Whether Zeal Is an Effect of Love?
Objection 1: It would seem that zeal is not an effect of love. For
zeal is a beginning of contention; wherefore it is written (1 Cor.
3:3): "Whereas there is among you zeal [Douay: 'envying'] and
contention," etc. But contention is incompatible with love. Therefore
zeal is not an effect of love.
Obj. 2: Further, the object of love is the good, which communicates
itself to others. But zeal is opposed to communication; since it
seems an effect of zeal, that a man refuses to share the object of
his love with another: thus husbands are said to be jealous of
(_zelare_) their wives, because they will not share them with others.
Therefore zeal is not an effect of love.
Obj. 3: Further, there is no zeal without hatred, as neither is there
without love: for it is written (Ps. 72:3): "I had a zeal on occasion
of the wicked." Therefore it should not be set down as an effect of
love any more than of hatred.
_On the contrary,_ Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv): "God is said to be
a zealot, on account of his great love for all things."
_I answer that,_ Zeal, whatever way we take it, arises from the
intensity of love. For it is evident that the more intensely a power
tends to anything, the more vigorously it withstands opposition or
resistance. Since therefore love is "a movement towards the object
loved," as Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 35), an intense love seeks to
remove everything that opposes it.
But this happens in different ways according to love of
concupiscence, and love of friendship. For in love of concupiscence
he who desires something intensely, is moved against all that hinders
his gaining or quietly enjoying the object of his love. It is thus
that husbands are said to be jealous of their wives, lest association
with others prove a hindrance to their exclusive individual rights.
In like manner those who seek to excel, are moved against those who
seem to excel, as though these were a hindrance to their excelling.
And this is the zeal of envy, of which it is written (Ps. 36:1): "Be
not emulous of evil doers, nor envy (_zelaveris_) them that work
iniquity."
On the other hand, love of friendship seeks the friend's good:
wherefore, when it is intense, it causes a man to be moved against
everything that opposes the friend's good. In this respect, a man is
said to be zealous on behalf of his friend, when he makes a point of
repelling whatever may be said or done against the friend's good. In
this way, too, a man is said to be zealous on God's behalf, when he
endeavors, to the best of his means, to repel whatever is contrary to
the honor or will of God; according to 3 Kings 19:14: "With zeal I
have been zealous for the Lord of hosts." Again on the words of John
2:17: "The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up," a gloss says that "a
man is eaten up with a good zeal, who strives to remedy whatever evil
he perceives; and if he cannot, bears with it and laments it."
Reply Obj. 1: The Apostle is speaking in this passage of the zeal of
envy; which is indeed the cause of contention, not against the object
of love, but for it, and against that which is opposed to it.
Reply Obj. 2: Good is loved inasmuch as it can be communicated to the
lover. Consequently whatever hinders the perfection of this
communication, becomes hateful. Thus zeal arises from love of good.
But through defect of goodness, it happens that certain small goods
cannot, in their entirety, be possessed by many at the same time: and
from the love of such things arises the zeal of envy. But it does not
arise, properly speaking, in the case of those things which, in their
entirety, can be possessed by many: for no one envies another the
knowledge of truth, which can be known entirely by many; except
perhaps one may envy another his superiority in the knowledge of it.
Reply Obj. 3: The very fact that a man hates whatever is opposed to
the object of his love, is the effect of love. Hence zeal is set down
as an effect of love rather than of hatred.
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