Spite Your Enemies or Let Them Kill You?

Christians face quite the dilemma.

One of the most important and confounding teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible is to love your enemies. Although this admonition can be interpreted in different ways, it runs into a wall in the book of Matthew, as Jesus explicitly recommends not only loving your enemies, but allowing them to harm and kill you as well. Most Christians implicitly realize that it is absurd to seek your own death. But this is exactly what Matthew suggests, in a radical departure from the earlier works of Paul and Mark. This absurdity of Matthew – wherein the parabolic savior of Mark becomes hyperbolic – is another sure sign that Matthew is written and intended as satire.

The evolution of Christianity goes through several distinct stages that did not occur in the same order they appear in the New Testament. The oldest layer of Christianity is Judaism itself, since Paul tells us how he used his Jewish Bible (written in Greek) to learn about “Christ Jesus” (literally King Joshua) before witnessing the risen Messiah. The second layer of Christianity is Paul, a self described Jew who explicitly claims to be the founder of Christianity. The genuine letters of Paul are thought to have been written in the decades before the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE.

Sometime after this event, Christianity underwent a major mutation, and the letters of Paul became the gospels, beginning with the earliest gospel of Mark. Mark is a transformation of Paul in almost every way. Mark says Jesus was an incredibly famous healer and preacher; yet Paul says his generation received no miracle worker or wise man. Paul doesn’t know anything about the “life” of Christ as described in Mark, instead claiming the authority of invisible nonsense. Mark made it seem that Jesus predicted the desolation of Jerusalem by Titus Flavius 40 years before it happened.

The theme of “loving” your enemies begins in the Jewish Bible, Proverbs 25:21-22, which says “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and [YHWH] will reward you.” According to this proverb, helping your enemy is only a means of further injuring him! Paul reiterates this conceit. He quotes the proverb, saying “On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’” (Romans 12:20). According to Paul’s teaching, feeding your starving enemy will leave more room for YHWH’s own wrath and punishment.

Elsewhere, Paul talks about the need to love your neighbors, culminating in Galatians 5:14, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’”. But we must remember two things whenever Paul talks about love. First, you help your enemies and love your neighbors for entirely different reasons. You help your enemy in order to spite him. You love your neighbor because it is the law. Second, Paul offers no reason to love a stranger or a foreigner. This notion would have to wait for Luke and the tale of the Good Samaritan.

In Matthew, Jesus says something radically different: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:43-44). Remember, neither Psalms nor Paul actually says that you should love your enemy – only that you should help him in order to spite him in his hour of need. Likewise, Mark does not say that you should love your enemy either! Incidentally, this is one of many proofs that show the Gospels were written in the order of Mark→Matthew→Luke. Paul and Mark omit loving your enemy, Matthew introduces it, and Luke repeats it (Luke 6:27).

Matthew furthermore elucidates what it really means to love your enemies. Jesus says, “Reconcile quickly with your adversary, while you are still on the way to court.” (Matt 5:25), and most famously, “Do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (5:39). The logical implications of agreeing with your enemies and turning the other cheek to your attackers are also printed in black and white. Jesus says “Do not fear killers of the body” (Matt 10:28) and “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (10:39, 16:25). He explains, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (16:24).

It follows a twisted logic, like all good satire. As “King of the Jews”, Jesus sets the example by not resisting his enemies and allowing himself to be crucified. He suggests that his followers pursue a similar path to Heaven. It must always be remembered, that although Paul styles himself as a Jew proselytizing to Gentiles, Mark and the Gospels style Jesus Christ as an Israelite proselytizing to Jews. Thus all of Jesus’ teachings in Mark and Matthew are directed towards Jews.

Moreover, Jesus identifies the Jews of his generation as evil and full of unclean spirits. He says he has only been sent unto to the lost house of Israel (i.e. Judea) and that righteous people have no need for his teachings. Matthew takes the parabola of Mark and stretches it to its absurd hyperbolic limits. If Jesus is preaching to a wicked generation, who will face the destruction of their religion and capital city in 40 years time, then why wouldn’t he simply tell them to destroy themselves?

I think Christianity is valuable literature, but the fact the Matthew is the first book of the New Testament and people insist on reading it literally (against even the warnings of Mark) spells doom for most Christian understanding. You can’t lead a good life by following the sermon on the mount – it can only lead you to privation and defeat if not death itself. Yet the people who ignore its teachings still hold it up as a moral authority. This is a prime example of hypocrisy, and exactly what Mark meant when he wrote that misreading a parable will destroy your understanding.