The following comes from:
Jasmin
Gimenez Rappleye, “The Messianic Sacred, Not Secret: The Son as a Hidden Name
in the Gospel of Mark,” in The Temple Past, Present, & Future:
Proceedings of the Fifth Interpreter Foundation, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Salt Lake City: Eborn Books/Provo, Utah: The Interpreter
Foundation, 2021), 183-84
The Gadarene
Demoniac—Mark 5:1-9
This exorcism introduces some peculiar
elements that underscore the power of hidden names both for Jesus in the title “Son”
and for the demons. In this pericope, Jesus journeyed by the sea near the
country of the Garasenes when a possessed man exuberantly approached Jesus. The
narrator described the dangerousness of this man, and Jesus attempted to
exorcise the demon. It is at this point that the demon identified Jesus as “the
Son of the most high God.” (52)
Unlike some episodes of exorcism, when
the demons called Jesus “Son of the most high God” (Mark 5:7), there was no
command to silence. (53) In other instances of exorcism, I argue that Jesus
silenced the demons after they pronounced his name in order to prevent the
demons from exerting power over him. However, this episode escalates the scope
of Jesus’s power and superiority, for he successfully performed the exorcism despite
the use of Jesus’s sacred name.
This exorcism presents a more menacing
threat than previous encounters. Mark characterizes this man as particularly
wild and possessed, and he takes a digression of several verses to describe the
activities and pitiful state of the man (Mark 5:3-5). Mark describes the man as
dwelling among graves, a location associated with ritual uncleanness, death,
fear, and decay. The man had inhuman strength to be able to break chains and
resist restraint. And the man elicits frightful mister, as he is described as “crying,
and cutting himself with stones,” while he wandered the mountains and their
tombs (Mark 5:5).
Mark further heightens the challenge
of the episode by having the demon appropriate exorcist behavior. After declaring
Jesus’s sacred name “Son,” the demon exclaimed, “I adjure thee by God, that
thou torment me not” (Mark 5:7). The word rendered “adjure” in the King James
Bible is the Greek word ορκιζω,” to make one swear” or “to administer and oath,” and
is customarily used by an exorcist, not by the object of the exorcism (see Acts
19:13). (54) The demon, in his attempt to gain the upper hand, utilized Jesus’s
hidden name and assumed the rhetorical posture of an exorcist.
In addition to the man’s altogether fearsome vignette, Mark raises the
stakes of this exorcism by increasing the size of the demonic force. In the course
of performing the exorcism, Jesus asked the demon for its name, a common
element found elsewhere in the exorcism genre. (55) The demon revealed that its
name was Legion and that it consisted of multiple spirits (Mark 5:9).
In the face of formidable opponent—formidable in visage, size, and
behavior—Jesus nonetheless demonstrated superior power in his successful
exorcism. This scene demonstrates that even if demons break from exorcism
expectations, Jesus can be overpowered neither through possession of his sacred
name, nor through large numbers, nor through special pleading. The “Son” only
functions as a key word for righteous, covenanted, understanding disciples.
Note
for the Above:
(52) This variation of the title “Son”
is particularly appropriate for this Gentile setting. “Most High” distinguishes
a certain god apart from a large pantheon of gods in pagan theology. For
example, the “most high” god is an attested epithet in Hellenistic setting for
Zeus. See Mark, Mark, 321; Collins, Mark, 268
(53) Roskam observes that another
plausible reason for the lack of a command to silence is that Jesus was
apparently alone with the disciples. While the crowds were not to know Jesus’s identity,
he intends for his disciples to understand who he is. See Roskam, The
Purpose of the Gospel of Mark, 179.
(54) Henry George Liddell, Robert
Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie, “ορκιζω,” in A
Greek-English Lexicon, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940).
(55) Collins, Mark, 166, 268. For a first-century example of this
formula, see Testament of Solomon vol. 9, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24, 28, 33,
46, 48, 51, 52, 58, 60, 64, 70, 72, 73, 121, 125.
