Love of God and neighbour in the early church

Love for God and for one's neighbour as the heart of the Christian life. Part of Ethics.

Didache 1.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The way of life: love God and neighbor, and do not do to others what you would not want done to you.
1 Clement 49.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Love keeps Christ's commandments.
1 Clement 49.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God's love is indescribable.
1 Clement 49.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Love's beauty is beyond words.
1 Clement 49.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Love lifts us beyond telling.
1 Clement 49.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · A hymn to love, which unites, forgives, and makes perfect.
1 Clement 49.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Out of love Christ gave his blood, flesh, and soul for us.
1 Clement 50.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Love's perfection cannot be described.
1 Clement 50.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Pray to be found in love.
1 Clement 50.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Those perfected in love await Christ's kingdom.
1 Clement 51.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The loving would rather suffer than harm others or the church's harmony.
1 Clement 53.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Moses offered himself for the people.
1 Clement 53.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Moses's great love for his people.
Epistle of Barnabas 1.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Three teachings of the Lord: hope, righteousness, and love.
2 Clement 13.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Outsiders laugh when Christians fail to love even their friends.
To the Ephesians 14.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Faith is the beginning of life and love its goal; together they are of God.
To the Philippians 3.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Faith is the mother of us all, followed by hope and led by love, and whoever loves has fulfilled the commandment of righteousness.
To Diognetus 10.3Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · How can we not love the God who first loved us?
Sentences of Sextus 106Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Love everyone who is of the same nature as you; but love God even more than your soul.
Sentences of Sextus 371Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The foundation and beginning of the worship of God is to love.
Sentence 106 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Love what is of your own kind. Love God even before your own soul.
Sentence 210 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Treat all people as a common benefactor of humankind. As you wish your neighbours to treat you, treat them too.
Sentence 371 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The foundation of godliness is love of humankind.
Dialogue with Trypho 93.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · All righteousness is summed up in the two great commandments.
Dialogue with Trypho 93.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Righteousness is twofold: toward God and toward neighbor.
Dialogue with Trypho 93.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that the Jews have not loved God or neighbor.
Diatessaron, section 34Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 45Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 46Tatian · ca. 160-180
Adumbrations on 1 John, paragraph 6Clement of Alexandria · original ca. 200; Latin translation 6th century · On 1 John 2:5–7: the perfect man of understanding does good through love rather than fear or hope of reward; the old commandment is that of the law and prophets, ‘God is one.’
Adumbrations on 1 John, paragraph 8Clement of Alexandria · original ca. 200; Latin translation 6th century · On 1 John 2:8–29: the ‘brother’ to be loved includes the Lord; little children, fathers and young men are stages of the soul's progress; the world as creation is good, but its lusts come from us; the antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Adumbrations on 1 John, paragraph 10Clement of Alexandria · original ca. 200; Latin translation 6th century · On 1 John 4:18: love is the perfection of the believer.
The Instructor 1.3.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God, who forgives as God and trains as man, loves the human being as his own handiwork, into whom he breathed something of himself.
The Instructor 1.3.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Because the human being is God's own creature, God loves him, as the sending of the only-begotten Son and Christ's own words show.
The Instructor 1.8.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Since God hates nothing he has made, he loves the human being above all, and being good he benefits and cares for him, as his instruction through the Word shows.
The Instructor 2.1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Simple food makes people stronger and wiser; true love (agapē) is heavenly food, never failing, and must not be dragged down to the level of banquets.
The Instructor 3.11.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Every believer must pursue the true philosophy of loving God and neighbor; even the unlettered can hear, for faith's book is love, and one can live in the world in a godly way.
Against Heresies 2.26.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · It is better to be simple and abide in love than to be puffed up by knowledge into blaspheming the Creator.
Against Heresies 4.12.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ took the great commandment of love from the law rather than bringing a new one, which shows he came from the God of the law.
Against Heresies 4.12.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The same great commandments of love in law and gospel show one author of both covenants.
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 87Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–200
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Loved by God first, we can repay him only with love, which gives incorruption; the more we love God, the more deeply we enter into him.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 28.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan, not by defining the neighbor as a fellow Jew.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 29.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Both commandments are about love: first to God, second to neighbor.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 37.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · John says that whoever does not love his brother is a murderer, a child of Cain, cut off from the vine and awaiting the fire.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Scripture's praise of love: it covers sins, casts out fear, endures all things, never fails, and is the greatest of faith, hope, and love.
Miscellanies 2.9.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Fear leads to repentance and hope, and hope to love; love is fellowship of life; hospitality, philanthropy, and affection accompany it; strangers to the world are our guests, friends, and brothers.
Miscellanies 2.9.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Brotherly love binds those who share the Spirit, as Paul teaches in Romans 12; the Jews had zeal without knowledge, following the letter of the law and not the Christ it prophesied, the end of the law.
Miscellanies 4.18.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Clement of Rome: love of God and neighbor lifts us to God, covers sins, and perfects the elect; Paul says that even martyrdom without love, done from fear, is nothing.
Miscellanies 4.18.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Confessing Christ for reward, giving to be repaid, or great faith without love count for nothing compared with the knowing martyr; those perfected in love will be revealed at the coming of Christ's kingdom.
Miscellanies 4.18.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love keeps one from sin, and if one falls, confession and a broken spirit please God; God is love, and love fulfills the law, as Christ does; the same deed differs as done from fear or from love, by faith or by knowledge.
Miscellanies 5.1.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love is learned through hearing, as children are taught to kiss relatives held by the ears; God is love, known to those who love; we must become pure and childlike, as the Epidaurus inscription and Christ teach, entering God's temple founded on faith, hope, and love.
Miscellanies 5.14.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's goal of becoming like God matches the saying that the seeker will find and reign and rest; Thales' sayings about God echo Scripture, and Moses' “choose life” teaches that only the good is to be chosen and that the end of life is to love God.
Miscellanies 7.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some endure martyrdom for glory, from fear, or for rewards, like children in faith; the one who knows endures out of love for God, which is chosen for its own sake, and his self-restraint likewise springs from knowledge, not from ambition, greed, or fear.
Octavius 31.8Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians know each other by virtue and love each other as brothers in God.
Against Marcion 2.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Once evil entered the world, God's justice became the guardian of goodness: the fear of judgment keeps people from evil, and a God who can both reward and punish is to be loved as Father and feared as Lord.
On Flight in Persecution 9Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · The apostles, who wrote from chains and exile, never renewed the command to flee; Paul's armour of God, John's teaching that perfect love casts out fear, and the oracles of the Spirit all call to martyrdom, not flight.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 175Origen · ca. 220-254 · The wife of one's youth is the knowledge of God, at once mother, wife and sister; the hind and the colt of Prov 5:19 are contemplation and freedom from passion; friendship with Christ is knowledge of God.
PG 12:1113 (Ps 2 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Some accept painful instruction willingly; the saints “judge the earth” by their example, as the Ninevites and the queen of the south will; service “with fear” may be that of slaves, but sons too serve, out of love, as Christ served his disciples.
PG 12:1609 (Ps 118 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 119:116–121 (LXX 118): salvation complete only with the angels, sinners of the earth and of heaven, and the fear of God as the cross from which perfect love takes us down.
Commentary on John 19.139Origen · ca. 230–248 · Works show where one is from: the works of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit; love of the world cannot coexist with love of God.
Homily on Luke 25Origen · ca. 233–250 · The people’s suspicion that John was the Christ shows the danger of love without measure, seen also in excessive claims made for Paul and for Origen himself; God alone is to be loved with the whole heart, and Christ is loved in the Father and the Father in him.
Homily on Luke 34Origen · ca. 233–250 · The parable of the Good Samaritan, following an earlier presbyter’s allegory, shows Christ the true “guardian” caring for wounded humanity, bringing it into the church and entrusting it to the church’s angel; and it calls us to imitate him.
Address of Thanksgiving 6Gregory Thaumaturgus · ca. 238–245 · Origen won Gregory to philosophy by argument and by kindness; like Jonathan's soul knit to David's, Gregory's soul is bound to Origen.
Homilies on Numbers 11.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Only the Trinity is holy by nature; creatures are “sanctified holy,” and the firstfruits we offer are the highest forms of the Spirit's fruits, such as loving God with the whole heart and rejoicing in God's word.
Homilies on Numbers 14.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Allegorically, Balaam stands for the scribes and Pharisees, and his ass for simple believers whom Christ's disciples set free; even a false teacher may prophesy, so love outranks prophecy.
Homilies on Numbers 26.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The “sum of the warriors,” among whom none dissented, are those wholly devoted to God and united in concord, who offer God their virtues and works as gold; without concord with one’s brother and with God’s commandments no victory or gift is acceptable.
