And whoever hears me and knowingly approves within himself, he also himself discerns this same thing, even though he himself is not the thing he discerns. But the just man, when he says it, discerns and utters that which he himself is. And where does he too discern it, save within himself? Yet this is not wondrous; for where would he discern himself, save within himself? But this is the wonder: that the soul should see within itself what it has seen nowhere else, and should see the truth, and should see the very true and just soul, and yet itself be a soul and not be the just soul which it sees within itself. Is there another just soul within a soul not yet just? Or if there is not, whom does it see there when it sees and says what a just soul is—seeing it nowhere but within itself, though it is not itself a just soul?
Is it not that what it sees is the inner truth, present to the soul that is able to behold it? Yet not all are able; and of those who are able to behold, not all are that very thing which they behold—that is, they themselves are not also just souls, though they can see and say what a just soul is. And whence shall they be able to be so, save by cleaving to that very form which they behold, that from it they may be formed and become just souls—not merely discerning and saying that a just soul is one 'that by knowledge and reason are so ordered in life and conduct as to render to each his own, owing nothing to anyone save to love one another'? And whence is that form cleaved to, save by loving?
Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just, and not love that very form wherein we see what a just soul is, that we too may be able to be just? Or would it be that, unless we also loved this form, we should in no way love him whom we love because of this form; yet while we are not just, we love it less than would enable us to be just? Therefore the man who is believed just is loved out of that form and truth which he who loves discerns and understands within himself; but that very form and truth cannot be loved from any other source. For we find nothing else of such a kind besides itself, that, when it is unknown, we might love it by believing on the ground that we already know some such thing.
For whatever such thing you may behold, it is that very thing; and there is nothing else of such a kind, since it alone is such as itself is. He therefore who loves men ought to love them either because they are just or that they may be just. For so too ought he to love himself, either because he is just or that he may be just; for thus does he love his neighbour as himself, without any peril. For he who loves himself otherwise loves himself unjustly, since he loves himself unto this end, that he may be unjust, and therefore that he may be evil; and by this he no longer loves himself: for 'he who loves iniquity hates his own soul.' [VII 10] Wherefore, in this question which concerns the Trinity and the knowledge of God, nothing is chiefly to be considered save what true love is—nay rather, what love is.
For only that love is to be called love which is true; otherwise it is cupidity; and thus the covetous are said to love only by abuse of the word, just as those who love are said, by abuse, to covet. This, then, is true love: that, cleaving to the truth, we may live justly, and therefore despise all mortal things for the love of men, by which we wish them to live justly. For thus we shall be able to be profitably ready even to die for the brethren, which the Lord Jesus Christ taught us by His own example. For since there are two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets—the love of God and the love of neighbour—not without reason does Scripture often put one for both. Whether God only, as in that saying: 'We know that to those who love God all things work together for good,' and again:
'But whoever loves God, the same is known by Him,' and this: 'Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us,' and many other passages—because he too who loves God, it follows, does what God has commanded, and loves in so far as he does it; it follows therefore that he loves his neighbour also, since God has commanded this. Or Scripture mentions only the love of neighbour, as in that saying: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ,' and this: 'For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in that which is written: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' and in the Gospel: 'All things whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, these good things do you also to them;'
'for this is the law and the prophets.' And we find many other passages in the sacred writings in which the love of neighbour alone seems to be enjoined unto perfection, and the love of God passed over in silence—though on both commandments hang the law and the prophets. But this too is so because he who loves his neighbour, it follows, chiefly loves love itself. 'But God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God.' It follows therefore that he chiefly loves God. Wherefore those who seek God through those powers which rule the world or the parts of the world are carried away from Him and cast far off, not by intervals of place but by diversity of dispositions; for they strive to go outward and forsake their inner selves, within whom God is more inward.
And so, even if they have heard of some holy heavenly power, or have somehow conceived of it, they rather crave its works, which human infirmity marvels at; they do not imitate the piety by which divine rest is obtained. For they would rather have, in pride, that power which an angel has, than be, in devotion, that which an angel is. For no holy being rejoices in his own power, but in His from whom he has the power to do whatever he fittingly can; and he knows it is more powerful to be joined to the Almighty by a pious will than to be able, by one's own will, to do that at which those tremble who cannot do such things. And so the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, doing such things that by them He might teach those who marvelled things yet greater, and might turn those intent and suspended upon unwonted temporal things toward things eternal and inward:
'Come to me,' He says, 'all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you.' And He did not say, 'Learn of me, because I raise up the dead of three days,' but He says: 'Learn of me, because I am meek and lowly of heart.' For the most solid humility is more powerful and more safe than the most windy loftiness. And therefore He goes on to say: 'And you shall find rest for your souls.' For 'love is not puffed up,' and 'God is love,' and the faithful rest in Him in love, recalled from the din which is without to the joys of silence. Behold, God is love. Why do we go and run to the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth, seeking Him who is with us, if we would be with Him? [VIII 12] Let no one say:
'I do not know what to love.' Let him love his brother, and let him love that same love; for he knows better the love by which he loves than the brother whom he loves. Behold, he can already have God more known than his brother—plainly more known because more present, more known because more inward, more known because more certain. Embrace love, which is God, and by love embrace God. This is the love that unites all good angels and all the servants of God by the bond of holiness, and joins us and them mutually to one another, and subjoins us to itself. The more, therefore, we are healed of the swelling of pride, the fuller we are of love. And of what is he full who is full of love, save of God?
