Article January 26, 1946 Issue

"Who is thine enemy?"

ETHEL KELLER OWEN

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said (Matt. 5:43-45): "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shall love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you: that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." Many good people the world over strive earnestly and bravely to love their enemies, to forgive and forget, to turn the other check; but without the spiritual understanding of how to overcome enmity, as explained in Christian Science, efforts in this direction are liable to be fraught with self-justification, self-righteousness, self-sanctification.

In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 8) Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, deals at some length with this subject, and she begins her discussion of it by asking the questions: "Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation? Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception?" And a little farther on (p. 10) she tells us in no uncertain words just who an enemy is: "Even in belief you have but one (that, not in reality), and this one enemy is yourself—your erroneous belief that you have enemies; that evil is real; that aught but good exists in Science."

We ourselves, then, and no one else, are responsible for the degree in which we accept as real, or reject as unreal, the torment and wretchedness of enmity. Christian Science teaches us that God is the only creator, and all that He has made is good, including man the highest idea or manifestation of Himself. Because the one God is Love, man is loving, lovable, and loved; because God is Spirit, unchangeable and unchanging, man is spiritual, and nothing of a material nature exists in reality or can have any effect upon him.

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