To Theopompus on the Impassibility and Passibility of God, section 30Gregory Thaumaturgus · if authentic, ca. 240-275 · A self-absorbed God would be more loveless than the philosophers, who labor to heal those sick in soul; as Diogenes said, physicians go to the sick, not the healthy.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.63Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Greek writers on love were misused by carnal readers; Origen prays for a chaste understanding and turns to Genesis, which speaks of two men created.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.66Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The inner man has his own food, drink, barrenness and fruitfulness; so besides carnal love there is a spiritual love that sows in the spirit.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.67Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Heavenly love is the soul's wound from the beauty of the Word; the soul can also love an adulterer, as Ezekiel's Oholah and Oholibah show.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.68Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Scripture usually avoids the word 'love' (amor) and uses 'charity' or 'affection' instead, as with Isaac, Jacob and Amnon, but names love openly for wisdom.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.69Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Scripture uses 'love' openly only where no misunderstanding is possible; love and charity mean the same, and God, Father and Son, is charity.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.70Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The charity that is God loves only incorruptible things, makes every person our neighbour as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and is misnamed when applied to money or vice.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.71Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Like the name 'god', 'charity' is used properly of God, by extension of the neighbour, and falsely of corruptible things; God may rightly be called love, as Ignatius did.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.72Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Human nature must always love something; love is rightly used only when directed to God and the virtues, not to money, glory, lust, or even the liberal arts.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.73Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The two great commandments contain the whole law, as a woman in love does nothing to displease her beloved; perfect love makes tribulation light, as Jacob's love for Rachel did.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.74Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Perfect charity endures all things; the Song is the church's wedding song to Christ, and only the Son knows charity, which the Spirit reveals to worthy souls.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 1.112Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Righteousness loves Christ because love keeps his commandments and admits no iniquity; the virtues love Christ, who is himself the substance of the virtues.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.186Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The wine of iniquity opposes the ever-new wine of the true vine; 'set love in order in me' means loving God without measure and one's neighbour as oneself.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.187Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Love for neighbours is graded by merit: those who teach the word and rescue souls, and those of holy life, are to be loved more.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.188Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Love for enemies is also graded; and men owe a chaste love to all women, in due order: wife, mother, sisters, and others.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.189Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Love is ordered toward spouses, relatives, and those who serve the Church; even God, who loves all he made, loves each according to merit.
Homily on the Song of Songs 1Origen · ca. 240–250 · Origen's first homily on the Song of Songs presents it as the highest of the Bible's songs, a wedding drama of Christ and the church, and expounds Song 1:2–11 on the kiss, the ointments, the black but beautiful bride, and the bridegroom's absences.
Homily on the Song of Songs 2Origen · ca. 240–250 · Origen's second homily expounds Song 1:12–2:14: the nard as the anointing at Bethany, the bridegroom as a drop from the mountain, the dove-eyed bride, the ordering of love, the wound of love, and the bridegroom's call to rise after the winter of the passion.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 1Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Origen explains how Christ silenced the Sadducees, why only a true disciple can rightly call him “Teacher,” and how the commandments are ranked under the two great commandments of love.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 3Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · One who loves iniquity or rejects discipline hates himself and so cannot love his neighbour as himself.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 4Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · All the law and the prophets, even their obscure parts, hang on love of God and neighbour, which opens their meaning; Paul's hymn to love and his confidence in Romans 8 illustrate it.
Commentary on Matthew 12.41Origen · ca. 246–248 · Figuratively, Peter and the sons of thunder may have wished to make tents within themselves for the Word, the law, and the prophecy, preferring contemplation; but love, which does not seek its own, brought Jesus down to those below.
Commentary on Matthew 15.13Origen · ca. 246–248 · The commandments Jesus lists are the minimum for entering the beginning of life; even partners of thieves and adulterers are excluded, and love of neighbour, which sums up the commandments, leads to perfection.
Commentary on Romans 7.11Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen shows how one rooted in God’s love answers each trial—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—with Scripture, overcoming not by his own strength but through Christ’s love, which makes bodily pain unfelt.
Commentary on Romans 9.4Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Love not directed to God, or that will not correct a neighbor, is feigned; hatred too has its place in the soul when it is directed at vices, and cleaving to the good makes us one with it.
Commentary on Romans 9.30Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Taxes are paid to the world's ministers, including the spirits that exact the 'tribute' of temptation, by those who still live according to the flesh, as Christ himself paid; fear and honor belong to God, and the one debt never to be paid off is love.
Commentary on Romans 9.31Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Love fulfills every commandment, since no one kills, commits adultery against, robs or slanders the one he loves; above all, loving Christ, our true neighbor, fulfills the whole law, and love of Christ brings love of neighbor.
To Quirinus 3.3Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Passages urging brotherly love and peace, from Malachi's “one Father” to Paul's hymn to love and John's “God is love.”
To Quirinus 3.18Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Nothing, not even family or life itself, may be preferred to the love of God and Christ.
On Rebaptism 13Anonymous · ca. 250–258 (disputed) · A person is judged by his final state; a heretic martyred for the name of Christ gains nothing, since without love for the true God and Christ confession and suffering are empty.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 14Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · A schismatic who dies for the name is not a martyr, since without charity and unity even martyrdom profits nothing.
On Jealousy and Envy 12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 256 · Christ calls his people sheep and lambs and commands them to love one another; a jealous man who bears Christ's name without following his way betrays it.
Church History 7.22.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Many Christians nursed the sick at the cost of their own lives, dying in their place.
Homilies 12.25Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter explains that repaying a benefactor is friendship, not love for humanity, which does good to every person simply as a human being.
Homilies 12.26Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter defines love for humanity as doing good even to enemies, in imitation of God who sends sun and rain on the just and the unjust.
Recognitions 3.54Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter teaches that the kingdom must be loved above everything, since all earthly things pass while God alone remains.
Divine Institutes 3.21.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · True marital love needs a shared life and kept faith, impossible in promiscuity.
Divine Institutes 6.10.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Justice joins us to God (religion) and to man (mercy).
On the Anger of God 14.3Lactantius · ca. 313–314 · Since God made man his worshiper and lord of creation, we must love God and also our fellow man.
On the Anger of God 14.5Lactantius · ca. 313–314 · God wills everyone to honor him as Father and love others as brothers; in these two lies all righteousness.
On the Anger of God 23.14Lactantius · ca. 313–314 · Where there is no anger there is no rule; therefore let no one despise God, but love him as Father, fear him as Lord, live righteously, share wealth, and keep the heart as his temple, so as to have him always gracious and never angry.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 54.4Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Justice first owes God love and fear as Father and Lord, then brotherhood to all people.
Letter 2.8Antony the Great · before 356 · Antony urges the brothers to make their bodies an altar on which, as at Elijah's sacrifice, God's fire may fall, and to love one another as beings of one immortal substance.
Testament of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 2Anonymous · ca. 320 · An exhortation to flee worldly glory, repent while there is time, and love one another.
Demonstration 2.1Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat opens his demonstration on love with Christ's saying that the law and the prophets hang on the two great commandments.
Demonstration 2.7Aphrahat · 337-345 · Christ took up the whole law into the two commandments, so that not a letter of it is lost and love is its true keeping.
Demonstration 2.11Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat links this demonstration to the first, on faith: faith makes firm the love that flows from the two commandments.
Demonstration 2.16Aphrahat · 337-345 · Paul's hymn to love shows that every gift, even faith and martyrdom, profits nothing without love, which binds the building of faith together.
Demonstration 2.19Aphrahat · 337-345 · Christ first perfected love in himself, becoming poor and dying for us, and in his love gave the Beatitudes and called us salt and light.
Demonstration 2.20Aphrahat · 337-345 · Christ's healings, teaching, and parables all flowed from his love; Aphrahat urges his reader to share it by keeping the two commandments.
Demonstration 14.14Aphrahat · 337-345 · A hymn to love, the great commandment, which covers sins and overcomes all evils; then a prayer to God, who patiently spares the wicked for the sake of the righteous who stand in the breach.
Life of Constantine 2.71.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Since they share one faith and the twofold commandment of love, the dispute must not divide them.
Oration III Against the Arians 66Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Being Son by nature does not make the Son unwilled; the Father loves and wills him as he wills his own goodness, with one will shared by Father and Son, yet no will precedes the Son's existence.
Letter 2Ammonas · ca. 340-360 · Love of God leads through fear, tears and joy to a divine power that drives off Satan, which few hermits acquire because few labour for it.
Historical Fragments 2.1.1.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · Hilary opens his work with Paul's faith, hope, and love, which alone remain when other gifts pass away.
Historical Fragments 2.1.2.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · Love is the greatest, binding us inseparably to God.
Long recension, Ephesians 13Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius urges frequent gatherings for the Eucharist, joins faith and love as the beginning and end of life, praises deeds over words, and warns that corrupters of the church face eternal punishment.
On Humility and Obedience 3Anonymous · uncertain (4th-6th century?) · Love, humility and obedience imitate Christ; the soul must side with Christ the physician and God's command against the sickness of sinful habit.
On the Trinity 9.25Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Christ tells the scribe he is "not far" from the kingdom (Mark 12:34), since his faith, though good, lacked knowledge of the gospel mystery.
On Saint Athanasius 2.15Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · From 1 John 3 Lucifer argues that whoever hates and kills his brother is of the devil like Cain, and casts the emperor as Cain and Athanasius as Abel.
On Saint Athanasius 2.16Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer urges the emperor to love himself in Athanasius, and strings together the commands of 1 John to love one's brother and lay down one's life for him, against the command to kill him.
On Saint Athanasius 2.26Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · From Christ's farewell discourse (John 14–15) Lucifer argues that only those who keep his commandments are loved by the Father and indwelt by the Spirit, so the bishops could not obey the emperor's order.
