Homily 33 — First Corinthians 13, verses 4 to 7

“Love is patient and is kind; love does not envy; love does not brag, is not puffed up.” [a]

So then, having shown that faith and knowledge and prophecy and tongues and gifts and healing and a perfect life and martyrdom are of no great benefit if love is absent, he must next sketch an outline of its matchless beauty. He adorns its portrait with the parts of virtue as though with colors, and fits all its limbs together with precision. But do not hurry past what is said, beloved. Examine each point with great care, so that you may come to know both the treasure in the thing itself and the skill of the painter. Consider, for example, where he began at once, and what he put first as the cause of all its excellence. And what is this? Patience. This is the root of all self-denial. That is why a certain wise man said, “A man who is patient has great understanding, but the one who is short-tempered is exceedingly foolish.”

He also compared it with a strong city, and said that it is more secure than that. For it is both an invincible weapon and a kind of impregnable tower, easily beating off every annoyance. A spark that falls into the deep sea does the sea no harm, but is itself easily put out. In the same way, whatever unexpected thing falls on a patient soul quickly vanishes, but it does not disturb the soul. For truly there is nothing so impenetrable as patience. You may talk of armies, money, horses, walls, weapons, or anything else at all; you will name nothing like patience. The man surrounded by all those things is often overcome by anger, upset like a worthless child, and he fills everything with confusion and storm. But this man, settled as it were in a harbor, enjoys a deep calm. Surround him with loss, and you have not moved the rock. Bring insult on him, and you have not shaken the tower. Bruise him with the lash, and you have not wounded the diamond.

Indeed, this is why such a man is called “long-suffering”: because he has a kind of long and great soul. For what is long is also called great. This excellence is born of love, and it brings no small benefit both to those who have it and to those who enjoy it. Do not tell me about those depraved wretches who do wrong, suffer nothing for it, and become worse. In their case the result comes not from his patience, but from those who abuse it. So do not tell me about them, but about gentler people, who gain great benefit from it. When they have done wrong and suffer nothing for it, they admire the gentleness of the one who bore it, and from this they reap a very great lesson in mastery of oneself.

But Paul does not stop here. He adds the other high achievements of love too, saying, “is kind.” For there are some who practice their patience not for the sake of their own self-denial, but to punish those who have provoked them, to make them burst with rage. So he says that love does not have this defect either. That is why he added, “is kind.” For those who love do not deal more gently with people inflamed by anger in order to fan the fire, but in order to calm it and put it out. And not only by enduring nobly, but also by soothing and comforting, they cure the sore and heal the wound of passion.

“Does not envy.” For it is possible for someone to be both patient and envious, and then that excellence is spoiled. But love avoids this too.

“Does not brag” — that is, is not rash. For love makes the one who loves considerate, serious, and steady. In truth, one mark of those who love unlawfully is that they fall short on this very point. But the one who knows this love is of all people the most completely freed from these evils. For when there is no anger inside, rashness and insolence are cleared away altogether. Love, like some excellent farmer, takes her seat deep within the soul and does not let any of these thorns spring up.

“Is not puffed up.” We see many people who think highly of themselves because of these very excellences — for example, because they are not envious, or grudging, or mean-spirited, or rash. For these evils attach themselves not only to wealth and poverty, but even to things that are good by nature. But love purges everything out completely. And consider: the patient person is not necessarily kind as well. But if he is not kind, the thing becomes a vice, and he is in danger of falling into malice. So love supplies a medicine — I mean kindness — and keeps the virtue pure. Again, the kind person often becomes too eager to please; but love corrects this too. “For love,” he says, “does not brag, is not puffed up.” The kind and patient person is often showy; but love takes away this vice as well.

And see how he adorns her not only from what she has, but also from what she does not have. For he says that she both brings in virtue and roots out vice — or rather, she does not let it spring up at all. He did not say, “She envies, but overcomes envy,” or, “She is arrogant, but disciplines that passion,” but, “does not envy, does not brag, is not puffed up.” And this truly is the most admirable thing of all: she accomplishes her good things even without toil, and her trophy is set up without war and battle lines. She does not make the one who has her toil in order to win the crown, but hands him her prize without labor. For where there is no passion fighting against sober reason, what labor can there be?

