Single Question. Whether One must Love one’s Enemy out of Charity

1. About the thirtieth distinction I aska whether one must love one’s enemy out of charity.

a.a [Interpolation] About the thirtieth distinction, where the Master deals with love of charity as to perfection of merit, one question is asked, namely whether...

2. That one does not have to:

In Luke 1029-37, in response to the Pharisee’s question ‘who is my neighbor?’ Jesus says ‘A certain man went down to Jericho.’ [the Good Samaritan story]; and afterwards he approves the Pharisee’s reply that he was neighbor to the wounded man who showed pity to him.     Therefore Jesus seems to have laid down that he alone is to be considered a neighbor who shows pity. An enemy does not show pity; therefore etc     .

3. Further, at 3 Kings 7.23, on the verse ‘Hiram did.’ the gloss says, “God has expressed in the 10 commandments in the Law everything that we ought to do.” But there is in the law no commandment about loving one’s enemy;     therefore etc     .

4. Further, on Luke 6.35, “Love your enemies” the gloss says, “This belongs to those who are perfect.” But not everyone is obligated to do the works of perfection;     therefore etc     .

5. Augustine too is cited in the gloss, on Psalm 118.18, “Open my eyes and I will consider the marvels of your law.” [Augustine: “Nothing is more marvelous in the commandments than to love one’s enemies.”]

6. Further, Matthew 5.33, 43, “You have heard that it was said by the ancients, hate your enemies.”; but the moral precepts are the same in the New Law [the Gospel] as in the Old Law,     therefore the command [to hate your enemies] remains in the New Law.

7. Again, Aristotle in Topics 2.8.113b27-30, “Contrary consequences hold of contraries.” Therefore if a friend is to be loved then an enemy is to be hated; these are contraries said of contraries; therefore etc     .

8. On the contrary:

Matthew 5.44-45, “But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies’ etc;” and he proves there [5.46-48] that this is good and necessary, “because if you love those who love you what more do you do than publicans.?”

9. Again, Matthew 6.12, 14-15, “Forgive us our trespasses.,” “for if you forgive others’ trespasses.”

10. Further, Matthew 18.32-33, what the Lord says to the servant who demanded back a debt of a hundred denarii, “You wicked servant.”, and Jesus adds, “So will your Father do to you if you do not forgive from your hearts.”

I. To the Question

11. To this question I say that an ‘enemy’ can be considered either per se insofar as he is an enemy or per accidens insofar as he is this man.

A. On an Enemy per se

12. Speaking in the first way, I say that an enemy is not only evil by of way privation of good but also by way of positive habit, just as not only is he called unjust who lacks the habit of justice but also he who has the habit of injustice (contrary to the habit of justice) caused by his acts (as in Boethius on the category of quality in his Categories of Aristotle 3). In this way, since friendship regards the good of virtue in the friend loved, a good agreeing with the act of virtue in the friend loving, so enmity regards the evil of vice in the enemy, a vice disagreeing with the good. An enemy as such, then, is both evil and vicious, and consequently in no way to be loved. And the question here is taken in this way, for it is in this way that enemies were hated by him who said, “Let sinners and the unjust perish from the land, so that they be no more etc.” [Psalm 103.35], and not like others among the unjust [who were converted], “Turn the wicked and they will not be [unjust]” [Proverbs 12.17].

B. On an Enemy per Accidens

13. But speaking of the enemy per accidens, namely this particular man who happens to be an enemy, the question is difficult. In fact we can in this way speak of love either positively and by way of eliciting acts, or prohibitively as it were, by way of warding off contrary acts; but the latter is more necessary because affirmative precepts are more obligatory, so that, for example, the opposite of them happens less.a

a.a [Interpolation ] _ than that acts of affirmative precepts are positively elicited, because we are bound to negative precepts always and at all times, but not so to positive ones, to which we are bound only at certain times.

1. On Warding off Acts Contrary to Love

14. About this sense of ‘love’, that is, the sense of ‘not hating’, I draw a distinction, because there is a double good for an enemy per accidens that I am able ‘not to hate’: namely the spiritual good by which he attains, or is naturally fit to attain, God; or some other good, an indifferent good, which can be ordered to the spiritual good or also ordered to the opposite. Examples of the first: loving God with love of friendship as he is the noble good, to desire God for oneself as he is the advantageous good; to listen to preaching, rebuke, and instruction whereby one is converted to love of God. Examples of the second: living one’s bodily life, being healthy, being rich, being brave etc.

a. As concerns Spiritual Goods

15. As regard the first goods [n.14], it does not seem that I can hate or not want them for an enemy per accidens, because perfect love of God is not compatible with not wanting God to be loved by others whose friendship is not known to be displeasing to him (and this friendship can exist both by reason of the noble good, namely for God’s own sake, and by reason of the enemy’s own advantageous good). Similarly, not wanting for others the goods by which they are induced to love God is also incompatible with perfect love of God.

b. As concerns Indifferent Goods

16. But as for the other goods, the indifferent ones, it seems I could hate them for my neighbor, both because I can rightly hate or not want them for myself, and because he can rightly not want them for himself. And whatever he can rightly not want for himself he can rightly not want for another, for whatever I can rightly not want for myself if I were as he is, I can rightly not want for myself.