Letters 202, 203Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil, too ill to travel, excuses himself to Amphilochius; then (Letter 203) he appeals to the bishops of the sea coast, estranged from him by slanders, to restore communion and love or to meet him and examine the charges.
Letter 204Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil appeals to the church of Neocaesarea, estranged from him by slander, to examine the charges fairly, recalling their common teachers (Gregory Thaumaturgus, Macrina), his orthodoxy, and his communion with bishops throughout the world.
Homilies on the Psalms 114.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Preaching at midday in a martyrs' shrine, where the people had sung hymns since midnight, Basil excuses his delay (he had been serving another church) and comments on Ps 116:1: only the perfect, freed from servile fear, can say “I have loved” God, the supreme good, and they love even the sufferings borne for him, as Paul did, knowing that God watches their contest.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 3Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's third rule: the first commandment is love of God and the second love of neighbour, and love of God is shown by keeping Christ's commandments even to death.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 5Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's fifth rule: Christians must love even enemies, show their discipleship by mutual love, avoid grieving a brother to the harm of his faith, seek reconciliation, and sometimes grieve those they love for their good.
On the Holy Spirit 16Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · The one grace and love given by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit show that the Trinity is of one substance.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.13.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist keeps the law out of love, not fear, unlike those who fast, give alms, or attend church only to avoid reproach.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.21.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · All the law is summed up in love of neighbor; such love keeps peace and gives no cause of stumbling, as Paul abstained from meat for his brothers' sake.
Tractates on the Psalms 127.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The fear of the Lord is learned; it consists in love and obedience, not in dread of calamity, and so those who walk in his ways are blessed.
Tractates on the Psalms 132.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · As in the first church at Jerusalem and in Paul's exhortations, believers should be of one mind, seeking peace with all, like members of one body.
Commentary on Ephesians 3.18Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Paul prays for faith, knowledge, and above all the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge; the four dimensions are the three of a body with height divided, applied to knowing God; and all these together are the fullness of God.
Commentary on Ephesians 5.2Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Love, which sums up the whole law and the mystery of Christianity, is to be lived as Christ loved us and gave himself as a fragrant offering to God.
Commentary on Galatians 5.14Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · The whole law is fulfilled in love of neighbor, which includes every person, and such spiritual love excludes adultery, theft, and every harm.
Commentary on Galatians 5.15Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Discord destroys, while love alone, not circumcision or works, fulfills the law.
Commentary on Philippians 2.1Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Appealing to their common calling in Christ, the consolation of love, the fellowship of the Spirit, and shared compassion, Paul asks the Philippians to fulfill his joy by being of one mind.
Oration 14.2Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory lists virtues, faith, hope, love, hospitality, brotherly love, love for humankind, patience, and meekness, each with its biblical witnesses.
Oration 22.3Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory asks why Christians, who worship the God of love, quarrel even with those of the same faith, judging the same man holy one day and wicked the next out of contentiousness.
Tractates 1.2.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno praises love as queen of the virtues, surpassing faith and hope, and describes its works in society, marriage and the household.
Tractates 1.2.5Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno shows love at work among animals and the elements, and from the great commandment argues that the law hangs on love yet is to be revered.
Tractates 1.2.6Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno concludes that Christianity rests chiefly on love, citing Judas and 1 Corinthians 13.
Tractates 1.2.7Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno explains that love's first duty is toward God, then toward the neighbour, who bears God's image, so that wrong done to him is done to God.
Tractates 1.2.8Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno contrasts true love with the destructive erotic love pictured as Cupid, which ruined Adam and Eve and assailed Susanna and Joseph, citing 1 John 2:15–16.
Tractates 1.2.9Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno hymns the love of God, which created and redeemed man, brought about the incarnation and cross, inspires martyrs and almsgiving, and is one in the Trinity.
Homilies 7.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil recalls that the rich young man is not the testing lawyer of Luke, since he asked sincerely.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 3.8Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Those who died under Macarius were not martyrs: no one was forced to deny Christ, as in the persecutions of Decius, Valerian and Diocletian, and without charity and confession there is no martyrdom.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 8:1Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Knowledge that idols are nothing puffs up unless tempered by love; eating idol-meat that makes weak brothers stumble shows ignorance of true knowledge.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:2Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Prophecy, knowledge and miracle-working faith profit nothing without love, as Balaam, Caiaphas, Saul, Judas, the devil, the Pharisees, Tertullian and Novatian show.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:3Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Even giving all and martyrdom profit nothing without love, the head and foundation of religion.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:4–8Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Love, which is God, surpasses every gift and lasts forever; partial gifts will end when perfection fills up what is lacking.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Love is greatest because it produced faith and hope and renewed humanity through Christ's self-giving.
Commentary on Colossians 3:14–15Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Love, the bond of unity, perfects all other virtues and always brings true peace.
Commentary on Ephesians 3:19Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Christ's love in becoming man and dying for sinners surpasses knowledge; the fulness of faith honours the Son equally with the Father.
Commentary on Galatians 5:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The whole law is fulfilled in loving one's neighbour, which is inseparable from loving God.
Question 111, section 9Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The psalm’s two requirements, purity toward God and honesty toward the neighbor, correspond to the two great commandments on which all the law depends.
Question 117, section 8Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · As a prophet Abraham anticipated Christ’s command to love God above family, being willing even to sacrifice his son.
Question 118, section 7Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Stripped of all his possessions and children, Job remained devoted to God, showing before the law how it was to be kept: by loving God above all.
On Virginity 9Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 370–371 · Habit is powerful: many who began chaste were drawn by permitted pleasures into a filthy life, so the weak should take refuge in virginity, which keeps the heart undivided for the love of God; habit can also make the struggle sweet.
Letter 22.40Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Eustochium to endure hardships out of love for Christ, as Jacob served for Rachel and Paul suffered for the gospel.
Letter 82.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome insists he is in communion with John's church, asks Theophilus to urge John to seek genuine peace, and describes bishops as fathers, not lords.
Letter 110.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine explains that he rests securely in friendships founded on Christian love, since God is love, and hopes for the reconciliation of Jerome and Rufinus.
Letter 121.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains Paul's wish to be accursed for Israel as the self-giving love of a shepherd like Moses, willing to perish in the flesh so that others may be saved.
Letter 132.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine suggests that charity, the fullness of the law, is the virtue that contains all others, so that virtue grows as charity grows.
Letter 132.16Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine proposes that one who offends in one point is guilty of all because every sin violates charity, on which the whole law hangs.
Letter 148.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer urges that love for Christ is shown by keeping his commandments.
Letter 148.15Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer presents the Golden Rule as a mirror for every act and rejects the complaint that God's commands are impossible.
On the Holy Spirit 30.78Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · In such a time silence seemed wiser, for love has grown cold and Christians rejoice in one another's falls.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 65Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · Desire, anger, and love are left in the soul like the tares, because without them we could not rise to God or fight the enemy; reason must master them, and in themselves they are neither virtue nor vice.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 93Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · God, being the good itself, needs neither hope nor memory and has nothing outside him but evil, which is non-being; the purified soul, freed from desire, keeps only love and is united with God, being formed ever anew by what it finds.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 95Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · The purified soul, lacking nothing, has no further need of desire, hope, or faith; only love remains, as Paul says, and love is the very life of God, who never tires of the beautiful.
Homily 8Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · On Eccl 3:8–13 Gregory explains how sense-perception, ruling the mind from infancy, misleads human judgment of the beautiful, so that love must be directed to what is truly lovable (God, and Christ given as food) and hatred to the enemy; he describes the spiritual war against the passions and peace with God, and reads the rest of the passage as teaching that God made all things good and the misuse of free choice turns them to evil.
On the Making of Man 5Gregory of Nyssa · 379 · God’s image in man is painted not in colours but in virtues; mind, word, love, and the power to perceive and search out things mirror the divine nature.
On the Beatitudes 1251Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Mercy, which corrects the inequalities of life, is defined as voluntary grief at another’s evils, or a loving fellow-feeling with the distressed; it is the intensification of love, the highest virtue, and lies in the will, not in material means.
On the Beatitudes 1253Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · If all were merciful, inequality, envy, hatred, and war would vanish and peace and justice would reign; mercy is the father of goodwill and the bond of friendship; but the promise “they shall obtain mercy” also points to a future reward.
Liber Orsiesii 23Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · All the brothers, rich and poor, are to live as equals and love one another as Christ commanded.
Liber Orsiesii 38Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · The monks are to wake from sleep, love God first and then one another.
Liber Orsiesii 44Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · By keeping Christ's commandments the monks show they love God and will receive his dwelling with them.
