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27. Seeing, then, that there is no need of a command that every
man should love himself and his own body, seeing, that is, that we
love ourselves, and what is beneath us but connected with us, through
a law of nature which has never been violated, and which is common to
us with the beasts (for even the beasts love themselves and their own
bodies), it only remained necessary to lay injunctions upon us in
regard to God above us, and our neighbor beside us. "Thou shalt
love," He says, "the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets." Thus the end of the commandment is love, and that
twofold, the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Now, if you
take yourself in your entirety, that is, soul and body together, and
your neighbor in his entirety, soul and body together (for man is made
up of soul and body), you will find that none of the classes of things
that are to be loved is overlooked in these two commandments. For
though, when the love of God comes first, and the measure of our love
for Him is prescribed in such terms that it is evident all other things
are to find their centre in Him, nothing seems to be said about our
love for ourselves; yet when it is said, "Thou shall love thy
neighbor as thyself," it at once becomes evident that our love for
ourselves has not been overlooked.
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