Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 349.2 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 39, col. 1530; tr. Edmund Hill):

But you will observe that this sort of charity can be found also among the godless, that is, among pagans, Jews, heretics. Which of them, after all, does not naturally love wife, children, brothers, neighbors, relations, friends, etc.? So this kind of charity is human. So if anyone is affected by such hardness of heart that he loses even the human feeling of love, and doesn't love his children, doesn't love his wife, he isn't fit even to be counted among human beings. A man who loves his children is not thereby particularly praiseworthy; but one who does not love his children is certainly blameworthy, I mean, he should observe with whom he ought to have this kind of love in common; even wild beasts love their children; adders love their children; tigers love their children; lions love their children. There is no wild creature, surely, that doesn't gently coo or purr over its young. I mean, while it may terrify human beings, it cherishes its young. The lion roars in the forest, so that nobody dare walk through it; it goes into its den, where it has its young, it lays aside all its rabid ferocity. It puts it down outside, it doesn't step inside with it. So a man who doesn't love his children is worse than a lion.

Sed videtis istam caritatem esse posse et impiorum, id est, Paganorum, Iudaeorum, haereticorum. Quis enim eorum non amat uxorem, filios, fratres, vicinos, affines, amicos, etc.? Haec ergo humana est. Si ergo tali quisque crudelitate effertur, ut perdat etiam humanum dilectionis affectum, et non amet filios suos, et non amet coniugem suam; nec inter homines numerandus est. Non enim laudandus est qui amat filios suos; sed damnandus est qui non amat filios. Adhuc enim videat cum quibus debet ei esse dilectio ista communis. Amant filios et ferae: amant filios aspides, amant filios tigrides, amant filios leones. Nulla enim bestia est, quae non filiis suis blande immurmuret. Nam cum terreat homines, parvulos fovet. Fremit leo in silvis, ut nemo transeat: intrat in speluncam, ubi habet filios suos, omnem rabiem feritatis exponit. Foris eam ponit, cum ipsa non ingreditur. Ergo qui non amat filios suos etiam leone peior est.