Tarrying and Teaching by the Seaside

151:6.1Al­though most of the near-by east­ern shore of the lake sloped up gen­tly to the high­lands be­yond, at this par­tic­u­lar spot there was a steep hill­side, the shore in some places drop­ping sheer down into the lake. Point­ing up to the side of the near-by hill, Je­sus said: “Let us go up on this hill­side for our break­fast and un­der some of the shel­ters rest and talk.”

151:6.2This en­tire hill­side was cov­ered with cav­erns which had been hewn out of the rock. Many of these niches were an­cient sepul­chres. About half­way up the hill­side on a small, rel­a­tively level spot was the ceme­tery of the lit­tle vil­lage of Kheresa. As Je­sus and his as­so­ciates passed near this burial ground, a lu­natic who lived in these hill­side cav­erns rushed up to them. This de­mented man was well known about these parts, hav­ing one­time been bound with fet­ters and chains and con­fined in one of the grot­toes. Long since he had bro­ken his shack­les and now roamed at will among the tombs and aban­doned sepul­chres.

151:6.3This man, whose name was Amos, was af­flicted with a pe­ri­odic form of in­san­ity. There were con­sid­er­able spells when he would find some cloth­ing and de­port him­self fairly well among his fel­lows. Dur­ing one of these lu­cid in­ter­vals he had gone over to Beth­saida, where he heard the preach­ing of Je­sus and the apos­tles, and at that time had be­come a half­hearted be­liever in the gospel of the king­dom. But soon a stormy phase of his trou­ble ap­peared, and he fled to the tombs, where he moaned, cried out aloud, and so con­ducted him­self as to ter­ror­ize all who chanced to meet him.

151:6.4When Amos rec­og­nized Je­sus, he fell down at his feet and ex­claimed: “I know you, Je­sus, but I am pos­sessed of many dev­ils, and I be­seech that you will not tor­ment me.” This man truly be­lieved that his pe­ri­odic men­tal af­flic­tion was due to the fact that, at such times, evil or un­clean spir­its en­tered into him and dom­i­nated his mind and body. His trou­bles were mostly emo­tional—his brain was not grossly dis­eased.

151:6.5Je­sus, look­ing down upon the man crouch­ing like an an­i­mal at his feet, reached down and, tak­ing him by the hand, stood him up and said to him: “Amos, you are not pos­sessed of a devil; you have al­ready heard the good news that you are a son of God. I com­mand you to come out of this spell.” And when Amos heard Je­sus speak these words, there oc­curred such a trans­for­ma­tion in his in­tel­lect that he was im­me­di­ately re­stored to his right mind and the nor­mal con­trol of his emo­tions. By this time a con­sid­er­able crowd had as­sem­bled from the near-by vil­lage, and these peo­ple, aug­mented by the swine herders from the high­land above them, were as­ton­ished to see the lu­natic sit­ting with Je­sus and his fol­low­ers, in pos­ses­sion of his right mind and freely con­vers­ing with them.

151:6.6As the swine herders rushed into the vil­lage to spread the news of the tam­ing of the lu­natic, the dogs charged upon a small and un­tended herd of about thirty swine and drove most of them over a precipice into the sea. And it was this in­ci­den­tal oc­cur­rence, in con­nec­tion with the pres­ence of Je­sus and the sup­posed mirac­u­lous cur­ing of the lu­natic, that gave ori­gin to the leg­end that Je­sus had cured Amos by cast­ing a le­gion of dev­ils out of him, and that these dev­ils had en­tered into the herd of swine, caus­ing them forth­with to rush head­long to their de­struc­tion in the sea be­low. Be­fore the day was over, this episode was pub­lished abroad by the swine ten­ders, and the whole vil­lage be­lieved it. Amos most cer­tainly be­lieved this story; he saw the swine tum­bling over the brow of the hill shortly af­ter his trou­bled mind had qui­eted down, and he al­ways be­lieved that they car­ried with them the very evil spir­its which had so long tor­mented and af­flicted him. And this had a good deal to do with the per­ma­nency of his cure. It is equally true that all of Je­sus’ apos­tles (save Thomas) be­lieved that the episode of the swine was di­rectly con­nected with the cure of Amos.

151:6.7Je­sus did not ob­tain the rest he was look­ing for. Most of that day he was thronged by those who came in re­sponse to the word that Amos had been cured, and who were at­tracted by the story that the demons had gone out of the lu­natic into the herd of swine. And so, af­ter only one night of rest, early Tues­day morn­ing Je­sus and his friends were awak­ened by a del­e­ga­tion of these swine-rais­ing gen­tiles who had come to urge that he de­part from their midst. Said their spokesman to Pe­ter and An­drew: “Fish­er­men of Gal­i­lee, de­part from us and take your prophet with you. We know he is a holy man, but the gods of our coun­try do not know him, and we stand in dan­ger of los­ing many swine. The fear of you has de­scended upon us, so that we pray you to go hence.” And when Je­sus heard them, he said to An­drew, “Let us re­turn to our place.”

151:6.8As they were about to de­part, Amos be­sought Je­sus to per­mit him to go back with them, but the Mas­ter would not con­sent. Said Je­sus to Amos: “For­get not that you are a son of God. Re­turn to your own peo­ple and show them what great things God has done for you.” And Amos went about pub­lish­ing that Je­sus had cast a le­gion of dev­ils out of his trou­bled soul, and that these evil spir­its had en­tered into a herd of swine, driv­ing them to quick de­struc­tion. And he did not stop un­til he had gone into all the cities of the De­capo­lis, declar­ing what great things Je­sus had done for him.