Such cry could not be, and never is, unheard. It was real demoniac influence which,
continuing with this man from childhood onwards, had well-nigh crushed all moral
individuality i n him. In his many lucid intervals these many years, since he had grown
from a child into a youth, he had never sought to shake off the yoke and regain his
moral individuality, nor would he even now have come, if his father had not brought him.
If any, thi s narrative shows the view which the Gospels and Jesus took of what are
described as the 'demonised.' It was a reality, and not accommodation to Jewish views,
when, as He saw 'the multitude running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying
to him: Dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and no more come into
him.'
Another and a more violent paroxysm, so that the bystanders almost thought him dead.
But the unclean spirit had come out of him. And with strong gentle Hand the Saviour
lifted him, and with loving gesture delivered him to his father.
All things had been possible to faith; not to that external belief of the disciples, which
failed to reach 'that kind,'22 and ever fails to reach such kind, but to true spiritual faith in
Him. And so it is to each of us individually, and to the Church, to all time. 'That kind' -
whether it be of sin, of lust, of the world, or of science falsely so called, of temptation, or
of materialism - cometh not out by any of our ready-made formulas or dead dogmas.
Not so are the flesh and the Devil vanquished; not so is the world overcome. It cometh
out by nothing but by prayer: 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.' Then, although
our faith were only what in popular language was described as the smallest' - like a
grain of mustard-seed' - and the result to be achieved the greatest, most difficult,
seemingly transcending human ability to compass it - what in popular language was
designated as 'removing mountains'23 - 'nothing shall be impossible' unto us. And these
eighteen centuries of suffering in Christ, and deliverance through Christ, and work for
Christ, have proved it. For all things are ours, if Christ is ours.
22. But it is rather too wide an application, when Euthymius Zygabenus (one of the gre at
Byzantine theologians of the twelfth century), and others after him, note 'the kind of all
demons.'
23. The Rabbinic use of the expression, 'grain of mustard seed,' has already been noted.
The expression 'tearing up' or 'removing' 'mountains' was also proverbial among the
Rabbis. Thus, a great Rabbi might be designated as one who 'uprooted mountains' (Ber.,
last page, line 5 from top; and Horay, 14 a), or as one who pulverised them (Sanh. 24 a).
The expression is also used to indicate apparently impossible things, such as those
which a heathen government may order a man to do (Baba B. 3 b).
Book IV
THE DESCENT: FROM THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION INTO THE VALLEY
OF HUMILIATION AND DEATH.
Chapter 3
THE LAST EVENTS IN GALILEE