Jesus, Pigs, and Private Property

Jesus, Pigs, and Private Property 

By Lawrence W. Reed

Did Jesus oppose private property?

One well-known Biblical story, found in Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, and Luke 8:26-39, seems to suggest at the very least that He did not respect it. He drove demons from a man into a large herd of pigs which then drowned en masse in a lake. The passage in Mark reads as follows (NIV):

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.  He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.  When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.  Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

The reference to “those tending the pigs” suggests that they were owned by one or more individuals, though they are not as easy to herd as sheep and likely roamed the land unrestrained. The owner(s) was likely Gentile because Jewish law forbade the consumption of pigs as “unclean” and the “area of the Gadarenes” was a predominantly non-Jewish region. So why didn’t Jesus send the demons somewhere else, thereby sparing the pigs their lives and the owner(s) the loss of wealth?

The story seems at odds with other passages in the New Testament in which Jesus supported private property. For example, He upheld the Mosaic Law, which condemns envy and stealing. “You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet” don’t make sense unless people have the right to own things in the first place. Let’s look at a few more passages.

When 5,000 hungry people came to hear him, Jesus fed them by creating wealth, not by confiscating it from someone else.

On another occasion, a man approached him with a request to redistribute wealth, but Jesus rebuked him with these words: “Who made me a judge or divider over you?”

Verses in chapters 2 and 4 of the Book of Acts tell of early Christians in Jerusalem pooling their wealth and sharing it equally, as in a commune where everything is owned by the collective. But that was never a commandment of Jesus himself. Moreover, it was temporary and selective; a few Christians opted for this arrangement, but most did not, and it was voluntary.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made the point that the Samaritan was “good” because he chose of his own free will and resources to help a man in need. He did not take anything from anyone, nor did he turn to the State to fix the problem. The Good Samaritan was a private citizen who helped another with his private property.

The Parable of the Talents involves an estate owner trusting three of his workers with portions of his wealth while he’s away for a time. Upon the owner’s return, the worker who invested his portion and earned the highest return is the one upon whom the owner heaps the most generous praise. Jesus hardly intended this story to denigrate private property.

In yet another parable, that of the Workers in the Vineyard, the owner of the vines pays workers different wages to harvest the grapes at different times of the day. When some of them complain, the owner responds, “It’s my money!” The story not only defends private property, but it also strongly endorses rights of contract and voluntary association.

But didn’t Jesus drive money changers from the Temple? Yes, but that’s not anti-private property either. He didn’t send them away from a bank or a marketplace; he banished them from God’s house for the same reason he would dispatch you from a funeral if you showed up with a kazoo to play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

What about the time Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”? Jesus never remotely suggested that getting into Heaven depended on your bank account. He was warning against the temptations of wealth, not the creation and ownership of it.

Even the famous “Render unto Caesar” verses do not teach an anti-private property lesson. Jesus said, in effect, if it belongs to Caesar then give it to him. The implication was that if it doesn’t, you don’t have to.

In my book, Was Jesus a Socialist?, I cited these and other passages, all of which are pro-private property. Jesus never advocated theft, forcible redistribution, equal apportionment of wealth, or nationalizations of property. He would be the last to ever call the cops in to rob Peter and pay Paul.

So what’s with the pig story?

In an article for the Libertarian Christian Institute, Benjamin Seevers reminds us that the Judaic ban on pigs pre-dates Jesus. In those days, they were beasts of disease and devastation. He writes,

The clear destructive force of pigs would pose a problem to any agricultural society. God, by imposing a pig prohibition, endorsed the protection of private property…To love one’s neighbor necessarily includes respect for the property of one’s neighbor. If owning pigs means the destruction of your neighbor’s property, then a moral ban on pigs becomes an imperative…Had Jesus caused a flock of sheep to be drowned there would have clearly been a damage to property issue. But in this case the drowning of unclean animals in the land was legitimate under the Law of Moses….

Jesus clearly placed spiritual liberation far above any material concern. He delivered the man from profound demonic torment—restoring his humanity, his dignity, his mind.

Moreover, Jesus did not order the pigs into the sea. He didn’t even tell the demons where to go. They asked for permission to enter the pigs, and He simply said, “Go.” The destruction of property was not commanded, orchestrated, or celebrated by Jesus. The demons were evil, of course, but it would be quite a stretch to claim that by granting their wish to enter the pigs, Jesus was making a statement against private property. The mass pig drowning was not an act of Jesus but rather, the result of the demons’ choices.

The Catholic commentator Jimmy Akin argues that the economic loss of the pigs to their owners should be weighed against the potential gains in spiritual wealth:

The death of the pigs provided a vivid demonstration of Jesus’ spiritual authority and his role in God’s plan. By allowing the demons to go into the pigs, the exorcism was accompanied by a forceful and memorable demonstration of God’s power….

Jesus did not steal the pigs; the demons did. It was the nature and choice of the demons that led to the destruction of the pigs they possessed. The story does not contradict Jesus’s teachings regarding private property.

Acknowledgment: I am grateful to my good friend Jack Brown of Kalispell, Montana, for his outstanding research assistance. Jack is proficient in the use of AI, a technology I barely understand. When I told Jack I was working on this article, he deployed advanced AI tools to organize and refine background material and ultimately produce an audio recording in which two people discuss the story of Jesus and the demon-possessed pigs. In the process, he showed me what’s possible with this remarkable technology. While the ideas and final writing are my own, Jack’s contribution made the work stronger. The recording is attached, so you can listen to it.

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(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia. He blogs at www.lawrencewreed.com.)