Question V: Whether anyone is bound at some time to give alms from things necessary to his state, apart from the extreme necessity of the neighbor

The FIRST opinion is negative. So Cajetan in the treatise on alms and in the Summa, at the word Alms; Sanchez tom. 1. opusc. lib. 1. cap. 5. disp. 5. num. 44; Martin Ledesma in 2. p. q. quaest. 18. art. 3; D. Thomas in 4. dist. 15. quaest. 2. art. 4. quaestiunc. 1; Salo quaest. 31. art. 1; Soto de Iustitia, lib. 5. quaest. 8. art. 1; Navarrus de restit. lib. 3. cap. 1. num. 122; Diana is to be cited; Fulgentius lib. 3. cap. 10.

The SECOND opinion is that he is obliged, provided it can be done with less inconvenience than that which the needy neighbor undergoes; for instance, if the neighbor must fall from his state, or incur calamities. So Paludanus 4. dist. 15. quaest. 3; Adrian quodl. 12. art. 2. concl. 2; Bannes quaest. 31. art. 6. dub. 4, who says that certain theologians of our time have taught this opinion — Victoria, Soto, Cano; and it seems to be the opinion of D. Thomas art. 5. ad 3. Valencia also defends it disp. 3. quaest. 9. p. 4; Tanner disp. 2. quaest. 5. dub. 2. num. 12. This seems to me the opinion of D. Bonaventure LL. CC. in the preceding quaest., which Hurtado disp. 159. sect. 4. §. 92 and Sylvester quaest. 32. art. 6 uphold among the moderns, and others collected in Diana 4. p. tract. 4. resol. 225. and p. 5. tract. 8. resol. 15.

It is proved first from D. Bonaventure 3. dist. 29. quaest. 6, where he shows that charity must go forth into effect; and he brings forward prima Ioan. 3, where after saying: If anyone have the substance of this world, and see his brother have need, and shut up his bowels from him: how does the Charity of God remain in him? he concludes: Let us not love in tongue, but in deed, and in truth. This, he infers, is done if one has not denied one's own substance in any way to one's neighbor, when he is in a necessity that is not extreme; but if he has denied it, it is inferred that he does not have Charity.

It is proved secondly by that example Matth. 18 of the man who refused to forgive the debt to the one who owed him, and was delivered to the torturers; and yet he was such that he himself had not wherewith to pay his Lord. Hence he stood in need of those things which his fellow servant owed.

It is proved thirdly from the Fathers, who, while they say alms are to be given from superfluities, seem to understand by superfluities also the abundance suitable to one's state, which are to be given when the neighbor is in necessity, as Valencia observes after D. Bonaventure 4. dist. 15. p. 2. art. 2. quaest. 1. ad ultimum.

You object. Since the necessities of the poor are very many, very many rich men, who do not give what is suitable to their own state, would be condemned — who certainly do not gladly listen to this tune, and wise men find no reason why they should be condemned.

It is answered that the necessities of which we speak are not so many, so as to be evident even to us, so that many are condemned; and certainly Christian charity seems to teach by its own light that other Christians, who have slipped into miseries, are to be relieved with some inconvenience of ours, even a notable one: nor is it true, as Diana says, that the rich have a right to live splendidly in their own state at so great damage and misery to the poor.