“As touching the transmutation—so let us call it—of things metaphorical into things literal I myself have of late obtained one instance which I will contribute to our common store. Upon receipt of your first letter, discoursing with a certain acquaintance of mine—one Evander, a physician and an educated man, not I think unknown to you—concerning the causes and symptoms of ‘possession,’ he made this observation, that it is the custom of the patient in such cases (his stomach, as well as his mind, being altogether corrupted and diseased) to suppose that he has within his belly all manner of filthy and foul creatures, such as toads, serpents, dragons, scorpions, adders, dogs, swine and the like, which creatures, when the possessed man is suddenly healed, he often sees (or rather imagines and fancies himself to see) going forth from his mouth into banishment or destruction. And he added that among the Phrygians the possessed were wont to suppose that hooded snakes or scorpions were within them, but among the Jews (who have a special abhorrence of certain animals, considering them to be unclean) it was more common to imagine the presence of swine; and not unnaturally, said he, because these animals (having no real existence but being the mere offspring of the imagination) necessarily vary with the imagination that gives them birth. Then he went on relate how a Jew being (as all Jews are) a great hater of the Romans, and also considering swine to be unclean, had imagined himself to be possessed by a Legion, not however of soldiers but of swine; which swine, when they were cast forth into the deep or ‘abyss’ (for by this name they are wont to call the void place wherein bodiless spirits or demons are supposed to roam) were seen by the Jew, the possessed man, to go forth from his mouth and run violently down to the said abyss. This tradition, he said, he had heard some years ago from another physician who lived at Tiberias, not far from the place where the man had been healed; and he that had healed him was, according to the saying of the physician of Tiberias, no other than this very same Christus, who is now worshipped by your friends, the Christians, as a God.
“When I heard this, considering with myself that in all likelihood, if this were so, some story of it would even now be current among the followers of Christus, I went on the morrow to Hierapolis, to that same Tatias of whom I made mention in my previous letter, and questioning him about them that are possessed, whether he knew of many that had been healed by Christus, I recounted to him my story concerning the man possessed with a Legion and asked him whether that was the true account of the matter. To which he replied that in his youth he had heard that account, or somewhat like unto it, but it was not exact; for how, said he, could a legion of creatures of the size of swine, be shut in within the compass of one human belly? But according to him, the true story was, that the Legion of evil spirits having been cast out of the man, assumed the shapes of swine, and were then cast into the abyss. Then another of the same sect who happened to be present, said that neither was that version of the story altogether exact; for why should demons, having shapes already, perchance of gnats or flies or whatever else, assume fresh shapes of swine? But the truth was, that the legion of demons being two thousand in number—for the latest narrator of all, mark you, is assured of the exact number, which was not known in the earliest traditions—finding themselves on the point to be cast out of the man’s body, and fearing to be without bodies and so to be cast into the abyss, besought Christus that it might be permitted to them to pass into the bodies of two thousand swine; which swine happened to be at that instant pasturing—conveniently indeed for the demons but contrary to the laws of the Jews—near to the demoniac. ‘Then,’ said he (for it is worth while to recount his exact words) ‘when the Lord suffered them, behold, the whole legion of demons rushed into the two thousand swine; but they gained nothing thereby. For the swine rushed violently down a steep place into the sea of Tiberias’ (no longer you will observe into the abyss) ‘and were there drowned.’ To this account another companion of Tatias assented, as being the latest and truest tradition; but he added yet a new fact, namely, that those who were feeding the swine being terrified (as how should they not be?) by so great a destruction, fled away into the city, and that the citizens coming together in much fear, besought Jesus that he would depart out of their coasts.