And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:52–53)

What does Jesus’s rebuke of Saint Peter mean? Usually, it is a good and honorable thing to defend the defenseless rather than stand idly by while an injustice is being done to them. But St. Peter, who is quick to act here in defense of Christ, failed to remember that Christ is far from defenseless. For Christ is the Truth, and the Truth can defend itself.

So what does Jesus’s rebuke of St. Peter mean? Is he an advocate for wholesale pacifism? If the earliest accounts of Christian martyrdom are considered at face value, it can be a good and holy thing to live by the sword. Perhaps not by the kind of sword that Peter wielded in the Garden of Gethsemane, but by the kind of sword that Saint Stephen, the first martyr, brandished before the Sanhedrin. 

The kind of sword to which I refer appears throughout the Sacred Scriptures. In the Letter to the Hebrews, we are told that the “Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:3). In the book of Revelation, we read of a sword coming forth from the mouth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And on every major feast day the Liturgy of the Hours features my favorite psalm, Psalm 149, which says, “Let the faithful rejoice in their glory, shout for joy and take their rest. Let the praise of God be on their lips and a two-edged sword in their hand” (Ps 149:5–6).

Saint Peter was zealous to defend the Truth, enough to draw a physical sword for it, but St. Stephen understood that the Truth does not need such a sword. And what about us? Do we need a sword to defend ourselves? After all, Christ says that believers will “be dragged before governors and kings for [his] sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles” (Matt 10:18). What then? “When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour” (Matt 10:18–19). We shall be given something to say, something to wield, before our persecutors. This is precisely what happened to St. Stephen, for after testifying to the Truth before the Sanhedrin, they had no response but rage.

Why did the Sanhedrin respond in this way? Well, St. Stephen may not have had a physical sword like St. Peter, but something like a sword still came forth from his mouth—and this sword was the Word of God. Saint Stephen was stoned, but not before bearing witness to the Truth, who he saw standing at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:54–60).

All are called to live by the Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. If we live by this sword, we will surely die with this sword in our hands and on our lips. It may not be a stoning like St. Stephen, or a crucifixion like St. Peter, but our death will be nonetheless marked by the Truth that we lived and wielded throughout our lives.

✠

Photo by Alberto Fernandez (CC BY-SA 3.0)