“Does not behave in an unbecoming way.” “Why,” he says, “do I even say that she ‘is not puffed up’? She is so far from that feeling that even when she suffers the most shameful things for the one she loves, she does not so much as count it unbecoming.” Again, he did not say, “She suffers what is unbecoming, but bears the shame nobly,” but, “She does not feel any sense of shame at all.” Lovers of money endure every kind of reproach for the sake of that squalid trade of theirs, and far from hiding their faces, they even exult in it. Much more, then, will the one who has this praiseworthy love refuse nothing at all for the safety of those he loves. No, nothing he may suffer will make him ashamed. [d]

And so that we do not take our example from anything base, let us examine this same statement as it applies to Christ, and then we will see the force of what has been said. Our Lord Jesus Christ was spat on and beaten with rods by miserable slaves. Not only did he not count it unbecoming, he even exulted in it and called it glory. He brought a robber and murderer into paradise with him ahead of all the rest. He talked with a prostitute, and though everyone standing by accused him for it, he did not count the thing disgraceful. He even let her kiss his feet, wet his body with her tears, and wipe them away with her hair — and this in front of a crowd of onlookers who were his foes and enemies. “For love does nothing unbecoming.”

That is also why fathers, though they may be the foremost philosophers and orators, are not ashamed to lisp along with their children. None of those who see them find fault with them; the thing is thought so good and right that it is even something to pray for. And again, if their children turn out wicked, the parents keep correcting them and caring for them, and try to lessen the reproach they bring on themselves, and they are not ashamed. For love “does nothing unbecoming,” but covers up all the offenses of the beloved as though with golden wings.

So too Jonathan loved David. When he heard his father say, “You son of runaway girls, you who were raised like a woman!” (First Samuel 20, verse 30), he was not ashamed, though the words were full of great reproach. For what he means is this: “You son of cheap prostitutes who are mad for men and chase after passersby! You spineless, effeminate wretch, with nothing of a man about you, living to your own shame and the shame of the mother who bore you!” What then? Did Jonathan grieve at this, hide his face, and turn away from the one he loved? No, quite the opposite: he displayed his affection as an ornament. And yet at that time the one was a king and a king’s son — Jonathan — and the other a fugitive and a wanderer — I mean David. But not even so was he ashamed of his friendship. “For love does not behave in an unbecoming way.” Indeed, this is its wonderful quality: not only does it keep the one who is insulted from grieving and feeling stung, it even makes him rejoice. So the man we are speaking of, after all this, went off and fell on David’s neck, as though he had had a crown placed on his head. For love does not know what shame is. That is why it glories in the very things for which another would hide his face. For the shame lies in not knowing how to love — not in running into danger, when you love, and enduring everything for the beloved.

But when I say “everything,” do not suppose I mean harmful things too — for example, helping a young man in a love affair, or any other hurtful thing one person may beg another to do for him. Such a person does not love, and I showed you this lately from the Egyptian woman. For truly the only real lover is the one who seeks what is good for the beloved. So if anyone does not pursue this — what is right and good — then though he make ten thousand professions of love, he is more hostile than any enemy.

So too Rebekah long ago, because she clung so closely to her son, carried out a theft, and was neither ashamed of being found out nor afraid, though the risk was no ordinary one. Even when her son raised scruples with her, she said, “Upon me be your curse, my son.” Do you see the soul of the apostle even in a woman? Just as Paul chose — if one may compare a small thing with a great one — to be accursed for the sake of the Jews (Romans 9, verse 3), so she too, in order that her son might be blessed, chose to be nothing less than accursed. The good things she gave up to him, for it seems she was not to be blessed along with him; but the evils she was ready to bear by herself alone. Even so she rejoiced and hurried, though so great a danger lay before her, and she was vexed at any delay in the business, for she was afraid Esau might get in ahead of them and make her cleverness useless.

That is why she cuts the conversation short and presses the young man on, and after barely letting him answer what had been said, she gives him a reason sufficient to persuade him. She did not say, “You are saying this without reason, and your fear is groundless, since your father has grown old and lost his clear sight.” What did she say? “Upon me be your curse, my son. Only do not spoil the plan, or lose what we are hunting, or give up the treasure.”

