Verse 13 There have been great differences of opinion, and much discussion, in respect to the nature of the cases of demoniacal possession described in the New Testament; man persons having maintained that they were cases of natural, though severe, disease, and that the language referring them to the agency of evil spirits is only the figurative phraseology of Hebrew writers,--the case here described being, according to this idea, only a case of violent insanity. The subject is doubtless attended with serious difficulties, for it is not easy to account for such proceedings as are here related, on the supposition that intelligent beings from another world were the actors; and yet the language in which the events are described seems incapable of any other interpretation. The referring of these sufferings to the power of evil spirits does not, however, exclude the supposition of disease. The sacred writers evidently regarded these unhappy objects of the Savior's compassion as laboring under mental or bodily maladies: the distinction is, that they refer these maladies to a supernatural and evil a agency. There are strong indications of insanity, for example, in this case. The description of the condition of the patient, (Mark 5:3-5,) the incoherency of some of his answers, and, above all, the expression in his right mind, in Mark 5:15, conspire to show that this unhappy sufferer was in a state of maniacal frenzy,--though the source of this insanity is plainly ascribed to the agency of infernal beings.