<p>8:29&nbsp;<i>And they cried out, saying: What have we to do with you, you Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?</i>- The language of judgment at the last day, &quot;the time&quot; (Rev. 14:10; 20:10). See on :30&nbsp;<i>a good way off&nbsp;</i>and on :31&nbsp;<i>cast us out</i>. Legion believed he was demon possessed. But the Lord didn&rsquo;t correct him regarding this before healing him; indeed, one assumes the man probably had some faith for the miracle to be performed (Mt. 13:58). Lk. 8:29 says that Legion &ldquo;was driven of the devil into the wilderness&rdquo;, in the same way as the Lord had been driven into the wilderness&nbsp;<i>by the spirit</i>&nbsp;(Mk. 1:12) and yet overcame the &lsquo;devil&rsquo; in whatever form at this time. The man was surely intended to reflect on these more subtle things and see that whatever he had once believed in was immaterial and irrelevant compared to the Spirit power of the Lord. And yet the Lord &lsquo;went along&rsquo; with his request for the demons he thought were within him to be cast into &lsquo;the deep&rsquo;, thoroughly rooted as it was in misunderstanding of demons and sinners being thrown into the abyss. This was in keeping with the kind of healing styles people were used to at the time &ndash; e.g. Josephus records how Eleazar cast demons out of people and placed a cup of water nearby, which was then [supposedly] tipped over by the demons as they left the sick person [<i>Antiquities of the Jews</i>&nbsp;8.46&ndash;48]. It seems to me that the Lord &lsquo;went along with&rsquo; that kind of need for reassurance, and so He made the pigs stampede over the cliff to symbolize to the healed man how his disease had really left him.</p>
<p>A comparison of the records indicates that the voice of the individual man is paralleled with that of the 'demons'- the man was called Legion, because he believed and spoke as if he were inhabited by hundreds of 'demons':</p>
<p>&quot;Torment <i>me</i> not&quot; (Mk.5:7) = &ldquo;Are you come to torment <i>us</i>?&rdquo; (Mt. 8:29). <br />
&ldquo;<i>He</i> [singular] besought him&rdquo; (Mk. 5:9) = &quot;<i>the demons</i> besought him&quot; (Mk. 5:12) <br />
The man's own words explain his self-perception: &quot;<i>My</i> name [singular] is Legion: for <i>we</i> are many (Mk. 5:9)&quot;. This is classic schizophrenic behaviour and language. Thus Lk. 8:30 explains that Legion spoke as he did because [he thought that] many demons had entered into him.</p>