The Possessed Creatures of Gergesa

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter VI: The miracles done in Gergesa and Capharnaum

I. The Possessed Creatures of Gergesa

Luke viii. 22-39; Mark iv. 35-41; v. 1-20; Matt. viii. 18, 23-34.

The crowds which Jesus had dismissed after the discourse by the Lakeside had no the other had about His abode once more.  The Saviour, seeing that any need for repose was not to be hoped for inside the city walls, resolved that same evening to seek the lonely highlands of Perea.  "Let us pass over to the other side," He said to His disciples.  And they, after sending away the citizens, went aboard a boat; with them was the Lord, who made no preparation whatever for the voyage; for Saint Mark says " they took Him into the bark just as He was." Several other craft sailed along in company with them, each one, amid the rustling night-winds and under the starlit sky, making quiet headway towards the opposite bank.

Jesus asleep in the tempest. J-J Tissot.

Jesus, seating Himself in the stern, rested His head upon the pilot's pillow; very soon He was sleeping, wearied with the toils of the day.  But hardly had His eyes closed in slumber when the whole outlook overhead and round about them changed.  It is with surprising suddenness that the storms burst over the Sea of Galilee; from the icy peaks of Hermon the tempests precipitate themselves upon the lake, and in an instant whip its waters into wild and seizing waves.  Caught in one of these furious cloudbursts, the little vessels were scattered far and wide, while that of the Master was left alone, with the waters beating into it on every side.

And now the fierce floods threaten to engulf them at every moment; yet all the time Jesus slumbered on, while the Apostles dared not waken Him.  But when they felt the boat beginning to settle beneath their feet fear dispelled every other thought; they threw themselves about Him, calling upon Him with desperate eagerness,

"Master!  Master!  Save us!  We perish!"

The wakening of Jesus was as tranquil to all seeming as His repose had been; His first care was to calm their hearts rather than the angry waters.

"Why do you fear?" He said, "Oh men have little faith!" Only after this did He arise and rebuke the winds; then speaking to the sea as if it had been a furious beast,

Jesus stills the tempest.

"Be quiet," He said to it; "curb thy rage."

And immediately the winds ceased, and there came a great calm.

At sight of the unclouded plains of heaven, and the lake once again silent and placid, it was borne in upon the Apostles; minds how Jesus might well complain of their little faith.  No matter what extreme of peril they might encounter, it were too trifling to notice in His Presence; while He is with us we have nothing to fear.  Their wondering awe was shared by the sailors who were with Him.

"What manner of Man is this?" they said one to another.  "He commands the winds and the waves, and they obey Him."

The cry of these men of Galilee has been repeated many times since then; for the miracle performed upon the waters of Genesareth is but a type of those marvellous mercies which God has never ceased to operate by means of His Church.  She likewise is sailing over blustering seas; often in the awful vortex of the whirlwind it will seem as though the Master were sleeping in forgetfulness of His own; but from age to age, at the very moment when all seems lost, the Christ awakes and with one word saves the Bark.  Tossed and battered though she be, so long as Jesus rests upon the Pilot's bench she is upholden by a promise which cannot fail of fulfilment, His promise to bring us all together to the further shores of Eternity.

Jesus did not find the quiet and repose which He had come to seek in the country of Perea.  He had scarcely set foot upon the land of Gergesa when His glance encountered a mournful object.  From one of the hills which rise above the lake a possessed creature had descried the landing of the little ship, and, emerging from the caves hollowed out of the cliff, he rushed down toward where the Lord stood.

In ancient times there was no place of refuge where poor human beings could be kept when subject to such horrid afflictions is this; driven out of the towns and away from all houses, they must seek shelter in some ruined hovel or in the caverns which were used as graves.  The horror overshadowing such an abode, in which no Jew could enter without being contaminated, would naturally but increase the fury of the demoniacs.

Two men possessed. J-J Tissot.

This possessed man of Gergesa was so terrible of aspect that no one dared so much as to cross his path.  It was now a long time since he had torn to pieces what few shreds of clothing still hung about him.  And so he roamed night and day among the lonely rock-tombs, stark and naked, uttering wild shrieks and tearing his flesh with sharp stones.  They had tried in vain to fetter his limbs; he would rend his shackles with the iron chains; and after this no number of men could get the mastery over him.  This was the frenzied spectre which confronted the Lord almost as soon as His foot touched the land.

According to Saint Matthew's report of the scene, this possessed being was not alone; another such wretched mortal came running up to Jesus with him.  Frantic and violent though they were, yet, as all the others before them had been, these two were quelled by some divine charm in Him, and cowering in the dust before the Christ, they shrieked wildly:

"What is there between Thee and us, Jesus, Son of their Most-High?  Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?"

For Jesus had said to one of the demoniacs, "Foul Spirit, depart from out this man!" And as Satan was loathe to obey, the Saviour added, "What is thy name?"

The fiend answered by the mouth of the possessed man, "I amcalled Legion, because we are many."

Then shuddering and writhing before the Lord, this host of demons besought Him not to dismiss them for ever from the countryside, but to allow them some place of refuge.

Now there was a great heard of swine feeding far away upon the mountainside; and the devils begged and cried, saying,

"If Thou wilt drive us hence, let us enter into yonder herd of swine."

"Go!" He said to them.

The swine carried headlong into the sea. J-J Tissot.

And the unclean spirits, rushing forth, seized upon the swine, who were carried headlong into the lake, and was stifled with the sea waters to the number of nearly two thousand.

At sight of their herds borne in unmanageable fury to destruction, the men having charge of them at once conceived that those mad outcasts were the cause of this new misfortune; so, fearing any encounter with such ghoulish wretches, they took to flight, and spread the news as they passed along by quiet farm-houses and through the busy streets of the little city.  The townsfolk sallied out at once to see what had occurred; and what must have been a surprise, on hurrying up to where Jesus stood, to perceive at His feet the much-dreaded demoniac, now quietly seated, clothed, sane of mind, and whole, without a scream and without a single mark of recent struggle!

"And when those who had seen the thing related to them all that had happened to the possessed and  to the herds," so sudden a transformation overwhelmed them with alarm; they never thought either of denying or explaining the fact; they were simply seized with such terror that they began to beseech Jesus to leave their shores.

How can we account for this overpowering fear, the like of which was never produced by any of the Saviour’s miracles in Judaea, unless perhaps for the reason that this eastern shore of the lake was a very different territory, with a population far more Pagan than Jewish in thought and feeling?  The ten cities which gave the name of the Decapolis to these parts were Greek, both by their origin and in their manners. Gadara, (which was the native place of the demoniac, according to very many manuscripts), could boast of some famous poets, among them Meleager, a singer of light love songs, and the Epicurean Philodemus, whose renown had reached Rome itself.

Keen in its enjoyment of earthly pleasures, this land had no desire to hear of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And so, bowing to the wishes of the agitated citizens, Jesus re-embarked at once; but He did not quit their country without taking care that the Good News should be published among them.

As the man who had been healed presently supplicated to be taken along with them, the Saviour, not consenting to this step, bade him however,—

"Return to your home, to your brethren, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had pity on you."

The man obeyed, and thus became the first apostle of the Decapolis.  "He announced everywhere the works of the Christ, and all men wondered."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam