9. "Let us love, [2470] because He first loved us." [2471] For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful. If a man deformed and ill-featured love a beautiful woman, what shall he do? Or what shall a woman do, if, being deformed and ill-featured and black-complexioned, she love a beautiful man? By loving can she become beautiful? Can he by loving become handsome? He loves a beautiful woman, and when he sees himself in a mirror, he is ashamed to lift up his face to her his lovely one of whom he is enamored. What shall he do that he may be beautiful? Does he wait for good looks to come? Nay rather, by waiting old age is added to him, and makes him uglier. There is nothing then to do, there is no way to advise him, but only that he should restrain himself, and not presume to love unequally: or if perchance he does love her, and wishes to take her to wife, in her let him love chastity, not the face of flesh. But our soul, my brethren, is unlovely by reason of iniquity: by loving God it becomes lovely. What a love must that be that makes the lover beautiful! But God is always lovely, never unlovely, never changeable. Who is always lovely first loved us; and what were we when He loved us but foul and unlovely? But not to leave us foul; no, but to change us, and of unlovely make us lovely. How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is always lovely. As the love increases in thee, so the loveliness increases: for love is itself the beauty of the soul. "Let us love, because He first loved us." Hear the apostle Paul: "But God showed His love in us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us:" [2472] the just for the unjust, the beautiful for the foul. How find we Jesus beautiful? "Thou art beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men; grace is poured upon thy lips." [2473] Why so? Again see why it is that He is fair; "Beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men:" because "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." [2474] But in that He took flesh, He took upon Him, as it were, thy foulness, i.e. thy mortality, that He might adapt Himself to thee, and become suited to thee, and stir thee up to the love of the beauteousness within. Where then in Scripture do we find Jesus uncomely and deformed, as we have found Him comely and "beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men?" where find we Him also deformed? Ask Esaias: "And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness." [2475] There now are two flutes which seem to make discordant sounds: howbeit one Spirit breathes into both. By this it is said, "Beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men:" by that it is said in Esaias, "We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness." By one Spirit are both flutes filled, they make no dissonance. Turn not away thine ears, apply the understanding. Let us ask the apostle Paul, and let him expound to us the unison of the two flutes. Let him sound to us the note, "Beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men.--Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." [2476] Let him sound to us also the note, "We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness.--He made Himself of no reputation, taking upon Him the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and in fashion found as man. He had no form nor comeliness," that He might give thee form and comeliness. What form? what comeliness? The love which is in charity: [2477] that loving, thou mayest run; [2478] running, mayest love. Thou art fair now: but stay not thy regard upon thyself, lest thou lose what thou hast received; let thy regards terminate in Him by whom thou wast made fair. Be thou fair only to the end He may love thee. But do thou direct thy whole aim to Him, run thou to Him, seek His embraces, fear to depart from Him; that there may be in thee the chaste fear, which endureth for ever. "Let us love, because He first loved us."
10. "If any man say, I love God." [2479] What God? [2480] wherefore love we? "Because He first loved us," and gave us to love. He loved us ungodly, to make us godly; loved us unrighteous, to make us righteous; loved us sick, to make us whole. Ask each several man; let him tell thee if he love God. He cries out, he confesses: I love, God knoweth. There is another question to be asked. "If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." By what provest thou that he is a liar? Hear. "For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?" What then? does he that loves a brother, love God also? He must of necessity love God, must of necessity love Him that is Love itself. Can one love his brother, and not love Love? Of necessity he must love Love. What then? because he loves Love, does it follow that he loves God? Certainly it does follow. In loving Love, he loves God. Or hast thou forgotten what thou saidst a little while ago, "Love is God"? [2481] If "Love is God," whoso loveth Love, loveth God. Love then thy brother, and feel thyself assured. Thou canst not say, "I love my brother, but I do not love God." As thou liest, if thou sayest "I love God," when thou lovest not thy brother, so thou art deceived when thou sayest, I love my brother, if thou think that thou lovest not God. Of necessity must thou who lovest thy brother, love Love itself: but "Love is God:" therefore of necessity must he love God, whoso loveth his brother. But if thou love not the brother whom thou seest, how canst thou love God whom thou seest not? Why does he not see God? Because he has not Love itself. That he does not see God, is, because he has not love: that he has not love, is, because he loves not his brother. The reason then why he does not see God, is, that he has not Love. For if he have Love, he sees God, for "Love is God:" and that eye is becoming more and more purged by love, to see that Unchangeable Substance, in the presence of which he shall always rejoice, which he shall enjoy to everlasting, when he is joined with the angels. Only, let him run now, that he may at last have gladness in his own country. Let him not love his pilgrimage, not love the way: let all be bitter save Him that calleth us, until we hold Him fast, and say what is said in the Psalm: "Thou hast destroyed all that go a-whoring from Thee" [2482] --and who are they that go a-whoring? they that go away and love the world: but what shalt thou do? he goes on and says:--"but for me it is good to cleave to God." All my good is, to cling unto God, freely. For if thou question him and say, For what dost thou cling to Him? and he should say, That He may give me--Give thee what? It is He that made the heaven, He that made the earth: what shall He give thee? Already thou are cleaving to Him: find something better, and He shall give it thee.
