He was a man who lived in the first century, anno domini, during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when the Greco-Roman world was at its height, and the people’s worldview entertained all possible beliefs: in a pantheon of gods and goddesses, similar to humans, only more powerful; in eastern Mediterranean savior gods offering salvation; in introspective philosophies that challenged humans to rise above their mortal condition and into a spiritual life.
This man, who lived in a Greek region of Asia, the Decapolis, had no doubt been educated in many of the Greek philosophies and religions of the time, but his past, the horrors he had experienced and the unending memories that continued to plague him, could not be relieved by the worship of Ra or Isis, or prayers to Apollo or Athena, or by the depths of Plato’s world of ideal forms.
Greco-Roman philosophy and religion offered to its believers a universe in which the gods, in whatever form they took, knew the future, knew the fate of peoples and individuals, and although the deities could not change the future, they could inform their believers of what might happen, of providence, so that the believer could be prepared for the inevitable. This belief in a vague and distant fate, an anonymous providence, was found throughout the ancient world. Hence, an inhabitant of Decapolis like the unnamed man knew he was fated for something, but his mind could only imagine the most horrid future. It drove him crazy, we are told, and it forced him to flee civilized society to live alone among the dead, in tombs outside of the city.
The man was soon to meet Providence in the flesh.
A healer arrived by boat from distant shores. The fearful man, typically on guard against anything or anyone new and unknown, saw in this approaching person something, someone, different. So he approached the healer.
The healer asked his name, and the man responded not with the name given to him by his parents, but with one word: “Legion.”
The healer understood. He was unafraid. He offered to the man a means of unburdening and releasing himself, allowing the legion of fear, pain, memories, uncertainty, and self-torture to depart, to fly from the man and his memory.
So the fears fled. The untold anxieties of the past, present, and future vanished—his demons expelled from his mind and soul. The legion of fear was vanquished, bidden by the healer to depart from this man’s being. And amazingly, in a moment of emotional and physical shuddering, unburdening, followed by a veritable flood of peace, the man was metamorphosed. He was no longer Legion. He was someone else.
The story of the Gerasene demoniac, the crazed man who identified himself as Legion, is most fully recounted in the Gospel of Luke. Luke 8:26-38 relates that Jesus arrived in the region of the Decapolis, at the country of Gadara on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee or Gerasa in the upper eastern Jordan valley; this was a Hellenistic region under Gentile influence, known to historians and commentators of the first century, such as the Elder Pliny, as Decapolis. The inhabitants of Decapolis were heirs to a tradition of Greek learning that flourished over the course of four centuries after the conquests of Alexander of Macedon.
According to Luke’s story, Jesus, having been healing in Galilee, decided to cross the Sea of Tiberius. Having arrived at the eastern shores of the lake, a man possessed by demons approached. Luke called him a demoniac (Greek demonia), naked and living among the tombs, a place fit only for the dead. The man, having in the past been fettered because of this demonic possession, fled civilized society for the wild, deserted tombs. Yet this wild man fell to his knees before Jesus, whom he had never seen, in an act of obeisance.
The demons within the man immediately recognized Jesus, and the man—again, having never met Jesus—identified Him by name, referring to Him as Son of God Most High. The demons demanded to know what Jesus wanted of them and pleaded that He not torment them. Jesus called for the “unclean spirit” to leave the man. Jesus had asked the man his name, to which he replied legion, because of the literal thousands of demons inhabiting him.
They begged Jesus not to send them into the abyss, which in the Book of Revelation is the place where Satan, the Beast, and demons are confined. Rather, they requested that Jesus allow them into a herd of pigs grazing upon a mountain side that descended precipitously into the sea. Jesus acquiesced, and they fled into the herd, stampeded into the water and drowned the swine. Herdsmen, witnessing this, ran to tell the people in the city and surrounding farms. People from both places soon arrived to see what had happened, and they found the demoniac now sitting, clothed and rational, at the feet of Jesus.
The locals heard how the demoniac had been cured and, being afraid, asked Jesus to leave. He did, embarking on a boat to return to the western shores of the Sea of Galilee. The now-healed demoniac requested to join Him, but Jesus instructed that he remain there and tell people what had happened, how he had been cured by God’s mercy. The man complied and proclaimed his healing throughout Decapolis.
What did the man tell the people of Decapolis? That the essence of Jesus’ healing involved an empathetic understanding of the man’s troubles, his memories, his past. Jesus, the Logos, knew the man, his past and his future. Jesus knew why he was here among the tombs, He knew what had brought him there, and what he would do over the course of his forthcoming life. Jesus, God, is Providence, and whatever He told the man convinced him of the truth of His words, and this truth set the man free from his memories, his past, his anxiety in the present, his fears for the future, and the demons inhabiting his body.
To be freed from the burden of the past is a feeling reserved for only a few, but this man, who others deemed cursed, became blessed above all his fellows in Decapolis, for he now knew that among all the philosophies and deities proclaimed, that Logos, that Being had become flesh and delivered him into a life of peace. He learned that ideologies and concerns come and go, sometimes expressing glimmers of truth, but none but He holds the fullness of Truth itself.
How could Jesus have informed Legion of so much in just a few moments? When the townspeople came running to see the miracle, they found the crazed man sensible and peaceful—how? Well, in truth, it only takes a moment. When one encounters Logos and receives peace and understanding, it lasts just a few seconds, profound and overwhelming, in which one is brought out of darkness and into light, clarity, and understanding.
This brief revelation, such as what Legion experienced, did not make him an all-knowing prophet or a wonder-man or a miracle-worker; he was still just a man. But he was now a man who had been touched by the timeless, by Providence, by Love, such that henceforth he knew that Love was with him, and that he could respond with love in a way he couldn’t before. Thus, in responding to God’s love, the man fulfilled what God had determined for him.
Such is Providence.
Editor’s Note: This is part 1 in a series on understanding Divine Providence as revealed to us by God and interpreted by man throughout history. Tune in for part 2 on Monday, June 30th!
Photo by Constantinos Kollias on Unsplash
