THE LOVE OF ALL, EVEN OF OUR ENEMIES.
How great also is benignity! “Love your enemies,” it is said, “bless
them who curse you, and pray for them who despitefully use you,”[576]
and the like; to which it is added, “that ye may be the children of
your Father who is in heaven,” in allusion to resemblance to God.
Again, it is said, “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou
art in the way with him.”[577] The adversary is not the body, as some
would have it, but the devil, and those assimilated to him, who walks
along with us in the person of men, who emulate his deeds in this
earthly life. It is inevitable, then, that those who confess themselves
to belong to Christ, but find themselves in the midst of the devil’s
works, suffer the most hostile treatment. For it is written, “Lest he
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officers
of Satan’s kingdom.” “For I am persuaded that neither death,” through
the assault of persecutors, “nor life” in this world, “nor angels,” the
apostate ones, “nor powers” (and Satan’s power is the life which he
chose, for such are the powers and principalities of darkness belonging
to him), “nor things present,” amid which we exist during the time of
life, as the hope entertained by the soldier, and the merchant’s gain,
“nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,” in consequence of the
energy proper to a man,--opposes the faith of him who acts according
to free choice. “Creature” is synonymous with activity, being our
work, and such activity “shall not be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[578] You have got a
compendious account of the gnostic martyr.