<p>8:31 <i>And they begged him that he would not command them to depart into the abyss</i>- See on Acts 16:16. This is the man's fear of condemnation, noted on :28. Note that the sick man is paralleled with the demons. &quot;<i>He</i> begged him earnestly not to send <i>them</i> out of the country&quot; (Mk. 5:10) parallels &quot;he&quot;, the man, with &quot;them&quot;, the demons. And the parallel record speaks as if it were the demons who did the begging: &quot;<i>They </i>begged him not to order them to go into the abyss&quot; (Lk. 8:31). This is significant in that the record doesn't suggest that demons were manipulating the man to speak and be mad; rather are they made parallel with the man himself. This indicates, on the level of linguistics at least, that the language of &quot;demons&quot; is being used as a synonym for the mentally ill man. There's another example of this, in Mark 3:11: &quot;Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, &ldquo;You are the Son of God&rdquo;&quot;. Who fell down on their knees and who shouted? The mentally disturbed people. But they are called &quot;unclean spirits&quot;. James 2:19 likewise: &quot;The demons believe and tremble&quot;. This is surely an allusion to the trembling of those <i>people </i>whom Jesus cured, and 'belief' is appropriate to persons not supposed eternally damned agents of Satan. Clearly James is putting &quot;demons&quot; for 'mentally disturbed people who believed and were cured'. And thus we can better understand why in Mk. 5:8 Jesus addresses Himself not to these supposed spirits; but to the man himself: &quot;Jesus said to <i>him, </i>Come out of the man, you unclean spirit&quot;. He doesn't say to the<i> unclean spirit</i> &quot;Come out of the man&quot;. Jesus addresses Himself to &quot;the man&quot;. The demons / unclean spirits never actually say anything in the records; it's always the man himself who speaks. Josephus records that when the first century Rabbis cast out demons as they supposed, they first had to ask for the name of the demon. The Lord Jesus doesn't do this; He asks the man for <i>his</i> personal name. The difference is instructive- the Lord wasn't speaking to demons, He was speaking to the mentally sick man, and going along with the man's belief that he had demons within him. The 'demons' plead with Jesus not to torment them, and back this up by invoking God. 'They' believed in God and honoured Him to the point of believing He was the ultimate authenticator of oaths. 'They' hardly fit the classical idea that demons are anti-God and in conflict with Him. Clearly enough, when we read of demons and spirits in this passage we are not reading of the actual existence of 'demons' as they are classically understood, but simply of the mentally ill man himself.</p>