Fifth Sunday of Matthew

Born in Trebizond and named Abraham at his baptism, the future father of organized Athonite monasticism was orphaned early and raised by a pious nun whose fasting and prayer he learned to imitate as a child. Taken to Constantinople, he excelled in learning under the rhetorician Athanasius, but the brilliance of the world could not hold him. Drawn to the ascetic life, he went to the monastery of Kyminas and was tonsured with the name Athanasius, giving himself wholly to obedience, vigil, and the cutting off of his own will.

His longing for stillness eventually led him to the Holy Mountain, where he hoped to live unknown as a simple hermit. But God had other purposes. With the friendship and imperial patronage of Nikephoros Phokas—soon to be emperor—Athanasius began, around the year 963, to build the Great Lavra, the first great coenobitic community on Athos. He established a rule patterned on the ancient monasteries of Palestine, ordering the common life of prayer, labor, and shared possession that would become the pattern for the entire Mountain.

Brethren flocked to him from every land: simple men and illustrious dignitaries, desert-dwellers seasoned by long years of solitary struggle, even abbots and bishops who set aside their rank to become ordinary monks under his guidance. What had begun as one man’s flight to obscurity became, under the providence of God, the mother-house of a monastic republic that endures to this day. Around the year 1003 the saint fell asleep in the Lord in a manner befitting a builder: he was killed, together with several disciples, when the cupola of a church then under construction collapsed upon them.

His troparion sings that he “smote the hordes of demons with mortal wounds”—a striking resonance with this Sunday’s Gospel, in which the Lord Himself drives the legion from the two possessed men of the Gergesenes. Athanasius is the type of the monk who takes the field against the very powers Christ casts out, waging in the body the “invisible struggles” against the demons that the Gadarene narrative makes visible.

A native of Irenopolis in Isauria, Lampadus shone with Christian virtue while still in the world—wisdom, gentleness, patience, mastery of the tongue, and a great love for the poor and the suffering. Loving Christ fervently from his youth, he withdrew into the wilderness of Irenopolis and gave himself to a life of asceticism. Many who came to his hermitage burdened by the passions found in him a physician of souls, and through his counsel recovered the moral health that pleasure and sin had destroyed. A wonderworker both in life and after his repose, he is numbered among the righteous hermit-fathers of the Church.

After the death of his devout parents, Cyprian came to the Holy Mountain and was tonsured a monk, laboring in asceticism in a cell near the Monastery of Koutloumousiou until he was renowned throughout Athos. Tormented by the conviction that he could not be saved except through martyrdom, he left the Mountain and went first to Thessalonica, where he confronted the pasha and was scourged and driven out. Unsatisfied with so small a suffering for Christ, he traveled to Constantinople and addressed a letter to the grand vizier, setting forth the falseness of Islam and the truth of Christ. Brought before the Sheik-ul-Islam and ordered beheaded, Cyprian went to the scaffold “as to a wedding feast,” and so received the crown he had so ardently desired on July 5, 1679.

On July 5, 1422, while Saint Nikon was abbot of the Holy Trinity monastery, the relics of Saint Sergius of Radonezh (+1392) were uncovered during the digging of foundations for a new stone church on the site of the old wooden one. The community had endured much: in 1408 the Tatar horde of Edigei devastated and burned the monastery, and the monks under Saint Nikon had hidden its icons, vessels, and books. When the incorrupt relics of the great abba of the Russian land were brought up from the earth, all were astonished that not only his body but even his garments were undamaged, though water stood around the grave. The relics were translated, in the presence of Prince Yuri of Zvenigorod, son of Demetrius of the Don, into the wooden Trinity church. The Church keeps the repose of Saint Sergius on September 25 and the uncovering of his relics on this day.

• “The divine nature of the only begotten Son was already scorching the demons in unspeakable flames.”—Cyril of Alexandria
• “They who had not even endured bands of iron came bound; and they who ran about the mountains went forth into the plain.”—John Chrysostom
• “The demons consider it torment to be prevented from harming men.”—Theophylact of Ochrid
• “The demons are permitted to contend with us until the end of the world.”—Theophylact of Ochrid
• “He did so, not as yielding to them, but as providing for many objects thereby.”—John Chrysostom
• “God protects those possessed by demons so that they do not kill themselves.”—Theophylact of Ochrid
• “Where there is swinish life, it is not Christ Who dwells there, but demons.”—Theophylact of Ochrid

”When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way.”

Cyril of Alexandria (+444)

The divine nature of the only begotten Son was already scorching the demons in unspeakable flames. Christ was shutting up the fiercest demons in blocked roads. He was undoing the devil’s tyranny. “You have come before the time,” they cried out. For they knew from the Scriptures that Christ was going to come and would judge them. Treating the incarnation as if it had happened at the wrong time, they pled that he had come in an untimely way. Yet, although they know that vengeance is to fall upon them, they still say haughtily, “What have you to do with us?” They know that the final Judge in fact has a score to settle with them, inasmuch as they had broken his commandments.

