And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their region.
All Commentaries on Matthew 8:34 Go To Matthew 8
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Because there were who thought Christ to be a man, therefore the daemons cameto proclaim His divinity, that they who had not seen the sea raging and again still, might hear the daemons crying; “And when he was come to the other side in the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two men having daemons.”.
Or; Luke and Mark chose to speak of one who was more grievously afflicted; whence also they add a further description of his calamity; Luke saying that he brake his bonds and was driven into the desert; Mark telling that he ofttimescut himself with stones. But they neither of them say that there was only one, which would be to contradict Matthew. What is added respecting them that they "came from among the tombs,” alludes to a mischievous opinion, that the souls of the dead became daemons. Thus many soothsayers use to kill children, that they may have their souls to cooperate with them; and daemoniacs also often cry out, I am the spirit of such an one. But it is not the soul of the dead man that then cries out, the daemon assumes his voice to deceive the hearers. For if the soul of a dead man has power to enter the body of another, much more might it enter its own. And it is more unreasonable to suppose that a soul that has suffered cruelty should cooperate with him that injured it, or that a man should have power to change an incorporeal being into a different kind of substance, such as a human soul into the substance of a daemon. For even in amaterial body, this is beyond human power; as, for example, no man can change the body of a man into that of an ass.And it is not reasonable to think that adisembodied spirit should wander to and for on the earth. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God;” therefore those of young children must be so, seeing they are not evil. And the souls of sinners are at once conveyed away from hence, as is clear from Lazarus, and the rich man.
That this should not be thought to be flattery, they cry out what they were experiencing, “Art thou come to torment us before the time?”.
They could not say they had not sinned, because Christ had found them doing evil, and marring the workmanship of God; whence they supposed that for their more abundant wickedness the time of the last punishment which shall be at the day of judgment should not be tarried for to punish them.
Jesus did not say this, as though persuaded by the daemons, but with many designs therein. One, that He might show the mighty power to hurt of these daemons, who were in possession of the two men; another, that all might see that they had no power against the swine unless by His sufferance; thirdly, toshew that they would have done more grievous hurt to the men, had they not evenin their calamities been aided by Divine Providence, for they hate men more than irrational animals. By this it is manifest that there is no man who is not supported by Divine Providence; and if all are not equally supported by it, neither after one manner, this is the highest characteristic of Providence, that it is extended to each man according to his need. Besides the above-mentioned things, we learn also that He cares not only for the whole together, but for each one in particular; which one may see clearly in these daemoniacs, who would have been long before choked in the deep, had not Divine care preserved them. He also permitted them to go into the herd of swine, that they that dwelt in those parts might know His power. For where He was known to none, there He makes His miracles to shine forth, that He may bring them to a confession of His divinity.
