Morals of the Church
Library › Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology › Volume II. On the Precepts of God and of the Church › Part First. On the Precepts of the Theological Virtues › Book Third. On the Precepts of Charity › Question Third. On Charity of Neighbor

Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology

Article First. On the Nature of Charity of Neighbor

71.

71. Notions. 1. By the name of neighbor is understood every rational creature which is capable of divine grace and eternal beatitude: the angels and saints in heaven, the souls detained in purgatory, and men, whether they are good or evil, whether friends or enemies, with only demons and the damned excepted.

Christ the Lord teaches that the notion of neighbor, which the Greeks and Romans restricted to fellow citizens, and the Israelites, according to the interpretation of the Pharisees, to fellow tribesmen, must be extended to absolutely all men, enemies not excepted.1

  1. We can love the neighbor with theological charity and with charity which is a moral virtue. We love the neighbor with moral charity when the love has for its motive the natural honesty which by the light of reason we know in love of this kind.2 We love the neighbor with theological charity if the motive of loving is God, supremely good in Himself, known by the light of faith.

In order that we may be able to love the neighbor for God's sake and will good to him, he himself must in some way be apprehended as referred to God: as a creature, image, son, friend of God, as a brother of Christ, as redeemed by the blood of Christ, as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as called to glory, etc. And indeed this relation is the foundation and motive of charity toward the neighbor. Therefore we love the neighbor with theological charity if we will good to him because, for example, he is a son of God: for the reason on account of which we love him is God supremely good, or love toward God supremely good, whose son man is. In the same way we love the son of a friend for the sake of the friend: for that which moves us to loving the son of the friend is love toward the friend whom we love in his son.3

1 Cf. Luke 10:30-37.

2 Cf. Struggl, Theologia moralis, tr. 4, q. 4, n. 16; Ballerini-Palmieri, II, n. 152.

3 Cf. Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie XXII (1898), p. 77 ff.: "Das Formalobjekt der gottlichen Nachstenliebe."

The Nature of Charity of Neighbor

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