This identification of the demons with the demonised, in consequence of which he thought with their consciousness, and they spoke not only through him but in his forms of thinking, may also account for the last and most difficult part of this narrative. Their main object and wish was not to be banished from the country and people, or, as St. Luke puts it - again to depart into the abyss.' Let us now try to realise the scene. On the very narrow strip of shore, between the steep cliff that rises in the background and the Lake, stand Jesus with His disciples and the demonised. The wish of the demons is not to be sent out of the country - not back into the abyss. The one is the cliff overhead, the other the Lake beneath: so, symbolically, and, to the demonised, really. Up on that cliff a great herd of swine is feeding; up that cliff, therefore, is into the swine;' and this also agrees with Jewish thoughts concerning uncleanness. The rendering of our Authorised Version, [2916] that, in reply to the demoniac entreaty, forthwith Jesus gave them leave,' has led to misunderstanding. The distinction here to be made is, though narrow, yet real and important. The verb, which is the same in all the three Gospels, would be better rendered by suffered' than by gave them leave.' With the latter we associate positive permission. None such was either asked or given. The Lord suffered it - that is, He did not actually hinder it. [2917] He only said unto them, Go!'
What followed belongs to the phenomena of supersensuous influences upon animals, of which many instances are recorded, but the rationale of which it is impossible to explain. How the unclean spirits could enter into the swine, is a question which cannot be entertained till we shall know more of the animal soul than is at present within our range. This, however, we can understand, that under such circumstances a panic would seize the herd, that it would madly rush down the steep on which it could not arrest itself, and so perish in the sea. And this also we can perceive, how the real object of the demons was thus attained; how they did not leave the country, when Christ was entreated to leave it.
The weird scene over which the moon had shed her ghostlike light, was past. The unearthly utterances of the demonised, the wild panic among the herd on the cliff, the mad rush down the steep, the splashing waters as the helpless animals were precipitated into the Lake - all this makes up a picture, unsurpassed for vivid, terrible realism. And now sudden silence has fallen on them. From above, the keepers of the herd had seen it all - alike what had passed with the demonised, and then the issue in the destruction of the herd. From the first, as they saw the demonised, for fear of whom no man might pass that way,' running to Jesus, they must have watched with eager interest. In the clear Eastern air not a word that was spoken could have been lost. And now in wild terror they fled, into Gerasa - into the country round about, to tell what had happened.
It is morning, and a new morning-sacrifice and morning-Psalm are about to be offered. He that had erst been the possession of foul and evil spirits - a very legion of them - and deprived of his human individuality, is now sitting at the feet of Jesus,' learning of Him, clothed and in his right mind.' He has been brought to God, restored to self, to reason, and to human society - and all this by Jesus, at Whose Feet he is gratefully, humbly sitting, a disciple.' Is He not then the Very Son of God? Viewing this miracle, as an historical fact, viewing it as a Parabolic Miracle, viewing it also as symbolic of what has happened in all ages - is He not the Son of the Most High God? And is there not now, on His part, in the morning-light the same calmness and majesty of conscious Almighty Power as on the evening before, when He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea?