Where had "hate thine enemy" been said?

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt 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;

-- Matthew 5:43f.

Hate thine enemy was said at Qumran: 

... to love all that He has chosen and to hate all that He has rejected ...

to love all the Sons of Light, each according to his lot in the council of God,

to hate all the Sons of Darkness, each according to his guilt in the vengeance of God ...

 

-- 1QS, The Community Rule 1.4f, 10f.

 

But hate thine enemy was also said in old Athens, reflecting a widespread societal value: 

Justice benefits friends and harms enemies.

-- Plato, Republic 1.334b.

Evidently the Greek leaven had leavened the Jewish lump, and Jesus was nothing if not a reactionary Jew opposing such degeneracy.

Jesus' appeal to good works in response to evil kept to something hardly novel within Judaism, even if the eschatological moment was:

If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.

-- Proverbs 25:21f.

What was truly novel was Paul's later application of this beyond the boundaries of Judaism: 

Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

-- Romans 12:20.

Birthed by Henry VIII's sexual sins, the Anglican Communion splits over its latest ones

 

The seeds of Anglicanism's destruction were sown in its own beginning, but no one ever talks about that anymore. A not little original leaven has nearly leavened the whole lump.

The Anglican Communion Is Coming Apart

Not even two weeks after the Church of England unveiled Sarah Mullally as the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, a network of conservative Anglicans has exploded what fragile harmony or consensus existed.

... “We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority,” [Archbishop of Rwanda Laurent] Mbanda wrote.

... Nobody expected Gafcon to approve of the choice of Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury. The former senior nurse turned bishop previously led the project to introduce gay blessings and also represents the first woman to ascend to the throne of Saint Augustine in Canterbury Cathedral, an issue for certain Gafcon provinces that do not ordain women as priests or bishops.

... Mbanda said the Global Anglican Communion was closer to a rebrand than a new organization and that it was the revisionist Anglicans in the UK and North America who were the true schismatics. 

... Felix Orji, a Nigerian bishop who leads an ACNA diocese in Texas, said some provinces which have had a foot in both camps will have “an intense battle over this issue.”

... “We’ve been pleading for repentance, for rapprochement, and now you have a woman, and this woman is in favor of everything we’re against,” the ACNA bishop said. “And so there is no hope. If the Church of England had chosen a male who is evangelical, I don’t think that this decision would have been made.” 

... “It is important that the primacy of England should not take precedence over the primacy of Scripture,” he said. “We cannot allow our affection for England to trump affection for Christ and his Word.” 

Doug Wilson inverts the reasoning of Paul the Apostle in alignment with the reasoning of his secular opponents who believe reason and science are making the world a better place

 

Doug Wilson practices a casuistry worthy of a Jesuit when he says that the world is gradually getting better because of the leaven of the gospel, whereas the originator of the leaven analogies, Paul, argued that the world is already very bad and getting worse because of the leaven of sin.

 

In fact, Paul says that enthusiasm for the Jewish law, which is basically what Doug Wilson's "theocracy" is all about, is itself an insidious leaven which speeds up the ruination of the whole lump. 

 

This is because Paul's main objection to enthusiasm for the Jewish law is that it revives sin and kills us.

 

But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 

 

-- Romans 7:8ff.

 

Doug Wilson and his ilk are basically the equivalent of Paul's opponents, the Judaizers. 

 

What is more, Paul is also an apocalyptic and eschatological thinker still emphasizing imminent divine judgment, and Doug Wilson is most certainly not that, either. Paul is concerned with keeping the Christian community in Christ under those dire circumstances, not with making the world a less offensive place for your children's children. 

  

 Doug Wilson’s political project to “stop making God angry.”

  

... Basically, what I want to do is agree with you about the part where the Kingdom of God is like yeast that is dropped into the loaf, and it gradually works through the whole loaf, permeating the whole. So when Paul preached the Gospel in Rome, the gladiatorial games didn’t end the following week — it took centuries. But the yeast worked through the loaf, such that the gladiatorial games were ended eventually, slavery was ended eventually, concubinage was ended eventually — all of which was good Gospel progress and postmillennial. That’s the way it works. ...

 

Yeah, none of that is from Paul, obviously.

 

Paul's view of living in the world is extremely negative. Wilson's is optimistic, like any good American's, which is the main problem with Doug Wilson.

 

To Paul, both Judaism's enthusiasm for the law and the world's enthusiasm for sin are dangerously infectious but are made obsolete because of Christ's victory over sin, death, and the Devil. But because human nature remains evil even Christian people are still susceptible to both leavens at the same time. And so Paul is vigilant against the corrupting leaven of them both.

 

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators ... them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. 

 

-- I Corinthians 5:6ff, 13 

 

But this I say, brethren, the time is short ... the fashion of this world passeth away.

 

-- I Corinthians 7:29, 31  

 

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. 

 

-- Galatians 5:7ff.

 

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 

 

-- Romans 13:11f. 

 

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 

 

-- Ephesians 5:15f.

National Catholic Reporter attacks its conservative luminaries and First Things, denies Catholic abuse scandal is primarily homosexual in origin

This snooty editorial demanding deep self-examination is itself blind to the sin of homosexuality which has metastisized in the Catholic priesthood. The church's view that God has created people homosexual is the little leaven that has leavened the whole lump.

Here:

Those who worked so ardently in the past to enable you — the faithful, so betrayed, who just couldn't believe you would engage in such a deliberate cover up; the likes of George Weigel and his blind, uncritical hagiography of Pope John Paul II; Dr. Mary Ann Glendon and the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and their naive celebration and defense of Maciel; the rest of the chorus at First Things and like publications; the telling silence of so many other Catholic outlets; the absurdity of charlatan William Donohue and his silly "Catholic" League — they helped sustain your weak narrative as many of them denigrated those who raised the tough questions and pursued the truth.

It's over.

None of them any longer has a persuasive case to make. Some of them now try to blame the crisis on gay priests. You might be tempted to latch onto that diversion, but it will only prolong the already intolerably long agony.

Gay priests and bishops are certainly among us — probably a greater percentage of gays in the Catholic clergy, if anecdotal evidence and the private chatter of seminary rectors and heads of orders is to be believed, than one would find in the general population. ...

Unless the preponderance of credible experts has suddenly flipped its understanding of things, however, sexual orientation is not one of the topics that match with sexual abuse.

Thomas Aquinas: In Favor of the Death Penalty

"Every part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part exists naturally for the sake of the whole. For this reason we see that if the health of the whole human body demands the excision of a member, because it became putrid or infectious to the other members, it would be both praiseworthy and healthful to have it cut away. Now every individual person is related to the entire society as a part to the whole. Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and healthful that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since "a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6)."

-- Summa Theologiae, II, II, q. 64, art. 2