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First Epistle to the Corinthians
St Clement of Rome, Lake, Loeb 1912
Chapter 49
Panegyric on love
Let him who has love in Christ perform the commandments of Christ.
Who is able to explain the bond of the love of God?
Who is sufficient to tell the greatness of its beauty?
The height to which love lifts us is not to be expressed.
Love unites us to God. “Love covereth a multitude of sins. Love beareth all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing haughty in love; love admits no schism, love makes no sedition, love does all things in concord. In love were all the elect of God made perfect. Without love is nothing well pleasing to God.”
“In love did the Master receive us; for the sake of the love which he had towards us did Jesus Christ our Lord give his blood by the will of God for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his soul1 for our souls.”
Notes
- Or, perhaps “life for our lives”; but there seems to be an antithesis in the Greek between σάρξ, flesh, and ψυχή, soul.