Toward the end of Love’s Work , Rose offers a quasi-Augustinian account of love: ” L’amour se revele en retirer . If the Lover retires too far, the light of love is extinguished and the Beloved dies; if the Lover approaches too near the Beloved, she is effaced by the love and ceases to have an independent existence. The Lovers must leave a distance, a boundary, for love: then they approach and retire so that love may suspire. This may be heard as the economics of eros; but it may also be taken as the infinite passion of faith: Dieu se revele en se retirer .”
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