Dist. 29, Art. 1, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/29/q/bon-sent-III-d29-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether according to the order of charity one's own good is to be preferred to the good of one's neighbor.*

Thirdly it is asked about the order of charity in respect to the comparison of ourselves to our neighbor, and the question is whether according to the order of charity one's own good is to be preferred to the good of one's neighbor. And that it is so, seems [the case]:

1. *First*, by the authority of Augustine and Ambrose in the littera, who immediately after the love of God set in order the love of self.

2. Likewise, Ecclesiasticus fourteen: *He who is wicked to himself, to whom will he be good?* By this it seems that one cannot love another in an ordered way unless he first love himself in an ordered way.

3. Likewise, Augustine in the Enchiridion, treating that word: *Give alms, and all things are clean unto you*: « He who wishes to give alms in an ordered way ought to begin from himself and give to himself first. For almsgiving is a work of mercy, and most truly it has been said: *Have mercy on your soul, pleasing God* ». If therefore a man ought to have mercy on himself before another, it seems that according to the order of charity the love of self is to be preferred to the love of neighbor.

4. Likewise, just as nature desires its own conservation, so charity [desires] its own perfection; but nature more desires the conservation of itself in itself than in its like: therefore charity too more desires to be perfected in itself and in the soul in which it is, than it desires another charity to be perfected in another's soul: therefore according to the right order of charity the love of self ought to be set before the love of one's neighbor.

**On the contrary:**
1. First to the Corinthians thirteen: *Charity seeks not the things that are its own*; and again elsewhere: *Let no one seek what is his own, but what is another's*: therefore it seems that charity according to its perfection inclines more to loving another than to loving itself.

2. Likewise, Matthew twenty-two: *You shall love your neighbor as yourself*; this *as* is either a mark of likeness or of equality. If of likeness only, by the same reasoning he could say: you shall love your neighbor as God. If of equality: then it does not seem that there is an order of love in respect to ourselves over against love in respect to our neighbor.

3. Likewise, Gregory in a certain homily: « No one is said to have charity toward himself. For in order that there be charity, it is necessary that love tend toward another »: therefore charity orders man first toward another rather than toward himself: therefore in the order of charity it seems that the neighbor ought to be set before us.

4. Likewise, charity is a liberal love; but liberality is regarded rather in respect to another than in respect to oneself: therefore the love of charity consists more in loving another than in loving oneself.

5. Likewise, the love of charity, when it supervenes, takes away the curvature in nature, as is evident: because, since a man loves himself more than God *before* charity, *after* the coming of charity the order is reversed, so that he loves God more than himself: if therefore it changes the order as regards the love of God, by parity of reasoning [it does so] as regards the love of neighbor: therefore it seems that the love of neighbor is to be set, according to the order of charity, before love in respect to ourselves.

6. Likewise, charity makes us conform our will to the divine will; but God does not love us more than our neighbors, nay rather he loves our neighbors more, if they are better than we: therefore it seems that according to the order of charity I ought to love my neighbor more than myself. *If you say* that God does not will that we conform our will to his in this; *it is objected* against this, that God wills that we desire his honor more than our own advantage; he wills also that we love and esteem more that which is more to be loved and esteemed; but the salvation of a hundred souls makes more for the honor of God and is more to be esteemed than the salvation of one soul: if therefore « by the name of neighbor every man is understood », it seems that the love of neighbor is to be preferred to the love of self. And this is confirmed by what the Apostle says to the Romans: *For I myself wished to be anathema from Christ for my brethren.*

> ### Conclusion.
> The love of one's own salvation is to be preferred to the love of another's salvation.

**I respond:** It must be said that according to the order of charity the love of one's own salvation is to be preferred to the love of another's salvation, according as the authorities of the Saints manifestly intimate, and according also as the judgment of right reason and the instinct of nature agree and dictate. — For the ground of this is: that each thing more desires perfection in itself than in its like; and any weight draws the body in which it is more toward the place owed to it than it draws another body annexed to it: hence it is that charity first desires that God be united to us and dwell in us, and that we tend toward God himself and rest in him, more than it desires [the same] in any other who may have some likeness with us.

