Treatise IV, ch. I: On the Nature of Charity towards our Neighbor, and its Effects

CHARITY towards our neighbor is a virtue by which we love our neighbor for the love of God, so that, according to St. Thomas, love of God and love of our neighbor are one and the same habit, which is the source whence different acts are drawn. Some of the effects of charity are negative, others are positive. The negative consists in avoiding the faults contrary to charity, of which St. Paul speaks in the thirteenth chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians.

Charity, therefore, banishes anger, heart-burnings, enmities, resentment, offensive actions, disobliging words; charity is not provoked to anger. Charity banishes the envy which makes us see with pain the happiness or good fortune of others, as if it was a calamity to us. Charity banishes pride which makes us treat others with haughtiness, coldness, and contempt; it is not puffed up: it is not ambitious, for it destroys that ambition which urges us to supplant others, and rise upon their ruins. Charity banishes unkind suspicions, rash judgments, disadvantageous interpretations of the intentions of our neighbors: it thinketh no evil: it indulges in no secret or malignant joy at the pain or humiliation of others: it rejoiceth not in iniquity. Finally, charity banishes an excessive attachment to our own interests by which we are led to think only of ourselves, and to which we often sacrifice even the most essential duties of religion: in a word, charity seeketh not her own.

But Charity would be imperfect were it confined to these negative effects; it is not enough to abstain from wronging our neighbor, we must also do good to him. Let us then pass from the negative to the positive effects of charity. These effects have for their object the evil and the well-being of our neighbor—that is, to deliver him from the former, and to procure the latter. There are two kinds of evil by which our neighbor may be troubled—the evil of pain and the evil of sin. With these two evils charity occupies itself in a different manner.

Charity, in the first place, endeavors to deliver its neighbor from all kinds of pain, and for that purpose it warns him of threatening evils, that he may avoid them; it delivers him from those pains which are crushing him; if he cannot be delivered, it solaces and consoles him; if he cannot be consoled, it pities him, and lightens his sufferings by taking part in them through a tender and sincere compassion. Therefore charity weeps with those who weep, after the example of St. Paul, who said that he suffered with all the afflicted. Charity, finally, by making us feel our inability to succor our neighbor as we desire, urges us to have recourse to God, to beg of him the alleviation or consolation of those pains of our neighbors which we cannot remedy ourselves.

But charity is concerned in a different way with the faults and defects of our neighbor. Some of these faults regard God, others ourselves. As to those that regard us, if they proceed from his weakness more than from malice, they are rather defects than faults, and ought to be dissimulated by condescension and borne with patience; for this bearing with the defects of others is one of the principal exercises of Christian charity, as St. Paul teaches: Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ. Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any hath a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you. But if there are really offences against us proceeding from malice, we must not only bear them patiently, without resentment or heartburning, but we must forgive them sincerely, as we wish God to forgive us; we must consider more the offence against God than against ourselves, and must think of the evil incurred by him who wrongs us, rather than of the pain we suffer.

But if our neighbor's fault only concerns God, charity impels us to endeavor to correct him if we can, and to hide it if that is impossible: it urges us also to pray earnestly to God that He will come to the deliverance of our neighbor. Charity supplicates God to appease His anger, and arrest His vengeance, which overhangs the guilty; and, to deliver the sinner, it consents to share the pain that threatens him; thus making himself a victim of the justice of God that it may make the sinner the object of His mercy, after the example of St. Paul, who wished to be anathema for his brethren; or rather the example of Jesus Christ Himself, who, being without sin, was made, as St. Paul said, the victim of sin. Here we may see the extent and perfection of Christian charity.

But charity is not confined to preventing our neighbor's ills; it exerts itself to do him good in every way; for charity, as St. Paul says, is kind. It obliges us to esteem, honor, and love our neighbor sincerely and affectionately; to testify our esteem by speaking advantageously of him, not by base flattery, but by sincere cordiality. It obliges us to testify our respect for him by treating him in a respectful and civil manner, and our friendship by wishing him every good, and rejoicing in those that he possesses, and by endeavoring to procure for him those which he needs, if it be in our power; by rendering all good offices and services he may require of us, anticipating his requests in all that concerns his salvation, and sparing no effort in his behalf.