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| The Greatest of All Alms is to Forgive Our Debtors and to Love Our Enemies.
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Chapter 73.—The
Greatest of All Alms is to Forgive Our Debtors and to Love Our
Enemies.
But none of those is greater than
to forgive from the heart a sin that has been committed against us.
For it is a comparatively small thing to wish well to, or even to
do good to, a man who has done no evil to you. It is a much higher
thing, and is the result of the most exalted goodness, to love your
enemy, and always to wish well to, and when you have the
opportunity, to do good to, the man who wishes you ill, and, when
he can, does you harm. This is to obey the command of God: “Love
your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which persecute you.”1234
But seeing that this is a frame of
mind only reached by the perfect sons of God, and that though every
believer ought to strive after it, and by prayer to God and earnest
struggling with himself endeavor to bring his soul up to this
standard, yet a degree of goodness so high can hardly belong to so
great a multitude as we believe are heard when they use this
petition, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;” in
view of all this, it cannot be doubted that the implied undertaking
is fulfilled if a man, though he has not yet attained to loving his
enemy, yet, when asked by one who has sinned against him to forgive
him his sin, does forgive him from his heart. For he certainly
desires to be himself forgiven when he prays, “as we forgive our
debtors,” that is, Forgive us our debts when we beg forgiveness,
as we forgive our debtors when they beg forgiveness from
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