Book of Kells, Chi Rho folio, c. 800 · public domain

Christianity

Tradition·Founded 30 CE·est. ~2.4 billion worldwide

Judaism → Christianity → 11 branches

Branch
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Precept of Christianity

Love God, love your neighbour.

Asked which command is greatest, Jesus gives two and refuses to separate them. Both are quotations from the Hebrew Bible, which the tradition tends to forget when it treats them as new.

Add to My Beliefs →
What it asksLove God with everything, and your neighbour as yourself
Who it bindsEveryone; the tradition treats these two as the hinge the whole law hangs on
Where it bitesBy who counts as the neighbour — the question the parable of the Samaritan was told to answer, and still the live one
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Asked to name the greatest commandment, Jesus answers with two and refuses to rank them apart. Both are quotations: love God with all your heart is from Deuteronomy 6, the Shema that observant Jews say twice a day; love your neighbour as yourself is from Leviticus 19. The tradition regularly forgets this and presents the pair as a new teaching, which it is not — the newness is in the welding. The follow-up question in Luke, and who is my neighbour, produces the Samaritan parable, and the answer is deliberately offensive: the neighbour is the ethnic and religious enemy who stops. Every subsequent argument in Christian ethics about the scope of obligation — to the stranger, the migrant, the enemy in wartime — is a rerun of that question, and the tradition's own text keeps giving the more expensive answer.

From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Matthew 22:37–39 (KJV)

Both halves are quotations — Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
Guard the tongue. Judaism Go deeper →
The Law of Love, and its limits, added later. The Family International Go deeper →
The Eight I would Really Rather You Didn'ts. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Go deeper →
The Seven Fundamental Tenets. The Satanic Temple Go deeper →
The dharma of one's station. Hinduism Go deeper →
Compassion extends to all sentient beings. Buddhism · core tenet Go deeper →

The conversation

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Where next

The Ten Commandments. →the next passage in Christianity Christianity's How to Live roomback up one layer Propose a change to this passageone button — it routes to the review pool

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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