Augustine of Hippo

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Quotes

From The City of God

St. Augustine evidently originated the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", which he tied in with a private notion of evil:

"For this reason, the man who lives by God's standards and not be man's, must needs be a lover of the good, and it follows that he must hate what is evil. Further, since no one is evil by nature, but anyone who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the man who lives by God's standards has a duty of 'perfect hatred' [Ps. 139:22] towards those who are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the fault, nor should he love the fault because of the person. He should hate the fault, but love the man. And when the fault has been cured there will remain only what he ought to love, nothing that he should hate". (14:6, Penguin ed., transl. Bettenson)
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