The Anatomy of Melancholy

This, therefore, is true love indeed, the cause of every good for mortal people. It reconciles all creatures and binds them together in lasting friendship and firm alliance. It can no more tolerate bitterness, hatred and malice than fair and foul weather, light and darkness, barrenness and abundance can coexist. As the sun is in the heavens, I say, so love is in the world. For this reason it is love without qualification, love above all: love of God and love of humankind.

“Love of God gives birth to love of humankind; and through this love of our neighbour, love of God is nourished and increased.” Through love’s happy union, “all well-governed families and cities are bound together, the heavens joined, divine souls intertwined, the world itself ordered, and everything in it united in God and brought together as one.”

“This love produces true and perfect virtues; it is the life, spirit and root of every virtuous action. It completes prosperity, eases adversity and remedies all natural hindrances and difficulties.” It is sustained by faith and hope, which, with this love of ours, form an unbreakable cord, a Gordian knot, an equilateral triangle; “and yet the greatest of them is love,” 1 Corinthians 13:13.

It “sets our souls aflame with divine heat and, once they are so inflamed, purifies them; thus purifying, it lifts them to God, brings reconciliation and reconciles us to him.” “That other love troubles the human soul; this cleanses it. That casts it down; this raises it. That causes cares and troubles; this brings peace of mind. This gives our life its proper form; that disfigures it. That leads to repentance; this to heaven.”

For once we are truly bound together and touched by this charity, we shall love God above all and our neighbour as ourselves, as we are commanded in Mark 12:31 and Matthew 19:19. We shall perform those duties and practices, all the actions of a good Christian.

“This love is patient and generous; it does not envy or boast, is not conceited, does not deceive or seek its own advantage, is not provoked to anger, thinks no evil and rejoices in truth rather than wrongdoing. It bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things,” 1 Corinthians 13:4–7. “It covers all offences,” Proverbs 10:12, “a multitude of sins,” 1 Peter 4.

As our Saviour told the woman in the Gospel who washed his feet, “her many sins were forgiven because she loved much,” Luke 7:47. Love “will defend the orphan and the widow,” Isaiah 1:17; “will take no revenge or harbour a grudge,” Leviticus 19:18; “will bring home a brother’s ox if it strays, as commanded,” Deuteronomy 22:1; “will resist evil, give to anyone who asks, never turn away a borrower, bless those who curse him and love his enemy,” Matthew 5; “bear his brother’s burden,” Galatians 6:7.