Therefore to love God is demanded of us as a necessary debt, which to the soul that cannot pay is the most intolerable of all evils. For to be alienated and estranged from God is more intolerable even than the punishments that await us in hell, and more burdensome to him that experiences it than deprivation of light is to the eye, though no pain be attached, or deprivation of life to the living creature. But if there is natural affection towards parents on behalf of children, and this is proved both by the habits of animals and the disposition of mankind in early youth towards the mother, shall we not seem more stupid than infants, even wilder than beasts, if we remain loveless and alienated as regards our Maker? Even if we have not known His nature from His goodness, we ought to love Him and cherish Him exceedingly from the very fact of having been made by Him, and to cling continually to Him, as children cling to their mothers. But a benefactor ranks higher than those who are loved by natural impulse. And this trait, attachment to those who have given some good, is characteristic not only of men but also of nearly all animals. “The ox knoweth his master, and the ass his lord’s crib.” God forbid that the next words should be said of us: “but Israel doth not know me, and my people did not understand.” As for the dog and many similar animals, I need not say what great goodwill they show towards those that feed them. But if we naturally choose goodwill and affection towards our benefactors, and endure every labour in order to recompense them for what they have already done; what words can worthily describe the gifts of God, which are so many as to be innumerable, and so excellent that one alone is sufficient to make us render all thanks to the Giver? I will leave out the rest, which, though in themselves of surpassing extent and grace, are outshone by the greater gifts, as stars by the rays of the sun, and display an intrinsic grace less brilliant. For I have no leisure to leave the surpassing gifts and to measure the goodness of the Benefactor by the lesser.
Let us then pass over in silence the risings of the sun, the circuits of the moon, the varying temperatures of the air, the changes of the seasons, the water descending from the clouds or springing from the earth, the sea itself, the whole earth and what grows in it, the denizens of the waters, the tribes of the air, animals in their myriad variety, everything in fact that is ordained for the service of our life. But the supreme benefit (of creation) we could not pass over even if we wished. To be silent about it is absolutely impossible for any man with a sound mind and reasoning power; but to speak of it worthily is still more impossible. For God made man in His image and likeness, deemed him worthy of knowledge of Himself, equipped him with reason beyond all other creatures, allowed him to luxuriate in the inconceivable beauties of Paradise, made him ruler of all earthly things. Then when he had been deceived by the serpent and had fallen into sin, and through sin into death and its concomitants, God did not neglect him; but first gave him a law as a help, set angels to guard him and care for him, sent prophets to reprove vice and teach virtue, frustrated the impulses of vice by threats, stirred up zeal for goodness by promises, made clear in advance the end of virtue and vice by the frequent examples of many persons who served as a warning for others, and, to crown these and such-like mercies, was not estranged from mankind abiding in disobedience. For we were not neglected by the goodness of the Master, nor even did we hinder His love towards us, though we had insulted our benefactor by callous indifference to His gifts. On the contrary, we were called back from death and made alive again by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In Whom also the manner of beneficence is even more marvellous; for “being in the form of God, he thought it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”
Moreover He took our weaknesses and bore our diseases, and was wounded on our behalf, that by His stripes we may be healed. And He redeemed us from the curse, having become a curse on our behalf, and underwent the most dishonourable death, that He might bring us to the life of glory. And He was not content merely to quicken us when we were dead, but He bestowed the dignity of divinity, and prepared eternal resting-places, surpassing all human thought in the greatness of their delight. What then shall we render to the Lord for all the benefits which He hath bestowed upon us? He is so good as to ask no recompense but is content merely with being loved in return for His gifts.
When I think of all this—let me speak freely of my personal feelings—I fall into a fearful shuddering and terror, lest haply through carelessness of mind or absorption in vain things I should fall from the love of God and become a reproach to Christ. For he that now deceives us and is eager to make us forget our Benefactor, using every contrivance and worldly enticements, leaping upon us and attacking us to destroy our souls, will one day offer our carelessness as a reproach to the Lord, and will boast of our disobedience and apostasy. He neither created us nor died for us, yet he has kept us in his train following his disobedience and neglect of God’s commandments. This reproach against the Lord and this boasting of the enemy seem to me harder to bear than the punishment of hell, namely that we should become to the enemy of Christ a subject for boasting and an opportunity for elation against Him Who died for us and rose again, to Whom on this account we are more abundantly debtors, as it is written.
