Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to inculcate the true faith of Christ, and charity both toward God and toward neighbor. First, from v. 1 to v. 7, he teaches that spirits must be discerned, whether they be of truth or of error, by this sign: that the spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; but he who dissolves Christ is of the world and the devil. Secondly, from v. 7 to 15, he commends charity at length, because God is charity, and out of charity gave us His Son through the incarnation, etc. Thirdly, from v. 15 to the end, he enumerates three principal fruits and effects of charity: the first is that he who has charity abides in God, and God in him; the second, that charity will give confidence in the day of judgment; the third, that charity casts out fear.
Vulgate Text: 1 John 4:1-21
1 Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2 By this is the spirit of God known. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God: 3 And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world. 4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome him. Because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. 5 They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them. 6 We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 7 Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God. And every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity. 9 By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. 10 In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. 11 My dearest, if God hath so loved us; we also ought to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us, and His charity is perfected in us. 13 In this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us: because He hath given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen, and do testify, that the Father hath sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known, and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him. 17 In this is the charity of God perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment: because as He is, we also are in this world. 18 Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain. And he that feareth, is not perfected in charity. 19 Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us. 20 If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not? 21 And this commandment we have from God, that he, who loveth God, love also his brother.
Verse 1: Believe Not Every Spirit
1. DEARLY BELOVED, BELIEVE NOT EVERY SPIRIT. — He calls "spirit" a suggestion, inspiration, impulse, doctrine, persuasion; or rather the one who suggests, inspires, impels, teaches, persuades, namely the teacher himself, or master, as if to say: Do not believe everything which is suggested or persuaded to you by any teacher or persuader. For different teachers — indeed contrary ones — are moved by different and contrary spirits. The good, wise, and orthodox are moved by the good Spirit of God; the evil and erring, like heretics, are moved by the evil spirit of the devil. The former, therefore, are moved by the spirit of truth; the latter by that of vanity, error, and falsehood, so that the good spirit or the evil spirit speaks through the mouths of teachers, says Dionysius. Thus Abbot Serenus in Cassian, Conferences VII, chapter XXXII, testifies that he heard a demon confessing that he had founded impious heresies through Arius and Eunomius. Thus the devil, speaking through the mouth of the serpent, tempted and seduced Eve, Genesis III, 1. He looks to sailors who do not believe every spirit — that is, every wind — nor obey it; because if they did so, they would stray from the appointed port, and would often be driven into quicksands, rocks, and certain destruction. Moreover, he calls teachers "spirits," both because knowledge and doctrine is spirit and spiritual, and because by the hidden reasons and impulses of teachers, as it were by spirits, some are moved to good and truth, others to evil and falsehood. Hence he commands that we examine and investigate by what spirit they are moved before we put faith in them. This is what Paul forewarned, I Timothy IV, 1: "The Spirit," he says, "manifestly saith that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy," etc.; and Ephesians IV, 14: "That henceforth we be no more children, tossed about with every wind of doctrine."
He alludes to that text of his own Gospel, chapter III, verse 8: "The Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know whence He comes, or whither He goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The sense of which passage is, as if to say: Just as the spirit, that is, the wind, breathes wherever the will — that is, the natural appetite — draws it, and yet you neither recognize nor perceive its determined place, but only perceive its effect and rustling; so much more, O Nicodemus, you are unable to perceive this spiritual regeneration from water and the Spirit, and its end and term, by sense or by natural reason, but only by the revelation and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, even though you see the external symbols of water and of the washing in Baptism. So St. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius, Jansenius on this passage. For Christ plays analogically on the word spirit, and first by spirit He understands wind, and afterwards the Holy Spirit, of which the wind is the type and symbol.
BUT TRY (as gold is tried by the Lydian stone; the Syriac: discern) THE SPIRITS IF THEY BE OF GOD. — Because, as Ambrosiaster says on chapter V of the first epistle to the Thessalonians, unclean spirits are wont fraudulently, as if by imitation, to say good things, and to introduce evil among these, so that through what is good, evil things may also be received as accepted, so that, since they are thought to be the sayings of one spirit, they may not be distinguished from each other, but through what is lawful, the unlawful may be commended by the authority of the name, not by the reason of virtue."
Moreover, the Lydian stone by which spirits and doctrines are to be tried, is not the private spirit of each individual, as Schwenckfeld would have it: for this can be and is moved by the devil, and often is and is so driven, as when one is contrary to another (whence have arisen so many sects mutually dissected from each other as the heads which the poets attached to Cerberus); but the doctrine of the Apostles and of the Church: for this is certain and common to all the faithful. For such is that doctrine which St. John, as most accommodated and necessary to his own age, suggests when he says: "Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God," etc. Wrongly therefore do heretics contend from this passage that their heresies are to be examined and tested. For these have already been examined and condemned by the Church, so that there is no need for any private person to test them, indeed it is not even lawful. Thus St. Jerome to Pammachius: "Why," he says, "after four hundred years do you strive to teach what we did not know before? For up to this day, the Christian world existed without this doctrine." And St. Augustine, Book II Against Crescentius, chapter XXXV: "Say," he says, "that the Church has perished, and show whence you yourselves were born." And Vincent of Lerins, Against heresies: "If novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be retained: if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred." But Primasius shrewdly on Apocalypse chapter II: "The spirits," he says, "have already been tried by the Church; what do you wish to try, that has already been disapproved?"
Morally St. John here teaches that every believer ought not to believe all his interior motions, impulses, inspirations, desires, and reasonings that appear good, but should diligently examine their origin and author, so that if it is good and a friend, it may be accepted; if evil and an enemy, it may be refuted and resisted with all force. If a melancholic person feels motions and impulses of sadness, sloth, pusillanimity, suspicions, let him not believe them; because if he examines their origin, he will find that they arise from the evil spirit of melancholy, which is false and deceptive, according to that text of St. Eucherius to Valerian: "If you wish to be truthful, you will not be suspicious: for we do not suspect except what we do not know." The choleric person is moved by surges of anger, vengeance, indignation, and thinks that he is moved by zeal for justice; but with mind and reason composed, let him search out the origin, and he will find that they arise from the evil spirit of bile and choler. Thus when the Samaritans did not receive Christ, and James and John therefore said: "Lord, do You wish that we say that fire descend from heaven and consume them?" He replied: "You know not of what spirit you are;" for you think that you are moved by the Spirit of God, and you are moved by the human spirit of impatience, as if to say: You wish to imitate the zeal of Elias, as the Greek and Syriac have it, namely the spirit of vengeance by which Elias consumed the captains of fifty by heavenly fire: but you know not that this spirit is not Evangelical, and especially is not of My person; for My spirit is one of meekness, tolerance, beneficence. "For the Son of Man came not to destroy souls, but to save," Luke IX, 56. Thus many think themselves to be moved by the Spirit of God, namely by the spirit of truth, sobriety, chastity, charity, etc., who if they thoroughly, sincerely, and without dissimulation examine the depths of their heart before God, will find themselves to be moved by the contrary spirit of the devil, namely of vanity, gluttony, lust, concupiscence, etc. Therefore in those surges, passions, and tumults of soul, judgment must be suspended until, when these are stilled, the resting mind can discern, see, and judge what is from which spirit, what is good, what is evil; and for this the Holy Spirit must especially be invoked, that He may give us the gift of discernment of spirits, the practical rules of which are given by Richard of Saint Victor, part II, chapter XXXIII on the Canticles; Gerson, in the book On the Proof of spirits; Torquemada, in the preface to the revelations of St. Bridget; our St. Ignatius in the book of Spiritual Exercises; Adrianus ab Adriano, in the book On inspiration; Bernardinus Rossignolus, Book III On the discipline of Christian perfection, chapter X and following. See also St. Bernard, sermons 57 and 74 on the Canticles, and the sermon On the Seven Spirits, where he distinguishes six spirits, namely the divine, the angelic, the diabolical, the human, the spirit of the flesh, and the spirit of the world.
Moreover, how great and how important this gift of discernment is, Abbot Moses in Cassian, Conferences II, teaches by many sayings, reasons, and examples, where among other things he says in chapter IV: "It is defined by the opinion of blessed Anthony as well as of all, that discernment is what brings the fearless monk to God by a fixed step, and continually preserves the aforesaid virtues unimpaired; with it the lofty heights of consummation can be ascended with less fatigue, and without it many even labouring more strenuously have not been able to reach the summit of perfection: for it is the begetter, guardian, and moderator of all the virtues, and near to the faith of demons of such evils."
Verse 2: The Badge of True Faith
2. BY THIS IS KNOWN (the Interpreter reads γινώσκεται; some now read γινώσκετε, that is, know; others γινώσκομεν, that is, we know; the Syriac: it has been known) THE SPIRIT OF GOD. — As if to say: This is the badge of true faith, doctrine, and truth, which the Spirit of God teaches and suggests, namely: "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." This therefore in the age of St. John was like the badge and symbol of true and Christian faith, namely to believe and profess the incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, and the rest of the economy in the flesh; because all heretics and heresies were then opposing this article as a new and paradoxical one. For some denied Christ's divinity and taught that He was merely a man, like Cerinthus, Ebion, Menander, Carpocrates, and later Cerdon, Marcion, Valentinus, Paul of Samosata, Theodotus, Montanus, Arius, as can be seen in Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and St. Augustine, in the book On Heresies. Others denied Christ's humanity and asserted that it was not true but phantasmal, like Simon Magus, Manichaeus, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Apollinaris, Peter Gnapheus with the Theopaschites, or Patropassians, who asserted that the divinity in Christ had suffered and been nailed to the cross.
St. Augustine adds that all heresies oppose Christ incarnate, because they oppose the doctrine of Christ, the Church, the Sacraments, the Pontiff, and the hierarchical order instituted by Christ. Thus Pelagius, denying the grace of Christ, though he confessed Christ's incarnation with his mouth, nevertheless overthrew it in fact; because Christ's incarnation was made for no other purpose than to confer grace on us. The same may be said of Luther, Calvin, and other sectaries: for which reason St. John calls all heresiarchs Antichrists, because they all oppose the doctrine of Christ and the Church, and therefore have not the spirit of Christ, but of Antichrist and of the devil. In this sense, St. John embraces under the one article of Christ's incarnation all the other articles of faith and the whole Catholic doctrine, as if to say: Everyone who embraces the right faith of Christ is of God.
Third, others expound it thus, as if to say: Everyone who confesses that Christ has come in the flesh is of God, namely insofar as he confesses what is true: for all truth is from God; the same one however, insofar as he mixes false errors and heresies with this truth, is from the devil.
Mystically Œcumenius: "He understands," he says, "that this confession of Christ's coming in the flesh is to be made not by the tongue, but by works." For many — not only heretics but also bad Catholics — confess Christ by words but deny Him by deeds, as if to say: He who confesses Christ both by living rightly and by thinking rightly of Him is from God: so Didymus and Bede. "What does it profit," says St. Cyprian, "to build up virtue with words, if by deeds we destroy the truth?" and St. Augustine: "Confess," he says, "that Christ has come in the flesh both by speaking the truth in words, and by living well in deeds. For if you confess in words and deny in deeds, that is a separation of faith."
From what has been said, it is clear that the Transylvanian Arians recently in the Alba Disputation, wrongly and directly against the mind of St. John, explained these words thus: Christ is said to have come not into the flesh, that is, to have assumed flesh, but "in the flesh," that is, to be flesh, that is, to be man. Wrongly, I say: for to the Hebrews, to come in flesh and to come into flesh are the same. Nor is to come in flesh to be flesh: for to be is one thing, to come another. Nor indeed does anything come somewhere except as different from it, and as previously existing either in time or in nature: as the soul is said to come into the flesh when the embryo is animated: for it is naturally prior for the soul to exist than for it to unite itself to the flesh, and with it to form a composite, namely a man: even though these things happen in the same instant of time; for the soul, by being created, is infused into the flesh, and by being infused is created. But Christ is not a soul, but the Person of the Word, whole and subsisting: for He came into the flesh when He assumed it, having become man. "Thus He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, not losing the form of God. The form of a servant was added, the form of God did not depart — this is to confess that Christ has come in the flesh," says St. Augustine, sermon 31 On the Words of the Apostle, chapter IV. The same thing is clear from the antithesis which St. John adds, saying:
Verse 3: Every Spirit That Dissolves Jesus
3. AND EVERY SPIRIT WHO DISSOLVES JESUS IS NOT OF GOD, — as if to say: Jesus is something joined together and composed of deity and humanity, by the bond and tie of the hypostatic union; he therefore who dissolves this composite, denying Christ to be God, like the Arians, or denying Him to be man, like the Ebionites: this person is not of God, but of the devil. For he denies that Christ the Son of God came from heaven into the flesh, and says either that He is only [God] or that He is only man. This is what Athanasius in the Creed proposes to be believed about Christ, saying: "Who, although He is God and man, nevertheless is not two but one Christ; one, however, not by conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by assumption of the humanity into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." Where note, the word "as" signifies union and unity not the same but similar: for the rational soul and the flesh make one essential composite, namely one man; but the deity and the humanity joined in Christ make one composite, not essential but substantial, or hypostatic. For the deity does not inform the humanity as the soul informs the body, but, remaining whole and unmingled, joins the humanity to itself in the same hypostasis of the Word.
