Tract IX. On theological charity and the vices opposed to it

Cf. St. Thomas, S. theol. 2, 2, q. 23-46; Quaest. disp. de caritate; St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 2, 22-80; St. Francis de Sales, Traité de l'amour de Dieu (Theotimus), which book Pius IX calls "an outstanding and incomparable treatise"; Billuart, Diss. de caritate; Massoulie, Traité de l'amour de Dieu (1703); Bouquillon, De virtutibus theologicis; Tanquerey, Synops. theol. mor. de caritate; O. Schilling, Lehrb. d. Moraltheol. II, § 75 sq.

551. Preliminary notions. Love, friendship, dilection, charity are sometimes taken promiscuously; but strictly speaking they do not signify the same thing. Love extends more broadly than dilection, charity, and friendship; and it can be called the genus under which the three others are contained as species. What, therefore, is love?

Love is defined by St. Thomas as: complacency in the appetible.¹ Love is also called the bond of those loving, or union between the lover and the beloved. A threefold love is usually distinguished: natural, sensible, rational. Natural love is a certain propensity of any being toward an end suitable to itself. This propensity does not arise from its own apprehension, but from the ordination of the Creator. Thus the tendency of a stone downward because of its gravity can be called natural love, and every heavy body is said to love the center of the earth. As is clear, natural love is not a moral act, but a tendency implanted by the author of nature.² Sensible or sensitive or animal love is the first of the eleven passions described above, n. 74, and can be defined: complacency of the sensible appetite in a sensibly apprehended good. Such love is found even in brutes. Rational love is complacency of the will in a good apprehended through the intellect. This rational love is nobler and more constant than sensible love; but it is subdivided into love of concupiscence and love of benevolence. For if the lover principally intends his own advantage, there is love of concupiscence; thus a man loves food, riches, honors, etc. But if the lover principally intends the good and utility of the beloved, there is love of benevolence. Love of benevolence is nobler than love of concupiscence; often both loves are present at the same time. Thus, e.g., a father loves his son with love of benevolence, because he sincerely wills the good of the son; but at the same time love of concupiscence is also present, because a good son increases the happiness of the father.

Friendship is true love of benevolence existing between two persons, who knowingly love each other mutually, communicate something to each other mutually, and converse in a friendly way. Therefore three things are required for true friendship: 1. mutual love of benevolence, 2. knowledge of such love on each side, 3. a certain communication between those loving.³ True and noble friendship is worthy of all praise; hence it is said in Sacred Scripture:⁴ "A faithful friend is a strong protection; but he who finds him finds a treasure; there is no comparison for a faithful friend, and there is no worthy weight of gold and silver against the goodness of his fidelity; a faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality."

Dilection adds a preceding election over and above love, as the very name sounds; hence dilection is not in the concupiscible (appetite), but only in the will, or is in rational nature alone.⁵

But charity adds over and above love a certain perfection of love, insofar as that which is loved is esteemed of great price and is dear, as the name itself designates.⁶ - We can speak of love in a bad sense, e.g. of impure love, egoistic love, vicious love, etc.; but never, or very rarely,⁷ do we use the word charity in a bad sense; hence we do not speak of vicious charity, of charity of concupiscence, of egoistic charity, etc.

Causes and effects of love. From those things which St. Thomas⁸ excellently discusses about the causes and effects of love, it is helpful to draw out a few. Love usually arises from a threefold cause: 1. from knowledge of a suitable good, 2. from likeness, and 3. from familiar conversation. For the common adage is: "There is no desire of an unknown thing," or nothing is loved unless it has been foreknown. Therefore love presupposes knowledge; and if the thing known appears good and suitable to the appetite, it is loved. This suitability indeed usually arises from likeness between the lover and the beloved, whence it is said in Sacred Scripture: "Every living thing loves its like, and so also every man his neighbor";⁹ and Aristotle asserts that friendship either finds equals or makes them equal. Yet this equality need not necessarily be perfect, but a certain proportion suffices. If the equality is excessive, sometimes envy arises per accidens, whence it is said: "The potter hates the potter." - But that familiar conversation conduces not a little to fostering love is clear from experience; for by such conversation those loving know one another better and can give one another more signs of friendship.

The effects of love are fittingly enumerated by St. Thomas¹⁰ as five, namely, union, mutual inherence, ecstasy, zeal, and certain injuries. Love is formally affective union, insofar as those loving will the same things and do not will the same things; but it effects real union insofar as this is possible. For those loving seek personal presence and delight in it,¹¹ and even mutual inherence. Therefore it is said: "He who remains in charity remains in God, and God in him."¹² On account of this union with the beloved thing, love of any true and suitable good perfects the lover. Hence, e.g., a man loving God is perfected. But love of an evil or unsuitable thing injures the lover, just as, e.g., love of sin injures man. Love causes ecstasy, i.e. a going forth from the very agent, in two ways, namely, according to the intellect and according to the affection. According to the intellect indeed, because the lover, forgetful of himself, frequently thinks of the beloved, and the greater the love is, the more he forgets himself and the more often he thinks of the beloved. But according to the affection he does not seek his own good, but the good of the beloved.¹³ Since love draws a man outside himself and renders him similar to the thing loved, it is of the greatest importance to love only holy and honest things. Love causes zeal,¹⁴ because intense love seeks to exclude everything which is repugnant to it, and wishes alone to enjoy the beloved thing.¹⁵ Zeal is sometimes (but not always) good, and so it is said in Sacred Scripture: "With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts,"¹⁶ and "The zeal of Thy house has eaten me up."¹⁷ Intense love, since it produces grave bodily changes and leads a man to labor with all his powers, causes injuries or at least weakness of body.¹⁸

We divide the whole treatise on charity into three chapters: 1. on charity toward God; 2. on charity toward ourselves; 3. on charity toward neighbor.

¹ "The first change of the appetite by the appetible is called love, which is nothing other than complacency in the appetible" (S. theol. 1, 2, q. 26, a. 2).

² S. theol. 1, q. 60, a. 1 ad 5; 1, 2, q. 26, a. 1 ad 3.

³ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 23, a. 1 et 2, q. 26, a. 3, where friendship is called as it were a habit. Cf. also 2, 2, q. 80, a. unic. ad 2.

⁴ Eccli. 6, 14-16.

⁵ Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 26, a. 3.

⁶ Ib. - Others derive the name charity from the Greek word charis, which signifies grace and benevolence; and therefore they prefer to write in Latin: charitas. Yet the first acceptance seems better. (Cf. Fr. Schaub, Die kath. Caritas 51.)

⁷ St. Augustine speaks of illicit charity. Sermo 349, c. 1 (Migne, Patr. lat. 38, 1529).

⁸ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 27-28.

⁹ Eccli. 13, 19.

¹⁰ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 28.

¹¹ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 28, a. 1 et 2.

¹² 1 Jo. 4, 16.

¹³ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 28, a. 3. Mystical authors distinguish ecstasy from rapture by this, that ecstasy gently, but rapture violently, abstracts the mind from the senses. Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 125, a. 2 ad 1.

¹⁴ Jealousy.

¹⁵ L. c. a. 4.

¹⁶ 3 Reg. 19, 10.

¹⁷ Ps. 68, 10.

¹⁸ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 28, a. 5.