The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
Therefore God is love, because love is as it were a spiritual flame, kindling all, and like light shining everywhere, and illuminating all things. Hence S. Dionysius (de Div . Nom. c . 24, part 1) says that “ Divine love is a motive force drawing things upward to God, who alone is Himself of Himself beautiful and good.” On these words of S. Dionysius our Lessius comments thus (de Div . Altrib. lib . 9, c. 2 and 3): “For by this very thing that God beholds His own infinite beauty and excellence, there arises in Him an infinite fire of love, by which he loves them as they are worthy to be loved, i.e. with an absolutely infinite love. For that which is beautiful and good, as soon as it is perceived, kindles love. Wherefore what is infinitely beautiful and good, when it is infinitely known, will excite infinite love; infinite, I say, both as to its warmth, and as to its appreciation, or, as the Schoolmen say, infinite intensively and appreciatively. 2d. That which is beautiful and good extends Itself and descends to the creatures, that It may communicate the same to them, either fully, or else some of Its rays and adumbrations , according to each one’s capacity and merits. For of what we supremely love, we desire to make known to all the excellency and beauty, and that its sweetness should be perceived by all, so that all may praise it. Love does the same in God. A third effect of this love is that it raises creatures upward, and turns them to the beautiful and good. This especially obtains with angels and men : for other things cannot take in the Divine goodness and beauty. But in man other things are drawn in some way to God, both because all the other steps of nature are in him, and also because all other things are for him. 4th. The Divine love is ecstatic, because it draws the lover out of itself to the thing loved. For it causes God in a sense to forget His loftiness, and inclines Him to our humility, and makes Him to be wholly occupied in the business of our salvation. The token of which is the Incarnation, preaching, miracles, His passion, death, sacraments, the sending of the Holy Ghost, the perpetual and wonderful government of His Church, the care and direction of individuals. In like manner it sets man outside himself, making him think not of himself and his own advantage, but only of God, and the good things of God. Wherefore a great lover of God denies himself, renounces his own desires, is careless about benefits for himself ; forgets himself, and is wholly taken up with the things of God. In thought and affection he is wholly outside of himself, and is translated to his beloved. Such was S. Ignatius the Martyr, who said, ‘My Love is crucified.’ Such was the Apostle S. Paul, who said, ‘ To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ There is an illustrious figure of this in the sun. For in things corporeal the sun is the highest beauty and greatest. Wherefore S. Gregory Nazianzen in a certain place saith, ‘As is the sun in things sensible, so is God in things intellectual.’ From the sun heat descends to lower things. It descends also . And things are illuminated before they receive heat.
Receiving heat they become light, and are carried up to the sky. The sun is an emblem of God, and light of wisdom, warmth of love, and earthly things of souls and spirits. Love descends from God . For first the mind is enlightened by the knowledge of the Divine beauty and goodness : then through that knowledge it conceives love. Love conceived makes the soul spiritual, heavenly, and presently draws it upward, and unites it to God, and makes it like to Him, the only and eternal One, as it were a parhelion, which is an express image of the sun.”
And he that abideth in love, &c. And, i.e. therefore . For this is as it were the conclusion from the premisses. God is love, therefore he that remaineth in love, remaineth in God, because God and Love are one and the same thing. And God in him , as in a sort of temple of love.
Thus love has united God to man, not only in affection and care, but also effectually and substantially, by, in truth, an hypostatic union. But it unites man to God, so that, wholly departing out of himself, he passes into God, and as it were loses himself, no longer thinking of anything, understanding or feeling anything but God. Not seeking, or desiring any other thing, having joy in no other thing but the good things of God. He who is thus joined to God is made one spirit with Him, because he puts off himself, and puts on God. Wherefore, as if he was altogether transformed into the Divine nature, he is in thought and affection wholly in God. Thus all the Saints in heaven will be one with God (this the Lord prays for them ,Jno. xvii.), because they all acknowledge their own nothingness , as they are in themselves, and value themselves at nothing, except so far as they belong to God, and are for Him. And in this way they altogether cease from themselves. For why should they abide in nothing ? Thus by the intellect and the will they will be most powerfully borne to Him, and will be wholly in Him. And they will, as it were, flow into Him, and be transformed, feeling and tasting nothing else but God, valuing nothing but His good, altogether as if they themselves were changed into God. Listen to S.
