we shall hate temporal relationships. Let a man
which belongs to God, but to love that which belongs to yourself. What marvel if he who loves his private advantage and not the commonweal does not obtain a kingdom? Someone will say he should love both, but God says he must love one. Most truly says the Truth:
"No man can serve two masters"
6:24). No one can perfectly love that to which we are called unless he hate that from which we are called. We are called to perfect human nature as God made it before we sinned. We are recalled from love of what we have deserved by sinning. Therefore we must hate that from which we choose to be set free.
89. If we are ablaze with love for eternity we shall hate temporal relationships. Let a man love his neighbour as himself. No one is his own father or son or kinsman or anything of the kind, but is simply a man. Whoever loves another as himself ought to love that in him which is his real self. Our real selves are not bodies. So we are not to desire and set great store by a man's body. Here, too, the precept is valid: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's property. Whoever, then, loves in his neighbour anything but his real self does not love him as himself. Human nature is to be loved whether it be perfect or in process of becoming perfect, but without any condition of carnal relationship. All are related who have one
God for their Father and who love him and do his will. And all are fathers and sons to one St. Augustine another, fathers when they take thought for others, sons when they obey, but above all they are brothers because one Father by his
Testament calls them to one inheritance. xlvii, 90. Why should not he be unconquered who in loving man loves nothing but the man, the creature of God, made according to his image? And how can he fail to discover the perfect nature he loves, since God is perfect? For example, if anyone loves a good singer, not this or that particular one but any good singer, being himself a perfect singer, he wants all to be such, while at the same time preserving his own power to do what he loves, for he too sings well. But if he is envious of any good singer, he does not love good singing for itself but for the praise or some other advantage he wishes to obtain by singing well.
But that advantage can be diminished or indeed taken away if another sings well. He who is envious of a good singer does not love him for his singing; and on the other hand, he who lacks talent does not sing well. This could be much more fitly said of one who lives rightly, because he can envy no one. For the reward of right living is the same for all, and it is not made less when many obtain it. A time may come when a good singer cannot sing properly, and requires another's voice to show what he loves. He might be at a banquet where it was wrong for him to sing, but where he might properly hear another sing. But it is never improper to live aright. Whoever does this and loves it, not only does not envy those who imitate him, but also treats them with the greatest possible kindness and good will. But he does not stand in any need of them. What he loves in them he himself completely and perfectly possesses. So when a man loves his neighbour as himself, he is not envious of him any more than he is envious of himself. He gives him such help as he can as if he were helping himself. But he does not need him any more than he needs himself. He needs God alone, by cleaving to whom he is happy. No one can take God from him. He, then, is most truly and certainly an unconquered man who cleaves to God, not indeed that he may merit any extra good thing from him, but because for him to cleave to God is itself good. gt. Such a man, so long as he is in this life, uses his friend to repay favours received, his enemy to cultivate patience, anyone at all in order to exercise beneficence, and all men as objects of benevolence. Though he does not love temporal things, he uses them rightly himself, and takes thought for men according to the lot of each, if he cannot treat them all alike. So if he is more ready to speak to one of his friends than to anyone else, it is not because he loves him more, but because he has greater confidence in addressing him, and opportunity opens the door. He treats those who are devoted to temporal concerns all the better
St. Augustine because he is himself less bound to temporal things. If he cannot help all whom he loves equally without preferring to benefit those who are more closely related to him, he is unjust. Relationship of mind is a greater thing than relationships due to the place or time where or when we were born in the flesh. But the relationship which binds all together is the most important of all. He is not made sorrowful by the death of anyone, for he who loves
God with all his mind knows that nothing can perish for him unless it perish also in the sight of God. But God is Lord of the living and the dead. He is not made unhappy by the unhappiness of another, any more than he is made just by the justice of another. As no one can take from him God and justice, so no one can take from him his happiness. If at any time he is touched with feeling for another's danger or error or grief, he lets it go so far as to help or correct or console that other, but not to subvert himself.
In all laborious duties he cherishes the certain expectation of rest to come, and so is not crushed. What can harm him who can make a good use even of an enemy? He does not fear enmities because he is guarded and protected by God who has given both the command and the ability to love enemies. In tribulations he feels it is a small thing not to be saddened. Rather he even rejoices, knowing that "tribulation worketh patience, and paOf True Religion tience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us" (Rom.
523-5). Who can hurt such a man? Who can subdue him? In prosperity he makes moral progress, and in adversity learns to know the progress he has made. When he has abundance of mutable goods he does not put his trust in them; and when they are withdrawn he gets to know whether or not they had taken him captive. Usually when we have them we imagine that we do not love them, but when they begin to leave us we discover what manner of men we are. We have a thing without loving it when we can let it go without grieving. He who by excelling obtains what he will grieve to lose, seems to be victorious but is in reality vanquished; and he who by giving way obtains what he cannot unwillingly lose is really victorious though he seem to be vanquished. xlviii, 93. He who delights in liberty seeks to be free from the love of mutable things. He who delights to rule should submissively cleave to God, the sole ruler of all things, loving God more than himself. This is perfect justice, to love the better things more and the lesser things less. He should love a wise and perfect soul because it has the quality of justice, and a foolish soul because it has the power to become wise and perfect. He ought not to love even himself if he is foolish; for he
St. Augustine who loves himself when he is foolish will make no progress towards wisdom. No one will become what he desires to be unless he hates himself as he is. But until he reaches wisdom and perfection he bears with the folly of his neighbour as he would bear with his own, supposing he were foolish and at the same time a lover of wisdom. Wherefore, if even pride itself is the shadow of true liberty and true royalty, by it also divine providence reminds us what we are worth when we are stained with vice, and to what we must return when we have been corrected. xlix, 94. All curiosity with regard to spectacles aims at nothing else than the joy of knowing things. What, then, is more wonderful and beautiful than truth? Every spectator admits that he wants to reach truth. Hence he takes great care not to be deceived, and vaunts himself if he shows more acuteness and vivacity than others in watching and learning and judging. Men carefully and closely watch a juggler who professes nothing but deceit. If his tricks elude discovery they are delighted with the cleverness of the man who hoodwinks them. If he did not know how to mislead those who were looking on, or was believed not to know, no one would applaud. But any of the people who catches him out thinks himself worthy of greater praise than the juggler for no other reason than that he could not be deceived or taken in. If many see through the trick the juggler is