Quod in dilectione triplici, istorum Sabbatorum sit quaerenda distinctio : et quae sit in triplicis dilectionis distinctione complexio
The Two Commandments and the Three Loves
Bernard introduces the Great Commandment from Matthew 22, showing that love of God and neighbor implies a threefold love — of self, neighbor, and God — and that self-love is natural, not commanded.
So let us listen to the one breaking bread: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.✦ On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets also (Matt.✦ 22). If, therefore, we believe — or rather, because we believe the truth — it is necessary that we seek out these distinctions among the Sabbaths in these two commandments, for they too are grounded in the law. Moreover, if you carefully examine these two commandments, you find three things that must be loved: yourself, namely, your neighbor, and God. Where it says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, it's clear that you're also meant to love yourself.✦ This, however, is not a commandment, because it's instilled by nature. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, as the Apostle testifies (Eph.✦
The Three Sabbaths of Love
Bernard maps the three loves onto three spiritual Sabbaths: self-love as the first, love of neighbor as the second, and love of God as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, while insisting on their proper order and dignity.
5. And if not the flesh, then certainly much less the mind — which every person, even without knowing it, loves more than the flesh. For there is no one who would not rather be weak in the flesh than out of his mind. So let love of self be for a person the first Sabbath; let love of neighbor be the second; but let love of God be the Sabbath of Sabbaths. It is, as we said above, a spiritual Sabbath: the soul's rest, the heart's peace, the mind's tranquility. And this Sabbath is sometimes felt in love of self, sometimes it is drawn from the sweetness of brotherly love; but in the love of God it is accomplished without any ambiguity. This must be carefully seen to: that a person love himself as he ought; his neighbor as himself; but God above himself — because neither himself nor his neighbor should be loved except on account of God. But how this love is to be applied also to a neighbor — if the Lord wills, we will note later.
The Interweaving of the Three Loves
Although the three loves are distinct, they are inseparably interwoven: none can exist without the others, and love of God — while first in dignity — is preceded in order by love of self and neighbor.
Now this must be considered: although in this threefold love the distinction is clear, there is nevertheless within them a certain interweaving, so that each one is found in all, and all are found in each one; nor is any one of them held without all, and if one wavers, we are withdrawn from all. For a person does not love himself who does not love either his neighbor or God; nor does he love his neighbor as himself if he does not love himself. Furthermore, the one by whom his neighbor is not loved is convicted of not loving God. Anyone who does not love the brother he sees — how can he love God, whom he does not see?✦ (1 John✦ (4) In a way, love of neighbor precedes love of God; and love of self, in turn, precedes love of neighbor — precedes, I say, in order, not in dignity. It comes before — but that perfect love, of which it was said: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind' (Matt.✦ 22).✦
Love of God as the Soul of All Love
Love of God is the animating soul of all other loves; the three loves conceive, nourish, and perfect one another, and the mind moves among them like a king among stores of spices, tasting now one sweetness, now another.
For clearly some part of this love — even if it isn't its fullness — must come before both love of self and love of neighbor; and without it, both of those are dead, and consequently amount to nothing. It seems to me that the love of God is, as it were, the soul of all other loves: it lives most fully in itself, and by its presence it imparts a living essence to others, while by its absence it brings death. So that when a person loves themselves, the love of God is begun in them; so that they may love their neighbor, it is conceived, as it were, in a wider embrace; so that divine fire, once it begins to warm, may at last absorb all other loves — like sparks — wondrously into its own fullness, drawing the whole mind's love away to that sublime and ineffable good — where neither a person nor their neighbor is loved on their own terms, but only insofar as each, falling short of themselves, is wholly carried over into God. Meanwhile, these three loves are both conceived from one another, nourished by one another, and kindled by one another — and all three reach perfection together. But this happens in a wondrous and ineffable way: although all three loves are always held together — for it cannot be otherwise — they are not always felt with equal intensity. Rather, now that rest is tasted, that joy in the purity of one's own conscience; now it is borrowed from the sweetness of brotherly love; now it is more fully gained in the contemplation of God. For just as a king who has various stores of spices now goes into this one, now into that, and is now filled with the scent of this one, now of that — so the mind, like a storehouse filled with spiritual riches and kept within the enclosures of its own conscience, now moves through this, now through that, and makes up the substance of its joy in different ways, according to the variety of those riches.
