Note 65 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

A new difficulty arises from the effect which the demons are said to have produced in the swine. Scarcely had they entered them, when they compelled the whole herd to precipitate themselves into the sea. It is reasonably asked, what then did the demons gain by entering into the animals, if they immediately destroyed the bodies of which they had taken possession, and thus robbed themselves of the temporary abode for which they had so earnestly entreated?65 The conjecture, that the design of the demons in destroying the swine, was to incense the minds of their owners against Jesus, which is said to have been the actual result,66 is too far-fetched; the other conjecture that the demoniacs, rushing with cries on the herd, together with the flight of their keepers, terrified the swine and chased them into the water,67—even if it were not opposed as we have seen to the text,—would not suffice to explain the drowning of a herd of swine amounting to 2,000, according to Mark; or only a numerous herd, according to the general statement of Matthew. The expedient of supposing that in truth it was only a part of the herd that was drowned,68 has not the slightest foundation in the evangelical narrative. The difficulties connected with this point are multiplied by the natural reflection that the drowning of the herd would involve no slight injury to the owners, and that of this injury Jesus was the mediate author. The orthodox, bent on justifying Jesus, suppose that the permission to the demons to enter into the swine was necessary to render the cure of the demoniac possible, and, they argue, brutes are assuredly to be killed that man may live;69 but they do not perceive that they thus, in a manner most inconsistent with their point of view, circumscribe the power of Jesus over the demoniacal kingdom. Again, it is supposed, that the swine probably belonged to Jews, and that Jesus intended to punish them for their covetous transgression of the law,70 that he acted with divine authority, which often sacrifices individual good to higher objects, and by lightning, hail and inundations causes destruction to the property of many men,71 in which case, to accuse God of injustice would be absurd.72 But to adopt this expedient is to confound, in a way the most inadmissible on the orthodox system, Christ’s state of humiliation with his state of exaltation: it is to depart, in a spirit of mysticism, from the wise doctrine of Paul, that he was made under the law, γενόμενος ὑπὸ νόμον (Gal. iv. 4), and that he made himself of no reputation ἑαυτόν ἐκένωσε (Phil. ii. 7): it is to make Jesus a being altogether foreign to us, since in relation to the moral estimate of his actions, it lifts him above the standard of humanity. Nothing remains, therefore, but to take the naturalistic supposition of the rushing of the demoniacs among the swine, and to represent the consequent destruction of the latter as something unexpected by Jesus, for which therefore he is not responsible:73 in the plainest contradiction to the evangelical account, which makes Jesus, even if not directly cause the issue, foresee it in the most decided manner.74 Thus there appears to attach to Jesus the charge of an injury done to the property of another, and the opponents of Christianity have long ago made this use of the narrative.75 It must be admitted that Pythagoras in a similar case acted far more justly, for when he liberated some fish from the net, he indemnified the fishermen who had taken them.76