11. "For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also." [2483] Marvellous fine talk it was, that thou didst say, "I love God," and hatest thy brother! O murderer, how lovest thou God? Hast thou not heard above in this very epistle, "He that hateth his brother is a murderer"? [2484] Yea, but I do verily love God, however I hate my brother. Thou dost verily not love God, if thou hate thy brother. And now I make it good by another proof. This same apostle hath said, "He gave us commandment that we should love one another." How canst thou be said to love Him whose commandment thou hatest? Who shall say, I love the emperor, but I hate his laws? In this the emperor understands whether thou love him, that his laws be observed throughout the provinces. Our Emperor's law, what is it? "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another." [2485] Thou sayest then, that thou lovest Christ: keep His commandment, and love thy brother. But if thou love not thy brother, how canst thou be said to love Him whose commandment thou despisest? Brethren, I am never satiated in speaking of charity in the name of the Lord. In what proportion ye have an insatiable desire of this thing, in that proportion we hope the thing itself is growing in you, and casting out fear, that so there may remain that chaste fear which is for ever permanent. Let us endure the world, endure tribulations, endure the stumbling-blocks of temptations. Let us not depart from the way; let us hold the unity of the Church, hold Christ, hold charity. Let us not be plucked away from the members of His Spouse, not be plucked away from faith, that we may glory in His coming: and we shall securely abide in Him, now by faith, then by sight, of whom we have so great earnest, even the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[2439] 1 Thess. ii. 7.
[2440] 1 John iv. 16.
[2441] 1 Cor. xiii. 8. Lit. piptei.
[2442] 1 John iv. 17.
[2443] Prov. i. 7; xv. 13.
[2444] Col. iii. 5.
[2445] Spiritualia nequitiæ.
[2446] Eph. vi. 12.
[2447] Matt. vi. 10.
[2448] Ps. vi. 4. 5.
[2449] Phil. i. 23, 24.
[2450] Matt. v. 44-46.
[2451] 1 John iv. 18.
[2452] Per setam.
[2453] Rom. viii. 35.
[2454] 1 John iv. 18. Æmulatores.
[2455] 1 Pet. iii. 13.
[2456] Ps. xxx. 11, 12. Non compungar.
[2457] Ferramentum.
[2458] Ecclus. i. 28.
[2459] Supra, Hom. xliii.
[2460] Ps. xix. 9.
[2461] Ps. xxxiv. 16.
[2462] Ps. li. 9.
[2463] Ps. li. 3.
[2464] Agnosce tu, et ille ignoscit.
[2465] Exedra. In Eusebius, this term denotes certain outer buildings of the Church, such as the baptistery, &c. Hist. Ecc. x. 4. Vales. ad Ens. de Vit. Const. iii. 50; Bingham, Antiq. viii. 3, sec. 1. But in St. Augustin it evidently means that part of the church in which the Bishop had his seat, the sanctuarium, or chancel; and with this agrees the use of the term in Vitruvius, v. Forcellini s. v. Comp. de Civ. Dei, xxii. 8, and Epist. (ad Alyp.) xxix. 8. Here the meaning is, Is such a soul present in this church? among the laity? among the clergy?
[2466] Immaculata.
[2467] Ps. ci. 1, 2.
[2468] Securiter.
[2469] Enarr. ii. in Ps. xxvi. sec. 9; xlix. sec. 3.
[2470] agapomen.
[2471] 1 John iv. 19.
[2472] Rom. v. 8, 9.
[2473] Ps. xlv. 2.
[2474] John i. 1.
[2475] Is. liii. 2.
[2476] Phil. ii. 6, 7.
[2477] Dilectionem charitatis.
[2478] Cant. i. 4.
[2479] 1 John iv. 20.
[2480] Quem Deum? Ben. Ed. Louvain, reads it, Quem? Deum. But then the preceding Deum would be better omitted. "If any man say, I love--Whom? God."
[2481] 1 John iv. 8, 16.
[2482] Ps. lxxiii. 27, 28.
[2483] 1 John iv. 20, 21.
[2484] 1 John iii. 15.
[2485] John xiii. 34.