Your Holiness remembers that we are accustomed to treat the Gospel according to John in the order of its lections; but because there has now intervened the solemnity of the holy days, on which certain set lections from the Gospel must be read aloud in the Church—lections that recur each year in such a way that no others can take their place—the order that we had taken up has been, by necessity, briefly interrupted, not abandoned.

Now when I was considering what, in keeping with the gladness of these present days, I might take up with you from the Scriptures during this week—so far as the Lord deigns to grant—something that could be finished in these seven or eight days, the Epistle of blessed John came to mind: so that, having briefly set aside his Gospel, we might in treating his Epistle not depart from him; especially because in this Epistle, which is sweet enough to all whose palate of the heart is healthy, where the bread of God may have its savor, and memorable enough in the holy Church of God, it is above all love that is commended. He said much, and nearly everything about love.

Whoever has within himself the wherewithal to hear must needs rejoice at what he hears. For this reading will be to him like oil upon a flame; if there is there something to be nourished, it is nourished, and grows, and abides.

Likewise, for some it must be like flame applied to kindling: so that if it was not burning, it may be kindled by the coming of the word. For in some, what is there is nourished; in some, what is lacking is kindled—so that we may all rejoice in one love. But where there is love, there is peace; and where there is humility, there is love.

Let us now listen to him himself; and to his words, which the Lord supplies, let us speak also to you, that you may understand them well.

1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life (1 John 1:1). Who is it that handles the Word with his hands, unless because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14)? Now this Word that was made flesh, that it might be handled with hands, began to be flesh of the Virgin Mary; but the Word did not then begin, for he said that which was from the beginning.

See whether his Epistle does not bear witness to his Gospel, where you just now heard: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (John 1:1). Perhaps someone might take what is said about the Word of life as though it were a manner of speaking about Christ, and not the very body of Christ that was handled with hands. See what follows: And the life was made manifest (1 John 1:2). Christ, then, is the Word of life. And whence was he made manifest? For he was from the beginning, but he had not been made manifest to men; he had, however, been made manifest to the angels, who beheld him and fed upon him as upon their own bread. But what does Scripture say?

Man ate the bread of angels (Ps 78:25). So life itself was made manifest in the flesh; for it was set forth in manifestation, so that what can be seen by the heart alone might be seen also with the eyes, that it might heal hearts. For the Word is seen by the heart alone; but flesh is seen also with the bodily eyes. We had the means to see the flesh, but not the means to see the Word: the Word was made flesh, which we could see, so that there might be healed in us that whereby we might see the Word.

2. And we have seen, and are witnesses (1 John 1:2). Perhaps some of the brethren who do not know Greek do not know what witnesses are in Greek; yet the word is familiar to all and is held in reverence: for those whom in Latin we call witnesses are in Greek martyrs. And who has not heard of martyrs, or in whose Christian mouth does the name of the martyrs not dwell daily? And would that it dwelt likewise in the heart, so that we might imitate the sufferings of the martyrs, and not persecute them with our heels.

This, then, is what he said: We have seen, and are witnesses: we have seen, and are martyrs. For in bearing testimony to what they had seen, and bearing testimony to what they had heard from those who had seen, when that very testimony displeased the men against whom it was spoken, they suffered all that the martyrs suffered. The martyrs are God's witnesses. God willed to have men as witnesses, so that men too might have God as their witness.

We have seen, he says, and are witnesses. Where did they see? In the manifestation. What is meant by, in the manifestation? In the sun, that is, in this light. But how could he who made the sun be seen in the sun, unless because in the sun he set his tabernacle, and he himself, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced like a giant to run his course (Ps 19:5 (18:6))?

He who is before the sun, who made the sun; he who is before the morning star, before all the stars, before all the angels, the true Creator—since all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:3)—that he might be seen with the eyes of flesh by those who see the sun;

he set his tabernacle in the sun, that is, he showed his flesh in the manifestation of this light; and the chamber of that bridegroom was the womb of the Virgin, for in that virginal womb two were joined, bridegroom and bride, the bridegroom Word and the bride flesh;

for it is written: And the two shall be in one flesh (Gen 2:24); and the Lord says in the Gospel: So they are no longer two, but one flesh (Matt 19:6). And Isaiah remembers well that these two are one: for he speaks in the person of Christ, and says: As on a bridegroom he set a miter upon me, and as a bride he adorned me with ornament (Isa 61:10).

One seems to be speaking, and he made himself bridegroom and made himself bride; for they are no longer two, but one flesh: because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. To that flesh the Church is joined, and there comes to be the whole Christ, head and body.

3. And we are witnesses, he says, and we declare to you eternal life, which was with the Father, and was made manifest among us (1 John 1:2-3): that is, was made manifest among us; which would be put more plainly, was made manifest to us. What therefore we have seen and heard, we declare to you. Let your Charity attend: What therefore we have seen and heard, we declare to you. They saw the Lord himself present in the flesh, and heard words from the mouth of the Lord, and declared them to us. We too, then, have heard, but we have not seen. Are we then less blessed than those who saw and heard? And how does he add: That you also may have fellowship with us?

They saw, we did not see, and yet we are fellows; because we hold a common faith. For one man too, by seeing, did not believe, and wished to touch, and so to believe, and said: I will not believe unless I put my fingers into the place of the nails, and touch his scars. And he who ever offers himself to be seen by the gaze of the angels offered himself for a time to be touched by the hands of men; and that disciple touched him and cried out: My Lord and my God. Because he touched the man, he confessed God.

And the Lord, consoling us who cannot now handle with the hand him who is seated in heaven, but can touch him by faith, said to that man: Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are they who do not see and believe (John 20:25-29). We are described, we are designated.

Let there come to be in us, then, the blessedness that the Lord foretold would be: let us hold firmly what we do not see, because they declare it who saw. That you also, he says, may have fellowship with us. And what great thing is it to have fellowship with men?

Do not despise it; see what he adds: And our fellowship may be with God the Father, and Jesus Christ his Son. And these things, he says, we write to you, that your joy may be full (1 John 1:3-4). He calls the joy full in that very fellowship, in that very love, in that very unity.

4. And this is the announcement which we have heard from him, and announce to you (1 John 1:5). What is this? They themselves saw, they handled with their hands the Word of life: he was from the beginning, and for a time the only Son of God was made visible and able to be touched.

For what did he come, or what new thing did he announce to us? What did he wish to teach? Why did he do what he did, that the Word should be made flesh, that God should suffer from men things unworthy beyond all measure, that he should endure their blows from the hands he himself had formed? What did he wish to teach? What did he wish to show? What did he wish to announce?

Let us listen: for without the fruit of a precept, the hearing of an event—that Christ was born, and that Christ suffered—is a diversion of the mind, not its strengthening. What great thing do you hear? See with what fruit you hear it. What did he wish to teach? What to announce? Listen: That God is light, he says, and in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5; see John 8:12).

So far he has indeed named light, but the words are obscure: it is good for us that the very light he named should illumine our hearts, and that we may see what he said. This is what we announce, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. For who would dare to say that there is darkness in God? Or what is this light itself? Or what is darkness? Lest perhaps he should say such things as pertain to these eyes of ours. God is light: someone or other says, The sun too is light, and the moon is light, and a lamp is light. It must be something far greater than these, far more excellent, far more surpassing. As far as God is above the creature, as far as the maker is above what is made, as far as wisdom is above what was made through wisdom, so far beyond all things must this light be. And perhaps we shall be near to it, if we come to know what this light is, and apply ourselves to it, that we may be enlightened from it; for in ourselves we are darkness, and enlightened from it we can be light, and not be confounded by it, since by ourselves we are confounded. Who is it that is confounded over himself? He who knows himself a sinner. Who is not confounded by it? He who is enlightened by it. What is it to be enlightened by it? He who now sees himself darkened by sins, and longs to be enlightened by it, comes to it: whence the Psalm says: Draw near to him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not blush (Ps 34:5 (33:6)). But you will not blush over it, if, when it has shown you to yourself in your foulness, your foulness displeases you, so that you may take hold of its beauty. This is what he wishes to teach.

5. And perhaps we say that too hastily? Let him himself make it manifest in what follows. Remember, at the beginning of our discourse, that this Epistle commends love: God is light, he says, and in him there is no darkness at all. And what had he said above? That you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Further, if God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all, and we are to have fellowship with him, then the darkness must be driven from us, that light may come to be in us; for darkness cannot have fellowship with light: therefore see what follows: But if we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie (1 John 1:5, 3). You have the apostle Paul too saying: Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Cor 6:14) You say you have fellowship with God, and you walk in darkness; and God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all: how then is there fellowship between light and darkness?

So now let a man say to himself: What shall I do? Whence shall I be light? I live in sins and in iniquities. As it were, a certain despair and sadness creeps in. There is no salvation except in fellowship with God. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. But sins are darkness, as the Apostle says that the devil and his angels are the rulers of this darkness (See Eph 6:12).

He would not call them rulers of darkness, were they not rulers of sins, lords of the wicked. What then are we to do, my brethren? Fellowship with God must be had, there is no other hope of eternal life; but God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all: yet iniquities are darkness; we are weighed down by iniquities, so that we cannot have fellowship with God: what hope, then, is there? Had I not promised that I would speak something in these days that would bring joy? And if I do not present it, this is sadness. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all; sins are darkness: what will become of us?

Let us listen, in case perhaps he consoles us, raises us up, gives us hope, lest we fail on the way. For we are running, and running to our homeland; and if we despair of arriving, by that very despair we fail.

But he who wills us to arrive, that he may keep us safe in the homeland, feeds us on the way. Let us listen, then: But if we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness; we lie, and do not the truth.

Let us not say that we have fellowship with him, if we walk in darkness. But if we walk in the light, as he also is in the light; we have fellowship with one another (1 John 1:7). Let us walk in the light, as he also is in the light, that we may be able to have fellowship with him. And what are we to do about sins?

Hear what follows: And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son will cleanse us from every sin. God has given great assurance.

Rightly do we celebrate the Pasch, where the blood of the Lord was poured out, by which we are cleansed from every sin. Let us be secure: the devil held the bond of our servitude against us, but it has been blotted out by the blood of Christ. The blood, he says, of his Son will cleanse us from every sin. What is, from every sin (1 John 1:7; see Heb 9:14; Rev 1:5).

Attend: behold, now in the name of Christ, through his blood, which these who are called infants have now confessed, all their sins have been cleansed. They entered old, they went out new. What is, they entered old, they went out new? They entered as old men, they went out as infants. For old age is a worn-out, aged life; but the infancy of regeneration is a new life. But what are we to do? Past sins have been forgiven, not only to them, but also to us; and after the forgiveness and abolition of all sins, by living in this world amid temptations, certain ones have perhaps been contracted. Therefore let a man do what he can; let him confess what he is, that he may be cured by him who ever is what he is: for he always was and is; we were not, and are.

6. See, then, what he says: But if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Therefore, if you confess yourself a sinner, the truth is in you: for truth itself is light. Your life has not yet shone forth perfectly, because sins are present; but nevertheless you have already begun to be enlightened, because the confession of sins is present.

See, then, what follows: But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity (1 John 1:8-9). Not only past sins, but also any we have perhaps contracted from this life; for a man, so long as he bears the flesh, cannot but have at least slight sins. But do not despise these that we call slight. If you despise them when you weigh them, be terrified when you count them. Many slight things make one great one: many drops fill a river; many grains make a heap. And what hope is there? Before all things, confession: lest anyone think himself just, and the man who was not, and is, lift up his neck before the eyes of God, who sees what he is. Before all things, then, confession; then love: for what has been said about love? Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8).

Let us now see whether he commends love itself, on account of the sins that creep in: for love alone extinguishes sins. Pride extinguishes love: humility, then, strengthens love; love extinguishes sins. Humility pertains to confession, by which we confess that we are sinners:

this is humility, not that we say it with the tongue alone—as though, on account of arrogance, lest we displease men if we say we are just. The impious and the insane do this: I know indeed that I am just, but what shall I say before men? if I say I am just, who will bear it, who will tolerate it?

before God let my righteousness be known: I, however, will call myself a sinner; not because I am, but lest I be found hateful through arrogance. Tell men what you are, tell God what you are. For if you do not tell God what you are, God condemns what he finds in you.

Do you not wish him to condemn it? Then you condemn it. Do you wish him to pardon it? Then acknowledge it, so that you can say to God: Turn away your face from my sins. Say to him also those words in the same Psalm: For I acknowledge my iniquity (Ps 51:9, 3 (50:11, 5)).

But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. But if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:9-10). If you say, I have not sinned, you make him a liar, when you wish to make yourself truthful. How then can it be that God is a liar, and man truthful, when Scripture says the contrary: Every man is a liar, God alone is truthful (Rom 3:4)? God, therefore, is truthful through himself; you are truthful through God, for through yourself you are a liar.

7. And lest he seem perhaps to have given impunity to sins, because he said: He is faithful and just, to cleanse us from all iniquity; and men should now say to themselves: Let us sin, let us securely do what we will, Christ cleanses us, he is faithful and just, he cleanses us from all iniquity—he takes from you a bad security, and instills a useful fear. You wish wrongly to be secure; be anxious.

For he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, if you always displease yourself, and are changed until you are made perfect. Therefore, what follows? My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But perhaps sin creeps in from human life: what then is to be done? What? Will there now be despair? Listen: And if anyone, he says, has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2).

He, then, is the advocate; you, take pains not to sin: if, through the weakness of life, sin should creep in, see to it at once, let it at once displease you, condemn it at once; and when you have condemned it, you will come secure to the judge. There you have an advocate; do not fear that you will lose the case of your confession. For if sometimes in this life a man entrusts himself to an eloquent tongue, and does not perish, will you entrust yourself to the Word, and be doomed to perish? Cry out: We have an advocate with the Father.

8. See John himself preserving humility. Surely he was a just and great man, who drank the secrets of the mysteries from the breast of the Lord; he, he who by drinking from the breast of the Lord poured forth the divinity: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (John 1:1): such a man as he did not say: You have an advocate with the Father; but: If anyone has sinned, we have, he says, an advocate. He did not say, you have; nor did he say, you have me; nor did he say, you have Christ himself: but he both set down Christ, not himself, and said we have, not, you have.

He preferred to place himself in the number of sinners, that he might have Christ as advocate, rather than to set himself up as advocate in place of Christ, and be found among the proud who are to be condemned. Brethren, Jesus Christ the just, him we have as advocate with the Father; he is the propitiation for our sins. Whoever held to this made no heresy; whoever held to this made no schism. For whence have schisms been made? When men say: We are just; when men say: We sanctify the unclean, we justify the impious, we ask, we obtain. But what did John say? And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just.

But someone will say: Do the saints, then, not ask for us? Do the bishops and prelates, then, not ask for the people? But attend to the Scriptures, and see that the prelates too commend themselves to the people.

For the Apostle says to the people: Praying at the same time for us also (Col 4:3). The Apostle prays for the people, the people pray for the Apostle. We pray for you, brethren: but you also pray for us.

Let all the members pray in turn for one another; let the head intercede for all. Therefore it is no wonder that here he follows on, and shuts the mouths of those who divide the Church of God.

For he who said: We have Jesus Christ the just, and he is the propitiation for our sins: on account of those who were going to divide and to say: Behold, here is Christ, behold, there (Matt 24:23); and would wish to show in a part him who bought the whole and possesses the whole; he at once went on: Not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:2).

What is this, brethren? Surely we found her in the fields of the wood (Ps 132:6 (131:6)), we found the Church in all nations. Behold, Christ is the propitiation for our sins; not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Behold, you have the Church throughout the whole world; do not follow false justifiers and true cutters-off. Be on that mountain which filled the whole world (See Dan 2:35): for Christ is the propitiation for our sins; not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world, which he purchased with his blood.

9. And by this, he says, we know him, if we keep his commandments. What commandments? He who says that he has known him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and in him there is no truth. But you still ask: What commandments? But he who, he says, keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made perfect (1 John 2:3-5).

Let us see whether the commandment itself be called love. For we were asking, what commandments, and he says: But he who keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made perfect.

Attend to the Gospel, whether this is not the commandment: A new commandment, he says, I give to you, that you love one another (John 13:34). By this we know that we are in him, if we are made perfect in him (1 John 2:5). He calls them perfect in love: what is the perfection of love?

To love even enemies, and to love them to this end, that they may be brothers. For our love ought not to be carnal. To wish someone temporal welfare is good; but even if it is lacking, let the soul be safe. Do you wish life for some friend of yours? You do well. Do you rejoice at the death of your enemy? You do ill.

But perhaps even for your friend the life you wish him is useless, and for your enemy the death over which you rejoice was useful. It is uncertain whether this life is useful to someone or useless; but the life that is with God is, without doubt, useful.

Love your enemies in such a way that you wish them to be brothers; love your enemies in such a way that they may be called into your fellowship.

For so did he love who, hanging on the cross, said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

For he did not say: Father, let these live a long time; they indeed kill me, but let them live. But what did he say? Forgive them, for they know not what they do. He was driving everlasting death away from them, by a most merciful prayer and a most surpassing power.

Many of them believed, and the blood of Christ that had been shed was forgiven them. First they shed it when they raged, now they drank it when they believed. By this we know that we are in him, if we are made perfect in him. Admonishing us of this very perfection of loving enemies, the Lord says: Be therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father also is perfect (Matt 5:48).

He therefore who says that he abides in him, ought himself also to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:6). How, brethren? Of what does he admonish us? He who says that he abides in him, that is, in Christ, ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Does he perhaps admonish us of this, that we should walk on the sea? God forbid.

This, then: that we should walk in the way of righteousness. In what way? I have already mentioned it. He was fixed on the cross, and was walking in that very way: that is the way of love: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So then, if you have learned to pray for your enemy, you walk the way of the Lord.

10. Most beloved, it is not a new commandment that I write to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. What did he call an old commandment? Which you had, he says, from the beginning. It is old, then, because you have already heard it: otherwise he will be contrary to the Lord, where he says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. But why an old commandment? Not because it pertains to the old man. But why? Which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard (1 John 2:7).

It is old, then, because you have already heard it. And he shows the same to be new, saying: Again a new commandment I write to you. Not another, but the very same that he called old is also new. Why? Which is true in him and in you. Why it is old, you have already heard; because you already knew it.

But why is it new? Because the darkness has passed away, and the true light now shines (1 John 2:8; see John 13:34). Behold whence it is new: because darkness pertains to the old man, but light to the new. What does the apostle Paul say? Put off the old man, and put on the new (Col 3:9-10). And again, what does he say? You were once darkness; but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8).

11. He who says that he is in the light; now he makes manifest all that he has said: He who says that he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now (1 John 2:9). Come now, my brethren, how long shall we say to you: Love your enemies (Matt 5:44)? See, what is worse, that you do not still hate your brothers. If you loved only your brothers, you would not yet be perfect:

but if you hate your brothers, what are you? where are you? Let each one look back upon his own heart: let him not hold hatred against a brother over some harsh word; over a contention for land, lest he himself become land. For whoever hates his brother, let him not say that he walks in the light. What did I say? Let him not say that he walks in Christ. He who says that he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now.

For someone or other has become a Christian from being a pagan; attend: behold, he was in darkness when he was a pagan; now he has already become a Christian; thanks be to God, all rejoice with him: the Apostle is read aloud, rejoicing. For you were once darkness; but now you are light in the Lord.

He used to worship idols, he worships God; he used to worship what he made, he worships him who made him. He has been changed; thanks be to God, all Christians rejoice with him. Why? Because he is now a worshiper of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and a detester of demons and idols. Yet John is anxious about this man; while many rejoice with him, he is still under suspicion.

Brethren, let us gladly embrace this motherly anxiety. Not without cause is the mother anxious about us, when others rejoice: I mean the mother love; for she dwelt in the heart of John when he said these things. Why, unless because she fears something in us, even when men already rejoice with us? What is it that she fears? He who says that he is in the light. What is this? He who now says that he is a Christian: and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now. Which is not to be explained; but which is to be rejoiced over if it does not happen, or to be mourned if it does.

12. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in him (1 John 2:10; see John 13:34). I beseech you through Christ; God feeds us, we are to refresh our bodies in the name of Christ, and they have been somewhat refreshed, and are to be refreshed; let our mind be fed. I do not say it because I am going to speak long; for behold, the reading is now coming to an end: but lest perhaps from weariness we listen less attentively to what is most necessary.

He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in him. Who are they that suffer stumbling, or cause it? Those who are scandalized at Christ and at the Church. Those who are scandalized at Christ are scorched as by the sun; those who at the Church, as by the moon. But the Psalm says: By day the sun shall not scorch you, nor the moon by night (Ps 121:6 (120:6)): that is: If you hold fast to love, you will suffer no stumbling either in Christ or in the Church; you will forsake neither Christ nor the Church. For he who forsakes the Church, how is he in Christ, who is not among the members of Christ? how is he in Christ, who is not in the body of Christ? They, then, suffer stumbling who forsake either Christ or the Church. Whence do we understand that the Psalm said for this reason: By day the sun shall not scorch you, nor the moon by night, namely that it wishes the scorching itself to be understood as stumbling? First attend to the comparison itself. As he who is scorched says: I cannot bear it, I cannot endure it, and withdraws himself: so those who cannot endure certain things in the Church, and withdraw themselves either from the name of Christ or from the Church, suffer stumbling.

For see how those carnal men suffered stumbling, as it were from the sun, to whom Christ preached his flesh, and said: He who does not eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, shall not have life in him. About seventy men said: This is a hard saying; and they withdrew from him: and there remained twelve. The sun scorched all those, and they withdrew, not able to bear the force of the word. There remained, then, twelve. And lest perhaps men should think that they confer a benefit on Christ by believing in Christ, and that the benefit is not conferred on them by him; when the twelve had remained, the Lord said to them: Do you also wish to go? That you may know that I am necessary to you, not you to me. But those whom the sun had not scorched answered through the voice of Peter: Lord, you have the word of eternal life; to whom shall we go? (John 6:54, 61, 68, 69)

But whom does the Church scorch, as the moon by night? Those who have made schisms. Hear the very word set down in the Apostle: Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I am not scorched? (2 Cor 11:29) How, then, is there no stumbling-block in him who loves his brother? Because he who loves his brother endures all things for the sake of unity; for in the unity of love is brotherly love. Someone or other offends you, whether bad, or as you think bad, or as you imagine bad, and you desert so many good men?

What sort of brotherly love is it, what sort appeared in these men? When they accuse the Africans, they have deserted the whole world. Were there no saints in the whole world? Or could they be condemned by you unheard? But O if you loved the brethren, there would be no stumbling-block in you. Hear what the Psalm says: Great peace have they who love your law, and there is no stumbling-block to them (Ps 119:165 (118:165)).

He spoke of great peace to those who love the law of God, and that for this reason there is no stumbling-block to them. They, then, who suffer stumbling lose peace. And whom did he say suffer no stumbling, or cause none? Those who love the law of God. Therefore they are set in love. But someone says: He spoke of those who love the law of God, not the brethren. Hear what the Lord says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. What is the law, but a commandment? But how do they suffer no stumbling, except while they bear with one another? As Paul says: Bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:2-3). And because this is the law of Christ, hear the same Apostle commending this very law: Bear, he says, one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2).

13. For he who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes. A great matter, brethren; attend, we beg you. He who hates his brother walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes; for the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:11).

What is so blind as those who hate the brethren? For, that you may know they are blind, they have stumbled against the mountain. I say the same things, lest they slip from you. Is not that stone which was cut from the mountain without hands Christ, from the kingdom of the Jews without marital work? Did not that stone shatter all the kingdoms of the earth, that is, all the dominions of idols and demons? Did not that stone grow, and become a great mountain, and fill the whole world (See Dan 2:35)?

Do we point out this mountain with the finger, the way the third-day moon is pointed out to men? For instance, when men wish to see the new moon, they say: Behold the moon, behold where it is: and if there are there those who cannot direct their gaze, and say: Where? the finger is pointed out to them so that they may see. Sometimes, while they blush lest they be thought blind, they say they have seen what they have not seen. Do we point out the Church in this way, my brethren? Is it not open? is it not manifest? has it not taken hold of all nations? Is not that being fulfilled which so many years ago was promised to Abraham, that in his seed all nations should be blessed (See Gen 22:18)?

To one believer it was promised, and with thousands of believers the world has been filled. Behold the mountain filling the whole face of the earth: behold the city of which it was said: A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden (Matt 5:14). But they stumble against the mountain.

And when it is said to them: Climb up; There is no mountain, they say; and they more easily dash their face there than seek a dwelling there. Isaiah was read yesterday; whoever of you was watchful, not with the eyes only, but with the ear, and not the ear of the body, but the ear of the heart, took note: It shall be in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be made manifest, prepared on the top of the mountains.

What is so manifest as a mountain? But there are also mountains that are unknown, because they are set in one part of the earth. Which of you knows Mount Olympus? Just as those who live there do not know our Giddaba. These mountains are in particular regions. But that mountain is not so, because it has filled the whole face of the earth; and of it is said: Prepared on the top of the mountains.

It is a mountain above the tops of all the mountains. And there shall be gathered, he says, to it all nations (Isa 2:2). Who goes astray on this mountain? Who breaks his face by stumbling against it? Who is ignorant of the city set upon the mountain? But do not wonder that it is unknown to those who hate the brethren: because they walk in darkness, and do not know where they go; because the darkness has blinded their eyes.

They do not see the mountain: do not wonder, they have no eyes. Whence have they no eyes? Because the darkness has blinded them.

Whence do we prove it? Because they hate the brethren, because, when they are offended at the Africans, they separate themselves from the whole world

because for the peace of Christ they do not bear with those whom they defame, and for the party of Donatus they bear with those whom they condemn.

