# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S335
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law. 335

hold to it. For God's Word cannot be heard or taught where a man's mind
is meanwhile bent on something else, or is not still." (See Luther's Works,
Erlangen ed. XXXII, 443. 444. Walch ed. XX, 2305. 2306).

II. What is the correct understanding of the word: Thou shalt love God
above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself?

It is chiefly the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
that is in question here, since it is this commandment in particular whose
right meaning is now widely missed, indeed is downright perverted by many.
And there are chiefly two errors current with respect to this commandment.

1. First, one supposes that when one is to love one's neighbor as
oneself, this means that one must so measure one's proofs of love that the
neighbor gains no more advantage and benefit from us than we ourselves
procure for ourselves in the process — that one is, as it were, to divide
things evenly with the neighbor, and therefore to watch carefully that in
one's proofs of love toward the neighbor one does no harm to oneself; indeed,
even that if the neighbor profits through us, no equal share of it should
escape us. One supposes, namely, that in the words "Love thy neighbor as
thyself" two things are commanded: first, that one is to love oneself, and
then, second, that one is to love one's neighbor as oneself. Hence people
are accustomed to say in common life: everyone is his own nearest neighbor
— a saying which certain church fathers (whom, in this, even some Lutheran
theologians have followed, although they reject that proverb itself)
express thus: Caritas incipit a se ipsa, that is, love begins with itself.
From this one then draws the conclusion that in that case one loves one's
neighbor not as oneself but more than oneself, which God does not require
— as when, in one's works of love, for instance in the lending of a sum of
money, one has oneself only loss and the neighbor only gain — whereas God's
Word demands precisely this as a sign of true love of neighbor: that one
look not to one's own, but to that which is another's, Phil. 2:4; that one
seek not what is one's own but what is another's, 1 Cor. 10:24; not what
benefits oneself, but what benefits many, 1 Cor. 10:33; indeed, that one be
ready even to lay down one's life for the brethren, 1 John 3:16. The only
correct interpretation of the word "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is
therefore the one which the Lord Himself gives in the words: "All things
therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them: for this is the Law and the Prophets," Matt. 7:12. Our self-love,
then, is to be the pattern for our love of neighbor; just as sincerely, as
intensely, as actively and as constantly as we love ourselves, so are we
also to love our neighbor; and just as, following the self-love innate in
us, we always begin with ourselves, so, following the Law and the Prophets,
we are rather to begin with our neighbor.

On this Luther writes, in his first, shorter exposition of the Letter⸗