man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses (14)."

CHAPTER XI.

THE TEMPEST STILLED.-TWO DEMONIACS CURED.-SWINE

PRECIPITATED INTO THE

SEA.-PARALYTIC CURED.-VOCATION OF SAINT MATTHEW.-JESUS EATS AMONGST SINNERS.-DISPUTE RELATIVE TO FASTING.

come, saith to

And, sending

On that same day (a) "Jesus, when evening was his disciples: Let us pass over to the other side. away the multitude, he went into a little ship with them. They launched forth, and there were other ships with him. When they were sailing, Jesus slept. Behold, a great tempest arose in the sea: there came down a storm of wind upon the lake, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was covered. The ship was filled, and they were in danger. (b) Jesus was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow (1). His disciples came to him and awaked him.

(a) St. Mark, iv. 35; St. Luke,

viii. 22, 23.

(b) St. Matthew, viii. 25, 26;
St. Mark, iv. 38-40.

putting hand to the plough no man should look back again, the common meaning is, that when once a first step has been taken, we must support it with constancy, and not retrace our steps.

(14) Of these three men, it is thought that only the second followed Jesus Christ. The conclusion is probable enough, from the fact of his being the only one to whom Jesus Christ said, and that even twice: Follow me. He therefore had a vocation, which the two others, who came to offer themselves, had not. Moreover, the difficulty which he made for the present moment sprang from a good principle, and apparently from the persuasion he was under, that the assistance he meant to give his father was to him a duty from which he could not dispense himself without crime. And, in point of fact, before the great maxims of the Gospel had appeared to the world, what obligation could be more binding?

(1) This sleep was not counterfeit, as some have unreasonably contended. Jesus Christ truly slept, and had assumed this weakness of our nature with all the others. Yet there was this difference, that sleep which suspended the use of the senses in the rest of mankind, never deprived him of knowledge. His mind actually knew every thing, and thought of every thing; but he saw nothing, and he heard nothing, with the eyes or cars of the body. He might say of himself, and to the letter: I sleep; but my heart (and mind) watcheth (Cant. 5).

แ

Lord, say they to him, save us, or we perish. Doth it not concern thee that we perish? Jesus," who chose to see in this reproach only the effect of their terror, merely "saith to them" the following words: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then, rising up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was made a great calm; and he said to them" a second time, but in a milder tone than at first, when it required a firm tone to quiet their apprehensions: (a) “Why are you fearful? Have you not faith? yet they feared exceedingly;" but their fear was now of a very different sort; "and they said one to another, Who is this, thinkest thou, that he commandeth both the winds and the sea; and both wind and sea obey him?"

It has been thought that the demons had excited the frightful tempest we have just spoken of. The following narrative, by informing us what interest they had in thwarting this journey, gives ground to the conjecture:-When the calm returned, they continued to sail onward, (b)" and they came over the strait of the sea, on the other side of the water, to the country of the Gerasens, which is over against Galilee. As Jesus went out of the ship, there met him two that were possessed with devils, coming out of the sepulchres, exceeding fierce, so that none could pass by that way." One of the two, apparently the best known, and, for this reason, the only one spoken of by two of the three Evangelists who recount this fact, (c) "had a devil now a very long time," and that in a very violent manner. "He wore no clothes; neither did he abide in a house, but in the sepulchres. No man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him. He was always day and night in the monuments (2), and in the mountains, crying, and cutting himself with

(a) St. Mark, iv. 40; St. Luke, (b) St. Mark, v. 1; St. Luke, viii. 26, 27; viii. 35. St. Matthew, viii. 28. (c) St. Luke, viii. 27; St. Mark, v. 3-6.

(2) The sepulchres of the Jews were outside the towns. They were grottoes built of stone and brick, like our cellars, or hewn out of the rock, as was that of Jesus Christ; which shows that they were spacious enough for a living man to dwell there

stones. (a) Seeing Jesus afar off, he ran, and adored him; and they both cried out," at the same time, or rather the demons, by their organ: "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time (3)? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not," added the devil who possessed the unfortunate man we have just been speaking of. "For Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to go out of the man, and said unto him: Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit." When the unclean spirit still lingered, "Jesus," who desired to make manifest the splendor of his victory over the powers of hell, (b) “ asked him : What is thy name? My name is Legion, he said, for we are many. Because [in reality] many devils were entered into him. The demons," forced by the word of Jesus to depart thence, (c) "besought him much that he would not drive them out of the country, and that he would not command them to go into the abyss. There was then a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain. The devils besought him, saying: If thou cast us out hence, send us into the swine, that we may enter into them (4). Jesus immediately gave leave to them; and the unclean spirits going out, entered into the

(a) St. Matthew, viii. 29; St. Mark, v. 7; (b) St. Luke, viii. 30, 31, 32; St. St. Luke, viii. 29; St. Mark, v. 8. Mark, v. 9, 10.

(c) St. Matthew, viii. 31; St. Mark, v. 12, 13.

in. We also read of the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, that Peter and John entered there, as well as the holy women who came to embalm the body of the Saviour.

