Can it be true that Jesus’ followers were armed when Jesus was arrested, and that they put up a fight to defend him, as indicated in the Gospels?  Did Jesus’ disciples believe in armed engagement with the enemy?  Did Jesus???

 

[[RECALL, in case you haven’t been reading each of the posts in this thread:  I’ve been trying to show how experts in the phenomenon of “memory” can help us reflect on the Gospel traditions about Jesus.  Memory is a much wider and more expansive phenomenon than most people imagine.  Memories involve what we’ve done, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve learned, what we’ve heard, and what we simply recall about the past whether we ourselves experienced it and whether our recollections are just personal or collectively shared by a broader swath of our community (e.g., our “memories” of the Clinton presidency or of the Civil War)  .

When seen in this broader sense, the Gospels contain some “historically true” memories of Jesus but also some distorted or fake memories.  In the current thread of posts I’ve been discussing key passages of the Passion narratives of the Gospels.  All these are taken from my book that discusses such things in large, Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne, 2016).]]

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Swords in the Garden

In all four Gospels, at least one of Jesus’ followers is armed when he is arrested.   In the Synoptics, this unnamed follower draws his sword and strikes the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear (see Mark 14:47).  In John’s Gospel we learn that the sword-bearing disciple was Peter (John 18: 10).   Jesus puts a halt to his follower’s violent inclination, however, and humbly submits to his arrest.  In Luke’s version he does so only after healing the ear (Luke 22:51).

From the eighteenth century until the present day

(see my discussions of Reimarus in chapter 1 and Aslan in chapter 2), there have been scholars, and non-scholars, who have thought that this incident in the garden is both altogether plausible and indicative of the character of Jesus’ message and mission.  In this opinion, the incident must be historical for a rather simple reason.  What later Christian would make up such a story?   When Christians were telling and retelling their accounts of Jesus’ life in the years after his death, of course they would want him to appear entirely palatable to their audiences.   Nothing would make Jesus more palatable in Roman eyes than the view that he was a peace-loving promoter of non-violence, not a violent insurrectionist against Rome.  If Jesus allowed his followers to be armed, however, that would suggest he was in favor of them carrying out acts of violence.   If later Christians would not make up the idea that Jesus’ promoted violence, then no one could make up the idea that his followers were armed.   Following this logic, the story of the sword in the garden is not an invented tradition but a historical fact.   Jesus’ followers, therefore, were armed.  Moreover, if they were armed, so this reasoning goes, then Jesus must have anticipated and even promoted an armed rebellion.

There’s a good deal of sense to this view and it is easy to see why it is attractive.  Still, at the end of the day I don’t find it convincing.  This is for two reasons, one that is obvious but ultimately unpersuasive, and the other that is less obvious but absolutely (to my mind) compelling.   The obvious objection is that throughout all of our traditions, Jesus is regularly and consistently portrayed as a teacher of non-violence.   “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  “Love your enemies.”  “Love those who persecute you.”  “Blessed are the peacemakers.”   “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars.”  “The one who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”   Throughout independent accounts of Jesus’ life he is shown to promote loving and submissive non-violence.  Doesn’t that squelch the possibility that Jesus favored armed rebellion and that his followers were armed?

The reason that argument is not totally persuasive is that Christians may have wanted to portray Jesus as non-violent, and remembered him as non-violent, for reasons for their own.  Christians themselves were often opposed by the authorities and would have wanted to stress that they were no threat and no danger.  In their own defense they argued that they were peace-loving people.  But how could they really be peace-loving if they worshiped and strove to emulate a person crucified for insurrection against the state?  The Christian response could have been to emphasize that Jesus execution was a complete miscarriage of justice.  In this view he was a peace-loving rabbi who urged a pacifist message of non-violence.  In theory the Christians could have put this message – extensively – on his lips.

Still, the abundant number of such pacifist statements on the lips of Jesus should give us pause and make us suspect they might well represent accurate memories of his teachings, especially in light of the second reason for thinking that Jesus’ followers did not put up an armed defense of him when the crowd came to arrest him.  I think this reason is absolutely compelling.  If Jesus’ followers tried to defend him with a sword, or more than one sword, why weren’t they arrested as well?  If the problem with Jesus is that he was about to lead an armed rebellion, then surely his followers would have been as much of a threat as he, especially if they start whacking away at people’s ears with their swords.

I don’t think Jesus’ followers were armed in the garden when Jesus was arrested.  Why then do we have discussions of the followers’ swords in the various Gospel accounts?   My sense is that the sword attack is a story that was invented by an early Christian (either consciously created or simply generated as someone happened to tell the story and unconsciously elaborated it) who was trying to illustrate Jesus’ teaching, that anyone who “lives by the sword dies by the sword.”

This view will require a short explanation.  Many of Jesus’ best sayings in the Gospels may indeed go back to him:  “Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath”; “Those who are well have no need of a physician but only those who are sick”; “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country.”   A large number of these great one-liners are delivered at the end of stories for which the sayings are particularly apt.  It has long been recognized that, as happens even in modern contexts, sometimes a story will be told in order to set the stage for the delivery of a great, climactic statement.

I think that may have happened in the case of the story of the sword in the garden.   Originally there was a saying, possibly something Jesus actually said, about swords and not wielding them:  “the one who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”   As that saying was rehearsed over the years, there emerged a story that illustrated the point that Jesus’ followers should not arm themselves with swords.  This story was retold until it became the Gospel account that someone wrongly used the sword to attack Jesus’ enemies.  By way of contrast, Jesus himself passively submitted to being arrested.  If I’m right, then the sword fight in the garden is a distorted memory.  If it were an accurate memory it is very hard to see why the disciples were not arrested.

The reason the event was later remembered in a way that was not historical is deeply significant.  Later Christian storytellers wanted to emphasize that even though they worshiped one who had been crucified for crimes against Rome, he decidedly did not urge a political rebellion.  Moreover, they themselves did not oppose the ruling authorities, they did not believe in violence against those in charge, they did not believe in taking up arms in opposition to the state.  During Jesus’ life, some of his followers may have thought that this is what it meant to be among his disciples.  But Jesus was quite clear and explicit. That is not what it meant to follow him.  Following him meant living in peace, both with one another and with the ruling authorities.  Urging or wanting a violent uprising would only lead to death.   Armed rebellion was not the way of either Jesus or his true disciples.