Salesian Literature

Chapter 12  :  How love begets zeal

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Love aims at the good of what it loves, either by gratification if that good is already possessed, or by desire and quest for it if it is lacking.  In the same way it gives rise to hatred through which it shuns any evil opposed to what it loves, either by wanting and trying to remove it if it is already present, or by turning it aside or impeding it when it comes.  If the evil can be neither prevented nor removed, at least love continues to see that it is hated and loathed.  When love is intense, therefore, when it has reached the stage of determining to be rid of  anything opposed to the good of what it loves, to remove or turn it aside – it is called zeal.  Thus, to put it plainly, zeal is simply love in earnest – or rather, earnestness in love.

 

Love, therefore, is the measure of zeal – love’s energy.  If love is right, its zeal is good; if love is wrong, its zeal is bad.  Now, when I talk of zeal, I mean to include jealousy too, for jealousy is a type of zeal.  The only difference between them, unless I am mistaken, is that zeal looks to the whole welfare of the beloved in order to remove the evil that endangers it, while jealousy looks to the particular good of the friendship in order to repel anything that may stand in the way of that.

 

If we are particularly fond of being love, the zeal or intensity of our love becomes jealousy.  Although human friendship is a good thing, it has one drawback by reason of our weakness; if it is divided among many, each one’s portion is less.  That is why our anxiety or zeal to be loved cannot tolerate rivals or partners.  If we imagine we have any, immediately the passion of jealousy begins to assert itself, and while it certainly bears some resemblance to envy, it is really quite different …

 

Firstly, envy is always unjust; but jealousy is sometimes just, provided it is restrained – surely married people, for example, have a right to defend their mutual affection from growing less through being shared.

 

Secondly, envy means that we are sorry that another’s good is as great or greater than our own, though it does not detract from ours in the slightest; hence envy is unreasonable causing us to see in another’s success our misfortune.  Jealousy, however, is in no way grieved by our neighbour’s good, as long as it is not ours; the jealous man would not be upset if his friend were loved by other women, provided his own wife was not among them.  As a matter of fact, correctly speaking, no one is jealous of a rival until he believes that individual has won the beloved’s friendship; any previous passion is envy, not jealousy.

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