(3) This sayinginduced several ancient interpreters of respectable authority to believe that the demons were not as yet tormented, and that they should not commence their torments until after the last judgment. This opinion is now-a-days abandoned, and the prevailing one now in the Church is, that the demons suffer, and have suffered from the time of their fall; and that, wherever they go, they carry their hell along with them. Yet they retain a relic of liberty, and the pleasure of doing injury. Now, they will lose both one and the other when, after the last judgment, they shall be closed up in the abyss, whence they shall never more be permitted to emerge. They were apprehensive lest Jesus Christ, who waged against them so terrible a war, might precipitate them there before that time. Hence their complaints and their entreaties not to command them to go into the abyss.

(4) Among the many motives which are supposed to have induced them to make such a demand, the most likely is, that, unable any longer to torment men in their bodies and in their souls, they desired to be allowed to cause them damage in their goods.

swine. The herd, being about two thousand, ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and they perished in the waters (5). (a) Which when they that fed them saw done, they fled, and told in the city and in the villages every thing; and concerning them that had been possessed by the devil. The whole city went out to meet Jesus, to see what was done. (b) They came to Jesus, and found the man out of whom the devils were departed sitting at his feet, clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid. They also that had seen told them in what manner he had been dealt

(a) St. Luke, viii. 34; St. Matthew,

viii. 33, 34.

(b) St. Luke, viii. 35; St. Mark,
v. 15, 16.

(5) To say the least, it would be very improper to imagine that, in granting this leave, Jesus Christ committed a wrong towards those to whom the flock belonged. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.—Psalm xxiii. Wherefore, he can take from us, when he pleases, those goods which we hold from his pure liberality; and the religious man says then, as the holy man, Job: The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Yet still, we are surprised that Jesus Christ, the meekest of all men, whose every step was marked by so many benefits, should have caused, or at least permitted, on this single occasion, a species of damage. The answer given is 1st. That in transferring the swine to the power which the demons exercised previously over men, he performed a much greater good than the evil which he permitted; for, whatever notions on the subject may be entertained by certain modern philosophers, two men, or even one man, is of more value than two thousand swine. 2d. Jesus Christ punished the Gerasenians. If Jews, they deserved this; for keeping, as they did, such a great quantity of these animals, the use of which was interdicted by law, was furnishing an immediate occasion of prevarication to all the people of the surrounding district. But some have thought the inhabitants of Geresa were Greeks, and a portion of the colony of Gadara, an adjacent city, where the emperors had granted a right to the Greeks to form an establishment. In this case, they, too, deserved to be punished, on account of their excessive attachment to these vile animals, which they preferred to the word of God, that Jesus Christ came to announce to them. This is apparent by the prayer they made Jesus Christ, to retire from them, not venturing to endeavor to force him. Now, not to prefer God to those goods which he has given to us, deserves that he should take them from us. May we not add, that he then takes them away in point of fact? or that he only leaves them for the misfortune of those who, by this unworthy preference, deserve no favor on his part, or only merit those goods, the possession of which is of greater mischief than their privation?

The permission to enter into the swine, which was asked by the demons, and granted by Jesus Christ, further teaches us, that the demon can do nothing, in the whole compass of nature, which God does not wish to allow him. Let us, therefore, fear neither the demon, nor all the powers of hell, of earth, and of heaven; but Him by whom alone all the powers of heaven, of earth, and of hell become fearful.

with who had the devil, and concerning the swine. (a) Then all the multitude of the country of the Gerasens besought him to depart from them, for they were taken with great fear (6)." Jesus punished this prayer, by acceding to it ;-"he, going up into the ship, returned back again. When he went up into the ship, he that had been so highly troubled with the devil besought him that he might be with him." It is not mentioned whether gratitude for such a great blessing, or the dread of a second possession, inspired prayer. It may have sprung from both motives. But, whatever was the motive, Jesus, who had other designs upon him, “admitted him not ;" and, substituting another sort of apostleship for that to which he refused him admission, (b) "saith to him: Go into thy house, to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had mercy on thee. He went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him, and all men wondered.

this

"When Jesus had passed again in the ship over the strait, a great multitude assembled together unto him: for they were all waiting for him." He did not stop long among them; and (c) "again after” an absence of "some days, he entered into Capharnaum," which here is called "his own city," on account of its being his usual residence. "It was heard that he was in the house." We may presume that this was still the house of Peter and Andrew. "Many came together, so that there was no room; no, not even at the door. (d) Jesus spoke to them the word. He sat teaching; and there were also" in the assembly "Pharisees and doctors of the law

(a) St. Luke, viii. 37; St. Mark,
v. 18.

(6) St. Mark, v. 19-21; St. Luke,
viii. 40.

(c) St. Matthew, ix. 1; St. Mark
ii. 1, 2.
(d) St. Luke, v. 17.

(6) Interest had truly as great a share in this prayer as fear, unless, perhaps, their fear was exclusively produced by interest. Thus, under all the circumstances of the case, these subtle Gerasenians concluded that the herd of swine was much more useful to the State than was Jesus Christ and his doctrine. It would not be difficult to find their apology in the writings of some of our good patriots. [Our author here alludes to the utilitarians of the old French School.]