Paul’s love-of-enemy command functions as deferred vengeance, not pacifism.

Evidence

Shower your enemies with love, Paul says, a love that would bury them under a pile of burning coals. “Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave room for the wrath of God … if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Rom. 12:19-20). If being is the permanent possibility of war, if being is being-at-war and being-as-war, then Romans is also a theory-and a history-of the enemy. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 92

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in sacrifice and ritual death — this echoes ‘On Sacrifice’ themes of vengeance encoded in religious ritual.
• SEED: An essay angle: the Christian injunction to love enemies as a technology of deferred wrath — how kindness functions as slow-burn retaliation.