Sermon 50 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Twofold Charity, Namely Actual and Affectual; and Its Ordering.
1. You perhaps expect the following verses to be treated, thinking the little verse which was most recently treated to be finished. But I am contriving something else: for I have something yet to set before you from the fragments of yesterday's banquet, which I had gathered for myself lest they perish. But they will perish if I set them before no one: for if I wish to have them for myself alone, I myself shall perish. Therefore I do not wish to defraud your gluttony, which I know well, of these things: especially since they are from the dish of charity, sweet insofar as they are subtle, savory insofar as they are small. Otherwise it is exceedingly contrary to charity to defraud of charity itself. And so here I am: "He ordered charity in me" (Song 2:4).
2. There is a charity in act, and there is one in affection. And concerning that which is of work, I think the law was given to men and a commandment was formed: for who so possesses it in affection as it is commanded? Therefore the one is commanded for merit, the other is given as a reward. We do not deny that divine grace can grant its beginning indeed, and its progress, to be experienced even in the present life; but its consummation we firmly reserve for future happiness. How then was it right to command what was in no way to be fulfilled? Or if it pleases you more that the commandment was given concerning affectual charity, I do not contend about that, provided that you too agree with me that it could in no way be fulfilled in this life by any man, or could have been. For who would dare arrogate to himself that which Paul himself confesses he has not comprehended? (Phil 3:13.) Nor was the weight of the precept, exceeding the powers of men, hidden from the teacher; but he judged it useful that they be reminded of their own insufficiency from this very thing, and that they might know clearly toward what end of righteousness they ought to strive with their powers. Therefore by commanding impossible things he did not make men transgressors, but humble, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be made subject to God; because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him (Rom 3:19-20). For receiving the commandment, and feeling our transgression, we shall cry out to heaven, and God will have mercy on us: and we shall know in that day, that not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us (Titus 3:5).
3. And this I would have said, if indeed we agreed that affectual charity was commanded by law. But that this rather pertains to actual charity seems to appear most especially from this: that when the Lord had said, "Love your enemies," he at once adds concerning works: "Do good to those who hate you" (Lk 6:27). Likewise Scripture: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink" (Rom 12:20). And here you have what concerns act, not affection. But hear likewise the Lord commanding also concerning love of himself: "If you love me," he says, "keep my words" (Jn 14:15). And here too we are sent to works by the enjoined observance of commandments. But he would have warned about works superfluously, if love had already been in the affection. So it is necessary that you also receive in this way the command that you love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:39), even if it is not so openly expressed. Or do you not finally judge it sufficient for fulfilling this commandment concerning love of neighbor, if you perfectly observe that which is rightly prescribed to every man by the law of nature: "What you do not wish done to you, do not do to another"? (Tob 4:16.) And likewise: "Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do also to them" (Mt 7:12).
4. Nor do I say this so that we should be without affection, and with a dry heart move only our hands to works. I have read among the other great and grievous evils of men which the Apostle writes, this also numbered: namely to be without affection (Rom 1:31). But there is an affection which the flesh begets; and there is one which reason rules; and there is one which wisdom seasons. The first is that which the Apostle says is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be (Rom 8:7); the second is that which he affirms on the other hand to be consenting to the law of God, because it is good (Rom 7:16); nor is there any doubt that the contentious and the consenting differ from each other. But the third is far distant from both, which both tastes and savors that the Lord is sweet (Ps 33:9), eliminating the first and rewarding the second. For the first indeed is sweet, but base; the second is dry, but strong; the last is rich, and sweet. Therefore through the second, works are done, and in it charity resides -- not that affectual charity, which, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, growing rich, brings to the mind a great multitude of the sweetness of the Lord; but rather a certain actual charity, which even if it does not yet sweetly refresh with that sweet love, nevertheless vehemently inflames with a love of that very love. "Let us not love," he says, "in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1 Jn 3:18).
