“...but rather posits two distinctly differently ranked commandments, the second subordinate to the first....”
Where do you get the idea that the second is less than the first?
“I beg to differ with Benedict, and will make my case in the words of the Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 22:37-40,...”
You do understand that the only reason you can have any confidence at all the Christ actually said what Matthew records is because The Church determined 1600+ years ago that Matthew was worthy of belief and then only because most of it was consistent with what The Church “always and everywhere believed”?
***“...but rather posits two distinctly differently ranked commandments, the second subordinate to the first....”
Where do you get the idea that the second is less than the first?
“I beg to differ with Benedict, and will make my case in the words of the Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 22:37-40,...”***
Let us go for more extended verse. Mark 12:
5 One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”
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Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!
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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
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The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
No other commandment greater than these.
***You do understand that the only reason you can have any confidence at all the Christ actually said what Matthew records is because The Church determined 1600+ years ago that Matthew was worthy of belief and then only because most of it was consistent with what The Church “always and everywhere believed”?***
You mean that theology created behind the doors of a strip mall church in the wee hours over several gallons of whisky is not as, if not more, valid than the theology of the early Church Fathers and the Apostles which came from Jesus?