11. These things have I said, brethren, and somewhat at length: yet because charity was to be more earnestly commended to you, beloved, in this way was it to be commended. For if there be no charity in you, we have said nothing. But if it be in you, we have as it were cast oil upon the flames. And in whom it was not, perchance by words it hath been kindled. In one; that which was there hath grown; in another, that hath begun to be, which was not. To this end therefore have we said these things, that ye be not slow to love your enemies. Does any man rage against thee? he rages, pray thou; he hates, pity thou. It is the fever of his soul that hates thee: he will be whole, and will thank thee. How do physicians love them that are sick? Is it the sick that they love? If they love them as sick, they wish them to be always sick. To this end love they the sick; not that they should still be sick, but that from being sick they should be made whole. And how much have they very often to suffer from the frenzied! What contumelious language! Very often they are even struck by them. He attacks the fever, forgives the man. And what shall I say, brethren? does he love his enemy? Nay, he hates his enemy, the disease; for it is this that he hates, and loves the man by whom he is struck: he hates the fever. For by whom or by what is he struck? by the disease, by the sickness, by the fever. He takes away that which strives against him, that there may remain that from which he shall have thanks. So do thou. If thine enemy hate thee, and unjustly hate thee; know that the lust of the world reigns in him, therefore he hates thee. If thou also hate him, thou on the other hand renderest evil for evil. What does it, to render evil for evil? I wept for one sick man who hated thee; now bewail I thee, if thou also hatest. But he attacks thy property; he takes from thee I know not what things which thou hast on earth: therefore hatest thou him, because he puts thee to straits on earth. Be not thou straitened, remove thee to heaven above; there shalt thou have thine heart where there is wide room, so that thou mayest not be straitened in the hope of life eternal. Consider what the things are that he takes from thee: not even them would he take from thee, but by permission of Him who "scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." [2426] He, this same enemy of thine, is in a manner the instrument [2427] in the hands of God, by which thou mayest be healed. If God knows it to be good for thee that he should despoil thee, He permits him; if He knows it to be good for thee that thou shouldest receive blows, He permits him to smite thee: by the means of Him He careth for thee: wish thou that he may be made whole.
12. "No man hath seen God at any time." See, beloved: "If we love one another, God will dwell in us, and His love will be perfected in us." [2428] Begin to love; thou shalt be perfected. Hast thou begun to love? God has begun to dwell in thee: love Him that has begun to dwell in thee, that by more perfect indwelling He may make thee perfect. "In this we know that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." [2429] It is well: thanks be to God! We come to know that He dwelleth in us. And whence come we to know this very thing, to wit, that we do know that He dwelleth in us? Because John himself has said this: "Because He hath given us of His Spirit." Whence know we that He hath given us of His Spirit? This very thing, that He hath given thee of His Spirit, whence comest thou to know it? Ask thine own bowels: if they are full of charity, thou hast the Spirit of God. Whence know we that by this thou knowest that the Spirit of God dwelleth in thee? "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." [2430]
13. "And we have seen, and are witnesses, that God hath sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world." [2431] Set your minds at rest, ye that are sick: such a Physician is come, and do ye despair? Great were the diseases, incurable were the wounds, desperate was the sickness. Dost thou note the greatness of thine ill, and not note the omnipotence of the Physician? Thou art desperate, but He is omnipotent; Whose witnesses are these that first were healed, and that announce the Physician: yet even they are made whole in hope rather than in the reality. For so saith the apostle: "For by hope we are saved." [2432] We have begun therefore to be made whole in faith: but our wholeness shall be perfected "when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality." [2433] This is hope, not the reality. But he that rejoiceth in hope shall hold the reality also: whereas he that hath not the hope, shall not be able to attain unto the reality.
14. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God." [2434] Now we may say it in not many words; "Whosoever shall confess;" not in word but in deed, not with tongue but with the life. For many confess in words, but in deeds deny: "And we have known and believed the love which God hath in us." [2435] And again, by what hast thou come to know this? "Love is God." He hath already said it above, behold he saith it again. Love could not be more exceedingly commended to thee than that it should be called God. Haply thou wast ready to despise a gift of God. And dost thou despise God? "Love is God: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in him." Each mutually inhabiteth the other; He that holdeth, and he that is holden. Thou dwellest in God, but that thou mayest be holden: God inhabiteth thee, but that He may hold thee, lest thou fall. Lest haply thou imagine that thou becomest an house of God in such sort as thine house supports thy flesh: if the house in which thou art withdraw itself from under thee, thou fallest; but if thou withdraw thyself, God falleth not. When thou forsakest Him, He is none the less; when thou hast returned unto Him, He is none the greater. [2436] Thou art healed, on Him thou wilt bestow nothing; thou art made clean, thou art new-made, thou art set right: He is a medicine to the unhealthy, is a rule for the crooked, is light for the bedarkened, is an habitation for the deserted. All therefore is conferred on thee: see thou imagine not that ought is conferred upon God by thy coming unto Him: no, not so much as a slave. Shall God, forsooth, not have servants if thou like not, if all like not? God needs not the servants, but the servants need God: therefore saith the Psalm, "I have said unto the Lord, thou art my God." [2437] He is the true Lord. And what saith it? "For of my goods Thou hast no need." Thou needest the good thou hast by thy servant. Thy servant needeth the good he hath by thee, that thou mayest feed him; thou also needest the good thou hast by thy servant, that he may help thee. Thou canst not draw water for thyself, canst not cook for thyself, canst not run before thy horse, canst not tend thy beast. Thou seest that thou needest the good thou hast by thy servant, thou needest his attendance. Therefore thou art not a true lord, while thou hast need of an inferior. He is the true Lord, who seeks nothing from us; and woe to us if we seek not Him! He seeks nothing from us: yet He sought us, when we sought not Him. One sheep had strayed; He found it, He brought it back on His shoulders rejoicing. [2438] And was the sheep necessary for the Shepherd, and not rather the Shepherd necessary for the sheep?--The more I love to speak of charity, the less willing am I that this epistle should be finished. None is more ardent in the commending of charity. Nothing more sweet is preached to you, nothing more wholesome drunk by you: but only thus if by godly living ye confirm in you the gift of God. Be not ungrateful for His so great grace, who, though He had one Only Son, would not that He should be alone a Son; but, that He might have brethren, adopted unto Him those who should with Him possess life eternal.
