The Order Of Love (Ordo Amoris): Proximity, Not Ethnicity (Part 2)

by on February 17, 2025 | Comment

Three times in his discussion of the nature of virtue Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74) referred to Augustine’s AD 388 treatise against the Manichaeans, On The Morals of the Church (De moribus ecclesiae) regarding the “order of love.”1 Even though it was a very early work after Augustine’s AD 386 conversion to orthodox Christianity, it was relatively influential.2 Augustine wrote this treatise after his baptism and before his ordination in AD 391 because, as he explained, he was “unable to endure in silence the boasting of the Manichaeans about their false and fallacious continence or abstinence because of which, in order to deceive the unlearned, they consider themselves superior to true Christians with whom they are not to be compared.”3 After he wrote De moribus he debated two Manichaeans: Fortunatus, and some years after that, Felix. He had a particular passion for opposing Manichaeism since he himself had been a Manichaean for nine years before his conversion to orthodox Christianity.4

What was Manichaeism? Peter Brown characterizes it as a “small sect with a sinister reputation.”5 Theirs was an illicit sect that would later be “persecuted savagely” under the state-church newly established by Theodosius I.6 They proposed a “radical solution” for the problem of evil.7 The leader of the sect was Mani (c. 216–76), a Persian born about twenty-two miles south of Baghdad in the capitol of the Persian Empire.8 He began teaching publicly about AD 240, but opposition from the Zoroastrians forced him to flee to India. His teaching quickly became popular. He was put to death in a gruesome manner, but his teaching continued to spread.9 His system was a “radical offshoot of the Gnostic traditions of E. Persia.” It was “uncompromisingly dualistic” and claimed to have “‘unveiled’ universal truths,” namely of a “supposed primeval conflict between light and darkness.”10 The function of religion was to “release the particles of light which Satan had stolen from the world of light and imprisoned in man’s brain.”11 “Jesus, Buddha, the Prophets and Mani had been sent to help in this task.”12 The function of the physical world was to “create this release.”13 They practiced “severe vegetarianism” and were graded by their austerity. Some were regarded as “elect” and others as “hearers.”14 Augustine was only ever a “hearer” among the Manichaeans. The Manichaeans were present in Egypt by the late third century; then they were in Rome in the early fourth century and spread to North Africa, Augustine’s home territory.15

Augustine accused the Manichaeans of gaining adherents by two pretexts: they enticed the unwary by 1) misrepresenting the Scriptures and 2) by “feigning chaste lives and extraordinary continence” (self-control).16 In an instructive line he explained his goal was “that they be cured, if possible, rather than vanquished.”17 He proceeded to consent to give them the reasons for the truth of the orthodox Christian faith which they demanded, and from there he proceeded to discuss what blessedness is and how it is obtained.18

De moribus proper is composed of one book with thirty-five chapters.19 The editors of one modern edition explain that morals is perhaps not the best way to translate the Latin mores. We should not transliterate it into English, in this context, because the significance of the words is now too different.20 They argue that we should translate it “way of life.”21 He considers the “highest good” of man and the nature of man (ch. 4), and the supreme good of the body and soul (ch. 5). In chapter 6 he comes to virtue which, he wrote, “perfects the soul.”22 Virtue is from God, and if we “follow after him, we live well; if we reach him, we not only live well but happily.”23

The blessed life is that which is ordered by love of God, whom we must love with our whole self (ch. 8) since nothing can separate us from the love of Christ for us (Rom 8:28, 35—which becomes the guiding passage for the discussion that follows).24 This is, contra the Manichaeans, and is the uniform teaching of both the Old and New Testaments (1.9–10).

Since blessedness is in God, the farther the intellect drifts from God, the farther it moves from blessedness (1.12). The human mind must acknowledge that it is not the Creator but the creature.

Thus, the farther the mind departs from God, not in space but in fondness and greed for things inferior to Him, the more it is filled with foolishness and misery. And it returns to God by the love in which it does not regard itself as His equal, but rather subordinates itself to Him. The more fervently and earnestly the mind does this, the happier and more exalted it will be, and when ruled by God alone, will enjoy perfect liberty. That is why the mind must recognize that it is a creature. It must also believe the truth about its Creator—that He possesses eternally the inviolable and unchangeable nature of truth and wisdom—and must confess, in view of the errors from which it seeks to deliver itself, that it can fall victim to foolishness and deceit.25

As we saw last time, for Augustine, the order of love is not about ethnicity but about proximity, and in this case, the proximity to be desired is nearness to God. The way (mores) we do this is by striving for blessedness through an “upright life” and by loving virtue and wisdom and truth—to love with our whole heart and with our whole soul and with our whole mind the virtue which is inviolate and invincible, the wisdom which never gives way to folly, and the truth which is not altered but remains ever the same. It is by this that we come to see the Father himself, for it has been said: “No one comes to the Father but through me.”26

It is “through love, then, that we are conformed to God, and being so conformed and made like to him and set apart from the world, we are no longer confounded with those things which should be subject to us. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit.”27

Thus, he concluded, we ought “to love God the Trinity in unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” which is “being itself.”28 God is the supreme good (summum bonum).

