a. How ‘above all Things’ is to be understood

55. As to the first point I say that ‘above all things’ can be understood extensively or intensively; namely extensively in that one love God more than all other things, because, that is, one more quickly wishes by some affection that all other things not be than that God not be; intensively in that one wishes with greater affection well-being to God than to anything else.

56. As to extension, it is commonly conceded that no single thing besides God, and not even everything together, is as valuable as God.

57. As to intension the following sort of distinction is set down, that love exceeds love either because it is more fervent or tender or because it is stronger or firmer; and these loves are said to exceed each other, as that a mother is said to love her child more fervently and tenderly while the father loves his child more strongly and firmly (because he would expose himself to a greater danger for love of his child). In this way it would be said that the love of God should be ‘above all things’ as to firmness so that nothing else could turn one away from him; but it is not necessary that it be ‘above all things’ as to tenderness and fervor and sweetness, because sometimes someone finds himself loving creatures more fervently than he otherwise loves God (as is plain in zealous types). And there is a confirmation, that if someone could, for the present state, love God supremely above all things in both ways, then he could fulfill the precept of Deuteronomy 6.5, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God etc.’; but the opposite is held by the Master in the text and by Augustine, who maintain that this precept is not something we should fulfill but something we should tend toward.

58. An argument against this distinction [n.55] is that that alone is more loved which is more firmly loved; for I love that more which I less will that evil happen to, and for the preservation of whose good I expose myself out of love, for ‘to expose’ follows ‘to love’ - meaning this of the love that is an act of will and not of the other love that is a passion of the sense appetite. Although therefore some are sometimes said to love more fervently and tenderly who do not love more firmly, there is not for this reason any excess of any intellective love in them but perhaps of some passion, namely of some sense love; just as others, who are said to be devoted, sometimes feel some greater sweetness than others much more solid and firm in love of God who would a hundred times more promptly undergo martyrdom for him than others would - nor is such sweetness an act elicited by the will, but a certain passion acquired by the act of it, whereby God attracts and nourishes the little ones ‘lest they faint in the way’ [Luke 10.21, Matthew 15.32].

59. I say therefore that ‘above all things’ must be understood in both ways, extensively and intensively. For as I am held to love God above all things extensively so also am I held to love him intensively too with greater affection than simply anything else; I say ‘greater’, because it more opposes the opposite effect [sc. hate], in opposing which it could more easily be inclined to the opposite of any other love than to the opposite of the love of God.

60. As to what is added about the precept [n.57] - by the same reasoning it would have been necessary to give a precept about the vision of God, not that it be fulfilled but that we know whither we should tend - the opposite of which is sufficiently plain.

61. I say     therefore that the precept as to extension and as to intension can, according to the present way [n.53], be fulfilled by the wayfarer - but not as to all the conditions that are expressed by the additions ‘with your whole heart and your whole mind etc     .’ For a wayfarer cannot have as great a recollecting of his powers, with all impediments removed, that his will should be able to be carried forward with as great an effort as it could be if his powers were united and recollected and all impediments removed. And Augustine’s and the Master’s statement, that the precept is not fulfilled by the wayfarer [n.57], must be understood as to the same sort of intension, when all impediments are expelled and the powers recollected; for the proneness of the lower powers in this present state holds back the higher ones from the perfection of their acts.