Saint Clement I, on Divine love, from 1 Corinthians

"Let the man truly possessed by the love of Christ keep his commandments. Who can express the binding power of divine love? Who can find words for the spendor of its beauty? Beyond all description are the heights to which it lifts us. Love unites us to God; it cancels innumerable sins, it has no limit to its endurance, bears everything patiently. Love is neither servile or arrogant. ... By it all God's chosen ones have been sanctified; without it, it is impossible to please Him. Out of love God took us to himself; because He loved us and it was God's will, our Lord Jesus Christ gave His blood for us -- He gave his body for our body, his soul for our soul.

See then, beloved, what a great and wonderful thing love is, and how inexpressible its perfection. Who is worthy to possess it unless God makes them so? To Him therefore we must turn, begging of His mercy that there may be found in us a love free from human partiality and beyond reproach. Every generation from Adam's time to ours has passed away; but those who by God's grace were made perfect in love have a dwelling place among the saints, and when at last the kingdom of Christ appears, they will be revealed."

(Saint Clement I, pope, was a disciple of Saint Peter and possibly Saint Paul and the first of the Apostolic Fathers. Some Biblical scholars believe he is the Clement mentioned in Saint Paul's letter to the Philippians 4.3)

HLM