By Leonard Jayawardena –

Leonard Jayawardena

In two comments I posted under a recent article in the Colombo Telegraph on the subject of the Government’s use of the PTA against the Aragalaya protesters, I pointed out, without commenting on specific cases of arrest under the Act, that, contrary to the author’s position, the Aragalaya comes within the scope of the Act as per the wording of its Preamble and that his attempt to portray the Aragalaya as an innocent, purely non-violent protest movement was based on ignorance of facts on the ground or disengenuity.

Responding to my comments in his characteristically diatribe style, a regular commenter on CT articles asserted, among many other things, that the moral lens through which I viewed the Aragalaya was shaped by my “Christian upbringing and faith.” This assertion, which is false, in fact bears no relevance either to my comments or the views expressed in my articles. I grounded my opposition to the Aragalaya in my earlier articles in certain premises (e.g., that the Aragalaya is based largely on falsehoods and that it has subverted the rule of law) and if they are correct, then all it takes is common decency and morality for one to accept my position on the Aragalaya. At no point in my publicly expressed views have I drawn upon biblical Christian morality in support of my opposition to this protest movement though that higher morality can provide additional reasons for such opposition.

The commenter then went on to argue that some use of force in the cause of the Aragalaya is not incompatible with the example of Jesus, pointing to the Gospel passages that record Jesus casting out traders from the temple in Jerusalem.

I saw his comments too late to reply within the five-day period allowed for comments but I think that is all for the good because an article provides more scope to better answer the question of whether the Gospel pericope of Jesus driving out the traders in the temple provides biblical justification to Christians for the use of force in the Aragalaya. It also affords an opportunity to answer the following interesting hypothetical question, which forms the main burden of this article: Would Jesus have supported the Aragalaya? The latter also has considerable topical significance in that a number of local professing Christian churches came out in support of the Aragalaya and even issued official statements to that effect. A certain long-haired and bearded Christian cleric (trying to emulate Christ in his own way?) was even a kingpin of the protest movement. Was Jesus on their side? (Spoiler alert: No!)

A good place to start the discussion is to briefly look at the political situation in Israel in Jesus’ day.

The political situation in Israel in the time of Jesus

The Romans under the general Pompey conquered Israel in 63 B.C. after ending a civil war between two rival factions of the Hasmoneans, a ruling Jewish dynasty. It was a part of the Roman empire in Jesus’ day (1st century AD). Rome was the fourth world power to rule that land (after Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece). Rome controlled its territories either through client (or “puppet”) kings or by governors supported by the army. At the time of Jesus’ birth (c. 4 B.C.), the whole of Jewish Palestine was ruled by Herod the Great (reigned 37–4 B.C.), an Idumaean raised as a Jew. He set up a brutally repressive regime to maintain strict control of the people, both in Jerusalem, the religious centre of Judaism, and the countryside. Like other dependent native rulers, Herod was expected, among other duties, to collect taxes for the empire. The Romans did not hesitate to use military violence to enforce payment of tribute. The huge expenses for Herod’s grandiose building projects, those of his court, etc., too, had to be borne by his subjects in the form of high and rigourously collected taxes. The dissatisfaction of the people erupted in periodic insurrections and unrest at a relatively smaller scale. However, at Herod’s death in 4 B.C. the distress and discontent that built up under his repressive rule burst out in revolt in every major district of his realm, leading to a brutal reconquest by the Romans under the general Varus.

After Herod’s death (4 B.C.) his kingdom was divided between his three sons (Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Philip). Archelaus, who received Judea, Samaria and Idumea, tried to imitate his fathers style of rule and was deposed by the Roman emperor Augustus in A.D. 6 because of persistent protests from Judeans and Samaritans, and the territories he ruled were transformed into an imperial province with a governor to govern it. During Jesus’ public career, the Roman governor (also called “prefect”) was Pontius Pilate (ruled AD 26-36). The Roman governors inflamed the people by theft on a grand scale and by insults to their religious traditions and insensitivity to their needs. It was into such a dissatisfied society that Jesus was born and to which he addressed his message of reform and renewal.

Jesus eschewed politics

A recurrent theme running through the Old Testament, the scriptures of the Jews, is the promise of a saviour who would deliver Israel from the oppression of their enemies and this saviour is modeled on the personage of King David, the second king of Israel (1000-961 [or 965] B.C.). Soon after the death of Solomon, David’s son and successor, the united kingdom of Israel divided into a northern and a southern kingdom. The former was subjugated and exiled to Assyria in 721 B.C. and the latter to Babylon in 587 B.C. The prophets looked forward to the day when Yahweh (personal name of the God of the Old Testament) would intervene to deliver his people from captivity in Assyria and and Babylon and return them to their homeland to be ruled by a king of the line of David. Yet, historically, only the southern kingdom (the Jews) returned to their homeland under the Persian king Cyrus beginning in 538 B.C., and they remained a vassal state of Persia. Many Old Testament were literally unfulfilled and can never ever be literally fulfilled now.

