Preface: Why Teach Rules for Interpreting Scripture
I believe certain rules for interpreting Scripture can greatly benefit serious students of the Word. With these rules, they may profit from the work of others who have explained the secrets of the sacred writings and may also uncover those secrets for others themselves. I propose to teach these rules to people who are able and willing to learn, if God our Lord continues to grant me, as I write, the thoughts he usually gives me when I reflect on this subject. Before I begin, however, I want to answer those likely to object to the work, or who would object if I did not address them beforehand. If some still object, at least they will be less able to persuade others to abandon a useful study for the dull idleness of ignorance.
Some will object because they fail to understand the rules I set out. Others will understand the rules but, when they try to apply them, will fail to clarify the passage they wish to understand. Finding no help for themselves, they will conclude that the work can help no one. A third group either understands Scripture well or thinks it does. Because its members know, or imagine, that they have learned to interpret the sacred books without instructions like mine, they will insist that such rules are unnecessary and that the obscurities of Scripture are better clarified by God’s grace alone.
I will answer these groups briefly. I am not to blame if the first group does not understand what I have written. Suppose someone wanted to see a new moon, an old moon, or a very faint star, and I pointed it out. If that person could not even see my finger, there would be no reason to be angry with me. Those who understand my directions but still cannot penetrate obscure passages are like people who can see my finger but cannot see the stars it points toward. Both groups should stop blaming me and pray that God will give them sight. I can point toward something, but I cannot open anyone’s eyes to see either my gesture or its object.
As for those who boast of divine grace and say they can understand and explain Scripture without the directions I propose, they consider my work entirely unnecessary. I wish they would calm themselves enough to remember that, however rightly they rejoice in God’s great gift, they learned to read from human teachers. Surely they would not think Antony, the Egyptian monk, should despise them for that. Antony, a just and holy man who could not read, is said to have memorized Scripture by hearing others read it and to have gained a thorough understanding of it through wise reflection. Nor would they expect contempt from Christianus, a foreign slave about whom I have recently heard from witnesses I consider highly respectable and trustworthy. According to their account, he learned to read without a human teacher simply by praying for that ability to be revealed to him. After three days of supplication, he obtained his request and read through a book that astonished bystanders handed him there and then.
If anyone doubts these accounts, I do not insist on them. I am addressing Christians who profess to understand Scripture without human instruction. If they do, they possess a real and remarkable advantage. Yet they must admit that each of us learned our own language by hearing it continually from childhood. Any other language we have learned, whether Greek, Hebrew, or another, we learned either by hearing it spoken or from a human teacher. Should we therefore advise everyone to stop teaching children these things because, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, the apostles immediately began to speak the languages of every people? Should we warn anyone who has not had the same experience that they cannot consider themselves Christian, or must at least doubt whether they have received the Holy Spirit? Certainly not. Let us put aside false pride and learn whatever other people can teach us. Let teachers share what they have received without arrogance or jealousy. And let us not put the one in whom we believe to the test. Otherwise, caught by the enemy’s schemes and our own perversity, we might even refuse to go to church to hear the gospel, read a book, or listen to someone read or preach. We might hope instead to be carried up to the third heaven, “whether in the body or out of the body,” as the apostle says (2 Cor 12:2-4), and there hear words that cannot be uttered and that no one is permitted to speak, or see the Lord Jesus Christ and hear the gospel from his own lips instead of from other people.
Let us beware of this dangerous pride. Consider that the apostle Paul, although struck down and addressed by God’s voice from heaven, was sent to a human being to receive the sacraments and be admitted into the Church (Acts 9:3). An angel told Cornelius the centurion that his prayers had been heard and his alms remembered. Yet Cornelius was directed to Peter for instruction. From Peter he received not only the sacraments but also teaching about what to believe, hope for, and love (Acts 10). God could certainly have done all this through angels. But our condition would have been much poorer if God had not chosen people to minister his word to one another. How could Scripture say, “The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor 3:17), if God never spoke through his human temple but taught everything by voices from heaven or through angels? Moreover, love binds people together in unity. How could it pour one soul into another and, as it were, mingle them, if people never learned from one another?
