Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/247

 *hensive sermon on the mount, Luke causes it to be taught in "a certain place" where Jesus was praying. The former makes Jesus deliver it spontaneously; the latter in answer to the request of a disciple; the former to a vast audience; the latter to the disciples alone (Mt. vi. 9-13; Lu. xi. 1-4).

Discrepancies like these evince the hopelessness of attempting to follow with accuracy the footsteps of Christ. We can obtain nothing beyond the most general conception of his movements, if even that; and of the order of the several events in his life we can have scarcely any notion. Discourses, parables, conversations, miracles, follow one another now in rapid succession. Leaving the consideration of the doctrines taught for another place, we will notice here, without aiming at a chronological arrangement, the principal scenes of his life; and, beginning with his miracles, we will take before any others those in which devils are expelled; or as we should say, maniacs are restored to sanity.

A strange miracle of this kind is related of a man in the country of the Gadarenes or Gergasenes. Matthew indeed, according to a common habit of his, has made him into two men, but the other two Evangelists agree that there was but one. This man was a raving lunatic, who had defeated every effort to confine him hitherto made, and who lived among tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. Seeing Jesus, he addressed him as the Son of the Most High God, and adjured him not to torment him. On being asked his name, he said it was Legion, for they were many. Having been ordered out by Jesus, he begged for leave to enter into a herd of swine which was feeding near at hand; this was granted, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea and were all drowned, their number being about two thousand (Mk. v. 1-20; Mt. viii. 28-34; Lu. viii. 26-39). After this wanton destruction of property, it is not surprising that the people "began to pray him to depart out of their coasts." Jesus on this occasion certainly displayed a singular tenderness towards the devils, and very little consideration for the unfortunate owners of the pigs. Nor did the Legion gain much by the bargain; for they lost their new habitation the moment they had taken possession of it.