1. Therefore, if we exhibit love to God and to our neighbor «out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned» (1 Tim. 1:5), we easily resist sin, abound in all good things, despise the allurements of the world, and accomplish—even with delight—all things that are difficult or harsh to human frailty; provided only that we love God with the perfect love which is ours from Him, «with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with all our strength» (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30). For a person sins in that very part by which he loves Him less: whom if we love with our whole heart, there will be nothing in us whereby we may serve the desires of sin.
And what is it to love God, but to be occupied with Him in soul, to conceive an affection for the enjoyment of His vision, a hatred of sin, a loathing of the world; and also to love our neighbor (Matt. 5:43), whom He Himself has joined to Himself as one to be loved; to keep in that love its lawful measure, and not to pervert the established order of love? They pervert the order of love and do not keep the measure of loving, who either love the world which is to be despised, or love their own bodies, which are to be loved less, more; or love their neighbors not as themselves, or perhaps love God not more than themselves (see Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, ch. 27). 2. But concerning the world—that it ought not to be loved at all—there is the voice of our very God through the holy Apostle John, saying:
«Do not love the world» (1 John 2:15). But our body, because it is a part of us, is to be loved by us to this end: that we may naturally provide for its welfare and frailty, and act so that—being orderly subject to the spirit—it may, upon receiving immortality and incorruption, attain to eternal salvation; not, by abandoning itself to its own pleasures, soften the rigor of the soul that yields to it, defile its purity, and corrupt the whole dignity of its delight by the disease of pleasure. But we then love our neighbors as ourselves, if we love them not for the sake of some advantages of our own, not for benefits hoped for or received, not for ties of affinity or blood; but only for this, that they are sharers of our nature:
because we do not love them as ourselves when we love them for those reasons mentioned above. For a person does not love his neighbor as himself merely because he is his brother or sister, father or son, mother or daughter, grandson or granddaughter. Indeed, he loves carnally who loves in such a way: for not only those whom degree of blood joins to us are to be reckoned our neighbors; rather, all human beings, sharers—as I said—of our nature, are to be reckoned our neighbors. For if we love our kinsfolk, however disorderly, base, and ill-mannered, more than any holy persons whom, according to blood, we call strangers to us; we not only love carnally, but also sin gravely in such love of them.
3. Accordingly, we love all our neighbors as ourselves when we provide for their welfare—unto good morals and the attaining of eternal life—just as for ourselves; when we consider ourselves to be in their sins and dangers; and just as we wish to be helped, so we help them according to our ability; or, if the means be lacking, we hold the will to help. Wherefore this is the whole love of neighbor: that you should wish for your neighbor the good which you wish to be conferred upon yourself; and the evil which you would not have happen to yourself, you should not wish for your neighbor either. But those love God more than themselves who, for love of Him, do not spare their own temporal welfare;
they hand themselves over to tribulations and dangers, are ready to be stripped of their own possessions, to become exiles banished from their homeland, to renounce parents and wives and their own children; and, to say it all, they not only do not flee the very death of the body, but even gladly accept it, choosing to depart from the life of their body rather than from God, the life of their life. 4. This order of love, therefore, is to be kept by us, according to that which the Holy Spirit says: «He set love in order within me» (Song 2:4); so that, as ordered love demands, we love God chiefly; and on account of Him, in Him, we love the things that are to be loved, only as much as He Himself commands (Lev. 19:19).
For He Himself commands that we ought to love our bodies for our own sake, our neighbors as ourselves, and Himself more than ourselves (Matt. 22:39): yet in such a way that to those whom closer familiarity makes more joined to us, if reputation does not reprove them and their life commends them, we should bestow ourselves the more; that we should believe the advancements of all to be our own, and mourn mercifully over the sins of others as over our own. Thus, then, those can be perfect in this life who perfectly love God; and they perfectly love God who, willing what God wills and not willing what He does not will, neither acquiesce in any sins by which He is offended, and ever stretch themselves toward loving and possessing the virtues which He deigns to bestow.
These are they who truly believe that they were helped by Him so as to be able to fulfill all the good things they could; whatever evil they have committed, they ascribe to the fault of their own will; whatever good they could not fulfill, they continually beg of Him that they may be able; and when they have been able, they give Him thanks. The good things of His which they have obtained, they wish to be conferred in fellowship upon others also, and—extending the breadth of their love even unto their enemies—they desire that all may be what they themselves are. Enough has been disputed concerning the vices and their remedies; now let us briefly discuss in what manner each several virtue may be acquired.