And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other. This and the following direction is clothed in language of Eastern. picturesqueness, to drive home to the listening crowds the great and novel truths he was urging upon them.
No reasonable, thoughtful man would feel himself bound to the letter of these commandments. Our Lord, for instance, himself did not offer himself to be stricken again (John 18:22, John 18:23), but firmly, though with exquisite courtesy, rebuked the one who struck him.
St. Paul, too (Acts 23:3), never dreamed of obeying the letter of this charge. It is but an assertion of a great principle, and so, with the exception of a very few mistaken fanatics, all the great teachers of Christianity have understood it.