1. All things that are read from the holy Scriptures we ought to hear attentively, for our instruction and salvation. Yet most of all are those things to be committed to memory which avail most against the heretics; whose snares do not cease to ensnare the weaker and more negligent. Remember that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ both died for us and rose again; he died, that is, on account of our sins, and rose again on account of our justification (See Rom 4:25).

As you just now heard that the eyes of the two disciples whom he found on the road were held, that they might not recognize him: and he found them despairing of the redemption that was in Christ, and supposing that he had now suffered and died, like a man, and not thinking that, as the Son of God, he ever lives; and that he had so died in the flesh as not to come to life again, but was like one of the Prophets: as you, who were attentive a little while ago, heard their words.

Then he opened to them the Scriptures, beginning from Moses through all the Prophets, showing them that all the things he had suffered had been foretold; lest they be the more disturbed if the Lord had risen, and the more disbelieve him, if these things had not been foretold of him beforehand. For the firmness of faith lies in this, that all the things that happened in Christ were foretold. The disciples, then, did not recognize him except in the breaking of the bread. And truly, whoever does not eat and drink judgment to himself recognizes Christ in the breaking of the bread.

Afterward the eleven too thought they were seeing a spirit. He who offered himself to be crucified offered himself to be touched; to be crucified by enemies, to be touched by friends: yet the physician of all, both of the impiety of the former and of the unbelief of the latter. For you heard, when the Acts of the Apostles were read, how many thousands believed from among the slayers of Christ (See Acts 2:41). If those who had killed him believed afterward, were those who doubted a little not going to believe?

And yet to them too (which you ought most of all to mark, and to commit to your memory, namely that against insidious errors God willed to set a foundation in the Scriptures, against which no one dares to speak who wishes in any way to seem a Christian), when he had offered himself to be touched, it did not suffice him unless he confirmed the heart of the believers from the Scriptures: for he was looking ahead to us who were to come; in whom we do not have what we may touch, but we have what we may read.

For if they believed for this reason, that they held and touched, what shall we do? Christ has now ascended into heaven, he is not to come except at the end, to judge the living and the dead: whence are we to believe, except whence he willed even them, though they touched, to be confirmed?

For he opened to them the Scriptures, and showed them that Christ had to suffer, and that all things had to be fulfilled which are written of him in the law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms. He embraced the whole ancient text of the Scriptures. Whatever there is of those Scriptures sounds forth Christ; but only if it find ears. And he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. Whence this too must be prayed for by us, that he himself may open our understanding.

2. But what did the Lord show to be written of himself in the law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms? what did he show? Let him say it himself. The Evangelist set this down briefly, so that we might know what, in so great a breadth of the Scriptures, we ought to believe and understand. Surely there are many pages, and many books, and they all have this which the Lord said briefly to his disciples.

What is this? That Christ had to suffer, and to rise again on the third day (See Luke 9:22; 24:7; Matt 16:21; 17:23; Mark 8:31; 9:31). You have now, concerning the bridegroom, that Christ had to suffer and to rise again. The bridegroom has been commended to us. Of the bride let us see what he says; that you, when you have come to know bridegroom and bride, may not come to the wedding without cause. For the celebration of the wedding is the whole celebration: the wedding of the Church is celebrated.

The son of the king is to take a wife, and the son of the king is himself king: and those who attend, they themselves are the bride. Not as in carnal weddings, where some attend the wedding and another is married; in the Church those who attend, if they attend well, become the bride.

For the whole Church is the bride of Christ, whose beginning and firstfruits is the flesh of Christ: there the bride was joined to the bridegroom in the flesh. Rightly, when he commended that flesh, did he break bread; and rightly in the breaking of the bread were the eyes of the disciples opened, and they recognized him.

What, then, did the Lord say was written of himself in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms? That Christ had to suffer. If he had not added, and to rise again, rightly would they mourn whose eyes were held; but it was foretold also that he would rise again. And why this? why did Christ have to suffer and to rise again? On account of that psalm which we commended to you most of all, on the fourth day of the week, at the first station of the last week. Why did Christ have to suffer and to rise again? For this reason: All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight (Ps 22:27 (21:28)). For, that you may know that Christ had to suffer and to rise again; and here too what did he add, so that, after the commendation of the bridegroom, he might commend also the bride? And that there be preached, he says, in his name repentance and the remission of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47).

You have heard, brethren, hold it fast. Let no one doubt of the Church, that it is among all nations; let no one doubt that it began from Jerusalem, and filled all nations. We recognize the field where the vine was planted: but when it has grown, we do not recognize it, because it has occupied the whole. Whence did it begin? From Jerusalem. Where did it arrive? At all nations.

A few remain, it will hold all. Meanwhile, while it holds all, certain useless shoots seemed to the farmer to need cutting off; and they made heresies and schisms.

Let not the things that have been cut off lead you, so that you too be cut off; rather, exhort the things that have been cut off, that they may be grafted in again.

It is manifest that Christ suffered, rose again, and ascended into heaven: manifest too is the Church, since in his name repentance and the remission of sins are preached among all nations. Whence did it begin? Beginning from Jerusalem. The fool hears, the empty man, and—what more shall I say than the blind man, who does not see so great a mountain; who closes his eyes against the lamp set on the lampstand?

3. When we say to them: If you are Catholic Christians, be in communion with that Church from which the Gospel is spread throughout the whole world; be in communion with that Jerusalem—when we say this to them, they answer us: We are not in communion with that city where our king was killed, where our Lord was killed: as though they hated the city where our Lord was killed.

The Jews killed him whom they found on earth, these men blow away with contempt him who sits in heaven. Which are worse, those who despised him because they thought him a man, or those who blow away his sacraments, whom they now confess to be God? But they hate, of course, the city in which their Lord was killed. Pious and merciful men, they grieve much that Christ was killed, and they kill Christ in men! But he loved that city, and had mercy on it: thence he said his preaching began: Beginning from Jerusalem. There he made the beginning of the preaching of his name: and do you shudder at communion with that city? It is no wonder if, being cut off, you have come to hate the root. What does he say to his disciples? Be seated in the city, because I send my promise upon you (Luke 24:47-49).

Behold what city they hate. Perhaps they would love it, if the Jews, the slayers of Christ, dwelt in it. For it is manifest that all the slayers of Christ, that is, the Jews, were expelled from that city. The city that had men raging against Christ now has men adoring Christ. For this reason these men hate it, because there are Christians in it. There he willed his disciples to sit, and there to send them the Holy Spirit. Where was the Church begun, except where the Holy Spirit came from heaven, and filled the hundred and twenty sitting in one place?

That number twelve had been multiplied tenfold. A hundred and twenty men were sitting, and the Holy Spirit came, and filled the whole place, and there came a sound, as if a violent blast were borne along, and tongues as of fire were divided. You heard the Acts of the Apostles, that very lection was read today: They began to speak in tongues, as the Spirit gave them to utter (See Acts 1:5; 2:1-12). And all who were present there, Jews coming from various nations, each one recognized his own tongue; and they marveled that those uneducated and unskilled men had suddenly learned, not one or two tongues, but those of absolutely all nations.

Where, then, all tongues were now sounding, all tongues were shown to be about to believe. But these men, who love Christ much, and therefore are unwilling to be in communion with the city that killed Christ, so honor Christ that they say he has remained confined to two tongues, the Latin and the Punic, that is, the African. Does Christ hold only two tongues? For these two tongues alone are in the party of Donatus, they have no more.

Let us awake, brethren, let us rather see the gift of the Spirit of God, and believe the things foretold of it, and see fulfilled the things that were foretold in the Psalm: There are no utterances nor words, whose voices are not heard (Ps 19:3 (18:4)). And lest perhaps the tongues themselves came to one place, and not rather the gift of Christ came to all tongues, hear what follows: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps 19:4 (18:5)).

Why this? Because in the sun he set his tabernacle (Ps 19:4 (18:6)), that is, in the open. His tabernacle, his flesh; his tabernacle, his Church: it is set in the sun, it is not in the night, but in the day. But why do they not recognize it? Return to the reading at which the end was made yesterday, and see why they do not recognize it: He who hates his brother walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes; for the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:11). Let us, then, see what follows, and not be in darkness. Whence shall we not be in darkness? If we love the brethren. Whence is it proved that we love the brotherhood? Because we do not rend unity, because we hold fast to love.

4. I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you through his name (1 John 2:12). Little children, then, because, your sins being forgiven, you are born. But through whose name are sins forgiven? Surely not through Augustine's? Then neither through the name of Donatus (1 Cor 1:13). You see who Augustine is, or who Donatus is: neither through the name of Paul, nor through the name of Peter.

For to those dividing the Church among themselves, and trying to make parties out of unity, the mother love, giving birth to little ones in the Apostle, lays bare her inmost being, in a manner rends open her breasts with words, weeps over the children she sees carried out, calls back to one name those who wished to make many names for themselves, drives them away from love of her so that Christ may be loved, and says: Was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 John 2:13) What does she say? I do not wish you to be mine, but to be with me: be with me; we are all his who died for us, who was crucified for us: whence here too: Your sins are forgiven you through his name, not through the name of any man.

5. I write to you, fathers. Why first children? Because your sins are forgiven you through his name, and you are regenerated into a new life, therefore children. Why fathers? Because you have known him who is from the beginning (John 1:3): for the beginning pertains to fatherhood. Christ is new in the flesh, but ancient in his divinity. How ancient do we suppose? of how many years? Do we suppose him greater than his mother? Greater plainly than his mother: for all things were made through him (John 8:58).

If all things, then the Ancient One made even the mother herself, of whom the new one would be born. Do we suppose him before the mother alone? He is ancient also before the mother's forefathers. Abraham is the forefather of his mother; and the Lord says: Before Abraham I am (John 8:58). Do we say, before Abraham?

Heaven and earth were made before man existed. Before these the Lord was, nay rather, is. For he excellently did not say: Before Abraham I was; but: Before Abraham I am. For what is said to have been, is not; and what is said to be going to be, is not yet: he knows nothing but to be.

Inasmuch as he is God, he knows being; he does not know to have been and to be going to be. There is there one day, but everlasting. They do not place that day in the middle between yesterday and tomorrow: for, yesterday being ended, today, beginning, will be ended when tomorrow comes. That one day is there without darkness, without night, without intervals, without measure, without hours.

Call it what you will: if you will, it is a day; if you will, it is a year; if you will, it is years. For it is said of him: And your years shall not fail (Ps 102:27 (101:28)). But when was it called a day? When it was said to the Lord: This day I have begotten you (Ps 2:7). Begotten of the eternal Father, begotten from eternity, begotten in eternity: with no beginning, no end, no span of breadth; for he is what he is, for he is he who is.

This name of his he told to Moses: You shall say to them: He who is has sent me to you (Exod 3:14). What, then, before Abraham? what before Noah? what before Adam? Hear the Scripture: Before the morning star I begot you (Ps 110:3 (109:3)).

Lastly, before heaven and earth. Why? Because all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:3). Therefore, fathers, take notice: for men become fathers by knowing what is from the beginning.

6. I write to you, young men. They are children, they are fathers, they are young men; children, because they are born; fathers, because they know the beginning: but why young men? Because you have conquered the evil one (1 John 2:13). In children, birth; in fathers, antiquity; in young men, strength. If the evil one is conquered by young men, he fights against us.

He fights, but he does not vanquish. Why? Because we are strong, or because he is strong in us who was found weak in the hands of his persecutors? He made us strong who did not resist his persecutors. For he was crucified out of weakness, but he lives by the power of God (2 Cor 13:4).

7. I write to you, boys. Whence boys? Because you have known the Father (1 John 2:14). I write to you, fathers: he commends this, and repeats it: Because you have known him who is from the beginning. Remember that you are fathers:

if you forget him who is from the beginning, you have lost your fatherhood. I write to you, young men. Again and again consider that you are young men: fight, that you may conquer; conquer, that you may be crowned; be humble, lest you fall in the fight. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have conquered the evil one (1 John 2:14).

8. All these things, brethren—that we have known what is from the beginning, that we are strong, that we have known the Father: do all these commend, as it were, knowledge, and not commend love? If we have come to know, let us love: for knowledge without love has not saved. Knowledge puffs up, love builds up (1 Cor 8:1).

If you wish to confess and not to love, you begin to be like the demons. The demons confessed the Son of God, and said: What have we to do with you? (Matt 8:29) and they were driven back. Confess, and embrace. For they feared on account of their own iniquities; you, love the forgiver of your iniquities.

But how shall we be able to love God, if we love the world? He prepares us, then, to be inhabited by love. There are two loves, of the world and of God: if love of the world dwells there, there is no way for love of God to enter: let love of the world withdraw, and let love of God dwell; let the better take its place. You used to love the world, do not love the world: when you have drained your heart of earthly love, you will drink in divine love; and now love begins to dwell, from which nothing evil can proceed.

Hear, then, the words of him who is now purifying. He finds men's hearts, as it were, a field: but how does he find it? If he finds woodland, he grubs it up; if he finds the field cleared, he plants. He wishes to plant there a tree, love. And what woodland does he wish to grub up? Love of the world. Hear the grubber-up of the woodland. Do not love the world, for this is what follows, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).

9. You have heard that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Let no one say in his heart that this is false, brethren: God says it, the Holy Spirit spoke through the Apostle, nothing is truer: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Do you wish to have the love of the Father, that you may be a coheir of the Son? Do not love the world. Shut out the evil love of the world, that you may be filled with the love of God.

You are a vessel, but you are still full; pour out what you have, that you may receive what you do not have. Surely our brethren have now been reborn of water and the Spirit; and we, some years ago, were reborn of water and the Spirit. It is good for us not to love the world, lest the sacraments remain in us to condemnation, and not as supports to salvation. The support of salvation is to have the root of love, to have the power of godliness, not the form alone.

A good form, a holy form: but what does the form avail, if it does not hold the root? Is not the shoot that is cut off cast into the fire? Have the form, but in the root. But how are you to be rooted, so that you may not be uprooted? By holding fast to love, as the apostle Paul says: Rooted and grounded in love (Eph 3:17).

How will love be rooted there, among so many thickets of love of the world? Grub up the thickets. You are about to set a great seed; let there not be in the field what may choke the seed. These are the uprooting words that he said: Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

10. For all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the age—three things he named—which are not from the Father, but are from the world. And the world passes away and its desires: but he who does the will of God abides forever, just as he himself abides forever (1 John 2:16-17).

Why should I not love what God made? What do you wish? to love temporal things, and to pass away with time; or not to love the world, and to live forever with God? The river of temporal things drags us along: but, as it were beside that river, a tree was born, our Lord Jesus Christ. He took flesh, died, rose again, ascended into heaven. He willed in a manner to plant himself beside the river of temporal things. Are you being swept headlong? hold fast to the wood.

Does love of the world whirl you about? hold fast to Christ. For your sake he was made temporal, that you might be made eternal; for he too was so made temporal that he remained eternal. Something accrued to him from time, nothing departed from his eternity. But you were born temporal, and through sin you were made temporal: you were made temporal through sin, he was made temporal through the mercy of forgiving sins. How great is the difference, when two are in prison, between the guilty man and his visitor?

For a man sometimes comes to his friend, and enters to visit him, and both are seen in the prison; but they are far apart and distinct. The former a charge weighs down, the latter kindness has brought. So in this mortality, we were held by guilt;

he came down in mercy: as redeemer he entered to the captive, not as oppressor. The Lord poured out his blood for us, redeemed us, changed our hope. Still we carry the mortality of the flesh, and presume upon a future immortality: and we toss on the sea, but we have already fixed the anchor of hope on land.

11. But let us not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. For the things that are in the world are the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the age. These are three: lest perhaps anyone say: The things that are in the world God made, that is, heaven and earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, the stars, all the adornments of the heavens.

What are the adornments of the sea? All things that creep. What are those of the earth? Animals, trees, birds. These are in the world, God made them. Why, then, should I not love what God made? Let the Spirit of God be in you, that you may see that all these things are good: but woe to you if you love the things created, and forsake the Creator. They are beautiful to you; but how much more beautiful is he who formed them?

Let your Charity attend. For you can be instructed by comparisons: lest Satan creep upon you, saying what he is wont to say. May it be well with you in the creation of God; why did he make it, unless that it might be well with you? And they become drunk, and perish, and forget their Creator:

while they use created things not temperately, but greedily, the Creator is despised. Of such the Apostle says: They worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever (Rom 1:25). God does not forbid you to love these things, but not to love them for the sake of blessedness; rather, to approve and praise them, that you may love the Creator.

Just as, brethren, if a bridegroom made his bride a ring, and she, having received the ring, loved the ring more than the bridegroom who made her the ring; would not the soul be caught in adultery in the very gift of the bridegroom, although she loved what the bridegroom gave?

Surely she would love what the bridegroom gave: yet if she said: This ring is enough for me, I do not wish now to see his face; what sort of woman would she be? Who would not detest this madness? who would not convict her of an adulterous mind?

You love the gold in place of the man, you love the ring in place of the bridegroom: if this is in you, that you love the ring in place of your bridegroom, and do not wish to see your bridegroom; he gave you the pledge for this, not to pledge you to himself, but to turn you away.

For this surely the bridegroom gives a pledge, that in his pledge he himself may be loved. Therefore God gave you all these things; love him who made them. There is more that he wishes to give you, that is, himself, who made these things. But if you love these, although God made them, and neglect the Creator, and love the world; will not your love be reckoned adulterous?

12. For not only this structure which God made—heaven and earth, the sea, things visible and invisible—is called the world: but the inhabitants of the world are called the world, just as a house is called both the walls and those who dwell in it. And sometimes we praise the house, and blame the dwellers.

For we say, A good house; because it is marbled and beautifully paneled: and in another way we say, A good house; no one there suffers injury, no robberies, no oppressions are done there. Now we are not praising the walls, but the dwellers within the walls: yet it is called a house, whether the one or the other:

For all lovers of the world, because by love they inhabit the world; just as those whose heart is above inhabit heaven, and yet walk in the flesh on earth: all lovers of the world, then, are called the world. They themselves have nothing but these three, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the age. For they desire to eat, to drink, to lie together, to use these pleasures. Is there not a measure in these?

Or when it is said: Do not love these things, is it said in this sense, that you should not eat, or not drink, or not beget children? It is not said in this sense. But let there be a measure, for the Creator's sake, so that these things may not bind you by love of them; lest you love for enjoyment what you ought to have for use.

But you are not tested, except when two things are set before you, this or that: Do you wish righteousness, or gains? I have no means to live, no means to eat, no means to drink. But what if you cannot have these except through iniquity? Do you not better love what you do not lose, than commit iniquity? You see the gain of gold, you do not see the loss of faith. This, then, he tells us, is the desire of the flesh, that is, the desire of those things that pertain to the flesh, such as food and intercourse, and other things of this kind.

13. And the desire of the eyes: by the desire of the eyes he means all curiosity. Now how widely does curiosity extend? It is curiosity itself in spectacles, in theaters, in the sacraments of the devil, in magic arts, in sorceries. Sometimes it tempts even the servants of God, so that they wish, as it were, to work a miracle, to test whether God hears them in miracles; it is curiosity, this is the desire of the eyes; it is not from the Father. If God has granted it, do it; for he has offered it that you may do it: for those who have not done such things will not therefore fail to belong to the kingdom of God.

When the Apostles rejoiced that the demons were subject to them, what did the Lord say to them? Do not rejoice in this; but rejoice because your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). He willed the Apostles to rejoice in that wherein you too rejoice. For woe to you, if your name is not written in heaven. Is there woe to you if you do not raise the dead? is there woe to you if you do not walk on the sea? is there woe to you if you do not cast out demons?

If you have received the means to do them, use it humbly, not proudly. For the Lord said of certain false prophets too that they would work signs and wonders (See Matt 24:24). Therefore let there be no ambition of the age. The ambition of the age is pride. A man wishes to vaunt himself in honors; he seems great to himself, whether from riches, or from some power.

14. These are three, and you find nothing whereby human desire is tempted, except either by the desire of the flesh, or the desire of the eyes, or the ambition of the age. By these three the Lord was tempted by the devil. By the desire of the flesh he was tempted, when it was said to him: If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves (Matt 4:3); when he hungered after his fast. But how did he repel the tempter, and teach the soldier to fight? Attend to what he said to him: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God (Matt 4:4; Deut 8:3).

He was tempted also by the desire of the eyes, concerning a miracle, when he said to him: Cast yourself down, for it is written: He has given his angels charge concerning you, that they bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone (Matt 4:6; see Ps 91:11-12 (90:11-12)). He resisted the tempter: for if he had worked a miracle, he would have seemed only either to have yielded, or to have acted from curiosity: for he worked them when he willed, as God, but as one healing the weak.

For if he had done it then, he would have been thought to have wished merely to work a miracle. But that men might not feel this, attend to what he answered; and when such a temptation befalls you, do you too say this: Get behind me, Satan; for it is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God (Matt 4:7; see Deut 6:16): that is: If I do this, I tempt God. He said this, which he wished you to say. When the enemy suggests to you: What sort of man, what sort of Christian are you?

have you yet worked even one miracle, or have the dead risen at your prayers, or have you healed the fevered? if you were truly of any moment, you would work some miracle: answer and say: It is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God: therefore I will not tempt God, as though I belonged to God then if I worked a miracle, and did not belong to him if I did not. And where are his words: Rejoice because your names are written in heaven?

By the ambition of the age, how was the Lord tempted? When he raised him up on high, and said to him: All these things I will give you, if you fall down and adore me. By the exaltation of an earthly kingdom he wished to tempt the King of the ages:

but the Lord who made heaven and earth was trampling the devil underfoot. What great thing is it, for the devil to be conquered by the Lord? What, then, did he answer the devil, but what he taught you to answer? It is written: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Matt 4:10; Deut 6:13).

Holding to these things, you will not have the concupiscence of the world: by not having the concupiscence of the world, neither the desire of the flesh, nor the desire of the eyes, nor the ambition of the age will subjugate you; and you will make room for love coming in, that you may love God. For if there be there love of the world, there will not be there love of God.

Hold rather to love of God, that as God is eternal, so you too may abide forever: for each one is such as his love is. Do you love the earth? you will be earth. Do you love God? what shall I say? you will be a god? I do not dare to say it of myself, let us hear the Scriptures: I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High (Ps 82:6 (81:6)).

If, then, you wish to be gods and sons of the Most High, do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all the things that are in the world are the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the age, which is not from the Father, but from the world: that is, from men who are lovers of the world. And the world passes away, and its desires: but he who does the will of God abides forever, just as God abides forever (1 John 2:15-17).

1. Children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18). In this reading he addresses children; that they may hasten to grow, because it is the last hour. The age of the body is not within our will. So no one grows according to the flesh when he wishes; just as no one is born when he wishes: but where birth is within our will, growth too is within our will. No one is born of water and the Spirit except willingly. Therefore, if he wills, he grows; if he wills, he diminishes. What is to grow? To advance. What is to diminish? To fall back.

Whoever knows that he has been born, let him hear that he is a child and an infant; let him eagerly seek the breasts of his mother, and he grows quickly. Now the mother is the Church; and her two breasts are the two Testaments of the divine Scriptures.

From here let the milk of all the sacraments be sucked, sacraments wrought temporally for our eternal salvation, so that, nourished and strengthened, one may come to the eating of solid food, which is: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Our milk is Christ humble; our food is that same Christ equal to the Father. He nourishes you with milk, that he may feed you with bread: for to touch Jesus spiritually with the heart is to know that he is equal to the Father.

2. For this reason he also forbade Mary to touch him, and said to her: Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17). What is this? He offered himself to the disciples to be touched, and avoided the touch of Mary? Is he not the same who said to the doubting disciple: Put in your fingers, and touch the scars (John 20:27)? Had he then already ascended to the Father?

Why, then, does he forbid Mary, and say: Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father? Or are we to say this, that he did not fear to be touched by men, and feared to be touched by women? His touch cleanses all flesh. Did he fear to be handled by those to whom he first willed to be made manifest?

Was not his resurrection announced to men through women, that by the opposite art the serpent might be conquered? For because he announced death to the first man through a woman, life too was announced to men through a woman. Why, then, did he not wish to be touched, except because he willed that touch to be understood as spiritual?

The spiritual touch is from a clean heart. He touches Christ from a clean heart who understands him to be coequal with the Father. But he who does not yet understand the divinity of Christ comes as far as the flesh, he does not come as far as the divinity. But what great thing is it to reach as far as the persecutors who crucified him reached? This is the great thing, to understand the Word, God with God in the beginning, through whom all things were made: such as he wished himself to be known, when he said to Philip: So long a time I am with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He who sees me sees also the Father (John 14:9).

3. But lest anyone be slothful in advancing, let him hear: Children, it is the last hour. Advance, run, grow, it is the last hour. This last hour is long; yet it is the last. For he put hour for the last time; because in the last times our Lord Jesus Christ will come. But some will say: How is it the last time? how is it the last hour? surely the Antichrist will come first, and then the day of judgment will come. John saw these thoughts: lest, as it were, they become secure, and therefore think it is not the last hour, because the Antichrist was going to come, he said to them: And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, now many antichrists have arisen (1 John 2:18). Could it have many antichrists, except in the last hour?

4. Whom did he call antichrists? He goes on, and explains: Whence we know that it is the last hour. Whence? Because many antichrists have arisen. They went out from us (1 John 2:18-19): see the antichrists. They went out from us: therefore we mourn the loss. Hear the consolation: But they were not of us. All heretics, all schismatics went out from us, that is, they go out from the Church; but they would not have gone out, if they had been of us. Before they went out, then, they were not of us. If, before they went out, they were not of us, many are within, who have not gone out, but are nevertheless antichrists. We dare to say this: why, except that each one, while he is within, may not be an antichrist? For he is going to describe and designate the antichrists; and we shall see them now.