He arrived at the ordo amoris in 1.15 where he defined virtue as “the perfect love of God.”29 This is the “blessed life” (beatam vitam).30 The fourfold distinction of virtue refers to the “various dispositions of love itself.”31 The four virtues are:

  1. Temperance: “Love giving itself wholeheartedly to that which is loved”
  2. Fortitudei: “Love enduring all things willingly for the sake of that which is loved”
  3. Justice: “Love serving alone that which is loved and thus ruling rightly”
  4. Prudence: “Love choosing wisely between that which helps it and that which hinders it”32

Thus, since God is the highest good, the love of God leads to these four virtues but always relative (the principle being proximity) to God. So he recasts them this way:

Temperance is love preserving itself whole and unblemished for God, fortitude is love enduring all things willingly for the sake of God, justice is love serving God alone and, therefore, ruling well those things subject to man, and prudence is love discriminating rightly between those things which aid it in reaching God and those things which might hinder it.33

For Augustine, as he battled the Manichaeans, the world was controlled by the one God who is three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. Reality was not determined by a cosmic battle between light and dark (contra George Lucas), but by the sovereign, gracious, good God who gave us both the Old and New Testaments, which are unified by one salvation and one Savior. In that Savior, by grace, we seek to order our lives by the love of God. As we saw in the last installment, for Augustine, ethnicity never entered into his discussion of the order of God. In grace, the order of love is oriented not first of all by nature, but by grace. The proximity that orders love is proximity to God, from whom love flows, and in whom we order love by cultivating the virtues of temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence, which flow out to our neighbors who are all image bearers and themselves the objects of the love of God.

Notes

  1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.2ae.55.a1.obj.4; 1a2ae 62.a.2.obj.3; 2a2ae 23.a.4.obj.1.
  2. Calvin referred to it twice in his 1559 Institutes. Institutio, 3.7.1; 4.13.9.
  3. Augustine of Hippo, The Retractations, 1.6, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Mary Inez Bogan, vol. 60, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 23. As a side note, in the next passage we see Augustine practicing textual criticism. He notes that when he wrote De moribus he was using an inferior manuscript.
  4. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 46; Philip Schaff, ed., “Preface to the Anti-Manichæan Writings,” in St. Augustin: The Writings against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists, vol. 4, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 35–36.
  5. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 46.
  6. Brown, 46.
  7. Brown, 46.
  8. F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), s.v., “Mani.”
  9. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  10. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  11. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  12. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  13. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  14. Cross and Livingstone, “Mani.”
  15. Chapter 5 of Brown’s Augustine is a helpful discussion of Manichaeanism.
  16. Augustine of Hippo, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Donald A. Gallagher and Idella J. Gallagher, vol. 56, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1966), 1.1 (p. 4).
  17. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.1 (p. 4).
  18. See Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae, 1.3, 11. The English translation uses “happiness” but the Latin text is better translated blessedness, i.e., an objective state graciously bestowed by God.
  19. Augustine also published De Moribus Manichaeorum (On the Morals of the Manichaeans) in 388 (rev. 390).
  20. Augustine of Hippo, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, xi–xii
  21. Augustine of Hippo, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, xi–xii.
  22. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.6 (p. 9).
  23. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.6 (p. 10).
  24. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.8 (p. 12–13).
  25. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.13 (p. 20).
  26. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.13 (p. 20).
  27. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.13 (p. 21).
  28. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.14 (p. 21).
  29. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 1.15 (p. 22).
  30. 15. 25. Quod si virtus ad beatam vitam nos ducit, nihil omnino esse virtutem affirmaverim nisi summum amorem Dei. Namque illud quod quadripartita dicitur virtus, ex ipsius amoris vario quodam affectu, quantum intelligo, dicitur. Itaque illas quattuor virtutes, quarum utinam ita in mentibus vis ut nomina in ore sunt omnium, sic etiam definire non dubitem, ut temperantia sit amor integrum se praebens ei quod amatur, fortitudo amor facile tolerans omnia propter quod amatur, iustitia amor soli amato serviens et propterea recte dominans, prudentia amor ea quibus adiuvatur ab eis quibus impeditur sagaciter seligens. Sed hunc amorem non cuiuslibet sed Dei esse diximus, id est summi boni, summae sapientiae summaeque concordiae. Quare definire etiam sic licet, ut temperantiam dicamus esse amorem Deo sese integrum incorruptumque servantem, fortitudinem amorem omnia propter Deum facile perferentem, iustitiam amorem Deo tantum servientem et ob hoc bene imperantem ceteris quae homini subiecta sunt, prudentiam amorem bene discernentem ea quibus adiuvetur in Deum ab his quibus impediri potest. https://www.augustinus.it/latino/costumi/costumi_1_libro.htm. Accessed February 13, 2025.
  31. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 22.
  32. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 22.
  33. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life, 23.

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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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