The Mission — two readings of "turn the other cheek"

What the film does

Roland Joffé’s The Mission opened in October 1986 and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that May. The film is set in the 1750s, in the territory of the Spanish Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní people, in lands recently transferred from Spanish to Portuguese sovereignty under the Treaty of Madrid (1750). The film follows two Jesuits: Father Gabriel, who has founded the mission of San Carlos in the jungle above the Iguazu Falls, and Rodrigo Mendoza, a former slaver who, after killing his brother and undergoing a long penance, becomes a Jesuit novice and a defender of the mission community.

As Portuguese forces move to enforce the treaty and dissolve the Jesuit reductions, the two priests divide on what response is permitted. Father Gabriel refuses violence and goes to his death holding the Eucharist before the Portuguese soldiers. Mendoza, on the same understanding of what Christ requires, makes the opposite judgment: he takes up arms in defence of the Guaraní community and dies in armed resistance. The film closes with a voiceover that refuses to award one position over the other.

The film is loosely based on historical events — the suppression of the Spanish Jesuit reductions in the late 1750s — though the specific characters are composite. The film’s screenplay is by Robert Bolt. The Matthew 5:39 debate is the film’s thematic centre.

The text under debate

Matthew 5:38-42 sits within the Sermon on the Mount’s “antitheses” — Jesus’s six sayings of the form you have heard… but I say to you. The cheek-turning antithesis:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. And if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42, BSB)

The Greek verb translated do not resist is mē antistēnai — the aorist infinitive of anthistēmi (ἀνθίστημι). BDAG s.v. anthistēmi: “to set oneself against, withstand, oppose, resist.” The verb is built from anti (against) + histēmi (stand) — to stand against.

The debate within Christian tradition has hinged on what anthistēmi covers. The verb is broad: it can mean “actively oppose” (resist a person in argument or combat), or “set yourself against the principle of evil,” or somewhere between. Different traditions read the verse differently:

• The nonviolence reading. Anthistēmi covers any forcible resistance, including defensive force. The disciple is to bear evil rather than fight it. This is the historic Anabaptist position (Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite, Brethren); it is also the position of major figures in the Eastern tradition. Tolstoy is the most prominent modern lay exponent.
• The “evildoer” / “wicked person” reading. The verb attaches specifically to resisting an evil person in a way that demands one’s own moral degradation; defensive force on behalf of others is not excluded. This is the broader Augustinian/Thomist tradition that has supported just-war theory in Catholic and most Reformed traditions.
• The first-century-context reading. Walter Wink and others (in works including Engaging the Powers, 1992) argue that turning the other cheek in first-century Mediterranean context responds to a specific kind of social violence — the open-handed backhand slap, which presupposed social inequality — and that turning the cheek refuses the asymmetry of the original blow. This reading positions the verse as a third-way response rather than passivity.
• The hyperbolic reading. Some readers take the four examples (cheek, tunic, mile, lending) as hyperboles that establish the disposition rather than four literal rules. This is closer to a wisdom-tradition reading.

Each of these has been held by morally serious readers across two thousand years.

The film’s two priests

Father Gabriel embodies the nonviolence reading. He rejects taking up arms; he carries the Eucharist into the line of fire; he is killed. The film does not present this as cowardice or as a refusal to defend the community; it presents it as a particular reading of what the discipleship of Christ requires, sustained to the point of death.

Mendoza embodies the just-defence reading. He arms the community; he engages the Portuguese troops; he is killed. The film does not present this as a fall from grace or as a betrayal of his novice vows; it presents it as a particular reading of what the discipleship of Christ permits in defence of those entrusted to him.

Each priest is given the dignity of the other’s testimony. The film does not stage Mendoza mocking Father Gabriel as naive, nor Father Gabriel mocking Mendoza as unfaithful. Both die. Both are mourned by the surviving community. The film closes with a voiceover by the (historical) Cardinal Altamirano that contains the line about whether the priests are alive in the world or whether the world is alive in them — Bolt’s screenplay refuses to resolve which priest is the more faithful one.

What the film does not do

The film does not argue that either position is correct. It does not endorse pacifism; it does not endorse just-war theory. The two Jesuits are presented as readers of the same Matthew 5 text who arrive at different conclusions about what it requires, and who each follow their conclusion to death.

This is the film’s actual subject. It is not a film about colonialism or about Jesuits in particular; it is a film about a long-standing intra-Christian debate, given concrete dramatic form. The choice to set the debate in the Guaraní reductions — among priests who are themselves complicit in a colonial project even as they resist its specific violences — is part of the film’s complication.

For the wider treatment of the Beatitudes’ peacemaking language, see Blessed are the peacemakers — meaning. For the wider treatment of the Golden Rule, see Do unto others — golden rule.

To read Matthew 5:38-42 in other translations:

• Matthew 5:38-42 — NIV →
• Matthew 5:38-42 — ESV →
• Matthew 5:38-42 — NLT →