What shall we now say of charity? Assuredly, just as it is most narrow on account of the difficulty of fulfilling its precepts, so on account of the excellence of the divine goodness toward which it looks, it can be called most wide. For why should it seem difficult to love God with the whole heart, and with the whole soul, and with all one's strength, since He is Himself most beautiful and most good, and most worthy of infinite love? It is not difficult here on earth to love beautiful and good things; rather, it is difficult not to love them — or certainly not to love them too much. God, therefore, seems in a way to do us an injury when He so strictly commands us to love Him, as though we would not be bound to love Him of our own accord. But the good and beautiful things on earth are loved so ardently because they are clearly seen; whereas no man hath seen God at any time (John 1). It is true: we have not seen God; but we see, and daily see, His works, which are exceedingly beautiful; of which the Wise man says: With whose beauty if they, being delighted, took them to be gods, let them know how much more beautiful than they is the Lord of them: for the first author of beauty hath made all these things (Wis. 13). We also experience His sweetness in His daily benefits; and we have the testimony of One who sees and cannot lie — namely, of the Holy Spirit, who through the Apostles and Prophets in the holy Scriptures proclaims that God is so good and beautiful that He alone deserves to be called good and beautiful.
But, they say, it is very hard that for God's sake we must sometimes be compelled to lose our possessions, our kindred, and our own life. I myself confess that this is hard for those who do not love God; but for those who love Him and long to possess Him, I maintain that it is easy and light — especially since for those who despise these temporal things for the love of God, there are prepared goods beyond compare, more and better. For what is the exchange? You lose corruptible riches; you will gain an everlasting kingdom. You lose father and brothers and friends; you will gain God for a father, and Christ for a brother, and all the Angels and the blessed for friends and companions. You lose a temporal and miserable life; you will gain an eternal and most happy one. Hear the Canticle of divine love (Song 8): If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing; and a little before: Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it. Hear one who loves God: Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us (Rom. 8).
But to love my neighbor in such a way that I must share my goods with him — and that even if he be my enemy and have grievously injured me, I must still not only forgive him but also do him good — seems to me to fight against nature. That indeed might be said to be against nature corrupted by sin, but not against nature repaired by the grace of Christ. Does not God Himself share His goods with His enemies? Does He not daily forgive His enemies, and return them good for evil, when He makes His sun rise upon the good and the bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt. 5)? But if God so conducts Himself toward His enemies, it is not against the nature of God, nor of man — who is created in the image of God — to love one's enemies and do them good: it is against the nature of beasts, and of those who, when they were in honor, did not understand; they are compared to senseless beasts, and are become like to them (Ps. 48).