Clement of Alexandria — Stromata 18

The decorous tendency of our philanthropy, therefore, according to Clement, seeks the common good; whether by suffering martyrdom , or by teaching by deed and word — the latter being twofold, unwritten and written. This is love , to love God and our neighbour. This conducts to the height which is unutterable. 'Love covers a multitude of sins . James 5:20 ; 1 Peter 4:8 Love bears all things, suffers all things.' 1 Corinthians 13:7 Love joins us to God , does all things in concord. In love , all the chosen of God were perfected. Apart from love , nothing is well pleasing to God . Of its perfection there is no unfolding, it is said. Who is fit to be found in it, except those whom God counts worthy? To the point the Apostle Paul speaks, If I give my body, and have not love , I am sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.

If it is not from a disposition determined by gnostic love that I shall testify, he means; but if through fear and expected reward, moving my lips in order to testify to the Lord that I shall confess the Lord, I am a common man, sounding the Lord's name, not knowing Him. For there is the people that loves with the lips; and there is another which gives the body to be burned. And if I give all my goods in alms , he says, not according to the principle of loving communication, but on account of recompense, either from him who has received the benefit, or the Lord who has promised; and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, and cast away obscuring passions , and be not faithful to the Lord from love , I am nothing, as in comparison of him who testifies as a Gnostic , and the crowd, and being reckoned nothing better.

Now all the generations from Adam to this day are gone. But they who have been perfected in love , through the grace of God , hold the place of the godly, who shall be manifested at the visitation of the kingdom of Christ . Love permits not to sin ; but if it fall into any such case, by reason of the interference of the adversary, in imitation of David, it will sing: I will confess unto the Lord, and it will please Him above a young bullock that has horns and hoofs. Let the poor see it, and be glad. For he says, Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay to the Lord your vows; and call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. For the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit. God , then, being good, is love , it is said.

1 John 4:8, 16 Whose love works no ill to his neighbour, Romans 13:10 neither injuring nor revenging ever, but, in a word, doing good to all according to the image of God . Love is, then, the fulfilling of the law; Romans 13:10 like as Christ, that is the presence of the Lord who loves us; and our loving teaching of, and discipline according to Christ . By love , then, the commands not to commit adultery , and not to covet one's neighbour's wife, are fulfilled, [these sins being] formerly prohibited by fear . The same work, then, presents a difference, according as it is done by fear , or accomplished by love , and is wrought by faith or by knowledge . Rightly, therefore, their rewards are different.