The Jews of Jesus’ day expected a political messiah who would deliver the people from Roman occupation. That this was the view even of Jesus’ own disciples right to the end of his public ministry is evident in the disappointment two of them expressed to the resurrected but incognito Jesus on the road to Emmaus: “[W]e had hoped that he [Jesus] was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21).

But the redemption Jesus came to bring was spiritual in nature. He said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If [it were], then my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews” (John 18:36). In so saying, he implies that fighting has a place in the affairs of this world. He preached a message of deliverance from not political bondage but bondage to sin. When he proclaimed, “The kingdom [=reign] of God is at hand,” he was talking about a spiritual victory of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of this world and a spiritual redemption of his people. Once when he performed a miracle (multiplication of fish and bread), the people tried to take him by force and make him king but he rejected worldly kingship (John 6:15). At this time the popular masses were apt to see in every wonder worker and preacher a prospective ruler and saviour, a king and messiah.

The historical Jesus is not the Jesus of liberation theology, a Roman Catholic movement which arose in the late 20th century in Latin America and seeks to apply religious faith by aiding the poor and oppressed through involvement in political and civic affairs. This theology probably influenced the clergy taking part in the Aragalaya protest movement. While Jesus taught and practised helping the needy and the poor, his idea of liberation was exclusively liberation from personal sins and both the rich and the poor needed it. When he announced in the synagogue in Nazareth “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives” (Luke 4:18), he meant the poor in spirit (cf. Luke 6:20; cf. Matthew 5:3) and the captives of sin.

His disciples shared Jesus’ view of his kingdom. They understood physical Israel to typify the New Testament Church and applied the Old Testament prophecies relating to the deliverance of Israel from enemy nations to the Church in a spiritual sense. Imperial Rome became the new Babylon (1 Peter 5:13; Revelation 17). Indeed the very word used in the Greek New Testament for the Christian Gospel, euangelion, is derived from certain Old Testament passages via the Septuagint, the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, in which exiles in Babylon are promised deliverance from their captivity (Isaiah 52:7; 61:1). Christians are said to have been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13). They are citizens of another kingdom (Philippians 3:20).

Though not belonging to this world, Christians are exhorted to be subject to the governing authorities and to obey the laws of the land (except when they conflict with the higher laws of God [Acts 4:19]), including the payment of taxes (Romans 13:1-7). When Christ’s enemies tried to trap him with a trick question regarding payment of taxes, he said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mattthew 22:21).

The Jesus of the Gospels and his first century followers would not have taken part in any political struggle to oust rulers and governments even if there were just cause for it by worldly standards. Then how much less would they have done so when the premises on which such a political struggle were based were false as is the case with the Aragalaya, as explained in my two earlier articles!

The Aragalaya incompatible with Jesus’ teachings of non-violence

Jesus taught both non-violence and pacifism in the Sermon on the Mount. He set aside the old axiom “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Deuteronomy 19:21) with the words “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…” (Matthew 5:38-39). “Turning the other cheek” is not to be taken literally, for Jesus himself did not do that when he was struck on the face when he was standing before Annas, a former high priest (John 18:22-23). Jesus forbade Peter to use his sword at a moment in human history when its use was most justified (John 18:10 and para.). The Bible, the source of the Christian faith, does recognize, however, that governments have divinely sanctioned authority to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1-4; cf. Genesis 9:6); it is just that the true disciples of Jesus, who follow the higher laws of Jesus, have no part in that. In the book of Revelation (written during the reign of the Roman emperor Vespassian [reigned A.D. 69-79]) Christians are warned that they will come under divine judgement if they resort to violence to resist the persecution they were to suffer under the emperor Domitian (A.D. 81-96, Revelation 13:10).

Jesus’s teachings also include pacifism. When he said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…,” he meant in context national enemies, who in Jesus’ day were the Romans.

Though continually marketed as a “peaceful” movement, the Aragalaya—the real thing, not the one viewed through rose-tinted glasses—undeniably had within it some elements of violence as evidenced by physical attacks against Government politicians, street lynchings and burning of houses, unlawful, forcible entry of state buildings, etc., which runs counter to Jesus’ teachings of non-violence. The protesters who did not directly partake of these crimes failed to condemn them, thus indicating they were with these criminals in spirit.