And each one ought to question his own conscience, whether he is an antichrist. For in Latin "Antichrist" is one contrary to Christ. Not as some understand the Antichrist to be so called because he is going to come before Christ, that is, that after him Christ will come: it is not so said, nor so written; but Antichrist, that is, contrary to Christ. Now who is contrary to Christ, you perceive at this point, as he himself explains, and you understand that none can go out except antichrists; but that those who are not contrary to Christ can in no way go out. For he who is not contrary to Christ cleaves in his body, and is reckoned a member.

Members are never contrary to one another. The wholeness of the body consists of all its members. And what does the Apostle say about the concord of the members? If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it (1 Cor 12:26). If, then, in the glorification of a member the other members rejoice with it, and in suffering all the members suffer; the concord of the members has no antichrist.

And there are those who are within, in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ in such a way—since his body is still being healed, and there will be no perfect health except in the resurrection of the dead—they are in the body of Christ in the way that bad humors are. When they are vomited out, then the body is relieved: so too the wicked, when they go out, then the Church is relieved. And the body says, when it vomits them out and casts them off: These humors went out from me, but they were not of me. What is, they were not of me? They were not cut off from my flesh, but they were pressing on my breast while they were within.

5. They went out from us; but, do not be sad, they were not of us. Whence do you prove it? For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us (1 John 2:19). From this, then, let your Charity see that many who are not of us receive the sacraments with us, receive Baptism with us, receive with us what the faithful know they receive, the Blessing, the Eucharist, and whatever there is in the holy sacraments; they receive with us the communion of the altar itself, and they are not of us. Temptation proves that they are not of us. When temptation comes to them, as on the occasion of a wind, they fly out; because they were not grains. But all then will fly, which must often be said, when the Lord's threshing-floor begins to be winnowed on the day of judgment. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.

For you wish to know, beloved, how most certainly this is said, so that those who perhaps went out and return may not be antichrists, may not be contrary to Christ? Those who are not antichrists, it cannot be that they remain outside. But by his own will each one is either an antichrist, or is in Christ. Either we are among the members, or among the bad humors.

He who changes himself for the better is a member in the body: but he who remains in malice is a bad humor; and when he goes out, those who were being pressed will be relieved. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us: but that they might be made manifest, that not all are of us (1 John 2:19). Therefore he added, that they might be made manifest, because even when they are within, they are not of us; yet they are not manifest, but by going out they are made manifest.

And you have an anointing from the Holy One, that you yourselves may be manifest to yourselves (1 John 2:20). The spiritual anointing is the Holy Spirit himself, whose sacrament is in the visible anointing. He says that all who have this anointing of Christ recognize the wicked and the good; and that there is no need that they be taught, because the anointing itself teaches them.

6. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth; but because you know it, and because no lie is from the truth (1 John 2:21). Behold, we have been admonished how we may recognize the Antichrist. What is Christ? Truth. He himself said: I am the truth (John 14:6). But no lie is from the truth: therefore all who lie are not yet of Christ. He did not say that one lie is from the truth, and another lie not from the truth. Attend to the sentence; do not flatter yourselves, do not fawn upon yourselves, do not deceive yourselves, do not mock yourselves: No lie is from the truth. Let us see, then, how the antichrists lie, since there is not one kind of lie.

Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? (1 John 2:22) "Jesus" has one meaning, "Christ" has another: although our Savior is one Jesus Christ, yet "Jesus" is his proper name. As Moses was called by his proper name, as Elijah, as Abraham; so our Lord Jesus has, as it were, a proper name: but "Christ" is the name of a sacrament. As if one should say prophet, as if one should say priest; so "Christ" commends one anointed, in whom there should be the redemption of the whole people of Israel.

This Christ was hoped to come by the people of the Jews; and because he came humble, he was not recognized; because the stone was small, they stumbled against him, and were broken. But the stone grew, and became a great mountain (See Dan 2:35);

and what does the Scripture say? Whoever stumbles against this stone shall be shattered; and on whomever this stone shall fall, it will crush him (Luke 20:18). The words must be distinguished: he said the one who stumbles is shattered; but the one on whom it falls is crushed.

First, because he came humble, men stumbled against him: because he is going to come exalted to judgment, the one on whom he falls, he will crush. But he who is to come will not crush the one whom he did not shatter when he came. He who does not stumble at the humble will not dread the exalted. You have heard it briefly, brethren: he who does not stumble at the humble will not dread the exalted. For to all the wicked Christ is a stone of stumbling; whatever Christ says is bitter to them.

7. For listen, and see. All, surely, who go out of the Church, and are cut off from the unity of the Church, are antichrists; let no one doubt it; for he himself designated it: They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. Whoever, then, do not remain with us, but go out from us, it is manifest that they are antichrists. And how are they proved antichrists? By the lie. And who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Let us question the heretics: which heretic do you find who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Let your Charity see a great sacrament. Attend to what the Lord God has inspired in us, and what I wish to suggest to you.

Behold, they went out from us, and became Donatists: we ask them whether Jesus is the Christ: at once they confess that Jesus is the Christ. If, then, he is the antichrist who denies that Jesus is the Christ, neither can they call us antichrists, nor we them; because both we and they confess it. If, then, neither do they call us so, nor we them; then neither did they go out from us, nor we from them. If, then, we did not go out from them, we are in unity: if we are in unity, what are two altars doing in this city? what are divided houses, divided marriages, doing? what is a common bed, and a divided Christ, doing? He admonishes us, he wishes us to confess what is true. Either they went out from us, or we from them. But God forbid that we went out from them: for we have the testament of the Lord's inheritance, we read it aloud, and there we find ourselves: I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Ps 2:8).

We hold the inheritance of Christ: they do not hold it; they are not in communion with the whole world, they are not in communion with the universal body redeemed by the blood of the Lord. We have the Lord himself rising from the dead, who offered himself to be touched by the hands of his doubting disciples. And while they still doubted, he said to them: Christ had to suffer, and to rise again on the third day, and repentance and the remission of sins to be preached in his name. Where? in what place? to whom? Among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47). We are secure concerning the unity of the inheritance. Whoever is not in communion with this inheritance has gone out.

8. But let us not be saddened: They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. If, then, they went out from us, they are antichrists; if they are antichrists, they are liars; if they are liars, they deny that Jesus is the Christ. Again we return to the difficulty of the question. Question them one by one, they confess that Jesus is the Christ. A narrow understanding constrains us in this Epistle. You surely see the question; this question troubles both us and them, if it is not understood. Either we are antichrists, or they are antichrists: they call us antichrists, and say that we went out from them; we likewise say it of them: but this Epistle designated the antichrists. Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is the antichrist. Now, then, let us seek who denies it; and let us not attend to the tongue, but to the deeds.

For if all are questioned, all with one mouth confess that Jesus is the Christ. Let the tongue be silent a little, question the life.

If we find this, if the Scripture itself tells us that denial is made not only with the tongue, but also with deeds; surely we find many antichrists who profess Christ with the mouth, and in their conduct dissent from Christ. Where do we find this in Scripture? Hear the apostle Paul: when he was speaking of such men, he said: For they confess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him (Titus 1:16).

We find these too to be antichrists: whoever by his deeds denies Christ is an antichrist. I do not hear what he sounds forth, but I see how he lives. The works speak, and do we ask for words? For what wicked man does not wish to speak well? But what does the Lord say to such men? Hypocrites, how can you speak good things, when you are evil? (Matt 12:34) You bring your voices to my ears; I look into your thoughts: I see there an evil will, and you show false fruits. I know whence to gather what; I do not gather figs from thistles, I do not gather grapes from thorns. For each tree is known by its fruit (See Matt 7:16; 12:33; see Luke 6:44). More of a liar is the antichrist who professes with the mouth that Jesus is the Christ, and by his deeds denies it. He is a liar for this reason, because he speaks one thing and does another.

9. Now then, brethren, if deeds are to be questioned, not only do we find that many antichrists have gone out; but many not yet manifest, who have by no means gone out. For however many perjurers the Church has, defrauders, sorcerers, consulters of soothsayers, adulterers, drunkards, usurers, slave-dealers, and all that we cannot enumerate; they are contrary to the doctrine of Christ, contrary to the word of God:

but the word of God is Christ: whatever is contrary to the Word of God is in the Antichrist. For the Antichrist is contrary to Christ. And do you wish to know how openly these men resist Christ? Sometimes it happens that they do something evil, and begin to be rebuked; because they do not dare to blaspheme Christ, they blaspheme his ministers, by whom they are rebuked: but if you show them that you speak Christ's words, not your own; they try as much as they can to convict you of speaking your own words, not the words of Christ:

but if it has become manifest that you speak the words of Christ, they go even against Christ, they begin to reproach Christ: How, they say, and why did he make us such? Do not men convicted of their deeds say this daily? Men perverse with a crooked will accuse the maker. The maker cries out to them from heaven (for he himself made us, who remade us): What did I make you? I made a man, not avarice; I made a man, not robbery; I made a man, not adultery. You have heard that my works praise me.

From the mouth of the three boys it was the very hymn that defended them from the fires (See Dan 3:24-90). The works of the Lord praise the Lord; heaven praises, earth, sea; all things that are in heaven praise; the angels praise, the stars praise, the lights praise; whatever swims, whatever flies, whatever walks, whatever creeps, all these praise the Lord.

Have you heard that avarice praises the Lord? have you heard that drunkenness praises the Lord; that luxury praises him, that frivolity praises him? Whatever you do not hear there giving praise to the Lord, the Lord did not make.

Correct what you have made, that what God made in you may be saved. But if you will not, and you love and embrace your sins; you are contrary to Christ. Whether you are within, whether you are without, you are an antichrist: whether you are within, whether you are without, you are chaff. But why are you not without? Because you have not found the occasion of a wind.

10. Now these things are manifest, brethren. Lest anyone say: I do not worship Christ, but I worship God his Father. Everyone who denies the Son has neither the Son nor the Father: and he who confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father (1 John 2:23). He addresses you grains; and let those who were chaff hear, and become grains.

Let each one, considering his own conscience, if he is a lover of the world, be changed; let him become a lover of Christ, lest he be an antichrist. If anyone tells him that he is an antichrist, he is angry, he thinks an injury has been done him;

perhaps he threatens a charge in writing, if he hears from one quarreling with him that he is an antichrist.

Christ says to him: Be patient; if you have heard what is false, rejoice with me, because I too hear false things from antichrists: but if you have heard what is true, confront your conscience; and if you fear to hear it, fear still more to be it.

11. Therefore let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you. But if what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which he himself has promised us (1 John 2:24-25). For perhaps you might seek a reward, and say: Behold, I keep in me what I heard from the beginning, I obey it; perils, labors, temptations I endure for the sake of this perseverance:

with what fruit? with what reward? What will he give me afterward, since in this world I see myself laboring amid temptations? I see that there is no rest here; mortality itself weighs down the soul, and the body that is corrupted presses it toward lower things: but I endure all things, that what I heard from the beginning may abide in me; and I shall say to my God: For the words of your lips I have kept hard ways (Ps 17:4 (16:4)). For what reward, then?

Listen, and do not fail. If you were failing amid your labors, take heart at the promised reward. Who is there that works in a vineyard, and lets slip from his heart what he is going to receive? Make him forget his reward, and his hands fail. The memory of the promised reward makes him persevere in the work: and a man promised it who can deceive you.

How much stronger ought you to be in the field of God, when Truth has promised, who can neither be supplanted, nor die, nor deceive him to whom the promise has been made? And what is promised? Let us see what he promised. Is it gold, which men here love much, or silver? Or possessions, on which men pour out gold, although they love gold much? Or pleasant estates, spacious houses, many slaves, numerous animals?

This is not the sort of reward to which he exhorts us, that we may hold out in labor. What is this reward called? Eternal life. You have heard, and rejoicing you have cried out: love what you have heard, and you will be freed from your labors into the rest of eternal life. Behold what God promises, eternal life. Behold what God threatens, eternal fire. What to those set on his right hand? Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. To those on the left, what? Go into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:34-41). If you do not yet love that, at least fear this.

12. Remember, then, my brethren, that Christ promised us eternal life: This is, he says, the promise which he himself has promised us, eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who seduce you (1 John 2:25-26). Let no one seduce you to death; desire the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise? Whatever it pleases let it promise, perhaps it promises to one who will die tomorrow. And with what face will you go forth to him who abides forever? But a powerful man threatens me, that I may do something evil. What does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, torments, beasts: surely not eternal fire? Shudder at what the Almighty threatens, love what the Almighty promises; and the whole world grows worthless, whether promising or terrifying.

These things I have written to you concerning those who seduce you; that you may know that you have an anointing, and that the anointing which we have received from him may abide in us (1 John 2:27). The sacrament of the anointing is the invisible power itself, the invisible anointing, the Holy Spirit;

the invisible anointing is that love which, in whomever it is, will be to him like a root, and, though the sun burns, it cannot wither. Everything that is rooted is nourished by the heat of the sun, it does not wither.

13. And you have no need that anyone teach you, because his anointing teaches you about all things (1 John 2:27). What, then, are we doing, brethren, in teaching you? If his anointing teaches you about all things, it seems we labor without cause. And why do we cry out so much? Let us leave you to his anointing, and let his anointing teach you.

But now I raise a question for myself, and I raise it to the Apostle himself: let him deign to hear a little one questioning him; I say to John himself: Did those to whom you were speaking have the anointing? You said: Because his anointing teaches you about all things. Why did you make such an Epistle? What were you teaching them? what were you instructing? what were you building up?

Now here see a great sacrament, brethren: the sound of our words strikes the ears, the master is within. Do not think that anyone learns anything from a man. We can admonish by the noise of our voice; if there is not one within who teaches, our noise is in vain. So, brethren, do you wish to know it? Did you not all hear this sermon? How many are going to leave here untaught? As far as I am concerned, I have spoken to all; but those to whom that anointing does not speak within, whom the Holy Spirit does not teach within, return untaught.

The teachings from without are certain helps and admonitions. He who teaches hearts has his chair in heaven. Therefore he himself says in the Gospel: Do not call anyone teacher on earth: one is your teacher, Christ (Matt 23:8-10). Let him, then, speak to you within, when no man is there; for even if someone is at your side, no one is in your heart. And let there not be no one in your heart:

let Christ be in your heart; let his anointing be in your heart, lest your heart be in a wilderness, thirsting, and not having springs by which it may be watered. The inner master, then, is the one who teaches, Christ teaches, his inspiration teaches. Where his inspiration and his anointing are not, the words make noise outside in vain.

These words are, brethren, which we speak from without, as the farmer is to the tree: he works from without, applies water and the diligence of cultivation: whatever he applies from without, does he form the fruits? does he clothe the bareness of the wood with the shade of leaves? does he do any such thing within? But who does this? hear the farmer the Apostle, and see what we are, and hear the inner master: I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase: neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters; but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:6-7). This, then, we say to you: whether we plant, or water by speaking, we are not anything; but he who gives the increase, God, that is, his anointing which teaches you about all things.

1. You remember, brethren, that yesterday's reading was ended at this point, that you have no need that anyone teach you, but the anointing itself teaches you about all things (1 John 2:27). But this, as I am sure you recall, we expounded to you thus: that we who speak from without to your ears are as workmen, applying cultivation from without to the tree, but cannot give the increase, nor form the fruits: but he who created you, and redeemed you, and called you, dwelling in you by faith and his Spirit, unless he speaks to you within, in vain do we make our noise.

Whence does this appear? Because, when many hear, not all are persuaded of what is said; but only those to whom God speaks within. But he speaks within to those who make room for him: and those make room for God who do not make room for the devil. For the devil wishes to inhabit the hearts of men, and to speak there all the things that avail for seduction.

But what does the Lord Jesus say? The prince of this world has been cast out (John 12:31). Whence has he been cast out? surely not outside heaven and earth? surely not outside the structure of the world? But outside the hearts of believers. The invader being cast out, let the redeemer dwell there; for he himself redeemed who created.

And the devil now assails from without, he does not conquer him who possesses within. But he assails from without, sending in various temptations: but he to whom God speaks within, and the anointing of which you have heard, does not consent.

2. And it is true, he says, that same anointing; that is, the very Spirit of the Lord who teaches men cannot lie. And it is no lie. As it has taught you, abide in it. And now, little children, abide in him, that when he is made manifest, we may have confidence in his sight, that we may not be confounded by him at his coming (1 John 2:27-28).

You see, brethren; we believe in Jesus whom we have not seen: those announced him who saw him, who touched him, who heard the word from his own mouth; and that they might persuade the human race of these things, they were sent by him, they did not dare to go of themselves. And whither were they sent? You heard when the Gospel was read: Go, preach the Gospel to every creature that is under heaven (Mark 16:15).

Everywhere, then, the disciples were sent, signs and wonders bearing witness, that they might be believed, because they were saying what they had seen. And we believe in him whom we have not seen, and we await his coming. Whoever await him by faith will rejoice when he comes: those who are without faith, when he comes, what they now do not see, they will blush at.

And that confounding will not be of one day and pass away, as those are wont to be confounded who are found in some fault, and are insulted by men. That confounding will lead the confounded over to the left, to hear: Go into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41).

Let us, then, abide in his words, lest we be confounded when he comes. For he himself says in the Gospel to those who had believed in him: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples (John 8:31). And as though they should say: With what fruit? And you shall know, he says, the truth, and the truth has set you free (John 8:32).

For now our salvation is in hope, not yet in reality: for we do not yet hold what was promised, but we hope it is to come. But he who promised is faithful; he does not deceive you: only do not you fail, but await the promise. For Truth does not know how to deceive. Do not you be a liar, so as to profess one thing and do another: do you keep faith, and he keeps his promise. But if you do not keep faith, you have defrauded yourself, not he who promised.

3. If you know that he is just, know that everyone who does righteousness has been born of him (1 John 2:29). Our righteousness now is from faith. Perfect righteousness is only in the angels; and scarcely in the angels, if they are compared to God:

yet if there is any perfect righteousness of the souls and spirits that God created, it is in the holy angels, just, good, turned away by no lapse, falling by no pride, but abiding always in the contemplation of the Word of God, and having nothing else sweet but him by whom they were created; in them is perfect righteousness: but in us it has begun to be, from faith, according to the Spirit.

You heard when the Psalm was read: Begin to the Lord with confession (Ps 147:7 (146:7)). Begin, he says: the beginning of our righteousness is the confession of sins. You have begun not to defend your sin; you have already made a start at righteousness: but it will be made perfect in you, when nothing else will delight you to do, when death will be swallowed up in victory (See 1 Cor 15:54), when no concupiscence will titillate, when there will be no struggle with flesh and blood, when there will be the crown of victory, the triumph over the enemy; then will righteousness be perfect.

Now we still fight: if we fight, we are in the arena; we strike, and we are struck: but he who conquers is awaited. But he conquers who, even in what he strikes, presumes not on his own strength, but on God who exhorts. The devil alone fights against us. We, if we are with God, conquer the devil: for even if you alone fight with the devil, you will be conquered. He is a practiced foe: of how many victories? Consider whence he has cast men down: that we might be born mortal, he first cast our very origin out of paradise. What, then, is to be done, since he is so practiced?

Let the Almighty be invoked against the practiced devil. Let him who cannot be conquered dwell in you, and secure you will conquer him who is wont to conquer. But whom? Those in whom God does not dwell. For, that you may know, brethren, Adam, set in paradise, despised the precept of God, and lifted up his neck as though wishing to be in his own power, and unwilling to be subject to the will of God, and fell from that immortality, from that blessedness (See Gen 3:6).

But a certain man, now practiced, born mortal, while he sat on a dunghill, putrid with worms, conquered the devil: Adam himself too conquered, and in Job himself; because Job is of his race. Therefore Adam, conquered in paradise, conquered on the dunghill. When he was in paradise, he listened to the persuasion of the woman, whom the devil had sent in to him:

but when he was on the dunghill, he said to Eve: You have spoken like one of the foolish women (Job 2:10). There he lent his ear; here he gave an answer: when he was happy, he listened; when he was scourged, he conquered.

Therefore see what follows, brethren, in this Epistle; for he commends this to us, that we should indeed conquer the devil, but not of ourselves. If you know that he is just, he says, know that everyone who does righteousness has been born of him: of God, of Christ. And because he said: Has been born of him, he exhorts us. Now then, because we have been born of him, we are perfect.

4. Listen: Behold what sort of love the Father has given us, that we should be called sons of God and should be so (1 John 3:1). For those who are called and are not, what does the name profit them where the reality is not? How many are called physicians, who do not know how to heal? how many are called watchmen, who sleep all night? So many are called Christians, and in the realities are not found to be such; because they are not what they are called, that is, in their life, in their conduct, in faith, in hope, in love.

But here what did you hear, brethren? Behold what sort of love the Father has given us, that we should be called sons of God and should be so. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know him (1 John 3:1). The whole world Christian, and the whole world impious; for throughout the whole world there are the impious, and throughout the whole world the pious: the latter do not know the former. How do we suppose they do not know them? They insult those who live well.

Attend and see, for perhaps there are such even among you. Each one of you who now lives piously, who despises worldly things, who does not wish to go to the spectacles, who does not wish to make himself drunk as though it were a solemn observance, and—what is more grievous—to become unclean on the holy days, taking that as a sanction; whoever has refused to do these things, how he is insulted by those who do them? Would he be insulted if he were recognized?

But why is he not recognized? The world does not recognize him. Who is the world? Those inhabitants of the world, as a house is named from its inhabitants. These things have now often been said, and we do not repeat them to you out of hatred. Now when you hear "the world" in the bad sense, understand only the lovers of the world; because by love they inhabit it, and from that which they inhabit they have earned to have the name.

For this reason the world did not know us, because it did not know him. The Lord Jesus Christ himself too walked here, in the flesh he was God, he lay hidden in weakness. And whence was he not known? Because he reproved all sins in men. Those men, by loving the delights of sins, did not recognize God: by loving what the fever urged, they did injury to the physician.

5. What, then, of us? We have now been born of him; but because we are in hope: Most beloved, he says, now we are sons of God. Now already? What, then, is it that we await, if we are already sons of God? And it has not yet, he says, been made manifest what we shall be. But what shall we be other than sons of God? Hear what follows: We know that when he appears, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).

Let your Charity understand. A great matter: We know that when he appears, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. Now attend to what is meant by is. You know what is meant (John 1:1). He is what is meant, and not only is he called so, but he truly is, he is unchangeable; he abides always, knows not how to be changed, is in no part corrupted: he neither advances, because he is perfect; nor falls back, because he is eternal. And what is this? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

And what is this? Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God (Phil 2:6). In this way the wicked cannot see Christ in the form of God, the Word of God, the Only-begotten of the Father, equal to the Father.

But according to the fact that the Word was made flesh, the wicked too will be able to see him: for on the day of judgment the wicked too will see him; for he will come to judge in the way he had come to be judged. In that form a man, but God: for cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man (Jer 17:5). As a man he came to be judged, as a man he will come to judge.

And if he will not be seen, what is that which is written: They shall look on him whom they pierced (John 19:37)? For it was said of the impious that they shall look on him, and be confounded. How will the impious not see him, when he sets some on the right hand, others on the left?

To those set on the right hand he will say: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matt 25:34). To those set on the left he will say: Go into eternal fire (Matt 25:41). They will see, but the form of a servant: the form of God they will not see. Why? Because they are impious; and the Lord himself says: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). Therefore we are going to see a certain vision, brethren, which neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man (See 1 Cor 2:9; Isa 64:4): a certain vision, a vision surpassing all earthly beauties, of gold, of silver, of groves and fields, the beauty of the sea and the air, the beauty of the sun and the moon, the beauty of the stars, the beauty of the angels, surpassing all things; because from it all things are beautiful.

6. What, then, shall we be, when we shall see this? What has been promised us? We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. As far as it could, my tongue has sounded it forth; let the rest be thought in the heart. For what did even John himself say, in comparison with him who is, or what can be said by us men, far unequal to his merits?

Let us return, then, to that anointing of his, let us return to that anointing which teaches within what we cannot speak; and because you cannot now see, let your office be in desire. The whole life of a good Christian is holy desire.

But what you desire, you do not yet see; but by desiring you are made capable, so that when what you are to see comes, you may be filled.

For just as, if you wish to fill some pouch, and you know how great is what will be given, you stretch the pouch, whether of a sack or a wineskin or some other thing: you know how much you are going to put in, and you see that the pouch is narrow; by stretching you make it more capacious: so God, by deferring, stretches our desire; by desiring he stretches the mind; by stretching he makes it capable.

Let us desire, then, brethren, because we are to be filled. See Paul stretching his pouch, that he may be able to hold what is to come. For he says: Not that I have already received, or am already perfect: brethren, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it (Phil 3:12-13). What, then, are you doing in this life, if you have not yet laid hold of it? But one thing, forgetting the things that are behind, stretching forward to the things that are ahead, I follow according to my purpose toward the prize of the heavenly calling (Phil 3:13-14).

He said he was stretched forward, and said he follows according to his purpose. He felt himself too small to lay hold of what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has ascended into the heart of man.

This is our life, that by desiring we be exercised. But holy desire exercises us just so far as we have cut off our desires from love of the age. We have already said at some time: Empty out what is to be filled. You are to be filled with good, pour out the evil. Suppose God wishes to fill you with honey: if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey? What the vessel was carrying must be poured out: the vessel itself must be cleansed; it must be cleansed, even if with labor, with scouring, that it may be made fit for a certain thing.

Let us say "honey," let us say "gold," let us say "wine"; whatever we say, that cannot be said, whatever we wish to say, is called God. And when we say "God," what have we said? Are these two syllables the whole of what we await? Whatever, then, we have been able to say is beneath it: let us stretch ourselves toward him, that when he comes, he may fill us. For we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

7. And everyone who has this hope in him (1 John 3:3). You see that he has set us in hope. You see how the apostle Paul agrees with his fellow apostle: By hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience (Rom 8:24-25).

