Can you love your family more than your neighbor, or more than a total stranger? Should you love your family more than a total stranger?
Are all Christians who strive to love all their neighbors equally far-left radicals or communists?
Should all people be loved equally? Whom should we decide to aid? Should we love the illegal immigrant who breaks the law?
How should the Holy Scriptures be interpreted? How can we tell when they are misinterpreted?
JD VANCE, ST THOMAS AQUINAS, AND ST AUGUSTINE ON ORDER OF LOVE
We will quote from NCR, or the National Catholic Reporter: “The internet has been buzzing since Vice President JD Vance said during a Fox News interview on Jan. 29, ‘There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.’”[1]
In his social media post on X, Bishop Prevost, before he was elected as Pope Leo XIV, stated that “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”[2]
Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope, Successor to Pope Francis and Social Justice of Pope Leo XIII
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pope-leo-xiv-first-american-pope-successor-to-pope-francis-and-social-justice-of-pope-leo-xiii/
https://youtu.be/wSns5VGhtRk
JD Vance says this is the teaching of the Order of Love, or Ordo Amoris, first discussed by St Augustine and elaborated by St Thomas Aquinas.[3] Although Aquinas also uses Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as a source, his primary source is St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, or On Christian Doctrine, judging by his footnotes and content.
A cursory reading of St Thomas Aquinas might lead you to believe that JD Vance is right, as the scholastic approach is not so much to bluntly state what is true and what is false, but rather to present the arguments, pro and con, encouraging the student to reason to the proper conclusion. But because St Augustine is a preacher more than a teacher, his message is far more cogent and direct.
St Thomas Aquinas discusses the Order of Love in Question 26 of the Second Part of the Second Part of his Summa Theologica. This is included in a series of reflections on charity, or love, from questions 23 through 33.
St Thomas Aquinas elaborates on St Augustine’s approach; his questions often mirror the subheadings in Augustine’s On Christian Teaching. We have previously reflected on St Augustine’s classic work, but today we will read from a newer translation, concentrating on those sections referenced by St Thomas Aquinas.
We will also note St Thomas Aquinas’s questions where he quotes St Augustine, but the connection will not always be obvious. But this will be helpful when we reflect on Aquinas, we will know which section of St Augustine supports his reasoning.
St Augustine: On Christian Teaching, aka On Christian Doctrine, How To Read Scripture
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-christian-teaching-how-to-read-scripture/
https://youtu.be/uQCnAJMPoos
St Augustine: HOW ARE WE TO DECIDE WHOM TO AID?
St Thomas Aquinas, Article 6: Whether we ought to love one neighbor more than another?
St Augustine clearly teaches us: “All people should be loved equally. But you cannot do good to all people equally, so you should take particular thought for those who, as if by lot, happen to be particularly close to you in terms of place, time, or any other circumstances.”
St Augustine explains further: “Suppose you have plenty of something which had to be given to someone in need but could not be given to two people, and you met two people,” you could flip a coin for who would receive it. But if one of them was a relative, Jesus would not object if you benefited him. In other words, if your children are starving, you need not share what little food you have with strangers.[4]
Should we love everyone, even our enemies? Definitely, Christians are exhorted to love their enemies. As St Augustine teaches us: “We do not fear our enemies, for they do not take away from us what we love, but we pity them, for they hate us all the more because they are separated from the one we love,” since they are separated from God.[5]
In Luke and Matthew, a lawyer tested Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”[6] “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”[7]
Hillel and Jesus, Reflections on Rabbi Telushkin’s Observations
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/hillel-and-jesus-reflections/
Comparing Hillel and Shammai to Jesus
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/comparing-hillel-and-shammai-to-jesus/
More Stories and Sayings of Hillel and Shammai
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/more-stories-and-sayings-of-hillel-and-shammai/
Jesus, Hillel, and Shammai, Loving God and Neighbor
https://youtu.be/ygxn2qqGnOI
St Augustine reminds us of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. “When the lawyer asked our Lord: ‘And who is my neighbor?’” “Jesus told the story of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves, was badly beaten up by them, and left injured and half-dead. He taught that the only man’s neighbor was the man who showed kindness in reviving and healing him.”