The eunuch reading the prophet Isaiah did not understand what he read. The apostle did not send him to an angel, nor did an angel explain the passage; God did not enlighten him inwardly without human help. Instead, at God’s prompting, Philip, who understood the prophet, came and sat with him and explained Scripture in human words (Acts 8:26). God spoke with Moses, yet Moses wisely and without jealous pride accepted his father-in-law’s plan for governing the great nation entrusted to him, though his father-in-law belonged to another people (Exod 18:13). Moses knew that a wise plan, whoever conceived it, should be credited to the one who is Truth, the unchanging God.
Finally, anyone who claims to understand obscure passages through divine illumination, without being taught rules of interpretation, also believes, rightly, that this ability is God’s gift rather than something that originates in himself. In this way he seeks God’s glory, not his own. But if he reads and understands without a human interpreter, why does he undertake to interpret for others? Why not send them directly to God, so that they too can learn through the Spirit’s inward teaching without human help? In truth, he fears the reproach, “Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers” (Matt 25:26-27). Since such people teach others what they understand, whether by speaking or writing, they cannot blame me for teaching both what they understand and the rules of interpretation they use. No one should regard anything as his own, except perhaps what is false. All truth comes from the one who says, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). “For what have we that we did not receive? and if we have received it, why do we glory, as if we had not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7).
Someone who reads to an audience says aloud the words on the page; someone who teaches reading enables others to read for themselves. Both share what they have learned. Likewise, someone who explains a passage of Scripture to an audience resembles a person reading aloud. Someone who teaches rules of interpretation resembles a person teaching others to read. A person who can read need not depend on someone else to tell him what a book says. In the same way, someone who has learned the rules I am trying to teach can approach an obscure passage without needing another interpreter to disclose its meaning. By holding to certain rules and following certain indications, that person can reach its hidden meaning without error, or at least avoid any gross absurdity. The work itself will show well enough that no one can justly object to an undertaking meant only to be useful. Still, it seemed fitting to answer possible objections at the outset. That is how I have chosen to begin the course of this book.
Book 1: What Scripture Teaches Us to Love
1. Discovering and Explaining Scripture’s Meaning
All interpretation of Scripture depends on two things: discovering its meaning and explaining that meaning to others. I will treat discovery first and explanation afterward. This is a great and difficult undertaking, one I would fear to begin if I relied on my own strength. But my hope rests in God, who has already given me many thoughts on the subject. I trust that, as I begin to use what he has given, he will supply what is still lacking.
A possession that is not diminished by sharing is not possessed as it should be if its owner keeps it to himself. The Lord says, “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given” (Matt 13:12). He will give more to those who freely and gladly use what they have received, adding to and perfecting his gifts. Before the disciples distributed bread to the hungry crowds, they had only five loaves on one occasion and seven on another. Yet after thousands had eaten, they filled baskets with what remained (Matt 14:17 and following; Matt 15:34 and following). Just as the bread increased as it was broken, I trust that the thoughts God has already given me for this work will multiply by his grace as I share them. In distributing them, I hope to find no loss or poverty, but a marvelous increase of wealth.
2. Things and Signs
All instruction concerns either things or signs, though we learn about things by means of signs. For now I use “thing” in a strict sense for something considered in itself, such as wood, stone, or cattle, rather than as a sign of something else. I do not mean the wood Moses cast into the bitter water to make it sweet (Exod 15:25), the stone Jacob used as a pillow (Gen 28:11), or the ram Abraham offered in place of his son (Gen 22:13). These are things, but they are also signs of other things.
Some things, such as words, are used only as signs. No one uses words except to indicate something else. This shows what I mean by a sign: a thing used to indicate another thing. Every sign is therefore also a thing, since what is not a thing is nothing at all. But every thing is not a sign. In discussing things first and signs afterward, I will consider things as they are in themselves, even where some may also serve as signs. We must keep that distinction in mind.
3. What We Enjoy and What We Use
Some things are to be enjoyed, some are to be used, and others both enjoy and use. What we enjoy makes us happy. What we use helps and supports us in seeking happiness, so that we may reach what makes us happy and rest in it. We ourselves both enjoy and use. If we seek to enjoy what we ought to use, we obstruct our journey and may even turn away from it altogether. Love of lesser pleasures entangles us and delays our pursuit of what we truly ought to enjoy.
