Note 5 — Chapter IV · THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION; OR, GOD AS LOVE, AS A BEING OF THE HEART.
George Eliot translation
St. Bernard resorts to a charmingly sophistical play of words:—”Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis, cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere.”—(Sup. Cant. Sermo 26.) As if compassion were not suffering—the suffering of love, it is true, the suffering of the heart. But what does suffer if not thy sympathising heart? No love, no suffering. The material, the source of suffering, is the universal heart, the common bond of all beings. ↑