St Augustine continues: “The person from whom an act of compassion is due to us in our turn is also our neighbor.” “Even the Lord God himself wanted to be called our neighbor; for the Lord Jesus Christ made clear that it was he himself who assisted the man who lay half-dead on the road, beaten up and abandoned by the robbers.”[8]
One detail that is often overlooked in this parable is that the Samaritan, when reaching the town, paid the innkeeper care for the man who was beaten and robbed: he did not cancel his appointments care for this stranger. But he did not ignore him, he did not pass him by, he made sure he was cared for.
St Augustine: ORDER OF LOVE, GOD ALONE IS TO BE ENJOYED
St Thomas Aquinas, Articles 2 and 3: Whether God Ought to be Loved more than our neighbor? Whether out of charity, or love, man is bound to Love God more than himself?
What does St Augustine teach us about the order of love? “If God is to be Loved more than any human being, each person should Love God more than he loves himself.”[9]
St Augustine teaches us: “To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love, if indeed it is something that ought to be loved. The improper use of something should be termed abuse.”[10]
We tend to think of loving and using as exclusive, particularly in romance, when someone either loves their partner, or lusts after them, using them. Although St Augustine would agree that lust can extinguish love, according to his definitions loving and using are not necessarily exclusive.
St Augustine teaches us: “There are some things which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use. Those which are to be enjoyed make us happy; those which are to be used assist us and give us a boost, so to speak, as we press on towards our happiness, so that we may reach and hold fast to the things which make us happy.”
St Augustine uses some words differently than do eastern or monastic theologians. His happiness is not our happiness: St Augustine’s happiness is the joy of living a godly life, and seeking after God. St Augustine’s happiness is not the selfish drunken happiness of parties and hedonism. He warns us that we should not “get entangled in the love of lower gratifications.” But according to St Augustine, using can sometimes be good.[11]
As St John of the Cross teaches us, our love for our friend should deepen our Love for God. We should only choose those friends, particularly our closest friends, who deepen our Love for God.[12] Although St John of the Cross writes for monastics, this advice clearly applies to those whom we choose to marry.
St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Seven Capital Sins and Best Type of Close Friend
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-john-of-the-cross-dark-night-of-the-soul-seven-capital-sins-and-best-type-of-close-friend/
https://youtu.be/DgL7Y5pIFAU
This is echoed in St Augustine’s teaching: “A person who loves his neighbor properly should, in concert with him, aim to Love God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind. In this way, loving him as he would himself, he relates his love of himself and his neighbor entirely to the Love of God, which allows not the slightest trickle to flow away from it and thereby diminish it.”
It is important that we ask: “Whether we should enjoy one another or use one another, or both? We have been commanded to love one another, but the question is whether one person should be loved by another on his own account or for some other reason. If on his own account, we enjoy him; if for some other reason, we use him. In my opinion, he should be loved for another reason.”[13]
What does St Augustine mean? Rather than reach for a theological explanation, let us instead recall from his Confessions when his love for his lovers and friends was less than perfect.
In Book 4, St Augustine remembers the time he spent with his concubine; he was faithful to her for over a decade, and she gave birth to his son, whom they named Adeodatus, Lover of God. In Book 6, he reluctantly puts away his beloved concubine and plans to marry a young Christian girl, not for love, but for money and political advancement. He regrets the crass cruelty of this decision, as both he and his mother Monica, who arranged this marriage to advance his career, were both lingering close to the gates of Babylon in this matter.
St Augustine prays to God that the “love you bear for our souls and the compassion you show for them are pure and unalloyed, far purer than the love and pity which we feel ourselves.” While St Augustine was lost, wandering far from his heavenly home, like the prodigal son, mired deep in his sins of lust and depravity and heresy, all this time the mercy of God hovered faithfully over him.”[14]
St Augustine speaks of his deep grief when his best friend died, and on the proper role friendship should play in our lives.
