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# Charity
- URL: https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/charity/
- Published: 2026-07-14T03:02:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-14T03:02:00.000Z
- Description: Charity is the third and greatest theological virtue: for Aquinas it is friendship with God — a love, poured in by grace, by which we love God for his own sake and our neighbour in him. It is “the form of the virtues.”
- Author: Ben Ajaero
- Tags: Catholicism, Scholastic, Western Christendom, Text, English, Summa Theologica, Library, Concept

Charity is the third and greatest of the theological virtues. For Aquinas it is nothing less than friendship with God — a love, poured into the soul by grace, by which we love God for his own sake, and our neighbour in him.

## What is charity?

> Charity is a virtue which, when our affections are perfectly ordered, unites us to God, for by it we love Him.
> 
> — [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q23/), IIa-IIae Q.23, a.3 (quoting Augustine)

## Why is charity the greatest of the virtues?

> “The greater of these is charity.” For faith and hope will pass away, but charity abides — it attains God himself, that it may rest in him.
> 
> — [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q23/), IIa-IIae Q.23 (citing 1 Cor. 13:13)

## How does charity relate to the other virtues?

> Charity is called the form of the virtues, for it directs the acts of all the other virtues to their last end.
> 
> — after [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q23/), IIa-IIae Q.23, a.8