And this same Jacob — did he not serve his relatives for wages twice seven years? Along with the servitude, was he not made a laughingstock over that trick as well? What then? Did he feel the mockery? Did he think it unbecoming that he, a free man, freeborn and well brought up, put up with a slave’s treatment among his own relatives — the thing that usually stings most of all, to be treated with contempt by one’s own friends? Not at all. And the cause was his love, which made the time, long as it was, seem short. “For they were,” it says, “in his sight as a few days” (Genesis 29, verse 20). So far was he from feeling stung and blushing at this servitude of his. Rightly, then, did the blessed Paul say, “Love does not behave in an unbecoming way.”

Verse 5: “Does not seek its own, is not provoked.” [j]

Having said, “does not behave in an unbecoming way,” he also shows the frame of mind that keeps her from behaving in an unbecoming way. And what is that frame of mind? She “does not seek her own.” She counts the beloved as everything, and she only “behaves in an unbecoming way” when she cannot free him from disgrace. So if by her own disgrace she can benefit the one she loves, she does not so much as count it disgrace. For when you love, the other person becomes yourself from then on. This is what friendship is: that the lover and the beloved are no longer two persons divided, but in a way one single person — something that comes about in no other way than by love. So do not seek your own, so that you may find your own. For the one who seeks his own does not find his own. That is why Paul also said, “Let no one seek his own, but each his neighbor’s good” (First Corinthians 10, verse 24). For your own profit lies in your neighbor’s profit, and his in yours.

Imagine someone who had his own gold buried in his neighbor’s house. If he refused to go there and search for it and dig it up, he would never get it. So here too: the one who will not seek his own profit in his neighbor’s advantage will not win the crowns that belong to it. God himself arranged it this way so that we would be bound to one another. When someone wakes a sleepy child to follow his brother and the child does not want to, he puts the thing the child wants and longs for into the brother’s hand, so that out of desire to get it the child will run after the one who holds it — and that is just what happens. In the same way here, God has given each person’s own profit into his neighbor’s hands, so that we will run after one another and not be torn apart.

If you like, see this in our own case too, we who speak to you. My profit depends on you, and your advantage on me. On the one hand, it profits you to be taught the things that please God; but this has been entrusted to me, so that you would receive it from me and so be compelled to run to me. On the other hand, it profits me that you become better, for the reward I will receive for this will be great; but this in turn lies with you, and so I am compelled to follow after you, so that you may become better and I may receive my profit from you. That is why Paul also says, “For what is my hope? Is it not even you?” And again, “My hope, and my joy, and the crown of my rejoicing” (First Thessalonians 2, verse 19). So Paul’s joy was his disciples, and his joy was in their keeping. That is why he even wept when he saw them perishing.

Again, their profit depended on Paul. That is why he said, “For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain” (Acts 28, verse 20). And again, “I endure these things for the sake of the elect, so that they may obtain eternal life” (Second Timothy 2, verse 10). One can see this in the affairs of this world too. “For the wife,” he says, “does not have authority over her own body, nor does the husband; but the wife has authority over the husband’s, and the husband over the wife’s” (First Corinthians 7, verse 4). We do the same when we want to bind any two people together. We leave neither of them in his own power, but stretch a chain between them and make each one held by the other.

Do you want to see this in the case of rulers too? The one who judges does not sit in judgment for himself, but to seek the good of his neighbor. The governed, for their part, seek the good of the one who governs them, by their attendance, by their service, by everything else. Soldiers take up arms for us, for they put themselves in danger on our account. We, for our part, are hard-pressed on their behalf, for their supplies come from us.

But if you say, “Each one does this seeking his own,” I say so too; but I add that it is by another’s good that one’s own is won. The soldier, unless he fights for those who support him, has no one to provide for him for that purpose; and the one who supports him, unless he feeds the soldier, has no one to take up arms on his behalf.

Do you see love, how it reaches everywhere and manages everything? But do not grow weary until you have come to know this golden chain thoroughly. Having said, “does not seek her own,” he mentions once more the good things that come from this. And what are they? [l]

“Is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.” See love again, not only subduing vice, but not even letting it arise at all. He did not say, “When provoked, she overcomes it,” but, “is not provoked.” And he did not say, “does no evil,” but, “does not even think it” — that is, far from plotting any evil, she does not even suspect it of the one she loves. How then could she do any, or how could she be provoked, when she will not even let an evil suspicion in — the very fountain from which anger springs?

