Friday, October 01, 2004
Loving or Hating Enemies Again
In response to my discussion about loving or hating enemies, Horace Jeffery Hodges points out a web page containing a list of Greek and Latin parallels to Jesus' command that we should love our enemies and do good to those who harm us. The list comes from F. Gerald Downing, Christ and the Cynics: Jesus and Other Radical Preachers in First-Century Tradition (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), a book which I have not seen. Here is one example, from Seneca's treatise On Anger (De Ira) 2.34.5:
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Someone gets angry with you. Challenge him with kindness in return. Enmity immediately tumbles away when one side lets it fall.Not listed (at least on the web page) is Plato, Crito 49b (tr. B. Jowett):
irascetur aliquis: tu contra beneficiis provoca; cadit statim simultas ab altera parte deserta.
SOCRATES. Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO. Certainly not.
SOCRATES. Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all?
CRITO. Clearly not.
