Reading the Love Commandments and Learning the Imitation of Christ in Aquinas

Abstract

Aquinas’s exposition of the twofold commandment of charity embeds a pedagogy for learning the imitation of Christ. This pedagogy may be gathered from his commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John, with refinements from the Summa theologiae. Christ commands love of God and neighbour and calls us to friendship that requires imitation of him. Aquinas depicts this imitation of Christ as a gratuitous, effective, and right love of neighbour which, I suggest, is grounded in, and develops his articulation of, love of neighbour as an expansion of love of self that is holy, just, and true. In this way, we learn to imitate Christ by following his commandment of charity, and we learn to follow the commandment of charity by imitating Christ. This interpenetrating pedagogy exemplifies and belongs essentially to Aquinas’s broader goal of promoting conformity to Christ through his practice of sacra doctrina or holy teaching.