Wherefore Nestorius properly dissolves Christ, teaching that in Christ there are two persons, as there are two natures, and therefore that in Christ man is different and distinct from God. Christ therefore as God in humanity is like a pearl in a shell, conceived and formed from virginal matter and the dew of the Holy Spirit, most pure by the innocence of His life, most lucid by the light of wisdom, perfectly round by the possession of every perfection: having the weight of constancy, the smoothness of meekness, the price of beatitude. So our Salmeron, volume VII, tractate II.
Note: the Syriac and Greek read: "Every spirit which does not confess that Christ has come in the flesh is not of God." Thus also reads St. Cyprian, Book II Against the Jews, chapter VII or VIII; Tertullian, in the book On the Flesh of Christ, chapter XXIV, who however for "does not confess" reads "who denies." But everywhere the other Latins read: "Everyone who dissolves Christ is not of God." Thus reads St. Leo, epistle X, chapter V; Prosper, Book I On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter XXIII; Cassian, Book V On the Incarnation, chapter X; also Tertullian, Book Against the Psychics, chapter I; Irenaeus, Book III, chapter XVIII; and St. Augustine here, who however also adduces and explains the former reading. Moreover, that in the Greek for ὁμολογεῖ, that is "confesses," it was once read ἀναλύει, that is "dissolves," is clear from Didymus on this passage, and from St. Cyril, On Faith to the Queens, and from what Socrates writes, Book VII, chapter XXXII, treating of Nestorius, who denied that Christ was God and that the Blessed Virgin was Theotokos (Mother of God): "He was ignorant," he says, "that in the ancient copies of the Catholic Epistle of John it was written that every spirit which dissolves Jesus is not of God. For this sentence was removed from the ancient copies by those who wished to separate the divinity from the dispensation of the man."
Both readings come to the same thing, and one explains the other, namely that to dissolve Christ is the same as to deny that Christ has come in the flesh.
Allegorically, he dissolves Christ who tears the body of Christ, namely the Church, by schism. "To dissolve," says St. Augustine, "is understood by deeds: He came to gather, you come to dissolve. How do you not deny that Christ has come in the flesh, you who tear apart the Church which He gathered together?"
Tropologically, he dissolves Jesus who removes His union — namely grace — from the faithful soul by sin or scandal. So Œcumenius. For we ought, as Blessed Paul says, "everywhere to bear about the mortification of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. He therefore who has Jesus working in him, and is dead to the world, and lives no longer to the world but to Christ, and bears Christ about not only in Christ's flesh but also in his own, this man is of God." Thus Œcumenius. This is what the Bride says in Canticles I, 13: "A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me, He shall abide between my breasts."
AND THIS IS ANTICHRIST, — both appellatively, because contrary to Christ; and rather more properly, because forerunner of Antichrist. Hence the Greek has: "And this is of Antichrist;" the Syriac: "This is from the pseudo-Christ himself;" St. Cyprian, Book II Against the Jews, chapter VII or VIII: "He who denies that He has come in the flesh is not of God, but of the spirit of Antichrist." Thus John the Baptist is called Elias in Matthew XVII, 12 — not in person, but in office and spirit: because, just as John the Baptist preceded the first coming of Christ, so Elias will precede the second. See what was said in chapter II, verses 18 and 21: "Who," he says, "is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son."
BECAUSE HE COMES, — perhaps, that is, He comes, in the present tense, not in the past — that is, He will certainly come. The Syriac: whom you have heard is to come.
AND NOW HE IS ALREADY IN THE WORLD, — not in person, but in spirit, namely in his precursors. This is what Paul says: "For the mystery of iniquity already worketh," II Thessalonians II, 7. Thus Luther paved the way for Mohammed, and consequently for Antichrist, by teaching among other things that the Turk is not to be resisted, which he proved by this sophism: A scourge of God is not to be resisted, because this is the same as resisting God who is scourging; but the Turk is the scourge of God: therefore, etc. By the same argument he would have proved that robbers, thieves, and brigands are not to be resisted, because all these are the scourge of God; but this scourge is to be scourged by judges, because it is from God not positively but permissively. And what else was this but to subject all Christians to the Turk, and to make them Turks? Wherefore Solyman, Emperor of the Turks, when he once asked the legate of the Emperor what year of life Luther was in, and the legate replied that he was 48, said that he was sorry that, because of impending old age, he could not in the future help his own efforts as much as before. Of which judgment of Solyman concerning himself, Luther boasts in his book of Table-Talk, and brags that the Turkish Caesar had given him every goodwill. Thus St. Hilary called Constantine the Arian Emperor Antichrist, whose fiery words I recounted at I Peter III, 14.
Verse 4: You Have Overcome Him
4. YOU ARE OF GOD, LITTLE CHILDREN, AND (that is, therefore) HAVE OVERCOME HIM, — as if to say: Because you, O Christians, are of God, who is the first and eternal truth, therefore you have overcome him — namely the spirit of Antichrist, that is, the spirit of error and heresy. Hence the Greek and Syriac read αὐτούς, that is, them — namely the false prophets and the spirits of error — as if to say: I congratulate you, O Christians, because you have overcome the heretics now arising, namely Ebion, Simon, Menander, who dissolve Christ, and you have constantly rejected their temptations; nay more, the more learned among you by disputing, and the rest by living as Christians, have refuted them. St. Cyprian, in the book On the Simplicity of the Prelate, reads νικᾶτε, that is, conquer them, so that it is the voice of one exhorting to battle and victory; some now read νενικήκατε, that is, you have conquered them, so that it is the voice of one congratulating and as it were triumphing because of the victory. This is what he says in chapter V, verse 4: "All that is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory which overcomes the world, our faith."
BECAUSE GREATER IS HE WHO IS IN YOU THAN HE WHO IS IN THE WORLD. — He gives the cause of the victory, namely Christ and His spirit of truth, who rules the faithful and who is greater than the devil and his spirit of error, who dominates in the world — namely in worldly men, heretics, and the impious, who love, hope for, and proclaim only fleeting goods, as follows. He says this, both to commend humility to the faithful, that they may humbly accept the victory not by their own strength but by the grace of God, the victory humbly accepted. "Be humble," says St. Augustine, "carry your Lord, be the beast of burden of your rider." See what was said on Apocalypse VI, 2. And also to encourage them to confidence and constancy in temptations, by considering that they have a great leader and protector.
He alludes to that text of his own Gospel, chapter XVI, verse 33: "In the world you shall have distress, but have confidence, I have overcome the world." He is properly speaking of the temptation against faith which heretics bring. But you may extend the same by parallel or similarity to any other temptation. Hence first, St. Cyprian, Exhortation to the Martyrs, extends it to the Martyrs, encouraging them to hope and constancy. "Earthly power," he says, "can do no more to cast down than divine protection can to raise up;" and in Book I, epistle 9, he says, "the injuries and punishments of persecutions are not to be feared, because the Lord is greater for protecting than the devil for assailing." He proves it by saying: "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." Indeed John himself, Apocalypse chapter XII, verse 11: "They," he says, "have overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony of their own, and they loved not their lives unto death." And the Church in the hymn for Martyrs: "You conquer in the Martyrs."
Secondly, Œcumenius extends it to the contempt of the faithful and the saints, namely that they are despised by the worldly and the impious: for these have the consolation that Christ, who esteems them greatly, is greater than the world, which despises them.
Thirdly, St. Ambrose, in homily I On Elisha, at the end of volume I, extends it to enemies and hostile armies: "Often," he says, "I remember to have said that we should not at all fear the warlike tumults of enemies, nor be afraid of any number of enemies however great, since as the Apostle says: Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world — that is, Christ is more powerful to protect His servants than the devil is to incite their enemies. For although the same devil gathers crowds for himself and arms them with cruel madness, yet they are easily destroyed, because the Saviour surrounds His own people with better helps. For the Prophet says: The Lord will send His angel round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them. But if the angel of the Lord delivers from dangers those who fear Him, the one who has feared the Saviour cannot fear the barbarian, nor can he dread the assault of the enemy who has kept the precepts of Christ." He adds the cause: the arms of Christ. "For the precepts of Christ are the arms of Christians, and divine fear drives hostile terror from us. These our arms are those with which the Saviour has equipped us: prayer, mercy, and fasting. For fasting protects better than a wall, mercy delivers more easily than plunder, prayer wounds farther than an arrow. For the arrow strikes only the adversary near at hand; but prayer wounds the enemy even when far off." Then he confirms this by the example of Elisha, heroes and martyrs. The same things, through the same One, we are able to do — He "who triumphs," that is, who makes "us triumph in Christ," II Corinthians II, 14: which He Himself promised through Isaiah, chapter LVIII, 14, saying: "I will lift thee up above the heights of the earth," so that, dwelling as it were like an eagle in heaven, thou mayest despise whatsoever is in the world, Job XXXIX, 27. Seneca saw this through a shadow and followed it, but did not attain it. For thus he writes in epistle 54: "We must inquire what it is that does not become worse from day to day. What is this? the soul; but a soul upright, good, and great. What else couldst thou call this, but God lodging in a human body?" They say that Mount Olympus is so lofty that, being above the clouds, it is stirred by no winds, by no whirlwinds. Such is the lofty soul, raised above all earthly things, dwelling in heaven, which suffers itself to be moved from rectitude by no praises of mortals, by no threats and terrors.
Fourthly, St. Prosper, in book I On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter XXIV, extends this to the daily temptations of the faithful, that against Pelagius he may show the grace of God to be necessary for overcoming them: "The victory of the saints," he says, "is the work of God dwelling in the saints."
Fifthly, St. Gregory, in book IV, epistle 39, extends this to the insolence of Prelates and Princes. For writing to Sabinianus the Deacon, he commands him to resist John, Patriarch of Constantinople, who called himself the ecumenical or universal Bishop, relying on the power of the Emperor Constantine. "But we," he says, "will hold to the right way, fearing nothing in this cause save the almighty Lord. Wherefore let thy charity tremble in nothing. Whatever it sees in this world to be lofty against the truth, let it despise for the sake of truth; let it trust in the grace of almighty God and the help of the blessed Apostle Peter. Let it call to mind the voice of truth, saying: Greater is He who is in heaven than he who is in the world; and in this cause whatever must be done, let it act with the highest authority. It is greater to despise a kingdom (and impious kings) than to accept it," says Tacitus. "It is greater to command kings than to reign," said Charles Martel, refusing the kingdom of France offered to him.
Sixthly, others extend it to any arduous work, so that each faithful one may rouse and sharpen himself for it, saying: "Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world;" and with St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me," Philippians IV, 13; and with St. Cyprian, in book II, epistle 2: "He can desire nothing of the world who is greater than the world;" and he adds that such a man "becomes greater and stronger in his powers, so that with imperious right he may dominate the entire army of the assailing adversary, etc. Whatever is under heaven, let us despise as light, deceitful, empty, and unworthy of our love." The same in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer: "He who has renounced the world," he says, "is greater than its honors and kingdom; and therefore he who consecrates himself to God and Christ desires not earthly but heavenly kingdoms;" and with St. Hilary on Psalm CXXX: "Let us be humble in heart but lofty in soul;" for we carry on our head the strength, the power, and the omnipotence of Christ. I saw in Belgium a Colonel who, when heretics threatened him, answered: "I fear none of you, because I bear the Spanish crown upon my head." Let the faithful say the same: I bear a crown upon my head, not the Spanish but a divine one; and therefore I fear no man, no demon, nay not the whole forces of hell, but I challenge them and provoke them all to combat, as St. Athanasius challenged and overthrew all the Arians and the whole world. For "if God be for us, who is against us?" Romans VIII.