Patience itself exercises desire. Do you abide, for he abides: and persevere in walking, that you may arrive; because that toward which you tend will not depart. See: And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he too is pure (1 John 3:3). See how he has not taken away free choice, in saying, he purifies himself. Who purifies us but God? But God does not purify you against your will.

Therefore, in that you join your will to God, you purify yourself. You purify yourself, not of yourself, but of him who comes to dwell in you. Yet because you do something there by your will, for that reason something too is attributed to you. And it is attributed to you for this end, that you may say, as in the Psalm: Be my helper, do not forsake me (Ps 27:9 (26:9)). If you say: Be my helper, you do something: for if you do nothing, how does he help you?

8. Everyone who commits sin commits iniquity also (1 John 3:4). Let no one say: Sin is one thing, iniquity another: let no one say: I am a sinful man, but I am not iniquitous. For everyone who commits sin commits iniquity also. Sin is iniquity. What, then, are we to do about our sins and iniquities? Hear what he says: And you know that he was made manifest, to take away sin; and in him there is no sin (1 John 3:5). He in whom there is no sin came to take away sin. For if there were sin in him too, it would have to be taken away from him, he would not himself take it away. Everyone who abides in him does not sin. So far as he abides in him, so far he does not sin. Everyone who sins has not seen him, nor known him. This is a great question: Everyone who sins has not seen him, nor known him (1 John 3:6).

It is no wonder. We have not seen him, but we are going to see him; we have not known him, but we are going to know him: we believe in him whom we have not known. Or perhaps we have known him by faith, and have not yet known him by sight? But in faith we have both seen and known him. For if faith does not yet see, why are we called enlightened? There is an enlightenment through faith, there is an enlightenment through sight.

Now, while we are on pilgrimage, we walk by faith, not by sight (See 2 Cor 5:7). Therefore our righteousness too is by faith, not by sight. Our righteousness will be perfect when we shall see by sight. Let us not now forsake that righteousness which is from faith, since the just man lives by faith (Rom 1:17), as the Apostle says. Everyone who abides in him does not sin. For everyone who sins has not seen him, nor known him. He who sins does not believe: but if he believes, in so far as it pertains to his faith, he does not sin.

9. Little children, let no one seduce you. He who does righteousness is just, just as he too is just (1 John 3:7). When we have heard that we are just, just as he too, ought we to suppose ourselves equal to God? You ought to know what just as means: for already he said: He purifies himself, just as he himself is pure.

Is our chastity, then, now matched and equal to the chastity of God, and our righteousness to the righteousness of God? Who would say this? But just as is not always wont to be said with respect to equality. As, for example, when this spacious basilica has been seen, if someone wishes to make a smaller one, yet in proportion to its measurements, so that, for example, if this one is one unit wide and two long; he too makes one one unit wide and two long:

he seems to have made it just as this one is. But this one has, for example, a hundred cubits, that one thirty: and so it is, and it is unequal. You see that just as is not always referred to parity and equality.

For example, see how great a difference there is between a man's face and its image in a mirror: there is a face in the image, a face in the body; the image in imitation, the body in reality. And what do we say? For as the eyes are here, so they are there; as the ears are here, so the ears are there. The thing is unequal; but just as is said with respect to likeness.

Therefore we too have the image of God; but not that which the Son has, who is equal to the Father; yet we too, in our small measure, if we were not as he is, would in no part be called like him.

Therefore he purifies us just as he too is pure; but he is pure by eternity, we are pure by faith: we are just just as he too is just; but he in that very unchangeable perpetuity, we just by believing in him whom we do not see, that one day we may see. And when our righteousness shall be perfect, when we shall have been made equal to the angels; not even then will it be matched to him. How far, then, is it now from him, when not even then will it be on a par?

10. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning (1 John 3:8). Is of the devil, you know what he means: by imitating the devil. For the devil made no one, begot no one, created no one: but whoever has imitated the devil, as though born of him, becomes a son of the devil by imitating, not by being properly born.

How are you a son of Abraham? did Abraham beget you? In the way the Jews, sons of Abraham not imitating the faith of Abraham, were made sons of the devil: they were born of the flesh of Abraham, and did not imitate the faith of Abraham.

If, then, those who were born of him were disinherited, because they did not imitate him; you who were not born of him are made a son, and so you will be a son by imitating. And if you have imitated the devil, because he stood forth proud and impious against God, you will be a son of the devil, by imitating; not because he created you, or begot you.

11. For this the Son of God was made manifest (1 John 3:8). Come now, brethren, all sinners are born of the devil, in so far as they are sinners. Adam was made by God: but when he consented to the devil, he was born of the devil; and he begot all such as he himself was. With that very concupiscence we are born; and before we add our own debts, we are born of that condemnation. For if we are born with no sin, what is it that men run with infants to Baptism, that they may be loosed? Therefore mark two births, brethren, Adam and Christ: there are two men; but one of them is man, man; the other of them is man, God. Through the man, man, we are sinners: through the man, God, we are justified. That birth cast us down to death; this birth raised us up to life: that birth drags sin with it; this birth frees from sin. For Christ came as man for this, that he might loose the sins of men. For this the Son of God was made manifest, that he might loose the works of the devil.

12. The rest I commend to your Charity, lest I weigh you down. For this is the very question in whose solving we labor, namely that we call ourselves sinners: for if anyone says he is without sin, he is a liar. And in this same Epistle of John we find: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. For you ought to remember what went before: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

And again in what follows you hear: He who is born of God does not sin: He who commits sin has not seen him, nor known him: Everyone who commits sin is of the devil (1 John 3:9, 6, 8). Sin is not from God. Again he terrifies us. How are we born of God, and how do we confess ourselves sinners? Or are we to say that we are not born of God? And what do these sacraments do in infants? What did John say? He who is born of God does not sin. John himself again said: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. It is a great and narrow question; and to solving it I would make your Charity attentive. In the name of the Lord, tomorrow we shall expound what he grants concerning it.

1. Listen attentively, I beg you, for no small matter is in question among us: and I do not doubt that, as you were present attentively yesterday, so today you have gathered more attentively still.

For it is no small question, how he says in this Epistle: He who is born of God does not sin (1 John 3:9): and how in the same Epistle above he said: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

What is the man to do whom both statements from the same Epistle have hemmed in between them? If he confesses himself a sinner, he fears lest it be said to him: Then you are not born of God; for it is written: He who is born of God does not sin. But if he says he is just, and has no sin, he receives a blow from the other side from this same Epistle: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

A man, then, set in the middle, does not find what to say, and what to confess, or what to profess. To profess oneself to be without sin is dangerous; and not only dangerous, but also false: We deceive ourselves, he says, and the truth is not in us, if we say that we have no sin. But would that you did not have it, and said so! for then you would speak the truth, nor would you dread, in bringing forth the truth, any trace even of iniquity.

But you do ill if you say it, because you tell a lie: The truth, he says, is not in us, if we say that we have no sin. He did not say: We did not have; lest perhaps it should seem said of a past life. For this man did have sins; but from the time he was born of God, he began not to have them.

If it were so, no question would press us. For we would say: We were sinners, but now we have been justified; we had sin, but now we do not have it. He does not say this: but what does he say? If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. After a little, again: He who is born of God, he says, does not sin. Was not John himself born of God? If John was not born of God—he of whom you heard that he reclined on the breast of the Lord—does anyone dare to promise himself a regeneration wrought in him which that man did not deserve to have, who deserved to recline on the breast of the Lord? Whom the Lord loved more than the rest (See John 13:23), him alone had he not begotten of the Spirit?

2. Attend now to these words: I still commend to you our straits, so that through your attention—which is a prayer both for us and for you—God may open it wide, and give an outcome; lest anyone find in his word an occasion of his own perdition, a word that has not been preached and written down except for healing and salvation. Everyone, he says, who commits sin commits iniquity also (1 John 3:4). Lest perhaps you distinguish: Sin is iniquity.

Do not say: I am a sinner, but I am not iniquitous: Sin is iniquity. And you know that for this he was made manifest, to take away sins; and in him there is no sin (1 John 3:5). And what does it profit us that he came without sin? Everyone who does not sin abides in him: and everyone who sins has not seen him, nor known him. Little children, let no one seduce you. He who does righteousness is just, just as he too is just (1 John 3:6-7). These things we have already said, that just as is wont to be said with respect to a certain likeness, not with respect to equality. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning (1 John 3:8). And this we have said, that the devil created no one, nor begot anyone; but those who imitate him are, as it were, born of him. For this the Son of God was made manifest, that he might loose the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Therefore, that he might loose sins, he who has no sin.

Then it follows: Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin, because his seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God (1 John 3:9). He has bound us tight. Perhaps he said does not sin with respect to some particular sin, not with respect to every sin: so that, as for his saying, He who is born of God does not sin, you understand a certain particular sin, which the man who is born of God cannot commit: and such is that sin that, if anyone commits it, he confirms the rest; but if anyone does not commit it, he looses the rest. What is this sin? To act against the commandment. What is the commandment? A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another (John 13:34). Attend. This commandment of Christ is called love: through this love sins are loosed. If this is not held, it is both a grave sin, and the root of all sins.

3. Attend, brethren; we have brought forth something in which, for those who understand well, the question has been solved. But do we walk the way only with the swifter? Those who walk more slowly are not to be left behind. Let us turn this over in what words we can, that it may reach all.

For I think, brethren, that every man is anxious for his soul who does not enter the Church without cause, who does not seek temporal things in the Church, who does not enter for this, that he may transact worldly business; but who enters for this, that he may hold to something eternal promised him, whither he may arrive:

he must needs consider how he may walk in the way, lest he remain behind, lest he go backward, lest he stray, lest by limping he fail to arrive. Whoever, then, is anxious, whether he be slow or swift, let him not depart from the way. This, then, I have said, that he who is born of God does not sin, he perhaps wished to be understood with respect to some particular sin: for otherwise it will be contrary to that place: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

So, then, the question can be solved. There is a certain sin which he who is born of God cannot commit; and which not being committed, the rest are loosed, which being committed, the rest are confirmed.

What is this sin? To act against the commandment of Christ, against the new testament. What is the new commandment? A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. He who acts against love and against brotherly affection, let him not dare to boast, and say that he is born of God: but he who is established in brotherly love—there are certain sins which he cannot commit, and this most of all, that he should hate his brother. And what does he do about the other sins, of which it was said: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us? Let him hear assurance from another place of Scripture: Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8).

4. We commend love, then; this Epistle commends love. After the resurrection, what else did the Lord ask Peter, but: Do you love me? And it was not enough to ask once; and a second time nothing else, and a third time nothing else. When already at the third time he was affected with grief, as though the Lord did not believe him, like one who did not know what was happening in him; yet a first, and a second, and a third time he asked this. Three times fear denied, three times love confessed (See John 21:15-17). Behold, Peter loves the Lord. What is he going to render to the Lord? For he too was not unmoved in that psalm: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? (Ps 116:12 (115:12))

For he who said these things in the Psalm was considering how great things had been bestowed on him by God; and he was seeking what he might render to God, and did not find it. For whatever you wish to render, you received from him in order to give back. And what did he find to render? What, as we said, brethren, he had received from him, this he found to render. I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord (Ps 116:13 (115:13)).

For who had given him the cup of salvation, but he to whom he wished to render? But to take the cup of salvation, and to call upon the name of the Lord, this is to be satisfied with love; and so satisfied that not only do you not hate your brother, but you are ready to die for your brother. This is perfect love, that you be ready to die for your brother.

This the Lord himself displayed in himself, dying for all, praying for those by whom he was being crucified, and saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). But if he alone did this, he would not be a master, if he had no disciples. The disciples followed and did this.

Stephen was being stoned, and on bended knee he said: Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge (Acts 7:60). He loved those by whom he was being killed, because he was even dying for them. Hear too the apostle Paul: And I myself, he says, will be spent for your souls (2 Cor 12:15). For he was among those for whom Stephen prayed, when he was dying by their hands.

This, then, is perfect love. If anyone has so great a love that he is ready even to die for the brethren, love is perfect in him. But is it at once, as soon as it is born, already wholly perfect? It is born that it may be made perfect: when it has been born, it is nourished; when it has been nourished, it is strengthened; when it has been strengthened, it is made perfect: when it has come to perfection, what does it say? To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ; for that is far better: to remain in the flesh is necessary for your sake (Phil 1:21-24). For their sake he wished to live, for whom he was ready to die.

5. And that you may know that this is the perfect love which he who is born of God does not violate, and against which he does not sin; the Lord says this to Peter: Peter, do you love me? And he: I love you (John 21:17). He did not say: If you love me, wait upon me.

For when the Lord was in mortal flesh, he hungered, he thirsted: at the time when he hungered and thirsted, he was received as a guest; those who had means ministered to him from their substance, as we read in the Gospel (See Luke 8:3). Zacchaeus received him as a guest: he was made well from his disease, the physician being received. From what disease? From avarice. For he was very rich, and a chief of the publicans. Attend to him healed of the disease of avarice. Half, he says, of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone, I will restore fourfold (Luke 19:8). Therefore he kept the other half, not that he might enjoy it, but that from it he might pay his debts.

He received the physician then as a guest, because there was the weakness of the flesh in the Lord, to whom men might offer this service: and this, because he willed to grant a benefit to those who served; for it profited those who served, not him. For whom the angels ministered to, did he require the service of these?

Nor did Elijah his servant ever have need of this, to whom he sent bread and meat by a raven; and yet, that a devout widow might be blessed, the servant of God is sent, and he who was fed by God in secret is fed by the widow (See 1 Kgs 17:4-9).

Nevertheless, although those who consider the need of these servants of God serve themselves in serving them, on account of that reward most plainly set down by the Lord in the Gospel: He who receives a just man in the name of a just man shall receive a just man's reward; and he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and whoever shall give a cup of cold water to one of these least only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (Matt 10:41-42).

Although, then, those who do this serve themselves, yet not even this could be offered to one about to ascend into heaven. What could Peter render to him, who loved him? Hear what: Feed my sheep (John 21:15); that is: Do for the brethren what I have done for you. I have redeemed all by my blood: do not hesitate to die for the confession of the truth, that the rest may imitate you.

6. But this, as we have said, brethren, is perfect love; he who is born of God has it. Let your Charity attend, see what I say.

Behold, a baptized man has received the sacrament of birth; he has the sacrament, and a great sacrament, divine, holy, ineffable. Consider what sort: that it may make a new man by the forgiveness of all sins. Yet let him attend in his heart, whether that has been made perfect there which has been done in his body:

let him see whether he has love, and then let him say: I am born of God. But if he does not have it, he has indeed the character imposed, but he wanders a deserter. Let him have love; otherwise let him not say he is born of God. But I have, he says, the sacrament. Hear the Apostle: If I know all the sacraments, and have all faith, so that I remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).

7. This, if you remember, we commended when we began to read this Epistle, that nothing in it is so commended to us as love. And although it seems to say one thing and another, it makes its return there; and to love itself it wishes to refer all things, whatever it has said. Let us see whether here too it does this.

Attend: Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin. We ask, what sin: for if you understand every sin, it will be contrary to that place: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Therefore let him say what sin, let him teach us; lest perhaps I have rashly said that this sin is the violation of love, because above he said: He who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes, for the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:11). But perhaps he said something in what follows, and named love.

See that that circuit of words has this as its end, this as its outcome. Everyone who is born of God does not sin; because his seed abides in him. The seed of God, that is, the word of God: whence the Apostle says: Through the Gospel I begot you (1 Cor 4:15). And he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Let him say this, let us see in what he cannot sin. In this the sons of God and the sons of the devil are made manifest. Everyone who is not just is not of God, and he who does not love his brother (1 John 3:9-10). Surely it is now manifest whence he speaks: And he who does not love, he says, his brother.

Love alone, then, distinguishes between the sons of God and the sons of the devil. Let all sign themselves with the sign of the cross of Christ; let all answer, Amen; let all sing, Alleluia; let all be baptized, let all enter the churches, let all build the walls of basilicas:

the sons of God are not distinguished from the sons of the devil except by love. Those who have love are born of God: those who do not have it are not born of God. A great sign, a great mark of distinction.

Have whatever you will; only do not have this one thing, and nothing profits you: if you do not have the others, have this, and you have fulfilled the Law. For he who loves another has fulfilled the Law, says the Apostle: and: Love is the fullness of the Law (Rom 13:8, 10).

I think this is that pearl which the merchant man is described in the Gospel to have sought, who found one pearl, and sold all that he had, and bought it (See Matt 13:46). This is the precious pearl, love, without which nothing profits you, whatever you have: which, if you have it alone, suffices you. Now you see with faith, then you will see with sight. For if we love when we do not see, how shall we embrace when we have seen? But where ought we to exercise ourselves? In brotherly love. You can say to me: I have not seen God; can you say to me: I have not seen a man? Love your brother. For if you love the brother whom you see, you will at the same time see God also; for you will see love itself, and within God dwells.

8. He who is not just is not of God; and he who does not love his brother. For this is the announcement: see how he confirms it: For this is the announcement which we heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (1 John 3:10-11). He has made manifest to us that he speaks of this: whoever acts against this commandment is in that wicked sin into which fall those who are not born of God. Not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. And for what reason did he kill him? Because his works were evil, but his brother's just (1 John 3:12).

Therefore where there is envy, brotherly love cannot be. Let your Charity attend. He who envies does not love. The sin of the devil is in him;

for the devil too cast men down by envying. For he fell, and envied him who stood. He did not wish to cast him down so that he himself might stand, but lest he should fall alone.

Hold in mind, from what he added, that envy cannot be in love. You have it openly, where love itself was being praised: Love is not envious (1 Cor 13:4).

There was no love in Cain; and unless there were love in Abel, God would not accept his sacrifice. For when both had offered, the one from the fruits of the earth, the other from the offspring of his sheep; do you think, brethren, that God neglected the fruits of the earth, and loved the offspring of the sheep?

God did not look at the hands; but he saw into the heart: and him whom he saw offering with love, his sacrifice he regarded; him whom he saw offering with envy, from his sacrifice he turned away his eyes. By the good works of Abel, then, he means nothing but love: by the evil works of Cain he means nothing but brotherly hatred.

It is not enough that he hated his brother, and envied his good works; for he was unwilling to imitate them, and wished to slay him. And from this it appeared that he was a son of the devil, and the other from this appeared a just man of God.

From this, then, men are distinguished, my brethren. Let no one attend to tongues, but to deeds and the heart. If he does not act well for his brethren, he shows what he has in himself. By temptations men are proved.

9. Do not wonder, brethren, if the world hates us (1 John 3:13). Must it be said to you often what the world is? Not heaven, not earth, nor those works that God made; but the lovers of the world. By saying these things often I am burdensome to some: but I say it not so vainly, since some, when asked whether I have said it, do not answer. Therefore let something, even by being driven in, cling in the hearts of the hearers.

What is the world? The world is, when it is put in the bad sense, the lovers of the world: the world, when it is put in praise, is heaven and earth, and the works of God in them; whence it is said: And the world was made through him (John 1:10). Likewise the world is the fullness of the earth, as John himself said: And he is the propitiation not only for our sins, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:2). By the world he means all the faithful scattered through the world. But the world in the bad sense are the lovers of the world. Those who love the world cannot love their brother.

10. If the world hates us: we know. What do we know? That we have passed from death to life. Whence do we know? Because we love the brethren (1 John 3:13-14). Let no one question a man; let each one return to his own heart: if there he has found brotherly love, let him be secure, because he has passed from death to life.

He is already on the right hand: let him not heed that his glory is now hidden: when the Lord comes, then he will appear in glory. For he flourishes, but still in winter; the root flourishes, but the branches are as if dry: within is the marrow that flourishes, within are the leaves of the trees, within the fruit; but they await the summer. Therefore we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.

Do not think, brethren, that it is a light thing to hate or not to love; hear what follows: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. Now then, if anyone despised brotherly hatred, will he despise murder too in his heart? He does not move his hand to kill a man, he is already held a murderer by the Lord; the other lives, and this one is already judged a slayer. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15).

11. In this we know love. He means the perfection of love, that perfection which we have commended. In this we know love, because he laid down his soul for us: and we ought to lay down our souls for the brethren (1 John 3:16). Behold whence it came: Peter, do you love me? feed my sheep (John 21:15). For, that you may know that he wished his sheep to be so fed by him that he would lay down his soul for the sheep, he said this to him at once: When you were young, you girded yourself, and went where you would; but when you are older, another will gird you, and carry you where you do not wish. But this he said, says the Evangelist, signifying by what death he was to glorify God (John 21:18-19): so that to him to whom he had said: Feed my sheep, he might teach him to lay down his soul for his sheep.

12. Whence does love begin, brethren? Attend a little: where it is made perfect you have heard; that very end and that very measure the Lord too commended in the Gospel: Greater love has no one, he says, than to lay down his soul for his friends (John 15, 13). Its perfection, then, he showed in the Gospel, and here its perfection has been commended: but you question yourselves, and say to yourselves: When can we have this love? Do not quickly despair of yourself: perhaps it has been born, but is not yet perfect; nourish it, lest it be choked. But you will say to me: And whence do I know? We have heard where it is made perfect; let us hear whence it begins.

It follows, and he says: But whoever has the goods of the world, and sees his brother hungering, and shuts his heart against him: how can the love of God abide in him? (1 John 3, 17) Behold whence love begins. If you are not yet fit to die for your brother, be already fit to give of your goods to your brother. Let love already strike your heart, that you may Acts not out of ostentation, but out of the inmost marrow of mercy; that you may consider him set in want. For if you cannot give your superfluous things to your brother, can you lay down your soul for your brother?

Money lies in your bosom, which thieves can take from you; and if thieves do not take it, by dying you will leave it, even if it does not leave you while you live: what will you do with it? Your brother hungers, he is set in necessity: perhaps he is hard pressed, he is straitened by a creditor; he has nothing, you have it: he is your brother, you were bought together, your price is one, both of you were redeemed by the blood of Christ:

see whether you have mercy, if you have the goods of the world. What is it to me? perhaps you say. Am I to give my money, that he may not suffer trouble? If your heart answers you this, the love of the Father does not abide in you. If the love of the Father does not abide in you, you are not born of God.

How do you boast that you are a Christian? You have the name, and you do not have the deeds. But if the deed follows the name, let anyone call you a pagan, do you show by your deeds that you are a Christian. For if you do not show by your deeds that you are a Christian, though all call you a Christian, what does the name profit you, where the reality is not found? But whoever has the goods of the world, and sees his brother in need, and shuts his heart against him; how can the love of God abide in him? And it follows: Little children, let us not love in word only and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth (1 John 3, 18).

13. I think a great and necessary secret and sacrament has been made manifest to you, my brethren. How much love avails, all Scripture commends; but I do not know if anywhere it is commended more than in this Epistle. We ask and beseech you in the Lord, that you both hold in memory the things you have heard; and that to the things still to be said, until the Epistle itself is finished, you come attentive, and listen attentively. But open your heart to the good seeds: grub up the thorns, lest what is sown in you be choked, but rather let the crop grow; and let the farmer rejoice, and prepare a barn for you as for grain, not fire as for chaff.

1. If you remember, brethren, that yesterday we closed our discourse at this sentence, which without doubt ought to have remained and ought to remain in your heart, since you heard it last: Little children, let us not love in word only and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth. Then it follows: And in this we know that we are of the truth, and before him we persuade our heart: that if our heart thinks ill, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3, 18-20). He had said: Let us not love in word only and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth: it is asked of us, in what deed and in what truth he who loves God, or he who loves his brother, is recognized. Already above he had said how far love is made perfect; which the Lord too says in the Gospel: Greater love than this has no one, than to lay down his soul for his friends (John 15, 13): and this man had said this: As he laid down his soul for us, we too ought to lay down our souls for the brethren (1 John 3, 16). This is the perfection of love; and a greater can in no way be found.

But because it is not perfect in all, and he in whom it is not perfect ought not to despair, if it has already been born so that it may be made perfect: and surely, if it has been born, it must be nourished, and by certain nourishments of its own be led to its proper perfection.

We sought whence the beginning of love begins, and there we found at once: If anyone has the goods of the world, and sees his brother in need, and shuts his heart against him; how does the love of the Father abide in him? (1 John 3, 17)

Therefore this love begins here, brethren, that one give of his superfluous things to one in need, set in some straits; that from what abounds to him for the time being, he free his brother from temporal tribulation. Here is the beginning of love.

This, thus begun, if you nourish it with the word of God and the hope of the life to come, you will come to that perfection, that you be ready to lay down your soul for your brethren.

2. But because many such things are done by those who seek other things, and who do not love the brethren; let us be called back to the testimony of conscience. Whence do we prove that many such things are done by those who do not love the brethren?

How many call themselves martyrs in heresies and schisms! They seem to themselves to lay down their soul for their brethren. If they laid down their soul for the brethren, they would not separate themselves from the whole brotherhood.

Likewise, how many there are who, for the sake of ostentation, bestow much, give much; and seek there nothing but human praise and popular glory, full of winds, established on no stability! Because, then, there are such men, where will brotherly love have to be proved? Because he wished it to be proved, he says, admonishing: Little children, let us not love in word only and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth.

We ask: In what deed, in what truth? Can there be a more manifest deed than to give to the poor? Many do this out of ostentation, not out of love. Can there be a greater deed than to die for the brethren? And this too many wish to be thought to do, for the ostentation of winning a name, not out of the inmost marrow of love.

It remains that he loves his brother who, before God, where he alone sees, persuades his own heart, and questions his heart whether he truly does this on account of love of the brethren; and the eye that penetrates the heart, where a man cannot look, bears witness to him. Therefore the apostle Paul, because he was ready to die for the brethren, and said: I myself will be spent for your souls (2 Cor 12, 15): yet, because God saw this in his heart, not the men to whom he was speaking, said to them: But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by any human day (1 Cor 4, 3).

