Palladium theologicum, Tomus quintus: De virtutibus

What CHARITY is.

I ASSUME first, that Charity is here taken for supernatural love. For it can be assumed for natural love, which is divided into Friendship and Concupiscence. Second, for supernatural love, which is divided in the same way. I omit the third member of the division, of shameful love, which is indeed improperly called Charity, Judges 9. You shall strike him with the charity of my lips, that is, with lips simulating while speaking a flattering love.¹ See D. Bonaventure Lib. 5. Compend. Theol. cap. 24. Charity is truly so called from charis, which signifies grace in Greek, as D. Bonaventure notes dist. 27. question 3.

Now Charity, Dilection, and love of God are the same, as D. Bonaventure notes de profectu Religiosi, Book 2. cap. 23. Therefore Charity is love.

For this reason Christ first asked Peter: Dost thou love me more than these? and afterward: Lovest thou me? Wherefore St. Dionysius, and St. Augustine, cited below at D. Bonaventure in primo, dist. 10. dub. 1., reprehend those saying that Love signifies a libidinous affection, but Dilection an ordered one. Yet the Holy Doctor finds some distinction among these three: that Love signify the adherence of the affections to the beloved; whence St. Dionysius cap. 4. de divin. nom. says: We call love unitive. Dilection moreover signifies election; for dilection is so called from choosing among many, as we have Can. 5. Dilectus meus, electus e millibus. Charity, however, adds a pre-esteemedness; for that is called charum which is esteemed greatly on that account.² Thus the Apostle 1. Timot. 1. calls the faithful charissimi (most dear). The same the Holy Doctor teaches, in primo, in the exposition of the Prologue, dub. 4. which pertains to the Etymology of Charity; but as to love and charity together dist. 10. of the first Sent. dub. 4. I shall bring other distinctions below.

I assume second, with D. Bonaventure in primo, dist. 17. part. 1. question 1. and 2., as I shall show also in question 4., as I showed in the prima secundae, tract. 5. disp. 3. q. 2., that Charity is a created habit. But the Apostle bears witness, Rom. 5. it is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us, where he speaks of the charity by which we love God, as D. Augustine teaches Lib. de Spiritu, et littera, cap. 32. and 1 Corinthians 13. Faith, Hope, Charity remain, these three: but the greater of these is Charity. Whence the Council of Trent sess. 6. cap. 7. defines that in justification faith, hope, and inhering charity are infused. They define it in many ways, as the Holy Doctor relates in 3. dist. 27. dub. 1.

It is defined by D. Augustine Lib. 1. de moribus Ecclesiae, cap. 11. Charity is the most just affection of the soul, joining us with God, and in the soliloq. Charity is the virtue by which we desire to see God and to enjoy him, and Lib. de Spiritu, et anima, cap. 16. Charity is the life coupling the lover with the beloved, and by the Apostle, 1 Timot. 1. the end of the precept is charity from a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.

But to explain these definitions, he sets up something against each.

Against the first. Dilection and charity are the same; therefore, since the Master defines charity by dilection, he defines the same by itself. Moreover, this definition befitted natural love in the state of innocence: therefore it is not proper to charity.

Against the second, because the affection of the soul is from the soul: but Charity is from God. Moreover, this definition can befit Hope: therefore it is not proper to Charity.

Against the third. Vision corresponds to faith, and fruition to every virtue: therefore charity is ill-defined by seeing and enjoying. Moreover, desire is in the absence, and something imperfect; but Charity is most perfect: therefore it is ill-defined by Desire.

Against the fourth it is, because to unite the lover with the beloved befits every love, as D. Dionysius teaches, cap. 4. de divin. nomib. part. 4. Therefore it is not proper to charity. Moreover, life is an absolute perfection: the coupling of the lover with the beloved is a respective quality: therefore it is ill-defined: Charity is the life coupling.

Against the last he objects. Charity is the root of the virtues, and the principle of merit: therefore it is not the end. Moreover, purity of heart is from faith, as is said Acts 15. faith purifying hearts: therefore it is not from charity.

The Holy Doctor answers. That Charity is defined in a manifold way according to its manifold comparison.

