In a certain famous story from the synoptic gospels, Jesus casts out a legion of demons into a herd of pigs. And while the primary point of these stories in Matthew, Mark, and Luke seems to be the demonstration of Jesus’ authority and power over the demons, one has to wonder about the collateral damage of the pigs. While some historical commentators have interpreted the story to support the conclusion that Jesus cared about the souls of people more than the bodies of animals or people’s properties. But that’s not the question I’d like to ask here. It’s worth asking, “What about the pig farmers? How did they react to Jesus and his miracle?”
This story of Jesus casting the demons into the pigs is placed in Matthew 8:28–9:1; Mark 5:1–21; and Luke 8:26–40. There are a great number of similarities in all three gospels–the story is in each placed immediately after Jesus’ calming of the storm, each account emphasizes the plurality of the demons, each emphasizes that the demons initiated the encounter and asked to be cast into the pigs, which happened through Jesus’ authority, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the pigs. Despite these and other numerous similarities, however, there are in fact a number of differences between how this miracle is presented in each of the synoptic gospels. Matthew, for example, mentioned two demon possessed men (Matt 8:28), whereas Mark distinctly emphasizes one (Mark 5:2–6). This post is not here to resolve these kinds of differences between the stories. But there is one key difference to the way the story is presented in Matthew that I believe helps us understand what to make of the reaction of the pig farmers.
The pig farmers, or herdsmen, react in basically the same way in each of the accounts of this miracle in the synoptics: they fly away in fear and tell their neighbors what has happened. A level of sympathy is probably due these poor herdsmen; they had just almost inexplicably lost their herd as they madly ran into the Sea of Galilee and drowned themselves. Yet at the same time, we know they had some sort of basic rational understanding of what had happened in that the messaged they conveyed to the townsfolk resulted in their identifying Jesus with the disturbance. Mark and Luke emphasize that the men of the area would have known of the power of these demons, for they had tried and failed to bind the man. Matthew emphasizes it differently:
And upon his coming to the other side into the region of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs met him coming out from the tombs, who were exceedingly dangerous, so that no one was able to pass through that way.
Matt 8:28
While the place and imagery of the tombs and allusion to fierceness are all shared features with Mark and Luke, Matthew’s description of others being unable to pass near the demons is unique to his account of the miracle. In so doing he sets up a peripeteia1 with the end of the story as he tells it. At the beginning of the story, the demons hinder all the people from traveling in that area, but Jesus having authority over demons is able to defeat them. At the end of the story, all the people are able to travel through the area because of Jesus’ miracle, but they do not allow Jesus himself to pass through. Until the herdsmen tell the people of the city what happens and they tell Jesus to go away, the story almost reads like a hero’s exploit out of ancient mythology: the demoniac monster blocks the way of all who would travel there, and the hero Jesus overpowers him. The reversal that happens when the people of the city not only don’t thank Jesus for his service but ask him to go away isn’t the first reaction readers might expect of those so delivered from the demons. What are we to make of this?
Perhaps part of the answer lies in the natural reaction of the herdsmen to the potential loss of their livelihood. But the context in Matthew adds an additional theological message. Within the story itself, that Jesus has the authority to drive out the demons stands in contrast to the people’s rejection of Jesus–Jesus does not exercise the same authority over demons that he does over people. In all the gospels, though, the story of Jesus calming the storm immediately precedes the cleansing of this demoniac. So the authority that the people reject is Jesus’ authority over the demons, the winds, and the waves. But in Matthew there are more miracles in the preceding context–the healing of a leper, the healing of the centurion’s servant, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, and the healing of many others at that house. The centurion explicitly asked for Jesus’ healing on the basis of Jesus’ authority (Matt 8:8–9). Hence Jesus is presented as having complete authority over disease, water, wind, and demon. Jesus’ authority is presented as extending seemingly to all creation.
Yet despite Jesus’ seeming total authority Matthew presents as well the rebels. While demon, wind, wave, and disease submit to Jesus, humans rebel. The herdsmen and the city folk, rather than welcoming Jesus as their savior and king, drive him away. These likely gentile2 people reject the authority of Jesus. And a few verses earlier, a Jewish scribe and a presumably Jewish disciple, upon asking to follow Jesus, are challenged by Jesus’ authority (8:18–22). Their responses are not recorded; perhaps these individuals ultimately did accept Jesus’ authority, yet that Jesus challenged their requests is indicative that they had not yet submitted to Jesus’ authority. Jesus’ responses to them stands in odd contrast to the one he gave the demons; they wanted to go into the pigs and Jesus permitted them. They recognized Jesus’ total power over them and begged for mercy. These earlier disciples rather are presented in contrast failing to recognize the totality of Jesus’ authority and therefore being rebuffed.
So what about the pig farmers? They remind us that though Jesus’ authority over all things is total, we people, all of humanity, often don’t yet recognize this. The pig farmers and the city they brought out with them rejected Jesus in fear. They stand as a warning to us that we too have seen in the stories of the gospels Jesus’ complete authority and we too have in many ways rebuffed that authority. While disease and wind and wave and demon submit to Jesus, humanity often does not, and this reminds us of Jesus’ frequent call that we enter into his kingdom.
1 Peripeteia refers to a literary device involving the reversal of fortune of characters in the story.
2 After all, you know, they were pig farmers.
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