John Chrysostom (+407)

The demons could not deny that they had sinned, but they demanded that they not suffer their punishment before the time. Because Jesus had caught them in the act of perpetrating those horrors so incurable and lawless, they besought and entreated him. They who had not even endured bands of iron came bound. And they who ran about the mountains went forth into the plain. And they who hindered all others from passing stood still at the sight of Jesus, blocking the way.

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

While the men in the boat were yet wondering what manner of man this was that even the winds and the sea obeyed Him, the demons come to proclaim the answer. Although Mark and Luke speak of one man who was possessed by a legion of demons, understand that this one man was one of the two mentioned by Matthew, evidently the more notorious of the two. They dwelt among the tombs because the demons wish to inspire the belief that the souls of those who have died become demons. Let no one believe this: for when the soul departs from a man, it does not wander about the earth. For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and the souls of sinners are led away.

”And suddenly they cried out, saying, ‘What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?’”

John Chrysostom (+407)

Because the multitudes called Him man, the devils came proclaiming His Godhead, and they that heard not the sea swelling and subsiding heard from the devils the same cry. Then, lest the thing might seem to come of flattery, according to their actual experience they cry out and say, “Have You come hither to torment us before the time?” For indeed they were invisibly receiving stripes, and suffering things intolerable from His mere presence. Accordingly, no man daring to bring them to Him, Christ of Himself goes unto them.

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

Behold, they proclaim Him to be the Son of God, but first they declare their enmity. The demons consider it torment to be prevented from harming men. Understand the demons’ words, “before the time,” to mean that they thought that Christ, not enduring their great wickedness, would not wait for the time of their punishment. But this is not so; for the demons are permitted to contend with us until the end of the world.

”Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding.”

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

The demons asked this so that they could drown the swine, and thus the owners would be grieved and would not welcome Christ. Christ granted the demons their request in order to show how great is their bitterness towards men, and that if they had the power, and were not prevented as they are by God, they would do worse things to us than they did to the swine. For God protects those possessed by demons so that they do not kill themselves.

”So the demons begged Him, saying, ‘If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.’”

No Eastern commentary was available for this verse in the Catena; a Western Father is included.

Peter Chrysologus (+450)

Slaves ask for suitable indignities: “Send us into the swine.” Foulness begs to be sent from the tombs into the swine, so that it does not think of getting rid of its bad odors but of changing odors. Plunging from the sky, they seek filth. After living in the upper world, they look for the sloughs of pigs. A herd is sent into the herd, so that a gang of demons is brought forth, and it seems that two men have caused what a great number of pigs could not endure.

”And He said to them, ‘Go.’ So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.”

John Chrysostom (+407)

Should any one say, wherefore did Christ fulfill the devils’ request, suffering them to depart into the herd of swine? He did so not as yielding to them, but as providing for many objects thereby. One, to teach them that are delivered from those wicked tyrants how great the malice of their insidious enemies; another, that all might learn how not even against swine are they bold, except He allow them; a third, that they would have treated those men more grievously than the swine, unless even in their calamity they had enjoyed much of God’s providential care. For that they hate us more than the brutes is surely evident to every man.

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

The demons asked this so that they could drown the swine, and thus the owners would be grieved and would not welcome Christ. Christ granted the demons their request in order to show how great is their bitterness towards men, and that if they had the power, and were not prevented as they are by God, they would do worse things to us than they did to the swine.

”Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.”

No Eastern commentary was available for this verse in the Catena; a Western Father is included.

Chromatius of Aquileia (+407)

The herdsmen fled at the sight of the divine power and reported to the town what had happened. The people entreated the Lord to depart from their district. This may symbolize those who, dispensing the food of their errors to unclean and unfaithful people, are feeding them like swine to perpetual death—driven from the community of believers, the swine here may be understood as those who have wandered into falsehood.

”And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.”

John Chrysostom (+407)

Because there were those who thought Christ to be a man, therefore the demons came to proclaim His divinity, that they who had not seen the sea raging and again still might hear the demons crying. Luke and Mark chose to speak of the one who was more grievously afflicted, whence they add a further description of his calamity; but they nowhere say that there was only one, which would contradict Matthew. What is added respecting them, that they “came from among the tombs,” alludes to a mischievous opinion that the souls of the dead became demons—but it is not the soul of the dead that cries out; it is the demon who feigns this to deceive the hearers.

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

The inhabitants of the city begged Jesus to leave because they were grieved and thought that they would suffer something worse thereafter. You, O reader, learn that where there is swinish life, it is not Christ Who dwells there, but demons.

