Pope St. Marcellus I, Dereta ad Maxentium: “For Charity exercises hearts, strengthens sense, so that nothing is heavy, nothing difficult, but becomes sweetly whole, which is accomplished in her proper time, to nourish peacemakings, to keep things composite, to join things separated, to straighten the crooked and in its fortification of her perfection to solidify remnant extant virtues. All of which therefore the Apostle warning thus speaks, saying: ‘If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil;  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never falleth away:’ Whoever therefore grafts himself onto her root, is neither deficient in freshness nor empty of fruits, for her effectual work does not admit [such things] in her love of fruitfulness.”