Augustine — He who abideth in love , &c. : “They dwell one in the other, both That which contains and that which is contained.” Again he saith, " Let God be thy house : be thou the house of God. Abide in God, and let God abide in thee. God abides in thee that He may contain thee. Thou abidest in God that thou mayest not fall. For thus speaks the Apostle of charity, ‘Charity never falls.’ How can he fall whom God holds ?”
For this cause, namely for a symbol of love, Christ instituted, and left to us by His testament, His very Self in the Eucharist, that indeed He might remain in us, and we in Him, not by a figure, as the heretics say, but really, substantially, personally, according to the words, “ He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him.” (S. Jno . vi. 54.) The Eucharist therefore is the fuel and incentive of love, which S. John in his whole epistle commends. For by it, as S. Chrysostom says (Hom. 54 in Joan.), “ Not only in love, but in reality let us be changed into that Flesh.” By the Food which he has bestowed upon us this is brought about. For when He would show His love towards us, by means of His
Body He commingled Himself with us, and brought Himself to be one with us, that body might be united with body. For this is the great desire of lovers.” Pope Leo teaches the same thing. “The participation of the Body and Blood of Christ does this very thing, that we should pass into that which we receive.” Lastly, S. Cyril of Jerusalem says, “ Thus we shall be Christophus, i.e. Christ-bearers , when we have received His Body and Blood into our members
: and thus, as Blessed Peter saith, we shall ‘become partakers of the Divine nature.’ ” Wherefore S. Irenæus (lib. 5 c. 6), explaining 1 Thess. v. 23, “ that your whole spirit, soul, and body may be preserved,” declares that the perfect man is renewed by the Body and Soul (of Christ) and the Holy Ghost dwelling in him.
Beautifully does S. Bernard say (Serm. 71 in Cant.), “Who is he who is perfectly joined to God but he who remains in God, as beloved by God ? He has drawn God to himself by loving Him again. Therefore since man and God are wholly united between themselves, they are united by a close and mutual, as it were, bosom affection. And that in this way God is in man, and man is in God, I say without any doubt. But man indeed has been eternally in God, as being eternally loved, but God has been in man since He has been loved (by man).” Herein is that saying of Cato true, “ Those who love are in a manner dead in their own bodies, but live in another’s.” Therefore God by love willed to bring us back to our first beginning, to unite us, that is, to His own goodness and beauty, to transform us into Himself. This could not be done by nature, therefore He found a method whereby He might perfectly accomplish this by love, that by its warmth we might flow into and be absorbed in Him. As S. Bernard says (de Delig. Deo), “In that what is felt is wholly Divine, to be thus affected is to be deified. As a little drop of water infused in a great quantity of wine seems wholly to lose itself whilst also it takes the colour and flavour of wine. And as iron made red-hot in the fire becomes exactly like (fire), and ceases from its own original appearance. And as the atmosphere suffused with the solar light is transformed into the brightness, so that it seems to be not so much illuminated, as light itself. Thus it will be necessary that all human affection in the Saints should in an ineffable manner cease from itself, and be wholly transfused into the will of God.” This indeed will be perfectly accomplished in the glory of heaven, but it is begun on earth by charity and grace. The same S. Bernard (Serm. 83 in Cant) says, “ Love is its own merit, its own reward. Beyond itself it requires neither cause nor enjoyment. Its enjoyment is experience. I love because I love. I love that I may love. A mighty thing is love. Yet if it recur to its origin, if it be brought back to its beginning, if it flow back to its fountain-head, it can always take of itself that wherewith it may flow. Love is the only one of all the motions, senses, and affections of the soul in which the creature can, although not upon an equality, yet in some likeness, respond to its Creator.”