Liber Orsiesii 54Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · The monks are to put away anger quickly, forgive, imitate the meekness of the saints, and love one another.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 49Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · Christians should choose the good, prefer love to all virtues, redeem the time, and pursue peace and humility.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.7Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Nothing is more useful than to be loved, as the gentleness of Moses and David shows; love and trust, which follow from kindness and faithful friendship, are the first things that commend us.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.30Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Book 2 closes by urging the clergy to shun the wicked and envious, to act with forethought, to burn with zeal for God, and to keep peace and love among themselves.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.46.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The psalmist longs for God’s commandments with holy love, as a friend of God.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.39.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love, which is God and his word, puts sin to death and is as hard as hell.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.39.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love wounds the soul with a blessed wound, better than an enemy’s kisses.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.44.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The psalmist was corrected because he loved; love covers sins, as Paul describes it.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.44.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love is greatest because it contains faith and hope; the law converts the soul.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.44.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love fulfills the law, which makes one blameless; so love covers many sins.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.13.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Zeal is love, strong as death, by which we die to sin and live to God.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.28.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Nothing can separate those sealed by love from Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.29.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love has dove’s wings for flight and wings of fire that inflame, like God’s fiery ministers.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.29.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love has heights like the temple’s pinnacle, and no worldly flood can quench it.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.34.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Persecutors draw near but move away from God’s law of love; the brother is bought by Christ’s blood.
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.20.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God, rich in mercy, calls us to be rich in love.
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.52.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Blessed is one who pines for love of God, not from sinful passions.
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.55.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Loving God’s precepts is more than keeping them; some manuscripts call the transgressors “the foolish.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.55.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love surpasses duty; yet the lover still begs for mercy rather than demanding reward.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.16.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who love God have deep peace that no passion can overturn.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.16.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Love carried Moses through the sea, while those without love drowned.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.23.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Loving God’s testimonies surpasses keeping them; blessed is one who hides nothing from God, unlike Adam, Eve and Cain.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.21.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · All God’s commandments are righteousness, summed up in love.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.21.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Murder, adultery, theft, covetousness and contempt are all failures of love.
Letter 20.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine tells Antoninus that his love for goodness in others profits him even if they fall short, and asks for his prayers.
Letter 24.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus of Nola writes to Alypius, bishop of Thagaste, rejoicing in a friendship formed by God before they had met.
Letter 73.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reflects that the best defence against a friend turned enemy is a clear conscience, and hopes Jerome and Rufinus will be reconciled.
Letter 109.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Severus praises Augustine's ministry for leading readers through love of neighbor to the love of God, which has no measure.
Letter 130.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · All temporal goods must be referred to eternal life with God; we love God for himself and ourselves and our neighbors for his sake, but are not yet happy.
Letter 140.45Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · 'You who fear the Lord, praise him' means 'love him'; fear is the beginning of wisdom, preparing a place for love, which then casts out fear.
Letter 140.53Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Love casts out servile fear of punishment but keeps the chaste fear of losing God, like a loving wife who fears her husband's absence rather than his anger.
Letter 140.54Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Those who reject God's righteousness, if they spurn correction, will go into the 'outer darkness'; God is light and love, and the darkness is hatred and pride, into which the devil fell.
Letter 140.62Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Love lives by the heavenly bread; its breadth is good works, its length patient endurance, its height the hope of eternal life, and its depth the hidden grace of God's will, as in Ephesians 3.
Letter 140.63Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine expounds Ephesians 3:13–19: rooted and grounded in love by God's free grace, believers grasp its breadth, length, height, and depth, until in the age to come love contemplates and praises God for ever.
Letter 140.85Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Honoratus to persuade such people that every good, even love of God, is God's gift, so that they may glory in the Lord; he closes by commending reading and prayer, for the inner light is the true teacher.
Letter 145.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Abstaining from sin only for fear of punishment is not righteousness; the righteous fear sin itself out of love, the chaste fear that perfect love does not cast out.
Letter 145.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's 'Who will separate us from the love of Christ?' shows that we cling to Christ, who is our righteousness, by love and not by fear of punishment.
Letter 153.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Civil severity and episcopal intercession are both useful; Paul's teaching in Romans 13 shows the ruler's sword is from God, and both must act from love.
Letter 155.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Virtue in this life is loving what ought to be loved, above all God, to whom we go not by walking but by loving.
Letter 155.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Love of neighbor extends to all human beings by the fellowship of nature, as even Terence's famous line, applauded in the theaters, shows.
Letter 155.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · There are only two great commandments because one loves oneself rightly only by loving God; love of neighbor means leading others to worship God.
Letter 167.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Love, which is piety and the fullness of the law, is the true virtue and admits of more and less.
Letter 189.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine sums up his advice to Boniface in the two commandments of love, which he should grow in by prayer and good works.
Letter 189.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · By love the saints and martyrs pleased God, and believers advance toward the vision of God, which surpasses all created beauty.
Letter 192.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine replies to the deacon Caelestinus with a meditation on love as a debt always paid and always owed, even to enemies.
Letter 210.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine writes to the nuns Felicitas and Rusticus that God's goodness even to the wicked shows what he prepares for the faithful, and urges them to bear with one another in love.
Letter 210.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine teaches the nuns how to give and receive correction in love and urges them to end quarrels quickly before anger corrupts the heart.
Letter 211.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rules that clothes be kept in common and work done for the common good, since love puts common things before its own.
Letter 233.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks the pagan Longinianus how he thinks God should be worshiped and whether Christ's way is the only way to the happy life.
Soliloquies 1.2Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Augustine says he desires to know only God and the soul, and Reason presses him on what knowledge of God would satisfy him and on what he loves in his friends.
Homilies on Matthew 16.8John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Small insults lead to enmity and murder, so Christ graduates the punishments for anger, “raca”, and “fool” to protect love, which God values above all and whose loss roots every wickedness.
Homilies on Matthew 16.9John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ puts reconciliation with a brother before the offering of a gift at the altar, applies this to prayer and alms, and urges settling with an adversary quickly before the matter reaches the judge.
Homilies on Matthew 32.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The church has become a marketplace of chatter; Chrysostom asks for love, since all share one table and one cup, and teaches that God stopped the signs because virtue, not miracles, is the true proof and health of the soul.
Homilies on Matthew 35.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom explains Christ’s “sword” and the division of families (Matt 10:34–38) as the cutting off of the diseased part so that heaven may be joined to the better, and shows that the Old Testament teaches the same.
Homilies on Matthew 60.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s promise to be among two or three gathered in his name shows him as giver equal with the Father, but it requires friendship whose chief ground is Christ; worldly friendships break under injury, while love for Christ’s sake, like his love for his enemies and executioners, never fails.
Homilies on Matthew 71.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ answers the lawyer with the two great commandments, praises his confession of the one God without denying his own Godhead, and by the question about David’s son proclaims himself Lord; Chrysostom then attacks vainglory, especially in almsgiving, which robs the treasure in heaven.
Homilies on Matthew 77.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The wicked servant’s “my master delays” comes from his wickedness, not from the hidden day; the rich are stewards of what belongs to the poor and will be punished, like the servant, for spending it on luxury; virtues that benefit one’s neighbor, above all love, surpass those that benefit only oneself.
On what sort of wives to marry, section 2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom tells those about to marry to learn first that Christ's law lets a husband cast out his wife only for sexual immorality, so that he must bear every other fault, and urges husbands to love and correct their wives as Christ loved and cleansed the church.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.7.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The Psalms teach love, as David risked himself for the people, and how to bear rebuke.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.30.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The blessed man keeps the law willingly, from love, not from necessity.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.30.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The law itself commands love of God first.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.30.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Deuteronomy and Wisdom both make love the root of obedience.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.31.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God loves us even when he chastises.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.31.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Love of God is tested in loss, as with Job.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.27.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The bones of the soul are the bonds of love, as in marriage and in Christ and the church.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Through the case of a slave who kills his master from fear, Augustine and Evodius define blameworthy lust as the love of things that one can lose against one's will.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · From Christ's command to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind, and from Paul's words in Romans 8, Augustine concludes that God is the highest good.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Following God by love is the desire for happiness and reaching him is happiness itself; Augustine explains phrase by phrase why nothing in Rom 8:38–39 can separate us from God's love.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Christ is the Power, Wisdom, and Truth of God, to whom we are conformed by love poured out by the Holy Spirit, who, since he restores us to wholeness and is unchangeable, is God and not a creature.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Living well is loving God wholly, which the four virtues express; eternal life, the knowledge of God, is the reward of that love, so love and authority must come before knowledge and reason.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Whoever loves God rightly loves himself, and the second commandment, to love one's neighbor as oneself, means bringing one's neighbor to God and doing him no harm, which is the first step toward the love of God.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Discipline heals the mind by fear and love, the Old Testament stressing fear and the New love; the two great commandments the Manichaeans praise come from the Old Testament, which they therefore cannot consistently reject.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine describes communities of Christian men and women at Milan and Rome who live by manual work and practice severe fasts, yet, following Paul, never treat food or wine as unclean and make love their rule.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · The Cherubim ('fullness of knowledge') and the flaming sword (temporal tribulations) guard the tree of life: all reach it through enduring trials, and through the fullness of knowledge, which is love.
Tractates on Matthew 7.3Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that a gift at the altar is acceptable only after reconciliation, as the offerings of Abel and Cain show.
On True Religion 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine explains that the soul that loves bodies becomes carnal and suffers pain, but the soul that conquers its desires by God's grace is restored, loves God and neighbor, and will receive back its body made pure in the resurrection.
On True Religion 46Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Whoever loves God above all and his neighbor as himself cannot be conquered, because what he loves cannot be taken from him; the neighbor is to be loved as a man, not for fleshly ties or advantage.