Read the original Latin
Audiamus ergo frangentem : Diliges, inquit, Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et ex tota anima tua, et ex omni mente tua, et proximum tuum tanquam teipsum. In his duobus praeceptis tota lex pendet et prophetae (Matth. xxii). Si igitur credimus, imo quia credimus veritati, necesse est in his duobus praeceptis has Sabbatorum quaeramus distinctiones ; nam et ipsae ex lege sunt. Porro haec duo praecepta si diligenter inspicias, tria quaedam invenis diligenda, te videlicet, proximum, Deum. Ubi enim dicitur : Diliges proximum tuum tanquam teipsum, manifestum est quia diligere debes et teipsum. Hoc tamen non est praeceptum ; quia naturae est insitum. Nemo enim unquam carnem suam, teste Apostolo, odio habuit (Ephes.
v). Et si non carnem, multo minus utique mentem, quam quilibet homo, etiam nesciens, magis diligit quam carnem. Nemo est enim qui non malit infirmus carne, quam insanus vivere mente. Sit ergo homini dilectio sui Sabbatum primum ; dilectio proximi sit secundum; Dei autem dilectio, Sabbatum Sabbatorum. Est autem, ut supra diximus, Sabbatum spirituale requies animi, pax cordis, tranquillitas mentis. Et hoc Sabbatum nonnunquam in propria dilectione sentitur, aliquando ex dulcedine fraternae dilectionis hauritur; in Dei autem dilectione absque ulla ambiguitate perficitur. Hoc sane providendum, ut homo, sicut oportet, diligat semetipsum; proximum vero tanquam seipsum; Deum autem supra seipsum ; quia nec se, nec proximum, nisi propter ipsum. Sed haec dilectio quemadmodum vel proximo adhibenda sit, si Dominus voluerit, postea adnotabimus.
Nunc vero considerandum est quia, licet in hac trina dilectione manifesta sit distinctio, inest tamen eis intra quaedam complexio; ita ut singulae in omnibus, et omnes inveniantur in singulis; nec una sine omnibus habeatur, et una vacillante ab omnibus recedatur. Nam neque se diligit, qui vel proximum, vel Deum non diligit; nec proximum diligit tanquam seipsum, qui non diligit semetipsum. Porro Deum non amare convincitur, a quo proximus non amatur. Qui enim non diligit fratrem quem videt, Deum quem non videt quomodo potest diligere? (I Joan. iv) Praecedit ergo quodammodo dilectionem Dei dilectio proximi ; dilectionem vero proximi dilectio sui : praecedit, inquam, ordine, non dignitate. Praecedit, sed illam perfectam, de qua dictum est : Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et ex tota anima tua, et ex tota mente tua (Matth. xxii).
Nam profecto quaedam hujus dilectionis portio, et si non plenitudo, et sui et proximi dilectionem praecedat, necesse est, sine qua utraque illa mortua est, ac proinde nulla est. Videtur enim mihi Dei dilectionem quasi aliarum dilectionum animam esse, quae et in seipsa plenissime vivit, et aliis sui praesentia essentiam vitalem impertit, absentia mortem inducit. Ut ergo homo se diligat, in ipso Dei dilectio inchoatur; ut diligat proximum, capaciori quodammodo sinu concipitur, ut divinus ille ignis paululum calescens, ceteras tandem quasi scintillulas in sui plenitudinem miro modo absorbeat, totam animi dilectionem ad illud sublime et ineffabile bonum abducens; ubi nec ipse a se, nec proximus diligitur, nisi in quantum uterque deficiens a se, totus transfertur in Deum. Interim hi tres amores et ab invicem concipiuntur, et ab invicem nutriuntur, et ab invicem accenduntur : porro simul omnes perficiuntur. Agitur autem miro et ineffabili modo, ut quanquam hi tres amores simul omnes habeantur, neque enim aliter potest, non tamen semper aeque sentiantur : sed nunc requies illa, illa jucunditas in propria conscientiae puritate sentiatur; nunc ex fraternae dilectionis dulcedine mutuetur; nunc in Dei contemplatione plenius acquiratur. Sicut enim rex aliquis diversas aromatum possidens apothecas, nunc hanc, nunc illam ingreditur; nunc hujus, nunc illius odore perfunditur; ita mens cellaria quaedam referta spiritualibus divitiis intra conscientiae suae septa retentans, nunc hoc, nunc illud inambulat, ac jucunditatis suae materiam pro divitiarum diversitate diverso modo compensat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.22.37-Matt.22.39 — And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' Matt.22.38 — This is the great and first commandment. Matt.22.39 — And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
- ↩Matt.22.40 — On these two commandments the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets.
- ↩Lev.19.18;Matt.22.39 — You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. Matt.22.39 — And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
- ↩Eph.5.29 — For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.
- ↩1John.4.20 — If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
- ↩1John.4.20 — If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
- ↩Deut.6.5;Matt.22.37 — And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Matt.22.37 — And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
- ↩Matt.22.37 — And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
- All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
- Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
- 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group