Never sated
“This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 Jn 4:3). You have already heard this: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” See how Christ did not want to divide you over lots of pages! “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” On which two commandments? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt22:37-40) These are the two commandments that this whole Epistle is talking about. If you hold fast to love, then, you’ll be safe. Why fear that you will do someone evil? Who acts evilly toward someone he loves? Love, and you can only do good….
It’s not our task to enlarge your hearts; ask God for the gift of loving one another. Love all men, even your enemies, not because they are your brothers but so that they may become your brothers, so that you may always be on fire with fraternal love whether to one who has become your brother or toward an enemy that he may become your brother by being loved. Whenever you love a brother you are loving a friend. He is now with you, he is now linked with you in catholic unity. If you live well, you love the one who, once an enemy, has become your brother. … All our love is a brotherly love toward Christians, toward all Christ’s members. The discipline of charity, brothers and sisters, its strength, its flower, its fruit, its beauty, its pleasantness, its food, its drink, its embraces, know no satiety. If love so delights us as we wander, imagine how we shall rejoice in our homeland! (Augustine on I John, Hom 10, 7; PL 35, 2059)
Augustine says, “If you hold fast to love, then, you’ll be safe. Why fear that you will do someone evil? Who acts evilly toward someone he loves? Love, and you can only do good . . . .”
It sounds to me like Augustine is paraphrasing Paul’s hymn to love.
Augustine here sounds inebriated – drunk, as it were, on his own theological thoughts. He may think it’s cute to be drunk on his own theological thoughts. But I don’t think it’s cute. Instead of living a life of inebriation on his own theological thoughts, I would urge Augustine to sober up. However, I have no doubt that sobriety will be hard for Augustine to attain.
Nevertheless, I would urge Augustine to stop working with the contrast good/evil. For him, this would be a first step toward sobriety.
Next, I would urge Augustine to understand the difference between the do-er’s intention for undertaking an act, on the one hand, and, on the other, the act in and of itself.
The do-er’s love refers to the do-er’s intention.
Now, in any given context, there is usually more than one possible good act that the do-er might conceivably undertake to do in the given context, just as there is usually more than one possibly admittedly evil act that the do-er might conceivably undertake to do in the given context.
But if we work with the good/evil contrast that Augustine works with in the above-quoted sentences, we might conclude that as long as we are not undertaking an admittedly evil act such as deliberately killing an innocent person, then we must be undertaking to do a good act.
According to this way of thinking, all acts that are not admittedly evil must be considered to be good acts. But is this always the case?
Let us consider Augustine’s report in the CONFESSIONS that he complained to his parents about the corporal punishment to which he had been subjected by his schoolmaster and that his parents just laughed at him.
Perhaps his parents loved him. Perhaps they wanted him to learn how to suffer physical pain in a stoical way.
But their laughing at him seems to me to show a lack of empathy on their part, to say the least.
I, for one, would not characterize their laughing at him as good, even if they did as a matter of fact love him.
I would say that their laughing at him was not good.
However, I would hesitate about characterizing their laughing at him as evil, especially when I compare their laughing at him to the admitted evil of deliberately killing an innocent person.
So I would encourage people to reflect carefully on how they act, even when their acts are motivated by their intention of being loving.
Perhaps we should take a hint from Aristotle and understand the people usually do even admittedly evil acts under the impression at the time that they are doing a good act.
Is there a typo here? “It’s not our task to enlarge your hearts;” your=our?
There’s no typo. Augustine is contrasting what he can or ought to try to do with what only God can do.
Prof. Farrell: God knows that people can do atrocious things out of what they call love, and a loving orientation does not suffice in the absence of certain elemental knowledge of human nature and human behavior. But I suspect that Augustine was thinking of love as a fundamental orientation that prevents one from doing harm to the one loved. I don’t think I would reduce his love to simple intention.
“Love all men, even your enemies, not because they are your brothers but so that they may become your brothers, so that you may always be on fire with fraternal love whether to one who has become your brother or toward an enemy that he may become your brother by being loved.”
Now, there’s something to think about.