Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
Love too carries danger, if it oversteps its measure. For one who loves another ought to consider the nature and the reasons for loving, and not love him more than he deserves. For if someone exceeds the measure and limit of love, both the one who loves and the one who is loved will be in sin. To make this clearer, let us set forth an example. The people marveled at John and loved him, and indeed he was worthy
of admiration, so that more deference was paid to him than to other men, since he had lived differently from all mortals. We are not all content with simple food, but delight in a variety of dishes; a single wine does not suffice us for drinking, but we purchase wines of various tastes. John, however, always ate 'locusts,' always ate 'wild honey,' and was content with simple and meager
food, lest his body grow fat on heavier dishes and be weighed down by exquisite banquets. For our bodies are of such a nature that they are burdened by superfluous foods, and when the body has been burdened, the soul too is weighed down, since, being diffused throughout the whole body, it is subject to its passions. For this reason it is rightly commanded to those who are able to observe it: 'It is good not to eat meat nor to drink wine, nor to do anything by
which your brother is caused to stumble.' John's life, then, was remarkable and very different from the way other men lived. He had no purse, no servant, not even a humble hut. He dwelt in the desert, not only until 'the day of his manifestation to Israel,' but even at the time when he was preaching repentance to the people, he was in the solitude of Judea and was sustained by plain water,
so that in drink too he differed from the rest. We who live in cities, who are in the midst of crowds, seek finer clothes, foods, and dwellings; but he who dwelt in the wilderness -- see what clothing he wore: he had made himself a tunic 'of camel's hair' and was girded with 'a leather belt.' Everything in him, then,
was new, and because of the dissimilarity of his life, all who saw him marveled at him, and in their wonder they venerated him most zealously, above all because he baptized those who repented 'for the forgiveness of sins.' For these reasons they loved him, indeed, most rightly, but they did not keep the measure in their love: for they wondered 'whether perhaps he himself might be the Christ.' Guarding against this excessive and disordered love, the apostle Paul
spoke of himself: 'But I fear lest anyone think of me above what he sees or hears from me, and lest the greatness of the revelations exalt me,' and so on. Fearing that he too might fall into this, he was unwilling to disclose everything about himself that he knew, lest anyone should suppose him to be more than he appeared, and, exceeding the measure of honor due him, should say
what had been said about John, namely that he himself was the Christ. Indeed, some said this even of Dositheus, the heresiarch of the Samaritans, while others said it also of Judas the Galilean. In the end, some burst into such boldness of love that they fabricated new and unheard-of monstrosities about Paul. For some say that what is written -- 'to sit at the right hand and at the left of the Savior' --
is said of Paul and Marcion, that Paul sits “on the right,” and Marcion sits “on the left.” Further, others, reading “I will send you an advocate, the Spirit of truth,” refuse to understand by this a third person, distinct from the Father and the Son and of divine and sublime nature, but instead the apostle Paul. Do not all these people seem to you to have loved more than
is fitting, and, while admiring each one’s virtue, to have lost the measure of love? This indeed we too suffer in the church; for many, while loving us more than we deserve, boast of it and speak, praising our sermons and our teaching in ways our conscience does not accept. Others, however, slandering our treatises, accuse us of holding views which we know we have never held. But neither
those who love too much, nor those who hate, hold to the rule of truth, and some lie through love, others through hatred. Hence it is necessary to put a rein on love as well, and to allow it only so much freedom to range as will keep it from plunging over a precipice. It is written in Ecclesiastes: “Do not be righteous overmuch, nor think yourself wiser than you are, lest perhaps you be struck dumb.” Following this example
I can say something similar: do not love a man “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” do not love an angel “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength,” but keep this precept, according to the word of the Savior, for God alone. For he says, “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Let someone answer me and say: the Savior commanded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” I want to love Christ too: teach me, then,
how I am to love him. For if I love him “with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my strength,” I act against the precept, by loving another besides the one God. But if I love him less than the almighty Father, I fear I may be found impious and profane toward the “firstborn of all creation.” Teach me
and show me the reasoning by which, walking a middle course between the two, I ought to love Christ. Do you want to know with what love Christ is to be loved? Listen briefly! Love the Lord your God in Christ, and do not think you can have a different love for the Father and for the Son. Love God and Christ together; love the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, “with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your strength.” But if someone asks and says: prove what you assert from the Scriptures, let him hear the apostle Paul, who had a reasoned love, saying: “For I am persuaded that death cannot, nor can life, nor can angels or powers, nor can what is present or what is to come, nor can any force, nor anything high, nor anything deep, nor any other created thing”
will have power to sunder us from God's love, found in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior: to whom be glory and power for ages upon ages. Amen.