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Catholic Commentary
The Exorcism: Jesus Commands the Legion
6When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and bowed down to him,7and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, don’t torment me.”8For he said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”9He asked him, “What is your name?”10He begged him much that he would not send them away out of the country.11Now on the mountainside there was a great herd of pigs feeding.12All the demons begged him, saying, “Send us into the pigs, that we may enter into them.”13At once Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and they were drowned in the sea.
Mark 5:6–13 describes Jesus commanding a demon-possessed man to release the man, and the demons beg to enter a nearby herd of pigs instead of being sent away. Jesus permits this, and the pigs rush into the sea and drown, destroying the demonic Legion that had tormented the man.
Even the demons bow to Jesus and confess Him as God's Son — not because they choose to, but because evil cannot stand before divine authority.
Verses 11–13 — The Pigs and the Sea The destruction of "about two thousand" pigs is among the most vivid and theologically layered details in the Synoptic Gospels. For a Jewish audience, swine were unclean animals (Lev 11:7); the unclean spirits enter the unclean animals in a kind of foul symmetry. The steep bank (krēmnos) down which the herd rushes echoes the abyss (abyssos) that the demons had feared (cf. Luke 8:31, the parallel). The sea in biblical cosmology — especially in Mark, where Jesus has just stilled a storm — is the primordial symbol of chaos and death. The Legion, which had occupied a man, is swallowed by the very chaos it embodies. Typologically, this recalls Pharaoh's army drowned at the Red Sea (Exod 14–15): God liberates His people through the destruction of the oppressing power in the waters. The one possessed man freed corresponds typologically to Israel freed from bondage.
Catholic tradition illuminates several dimensions of this passage with particular richness.
Christological Confession from Hostile Witnesses. The Fathers took the demonic confession of Jesus as "Son of the Most High God" with full seriousness as a theological datum. Origen (Contra Celsum VII, 67) notes that even hostile witnesses are compelled to truth when confronted with divine reality. The Catechism (CCC 394) teaches that Satan and the demons are fallen angels who, though powerful, remain creatures — subordinate to divine Providence and unable to prevent the coming of the Kingdom.
The Reality of Demonic Possession. The Church teaches that demonic possession is a genuine, though rare, reality. The Catechism (CCC 1673) affirms the Church's authority to perform exorcism, "a request to speak and act in the name of Christ." The Rite of Exorcism (Rituale Romanum, revised 1999) draws directly on this pericope: the command "Come out" (Exi) echoes Jesus' words in verse 8. Pope Francis has repeatedly called attention to the reality of personal evil, warning against reducing the demonic to mere symbol (cf. Evangelii Gaudium 160).
The Liberated Human Person. For St. Augustine (Sermon 107), the restoration of the demoniac is a figure of the soul's liberation from slavery to sin and disordered passion. The "legion" within corresponds to the multiplied attachments of a will fragmented by sin. This resonates with CCC 407, which speaks of human beings wounded by original sin and subject to concupiscence and the power of death.
Permission and Providence. That Jesus "gives permission" (v. 13) is a classic locus for the Thomistic teaching on God's permissive will. St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae I, q. 114, a. 1) teaches that evil spirits can act only within limits God permits — not because God wills evil, but because He brings good even through evil's permitted consequences.
The man in this passage bore an internal army — a multiplied, fragmented captivity that no human power could chain. Contemporary Catholics may rarely encounter formal possession, but the spiritual truth this passage addresses is universal: there are forces — compulsions, addictions, ideological captivities, habituated sins — that genuinely exceed our capacity for self-mastery. The demons' name, "Legion," speaks to the experience of being overwhelmed from within by what feels like a crowd of competing drives.
The pastoral invitation of this passage is concrete: bring your "legion" to Jesus by name. The demons had to name themselves before Christ; the Sacrament of Reconciliation operates on exactly this logic — we name what holds us captive, and Christ commands it out. Catholics should also take seriously the Church's ministry of exorcism and deliverance prayer, which is not superstition but a direct extension of Christ's own command in verse 8. Finally, the image of the restored man — clothed, calm, "in his right mind" (v. 15) — is a portrait of what sanctifying grace does to the human person: it integrates, dignifies, and restores the image of God.
Commentary
Verse 6 — Prostration from Afar The demoniac, who in verses 3–5 could not be restrained by any human chain, runs toward Jesus and "bows down" (Greek: prosekyneō — the same word used for liturgical worship). This is not willing adoration but compelled submission: even the demonic powers cannot resist the gravitational pull of divine authority. The distance — "from afar" — heightens the drama; the man could not be subdued by anything of this world, yet he collapses before Christ before a word is spoken.
Verse 7 — The Demonic Confession The cry "Son of the Most High God" is theologically precise. "Most High God" (El Elyon) is the ancient divine title used by Melchizedek (Gen 14:18) and throughout the psalms to denote God's absolute sovereignty over all created powers. The demons, paradoxically, are the first in Mark's Gospel to name Jesus with full accuracy — a feature that forms part of what scholars call Mark's "messianic secret." The plea "I adjure you by God, don't torment me" is striking: the demons attempt to bind Jesus with an oath formula (exorkizō), the very technique of human exorcists, as if Jesus were merely a more powerful ritual practitioner. The attempt fails entirely; it is Jesus who commands, not negotiates.
Verse 8 — The Prior Command Mark's editorial note in verse 8 — "for he said to him, 'Come out'" — is a Markan flashback explaining the reaction in verse 7. Jesus had already spoken the word of command before the demon's protest. This underscores that the demonic response is a reaction to Jesus' authority, not its cause.
Verse 9 — "What Is Your Name?" In the ancient world, knowing a spirit's name conveyed power over it. But Jesus does not ask the name in order to gain leverage through magic; He already commands with absolute authority. The question serves a revelatory and pastoral function: the answer "Legion" (legiōn, a Roman military unit of 3,000–6,000 soldiers) discloses the catastrophic scale of the man's affliction and — in a province under Roman occupation — carries unmistakable political resonance. An entire military force occupies this one man as it occupies his land. The name is both a diagnosis and an indictment.
Verse 10 — Begging Not to Be Sent from the Country The demons' plea reveals their own limits: they can beg, but they cannot refuse. "The country" (chōra) may indicate a demonic attachment to particular territory — a concept reflected in ancient Jewish demonology (cf. Tobit 8:3). More theologically, it underlines that the demonic is parasitic: it can only exist within what has been created and can do nothing apart from what the Lord permits.