Christianity and Enmity, part 1

"But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust."

There are two very different senses in which the injunction to "love your enemies" is commonly taken.

• 1. Love your enemies, for by loving them you may "heap burning coals upon their heads," as the saying goes: love is an effective weapon with which to attack them.

We flinch away from this interpretation, because it eliminates the "love" in loving one's enemies. After all, a "love" which is merely a tactical ploy in the attempt to injure another seems a sham, hardly worthy of the name. One gives a display of something like love in order to offend, inflict guilt, etc. Under this interpretation, "love your enemies" means "do not love your enemies," because it denies that you are to love.

• 2.a. Love your enemies, for by loving them you will come to realize that they were never in truth your enemies; we must recognize each other as fellow creatures beloved by God.
• 2.b. Love your enemies, for by loving them you may win them over and they will no longer be your enemies but reconciled to you through love.

But this interpretation, which may initially strike us as much more palatable, actually harbors a greater violence than the first. Here it is the "enemy" in loving one's enemies that is eliminated. This interpretation denies the obligation to love the enemy as an enemy. We do not love our enemies at all, for we love only on the condition that the object of our love is not an enemy. One might go so far as to think that a love which addresses only and precisely the one who is not an enemy is not a love at all, at least in the robust sense. After, even sinners and tax collectors, as they say, do that. Under this interpretation, "love your enemies" means "do not love your enemies," because it denies enmity to the object of love.