95 Ἔνοχος (Mt 5, 21-22) and the Jurisprudence of Heaven Moses (Ex 21,24; Lev 24,20; Dt 19,21) other considerations apply: why injure anyone yourself, however obnoxious, even a non-Israelite? Suffer injury (cf. 1 Cor 7,7) and yield in any civil suit. Similarly one should not repudiate impressments. Those that beg are not to be refused, since according to Jewish ideas, this too is an injury29; and to refuse a common (non-commercial) loan likewise30. The beggar and applicant for such a loan are equally children of God. Retaliation is sinful, even if the bet din orders you to pay damage! The jurisdiction of an Israelite court can be lame. Should one make gifts in the form of loans? How honest is this?31 (6) Love of Enemies This is Jesus’s original injunction32. The pentateuchal command to love the neighbour (Lev 19,18), supplemented by the prophetic command to hate enemies of God (Ps 139,21-22), known to the enthusiasts of Qumran33, is strange. How can love be commanded? The Asian mind distinguished “liking” from “love”: one identified to one’s clan-member, for society was always collective (and in parts still is). Love of enemies and even praying for them, would recognise that they too are children of God, a fact the angelic auditors knew but terrestrial judges did (and do) not. An example may illuminate us. Maimonides, consummate exponent of Torah, asked what was the position where a sceptic, heretic, or gentile, went to work in a pit, descending into it by a ladder. Could one remove the ladder on the pretext of need to repair one’s roof? What if the sceptic, etc., suffocated? One is not liable34. Maimonides is aware of the jurisdiction of Heaven. He follows b. Qidd. 91b and b. Sanh. 77a, but he is not influenced by the cliché on which we depend35. Was not the man who withdrew the ladder guilty in the eyes of Heaven? Maimonides does not say so. Jesus insists one earns merit by treating the righteous and the wicked alike (5:46) which of course the pious and the heathen and tax-gatherers agree in not doing. There are pieces of the Pentateuch valid in Heaven (Lev 19,2; Dt l8,13) but not yet on earth. Sifre on Deuteronomy §§ 116-17; Bonsirven, Textes §305. 29 Commercial transactions are rare without the profit motive. Note Lk 6,35. Nevertheless 30 the transactions here is a commodatum (Justinian, Digest 13.6, 3 §3). At Lk 11,5,8: δῶσει represents χρήσει. Sifre on Deuteronomy § 116, trans. Hammer 262. Remember “Greek gifts” (Virgil, 31 Aen. II 49) and see Philo, Cher. 122-3; b. B.B. 9b, Ber 17a. Davies-Allison (n. 48 below) 552. Marius Reisen, “Love of enemies in the context of 32 antiquity”, NTS 47/4 (2001) 411-27. Josephus, B.J. 2.135,139,151-3; 1QS 1,10-11; cf. 1,4; 9,21-3. 33 Maimonides, Code XI.V.3,11; 4,10, trans. Klein (n. 6 above) 205, 208. “Blodd will be 34 required of him” can suggest a heavenly sentence. Ibid., XI.V.2,2, trans. Klein 199. 35