Question II: What sin hatred is, and what kind

To no one is it doubtful that hatred is a sin against Charity, as the S. Doct. shows at length on 15. Ioannis. Therefore he rebukes there the haters of God: They have hated me, and my Father. And the haters of the neighbor: But because you are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Levit. 19. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart. Prima Ioan. 3. He who hateth his brother, is a murderer. Therefore the haters of the neighbor are rebuked, Amos 5. Proverb. 9. as S. Bonaventure reports there on 15. Ioan. Whence D. August. tract. 5. in primam Ioan.: He has not moved his hand to kill a man, and already he is held a murderer by the Lord. That one shall live; and this one is already judged an assassin. I said, however, that hatred whose material object is God, or man, is a sin; for if hatred be borne toward the sinner, as such, it is not evil, as D. Bonaventure notes on 15. Ioan., which that Psalm 138 proves: With perfect hatred I hated them, where D. Gregory in the Pastorali, p. 3. cap. 1. admon. 23.: Perfect hatred, whereby vice is hated and nature loved.

Or, if even our dear ones stand in the way of the divine service, they are to be hated, Lucae 14. If anyone come to me, and hate not Father, and Mother, as S. Bonaventure observes on that passage. But hatred against God, who is Light, Truth, and the Highest Good, is most grave and monstrous, as the S. Doct. expounds at length on 15. Ioan., ruminating those words: If I had not done among them the works which no other hath done, they would not have sin. But now both they have seen, and have hated me, and my father.

I assert first, that hatred of God is the gravest sin.

It is proved by D. Bonav. loc. cit. first with the reasoning of D. August. tract. 92. in Ioan. and Chrysost. homil. 72. in Ioan., taken from that cited Ioan. 15.: They have hated me without cause. For where is the highest good, outside of which there is no good, and in which nothing evil is to be found, it would necessarily, as to specification, be to be loved; and it is most monstrous to hate it. It is confirmed from Aristotle 8. Eth. cap. 10.: That is worst which is contrary to the best. But hatred of God is contrary to Charity, which is the highest virtue, since it is borne toward the Highest Good insofar as it is the Highest Good: Therefore.

It is proved secondly by D. Bonav. in the Incendio amoris, and Stimulo amoris, because, as it is the greatest duty to love the Highest Goodness, from which there come to us Being, Life, and all good things; so it is the greatest abomination and iniquity, to be carried in hatred against that goodness, and to will its destruction.

It is proved thirdly by D. Bonav. in the places cited, and elsewhere everywhere, with the reasoning which D. Thom. also uses, art. 2.: because as Charity is best, because the whole adheres wholly to God, as God is; so hatred of him is worst, because it turns the whole away from God, and in every way. With these and similar arguments all the works of the Seraphic Doctor are filled.

S. Bonaventure notes, however, that wayfaring men ordinarily do not hate God explicitly, but only implicitly, insofar as they are turned away from him, that they may be converted to a changeable good; and therefore all sins virtually contain hatred of God, as Valentia also notes, disp. 3. quaest. 11. puncto 2.

I assert secondly, that to hate the neighbor is a most grave sin.

It is proved by the S. Doct. ad cap. 15. Ioan. and collat. 70. homi. de enim., where those are called haters of the neighbor, as I said. There he brings forward many Fathers asserting hatred to be detestable: Gregory homil. 27. in Evang. and D. August. saying: To hold hatred against a brother is to stop up the fountain of Charity.

Hence the S. Doct. lib. 1. de profectu religiosi, cap. 29., among the remedies of hatred, puts first to consider seriously that God does not spare him who does not spare, as is said Matth. 18. Whence he who wishes to be saved must lay aside hatred, and it is better to do this with certainty; now it is always of its genus a mortal sin; but per accidens it can be venial, first from imperfection of deliberation. Secondly, when he wishes the neighbor the greatest evil. So Suarez de Charitate, tract. 3. disp. 6. sect. 1. Azorius Tom. 3. lib. 2. cap. 20. Sylvester v. odium. Fagundez in 10. praecept. Decalogi, lib. 10. cap. 2. num. 22.

Nay, of its genus it is the greatest sin, among those things which are done against the neighbor. So D. Thom. quaest. 34. art. 4. and Suarez. For although the harms inflicted on the neighbor aggravate other sins above hatred; yet this is worse by the disordination of the will, because it turns one altogether from the Neighbor, the object of Charity, by the natural and Divine law of loving.

It is not placed, however, among the capital vices, because other sins do not proceed first from it, but it is rather the dregs of other sins — Envy, Anger, etc. — from which dregs others then crawl. So D. Thom. art. 5. Fagundez num. 24.

From what has been said you have that hatreds against God and against the neighbor are diverse in species, because the objects are diverse; nor have they of themselves that one should be for the sake of the other, as we said in Charity with D. Bonavent. 3. dist. 27. quaest. 2.

Nay, each hatred seems to be doubled, insofar as they turn away from the natural and supernatural Divine good; likewise also that of the neighbor, as Bannes said, art. 6.; but Valentia puncto 2. assents to the opposite.