26—29.
145
28. Καὶ ἐλθόντι αὐτῷ] cis τὸ πέραν εἲς τὴν χώραν τῶν Γεργεσηνῶν, 3 ¢ Ch. xxviii.
ce / 2A , / 3 AP. , > / ὑπήντησαν αὐτῷ δύο δαιμονιζόμενοι ἐκ τῶν ‘pynpetwy ἐξερχόμενοι ἁχαλεποὶ λίαν, ὥστε μὴ ἰσχύειν τινὰ παρελθεῖν διὰ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐκείνης :
. Lk. viii. 27; xiv. I(ina ostile sense).
29. καὶ ἰδού, ἔκραξαν, λέγοντες, “© Ti ἡμῖν καὶ col, Ιησοῦ,ᾶ υἱὲ τοῦ - here and 2
Tim. iii. 1
(Isa, xviii. 2), e Mk. i. 24. Lk. iv. 34.
1 Dat. again by way of grammatical correction for the gen. abs. found in ΜΡΒΟ
and adopted by Tisch., W.H., etc.
2 So in 3 ΟΙ, al., Memph. vers., Origen. Γαδαρηνων in BC*MAX ai., adopted
by Tisch., Treg., W.H., Weiss.
Vide below.
3 Ἰησου is wanting in BCL. Comes in from Mk. Modern editors omit.
was too far distant. The true reading in Matthew (ver. 23) nevertheless is Γαδα- ρηνῶν. He probably follows Mark as his guide, but the village Gerasa being obscure and Gadara well known, he prefers to define the locality by a general reference to the latter. The name Gergesa was a suggestion of Origen’s made incidentally in his Commentary on John, in connection with the place named in chap. i. 28, Bethabara or Bethany, to illustrate the confusion in the gospel in connection with names. His words are: Γέργεσα, ad’ ἧς οἱ Γεργεσαῖοι, πόλις ἀρχαία περὶ τὴν viv καλουμένην Τιβερίαδα λίμνην, περὶ ἣν κρημνὸς παρακείµενος τῇ λίμνῃ, ad’ οὗ δείκνυται τοὺς χοιρούς ὑπὸ τῶν δαιμόνων καταβεβλῆσθαι (in Ev. Ioan., T. vi. c. 24). Prof. G. A. Smith, Historical Geography, p. 459, note, pronounces Gerasa ‘‘impossible”. But he means Gerasa in Decapolis, thirty-six miles away. He accepts Khersa, which he identifies with Gergesa, as the scene of the incident, stating that it is the only place on the east coast where the steep hills come down to the shore.
Ver. 28. -8vo, two, in Mark and Luke one. According to some, 6.5., Holtz- mann (H. C.), the two includes the case reported in Mk. i. 23-27, Lk. iv. 31-37, omitted by Matthew. Weiss’ hypothesis is that the two is an inference from the plurality of demons spoken of in his source (vide Matt.-Evan., p. 239). The harmonists disposed of the difficulty by the remark that there might be two, though only one is spoken of in the other accounts, perhaps because he was the more violent of the two (so Augustine and Calvin).—é« τῶν μνημείων: the precipitous hills on the eastern shore are a limestone formation full of caves, which were doubtless used for burying the dead. There the demoniacs made their congenial Ποπῃς.--χαλεποὶ λίαν,
fierce exceedingly; λίαν, one of our evangelist’s favourite words. These demoniacs were what one would call dangerous madmen; that, whatever more; no light matter to cure them, say by ‘‘moral therapeutics”.—dore μὴ ἰσχύειν: again ὥστε with infinitive (with μὴ for negative). The point is not that nobody passed that way, but that the presence of the madmen tended to make it a place to be shunned as dangerous. Nobody cared to go near them. Christ came near their lair by accident, but He would not have been scared though He had known of their presence.
Ver. 29. ἰδοὺ ἔκραξαν: sudden, start- ling, unearthly cry, fitted to shock weak nerves. But not the cry of men about to make an assault. The madmen, whom all feared and shunned, were subdued by the aspect of the stranger who had arrived in the neighbourhood. Το be taken as a fact, however strange and mysterious, partly explained by the fact that Jesus was not afraid of them any more than He had been of the storm. They felt His power in the very look of His eye. τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί: an appropri- ate speech even in the mouth of one demoniac, for he speaks in the name of the legion of devils (Mk. v. 9) by which he conceives himself possessed. Identi- fying himself with the demons, he shrinks from the new comer with an instinctive feeling that He is a foe.—vié τοῦ θεοῦ: 6 ἅγιος τ. θ. in the Capernaum synagogue case ; strange, almost incred- ible divination. Yet ‘insanity is much nearer the kingdom of God than worldly- mindedness. There was, doubtless, something in the whole aspect and man- ner of Jesus which was fitted to produce almost instantaneously a deep, spiritual impression to which child-like, simple, ingenuous souls like the Galilean fisher- men, sinful, yet honest-hearted men like those who met at Matthew’s feast,