Chapter XVI.—The Precept of Loving One’s Enemies. It is as Much Taught in the Creator’s Scriptures of the Old Testament as in Christ’s Sermon. The Lex Talionis of Moses Admirably Explained in Consistency with the Kindness and Love Which Jesus Christ Came to Proclaim and Enforce in Behalf of the Creator. Sundry Precepts of Charity Explained.

“But I say unto you which hear” (displaying here that old injunction, of the Creator: “Speak to the ears of those who lend them to you”^40354035    2 Esdras xv. 1 and comp. Luke vi. 27, 28.), “Love your enemies, and bless^40364036    Benedicite. St. Luke’s word, however, is καλῶς ποιεῖτε, “do good.” those which hate you, and pray for them which calumniate you.”^40374037    Calumniantur. St. Luke’s word applies to injury of speech as well as of act. These commands the Creator included in one precept by His prophet Isaiah: “Say, Ye are our brethren, to those who hate you.”^40384038    Isa. lxvi. 5. For if they who are our enemies, and hate us, and speak evil of us, and calumniate us, are to be called our brethren, surely He did in effect bid us bless them that hate us, and pray for them who calumniate us, when He instructed us to reckon them as brethren. Well, but Christ plainly teaches a new kind of patience,^40394039    “We have here the sense of Marcion’s objection. I do not suppose Tertullian quotes his very words.”—Le Prieur. when He actually prohibits the reprisals which the Creator permitted in requiring “an eye for an eye,^40404040    Le Prieur refers to a similar passage in Tertullian’s De Patientia, chap. vi. Oehler quotes an eloquent passage in illustration from Valerianus Episc. Hom. xiii. and a tooth for a tooth,”^40414041    Ex. xxi. 24. and bids us, on the contrary, “to him who smiteth us on the one cheek, to offer the other also, and to give up our coat to him that taketh away our cloak.”^40424042    Luke vi. 29. No doubt these are supplementary additions by Christ, but they are quite in keeping with the teaching of the Creator. And therefore this question must at once be determined,^40434043    Renuntiandum est. Whether the discipline of patience be enjoined by^40444044    Penes. the Creator? When by Zechariah He commanded, “Let none of you imagine evil against his brother,”^40454045    Zech. vii. 10. He did not expressly include his neighbour; but then in another passage He says, “Let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour.”^40464046    Zech. viii. 17. He who counselled that an injury should be forgotten, was still more likely to counsel the patient endurance of it. But then, when He said, “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,”^40474047    Deut. xxxii. 35; comp. Rom. xii. 19 and Heb. x. 30. He thereby teaches that patience calmly waits for the infliction of vengeance. Therefore, inasmuch as it is incredible^40484048    Fidem non capit. that the same (God) should seem to require “a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye,” in return for an injury, who forbids not only all reprisals, but even a revengeful thought or recollection of an injury, in so far does it become plain to us in what sense He required “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,”—not, indeed, for the purpose of permitting the repetition of the injury by retaliating it, which it virtually prohibited when it forbade vengeance; but for the purpose of restraining the injury in the first instance, which it had forbidden on pain of retaliation or reciprocity;^40494049    Talione, opposito. so that every man, in view of the permission to inflict a second (or retaliatory) injury, might abstain from the commission of the first (or provocative) wrong. For He knows how much more easy it is to repress violence by the prospect of retaliation, than by the promise of (indefinite) vengeance.  Both results, however, it was necessary to provide, in consideration of the nature and the faith of men, that the man who believed in God might expect vengeance from God, while he who had no faith (to restrain him) might fear the laws which prescribed retaliation.^40504050    Leges talionis. [Judicial, not personal, reprisals.] This purpose^40514051    Voluntatem. of the law, which it was difficult to understand, Christ, as the Lord of the Sabbath and of the law, and of all the dispensations of the Father, both revealed and made intelligible,^40524052    Compotem facit. That is, says Oehler, intellectus sui. when He commanded that “the other cheek should be offered (to the smiter),” in order that He might the more effectually extinguish all reprisals of an injury, which the law had wished to prevent by the method of retaliation, (and) which most certainly revelation^40534053    Prophetia. had manifestly restricted, both by prohibiting the memory of the wrong, and referring the vengeance thereof to God.  