It is perfectly OK to be a fan, but not a fanatic—especially a religious fanatic. Better to be moderate than to be zealous. At least that is what the spirit of the world tells us. But if we trace the contours of salvation history, especially in the low spots marked by corruption, it was always the zealots that brought about health and reform. The Old Testament gives us numerous examples. Moses, Phinehas, Samuel, David, Elijah, Jael, and Judas Maccabeus are but a few. Though times changed, these men and woman’s jealousy for God drove them to heroic perseverance in restoring God’s glory among the peoples of the world. So deep was their hatred of all things opposed to God’s glory being made manifest that they were even willing to take up the sword (or even a tent spike). They were fanatics in the truest sense of the word.
“Killing in the name of God”—that is exactly the reason why fanaticism is a bad thing. But that misses the point completely. These stories were “written for our admonition and our learning” (Romans 15:4) so that we would stir up the same zeal, even if it is to be made manifest differently. When Peter zealously picked up the sword to defend Our Lord he was rebuked not for the zeal, but for the use of the sword. Armed with the “sword of the Spirit” it is no longer necessary to wield an actual sword. The thickness of the Blood of Christ makes the enemies of God nothing more than potential friends. It may be true that “those who live by the sword die by the sword” but this does not absolve us from the duty to become fanatics.
What is Zeal?
St. Thomas defines zeal as an effect of intense love (ST I-II q.28, a.4). An intense love seeks to remove everything that opposes it. The more vigorously we love, the more vigorously we oppose resistance to that thing.
We can imagine then that zeal is a most necessary virtue in times of corruption. When there is much that opposes a good, it takes an intense love of that good to fight against the obstacles to that good being made manifest. In fact, we could say that it is only men and women of zeal who can lead to true reform. Church history is marked with fanatics, moved by intense zeal, for God’s glory to shine through His Church. Our time is no different. We can look back in time and see figures like St. Athanasius, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Alphonsus Liguori who were consumed with zeal for God. But for every one of these saints, there were many more who were consumed with a false zeal. The temptation is ever-present, St. Paul even cautioned the Romans about synthetic zeal, that is, “zeal for God but without discretion” (Romans 10:2). In order that we not succumb to this counterfeit, it behooves us to make the distinction between true and false zeal.
Drawing on a distinction made by St. Thomas can help us clarify the distinction. The Angelic Doctor says that zeal comes about according to the type of love we bear. First there is the love of concupiscence or self-love. He does not necessarily mean “self-love” as in selfishness but in the sense that we desire our own good. Zeal manifests itself in two ways: jealousy and envy. Jealousy is the zeal we experience when something hinders us gaining the object of our love. We tend to think of jealousy as an exclusively bad thing, but it is not necessarily so. A husband may jealously protect his wife from other suitors (assuming they are actually trying to take her from him otherwise his jealousy is a bad thing). Likewise, God is said to be a “jealous God” because there are enemies that are trying to take His beloveds from Him. The zeal of envy is always bad in that we are moved to envy those who seem to excel and by doing so seem to hinder us from excelling.
Love of friendship on the other hand seeks the friend’s good and zeal in this regard seeks to remove anything that opposes that friend’s good. Aquinas says that, “a man is said to be zealous on God’s behalf, when he endeavors, to the best of his means, to repel whatever is contrary to the honor or will of God.”
True and False Zeal
It is the zeal motivated by the love of God that marks true zeal. God’s will, put simply, is that His glory be made known. Anything that acts as an obstacle to this, especially evil and sin, is zealously opposed. The zealot hates sin first and foremost because it is an offense against God. Aquinas again: “a man is eaten up with a good zeal, who strives to remedy whatever evil he perceives; and if he cannot, bears with it and laments it.”
Notice that when Aquinas’ man is unable to remedy an evil, he tolerates it, but he also laments it. The man of good zeal, in imitation of Christ, takes the sin as if it was his own, grieves over it, and, united with the Passion of Christ, offers the Father penance for it. He does not attack the other person, but instead wields the sword of the Spirit which penetrates into the evildoer’s heart. This is a sure test as to whether you have true zeal or false zeal—are you willing to do penance for the person simply because you do not want God to be offended? False zeal would rather “flame” the person because it is always tainted with self-love.
The true fanatic also knows zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls are two sides of the same coin. God is never more glorified than in the conversion of sinners. We usually utter trite sayings like “hate the sin, love the sinner” to remind us of this, but sinners are nearly impossible to love. Instead it should be “hate the sin, but love God who wants to redeem the sinner.” This is the discretion that the Israelites lacked and St. Paul warns about. We must love our neighbor for God’s sake first knowing that even the most unrepentant of sinners is powerless against the flood of the Precious Blood. It is fanatics that open the floodgates.