Let this be enough about the love of God. For my purpose, as I said before, is not to say all—that is impossible—but under various heads to implant brief reminders in your souls, which shall stir up the divine longing.
2 ote 2: = F. 2-6 much shortened.
2 Lit. “‘a certain spermatic word was implanted in men.” The Christian use of this expression goes back to Justin Martyr IT aay 13.
3 Ju. xiv. 23 7.
4 Mt. xxil. 40 xal of mp. xpéuavtor for xpguatar xalb of m9. K.
1 Cant. ii. 5 tetpmpévn dydrng eyo ci, Sw.’s (B) text omits elu. 2 Ps. exx. 5. ° Ps, xlii2. * Phin 995-5 Payxkii2. © tee 29,
1 ey. ft. 3. 2 Creation.
_ + A number of phrases in the following passage are found in the liturgical thanksgiving of St. Basil: cixdéva, tov &VOpwrov, tod mapadetcou, tod Opews, vouov Zdaxev elc Bonlerav, dy yédouc ExéEatyoEV, QUAAXhY npOMhTAs Tie dmeotpcpn, oby deraynov... Ax Pov (Brightman, Liturgies, p. 824f.). @ Phil, ii, 6,7. @ Isa. lii.4. 4 Gal. tik 184. © Ps. exvi. 12.
III. — Concerning Love towards One's Neighbour
To discourse on the commandment which is second in order and power will come next.
We have said above that the law is the cultivator and nurseryman of those powers which have been implanted in us from the beginning like seeds. But since we have been commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves, let us learn whether we have power from God to fulfil this commandment too. Who does not know that man is a tame and sociable animal, and not a solitary and fierce one? For nothing is so characteristic of our nature as to associate with one another, to need one another, and to love our kind. So the Lord Himself first gave us the seeds of these things, and accordingly demands their fruits, saying: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.” And wishing to stir up our souls to keep this commandment, He demanded as a proof that we are His disciples, not signs and marvellous works—and yet He bestowed the working of these too in the Holy Spirit—but what says He? “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one towards another.” And He links these commandments in such a way that He transfers to Himself benefits conferred on one’s neighbour. For He says: “I was an hungred and ye gave me to eat,” and so on. To which He adds: “Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me.”
Consequently, in keeping the first commandment one keeps also the second; and through the second one returns again to the first. And he who loves the Lord loves also, so it follows, his neighbour. For “he that loveth me” said the Lord “will keep my commandments.” But “this” He says “is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.”? But again he who loves his neighbour fulfils love towards God, since God accepts the favour as conferred on Himself. Wherefore Moses, the faithful servant of God, showed such love towards his brethren, that he chose to be blotted out of God’s book, in which he had been entered, unless the people were forgiven their sin. And Paul was bold enough to pray that he might be accursed from Christ on behalf of his brethren, kinsmen according to the flesh, wishing that he himself might be accepted as an equivalent for the salvation of all, after the pattern of the Lord. Though he knew all the time that it was impossible for a man to be alienated from God who has sacrificed the grace of God because of his love for God in order to keep the greatest of the commandments, and that for this very reason he would receive manifold more than he gave. What we have already said is abundant proof that the Saints reached this measure of love towards one’s neighbour.
1 See Rom. viii. 12.
2 Lit. “ monastic.” Cf. pict. Diss. ii. 10. Man is Céov juepov xat KOLaVixdy. 3. Jn. xiii, 34. 4 See Intr. p. 45.
5 Jn. xiii. 35. 6 Mt. xxv. 35. 7 Mt. xxv. 40.
IV. — Concerning the Fear of God
To those who are just being introduced to piety, instruction through fear is more profitable, according to the advice of Solomon, wisest of men, who said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” But you, who have passed the stage of infancy in Christ, and no longer need milk but are able to be perfected in the inner man by the solid food of teachings, require the more important commandments, in which the whole truth of the love in Christ is perfected; taking care, needless to say, lest the abundance of God’s gifts become a cause to you of heavier condemnation, if you show an ungrateful disposition towards your Benefactor. For, He says, “to whom they have committed much, of him will they ask the more.”
