{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4020","native_reference":{"book_number":50,"chapter_from":6,"chapter_to":6,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":5,"verse_to":5},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: He says, 'Let the earth bring forth green herb,' and immediately the whole earth, at the rising of the germ, is filled with all kinds of plants. And to man it is said: 'Love the Lord your God' (Deut., VI, 5), and the love of God is not infused into the hearts of all. The hearts of men are more deaf than the hardest rocks. The earth produces fruits for us undeservedly, while obeying its creator; we deny the debt of gratitude, while not honoring the creator.<br/><i>— The Six Days of Creation, Book 3, Chapter 17, Section 70</i></p><p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: And therefore it is written, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Now he who loves also believes, and in believing each man begins to love. Abraham believed, and so began to love, and he believed not in part, but entirely. For otherwise he would not have perfect charity, for it is written, Charity believeth all things. If it believe not all things, charity does not seem to be perfect. Perfect charity then has all faith.<br/><i>— Letter 76, Section 5</i></p><p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: And the law says: \"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, thou shalt love thy neighbour.\" It is a noble thing to do one's kindnesses and duties towards the whole of the human race. But it is ever most seemly that thou shouldst give to God the most precious thing thou hast, that is, thy mind, for thou hast nothing better than that. When thou hast paid thy debt to thy Creator, then thou mayest labour for men, to show them kindness, and to give help; then thou mayest assist the needy with money, or by some duty, or some service that lies in the way of thy ministry; by money to support him; by paying a debt, so as to free him that is bound; by undertaking a duty, so as to take charge of a trust, which he fears to lose, who has put it by in trust.<br/><i>— On the Duties of the Clergy, Book 1, Section 262</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Therefore the supreme and true wisdom is in that first commandment: \"You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul.\" From this it follows that wisdom is love of God, which is \"poured forth in our hearts,\" not otherwise than \"by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.\" But \"the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,\" and \"there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.\"</p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Now it is plain that the number four has relation to the body, from the four well known elements of which it consists, and the four qualities of dry, humid, warm, cold. Hence too it is administered by four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter. All this is very well known. For of the number four relating to the body we have treated elsewhere somewhat subtilly, but obscurely: which must be avoided in this discourse, which we would have accommodated to the unlearned. But that the number three has relation to the mind may be understood from this, that we are commanded to love God after a threefold manner, with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with the whole mind: of each of which severally we must treat, not in the Psalms, but in the Gospels: for the present, for proof of the relation of the number three to the mind, I think what has been said enough.<br/><i>— Expositions on the Psalms, Psalms 6</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Then in all this plenitude of charity will be fulfilled the commandment, \"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.\" For while there remains any remnant of the lust of the flesh, to be kept in check by the rein of continence, God is by no means loved with all one's soul. For the flesh does not lust without the soul; although it is the flesh which is said to lust, because the soul lusts carnally. In that perfect state the just man shall live absolutely without any sin, since there will be in his members no law warring against the law of his mind, but wholly will he love God, with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind which is the first and chief commandment.<br/><i>— Concerning Man's Perfection in Righteousness</i></p><p><b>Cassiodorus</b>: As the law teaches, \"You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul.\" But the person who puts his entire hope in the Lord also praises with his whole heart. He does not put his trust in the transient consolations of the world, once he has trained himself on the Lord with total purity of mind.<br/><i>— EXPOSITION OF THE Psalms 85:12</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Somebody asked Antony, 'What shall I do in order to please God?' He replied, 'Do what I tell you, which is this: wherever you go, keep God in mind; whatever you do, follow the example of holy Scripture; wherever you are, stay there and do not move away in a hurry. If you keep to these guide-lines, you will be saved.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Gregory said, 'God asks three things of anyone who is baptized: to keep the true faith with all his soul and all his might; to control his tongue; to be chaste in his body.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: If one does not love God with all his heart and with all his soul, how can he care wholesomely and guilelessly for the love of his brothers, since he is not fulfilling the love of the One on whose account he has a care for the love of his brothers? The person in this condition, who has not given his whole soul to God and has not participated in his love, the craftsman of evil finds disarmed and easily overpowers. .</p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: The great and first commandment in the law, therefore, is this: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. But whoever subtracts anything from that whole commandment — that is, either from what it says with your whole heart or with your whole soul or with your whole mind — subtracts from its magnitude and from its primacy. And perhaps all who love their Lord God, unless they also fulfill the parts that follow and love him with their whole heart and with their whole soul and with their whole mind, keep the commandment only in part; but those alone take up its magnitude and primacy within themselves who not only love their Lord God but have also taken up those three — that is, so that with their whole heart they store up within themselves that whole one and his works and his thoughts, and with their whole soul, that is, so that they are ready to lay it down for the piety of God who created all things, when the usefulness of the word demands it, out of the fact that with the whole soul one loves God, in such a way that no part of the soul is torn away toward any thing that is foreign to the faith, and in our whole mind thinking or bringing forth nothing else but \"the things that are of God\". And see whether you can take heart to mean the intellect, which gazes upon intelligible things and shows the source and beginning of them, which is God, and mind to mean the bringing forth of things (for it is with the mind that we bring forth individual things, and through each thing that is signified we walk about, as it were, with our mind and bring it forth). And if anyone should understand ingeniously the commandment which was laid down concerning love in all those three things that have been named, and should consider in each of the several faithful the love of God, he will perhaps find the whole commandment either in one, or perhaps the second or the third (and this if it should be granted), but in all of them the love of God having less — whether a little or more — either from what it says with your whole heart or from what it says with your whole soul or with your whole mind.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Matthew 2</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Something of this kind is shown also concerning the commandment of love toward God and toward the neighbor, when it says thus: \"You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength\". For without doubt, when anyone shall have loved God \"with his whole heart\" \"and with his whole soul\" \"and with his whole strength\", he has such a reward of love as the one who had a greater heart, or who has a more eminent soul, or who received greater strength. For this alone is sought, that whatever a man may have from God, he should use the whole of it for the glory of God.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Matthew 67</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: That the people should love God was the greatest of the commandments, and therefore Moses urged them to fear Him. The commandment, \"[Thou shalt] love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind\", belonged to those who were righteous among them; but those who were like slaves, and who like slaves were committing offences at all times, he commanded to fear God, for fear repulseth vices, and love perfecteth virtues. Fear cutteth off the path of iniquitous men, and love urgeth on the way of the virtues. \"Fear God\", and \"Love the Lord thy God\"; these two commands were ordained in the law which was given to the people, so that whosoever became exalted above the command of fear might find before him the command of love, which is perfected therefrom.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 7 -- Second Discourse on the Fear of God</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"8dad515225fc16d75cfb8c38704cfcb41a5a93f1b772107eb3e8d02ac1590bd4","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4020,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"a7cb548942fa358adc47ba1bb7a1c35aae66a7840053b55b0955a29ca27beb39","translator":null,"work":null}