# From wakeful disciples to political vigilance

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH08.P018](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P018/#char=974,1017): "the command that we should _watch_ and pray"

The wording belongs to the Gospel language of wakefulness. In Matthew 26:40–41, Jesus finds the disciples asleep in Gethsemane and tells them to watch and pray against temptation. Mark 13:33–37 supplies an especially close parallel to Chesterton's surrounding argument: servants must keep watch while their master is away because they cannot know when he will return. The King James Version has the paired verbs in both passages; the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims also has them in Mark 13:33. See [KJV Matthew 26 and Mark 13](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10) and [Douay-Rheims Mark 13](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8300).

Chesterton makes wakefulness into outward attention to rulers and circumstances; his phrase about a deity who disappears also resembles Mark's absent-master setting. These are interpretive extensions. The Gospel commands concern temptation and readiness, not an explicit doctrine that only transcendent theology can sustain political opposition. Since the phrase occurs in more than one passage and translation, it cannot securely identify a single verse or Bible edition used by Chesterton.

## Sources

- [The King James Version of the Bible, Project Gutenberg ebook 10](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10), Matthew 26:38–42; Mark 13:32–37
- [The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete: Challoner revision, Project Gutenberg ebook 8300](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8300), Mark 13:32–37; revision dated 1749–1752 in edition metadata

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