4. The Difference Between Use and Enjoyment
To enjoy something is to rest in it with satisfaction for its own sake. To use something is to direct the means available to us toward what we desire, provided that desire is right. An unlawful use is better called abuse.
Suppose we were travelers in a foreign country, miserable away from our homeland and determined to return. To reach the place where we could be happy, we would need transport by land or water. But if the country we passed through and the pleasure of traveling captivated us, we might begin to enjoy what was meant to help us on our way. We would no longer want to hurry home. Absorbed in that artificial delight, our thoughts would turn away from the home whose joys could make us truly happy.
This pictures our mortal life. We have wandered far from God. If we wish to return to our Father’s home, we must use this world rather than rest in it as our final enjoyment. Then the invisible things of God may be clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made (Rom 1:20): through what is material and temporary, we may grasp what is spiritual and eternal.
5. The Trinity, Our True Enjoyment
The true objects of enjoyment are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Together they are the Trinity, one supreme Being, shared by all who enjoy him. Yet can we call him an object, rather than the cause of all objects, or even call him the cause of all? No name easily expresses such greatness. We may say: the Trinity is one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things (Rom 11:36).
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each God, yet together they are one God. Each is a complete substance, yet they are one substance. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. The Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. All three have the same eternity, unchangeableness, majesty, and power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, and in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality. These attributes are one because of the Father, equal because of the Son, and harmonious because of the Holy Spirit.
6. Speaking of the Unspeakable God
Have I spoken of God or praised him worthily? I feel that I have only wished to speak. Whatever I have said falls short of what I wished to say. I know this because God is beyond speech. Yet if what I said were truly unspeakable, I could not have said it. Even calling God “unspeakable” creates a contradiction, for the word speaks of him. Silence would serve us better than an attempt to explain away this conflict of words.
Nevertheless, though nothing we say is worthy of his greatness, God accepts the worship offered by human mouths. He wants us to rejoice in praising him through our own words. This is why he is called Deus, the Latin word for “God.” Those two syllables reveal nothing of his nature by their sound alone. Yet when people who know Latin hear them, they think of a nature supreme in excellence and eternal in existence.
7. What People Mean by God
Even people who believe in and worship other gods, when they think of one supreme God above them, try to conceive a nature beyond which nothing more excellent or exalted exists. People differ in what gives them pleasure, whether it belongs to bodily sensation or to the mind and soul. Those bound to the senses may take the heavens, their brightest object, or the universe itself to be the supreme God. If they try to think beyond the universe, they imagine a dazzling brightness, something vaguely infinite, or the most beautiful form they can conceive. They may even give it a human form if they consider that superior to all others. If they believe there is no one God above the rest, but many or even innumerable gods of equal standing, they still picture each in the form they consider most excellent.
Those who try to conceive God through the intellect place him above every visible and bodily nature, and above every intelligent and spiritual nature that can change. All strive to exalt God’s excellence. No one would believe a being to be God if another being surpassed it. Thus all agree that God excels every other object in dignity.
8. God as Unchangeable Wisdom
Everyone who thinks about God thinks of him as living. A conception worthy of him must therefore regard him as life itself. Whatever bodily form a person imagines, it lives only by life; that person must prefer the living to the dead. Even the most splendid, immense, and beautiful living body is distinct from the life that animates it. That life is incomparably greater than the body it makes alive.
When we consider life itself, we rank the life that nourishes without sensation, as in plants, below the life that senses, as in animals. Above both we place intelligent life, as in human beings. But human intelligence can change. We must therefore place above it an unchangeable life, never foolish at one time and wise at another, but wisdom itself. An intelligence that becomes wise was once unwise; wisdom itself never was unwise and never can be.
If people had no glimpse of this wisdom, they could not confidently prefer an unchangeably wise life to a changeable one. The very rule of truth by which they make that judgment is unchangeable. They find no such rule within their own changeable nature; to find it, they must reach beyond themselves.
9. Recognizing Unchangeable Wisdom
No one is so foolish as to ask, “How do you know that a life of unchangeable wisdom is better than a changeable life?” The truth behind that question is fixed in every mind and open to everyone’s consideration. Someone who cannot see it is like a blind person standing in sunlight, receiving no benefit from its clear, nearby light. Someone who sees it but shrinks away has weakened the mind’s vision by dwelling too long among the shadows of bodily desire. Evil habits then drive people away from their homeland. They pursue lesser things instead of what they acknowledge to be better and more worthy.
