20-12. The Demoniac in the Synagogue of Capernaum

12. The Demoniac in the Synagogue of Capernaum Mark 1:23-26; Luk 4:33-36 The healing of this demoniac, the second miracle of the kind which the Evangelists record at any length, may not offer so much remarkable as some similar works, but has not the less its own special points of interest. What distinguishes it the most, although finding parallels elsewhere (see Mark 1:34; Mat 8:29), is the testimony which the evil spirit bears to Christ, and his refusal to accept it. This history thus stands in very instructive relation with another in the Acts (xvi. 16-18). There in like manner, a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination bears witness to Paul and his company, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation;” and Paul there, as his Master here, will not suffer that hell should bear witness to heaven, the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and commands with power the unclean spirit to come out. Our Lord was teaching, as was his wont upon a Sabbath, in the synagogue of Capernaum; and the people were already wondering at the authority with which He taught. But He was not mighty in word only, but also in work, and it was ordained by the providence of his Heavenly Father, that the opportunity should here be offered Him for making yet deeper the impression on his hearers, and confirming the word with signs following. “There was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit;” and this spirit felt at once the nearness of One, who was stronger than all that kingdom whereunto he belonged; who should destroy the works of the devil. And with the instinct and consciousness of this danger which so nearly threatened his usurped dominion, he cried out,—not the man himself, but the evil spirit,—”saying, Let us alone:^[1] what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth?^[2] art Thou come to destroy us?” (Mat 8:29; 2Pe 2:4; Jude 1:6). “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” Earth has not recognized her king, disguised as He is like one of her own children; but heaven has borne witness to Him (Luk 2:11; Mat 3:17), and now hell must bear its witness too; “the devils believe and tremble.” The unholy, which is resolved to be unholy still, understands well that its death-knell has sounded, when “the Holy One of God” (compare Psa 16:10 for the first appearance of this phrase) has come to make war against it.

But, What, it may be asked, could have been the motive to this testimony, thus borne? It is strange that the evil spirit should thus, without compulsion, proclaim to the world the presence in the midst of it of the Holy One of God, who should thus bring all the unholy, on which he battened and by which he lived, to an end. “Was it not to be expected rather that he would have denied, or sought to obscure, the glory of his person? It cannot be replied that this was/ an unwilling confession to the truth, forcibly extorted by Christ’s superior power, since it displeased Him in whose favour it professed to be borne, and the mouth of its utterer is gagged.^[3] It remains then either, with Theophylact and Grotius, to take this as the cry of base and abject fear, that with fawning and flatteries would fain avert from itself the doom, which with Christ’s presence in the world must evidently be near;—to compare, as Jerome does, this exclamation to that of the fugitive slave, dreaming of nothing but stripes and torments when he encounters unawares his well-known lord/ and now seeking by any means to deprecate his anger;^[4]—or else, and so Christ’s immediately stopping of his mouth would, seem to argue, this testimony was intended only to do harm, to injure the estimation of Him in whose behalf it was rendered. It was to bring the truth itself into suspicion and discredit, when it received its attestation from the spirit of lies:^[5] and thus these confessions of Jesus as the -Christ may have been intended only to traverse and mar his great purpose and plan, even as we see Mark 3:22 following hard on Mark 3:11. Therefore the Lord would not allow this testimony: “Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him” ^[6] (cf. ver. 41); not “The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 1:9; cf. Acts 16:18), but rebuking in his own name and by his own power.

It might seem as though the evil spirit was not altogether and at once obedient to the word of Christ, that it was not altogether a word of power; since He bade him to hold his peace, and yet in the next verse we learn that only after “he had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him”(cf. Acts 8:7). But in truth he was obedient to this command of silence; he did not speak anymore, and that was what our Lord forbade: this loud cry was nothing but an inarticulate utterance of rage and pain. Neither is there any contradiction between St. Luke, who says that the evil spirit “hurt him not” and St. Mark, who describes him as having “torn him” he did not do him any permanent injury; no doubt what evil he could do him he did. St. Luke himself reports that he cast him on the ground; with which the phrase of the earlier Evangelist, that he threw him into strong convulsions, in fact consents. We have at Mark 9:26 (cf. Luk 9:42) an analogous case, only with worse symptoms accompanying the going out of the foul spirit; for what the devil cannot keep as his own, he will, if he can, destroy; even as Pharaoh never treated the children of Israel worse than just when they were escaping from his grasp. Something similar is evermore finding place; and Satan tempts, plagues, and buffets none so much as those who are in the act of being delivered from his tyranny for ever.

St. Mark never misses an opportunity of recording the wonderful impression which Christ’s miracles made on the witnesses of them,—the astonishment, the amazement, with which these were filled. He lays nowhere greater emphasis on this than here: “And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him.”

Footnotes

[1] Ἔα, not the imperative from ἐάω, but an interjection of tenor, wrung out by the ϕοβερὰ ἐκδοχὴ κρίσεως (Heb 10:27),—unless indeed the interjection was originally this imperative.

[2] Ναζαρηνός here. The word appears in the N. T. in two other forms, Ναζαραῖος and Ναζωραῖος. Of all these the last is the most frequent.

[3] Φιμώθητι, cf. Mat 22:12; and for the word used in its literal sense, 1Co 9:9.

[4] Grotius: Vult Jesum blanditiis demulcere, cui se certando imparem erat expertus.Jerome (Comm. in Matt, ix.): Velut si servi fugitivi post multum temporis dominum suum videant; nihil aliud nisi de verberibus deprecantur.

[5] Thus, with a slight difference, Tertullian (Adv. Marc. iv. 7): Increpuit eum Jesus, plane ut invidiosum et in ipsâ, confessione petulantern et male adulantem, quasi haec esset summa gloria Christi, si ad perditionem daemonum venisset, et non potius ad hominum salutem.

[6] Tertullian (Adv. Marc. iv. 8): Illius erat, praeconium immundi spiritûs respuere, cui Sancti abundabant. Calvin: Duplex potest esse ratio, cur loqui non sineret: una generalis quod nondum maturum plenae revelationis tempus advenerat; altera specialis, quod illos repudiabat praecones ac testes suae divinitatis, qui laude suâ nihil aliud quam maculam, et sinistram opinionem aspergere illi poterant. Atque haec posterior indubia est, quia testatum oportuit esse hostile dissidium, quod habebat aeternae salutis et vitae auctor cum mortis principe ejusque ministris.