On True Religion 47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · The man who loves in others only what he has perfectly in himself, and who clings to God alone, envies no one, uses all things and people rightly, and cannot be conquered or robbed of happiness.
On True Religion 48Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · True freedom and rule come from loving God above oneself and loving each thing in its due measure; even pride is a shadow that points back to true freedom.
Homily 1Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Gregory warns that only those freed from fleshly thoughts should hear the Song, explains how Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song lead the soul by stages to union with God, and expounds Song 1:2–4 on the kiss, the breasts, the ointment and the maidens.
Homily 4Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Expounding Song 1:15–2:7, Gregory describes the soul refined like gold and made a mirror of the Word, the shaded couch as the Incarnation, the cedars and cypresses as virtues, the apple tree as Christ, the right ordering of love, the wound of love's arrow, and the oath by the angelic powers.
Sermon 4.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Bearing others' sins means rebuking sinners while patiently tolerating them, out of the love without which nothing profits.
Sermon 9.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Decalogue is divided between the two great commandments: three strings for God, who is a Trinity, and seven for the neighbor, beginning with honor of parents, which Paul calls the first commandment.
Sermon 9.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Those who keep the commandments only out of fear carry the psaltery without singing; only the new man, who keeps them with delight in love, sings the new song.
Sermon 13.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · As a father who loves his son disciplines him, and would be cruel to spare him, so judges must combine love with discipline.
Sermon 21.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God is not a body to be approached by climbing high, but spirit, near to the humble; he is love, and whoever loves has him near, for every good we enjoy, sin alone excepted, comes from him.
Sermon 21.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Sin is not loving something bad, since every creature of God is good, but loving a good creature in a disordered way; love must be set in order, using lower goods and enjoying the highest.
Sermon 23.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God is not contained in a place; the believer becomes his temple, and when he comes to dwell he does not cramp the heart but enlarges it by love.
Sermon 23.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Love poured out by the Spirit is God’s pledge in us; Augustine explains why “earnest” is a better word than “pledge.”
Sermon 23.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The drunkenness the psalm promises is not carnal feasting but drinking love, which is present in the heart without place or footsteps; so we should learn to love God.
Sermon 33.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Love fulfills the Law; as there are two commandments of love, so the Decalogue was given on two tablets, three commandments for love of God and seven for love of neighbor.
Sermon 34.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The new song belongs to the new man and new life; everyone loves, but we can love God rightly only because he first loved us and poured out his love by the Holy Spirit.
Sermon 34.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since the Spirit by whom we love is God, we love God from God; and since God is love, we must not imagine him with a bodily shape, as one would an idol.
Sermon 34.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Charity is the dearest thing of all, and its price is ourselves: Wisdom asks for the whole heart, and God, who made us, demands the whole of us.
Sermon 35.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · No one is good or evil by another’s good or evil; but the good man, by his own goodness, loves his neighbor, while the evil man, loving iniquity, does not even love himself.
Sermon 37.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church surpasses the heresies by charity, the “more excellent way” without which tongues, miracles, alms, and even martyrdom profit nothing, and from which hangs the whole cluster of the Spirit’s fruit.
Sermon 49.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We judge ourselves by Scripture as by an honest mirror, and then judge our neighbor with love, hating the vice but loving the man, and leaving to God what we cannot see.
Sermon 72.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Charity is the root of all goods; outward goods like health, wealth, and honor are good only for those who are good.
Sermon 78.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter must come down from the mountain to labor in charity, which seeks not its own, as Christ came down to suffer.
Sermon 87.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ healed the frenzied persecutor Saul; others are lethargic, and must be roused by friends out of charity, as a son rouses his dying father.
Sermon 89.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The withered fig tree with leaves but no fruit figures the unbelieving part of Israel, while many Jews believed; whoever lacks charity has leaves without fruit.
Sermon 90.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The wedding garment is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith, without which tongues, prophecy, alms, and even martyrdom profit nothing.
Sermon 90.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Every human being is our neighbor, since all descend from one father, Adam, just as all who believe are made alive in the one Christ.
Sermon 90.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The faith that marks the wedding garment is not the bare belief demons share but faith working through love, since love cannot exist without faith though faith can exist without love.
Sermon 90.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Love must reach beyond family to God and to all, even enemies, so that God’s image in us, worn down by earthly desire, is re-engraved and rendered to God as Caesar’s coin is to Caesar.
Sermon 95.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The wedding garment is not any gift shared by good and bad, such as baptism, the eucharist, prophecy, or faith, but love, which is put on by clothing Christ in the naked.
Sermon 96.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s command to deny oneself is not hard, because love makes every burden light, as even sinful loves show; one who loves Christ finds himself by denying himself.
Sermon 99.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, who heard the Pharisee’s thoughts, told the parable of the two debtors to heal his host and assure the woman, contrasting Simon’s cold hospitality with her love.
Sermon 99.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The parable raises the question whether one should sin much in order to be forgiven much and so love more, a danger like the slander Paul rejected, “let us do evil that good may come.”
Sermon 99.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine sharpens the problem with two baptized men, one a great sinner and one a lesser, for Christ’s words imply that the one forgiven less loves less.
Sermon 100.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ called the silent man whose heart he saw to be faithful and would not let him delay even to bury his father, since love must be set in order and God put before parents, as the mother of the Maccabees taught her sons.
Sermon 105.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Faith, hope, and love, all three gifts of God, are needed to make the gift sweet, love being the greatest.
Sermon 105.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the second triad, bread, fish, and egg, the bread is love, opposed by the stone of hardness, and the fish is faith, which lives unbroken among the world’s storms and is opposed by the serpent, the devil.
Sermon 112.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The third excuse, marriage, signifies the pleasure of the flesh; John’s “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and ambition of the age” correspond in reverse order to the three excuses.
Sermon 117.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, the Wisdom of God, teaches first not the secrets of creation but humility; as a tree roots downward to grow upward, believers must humbly keep God’s commandments in love to grow in understanding.
Sermon 125.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The law is fulfilled only by love of God and neighbor; the sick man of thirty-eight years lacked two of forty, the two commandments of love, without which all else is worthless; Christ, who came to give love and fulfill the law, healed him and told him to carry his bed, that is, to master the flesh.
Sermon 128.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Life is a wrestling between flesh and spirit; the right order is the soul subject to God and the flesh to the soul; Paul tells us not to “fulfill” the desires of the flesh, a phrase Augustine undertakes to explain.
Sermon 137.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s warning about those who say “Lord, Lord” shows that the Church contains bad ministers too; they preach not rightly because they seek from God something other than God, like a wife who loves her husband’s gold rather than her husband.
Sermon 138.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter was made a shepherd when Christ entrusted his sheep to him, and a good one because he truly loved Christ, as his threefold confession shows.
Sermon 142.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Without love even tongues, prophecy, faith, and giving all to the poor are nothing; Christ told the rich man to sell all and then follow him, that is, imitate his humility, which Peter, though he had left everything, had not yet learned when he denied him.
Sermon 142.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter became perfect only after the ascension; we follow Christ by imitating his meekness through the Gospel in which he is with us, and all, Augustine included, must confess imperfection and grow in love.
Sermon 145.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Love, which surpasses every gift, cannot come from ourselves; whoever claims it from himself shows that he lacks it, for God has poured it into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Sermon 147.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter, in whom the unity of all good shepherds was figured, answered truly that he loved Christ, judging only his present heart, and did not dare to claim that he loved more than the others.
Sermon 156.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The same Spirit who gave the Law in fear on Sinai now writes it in love on hearts; fear of punishment is a servant that keeps the place for love, which casts out fear.
Sermon 158.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Justifying faith differs from the demons' faith, which also confesses Christ, by hope and above all love: it is “faith working through love.”
Sermon 158.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the end God will be all in all, replacing every good sought here; faith and hope will give way to sight and reality, but love will remain and be perfected.
Sermon 161.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · One who refrains from adultery only for fear of hell is not yet to be praised, though Christ commands that fear; such fear is a guard and tutor that keeps the place for love, which makes one not want to sin.
Sermon 161.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · As love enters, slavish fear of punishment departs, but love brings chaste fear, the fear of displeasing a loving Father, which keeps one from sin even without witnesses.
Sermon 165.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The cross's breadth is love that gives cheerfully, its length is perseverance to the end, and its height is the lifted heart that loves God freely and seeks him alone as reward.
Sermon 168.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul's “peace, love with faith” runs from end to beginning: faith that works through love, unlike the demons' faith born of fear, leads to the true and secure peace that is the goal of all good desire.
Sermon 169.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Only love makes suffering profitable and makes a true martyr; that love is poured into hearts by the Holy Spirit, a rich guest who enlarges rather than crowds the soul.
Sermon 253.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter’s presumption failed because he lacked charity; having denied life by fearing death, he rose by weeping, and the risen Lord, who had said “You cannot follow me now,” now says “Follow me.”
Sermon 261.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Both great commandments are fulfilled in Christ: we love God in the Word who was God, and neighbor in the Word made flesh.
Sermon 265.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine admits he does not know why the Spirit was given twice, but proposes that the two givings commend the two commandments of the one charity: on earth for love of neighbor, from heaven for love of God.
