeg. Ilanclb., 1, S. 473 ; Olshausen, 8, 301’, | Tliis even Failing S. -174, and Olsliaus™, S.’iiO:-!, find surprising. § It is tha narrative of tins manner in which Apollonius of Tyana unmasked a demon reninusaX vittTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
man spoke to him. Now in Luke the address of the demoniac is so closely connected with the word -xpoa£-eaE, lie fell down, and then again with dvaKpd^ag, having cried out, that it seems necessary to place the command of Jesus before the cry and the prostration, and hence to consider it as their cause. Yet Luke himself rather gives the mere sight of Jesus as the caxi.se of those demonstrations on the part of the demoniac, so that his representation leaves us in perplexity as to where the command of Jesus should find its place. The case is still worse in Mark, for here a similar dependence of the successive phrases thrusts back the command of Jesus even before the word tdpape, ke ran, so that we should have to imagine rather strangely that Jesus cried to the demon, t-^eWe, Come out, from a distance. Thus the two intermediate evangelists are in an error with regard either to the consecutive particulars that precede the command or to the command itself, and our only question is, where may the error be most probably presumed to lie? Here Schleiermachcr himself admits, that if in the original narrative an antecedent command of Jesus had been spoken of, it would have been given in its proper place, before the prayer of the demons, and as a quotation of the precise words of Jesus; whereas the supplementary manner in which it is actually inserted, with its abbreviated and indirect form (in Luke; Mark changes it after his usual style, into a direct address), is a strong foundation for the opinion that it is an explanatory addition furnished by the narrator from his own conjecture.* And it is an extremely awkward addition, for it obliges the reader to recast his conception of the entire scene. At first the pith of the incident seems to be, that the demoniac had instantaneously recognised and supplicated Jesus ; but the narrator drops this original idea, and reflecting that the prayer of the demon must have been preceded by a severe command from Jesus, he corrects his previous omission, and remarks that Jesus had given his command in the first instance.
To their mention of this command, Mark and Luke annex the question put by Jesus to the demon: What is thy name? In reply, a multitude of demons make known their presence, and give as their name, Legion. Of this episode Matthew has nothing. In the above addition we have found a supplementary explanation of the former part of the narrative: what if this question and answer were an anticipatory introduction to the sequel, and likewise the spontaneous production of the legend or the narrator1/ Let us examine the reasons that render it probable: the wish immediately expressed by the demons to enter the herd of swine, does not in Matthew pro-suppose a multitude of demons in cacii of the two * Tit. snp, S. 1-8. When, however, lie accounts fur this in. or.’cct supplement of Luke’s by supposing that his informant, being engaged in the vessel, had remained behind, and thus had missed the commencement of ttie scene ^’ith tile demoniac, this is too l.>i,^n,-f,rl .in exercise of ingenuity, and pre-supposes th.! antiquated opinion, that tlieie \va3
“ ‘ ‘-’.-•:........I’d,,, c,,,.t< wlueli MIRACLES OF JESUS-DEMONIACS.possessed, since we cannot know whether the Hebrews were not able to believe that even two demons only could possess a whole herd of swine: but a later writer might well think it requisite to make the number of the evil spirits equal the number of the swine. Now, what a herd is in relation to animals, an army or a division of an army is in relation to men, and superior beings, and as it was required to express a large division, nothing could more readily suggest itself than the Roman legion, which term in Matt.
xxvi. b’A, is applied to angels, as here to demons.
But without further considering this more precise estimate of the evangelists, we must pronounce it inconceivable that several demons had set up their habitation in one individual. For even if we had attained so fur as to conceive how one demon by a subjection of the human consciousness could possess himself of a human organization, imagination would still fail us to conceive that many personal demons could at once possess one man. For as possession means nothing else, than that the demon constitutes himself the subject of the consciousness, and as consciousness can in reality have but one focus, one central point:it
is
under every condition absolutely inconceivable that several demons should at the same time take possession of one man. Manifold possession could only exist in the sense of an alternation of possession by various demons, and not as here in that of a whole arinv of them dwellinir at once in one man, and at once departing ti O
AO
xxvi. b’A, is applied to angels, as here to demons.
But without further considering this more precise estimate of the evangelists, we must pronounce it inconceivable that several demons had set up their habitation in one individual. For even if we had attained so fur as to conceive how one demon by a subjection of the human consciousness could possess himself of a human organization, imagination would still fail us to conceive that many personal demons could at once possess one man. For as possession means nothing else, than that the demon constitutes himself the subject of the consciousness, and as consciousness can in reality have but one focus, one central point:it
is
under every condition absolutely inconceivable that several demons should at the same time take possession of one man. Manifold possession could only exist in the sense of an alternation of possession by various demons, and not as here in that of a whole arinv of them dwellinir at once in one man, and at once departing ti O
AO
from him.
All the narratives agree in this, that the demons (in order, as Mark says, not to be sent out of the country, or according to Luke, into the deep,) entreated of Jesus permission to enter into the herd of swine feeding near; that this was granted them by Jesus; and that forthwith, owing- to their influence, the whole herd of swine (Mark, we must not ask on what authority, fixes their number at about two thousand) were precipitated into the sea and drowned. If we adopt here the point of view taken in the gospel narratives, which throughout suppose the existence of real demons, it is yet to be asked : how can demons, admitting even that they can take possession of men,--how, we say, can they, being at all events intelligent spirits, have and obtain the wish to enter into brutal forms V Everv rcligion and philosophy which rejects the transmigration of souls, must, for the same reason, also deny the possibility of this passage ot the demons into swine: and Olshausen is quite right in classing the swine of Gadara in the New Testament with Balaam’s ass in the, Old, as a similar scandal and stumbling block,’* This theologian, however, rather evades than overcomes the difficulty, by the observation, that we are here to suppose, not an entrance of the individual demons into the individual swine, but merely an influence ot all the evil spirits on the swine collectively. For the expression, eweMelv elg -ovy xolpovg, to enter into the swine, as it stands opposed to the expression, e&AJOeiv iic rov dvOpunov, to go out of the )/utn,THE LIFE OF JESUS.
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