And he himself shows too, in a certain place, that these things are wont to be done out of empty ostentation, not out of the firmness of love: for he says, when he was speaking of the commendation of love itself: If I distribute all my goods to the poor, and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor 13, 3).

For can anyone do this without love? He can. For those who do not have love have divided unity. Seek there, and you will see many giving much to the poor; you will see others ready to undergo death, so that, when the persecutor desists, they cast themselves down: these without doubt do this without love. Let us be called back, then, to conscience, of which the Apostle says: For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1, 12).

Let us be called back to conscience, of which the same Apostle says: But let each one prove his own work, and then he will have glory in himself, and not in another (Gal 6, 4).

Let each one of us, then, prove his own work, whether it flows from the vein of love, whether from the root of love the branches of good works sprout.

But let each one prove his own work, he says, and then he will have glory in himself, and not in another: not when another's tongue bears witness to him, but when his own conscience bears witness.

3. This, then, he commends here. In this we know that we are of the truth, when we love in deed and in truth, not in words and with the tongue only: and before him we persuade our heart (1 John 3, 19). What is, before him? Where he himself sees. Whence the Lord himself in the Gospel: Beware, he says, of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven (Mt 6, 1). And what is: Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing (Mt 6, 3): but that the right hand is the pure conscience; the left, desire of the world?

Many, through desire of the world, do many wondrous things; the left hand works, not the right. The right hand ought to work, and the left not knowing, so that not even the desire of the age may mix itself in, when we work some good out of love. And where do we know this? You are before God, question your heart: see what you have done, and what you sought there; your salvation, or the windy praise of men. Look within: for a man cannot judge whom he cannot see. If we persuade our heart, let us persuade it before him.

For if our heart thinks ill, that is, accuses us within, because we do not do with the right intention what ought to be done; God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3, 20). You hide your heart from man; hide it from God if you can. How will you hide it from him, to whom it was said by a certain sinner, fearing and confessing: Where shall I go from your spirit? and from your face whither shall I flee?

He was seeking whither he might flee, that he might escape the judgment of God, and did not find it. For where is God not? If I ascend, he says, into heaven, you are there: if I descend into hell, you are present (Ps 139, 7-8 (138, 7-8)). Whither will you go? whither will you flee? Do you wish to hear counsel? If you wish to flee from him, flee to him. Flee to him by confessing, not by hiding from him: for you cannot hide, but you can confess.

Say to him: You are my refuge (cf. Ps 32, 7 (31, 7)); and let love be nourished in you, which alone leads to life. Let your conscience bear witness to you that it is of God. If it is of God, do not wish to vaunt it before men; because neither do the praises of men lift you up to heaven, nor do their reproaches put you down from there. Let him see who crowns; let him be witness by whose judgment you are crowned. God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

4. Most beloved, if our heart thinks not ill, we have confidence toward God (1 John 3, 21). What is, the heart thinks not ill? It has answered us truly, that we love, and there is genuine love in us: not feigned, but sincere; seeking the welfare of the brother, expecting no advantage from the brother, but his welfare. We have confidence toward God; and whatever we ask, we shall receive from him, because we keep his commandments (1 John 3, 22).

Therefore not in the sight of men, but where God himself sees in the heart. We have therefore confidence toward God; and whatever we ask, we shall receive from him: but, because we keep his commandments. What are his commandments? Must it always be repeated? A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another (John 13, 34).

He speaks of love itself, he commends it. Whoever, then, has brotherly love, and has it before God, where God sees, and his heart, questioned under a just examination, answers him nothing else than that there is there the genuine root of love, whence good fruits arise; he has confidence with God, and whatever he asks, he will receive from him, because he keeps his commandments.

5. A certain question arises, because it is not this or that man, or you or I, of whom, if I ask something from the Lord our God, and do not receive it, each one can easily say of me: He does not have love; and of any man of this time it can easily be said; and let a man think what he wishes of a man: they do not make a greater question, except those men whom it is agreed were holy when they wrote, and now are with God.

Who has love, if Paul did not have it, who said: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged; you are not straitened in us (2 Cor 6, 11-12); who said: I will be spent for your souls (2 Cor 12, 15): and so great grace was in him that it was made manifest that he had love? Yet we find that he asked, and did not receive. What do we say, brethren? It is a question; be attentive to God. This too is a great question.

Just as concerning sin, where it was said: He who is born of God does not sin (1 John 3, 9); we found that this sin is to violate love, and that this is properly designated in this place: so now too we ask what he has said. For if you attend to the words, it seems plain; if to the examples, it is obscure. Than these words nothing is plainer: And whatever we ask, we shall receive from him; because we keep his commandments, and do the things that please him in his sight (1 John 3, 22). Whatever we ask, he says, we shall receive from him.

He has bound us tightly. For there too it would bind, if he said every sin: but for this reason we found a way of explaining it, because he spoke of a certain sin, not of every one; but of a certain sin, which everyone who is born of God does not commit: and we found that that certain sin is the violation of love. And we have a plain example from the Gospel, when the Lord says: If I had not come, they would have no sin (John 15, 22).

What then? had he come to innocent Jews, that he speaks so? Then if he had not come, they would have no sin? Did the presence of the physician, then, make the sick man, not take away the fever? Who would say this, even in madness? He came only to cure and heal the sick. Why, then, did he say: If I had not come, they would have no sin, except because he wished a certain particular sin to be understood? For a certain sin the Jews would not have.

What sin? That whereby they did not believe in him, whereby they despised him present. As, then, there he said sin, and it does not follow that we understand every sin, but a certain sin: so here too not every sin, lest he be contrary to that place where he says: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1, 8); but a certain particular sin, that is, the violation of love. But here he has bound us more: If we ask, he said, if our heart does not accuse us, and reports in the sight of God that there is true love in us; whatever we ask, we shall receive from him.

6. Now then I have said to your Charity, brethren, let no one attend to us. For what are we? Or what are you? What, but the Church of God, which is known to all? And if it pleases him, we are in it; and we who by love abide in it, let us persevere there, if we wish to show the love we have.

Nevertheless, of the apostle Paul what evil are we to think? Did he not love the brethren? Was there not in him the testimony of his conscience in the sight of God? Was there not in Paul that root of love, whence all good fruits proceeded? Who would say this in madness? Where, then, do we find that the Apostle asked and did not receive? He himself says: Lest I be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me: for which I three times asked the Lord to take it from me; and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you; for strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12, 7-9).

Behold, he was not heard, that the angel of Satan should be taken from him. But why? Because it did not profit him. Therefore he was heard unto salvation, who was not heard according to his will. Let your Charity know a great sacrament; which for this reason we commend to you, lest it slip from you in your temptations. The saints are heard in all things unto salvation, they are always heard unto eternal salvation: this they desire; because according to this they are always heard.

7. But let us distinguish God's hearings. For we find some not heard according to their will, heard unto salvation:

and again we find some heard according to their will, and not heard unto salvation.

Distinguish this, hold this example of him who was not heard according to his will, but heard unto salvation.

Hear the apostle Paul; for God showed him that very hearing unto salvation: My grace is sufficient for you, he says; for strength is made perfect in weakness. You asked, you cried out, three times you cried out:

that very thing which you cried out once I heard, I did not turn away my ears from you; I know what to do: you wish the medicine by which you are cauterized to be taken away; I know the weakness by which you are weighed down. Therefore this man was heard unto salvation, he was not heard according to his will.

Whom do we find heard according to their will, not heard unto salvation? Do we find, do you suppose, some wicked man, some impious man heard by God according to his will, not heard unto salvation?

If I set down the example of some man, perhaps you will say to me: You call him iniquitous, but he was just; if he were not just, he would not be heard by God. I am going to set forth such a one of whose iniquity and impiety no one may doubt. The devil himself asked for Job, and received him (cf. Job 1, 11-12).

Did you not here too hear of the devil that he who commits sin is of the devil (1 John 3, 8)? Not because he created him, but because the man imitates him. Was it not said of him: He stood not in the truth (John 8, 44)? Is he not that ancient serpent who through the woman gave the poison to the first man to drink (cf. Gen 3, 1-6)? Who for Job too kept the woman for this reason, that through her the husband should not be consoled, but tempted (cf. Job 2, 9).

The devil himself asked that the holy man be tempted, and received it: the Apostle asked that the thorn of the flesh be taken from him, and did not receive it.

But the Apostle was heard more than the devil. For the Apostle was heard unto salvation, though not according to his will: the devil was heard according to his will, but unto condemnation. For this man was granted to be tempted for this reason, that, he being proved, the other might be tormented. But this, brethren, we find not only in the old Books, but also in the Gospel.

The demons asked of the Lord, when he was driving them out of a man, to be permitted to go into swine. Could not the Lord have said to them, that they should not go even there? For they would not, if he were unwilling, rebel against the king of heaven and earth. Yet for the sake of a certain mystery and a certain dispensation he let the demons go into the swine (cf. Lk 8, 32), to show that the devil rules over those who lead the life of swine.

The demons, then, were heard, and the Apostle not heard? Or rather let us say what is truer: nay, the Apostle was heard, the demons were not heard? Their will was done, this man's health was made perfect.

8. According to this we ought to understand that God, even if he does not give to our will, gives to our salvation. For what if you ask that which harms you, and the physician knows that it harms you?

For the physician does not fail to hear you when perhaps you ask for cold water, and if it profits, he gives it at once; if it does not profit, he does not give it. Did he not hear you, or rather did he hear you unto health, in that he contradicted your will?

Let love, then, be in you, brethren; let it be in you, and be secure: and when what you ask is not given you, you are heard; but you do not know it. Many have been given into their own hands to their own harm: of whom the Apostle says: God handed them over to the desires of their heart (Rom 1, 24).

Someone asked for great wealth; he received it to his own harm. When he did not have it, he feared little; he began to have it, he became prey to a more powerful man.

Was he not heard to his own harm, who wished to have that for which he would be sought out by a robber, whom, when poor, no one sought out?

Learn to ask God in such a way that you entrust to the physician what he himself knows to do. Do you confess the disease, let him apply the medicine.

Only hold fast to love. For he wishes to cut, he wishes to cauterize; if you cry out, and are not heard in the cutting, in the cauterizing and the affliction, he knows how far the rottenness goes.

You now wish him to draw back his hands, and he regards the depth of the wound; he knows how far he must reach. He does not hear you according to your will, but he hears you unto health.

Be sure, then, my brethren, that what the Apostle says is true: For what we should pray for as we ought, we do not know; but the Spirit himself intercedes with unutterable groanings, for he intercedes for the saints (Rom 8, 26-27). What is: The Spirit himself intercedes for the saints, but that very love which has been made in you through the Spirit?

For the same Apostle says: The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5, 5). Love itself groans, love itself prays; against it he who gave it does not know how to shut his ears. Be secure, let love ask; and there are the ears of God.

What you wish is not done, but what is expedient is done. Therefore whatever we ask, he says, we shall receive from him. I have already said, if you understand it unto salvation, there is no question: if not unto salvation, there is a question, and a great one, which makes you a slanderer of the apostle Paul. Whatever we ask, we shall receive from him; because we keep his commandments, and do the things that please him in his sight. In his sight, within where he sees.

9. And what are those commandments? This is, he says, his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another. You see that this is the commandment, you see that whoever acts against this commandment commits the sin which everyone who is born of God lacks. As he gave us commandment: that we should love one another. And he who keeps his commandment: you see that nothing else is enjoined on us, but that we love one another:

And he who keeps his commandment abides in him, and he in him. And in this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he gave us (1 John 3, 23-24; John 13, 34; 15, 12). Is it not manifest that the Holy Spirit works this in a man, that there be in him love and charity? Is it not manifest, what the apostle Paul says: The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us?

For he was speaking of love, and saying that in the sight of God we ought to question our heart. But if our heart thinks not ill: that is, if it confesses that whatever is done in good work is done out of love of the brother. He went on further, when he spoke of the commandment, to say this: This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another. And he who does his commandment abides in him, and he in him. In this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he gave us. For if you find that you have love, you have the Spirit of God for understanding: for it is a very necessary thing.

10. In the first times the Holy Spirit fell upon believers; and they spoke in tongues they had not learned, as the Spirit gave them to utter. These were signs suited to the time. For it was fitting that the Holy Spirit be thus signified in all tongues, because the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues throughout the whole world. That was signified, and it passed. Surely now, when hands are laid on men that they may receive the Holy Spirit, is this expected, that they should speak in tongues?

Or when we laid hands on these infants, did each one of you mark whether they spoke in tongues; and when he saw them not speaking in tongues, was any of you of so perverse a heart as to say: These have not received the Holy Spirit; for if they had received it, they would speak in tongues, as was done then? If, then, the testimony of the presence of the Holy Spirit is not given now through these miracles; whence does it come, whence does each one know that he has received the Holy Spirit?

Let him question his heart: if he loves his brother, the Spirit of God abides in him. Let him see, let him prove himself before the eyes of God; let him see whether there is in him love of peace and unity, love of the Church spread throughout the whole world. Let him not attend to loving only that brother whom he beholds before him: for many of our brethren we do not see, and in the unity of the Spirit we are joined to them. What wonder that they are not with us? We are in one body, we have one head in heaven.

Brethren, our eyes do not see one another, as though they do not know one another. Or in the love of bodily framing do they not know one another? For, that you may know that in the conjunction of love they know one another: when both are open, it is not possible that the right eye attend to anything that the left does not attend to.

Direct the ray of the right eye without the other, if you can. They come together at once, they are directed at once; the intention is one, the places are different. If, then, all who love God with you have one intention with you, do not attend to the fact that you are separated in body by place; you have together fixed the gaze of your heart on the light of truth.

Therefore, if you wish to know that you have received the Spirit, question your heart; lest perhaps you have the sacrament, and do not have the power of the sacrament. Question your heart: if there is there love of the brother, be secure. There cannot be love without the Spirit of God: for Paul cries: The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5, 5).

11. Most beloved, do not believe every spirit. Because he had said: In this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he gave us. But whence the Spirit himself is known, attend: Most beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God (1 John 4, 1). And who is it that tests the spirits? He has set us a difficult thing, my brethren: it is good for us that he himself say whence we may discern. He is going to say it; do not dread: but first see, attend; see that from this is squeezed out that whereby the empty heretics raise their slanders. Attend, see what he says: Most beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God.

The Holy Spirit was called by the name of water in the Gospel, when the Lord cried and said: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and drink: he who believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly. But the Evangelist explained whence he said it: for he went on to say: But this he said of the Spirit which those who were to believe in him were to receive. Why did the Lord not baptize many? But what does he say? For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7, 37-39).

Because, then, they had Baptism, and had not yet received the Holy Spirit, whom on the day of Pentecost the Lord sent from heaven; that the Spirit might be given, the glorification of the Lord was awaited. And before he was glorified, and before he sent him, he yet invited men to prepare themselves to receive the water, of which he said: He who thirsts, let him come and drink; and: He who believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly. What is, rivers of living water? what is that water? Let no one question me; question the Gospel. But this he said, it says, of the Spirit which those who were to believe in him were to receive.

One thing, then, is the water of the Sacrament, another the water that signifies the Spirit of God. The water of the Sacrament is visible; the water of the Spirit invisible. The former washes the body, and signifies what is done in the soul: through that Spirit the soul itself is cleansed and fattened.

He is the Spirit of God, whom the heretics cannot have, and whoever cut themselves off from the Church. And whoever do not openly cut themselves off, but have been cut off through iniquity, and within are tossed about like chaff, and are not grains, do not have this Spirit.

This Spirit was signified by the Lord under the name of water: and we have heard from this Epistle: Do not believe every spirit; and those words of Solomon bear witness: Abstain from another's water. What is water? The Spirit. Does water always signify the Spirit? Not always: but in certain places it signifies the Spirit, in certain places it signifies Baptism, in certain places it signifies peoples, in certain places it signifies counsel. You have it said in a certain place: Counsel is a fountain of life to those who possess it (Prov 16, 22).

Therefore through the various places of the Scriptures the name of water signifies various things. Now, however, under the name of water you have heard the Holy Spirit, not by our own interpretation, but by the Gospel testimony, where it says: But this he said of the Spirit which those who were to believe in him were to receive.

If, then, by the name of water the Holy Spirit is signified, and this Epistle says to us: Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God; let us understand that it was said for this reason: Abstain from another's water, and do not drink from another's fountain (Prov 9, 18 LXX; cf. Prov 5, 15). What is, do not drink from another's fountain? Do not believe another's spirit.

12. There remains, then, an examination, whereby it may be proved that it is the Spirit of God. He has indeed set down a sign, and this perhaps difficult; yet let us see. We are going to return to that love; it is what teaches us, because it is the anointing. Yet here what does he say? Test the spirits whether they are of God: for many false prophets have gone out into this world.

There already are all the heretics and all the schismatics. How, then, do I test the spirit? It follows: In this the Spirit of God is known. Lift up the ears of the heart. We were laboring, and saying: Who knows? who discerns? Behold, he is going to tell the sign. In this the Spirit of God is known: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the antichrist, of whom you have heard that he is coming; and now he is in this world (1 John 4, 1-3).

As it were, our ears are pricked up to discern the spirits; and we have heard such a thing that nonetheless we do not discern. For what does he say? Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Then the spirit that is among the heretics is of God; because they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Now here perhaps they raise themselves against us, and say: You do not have the Spirit of God; but we confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: but this man denied that those have the Spirit of God who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Ask the Arians; they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: ask the Eunomians; they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: ask the Macedonians; they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: question the Cataphrygians; they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: question the Novatians; they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Do all these heresies, then, have the Spirit of God? Are they not, then, false prophets? is there, then, no deception there, no seduction there? Surely they are antichrists, who went out from us, but were not of us.

13. What, then, do we do? whence do we discern? Attend; let us go together in heart, and knock. Love itself keeps watch, for it is love that will knock, love that will open: now you will understand in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have already heard above that it was said: He who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, this is the antichrist (1 John 2, 22).

And there we asked, who denies it; because neither do we deny it, nor do they deny it. And we found that some deny it by deeds (See above, In ep. Ioan. ad Parth. 3.7-9); and we brought the testimony from the Apostle, who says: For they confess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him (Tit 1, 16). So, then, now too let us seek in deeds, not in the tongue.

Who is the spirit that is not of God? He who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And who is the spirit that is of God? He who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Who is it that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?

Come now, brethren, let us attend to works, not to the noise of the tongue. Let us ask why Christ came in the flesh, and we shall find those who deny that he has come in the flesh. For if you attend to tongues, you will hear many heresies confessing that Christ has come in the flesh: but the truth convicts them. Why did Christ come in the flesh? Was he not God? Was it not written of him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1, 1)?

Was he not himself feeding the angels, and does he not still feed the angels? Did he not come here in such a way that he did not depart from there? Did he not ascend in such a way that he did not abandon us? Why then did he come in the flesh? Because the hope of resurrection had to be shown to us. He was God, and he came in the flesh; for God could not die, but the flesh could die; therefore he came in the flesh, that he might die for us.

But how did he die for us? Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13). Love, then, brought him to the flesh. So whoever does not have love denies that Christ has come in the flesh. Now go ahead and question all the heretics: has Christ come in the flesh? He has come; this I believe, this I confess. On the contrary, you deny it. How do I deny it? You hear that I say it. On the contrary, I prove that you deny it. You say it with your voice, you deny it in your heart; you say it with words, you deny it with deeds.

How, you ask, do I deny it with deeds? Because Christ came in the flesh for this reason: that he might die for us. He died for us for this reason: that he taught great love: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You do not have love, because for the sake of your own honor you divide the unity. So from this understand the Spirit that is from God.

Knock, tap the earthen vessels, in case they may be cracked and ring poorly: see whether they ring sound, see whether love is there.

You take yourself away from the unity of the whole world, you divide the Church through schisms, you tear apart the body of Christ. He came in the flesh to gather together: you cry out in order to scatter.

So it is the Spirit of God who says that Jesus has come in the flesh: who says it not with the tongue but with deeds; who says it not by making a sound but by loving. But that one is not the Spirit of God who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: he too denies it not with the tongue but with his life, not with words but with deeds. It is clear, then, how we may recognize the brethren. Many who are within are, as it were, within; but no one is outside unless he is truly outside.

14. So that you may know that he was referring to deeds: And every spirit, he says, that dissolves Christ, that he has come in the flesh, is not from God.

To dissolve is understood as something done by deeds. What does he show you? The one who denies; because he said, dissolves. He came to gather, you come to dissolve. You want to pull apart the members of Christ.

How do you not deny that Christ has come in the flesh, you who break apart the Church of God, which he gathered together? So you come against Christ; you are antichrist. Whether you are inside or outside, you are antichrist: but when you are inside, you are hidden, and when you are outside, you are made manifest.

You dissolve Jesus, and you deny that he has come in the flesh; you are not from God. This is why he says in the Gospel: Whoever dissolves one of these least commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

What does it mean, it is dissolved? What does it mean, it is taught? It is dissolved by deeds, and it is taught, as it were, by words. You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? (Rom 2:21)

So the one who steals dissolves it in deed, and yet teaches in this way; he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in the Church of this present time.

Of him it was said: Do what they say; but do not do what they do (Matt 23:3). But whoever does them and so teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:19).

From the fact that he said here, does them, he set in opposition there what he said, dissolves them, that is, does not do them and teaches men so. So the one who does not act dissolves them. What does this teach us, except that we should question deeds and not trust words?

The obscurity of these matters compels us to say much, above all so that what the Lord deigns to reveal may reach even the slower brethren; for all have been purchased by the blood of Christ. And I fear that this Epistle may not be finished in these days, as I had promised: but since it pleases the Lord, it is better to keep something in reserve than to burden hearts with too much food.

1. This world is to all the faithful who seek their homeland just as the desert was to the people of Israel. They were indeed still wandering, and seeking their homeland: but with God as their leader they could not go astray. The way for them was God's command. For where they went about for forty years, the journey itself is accomplished in very few stages, and it is known to all. They were delayed because they were being trained, not because they were being abandoned.

What God promises us, then, is an unspeakable sweetness and good, as Scripture says and as you have often heard us recall, what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (Isa 64:4; 1 Cor 2:9). But we are trained by temporal labors and instructed by the trials of the present life. Yet if you do not want to die of thirst in this desert, drink love. It is a fountain that the Lord willed to place here, so that we might not fail along the way: and we shall drink of it more abundantly when we come to our homeland.

The Gospel has just been read; so that I may speak about the very words with which the reading ended, what else did you hear about but love? For we have made a covenant with our God in prayer, that if we want him to forgive us our sins, we too should forgive the sins that have been committed against us (See Matt 6:12). But nothing forgives except love.

Take love away from the heart; it holds hatred, it does not know how to pardon. Let love be there, and it pardons without anxiety, for it is not constrained. But see whether this whole Epistle, which we have undertaken to expound to you, commends anything other than this one thing, love. Nor is it to be feared that by being said often it may become hateful. For what is loved, if love itself becomes hateful? The love by which it comes about that other things are rightly loved—how is it itself to be loved? A thing, then, that ought never to depart from the heart should not depart from the mouth either.

2. Now you, he says, are from God, little children, and you have overcome him (1 Jn 4:4): overcome whom, if not the antichrist? For above he had said: Everyone who dissolves Jesus Christ and denies that he has come in the flesh is not from God (1 Jn 4:3). And we explained, if you remember, that all who violate love deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. For there was no need for Jesus to come except for the sake of love. For that love is commended to us which he himself commends in the Gospel: No one can have greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13). How could the Son of God lay down his life for us, unless he were clothed in flesh, in which he could die?

So whoever violates love, whatever his tongue may say, his very life denies that Christ has come in the flesh; and that person is antichrist, wherever he may be, into whatever place he may enter. But what does he say to those who are citizens of that homeland for which we sigh? You have overcome him.

And how did they overcome? Because he who is in you is greater than he who is in this world (1 Jn 4:4). Lest they attribute the victory to their own strength and be overcome by the arrogance of pride (for whomever the devil makes proud, he overcomes), wishing to keep them humble, what does he say? You have overcome him.

Now every man who hears You have overcome lifts his head, lifts his neck, wants to be praised. Do not exalt yourself; see who has overcome in you. Why have you overcome? Because he who is in you is greater than he who is in this world. Be humble, carry your Lord; be the beast of burden of the one who rides you.

It is good for you that he himself should rule and lead you. For if you do not have him as your rider, you can lift your neck, you can kick out: but woe to you without a guide; for that liberty hands you over to the beasts to be devoured.

3. They are of the world. Who? The antichrists. You have already heard who they are. And even if you are not such, you recognize them: but whoever is such does not recognize it. They are of the world: therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them (1 Jn 4:5). Who are those who speak of the world? Notice those who are against love. See, you have heard the Lord saying: If you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins: but if you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you your sins (Matt 6:14–15).

It is the verdict of truth: or if it is not truth that speaks, contradict it. If you are a Christian, and you believe Christ, he himself said: I am the truth (Jn 14:6). This verdict is true, it is firm. Now hear men speaking of the world. Are you not going to avenge yourself, and will not that man say that he has gotten the better of you? On the contrary, you feel that you have a real man to deal with.

These things are said every day. Those who say such things speak of the world; and the world hears them. Nor do any say such things except those who love the world; nor are such things heard except by those who love the world. And whoever loves the world and neglects love—you have heard that he denies that Jesus has come in the flesh.

Or did the Lord himself do that while in the flesh? When he was struck, did he want to avenge himself? When he hung on the cross, did he not say: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34)? But if he who had the power did not threaten, why do you threaten, why do you bluster when you are set under another's power? He died because he willed it, and he did not threaten; you do not know when you will die, and you threaten?