The story of Jesus cleansing the temple

The Synoptic Gospels, i.e., Matthew, Mark and Luke, report Jesus driving out traders and buyers from the temple in Jerusalem in the last week of his earthly life (called the “passion week”). According to Matthew 21:12-13,

Jesus went into the temple complex and drove out all those buying and selling in the temple. He overturned the money changers’ tables and the chairs of those selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, My house will be called a house of prayer. But you are making it a den of thieves!”

What were sold and bought were animals, incense, oil, wine, and other requisites for sacrifice in the temple. Money changers were needed because Roman coins and other forms of currency were not acceptable to buy the above and to pay the annual temple tax, which had to be in the Hebrew coin. They received a commission for this exchange of currency. All this commerce took place in an area of the temple called the Court of the Gentiles, for the use of which the priests probably charged a rent of some kind from the traders.

This story is remarkable for the reason that it presents Jesus acting in a manner at least seemingly uncharacteristic of his life and own teachings. What sort of force was used in casting out the traders and the buyers?

The fourth Gospel (traditionally ascribed to John) also has a similar account but placed early in Jesus’ public ministry (John 2:13-16). It is unlikely that Jesus carried out two cleansings of the temple at two different times (though some believe this to be the case) and it is best to take Synoptics and the fourth Gospel as relating the same story but in a different chronological order (a phenomenon not unknown in the Gospels). According to the fourth Gospel, Jesus uses a whip to drive out the sheep and the oxen, with the probable result of their owners following them out of the temple. He orders the sellers of doves, who are still around, to take their birds out. This is because the birds were kept in cages and Jesus could not directly put them out. He overturns the tables of the moneychangers, which sends them scampering for their money and then out of the temple.

Some Bible translations of John 2:15 have Jesus using the whip on both the traders and the animals. But the Greek grammar involved, the flow of the narrative and logic are in favour of Jesus using the whip only on the animals. For an in-depth treatment of this verse, which includes a discussion of the Greek, the readers are recommended to read my article “John 2:15: He drove out all, both the sheep and the oxen.” [Link in Note below.]

The merchants were performing a legitimate, necessary and useful service to worshippers at the temple. Then why did Jesus put them out? The temple was divided into a number of sections. The innermost section was called the Most Holy Place, into which only the High Priest could enter and that too only once a year. The merchants had set up shop in the outermost section called the Court of the Gentiles, beyond which non-Jews, who would have included many proselytes, could not go on pain of death. Originally, the commerce had taken place outside the temple walls but with time the merchants had been allowed to set up their stalls inside the Court of the Gentiles. Jesus words “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace [Greek, “house of emporium”]” show that he thought that these traders had no right to be there. The traders crowding out the Gentiles who had travelled from afar to be present in the temple, the stir and bustle inseparable from such traffic and the wrangling and the crude language that would have accompanied it would have rendered the sacred place unsuitable for its purpose.

In Matthew 21:13, cited above, Jesus combines two divine utterances ascribed to Yahweh in Isaiah 56:7 (“my house shall be called a house of prayer”) and Jeremiah 7:11 (“Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?”), by which he intimates to the traders that their presence displeased Him for whom the temple existed and that divine will was on his side. In contrast, the Aragalya protesters ousted a democratically-elected president through coercion in subversion of the rule of law.

No violence against the persons of the traders was used by Jesus in putting them out of the temple. The orders issued by him to the traders with a look of authority in his face, the fact that he had both God and the crowd that had gathered in the temple on his side, and the consciousness of wrongdoing on the part of the traders basically sufficed to effect their exit from the temple, where they had no right to be. It was different with the Aragalaya. Coercion, intimidation and actual or threatened harm to persons and property, illegal entry and occupation of state buildings were part of the means employed at times in the protest movement to achieve its ends.

Conclusion

The answer to the question that forms the subject of this article should now be clear. At a time when expectation of a political messiah among his fellow Jews was widespread against the backdrop of a Roman occupation, Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom and rejected worldly kingship. Even his disciples, who initially shared this view, had to be disabused of this expectation eventually. The Aragalaya is a political struggle that seeks to effect political change and that, too, extra-constitutionally, and the Jesus of the New Testament most certainly would have taken no part in it. Further, as has been shown above, the Gospel story of Jesus driving out traders from the Jerusalem temple provides no justification to Christians to use force or violence in the cause of the protest movement called the Aragalaya (which they should not be involved in in the first place if biblical doctrines and precepts are strictly adhered to!).

Note

A detailed discussion of John 2:15 can be found in my article “John 2:15: He drove out all, both the sheep and the oxen” in Original Christianity.