17. The assumption just made is plain, for I can want myself not to have riches or health or things universally necessary for bodily life, and I can rightly do this in two ways: either first by despising them (for example, if I were to become a pauper voluntarily), or second by wanting God to inflict the loss of them on me because of my sins or, if I am to have them inflicted, to accept them willingly and to rejoice while they are being inflicted.

18. So likewise I can in as many ways will these things, namely voluntary poverty and thus loss of riches, for someone else. I can even want certain evils, I mean temporal evils, to be inflicted by God on someone for his emendation and correction. And if the evils have already been inflicted I can still want them for him by approving the divine judgment and being glad about them. And not only in these ways can I want for him such extrinsic disadvantages, but also, if I believe that, because of temporal advantages, he will always be adding to his sins, I can want for him the evils opposite to these advantages. And this holds in like manner of the goods of fortune and of the goods of the body.

c. A Doubt about Bodily Life

19. But as to bodily life there is a doubt whether I could hate or not want it for an enemy.

20. And it seems that I could:

First because a judge in a criminal case can justly pronounce sentence against him; the prosecution too can, in the same case, rightly act against him; both therefore can want for him the fact of the sentence, namely the killing of him as the guilty party.a

a.a [Interpolation] On this point see Gratian Decrees part 2, case 23, q.5, ‘On those who are to be killed’. Also on the same point Boniface VIII’s Decretals bk.6 tit.4 ch.2 ‘On Homicide’, and bk.3 tit.24 ch.3, ‘Clerics and monks should not be involved in secular affairs’ and ‘A bishop or anyone who^’

21. Likewise, second, if anyone is a hindrance to the Church and attacks it, then since, as far as in him lies, he is hindering the common good (because he is hindering the peace of the Church), and since the common good is more to be loved than the private good of any one person, and since consequently, if both goods cannot be had together, the private good is to be refused so that the common good may be preserveda - since all this is so, it seems that here one could properly will bodily death for such a persecutor, on account of the good he is hindering, namely the peace of the Church.

a.a [Interpolation] On this see Extra ‘On Rules of Right’ Boniface VIII Decretals bk.6 tit. 12, ‘The crime of a person ought not to be to the detriment of the Church’; and Gratian Decrees p.1 d.9 ch.1, d.10 ch.1 on both distinctions; and the Commentator [Michael of Ephesus] on Ethics 9.9.

22. On this article one can say that one cannot absolutely will bodily death, and reject life, for one’s neighbor, because there is after death no way for repentance to be bestowed nor any conversion to the love of God as there is after the loss of riches or of courage or the like - on the contrary, the loss of these things can be an occasion for repentance while the loss of bodily life can never be. Now it does not seem that I could properly will for my neighbor what simply excludes him from the possibility of loving God, as death is such an exclusion.

23. However someone can properly will bodily death for another under a condition, for example if he believes the other will persist to the end in evil. And then he can choose death for him so as either to give space for the saints whom he is hindering or to prevent him adding sin to sin for which he will be more harshly punished after death. And these two reasons are taken from the legend of Saint Anastasia which she wrote to Chrysogonus [Letter 1, in Martyrdom of St. Anastasia, Simon Metaphrastes] about her husband Publius, that, as to the first one, “if God were to foresee that he would persist to the end in infidelity, God would bid him make way for the saints,” and that, as to the second one, “it is better for him to breathe forth his life than to blaspheme the Son of God.”

24. But neither in this case [n.23] nor in the two preceding, namely about the judge [n.20] and the tyrant [n.21], can anyone absolutely want death for his neighbor; on the contrary, rather, he should, as far as he can, not want it.

25. Here one must note, as was touched on in 3 d.15 n.58 and often elsewhere [3 d.16 n.56, d.26 n.116, Lectura 3 d.17 nn.22-23, 26], that when someone, because of the positing of a condition that is simply unwilled, wants something, then simply speaking he does not want it but rejects it. The fact is plain from someone throwing merchandise overboard, who voluntarily throws his merchandise overboard because a storm has sprung up (a storm that he simply speaking does not want). This voluntary act is not solely voluntary, because it is only willed on the supposition of something not-willed; but what is possible only on the basis of a supposition or presupposition of something impossible, is not possible simply.

26. In all these cases, therefore, the reason for death being in some way willed for one’s neighbor is itself not simply willed; for the prosecutor in a court case and the judge of it are bound not to want the defendant to be guilty of the supposed crime.a Someone who suffers tyrannical persecution is also bound not to want the tyrant to be a tyrant against the Church. In the third case too one is held, as far as in one lies, not to want him to be simply reprobate. And so, if what one does not want does come about [sc. the enemy commits a crime] then, on the supposition of what is now wanted instead [sc. punishment for crime], one can want death for him, though with a certain sadness. And this is the same as not to want it simply, for it has often been said above [n.25] that to will something under a condition is sufficient to cause sadness if the condition is realized.b

a.a [Interpolation] and not to want to punish him, as far as one can, for if he commits his crime out of lust or hatred or willingly, he sins mortally. Examine this whole matter in Gratian Decrees p.2 cause 11 q.3 ch. 65, and in Augustine (cited in Master Lombard 3 d.37 ch.5 n.5).

b.b [Interpolation] But is one bound to release an enemy from making amends as one is bound to release him from one’s anger? It seems not, first from Richard of Middleton Sent. 3 d.30 q.2 [“If an enemy seeks pardon are we bound to release him not only from our anger but also from his making amends? I reply that when an enemy seeks pardon a man is bound to release him from his anger...and also when he does not seek pardon; but one is not bound to remit satisfaction or the making of amends for injury caused”]; and from Boniface VIII Decretals 2 tit.14 ch.1.

27. To the first argument, therefore, about the judge and prosecutor [n.20], the answer is plain from what has already been said [nn.25-26].

28. One could make the like reply to the second argument, about a tyrant [n.21]. However, one can reply differently, namely that a tyrant can only cause external persecution (according to our Savior’s remark in Matthew 10.28, “Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul”). For after killing the body a tyrant has nothing more he can do. And such external persecution frequently gives the elect the opportunity to advance in virtue, and especially in patience, which according to James 1.4 “has its perfect work.” For every church in its beginning made progress in this way [cf. Tertullian Apol. ch.50, ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’]. And so, in this case, it does not seem one may licitly desire even temporal death for a tyrant, unless perhaps there were someone who might justly inflict such death on him for his sins (if, say, one were to desire from God that justice be done by some such judge - yet with sadness, because one should always wish that the tyrant were not such as to deserve punishment of death).

2. On Positive Acts of Love

29. If we speak about the other way of taking the precept, namely positive acts of loving an enemy [n.13]: It could be said that eliciting at some time an act of love of a neighbor is not binding on anyone, for one is not bound even to think about him - for example if one were so occupied in contemplation of God that one never thought with full deliberation about one’s neighbor. But if one should think about a neighbor, it is not necessary to elicit an act of love of him, for even without this one can perform acts properly ordered to the end and to what is necessary to attain the end. Accordingly, one is much less bound to elicit an act of love of an enemy, because one is not bound even to think of him.

30. However one can, by moderating this reply, say that if some need of one’s neighbor or an enemy is evident to anyone, for example that without our help he could not have what was necessary for attaining love of God (suppose he is an infidel and that without our teaching him he could not be converted to the truth; or suppose he is wicked and that without o correction he cannot be converted to the good - which may perhaps, however, never happen), then one is bound to want not only the final good for one’s neighbor but also the goods necessary for him to attain the final good. And one is bound to want it not only by exterior volition but also by pursuing it with effective action, if one has the power.

31. But as to riches or health, the opposite of which one can will for him, as was said before [n.17], one is not bound positively to want them for him in some particular case.

32. As for spiritual goods, one is bound to want them for him not only with interior will but also with effective exterior action, in particular in the respect that one is bound to adore and pray to God on his behalf and on behalf of the whole Church. In this prayer one is bound to want the Church to be powerful as to spiritual good for everyone, good and bad. For just as a stomach would be bad that did not want its support to be strong enough to sustain the hand, so would he not be a good a member in the Church who did not want his good acts (if he has any) to prevail for every member of the Church, insofar as God accepts them and insofar as one is able to sustain himself and others (for one is never bound to want simply that which one can will the opposite of).

33. But as to bodily life, one is perhaps bound to want it with exterior as well as interior acts - especially if one can save a life and there is no one else nearby at the time able to help. For example, if someone were about to die of famine or drown in a river and only oneself were present to relieve his hunger or snatch him from the river, one would be bound then not only to want life for him but also, in order to assure it, to labor for it with all one’s strength.

