A meme is something that spreads qucickly through a culture, an idea or concept, often an image, especially via social media. It may or may not be true but it’s impact is based on that ability to spread and its stickiness rather than on the evidence behind it.
I wonder if we have such an example with “none violent revolution.” There has been an increased tendency to talk about Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5 and Luke 10 in those terms. In Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus says:
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
The none violent resistance argument goes something along the lines of this. Jesus is not encouraging passive acceptance of oppression here. Rathar he is offering a way of resisting without resorting to violence yourself.
The basis of this as follows. First, that to strike someone on the right cheek required a backhanded slap with the leading right hand. Turning the other cheek would force them to hit you with the palm of the hand as an equal. Handing them your coat would force them, in the law court to go beyond what the law required. Finally, the Roman soldiers were allowed to requisition means of transport and forced labour but there were specified limits. So, to go beyond the designated Roman mile could get the soldier into trouble leading to them being disciplined.
Tom Wright puts it this way:
The third example clearly reflects the Roman military occupation. Roman soldiers had the right to force civilians to carry their equipment for one mile. But the law was quite strict; it forbade them to make someone go more than that. Turn the tables on them, advises Jesus. Don’t fret and fume and plot revenge. Copy your generous God! Go a second mile, and astonish the soldier (and perhaps alarm him—what if his commanding officer found out?) with the news that there is a different way to be human, a way which doesn’t plot revenge, which doesn’t join the armed resistance movement (that’s what verse 39 means), but which wins God’s kind of victory over violence and injustice.
It all sounds very interesting and exciting but is there any evidence for this. Whilst there are references to the Roman rules around requisitioning, known as “angaria”[1]I am yet to see anyone cite primary historical sources for the claim that you could get a soldier into serious trouble by going the extra mile.
Furthermore, if you start wading through the heavyweight commentaries,you will struggle to find commentaries talking in terms of “non violent resistance.” I checked RT France, Leon Morris and Craig Keener, none of them even consider the possibility that this is what Matthew is what Jesus is talking about, let alone come down in favour of it.
Now, it could be that this was a thing, though it is strange that we aren’t being offered historical sources. This suggests to me that it isn’t something that either historians or Biblical scholars have paid much serious attention to.
Rather, we have an example of a Christian meme, an idea that has kind of run away with itself. It isn’t the only example. I’ve talked previously about the way in which it became a thing to claim that shepherds would deliberately break the legs of runaway sheep so that by being carried they would learn to stay close to them. You may be able to think of others.
The thing is that, we don’t need this particular meme to understand what is going on in Matthew 5. I’m not sure that it would help us make much sense of the passage, after all, how does making trouble for individual soldiers provide a means for resisting the system? But we don’t need the theory because we are told very clearly why we are to do this.
Jesus, first of all talks about not demanding the justice offered in the law, the Lex Talon, “an eye for an eye.” Jesus begins to set out an alternative vision, an alternative form of justice. Secondly, in v43 at the end of this section but also in Luke 6:27, at the head of his version of these instructions, Jesus tells us to love our enemies.
This is nothing about disrupting, inconveniencing, causing trouble for others in order to undermine them. Rather, it is very simply about showing God’s compassionate love in action.
[1] France, Matthew, 222. Note Josephus talks about he requisitioning of beasts, (Antiquities 13:52).
Faithroots 