NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
9 February 1844, evening
[Ste.01_029,01] ‘And the devils begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them!”’
[Ste.01_029,02] I have already told you that all My deeds contain by far the deeper and more hidden mysteries of My being in the flesh on earth. For I put My words within everyone's understanding, but it is otherwise with My deeds. Even My brothers did not understand them until the Holy Spirit came upon them. And when they understood them, the Spirit also told them to disclose the deep meaning of the deeds to no one, since the world can never grasp it and never will.
[Ste.01_029,03] So it is with this deed too. If I were to show you its deepest meaning in full, you would have to write over the entire surface of the earth three times merely to finish the introduction. To contain all the books that could be written about the principal meaning of this deed, there would be too little room in an entire realm of suns. From this you can surely gather how much lies behind such a deed.
[Ste.01_029,04] If it has already been said of a word that it is like a seed sown in the earth, bearing fruit many times over, what then can be said of an actual deed of God? For there is a difference between ‘God said, “Let there be!”’ and the words that followed, ‘There was.’
[Ste.01_029,05] Yet so that you may gain some faint idea of the greatness of such a deed, I will briefly reveal something of it to you.
[Ste.01_029,06] Why does the Lord here ask the demon its name, since the All-knowing One surely knew that a whole legion of demons, and not merely one, was at work for evil in this possessed man? Surely the Lord did not ask because He wished to learn the name of these evil spirits. Why, then, did He ask?
[Ste.01_029,07] He asked to make Himself known to the demons, for the nature of a being is more readily discerned from its question than from its answer. Ask a fool a question and he may give you an answer that takes you aback. But let the fool ask you something and you will recognise him at once from his question. In the spiritual realm it is through a question alone that one can make oneself known. So the Lord asked here in order to make Himself known to the demons in this spiritual way.
[Ste.01_029,08] You know of similar situations and have already been able to observe them in so-called somnambulists. For when you question a somnambulist, from within her life your question is experienced as an exposure of yourself before her, rather than as a wish to learn something from her. Through it the somnambulist looks within you, recognises you, and then by the activity of her own life makes good what she finds lacking in you.
[Ste.01_029,09] This kind of question is, of course, only midway between a purely worldly and a purely spiritual question. Yet to a deeper thinker it already has a spiritual character.
[Ste.01_029,10] The Lord's question to the demons, therefore, means as much as if He had said, ‘Look here! I lay Myself bare before you, and there is no evil in Me!’
[Ste.01_029,11] And the demons behold this holy bareness and at once recognise in it the Lord of eternity. When they then say, ‘We are a legion!’ they are giving no definite count. They are simply disclosing in a spiritual way that in the sight of God's highest purity their evil is present in overwhelming abundance.
[Ste.01_029,12] The Lord's purity itself compels them to withdraw before it. But in the midst of divine purity the evil ones also behold divine mercy and turn to it. At this moment they take refuge in humility and, in keeping with their evil nature, ask to be allowed to take up their dwelling in the swine. And the Lord's mercy grants what they ask in such humility.
[Ste.01_029,13] Only when they enter the swine does the pride they had hidden before the Lord awaken again. They drive the swine into the sea so that the animals perish and they, the demons, can then move about freely as monsters in the waters.
[Ste.01_029,14] Such is the picture. But who is this possessed man? This possessed man is the world itself. In it are the legion of demons, just as they appear in this man.
[Ste.01_029,15] The Lord comes to this possessed world in His Word. The world wishes to be free of its secret torment, and the Lord sets it free. But the evil activity of its inner life is worse in its freedom than it was in its bondage.
[Ste.01_029,16] When it is bound, it complains of oppression and torment. But when I set it free, its activity flies into the swine and of its own accord plunges into the sea of perdition. On top of that, the somewhat better people of the world seek to send Me away from them, because I am entirely unsuited to their worldly industry. For these Gerasenes signify the upholders of worldliness or, to put it more plainly, the real swindlers who make a business of it.
[Ste.01_029,17] The demons that enter the swine are the dandies, the lovers of fine food, the lechers, the cheats and all kinds of schemers and tricksters. If you wish to see these swine of every colour rushing into the sea in the world, go to the especially large capital cities. There you will meet them in great herds that are a perfectly lifelike likeness of those in the Gospel. They too are a very great legion. They are all possessed by the most impure demons, which likewise drive them into the sea of certain perdition.
[Ste.01_029,18] See, this is the meaning of this deed of the Lord in the Gospel that it is useful for you to recognise. Beyond this lies an immeasurably wider and far more inward meaning. There is no need to point it out a second time in any further detail, for you would never grasp it, and it would bring you only harm instead of benefit.
[Ste.01_029,19] Be content with this, then. For infinity is too great, the number of creatures in it infinite, and their purpose beyond your understanding in too many ways. So you cannot possibly grasp how the possessed man represents the whole material creation, and those who inhabit him the ancient prisoners! This possessed man rests among the tombs and is evil beyond measure. Look at the endless number of tombs in infinity!
[Ste.01_029,20] Enough of this, though! For you, on this side, the time has not come to grasp such things in their depth. Heed what was said first. It will benefit you! Amen.