But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children:
All Commentaries on 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Go To 1 Thessalonians 2
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Can we not see, even in dumb, unreasoning creatures, where there is no spiritual charity but only that which belongs to their nature as animals, with what eager insistence the mother’s milk is demanded by her little ones? Yet, however rough be the nursing calf’s mouth upon the udder, the mother likes it better than if there were no sucking, no demanding of the debt that charity admits. Indeed, we often see the bigger calf butting with its head at the cow’s udders, and the mother’s body forced upward by the pressure; yet she will never kick her calf away, but if the young one not be there to suck, she will low for him to come. Of spiritual charity, the apostle says: “I have become little among you, like a nurse cherishing her children.” If such charity be in us, we cannot but love you when you press your demand upon us. We do not love backwardness in you. It makes us fearful that your strength is failing.
