And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with you, Jesus, you Son of God? have you come here to torment us before the time?
All Commentaries on Matthew 8:29 Go To Matthew 8
John Chrysostom
AD 407
For, because the multitudes called Him man, the devils came proclaiming His Godhead, and they that heard not the sea swelling and subsiding, heard from the devils the same cry, as it by its calm was loudly uttering.
Then, lest the thing might seem to come of flattery, according to their actual experience they cry out and say, Have You come hither to torment us before the time? With this view, then, their enmity is avowed beforehand, that their entreaty may not incur suspicion. For indeed they were invisibly receiving stripes, and the sea was not in such a storm as they; galled, and inflamed, and suffering things intolerable from His mere presence. Accordingly, no man daring to bring them to Him, Christ of Himself goes unto them.
And Matthew indeed relates that they said, Have You come hither before the time to torment us? but the other evangelists have added, that they also entreated and adjured Him not to cast them into the deep. For they supposed that their punishment was now close upon them, and feared, as even now about to fall into vengeance.
And though Luke and those who follow him say that it was one person, but this evangelist two, this does not exhibit any discrepancy at all. I grant if they had said, there was only one, and no other, they would appear to disagree with Matthew; but if that spoke of the one, this of the two, the statement comes not of disagreement, but of a different manner of narration. That is, I for my part think, Luke singled out the fiercest one of them for his narrative, wherefore also in more tragical wise does he report their miserable case; as, for instance, that bursting his bonds and chains he used to wander about the wilderness. And Mark says, that he also cut himself with the stones.
And their words too are such as well betray their implacable and shameless nature. For, says he, Are you come hither to torment us before the time? You see, that they had sinned, they could not deny, but they demand not to suffer their punishment before the time. For, since He had caught them in the act of perpetrating those horrors so incurable and lawless, and deforming and punishing His creature in every way; and they supposed that He, for the excess of their crimes, would not await the time of their punishment: therefore they besought and entreated Him: and they that endured not even bands of iron come bound, and they that run about the mountains, are gone forth into the plain; and those who hinder all others from passing, at sight of Him blocking up the way, stand still.
3. But what can be the reason that they love also to dwell in the tombs? They would fain suggest to the multitude a pernicious opinion, as though the souls of the dead become demons, which God forbid we should ever admit into our conception. But what then will you say, one may ask, when many of the sorcerers take children and slay them, in order to have the soul afterwards to assist them? Why, whence is this evident? For of their slaying them, indeed, many tell us, but as to the souls of the slain being with them, whence do you know it, I pray you? The possessed themselves, it is replied, cry out, I am the soul of such a one. But this too is a kind of stage-play, and devilish deceit. For it is not the spirit of the dead that cries out, but the evil spirit that feigns these things in order to deceive the hearers. For if it were possible for a soul to enter into the substance of an evil spirit, much more into its own body.
And besides, it stands not to reason that the injured soul should co-operate with the wrong-doer, or that a man should be able to change an incorporeal power into another substance. For if in bodies this were impossible, and one could not make a man's body become that of an ass; much more were this impossible in the invisible soul; neither could one transform it into the substance of an evil spirit. So that these are the sayings of besotted old wives, and spectres to frighten children.
Nor indeed is it possible for a soul, torn away from the body, to wander here any more. For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; Wisdom 3:1 and if of the righteous, then those children's souls also; for neither are they wicked: and the souls too of sinners are straightway led away hence. And it is evident from Lazarus and the rich man; and elsewhere too Christ says, This day they require your soul of you. Luke 12:20 And it may not be that a soul, when it is gone forth from the body, should wander here; nor is the reason hard to see. For if we, going about on the earth which is familiar and well known to us, being encompassed with a body, when we are journeying in a strange road, know not which way to go unless we have some one to lead us; how should the soul, being rent away from the body, and having gone out from all her accustomed region, know where to walk without one to show her the way?
And from many other things too one might perceive, that it is not possible for a disembodied soul to remain here. For both Stephen says, Receive my spirit; Acts 7:59 and Paul, To depart and to be with Christ is far better; Philippians 1:23 and of the patriarch too the Scripture says, that he was gathered unto his fathers, being cherished in a good old age. And as to the proof, that neither can the souls of sinners continue here; hear the rich man making much entreaty for this, and not obtaining it; since had it been at all possible, he would have come, and have told what had come to pass there. Luke 16:27-28 Whence it is evident that after their departure hence our souls are led away into some place, having no more power of themselves to come back again, but awaiting that dreadful day.
