When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.
Matthew 8:28-32
One faces a keen sense of their own mortality as they journey through the ruins of once great civilizations. Between meetings with politicians and discussions of modern Middle Eastern politics, we toured many of the most prominent biblical and Roman sites, now either crumbling or being painstakingly restored in the hope that a new age can learn something from an ancient one.
The town of Gadara was decimated by earthquake in the eighth century. Much of it was rebuilt in the Ottoman period, but the ruins of a theatre, nymphtaeum and mausoleum date back to Roman times.
The ruins of a sixth century basilica also boast an unusual octagonal interior sanctum. According to our guide, such sanctums were exclusively used in churches built where Christ had spent time during his ministry.
A stone’s throw from the ruined church is a steep slope overlooking the Golan Heights in Syria and the Sea of Galilee in Israel. According to tradition, it was here that Christ cast demons out of men and into pigs, and it was in the waters of distant Galilee that the swine rushed to die.
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