Sermon 265.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Charity is held only in the Church’s unity; Christ came to gather, not divide, so that the Catholic asks not that his brother divide the inheritance but that he hold it with him.
Sermon 270.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Charity, the gift of the Spirit, fulfills the law; fear of punishment makes obedience slavish, while chaste fear, like a faithful wife’s, remains forever.
Sermon 302.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · On the feast of Lawrence, Augustine notes that temporal favors granted through the martyr are like toys for children; he describes the misery of this life, which is still loved so much, and asks his hearers to love eternal life at least as much as worldlings love this one.
Sermon 306.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The life and truth that all desire is Christ, the way, the truth and the life; love of him made the martyrs strong, and since men, women, old and young have walked the hard road, we should imitate them, not merely celebrate them.
Sermon 312.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Cyprian did what he taught and taught what he did; God, who predestined, called, cleansed and crowned him and gave his body to this place, showed in him that love without the unity of Christ is no love, and the day should be kept soberly.
Homily 20.2 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom tells husbands that the measure of their love is Christ's love for the church, who gave himself for an unlovely bride, and warns them not to rule by fear or to value outward beauty.
Homily 20.5 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom teaches that each spouse must do his or her part even if the other fails, cites 1 Cor 7:15 for an unbeliever who departs, allows second marriages as a concession, and holds up Abraham's household as a model.
On Faith and the Creed 19Augustine of Hippo · 393 · Augustine reports, without adopting it, the view that the Holy Spirit is the deity and mutual love that unites the Father and the Son, with its scriptural proofs.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains the Golden Rule, noting that “good things” is a Latin addition absent from the Greek, relates it to love of neighbour, and concludes the treatment of the single, pure heart.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine reconciles the command to honor parents with Christ's “let the dead bury their dead”: parents are honored in their place but set aside for the love of God, as Deuteronomy 33:9 also teaches.
On Christian Doctrine 1.4Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Enjoying is loving something for its own sake, using is referring it to what we love; like travelers going home, we must use this world and not enjoy it.
On Christian Doctrine 1.22Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Only God is to be enjoyed; we should love ourselves and our neighbors for God's sake, directing all love toward the love of God.
On Christian Doctrine 1.23Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Four things are to be loved, God, ourselves, our neighbor, and our body; no command is needed to love ourselves and our bodies, though self-love that seeks to dominate is really hatred.
On Christian Doctrine 1.25Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · People must be taught the right way to love themselves and their bodies, though one may love something more than bodily health.
On Christian Doctrine 1.26Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Since we naturally love ourselves and our bodies, the commandments concern love of God and neighbor, which together include all that is to be loved.
On Christian Doctrine 1.27Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Just living requires ordered love: God above all, others for God's sake, and our neighbor more than our own body.
On Christian Doctrine 1.28Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · All are to be loved equally, but since we cannot help everyone, we should help first those whom circumstances bind most closely to us.
On Christian Doctrine 1.29Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · As a theater fan wants everyone to love his favorite actor, we should want all to love God with us, and so we love even our enemies.
On Christian Doctrine 1.30Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The parable of the Good Samaritan shows that every human being is our neighbor, and so are the angels, and in a sense Christ himself.
On Christian Doctrine 1.35Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The sum of Book 1: the fulfillment of all Scripture is love of God and neighbor, and the temporal dispensation is to be used as a road to God.
On Christian Doctrine 1.39Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · One firmly grounded in faith, hope, and love needs the Scriptures only to teach others; love, the greatest, will remain forever.
On Christian Doctrine 2.7Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine sets out seven steps toward wisdom: fear, piety, knowledge (the study of Scripture), fortitude, counsel, purity of heart, and wisdom.
On Christian Doctrine 3.10Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Whatever in Scripture cannot literally refer to good conduct or true faith is figurative; Scripture commands only love and condemns only desire, and readers must not judge it by their own customs.
On Christian Doctrine 3.15Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Figurative passages should be studied until their interpretation leads to the reign of love; passages that already do so literally are not figurative.
Confessions 4.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine concludes that only one who loves others in God loses no one dear, since God, who fills all things, is never lost.
Confessions 4.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine urges that all creatures be loved in God, their maker, and warns that a happy life cannot be found in the region of death.
Confessions 13.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The Spirit borne over the waters is love, which lifts us up as desire weighs us down.
Confessions 13.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The Spirit is God's gift, in whom we rest; "my weight is my love," carrying us upward to God.
Confessions 13.46Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · When we see creation's goodness through the Spirit, God sees it in us, and we love God in what he made.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 5.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that Manichaean renunciation is worthless without true faith and love, and that Faustus himself lived in luxury, as the failed community of Constantius at Rome showed.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends the stone tablets of the law as prophetic of the church's heart of flesh, of Christ the stone, and of Pentecost, and as containing the two commandments of love in ten precepts.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Christ fulfils the law not by adding words but by giving the love that keeps its commands and by accomplishing what it prophesied.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Christ came chiefly to show God's love so that people might love him and their neighbour in return; all Scripture points to this love, and the catechist should narrate so that the hearer believes, hopes, and loves.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine argues that what the soul consents to in sin is good in its own kind but loved wrongly, illustrating this with the sun, which the Manichaeans worship, loved so immoderately that a man wrongs his neighbors.
On the Trinity 6.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · The Holy Spirit, the common love or communion of the Father and the Son, is equal and consubstantial with them: lover, beloved, and love itself.
On the Trinity 8.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · All things we love are good, but beyond this or that good is good itself, which is God; the mind becomes good only by turning in love to this unchangeable good.
On the Trinity 8.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · We must love God before we see him, and so love him by faith; but faith must not invent false images, and in believing bodily things what matters is the general knowledge of their kind, not imagined details.
On the Trinity 8.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · We love the apostle as a just mind, and we know what justice is not from the senses but from an inner truth, the form of justice, which we must love and cleave to in order to become just.
On the Trinity 8.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · The key to knowing God is true love; love of God and of neighbour imply each other, and God, who is love, is found not by seeking powers outside us but within, by humble love.
On the Trinity 8.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Whoever loves his brother knows love, and God is love; so in brotherly love God is known, and the two commandments cannot be separated.
On the Trinity 8.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · We love Paul because we see in the unchangeable truth the form of justice by which he lived; faith and hope in such lives make us love that form, God, more ardently and know him more clearly.
On the Trinity 8.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Love involves three, the lover, the beloved, and love; Augustine pauses here as at the place where the search for the Trinity must begin.
On the Trinity 9.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Turning to man as an unequal image of God, Augustine finds that when the mind loves itself there seem to be only two, mind and love, which are relatively two but one spirit.
On the Trinity 9.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Each knows his own mind by experience but knows what a mind ought to be in the unchangeable truth above the mind, by which we judge images, people, and works of art.
On the Trinity 9.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · The inner word is conceived by desire when the creature is loved for itself, by love when it is referred to God; love joins the mind and its word as a third.
On the Trinity 14.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Rightly loving itself, the mind loves God; though weak and erring it never loses memory, understanding, and love of itself, and when it clings to God it will be one spirit with him and unchangeable.
On the Trinity 15.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Though each person is love, as each is wisdom, the Holy Spirit is properly called love, the common love of Father and Son, proceeding principally from the Father and also from the Son; 1 John 4 shows this.
On the Trinity 15.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Love is the greatest gift of God, without which no other gift profits, and the love that is from God and is God is properly the Holy Spirit, rightly called the Gift of God.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 98–99Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Two questions: fear of God is compatible with perfect love, since we fear to lose what we love until the contest is over; and the law's animal sacrifices honored God as the offering of the worshiper's own soul, unlike pagan human sacrifice, while Jephthah is praised for keeping his rash vow, which God allowed as a warning against open-ended vows.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 11.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Pride, a general avarice for one's own excellence, is the beginning of all sin; the two loves, holy and private, first divided the angels and now form the two cities of the just and the wicked.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Beyond spiritual visions, the soul may be raised to intellectual vision, where truth is seen without images, virtue is simply to love what one sees, and God's glory is seen “mouth to mouth,” as with Moses.
On Holy Virginity 41Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Virgins should love God more, not less, since he kept them from sins and gave them the gift of continence by grace.
On Holy Virginity 55Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Virgins should give Christ, the most beautiful of lovers, all the love they would have given to marriage.
On Holy Virginity 56Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Christ seeks inner beauty and cannot be made jealous by lies, so virgins may love him securely and wholly.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 3.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · As we love the righteous for invisible beauty, not bodily appearance, so Christians must love God freely for himself, not for temporal rewards, longing to contemplate him without hunger or weariness.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Those baptized outside the Church have true baptism but lack love, without which it profits nothing; they are called into unity not to receive baptism again but so that it may begin to profit them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The olive's fruit signifies love, which like oil rises above all; without love even the tongues of angels are noise, as Augustine tells Donatus.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Baptism and faith without love profit nothing; even the demons believed and confessed Christ, yet said 'What have we to do with you?'