In his lectures on St Augustine, Professor Cary observes,
“When you love something, you are trying to be united with that which you love. Friendship is the best thing on earth, friendship is a form of love that unites two souls. But our love for our friend can be an impure love when we do not love our friend in God, but rather try to make our friendship with our friend our whole life, our source of happiness, because this will ultimately make us miserable, for our friendships often do not last forever, and our friends will someday depart from us.”[15]
St Augustine experienced grief many times, including when he lost a friend and when he lost his mother. St. Augustine lost his closest friend when he was young, during a time when he strayed from the one true church, his friend that he did not love in God. But as bishop, St Augustine is not merely telling us about the grief he feels towards his friend, he is teaching his flock the same lesson that St John of the Cross would later teach, that our close friendships should also bring us closer to God and increase in us our Love for God.
In this spiritual biography, St Augustine teaches us:
“When you enjoy a human being in God, you are enjoying God rather than that human being. For you enjoy the one by whom you are made happy, and you will one day rejoice that you have attained the one in whom you now set your hope of attaining him.” St Augustine’s example is when St Paul says to the slave Philemon, his disciple: “So brother, I shall enjoy you in the Lord.”[16]
St Augustine’s Confessions: Manichaeism, NeoPlatonic Philosophy, and Monica’s Prayers, Books 3, 4, and 5
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustines-confessions-manichaeism-neoplatonic-philosophy-and-monicas-prayers/
https://youtu.be/ydskqlgZSrE
St Augustine’s Confessions: Mother Monica, Concubine, Marriage, and Philosophy, Books 6 & 7
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustines-confessions-mother-monica-concubine-marriage-and-philosophy-books-6-7/
https://youtu.be/AjGbBozIReY
Summary of St Augustine’s Confessions of Faith and Repentance
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/summary-of-st-augustines-confessions-of-faith-and-repentance/
https://youtu.be/sIpx5qJMGvw
St Augustine, HOW DOES GOD USE MAN?
St Thomas Aquinas, Article 9: Whether a man ought, out of charity, or love, to love his children more than his father?
St Augustine ponders on how God’s Love for us differs from how we, mortal men, Love God and love our neighbor. “There is an uncertainty. I am saying that we enjoy a thing which we love for itself, and that we should enjoy a thing which we love for itself, and that we should enjoy only a thing by which we are made happy, but use everything else. God Loves us, but in what manner does he love us: Does he use us or enjoy us? If God enjoys us, he needs our goodness, which only a madman could assert.” “So, God does not enjoy us, but uses us.”[17]
St Augustine continues: “But God does not use us in the way that we use things; for we relate the things which we use to the aim of enjoying God’s goodness, whereas God relates his use of us to his own goodness. We exist because God is good, and we are good to the extent that we exist.”
Here, St Augustine is referring to the belief that only good truly exists, and since evil is the absence of good, it has no existence in and of itself. He continues: “Because God is also just, we are not evil with impunity; if we are evil, to that extent we exist less.”
God is the Almighty God who said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM, the Creator of all that exists. St Augustine continues: “The kind of use attributed to God, that by which he uses us, is related not to his own advantage, but solely to his goodness.”[18]
PROPER INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURES
NPR reported that “Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the Bible to explain why the Trump administration has launched a policy of separating families seeking illegal entry into the United States.”
Sessions said during a speech: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”[19]
How can Jeff Sessions justify the cruel treatment of immigrants, not only separating children from their parents, but callously neglecting to keep the records so they could be reunited? Indeed, about fourteen hundred children remained separated from their parents six years later in 2024.[20]
What does St Paul exhort in Romans 13? “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”[21]
St Paul here is tough. St Paul definitely teaches us that we should give our government the benefit of the doubt when judging whether their ordinances are just. But does St Paul state that every regime is virtuous? What about the Nazi regime, who legislated the persecution of the Jews, leading to the stripping of their property, denying them education and employment, and eventually sending them to death camps and slave labor camps? What about the Jim Crow state statutes enforcing segregation in America that inspired the Nazi Race Laws?