”So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.”

John Chrysostom (+407)

By His own city here he means Capernaum. For that which gave Him birth was Bethlehem; that which brought Him up, Nazareth; that which had Him continually inhabiting it, Capernaum.

Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

“His own city” means Capernaum, for it was there that He was living. He was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, and lived for an extended length of time in Capernaum.

Source: Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 28

Chrysostom treats the whole episode as a lesson in the providence of God even amid apparent loss. The destruction of the swine, he insists, is not cruelty but instruction: it makes visible the ferocity of the demons toward humanity and proves that they can do nothing—not even against swine—without God’s permission. He turns the reader’s attention from the economic loss the Gergesenes mourn to the spiritual deliverance they fail to value.

Source: Explanation of the Gospel of Matthew, on 8:28–9:1

Theophylact, distilling Chrysostom for a later Byzantine readership, presses two pastoral points: that the demons slander the dead by suggesting their souls become demons, and that the demons “are permitted to contend with us until the end of the world.” His closing line—that where there is “swinish life,” Christ does not dwell but demons do—converts the geography of the miracle into a diagnosis of the soul.

The deepest irony of the passage is that the demons confess what the townspeople will not receive. “You Son of God” is, on the demons’ lips, an admission wrung out by torment; yet it is a truer Christology than anything the Gergesenes manage. Chrysostom notes that the demons proclaim His divinity precisely because the crowds called Him only a man. The homily can dwell on the gap between knowing who Christ is and welcoming Him: the demons believe and tremble (cf. James 2:19), while the city, granted a far gentler revelation, asks Him to leave. Right confession is not yet salvation; the will must open the door.

Matthew places this miracle immediately after the stilling of the storm, building a single argument: the One who commands wind and wave commands also the legion. Cyril’s image of the divine nature “scorching the demons in unspeakable flames” and Chrysostom’s picture of demons “invisibly receiving stripes” from Christ’s mere presence give the preacher vivid language for the truth that evil has no autonomy before God. The demons can do nothing—not even enter swine—without permission. For a congregation tempted to fear the powers of darkness, the passage is profoundly consoling: the enemy is real, but he is on a leash.

The Gergesenes are not portrayed as hostile or violent; they are simply unwilling to have their lives disturbed. Metropolitan Mercury (Ivanov) reads them as an icon of religious indifference: people who find that “without God life is easier,” who prefer their swine to their freedom. This theme links directly to the Epistle. The works of the flesh order a life around its own appetites; the fruit of the Spirit reorders it around love. The demoniacs lived among the tombs; the city chose, in its own quieter way, to remain there. The homily can ask the hard question the text asks: when Christ disrupts our comfortable arrangements, do we worship, or do we beg Him to go?

Saint Paul’s catalogue of the fruit of the Spirit stands as the positive answer to the Gospel’s negative image. Where the demoniacs were torn and self-destructive, the Spirit produces “love, joy, peace, longsuffering.” Where the city provoked and envied, the Spirit calls the brethren to “bear one another’s burdens.” The deliverance Christ works on the Gergesene shore is, in Paul’s terms, the crucifixion of “the flesh with its passions and desires.” The Gospel shows the exorcism; the Epistle shows the life that is meant to fill the swept and garnished house.

”Having learned the joyful proclamation of the Resurrection from the angel, and having cast off the ancestral condemnation, the women disciples of the Lord spake to the apostles exultantly: Death is despoiled, Christ God is risen, granting great mercy to the world.”

The Sunday hymn of the Resurrection frames the Gospel: the same Lord who “despoils death” here despoils the demonic captivity of the Gergesene men, a foretaste of His victory over every power that holds humanity in the tombs.

”The ranks of Angels were awed by your life in the flesh, how in the body you went forth toward invisible struggles, O renowned one, and smote the hordes of demons with mortal wounds; for this reason, Athanasios, Christ rewarded you with abundant gifts.”

Appointed for the commemoration of the day, the troparion sounds the very note of the Gospel: the saint, in his own flesh, “smote the hordes of demons” whom the Lord drives out in the reading—the monk’s invisible warfare made the answer to the demoniac’s visible torment.

”O protection of Christians that cannot be put to shame, mediation unto the Creator most constant: despise not the suppliant voices of those who have sinned, but be thou quick, O good one, to come unto our aid, who in faith cry unto thee: Hasten to intercession, and speed thou to make supplication, O thou who dost ever protect, O Theotokos, them that honor thee.”

The seasonal Sunday Kontakion turns the congregation from the Gergesenes’ refusal to the Church’s plea: where the city said “depart from us,” the faithful cry “hasten to our aid”—the opposite response to the nearness of God.