Condilectio
Richard of St Victor's term for love shared by two people toward a third. His argument is that private self-love is not charity at all, that mutual love between two is real but unshared, and that love only becomes shared when two are joined in loving a third.
Latin con-, “together with”, and dilectio, “love”.
Richard of St Victor's argument runs in three steps and each step is about what love is, not about how many of anything there are.
One cannot be enough, because charity is directed outward by definition: "no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself." Two is love, and it is mutual, but it is not yet *shared* love — each has a beloved, and neither has anyone to share the loving with. Shared love, *condilectio*, exists only where two are joined in loving a third, "the affection of the two persons fused into one affection by the flame of love for a third."
Whatever one makes of the conclusion, notice the method. Richard never counts places. He argues from the nature of one particular relation to how many people it takes to have it — which is the only kind of argument that could work here.
Where this comes up
Sources
- Richard of St Victor, De Trinitate III
- Dennis Bray, “Richard of St. Victor's Argument for the Necessity of the Trinity”