How the Racist Jim Crow Laws Served as Precedent for the Nazi Nuremberg Race Laws
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/how-the-racist-jim-crow-laws-served-as-precedent-for-the-nazi-nuremberg-race-laws/
https://youtu.be/_td3jPGD5TI
You might object, that Christians did not support the Nazi regime. However, history reveals that many white Christians definitely did support the Jim Crow laws, and Rev Martin Luther King and many other black and white Christians intentionally broke the un-Christian segregation laws of the Deep South.
Martin Luther King, Summary of Biography by David Levering Lewis
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/martin-luther-king-summary-of-biography-by-david-levering-lewis/
https://youtu.be/XtdVGx2C3Cc
Also, in Nazi Germany, about a sixth of German Protestant pastors belonged to a Confessing Church, which opposed the efforts of the Nazi regime to nazify the German Protestant Churches, while about a sixth of these pastors supported the state-sponsored German Christian Church, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew, and denigrated the use of the Old Testament. So many so-called Christian churches supported the Nazi regime.
How the Catholic and Confessing Church Survived Under Hitler’s Pagan Regime
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/christians-under-hitlers-german-nazi-regime/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP9UR8fqfvs
We can also ask: Was Ruth an Old Testament illegal immigrant?
Book of Ruth: Historical-Critical, Patristic, and Rabbinical Commentaries. Was Ruth an Old Testament Illegal Alien?
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/book-of-ruth-historical-critical-commentaries-was-ruth-an-old-testament-illegal-alien/
https://youtu.be/IgVDLGw9ZCY
What does St Augustine teach us about the proper use of Scriptures? Indeed, St Augustine is my favorite Catholic saint because, in every major work, he explicitly states that the keystone principle of Christianity is the two-fold love of God and neighbor, Loving God with all of our heart and with all of our soul and with all of our mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Indeed, a favorite country song of mine sings: We don’t Love God if we don’t love our neighbor.[22]
How can you tell if you properly understand Holy Scripture? How can you know that you are not misinterpreting Holy Scripture?
St Augustine teaches us: “Anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.”[23]
But what about those passages in Scripture where God or his people appear to condone evil acts? How can God command Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites? How can the Psalms pray that the heads of the Babylonian babies be bashed on the rocks?
St Augustine teaches us: “Generally speaking, if anything in the divine discourse cannot be related either to good morals or to the true faith should be taken as figurative.”[24]
Indeed, archaeology has not found the signs of mass destruction suggested in Joshua; instead it supports the gradual settlement described in the Book of Judges.[25] Here, Joshua is extinguishing the forces of evil in the world. And this verse in the Psalms is a favorite of many monks who seek to extinguish even the smallest of sins.
In the Philokalia, St Nelios teaches us that “the Psalms praise those who do not wait for the passions to grow to full strength but kill them in their infancy:
‘Happy shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!’”[26]
St Neilos on Ascetic Discourses in the Philokalia
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-neilos-on-ascetic-discourses/
https://youtu.be/-CoyNNgfza0
St Augustine also teaches us that “any harsh or even cruel word or deed attributed to God or his saints that is found in the holy scriptures applies to the destruction of the realm of lust.”[27]
St Augustine concludes Book 1: “When someone has learned that the aim of the commandment is ‘love from a pure heart, and good conscience and genuine faith,’” quoting 1 Timothy 1:5, “he will be ready to relate every interpretation of the holy scriptures to these three things and may approach the task of handling these books with confidence.”
What does St Paul mean? St Augustine teaches us: “When the apostle said love, he added from a pure heart, so that nothing is loved except what should be loved. He added good to conscience because of hope; for a person with the incubus of a bad conscience despairs of reaching what he loves and believes. Thirdly, he said with genuine faith: for if our faith is free of untruthfulness, then we will not love what should not be loved,” whereas by living righteously, it would be impossible for our hope to be misguided.[28]
DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
The translator says that for St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, “we have not only hundreds of medieval and later manuscripts, but we also have a manuscript unusually close to Augustine in time, which some have argued was dictated or even written by Augustine himself.”