Verse 5: They Are of the World
5. THEY ARE OF THE WORLD, THEREFORE THEY SPEAK OF THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD HEARETH THEM, q. d. Heretics are not of God, but of the world, because they love riches, honors, and the pleasures of the world, and of these things they speak and preach. Hence the worldly, who relish nothing but worldly things, gladly listen to them. For "like lips have like lettuces," as the common proverb has it. So Œcumenius. "A heretic," says St. Augustine, in his book On the Utility of Believing, chapter I, "is one who, for the sake of some temporal advantage and especially of glory and supremacy, either originates or follows false and new opinions." Tertullian, in his book On Prescription: "All heretics," he says, "are puffed up; all promise knowledge." And St. Jerome on Obadiah: "Which of the heretics is not lifted up into pride?" Again St. Augustine, in his book On Pastors: "One mother," he says, "pride, has begotten all heresies, just as our one Catholic mother has begotten all the Christian faithful scattered throughout the whole world." The same, in book IV against Julian, chapter IX, compares heretics to bedbugs, "which, while they live, bite, and when dead, stink." Tropologically you may rightly apply this judgment to worldly men, who speak nothing but worldly things — that is, slanderous, foul, insipid, ridiculous, foolish, and empty things — and so are gladly heard by their fellow worldlings.
Verse 6: The Spirit of Truth and of Error
6. WE ARE OF GOD: HE THAT KNOWETH GOD, HEARETH US; HE THAT IS NOT OF GOD, HEARETH NOT US, — according to that saying of Christ: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me," Luke X, 16. "Us," that is, all the faithful regenerated by baptism and endowed with charity: so St. Augustine, Œcumenius, and Lyranus. Secondly: "Us," that is, the predestined, says Dionysius. Thirdly, and in the proper sense: "Us," that is, the Apostles. For to the heresiarchs — whom he has just said are of the world and speak of the world, that is, teach worldly and carnal desires — Œcumenius says he opposes the Apostles, who, born of God and imbued with heavenly doctrine and sent by Him, teach men to seek after spiritual, heavenly, and divine things. Whence "he that knoweth" practically "God," that is, who loves God, "he heareth us," namely me John, and the Apostles like me, and Apostolic men; but he who does not love God, and therefore "is not of God," but of the world, this man heareth us not. Whence he adds: "In this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, in this, namely, that he who heareth us hath the spirit of truth; he that heareth us not, hath the spirit of error," says St. Augustine. Again, in this — that heretics who are driven by the spirit of error teach worldly things; while the Apostles and Apostolic Doctors, born of God, teach divine things — q. d. I said: Try the spirits whether they be of God; now I give the manner of trying, namely, that by this sign ye shall distinguish true Apostles from false ones and heretics: that the true ones love and teach things true and divine, the false love and teach things false and carnal. "We therefore are of God," because, as Œcumenius says, "we shrink from worldly desires, and being solicitous of the future life, we despise all transitory and mortal goods." He alludes to that saying of Christ in the Gospel, chapter X, verse 16: "The sheep, etc., hear My voice;" and chapter VI, verse 46: "Every one that hath heard of the Father and hath learned, cometh to Me;" and chapter VIII, verse 47: "He that is of God, heareth the words of God: therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God." Truly St. Jerome to Heliodorus: "Without knowledge of his Creator, man is a beast."
Verse 7: Let Us Love One Another
7. DEARLY BELOVED, LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. — These words rightly cohere with the preceding. For he had given a token and sign by which the spirit of truth might be distinguished from the spirit of error, namely by which the Apostles might be set apart from the heretics — that the Apostles teach to love things divine, the heretics things worldly and carnal. Now, in particular and as it were in a single instance, he demonstrates the same thing, q. d. The spirit of error is the spirit of cupidity, but the spirit of truth is the spirit of charity; for instance, the deceivers and heretics teach men to love honors, riches, Venus, and their own belly: but the Apostles teach men to love God and neighbor. Wherefore, dearly beloved, that we may follow the spirit of truth, not of error — the spirit of the Apostles, not of the heretics — "let us love one another." He subjoins the reason:
BECAUSE CHARITY IS OF GOD. — q. d. The spirit of truth is the spirit of charity, that we may love one another; because as truth, so also charity is of God; nay, just as God is the first and eternal truth itself, so even more and rather is He the supreme and uncreated charity itself. Whence it consequently follows that "every one who loveth (with a love not natural but supernatural, that is, with charity), is born of God," because, reborn of faith and charity which is from God, he is made a son of God; for charity is a supernatural habit which gives the soul the facility of loving God and neighbor. Moreover he is born of God "by that generation, or rather regeneration, which is of power, not of nature. For adoption is of power, generation of property," says St. Ambrose in book IV On the Faith, chapter IV. "That he may know God," not only speculatively but also practically, because God whom he knows to be the supreme good, and he loves Him as a friend. Again, love makes a man more fully know and, as it were, by a spiritual taste perceive and savor God: which sense and savor grow in proportion as love grows, especially because God manifests Himself to the one who loves Him, and reveals Himself more clearly through inward illuminations, inspirations, consolations, and tastes, according to that promise of Christ: "He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him," John chapter XIV, verse 21; and Apocalypse chapter II, verse 17: "To him that overcometh I will give the hidden manna," etc.
Note: "Charity is of God," first, because the essential, uncreated charity flows naturally from the divine essence itself, just as heat from fire: nay, charity is the very divine essence. Second, because notional charity is the Holy Spirit; for He proceeds, as it were, as notional love from the Father and the Son through the act of love by which they love one another with infinite love. So Hugh and the Master of the Sentences understand this passage in book I, distinction 31. Whence less correctly Origen, in homily 1 on Canticles, and Hugh take charity to mean the Son, who is from God, because begotten of God. For the Son proceeds from the Father, not as love and charity (this is the property of the Holy Spirit), but as the word of the mind and notional truth.
Third, created charity is of God, because it is the supreme and noblest gift of God, according to Romans V, 5: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts," etc., not as if the charity by which we love God were God Himself or the Holy Spirit, as the Master held in book I, distinction 37: for this is a manifest error; but because God, who is uncreated charity, inspires and kindles in us the created charity by which we love Him, just as the illuminating light produces the illuminated light, says St. Augustine, XII Confessions XV. And this is what St. John properly intends here, by which he tacitly indicates at the same time that this gift is not of our own powers, but must be asked of God by assiduous prayer, says St. Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, chapter XVIII, where he also adds: "What else is charity but a good will!" Again he signifies that charity, which is the same as grace or grace's inseparable companion, is the most divine virtue, which makes us partakers of the divine nature, II Peter I, 4; and therefore as it were gods, because God is charity, says Philo Carpathius on Canticles chapter IV.
Fourthly, charity is of God, because God first loved us, I John IV, 19, and by loving us He kindles us to love Him in return, especially when out of His own bowels — namely His only-begotten Son — out of immense love He gave Him to us by the Incarnation as a brother, according to that saying: "So God loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son," John III, 19. This reason he gives here in verse 9.
Fifthly, charity is of God, because it is sanctioned by God's law, and frequently and singularly commended. For the whole Decalogue is nothing other than the law of charity toward God and neighbor, according to that saying: "Every commandment is summed up in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law," Romans XIII, 9.
Hence it follows that God in Himself is formal charity, but in us causal — and that in every kind of cause: namely material, because He Himself is the object of our charity; formal, because He Himself is its exemplar; efficient, because He Himself produces it in us; final, because He Himself is our end and the end of our love.
Verse 8: God Is Charity
8. HE THAT LOVETH NOT, KNOWETH NOT GOD. — In the preceding verse St. John said: "Every one who loveth is born of God, and knoweth God;" now he proves the same by the contrary, that "he who loveth not knoweth not God;" the reason of which he subjoins: "For God is charity," q. d. "He that loveth not" God and neighbor, although he may know God speculatively, yet practically — that is, by experience and savor — "knoweth not God;" just as no one knows the savor and sweetness of honey by experience and taste, except him who tastes and savors it: for as savor is known by tasting, so love is practically known, tasted, and savored by loving. Whence the Syriac inverts this thus: "For God is charity, and whoever loveth not God, knoweth not God." Wherefore, although, as Didymus and Cajetan note, St. John could equally have said: He who knows not, knows not God, because God is knowledge; he who has no wisdom, knows not God, because God is wisdom; he who has no power, knows not God, because God is power; he who is not patient, knows not God, because God is patience; he who is not humble, knows not Christ, because Christ is humility, etc. — yet he preferred to say: "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is charity," both because he is treating of charity, not of knowledge, wisdom, power, etc.; and because one full of the love of God and Christ breathes nothing but it and delights in it: for, as St. Bernard says in sermon 83 on the Canticles, between the bridegroom and the bride — that is, between lovers — no other connection is to be sought save loving and being loved, because this Bridegroom is not only loving but is also love itself. This is what Jeremiah says, chapter XXXI, verse 3: "With an everlasting love I have loved thee, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee." Wherefore St. John here opposes charity to cupidity and to every love of the world and to every worldly enticement; and finally, because charity, as it is the chief and queen of all gifts and virtues, so also of all attributes of God.
FOR GOD IS CHARITY, — both formal and uncreated charity (and that either essential or notional), and causal and created charity, and that through all kinds of causes, as I said a little above. For in God and in the divine essence, on account of the supreme perfection and simplicity, there are no accidents; but those things which are accidents in us, in God are identical with the essence: as wisdom, goodness, love, power are the divine essence itself — as the Council of Reims defined against Gilbert. See St. Bernard, sermon 80 on the Canticles. Moreover God is charity both in the abstract and in the concrete; because He is both the supreme love and the supreme Lover, and therefore in turn must be supremely loved and loved back by us, q. d. God is charity, because He has loved us supremely: for He gave the most evident proof of this His charity when, for our salvation, He gave and sent His only-begotten Son. This is what St. John properly intends: for so he explained himself in the following verse. Hence first, St. Augustine and Bede teach that he who does not love his neighbor sins against God, because God is charity. On the other hand, St. Augustine in book VIII On the Trinity, chapter VII: "He who loves his neighbor," he says, "it consequently follows that he chiefly loves love itself; but God is love: it follows therefore that you should chiefly love God."
Again St. Chrysostom, in his sermon On Faith, Hope, and Charity, teaches that nothing can be compared with charity, since it is God Himself, who is incomparable. Second, Origen, in the Prologue to the Canticles, infers that charity ought to persevere in us and be borne toward spiritual things, since God is a Spirit perpetually persevering and immortal. Third, Gagneius infers that we are certain that God loves us beyond measure, because He is charity itself. Fourth, hence the Fathers infer that charity governs and embraces all the other virtues: for God Himself governs and embraces them. Whence St. Cyril on chapter XIII of St. John says, "Charity is composed of every virtue." Indeed St. Paul, I Corinthians XIII, 1: "Charity," he says, "is patient, is kind," etc. See what is said there, and St. Gregory, book X of the Morals, chapter VII and VIII, alias IV.
Verse 9: God Sent His Only-Begotten Son
9. IN THIS HATH THE CHARITY APPEARED. — Here he declares why he had said: "God is charity," namely because God declared His immense charity toward us by sending Christ in the flesh for our salvation, that by this means He might invite us to love Him in return, and at the same time prescribe the law and manner of returning love, as it were in a living idea and exemplar, as St. John explains in what follows. For "He that spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things?" says Paul, Romans VIII.
He alludes to that saying of the Gospel, chapter III, verse 19: "So God loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but have life everlasting." "Behold," says St. Augustine, "we have an exhortation to love God: how could we love Him, unless He had first loved? If we were sluggish to love, let us not be sluggish to love in return. He first loved, but loosed iniquity; He loved the wicked, but gathered them not unto iniquity; He loved the sick, but visited them to heal them. God therefore is love; in this hath the love of God been manifested in us." Pathetically and learnedly St. Paulinus, treating of St. Magdalene, in epistle 4 to Severus: "Therefore," he says, "let us love Him whom to love is a debt. Let us kiss Him whom to kiss is chastity. Let us be united to Him whose marriage is virginity. Let us be subject to Him beneath whom to lie is to stand above the world. For His sake let us be cast down, since for Him to fall is resurrection. With Him let us die together, in whom is life: in whom even when dead we live: who in turn deigns to be unto us this — whatever we shall have been to Him as His little servants," etc.
