“Make peace with your enemies while you are still on the way to court,” Jesus advises, lest you get tossed into prison. You won’t be released until you’ve paid the last penny.

So we should assume we are wrong about our enemies?

“Why not decide for yourselves,” Jesus also asks, “what is right?”

Some say you can learn a lot about someone from his friends, but you can learn more about someone from his enemies.

Depending how one defines “friend,” one can include most of one’s acquaintances among one’s friends. In a workplace of several hundred, one can work for decades and acquire so few enemies that they can be counted on one hand.

Those are the few who somehow instigate an antagonistic relationship through egregious, intentional violations of basic standards of decency.

We’ve all known a few back-stabbers. Grotesque abusers of power. People whose actions force one’s conscience to itch for vengeance. We want nothing to do with them, and wish we had never met them.

Such people are scorned. No way could we behave toward them in a way they could possibly construe as an endorsement of their conduct and behavior. We would have them understand that they have created a gulf of alienation.

But one appreciates that life is complex, that people come into circumstances that influence them badly, and they behave badly, sometimes in ways that seem personal, but actually are not. That person had a bad influence to act upon, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, his unwitting target.

Had someone else done the same to him, he would have wailed and gnashed his teeth. Then he would have thought, “If someone can get away with that, I will too, when it suits me.” Or, “That is one bad example I will never follow.” Two roads, either of which can be more appealing than the other at different times of life, with different stakes in play.

Playing the odds of personality, one assumes that another person’s inclination is toward relationships that are harmonious, and mutually beneficial. When the offender learns that his poor behavior causes more trouble than it’s worth, he will reform his behavior toward the end of restoring an amicable bond with those he has antagonized.

One has decided for himself what is right– that the enemy will learn from his mistakes; that one needn’t press the charge that the villain deserves definitive condemnation.

Wouldn’t an apology be nice? Yes, but in lieu of that, what also might suffice is that the enemy simply behave with enough decency that, one would think, he has to recognize the inconsistency of his offense, and realize that he had exhibited some poor behavior.

As we accuse others, we might also accuse ourselves, and as we forgive ourselves, we might also forgive others, and find common ground with anyone with no intention or desire to wind up in a hostile court.

And let us not lose any sleep just because, among all our friends, lurk a few enemies.