He mentioned that older systems of numbering use running heads,[29] so I presume these are the running heads in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Most of the works in these volumes have subheads, so I presume that is ancient practice. Whether the later editors added some of these, I do not know. The 1890s translation in the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers includes these heads, which are comparable to many questions St Thomas Aquinas asks. We clearly prefer the more modern translation by RPH Green in the Oxford version, though sometimes we prefer the older Ante-Nicene translation.
Back in the day, the Encyclopedia Britannica published a series of the Great Books, and they sold so many sets that used copies listed on Amazon are inexpensive. Unfortunately, the two-volume set on St Thomas Aquinas does not include the entire Summa Theologica. These volumes do include footnotes. However, for future reflections, we will likely prefer the translation of the applicable commentary by St Thomas Aquinas in this edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
However, the primary source St Thomas Aquinas uses for Question XXVI in Part II of the Second Part of his Summa Theologica is St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, also known as On Christian Doctrine. Although this work consists of four books, St Thomas Aquinas here draws mostly from Book 1. Although this reflection includes many of the same quotes from Book 1, but from the older translation, our prior reflection includes quotes from Books 2, 3, and 4, as well as a review of other works, ancient and modern, on Biblical Interpretation.
St Augustine: On Christian Teaching, aka On Christian Doctrine, How To Read Scripture
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-christian-teaching-how-to-read-scripture/
https://youtu.be/uQCnAJMPoos
Although St Thomas Aquinas ponders questions like whether you should love your wife more than your parents, he doesn’t explore the various types of love, such as the difference between divine love and carnal love, nor does he explain the loves described by St Paul and the Gospels, agape divine love versus philia friendship love, plus the pagan erotic love. Although this is off-topic for St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, our saint does explore love and lust, and marriage and concupiscence in several other works.
Musonius Rufus on Concupiscence and Controlling the Appetites
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/musonius-rufus-on-concupiscence-and-controlling-the-appetites/
St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 1
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-concupiscence-blog-1/
St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 2
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-concupiscence-blog-2/
St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 3, Final Reflections
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-concupiscence-blog-3-final-reflections/
St Augustine, Stoic Musonius Rufus, & Ruth on Concupiscence: Love or Lust? Controlling the Passions
https://youtu.be/-wv6bVeG74A
Plato’s Socrates and Xenophon reflect on the differences between divine love and carnal love in their two Symposium, or dinner party dialogues on love. Although Socrates is the main speaker at both dinner parties, otherwise the guest list differs between the two dialogues.
Plato’s Socrates in the Phaedrus also explores the difference between divine love and carnal or exploitive love, and includes the memorable vision of the heavenly chariot pulled by divine and carnal steeds, one seeking to fly to the heavens, the other pulling the chariot back to the carnal earth.
Xenophon and Plato, Socratic Dialogue, Symposium, Romantic and Carnal Love, Part 1
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/xenophon-and-plato-socratic-dialogue-symposium-romantic-and-carnal-love-part-1/
https://youtu.be/OIe5pn2S1Ls
Xenophon and Plato, Socratic Dialogue, Symposium, Divine and Noble Love, Part 2
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/xenophon-and-plato-socratic-dialogue-symposium-divine-and-noble-love-part-2/
https://youtu.be/z6X3pwVTdrc
Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Carnal Love and Rhetoric, Part 1
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/platos-dialogue-of-phaedrus-on-carnal-love-and-rhetoric-part-1/
https://youtu.be/JFw5ThfwUAg
Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Divine Love and the Heavenly Chariot, Part 2
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/platos-dialogue-of-phaedrus-on-divine-love-and-the-heavenly-chariot-part-2/
https://youtu.be/BOtavup_N4g
Both the Phaedrus and Lysis dialogues reflect on homosexual relationships, and whether they can be exploitive. Lysis and Alcibiades explore the topics of love and friendship.