4. We are from God. Let us see why: see whether it is for any reason other than love. We are from God. Whoever knows God hears us: whoever is not from God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and of error (1 Jn 4:6). For whoever hears us has the spirit of truth: whoever does not hear us has the spirit of error. It is clear, then, from what source we may recognize the brethren. Let us see what he warns, and let us rather hear him warning us in the spirit of truth; not the antichrists, not the lovers of the world, not the world: whether we have been born from God:

Beloved, as it follows above, see what: We are from God. Whoever knows God hears us: whoever is not from God does not hear us. By this is known the spirit of truth and of error. So now he has made us attentive: because whoever knows God hears, but whoever does not know him does not hear: and this is the distinction between the spirit of truth and of error. Let us see what he is going to warn, in which we ought to hear him. Beloved, let us love one another.

Why? Because a man warns us? Because love is from God. He has greatly commended love, because he said it is from God: he is going to say more, let us listen attentively. He has just said: Love is from God: and everyone who loves is born from God, and has known God. Whoever does not love does not know God. Why? Because God is love (1 Jn 4:7–8). What more could have been said, brethren? If nothing were said in praise of love throughout all these pages of this Epistle, if nothing at all throughout the other pages of the Scriptures, and we heard only this one thing from the voice of the Spirit of God, that God is love, we ought to seek nothing more.

5. Now see that to act against love is to act against God. Let no one say: I sin against a man when I do not love my brother (pay attention); and a sin against a man is easy, only let me not sin against God. How do you not sin against God when you sin against love? God is love. Do we say this? If we were to say God is love, perhaps some one of you would be scandalized and would say: What did he say? What did he mean to say, that God is love? God gave love, God granted love. Love is from God: God is love. See, brethren, you have the Scriptures of God: this Epistle is canonical; it is read aloud among all nations, it is held by the authority of the whole world, it has itself built up the whole world. You hear here from the Spirit of God: God is love. Now if you dare, act against God, and refuse to love your brother.

6. How then, a moment ago, Love is from God; and now, Love is God? For God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit: the Son, God from God; the Holy Spirit, God from God; and these three are one God, not three gods. If the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells loves: then love is God; but God because it is from God. For you have both in the Epistle; both Love is from God, and Love is God. Of the Father alone Scripture does not know how to say that he is from God.

But when you hear from God, either the Son is understood, or the Holy Spirit. And because the Apostle says: The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5); let us understand that the Holy Spirit is in love. For it is the Holy Spirit himself whom the wicked cannot receive; he is that fountain of which Scripture says: Let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you (Prov 5:16–17).

For all who do not love God are strangers, are antichrists. And although they enter the basilicas, they cannot be numbered among the children of God; that fountain of life does not belong to them. Even a wicked man can have baptism; even a wicked man can have prophecy. We find that King Saul had prophecy: he was persecuting holy David, and he was filled with the Spirit of prophecy, and he began to prophesy (See 1 Sam 19).

Even a wicked man can receive the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord: for of such it was said: Whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself (1 Cor 11:29). Even a wicked man can have the name of Christ; that is, even a wicked man can be called a Christian: of whom it was said: They polluted the name of their God (Ezek 36:20). So even a wicked man can have all these sacraments; but to have love, and to be wicked, is not possible. This, then, is the proper gift; this is the singular fountain. To drink of it the Spirit of God exhorts you; to drink of himself the Spirit of God exhorts you.

7. In this the love of God was made manifest in us. See, we have an exhortation to love God. Could we love him, unless he first loved us? If we were sluggish to love, let us not be sluggish to love in return. He loved us first; and even so we do not love him in return. He loved the wicked, but he dissolved their wickedness: he loved the wicked, but he did not gather them together for wickedness.

He loved the sick, but he visited them to heal them. God, then, is love. In this the love of God was made manifest in us, because he sent his only-begotten Son into this world, that we might live through him (1 Jn 4:9). Just as the Lord himself says: No one can have greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends; and there the love of Christ for us was proven, because he died for us.

How was the love of the Father proven toward us? Because he sent his only Son to die for us: so too the apostle Paul says: He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how has he not also with him given us all things? (Rom 8:32) See, the Father handed Christ over, and Judas handed him over;

does it not appear, as it were, to be a similar deed? Judas is a betrayer: so is God the Father then a betrayer too? God forbid, you say. I do not say it, but the Apostle says it: He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all. Both the Father handed him over, and he handed himself over. The same apostle says: Who loved me, and handed himself over for me (Gal 2:20). If the Father handed over the Son, and the Son handed himself over, what did Judas do?

A handing over was done by the Father, a handing over was done by the Son, a handing over was done by Judas; one thing was done: but what is it that distinguishes the Father handing over the Son, the Son handing over himself, and Judas the disciple handing over his master?

It is that the Father and the Son did this in love; but Judas did this in betrayal. You see that it is not what a man does that must be considered, but with what mind and will he does it. In the same deed we find God the Father in which we find Judas; the Father we bless, Judas we detest. Why do we bless the Father and detest Judas?

We bless love, we detest wickedness. For how great a benefit was bestowed on the human race by the handing over of Christ? Did Judas think of this when he handed him over? God thought of our salvation, by which we have been redeemed; Judas thought of the price for which he sold the Lord. The Son himself thought of the price he gave for us; Judas thought of the price he received for selling him. A different intention, then, made the deeds different. Although it is one thing, if we measure it by the different intentions, we find one thing to be loved, the other to be condemned; one thing to be glorified, the other to be detested. So much does love avail. See that it alone makes the distinction; see that it alone sets apart the deeds of men.

8. We have said this concerning similar deeds. In different deeds, we find a man raging out of love, and a man caressing out of wickedness. A father beats a boy, and a slave-dealer caresses him. If you set forth two things, blows and caresses, who would not choose the caresses and flee the blows? If you attend to the persons, it is love that beats, wickedness that caresses.

See what we are commending, that the deeds of men are not distinguished except by the root of love. For many things can be done that have a good appearance, and yet do not proceed from the root of love. For even thorns have flowers: some things indeed seem harsh, seem fierce; but they are done for discipline at the dictate of love. Once for all, then, a short precept is enjoined on you: Love, and do what you will: whether you keep silent, keep silent out of love; whether you cry out, cry out of love; whether you correct, correct out of love; whether you spare, spare out of love: let the root of love be within, and from this root nothing but good can come forth.

9. In this is love. In this the love of God was made manifest in us, because God sent his only-begotten Son into this world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us. We did not love him first: for he loved us to this end, that we might love him. And he sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins: a propitiator, a sacrificer. He sacrificed for our sins. Where did he find a victim? Where did he find the offering he wanted to offer pure? He found nothing else; he offered himself. Beloved, if God so loved us, we too ought to love one another (1 Jn 4:9–11). Peter, he says, do you love me? And he said: I love you. Feed my sheep (Jn 21:15–17).

10. No one has ever seen God (1 Jn 4:12): he is a thing invisible; he must be sought not with the eye but with the heart. But just as, if we wanted to see this sun, we would cleanse the eye of the body by which light can be seen, so, wanting to see God, let us cleanse the eye by which God can be seen. Where is that eye? Hear the Gospel: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). But let no one, out of the desire of the eyes, imagine God for himself. For he makes for himself either some enormous shape, or stretches out some immeasurable magnitude through space, as he enlarges through the fields, as much as he can, this light that he sees with these eyes; or he makes for himself some old man, as it were, of venerable form.

Think none of these things. There is something you may think, if you want to see God: God is love. What sort of face does love have? What sort of form does it have? What sort of stature does it have? What sort of feet does it have? What sort of hands does it have? No one can say. Yet it has feet; for they lead to the Church: it has hands; for they reach out to the poor man:

it has eyes; for by them is understood the one who is in need: Blessed, he says, is he who considers the needy and the poor (Ps 41:1 (40:2)). It has ears, of which the Lord says: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Lk 8:8). They are not members set apart in different places, but the one who has love sees the whole at once by understanding. Dwell, and you will be dwelt in; abide, and you will be abided in.

For what, my brethren, who loves what he does not see? But why, when love is praised, do you rise up, applaud, give praise? What have I shown you? Have I brought out some colors? Have I set out gold and silver? Have I dug gems out of treasuries? What such thing have I shown to your eyes? Has my face changed as I speak?

I bear flesh, I am in the same form in which I came forth, you are in the same form in which you came: love is praised, and you cry out. Surely you see nothing. But just as it pleases you when you praise it, so let it please you to keep it in your heart.

For attend to what I say, brethren; I exhort you, as much as the Lord grants, toward a great treasure. If some small vessel were shown to you, embossed, gilded, elaborately made, and it allured your eyes and drew to itself the attention of your heart, and the craftsman's hand pleased you, and the weight of silver, and the splendor of the metal; would not each one of you say: Oh, if only I had that little vessel?

And you would say it to no purpose, for it was not in your power. Or if anyone wanted to have it, he would think of stealing it from another's house. Love is praised to you; if it pleases you, have it, possess it: there is no need to commit theft against anyone, no need to think of buying it; it costs nothing. Hold it, embrace it; nothing is sweeter than it. If it is such when it is spoken of, what is it when it is possessed?

11. If perhaps you want to keep love, brethren, above all do not think it abject and lazy; nor that love is kept by a kind of gentleness, or rather not gentleness but laxity and negligence. It is not kept that way. Do not think that you love your slave when you do not beat him; or that you love your son when you do not give him discipline; or that you love your neighbor when you do not rebuke him: that is not love, but feebleness. Let love be fervent to correct, to amend: but if his ways are good, let them be a delight; if they are bad, let them be amended, corrected. Do not love the error in a man, but the man: for God made the man, and man himself made the error. Love that which God made, do not love that which man himself made. When you love that, you take this away; when you love that, you amend this. But even if you rage at times, it is out of love for correction.

This is why love was shown in the dove that came down upon the Lord (See Matt 3:16). That appearance of a dove, in which appearance the Holy Spirit came so that love might be poured into us. Why this? The dove has no gall: yet it fights for its nest with beak and wings, it rages without bitterness. This is what a father also does; when he chastises his son, he chastises him for discipline. As I said, the seducer, in order to sell, caresses with bitterness: the father, in order to correct, chastises without gall. Be such toward all. See, brethren, a great lesson, a great rule: Each one has children, or wants to have them; or if he has altogether decided not to have children in the flesh, he desires to have them spiritually: who is there who does not correct his son? Who is there to whom a father does not give discipline (See Heb 12:7)? And yet he seems to rage. Love rages, charity rages: it rages in a certain way without gall, after the manner of the dove, not of the raven.

From this it comes to mind, my brethren, to say to you that those violators of love made a schism: just as they hate love itself, so they hate the dove also. But the dove convicts them: it proceeds from heaven, the heavens are opened, and it remains upon the head of the Lord. Why this? So that he might hear: This is he who baptizes (Jn 1:33).

Withdraw, you robbers; withdraw, you invaders of the possession of Christ. In your own possessions, where you want to be masters, you have dared to fix the title-deeds of the powerful man. He recognizes his own title-deeds; he claims his possession for himself: he does not erase the title-deeds, but enters and takes possession. So for one coming to the Catholic Church, baptism is not erased, lest the title of the emperor be erased. But what happens in the Catholic Church? The title is recognized; the possessor enters under his own titles, where the robber had been entering under another's titles.

1. Love is a sweet word, but a sweeter deed. We cannot always speak of it. For we do many things, and various activities distract us, so that our tongue is not free always to speak of love: yet our tongue could do nothing better. But that of which we are not permitted always to speak, we are permitted always to guard. Just as now, what we sing, Alleluia, do we always do this? It is scarcely for a small part, not the whole span, of one hour that we sing Alleluia; and we are free for something else. Now Alleluia, as you already know, means Praise God. He who praises God with his tongue cannot do so always: he who praises God by his conduct can do so always. The works of mercy, the affection of love, the holiness of piety, the incorruption of chastity, the modesty of sobriety—these must always be held: whether we are in public, or at home, whether before men, or in our chamber, whether speaking, or silent, whether doing something, or at leisure; these must always be held; for all these virtues that I have named are within.

But who is able to name them all? It is like the army of a commander who sits within in your mind. For just as a commander acts through his army to do whatever pleases him, so the Lord Jesus Christ, beginning to dwell in our inner man, that is, in the mind through faith (See Eph 3:17), uses these virtues as his ministers.

And through these virtues, which cannot be seen with the eyes, and yet, when they are named, are praised—but they would not be praised unless they were loved, they would not be loved unless they were seen; and if indeed they would not be loved unless they were seen, they are seen with another eye, that is, with the inner gaze of the heart—through these invisible virtues the members are moved visibly: the feet to walk; but where?

Wherever the good will moves them, the will that serves as a soldier under the good commander. The hands to work; but what? What love commands, the love that has been inspired within by the Holy Spirit. The members, then, are seen when they are moved; he who commands within is not seen. And who commands within is known almost to him alone who commands, and to that one within who is commanded.

2. For, brethren, you heard just now, when the Gospel was being read; surely if you had there not only the ear of the body but also of the heart. What does he say? Beware of doing your righteousness before men, in order to be seen by them (Matt 6:1).

Did he mean to say that whatever good we do, we should hide it from the eyes of men, and be afraid to be seen? If you fear onlookers, you will have no imitators: you ought, then, to be seen. But you ought not to do it for this end, that you may be seen. The end of your joy ought not to be there, the limit of your gladness ought not to be there, that you should think you have obtained the whole fruit of your good work when you have been seen and praised.

This is nothing. Despise yourself when you are praised: let him be praised in you who works through you. Do not, then, do the good you do for your own praise, but for the praise of him from whom you have it that you do good. From yourself you have to act badly, from God you have to act well. On the contrary, see how perverse and backward wicked men are.

What they do well, they want to attribute to themselves: if they do badly, they want to accuse God. Turn this twisted and backward thing—whatever it is—around, making it, as it were, head downward: what is above, making it below; what is below, making it above.

Do you want to make God below, and yourself above? You are cast down headlong, not lifted up: for he is always above. What then? You do well, and God does badly?

On the contrary, say this, if you want to speak more truly: I do badly, he does well; and what I do well, is done well by him: for whatever I do badly is from myself. This confession strengthens the heart, and makes the foundation of love.

For if we ought to hide our good works, lest they be seen by men, where is that saying of the Lord in the sermon he gave on the mountain? Where he said this, there too he said this a little before: Let your good works shine before men. And he did not stop there, he did not make an end there; but he added: And let them glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16).

And what does the Apostle say? I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea that are in Christ: but they had only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith that he once ravaged; and in me they glorified God (Gal 1:22–24).

See how he too, because he became known in this way, set the end not in his own praise but in the praise of God. And as far as it concerns himself, a ravager of the Church, an envious persecutor, malicious, he himself confesses it, we do not revile him. Paul loves to have his sins told by us, so that he may be glorified who healed such a sickness. For the physician's hand cut the greatness of the wound, and healed it. That voice from heaven laid low the persecutor and raised up the preacher; it killed Saul and gave life to Paul (See Acts 9). For Saul was the persecutor of a holy man (1 Sam 19);

from this he had his name when he was persecuting Christians: afterward from Saul he became Paul (See Acts 13:9). What is Paul? Little. So when Saul, proud, exalted: when Paul, humble, little. This is why we speak thus: I will see you a little after (paulo post), that is, after a little while. Hear that he became little: For I am the least of the Apostles (1 Cor 15:9); and: To me, the least of all the saints (Eph 3:8), he says in another place. So he was among the Apostles like the fringe of a garment: but the Church of the Gentiles touched him as the woman suffering a flow of blood did, and was healed (See Matt 9:20–22).

3. So, brethren, this I have said, this I say, this I would not keep silent if I could: let those works be in you at one time, those at another, according to the season, according to the hours, according to the days.

Are we to speak always? Are we to be silent always? Are we always to refresh the body? Are we always to fast? Are we always to give bread to the needy? Are we always to clothe the naked? Are we always to visit the sick? Are we always to reconcile those at odds? Are we always to bury the dead? Now this, now that. These things are begun, and they cease: but that commander is neither begun nor ought to cease. Let love within not be interrupted: let the offices of love be displayed according to the season. Let love, then, as it is written, brotherly love abide (See Heb 13:1).

4. But perhaps it has troubled some of you, ever since we began to expound this Epistle of blessed John to you, why he has commended above all nothing but brotherly love. He who loves his brother (1 Jn 2:10), he says; and: A commandment has been given to us, that we love one another (Jn 15:12; see 1 Jn 3:23). He constantly named brotherly love: but the love of God, that is, by which we ought to love God, he did not name so constantly; yet he did not keep wholly silent about it. But of the love of an enemy he kept altogether silent through almost the whole of this Epistle.

Although he vehemently preaches and commends love to us, he does not tell us to love our enemies; but he tells us to love our brethren. But just now, when the Gospel was being read, we heard: For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this? (Matt 5:46)

What is it, then, that John the apostle commends to us as something great, a brotherly love directed toward a certain perfection; but the Lord says that it is not enough for us to love our brethren, but that we ought to extend this love so as to reach our enemies?

He who reaches even to his enemies does not leap over his brethren. It is necessary, like fire, that it first take hold of what is nearest, and so stretch itself out to what is farther off. Your brother is nearer to you than some unknown man. Again, the one you did not know, who nevertheless does not oppose you, clings to you more closely than an enemy who actually opposes you. Extend your love to those near you, and do not call that an extension. For you love almost yourself when you love those who cling to you. Extend it to the unknown, who have done you no harm. Pass beyond even these; reach the point of loving your enemies. This certainly the Lord commands. Why did this man keep silent about love of an enemy?

5. Every love—whether the love that is called carnal, which is usually called not "dilectio" but rather "amor" (for the word "dilectio" is more often used of better things, and taken in a better sense)—yet every love, dearest brethren, certainly has a kind of goodwill toward those who are loved.

For we ought not to love men in such a way, nor can we so love or cherish them; for the Lord used this word too when he said: Peter, do you love me? (Jn 21:17) we ought not to love men in the way we hear gluttons say: I love thrushes. You ask why? In order to kill and consume them.

He says he loves them, and he loves them to this end, that they should not be, he loves them to this end, that he may destroy them. And whatever we love for food, we love it to this end, that it may be consumed and we refreshed. Are men to be loved in this way, as if to be consumed?

But there is a kind of friendship of goodwill, by which we sometimes do a service to those we love. What if there is nothing we can do for them? Goodwill alone suffices for the one who loves.

For we ought not to wish people to be wretched, so that we may be able to exercise the works of mercy. You give bread to the hungry: but it would be better if no one were hungry and you gave to no one. You clothe the naked: would that all were clothed, and that this necessity did not exist! You bury the dead: would that the time would come at last when no one dies!

You reconcile those who quarrel: would that there might at last be that eternal peace of Jerusalem, where no one is at odds! For all these are offices required by needs. Take away the wretched; the works of mercy will cease. The works of mercy will cease; will the ardor of love be extinguished?

You love a happy man more genuinely, one for whom you have nothing to do; that love will be purer and far more sincere. For if you do a service to a wretched man, perhaps you desire to exalt yourself over him, and you want him to be subject to you, since you are the author of his benefit.

He was in need, you bestowed something; you seem, as it were, greater because you gave the service than he to whom the service was given. Wish him your equal, so that both of you may be under the One to whom nothing can be given.

6. For in this the proud soul went beyond measure, and in a way was avaricious; for avarice is the root of all evils (1 Tim 6:10). And again it was said: Pride is the beginning of all sin (Sir 10:13). And we sometimes ask how these two sayings agree with each other: Avarice is the root of all evils; and: Pride is the beginning of all sin. If pride is the beginning of all sin, then pride is the root of all evils. Certainly avarice is the root of all evils: we find that there is avarice in pride too; for the man went beyond measure.

What is it to be avaricious? To go further than what suffices. Adam fell through pride: Pride is the beginning of all sin, it says. Was it not avarice? What is more avaricious than the one for whom God could not suffice? So, brethren, we read how man was made to the image and likeness of God: and what did God say of him? And let him have power over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and all the cattle that creep upon the earth (Gen 1:26).

Did he say: Let him have power over men? Let him have power, he says: he gave a natural power. Over what should he have power? Over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth. Why is this the natural power of man over these things? Because man has power from the source from which he was made to the image of God. But where was he made to the image of God?

In the understanding, in the mind, in the inner man; in that by which he understands truth, judges between justice and injustice, knows by whom he was made, can understand his creator, praise his creator. He has this understanding who has prudence.

This is why, when many were wearing away the image of God in themselves through evil desires, and were in a way extinguishing the very flame of understanding by the perversity of their conduct, Scripture cried out to them: Do not become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps 32:9 (31:9)).

This is to say: I have set you above the horse and the mule; I made you to my image, I gave you power over these things. Why? Because the beasts do not have a rational mind: but you grasp truth with a rational mind, you understand what is above you; submit to him who is above you, and the things over which you are set will be beneath you. But because through sin man forsook the one under whom he ought to have been, he is made subject to those above which he ought to have been.

7. Attend to what I say: God, man, beasts: for example, above you God; below you the beasts. Acknowledge him who is above you, so that those things which are below you may acknowledge you. And therefore, when Daniel had acknowledged God above himself, the lions acknowledged him above themselves (See Dan 6:22).

But if you do not acknowledge him who is above you, you despise your superior, and you are made subject to your inferior. This is why the pride of the Egyptians—by what was it tamed? By frogs and flies (See Exod 8). God could have sent lions too, but some great person has to be terrified by a lion. The prouder they were, the more their evil neck was broken by contemptible and abject things. But the lions acknowledged Daniel, because he was subject to God.

What then? Were the martyrs who fought with beasts, and were torn by the bites of wild animals, not under God? Or were three men servants of God, and were the Maccabees not servants of God? The fire acknowledged the three men, servants of God, whom it did not burn, whose garments it did not even harm (See Dan 3:50); and did it not acknowledge the Maccabees? It acknowledged the Maccabees; it acknowledged these too, brethren (See 2 Macc 7).

But there was need of a certain scourge, by the permission of the Lord, who said in Scripture: He scourges every son whom he receives (Heb 12:6; see Prov 3:12). For do you think, brethren, that the iron would have pierced the body of the Lord, unless he himself permitted it; or that he would have hung on the wood, unless he himself had willed it? Did his own creature not acknowledge him? Or did he set forth an example of patience for his faithful? Therefore God delivered some visibly, and did not deliver some visibly: yet he delivered all spiritually, he forsook no one spiritually.

Visibly he seemed to have forsaken some, he seemed to have rescued some. He rescued some so that you would not think he was unable to rescue. He gave testimony that he is able, so that where he does not do it, you may understand a more hidden will and not suspect a difficulty. But what then, brethren? When we have escaped all these snares of mortality, when the times of temptation have passed, when the river of this world has run its course and we have received that first robe, that immortality which we lost by sinning, when this corruptible thing has put on incorruption, that is, when this flesh has put on incorruption, and this mortal thing has put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53–54); then, as now perfect children of God, where there is no need to be tempted or scourged, all creation will acknowledge us: all things will be subject to us, if here we are subject to God.

8. So a Christian ought to be such that he does not glory over other men. For God gave you to be above the beasts, that is, to be better than the beasts. This you have by nature; you will always be better than a beast.

If you want to be better than another man, you will envy him when you see him equal to you. You ought to wish all men to be equal to you; and if you have surpassed someone in prudence, you ought to wish that he too may be prudent. As long as he is slow, he learns from you; as long as he is unlearned, he has need of you; and you seem the teacher, he the learner: you, then, are superior, because you are the teacher; he inferior, because he is the learner.

Unless you wish him your equal, you want always to have a learner. But if you want always to have a learner, you will be an envious teacher. If an envious teacher, how will you be a teacher? I beg you, do not teach him your own envy. Hear the Apostle speaking from the heart of love: I would that all men were as I myself am (1 Cor 7:7). How did he want all to be equal? He was superior to all for this reason, that out of love he wished all to be equal. So the man went beyond measure; he wanted to be more avaricious, so that he who was made above the beasts might be above men: and this is pride itself.

9. And see how many works pride does; set it in your heart how similar are the things it does, as it were equal to love. Love feeds the hungry, and so does pride—love, that God may be praised; pride, that it may itself be praised. Love clothes the naked, and so does pride; love fasts, and so does pride; love buries the dead, and so does pride. All the good works that love wishes to do and does, pride drives against it, and as it were drives its own horses. But love is interior: it takes the place of pride badly driven; not of one driving badly, but of one driven badly. Woe to the man whose charioteer is pride, for he must needs go headlong.

But that there be no pride driving the good deeds—who knows it? Who sees it? Where is this? We see the works: mercy feeds, and pride feeds; mercy receives the guest, and pride receives the guest; mercy intercedes for the poor, and so does pride. What is this? In the works we do not distinguish them. I dare to say something, but not I; Paul said it: love dies, that is, a man having love confesses the name of Christ, undergoes martyrdom; pride also confesses, and also undergoes martyrdom. The one has love, the other does not have love. But let the one who does not have love hear from the Apostle: If I distribute all my goods to the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor 13:3).

So the divine Scripture calls us back within, from the display of this outward face; and from that surface which is displayed before men, it calls us back within. Return to your conscience, question it. Do not attend to what flowers outside, but to what the root is in the earth. Is cupidity rooted there? There can be the appearance of good deeds, but they cannot truly be good works. Is love rooted there? Be secure, nothing evil can come forth.

The proud man caresses, love rages. The one clothes, the other beats. For the one clothes in order to please men: the other beats in order to correct by discipline. The blow of love is received better than the alms of pride. Return, then, within, brethren; and in all things whatsoever you do, look to God as witness. See, if he sees, with what mind you act. If your heart does not accuse you, that you act for the sake of display; it is well, be secure.

But do not be afraid, when you do well, that another may see. Fear lest you do it for this end, that you may be praised: but let another see, so that God may be praised. For if you hide it from the eyes of man, you hide it from the imitation of man, you withdraw praise from God.

