I. The Order and Harmony
of the Lord’s Commandments...
Since Scripture (Deut. xxxii. 7) has given us the right to ask questions,
let us ask first of all whether there is any order or sequence in the Commandments
of God, so that one is first, another second, and so on; or are they all
so joined one to another that all are to be held in equal honour, each
one having the character of being supreme, so that whoever desires to be
secure may, as with a circle, make a beginning wherever he wishes?
The question is an old one, and was long ago put forward in the Gospels,
when a certain lawyer coming to the Lord, said to Him: Master, which
is the great commandment in the law? And the Lord answered: Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and
with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the
second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Mt.
xxii. 36-39).
It is the Lord Himself therefore who has laid down the order of His
Commandments; declaring that the first and greatest is the Commandment
that speaks of the love of God. Second in order, and like to the first,
or rather completing the first, and depending from it, He placed the Commandment
to love our neighbour. So from these words, and from other similar sayings
contained in Holy Scripture, the order and agreement of all the commandments
of the Lord can be learned.
II. On loving God, and that there is in man by nature
a capacity and inclination to keep the commandments of God.
Speak to us then first of loving God? For we have been taught that God
is to be loved, and we long to learn how we shall succeed in doing this?
The love of God is not something we learn from another. Neither did
we learn from another how to love the sunshine or how to defend our life.
Nor has anyone taught us how to love our parents, or those who hwe reared
us. And so, indeed much more, learning how to love God does not come to
us from outside. But in the very commencement of the life of man, there
is placed within us a certain seminal conception, having, from itself,
the beginnings of a natural propensity towards this love.
And the School of the commandments of God, receiving this aptitude of
the soul, begins to tend it with loving care, to nourish it with wisdom,
to lead it by God’s grace towards its perfect fulfilment. And so, approving
of your zeal in this matter, as so necessary to attain this end, we shall
with God’s help and by the assistance of your prayers try, in the measure
of the help given us by the Spirit, to awaken to life the spark of the
divine love that is hidden within you.
But we must also keep in mind that this is but one virtue; yet such
is its power that it inspires us and leads us towards the fulfilment of
all the commandments. If any one love me, says the Lord, he will
keep my commandments (Jn. xiv. 23). And again: On these two commandments
dependeth the whole law and the prophets (Mt. xxii. 40). It is not
our intention to give you a detailed account of each of the commandments,
for dwelling in detail on each part we would lose our view of the whole;
but, as best we can, and for our present purpose, we shall speak to you
upon the love we owe to God; first however making this clear to you: That
we have already received from God the power to obey and fulfil His commandments,
so that we should not receive them reluctantly as though they were something
new and beyond us; and neither should we be raised above ourselves, as
though we were giving Him something more that we had received from Him.
And by means of this power, worthily and fittingly used, we shall adorn
our lives with holiness and virtue. But should we misuse this, we are gradually
and steadily carried downwards towards evil habit. And this is the true
end and purpose of evil habit: The perverted use, also against God’s command,
of the power He has given us to do good; just as it is the essence of virtue
to use these same powers in accordance with the command of the Lord, inspired
by a pure conscience. And this being true, we can say the same of love.
And so, receiving the command to love God, at once, from the first instant
of our being, we possess the power to love. And we need no outward proof
of this. Each can learn it from himself, and in himself. For by nature
we long for what is beautiful, though we differ one from another as to
what is beautiful. Yet, without teaching, we have a natural love for those
near and dear to us, and prompt by nature with good will towards those
who have done good to us. And what, I ask, is more to be desired, than
the beauty of God? What thought more acceptable to the soul, than the splendour
of God? What longing of the soul so piercing, so overwhelming as that arising
in a soul now purified by God from every evil, and crying out from its
true condition: I am wounded with love (Cant. ii. 5)? Ineffable
and wholly indescribable are the lightnings of the divine beauty. Speech
will not convey them, nor can our ear receive them. And though you may
speak of the brightness of the morning star, of the moon’s shining beauty,
of the sun’s light, compared with this true glory all other glories are
poor and lowly, more distant from it than the thick moonless dark of night
from the clearest noonday splendour. This beauty no eye of flesh may look
on. Only by the mind and soul can we lay hold of it. And wherever it has
shone upon the souls of the purified, ever unbearable is the urge of the
longing that remains; and impatient now of this present life, they cry:
Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! (Ps. cxix. 5). When
shall I come and appear before the face of God? (Ps. xli. 3). And again:
To be dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better
(Phil. i. 23). And: My soul hath thirsteth after the strong living God
(Ps. xli. 3). And: Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord (Lk.
