In 1 Corinthians 13:4–8, Paul lays out what love should be, which is embodied vividly in a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder for a series of engravings on the virtues. It is composed of scenes depicting the seven acts of mercy originating in the parable of the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25; here they are all directed by the central figure of Love or Charity/Caritas.

The child who conventionally clings to personified Charity at the centre of the composition, here pulls at her skirts to urge her to action. This parallels the structure of the Greek, for where RSV/NRSV uses a noun and adjective for clauses such as ‘love is patient’, they should more properly be rendered by active verbs and adverbs, so that ‘love waits patiently’.

As is typical of Bruegel’s busy scenes of peasant life, all is a whirl of activity, and each person engaged in charitable activity is eager to give—this is no patronising act of distant benevolence but ordinary people helping each other. Shirts are pulled over the heads and shoulders of the naked; loaves are proffered urgently in both hands by those feeding the hungry, their eyes directed at the needy. Two respectable citizens shake hands with the shamed criminals in the stocks. This is a hopeful scene of people communicating a sense of loving kindness.

Charity has a pelican on her head, an image of Christ’s self-giving as the pelican was popularly believed to feed her young from her own breast. It reminds us that verses 4–7 in which love ‘bears all things … endures all things’ refers above all to Christ. The Greek word for ‘love’ or ‘charity’ is agapē, used throughout the New Testament for God’s gratuitous outflowing of love, which Paul here offers as a way for humans to follow by participation.