The second is like this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Lev. 19:18). There is no commandment greater than these.”
The second commandment flows from the first and is like it, because the one who loves God must also love the person who is created in the image of God. To love your neighbor as yourself means to desire his good, not to do to him what we do not want done to us, and to act with justice and mercy. This love does not replace love toward God, but is its fruit. Christ shows that the whole law, in its moral essence, is summed up in love: love toward God and love toward man. Where these two are absent, religious outward forms become empty.