ii. 29). And since they now held this present life a prison, they could
scarce contain the force of the eager desire the divine love had awakened
in them. And because of this inappeasable longing, to behold the divine
Perfection, they prayed that the Vision of the joy of God might last throughout
all ages. So is it that man of their own nature long for what is sublime
and beautiful. And what is beautiful and lovable is also good. And God
is good. And all things desire what is good. Therefore, all things desire
God.
2. And so whatever is done freely of our own nature proceeds from our
nature; provided evil has not perverted our judgement. To love God therefore
is a debt we all must pay: to fail in this, is the most unendurable of
evils. For, estrangement from God, and aversion from Him, are evils more
intolerable than the torments of hell to come, more grievous to the one
it happens to, than even the painless loss of the light of the eye, or
for a living thing to cease from life. And if the love of our parents rises
naturally in the young, and even the nature of dumb beasts bears witness
to this, as well as the natural affection men bear from childhood towards
their own mothers, let us not seem less rational than infants, more savage
than wild beasts, revealing ourselves as without love, as estranged from
our Creator? And even if we did not already know Him from His goodness,
yet from the very fact that He made us we should love Him above all things,
and be ever mindful of Him, and rest in His love as children rest in the
arms of their parents.
Chief among those whom nature teaches us to love are those who do good
to us. And this is a love not peculiar to man only; but is common to almost
all creatures, leading them to love whoever has done good to them. The
ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib. May what then follows
never be said of us: But Israel hath not known me and my people hath
not understood (Is i. 3). As for the dog and other such creatures,
what need is there to speak of how great is their good will towards those
who care for them? If then we have a natural love for those who are good
to us, and will suffer anything for them to repay their goodness to us,
what words can rightly praise the gifts that God has given us? They are
so many as to be beyond number; so great, so wondrous that for one alone
(creation) we should give all thanks to the Giver. I shall not speak
of the rest, which though of such surpassing greatness and beauty, are
yet outshone in greatness by others still greater, as the sun outshines
the stars, and seem in themselves lesser and more obscure. For I have not
time, leaving aside the greater glories, to recount from these His lesser
gifts the dimensions of the Divine Goodness.
3. We shall be silent of the sunrise, of the changes of the moon, of
the changes of weather and season, of the rain that fills the clouds, of
the springs that rise from the ground, of the sea, of the earth and of
all that comes from it, of the creatures that dwell in the sea, of those
that move in the air, the countless forms of living things, and of everything
that is meant to serve our needs. But that which we cannot pass over, even
if we could, which no man could pass over in silence, who is of sound mind,
though to speak worthily of it is beyond our power, is this: that when
God had made man to His own image and likeness, and honoured him with a
knowledge of Himself, and endowed him above all living creatures of the
earth with the gift of reason, and prepared for his delight the inconceivable
joys of paradise, and then made him the first of earthly creatures, and
even after he had been deceived by the devil and had fallen into sin and
through sin into death and into things that deserved death, that even then
He did not abandon him, but first gave him a law to help him, placed him
under the protection of His angels, sent prophets to rebuke his wickedness
and teach him justice, kept him from evil by threats, awakened in him by
promises a desire to do good, and at times made known to special persons,
that they might warn others, the end of the good and of the wicked; that
after these and every other favour He still has not abandoned us, though
we continue in disobedience to Him.
The goodness of the Lord has not abandoned us. Nor have we deprived
ourselves of His love for us through our own folly: treating lightly the
One Who has done us so much honour. We have even been recalled from death
and restored again to life through Jesus Christ our Lord Himself. And even
the way in which this great goodness was shown to us is wondrous beyond
measure: For, being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to
be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant
(Phil. ii. 6, 7).