Verse 10: He First Loved Us
10. IN THIS (namely Christ, says Didymus. More plainly others: "in this," that is, in this matter, namely in the love of God by which, as follows, He first loved us, and therefore sent His Son into the flesh) HATH APPEARED (and is most clearly seen, His toward us) CHARITY, — that is, the greatness and immensity of His charity. St. John, the beloved of Christ, is not satisfied with proclaiming the charity of God, but constantly belches it forth, as it were the wine with which he was filled. Here therefore he weighs and emphasizes the same from this — that God, provoked by no love, no service or homage of ours, nay, offended by many injuries and our crimes, "first loved us," since when we were sinners, His enemies and foes, fleeing and turning away from Him, He pursued us with charity and went before us, that, brought back to Himself, He might save us. For "to this end He loved us, that we might love Him," says St. Augustine, "and therefore sent His Son as a propitiation," who, namely, was the propitiator and victim propitiating and appeasing the wrath of God "conceived for our sins;" whence St. Augustine reads litatorem, and explains it as sacrificator (sacrificer). "First," says St. Bernard, in sermon 9 on the Psalm Qui habitat, "did God love us, because from eternity, according to that saying: As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight in charity," Ephesians I, 4. Finally St. Augustine here, in tract 9: "He loved," he says, "the impious, that He might make them pious; He loved the unjust, that He might make them just; He loved the sick, that He might make them whole."
See here how exalted are the ways of God above the ways of men. For men, if anyone despises them, vexes them, robs them, nay even laughs at them or inflicts a slight injury, immediately shrink back, turn away, flee, indeed pursue the offender with hatred and contemplate inflicting on him an equal or greater vengeance. But God, despised, mocked, stripped of honor, and afflicted by a thousand injuries by men, opens wider the bowels of His charity toward them, contends with charity against their hatred, is excited by hatred to love; hatred is to God the bellows of charity, nay He surpasses, absorbs, overwhelms, and extinguishes hatred with infinite love, just as a great pyre absorbs a little drop of water. Therefore beneficence and charity toward enemies and foes is proper to God, namely that He goes before them with love and grace, and from enemies makes friends, sons and heirs; indeed from the greatest sinners He makes the greatest saints: as He made Paul out of Saul, out of the thief on the cross His herald, out of the sinful woman Magdalene — that is, the mirror of penitents and of holiness. Paul celebrates and admires the same: "A faithful saying," he says, "and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief; but for this cause have I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for the information of them that shall believe in Him unto life everlasting," I Timothy I, 15.
Imitating this charity of God and Christ toward himself, Paul made every effort to win the Jews — though they were his sworn enemies — to Christ, and as their hatreds grew, his love for them grew and was kindled more, so that for them he wished to become anathema, Romans IX, 2. In a similar way St. Magdalene, that she might repay love for love, devoted all that she had, and herself, to Christ. The other Saints did the same. This charity of God St. John here proposes for us also to imitate. Whence he adds:
Verse 11: We Ought to Love One Another
11. DEARLY BELOVED, IF GOD HATH SO LOVED US, WE ALSO OUGHT TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER. — "If" is not the "if" of one doubting, nor conditional, but of one asserting and causal, equivalent to because, q. d. Because God hath so loved us. In a similar way Christ says: "If, that is because, I have washed your feet, being your Lord and Master, you also ought to wash one another's feet," John XIII, 14.
Yet John says rather "if" than "because," for greater weight and pathos, as though wondering and astounded at the infinite love of God, with which therefore there can be no equality or proportion on our part. Whence skillfully from that antecedent, "if God hath so loved us," he does not infer: "I, and thus we ought to love God;" for this is impossible, namely that we should so love God as He has loved us: for we cannot equal the love of God, even in the smallest part; but he infers: "We also ought to love one another," q. d. Since we cannot return like for like to the divine love, let us at least love one another according to our measure. For what we do to our neighbor, God reckons as done to Himself, Matthew XXV, 40; and this, both because the neighbor is the image of God, and because God, needing nothing of ours, has substituted our neighbor in His own place, that on him in his need we may pour forth our love toward God, by loving and succoring him for God's sake. Therefore God earnestly enjoined and sanctioned this love of neighbor, because man is more similar and nearer to man than God is. If then God, so dissimilar and supereminent, has so loved man, how much more ought man to love man, who is of his own kind and in all things like him? So Œcumenius: "If God," he says, "so loved us, who have no communication with His nature, much more ought we also to love those who are kin to us; and since we know the good which comes from charity, to render it mutually to one another."
Add that the "us" embraces also our neighbors, q. d. If God has deemed worthy of His love all who share our nature — though He Himself has no share in it — nay has embraced them with such great charity, how much more does it become us to embrace one another in the same way, since we are all sharers of the same nature and equal in it. Truly St. Augustine here, treatise 7: "Love," he says, "and do what thou wilt: if thou keep silence, keep silence by love; if thou cry out, cry out by love; if thou correct, correct by love; if thou spare, spare by love. Let the root of love be within; nothing can come forth from that root except good." Moreover, if Christ so loved us as to lay down His life for us, much more ought we to lay down our life for the salvation of our neighbors. The Abbot Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, chapter XVII, number 10, assigns one practice of this matter that is daily at hand: "There is," he says, "nothing greater than love, even that one should lay down his life for his neighbor. For if anyone hearing a harsh word strives and bears it, and does not in turn grieve the speaker, or even if, when injured in some matter, he bears it patiently, not repaying the one who grieves and injures him — in that way such a man lays down his life for his neighbor."
Verse 12: No Man Hath Seen God
12. NO MAN HATH SEEN GOD AT ANY TIME. — To what end does St. John insert this here? First, St. Augustine, more ingeniously than aptly, accommodates it thus, q. d. God is invisible, and therefore is to be sought not with the eye but with the heart; the heart therefore must be called away from the senses and given to love: for by this is God held, who is nothing other than love. "Where is," he says, "that eye? Hear the Gospel: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God, etc. If thou wilt see God, God is love." St. Augustine continues: "What sort of face hath love? what sort of form hath it? what sort of stature hath it? what kind of feet hath it? what kind of hands hath it? No man can say; yet it hath feet, for these lead to the church; it hath hands, for these stretch out to the poor; it hath eyes, for from these is recognized he who is in need. Blessed is he who understandeth concerning the needy and the poor. It hath ears of which the Lord says: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. For these are not members distinguished by place, but by understanding it sees the whole at once. Thou who hast charity, dwell, and thou shalt be dwelt in: abide, and there shall be abiding in thee." And below: "But if at times thou ragest for the sake of the correction of love, for this reason charity was shown by the dove, which came upon the Lord. That form of a dove, in which the Holy Spirit came, in which charity was poured into us. Why this? The dove has no gall, yet with beak and wings it fights for its nest, without bitterness it rages. This too the father does when he chastises his son, but he chastises for the sake of discipline, as I said. Love then rages, charity rages — in what manner? without gall, after the manner of the dove, not of the raven."
Secondly, and in the genuine sense, these words partly give the reason why, from the antecedent "If God hath so loved us," he inferred "We also ought to love one another," and not "God," as it might seem he should have inferred — because, namely, we cannot see God and love Him by doing good to Him: hence in God's stead, by doing good to our neighbor whom we see, we attest our love toward God, whom we cannot see and to whom we cannot do good. Partly they invite us to the love of neighbor, and cohere with what follows, q. d. Diligently love thy neighbor: for God reckons this love as done to Himself; for although we do not see Him, yet if we love our neighbor, He, invisible, will be most present to us, and remaining in us will set up His seat and throne in our soul; nay, His charity will be fully expressed and perfected in our soul. So Œcumenius. The reason is that invisible and divine charity joins and unites us to the invisible God. Add that God, invisible in Himself, is seen in our visible neighbor: for the latter is the image of God.
Note: "No one hath seen God at any time," namely through essence, or face to face in this life. Whence the Doctors probably teach that neither Moses, nor Paul, nor any other pure man (for Christ saw God, but He Himself was God-Man) saw the divine essence in this life, according to that saying of Exodus XXXIII: "Man shall not see Me and live," although St. Augustine, and from him St. Thomas, hold the contrary. See what is said on II Corinthians XII, 4.
Again, "No one hath seen God at any time," nor can he see Him by the powers of nature, as the Anomœans and Eunomians held, whom St. Chrysostom and Basil refute in book I Against Eunomius; and afterwards the Beghards and Beguines. For the blessed in heaven see God, but by the powers of grace: whence there their mind is elevated, and as it were receives another eye of the divine order, namely the light of glory, by which it may see God. By this phrase therefore St. John signifies that the majesty of God is so sublime, and so transcends not only all created things but also the intellects of all, both angels and men, that although He Himself is the most resplendent light, yet on account of His purity, subtlety, and sublimity, He cannot be seen by any created mind or eye. St. John cites the same statement, Gospel I, 18; but there he applies it to the knowledge of God, here to His love. For there he says: "No one hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him," q. d. The things I have said of the divinity of the Word and of God the Father are so sublime that, since no mortal save the Son hath seen God, no one save the Son — not even Moses — could perfectly declare these things to men: wherefore "the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father," that is, who is most intimate, most united to the Father, homoousios, as begotten of Him, and consequently a sharer of His wisdom and of all His counsels, "He," coming in the flesh, "hath declared" these things to us. So St. Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius in the same place. Thus Nebuchadnezzar addresses Daniel on account of his interpretation of the divine dream, chapter IV, verse 6: "Daniel, whose name is Baltassar, according to the name of my god, who hath in him the spirit of the holy gods." Here however St. John applies the same to love, q. d. God is invisible, and therefore by man no office of love can be received, because He transcends all the wealth of men, as well as their eyes and actions, according to that of Daniel, chapter II, 11: "Except the gods, whose conversation is not with men." Yet He esteems love so highly, and those who love their neighbors, that from the highest summit of the heavens He inclines toward them, and as it were descends, and dwells and abides in their hearts. This is what Paul says: "Who only hath immortality, and inhabiteth light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see," I Timothy chapter VI, verse 16. See what is said there.
Finally, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, at the beginning of Catechesis 9, holds that God cannot be seen by bodily eyes, because He is incorporeal, and therefore that the heaven itself was as it were stretched out as a veil before our eyes, lest by the splendor of His divinity He should blind us, or rather slay us. This is false unless it is suitably explained — namely in this way: that God, although in Himself incorporeal, yet dwelling in the empyrean heaven, which is corporeal, and showing Himself and His glory to the bodies of the Blessed, sheds there so great a sensible light, which in some manner represents His majesty, that it would blind the eyes of the Blessed, nay slay them, if they were not upheld and preserved by divine power. For which reason the angel representing the glory of God, when he appeared to Moses in an assumed body, showed him only his back, since in this was a more tempered light: for his face shone so brightly that it would have blinded the eyes of Moses, according to that saying: "Thou shalt see My back parts (that is, My back), but My face thou canst not see." See what is said on Exodus XXXIII, 23, and XXXIV, 6. Hence among the ancients there was a widespread opinion that he who had seen God — that is, an angel representing God in an assumed body — would die, according to that saying of Manoah, the father of Samson, when he had seen the angel: "We shall surely die, because we have seen the Lord," Judges XIII, 22. Hence St. Epiphanius, in the VII Synod, Act VI, teaches that God cannot in Himself be expressed by any image; nay and Moses, forbidding to the Jews an image of God, gives the reason: "You heard the voice of His words, but you saw not any form at all, etc. You saw not any similitude, lest perhaps being deceived you might make to yourselves a graven likeness," Deuteronomy chapter IV, verses 12 and 15.
HIS CHARITY IS PERFECTED IN US. — That is "perfect" which is filled out and completed in all its parts as it were in numbers. Now the parts and offices of charity are two: first, to love God; second, to love neighbor. Wherefore if charity has only the first, namely to love God, it is imperfect; but it is perfected and completed if the second is added, namely if it extends itself to the neighbor. Again the charity by which we love God is perfected by the charity of neighbor, because we love the neighbor for no other reason than for God's sake; therefore love of neighbor for God's sake perfects the love of God, because that which is the reason why other things are loved is itself loved much more. Therefore when we love our neighbor for God's sake, much more do we love God Himself.
Secondly, these words can be understood of charity, not ours but God's: for this is what "ejus" (His) signifies, q. d. God, although He is invisible, yet by charity remains in us; nay, by perfect charity He shows that He loves us, since while remaining in us He effects, preserves, and increases in us the charity by which we love not only Him but also our neighbor for His sake. The following verse suggests this sense, and St. Augustine: "Love," he says, "Him who hath begun to dwell in thee, that by more perfectly dwelling He may make thee perfect."