For Charity is compared to the object, and in this way it is defined by the Master. Although love and dilection are the same really, yet they differ formally in reason. For Dilection is broader than Charity. Whence it is customary to say: Love is of nature; dilection of the deliberative will; and Charity of grace. Moreover, Charity names the habit: Dilection names the act; and thus Charity is defined by dilection, as the less common by the more common, and the habit by its act; nor did it befit in the state of innocence as to the motive, but as to the formal reason.

Second, Charity can be compared to its proper act, and thus it is defined by D. Augustine de moribus Ecclesiae, and Lib. de spiritu, et anima; and when it is said: It is an affection of the soul, there is a causal predication, nor does it befit Hope, whose property is to raise up, not to unite: for it belongs to Faith to direct; to Hope to raise up; and to Charity to unite: to couple also, in an autonomastic way, befits charity, as he says in the act second of the relation.

Third, it can be compared to the ultimate end, and thus it is defined by D. Augustine in the soliloquies: for the desire of seeing God is from charity. Charity of the way is defined, which is imperfect: Or say, that desire is posited, with distaste excluded, which is also toward a thing present, as D. Peter says of the Angels, epist. 1. Into which things the Angels desire to look.

Fourth, it can be compared to the habit, which is the principle of charity. Thus it is defined by the Apostle. Nor does it repugn that it be the form, and the end, and the efficient: for these causes can coincide. For the form is the end of generation, and the efficient of the operations of the composite.

The Holy Doctor brings the same definitions of charity Lib. 5. compend. cap. 23., where he expresses the Apostle's description more fully. It is called the end, that is, the complement of the law, and the end to which all the precepts are ordered, that charity itself may be increased. It is said: from a pure heart, that is, intellect, or intellection, as the Gloss says; for the act of charity is caused from intellection: for the more purely and more perfectly a man understands God, the more apt he is to love. It is said: from a good conscience, that is, a pure conscience, which whoever has, hopes securely; and an unfeigned faith, that is, not fragile, nor feigned, but strong amid adversities.

There he brings a full description of Charity from D. Prosper Lib. 3. de vita contemplativa, cap. 13. Charity is the right will utterly turned away from all things earthly, present, and future, joined to God inseparably, and united, kindled by a certain fire of the Holy Spirit, from whom it is, and to whom it is referred, wholly alien to every defilement, knowing not how to be corrupted, subject to no vice of changeableness, raised above all things that are loved carnally, most powerful over all affections, avid for divine contemplation, always unconquered in all things, the sum of good actions, the health of morals, the end of the celestial precepts, the death of crimes, the life of the virtues, the virtue of those fighting, the palm of the just, the armature of holy minds, the cause of good merits, the reward of the perfect: without which no one has pleased God, with which no one could displease him, fruitful in penitents, joyful in those progressing, glorious in those persevering, victorious in Martyrs, laborious in all the faithful without exception, from which whatever of good work there is, lives.

This definition embraces the perfections of charity for every state, but not for the way alone. He defines it again in the opusc. Declaratio terminorum Theologiae: Charity is the virtue by which God is loved for himself; and the neighbor for God: but he says that Love is a natural affection, common to rational and irrational beings: that Dilection is the affection of rational beings. He has the same definition of charity in the opusc. de tribus ternariis pecc. cap. 4.

But he hands down the definition of Charity most exactly in the septem Itineribus aeternitatis, itinerary 4.

First, moreover, he prefaces that in divine matters Love, Dilection, and Charity can be taken for the same, as have St. Dion. cap. 4. de divin. nominibus, and D. Augustine Lib. 8. de Trinitate, cap. 10.

But that he may the more segregate Divine love, he observes that many loves are given. The first is natural, which is an inclination to a good, not supposing cognition; thus all things love their own conservation. Whence Job 37. The clouds desire the grain, that is, it has a natural inclination to this good. The second is animal love, supposing sensible cognition, and this is in animals alone. The third is intellectual love, supposing intellective cognition; and this is twofold: one supposing an intellective cognition merely natural, or light; and it is from a will not deliberated; another supposes a deliberated cognition with respect to a good related to another, as end; and this is elective love: the former is still called natural. But if that love be toward a supernatural good, it will be from supernatural charity, as it is founded on the supernal cognition of faith. This also in the Angel is Angelic.

Therefore Love is the unitive virtue of the lover with the beloved proportionally, in the ways said.

But that he may the more separate the dross of other affections from the gold of charity, he again distinguishes in man five loves.

