Love, and do what you will (Dilige et quod vis fac).
This phrase of Blessed Augustine has been perverted by many.
Aleister Crowley, not only being Godless, but an active enemy of Christ, added “Love is the law under will” to fix the antinomian feel of his perverted phrase “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”1
The phrase he perverted comes from Augustine’s 7th homily on 1 John 4:4-12 (# 8). Augustine says:
“Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”2
To love truly is bound up in the presuppositions of the Orthodox Christian Church, not in the degraded definitions of love taught in the world.
Though people pervert the Scriptures, & twist the words of the Church Fathers, they will never extinguish Truth, for it will always shine through the darkness.
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- Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga (Alicia Editions, 2020), 76.
- Read full homily here: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iv.x.html