There are two to whom you give alms: two are hungry; one for bread, the other for righteousness. Between these two hungry ones, since it was said: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Matt 5:6): between these two hungry ones, you have been set as a good worker;

if love works in him, it pities both, it wishes to help both. For the one seeks what he may eat, the other seeks what he may imitate. You feed the one, offer yourself to the other; you have given alms to both: the one you have made grateful for hunger destroyed; the other you have made an imitator by the example set before him.

10. Have mercy, then, as those who are merciful; because in the very fact that you love your enemies, you love your brethren. Do not think that John has commanded nothing about love of an enemy; for he did not keep silent about brotherly love: you love your brethren.

How, you ask, do we love our brethren? I ask why you love your enemy: why do you love him? That he may be healthy in this life? What if it is not expedient for him? That he may be rich? What if he will be blinded by those very riches? That he may take a wife? What if he will suffer a bitter life from it? That he may have children? What if they will be wicked?

So these things that you seem to wish for your enemy, because you love him, are uncertain; they are uncertain. Wish for him that he may have eternal life with you; wish for him that he may be your brother. If, then, you wish this, in loving your enemy, that he may be your brother; when you love him, you love a brother. For you do not love in him what he is; but what you wish him to be.

I once said to your Charity, if I am not mistaken: A beam of wood is set before the eyes; the best craftsman saw the wood unhewn, cut from the forest, and conceived a love for it: he wants to make something of it. For he did not love it for this, that it should always remain so. In his art he saw what it is to be, not in his love what it is; and he loved what he is going to make of it, not that which it is.

So God too loved us sinners. We say that God loved sinners: for he says: The healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick (Matt 9:12). Did he love sinners for this, that we should remain sinners? Like wood from the forest, the craftsman saw us, and thought of the building he is going to make of it, not the forest that it was.

So you too look upon your enemy opposing, raging, biting with words, exasperating with insults, harassing with hatreds; you notice there that he is a man. You see all these hostile things done by the man; and you see in him that he was made by God. But the fact that he was made man, he was made by God.

But the fact that he hates you, he himself made; the fact that he envies, he himself made. And what do you say in your soul? Lord, be merciful to him, forgive him his sins; strike him with terror, change him. You do not love in him what he is, but what you wish him to be. So when you love an enemy, you love a brother.

Therefore perfect love is the love of an enemy: which perfect love exists in brotherly love. And let no one say that John the apostle warned us of something less, and the Lord Christ warned us of more: John warned us to love our brethren; Christ admonished us to love even our enemies (See Matt 5:44). Attend to why Christ warned you to love your enemies. Was it that they should always remain enemies? If he warned you to this end, that they should remain enemies, you hate, you do not love.

Attend to how he himself loved, that is, because he did not want the persecutors to remain so; he says: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34). Those whom he wished to be forgiven, he wished to be changed: those whom he wished to be changed, he deigned to make brethren out of enemies, and truly he did so.

He was killed, he was buried, he rose again, he ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples; they began to preach his name with confidence, they were working miracles in the name of the crucified and slain one: those slayers of the Lord saw them; and they who in their raging shed his blood, by believing drank it.

11. These things I have said, brethren, and at some length: yet because love itself had to be commended rather vehemently to your Charity, it had to be commended in this way. For if there is no love in you, we have said nothing. But if it is in you, we have, as it were, added oil to the flames; and in the one in whom it was not, perhaps it has been kindled by the words.

In one, what was there grew; in another, what was not there began to be. To this end, then, we have said these things, that you may not be sluggish to love your enemies. Does a man rage against you? He rages, you pray; he hates, you have mercy. It is the fever of his own soul that hates you: he will be healthy, and he will give you thanks.

How do physicians love the sick? Do they love them as sick? If they love them as sick, they want them always to be sick. They love the sick for this end, not that they should remain sick, but that from being sick they may become healthy.

And how much do they often suffer from delirious patients? What sort of verbal abuse? Often they are even struck. The physician pursues the fever, he pardons the man: and what shall I say, brethren? Does he love his enemy? On the contrary, he hates his enemy, the disease; for that is what he hates, and he loves the man by whom he is struck: he hates the fever. For by what is he struck? By the disease, by the sickness, by the fever. He removes that which is hostile to the man, so that there may remain the one over whom he may rejoice.

So you too: if your enemy hates you, and hates you unjustly; know that the cupidity of the world reigns in him, and that this is why he hates you. If you too have hated him, you in turn render evil for evil. What does rendering evil for evil accomplish? I was weeping for one sick man, who hated you; now I mourn two, if you too have hated.

But he attacks your property; he takes from you some things or other that you have on earth: so you have hated him, because he straitens you on earth. Do not suffer straits, migrate up to heaven: there you will have your heart where there is breadth, so that you suffer no straits in the hope of eternal life.

Notice what he takes from you: he would not even take these things from you, unless he permitted it who scourges every son whom he receives (Heb 12:6; Prov 3:12). In a way your enemy himself is the instrument of God by which you may be healed. If God knows it is useful for you to be stripped, he permits him; if he knows it is useful for you to be beaten, he permits him to beat you: through him he takes care of you; wish that he too may be healed.

12. No one has ever seen God. See, beloved: If we love one another, God will abide in us, and his love will be perfected in us. Begin to love, and you will be perfected. Have you begun to love? Then God has begun to dwell in you; love him who has begun to dwell in you, so that by dwelling more perfectly he may make you perfect. In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit (1 Jn 4:12–13). Good, thanks be to God. We know that he dwells in us. And this very thing, how do we know it, that we have come to know that he dwells in us? Because John himself said this: Because he has given us of his Spirit. How do we know that he has given us of his Spirit? This very thing, that he has given you of his Spirit, how do you know it? Question your heart: if it is full of love, you have the Spirit of God. How do we know that from this you know the Spirit of God dwells in you? Question the apostle Paul: Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).

13. And we have seen, and we are witnesses, that the Father sent his Son the Savior of the world. Be secure, you who are sick: such a physician has come, and do you despair? Great were the diseases, incurable were the wounds, the sickness was desperate. Do you attend to the greatness of your evil, and not attend to the omnipotence of the physician?

You are in a desperate state; but he is omnipotent: of whom these are witnesses, who were first healed, and who announce the physician; and yet they themselves were healed more in hope than in fact. For so the Apostle says: For in hope we have been saved (Rom 8:24). We have begun, then, to be healed in faith: but our salvation will be perfected when this corruptible thing has put on incorruption, and this mortal thing has put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15:53). This is hope, not yet the fact. But the one who rejoices in hope will hold the fact too: but the one who does not have hope will not be able to reach the fact.

14. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. Now let us not say to many: Whoever confesses, not in word, but in deed; not with the tongue, but with his life. For many confess with words, but deny with deeds. And we have come to know, and have believed, what love God has in us. And again, how have you come to know it? God is love.

He already said that above; see, he says it again. Love could not be commended to you more than by saying it is God. Perhaps you were going to despise the gift of God. And do you despise God? God is love. And he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 Jn 4:15–16). They dwell in each other in turn, the one who contains and the one who is contained.

You dwell in God, but so as to be contained: God dwells in you, but so as to contain you, lest you fall. Do not perhaps suppose that you become the house of God in the way your house carries your flesh: if the house in which you are withdraws itself, you fall; but if you withdraw yourself, God does not fall.

He is whole when you forsake him; whole when you return to him. You are healed, you bestow nothing on him; you are cleansed, you are refreshed, you are corrected. He is a medicine to the unhealthy, a rule to the crooked, light to the darkened, a dwelling to the abandoned. All things, then, are conferred on you.

See that you do not suppose anything is conferred on God when you come to him; not even a servant. So will God not have servants, if you are unwilling, and if all are unwilling? God does not need servants, but servants need God: therefore the Psalm says: I said to the Lord: You are my God.

He is the true Lord. And what does it say? For you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). You have need of the good of your servant. The servant needs your good, that you may feed him: you too have need of the good of your servant, that he may help you. You cannot draw water for yourself, you cannot cook for yourself, you cannot run before your own horse, you cannot tend your own beast.

You see that you have need of the good of your servant, you have need of his service. So you are not a true lord, since you have need of an inferior. He is the true Lord who seeks nothing from us; and woe to us if we do not seek him. He seeks nothing from us; and he sought us, when we were not seeking him. One sheep had strayed; he found it, and rejoicing carried it back on his shoulders (See Lk 15:4–5). And was the sheep necessary to the shepherd, rather than the shepherd necessary to the sheep?

The more gladly I speak of love, the less I want this Epistle to be finished. There is none more ardent in commending love. Nothing sweeter is preached to you, nothing more wholesome is drunk: provided that by living well you confirm in yourselves the gift of God. Do not be ungrateful for so great a grace of his, who, although he had an Only Son, did not want him to be one alone; but, that he might have brethren, he adopted to him those who would possess eternal life together with him.

1. Your Charity remembers that, of the Epistle of John the apostle, the last part remains for us to expound and to set forth to you, as far as the Lord grants. We, then, are mindful of this debt: but you ought to be mindful of exacting it. For the same love that in this Epistle is commended above all, and almost alone, both makes us most faithful debtors and makes you most sweet exactors. I said most sweet exactors for this reason: that where love is not, the exactor is bitter; but where love is, both the one who exacts is sweet, and the one from whom it is exacted, even if he takes on some labor, love itself makes that same labor almost nothing and light.

Do we not see, even in dumb and irrational animals, where there is not spiritual love but carnal and natural love, that milk is nonetheless exacted with great affection from the mother's breasts by the little ones? And although the suckling thrusts hard at the breasts; yet it is better for the mother than if it does not suck, and does not exact what is owed out of love.

We often see the udders of cows struck even by the heads of larger calves, and the bodies of the mothers almost lifted by that very thrust, and yet the calves are not driven off with a kick; but even if the offspring that would suck is absent, the cows call them to the udders by lowing.

If, then, there is in us that spiritual love of which the Apostle says: I became a little one in your midst, like a nurse cherishing her children (1 Thess 2:7); then we love you when you exact from us. We do not love the slothful; because we fear for the languishing.

But certain solemn readings for the feast days intervened, which caused us to interrupt the text of this Epistle, and which could not but be read, and themselves expounded. Now, then, let us return to the order we left aside; and let your Holiness attentively receive what remains.

I do not know whether love could be commended to us more magnificently than by saying: God is love (1 Jn 4:8). A short praise, and a great praise: short in words, and great in meaning. How quickly it is said: God is love! This too is short: if you count, it is one word;

if you weigh it, how great it is! God is love. And he who abides, he says, in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 Jn 4:16). Let God be a house to you, and be a house of God; abide in God, and let God abide in you. God abides in you, to contain you: you abide in God, lest you fall; for so the Apostle says of love itself: Love never falls (1 Cor 13:8). How does he fall whom God contains?

2. In this love has been perfected in us, that we may have confidence on the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we also in this world (1 Jn 4:17). He tells how each one may test himself, how far love has advanced in him: or rather how far he has advanced in love.

For if love is God, God neither advances nor falls short: love is said to advance in you in this sense, that you advance in it. Ask, then, how far you have advanced in love, and what your heart answers you, so that you may know the measure of your advance.

For he promised to show us by what we may know him, and he says: In this love has been perfected in us. Ask, by what? That we may have confidence on the day of judgment. Whoever has confidence on the day of judgment, love is perfected in him. What is it to have confidence on the day of judgment? Not to fear lest the day of judgment come.

There are men who do not believe in a day of judgment; they cannot have confidence on a day that they do not believe will come. Let us pass these by: may God arouse them, that they may live; why do we speak of the dead?

They do not believe a day of judgment is to come, and they neither fear nor desire what they do not believe. Someone has begun to believe in a day of judgment: if he has begun to believe, he has begun also to fear.

But because he still fears, he does not yet have confidence on the day of judgment, love is not yet perfected in him. Yet must one despair? In whom you see the beginning, why do you despair of the end? What beginning do I see, you ask? That very fear. Hear the Scripture: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Sir 1:16).

He has begun, then, to fear the day of judgment: by fearing let him correct himself; let him watch against his enemies, that is, against his sins; let him begin to come to life again inwardly, and to mortify his members that are upon the earth, as the Apostle says: Mortify your members that are upon the earth (Col 3:5).

He calls the spiritual things of wickedness members upon the earth: for he goes on and explains: Avarice, uncleanness, and the rest that he there enumerates. But as much as this man, who has begun to fear the day of judgment, mortifies his members upon the earth, so much do his heavenly members rise and grow strong. The heavenly members are all good works. As the heavenly members rise, he begins to desire what he feared. For he feared lest Christ should come and find an impious man whom he would condemn;

he desires him to come, because he is going to find a pious man whom he will crown. Now when the chaste soul has begun to desire the coming Christ, the soul that desires the embraces of the bridegroom, it renounces the adulterer; it becomes a virgin inwardly by that very faith, hope, and love. It now has confidence on the day of judgment: it does not fight against itself when it prays, and says: Your kingdom come (Matt 6:10).

For he who fears lest the kingdom of God come, fears lest he be heard. How does he pray who fears lest he be heard? But he who prays with the confidence of love now wishes it to come. Of this very desire someone said in the Psalm: And you, O Lord, how long? Turn, O Lord, and rescue my soul (Ps 6:3–4 (6:4–5)). He groaned that he was being delayed. For there are men who die with patience: but there are certain perfect ones who live with patience.

What did I say? He who still desires this life, when the day of death comes to him, patiently endures death; he struggles against himself, so as to follow the will of God; and he does in his mind rather what God chooses, not what human will chooses: and out of desire for the present life there arises a struggle with death; and he applies patience and fortitude, so as to die with an even mind: this man dies patiently. But he who desires, as the Apostle says, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, does not die patiently; but he lives patiently, and dies with delight.

See the Apostle living patiently, that is, with patience here not loving life, but enduring it. To be dissolved, he says, and to be with Christ is by far the best: but to remain in the flesh is necessary for your sake (Phil 1:23–24). So, brethren, give effort, work within with yourselves, so that you may desire the day of judgment. Perfect love is not proven otherwise than when that day begins to be desired. But he desires it who has confidence in it: and he has confidence in it whose conscience does not tremble in love that is perfect and sincere.

3. In this his love has been perfected in us, that we may have confidence on the day of judgment. Why shall we have confidence? Because as he is, so are we also in this world (1 Jn 4:17). You have heard the cause of your confidence: Because as he is, he says, so are we also in this world. Does he not seem to have said something impossible? For can a man be as God is?

I have already explained to you that as is not always said with reference to equality; but it is said with reference to a certain likeness. For how do you say: As I have ears, so the image too has them? Is it entirely so? But still you say as. If, then, we have been made to the image of God, why are we not as God is? Not as to equality, but according to our measure.

Whence, then, is confidence given us on the day of judgment? Because as he is, so are we also in this world. We ought to refer this to love itself, and to understand what was said. The Lord says in the Gospel: If you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this? (Matt 5:46) What, then, does he want of us? But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Matt 5:44; Lk 6:27).

If, then, he commands us to love our enemies, from where does he give us the example? From God himself: for he says: That you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. How does God do that? He loves his enemies, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). If, then, God invites us to this perfection, that we should love our enemies as he himself loved his; this is our confidence on the day of judgment, that as he is, so are we also in this world: that just as he loves his enemies, by making his sun rise upon the good and the bad, and by raining upon the just and the unjust; so we, because we cannot bestow sun and rain on our enemies, bestow tears, when we pray for them.

4. Now, then, concerning this confidence, see what he says. By what is perfect love understood? There is no fear in love. What, then, do we say of the one who has begun to fear the day of judgment?

If love were perfected in him, he would not fear. For perfect love would produce perfect righteousness, and he would have no reason to fear: rather he would have reason to desire that iniquity might pass away, and the kingdom of God might come.

So there is no fear in love. But in what love? Not in love that is only begun. In what, then? But perfect love, he says, casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18). So let fear begin; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear, as it were, prepares a place for love.

But when love has begun to dwell there, the fear that prepared a place for it is driven out. For as much as love grows, fear shrinks; and as much as love becomes interior, fear is driven outside. The greater the love, the less the fear; the less the love, the greater the fear.

But if there is no fear, there is nothing by which love may enter. Just as we see linen thread drawn through by a bristle, when something is being sewn; the bristle enters first, but unless it goes out, the thread does not follow: so fear first occupies the mind, but fear does not remain there, because it entered for this reason, that it might introduce love. Once security has been established in the soul, what joy is ours, whether in this world or in the world to come? And in this world, who will harm us when we are full of love? See how the Apostle exults over this very love. Who, he says, shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or the sword (Rom 8:35)? And Peter says: And who can harm you, if you are zealous for what is good? (1 Pet 3:13)

There is no fear in love: but perfect love casts out fear; because fear has torment. The conscience of sins torments the heart, justification has not yet taken place. There is there something that tickles, that pricks.

This is why, in the Psalm, what does it say of the very perfection of righteousness? You have turned my mourning into joy for me: you have torn off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; that my glory may sing to you, and that I may not be pricked (Ps 30:11–12 (29:12–13)). What is it, that I may not be pricked? Let there be nothing to goad my conscience.

Fear goads: but do not fear; love enters, which heals what fear wounds. The fear of God wounds in the way the physician's instrument does; it removes the rottenness, and seems, as it were, to enlarge the wound. See, when the rottenness was in the body, the wound was smaller, but dangerous:

the physician's instrument comes; that wound hurt less than it hurts now when it is being cut. It hurts more when it is being treated than if it were not treated; but it hurts more at the coming of the medicine for this reason, that it may never hurt once health follows. So let fear occupy your heart, that it may bring in love; let the scar follow the physician's instrument.

Such is the physician that not even the scars appear: only submit yourself to his right hand. For if you are without fear, you will not be able to be justified. The verdict has been spoken from the Scriptures: For he who is without fear will not be able to be justified (Sir 1:28). It is necessary, then, that fear enter first, through which love may come. Fear is the medicine, love is the health. But he who fears is not perfect in love (1 Jn 4:18). Why? Because fear has torment, just as the cutting of the physician has torment.

5. But there is another saying, which seems to be contrary to this, if it does not have someone to understand it: for it is said in a certain place in the Psalm: The fear of the Lord is chaste, abiding forever and ever (Ps 19:9 (18:10)). It shows us a certain eternal fear, but a chaste one. But if it shows us an eternal fear, does this Epistle perhaps contradict it, which says: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear?

Let us question both utterances of God. The Spirit is one, even if there are two books, even if there are two mouths, even if there are two tongues. For this was said through John, that was said through David; but do not think the Spirit is different. If one breath blows into two pipes, can one Spirit not fill two hearts, set in motion two tongues? But if, filled by one spirit, that is, by one breath, two pipes sound in harmony; can two tongues filled by the Spirit of God sound in discord?

There is, then, a certain harmony there, there is a certain concord, but it requires a listener. See, the Spirit of God has inspired and filled two hearts, two mouths, has moved two tongues: and we have heard from one tongue, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; we have heard from another: The fear of the Lord is chaste, abiding forever and ever. What is this? Do they, as it were, sound in discord?

No: clear your ears, attend to the melody. Not without reason did he add chaste here, and not add it there: except that there is one fear that is called chaste, and another that is not called chaste. Let us distinguish these two fears, and understand the harmony of the pipes.

How do we understand it, or how do we distinguish it? Let your Charity attend. There are men who fear God for this reason, lest they be cast into hell, lest perhaps they burn with the devil in the eternal fire. This is the fear that introduces love: but it comes in such a way that it goes out. For if you still fear God on account of punishments, you do not yet love him whom you so fear.

You do not desire good things, but you guard against evil ones. But from the fact that you guard against evil ones, you correct yourself, and you begin to desire good ones.

When you have begun to desire good things, there will be in you a chaste fear. What is the chaste fear? Lest you lose those very good things.

Attend. It is one thing to fear God, lest he cast you into hell with the devil; it is another to fear God, lest he withdraw from you. That fear by which you fear lest you be cast into hell with the devil is not yet chaste; for it does not come from love of God, but from fear of punishment: but when you fear God, lest his presence forsake you; you embrace him, you desire to enjoy him.

6. The difference between these two fears—the one that love casts out, and the other, the chaste one, that abides forever and ever—cannot be better explained than if you set forth two married women, one of whom you suppose to be willing to commit adultery, delighting in wickedness, but fearing lest she be condemned by her husband. She fears her husband, but because she still loves wickedness, that is why she fears her husband: to her the presence of her husband is not welcome, but burdensome; and if perhaps she lives wickedly, she fears lest her husband come.

Such are those who fear lest the day of judgment come. Suppose the other woman loves her husband, owes him chaste embraces, stains herself with no uncleanness of adultery; she desires the presence of her husband.

And how are these two fears distinguished? The one fears, the other fears too. Ask, and they answer you, as it were, one and the same thing: ask the one: Do you fear your husband? She answers: I fear him. Ask the other too whether she fears her husband; she answers: I fear him.

The voice is one, but the mind is different. Now then let them be asked: Why? The one says: I fear my husband, lest he come: the other says: I fear my husband, lest he depart. The one says: I fear lest I be condemned: the other says: I fear lest I be forsaken. Set this in the mind of Christians, and you find the fear that love casts out, and the other, chaste fear, abiding forever and ever.

7. Let us speak, then, first to those who fear God in the way that woman does whom wickedness delights; for she fears her husband, lest he condemn her: let us speak first to such people.

O soul who so fears God, lest God condemn you, in the way the woman whom wickedness delights fears; she fears her husband, lest she be condemned by her husband: just as that woman displeases you, let you too be displeased with yourself.

If perhaps you have a wife, do you want your wife to fear you in such a way, lest she be condemned by you; so that wickedness delights her, but she is restrained by the weight of fear of you, not by condemnation of wickedness?

You want her chaste, so that she may love you, not fear you. Show yourself such to God as you want to have your wife. And if you do not yet have one, and you want to have one; you want to have such a one.

And what do we say, brethren? That woman who fears her husband, lest she be condemned by her husband, perhaps does not commit adultery, lest it somehow reach her husband, and he take from her this temporal light. But that husband can also be deceived; for he is a man, just as she too is one who can deceive. She fears the one out of whose sight she can be: do you not always fear the face of your husband above you?

But the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil (Ps 34:16 (33:17)). She seizes the absence of her husband, and is perhaps incited by the delight of adultery; and yet she says to herself: I will not do it: he is indeed absent, but it is difficult for it not to reach him in some way.

She restrains herself, lest it reach a man who can also be ignorant of it, who can also be deceived, who can also suspect even a bad woman to be good, who can also suspect to be chaste one who is an adulteress: do you not fear the eyes of him whom no one can deceive? Do you not fear the presence of him who cannot be turned away from you?

Ask God to look upon you, and to turn his face away from your sins: Turn your face away from my sins (Ps 51:9 (50:11)). But how do you deserve that he should turn his face away from your sins? If you do not turn your own face away from your sins. For the same voice says in the Psalm: For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me (Ps 51:3 (50:5)). You acknowledge it, and he pardons it.

8. We have addressed the woman who still has fear that does not abide forever and ever, but which love shuts out and casts forth; let us address also the woman who already has chaste fear, abiding forever and ever. Do we suppose we find her, so as to address her? Do you suppose she is among this people? Do you suppose she is in this hall? Do you suppose she is in this land? She cannot but be, but she is hidden.

It is winter; within, there is greenness in the root. Perhaps we find her ears. But wherever that soul is, would that I might find her, and that she would not lend me her ears, but that I might lend my ears to her! She would teach me something rather than learn from me.

A certain soul, holy, fiery, and desiring the kingdom of God: this soul I do not address, but God himself does, and thus he consoles her, living patiently in this land: Now you want me to come, and I know that you now want me to come: I know what sort you are, that you await my coming secure;

I know it is a trouble to you: but wait still, endure; I am coming, and I am coming quickly. But to the one who loves, it is slow. Hear her singing as a lily from among the thorns: hear her sighing, and saying: I will sing and understand in the unspotted way; when will you come to me? (Ps 101:1–2 (100:1–2))

But in the unspotted way she rightly does not fear; because perfect love casts out fear. And when she has come to his embrace, she fears, but securely. What does she fear? She will guard and watch herself against her iniquity, lest she sin again: not lest she be cast into the fire, but lest she be forsaken by him. And there will be in her, what? Chaste fear, abiding forever and ever.

We have heard two pipes sounding in harmony. The one speaks of fear, and the other of fear: but the one of the fear by which the soul fears lest it be condemned, the other of the fear by which the soul fears lest it be forsaken. The one is the fear that love shuts out: the other is the fear abiding forever and ever.

9. Let us love, because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:19). For from what source would we love, unless he had first loved us? By loving we became friends; but he loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and granted us to love him. We did not yet love him; by loving we are made beautiful.

What does a man do, deformed and with a distorted face, if he loves a beautiful woman? Or what does a deformed and distorted and dark woman do, if she loves a beautiful man? Can she become beautiful by loving? Can he become handsome by loving? He loves a beautiful woman; and when he sees himself in the mirror, he blushes to lift his face to that beautiful one whom he loves. What will he do to be handsome?

Does he wait for beauty to come? On the contrary, by waiting, old age is added, and makes him uglier. There is, then, nothing he can do, there is no way to give him counsel, except that he restrain himself, and not dare to love unequal an unequal: or if perhaps he loves and desires to take a wife, let him love chastity in her, not the appearance of the flesh.

But our soul, my brethren, is foul through iniquity: by loving God it is made beautiful. What sort of love is it that makes the lover beautiful? But God is always beautiful, never deformed, never changeable. He who is always beautiful loved us first; and what sort did he love, except the foul and deformed? Yet not so as to leave us foul; but so as to change us, and out of deformed to make us beautiful. How shall we be beautiful? By loving him who is always beautiful. As much as love grows in you, so much does beauty grow; for love itself is the beauty of the soul.

