Luke 22:38 - Exposition

And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough. As so often, the disciples took their Master's words with curious literalness, and, as a reply, produced two swords, as if these two poor weapons could help them in the coming times of sore need. If they were to stand firm in the long trial-season which lay before them, they must surely provide themselves with very different weapons to these; their arms in the campaign of the future must be forged in no earthly workshop. But our Lord sadly declined then to enter into further explanation. His meaning would be all clear to them soon, so he closed the dialogue with the words, "It is enough." This verse was curiously perverted in the famous Bull of Pope Boniface VIII ., "Unam sanctam," to prove his possession of both secular and spiritual power: "Dicentibus apostolis, ecce gladii duo , in Ecclesia scilicet, quum apostoli loquereutur, non respondit Dominus nimis esse , sed satis … Uterque ergo in potestate est Ecclesiae, spiritualis scilicet gladius et materialis."