10. Purifying the Soul to See God
We ought to enjoy fully the truth that lives without change, the truth in which the triune God takes counsel concerning what he has made. For the soul to perceive that light and rest in it, the soul must be purified. We may understand this purification as a journey to our homeland. We do not draw nearer to God, who is everywhere, by moving from one place to another. We draw nearer through pure desires and virtuous habits.
11. Wisdom Shows Us the Way
We could not have made this journey at all if Wisdom had not stooped to our weakness and shown us a pattern of holy life in our own humanity. When we come to him, we act wisely; when he came to us, proud people judged his action foolish. When we come to him, we become strong; when he came to us, they regarded him as weak. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:25). Though Wisdom himself was our home, he also made himself the way by which we reach it.
12. How Wisdom Came to Us
Wisdom is everywhere present to the inward eye when that eye is healthy and clear. Yet he stooped to appear to the outward eyes of people whose inward sight was weak and dim. “For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor 1:21).
He is said to have come to us because he appeared to mortal people in mortal flesh, not because he traveled through space. He came to a place where he had always been, since “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him.” People had become so eager to enjoy the creature instead of the Creator that they had grown like this world and could aptly be called “the world.” Because they did not recognize him, the evangelist adds, “and the world knew Him not” (John 1:10). Thus, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Why did he come when he was already here? Because it pleased God to save believers through what seemed the foolishness of preaching.
13. The Word Became Flesh
How did he come? “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). When we speak, a thought held in the mind becomes an outward sound so that it may reach another person’s mind through the ear. The thought remains complete in us even as it takes the form of speech; its nature is not changed by becoming audible. In the same way, the divine Word became flesh so that he might dwell among us, without undergoing any change in his nature.
14. How Wisdom Heals Us
As remedies lead to health, so Wisdom took up sinners to heal and restore them. A surgeon binds a wound carefully, giving the bandage neatness as well as usefulness. In taking on humanity, Wisdom likewise adapted his medicine to our wounds. He heals some by opposites and others by likenesses. A bodily wound may call for something contrary, such as cold for heat or moisture for dryness. Another may call for a matching bandage: a round cloth for a round wound or a long one for a long wound. The surgeon does not fit the same bandage to every limb. So the Wisdom of God has applied himself to our healing, serving as both healer and medicine.
Humanity fell through pride; he restored us through humility. The wisdom of the serpent ensnared us; the foolishness of God sets us free. The former was called wisdom but was really the folly of those who despised God. The latter is called foolishness but is true wisdom for those who overcome the devil. We used our immortality so badly that we incurred death; Christ used his mortality so well that he restored us to life. The disease entered through a woman’s corrupted soul; the remedy came through a woman’s virgin body. His virtues also cure our vices by their opposite example.
Other remedies resemble the wounds to which they are applied. Born of a woman, he delivers us who fell through a woman. He came as a human being to save human beings, as a mortal to save mortals, and through death to save the dead. Anyone with time to pursue the matter further will find many more lessons in the Christian medicine of opposites and likenesses.
15. Christ’s Resurrection and Return
Belief in our Lord’s resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven has strengthened our faith with the great support of hope. It clearly shows how freely he laid down his life for us, since he had the power to take it up again. How confidently believers can hope when they consider the greatness of the one who suffered so much for them while they still did not believe!
When people expect him to come from heaven as judge of the living and the dead, the thought strikes great fear into the careless. They begin to prepare diligently and learn, through holy living, to long for his approach instead of trembling at it because of their evil deeds. What tongue can tell, or imagination conceive, the reward he will give at the end? Consider what he has already given to comfort us on our earthly journey. He has freely given us so much of his Spirit that, through the troubles of this life, we can keep trusting and loving him whom we do not yet see. He has also given each of us gifts suited to building up his Church, so that we may do what he shows us is right, not only without complaining but with delight.
16. Christ Purifies His Church
The Church is his body, as the apostle teaches (Eph 1:23; Rom 12:5), and it is even called his spouse (Rev 19:7; Rev 21:9). His body has many members with different functions. He holds them together in the bond of unity and love, which is the body’s true health. In this present life, he also trains it and purifies it through many healing afflictions. Then, when he has transplanted it from this world into the eternal world, he may take it to himself as his bride, without spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind.
