Article November 5, 1949 Issue

LOVING ONESELF AND ONE'S NEIGHBOR

ROSANNA WOODARD

The Gospels tell us how scribe versed in the Jewish law once asked Christ Jesus which of the innumerable commands in the Pentateuch was most important. Immediately the Master quoted from Deuteronomy the command to love God wholly and wholeheartedly; and he added a second (Matt. 22: 39), "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"—from Moses' careful summary of one's duty to one's fellow men, found in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus.

Luke tells us of how another lawyer once asked for further information on "Who is m neighbor?" and how the Master replied with the parable of the good Samaritan. But there were other questions the lawyer might have asked too: "What is it truly to love?" and, "Who is 'myself'?"

We need no deep perception to see that this second command forbids greed, encourages kindness, silences self-assertiveness and stubbornness, and exalts justice; that if one follows it, he will not take unfair or dishonest advantage of anyone, he will never be cold and unfeeling towards his brother, and he will always temper thought, word, and deed with the useful habit of trying to "see the other fellow's side of it." But to hold for mankind in general only such affection as we have for our human sense of ourselves is to lose the deep significance and usefulness of the command. Many mortals do not like themselves at all, and in fact, if we take as a test of love Paul's brief definition of it (Rom. 13:10), "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour," few of us would qualify as loving ourselves, for mortals often suffer at their own hands.

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