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IT is possible then for all to show that love which is called aga'ph,
of which the blessed Apostle says: "While therefore we have time, let us do
good unto all men, but specially to them that are of the household of
faith." And this should be shown to all men in general to such an extent
that we are actually commanded by our Lord to yield it to our enemies, for
He says: "Love your enemies." But dia'thesis, i.e., affection is shown
to but a few and those who are united to us by kindred dispositions or by a
tie of goodness; though indeed affection seems to have many degrees of
difference. For in one way we love our parents, in another our wives, in
another our brothers, in another our children, and there is a wide
difference in regard to the claims of these feelings of affection, nor is
the love of parents towards their children always equal. As is shown by the
case of the patriarch Jacob, who, though he was the father of twelve sons
and loved them all with a father's love, yet loved Joseph with deeper
affection, as Scripture clearly shows: "But his brethren envied him,
because his father loved him;" evidently not that that good man his
father failed in greatly loving the rest of his children, but that in his
affection he clung to this one, because he was a type of the Lord, more
tenderly and indulgently. This also, we read, was very clearly shown in the
case of John the Evangelist, where these words are used of him: "that
disciple whom Jesus loved," though certainly He embraced all the other
eleven, whom He had chosen in the same way, with His special love, as this
He shows also by the witness of the gospel, where He says: "As I have loved
you, so do ye also love one another;" of whom elsewhere also it is said:
"Loving His own who were in the world, He loved them even to the end."
But this love of one in particular did not indicate any coldness in love
for the rest of the disciples, but only a fuller and more abundant love
towards the one, which his prerogative of virginity and the purity of his
flesh bestowed upon him. And therefore it is marked by exceptional
treatment, as being something more sublime, because no hateful comparison
with others, but a richer grace of superabundant love singled it out. Some-
thing of this sort too we have in the character of the bride in the Song of
Songs, where she says: "Set in order love in me." For this is true love
set in order, which, while it hates no one, yet loves some still more by
reason of their deserving it, and which, while it loves all in general,
singles out for itself some from those, whom it may embrace with a special
affection, and again among those, who are the special and chief objects of
its love, singles out some who are preferred to others in affection.
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