"...love one another..." I John 4:12
many online sources, including ex Lilitu, refer to Saint Augustine's words about this passage as: "AMA ET FAC QUOD VIS"
although wikiquote' provides an unmodified citation, from the author Aurelius Augustine (St. Augustine of Hippo)'s Epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos, Tractatus VII, 8...
the original Latin is: "DILIGE ET QUOD VIS FAC"
and from the 1966 publication, Situation Ethics: The New Morality By Joseph F. Fletcher:
"Augustine was right again, as situationists see it, to reduce the whole Christian ethic to the single maxim, Dilige et quod vis fac (Love with care and then what you will, do). It was not by the way, Ama et fac quod vis (Love with desire and then do what you please)! It was not antinomianism."
not meaning to get distracted by quibbling about lingustic deatils,
i have always appreciated the simplicity of this message, which has also been translated as:
"Love, and do what thou wilt" or "Love, and do as ye will!"
St. Augustine originally penned it as part of a commentary on I John 4:4-12 ... but, I Corinthians 13 may also come to mind.
...and in the original Greek, the word in this verse used for love is agape, which is an altruistic form of love (something i tend to write about often).
also q.v. my post concerning other versions of this sentiment by François Rabelais & other Antecedents of Thelema
William James had some sobering words to say about this ideal...
"Saint Augustine's maxim, Dilige et quod vis fac. -- if you but love [God], you may do as you incline -- is morally one of the profoundest of observations, yet it is pregnant, for such persons, with passports beyond the bounds of conventional morality. According to their characters they have been refined or gross; but their belief has been at all times systematic enough to constitute a definite religious attitude. God was for them a giver of freedom, and the sting of evil was overcome. Saint Francis and his immediate disciples were, on the whole, of this company of spirits, of which there are of course infinite varieties. Rousseau in the earlier years of his writing, Diderot, B. de Saint Pierre, and many of the leaders of the eighteenth century anti-Christian movement were of this optimistic type. They owed their influence to a certain authoritativeness in their feeling that Nature, if you will only trust her sufficiently, is absolutely good."
although wikiquote' provides an unmodified citation, from the author Aurelius Augustine (St. Augustine of Hippo)'s Epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos, Tractatus VII, 8...
the original Latin is: "DILIGE ET QUOD VIS FAC"
and from the 1966 publication, Situation Ethics: The New Morality By Joseph F. Fletcher:
"Augustine was right again, as situationists see it, to reduce the whole Christian ethic to the single maxim, Dilige et quod vis fac (Love with care and then what you will, do). It was not by the way, Ama et fac quod vis (Love with desire and then do what you please)! It was not antinomianism."
not meaning to get distracted by quibbling about lingustic deatils,
i have always appreciated the simplicity of this message, which has also been translated as:
"Love, and do what thou wilt" or "Love, and do as ye will!"
St. Augustine originally penned it as part of a commentary on I John 4:4-12 ... but, I Corinthians 13 may also come to mind.
...and in the original Greek, the word in this verse used for love is agape, which is an altruistic form of love (something i tend to write about often).
also q.v. my post concerning other versions of this sentiment by François Rabelais & other Antecedents of Thelema
William James had some sobering words to say about this ideal...
"Saint Augustine's maxim, Dilige et quod vis fac. -- if you but love [God], you may do as you incline -- is morally one of the profoundest of observations, yet it is pregnant, for such persons, with passports beyond the bounds of conventional morality. According to their characters they have been refined or gross; but their belief has been at all times systematic enough to constitute a definite religious attitude. God was for them a giver of freedom, and the sting of evil was overcome. Saint Francis and his immediate disciples were, on the whole, of this company of spirits, of which there are of course infinite varieties. Rousseau in the earlier years of his writing, Diderot, B. de Saint Pierre, and many of the leaders of the eighteenth century anti-Christian movement were of this optimistic type. They owed their influence to a certain authoritativeness in their feeling that Nature, if you will only trust her sufficiently, is absolutely good."