Moreover, charity is most perfected by love of enemies — if, that is, beyond friends, it extends itself to rivals, foes, and persecutors. "The fire of charity," says St. Augustine here, tract 7, "first occupies things that are nearby, and so stretches itself to things further off — first to a brother, then to one unknown, afterwards to an adversary." And below he teaches that we must love our enemies, just as a physician loves the sick and the frenzied: "Man rages against thee," he says: "he rages, do thou pray for him; he hates thee, do thou have mercy. The fever of his soul hates thee; he will be made whole and will give thee thanks. How do physicians love the sick? Do they wish them always to be sick? They love the sick to this end, that they may not remain sick, but that out of sick they may be made whole; and how much do they often suffer from the frenzied? what insults of words? often they are even struck: he persecutes the fever, he pardons the man. And what shall I say, brethren? He loves his enemy, indeed he hates his enemy: for he hates the disease itself, and loves the man by whom he is struck, he hates the fever. By whom is he struck? by the disease, by the sickness, by the fever. He removes that which is hostile, that there may remain that for which he may rejoice." And below: "I was lamenting one sick man who hated thee; now I lament two if thou also hatest. But he persecutes thy property; therefore thou hatest him, because he causes thee straits on earth: do not endure straits; migrate above into heaven; thou wilt have thy heart there where there is breadth, so that thou mayest endure no straits in the hope of life everlasting. In some manner thy enemy himself is the iron tool of God, by which thou art healed. By him He cares for thee; wish that he too may be healed."
Verse 13: He Hath Given Us of His Spirit
13. IN THIS WE KNOW THAT WE ABIDE IN HIM, AND HE IN US: BECAUSE HE HATH GIVEN US OF HIS SPIRIT. — "Of the Spirit," that is, a participation of the Spirit, namely grace and charity, which are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Or, "of the Spirit," that is, He hath given us His Spirit, namely the Spirit of charity: for thus the Hebrews construe verbs of contact, such as "gave," with the preposition "ex" or "de," with the ablative.
In the preceding verse he said that God remains in us through charity, and consequently we in God; for thus the lover remains in the lover and in the loved one: for God is as much the one loving us as we are loving God. Here he inculcates the same, emphasizes it, and as it were confirms it by reason. The reason is this: he who has the Spirit of God, this man abides in God, and God in him; but he who works love. So Paul says: "That Christ may dwell by faith in our hearts," Ephesians 3:17; for Scripture is wont to attribute to faith salvation, grace, friendship, etc., not as alone, but as the root which produces, sustains, and embraces the whole tree of charity and the virtues, as I have often shown elsewhere. Whence St. Augustine: "He has confessed," he says, "not by word but by deed, not by tongue but by life; for many confess with words, but deny by deeds." For the faithful must prove and show his faith by deeds and good works, which faith dictates and commands; otherwise faith is empty, idle, and dead, as St. James says, ch. 2, v. 18. Whence St. Jerome on that text of Isaiah 26:1: "A wall and a bulwark shall be set therein. The wall," he says, "is good works, and the bulwark is faith; for it is not enough to have the bulwark of faith, unless faith itself be confirmed by good works."
The major premise is clear: because where the Spirit of God is, there is God Himself; and where God is, He unites to Himself the subject, or the place in which He is, and as it were incorporates and absorbs it into the immensity of His essence, so that the subject or place is more in God than God in the subject or place. He, therefore, who experiences in himself the Spirit of God — namely, charity — perceives God's presence and munificence: that God is in him and he in God, inasmuch as God confers His gift upon him and impresses His most perfect image in him, according to the saying: "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit," 1 Cor. 12.
He has charity, has the Spirit of God: therefore he who has charity abides in God, and God in him.
Verse 14: The Father Hath Sent the Son
14. AND WE HAVE SEEN AND DO TESTIFY, THAT THE FATHER HATH SENT THE SON TO BE THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. — These words refer back to verse 9, where he said that God showed His charity toward us by sending His Son; here he proves and confirms the same thing by his own testimony and that of the Apostles: for these were eyewitnesses and ear-witnesses, who saw, heard, and conversed with the incarnate Christ, as he said at the beginning of the Epistle. St. John repeats and emphasizes Christ's Incarnation, both because in that age it was new and paradoxical, and so many heretics denied it; and because it is itself the basis and foundation of charity, as he said in v. 9.
All these things pertain to charity, and so St. John breathes nothing else but charity. For whom does not the love of God, by which He gave us His Son, kindle to love God in return? How can love not be loved? Who would not love Jesus? For Jesus is our every good. For "Jesus" in Hebrew is the same as σωτήρ in Greek, "saviour" in Latin, according to that text of Hosea 13:4: "I am the Lord thy God, and there is no saviour beside Me;" and Psalm 67:21: "Our God is the God of salvation." He alludes to that text of the Gospel, ch. 3, v. 17: "For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him."
Whence St. Bernard, On the Love of God, VIII: "Christ Himself," he says, "is our love, by which we reach Thee, by which we embrace Thee: otherwise, O incomprehensible Majesty, Thou seemest to be comprehensible to the soul that loves Thee. For although no sense of any soul or spirit comprehends Thee, yet the love of the lover comprehends the whole of Thee, as great as Thou art — loving the whole of Thee, as great as Thou art, if indeed there is wholeness where there is no particularity: if there is quantity where there is no measurable extent: if there is comprehensibility where none of these things exist."
Verse 15: Whosoever Confesses Jesus Is the Son of God
15. WHOSOEVER SHALL CONFESS THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, GOD ABIDETH IN HIM, AND HE IN GOD. — He commends the divinity of Christ, because at that time Ebion, Cerinthus, and many others were attacking it. This is, as it were, a conclusion drawn from the preceding verse, as if to say: Christ is the Saviour of the world; whosoever therefore shall believe in Him, and shall constantly profess faith in Him, God abides in him, and he in God. He abides, I say, by a true and living faith and confession that includes charity, and that through love...
Verse 16: He Who Abides in Charity Abides in God
16. AND WE HAVE KNOWN AND BELIEVED THE CHARITY WHICH GOD HATH IN US. — In these words St. John confirms and inculcates what he said in the two preceding verses: for he is wholly intent on asserting and inculcating God's charity, which He showed us by sending and giving Christ, for the reasons I gave on v. 14: "We have seen and do testify, that the Father hath sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world;" he repeats the same thing here in different words, saying: "And we have known and believed the charity which God hath in us," as if to say: We have seen and testify Christ Incarnate, who is God's charity; because we have known Him truly to be such by experience and conversation, and have believed in Him by faith. "We have therefore believed the charity which God hath in us" — that is, toward us; because we have believed that God, from His immense charity toward us, gave us Christ as Saviour. Hence the Syriac plainly translates: and we have believed, and we know what charity God has toward us: for God is charity. And St. Augustine: We have known and believed, because God has love toward us.
Others expound it thus, as if to say: As what I said and taught about Christ in v. 14 is true and certain, so likewise what I teach about charity is true and certain; namely: I believe that Christ was given by God, and likewise I believe that He gave Him out of pure charity.
Note: St. John goes round and comes back in a circle; for from God he leaps to Christ, from Christ to charity, from charity to love of neighbor, from charity and love he returns to God, thence to Christ, etc.; for he refers all these things to this end, "that we may love one another," as he said in v. 11. For this is his line of discourse: God in His immense charity loved us — that is, all men — by giving Christ His Son for their salvation. Therefore it is fitting that we be united in His charity, and respond to Him in love, namely, that with His love we may love our neighbors and do good to them, since we cannot do good to God Himself.
Note: He says more significantly "we have believed in charity" (with the dative) than "we have believed charity" (with the accusative), as the Greek has it, to signify that we cleave to God's charity not only by faith but also by hope and charity, as if to say: We have not only known and believed by faith the mystery of the Incarnation, in which God's exceeding charity toward us shines forth — indeed His exceedingly great charity, as Paul says, Eph. 2:4 — but we have also wholly entrusted and committed ourselves to the divine charity; we have fixed all our faith, hope, and love upon it; we have poured all our affection into it; through all things we rest securely in it, certain that it will fail none of its own; we depend wholly upon it, that by it we may be moved in every direction and directed to every good and to eternal life, saying with the Psalmist: "For what have I in heaven? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever." Psalm 72:26.
GOD IS CHARITY. — The Syriac: For God is charity; he gives the reason why he said "and we have believed in charity," and why God has charity "in us," that is, toward us. The reason is that God is essentially the very Charity itself, and so cannot fail him who believes, hopes, and loves Him; but since He is pure and unmixed love, He communicates all His own and His whole self to him, and pours Himself into him.
Note: God is formal charity in Himself, causal charity in us, because He causes and produces it in us; but in Himself He is formal charity in two ways: the first is essential, common to the whole Holy Trinity; the second is notional, proper to the Holy Spirit, as I said on vv. 7 and 8. Hear St. Bernard, Epistle 11: "It is rightly said," he says, "Charity is God and God's gift. Thus charity gives charity, an accidental substance." Hence Basil infers, in his sermon On the Institution of Monks: "If, as John says, God is charity, then without doubt the devil must be hatred; so as he who has charity has God, so he who has hatred nourishes the devil within himself;" and Oration 1 On Love: "If God is charity, then envy itself must be a demon; so as he who has charity has God dwelling in him, so he who fosters envy without doubt nourishes and feeds a demon within himself." Likewise Gregory Nazianzen in his Tetrastichs: "Wine, lust, envy, and the demon, you bear them: / These deprive of mind those whom they hold. Against these you [must] / Heal yourself with shed tears and fasting; / For this is the sure remedy for my ills."
You will ask why it is said rather "God is charity" than God is wisdom, God is power, God is justice? I answer: All these things can truly be said; yet it is better said "God is charity," both because St. John is properly treating of charity, and because charity is the noblest endowment and virtue, which transcends all the others, and so in God likewise, as in its source, it is something most noble and excellent: for our created charity flows and emanates from God's uncreated charity, as a ray from the sun. Charity, therefore, is of the divine order; for it is a participation of God in the highest degree, namely not in the natural way in which all natural things participate in Him, but in a supernatural way which far surpasses and transcends every participation of creatures.
Now, the reason why God is essentially charity is that He is essentially the pure, unmixed, and supreme Good, whose nature is to be fully and entirely self-communicating and self-diffusing, as St. Dionysius says, which is proper to charity: for God is a sea of honey, that is, an ocean of goodness and charity. God is, as it were, an ever-burning fire, kindling all things and transmuting them into Himself. "For our God is a consuming fire," Heb. 12:29. Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 83 on the Canticle: "I read," he says, "that God is charity, and I do not read that He is honor or dignity; not that God does not desire honor, who says: If I am a father, where is My honor? True, that as a father; but if He presents Himself as a Bridegroom, I think He will change His voice and say: If I am a Bridegroom, where is My love? For He spoke thus before: If I am the Lord, where is My fear? Therefore God demands to be feared as Lord, honored as Father, loved as Bridegroom. What stands out among these, what is preeminent? Love, of course. Without this, fear has its punishment, and honor has no grace, fear is servile so long as it is not freed by love. And the honor that does not come from love is not honor, but flattery. And indeed honor and glory belong to God alone, but God will accept neither of them unless they are seasoned with the honey of love."
Therefore God is charity, because charity is, as it were, a spiritual flame inflaming all, and as a light shining everywhere and illuminating all. Hence St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 14, p. 1, says "divine love is a motive force, drawing upward to God, who alone is in Himself the Beautiful and the Good." Again, that it is "a manifestation of God through Himself, and a benign procession of that exceeding union, and a loving motion, simple, self-moved, self-originated, pre-existing in the Good, and from the Good overflowing into the things that are, and again returning to the Good." By these words, says our Lessius, Book IX On the Divine Attributes, chs. 2 and 3, the divine Dionysius signifies, first, that charity and love proceed from the Beautiful and the Good as from a fountain. "For by the very fact that God beholds His own infinite beauty and excellence, there arises in Him an infinite blaze of love, by which He loves it as much as it deserves to be loved, that is, infinitely infinite times. For the Beautiful and the Good, when known, immediately kindle love: hence the infinite Beautiful and Good, infinitely known, will stir up infinite love; infinite, I say, both in ardor and in esteem, or, as the Scholastics say, infinite intensively and appreciatively." Secondly, that on account of the Beautiful and the Good He extends Himself and descends to creatures; namely, that He may communicate it to creatures, either wholly, or some of its rays and shadows according to each one's capacity and merits. For what we supremely love, we desire that its excellence and beauty become known to all, and that its sweetness be perceived by all, so that it may be praised by all. Love does the same in God. Thirdly, that He raises creatures upward and turns them toward the Beautiful and the Good. This holds chiefly in angels and men; for the others do not grasp the divine goodness and beauty, but in man the others are in some way drawn to God, both because all degrees of nature are in him, and because all other things exist for his sake. Fourthly, that divine love is ecstatic, because it draws the lover outside himself into the beloved: for it makes God in a certain way forget His own loftiness, and inclines Him to our lowliness, and occupies Him entirely in the business of our salvation. The sign of this is the Incarnation, preaching, miracles, Passion, death, Sacraments, mission of the Holy Spirit, the constant and admirable governance of the Church, the care and direction of individuals.
