enemies

103:5.2This idea-ideal of do­ing good to oth­ers—the im­pulse to deny the ego some­thing for the ben­e­fit of one’s neigh­bor—is very cir­cum­scribed at first. Prim­i­tive man re­gards as neigh­bor only those very close to him, those who treat him neigh­borly; as re­li­gious civ­i­liza­tion ad­vances, one’s neigh­bor ex­pands in con­cept to em­brace the clan, the tribe, the na­tion. And then Je­sus en­larged the neigh­bor scope to em­brace the whole of hu­man­ity, even that we should love our en­e­mies. And there is some­thing in­side of ev­ery nor­mal hu­man be­ing that tells him this teach­ing is moral—right. Even those who prac­tice this ideal least, ad­mit that it is right in the­ory.

103:5.3All men rec­og­nize the moral­ity of this uni­ver­sal hu­man urge to be un­selfish and al­tru­is­tic. The hu­man­ist as­cribes the ori­gin of this urge to the nat­u­ral work­ing of the ma­te­rial mind; the re­li­gion­ist more cor­rectly rec­og­nizes that the truly un­selfish drive of mor­tal mind is in re­sponse to the in­ner spirit lead­ings of the Thought Ad­juster.

97:7.12And this preacher of a su­per­nal God never ceased to pro­claim this God of love. “I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a con­trite and hum­ble spirit.” And still fur­ther words of com­fort did this great teacher speak to his con­tem­po­raries: “And the Lord will guide you con­tin­u­ally and sat­isfy your soul. You shall be like a wa­tered gar­den and like a spring whose wa­ters fail not. And if the en­emy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a de­fense against him.” And once again did the fear-de­stroy­ing gospel of Mel­chiz­e­dek and the trust-breed­ing re­li­gion of Salem shine forth for the bless­ing of man­kind.

140:3.15“I say to you: Love your en­e­mies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who de­spite­fully use you. And what­so­ever you be­lieve that I would do to men, do you also to them.

140:8.6Love your en­e­mies—re­mem­ber the moral claims of hu­man broth­er­hood.

188:5.7The cross makes a su­preme ap­peal to the best in man be­cause it dis­closes one who was will­ing to lay down his life in the ser­vice of his fel­low men. Greater love no man can have than this: that he would be will­ing to lay down his life for his friends—and Je­sus had such a love that he was will­ing to lay down his life for his en­e­mies, a love greater than any which had hith­erto been known on earth.

91:8.7Prayer may be an an­gry cry for vengeance or a mer­ci­ful in­ter­ces­sion for one’s en­e­mies. It may be the ex­pres­sion of a hope of chang­ing God or the pow­er­ful tech­nique of chang­ing one’s self. It may be the cring­ing plea of a lost sin­ner be­fore a sup­pos­edly stern Judge or the joy­ful ex­pres­sion of a lib­er­ated son of the liv­ing and mer­ci­ful heav­enly Fa­ther.

159:5.9Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to ap­pro­pri­ate the bet­ter half of a Scrip­ture while he re­pu­di­ated the lesser por­tion. His great ex­hor­ta­tion, “Love your neigh­bor as your­self,” he took from the Scrip­ture which reads: “You shall not take vengeance against the chil­dren of your peo­ple, but you shall love your neigh­bor as your­self.” Je­sus ap­pro­pri­ated the pos­i­tive por­tion of this Scrip­ture while re­ject­ing the neg­a­tive part. He even op­posed neg­a­tive or purely pas­sive non­re­sis­tance. Said he: “When an en­emy smites you on one cheek, do not stand there dumb and pas­sive but in pos­i­tive at­ti­tude turn the other; that is, do the best thing pos­si­ble ac­tively to lead your brother in er­ror away from the evil paths into the bet­ter ways of righ­teous liv­ing.” Je­sus re­quired his fol­low­ers to re­act pos­i­tively and ag­gres­sively to ev­ery life sit­u­a­tion. The turn­ing of the other cheek, or what­ever act that may typ­ify, de­mands ini­tia­tive, ne­ces­si­tates vig­or­ous, ac­tive, and coura­geous ex­pres­sion of the be­liever’s per­son­al­ity.

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.