Thus, whatever (new 371provision) Christ introduced, He did it not in opposition to the law, but rather in furtherance of it, without at all impairing the prescription^40544054    Disciplinas: or, “lessons.” of the Creator. If, therefore,^40554055    Denique. one looks carefully^40564056    Considerem, or, as some of the editions have it, consideremus. into the very grounds for which patience is enjoined (and that to such a full and complete extent), one finds that it cannot stand if it is not the precept of the Creator, who promises vengeance, who presents Himself as the judge (in the case).  If it were not so,^40574057    Alioquin.—if so vast a weight of patience—which is to refrain from giving blow for blow; which is to offer the other cheek; which is not only not to return railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing; and which, so far from keeping the coat, is to give up the cloak also—is laid upon me by one who means not to help me,—(then all I can say is,) he has taught me patience to no purpose,^40584058    In vacuum. because he shows me no reward to his precept—I mean no fruit of such patience. There is revenge which he ought to have permitted me to take, if he meant not to inflict it himself; if he did not give me that permission, then he should himself have inflicted it;^40594059    Præstare, i.e., debuerat præstare. since it is for the interest of discipline itself that an injury should be avenged. For by the fear of vengeance all iniquity is curbed. But if licence is allowed to it without discrimination,^40604060    Passim. it will get the mastery—it will put out (a man’s) both eyes; it will knock out^40614061    Excitatura. every tooth in the safety of its impunity.  This, however, is (the principle) of your good and simply beneficent god—to do a wrong to patience, to open the door to violence, to leave the righteous undefended, and the wicked unrestrained! “Give to every one that asketh of thee”^40624062    Luke vi. 30.—to the indigent of course, or rather to the indigent more especially, although to the affluent likewise. But in order that no man may be indigent, you have in Deuteronomy a provision commanded by the Creator to the creditor.^40634063    Datori. “There shall not be in thine hand an indigent man; so that the Lord thy God shall bless thee with blessings,”^40644064    The author’s reading of Deut. xv. 4.—thee meaning the creditor to whom it was owing that the man was not indigent. But more than this. To one who does not ask, He bids a gift to be given. “Let there be, not,” He says, “a poor man in thine hand;” in other words, see that there be not, so far as thy will can prevent;^40654065    Cura ultro ne sit. by which command, too, He all the more strongly by inference requires^40664066    Præjudicat. men to give to him that asks, as in the following words also: “If there be among you a poor man of thy brethren, thou shalt not turn away thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother. But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him as much as he wanteth.”^40674067    Deut. xv. 7, 8. Loans are not usually given, except to such as ask for them. On this subject of lending,^40684068    De fenore. however, more hereafter.^40694069    Below, in the next chapter. Now, should any one wish to argue that the Creator’s precepts extended only to a man’s brethren, but Christ’s to all that ask, so as to make the latter a new and different precept, (I have to reply) that one rule only can be made out of those principles, which show the law of the Creator to be repeated in Christ.^40704070    This obscure passage runs thus: “Immo unum erit ex his per quæ lex Creatoris erit in Christo.” For that is not a different thing which Christ enjoined to be done towards all men, from that which the Creator prescribed in favour of a man’s brethren.  For although that is a greater charity, which is shown to strangers, it is yet not preferable to that^40714071    Prior ea. which was previously due to one’s neighbours.  For what man will be able to bestow the love (which proceeds from knowledge of character,^40724072    This is the idea, apparently, of Tertullian’s question: “Quis enim poterit diligere extraneos?” But a different turn is given to the sense in the older reading of the passage: Quis enim non diligens proximos poterit diligere extraneos? “For who that loveth not his neighbours will be able to love strangers?” The inserted words, however, were inserted conjecturally by Fulvius Ursinus without ms. authority. upon strangers? Since, however, the second step^40734073    Gradus. in charity is towards strangers, while the first is towards one’s neighbours, the second step will belong to him to whom the first also belongs, more fitly than the second will belong to him who owned no first.