THE CITY OF GADARA

The city of Gadara once belonged to the territory of the ancient commercial and geographical confederacy known as The Decapolis, The Ten Cities, which were scattered over a wide area of Syro-Palestine in Greco-Roman times.
The cities of the Decapolis are mentioned several times in the New Testament. Gadara, in particular, is famous for the symbolic record of the "Gadarene Swine,"in the Gospel of Matthew.
The Gospel according to Matthew tells the news that Jesus is the promised Saviour, the one through whom God fulfilled the promises He made to His people in the Old Testament. The news is not only for the Jewish people, among whom Jesus was born and lived, but for the whole world.
The Gospel presents Jesus as the greatest Teacher, who has the authority to interpret the Law of God.
The writings are carefully arranged. It begins with the birth of Jesus, describes his baptism and temptation, and then takes up his ministry of preaching, teaching and healing in Galilee. After this the records goes on to Jesus' journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and the events of Jesus' last week in the earth.
The record of the "Gadarene Swine"says:  When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, 2 demoniacs met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way.
And behold, they cried out, :What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?"
Now a herd of many swine was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, "If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine."
And he said to them, "Go." So they came out and went into the swine; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and perished in the waters.
The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, and what happened to the demoniacs.
And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.
Ancient Gadara is known for its fine tradition of man made philosophy and poetic satire. Its first great son was Menippus. He was a Cynic philosopher and satirist, but allegedly a slave by origin, who on earning his freedom, made money as a ship-broker, but hanged himself on losing it.
Men in Gadara were controlled by demon power and they were slaves of their own fleshy desires.
The way in which demon power worked over humans was symbolized through the crafty use of the aqueducts designed by Greco-Roman engineers The only purpose of the aqueducts were to connect water to cities to waste massive quantities of water.
The comparison that Matthew portrait in his narrative is about how Jews handled the spiritual water that God let them to drink and use and how the Roman's water,  coming from the world controlled by Satan served to overindulge themselves to the point that they were slaves to their own fleshy desires.
The demons there were so powerful because men decreased his spiritual level letting the unclean spirits take control over the heart and mind of all of them. Legions of demons possessed them.
When Jesus appeared there none of them recognized him in their spirit, the ones who did it were the demons themselves.
In Semitic languages, "Gadar" means a "wall" or "boundary." Later in Talmudic texts associatively connected "Gader" with the area of the "vineyard wall" ("Gader") where an angel is said to have halted the prophet Balaam. It was then that his ass was supposed to have miraculously addressed its master complaining of his ill-treatment. (Num. 22:24-29)
In the world that we are living with today, how many of us would recognize Jesus?