The Story of Jesus. Roy A. Harrisville

without hesitation: “Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me. . .” And immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18). Use of the same temporal adverb together with the tenses of the verbs used in connection with the summons to James and John indicate a like reaction: “Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him” (Mark 1:20). There is nothing in the way of preparation for the summons or the response, nothing to be compared with the Baptist’s witness, with Jesus’ invitation to potential disciples to “come and see,” or with the miracle of “second sight” resulting in an acknowledgement of Jesus’ identity, as in the Fourth Gospel. The response is sudden, instantaneous, devoid of choice or reflection; the four abandon their occupation and family responsibility in a trice. “The Gospel of St. Matthew,” a 1964 film in memory of Pope John XXIII, directed by the Marxist Pier Paolo Pasolini, and described by the Vatican as the best film on Christ ever made, while assigning the disciples’ immediate response to Matthew, rather than to Mark, nonetheless gives a stunning recital of the event. In one minute Peter and Andrew are putting in their nets, in the next they are out of their boats trailing off after Jesus, followed by James and John running to have a look. If indeed the evangelists are not interested in simply supplying information but in engaging their readers on behalf of faith in Christ, then Mark’s expectation is that the reader’s or hearer’s reaction to this event of the disciple’s calling and response requires as sudden and as uncalculated a reaction as theirs. But aside from whether or not the account in Mark or in the others, for that matter, is nuanced for the hearer or reader’s sake, whatever power emanated from that Man to effect such response as is recorded in all the Gospels deserves paying mind if not pure wonder. Not for nothing Mark uses the same verb for Jesus’ appointment of the Twelve as the Septuagint uses for God’s creation of the world: “He made (Greek: epoiesin) twelve. . .to be with him” (Mark 3:13; cf. Genesis 1:1).

      The Exorcisms

      The form or structure of the exorcisms is simple and uncomplicated: Each event is comprised of four and often five “constants” or ingredients. The first sets the scene for the activity to be described. The scene or venue of the first exorcism is the Capernaum synagogue (Mark 1:21); of the second, the house of Simon and Andrew (Mark 1:32, 34); of the third Jesus’ departure to the sea of Galilee (3:7); of the fourth Jesus’ and his disciples’ arrival at the country of the Gerasenes (5:1), and the scene or venue of the fifth is the crowd’s encounter with Jesus and the disciples following the Transfiguration (9:14). The second constant or ingredient is the evangelist’s statement of the problem or dilemma, and not always in terse fashion. The first exorcism involves the man with an “unclean spirit” (Mark 1:23–24); the second involves those who were sick or possessed with demons (Mark 1:32, 34); the third has to do with “unclean spirits” (Mark 3:11); the fourth with the “unclean spirit” living among the tombs (Mark 5:2–7), and the fifth involves the boy with a “spirit” (Mark 9:17–18). The third constant or ingredient marks Jesus’ advance to the problem. In the first instance he rebukes the unclean spirit: “Be silent, and come out of him!” (Mark 1:25); in the second it is merely stated that he cast out many demons (Mark 1:34); in the third it is repeated that he cured many, among them the unclean spirits (3:10). In the fourth instance Jesus commands, “come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” (Mark 5:8), and in the fifth he says, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” (Mark 9:25). The fourth ingredient marks the result of Jesus’ action. In the first exorcism narrative, the unclean spirit, convulsing the man and crying with a loud voice, comes out of him (Mark 1:25). In the second, it is simply stated that many were cured (Mark 1:34); in the third, the unclean spirits fall down before him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God!” (Mark 3:11); in the fourth, the Gerasene demoniac, Legion, enters the herd of swine (Mark 5:13), and in the fifth, the spirit cries out, convulses the boy, and comes out (Mark 9:26). The fifth ingredient may be described as “the chorus,” indicating the response of the witnesses to the act. In the first instance, the synagogue members are amazed, herald the newness of Jesus’ teaching, coupled with his command over the spirits, and his fame spreads throughout Galilee (Mark 1:27–28). In the second, absent the “chorus,” the narrative concludes with Jesus’ ordering the demons to be silent because they know him (Mark 1:34). In the third, the “chorus” consists of the Phariseers’ conspiring with the Herodians to kill Jesus (Mark 3:6). In the fourth, the demoniac proclaims in the Decapolis what Jesus did for him, and all are amazed (Mark 5:20: In the fifth and last, the disciples ask Jesus why they could not heal the boy with the spirit, to which he replies, “this kind can come out only through prayer” (Mark 9:28–29).

