Teaching Christianity (continued)
the command is extended even to enemies, with the Lord also telling us, Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you (Mt 5:44).
32. The apostle Paul also teaches the same lesson, when he says, For, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment there may be, is summed up in this saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to your neighbor[31] (Rom 13:9–10). So if you assume the apostle did not state this commandment with reference to everybody, you will be obliged to admit, which is utterly absurd, not to say criminal, that in the apostle's view it is not a sin if someone defiles the wife of a man who is not a Christian, or is an enemy, or kills him or covets his property. So if saying such a thing is sheer lunacy, it is clear that every single human being is to be counted as a neighbor, because wrong is not to be done to anybody.
33. So now then, if anyone is rightly to be called neighbor, either to whom the duty of compassion is to be extended, or by whom it is to be extended to us, it clearly follows that the holy angels are included as well in this commandment bidding us to love our neighbors. They do, after all, show us so many courtesies and kindnesses, as it is easy to note from so many places in the divine scriptures. For the same reason our Lord and God himself wished to be called our neighbor, because it is himself that the Lord Jesus Christ is indicating as the one who came to the help of that man lying half dead on the road, beaten up and left there by robbers;[32] and the prophet says in prayer, As for a neighbor, as for our brother, so I sought to please[33] (Ps 35:14).
But because the divine substance is altogether more excellent than our nature and high above it, the commandment bidding us to love God was distinguished from the one about love of neighbor.[34] He, after all, takes pity on us because of his own goodness, while we take pity