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Donatists' alms and sufferings are for Donatus, not Christ, and without love profit nothing; their so-called martyrs, who threw themselves from cliffs, acted from pride, not love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 7.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine recalls his earlier teaching: John learned through the dove that Christ alone baptizes; the dove signifies peace, and its olive branch the fruit of love, without which baptism outside the Church profits nothing.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Holy Spirit is the mutual love of the Father and the Son, so 'two measures' implies the Spirit and 'three' expresses the Trinity; without this love, poured out by the Spirit, the soul is dead.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 13.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Heretics have baptism, but as ministers, not owners; they have the form of the sacrament but, cut off from the vine, lack the root of love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 13.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine urges love for Christ's peace and for one another under Christ the head, and asks for prayer for those still outside.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 14.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Father and Son are one God, not two gods, since the love that made the first believers one heart and soul is infinitely surpassed by the love within the Trinity.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Samaritans believed first through the woman's report and then through Christ's presence, as people today come to faith through the Church's witness and the two commandments of love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 17.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Forty signifies the fulfillment of the law, which love fulfills in its two commandments; so the man sick for thirty-eight years, two short of forty, lacked the twofold love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 17.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love of God comes first in command but love of neighbor first in practice, since by loving the neighbor we cleanse the eye to see God; “take up your bed” signifies love of neighbor.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 17.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The bed signifies the neighbor: once carried when sick, the healed man must now carry his neighbor, fulfilling the law of Christ, and walk on toward God.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 21.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ promised to show himself, in the form of God, to those who love him; eternal life is to know the one true God and Jesus Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 32.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ calls the thirsty to come to him, not by moving the body but by loving, for a change of love is a moving of the heart.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 32.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Even lovers of bodies want to be loved in return, showing that the soul is the body's beauty, as God is the soul's.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 32.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We have the Holy Spirit as much as we love the Church; in its unity each member's gift serves all, and love, poured out by the Spirit, surpasses every gift.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 39.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · As love made the thousands of the first Church one heart and one soul in God, much more are Father, Son, and Spirit, the fountain of love, one God and one Beginning.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 64.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The disciples could not yet follow Christ to the deathless life; the new commandment of love is the way by which they would follow him later.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 65.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The commandment of love is new because Christ's love, unlike natural or sinful love, renews us and makes us die to the world.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 65.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love of God and love of neighbor contain each other, for to love one's neighbor rightly is to love God in him.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 65.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love, not other gifts that outsiders may share, is the mark of Christ's disciples and the delight of his bride the church.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 74.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Since no one can love Christ or keep his commandments without the Holy Spirit, the apostles who loved him already had the Spirit whom they were promised.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 75.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love for Christ is shown by keeping his commandments; his love now brings faith, and then will bring the vision that rewards faith.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 76.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ manifests himself to those who love him, in whom the Father and the Son make their dwelling; the ungodly see him only in the flesh, for judgment.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 82.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Our good works come from love, and our love from being loved first; Christ's words show the grace of the mediator, not an equality of nature.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 82.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Keeping the commandments shows, but does not produce, our abiding in Christ's love; his love comes first and enables us to keep them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 83.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The repeated commandment of love is called new, to draw us from our oldness, and his own, so that we do not despise it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 83.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love contains faith, hope, and the love of God, so that in keeping the commandment of love we keep all; it is love for the sake of having God.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 87.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Love is the fruit Christ appoints us to bear; it heads and contains all the other fruits of the Spirit.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 87.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The world loves its vice and hates its God-given nature; we are to hate its vice and love its nature, loving our enemies but not the world.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 96.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Rather than seek secret teachings, believers should grow in love, by which the Spirit leads them inwardly toward a fullness of truth reached only in the life to come.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 102.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · God's love comes first: our love for God is his gift, poured out by the Spirit of Father and Son.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 110.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · God's love is unchanging: he loved us before the world and before reconciliation, hating our sin while loving his own work in us.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 123.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ asks Peter three times whether he loves him, gives him his sheep to feed, and foretells his martyrdom, by which Peter fulfils his earlier rash promise.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 123.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Feeding Christ's sheep is the duty of love for him, not of self-love; pastors must seek Christ's interests and, like Peter, be ready to die for the flock.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine poses the puzzle that Peter loved Christ more, while Christ loved John more.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Peter, loving more, figures our present love for God's mercy in our misery; John, loved more, figures the future contemplation of truth, which makes us blessed and for which we wait.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 0Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine explains that during the Easter week he will interrupt the Gospel of John to expound John's First Epistle, which speaks above all of love.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The commandment by which we know God is love, and its perfection is to love even our enemies so that they may become brothers, as Christ prayed for those who crucified him.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The commandment of love is old because it was heard from the beginning, and new because it belongs to the new man, now that the darkness has passed.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Whoever claims to be in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness; love, like a mother, remains anxious even over a new convert.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love for the brothers keeps one from stumbling at Christ or at the Church; schismatics who left the worldwide Church over charges against Africans lack this love.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Knowledge without love does not save; love of the world must be rooted out of the heart so that love of God can be planted there.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love of the world excludes the love of the Father; the newly baptized and all believers must have the root of love, not only the outward form of the sacraments.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Created things are good, but to love them in place of their Creator is like a bride who loves the ring more than the bridegroom who gave it.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Christ was tempted by the devil in the same three ways and answered each from Scripture; we too must resist them and love God, for each person becomes like what he loves.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine proposes that 'does not sin' refers to one particular sin, the breaking of Christ's commandment of love, which binds all other sins, while love looses them.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The sin that one born of God cannot commit is to act against the new commandment of love; love covers the many other sins.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Perfect love is readiness to die for one's brother, as Christ, Stephen, and Paul showed; such love is born, nourished, strengthened, and perfected.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love alone distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil; it is the pearl of great price and the fulfilment of the law, exercised in loving the brother we see.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Cain's envy, which led him to kill Abel, shows that envy is the opposite of love; God accepted Abel's sacrifice because it was offered with love.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love of the brothers is the sign that we have passed from death to life, though that life is still hidden like a tree in winter; whoever hates his brother is a murderer.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down ours for the brothers, as he taught Peter when he told him to feed his sheep and foretold his death.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love begins with giving one's goods to a needy brother and is perfected in laying down one's life; a Christian must show the name by deeds.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love begins with giving from one's abundance to a brother in need and, nourished by God's word and hope, grows to readiness to die for the brothers.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · God, like a physician, gives not what we want but what heals; love itself, poured into our hearts by the Spirit, prays in us and is always heard.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · To confess that Christ came in the flesh is to have the love for which he came and died; schismatics who divide the Church deny it by their deeds, whatever they say.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · This world is like Israel's desert, and love is the spring God has placed there; it is the theme of the whole Epistle and the condition of forgiveness.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Those who are of God listen to the apostle's call to love one another, for love is of God, and God is love; nothing more need be sought.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · God loved us first by sending his Son; the Father, the Son, and Judas all 'delivered up' Christ, but love distinguishes the deed of the Father and Son from Judas's betrayal.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · God, being love, is to be 'seen' not with bodily images but by having love, whose feet, hands, eyes, and ears are works of mercy; this treasure costs nothing.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 8.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love cannot always be spoken of but can always be kept; Christ dwelling within commands the invisible virtues, which move the visible members to good works.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 8.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine asks why John commends only brotherly love while the Lord commands love of enemies, love spreading like fire from the nearest to the furthest.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 8.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · True love is goodwill that wishes the other's good, not to consume him; better that no one needed mercy, for love of an equal is purer than condescending kindness.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 8.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · God is love: whoever abides in love abides in God, who contains us and needs nothing from us, as the true Lord who sought us and adopted us as brothers of his only Son.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine resumes the Epistle after a festal interruption, comparing his hearers to calves eagerly demanding milk, and praises the saying 'God is love'.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Love is perfected when we have confidence on the day of judgment; fear is its beginning, and as love grows, fear of Christ's coming turns into desire for it.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Fear is the beginning that prepares the way for love, as a bristle draws in the thread or a surgeon's knife precedes healing; perfect love then casts out fear.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · God first loved us when we were foul, to make us beautiful by loving him; Christ is both 'fair beyond the sons of men' in his divinity and 'without form' in his humanity, as Paul's Philippians hymn shows.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Whoever loves his brother loves love itself, and so loves God, who is love; the eye cleansed by love will see God, our whole good, whom we should love for himself.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · No one can love God and hate his brother, any more than one can love the emperor and hate his laws; we must hold the unity of the Church and love, with the Spirit as pledge.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The children of God are the members of the one Son, so love of God, of Christ, and of his members in the Church cannot be separated; love fuses them into one like gold in fire.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Avarice demands hard labour for uncertain gain, but God, who asks only to be loved, is always found by those who love him; love is the end and consummation of all our works.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Christ, who is love, is the 'end' of all things in the sense of perfection, not consumption; money, health, honour, and praise are to be passed by on the way to cleaving to God.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · All things short of God are stopping-places on the way; the end is seeing God, and the 'broad commandment' is love, which no one can take away and which delights more than worldly pleasures.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · All the law hangs on love of God and neighbour; love may rebuke and even punish while hatred flatters, so we must look to the root; we love even enemies so that they may become brothers.
On the Christian Life 8Fastidius · ca. 411-430 · God let Israel suffer as strangers in Egypt to teach them mercy toward strangers, orphans and widows; the whole law hangs on love of God and neighbour.
