Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/116

 their souls, he suddenly reverted to their former security. "When I sent you forth without purse, or scrip, or shoes, did ye need any thing?" And they said "Nothing." Then said he to them "But now, let him that has a purse, take it, and likewise his scrip; and let him that has no sword sell his cloak and buy one." They had hitherto, in their wanderings, every where found friends to support and protect them; but now the world was at war with them, and they must look to their own resources both for supplying their wants and guarding their lives. His disciples readily apprehending some need of personal defense, at once bestirred themselves and mustered what arms they could on the spot, and told him that they had two swords among them, and of these it appears that one was in the hands of Peter. It was natural enough that among the disciples these few arms were found, for they were all Galileans, who, as Josephus tells us, were very pugnacious in their habits; and even the followers of Christ, notwithstanding their peaceful calling, had not entirely laid aside their former weapons of violence, which were the more needed by them, as the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem was made very dangerous by robbers, who lay in wait for the defenseless traveler wherever the nature of the ground favored such an attack. Of this character was that part of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, alluded to in the parable of the wounded traveler and the good Samaritan,—a region so wild and rocky that it has always been dangerous, for the same reasons, even to this day; of which a sad instance occurred but a few years ago, in the case of an eminent English traveler, who going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves and was wounded near the same spot mentioned by Christ, in spite of the defenses with which he was provided. It was in reference to such dangers as these, that two of his disciples had provided themselves with hostile weapons, and Peter may have been instigated to carry his sword into such a peaceful feast, by the suspicion that the danger from the chief priests, to which Christ had often alluded, might more particularly threaten them while they were in the city by themselves, without the safeguard of their numerous friends in the multitude. The answer of Jesus to this report of their means of resistance was not in a tone to excite them to the very zealous use of them. He simply said, "It is enough," a phrase which was meant to quiet them, by expressing his little regard for such a defense as they were able to offer to him, with this contemptible armament.