Luke 8:27

there met him out of the city a certain man This rendering contradicts what follows. Rather, there met him a man of the city.

He had been a native of Gergesa till his madness began. St Matthew (as in the case of Bartimaeus) mentions two demoniacs, but the narrative is only concerned with one. There may of course have been another hovering in the neighbourhood. The variation in St Matthew is at least a valuable proof of the independence of the Evangelists.

which had devils Rather, having demons. The daimoniawere supposed by the Jews to be not devils (i.e. fallen angels), but the spirits of wicked men who were dead (Jos. B. J. vii. 6, § 3). See on Luke 4:33; Luke 8:2.

long time, and ware no clothes Rather (with א, B), and for a long time wore no cloke.He mayhave been naked, since the tendency to strip the.person of all clothes is common among madmen; here however it only says that he wore no himation.He may have had on the chiton, or under-garment. Naked, homicidal maniacs who live in caves and tombs are still to be seen in Palestine. Warburton saw one in a cemetery fighting, amid fierce yells and howlings, with wild dogs for a bone. Crescent and Cross, II. 352.

but in the tombs This was partly a necessity, for in ancient times there were no such things as penitentiaries or asylums, and an uncontrollable maniac, driven from the abodes of men, could find no other shelter. This would aggravate his frenzy, for the loneliness and horror of these dark rocky tombs (traces of which are still to be seen near the ruins of Kherza or the sides of the Wady Semakh) were intensified by the prevalent belief that they were haunted by shedim, or -evil spirits," the ghosts of the wicked dead (Nidda,f. 17 a, &c.). St Mark gives (Luke 5:4) a still more graphic picture of the superhuman strength and violence of this homicidal and ghastly sufferer.