Similarly, love places man outside himself, making him not think of himself or his own conveniences, but only of God and the goods of God. Hence the great lover of God denies himself, renounces his desires, neglects his own advantages, forgets himself, and is wholly in the things that pertain to God. For in thought and affection he is wholly outside himself, and transported into the Beloved. Such was St. Ignatius the Martyr, who said: "Ἔρως ἐμὸς ἐσταύρωται, My love has been crucified." Such was St. Paul the Apostle: "For me," he says, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain." An illustrious example of this is in the sun. For the sun is, among bodily things, the supreme, the beautiful and the good. Whence Gregory Nazianzen aptly says somewhere: Ὅπερ ἐν τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς ἥλιος, οὕτως ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς ὁ Θεός, As the sun is in sensible things, so is God in intelligible things. From the sun heat descends to lower things, but it descends through light, and things are illuminated before they conceive heat; once heat is conceived, they become spiritual, light, and are borne aloft to heaven. The sun is the symbol of God, light of wisdom, heat of love, earthly things of souls and spirits. From God love descends through wisdom; for the mind is first illuminated by knowledge of divine beauty and goodness, then through that knowledge it conceives love; the conceived love makes the soul spiritual, heavenly, and soon draws it upward and joins it to God, making it like Him alone the eternal — as it were a kind of parhelion (which is the express image of the sun).
The Gentiles saw the same thing, but only thinly through a shadow, when they made Cupid, the god of love, the highest of the gods, and feigned that Jupiter and the other gods were suppliant to him. Whence the Poet: "Love governs God. / Every kingdom belongs to Love." Hence the emblem of Cupid is: "The Sun grows hot with my fire, Neptune burns amid the waves. / Though He was free, I made the Thunderer serve; / Though He was free, I subdued Mars without a war."
A hieroglyph of love stands under this motto: "Love is the cause of all, and unto it are all things;" namely, because all things take their origin from true love, and Love itself is the first principle of things. See Giraldi in his Syntagma on Cupid.
AND HE WHO ABIDETH IN CHARITY, ABIDETH IN GOD (and, that is, therefore, on this account; for this is inferred as a conclusion from what precedes, as if to say: God is charity; therefore he who abides in charity abides in God, since God and charity are one and the same), AND GOD IN HIM — as it were in the temple of charity. For God, as uncreated Charity, abides in the lover as in sacred but created charity; He abides, I say, not only by charity, but also by His essence and substance in a certain new way, as I said on 2 Peter 1:4. The lover therefore "abides in God," as an object known and loved by God, that He may confer eternal life on him; and "God" abides "in him," as an object known and loved, which the lover loves with supernatural love: for love is the occupation of the lover about the beloved for the beloved's own sake. He abides, then, as one ring within another, reciprocally: for charity is a unitive and reciprocal force, which transforms the lover into the beloved and the beloved into the lover. Hear St. Dionysius, ch. 4 On the Divine Names: "This word of love has the power of making one, of binding together, and of mingling things among themselves in a surpassing manner;" and presently: "Divine love also moves out from one's state;" and again: "And so that great Paul, now captured by divine love and endowed with its power, which moved man from his own state, said with divine mouth: I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: as a true lover, and, as he himself says, moved from the state of his mind, he lives in God, not his own life, but that of the Beloved as supremely to be loved." He soon adds that God's love toward us in like manner goes out of itself in the procreation of all things, and in the communication and outpouring of His gifts: yet so that meanwhile He does not depart from Himself, that is, from God.
Lastly, St. Bernard, Book V On Consideration, ch. 11, defines God thus: "What is God? An omnipotent will, a most benevolent power, eternal light, immutable reason, eternal sweetness, creating minds to participate in Himself, quickening them to feel, affecting them to desire, expanding them to receive, justifying them to merit, kindling them to zeal, making them fruitful to bear fruit, directing them to equity, forming them to benevolence, moderating them to wisdom, strengthening them to virtue, visiting them for consolation, enlightening them for knowledge, perpetuating them for immortality, filling them for happiness, surrounding them for security." The same St. Bernard, On the Lord's Supper: "The Sacrament of the altar," he says, "is the love of loves." Hence love causes the ecstasy and going-out of the lover from himself, that it may transfer him into the beloved and unite him most closely with the beloved, and make him one with the beloved. Thus love united God to man, not only by affection and care, but also by effect and substance, namely by the hypostatic union. And it unites man to God in such a way that, utterly failing from himself, he passes over into God and as it were melts away, no longer thinking, understanding, or feeling anything but God, desiring or wishing nothing else, rejoicing in nothing else than the goods of God. He who thus cleaves to God becomes one spirit with Him, because he has put off himself and put on God; wherefore, just as if he had been transformed into the divine nature, he is wholly in God in thought and affection. Thus all the Saints in heaven will be one with God (which the Lord prays for them, John 17), because all will acknowledge their own nothingness as to what they are of themselves, and will esteem themselves as nothing except insofar as they are of God and on account of God; and in this way they will utterly fail from themselves: for why should they cleave to nothingness? Then by intellect and will they will be most powerfully drawn into Him, and will be wholly in Him, and as it were melt and be transformed into Him, feeling and tasting nothing there but God, esteeming nothing other than His good, just as if they themselves had been transmuted into God. And so love is a unitive force, both because it transfers the lover into the beloved that he may live, feel, and rejoice in the beloved, and incorporates him into the beloved in a certain way, that he may be one with him: for the lover, as far as in him lies, desires to fail from himself and as it were melt into the beloved, that he may be made one with the beloved; and again because, the lover being now transferred into the beloved, he wills and procures every good for the beloved as much as he can, as for himself, because he is now one with him." Hear St. Augustine here, tractate 8: "He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him; they mutually dwell, what contains and what is contained. You dwell in God, but that you may be contained; God dwells in you, but that He may contain you lest you fall — lest perchance you suppose that you become the house of God in the way your house carries your flesh. If the house in which you are withdraws, you fall; but if you withdraw yourself, He will not fall. God is whole when you forsake Him; whole when you return to Him. You are healed, you confer nothing on Him; you are cleansed, you are restored, you are corrected. He is the medicine to the unsound, the rule to the depraved, the light to the darkened, the dwelling to the deserted: all things therefore are conferred upon you;" and tractate 9: "Let God be your house," he says, "and be the house of God. Abide in God, and let God abide in you. God abides in you that He may contain you; you abide in God lest you fall; for so the Apostle says of charity: Charity never falleth; how can he fall whom God contains?"
For this reason, namely as a symbol of charity, Christ instituted and left to us by testament Himself in the Eucharist, that He may abide in us and we in Him not by image, as the heretics will have it, but really, substantially, and personally, according to His own saying: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him," John 6:34 [properly 57]. The Eucharist, therefore, is the kindling and bellows of charity, which St. John commends throughout this Epistle; for through it, as St. Chrysostom says, hom. 45 on John, we are not only by love but in reality converted into that Flesh; this is effected through the food which He has bestowed upon us. For when He wished to show His love toward us, He mingled Himself with us through His Body, and reduced us into one with Himself, that the body might be united with the Head; for this is the greatest mark of lovers. Pope Leo indicates the same: "The participation of the Body and Blood of Christ," he says, "does nothing else than make us pass over into that which we receive." Finally Cyril of Jerusalem: "Thus we shall be Christ-bearers," he says, "that is, bearing Christ, when we have received His Body and Blood into our members, and so, as Blessed Peter says, we shall be made partakers of the divine nature." Wherefore St. Irenaeus, Book V, ch. 6, explaining that text of 1 Thess. 5:23: "That your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved," asserts that the perfect man is made complete from body, soul, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in him through charity.
Moreover, when St. John says, "He who abides in charity," understand it of uncreated charity — for of that he had said a little before, "God is charity" — and also of created charity: for he who abides in created charity also abides in uncreated charity, namely in God; because where created charity is, there is also uncreated charity, namely God, who is the author and preserver of the created. The lover therefore abides in created charity, and from this he abides likewise in uncreated charity, which is God Himself.
Beautifully St. Bernard, Sermon 71 on the Canticles: "But God and man," he says, "because they exist and stand apart in their own wills and substances, we perceive to abide in one another in a far different way, that is, not confused in substance, but consentient in wills. And this is their union: a communion of wills and consent in charity. A blessed union if you experience it; nothing if you only compare it. The voice of one who has experienced it: But for me to cleave to God is good; truly good, if you cleave with every part. Who is he who perfectly cleaves to God, except he who abiding in God, as one beloved by God, has nonetheless drawn God into himself, by loving in turn?" Soon he adds about this union of God and man: "Therefore, since on every side man and God cleave to one another, and cleave on every side, intertwined by intimate and mutual love into each other, by this I should not hesitate to say that God is in man and man is in God. But man, indeed, from eternity in God, as eternally beloved; and God in man from when He was loved." The same St. Bernard, cited here by Thomas Anglicus: "God is charity," he says, "what therefore is better than charity? And he who abides in charity abides in God: what therefore is safer than charity? And God in him: what therefore is more joyful than charity?" For charity deifies those who possess it, and makes them, as it were, incarnate gods, as I said on v. 8. For that saying of Cato is true: "Lovers are in some way dead in their own body, but live in another's." God therefore willed by love to bring us back to our beginning, namely to unite us to His goodness and beauty, to transform us into Himself. This could not be done by nature: He found, then, a way to accomplish it through love, that we might melt and be absorbed in His ardor. "All that is felt," says St. Bernard, On the Love of God, "is divine; to be so affected is to be deified. As a small drop of water poured into much wine seems wholly to fail of itself, while it takes on the taste and color of the wine; and as red-hot iron, glowing, becomes most like fire, stripped of its former and proper form; and as air flooded with the sun's light is transformed into the same brightness of light, so that it seems not so much illumined as itself to be light: so it will be necessary that then in the Saints every human affection in a certain ineffable manner melt away from itself, and be utterly poured forth into the will of God;" namely, this will be done perfectly in heaven through glory, but it begins on earth through charity and grace. The same, sermon 83 on the Canticles: "Love itself," he says, "is its own merit, its own reward; beyond itself it requires no cause, no fruit. Its fruit is its use. I love because I love; I love that I may love. Love is a great thing, if only it returns to its own principle, if returned to its origin, if poured back into its fountain, it always draws from there whence it flows. Love alone, of all the soul's motions, senses, and affections, is that in which the creature can — though not on equal terms — respond to its Maker, or repay Him with a similar return."
The same, On the Solitary Life: "The formation of man," he says, "is moral instruction; his life is the love of God. Faith conceives this, hope brings it forth, charity forms and quickens it;" and presently: "The love of God begotten by grace in man is suckled by reading, fed by meditation, strengthened and illuminated by prayer;" and below: "In Him we live, move, and are. And not as in this air, so in the Lord our God, but in Him we live by faith, are moved by hope, and are driven by love. For by Him and through Him the rational soul has been constituted, that its conversion may be unto Him, that He Himself may be its good."
Now, God abiding in the faithful soul through charity produces these effects in it. First, He purifies it from earthly desires, so that it desires and savors only heavenly things. Thus King Josaphat, converted by Barlaam, burned with such a fire of love that, leaving his kingdom, wealth, delights, and honors, withdrawing into solitude, he exclaimed: "As the hart pants after the fountains of waters, so my soul pants after Thee, O God. My soul has clung after Thee, O Christ; let Thy right hand uphold me." Damascene, History, ch. 37.
