‘Immature love,’ writes Fromm (1962), ‘says I love you because I need you. Mature love says I need you because I love you’ (p. 3). Significantly, in both the Old and the New Testaments the central objects of man’s love are the poor, the dispossessed, the stranger, the widow, the orphan and eventually the enemy. Only in the love of those who do not serve our purposes does love begin to enfold and enrich the lives of lover and that which is loved.
