Chapter 14 — The perfection of brotherly love which is necessary for salvation

We may fittingly conclude these considerations about the perfection of charity as it regards God with some reflections touching perfect charity as it concerns our neighbor.

There are several degrees of perfect love of our neighbor, just as there are several degrees of perfect love of God. There is a certain perfection of this virtue which is a matter of precept and which is necessary to salvation. There is also a supererogatory perfection which is a matter of counsel.

The perfection of brotherly love necessary to salvation is of the nature prescribed by the precept: you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:39). As God is the universal good, existing above us, it is necessary, as we have before said, for the perfection of divine love that the whole heart should be, in a certain sense, turned to God. This degree of divine love is expressed by the precept: love the Lord your God with your whole heart (Matt 22:37). But our neighbor is not the universal good existing above ourselves; he is a particular good beneath us. Therefore, we are not bidden to love him with our whole heart, but as ourselves.

Three consequences follow from this proposition. First, our love must be sincere. It is in the nature of love to wish well to the object beloved. (Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, bk. 2, ch. 4, 1380b35; Aquinas, ST I-II.26.4.) Hence love tends towards two things: to the one to whom we are wishing well and to the good which we desire for him. And although both these things are said to be loved, that object is truly loved to which we wish some good. For the good which we wish to another person is only loved per accidens, because it falls within the limits of the act of love. Now it is incorrect to say that we really and sincerely love an object which we desire to destroy; and since many of the things which we use are destroyed, we only love such things per accidens. For instance, we consume wine in drinking; we expose a horse to death in battle; in such cases we are truly loving ourselves and are only loving these other things per accidens, on account of the use which they are to us. It is clear, likewise, that every man does by nature love himself truly, insofar as to wish benefits to himself: for instance, happiness, virtue, knowledge, and the necessaries of life. But those things of which he avails himself he does not truly love in themselves; rather, he loves the service they render him and he prefers himself to them.

Now this proposition is as true with regard to persons as it is with regard to things. We love some men only because they are of use to us; and when this is the case, it is evident that we do not truly love them as we love ourselves. He that loves another because he is of service to him, or affords him gratification, proves that he loves himself. (Cf. Aristotle, Ethics 8.3, 1156a10.) As he seeks only convenience and profit from his friend and not his friend himself, he can only be said to love his friend in the sense in which we are said to love wine or horses, i.e., not as ourselves by wishing well to them, but rather as valuing them as an advantage to ourselves.

It is not difficult to prove that sincerity is necessary to perfect charity. We see this first from the precept which bids us to love our neighbour as ourselves. For as the Apostle says: charity proceeds from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith (1 Tim 1:5). And therefore, as he also says: charity does not seek her own (1 Cor 13:5), but wishes well to those whom she loves. He gives his own example as a lesson of charity: not seeking that which is profitable to myself, but to many, that they may be saved (1 Cor 10:33).

Second, the way in which we are commanded to love our neighbor, namely as ourselves, proves that our charity ought to be rightly ordered and sincere. For true and rightly ordered love prefers the greater to the lesser good. Now it is clear that of all human good the welfare of the soul is the greatest; next in degree comes physical well-being; and external goods occupy the last place. It is natural to man to observe this order in his preference. For who would not rather lose bodily eyesight than the use of reason? Who would not part with all his property in order to save his life? Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his life (Job 2:4).

Very few, if any, fail to observe this order in their preference concerning the natural goods of which we have given examples. There are, nevertheless, many who pervert this order of charity in the case of the other goods which exist in addition to the purely natural ones of which we have spoken. They will, for instance, prefer physical health or comfort to the acquisition of virtue or learning; and they will expose their bodies to danger and hardship in order to gain material wealth. Now this, as we shall more fully show, is not true love. Neither do they who act thus love themselves sincerely. It is quite clear that the chief part of a thing is really the thing itself. (Cf. Aristotle, Ethics 9.9, 1169a2; Ethics 10.11, 1178a2; Aquinas, ST I-II.3.5.) When we say that a city acted thus or thus, we mean that the chief citizens acted in such or such a manner. (Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Super ethicorum, bk. 9, ch. 9, 1168b31.) Now we know that the principal thing in man is the soul, and that the chief among the powers or faculties of the soul is the reason or understanding. He, therefore, who despises the good of the rational soul for the sake of physical welfare or of the advantage of the sensitive soul plainly show that he does not truly love himself. Hence the Psalm says: he who loves iniquity, hates his own soul (Ps 10:6).

Now we are commanded to observe the same order in the love of our neighbor that we ought to observe in the love of ourselves. Hence we must desire his welfare in the same manner as we ought to desire our own, i.e., first his spiritual good, then his physical prosperity, and then such goods as consist in extrinsic possessions. But if we wish our neighbor to have material goods harmful to his health of body, or physical welfare opposed to his spiritual profit, we do not truly love him.

Third, we see from the precept concerning charity that our love of our neighbor must be holy. That is called holy which is directed to God. An altar and the other things used in the sacred ministry are holy because they are dedicated to his service. Now when one man loves another as himself, there must be intercommunion between them; and insofar as the two persons are united together, they are considered as forming one; and the one behaves to the other as to himself.

There are, however, several ways in which two persons may be joined together. They may be joined by ties of blood, i.e., by being born of the same parents. They may be joined by certain social ties, as fellow-citizens under the same ruler and the same laws. Or they may be joined by certain professional or commercial bonds, as fellow-workmen or fellow-soldiers. Now the neighborly love which may exist between men united by these various bonds may be just and seemly, but it cannot on that account be called holy. For love can only be called holy in so far as it is directed to God. Fellow-citizens agree in being subject to the same ruler whose laws they obey; and all men, inasmuch as they naturally aspire to happiness, are united in their inclinations towards God, the beginning of all things, the source of happiness, and the principle of justice.

But we must remember that, in the right order, the general is preferable to the particular good. A part is by a natural instinct governed by the good of the whole. The hand, for example, is exposed to danger in order to shield the head or heart, the source of life. (Cf. William of Auxerre, Summa aruea in quattuor libros sententiarum (Paris: 1500), bk. 2, tract. 1, ch. 4, f. 36 rb;) Now in the communion whereof we have been speaking and in which all men are united by their natural tendency towards happiness, each individual must be considered as a part, and God, in whom the happiness of all consists, must be regarded as the universal good of the whole. Hence according to right reason and natural instinct, each man orders himself towards God as a part is ordered to the whole; and this order is made perfect by charity, whereby man loves himself for God’s sake. Now when he also loves his neighbor for God’s sake, he loves him as himself; and his love thus becomes holy. This is plainly expressed by St. John, in the words: this commandment we have from God, that he who loves God should also love his brother (1 John 4:21).

Fourth, the precept to love our neighbor as ourselves teaches us that our love of our neighbor must be practical and fruitful. Men love themselves not only by wishing good to befall them and by desiring protection from evil, but also by endeavoring by all means in their power to procure prosperity for themselves and to defend themselves from adversity. Hence when a man truly loves another as himself, he will show his love not only by good wishes but by practical benefits. He will obey the teaching of St. John: my little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18).