Secondly, He draws all the powers, senses, affections, loves, operations, thoughts, and intentions to God, so that the soul thinks of, intends, and sighs for nothing but God, according to that saying of St. Basil: "Imprint on yourself a continual memory of God, as an indelible mark." For what should he seek outside himself who has God within? For he immerses himself in God, that is, in the abyss of every good. And that saying of St. Paul: "Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever else you do, do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. 10:31. So he who loves God perfectly does not eat to satisfy his gluttony, but to please God, that is, that with a sound and vigorous body and mind he may better serve God. Say the same of sleep, study, and all other things. For love is the bond that most fiercely binds the lover to the beloved. "For our spirit is not more present where it loves than where it animates," says St. Bernard, On Precept and Dispensation. Indeed, when in the furnace of love the one mind of two lovers seems to be fused into one, each must be the half of the other, according to that saying: "O half of my soul." For as Aristotle teaches, Ethics IX, ch. 4: "A friend is another self." Thus the first faithful lovers had "one heart and one soul," Acts 4. Thus the soul of Jacob hung upon the soul of Benjamin his uniquely beloved son, Gen. 44:20. "And the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul," 1 Kings 18:1. The clasp of the soul, then, is love.
Thirdly, He makes the soul desire to do great and heroic things for the beloved God, to suffer many things, and to be made like to the crucified Christ. So the Bride in the Canticles, saying: "My beloved is mine and I am his," likewise said: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts," Cant. 1:13. Explaining these words, St. Bernard in sermon 43: "Myrrh," he says, "a bitter, hard, and harsh thing, signifies tribulation. Foreseeing this for the sake of her beloved, she rejoicingly speaks thus, confident that she will manfully bear all things. The disciples," he says, "went rejoicing from the sight of the council, because they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. Therefore she does not call him a burden but a beloved bundle, because she counts whatever labor and sorrow is impending as light for love of him. Rightly a bundle, for unto us a little child is born. Rightly a bundle, because the sufferings of this time are not worthy of the future glory which shall be revealed in us. For that," he says, "which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, works in us beyond measure in sublimity an eternal weight of glory. There will therefore one day be for us an immense heap of glory, which is now a bundle of myrrh. Is it not a bundle whose yoke is sweet and burden light? Not because it is light in itself: for the harshness of suffering and the bitterness of death are not light, but light, nevertheless, to the lover. And so she does not only say: A bundle of myrrh is my beloved, but, mine, she says, the things which I love is a bundle to me. Whence she also names him beloved, showing that the power of love overcomes the trouble of all bitterness, because his love is strong as death," namely "Love is eternal, and untamable by any waves."
Fourthly, He makes the soul daily grow in love; for God is, as it were, a flame continually kindling and inflaming the soul, until He sets it wholly on fire with love. They relate — or rather fable — that the salamander feeds on fire, and is therefore the symbol of the lover, who is fed by the fire of love. Thus St. Francis fed on it, saying: "Love burns me, love torments me, I have become a second love of love; love is the conqueror of our love."
Hear St. Bonaventure narrating the charity of St. Francis, Book I of his Life, ch. 9: "He seemed wholly," he says, "as it were a burning coal absorbed by the flame of divine love. For at the very mention of the love of the Lord he was stirred, moved, set on fire, as if the inner string of his heart were touched by the plectrum of an outer voice;" and presently: "In beautiful things he beheld the Most Beautiful, and through the traces impressed on things he everywhere followed his Beloved, making of all things a ladder for himself by which he might ascend to apprehend Him who is wholly desirable. For with an unheard-of feeling of devotion he tasted that fountain-like goodness in each creature, as in little streams." And below: "He burned toward the Sacrament of the Lord's Body with the fervor of all his marrows, marveling with the greatest astonishment at that most loving condescension and most worthy love; he communicated often, and as it were drunken in spirit, was for the most part caught up into ecstasy of mind." And in ch. 13, treating of his sacred stigmata: "There had grown up in him besides," he says, "a fire of love for the good Jesus into lamps of fire and flames. When therefore he was being borne to God by Seraphic ardors of desire, and was being transformed by compassionate sweetness into Him who out of exceeding charity willed to be crucified, he saw a Seraph with six wings, as fiery as splendid; between the wings appeared the figure of a crucified man: he understood from this that he was to be wholly transformed into the likeness of the crucified Christ not by the martyrdom of the flesh, but by the fire of the mind; the vision then disappearing left a marvelous ardor in his heart, and impressed in his flesh no less marvelous figures of the marks."
Fifthly, He makes it so that the soul, kindled with God's love, strives to kindle others and the whole world with the same, after the manner of St. Paul, who says: "The charity of Christ presses us, etc. For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting through us. We beseech you for Christ, be reconciled to God," 2 Cor. 5:14 and 20. So Blessed Jacopone, burning with charity, hearing of some sin by which God was offended, was wondrously tortured, and so wept continually. Asked why, he answered: "Because Love is not loved." He likewise said that the beatitude of this life consists in this, that one constantly converse with God or about God. So has his Life. For in lovers God, as it were as the sun, occupies the soul and the face, and through them scatters rays of wisdom, virtue, and ardor on others, and that swiftly and ardently. For love is burning and winged; there are no delays in love. "For love is nothing else than a vehement will toward the good," says St. Bernard, On the Nature of Divine Love, ch. 2: "he therefore who is not zealous, does not love."
Sixthly, He makes it so that the soul loving God, through love and confidence, as it were dominates Him, and obtains from Him all that it asks, and so becomes as it were omnipotent, just as Jacob wrestling with the angel, God's vicegerent, prevailed over him, and from this was called Israel, that is, dominating God, Gen. 32:28. Hence that paradox: "To the faithful man the whole world is a treasury." And: "The faithful man is master of the world." Whence St. Francis: "Flee creatures," he says, "if you wish to have creatures;" for by fleeing to the Creator through love you will dominate Him, and through Him every creature, over which the Creator dominates. Thus St. Francis, by fleeing the world and following God, drew the whole world after himself.
Seventhly, God makes the loving soul His friend and assimilates it to Himself in divine character and virtues, and so makes it conscious of His secrets: whence at times He reveals to it the secrets of hearts, things absent and future, as He did to the Prophets and Apostles, according to that saying: "I will not now call you servants, for the servant knows not what his master does; but I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from My Father, I have made known to you," John 15:14.
Eighthly, He calms, serenes, and enlightens it, so that, unperturbed, joyful, and cheerful, in adversity as in prosperity, it constantly exults in God, and gives Him thanks, praises, and blesses Him, singing with the Psalmist: "In peace, in the selfsame I will sleep and rest," Ps. 4:9. "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be always in my mouth," Ps. 33:1; and with St. Job, ch. 1, v. 21: "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, as it pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord." And in this way the saintly man seems to be a heavenly man, and an earthly angel, and to begin the beatitude of paradise; for he lives continually in love, jubilation, and praise of God, and says: "As often as I sigh and breathe, I sigh to Thee, O my God!"
Finally, this love so grows in eminent Saints that it brings on languor and at length death, according to that saying of the Bride, Cant. 2:5: "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me;" and ch. 5, v. 8: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I languish with love." Thus the Blessed Virgin, not from disease, but from love and desire to enjoy Christ her Son, languishing and panting toward Him, breathed out her soul into His hands, as Francisco Suárez, Canisius, and others teach. See St. Bernard, On Loving God, and On the Love of God, and On the Nature and Dignity of Divine Love, where he begins thus: "The art of arts is the art of love." And in the book On Conscience, where after the beginning he says thus: "He who gathers the wanderings of the mind into one, and fixes all the heart's motions in one desire of eternity, has indeed already returned to his heart, and now willingly tarries there and is wonderfully delighted; and when, on account of joy, he cannot contain Him, he is led above himself, and through ecstasy of mind is raised to the heights; and thus through himself, by thinking of himself, he ascends to the thought of God, that he may learn to think on Him alone unceasingly, and to rest delightfully in Him. When the love of Christ has wholly absorbed the affection of the man, so that, careless and unmindful of himself, he perceives only Jesus Christ and the things of Jesus Christ, then at last, in my judgment, charity is perfected in him. Such a man is so perfect: poverty is not a burden to him, he feels no injuries, he laughs at reproaches, despises losses, counts death as gain — nay, he does not even think himself to die, since he knows that he passes rather from death to life." And below: "He who thus continually delights in the love of God frequently undergoes ecstasies of mind, frequently is caught up away from all present and earthly things and presented before God; and when he considers His beauty, and the greatness of His beauty, he is held in astonishment at the wonder of Him, marvels at the King's glory, the magnificence of His kingdom, the nobility of the heavenly city. And when he contemplates its felicity, the splendor of glory, the goodness of God, the sweetness of inner delight, and the tranquillity of eternal rest, he meditates on the Father's power, the Son's wisdom, the benignity of the Holy Spirit, and the blessedness of the angelic creature; he delights from God toward God, while he marvels at His mercy and contemplates His beauty. O how delightful, if it were not so brief! He is suddenly snatched up, contemplates only heavenly things, and in contemplating rejoices," etc.
Verse 17: Confidence in the Day of Judgment
17. IN THIS THE CHARITY OF GOD IS PERFECTED WITH US, THAT WE MAY HAVE CONFIDENCE (παρρησίαν, that is, confidence, security, liberty, boldness of speech) IN THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. — First, "in this," that is, in this end and fruit, as if to say: Perfect charity gives birth to this end and fruit, namely confidence in the day of judgment, both particular and universal. Hence the just desire the coming of the Lord and long, with Paul, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and as Saint Augustine says here: "They live with patience, and die with delight." John descends from charity to its fruits, and enumerates three: the first is confidence — namely, to live and die with assurance; the second, that it makes the lover free of fear; the third, that he obtains all that he asks of God.
Secondly and more vigorously, as if to say: "In this," that is, to this end God has so loved us and loves us, and we in turn, drawn by His charity and grace, love Him back fully and perfectly, and so abide in Him as He abides in us: to this end, I say, that when we are examined by Christ the Judge in the day of judgment concerning charity, we may answer with confidence that we have loved Him with our whole heart, and not the world, and may therefore be adjudged by Him to heaven and felicity. For, as Saint Augustine says in his Preface on Psalm XXXI: "As an evil conscience is wholly in despair, so a good conscience is wholly in hope."
Thirdly, others say, as if to say: "In this," that is, by this sign we know that we possess perfect charity, if, namely, with fear cast away, we await the day of the last judgment with great hope and confidence. Thus Saint Augustine: "Whoever has confidence in the day of judgment, charity is perfect in him." Whence he concludes: "Therefore, brethren, give diligence, work within yourselves that you may desire the day of judgment; otherwise perfect charity is not proved, unless that day shall begin to be desired. But he desires it who has confidence in it; and he has confidence in it whose conscience does not tremble in perfect and sincere charity."
BECAUSE AS HE IS, SO ARE WE ALSO IN THIS WORLD. — Who is "He"? First, "He," namely God, whom he had named a little before, as if to say: Therefore we shall have confidence in the day of judgment, because we are in charity, and live in this world perfected in it, so that we even love our enemies, just as God is perfect in the same, when He makes His beneficent sun to rise upon the good and the wicked, and rains upon the unjust as well as the just. So Saint Augustine, Bede, Hugh, Lyranus, and Dionysius.
Secondly and more deeply, "He," namely Christ, whom as my love I always carry in mind and on my lips. For this cause Saint John, when he says "He is," understands Christ, as I said in chapter III, verses 3 and 5. Furthermore Christ "is," that is, "was in this world," as the Syriac translates; and even now "is" through His merits, providence, charity, and familiarity, by which He dwells in the minds of the saints endowed with charity. The sense therefore is, as if to say: As He, namely Christ, lived in the world immaculately and holily, and was and is full of the charity of our God and dead to the world, and likewise abides in us: so we also, imitating Him, strive to live immaculately in this world — nay, as men dead to the world, continually carrying about in our body the mortification of Christ together with Paul, we are holy and full of charity even toward our enemies, and we abide in Him; and therefore we have confidence that in the day of judgment we shall not be confounded but glorified, because we always have that day before our eyes, and by works of charity and universal holiness we daily dispose ourselves toward it, indeed we long for it, knowing that we are here pilgrims and guests of one day, according to that of verse 3: "Everyone who has this hope in Him sanctifies himself, even as He is holy." Thus Œcumenius and Gagneius.
