Chapter XIV: Satan Separated from Himself

Textual analysis can say nothing about the miraculous healings themselves[62]. It refers only to the language of their description. The Gospels speak the language of their world. So it seems to us that they portray Jesus as just one of many healers, even though they claim that the Messiah is something unique. But the text about the Gadarene demons confirms their assurances, since it describes the destruction of all demons and their universe, the universe that provides the evangelists with the language of describing demons, the language of demons and their exorcism. Thus, it is a question of exile... the very expulsion, that is, the mainspring of this world, is about putting an end to demons and demonism forever.

In several rare passages of the Gospels, Jesus himself resorts to the language of exile and demonology. The main of these passages depicts an argument with hostile interlocutors. This is an important text, and it is found in all three synoptics.

Here it is in the most complete version, the Matthew version. Jesus had just healed a possessed man. The crowd is delighted, but members of the religious elite (the Pharisees in Matthew, the scribes in Mark) find this healing suspicious.

And all the people were amazed, and said, Is this not Christ, the son of David? And the Pharisees, when they heard this, said, He cast out demons only by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be desolate; and no city, no house, divided against itself, will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, then he is divided from himself: how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whose power do your sons cast out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then surely the Kingdom of God has come to you (Mt 12:23-28*).

You cannot read this text only once – direct reading must lead to an indirect, deeper one. I will start with the immediate. At first, we see in the first phrase only an indisputable, but banal principle, in which folk wisdom is expressed. The English language has made it almost a proverb: "Every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand."

The next sentence at first seems to be just an application of this principle: "And if Satan casts out Satan, then he is divided from himself: how then shall his kingdom stand?" Jesus does not answer this question himself, but the answer is clear: if Satan is divided from himself, his kingdom will not stand. If the Pharisees really see Satan as an enemy, they should not reproach Jesus for casting out Satan by Satan's power; even if they were right, Jesus' healing would only hasten Satan's final destruction.

But now there follows a new assumption and a new question: "If I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whose power do your sons cast out?" If my actions are from the devil, then from whom are your actions and those of your "sons" – spiritual sons? Jesus returns to the critics their accusations: it is they who cast out by the power of Satan, and as his own he affirms a radically different expulsion – the expulsion by the power of the Spirit of God: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then surely the kingdom of God has reached you."

At first glance, it seems that Jesus turned to completely fruitless polemical exaggerations. Indeed, when healers compete, each claims to be the only one engaged in the "good exorcism"—the most effective, the most orthodox, the only one that comes from God—while others, of course, engage in exorcism that comes from the devil. That is, we seem to find ourselves in a mimetic competition, where each expels the other, as, for example, Oedipus and Teiresias, rival soothsayers in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Thus, violence is ubiquitous, and it all comes down to the question of who is stronger. This is what the continuation of the passage, which I have not yet quoted, speaks of. The relationship between the two exiles is presented here in a vividly violent form:

Or how can anyone enter into the house of the strong and take possession of his possessions, if he does not first bind the strong? and then he will plunder his house (Mt 12:29*).