of the Lord than that God might show His love in us, com-
272 ON CATECHISING. [CIIAP. IV.
through five epochs of times ^ there was no cessation in the foretelling and prophesying of His own destined coming ; and in a manner consonant with this, he through whom the law was given wrote five books ; and proud men, who were carnally minded, and sought to " establish their own righteousness," were not filled with blessing by the open hand of Christ, but were debarred from such good by the hand compressed and closed ; and therefore their feet were tied, and " they fell, while we are risen, and stand upright." ^ But although, as I have said, the Lord Christ did thus send before Him a certain portion of His body, in the person of those holy men who came before Him as regards the time of birth, nevertheless He is Himself the Head of the body, the Church,** and all these have been attached to that same body of which He is the head, in virtue of their believing in Him whom they announced prophetically. For they were not sundered (from that body) in consequence of fulfilling their course before Him, but rather were they made one with the same by reason of their obedience. For although the hand may be put forward away before the head, still it has its connection beneath the head. Wherefore all things which were written aforetime were written in order that we might be taught thereby,^ and were our figures, and happened in a figure in the case of these men. Moreover they were written for our sakes, upon whom the end of the ages has come.^
CiiAi'. IV.— That the great reason for the advent of Christ icas tJie commendation of love.
7. Moreover, what greater reason is apparent for the advent of the Lord than that God might show His love in us, commending it powerfully, inasmuch as "while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us"?^ And furthermore, this is with the intent that, inasmuch as charity is " the end of tlie commandment,"^ and " the fullilliiig of the law," ^ we also may love one another and lay down our life for the brethren, even as He laid down
His life for us.^*^ And with regard to God Himself, its object
' T('mi)orum articulos. * Rom. x. 3. ' Ps. xx. 8.
7 lloin. V. 8, 10. ^ 1 Tim. i. 5. ^ Kom. xiii. 10.
10 1 John iu, 16.
CHAP. IV.] THE ACTION OF LOVE.
is that, even if it were an irksome task to love Him, it may now at least cease to be irksome for us to return His love, seeing that " He first loved us," ^ and " spared not His own only Son, but delivered Him up for us all."
For there is no mightier invitation to love than to anticipate in loving ; and that soul is over hard which, supposing it unwilling indeed to give love, is unwilling also to give the return of love. But if, even in the case of criminal and sordid loves, w^e see how those who desire to be loved in return make it their special and absorbing business, by such proofs as are within their power, to render the strength of the love wdiich they themselves bear plain and patent ; if we also perceive how they affect to put forward an appearance of justice in what they thus offer, such as may qualify them in some sort to demand that a response be made in all fairness to them on the part of those souls which they are labouring to beguile ; if, further, their own passion burns more vehemently when they observe that the minds which they are eager to possess are also moved now by the same fire if thus, I say, it happens at once that the soul which before was torpid is excited so soon as it feels itself to be loved, and that the soul which w^as enkindled already becomes the more inflamed so soon as it is made cognisant of the return of its own love, it is evident that no greater reason is to be found why love should be either originated or enlarged, than what appears in the occasion when one who as yet loves not at all comes to know himself to be the object of love, or when one who is already a lover either hopes that he may yet be loved in turn, or has by this time the evidence of a response to his affection. And if this holds good even in the case of base loves, how much more ^ in (true) friendship ? For what else have we carefully to attend to in this question touching the injuring of friendship than to this, namely, not to give our friend cause to suppose either that we do not love him at all, or that we love him less than he loves us ? If, indeed, he is led to entertain this belief, he will be cooler in that love in which men enjoy the interchange of intimacies one with another ; and if
1 1 John iv. 10, 19. 2 p^o^. viii. 32.
Reading quanto plus, for wliicli some mss. give ^j/«?-<i<,?, vchWo in a large number we find ^if)-iz<s = with how much greater purity should it hold good, etc.
CATECH. S