Chapter III. On Charity

217. • Charity is a virtue by which we love God as the supreme good on account of himself ¹, and the neighbor on account of God. - Charity is the most excellent of all the virtues, because it reaches God in the most perfect way. Hence, 1. Cor. 13.13: Now there remain Faith, Hope, Charity, these three; but the greater of these is Charity.

¹ What it means to love God gratuitously and on account of himself, St. Augustine explains in several places, namely that we should not serve God, nor love or seek him on account of another thing, that is, on account of a temporal reward, on account of a reward outside himself, on account of goods distinct or different from him, but that he himself should be our good, our beatitude, our reward. See De Catech. rud. Cap. 22. n. 39 and Cap. 27. n. 56. - De Gen. ad lit. Lib. 8. Cap. 11. n. 24. - Serm. 91. n. 3. Serm. 165. n. 4. and Serm. 334. n. 3. - In Psalm. 52. n. 10. in Psalm. 77. n. 21. and in Psalm. 85. n. 8. These and other things both of St. Augustine and of other Doctors you will find in Io. Bapt. Faure in the excellent Commentaries on the Enchiridion of St. Augustine, Cap. 7 and 8, and again at Cap. 121, 122.

The formal object of Charity is divine goodness ²; but the primary material object is God, the secondary is the neighbor. - St. Lig. n. 22. et seq.

² Some move questions here (see St. Lig. Lib. 6. n. 436.) whether the formal object of charity is also goodness which shines forth in any divine attribute, for example, mercy, justice, wisdom, etc., or instead only goodness insofar as this comprises all the perfections of God; but they present the first opinion as less probable, and commonly rejected by the Doctors. But these things are owed only to a certain equivocation. For the opinion which is commonly rejected is not that which we have mentioned, but that which holds contrition elicited not from the motive of charity, but from the motive of obedience, religion, penance, etc., as perfect and therefore apt to justify a man before the reception of the sacrament. Concerning this matter see Cardinal De Lugo, De Poenit. Disp. 5. Sect. 1, and also the things which we shall say in the Treatise on Penance (Vol. 2. at n. 441.).

It is distinguished as 1º Love of God supremely intensive or appreciative; 2º Love of benevolence, which regards the proper good of the beloved; love of friendship, which is mutual love of benevolence; and love of concupiscence, which primarily intends the proper good of the lover ³.

³ One must carefully beware lest love which carries us toward God as our good be traduced as foreign to charity. The reason is, 1º because man in reality is not drawn except by divine goodness, and while he seeks the object of beatitude in this rather than in any other good, that love already appears implanted, supremely appreciative, which is proper to perfect charity, and by which (as St. Bonaventure says, 3. Dist. 26. art. 2. q. 3.) he desires God above all things. 2º Because otherwise not even love of friendship would be possible. For as St. Thomas says (2. 2. q. 26. art. 13. ad 3.): To each one God will be the whole reason of loving, because God is man's whole good. For, if by impossibility it were granted that God were not man's good, there would not be a reason for loving him. Hence also St. Francis de Sales (Treatise of the Love of God, Part 2. Lib. 4. Cap. 10.) refers to chimeras and empty fantasies the love of any good which does not pertain to us and to the object of our beatitude. 3º Finally, because love of God excluding the affection of possessing God as the object of our beatitude, which perfectly satisfies our appetite for happiness, will easily lead to doctrines of pure charity without any admixture of a motive of proper interest, which Innocent XII condemned in several propositions, 12 March 1699, and of which especially the first, fifth, and sixth pertain to the present matter.

The treatment must be 1º concerning the love of God, 2º concerning the love of neighbor.