Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Article I: On the Order to Be Preserved in Charity
ORDER, in general, according to St. Augustine (de Civit. Dei, l. 19, c. 13, n. 1), "is the disposition of equal and unequal things assigning to each its own places." Hence the order of charity, which in some things participates in the virtue of justice, consists in this, that we assign to each lovable object its own fitting place (cf. n. 484).
- PRINCIPLES. I. Some order in love must altogether be preserved. For not all goods are to be estimated equally, nor are all persons to be loved equally. Whence St. Augustine (de Doctr. christ., l. 1, c. 27): "He lives justly and holily who is an unimpaired estimator of things: and he is the one who has ordered love." St. Thomas teaches the same (2.2, q. 44, a. 8).
- II. The order to be preserved in love regards both persons and goods. For to love is to will good to someone: therefore love is referred both to persons and to the goods which we will to them.
As regards PERSONS, both comparison to God must be attended to, according to which some are nearer to God than others on account of greater excellence; and comparison to us, according to which some are more joined to us than others (II, 27, resp. 2).
As regards GOODS, each one ought to love and will more those things which are more excellent and more necessary.
But the first place is obtained by supernatural goods; the second, by natural and bodily goods; the third, by external goods. Cf. n. 476. Likewise, other things being equal, the common good is to be preferred to private good; certain good to uncertain good.
Spiritual things of themselves are superior to temporal things, intrinsic things to extrinsic. Yet not on that account does any and every, or even the least, good of a higher order surpass, in moral estimation, any good whatsoever of an inferior order. Thus no one would prefer to suffer the loss of an immense sum rather than suffer a very slight headache for one hour (Genicot, I, 215).
- EVIL is opposed to good, by which neighbor is constituted in necessity; whence also the necessity of neighbor must be attended to.
NECESSITY (whether spiritual or temporal) is distinguished as threefold. It is called: a) Extreme, when someone cannot without the help of another free himself from danger of damnation, or from death or another evil nearly equal to it. To this is equated quasi-extreme necessity, when it is very difficult for someone without the help of another to free himself from a very grave evil which will soon happen. b) Grave, when someone, unless he is helped, is able with difficulty to escape danger of the soul, or of bodily life, or of another grave loss of goods or status. c) Common or middling, when someone can provide for himself without great difficulty. In this necessity, in the spiritual order, ordinary sinners are placed; but in the temporal order, most poor persons begging (II, 27).
These things having been premised, let us establish the special rules which the order to be preserved in charity prescribes, comparison being made both between ourselves and neighbor and among neighbors themselves.