Evil Spirits - Hell

[PeteZaHut]

I’ve been thinking about the prayer to St. Michael where at the end it asks him to cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls. Then, there’s the story when Jesus sends the demons into the swine instead of sending them back to hell (am I remembering that right?). What’s the difference between these. Why was the mercy shown by Jesus?

 

[svid]

Sometimes I wonder why our Lord did something demons asked for. At the time, and to Jews still today, it was a nasty, dirty place to send them.

What did the swineherds think? The locals asked our Lord to leave the area. Didn’t they care more about the now-cured demoniac?

 

[kildare]

Yes its a really good (and I think, important) point. I mean you could ask, why doesn’t God just shut up all the demons once and for all.
Maybe that there´s an element of free will left in them.
Is there a chance of repentance even for demons? Otherwise why tolerate them, if the judgment is already final for them?

Its definitely one of those mysteries. Overall we have very little knowledge about the exact nature of angelic spirits it seems.

 

[HHMom]

It strikes me that, given that as a poster said, swine were considered unclean by the Jews that the demons were asking for a punishment.

The demons knew that the swine were unclean and essentailly asked to be punished by being sent to an unclean place. To me the demons, in facing Christ, knew “the jig was up” and that they had done wrong for long enough. They rightly asked for a judgement and Christ gave it to them. Christ wouldn’t have given it to them unless it was a just punishment. Which in turn means that the demons were truly sorry for what they had ever done to pick a level of punishment that would have OK with God. But then the pigs went over the cliff and died thus releasing the demons.

To me after that, the demons were released from even being demons anylonger.

I see a parallel with going through purgatory, i.e. purification before being “released”.

 

[mdrummer5]

Sometimes I wonder why our Lord did something demons asked for. At the time, and to Jews still today, it was a nasty, dirty place to send them.

What did the swineherds think? The locals asked our Lord to leave the area. Didn’t they care more about the now-cured demoniac?

No… they were clearly more concerned with the fact that bacon would henceforth be considered evil.

Sorry… I’m feeling goofy and I couldn’t resist