Distinctio gemini amoris, inter quos animus fluctuat proficientis
The Two Loves and the Soul's Wavering
Bernard introduces the distinction between love rooted in affection and love rooted in reason, and defines orderly love as loving each person according to their true desert.
So these two kinds of love need to be distinguished: one rooted in affection, the other in reason. Often the soul of someone who is making progress — and who wants to love in an orderly way — wavers between these two loves and is afraid: afraid that it loves less the one who deserves to be loved more, or that it loves more the one who deserves to be loved less.1 This, you see, is orderly love: that a person not love what is not to be loved, but love whatever is to be loved — yet not love it more than it deserves; not love equally things that deserve unequal love, and not love unequally things that deserve equal love.2
Two Companions Before the Eyes
Bernard paints a vivid portrait of two contrasting companions — one gentle and affable but less perfect, the other more perfect yet severe and austere.
So let us place two people before our eyes: one gentle, warm, calm, pleasant, suited to the company of all good people, inviting outsiders into his confidence, sweet in speech, temperate in manners, yet less perfect in certain virtues. The other, though more perfect in the highest virtue, yet has a sadder countenance, a more severe look, and a brow hardened by austere manners; he does good to everyone, provides what is asked, but is not pleasant in company and does not invite everyone into his goodwill.3
Spontaneous Affection and the Rule of Love
The soul is moved by spontaneous affection toward the gentle companion and by reasoned rule toward the more perfect one, yet this very disparity fills the soul with anxiety that it has transgressed the order of love.
In order, then, to love the first, the soul is moved by a certain spontaneous affection; in order to love the second, it is urged by reason and the ordered rule of love.4 And so, when a person notices his own heart — how it embraces the first with a certain sweetness, while toward the second it hardens, devoid of all pleasantness — he becomes anxious, he grieves, he fears he is overstepping the rule of love, because he thinks he loves the first more than he should, and the second less than he should.5
Read the original Latin
Distinguendi sunt igitur duo amores isti; unus ex affectu, alter ex ratione. Inter hos duos amores saepe animus proficientis, et ordinatum amorem habere cupientis, timet et fluctuat ; dum putat se minus amare eum, qui amplius amandus est ; aut amplius amare eum, qui minus amandus est. Hic est enim amor ordinatus, ut nec diligat homo quod diligendum non est, diligat autem quidquid diligendum est, amplius tamen non diligat quam diligendum est; nec aeque diligat quae dissimiliter diligenda sunt; nec dissimiliter quae aeque diligenda sunt. Constituamus igitur duos homines ante oculos nostros, quorum alter sit lenis, blandus, tranquillus, suavis, et omnium bonorum aptus consortio, invitans exteros ad familiaritatem sui, dulcis eloquio, moribus temperatus, in quibusdam tamen virtutibus minus perfectus. Porro alter, licet in summa virtute perfectior, vultu tamen tristior, aspectu severior et fronte austeris moribus irrugata; qui omnibus benefaciat, praestet quod poscitur, non sit tamen suavis consortio nec sua cunctos invitet benevolentia. Ut igitur illum diligat, animus quodam spontaneo movetur affectu, ut istum, urget ratio et ordinata regula charitatis. Sentiens itaque homo animum suum, illum quadam amplecti dulcedine, erga istum omni vacuum suavitate durescere, anxiatur, dolet, timet regulam excedere charitatis, dum putat se amare illum quidem supra quam oportet, istum nec quantum oportet.
Notes
- 1 ↩animus rendered 'soul' per lexeme policy, though here it names the seat of felt affection and inner wavering rather than the soul in its full theological sense.
- 2 ↩diligat/diligendum rendered with 'love' per lexeme policy; the distinction between amor and dilectio is not materially load-bearing here, so it is not footnoted.
- 3 ↩irrugata ('wrinkle-furrowed') rendered 'hardened' to convey the sense of a brow roughened by austerity rather than literally wrinkled; rare word, candidate for review.
- 4 ↩charitatis rendered 'love' rather than 'charity' here, since the regula charitatis names the governing principle of love rather than the theological virtue in its distinct sense; a footnote on 'charity' is reserved for contexts where the virtue is materially in view.
- 5 ↩charitatis rendered 'love' per the same rationale as s6; the rule of love is the measure of right affection, not a separate virtue.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
- All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
- Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
- 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group