Lysis, Platonic Dialogue on Love and Friendship, Where Old Men Ogle Boys at the Gymnasium
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/lysis-platonic-dialogue-on-love-and-friendship-where-old-men-ogle-boys-at-the-gymnasium/
https://youtu.be/HrSZ5SPUZ7Y
Platonic Dialogue Alcibiades 1, On Friendship, Leadership, and Love
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/platonic-dialogue-alcibiades-1-on-friendship-leadership-and-love/
https://youtu.be/WbCARvApLNk
The Swedish Lutheran Theologian Anders Nygren penned a theologically influential book in the interwar years titled Agape and Eros. He reflects on how the Gospels and St Paul’s Epistles view love, and whether St Paul’s faith can cross over into a type of love. He then compares and contrasts this with the Platonic concepts of divine and carnal love. In the future, we will review Nygren’s reflections of love by the church fathers and later theologians up through the Reformation and beyond.
Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/anders-nygren-on-christian-agape-love-and-eros-love-in-gospels-and-pauline-epistles/
https://youtu.be/KniBalQMemMrf
Summary of Platonic Dialogues on Love and Friendship, With Commentary by Copleston and Anders Nygren
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/summary-of-platonic-dialogues-on-love-and-friendship/
https://youtu.be/cjXRXQc6Ff4
[1] https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/jd-vance-wrong-jesus-doesnt-ask-us-rank-our-love-others
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/pope-leo-social-media-posts-vance-rcna205677
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_amoris
[4] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, translated by RPH Green (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 2008, originally 397), Book 1, Sections 61-62, p. 21, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Volume 2, translated by Rev JF Shaw (Boston: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994, first published 1887, originally 397), Book 1, Chapter 27, Section 28, p. 530.
[5] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 65, p. 22, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 29, Section 30, p. 530.
[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%2010%3A25-27&version=NRSVCE
[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2022%3A40&version=NRSVCE
[8] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Sections 67-71, pp. 22-23, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 30, Sections 31-33, pp. 530-531.
[9] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Sections 59-60, p. 21, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 27, Section 28, p. 530.
[10] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 8, p. 9, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 4, Section 4, p. 523.
[11] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 7, p. 9, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 3, p. 523.
[12] St John of the Cross, “Dark Night of the Soul”, translated by Silverio De Santa Teresa, updated by Allison Peers (New York: Image Books, 1959, 1990) Book 1, Chapter 4, pp. 51-52.
[13] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 40,43, pp. 16-17, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 22, Section 20, p. 523.
[14] St Augustine, Confessions, Book 3, Chapter 2, p. 57.
[15] Phillip Cary, Augustine, Philosopher and Saint, Teaching Company, 1997, Lecture 4, Confessions, Love and Tears.
[16] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 79, p. 25, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 33, Section 37, p. 532.
[17] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Sections 73-74, p. 24, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 31, Section 34, p. 531.
[18] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Sections 75-76, pp. 24-25, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 32, Section 35, pp. 531-532.
[19] https://www.npr.org/2018/06/14/620181177/sessions-cites-the-bible-to-justify-immigrant-family-separations
[20] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/16/us-lasting-harm-family-separation-border
[21] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%2013%3A1-4&version=NRSVCE
[22] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2rpVd5Lwo
[23] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Section 86, p. 27, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 36, Section 40, p. 533.
[24] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 3, Sections 33-34, pp. 75-76, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 3, Chapter 10, Section 14, pp. 560-561.
[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua
[26] St Nelios the Ascetic, “Ascetic Discourse,” in the Philokalia, p. 233-and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalms+137%3A9&version=RSVCE
[27] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 3, Section 39, p. 77, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 3, Chapter 36, Section 40, p. 533.
[28] St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book 1, Sections 95-96, p. 29, and St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine,” In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Book 1, Chapter 40, Section 44, p. 534.
[29] RPH Green, Note on the Text, preceding St Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Oxford Publishing House.
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