5. Do you see how he carefully proceeds in the middle between vicious and affectionate love, distinguishing from each equally this actual and salutary charity? He receives in this love neither the pretense of a lying tongue, nor in turn does he demand the taste of affecting wisdom. "Let us love," he says, "in deed and in truth": namely that we be moved to good works more by a certain impulse of living truth than by the affection of that savory charity. "He ordered charity in me." Which of these do you think? Both, but in opposite order. For actual charity prefers inferior things, affectual prefers superior things. For indeed in a well-affected mind there is no doubt, for example, that the love of God is set before the love of man; and among men themselves, the more perfect before the weaker, heaven before earth, eternity before time, the soul before the flesh. Yet in a well-ordered action, the opposite order is often, or even always, found. For concerning care for our neighbor we are both more urgently pressed and more frequently occupied; and we attend to weaker brethren with more diligent care; and to the peace of earth rather than the glory of heaven we attend by the right of humanity and by necessity itself; and by the restlessness of temporal cares we are scarcely permitted to perceive anything of eternal things; and to the ailments of our body, with care of the soul set aside, we attend almost continuously; and indeed to our very weaker members we assign the more abundant honor, according to the judgment of the Apostle (1 Cor 12:23): by this in a certain way fulfilling the word of the Lord, concerning which you have: "The last shall be first, and the first last" (Mt 20:16). Finally, who doubts that one who prays speaks with God? Yet how often are we thence led away and torn away at the command of charity, on account of those who are in need of our work or word? How often does pious quiet piously yield to the tumult of business? How often is a book put down with good conscience, so that one may sweat at the work of the hands? How often, for the sake of administering earthly things, do we most justly abstain from celebrating the very solemnities of the Mass? The order is reversed: but necessity has no law. Actual charity therefore follows its own order according to the command of the head of the household, beginning from the last (Mt 20:8). Surely it is pious and just, for it is no respecter of persons; nor does it consider the value of things, but the necessities of men.
6. But affectual charity is not so: for it draws its order from the first things. For it is wisdom, through which certainly each thing savors as it is: so that, for example, what is of greater value by nature, the affection itself also feels to be of greater value; lesser things less, the least things least. And that order of charity truth makes; but this order the charity of truth claims for itself. For charity is true in this also, that those who are in greater need receive first: and in turn in this truth appears dear, if we hold in affection the order which truth holds by reason. If therefore you love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength (Mt 22:37); and leaping beyond that love of love, with which actual charity is content, by a more fervent affection, you receive at close range the divine love itself, toward which that is a step, having received the Spirit in fullness, and wholly catch fire: God surely savors to you, even if not altogether worthily as he is (which indeed is impossible for every creature), yet certainly as your capacity for savoring is. Then you will also savor to yourself as you are, when you perceive that you have absolutely nothing for which you may love yourself except insofar as you are God's: since you have poured out the whole of that for which you love, into him. You will savor, I say, to yourself as you are, when by the very experience of your love, and the affection which you will have toward yourself, you find that you are worthy of nothing that might be loved by you yourself, except on account of him, without whom you yourself are nothing.
7. Now indeed your neighbor, whom you are truly bound to love as yourself, that he too may savor to you as he is, will surely savor to you no differently than you to yourself, who is what you are: for he is a man. You therefore who love yourself only because you love God; consequently all who similarly love him, you love as yourself. Furthermore an enemy, since he is nothing, inasmuch as he does not love God: he cannot indeed be loved as yourself, who love God; yet you will love him so that he may love. But it is not the same thing, to love so that he may love, and to love because he loves. Accordingly that he too may savor to you as he is, he will savor to you, not indeed for what he is, since he is certainly nothing; but for what he perhaps will be in the future -- which is close to nothing, inasmuch as it still hangs in doubt. For concerning one of whom it is established that he will never return to the love of God, he must savor to you not close to nothing, but altogether nothing, inasmuch as he is nothing for eternity. That one therefore excepted, who is now not only not to be loved, but moreover to be held in hatred, according to that: "Did I not hate those who hated you, O Lord, and waste away on account of your enemies?" (Ps 138:21.) For the rest, charity -- rightly ambitious in this respect -- permits that not even the most hostile man be denied some small measure of affection. Who is wise, and will understand these things?
8. Give me a man who above all things indeed loves God with his whole self; but himself and his neighbor, insofar as they love God himself; his enemy, however, as one who perhaps will love him some day; his parents according to the flesh, more tenderly on account of nature; but his spiritual teachers more abundantly on account of grace; and in this manner attends to all other things of God with ordered love, despising the earth, looking up to heaven, using this world as though not using it, and discerning between things to be used and things to be enjoyed by a certain inmost savor of the mind, so that he cares for transitory things in a transitory way, and only for what is needed and insofar as it is needed, and embraces eternal things with eternal desire: such a man, I say, give me, and I will boldly pronounce him wise, to whom indeed each thing truly savors as it is, and to whom it belongs in truth and security to glory and to say that "he ordered charity in me." But where is he, or when are these things so? Which I say weeping: how long do we smell and not taste, gazing upon the fatherland and not apprehending it, sighing and saluting from afar? O truth, fatherland of exiles, end of exile! I see you, but I am not permitted to enter, held back by the flesh; nor am I worthy to be admitted, soiled with sins. O Wisdom, who reaches from end to end mightily in establishing and sustaining things; and disposes all things sweetly in blessing and ordering affections! Direct our actions, as our temporal necessity demands; and dispose our affections, as your eternal truth requires, so that each one of us may securely glory in you and say that "he ordered charity in me." For you are the power of God and the wisdom of God, Christ the Bridegroom of the Church, our Lord, over all things God blessed forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.