4. He has even taken our infirmities upon Him; he Has borne sufferings,
He was wounded for us, and by His wounds we were healed (Is. liii. 4).
He has redeemed us from the curse (of the law), being made a
curse for us (Gal. iii. 13); endured for us a most shameful death,
that He might bring us back to a glorious life. It was not enough to recall
the dead to life, He gave us also the dignity of His own divinity; preparing
for all mankind an everlasting rest that surpasses in the greatness of
its joy every thought of man. What then shall I render to the
Lord for all the things He has rendered to me (Ps. cxv. 12)? He is
so good that He does not even look for a return; it is enough for Him that
for the things He has given us, we but love Him in return.
When I recall these things to my mind, if I may speak of my own thoughts,
I am filled with fear and terror, lest through failing in watchfulness
of soul or through being absorbed in trifling things, I shall fall from
the love of God, and become a reproach to Christ. For he who now assails
us and strives by the allurements of this world to lead us by every deceit
to forgetfulness of our Benefactor, attacking us, leaping at us that he
may ruin our souls, will then, in the Presence of God, turn our neglect
into a mockery of God, will gloat over our indifference, our apostasy;
he who neither made us nor suffered death for us, shall then regard us
as his servants, as his followers; because of our disobedience and contempt
for the Commandments of God.
This offence to the Lord, this boasting of His enemy, seems to me more
unendurable than the pains of hell: that we should become, to the enemy
of Christ, a subject of boasting, a source of pride, to gloat over Him
Who died for us and rose again; to Whom because of this we owe a greater
thankfulness; as it is written (Rom. viii. 12). And so far we have but
spoken to you of the love of God. For as we told you our intention was
not to speak to you of all the Commandments of God, or of all that can
be said of them; for that is impossible; but to place before you a certain
summary of them, awakening in you, and ever reminding you of the love of
God.
III. On the love of our neighbour. We must then speak
of the Commandment that is next in order and importance.
1. We told you earlier that the Law was the cultivator, the nourisher
of those powers which were implanted in us after the manner of a seed.
Since we have been commanded in these words to love our neighbour as ourselves,
let us consider whether we have also received from God the power to fulfil
this commandment of God? Who does not know that man is a mild and sociable
being, not a wild and solitary creature? For nothing is so congenial to
our nature as to live together, to depend on one another, to love our kind.
But the Lord giving us beforehand these seeds of loving, looks later for
their fruit, saying: A new commandment I give unto you: That you love
one another (Jn. xiii. 34). And since it was His will to uplift us
to the fulfilment of this commandment, He laid it down that it was not
by signs and wonders that His Disciples would be known; though He also
gave them through the Holy Spirit the power to work these. What then does
He say? By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you
have love one for another (Jn. xiii. 35). And so He linked these two
commandments together; so that the good we do our neighbour, He receives
as done to Himself. For I was hungry, He said, and you gave me
to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. And then He goes on
to add: As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you
did it to me (Mt. xxv. 35, etc.).
2. And so through the first commandment we are able to fulfil the second;
and through the second ascend again to the first. And whoever loves the
Lord, it must follow that he also loves his neighbour. For if any one
love me, He says, he will keep my word (Jn. xiv. 23). Then He
says: This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved
you (Jn. xv. 12). And again, he who loves his neighbour, fulfils the
love he owes to God; for God accepts this love as an act of love offered
to Himself. For this very reason Moses, a faithful servant of God, showed
such love for his brethren that he desired that he himself should be blotted
out of the book of life, if God would not pardon the sins of his people
(Exod. xxxii. 32). Paul also dared to be an anathema from Christ for the
sake of his kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. ix. 3). For He wished,
following Christ’s example, to become the price of them all; though he
knew at the same time, that it could not happen that he would become a
stranger to the love of God, who out of love for God, would put away from
himself the favour of God in order to fulfil the greatest commandment;
rather, that he would receive more than he gave. From what has been said
it has been made abundantly plain to us, that the saints attained to this
measure of the love of our neighbour that God demands of us. Amen.
