MAN IN THE MAZE

 This entire hillside was covered with caverns which had been hewn out of the rock.
 Many of these niches were ancient sepulchres.
 About halfway up the hillside on a small, relatively level spot
 was the cemetery of the little village of Kheresa.
 As Jesus and his associates passed near this burial ground,
a lunatic who lived in these hillside caverns rushed up to them.
 This demented man was well known about these parts, having onetime
 been bound with fetters and chains and confined in one of the grottos.
 Long since he had broken his shackles and now roamed at will
 among the tombs and abandoned sepulchres.

 This man, whose name was Amos, was afflicted with a periodic form of insanity.
 There were considerable spells when he would find some clothing
and deport himself fairly well among his fellows.
 During one of these lucid intervals he had gone over to Bethsaida,
 where he heard the preaching of Jesus and the apostles,
 and at that time had become a halfhearted believer in the gospel of the kingdom.
 But soon a stormy phase of his trouble appeared, and he fled to the tombs,
 where he moaned, cried out aloud, and so conducted himself
as to terrorize all who chanced to meet him.

When Amos recognized Jesus, he fell down at his feet and exclaimed:
 "I know you, Jesus, but I am possessed of many devils, and I beseech
 that you will not torment me." This man truly believed that his periodic
 mental affliction was due to the fact that, at such times,
evil or unclean spirits entered into him and dominated his mind and body.
 His troubles were mostly emotional—his brain was not grossly diseased.

 Jesus, looking down upon the man crouching like an animal at his feet,
 reached down and, taking him by the hand, stood him up and said to him: 
"Amos, you are not possessed of a devil; you have already heard the good news
 that you are a son of God. I command you to come out of this spell."
And when Amos heard Jesus speak these words,
 there occurred such a transformation in his intellect that he was
 immediately restored to his right mind and the normal control of his emotions.
 By this time a considerable crowd had assembled from the near-by village,
 and these people, augmented by the swine herders from the highland above them,
 were astonished to see the lunatic sitting with Jesus and his followers,
in possession of his right mind and freely conversing with them.

As the swine herders rushed into the village to spread the news
 of the taming of the lunatic, the dogs charged upon a small and
untended herd of about thirty swine and drove most of them
over a precipice into the sea. And it was this incidental occurrence,
 in connection with the presence of Jesus and the supposed miraculous curing
 of the lunatic, that gave origin to the legend that Jesus had cured Amos
 by casting a legion of devils out of him, and that these devils had entered
into the herd of swine, causing them forthwith to rush headlong
to their destruction in the sea below. Before the day was over,
 this episode was published abroad by the swine tenders,
 and the whole village believed it.