CAPUT IX. Quod ubi charitas non est, nulla bona inesse possunt.
Love as the Essence of God and Faith
Jonah opens by warning that love, which is God and the core of faith, is lacking in many, then grounds this in John's teaching that God is love and that mutual love and confession of Jesus are the signs of God's indwelling.
We recognize that there is great danger in both orders—the clerical, that is, and the lay: that love, which is God and the glory of Christianity, and in which the whole sum of our faith consists, is proven not to reign in many of either order (and we say this not without deep sorrow of heart).✦ What virtue love is, both the gospel and the apostolic reading, and the expositions of the holy Fathers, teach most fully. For the apostle John says most explicitly that God is love: In this the love of God appeared among us, because God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him.✦1 In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he first loved us, and sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins.✦ Beloved, if God so loved us, we too must love one another. No one has ever seen God.✦ If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is perfected in us.✦ By this we know that we remain in him, and he in us: because he has given us of his Spirit; and we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.✦ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.✦
The Test of Love and Good Will
Jonah continues the Johannine citation, then applies it as a test: remaining in love means God remains in us, and without love one cannot even sing the angelic hymn, because love is good will, and only those of good will receive the peace of Christ.
And we have known and believed the love that God has in us.✦ God is love, and anyone who remains in love remains in God, and God in that person (1 John 4:6 and following.) . Let each person carefully consider: if they remain in love, God remains in them; if they do not have love, it is not God who dwells in them, but the enemy of their soul. For with love every good can be had, but without love none can—and someone who lacks love cannot even worthily sing the angelic hymn to the Lord.2 But the question is: why? Notice why: because that person does not have good will—for love, as our teachers hand down, is defined as good will.3 So whoever does not have a good will is shown not to have love—and therefore the one who is not of good will does not deserve to have the peace that is Christ. "Glory to God in the highest," says the multitude of the heavenly host, "and on earth peace to people of good will" (Luke 2:14).
The Deception of Love-less Religion
Jonah warns that many are deceived into thinking they can please God without love, but when vices reign instead, chastisements follow; he urges humility and obedience, and admonishes courtiers to avoid treachery and slackness, citing the Psalmist and warning against Judas's hypocrisy.
Most people are plainly and miserably deceived when they think that without love they can either please God or reach him without it. But if love is not in us, and hatred, envy, greed, discord, pretense, lust, and the rest of these evils reign instead—all of them utterly alien to the purpose of Christian life—it is no wonder if God's chastisements strike us inside and out with every kind of trouble, and stir up our enemies to attack us. So if we want to spend times of peace quietly and calmly, let us love and fear the Lover of peace and love, and humbly bow our necks to his commands. But those who are propped up by court honors—whether clergy or laity—ought to be bound together by the bond of love; they must not plot injury or disgrace against one another, against what is right; nor should they be slack or treacherous toward each other, lest those who are treacherous fall under that saying of the Psalmist: "They speak peace with their neighbor, but evil is in their hearts." Give them, Lord, according to their works, and according to the wickedness of their schemes, etc.✦4 (Ps. 27:3). But those who are slack are clearly torn from the oneness that Paul teaches should dwell in Christ, and they should beware the hypocrisy of Judas, the Lord's betrayer.
The Court's Duty to Love and Loyalty
Jonah concludes by noting that many other matters could be mentioned, but emphasizes that courtiers who envy and harm their neighbors wrong God, fail the king, stain the court's honor, and give joy to Christ's enemies.
There are also other things that fit this subject, and it would take too long to list them all. Certainly, when men of this kind, propped up by the honors of court rank, tear one another with the bites of envy and seethe for a neighbor's ruin and disgrace, they also do wrong to God—whose gifts they enjoy—in their neighbor's adversities; and they do not keep the loyalty they owe the king, to whom they cling so closely and whom they ought to have served as helpers according to God; and by giving others a bad example they stain the honor of the court; and, what is still more unfitting for them, they hand the enemies of Christ's name a great cause for rejoicing.