34. How to prove this, however, does not seem very clear either from Scripture or from reason. For if the person in need were in danger of death then, supposing he were good, he would [by dying] attain to perfect love of God in the fatherland, whereas if his bodily life was saved he might perhaps fall afterwards into sin and end in final evil. But it is pious to think piously about saving the life of a neighbor, because one must make the supposition that, if he is good, he could become better and his goodness will be valuable for himself and others; or if he is evil one must make the supposition that he will be corrected. For to judge piously is this, to interpret things always for the better when the opposite is not manifest.

II. To the Principal Arguments

35. To the first argument [n.2] I say that Christ’s response to the question asking ‘who is my neighbor’ must be understood as follows. ‘Neighbor’ asserts a relation of equivalence, like ‘friend’ or ‘brother’. Therefore, if he who shows mercy is a ‘neighbor’ (as is got from the Pharisee’s reply), then it follows that he to whom mercy was shown was held by him to be his neighbor; for he was not part of his family nor tied to him by sameness of nation but (as shown by the parable) was a foreigner. Therefore, anyone whom I can serve in a case of necessity, however much he is a foreigner, is to be held to be my neighbor. And this is what the Savior adds, “Go and do thou likewise” [Luke 10.37], that is, hold as neighbor anyone whom you can benefit, even if he is a foreigner to you. So not only is a benefactor a neighbor, but so is everyone who can be benefited by us -and benefited either by a good external feeling or by a good interior and passive love (which is an interior motion). And in this way even the blessed, whom we cannot benefit, can be loved and be our neighbors. But God, although he can be loved, can yet not have any other good added to him by anyone’s love. And so God is not included among our neighbors.

36. To the second [n.2] I say that all the precepts of the second table [of the Ten Commandments] are explications of the command ‘Love thy neighbor’, for they specify that wherein we must not hate our enemy. For ‘do not kill’ includes not unjustly hating our enemy’s bodily life; ‘do not steal’ and ‘do not commit adultery’ include not hating the good of our enemy’s fortune or family, and so on as regard the others.No reply to the third argument [n.4] is given by Scotus, but it is in effect responded to in the quotation from Bonaventure in the next footnote. ³

37. To the authority from Augustine [n.5] - look for it.The Vatican Editors refer to Bonaventure Sent. 3 d.30 a.1 q.4 ad 3. “To the objection that loving one’s enemies is something marvelous, one must say that ‘marvelous’ means something that is above the power of nature. But this can be taken in two ways, as to the operations of nature simply or as to the operations of rational nature. Now to do marvels beyond the power of nature simply...is not given to everyone, while to do marvels beyond the power of rational nature comes [to everyone] through sanctifying grace, namely through faith and charity. For by faith we believe many things that we could not believe without faith and that seem to infidels to be extremely incredible; and by charity we love things that seem hateful to those who lack charity. And these marvels are contained in the divine law, and to do them is given to everyone who wants to receive sanctifying grace. And so one cannot argue that we are not bound to love our enemies; for this belongs to a different kind of marvel than what Augustine is talking about.” ⁴

38. As to the verse from Matthew 5, “You have heard that it was said to the ancients...”, it is significant that our Savior speaks of ‘what was said’ and not of ‘what is written’. For although ‘love your friend’ was written, ‘hate your enemy’ was not written, but the Jews, perverting Scripture, proved it by arguing from the opposite, and it was thus that they kept it as a law. But that they were understanding the Scripture badly is proved there by our Savior, because he says [Matthew 5.46], “if you love only your friends who love you, what reward will you have?” The Pharisees had in this way a bad understanding of other precepts, as is plain about the command ‘Honor your father and mother’ [Exodus 20.12], and the Savior gives an argument against them [Matthew 15.4-9, Mark 7.9-13]. For their interpretation was that if anyone offered his goods to the temple, and did not give them to a needy parent, he would be keeping the commandment, because God is our ‘spiritual father’. But Christ refutes this by saying, “You make void the commandment of God because of your tradition” [Matthew 15.6].

39. Hence appears the answer to the quotation from the Topics [n.7], because that rule holds only of precise causes [cf. I d.43 n.13, II dd. 34-37 n.94], that is, where the contraries on one side do not both fall under one extreme of the other contrary. For if color had a contrary, for instance a, the inference would not follow ‘white is colored, therefore black is colored, namely is a’. Now so it is in the matter at issue, because under the idea of ‘loving’ is contained both friend and enemy per accidens. The thing is plain about enemy, because the same reason to love is found in both enemy and friend, namely the possibility of loving the primary object of charity, which they both have insofar as they are the image of God.