Note 30 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

But the most formidable difficulty for Olshausen, in his attempted mediation between the Judaical demonology of the New Testament and the intelligence of our own day, arises from the influence of the latter on his own mind—an influence which renders him adverse to the idea of personal demons. This theologian, initiated in the philosophy of the present age, endeavours to resolve the host of demons, which in the New Testament are regarded as distinct individuals, into a system of emanations, forming the continuity of a single substance, which indeed sends forth from itself separate powers, not, however, to subsist as independent individuals, but to return as accidents into the unity of the substance. This cast of thought we have already observed in the opinions of Olshausen concerning angels, and it appears still more decidedly in his demonology. Personal demons are too repugnant, and as Olshausen himself expresses it,30 the comprehension of two subjects in one individual is too inconceivable to find a ready acceptation. Hence it is everywhere with vague generality that a kingdom of evil and darkness is spoken of; and though a personal prince is given to it, its demons are understood to be mere effluxes and operations, by which the evil principle manifests itself. But the most vulnerable point of Olshausen’s opinion concerning demons is this: it is too much for him to believe that Jesus asked the name of the demon in the Gadarene; since he himself doubts the personality of those emanations of the kingdom of darkness, it cannot, he thinks, have been thus decidedly supposed by Christ;—hence he understands the question, What is thy name? (Mark v. 9) to be addressed, not to the demon, but to the man,31 plainly in opposition to the whole context, for the answer, Legion, appears to be in no degree the result of a misunderstanding, but the right answer—the one expected by Jesus.