^40744074    Cujus non extitit primus. Accordingly, the Creator, when following the course of nature, taught in the first instance kindness to neighbours,^40754075    In proximos. intending afterwards to enjoin it towards strangers; and when following the method of His dispensation, He limited charity first to the Jews, but afterwards extended it to the whole race of mankind. So long, therefore, as the mystery of His government^40764076    Sacramentum. was confined to Israel, He properly commanded that pity should be shown only to a man’s brethren; but when Christ had given to Him “the Gentiles for His heritage, and the ends of the earth for His possession,” then began to be accomplished what was said by Hosea: “Ye are not my people, who were my people; ye have not obtained mercy, who 372once obtained mercy”^40774077    The sense rather than the words of Hos. i. 6, 9.—that is, the (Jewish) nation. Thenceforth Christ extended to all men the law of His Father’s compassion, excepting none from His mercy, as He omitted none in His invitation. So that, whatever was the ampler scope of His teaching, He received it all in His heritage of the nations. “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”^40784078    Luke vi. 31. In this command is no doubt implied its counterpart: “And as ye would not that men should do to you, so should ye also not do to them likewise.” Now, if this were the teaching of the new and previously unknown and not yet fully proclaimed deity, who had favoured me with no instruction beforehand, whereby I might first learn what I ought to choose or to refuse for myself, and to do to others what I would wish done to myself, not doing to them what I should be unwilling to have done to myself, it would certainly be nothing else than the chance-medley of my own sentiments^40794079    Passivitatem sententiæ meæ. which he would have left to me, binding me to no proper rule of wish or action, in order that I might do to others what I would like for myself, or refrain from doing to others what I should dislike to have done to myself. For he has not, in fact, defined what I ought to wish or not to wish for myself as well as for others, so that I shape my conduct^40804080    Parem factum. according to the law of my own will, and have it in my power^40814081    Possim. not to render^40824082    Præstare. to another what I would like to have rendered to myself—love, obedience, consolation, protection, and such like blessings; and in like manner to do to another what I should be unwilling to have done to myself—violence, wrong, insult, deceit, and evils of like sort.  Indeed, the heathen who have not been instructed by God act on this incongruous liberty of the will and the conduct.^40834083    Hac inconvenientia voluntatis et facti. Will and action. For although good and evil are severally known by nature, yet life is not thereby spent^40844084    Non agitur. under the discipline of God, which alone at last teaches men the proper liberty of their will and action in faith, as in the fear of God. The god of Marcion, therefore, although specially revealed, was, in spite of his revelation, unable to publish any summary of the precept in question, which had hitherto been so confined,^40854085    Strictum. and obscure, and dark, and admitting of no ready interpretation, except according to my own arbitrary thought,^40864086    Pro meo arbitrio. because he had provided no previous discrimination in the matter of such a precept. This, however, was not the case with my God, for^40874087    At enim. The Greek ἀλλὰ γάρ. He always and everywhere enjoined that the poor, and the orphan, and the widow should be protected, assisted, refreshed; thus by Isaiah He says: “Deal thy bread to the hungry, and them that are houseless bring into thine house; when thou seest the naked, cover him.”^40884088    Isa. lviii. 7. By Ezekiel also He thus describes the just man: “His bread will he give to the hungry, and the naked will he cover with a garment.”^40894089    Ezek. xviii. 7. That teaching was even then a sufficient inducement to me to do to others what I would that they should do unto me. Accordingly, when He uttered such denunciations as, “Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness,”^40904090    Ex. xx. 13–16.—He taught me to refrain from doing to others what I should be unwilling to have done to myself; and therefore the precept developed in the Gospel will belong to Him alone, who anciently drew it up, and gave it distinctive point, and arranged it after the decision of His own teaching, and has now reduced it, suitably to its importance,^40914091    Merito. to a compendious formula, because (as it was predicted in another passage) the Lord—that is, Christ—“was to make (or utter) a concise word on earth.”^40924092    “Recisum sermonem facturus in terris Dominus.” This reading of Isa. x. 23 is very unlike the original, but (as frequently happens in Tertullian) is close upon the Septuagint version: ῞Οτι λόγον συντετμημένον Κύριος ποιήσει ἐν τῇ οἰκουμένῃ ὅλῃ. [Rom. ix. 28.]