"et accessit unus de scribis qui audierat illos conquirentes et videns quoniam bene illis responderit interrogavit eum quod esset primum omnium mandatum Iesus autem respondit ei quia primum omnium mandatum est audi Israhel Dominus Deus noster Deus unus est et diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo et ex tota anima tua et ex tota mente tua et ex tota virtute tua hoc est primum mandatum secundum autem simile illi diliges proximum tuum tamquam te ipsum maius horum aliud mandatum non est et ait illi scriba bene magister in veritate dixisti quia unus est et non est alius praeter eum et ut diligatur ex toto corde et ex toto intellectu et ex tota anima et ex tota fortitudine et diligere proximum tamquam se ipsum maius est omnibus holocaustomatibus et sacrificiis Iesus autem videns quod sapienter respondisset dixit illi non es longe a regno Dei et nemo iam audebat eum interrogare"
("And there came one of the scribes that had heard them reasoning together, and seeing that he had answered them well, asked him which was the first commandment of all. And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him: Well, Master, thou hast said in truth that there is one God and there is no other besides him. And that he should be loved with the whole heart and with the whole understanding and with the whole soul and with the whole strength. And to love one's neighbour as one's self is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacrifices. And Jesus seeing that he had answered wisely, said to him: Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.")
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This was today's Gospel reading... First, to Love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength (so seriously, with my whole being). Second, to love my neighbor as myself. There has a whole lot of stuff said on this specific Gospel reading
Lets begin with a look at what the good Angelic Doctor says:
"He mentions the first and greatest commandment of all; this is that to which each of us must give the first place in his heart, as the only foundation of piety, that is, the knowledge and confession of the Divine Unity, with the practice of good works, which is perfected in the love of God and our neighbor; wherefore there is added, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment..."
"See how He has enumerated all the powers of the soul; for there is a living power in tire soul, which He explains, when He says, With all your soul, and to this belong anger and desire, all of which He will have us give to Divine love. There is also another power, which is called natural, to which belong nutriment and growth, and this also is all to be given to God, for which reason He says, With all your heart. There is also another power, the rational which He calls the mind, and that too is to be given whole to God...""The words which are added, And with all your strength, may be referred to the bodily powers it goes on: And the second is like, namely this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself..."
"He says, that it is like because these two commandments are harmonious one with the other, and mutually contain the other. For he who loves God, loves also His creature; but the chief of His creatures is man, wherefore he who loves God ought to love all men. But he who loves his neighbor, who so often offends him, ought much more to love Him, who is ever giving him benefits. And therefore on account of the connection between these commandments, He adds, There is none other commandment greater than these..."
Perhaps we should take a step back and look at exactly what caritas is.
St Pauls states: "nunc autem manet fides spes caritas tria haec maior autem his est caritas..." (I Cor. 13:13) - "And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity."
The Greek word he uses is αγαπη (agape)
Faith is the virtue whereby we assent to the truth of supernaturally revealed principles (Aquinas calls them “articles of faith”)
Hope is is the virtue whereby we trust God in obtaining final happiness. But because God is the one in whom final happiness consists (and not simply the one who assists us in achieving it), we must look to God as the good we desire to obtain (ST IIaIIae 17.6 ad 3).
Charity is the virtue whereby we love God for his own sake. He amplifies this idea when he (echoing Augustine) says that charity is an appetitive state whereby our appetites are uniformly ordered to God (ST IIaIIae 23.3 sed contra).
Charity is what abides in Heaven for we no longer have to have faith in or hope for God.
Charity rectifies our fallen wills; that is, it perfects our deficient inclinations by orienting them toward God as the proper source of our fulfillment. Since our end is intimately tied up with our seeking the right ends, or End, charity is extremely important for our final happiness with God, our final end. Charity, then, inclines one to love God, whose goodness is perfect, unchanging, and eternal. Furthermore, it allows us to attain an end that all the other virtues are unable to attain; Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues
For the Christian, it is quite obvious that we are called to love God for all eternity; why love of neighbor? On the one hand, charity is the Perfection of Natural Friendship. Aquinas describes a friendship as two people facing the same direction (namely God) and charity is what perfects it said friendship. So one could view the love of neighbor as integral to our loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This friendship with neighbor also helps us form a friendship with God. Charity is both love of God and friendship with God. Since charity is grounded in the Goodness of God and our participation in God, Aquinas states that “the love which is based on this communication is charity: wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man with God” (II-II.23.1.corpus).
On the other hand, love of neighbor can be understood as loving God due to their imago Dei. What I will end here is an approach to this discussion through the len's of Aristotle's magnanimous man and its compatibility with Christianity.
This is a topic I have been interested in all year; I think it is once we get notions like pride, humility, virtue, greatness, etc down clearly. I will be writing a paper on this soon so I will save the lengthy discussion of this for a later time; I will however, point to one aspect of the magnanimous man.
Aristotle states in the Nichomachean Ethics of the Great-Souled man that "The magnanimous man's disdain s justifiable, because his estimate is true; but most people's disdain is capricious." (1123b-1124a)
The magnanimous man has a rightly ordered disdain towards those of less virtue than him; if it weren't justified, he would be vain or prideful.
On Aristotle's account, the great-souled man's contempt for others does not entail animosity toward them. On the contrary, the great-souled man is said by Aristotle to treat ordinary people with a kind of gentleness. He is "courteous" toward those of "moderate station," and he uses "ironical selfdepreciation" to conceal his greatness from common folk. His contempt, then, is simply a looking down upon others as beneath him. This I feel is in fact compatible with Christian morality...it is not a hatred towards the less virtuous/holy.
The magnanimous man is constantly accused of being prideful; yet Aquinas clearly teaches that humility regards more one's relationship to God than to other men. Aristotelian magnanimity, in contrast, is concerned with the great-souled man's relationship to other human beings. Thus, insofar as their points of reference differ, the self-evaluations involved in humility and magnanimity need not come into conflict. A Catholic, full of charity for neighbor and God then, it seems may 'look down' on less virtuous human beings as long as he doesn't fail to look up to God. He may may recognize his superiority to others so long as he does not allow it to obscure his recognition of God's superiority.
Yes it is true that God calls us to serve and be humble to our brothers in Christ. This is, however, not a calling to abandon one's own justifiable recognition of his own greatness (through the grace of God). This calling is a calling to, as it were, once having emerged from Plato's Cave, to go back into the cave and lead the rest out of the cave to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. The balance between humility towards neighbor and and the magnanimous man is perfectly phrased by Aquinas in the Summa IIaIIae, cxxix, 3, ad4:
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| The Magnanimous Angelic Doctor, humbled before his Creator |
Even in magnanimity, we love our neighbor as an imago Dei. Yet, we despise their existence away from God. They are greater than us as an imago Dei.
Well there we are...
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