We have therefore to set against the loss of the herd the man. No longer possessed, but sitting clothed and in his right mind, and soon to tour the district proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him.

The effect of the incident on the local population, however, was very different. When they saw the man sitting there cured, and heard what had happened to the swine, they “…asked Jesus to leave them…” (NRSV, Luke 8:37). Since they must already have had enthusiastic reports about Jesus’ miracles on the opposite side of the Lake one would have thought, that now he had visited them, the last thing they would have wanted was to get rid of him as quickly as possible – especially as the man he had just cured had been a violent person of maniacal strength and a menace to every passer-by (Matthew 8:28), so that numerous though unsuccessful attempts had been made to chain him.

The chief reason why the people wanted to see the last of Our Lord was that he was a disturbing element. It was not so much the loss of the herd, which would have affected for the most part only the owner and his employees. No, it was the healing of the man who had been possessed. They had grown used to him and he was by way of being an institution. Without him the place would never be the same again. He gave the neighbourhood – their neighbourhood – a morbid interest, so that many of them would prefer to see him chained rather than cured. And now Jesus of Nazareth had come along, uninvited and stopped it all.