Verse 6: “Does not rejoice in unrighteousness” — that is, she takes no pleasure over those who suffer harm. And not only this, but what is much greater, she “rejoices with the truth.” “She takes pleasure,” he says, “together with those who are well spoken of.” As Paul says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12, verse 15). That is why she “does not envy,” that is why she “is not puffed up”: because in fact she counts the good things of others as her own.

Do you see how little by little love makes the one she nurses into an angel? For when a man is free of anger, clean of envy, and rid of every tyrannical passion, consider that from then on he is set free even from human nature itself, and has arrived at the very calm of the angels.

Still, he is not content with these, but has something even greater to say, following his plan of putting the stronger points later. So he says, “bears all things.” This comes from her patience and from her goodness, whether the things are burdensome or painful — insults, or blows, or death, or anything else at all. And again one can see this in the case of the blessed David. For what could be more unbearable than to see his own son rising up against him, trying to seize the throne, and thirsting for his father’s blood? Yet that blessed man endured it, and even so he could not bring himself to let fall one bitter word against the son who would have murdered his father. Even when he left everything else to his commanders, he gave them strict orders about the young man’s safety. For the foundation of his love was strong. That is why love “bears all things.”

Here the apostle hints at its power; its goodness he shows by what follows. For “it hopes all things,” he says, “believes all things, endures all things.” What does “hopes all things” mean? “It does not despair,” he says, “of the beloved, but even if he is worthless, it goes on correcting him, providing for him, caring for him.”

“Believes all things.” “For it does not merely hope,” he says, “but it also believes, out of its great affection.” And even if these good things do not turn out as it hoped, and the other person proves even more unbearable, it bears even this. For, he says, it “endures all things.”

Verse 8: “Love never fails.” Do you see how he has set the crown on the arch, and what belongs to this gift above everything else? For what does “never fails” mean? It is not cut off; it is not broken apart by what it has to endure. For it puts up with everything, since whatever happens, the one who loves can never hate. This, then, is the greatest of its excellences. [n]

Paul was a man like this. That is why he said, “If by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my own flesh” (Romans 11, verse 14), and he went on hoping. And he gave Timothy a charge, saying, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be mild toward all … correcting his opponents with gentleness, if perhaps God may give them the knowledge of the truth” (Second Timothy 2, verses 24 and 25).

“What then? If they are enemies and pagans, must one hate them?” One must hate, not them, but their teaching; not the person, but the wicked conduct, the corrupt mind. For the person is God’s work, but the deceit is the devil’s work. So do not confuse the things of God with the things of the devil. The Jews were blasphemers and persecutors and insolent men, and they said countless evil things about Christ. Did Paul then hate them — he who loved Christ more than anyone? Not at all. He loved them, and did everything for their sake. At one time he says, “My heart’s desire and my petition to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10, verse 1); and at another, “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for their sake” (Romans 9, verse 3). So too Ezekiel, seeing them slain, says, “Ah, Lord! Will you wipe out the remnant of Israel?” (Ezekiel 9, verse 8). And Moses says, “If you will forgive their sin, forgive it” (Exodus 32, verse 32).

Why, then, does David say, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and did I not waste away because of your enemies? I hate them with perfect hatred” (Psalm 139, verses 21 and 22)?

Now, first of all, not everything David says in the Psalms is spoken in David’s own person. For it is he himself who says, “I have lived in the tents of Kedar” (Psalm 120, verse 5), and, “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept” (Psalm 137, verse 1); yet he never saw Babylon, or the tents of Kedar either.

But besides this, we are now required to have a more complete mastery of ourselves. That is why, when the disciples asked for fire to come down, as it had in the case of Elijah, Christ said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of” (Luke 9, verse 55). For back then they were commanded to hate not only the ungodliness but the ungodly themselves, so that friendship with them would not become an occasion for breaking the law. That is why he cut off their ties with them, both of blood and of marriage, and fenced them off on every side.

