ACC ~ 1 Corinthians 13 v4 - 7

OVERVIEW:

Love seeks the good of others (CHRYSOSTOM, CASSIODORUS), hating what is unjust and rejoicing in what is good (THEODORET OF CYR), discerning its own limitations (BASIL). The greater the love of God the saints share, the more they learn to endure all things (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, AUGUSTINE).

13:4 | Love Is Patient and Kind

THE ADORNMENT OF LOVE. CHRYSOSTOM: He next makes an outline of love’s matchless beauty, adorning its image with all aspects of virtue, as if with many colors brought together with precision. HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 33.1.

LOVE NOT ENVIOUS. AUGUSTINE: The reason why love does not envy is because it is not puffed up. For where puffing up precedes, envy follows, because pride is the mother of envy. LETTER 22, TO HONORATUS.

13:5 | Not Arrogant or Rude

LOVE SEEKS TO DISCERN ITS OWN DEFECTS. BASIL: A person living in solitary retirement will not readily discern his own defects, since he has no one to admonish or correct him with mildness and compassion. In fact, admonition from an enemy often produces in a prudent man the desire for amendment. THE LONG RULES 7.

REMOVING VICE. CHRYSOSTOM: He adorns love not only for what it has but also for what it has not. Love both elicits virtue and expels vice, not permitting it to spring up at all. HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 33.3.

FREE SERVITUDE TRANSCENDING DOMINANCE. CASSIODORUS: So those who serve the Lord with gladness are they who love him above all else and show brotherly charity to each other.

What free servitude is this! What service, excelling all forms of dominance! EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 2.

13:6 | Rejoicing in the Right

CAST OFF SULLENNESS. BASIL: Cast off the sullenness of an angry man which you are evincing by your silence, and regain joy in your heart, peace toward your likeminded brothers and sisters, and zeal and solicitude for the preservation of the churches of the Lord. LETTER 65, TO ATARBIUS.

WHAT IS GOOD. THEODORET OF CYR: Love hates what is unjust and rejoices in what is good and honorable. COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 253.

13:7 | Love Bears All Things

ENDURING ALL THINGS. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: Bearing all things, enduring all things for our love and hope regarding him, let us give thanks for all things, both favorable and unfavorable alike—I mean the pleasant and the painful—since reason often knows even these as arms of salvation. ON HIS BROTHER CAESARIUS 24.

LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR. AMBROSE: A man with this charity fears nothing, for charity casts out fear. When fear is banished and cast out, charity endures all things, bears all things. One who bears all things through love cannot fear martyrdom. LETTER 49, TO HORONATIANUS.

BELIEVING ALL THINGS. AUGUSTINE: For what is it to hear about oneself from you but to know oneself? Who, then, can know himself and say “It is false,” unless he himself lies? But because “charity believes all things,” certainly among those whom it makes one, in intimate union with each other, I, also, O Lord, do even confess to you in such a way that men may hear, though I cannot prove to them the things I confess are true. But those whose ears charity opens to me, they believe. CONFESSIONS 10.3.

EVEN DEATH. CHRYSOSTOM: Out of long suffering love bears all things, whether they are burdensome or grievous, whether insults, lashes or even death. HOMILY ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 33.4.

LOVE ENDURES ALL THINGS. AUGUSTINE: The greater the love of God that the saints possess, the more they endure all things for him. ON PATIENCE 17.