The reasons showing that in the order of charity the love of self is preferred to the love of one's neighbor are therefore to be granted. And a sign of this is that those are doubly reprehended and reputed foolish who neglect their own salvation in order to procure another's. A sign of this is also that, if a man ought out of charity to love his neighbor as much as himself, so that there were complete equality there, then he ought to love two neighbors twice as much as himself, and three threefold, and so ascending further; which is found in no one having charity, however perfect.

**To the solution of the objections:**

*To 1.* To that which is first objected, that charity seeks not the things that are its own; it must be said that *one's own* is the same as *proper*. But to seek *what is proper* is twofold: in one way, as *proper* is said with exclusion; and thus it excludes the *common* good, and in this way it tends to vice, and according to this acceptation it is wont to be said that lust is the love of one's own good; and as regards this mode the Apostle says that charity seeks not the things that are its own. In another way a *proper good* is called a good which pertains to oneself, in such a way that in the desire of that good the will neither resists the divine will nor prejudices the common utility, as is the desire of one's own salvation; and in this way one loves oneself out of charity;

and taking it so the Apostle does not deny that man through charity ought to seek what is his own, since he himself desired to be *dissolved and to be with Christ*, as is said to the Philippians one.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that according to the divine commandment man ought to love his neighbor as himself; it must be said that *as* is not a mark of perfect equality or commensuration, but of express likeness, which is attended to in this: that a man ought to love his neighbor unto that good unto which he loves himself, and after his own salvation he ought to desire nothing so much as another's salvation: and therefore that which he objects has no force, namely that it would similarly have to be said in that commandment that he love his neighbor as God.

*To 3.* To that which is objected from the authority of Gregory, that charity more properly orders [one] to the neighbor than to oneself; it must be said that this is not stated to mean that charity first regards the order of man to his neighbor rather than to himself, but because it does not suffice that some love be charity in order that a man love himself; for although the love of charity begins from oneself, it ought nevertheless to extend to another.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that charity is a liberal love; it must be said that although liberality as regards its *completion* regards another, nevertheless as regards its *beginning* it first regards the one himself who bestows the liberality, just as also mercy, of which it has been said that a man ought first to have mercy on himself.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that the love of charity, when it supervenes, takes away the curvature of nature; it must be said that there is a certain curvature of nature which tends to vice and corruption; and a certain one which regards the intrinsic inclination of nature itself. The first is that by which one loves himself more than God; the second is that by which one loves himself more than his neighbor. But supervening grace corrects and takes away the first, while it directs the second and runs along with it; and thus that argument has no force, since the case is not alike on both sides.

*To 6.* To that which is objected, that we ought to conform our will to the divine will; it must be said that when God is said to love one [thing] more than another, this is not because he loves one more intensely than the other, since concerning his love there falls neither intension nor remission; but it is said for this reason, that he orders one to a greater good than the other; and this can well be granted, that one ought to love his neighbor more than himself, when the neighbor exceeds him in merit; but from this it does not follow that the love of a better neighbor outweighs the love of self. For the order of charity is not regarded according to the magnitude of the desirable good, but according to the preponderance of the affection of the one loving. — And if you object that God wills that we love his honor more than our own advantage, and esteem more what is more to be esteemed; it must be said that it is true that the honor of God ought to preponderate in our heart more than our own advantage; nevertheless charity never separates the honor of God from our spiritual advantage; nor is it of the divine will that we desire anything which is to the detriment of our salvation for the sake of his honor. For just as it is essential to nature to desire to be, so it is essential to grace to desire to please God and to cleave to God; therefore God never demands this of us, that we love another's salvation more than our own. — And as for what the Apostle says, that he wished to be anathema from Christ for his brethren, that is understood *for a time*, or *under a condition*, namely if it were desirable.