Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 8:29

"And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" — Matthew 8:29 (ASV)

They cried out, saying... St. Mark adds that the demoniac, seeing Jesus from a distance, ran and did homage to him (“worshipped” in some English versions). He and St. Luke give the fuller form of the cry: What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? It is remarkable that this is the only instance in which that name is addressed to our Lord, though it is used of him before his birth in Luke 1:32.

A probable explanation is that the name “the Most High God” was frequently used in the formulas of exorcism and so had become familiar to the demoniacs. In the same way, the young woman with a spirit of divination in Acts 16:17 speaks of St. Paul and his companions as servants of the Most High God. This raises the question for us: Was the discernment that led to this confession entirely preternatural, or had the possessed man heard of the fame of Jesus? But if he had only heard of him, how did he recognize the Prophet from a great distance? Perhaps the true explanation lies in the mystery of the psychological state the sufferer had entered under the frightful influences at work within him.

To torment us before the time. In the same way, the abode of Dives is a place of torment (Luke 16:28), and the ministers of judgment are the tormentors (Matthew 18:34). The man identifies himself with the demons. He anticipates condemnation when the hour of judgment comes and, in the meantime, demands to be left alone. Anyone who has been called to minister to the souls of people in their demoniac state has surely heard nearly identical language.

The words added by St. Mark are singularly characteristic: I adjure thee by God. It is as if the man had listened so often to the formulas of exorcists that they had become his natural way of speaking, and he too tries their effect as an adjuration. We find from St. Mark and St. Luke that the command for the unclean spirit to come out of the man had been given previously, as the man drew near, and this was the occasion for his frenzied cry.

At this stage, the Gospels add, our Lord asked the question, What is thy name? The most terrible phenomenon of possession, as with many forms of insanity, is the divided consciousness that appears in this case. Now the demon speaks, and now the man. The question would recall to the man’s mind that he once had a human name, with all its memories of human fellowship. It was a stage in the process of recovery—despite the paroxysm that followed—because it helped to disentangle him from the miserable confusion between his own identity and that of the demons.

At first, however, the question seems only to increase the evil: My name is Legion, for we are many. The irresistible might and full array of a Roman legion, with its six thousand soldiers, seemed to the demoniac the only adequate symbol for the wild, uncontrollable impulses of passion and dread sweeping through his soul. It would hardly seem possible that the force of literalism could lead an interpreter to infer the actual presence of six thousand demons, each with its own personality. It seems even less possible that one would then calculate the number that must have entered each of the two thousand swine—and yet, this has been done.