Evil Spirits

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Today the Gospel tells of the casting out of demons from two demoniacs, who had come out of the burial caves of the land of the Gergesenes, men so fierce that no one dared to pass along the way where they were.

The Gospel speaks of the demoniacs, of the casting out of the demons, of their entering, with the permission of Jesus Christ, into the herd of swine and the drowning of the herd in the sea, of the request of the citizens of the city of Gadara that the Lord depart from them, and of His crossing back to the other shore and His arrival in Capernaum[1]. The story is clear in itself. It tells of two unfortunate men possessed by evil spirits. This means that, contrary to the stubborn unbelief and false conviction of certain half-taught and deluded people, evil spirits do exist in the world and carry out their ruinous works, which consist chiefly in destroying people and doing them all sorts of base mischief. Jesus Christ Himself, the only-begotten Son of God, came into the world precisely in order to destroy the works of the devil and to defeat him together with all his host. For this reason was the Son of God revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil[2], says the apostle John the Theologian. The half-taught clever ones will not convince us that there are supposedly no evil spirits: for to deny their existence is to deny all of Holy Scripture, to deny Christianity, to consider the faith of Christ, the coming to earth of Christ God, and all His divine dispensation as it were unnecessary; and finally, it means denying evident facts; for evil spirits harmed and destroyed people in former times, and now they work their mischief in people in various ways and destroy the heedless, by God’s permission; and just as in the past they were cast out of people by the Lord, or by His grace through holy people, so they are cast out even now.

So there were demons and demoniacs, and there are such today as well. What demoniacs, then, are there now? There are demoniacs of two kinds: genuine demoniacs like those mentioned in the Gospel, who are locked away in asylums for the insane; demoniacs who are afflicted by sorcery, whom demons torment especially when sick people of this kind are brought to some shrine, or when the Cherubic Hymn is sung in church at the Great Entrance; and demoniacs in the form of people who are agitated and darkened and driven out of their minds by various passions – anger and malice, envy, violent fleshly lust, drunkenness, or a passion for gain, for amassing money and increasing it through interest – by pride, ambition, and vainglory, and so on. To a special class of demoniacs must be assigned those people who are called liberals, that is, people who think with excessive freedom, contrary to the Christian faith and to all common sense; the so-called nihilists, who reject the Christian faith, and Christ, and the Church, prayer and the Mysteries, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment and recompense rendered to each according to his deeds. Among their number there are some so wicked – demons in human form – that they set themselves the aim of overthrowing the structure of the state and casting down the thrones of kings, of sacrilegiously attacking the very lives of the anointed of God, whose life and safety ought to be inviolable; of setting fire to houses and every kind of structure, of destroying people’s property, and of turning the earth into hell, a place of tears and wailing. Such are the demoniacs of our own time – demoniacs consciously, of their own free will, out of their own evil heart! O, may the Lord deliver us from these evil creatures, for whom eternal fire is reserved together with the devil.

But let us guard against another kind of being possessed by demons: puffed-up pride, envy, wrath, malice, hatred, irritability, fleshly passion, drunkenness, gluttony, foul language, covetousness, hardheartedness, the oppression of our neighbors, reviling, quarreling, strife, despondency, despair, and other passions, which draw us away from God and plunge us into the power of the devil. Let us also note, in the Gospel that has been read, the boldness of the demons and their acknowledgment of the eternal torments prepared for them. When the demon-possessed met Jesus Christ, the demons that were in them cried aloud: What do You have to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? Have You come here before the time to torment us. See what devilish pride and boldness! What do You have to do with us? they say—as though they were not subject to the dominion of God, which stretches even over the whole satanic kingdom! And yet they soon, feeling the unbearable torment from the presence of Jesus Christ and His unconquerable power, lowered their tone and said: If You cast us out, send us into the herd of swine. The Lord commanded them: and they went into the herd of swine, and drowned them all in the water. But what if they had been permitted to do the same with people? In a moment they would have destroyed people too, every one of them. But they do not dare to do that to them, but torment them by God’s permission only so much as to bring them to their senses. The Lord allowed the swine to be destroyed in order to show the cruelty and savagery of the demons, and so that the inhabitants of Gergesa, idolaters, might know what awaits them if they do not repent and believe in Him, Jesus Christ—namely, that eternal torment awaits them together with the demons. It is remarkable that the demons themselves await the eternal torments and tremble—while some people do not believe in them, do not tremble at them, and are not afraid to sin. Here too, the inhabitants of Gergesa did not believe in Him and asked Him to depart from them: and He crossed over to the other side. Ah, brethren and sisters, woe would it be for us, an eternal woe, without Jesus Christ, without faith in Him, without His grace, without good works, without unfeigned repentance! A man who lives without faith in Jesus Christ, without repentance and good deeds, becomes the toy of destructive passions, each one more tormenting than the next—a dwelling full of demons, like the demon-possessed mentioned above, guilty of eternal torment, food for the eternal fire. Let us live in repentance and virtue. Let us always be with Jesus Christ.