The phrase from
1 John 4:8 ()—or () in the original Greek is translated in the
King James Version as: "God is love", and in the
Douay-Rheims bible as: "God is charity" (). Thomas Aquinas does not simply equate charity with "
love", which he holds to be a passion, not a virtue. The King James Version uses both the words
charity and
love to translate the idea of / (): sometimes it uses one, then sometimes the other, for the same concept. Most other English translations, both before and since, do not; instead, throughout they use the same more direct English word
love. Love can have other meanings in English, but as used in the
New Testament it almost always refers to the virtue of . Many times when charity is mentioned in English-language bibles, it refers to "love of God", which is a spiritual love that is extended from God to man and then reflected by man, who is made in the image of God, back to God. God gives man the power to act as God acts (God is love), man then reflects God's power in his own human actions towards others. One example of this movement is "charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (
1 Peter 4:8, ). "The practice of charity brings us to act toward ourselves and others out of love alone, precisely because each person has the dignity of a beloved child of God." ==As a theological virtue==