Annotation CCXXXV

”The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.” — Romans 5:5

Whether the charity by which we love God is the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, in the commentaries on the epistle to the Romans, sifting this passage, affirms that the charity poured forth in our hearts — by which we love God and neighbor — is not any gift of the Holy Spirit created in us, but the very person of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Which [thing] Peter Lombard, in the commentaries on the same epistle, and in the first book of the Sentences, distinction 17, most constantly confirms, many testimonies of Augustine being adduced — of which the chief, and looking most of all to this clause of the Apostle, is had in book 15 On the Trinity, chapter 16, in these words: “GOD the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God, when he shall have been given to a man, kindles him in the love of God and of neighbor; and the Holy Spirit himself is love. For a man does not have [that] whence he may love God, except from God. Whence the Apostle Paul [says]: ‘Love [is]

—“‘Love,’ he [Paul] says, ‘of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.’ And below: ‘Love, therefore, which is from God, and is God, is properly the Holy Spirit, through whom the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, through which the whole Trinity inhabits us. Wherefore most rightly the Holy Spirit, since he is God, is also called “the gift of God.” Which gift, properly, what is it, but charity — [that] is to be understood — which leads through to God, and without which any other Gift of God does not lead through to God?’” To this opinion nearly all the scholastic theologians cry out against, with unanimous consent, teaching that the Holy Spirit does indeed glide into our souls, according to the substance of his deity, or the hypostasis of his person — yet is distinguished, by a long interval, from the gift of charity by which we are kindled into the love of God and neighbor.