EN
This article addresses the problem of the understanding of love in St. Thomas Aquinas. For him love is the basis of ethics. He divides love into the natural, the sensual and the rational. In turn, rational love is divided into appetitive love and benevolent love. The latter is the basis of friendship, which is possible when such love is reciprocated. True friendship is based on virtue, and when her primary subject is God, the friendship becomes a supernatural virtue—that of charity.