17. Christ Opens the Way Home
We are on a journey, though our way is a change of affections, not a path through space. The guilt of our past sins barred that way like a hedge of thorns. What more gracious and merciful thing could Christ do, having chosen to make himself the way of our return, than forgive all our sins and, by being crucified for us, remove the stern decrees that barred our return?
18. The Keys Given to the Church
Christ has therefore given the keys to his Church, so that whatever it binds on earth may be bound in heaven, and whatever it looses on earth may be loosed in heaven (Matt 16:19; Matt 18:18). That is, if someone in the Church does not believe that his sins are forgiven, they are not forgiven him. But if he believes, repents, and turns from his sins, he is saved through the same faith and repentance by which he is received into the Church. Whoever does not believe his sins can be pardoned falls into despair. Having lost faith in what repentance can accomplish, he grows worse, as though no greater good remained for him than to do evil.
19. Death and Resurrection of Soul and Body
The soul undergoes a kind of death when repentance puts away its former habits and way of life. The body’s death likewise dissolves its former principle of life. Just as repentance destroys the soul’s old habits and renews it according to a better pattern, we must hope and believe that the body, after the death we all owe as a debt contracted through sin, will be changed at the resurrection into a better form. This does not mean that flesh and blood will inherit the kingdom of God, which is impossible. Rather, “this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:50-53). The body will then cause no distress, for it will feel no want. Animated by a perfectly pure and happy spirit, it will enjoy unbroken peace.
20. Resurrection to Condemnation
But a person whose soul does not die to this world and begin to be conformed to the truth here falls into a more terrible death when the body dies. He will rise again, not to exchange an earthly dwelling for a heavenly one, but to endure the penalty for his sin.
21. Neither Soul nor Body Is Extinguished
Faith holds fast to this assurance, and we must believe it to be true: neither the human soul nor the human body is completely extinguished. The wicked rise again to endure punishment beyond imagining, and the good rise to receive eternal life.
22. God Alone Is to Be Enjoyed
Of all the things we have discussed, only those that are eternal and unchangeable are true objects of enjoyment. The rest are to be used to help us reach the full enjoyment of what is eternal. Yet we who enjoy and use other things are ourselves things. A human being, made in the image and likeness of God, is indeed a great thing. This likeness does not lie in the mortal body but in the rational soul, which raises us in honor above the beasts.
It matters, then, whether we ought to enjoy ourselves, use ourselves, or do both. We are commanded to love one another, but should we love a person for that person’s own sake or for the sake of something else? To love someone for their own sake would be to enjoy them; to love them for the sake of something else would be to use them. It seems to me that we should love people for the sake of something else. If something is to be loved for its own sake, a happy life consists in enjoying it. The hope of such a life, even if we do not yet possess it, comforts us now. But a curse is pronounced on the person who places his hope in another human being (Jer 17:5).
Nor, if we consider the matter carefully, should anyone find his joy in himself. No one should love even himself for his own sake, but for the sake of God, who is the true object of enjoyment. A person is at his best when his whole life is a journey toward unchangeable life and all his affections are fixed on it. If he loves himself for his own sake, he ceases to regard himself in relation to God. His mind turns inward, away from what is unchangeable. He is thus less able to enjoy himself at his best than when his mind and affections are wholly fixed on the unchangeable good.
If you should love yourself for God’s sake rather than your own, no one else has a right to resent being loved by you for God’s sake too. Divine authority gives us this law of love: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and “Thou shalt love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt 22:37-39; Lev 19:18; Deut 6:5). All your thoughts, your whole life, and your whole understanding are to be directed toward him from whom you receive everything you bring to him. By saying “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” the command leaves no part of life free for a desire to enjoy something else as an end in itself. Anything else that presents itself as worthy of love must be carried into the same current of affection. Whoever rightly loves a neighbor should urge that neighbor to love God with his whole heart, soul, and mind. In loving his neighbor as himself, he directs his love for both toward God, allowing no stream to be diverted from the love of God and diminish it.
23. Why We Need No Command to Love Ourselves
Not everything we use is to be loved. We should love those joined to us through a common relation to God, such as a person or an angel, and what is related to us in such a way that it needs God’s goodness through our care, such as the body. The martyrs certainly did not love the wickedness of their persecutors, though they used it to attain God’s favor.