      Clearly, the references to the persons involved do not yield a medical diagnosis, but denote a condition that renders impossible genuine participation in the religious community. The persons involved have “unclean” spirits. These references, together with the Baptist’s description of the one to come as “more powerful” (1:7, in Greek the comparative adjective“ strong-er” is used), and Jesus’ parable in response to the charge that he is in league with the devil (“no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man”) all take their force from the temptation event in which the “strong man,” Beelzebul, or Satan, is tied and bound.

      Jesus as exorcist, or more precisely, Jesus as victor over the demonic powers, is the portrait yielded by the exorcism narratives of Mark’s Gospel, a role suited to the Messiah in the ancient Jewish literature, rife with parallels to Mark 1:21–28. For example, in the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch 55:4 (written under an alias), an apocalypse dating from ca. 160 BC, the author writes:

      Ye mighty kings who dwell on the earth, ye shall have. To behold Mine Elect One, how he sits on the throne of glory and judges Azazel, and all his associates, and all his hosts in the name of the Lord of Spirits.21

      The Testament of Levi 18, another pseudepigrapical book, written before AD 70, perhaps before 70 BC, reads:

      And Beliar shall be bound by him (the high priest of the Messianic age), And he (the high priest) shall give power to His children to tread upon the evil spirits.22

      The Testament of Zebulun 9 reads:

      He shall redeem all the captivity of the sons of men From Beliar; And every spirit of deceit shall be trodden down.23

      The Assumption of Moses 10:1, still another pseudepigraphical work, written before AD 30, reads:

      And then (in the blessed age of consummation) His Kingdom shall appear throughout all His creation, And then Satan shall be no more.24

      It has been argued that the whole of the story of Jesus is regarded by Mark as the continuation of the climactic struggle between the Spirit and Satan begun at the temptation, a struggle relived in the story of the Christian Church. Jesus thus opens the battle and carries it on as the “Son of God” equipped with the Spirit. His exorcism of the demons manifests his struggle and victory. It is the “beginning of miracles” at Capernaum, the commission of the Twelve (3:15), and proof of supreme power at the transfiguration (9:14–29). Power over the demons is the assurance that Jesus is “the Holy One of God” (1:24, 34; 3:11–12; 5:7), the basis on which the Twelve are brought to this conviction (4:39–41). As Benjamin W. Bacon of Yale put it years ago, “exorcism. . .is the nucleus and core of Markan Christology.”25 Matthew and Luke give much less attention to exorcisms. Matthew repeats the narrative of the Gerasene demoniac (8:28), as well as Jesus’ response to his enemies’ charge that he is an agent of Beelzebul, though altering the occasion to the exorcism of a deaf and mute (Matthew 12:22), to which he then adds Jesus’ parable of the return of the unclean spirit (Matthew 12:43–45). The second evangelist includes only one other exorcism, that of the epileptic boy following the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:14–21). In Luke references to exorcisms are drastically reduced. The charge against Jesus is repeated, and as in Matthew its occasion is altered to the exorcism of a mute, not deaf, demon (Luke 11:14). This is the one lone reference in Luke, aside from an earlier general note regarding Jesus’ healing those troubled with “unclean spirits” (Luke 6:18). Exorcisms are totally absent from the Fourth Gospel.

      If this gradual elimination of exorcisms indicates that Matthew,