'But I see charity, and, as far as I can, I behold it with my mind, and I believe the Scripture which says: For God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God. But when I see it, I do not see the Trinity in it.' Nay, but you do see the Trinity if you see charity. But I will admonish you, if I can, that you may see that you see; only let charity itself be present, that we may be moved by charity toward some good. For when we love charity, we love one who loves something, for this very reason, that he loves something. Therefore what does charity love, that charity itself also may be loved? For that is not charity which loves nothing. But if it loves itself, it must love something in order that it may love itself with charity.
For just as a word indicates something, and also indicates itself, yet does not indicate itself as a word unless it indicates that it indicates something; so too charity indeed loves itself, but unless it loves itself as loving something, it does not love itself with charity. What then does charity love, save that which we love with charity? But this, that we may be led onward from our neighbour, is a brother. Let us attend to how greatly the apostle John commends brotherly love: 'He who loves,' he says, 'his brother abides in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in him.' It is manifest that he has placed the perfection of righteousness in the love of a brother; for in whom there is no stumbling-block, he is surely perfect. And yet he seems to have kept silent about the love of God.
This he would never do, save because in that very brotherly love he wishes God to be understood. For most plainly, a little later in the same epistle, he thus says: 'Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love has not known God, for God is love.' This connected passage declares quite plainly enough that this same brotherly love (for brotherly love is that by which we love one another) is proclaimed, by so great an authority, to be not only of God but also to be God. When therefore out of love we love a brother, out of God we love the brother; nor can it come to pass that we should not chiefly love that very love by which we love the brother.
Whence it is gathered that those two commandments cannot be without each other. For since God is love, he certainly loves God who loves love; and it is necessary that he love love who loves his brother. And therefore, as he says a little later: 'He cannot love God whom he does not see, who does not love his brother whom he sees'—because this is the cause of his not seeing God, that he does not love his brother. For he who does not love his brother is not in love, and he who is not in love is not in God, for God is love. Furthermore, he who is not in God is not in the light, for God is light, and there are no darknesses in Him. He therefore who is not in the light, what wonder if he does not see the light, that is, does not see God, because he is in darkness?
But he sees his brother with human sight, whereby God cannot be seen. Yet if he loved with spiritual charity him whom he sees with human sight, he would see God, who is charity itself, with that inward sight whereby He can be seen. And so, he who does not love the brother whom he sees, how can he love God—whom he does not see for this reason, that God is that love which he lacks who does not love his brother? Nor let that question now trouble us, how much charity we ought to bestow upon a brother, how much upon God. Upon a brother, as much as upon ourselves; and we love ourselves so much the more, the more we love God. Out of one and the same charity, therefore, we love God and neighbour: but God for God's sake, and ourselves and our neighbour for God's sake.
[IX 13] For what is it, I ask, that we are set ablaze when we hear and read: 'Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.'
'Giving no offence in anything, that our ministry be not blamed, but in all things commending ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left; through glory and dishonour, through evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.'
What is it that we are kindled with love of the apostle Paul when we read these things, save that we believe he so lived? Yet that ministers of God ought so to live, we do not believe from having heard it of certain persons, but we behold it within us, or rather above us, in the very truth. Him therefore whom we believe to have so lived, we love out of that which we see; and unless we chiefly loved this form, which we discern as ever stable and unchangeable, we should not therefore love him, because we hold by faith that his life, while he lived in the flesh, was fitted and conformed to this form.
But somehow we are stirred yet more to the love of that very form through the faith by which we believe that someone so lived, and through the hope by which we, who are men, in no way despair that we too can so live—because certain men have so lived—so that we both desire this more ardently and pray for it more confidently. Thus the love of that form, according to which they are believed to have lived, causes their life to be loved by us; and their believed life kindles a more burning charity toward that same form, so that the more ardently we love God, the more surely and serenely do we see Him, because in God we behold the unchangeable form of righteousness, according to which we judge that man ought to live.
Faith therefore avails toward the knowledge and the love of God—not as of one wholly unknown or wholly unloved, but that He may be known more manifestly and loved more firmly. [X 14] But what is love or charity, which the divine Scripture so greatly praises and proclaims, save the love of the good? Now love is of someone loving, and by love something is loved. Behold, there are three: the lover, and that which is loved, and love. What then is love, save a certain life coupling, or seeking to couple, some two things together—namely the lover and that which is loved? And this is so even in the lowest and most carnal loves. But that we may draw something purer and clearer, let us trample upon the flesh and ascend to the mind. What does the mind love in a friend, save the mind?
There too, therefore, there are three: the lover, and that which is loved, and love. It remains from here also to ascend and to seek these things higher, as far as is granted to man. But here let the attention rest a little, not that it may now suppose it has found what it seeks, but as a place is usually found where something is to be sought. That has not yet been found, but it has already been found where it is to be sought. So let it suffice to have said this, that from it, as from the joint of some beginning, we may weave together the rest.