Does he come to bring a sword? -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 09:29:15 02/25/08 Mon
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: Does he come to bring a sword?

The book of Malachi revolves around the corrupt sacrifices that Israel has been giving God. The community is polluted and God rejects the sacrifice. At the end of Malachi, God promises to send Elijah the Prophet before the day of the Lord to turn "the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers" (Mal 4:6). Although the sacrifices aren't working now to bring peace to the community, there appears to be a time in the future when peace will come.

Christ comes and announces that he has not come to bring peace, but the sword. He will set father against son and daughter against mother. How do these thoughts fit together coherently. Girard discusses the scandelon that comes with Christ in the revelation of the mechanism of violence. Is that what Christ refers to here? He will cause strife as he reveals the mechanism of violence, but that in the end Malachi will prove true, that following the tension of realizing the violence they have participated in, men will abandon the violence there will be true peace between sons and fathers?

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