Liebe

v. Cf. Pascal, Pensées, [ed. Brunschvicg, Paris, p. 185]. ‘Et de là vient qu’au lieu qu’en parlant des choses humaines on dit qu’il faut les connaître avant que de les aimer, ce qui a passé en proverbe, les saints au contraire disent en parlant des choses divines qu’il faut les aimer pour les connaître, et qu’on n’entre dans la vérité que par la charité, dont ils ont fait une de leurs plus utiles sentences.’ [‘And thence it comes about that in the case where we are speaking of human things, it is said to be necessary to know them before we love them, and this has become a proverb; but the saints, on the contrary, when they speak of divine things, say that we must love them before we know them, and that we enter into truth only by charity; they have made of this one of their most useful maxims’. – Tr.] Cf. with this, Augustine, Opera, (Migne Patrologiae Latinae, tom. VIII), Contra Faustum, lib. 32, cap. 18: ‘non intratur in veritatem, nisi per charitatem.’ [‘one does not enter into truth except through charity’. – Tr.] [BTMR]