We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Let none ask man: let each return to his own heart: if he find there brotherly love, let him set his mind at rest, because he is passed from death unto life. Already he is on the right hand: let him not regard that at present his glory is hidden: when the Lord shall come, then shall he appear in glory. For he has life in him, but as yet in winter; the root is alive, but the branches, so to say, are dry: within is the substance that has the life in it, within are the leaves of trees, within are the fruits: but they wait for the summer. Well then, we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not, abides in death.
And if we owe our lives to the brethren, and have made such a mutual compact with the Saviour, why should we any more hoard and shut up worldly goods, which are beggarly, foreign to us and transitory? Shall we shut up from each other what after a little shall be the property of the fire? Divinely and weightily John says "He that loves not his brother is a murderer"
We know that we have passed from death unto life. Not because we believe that we are predestinated, but as a moral certainty, by the testimony of a good conscience, by the innocency of our life, and the consolation of the Holy Spirit. S. John says this for their consolation and to keep them from dreading the hatred of the world. Be comforted by the thought, that by faith ye have been translated from the death of sin to a state of grace in this world, and in the world to come to glory, which will raise us above all hatred. And the clear proof of this is that we love the brethren. For this love is an undoubted sign and effect of sanctifying grace, and of the Holy Spirit Himself, from whom, as from an uncreated source, all love proceeds. S. Basil truly says, "When can a man be fully persuaded that God has remitted his sins? When he finds that his feelings are like his who said, "I have hated and abominated iniquity" ( Psalm 119:163)."
He gives here three signs of indwelling grace and rig...
We know that we have passed from death to life; i.e. from the death of sin to the life of grace: we know it by a moral certainty, when we experience in our heart a love of our neighbour.
He that loves not God and his neighbour, abides in death. He that hates his brother with a mortal hatred, or to a considerable degree, is a murderer.
These have been perverted from the truth: among them there is the hope of repentance, by which it is possible to live. Corruption, then, has a hope of a kind of renewal,