The first is natural affection, such as that of anyone toward his own body: For no man ever hated his own flesh, Ephes. 5. Likewise of a mother toward her son, of which Isa. 49. Can a woman forget her infant, the child of her womb? Indeed, as it is impossible for this affection not to harm unless bridled by reason, so that it not follow is the height of virtue.

This affection always gladly embraces the delicate, but shuns the rough. Of this immoderate one Christ speaks, Ioan. 12. He who loves his soul shall lose it. Whence St. Augustine tract. 51. If thou lovest ill, then thou hatest; if thou hatest well, then thou hast loved. Hence you will grasp the saying of Cicero de amicitia: The charity that is between parents and children cannot be broken, except by a detestable crime. For he speaks as to the natural moderate inclination.

The second is carnal affection, which is twofold. One is a certain propensity toward some habit of someone, as the sweetness of eloquence, the elegance of countenance; thus Exodi 2. the daughter of Pharaoh loved Moses, an infant of elegant countenance, and adopted him as a son. The other, however, allures to things noxious; such was David's 2. Reg. 11. and Solomon's 3. Reg. 11. St. Dionysius de Ang. Hier. cap. 2. calls this affection a distant Idol of true love, and it is full of anxiety; but Charity is delightful.

The third affection is dutiful, or official, as Richard says de Trinitate, Lib. 3. cap. 3., which inclines souls to services and duties, which is a sign of a grateful mind: therefore it is to be admitted, though it be perilous. From this affection charity differs, which does not seek the things that are its own, 1 Corinth. 13.

The fourth is Rational, of which D. Gregory Lib. 10. moral. cap. 4., which arises from the consideration of another's virtue. This is the affection that animates the soul, from the splendid deeds of elders, to undergo eminent things. It differs from charity, which arises from the interior breathing of the Holy Spirit.

The fifth is spiritual affection, and this is threefold: one breathed in by a malignant spirit; another by the human spirit; another by the Holy Spirit. By a malignant spirit Amnon burned for Thamar, 2. Reg. 13. and Judas for gold against Christ Ioan. 13. From the human spirit arise spirits resembling charity; thus many laid down their life for their fatherland and citizens, as D. Augustine relates Lib. 5. de civit. cap. 18. and Cicero Lib. 1. de offic., where he relates that there were two precepts of Plato, given to those willing to benefit the Republic. The first, that they so defend the utility of the citizens that whatever they do they refer to it, forgetful of their own advantages. The second, that they care for the whole body of the Republic principally, lest while they defend some part they desert the rest. From the Divine spirit, however, the affection of charity is infused.

Truly this differs from the others. First in origin, because it is infused by God alone, as is said Rom. 5. The natural is born with nature, and the other is acquired. Second it differs formally, because it is the life of the soul; not so that one. Third, because it is the form of the other virtues; not so that one. Fourth in end, because it is toward a supernal end, leading out of guilt and conducting into grace; not so the others. These differences St. Bernard serm. 50. in Cant. and D. Bonaventure in the place cited intimate.

From this doctrine St. Bonaventure elicits what Charity is: Charity is a created supernatural virtue, by which men love God inasmuch as he is a certain Good looking to a supernatural order for himself; and so its object is the goodness of God immediately; therefore it is a Theological virtue. So commonly the Theologians, at D. Thom. question 23. Valencia disp. 3. question 1. part 1. Palau tract. 6. disp. 1. p. 1. Caspesius tract. 17. disp. 1. sect. 2. Morandus tract. unico, question 21.

The name of charity in Hebrew is חבה: Haabat. Not Nabaa, as Valencia reads disp. 3. question 1. part 1. it signifies gratuitous love, Hierem. 31. In perpetual charity I have loved thee.

Therefore charity is defined, Virtue, which indeed is in the genus of a good habit: but I shall prove it to be a habit, and a good, and to be a special Theological virtue. It is called supernatural Haabat. Then it is said that God is loved by charity for himself, as he is good, not for me, but in himself. Although St. Augustine in primo solil. cap. 6. say that charity is the desire of seeing God, it does not stand in the way; for this desire also refers beatitude to God himself, as I shall say with D. Bonaventure question 17., and Caspesius notes disp. 1. sect. 1. num. 5. Moreover, the Definition will be expounded in the questions.