On the Christian Life 9Fastidius · ca. 411-430 · To love God is to keep his commands and live so holily that his name is glorified, not blasphemed, among the gentiles.
On the Christian Life 10Fastidius · ca. 411-430 · To love one's neighbour is not only to avoid evil but to do good; those who neglect works of mercy are condemned, and innocence is what commends us to God.
On the Spirit and the Letter 64Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The command to love God with all one's heart will be fulfilled only in the vision of God; in this life, the one who progresses most is the one who knows how far he is from perfection.
City of God 10.3Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes the true worship of God as the offering of the heart, love, and oneself, and argues that blessed spirits who love us would not wish to be worshipped in God's place.
City of God 11.28Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · We also love the love by which we love; all things seek their place as by a love, and man, as God's image, should return like the prodigal son to God, in whom being, knowing, and loving will be perfected.
City of God 14.6Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The emotions are acts of the will, good or bad according to the will; one who lives according to God hates the fault but loves the person.
City of God 14.7Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Scripture uses amor and dilectio alike for good and bad love, as Christ's questions to Peter show; love is the root of desire, joy, fear, and sadness, which are good or bad as the love is.
City of God 14.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · God, foreknowing the fall, allowed the devil to tempt man, compelling no one, to show the power of pride and of grace; two loves, of self and of God, have made the two cities.
City of God 15.22Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The sons of God (Seth's line) fell by loving the beautiful daughters of men, a disorder of love; Augustine defines virtue as 'the order of love'.
City of God 19.8Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine says that the faithful love of friends is the chief comfort of human society, yet it brings constant fear for their safety and virtue, and grief at their death, which is nevertheless consoled because they have escaped the evils of this life.
City of God 19.14Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains that the earthly city uses temporal things for earthly peace and the heavenly for eternal peace, and that love of God and neighbour produces an ordered household in which those who command actually serve.
City of God 21.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · To have Christ as foundation is to put nothing before him; those who love lawful earthly things without preferring them to Christ are saved “through fire,” the fire of tribulation, while those who live wickedly have no such foundation; Augustine does not rule out a purifying fire for some spirits between death and judgment.
On Nature and Grace 49Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine does not dispute whether perfect love of God is possible, provided it is confessed to come only from a will healed and helped by grace.
On Nature and Grace 83Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine teaches that God's commandments are not impossible but move us to do what is easy and pray for what is hard, and that they become light to love, which is the fulfilling of the law.
On Nature and Grace 84Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine concludes that righteousness grows with love, which at every stage is poured into our hearts not by nature or will but by the Holy Spirit, the grace of God through Christ.
On Patience 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The wicked endure much from desire for the world, which comes from their own will; the righteous endure from the love of God, which the Holy Spirit pours into their hearts.
On Patience 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Since God is love, the love of God cannot be had without God; it is through him, not ourselves, that the saints conquer in persecution.
On Patience 20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Patience comes from the same giver as love; the endurance of worldly desire is a numbness of disease, not health.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · All commandments sum up in love of God and neighbor, forbidding covetousness and commanding love; continence and love are God's gifts, and the law drives us to grace.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The righteous run perfectly but are not yet perfect; the command to love God wholly shows the goal, reached only when desire is gone in the life to come.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The commandments are light only to love, which is poured in by the Holy Spirit; Scripture calls them not burdensome so that those who find them heavy will pray for that gift.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The texts calling the commandments light show that they are light to love, which the Spirit pours in, not to human will alone.
Apologetic Book 31.4Orosius · ca. 415–416 · The great commandments.
Apologetic Book 31.7Orosius · ca. 415–416 · Does he love all Christians as himself?
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.14Augustine of Hippo · 418 · If grace is teaching, it is God's inward teaching that imparts love, so that those taught by God do what they learn; the righteousness 'from God' is given, not commanded.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.22Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Love, which is the good will itself, is from God according to John, so the good will cannot be from ourselves.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.27Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Pelagius should confess that love itself is God's gift, given before any merit, and that without grace no good can be done at all, not merely done less easily.
On Adulterous Marriages 1.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Many good acts are done not from command but from free charity, as Christ paid the tax and Paul gave up his rights; some lawful things are not expedient.
The Institutes 4.39John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Pinufius traces the path from the fear of the Lord through renunciation to humility, gives ten signs of humility, and says humility leads to love that casts out fear.
The Institutes 4.43John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Pinufius sums up the ladder: fear of the Lord, compunction, renunciation, humility, mortification of will, expulsion of vices, virtues, purity of heart, perfect love.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues that the desire for good is love, which is wholly from God, whose mercy both goes before and follows us.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues that righteousness and love of God will be perfected only when God is seen, and that Paul in Philippians 3 confesses he has not yet attained it.
Commonitorium 1.91–120Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · The first commandment, written on stone and renewed by Christ's grace in hearts, is to love God wholly, who made man from clay, gave him body and senses, and made the world and its seasons for him.
Commonitorium 1.151–180Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · God asks nothing for all his gifts but love; the second commandment, to love one's neighbour as oneself, binds all, as even animals care for their own kind.
Commonitorium 1.211–240Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · The golden rule is applied to clothing the naked and feeding the hungry, to false accusation, theft, violence, broken faith, slander, lending, pride and adultery, which leads to the law of equal punishment.
Commonitorium 1.571–600Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · Treasure laid up in heaven is safe; Christ says that what is done to the needy is done to him, and even a cup of cold water or a prayer counts; the Lord also taught all to be joined by the love of peace.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 76Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · True almsgiving begins with mercy to one's own soul through rebirth and the love of God, which the Pharisees neglected while tithing herbs.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 117Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Love, greater than faith and hope, determines whether a person is good; faith working through love asks for what it lacks, for the law commands but only the Spirit's gift of love helps.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 121Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Every commandment and counsel aims at love of God and of neighbor for God's sake; love grows as desire diminishes, and will be perfect when there is no more struggle.
On Grace and Free Will 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · A weak good will becomes strong through love, which God begins by working and completes by cooperating; Augustine gathers the scriptural commendations of love.
On Grace and Free Will 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Love is commanded to free choice, yet it is from God: we love because he first loved us, and the disciples chose Christ because they were chosen, not chosen because they chose.
On Grace and Free Will 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · The Pelagians grant that knowledge of the law is from God but claim love is from themselves; Scripture says both are from God, and love is the greater gift.
The Conferences 1.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Those who renounce great wealth but then quarrel over a pen or a book show that renunciation without love, which is purity of heart, is fruitless.
The Conferences 1.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Fasting, vigils, reading, and poverty are only instruments of perfection; they serve purity of heart, which is love, and must never be kept at the cost of anger or contempt for a brother.
The Conferences 1.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Even the higher spiritual gifts will pass away, but love never fails and will cling to God more intensely in the age to come.
The Conferences 11.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon teaches that people refrain from sin through fear of punishment, hope of reward, or love of goodness itself; the third belongs to God and to those who bear his image.
The Conferences 11.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Using the parable of the prodigal son, Chaeremon describes three stages, slave, hired servant, and son, and urges progress from fear through hope to the love that loves God for himself.
The Conferences 11.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon answers that Scripture calls people to different degrees of perfection; fear and hope are good and lead to blessedness, but love, which surpasses even the spiritual gifts and martyrdom, makes the perfect more perfect.
The Conferences 11.13John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Perfect love produces a higher fear, the loving reverence of a son or friend who dreads only to offend, which Scripture calls a treasure and which filled Christ, unlike the servile fear that love casts out.
The Conferences 16.2John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Joseph lists the ordinary kinds of friendship, from recommendation, contract, shared work, or kinship, shared even by animals and criminals, which do not last because distance, time, or quarrels dissolve them.
The Conferences 16.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The only indissoluble friendship rests on likeness in virtue and a single will; friendships in which one partner is weak or lukewarm break, and true unity is of character, not of place.
The Conferences 16.13John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Love is so divine that John calls it God, and Paul says it is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who prays within us.
The Conferences 16.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Joseph distinguishes agapē, the love owed to all, even enemies, from diathesis, special affection for a few; Jacob’s love for Joseph and Christ’s for John show that love can be ordered without hating anyone.
The Conferences 24.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · As a builder draws an apse from a fixed center, the monk must turn every thought around the love and remembrance of God, or his spiritual house will collapse.
In Praise of the Desert 1Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 427-428 · Eucherius praises Hilary for returning to the desert of Lérins, leaving even Honoratus, whom he had escorted to his bishopric, out of love for God.
Letter to Valerian, paragraph 17Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · Everything the reader admired in the world, magnificence, glory, beauty, truth, generosity, faithfulness, is found supremely in God, who should therefore be loved above all, since everything else that is loved is his.
Letter to Valerian, paragraph 18Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · It is unjust to love God's works and neglect their Maker; loving him is not only pleasant but necessary, for we can never repay him, above all for giving salvation through faith.
Chapter 13Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that seeds of the virtues remain naturally in every soul, arguing that the virtues were lost in Adam and that faith and love are gifts of God, and dismisses the appeal to the Shepherd of Hermas.
Part 2, chapter 3Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Aaron’s anointing and vestments, ephod, stones, breastpiece, girdle, bells, pomegranates, and inscribed plate, figure Christ the anointed priest, his love, the apostles, the gifts of the Spirit, and the Church of every tongue.