Hayder al-Khoei and the sword of St Paul

Grurray:

September 29th, 2013 at 9:51 pm

Good work as usual Charles.
How about Matthew 10:34?
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

Timothy Furnish:

September 30th, 2013 at 2:16 pm

Except that the rest of that verse (Matthew 10:34ff), Luke 12:51ff) makes it clear that the “sword” is belief in Jesus as the Christ, which will divide even families. There is not hint whatsoever that an actual sword is meant. 

Grurray:

September 30th, 2013 at 3:09 pm

Tim,  
True. I actually don’t generally subscribe to a literal interpretation of the bible, and have no doubt of the absolute peaceful and loving motives and missions of Christ. I suspect the part about the sword may have been thrown in there for embellishment, emphasize the social upheaval of the Christian message, or to make some connection with the current events happening when it was written down years after Jesus died.
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As opposed to Jesus, Images of St. Paul with the sword make more sense because he was probably familiar with it’s use, which he admitted as much:
“beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it”
 

Timothy Furnish:

October 1st, 2013 at 5:19 pm

Thanks, Charles. Yes, St. Paul was intimately familiar with swords–especially the one the Romans used to behead him. 

Charles Cameron:

October 1st, 2013 at 11:56 pm

That last comment was from Grurray, Tim — but I agree, my Biblical reading is not a literal one.  
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As to St Paul’s sword in the sculpture, Peter and Paul are generally considered the “founding” apostles and thus portrayed together — Peter is frequently holding the upside-down cross on which he was martyred, and it wouldn’t be any surprise if Paul was similarly shown holding the sword which was used in his case, as Tim mentions. There is also the (explicitly metaphorical) “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” in Ephesians 6.17.
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The Prophet’s swords, by contrast, can be found in various museums — see this Index from the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

carl:

October 2nd, 2013 at 2:13 am

If Jesus hadn’t been crucified, there would have been no need for him to have been. That was the prime purpose of his being.

Interesting thought though.

zen:

October 2nd, 2013 at 3:32 am

If Jesus hadn’t been crucified, there would have been no need for him to have been. That was the prime purpose of his being.
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Among the apocryphal, gnostic, masonic and British Israelism legends was the story of Jesus who survived his crucifixion and escaped with the help of Joseph of Arimathea to Roman Britain, where he married Mary Magdalene and lived out his life. in other stories Jesus learned the mystical secrets of the remaining Celtic druids and passed these on to his “true” followers. Usually this involved various mummery about Anglo-Saxons being descended from the tribe of Dan or the lost tribes of Israel generally. Or Christ having traveled to India prior to his rise at age 30 as a threat to Roman rule in Galilee and the order of  Pharisees.
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The American ideological descendants of British Israelism, or it’s more virulent mutation, are the Christian Identity and Aryan nations movements who sometimes preach, at times secretly, the doctrine of the
Phineas Priesthood of which Charles has written. 
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Myths contain dangerous power 

J. Scott Shipman:

October 2nd, 2013 at 12:59 pm

This post and discussion reminded me of Hebrews 4:12:
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For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

Grurray:

October 2nd, 2013 at 4:30 pm

Different Arians, but after the empire crumbled there was a period of Christian civil wars between the two main strains, Arianism and Nicenianism.
The Franks lead by Clovis, a convert to Roman Catholicism, fought the Arian Christian Goths in southern Gaul.
The Vandals were also Arians who overran North Africa and persecuted Nicenes. They probably caused St. Augustine’s death with a siege on Hippo. They were eventually defeated by the Byzantines in another Christian on Christian struggle.
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Crusades and crusaders are a fixture of the popular lexicon (even Obama the other day lamented the ideological “crusade” of the govt shutdown), but what has shaped the Catholic Church more over the years has been internal strife.
From the criminalization of heresies to the Great Schism to the Protestant Reformation to the Tridentines, Catholicism is still dealing with the implications of apostates, and, as that passage from the Catechism shows, it informs critical doctrines and dogma. Obedience to the hierarchy is still of supreme importance.
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Early Christianity was indeed forged in the crucible of suppression and persecution. The sword is definitely a symbol of Paul’s martyrdom and fidelity to Christ.
The impact of the raw warlike image, however, is undeniable. It says this is an institution with power and with unquestionable authority.
In hoc signo vinces
 
 

J. Scott Shipman:

October 2nd, 2013 at 7:39 pm

In Alfred Edersheim’s classic, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, he provides a graphic description of Christ cleansing the temple—and He had a weapon, but not a sword:
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“Scarce had He entered the Temple-porch, and trod the Court of the Gentiles, than He drove thence what profanely defiled it. There was not a hand lifted, not a word spoken to arrest Him, as He made the scourage of small cords (even this not without significance) and with it drove out of the Temple both the sheep and the oxen; not a word said, nor a hand raised, as He poured into their receptacles the changers’ money, and overthrew their tables. His Presence awed them, His words awakened even their consciences; they knew, only too well, how true His denunciations were. And behind Him was gathered the wondering multitude, that could not but sympathise with such bold, right royal, and Messianic vindication of Temple sanctity from the nefarious traffic of a hated, corrupt, and avaricious Priesthood. It was a scene worth witnessing by any true Israelite, a protest and an act which, even among a less emotional people, would have gained Him respect, approbation, and admiration, and which, at any rate, secured his safety.” (Page 383 of the ebook linked above, page 373 of the original)
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In addition, when Jesus was apprehended in the garden, Peter loped off the ear of one Malchus—a servant of the high priest using his sword:
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“Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.” John 18:10
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I heard an old Baptist preacher once observe that when Peter took the ear, he was “aiming for brains…” 
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Those days were much more violent and brutish than our modern era, so not even Christ’s Peter was unarmed. And I believe the power of the image of the Word as a sword is exemplified no better than the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel, where the Word in the Christian context is defined:
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And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:14
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As an aside Charles, I do like it when your posts drive to my theology books. 

Charles Cameron:

October 3rd, 2013 at 3:43 am

I enjoy that too, Scott!  Thanks!