On Loving God
Bernard’s little treatise for Cardinal Haimeric on why and how God is to be loved, and the four degrees of love: “the reason for loving God is God; the measure, to love without measure.” The Latin is the Maurist text in Migne (Patrologia Latina 182, 1854), from a machine-corrected OCR, with Mabillon’s Admonitio, the preface and all fifteen chapters. The English is Marianne Caroline and Coventry Patmore’s 1881 translation, which renders chapters I to XI (the treatise proper) and not the Latin’s closing chapters XII to XV, drawn from the letter to the Carthusians; the Admonitio and the preface to Haimeric are untranslated.
Contents
Source: The complete text: Admonitio, preface and chapters I to XV with Mabillon’s chapter headings. PL page breaks and column numbers are dropped, and so are the paragraph numbers; Scripture references stay in parentheses as printed. The Admonitio is Mabillon’s own note and is kept. · Chapters I to XI only. The “Fragments from a fragment” and the Three Rosaries of Our Lady that follow in the volume are not imported. OCR running heads and page numbers are removed; chapter titles are set in sentence case.