“Hate the sin, love the sinner”

Origin

The phrase has two distinct historical layers.

Augustine of Hippo (c. 424 AD). In Letter 211, addressed to a community of nuns under the authority of his sister, Augustine writes in Latin:

Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.

Translated: “With love for mankind and hatred of vices.” This is the earliest known formulation of the idea in roughly its modern form. Augustine’s phrasing distinguishes between the person (loved) and the vice or sin (hated).

Mahatma Gandhi (1929). The modern English wording — “Hate the sin and not the sinner” — is most directly traced to Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Part IV, Chapter IX, 1929):

Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

The phrase has been widely adopted in English-language Christian usage since the early 20th century, often without attribution.

Why the misattribution persists

The construction expresses an ethical idea — distinguishing the wrong-doing from the wrong-doer — that does have biblical analogues (see “What the Bible says on this theme”). The phrase has the cadence of a proverb and is often used in sermons, which has reinforced the assumption that it is biblical.

What the Bible says on this theme

Several biblical passages address the relationship between hating evil and loving people. None of them uses the wording of the proverb:

• Psalm 97:10 — “Hate evil, O you who love the LORD”
• Romans 12:9 — “Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good.”
• Jude 1:22–23 — pairs mercy toward sinners with hatred of the corruption itself