V. — Concerning the Avoidance of Distraction
This must indeed be recognised, that we cannot succeed in keeping any commandment at all, nor in the actual love towards God and our neighbour, if our minds are wandering now in one direction, now in another. For it is impossible to gain an accurate knowledge of any art or science, if one is always starting on fresh subjects; nor even to master one, without having recognised what befits the end in view. For it is necessary that actions should correspond with the aim since nothing right is accomplished by inappropriate methods. It is impossible to master the smith’s art through the works of pottery; nor are athletes’ crowns won by practising the flute. But for each end a proper and fitting labour is demanded. So also we practise successfully the art of being well-pleasing to God according to Christ’s gospel, by retirement from the cares of the world and complete estrangement from distractions. Wherefore the apostle, although he had allowed marriage and deemed it worthy of blessing, contrasted its preoccupations with the cares that are concerned with God, as if the two were inconsistent, saying: “He that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.” So also the Lord bore witness to His disciples as regards their sincere and steady disposition, saying: “Ye are not of this world.” And, in opposition to this, He testified that it was impossible for the world to receive the knowledge of God, or the Holy Spirit. “O righteous Father,” He says, “the world knew thee not.” And, “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.”
He then who would truly follow God must be loosed from the chains of attachment to this life. Now this is secured by complete retirement and forgetfulness of former habits. So that, unless we exile ourselves from fleshly relations and communications of this life, migrating as it were to another world in our habit of mind, as the apostle said—“Our citizenship is in heaven”—it is impossible that we should succeed in the aim of being well-pleasing to God, for the Lord said definitely: “So every one of you that renounceth not all that he hath cannot be my disciple.” Having done this, it befits us to keep our hearts with all watchfulness, so as never to lose the thought of God, or to defile the memory of His wonders with imaginations of vanity; but to bear about the holy thought of God with continual and pure memory imprinted in our souls, as it were an indelible seal. For thus we gain love towards God; which both stirs us up to work the Lord’s commandments and is in its turn preserved by them in permanence and security. And this the Lord shows, saying in one place: “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” and in another: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love”; adding with still more insistence: “Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
He teaches us hereby to keep ever before us as the aim of the work set us the will of Him Who gave the order, and to direct our efforts towards Him, as also He says elsewhere: “I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father that sent me.” For as the arts of daily life, having set before themselves certain proper objects, accommodate their particular activities in accordance with these, so also, as there is one rule and canon prescribed for our works, to fulfil God’s commandments in a manner pleasing to Him, it is impossible for our work to be carefully done unless it is performed in accordance with the will of Him Who has prescribed it. But in the careful endeavour to do our work as God wills we shall be joined to God in memory. For just as a smith in making, say, an axe, mindful of the man who set the task and having him always in his thoughts, plans the right shape and size and directs the work according to the will of him that ordered it—for if he forgets he will produce something other than or different from what he set out to make—so also the Christian, directing all his energies small and great to the fulfilment of God’s will, at one and the same time accomplishes the work carefully and preserves the intention of Him Who gave the order and fulfils what was said: “I have seen the Lord always before me, for he is on my right hand, lest I be shaken.” And he performs what is commanded: “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” But if anyone corrupts the exactness of the commandment in doing it, clearly his memory of God is weakened. We ought therefore to fulfil every act as happening beneath the eyes of the Lord, and every thought as presided over by Him, remembering the voice of Him Who said: “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord”; and: “I am a God at hand, and not a God far off”; and: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” For thus fear will continue steadily, hating iniquity, as it is written, and insolence and arrogance and the ways of evil men, and love will be perfected, fulfilling the Lord’s words: “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father that sent me,” since the soul is steadily convinced that good deeds are acceptable with the Judge and Umpire of our life, while their opposites receive condemnation from the same source.