which he himself had cast away. He must love his fellow, like himself, unto the saving, not the undoing, of him—be his true lover, not his enemy. This vital principle of Christian love had to recast pagan passion and direct the affections to an immortal goal. Under it these reached a new absoluteness. The Christian lover should always be ready to give his life for his friend's salvation, as for his own. So love's offices gained enlargement and an infinity of new relationship, because directed toward eternal life.[1]
Unquestionably in the monk's eyes passionate love between the sexes was mainly lust. Within the bonds of marriage it was not mortal sin; but the virgin state was the best. Here, as we shall see, life was to claim its own and free its currents. Monasticism did not stop the human race, or keep men from loving women. Such love would assert itself; and ardent natures who felt its power were to find in themselves a love and passion somewhat novel, somewhat raised, somewhat enlarged. In the end the love between man and woman drew new inspiration and energy from the enhancement of all the rest of love, which came with Christianity.
Evidently the great office of Christian love in a heathen period was to convert idolaters to the Faith. So it had been from the days of Paul. Rapidly Christianity spread through all parts of the Roman Empire. Then the Faith pressed beyond those crumbling boundaries into the barbarian world. Hereupon, with Gregory the Great and his successors, it became clear that the great pope is always a missionary pope, sending out such Christian embassies as Gregory sent to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
If conversion was a chief office of Christian love, the
- ↑ The whole Christian love, first the love of God and then the love of man, is felt and set forth by Augustine. "Thou hast made us toward thee, and unquiet is our heart until it rests in thee.… That is the blessed life to rejoice toward thee, concerning thee and because of thee.… Give me thyself, my God.… All my plenty which is not my God is need." With his love of God his love for man accords. "This is true love, that cleaving to truth we may live aright; and for that reason we contemn all mortal things except the love of men, whereby we wish them to live aright. Thus can we profitably be prepared even to die for our brethren, as the Lord Jesus Christ taught us by His example.… It is love which unites good angels and servants of God in the bond of holiness, joins us to them and them to us, and subjoins all unto God." These passages are from the Confessions and from the De Trinitate.
