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MATTHEW 5:46 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 5:45Matt 5:47
“For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? The reduction of love to reciprocal affection — loving only those who love back — is not love in the kingdom sense but transaction. Tax collectors were Jews who collected taxes for the Roman occupiers, widely despised as collaborators and extortioners, yet even they love those who love them. The kingdom's love exceeds this transactional baseline precisely by extending to those from whom no return is expected. The reward that is in view is not material but the family resemblance with the Father of verse 45: what you gain by enemy-love is not a benefit from the enemy but a likeness to God.

Church Fathers on Matthew 5:46

The Lord has taught above that we must not resist one who offers any injury, but must be ready even to suffer more; He now further requires us to shew to them that do us wrong both love and its effects. And as the things that have gone before pertain to the completion of the righteousness of the Law, in like manner this last precept is to be referred to the completion of the law of love, which, according to the Apostle, is the fulfilling of the Law.

Gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) · medieval compilation · non occ.

That by the command, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour,' all mankind were intended, the Lord shewed in the parable of the man who was left half dead, which teaches us that our neighbour is every one who may happen at any time to stand in need of our offices of mercy; and this who does not see must be denied to none, when the Lord says, 'Do good to them that hate you.'

Augustine · 4th century · de Doctr. Christ., i, 30

As that, Thou shalt not lust, was not spoken to the flesh, but to the spirit, so in this the flesh indeed is not able to love its enemy, but the spirit is able; for the love and hate of the flesh is in the sense, but of the spirit is in the understanding. If then we feel hate to one who has wronged us, and yet will not to act upon that feeling, know that our flesh hates our enemy, but our soul loves him.

Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century
Read all 26 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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