Luke 22:50

‘And a certain one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and struck off his right ear.'

So one more impulsive than the rest did show the way, and immediately drawing his sword, and lashing out in the amateurish fashion of a man not used to swords, cut the right ear off the servant of the High Priest (the man clearly dodged to the left in order to avoid a swinging amateurish blow by the right handed Peter). It is a suggestion that gives such an absurd picture that it must be true. An inventor would have suggested something much more effective, especially as a healing was to follow. We learn later from John that it was impetuous Peter who did it, and no one would have wanted to make a fool of Peter like that.

But no one who knew the disciples would ever have doubted that such an action was that of Peter. With Peter present who else could it have been? It was typical of the man. The anonymity preserved in the first three Gospels was probably in order to safeguard Peter while he was alive. It would not have done him any good for it to be known to the authorities what he had done in the face of an arrest party supported by Rome.

To lose an ear like that would have been a huge blow to a servant of the High Priest. The man would now be classed as mutilated and would no longer be able to take part officially in Temple worship. And furthermore, to disable the official representative of the High Priest was equivalent to treason. So matters had suddenly become very tricky. The truth is that the whole group could well have been arrested as a result. For a moment all was tension.