Let us love, because he first loved us. Hear the apostle Paul: But God shows his love in us, because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8), the just for the unjust, the beautiful for the foul. How do we find Jesus beautiful? Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, grace is poured out on your lips (Ps 45:2 (44:3)). How? Again, see from what source he is beautiful: Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men; because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1).

But because he took on flesh, he took on, as it were, your foulness, that is, your mortality, so as to fit himself to you, and to suit himself to you, and to rouse you to love the beauty within. From what source, then, do we find that Jesus is foul and deformed, just as we find that he is beautiful and lovely in form beyond the sons of men? From what source do we find that he is also deformed? Ask Isaiah: And we saw him, and he had no form or comeliness (Isa 53:2).

These are the two pipes, sounding, as it were, differently; but one Spirit blows into both. By this one it is said: Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men: by this one it is said in Isaiah: We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness. Both pipes are filled by one Spirit, they do not sound in discord. Do not turn your ears away, apply your understanding. Let us question the apostle Paul, and let him expound to us the harmony of the two pipes. Let him sound for us: Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God. Behold, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men.

Let him also sound for us: We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness: He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man (Phil 2:6–7). He had no form or comeliness, so as to give you form and comeliness. What form? What comeliness?

The love of charity; so that, loving, you may run, and, running, you may love. You are now beautiful: but do not attend to yourself, lest you lose what you have received; attend to him by whom you were made beautiful. Be beautiful for this end, that he may love you. But direct your whole attention to him, run to him, seek his embraces, fear to depart from him; so that there may be in you chaste fear, abiding forever and ever. Let us love, because he first loved us.

10. If anyone says: I love God. What God? Why do we love? Because he first loved us, and granted us to love. He loved the impious, to make them pious; he loved the unjust, to make them just; he loved the sick, to make them healthy. So let us too love, because he first loved us. Question each one, let him tell you whether he loves God. He cries out, he confesses: I love him, he himself knows. There is something else about which he may be questioned. If anyone says, he says: I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. How do you prove that he is a liar?

Hear: For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? (1 Jn 4:19–20) What then? He who loves his brother, does he love God too? He must necessarily love God, he must necessarily love love itself. Can he love his brother and not love love? He must necessarily love love. What then, does he who loves love thereby love God? Yes, indeed thereby. By loving love, he loves God. Or have you forgotten what you said a little before: God is love? If God is love, whoever loves love loves God. So love your brother, and be secure (See 1 Jn 4:8–16). You cannot say: I love my brother, but I do not love God. Just as you lie if you say: I love God, when you do not love your brother; so you are deceived when you say: I love my brother, if you think that you do not love God.

It is necessary that you who love your brother love love itself; but love is God: it is necessary, then, that whoever loves his brother love God. But if you do not love your brother whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see? Why does he not see God? Because he does not have love itself. He does not see God for this reason, that he does not have love; he does not have love for this reason, that he does not love his brother: therefore he does not see God for this reason, that he does not have love. For if he had love, he would see God; because God is love: and that eye is purified more and more by love, so that it may see that unchangeable substance; in whose presence it may always rejoice, which it may enjoy fully forever, joined to the angels.

But let it run now, so that one day it may rejoice in the homeland. Let it not love the pilgrimage, let it not love the way: let everything be bitter, except him who calls, until we cling to him, and say what was said in the Psalm: You have destroyed all who fornicate away from you.

And who are those who fornicate? Those who depart, and love the world. But what about you? It follows and says: But for me it is good to cling to God (Ps 73:27–28 (72:27–28)). My whole good is to cling to God freely. For if you ask, and say: Why do you cling to God? And he says: That he may give to me. What should he give you? He made heaven himself, he made earth himself: what is he going to give you? You already cling to him: I have found something better, and he gives you himself.

11. For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God love his brother also (1 Jn 4:20–21). You were saying magnificently: I love God; and you hate your brother! O murderer, how do you love God? Did you not hear earlier in this very Epistle: He who hates his brother is a murderer (1 Jn 3:15)? But surely I love God, although I hate my brother. Surely you do not love God, if you hate your brother.

And now I prove it by another argument. He himself said: He gave us a commandment, that we love one another (Jn 15:12; see 1 Jn 3:23): how do you love him whose commandment you hate? Who is there who would say: I love the emperor, but I hate his laws? In this the emperor knows whether you love him: if his laws are observed throughout the provinces. What is the law of the emperor? A new commandment I give you, that you love one another (Jn 13:34). You say, then, that you love Christ; keep his commandment, and love your brother. But if you do not love your brother; how do you love him whose commandment you despise?

Brethren, I am not satisfied with speaking of love in the name of Christ. As much as you too have an avarice for this thing, so much do we hope that it grows in you, and casts out fear, so that there may remain that chaste fear abiding forever and ever. Let us endure the world, let us endure tribulations, let us endure the scandals of temptations. Let us not withdraw from the way; let us hold the unity of the Church, let us hold Christ, let us hold love. Let us not be torn from the members of his bride, let us not be torn from the faith, so that we may glory in his presence: and we will abide secure in him, now through faith, then through sight, of which we have such great pledges in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

1. I believe you remember, you who were present yesterday, to what place in the progress of this Epistle our discussion came: that is: For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God love his brother also (1 Jn 4:20–21). Up to this point we had discussed. Let us, then, see in order what follows.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God (1 Jn 5:1). Who is it that does not believe that Jesus is the Christ? He who does not live as Christ commanded. For many say: I believe; but faith without works does not save. The work of faith is love itself, as the apostle Paul says: And faith that works through love (Gal 5:6). Your past works, indeed, before you believed, were either nothing; or, if they seemed good, they were empty.

For if they were nothing; you were like a man without feet, or unable to walk with crippled feet: but if they seemed good; before you believed, you were indeed running, but by running off the way, you were going astray rather than arriving. We must, then, both run, and run on the way. He who runs off the way runs in vain: rather, he runs to toil. The more he runs off the way, the more he goes astray. What is the way along which we run? Christ said: I am the way. What is the homeland to which we run?

Christ said: I am the truth (Jn 14:6). Through him you run, to him you run, in him you rest. But that we might run through him, he stretched himself out all the way to us: for we were far off, and we were wandering far away.

It is little that we were wandering far away; we were also feeble and could not move ourselves. The physician came to the sick, the way was held out to the pilgrims. Let us be saved by him, let us walk through him.

This is to believe that Jesus is the Christ, in the way Christians believe, who are Christians not in name alone, but in deeds and in life: not in the way the demons believe. For the demons also believe, and tremble (Jas 2:19), as Scripture says. What more could the demons believe than to say: We know who you are, the Son of God? What the demons said, this Peter also said.

When the Lord asked who he was, and whom men said that he was, the disciples answered him: Some say you are John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he: But who do you say that I am? Peter answered, and said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And he heard from the Lord: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. See what praises attend this faith: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (Matt 16:14–18).

What is it, upon this rock I will build my Church? Upon this faith, upon that which was said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Upon this rock, he says, I will found my Church. Great praise! So Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God: the demons too say: We know who you are, the Son of God, the Holy One of God. This Peter, this also the demons:

the same words, but not the same mind. And how is it established that Peter said this with love? Because the faith of a Christian is with love; but that of a demon is without love. How without love? Peter said this in order to embrace Christ: the demons said this in order that Christ might withdraw from them. For before they said: We know who you are; you are the Son of God: What is there between us and you, did they say? Have you come to destroy us before the time? (Matt 8:29; Mk 1:24) So it is one thing to confess Christ in order to hold Christ, another to confess Christ in order to drive Christ away from yourself.

So you see that, in the way he says here, He who believes, there is a certain proper faith; not as it is with many. And so, brethren, let no one of the heretics say to you: We too believe. For I set forth the example of the demons for this reason, that you may not rejoice at the words of those who believe, but examine the deeds of those who live.

2. Let us see, then, what it is to believe in Christ; what it is to believe that Jesus himself is the Christ. It follows: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. But what is it to believe that? And everyone who loves him who begot, loves him who is begotten by him (1 Jn 5:1). At once he joined love to faith; because without love faith is empty.

With love, the faith of a Christian; without love, the faith of a demon: but those who do not believe are worse than the demons, and slower than the demons. Some man or other does not want to believe in Christ; so far he does not even imitate the demons. Another now believes in Christ, but hates Christ; he has the confession of faith in fear of punishment, not in love of the crown: for those too feared to be punished.

Add love to this faith, so that it becomes the faith of which the apostle Paul speaks: Faith that works through love (Gal 5:6): you have found a Christian, you have found a citizen of Jerusalem, you have found a fellow citizen of the angels, you have found a pilgrim sighing on the way;

join yourself to him, he is your companion, run with him, if indeed you too are this. Everyone who loves him who begot, loves him who is begotten by him. Who begot? The Father. Who is begotten? The Son. What then does he say? Everyone who loves the Father loves the Son.

3. In this we know that we love the children of God (1 Jn 5:2). What is this, brethren? A little before he was speaking of the Son of God, not of the children of God: see, Christ alone has been set forth for us to contemplate, and it was said to us: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and everyone who loves him who begot, that is, the Father, loves him who is begotten by him, that is, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it follows: In this we know that we love the children of God; as though he were going to say: In this we know that we love the Son of God: he said the children of God, who a little before was speaking of the Son of God; because the children of God are the body of the only Son of God; and since he is the head, we the members, there is one Son of God.

So he who loves the children of God loves the Son of God; and he who loves the Son of God loves the Father: nor can anyone love the Father, unless he love the Son; and he who loves the Son also loves the children of God.

What children of God? The members of the Son of God. And by loving he too becomes a member, and becomes through love part of the frame of the body of Christ; and there will be one Christ loving himself. For when the members love one another in turn, the body loves itself. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it. And what does he say next? But you are the body of Christ and members (1 Cor 12:26–27).

A little before he was speaking of brotherly love, and he says: He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how will he be able to love God whom he does not see? (1 Jn 4:20) But if you love your brother, perhaps you love your brother, and do not love Christ? How can that be, when you love the members of Christ? So when you love the members of Christ, you love Christ; when you love Christ, you love the Son of God; when you love the Son of God, you love the Father also. So love cannot be separated.

Choose for yourself what to love; the rest follow you. You may say: I love God alone, God the Father. You lie: if you love, you do not love him alone; but if you love the Father, you love the Son also. See, you say, I love the Father, and I love the Son: but only this, the Father God and the Son God and our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, that Word through whom all things were made, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (Jn 1:3–14); this alone I love.

You lie: for if you love the head, you love the members also; but if you do not love the members, neither do you love the head. Are you not terrified at the voice of the head crying from heaven on behalf of the members: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4) He called his persecutor the persecutor of his members: he called the one who loves him the lover of his members. Now you know what his members are, brethren; it is the Church of God.

In this we know that we love the children of God, because we love God (1 Jn 5:2). And how? Are the children of God not one thing, and God another? But he who loves God loves his commandments. And what are the commandments of God? A new commandment I give you, that you love one another (Jn 13:34). Let no one excuse himself by means of one love, from another love; this love altogether holds itself thus: just as it is itself framed together into one, so it makes one all the things that depend on it, and the fire, as it were, fuses them. It is gold, the mass is fused, and becomes one thing: but unless the heat of love kindles it, out of many it cannot be fused into one. Because we love God, thence we know that we love the children of God.

4. And how do we know that we love the children of God? Because we love God, and do his commandments (1 Jn 5:2). Here we sigh at the difficulty of doing the commandment of God. Hear what follows. Man, why do you toil in loving? In loving avarice. What you love is loved with toil: God is loved without toil.

Avarice is going to command toils, dangers, threshings, tribulations; and you are going to obey. To what end? That you may have something to fill your money chest, and lose your security. Perhaps you were more secure before you had it than when you began to have it. See what avarice commanded you: you filled your house, robbers are feared; you acquired gold, you lost sleep. See what avarice commanded you: Do it, and you did it.

What does God command you? Love me. You love gold, you are going to seek gold, and perhaps not find it: whoever seeks me, I am with him.

You are going to love honor, and perhaps not attain it: who has loved me, and not attained me? God says to you: You want to make for yourself a patron, or a powerful friend; you make your appeal through another, an inferior. Love me, God says to you: there is no appealing to me through another; love itself makes me present to you. What is sweeter than this love, brethren? Not without reason did you hear just now in the Psalm, brethren: The unjust have told me of their delights; but not as your law, O Lord (Ps 119:85 (118:85)). What is the law of God? The commandment of God. What is the commandment of God? That new commandment, which is called new for this reason, that it makes new: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. Hear that this is the law of God: the Apostle says: Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2). This is the consummation of all our works, love. There is the end: for this we run; to it we run; when we have come to it we shall rest.

5. You heard in the Psalm: I have seen the end of all consummation (Ps 119:96 (118:96)). He said: I have seen the end of all consummation: what had this man seen? Do we suppose he had climbed to the peak of some very high and very sharp mountain, and looked out, and seen the circuit of the earth and the circles of the whole world; and that therefore he said: I have seen the end of all consummation? If this is praiseworthy, let us ask of the Lord eyes of the flesh so keen that we may search out some most lofty mountain that is on the earth, from whose summit we may see the end of all consummation.

Do not go far: see, I tell you, climb the mountain, and see the end. Christ is the mountain; come to Christ, you see from there the end of all consummation. What is this end? Ask Paul: But the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5); and in another place: But the fullness of the law is love (Rom 13:10). What is so finished and bounded as fullness? Indeed, brethren, he sets an end in a praiseworthy sense.

Do not understand consumption, but consummation. For it is said one way: I have finished the bread; another way: I have finished the tunic. I have finished the bread by eating it; I have finished the tunic by weaving it.

And there "end" is heard, and there "end" is heard: but yet the bread is finished so as to be consumed, the tunic is finished so as to be completed; the bread is finished so as not to be, the tunic is finished so as to be perfected.

So hear "end" in this way, also when the Psalm is read, and you hear: Unto the end, a Psalm of David. You constantly hear this in the Psalms, and you ought to know what you hear. What is it, unto the end? For Christ is the end of the Law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4).

And what is it, Christ is the end? Because Christ is God, and the end of the commandment is love, and God is love: because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. There is your end: elsewhere is the way.

Do not stick fast in the way, and not arrive at the end. Whatever else you come to, pass on until you arrive at the end. What is the end? But for me it is good to cling to God (Ps 73:28 (72:28)). You have clung to God, you have finished the way; you will abide in the homeland.

Attend. Someone seeks money; let it not be your end: pass on like a pilgrim. Seek a place to pass through, not to remain. But if you love it, you are entangled by avarice: avarice will be a chain on your feet; you cannot go further. So pass beyond this too; seek the end. You seek health of the body, do not yet remain there.

For what is this health of the body, which is destroyed by death, weakened by sickness, trifling, mortal, fleeting? Seek it, lest perhaps sickly health hinder your good works. So the end is not there; because it is sought for the sake of something else. Whatever is sought for the sake of something else, the end is not there: whatever is sought for its own sake and freely, there is the end.

You seek honors; perhaps you seek them in order to do something, to accomplish something, to please God: do not love the honor itself, lest you remain there. You seek praise?

If you seek God's praise, you do well: if you seek your own, you do badly; you remain in the way. But see, you are loved, you are praised: do not rejoice when you are praised in yourself; be praised in the Lord, so that you may sing: In the Lord my soul shall be praised (Ps 34:2 (33:3)).

You speak some good discourse, and your discourse is praised? Let it not be praised as yours, the end is not there. If you place the end there, you are finished: but you are not finished as one perfected, but finished so as to be consumed.

805.0000000000000000000~So let your discourse not be praised as from you, as yours. But how should it be praised? As the Psalm says: In God I will praise my discourse, in God I will praise my word. From this it comes about that what follows is fulfilled in you: In God I have hoped, I will not fear what man may do to me (Ps 56:4, 11 (55:5, 11)). For when all that is yours is praised in God, there is no fear that your praise may perish; because God does not fail. So pass beyond this too.

6. See, brethren, how many things we pass beyond, in which the end is not. We use these things as on a journey; we are refreshed as in the lodgings of an inn, and we pass on. Where, then, is the end? Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; this was said here, in this Epistle.

808.0000000000000000000~So we are still in the way; still, wherever we come, we must pass on, until we arrive at some end. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). This is the end; there is perpetual praise, there is always Alleluia without ceasing.

So he named the end itself in the Psalm: I have seen the end of all consummation. And as though it were said to him: What is the end you have seen? Your commandment is exceedingly broad (Ps 119:96 (118:96)).

This is the end, the breadth of the commandment. The breadth of the commandment is love; because where love is, there are no straits.

The Apostle was in that breadth, when he said: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians; our heart is enlarged: you are not straitened in us (2 Cor 6:11–12). Therefore your commandment is exceedingly broad. What is the broad commandment? A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.

Love, then, is not straitened. Do you want not to be straitened on earth? Dwell in what is broad. For whatever a man does to you does not straiten you; because you love that which a man cannot harm: you love God, you love the brotherhood, you love the law of God, you love the Church of God; it will be everlasting.

You toil on earth, but you will reach the promised fruit. Who takes from you what you love? If no one takes from you what you love, you sleep secure: rather, you keep watch secure, lest by sleeping you lose what you love. For it was not said in vain: Enlighten my eyes, lest I ever sleep in death (Ps 13:3 (12:4)). Those who close their eyes against love fall asleep in the desires of carnal delights. So wake up. For there are delights: to eat, to drink, to revel, to play, to hunt: all evils follow these vain shows. Do we not know that they are delights? Who would deny that they delight? But the law of God is loved more. Cry out against such persuaders: The unjust have told me of their delights; but not as your law, O Lord. That delight abides. It not only abides as a place to which you may come, but it also calls back the one who flees.

815.0000000000000000000~7. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments (1 John 5:3). You have already heard: On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. How did he refuse to divide you among many pages? On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. On which two commandments?

You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind; and: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets (Matt 22:37, 39–40). See, of which commandments this whole Epistle speaks. So hold to love, and be secure. Why do you fear lest you do evil to someone? Who does evil to the one he loves? Love: it cannot happen except that you do well.

But perhaps you rebuke? Love does this, not cruelty. But perhaps you beat? You do it for discipline; because the love of love itself does not permit you to neglect the undisciplined.

And it comes about in a way that the fruit is, as it were, diverse and contrary, so that sometimes hatred caresses, and love rages. Some man or other hates his enemy, and feigns friendship for him: he sees him do something evil, and praises it:

he wants him to be headlong, he wants him to go blind through the precipices of his own desires, from which perhaps he may not return; he praises him: For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul (Ps 10:3 (9:24)); he applies to him the ointment of his flattery: see, he hates, and he praises.

Another sees his friend do some such thing, and calls him back; if he does not listen to him, he utters words even of chastisement, he chides, he quarrels: sometimes it comes to this necessity, that he quarrels. See, hatred caresses, and love quarrels. Do not attend to the words of the one who caresses, and the seeming cruelty of the one who chides; inspect the vein, seek the root from which they proceed. The one caresses in order to deceive, the other quarrels in order to correct.

So there is no need, brethren, that your heart be enlarged through us; obtain from God that you love one another.

Love all men, even your enemies: not because they are brethren, but that they may be brethren; so that you may always burn with brotherly love, whether toward one who has become a brother, or toward an enemy, that he may become a brother by your loving him.

Wherever you love a brother, you love a friend. He is now with you, he is now joined to you even in catholic unity. If you live well, you love a brother made out of an enemy. But you love someone who has not yet believed in Christ, or, if he has believed in Christ, believes as the demons believe; you reprove his vanity.

You, love him, and love him with brotherly love: he is not yet a brother, but you love him for this reason, that he may be a brother. So our whole love is brotherly, toward Christians, toward all his members.

The discipline of love, my brethren—its strength, flowers, fruit, beauty, pleasantness, food, drink, nourishment, embrace—is without satiety. If it so delights us as pilgrims, how shall we rejoice in the homeland?

827.0000000000000000000~8. Let us run, then, my brethren, let us run, and love Christ. What Christ? Jesus Christ. Who is this? The Word of God. And how did he come to the sick? The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). So what Scripture foretold was fulfilled: Christ had to suffer, and to rise again from the dead on the third day. Where does his body lie? Where do his members toil?

828.0000000000000000000~Where ought you to be, so that you may be under the head? And that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). There let your love be poured out. Christ says, and the Psalm, that is, the Spirit of God, says: Your commandment is exceedingly broad; and some man or other places the bounds of love in Africa!

Extend your love through the whole world, if you want to love Christ; because the members of Christ lie throughout the world. If you love a part, you are divided: if you are divided, you are not in the body: if you are not in the body, you are not under the head.

What does it profit that you believe, and blaspheme? You adore him in the head, you blaspheme him in the body. He loves his body. If you have cut yourself off from his body, the head has not cut itself off from its body. In vain do you honor me, the head cries to you from above; in vain do you honor me. As if someone wanted to kiss your head, and to trample your feet; perhaps with nailed boots he would crush your feet, while wanting to take hold of your head and kiss it; would you not, in the midst of his words of honor, cry out and say: What are you doing, man? You are trampling me.

You would not say: You are trampling my head; because he was honoring the head: but the head would cry out more for the trampled members than for itself, because it was being honored. Does not the head itself cry out: I do not want your honor; do not trample me? Now you say, if you can: Why have I trampled you?

Say it to the head: I wanted to kiss you, I wanted to embrace you. But do you not see, foolish man, that what you want to embrace reaches, through a certain frame of unity, to that which you trample? Above you honor me, below you trample me.

It grieves more for what you trample than it rejoices for what you honor; because that which you honor grieves for those whom you trample. How does the tongue cry out? It hurts me. It does not say: It hurts my foot; but: It hurts me, it says. O tongue, who touched you? Who struck you? Who goaded you? Who pricked you? No one, but I am joined to those who are trampled. How do you want me not to hurt, when I am not separated?

9. So our Lord Jesus Christ, when ascending into heaven on the fortieth day, commended his body, where it was going to lie, because he saw that many would honor him because he ascended into heaven; and he saw that their honor is useless, if they trample his members on earth.

And lest anyone should err, and, while adoring the head in heaven, trample the feet on earth, he said where his members were. For when about to ascend he spoke his last words; after those words he did not speak on earth. The head, about to ascend into heaven, commended the members on earth, and departed. Now you do not find Christ speaking on earth: you find him speaking, but from heaven. And from heaven itself, why?

Because the members were being trampled on earth. For to the persecutor Saul he said from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4) I have ascended into heaven, but I still lie on earth: here I sit at the right hand of the Father; there I still hunger, thirst, and am a pilgrim. How, then, did he commend his body on earth when about to ascend?

When the disciples asked him: Lord, will you at this time present yourself, and when will the kingdom of Israel be? he answered, about to go: It is not yours to know the time that the Father has set in his own power: but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

See where he pours out his body, see where he does not want himself to be trampled: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to all the earth (Acts 1:8). See where I lie, I who ascend. For I ascend, because I am the head: my body still lies. Where does it lie? Throughout all the earth. Beware lest you strike, beware lest you violate, beware lest you trample: these are the last words of Christ, about to go into heaven.

Consider a man languishing on his bed, lying in his house, and worn away by sickness, near death, gasping, now in a way holding his soul between his teeth, who perhaps, anxious about some matter dear to him that he greatly loves, has it come into his mind, and calls his heirs and says: I beg you, do this. He in a way violently holds his soul, lest it depart before those words are confirmed. When he has dictated those last words, he breathes out his soul: the corpse is carried to the tomb. How do his heirs remember the last words of the dying man? How, if someone arises who says to them: Do not do it: what then do they say? So am I not to do what my father, breathing out his soul, last commanded me, what sounded last in my ears, as my father was departing from here? Any other words of his I can hold otherwise; the last words hold me more: I did not see him afterward, I did not hear him speaking.

Brethren, consider with Christian hearts: if to heirs the words of one about to go into the tomb are so sweet, so welcome, of so great weight; to the heirs of Christ, what ought the last words to be, of one not about to return into a tomb, but about to ascend into heaven!

842.0000000000000000000~For as for the man who lived and died, his soul is carried off to other places, his body is laid in the earth: whether those words are carried out or not, does not concern him; he now does something else, or suffers something else: either he rejoices in the bosom of Abraham, or in the eternal fire he longs for a little water (See Luke 16:22, 24);

but in his tomb the corpse lies without feeling; and the last words of the dying man are kept. What do those hope for themselves who do not keep the last words of him who sits in heaven, who sees from above whether they are despised or not despised? Of him who said: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? who keeps for judgment whatever he sees his members suffer?

10. And what have we done, they say? We have suffered persecution, we have not done it. You have done it, O wretched ones: first, because you have divided the Church. The sword of the tongue is greater than that of iron.

846.0000000000000000000~Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, was proud; and she was afflicted by her mistress on account of her pride. That was discipline, not punishment. And so, when she had withdrawn from her mistress, what did the angel say to her? Return to your mistress (Gen 16:9). So then, carnal soul, like the proud maidservant, if perhaps you have suffered some troubles on account of discipline, why do you rave? Return to your mistress, hold to the Lord's peace. See, the Gospels are brought forth, we read where the Church is spread abroad: it is disputed against, and we are told: Betrayers.

847.0000000000000000000~Betrayers of what thing? Christ commends his Church, and you do not believe; am I going to believe you who curse my parents? Do you want me to believe you about betrayers? You first believe Christ. What is fitting? Christ is God, you are a man: which should be believed first? Christ has spread his Church throughout the whole world: I say, despise it; the Gospel speaks, beware. What does the Gospel say? Christ had to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name (Luke 24:46–47).

Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is the Church. How is it the Church? For to it was said: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven (Matt 16:19).

849.0000000000000000000~Where is this forgiveness of sins spread abroad? Through all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). See, believe Christ. But because you understand that, if you believe Christ, you have nothing to say about betrayers; you want me to believe my parents who curse, rather than that you should believe Christ who foretells.