It is evident from Mt 5** that Jesus took ' enemy ' as meaning a ' private enemy,' who in the new Kingdom is to be loved, and to whom good is to be done. He used ayair^v, not <l>i\(lv, on which
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Tittmann (see Alford) says, ' (piKth, aniare, pessi- mum quemque vir honestus non potest ; sed poterit eum tamen aya.irq.i/, i.e. bene ei cupere et facere quippe homo homini, cui etiam Deus benefaciat. Amor imperari non potest, sed dilectio.' Cf. Clem. Alex. t6 a.ya.Trq.11 roiis 4x0pois ovk d7a7r9i' t6 KUKb:/ Xiyei, and Aug. ' sic dilige inimicos ut fratres optes, sic dilige inimicos ut in societatem tuam vocentur, sic enim dilexit ills qui in cruce pendens ait. Pater ignosce illis, quia nesciunt quid faciunt.' Accord- ing to the teaching of Christ, therefore, the hatred of sin only is permissible, which is the necessary corollary of the Gospel of Love, and is according to His own example ; cf. He 1', Rev 2", where Lyra remarks (see Alford), ' non dixit Nicolaitas, sed facta : quia persona? simt ex charitate dili- •gendne, sed eorum vitia odio sunt habenda.'
3. Lk 14-'- -'', Jesus turned and said unto the multitude, ' If any man cometh unto me, and liateth not his own father, and mother, and wife (peculiar to Luke), and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple ' ; cf. Mt 10^' ' He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthjf of me ' ; and Jn 12-° ' He that loveth his life loseth it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.' We may at once dismiss such an inter- pretation as Renan put forward, viz. that Christ was here ' despising the healthy limits of man's nature,' ' warring against the most legitimate cravings of the heart,' and ' preaching a total rupture with the ties of blood.' The whole tenor of His life and teaching is against such an idea. He forbade hatred even of an enemy (Lk 6'-') ; He condemned evasion of the Fifth Commandment (Mk 7"''"), and taught the sanctity of the marriage bond (Mk 10^"") ; He showed tender thought for His mother (Jn 19-^'-), and loved children (Mk 10'*'); His new commandment was 'that ye love one another, as I have loved you ' (Jn 13^*). St. John certainly did not understand Lk 14-" in Kenan's sense (1 Jn 2»- " 3"^- " 4«-'-") ; nor St. Paul (Eph 5=8, ITi 58, Tit 2\ Ro 13"), who would re- gard those acting in such a way as d<TTopyot ' with- out natural affection,' a vice of the heathen (Ro
Some have given to ' hate ' in these passages the meaning of 'love less,' comparing Gn 29^"-^', Dt 21''' ; but it follows from the above that Jesus can- not have intended to condemn any degree of right atl'ection as if it amounted to loving others more than Him. ' The love which Christ condemneth ditt'ers not in degi'ee, but in kind, from rightful affection. It is one which takes the place of love to Christ, not which is placed by the side of that of Christ. For, rightly viewed, the two occupy ditterent ])rovinces. Wherever and whenever the two affections come into comparison, they also come into collision ' (Edersheim, Life and Times, i. 650). There is a foolish affection which would do injurj' both to the giver and the receiver (cf. Pr 13=''), and then hate is not only consistent with, but absolutely necessary for, the liisiliest kind of love. It is 'that element in love wliirh iniikc^ :\. wise and Christian friend not for tiinr only, Iml h.r eternity.'
The words liail .^1., ('i.al a|i|ilication to the time when they %\cre spoken, and must have sounded strange to the multitude, which, for the most part, was following because of that very love of life which is condemned, desiring to get material benefits (cf . Jn &-"). Jesus' enemies were becoming more violent, divisions in families would take place (Mt lO^^--" ; cf. Ex 322«'-, Dt 33"), and dis- cipleship would in many cases be impossible with- out the reniinciation of the dearest ties. The mission field affords a parallel nowadays, where the hostility of relatives is often the greatest hindrance to the confession of Christ. The statement is
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iing passajje from Philo whic the Levites as beint? i exiles who to do God's pleasure had left paren
made in the most startliiiK form to arrest attention ; conditions must be supplied as in Mt 5^'-. Even where renunciation is not outwardly necessary, there isust be potential alienation and the acknow- ledgment of Christ's claims as paramount. The key to the true explanation lies in 'yea and his own life also' (cf. Jn 12^), it is presupposed that friendship is a source of enjoyment for ourselves ; 'Jesus does not indicate a course of action whereby we do evil to others, but such as constitutes a pain- ful sacrifice for ourselves' (Wendt). At bottom our own life only, the last citadel (Job 2^), is to be hated, and everything else only in so far as it partakes of this principle of sin and death (Godet) ; ' secundum earn partem, secundum quam se ipsiim odisse debet, a Christo aversam ' (Bengel). ' He that so prizes his life that he cannot let it out of his own hand or give it up to good ends, checks its growth, and it withers and dies ; whereas he who treats it as if he hated it, giving it up freely to the needs of others, shall keep it to life eternal' (Dods, Expositor's Greek Test.). 'Sec tamen sufticit nostra relinquere, nisi relinquamus et nos ' (Gregory, Horn, xxxii.).