[2390] In Augustin's time and later, it was the usage of the Latin Churches (derived, as St. Gregory relates lib. ix. Ep. 12, from the Church of Jerusalem) to sing the "Alleluia" on Easter Sunday, and during the whole Quinquagesima, or seven weeks from Easter to Whit-sunday. But it was not everywhere restricted to that time: Aug. Epist. (ad Januar.) 55, 32. Ut Alleluia per solos dies quinquaginta cantetur in Ecclesia, non usquequaque observatur: nam et aliis diebus varie cantatur alibi atque alibi: ipsis autem diebus ubique. Comp. ibid 28. Enarr. in Psa. cvi. sec. 1 where this usage is said to rest upon an ancient tradition: in Psa. cxlviii. sec. 1, and xxi. sec. 24, that it is observed throughout the whole world: Serm. ccx. 8; cclii. 9. S. Hieronym. Præf. in Psa. l. and c. Vigilant. 1 (exortus est subito Vigilantius qui dicat nunquam nisi in Pascha Alleluia cantandum: i.e.,Vig. wished it to be sung only on Easter day).
[2391] In Augustin's time and later, it was the usage of the Latin Churches (derived, as St. Gregory relates lib. ix. Ep. 12, from the Church of Jerusalem) to sing the "Alleluia" on Easter Sunday, and during the whole Quinquagesima, or seven weeks from Easter to Whit-sunday. But it was not everywhere restricted to that time: Aug. Epist. (ad Januar.) 55, 32. Ut Alleluia per solos dies quinquaginta cantetur in Ecclesia, non usquequaque observatur: nam et aliis diebus varie cantatur alibi atque alibi: ipsis autem diebus ubique. Comp. ibid 28. Enarr. in Psa. cvi. sec. 1 where this usage is said to rest upon an ancient tradition: in Psa. cxlviii. sec. 1, and xxi. sec. 24, that it is observed throughout the whole world: Serm. ccx. 8; cclii. 9. S. Hieronym. Præf. in Psa. l. and c. Vigilant. 1 (exortus est subito Vigilantius qui dicat nunquam nisi in Pascha Alleluia cantandum: i.e.,Vig. wished it to be sung only on Easter day).
[2392] Matt. vi. 1.
[2393] De Serm. Dom. in Monte, ii. 1, ff., Serm. cxlix. 10-13; De Civ. Dei, v. 14; Enarr. in Ps. lxv. sec 2.
[2394] Quod susum faciens jusum; quod deorsum faciens sursum. Jusum vis facere Deum, et te susum? Infra, x. 8, Jusum me honoras, susum me calcas. Several mss. have sursum deorsum for susum jusum.--Ben. Laud. 116 and 136, and also Bodl. 813, as first written, have susum, jusum.
[2395] Matt. v. 16.
[2396] Gal. i. 22-24.
[2397] Serm. clxviii. 6.
[2398] 1 Sam. xix.
[2399] So Serm. ci. 1; clxviii. 7; cclxxix. 5; cccxv. 7; Lib. de Sp. et Litt. vii. sec. 12. But Confess. viii. 4, sec. 9, it is remarked, without reference to the etymology, that the change of name from Saul to Paul was designed to commemorate the conversion of Sergius Paulus, Acts xiii. 7, 12; Origen Præf. in Ep. ad Rom. "Some have thought that the Apostle took the name of Paulus, the Proconsul, whom at Cypress he had subjected to the faith of Christ: that as kings are wont to assume a title from the nations they have conquered, as Parthicus and Gothicus from Parthians and Goths, so the Apostle took the appellation Paulus from the Paulus whom he had subjugated. Which we do not think is altogether to be set aside." St. Jerome Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. "As Scipio took the name Africanus as conqueror of Africa, so the Apostle took the name Paulus by way of trophy, &c."
[2400] 1 Cor. xv. 9; Eph. iii. 8.
[2401] Matt. ix. 20-22.
[2402] Heb. xiii. 1.
[2403] 1 John ii. 10; iii. 23.
[2404] Matt. v. 46.
[2405] Dilectio.
[2406] Amare.
[2407] 1 Tim. vi. 10.
[2408] Ecclus. x. 15.
[2409] Gen. i. 26.
[2410] Ps. xxxii. 9.
[2411] Dan. vi. 22.
[2412] Ex. viii.
[2413] Dan. iii. 50.
[2414] 2 Macc. vii.
[2415] Heb. xii. 6.
[2416] Viscera.
[2417] Luke xv. 22, stolam primam. S. Aug. de Gen. ad litt. vi. 38. "That first robe' is either the righteousness from which man fell, or, if it signify the clothing of bodily immortality, this also he lost, when by reason of sin he could not attain thereto:" and sec. 31. "Why is the first robe' brought forth to him, but as he receives again the immortality which Adam lost?" Tertullian: vestem prestinam, priorem: "the former robe, which he had of old...the clothing of the Holy Spirit." Theophylact. ten stolen ten archaian...to ?nduma tes aphtharsias, "the original robe, the clothing of incorruption."