EVANGELICAL COUNSELS. - Invitations, contained in the Gospel, to stable forms of virtue in the renunciation of natural goods that hinder union with God. Among the norms of life given by Jesus Christ, some are obligatory for all, others are only recommended, as effective means for attaining higher spiritual perfection in this life and a greater reward in heaven: the former constitute the precepts (v.) or commandments, the latter the evangelical counsels, of which the principal ones, called such by antonomasia, are three, which, generally adopted in the form of vows, constitute the basis of the "religious state" (can. 487): voluntary poverty, perpetual chastity and perfect obedience, in opposition to the three concerns which in corrupted human nature become sources of sin (I Io. 2, 16). The evangelical counsels were limited to three in the Middle Ages, with reference to St. Gregory the Great (In Ezech. hom., II, 8, 18).
By word and by example Jesus Christ inculcated the practice of these counsels. Poverty (v.) is counseled to the rich young man: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me" (Mt. 19, 16-21; Mc. 10, 17-22; Lc. 18, 18-23); perpetual chastity (v.) in the answer given to the disciples concerning the renunciation of marriage for the Kingdom of heaven (Mt. 19, 10-12; cf. I Cor. 7, 7 ff., 25-40); perfect obedience (v.), or the spontaneous subordination of one's will to that of others, in the words that express self-denial (v.): "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross each day and follow me" (Mt. 16, 24; Lc. 9, 23); and likewise in those that invite to faithful discipleship (Mt. 19, 21), discipleship being a conforming to the master's directives, or that inculcate voluntary service (Mt. 20, 26; Lc. 22, 26). The earthly life of Jesus Christ gave us a perfect example of poverty (II Cor. 8, 9), of chastity (Hebr. 7, 26), of obedience (Phil. 4, 8).
St. Thomas demonstrates how fittingly Jesus Christ in the new law, a law of liberty and perfection, added the counsels to the precepts, by means of which one can more easily attain the ultimate end. Man indeed - he says - placed between worldly goods and spiritual goods, the more he clings to the one, the more he withdraws from the other; and although it is not necessary, in order to attain eternal beatitude, that he abandon earthly things entirely, since he can also use them according to reason, nevertheless he will attain it better and more swiftly by renouncing them.
Now, by the practice of the evangelical counsels one renounces all the goods of the world, which are the object of the concupiscence of the eyes, of the concupiscence of the flesh and of the pride of life (I Io. 2, 16). By voluntary poverty indeed one renounces riches; by perpetual chastity, the pleasures of the flesh; by perfect obedience, honors (Sum. Theol., 1a-2a, q. 108, a. 4). Thus man frees himself from earthly concerns that delay him in the love of God, concerns directed to the administration of the goods of fortune, to the governance of the family, to the disposition of his own acts. And at the same time it is the sacrifice to God of all that he possesses: in property, in body and in soul (Sum. Theol., 2a-2a, q. 186, a. 7).
From this follows the excellence of the religious state, in which the observance of the evangelical counsels is promised to God by vow.
The Protestants, who admit only precepts and not counsels, maintain, adducing various texts of Holy Scripture, that every good work is commanded (Luther was answered by K. Schatzgeyer [v.], Chemnitz by St. R. Bellarmine). They cite the words of Jesus: "Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Mt. 5, 48), deducing from this that every possible perfection is prescribed for us. But the perfection (v.) here commanded consists in loving one's enemies (Mt. 5, 44), as St. Luke explains in a parallel passage (6, 36). In Mt. 22, 37 perfect charity is commanded, in which perfection consists; but such an obligation concerns charity (v.) appetitive summa. In Mt. 19, 17-21 the distinction is clear between the common way of the Commandments (v. 17), necessary for salvation, and the higher and more arduous way, optional for one who wishes (v. 21) to tend toward the more perfect.
The practice of the evangelical counsels was in force from the earliest times of Christianity. The Acts of the Apostles describe the voluntary poverty of the faithful of Jerusalem (4, 34), mention the 4 virgin daughters of the deacon Philip (Act. 21, 9), that is, consecrated to virginity (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 31; PG 20, 279). The apologists of the 2nd-3rd centuries, St. Justin (Apol., I, 14-15; PG 6, 348-49), Athenagoras (Supplicatio, 33), Minucius Felix (Octavius, 31, 36; PL 351-52; 366-67), speak of many Christians who for the love of Jesus Christ preserved perpetual continence. These ascetics at first lived within their families, then began to withdraw into solitude, in order to devote themselves more tranquilly to the service of God. Thus Christian monasticism had its origin, which then developed ever more, until it gave us a broad flowering of male and female religious institutes.
Besides by the approval of these religious institutes, the Church has always defended and vindicated the evangelical counsels and their practice against all who attempted to disparage it; for example, against the Waldensians (Denz-U, n. 426); against William of St. Amour (ibid., n. 458 ff.), Wycliffe (ibid., nn. 600 ff.; 624, 680), the Jansenists (ibid., n. 1310 ff.), the Synod of Pistoia (ibid., nn. 1580-90), the positivists (ibid., nn. 1692, 1752 ff.), Americanism (n. 1973).
Bibliography8 works
Giacinto del S.mo Crocifisso