Verse 18: Perfect Charity Casts Out Fear
18. FEAR IS NOT IN (that is, with) CHARITY, BUT PERFECT (Saint Augustine reads, consummate) CHARITY CASTS OUT FEAR. — From the confidence which charity produces, he passes to the flight of fear, which confidence produces, and consequently charity. Saint Augustine, book LXXXIII, Question XXXVI: "Of charity the poison," he says, "is the hope of acquiring or retaining temporal things; its nourishment is the diminution of cupidity; its perfection, no cupidity at all; the sign of its progress, the diminution of fear; the sign of its perfection, no fear at all."
You will ask: What is this fear which perfect charity drives out? The answer is manifold; for the saying of Saint John is general and unlimited, and so can be extended to any fear whatever, as if to say: Charity fears absolutely nothing, is free of fear, free, joyful, courageous, and liberal. And so, first, Vatablus: Fear, he says, is here taken for desperation and a stricken conscience; for by it sinners fear that they will be damned, and despair of their salvation. For Saint John opposes fear as a kind of distrust to confidence in the day of judgment: for it is this confidence that charity produces, just as sin produces distrust and despair.
Secondly, this fear is that with which the newly converted are troubled, and with which the memory of past sins vexes and torments them, lest perhaps these have not been fully forgiven, according to that: "Concerning a pardoned sin, be not without fear," Ecclesiasticus v, 5.
Thirdly, this fear is servile, by which servants and imperfect men, through fear of punishment and not love of justice, do the commandments of the Lord; for this kind is driven out by pure, sincere, and liberal charity, when through the love of God one does His commands. This fear, says Saint Augustine here, leads in charity, as the bristle leads in the cobbler's thread. Whence Ecclesiasticus I, 28 says of it: "He who is without fear cannot be justified." For chaste and filial fear abides with charity, and as much as this grows, so much also does that; for the more perfect and holy a man is, the more does he with filial love and fear, fear and reverence God, and take care lest he offend Him even in the least matter. For this fear is an act of love, nay rather, this fear itself is love; because he loves, hence he fears to displease the beloved. With this fear all the saints are commanded to fear God, Psalm XXXIII, 10; for this fear endures forever and ever, Psalm XVIII, 10.
Fourthly, this fear can be taken as worldly, by which a man fears parents, relatives, etc., and so, lest he offend them, violates the commandments of God; this kind charity drives out. These are the fearful whose part is in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, Apocalypse XXI, 8; in this worldly sense Tertullian takes this passage, in Scorpiace, chapter XII.
Fifthly, this fear can be taken for the anxiety and dread by which the scrupulous and anxious are fearfully afraid lest in their scruples they should offend God. For perfect charity drives out scruples; for it is not scrupulous, but free, daring, and magnanimous, according to Romans VIII, 15: "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry: Abba, Father."
Sixthly, this fear can be taken as that of punishment and damnation; for this also charity puts to flight. "For the saints are anxious about the reward, not so much terrified about punishment," says Prosper, in his epistle to Demetrias. Thus our Lessius, when someone reported that a serious man wished to undergo Purgatory even until the day of judgment, in order thereby to secure for himself eternal salvation, replied that "Christian hope ought to be greater than to ransom certainty of heavenly glory by such long pains of Purgatory." Yet the saints always in this life have hope mixed with fear — if not actual, certainly potential — because they are not certain of their salvation, as I said on verse 13. Thus in death Saint Hilarion, Arsenius, and others feared. Again the saints fear when they consider themselves and their weakness; but they trust when they look upon God's love and fidelity toward them.
Seventhly, this fear can be taken of persecutors, of losses, of infamy, of the difficulties that arise in the heroic works of charity; this Magdalene drove out, burning with love of Christ, when she sought Him buried, undaunted, among the soldiers; whence the Church sings of her: "Charity drives out fear," according to that saying of Christ: "Fear not those who can kill the body," Matthew X, 28; and that of Saint Peter, first epistle, chapter III, verse 14: "Fear not their fear." Thus the martyrs did not fear tyrants and torments, but exulted in the latter and insulted the former — as Laurence did to Valerian, Vincent to Dacian, Sebastian to Diocletian. Many do not dare to give alms because they fear poverty, old age, untoward accidents; this fear perfect charity drives out: for, as Tobias says, chapter IV, verse 12: "Alms shall be a great confidence before God for all who give them." Hence Saint Maximus, in sermon 100, places the lowest of the faithful as the fearful, the middling as those making progress, and the highest as the perfect.
Eighthly, this fear can be taken as initial, by which one so fears the fault that he also fears the punishment; this charity drives out, but only on its latter side, because perfect charity fears and shrinks from the fault, not from the punishment.
Perfect charity overcomes all these fears, but especially the servile and the initial, by which we timidly, faint-heartedly, and distrustfully fear pains, and God's judgment and vengeance; for this kind arises from self-love, which the love of God overcomes and drives out. And Saint Augustine, Bede, Œcumenius, and others judge that Saint John speaks of the servile kind; and Diadochus, chapter XVI On Spiritual Perfection, says that purging fear — which is the fear of punishments — coexists with mediocre charity but is driven out by the perfect. For perfect charity considers God not as judge and avenger, but as father and bridegroom. Therefore, just as Sarah, the spouse of Abraham, cast out the bondmaid Agar, so charity drives out servile fear: on which see Origen, homily 7 on Genesis, and Cassian, Conference XI, chapter XIII, Saint Augustine here, and D. Thomas, II II, Question XIX, articles 6 and 10. Saint John therefore opposes fear to the confidence of felicity and eternal glory, which charity produces: by fear then he understands distrust, anxiety, and the dread of punishment: for to these confidence is opposed as contrary to contrary. For fear and love are contraries, just as confidence and distrust; for fear constricts and torments the soul, while love dilates and gladdens it. Hence love produces confidence, security, boldness; fear, on the other hand, produces distrust, trepidation, and dread.
Note: Commonly the beginning of justification in the sinner begins from the fear of punishments and Gehenna, by which, struck by God, he begins to think of his salvation and to dispose himself to penance, as the Council of Trent teaches, session VI, chapter VI. Then, once justified, he gradually diminishes this fear. Whence Saint Augustine here: "As much," he says, "as that (charity) grows, so much does that other (fear) decrease, and as much as the former becomes interior, so much is fear thrust outward; greater charity, less fear; less charity, greater fear; but if there is no fear at all, there is no door by which charity may enter." He soon confirms this with an apt example: "As we see (he says) the linen thread introduced by the bristle when something is being sewn; the bristle goes in first, but unless it comes out, the thread does not follow: so fear first occupies the mind, but does not remain there, because it entered for this very purpose, to introduce charity;" and again: "Fear pricks, but charity heals what fear wounded, etc. It is necessary then that fear enter first, by which charity will come: fear, the medicine; charity, the health." The same, sermon 3 On the Words of the Apostle: "Fear," he says, "is the servant of charity;" and sermon 18 On the Words of the Apostle: "Fear is the guardian and pedagogue of the law, until charity come." And Saint Basil, homily 8 on Psalm XXXIII: "Necessarily," he says, "as a kind of introduction to piety, fear is taken up; but love, succeeding from fear in due course, perfects those who are scientifically adopted." Hear Saint Bernard, sermon 51 on Canticles: "Moreover, if little by little through the increase of grace fear begins to fail and hope to advance, when at last it has come to this, that charity arising with all its strength casts forth fear to the aid of hope, will not such a soul singularly be seen as established in hope, and consequently also at peace, now sleeping and resting in that very thing? If you sleep (he says) among the midst of lots, the wings of the dove are silvered. Which I think was said for this reason, because there is a place between fear and security as between the left and the right, namely the middle of hope in which the mind and conscience, with the soft cushion of charity placed beneath, most sweetly rests."
Lastly, Saint Augustine, in book XIV On the City of God, chapter IX, and sermon 214 On the Times, takes these words of the heavenly glory; for there the security of charity will exclude every fear: "By a good life," he says, "a good conscience is procured, so that through a good conscience no punishment may be feared. Wherefore let him learn to fear who does not wish to fear. Let him learn to be solicitous for a time, who wishes to be always secure;" and below: "The nearer the fatherland to which we are tending, the less the fear becomes. For greater fear should be in those still on pilgrimage, less in those drawing near, none in those who have arrived. So fear leads to charity, and perfect charity casts out fear." But this sense is anagogical; for in the literal sense Saint John asserts that those perfected in charity drive out fear in this life. Thus Saint Anthony drove it out when he said: "I no longer fear God, but love Him; because perfect charity casts out fear," as is reported in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, little book 17, treatise On Charity, number 1. And Saint Ignatius, founder of our Society, used to say that if God should set before him the choice either of dying and going to heaven, or of living and increasing God's glory but with uncertainty and doubt of his salvation, he would choose the latter: For, he said, if I love God so much that for love of Him I expose myself to the peril of salvation, surely He Himself, who far surpasses my love and does not allow Himself to be overcome by it, will take all this peril upon Himself and assure it to me. Let those say and do the same who are called by God to the active life and to the apostolate, in which various perils of salvation occur; let them follow, I say, this calling of God as a heavenly star, and let them know that it will be for them the right way to heaven, indeed safer than the abstracted and contemplative life. Thus Saint Salvius, when already dead and about to enter heaven, heard a voice: "Let him return to the body, he is still necessary to my Church;" and when he, groaning, replied: "Lord, if I return, I shall be exposed to peril, and perhaps never return here;" he heard: "Go, I will be your guardian, and I will lead you back here in safety," as Gregory of Tours relates, book VII History, chapter I.
BECAUSE FEAR HAS PUNISHMENT. — For it is commonly said: "The fear of war itself is worse than war;" for fear afflicts more than the thing that is feared. For "punishment" the Greek is κόλασιν; Saint Augustine renders "torment;" the Zürich Bible and Pagninus, "torture;" Tertullian, in book On Flight, IX, "supplicamentum," that is, punishment; the Syriac, "fear is in perturbation." The sense is, as if to say: Fear gives birth to torment of soul, with which a man torments himself, while he thinks of and fears the evil and punishment hanging over him. But charity has no punishment or torment, but gladness and pleasure. For where there is love, there is no labor, but savor, says Saint Bernard. Therefore charity excludes fear; for fear constricts and afflicts, but charity dilates and gladdens the heart. Whence John draws this conclusion, adding: "But he who (therefore) fears, is not perfect in charity." For the Greek δέ, that is "but," is taken not only copulatively but also συλλογιστικῶς, that is, ratiocinatively and definitively, says Gaza, book II.
Verse 19: God First Loved Us
19. LET US THEREFORE LOVE GOD, BECAUSE GOD FIRST LOVED US. — This is the conclusion in which he repeats and impresses the pursuit of charity from the fact that God first loved us, and by loving us inspired love in us and made us His lovers, says Saint Augustine, book On the Grace of Christ, chapter XXVI. See the same author in the Soliloquies, chapter XIX, sweetly conversing with God who loves first.
Verse 20: He That Loveth Not His Brother
20. IF ANYONE SHALL SAY, BECAUSE I LOVE GOD, AND HATES HIS BROTHER, HE IS A LIAR, — because the charity of God extends itself to the charity of one's neighbor, who is the Image of God, and contains and embraces it. He proves this with two arguments. The first is:
FOR HE WHO DOES NOT LOVE HIS BROTHER WHOM HE SEES (to see in the past, that is, has seen and continually sees), HOW CAN HE LOVE GOD WHOM HE DOES NOT SEE? — Because it is so arranged by nature that love and affection are drawn toward the sensible things which we see; for the eyes are guides in love. For, as Saint Gregory says, homily 11 on the Gospels: "From those things which the mind knows, it rises to the unknown things which it does not know, so that, through what it knows how to love that is known, it may learn also to love what is unknown."
Verse 21: That He Who Loveth God Love Also His Brother
21. AND THIS COMMANDMENT WE HAVE FROM GOD, THAT HE WHO LOVES GOD, LOVE ALSO HIS BROTHER. — For, as Saint Augustine says: "If he is your brother, and you do not love him, how do you love God, whose commandment you despise?" See Saint Gregory, book X Morals, VI, where he sets forth at length the acts of love which we ought to render to our neighbor. And Saint Augustine, On the Discipline of Christians, chapters II and III: "O loving Lord," he says, "what am I to Thee, that Thou shouldst command Thyself to be loved by me? and Thou threatenest me with vast miseries; Thou art angered if I do not do it; Thou promisest many things if I do. And what, O my Love, what delight dost Thou take in this? What king says to his servant: Let us be friends, and I will give thee a province?"