28. What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if such is the prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence? This had already been before foretold by Isaiah the prophet, when, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the majesty and loving-kindness of God, “consummating and shortening His word,”72 Verbum. He says, “in righteousness, because a shortened word73 Sermonem. will the Lord make in the whole earth.”74 Isa. x. 22. For when the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every sex and every age the precepts of salvation, He made a large compendium of His precepts, that the memory of the scholars might not be burdened in the celestial learning, but might quickly learn what was necessary to a simple faith. Thus, when He taught what is life eternal, He embraced the sacrament of life in a large and divine brevity, saying, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”75 John xvii. 3. Also, when He would gather from the law and the prophets the first and greatest commandments, He said, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one God: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”76 Matt. xii. 29–31. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”77 Matt. xxii. 40. And again: “Whatsoever good things ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets.”78 Matt. vii. 12.
0538A XXVIII. Quid mirum, fratres dilectissimi, si oratio talis est quam Deus docuit, qui magisterio suo omnem precem nostram salutari sermone breviavit? Hoc jam per Esaiam prophetam fuerat ante praedictum, cum, plenus Spiritu sancto de Dei majestate ac pietate, loqueretur : Verbum consummana, inquit, et brevians in justitia, quoniam sermonem breviatum faciet Deus in toto orbe terrae (Isa. X, 22). Nam, cum Dei Sermo, Dominus noster Jesus Christus, omnibus venerit, et, colligens doctos pariter et indoctos, omni sexui atque aetati praecepta salutis ediderit, praeceptorum suorum fecit grande compendium, ut in disciplina coelesti discentium memoria non laboraret, sed quod esset simplici fidei necessarium velociter disceret . Sic, cum doceret quid sit vita aeterna, sacramentum 0538B vitae magna et divina brevitate complexus est dicens: Haec est autem vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te solum et verum Deum, et quem misisti Jesum Christum (Joan. XVII, 8). Item, cum de Lege et Prophetis praecepta prima et majora decerperet, Audi, inquit, Israel, Dominus Deus tuus Deus unus est. Et diliges Dominum Deum tuum de toto corde tuo, et de tota anima tua, et de tota virtute tua (Deut. VI, 4, 5). Hoc est primum mandatum. Et secundum simile est huic: Diliges proximum tibi tamquam te ipsum (Marc. XII, 29-31). In his duobus praeceptis tota Lex pendet et Prophetae (Matth. XXII, 40). Et iterum: Quaecumque volueritis ut faciant vobis homines bona, ita et vos facite illis. Haec est enim Lex et Prophetae (Ibid. VII, 12).