Question XII: On clemency

CLEMENTIA, or clemency, is the virtue applying a measure conformable to right reason in the very external punishment, and thus it belongs especially to superiors toward subjects, as St. Thom. teaches, quaest. 157. Wherefore mildness and clemency avail for the same effect; whence it happens that they are often named for the same thing. Thus Cicero defines it, lib. 2. de Invent., clemency to be that by which minds, rashly drawn and provoked into hatred of someone, are held back by kindness. Which definition fits both virtues.

They are, however, diverse, for one thing is the difficulty, and so also the praise, in restraining anger itself; and another in moderating external punishment; yet they are often joined: and this the Holy Doctor intended in the declarat. terminorum, Theol., defining Clemency: It is the virtue by which the mind, rashly provoked into hatred of someone, is softened by benignity, where he seems at once to join mildness with clemency, as also St. Gregory, lib. 22. moral. cap. 7.: The praise of perfect mildness and clemency is to endure adversity, and outwardly firmly, and inwardly mildly.

St. Augustine, epist. 13.: Spare the wicked, O mild man, and good: and the better you are, the milder be; and the higher you are in power, the lower you should become in piety.

Seneca, de Clementia, lib. 1. cap. 22.: Clemency itself in the ruler makes shame at sinning, and cap. 20.: I shall call him clement, not one who is facile in another's grief, but he who, though goaded by his own stings, does not leap forth: who understands that it belongs to a great soul to bear injuries with supreme power, and that nothing is more glorious than a Prince injured with impunity, and cap. 3.: Clemency befits no one of all more than the Prince, for a pestilential power is to be able to injure. The Holy Bonav. relates all these things, lib. 2. Pharetrae, c. 40.