MARK 14:48 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?”
Am I leading a rebellion, said Jesus, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? — the question challenges the arrest's framing: the swords and clubs are appropriate for a violent revolutionary, not for the teacher who was in the temple daily. The military-style arrest communicates the authorities' fear of public resistance — they have come with force appropriate for a dangerous political agitator.
Church Fathers on Mark 14:48
After that our Lord had prayed three times, and had obtained by His prayers that the fear of the Apostles should be amended by future repentance, He, being tranquil as to His Passion, goes to His persecutors, concerning the coming of whom the Evangelist says, 'And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas Iscariot, on of the twelve.'
This is not put without reason, but to the greater conviction of the traitor, since though he was of the chief company amongst the disciples, he turned himself to furious enmity against our Lord.
For he who despairs of help from God, has recourse to the power of the world.
Read all 16 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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