But now, because he has brought us to a more complete mastery of ourselves and set us high above that danger, he bids us rather to welcome them and to be gentle with them. For we take no harm from them; they gain good from us. What, then, does he say? We must not hate, but pity. For if you hate, how will you easily turn back the one who has gone astray? How will you pray for the unbeliever? And that we ought to pray for him, hear what Paul says: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (First Timothy 2, verse 1). And that not everyone was a believer then is, I think, obvious to all. And again: “for kings and all who are in high positions.” That these were ungodly men and lawbreakers is just as plain. Then he gives the reason for the prayer as well: “for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

That is why, if he finds a pagan wife living with a believer, he does not dissolve the marriage. And yet what is more closely joined than a man to his wife? “For the two will be one flesh” (Genesis 2, verse 24), and in that union the attraction is strong and the desire ardent. But if we are to hate ungodly and lawless people, we will go on to hate sinners as well; and so, step by step, you will be cut off from most even of your brothers and sisters — or rather, from all of them. For there is not one, no, not one, without sin. If it is our duty to hate the enemies of God, we must hate not only the ungodly but sinners as well, and then we will be worse than wild beasts, shunning everyone and puffed up with pride, like that Pharisee. But that is not what Paul commanded us. What did he command? “Warn the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all” (First Thessalonians 5, verse 14).

What does he mean, then, when he says, “If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, take note of that person, and have no company with him” (Second Thessalonians 3, verse 14)? In the first place, he says this about brothers in the faith; and even then not without limit, but here too with gentleness. Do not cut off what follows; add the next clause as well. For after saying, “Have no company with him,” he added, “Yet do not count him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.” Do you see how he told us to hate the evil deed, and not the person? [u]

For it is the devil’s work to tear us apart from one another. He has always taken great pains to take away love, so that he may cut off the way of correction, keep the other man in error and you in hostility, and so block the road to his salvation. For when the physician hates the sick man and runs from him, and the sick man turns away from the physician, when will the sick man get well? Neither will the one call in the other’s help, nor will the other go to him.

But tell me, why do you turn away from him at all and avoid him? Because he is ungodly? That is exactly why you ought to welcome him and look after him, so that you may raise him up from his sickness. And if he is incurably sick, you have still been told to do your part. Judas too was incurably diseased, yet God did not stop caring for him.

So do not grow weary yourself. For even if after much labor you fail to free him from his ungodliness, you will still receive the reward of one who sets free, and you will make him marvel at your gentleness, and so all this praise will pass on to God. For though you work wonders, and raise the dead, and whatever else you do, the pagans will never marvel at you so much as when they see you showing a gentle, mild, and kindly disposition. And this is no small achievement, since many will even be set free from their evil way entirely; for there is nothing that has such power to draw people as love. For the first things — I mean the signs and wonders — they will rather envy you; but for this they will both admire you and love you. And if they love you, they will in time lay hold of the truth as well. If he does not become a believer all at once, do not be surprised, do not hurry him, and do not demand everything at once. Let him for the present praise you and love you, and in time he will come to that as well.

And so that you may see clearly how great a thing this is, listen to how even Paul made his defense when he stood before an unbelieving judge. “I consider myself fortunate,” he says, “that I am to make my defense before you” (Acts 26, verse 2). He said this not to flatter him — far from it — but because he wanted to win him by his gentleness. And he did partly win him. The man who until then was thought to be condemned took his judge captive, and the victory is admitted by the captive himself, who says aloud in front of everyone, “With so little persuasion you would make me a Christian!” (Acts 26, verses 28 and 29). What does Paul do then? He casts his net wider still and says, “I pray to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become such as I am — except for these chains.” [v]

What are you saying, Paul? “Except for these chains”? What confidence is left to you, if you are ashamed of these things and run from them, and that before so great a crowd? Do you not boast of this everywhere in your letters, and call yourself a prisoner? Do you not carry this chain around everywhere before our eyes like a diadem? What has happened now, then, that you pray against these chains? “I do not pray against them,” he says, “nor am I ashamed of them. But I stoop down to meet their weakness. They are not yet able to take in my boasting, and I have learned from my Lord not to put ‘a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment’ (Matthew 9, verse 16). That is why I spoke this way. The truth is that up to now they have heard bad reports of our teaching and loathe the cross. So if I added chains as well, their hatred would grow greater. I took these away, then, so that the rest might be made acceptable. For to them it seems disgraceful to be in chains, because they have not yet tasted the glory that is ours. So one must stoop down to meet them. And when they have learned the true life, then they will know the beauty of this iron too, and the splendor that comes from these chains.”

