Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II:
On Christian Doctrine: Chapter 22

Chapter 22.—God Alone to Be Enjoyed.

20.  Among all these things, then, those only are the true objects of enjoyment which we have spoken of as eternal and unchangeable.  The rest are for use, that we may be able to arrive at the full enjoyment of the former.  We, however, who enjoy and use other things are things ourselves.  For a great thing truly is man, made after the image and similitude of God, not as respects the mortal body in which he is clothed, but as respects the rational soul by which he is exalted in honor above the beasts.  And so it becomes an important question, whether men ought to enjoy, or to use, themselves, or to do both.  For we are commanded to love one another:  but it is a question whether man is to be loved by man for his own sake, or for the sake of something else.  If it is for his own sake, we enjoy him; if it is for the sake of something else, we use him.  It seems to me, then, that he is to be loved for the sake of something else.  For if a thing is to be loved for its own sake, then in the enjoyment of it consists a happy life, the hope of which at least, if not yet the reality, is our comfort in the present time.  But a curse is pronounced on him who places his hope in man. 1732

21.  Neither ought any one to have joy in himself, if you look at the matter clearly, because no one ought to love even himself for his own sake, but for the sake of Him who is the true object of enjoyment.  For a man is never in so good a state as when his whole life is a journey towards the unchangeable life, and his affections are entirely fixed upon that.  If, however, he loves himself for his own sake, he does not look at himself in relation to God, but turns his mind in upon him p. 528 self, and so is not occupied with anything that is unchangeable.  And thus he does not enjoy himself at his best, because he is better when his mind is fully fixed upon, and his affections wrapped up in, the unchangeable good, than when he turns from that to enjoy even himself.  Wherefore if you ought not to love even yourself for your own sake, but for His in whom your love finds its most worthy object, no other man has a right to be angry if you love him too for God’s sake.  For this is the law of love that has been laid down by Divine authority:  “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself;” but, “Thou shall love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind:” 1733   so that you are to concentrate all your thoughts, your whole life and your whole intelligence upon Him from whom you derive all that you bring.  For when He says, “With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” He means that no part of our life is to be unoccupied, and to afford room, as it were, for the wish to enjoy some other object, but that whatever else may suggest itself to us as an object worthy of love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole current of our affections flows.  Whoever, then, loves his neighbor aright, ought to urge upon him that he too should love God with his whole heart, and soul, and mind.  For in this way, loving his neighbor as himself, a man turns the whole current of his love both for himself and his neighbor into the channel of the love of God, which suffers no stream to be drawn off from itself by whose diversion its own volume would be diminished.

Footnotes

Jer. 17.5.

Matt. 22:37, Lev. 19:18, Deut. 6:5.