Great Commandment
The Great Commandment is a term used to describe the first of two commandments cited by Jesus in âMatthew 22:35â40, âMark 12:28â34 and Luke 10:27.
Quotes
[edit]- Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
- âDeuteronomy 6:4-5
- One of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
- Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
- âMatthew 22:35-40 KJV
Quotes about the Great Commandment
[edit]- Liebe ... ist ein Unmittelbares und widerspricht wesentlich vermittelten Beziehungen. Der Zuspruch zur Liebe â womÃķglich in der imperativischen Form, daà man es soll â ist selber BestandstÞck der Ideologie, welche die KÃĪlte verewigt. Ihm eignet das Zwangshafte, UnterdrÞckende, das der LiebesfÃĪhigkeit entgegenwirkt. Das erste wÃĪre darum, der KÃĪlte zum BewuÃtsein ihrer selbst zu verhelfen, der GrÞnde, warum sie wurde.
- Love is something immediate and in essence contradicts mediated relationships. The exhortation to loveâeven in its imperative form, that one should do itâis itself part of the ideology coldness perpetuates. It bears the compulsive, oppressive quality that counteracts the ability to love. The first thing therefore is to bring coldness to the consciousness of itself, of the reasons why it arose.
- Theodor Adorno, Education After Auschwitz. April 18, 1966.
- Jesus ... combines all duties (1) in one universal rule (which includes within itself both the inner and the outer moral relations of men), namely: Perform your duty for no motive other than unconditioned esteem for duty itself, i.e., love God (the Legislator of all duties) above all else; and (2) in a particular rule, that, namely, which concerns manâs external relation to other men as universal duty: Love every one as yourself, i.e., further his welfare from good-will that is immediate and not derived from motives of self-advantage. These commands are not mere laws of virtue but precepts of holiness which we ought to pursue, and the very pursuit of them is called virtue.
- Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Book IV, Part 1, Section 1, âThe Christian religion as a natural religionâ