Read the original Latin
Magnum in utroque ordine, clericali videlicet et laicali, periculum esse cognoscimus, quod charitas, quae Deus est ac decus Christianitatis, et in qua summa totius fidei nostrae consistit, in multis utriusque ordinis (quod non sine magno animi dolore dicimus) non regnare convincitur. Quae virtus charitas sit, et evangelica et apostolica lectio, et sanctorum Patrum expositiones plenissime docent. Expressissime namque Joannes apostolus ait quod Deus charitas est: In hoc apparuit charitas Dei in nobis: quoniam Filium suum umgenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per eum. In hoc est charitas: non quasi nos dilexerimus Deum, sed quoniam ipse prior dilexit nos, et misit Filium suum propitiationem pro peccatis nostris. Charissimi, si sic Deus dilexit nos, et nos debemus alterutrum diligere; Deum nemo vidit unquam. Si diligamus invicem, Deus in nobis manet, et charitas ejus in nobis perfecta est. In hoc cognoscimus quoniam in eo manemus, et ipse in nobis, quoniam de Spiritu suo dedit nobis; et nos vidimus et testificamur, quoniam Pater misit Filium suum Salvatorem mundi. Quisquis confessus fuerit quoniam Jesus est Filius Dei, Deus in eo manet, et ipse in Deo.
Et nos cognovimus et credidimus charitati quam habet Deus in nobis. Deus charitas est, et qui manet in charitate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo (I Joan. IV, 6 seq.) . Perpendat quisque si in charitate manet, Deum manere in se; si charitatem non habet, non Deum, sed hostem animae suae habitare in se. Cum charitate quippe cuncta bona, sine charitate vero nulla haberi possunt, neque etiam digne angelicum hymnum charitate carens Domino decantare valet. Sed quaeritur quare? Attende quare: quia non est bonae voluntatis; definitio quippe charitas est (ut doctores nostri tradunt) bona voluntas.
Ergo quicunque bonam voluntatem non habet, charitatem non habere comprobatur: et ideo pacem, qui Christus est, qui bonae voluntatis non est habere non meretur. Gloria, inquit multitudo coelestis exercitus, in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Luc. II, 14) .
Miserabiliter plane decipiuntur plerique, qui sine charitate aut Deo placere, aut ad eum sine illa se putant pervenire. Verum si in nobis charitas non est, sed odium, et invidia, et avaritia, et discordia, et simulatio, et luxuria, et caetera mala regnant, quae omnia a Christianitatis proposito abhorrent; mirum non est si animadversiones divinae nos interius exteriusque diversissimis malis feriant, et impetum inimicorum adversum nos commoveant. Quapropter si pacis tempora quiete et tranquille ducere volumus, pacis et charitatis amatorem diligamus et timeamus, ejusque praeceptis humiliter colla submittamus. Hi autem qui palatinis honoribus fulciuntur, sive clerici sint, sive laici, dignum est ut vinculo charitatis connectantur; nec alterutrius injuriam aut dehonorationem contra fas meditentur; ne desides aut dolosi ad invicem existant, ne forte qui dolosi sunt incidant in illud Psalmistae dicentis: Qui loquuntur pacem cum proximo suo, mala autem in cordibus eorum. Da illis, Domine, secundum opera eorum, et secundum nequitiam adinventionum eorum, etc. (Psal. XXVII, 3). Qui vero desides existunt, patenter ab unanimitate, quam in Christo Paulus habitare docet, scinduntur, caveantque hypocrisin Judae proditoris Domini.
Sunt et alia huic rei convenientia, quae longum est numerare. Certe cum dignitatis palatinae hujusmodi homines honoribus suffulti, morsibus invidiae se vicissim lacerant, et in proximi ruinam et dehonorationem aestuant, et Deo cujus muneribus utuntur, in proximi adversitatibus injuriam inferunt; et regi, cui familiariter inhaerent, et adjutores secundum Deum esse debuerunt, debitam fidem non servant; et honorem palatinum, malum exemplum aliis dantes, commaculant; et, quod iis indecentius est, ad inimicos nominis Christi magnum tripudium transmittunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1John.4.8 — The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
- ↩1John.4.8-1John.4.9 — The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1John.4.9 — In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
- ↩1John.4.10 — In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
- ↩1John.4.11-1John.4.12 — Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1John.4.12 — No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
- ↩1John.4.12 — No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
- ↩1John.4.13-1John.4.14 — By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 1John.4.14 — And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.
- ↩1John.4.15 — Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
- ↩1John.4.16 — And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
- ↩Ps.28.4 — Give them according to their deeds and according to the evil of their hands; give to them according to the work of their hands — return their due to them.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source has umgenitum; translated as unigenitum (only-begotten), the clearly intended reading.
- 2 ↩The 'angelic hymn' points ahead to the Gloria (Luke 2:14) quoted in the next section: peace for people of good will.
- 3 ↩'Good will' (bona voluntas) is the author's scholastic definition of love/charity and sets up the following argument from Luke 2:14.
- 4 ↩Continues the psalm quotation after s4; Vulgate Ps 27:4, while the printed citation in s6–s7 names XXVII, 3.
On the Institution of a King (De institutione regia) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit