“And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.”
He shouted at the top of his voice, what do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God's name don't torture me! — the demon's speech combines accurate identification with desperate appeal. Son of the Most High God is the Gentile form of the Christological title — the Most High God (El Elyon) is the title used in Gentile contexts for the supreme deity (Genesis 14:18–22, Daniel 3:26). The demon knows Jesus' identity with precision. Don't torture me invokes the divine name (In God's name) as a protection against the very Jesus it is appealing to — a logical incoherence that reveals the demon's desperation. The torture it fears is the eschatological judgment that Jesus' arrival signifies.
Church Fathers on Mark 5:7
Those who were in the ship enquired among themselves, 'What manner of man is this?' and now it is made known Who He is by the testimony of His enemies. For the demoniac came up confessing that He was the Son of God. Proceeding to which circumstance the Evangelist says, 'And they came over unto the other side, &c.'
Geraza is a noted town of Arabia, across the Jordan, near mount Galaad, which the tribe of Manasseh held, not far from the lake of Tiberias, into which the swine were precipitated.
Though Matthew says that there were two, Mark and Luke mention one, that you may understand that one of them was a more illustrious person, concerning whose state that country was much afflicted.
Read all 23 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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