How to Love a Friend … and Persecute an Enemy
Augustine said:
‘The evil-doer is sad when he sees that his enemy has taken a warning and avoided punishment.’
Gregory said:
‘We are only faithful to our friends when our actions match our promises.
‘People have no right to persecute their enemies with the sword, but they should persecute them with prayer.’
Jerome said:
‘Often our friends are only so-called friends: not being able to tempt us openly, they try to do it secretly.
‘No violence destroys a firm friendship nor does time break it up: it remains strong wherever destiny takes it.
‘True friendship is that in which you do not demand anything of your friend except his good will: friendship seeks no reward from its friend.
‘You cannot be superficial when it is a question of friendship: it is a bond that requires constancy.
‘It is better to put up with continual hostility from those in bad faith than to hurt your neighbour with friendship that offends God.’
Defensor Grammaticus
Book of Sparkling Sayings, 64 (SC86, pp.200ff.)
Our Enemies do not Know the Gratitude We Owe Them
An enemy is by definition one who obstructs, ensnares and injures others. He is therefore a sinner. We ought to love his soul by correcting him and doing everything possible to bring him to conversion. We ought to love his body too by coming to his aid with the necessities of life.
That love for our enemies is possible has been shown us by the Lord himself. He revealed the Father’s love and his own by making himself ‘obedient unto death’, [Phil. 2:8] as the Apostle says, not for his friends’ sake so much as for his enemies. ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’ [Rom. 5:8]
And God exhorts us to do the same. ‘Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.’ [Eph. 5:1-2]
God would not ask this of us as a right and proper thing to do, if it were not possible.
On the other hand, is it not perhaps true that an enemy can be as much of a help to us as a friend can?
Enemies earn for us the beatitude of which the Lord speaks when he says: ‘Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.’ [Matt. 5:11-12]
Basil the Great
The Lesser Rules, 176 (PG31, 1200)
~ Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain, A Patristic Breviary: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