There are therefore four kinds of things to be loved: what is above us, ourselves, what is on a level with us, and what is beneath us. No command is needed concerning the second and fourth. However far a person strays from the truth, he still loves himself and his own body. The soul turns away from the unchangeable Light, the ruler of all things, because it wants to rule itself and its body. It cannot help loving both.
The soul also thinks it has achieved something great when it can rule its companions, other human beings. A sinful soul desires above all else, and claims as its due, what belongs to God alone. Such self-love is more accurately called hatred. It is unjust for the soul to demand obedience from what is beneath it while refusing obedience to what is above it. So it has rightly been said, “He who loveth iniquity hateth his own soul” (Ps 10:5 LXX). The soul consequently grows weak and suffers greatly on account of its mortal body. It cannot help loving the body and grieving over its corruption. Yet the body’s immortality and freedom from corruption spring from the soul’s health, and the soul’s health consists in clinging firmly to what is better than itself, the unchangeable God. For the soul to seek dominion even over its natural equals, its fellow human beings, is intolerable arrogance.
24. No One Hates His Own Body
No one, then, hates himself. No school of thought has ever disputed this. Nor does anyone hate his own body. The apostle speaks truly when he says, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh” (Eph 5:29). Some say they would rather have no body at all, but they deceive themselves. They hate the body’s corruption and heaviness, not the body itself. What they want is a body free from corruption and exceedingly light. They imagine such a body would be no body at all because they think it must be a spirit.
Some appear to scourge their bodies through abstinence and hard work. Those who do so in the right spirit seek to bring the body under control and make it ready for every necessary work, not to get rid of it. Through strenuous bodily discipline they try to uproot desires harmful to the body: habits and affections of the soul that lead them to enjoy unworthy things. They are caring for their health, not destroying themselves.
Others act in a perverse spirit and wage war on their bodies as though the body were a natural enemy. They are misled by a mistaken interpretation of the words “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other” (Gal 5:17). These words concern a carnal habit that has not yet been subdued. The spirit strives against it to eradicate the body’s evil habit, not to destroy the body, and so to bring the body into the subjection to the spirit required by the order of nature. After the resurrection, the body will be wholly subject to the spirit and will live in perfect peace forever. Even now, therefore, we should seek to change carnal habit for the better, so that its unruly affections do not wage war against the soul.
Until that change takes place, “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). The spirit struggles for mastery, not from hatred, because it wants what it loves to be subject to what is higher. The flesh struggles from the bondage of habit, not from hatred. It has inherited that habit from its parent stock; by a law of nature the habit has taken hold and become deeply rooted. In subduing the flesh, the spirit disrupts the false peace of an evil habit to establish the true peace that comes from a good one.
Even people who wrongly think they hate their bodies would not give up one eye if they could do so without pain and could see as well with the other as they had with both, unless they hoped to gain something that outweighed the loss. This and similar examples show anyone sincerely seeking the truth how well founded the apostle’s statement is: “No man ever yet hated his own flesh.” He adds, “but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church” (Eph 5:29).
25. Loving the Body in Due Measure
A person therefore needs to learn the right measure of self-love, so that loving himself will truly benefit him. Only a fool would doubt that he loves himself and wants what is good for himself. He also needs to learn how much to love his body, so that he cares for it wisely and within proper limits. Clearly he loves his body and wants to keep it safe and healthy. Yet he may love something more than his bodily safety or health. Many people have willingly endured pain or the loss of a limb to obtain something they valued more highly.
That does not mean anyone should be told to stop desiring bodily safety and health because he desires something else more. A miser loves money, yet he buys bread for himself. He gives up money he longs to hoard because he values still more the bodily health sustained by the bread. It would be unnecessary to argue so long over something this plain if the error of wicked people did not so often require it.
26. The Two Commands Include Self-Love
We need no command to love ourselves and our bodies. We love ourselves and what is beneath us but joined to us by a law of nature that has never been violated and that we share with the beasts, for they too love themselves and their bodies. Commands were needed only concerning God above us and our neighbor beside us. God says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:37-40). The goal of the commandment is thus love in two forms: love of God and love of neighbor.