Elsewhere, speaking to others, he even calls the thing a free gift: “It has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf” (Philippians 1, verse 29). But for the time being, it was a great thing for the hearers not to be ashamed of the cross, and that is why he goes step by step. In the same way, no one who is bringing a person into a palace forces him, while he is still standing outside and before he has even looked at the entrance hall, to take in what is within. That way it would not even seem wonderful; one has to go in and come to know it all.

So let us deal with the pagans in the same way: stooping down to meet them, and with love. For love is a great teacher. It is able to draw people away from error, to reform their character, to lead them by the hand to self-denial, and out of stones to make human beings.

If you would like to learn her power, bring me a man who is timid, afraid of every sound, and trembling at shadows; or one who is hot-tempered and harsh, a wild beast rather than a man; or one who is loose-living and unbridled; or one wholly given over to wickedness. Hand him over to love, bring him into this school, and you will soon see that cowardly and timid creature made brave and great-souled, taking on anything cheerfully. And what is wonderful is that this does not come from any change in his nature. Love shows her own peculiar power in the cowardly soul itself. It is much as if someone made a sword of lead do the work of steel — not by turning it into steel, but while it remained lead. [x]

Take Jacob. He was “a simple man, living at home” (Genesis 25, verse 27), with no practice in hard work or danger. He lived a relaxed and easy life, and like a virgin in her room, he was obliged for the most part to sit indoors and keep the house, withdrawn from the forum and all the bustle of the forum and from all such affairs, living on in ease and quiet. What then? Once the torch of love had set him on fire, see how it made this simple, stay-at-home man strong to endure and fond of hard work. And for this, do not listen to what I say, but to what the patriarch himself says. Finding fault with his kinsman, these are his words: “These twenty years I have been with you” (Genesis 31, verse 38). And how were you these twenty years? For he adds this too: “Consumed by the heat in the daytime and by the frost at night, and sleep fled from my eyes.” So speaks that “simple man, living at home,” who had led that easy life.

Again, that he was timid is clear from the fact that when he expected to meet Esau he was scared to death. But see again how this timid man became bolder than a lion under love’s influence. Putting himself forward like a champion in front of the rest, he was ready to be the first to meet that savage brother — breathing slaughter, as he supposed — and to buy his wives’ safety with his own body. The man he feared and shuddered at, he wanted to see first himself, at the head of the line. For this fear was not as strong as his affection for his wives. Do you see how, timid as he was, he suddenly became daring — not by changing his character, but by being strengthened by love? For that he was timid afterward too is clear from his moving from place to place.

But let no one take what I have said as a charge against that righteous man. Being timid is no reproach, for that belongs to human nature; the reproach is doing something unseemly out of timidity. For one who is timid by nature can become courageous through godliness. What did Moses do? Did he not run away, out of fear of a single Egyptian, and go off into exile? Yet this fugitive, who could not bear the threat of one man, once he had tasted the honey of love, was eager — nobly, and with no one forcing him — to perish together with those he loved. “For if you will forgive their sin,” he says, “forgive it; and if not, blot me out, I pray, from your book that you have written” (Exodus 32, verse 32).

As for love making even the fierce moderate and the loose-living chaste, we no longer need any examples; this is plain to everyone. Though a man be more savage than any wild beast, no sheep is as gentle as love makes him. What, for instance, could be more savage and frenzied than Saul? Yet when his daughter let his enemy go, he did not say even a bitter word against her. The man who put all the priests to the sword without mercy because of David, when he saw that his daughter had sent David away from the house, was not angry with her even so far as words — and this when so great a deception had been worked against him — because he was held back by the stronger bridle of love. [ab]

And just as moderation, so chastity is an ordinary effect of love. If a man loves his own wife as he ought to love her, then however strongly he may be inclined to loose living, he will not bear to look at another woman, because of his affection for her. “For love,” someone says, “is strong as death” (Song of Songs 8, verse 6). So loose behavior comes from no other source than a lack of love.

Since, then, love is the craftsman of every virtue, let us plant her in our own souls with all care, so that she may produce many blessings for us, and we may have her fruit always in abundance, the fruit that is ever fresh and never decays. For so we will gain nothing less than eternal blessings. May we all gain them, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.