Disputation — Bontempi, Palladium Theologicum V · from Schola Thomistica
Disputation VI: On Despair
ALTHOUGH Hope is assailed in its ruin by Presumption as well as by Desperation, St. Chrysostom saying with the Seraphic Doctor, book 3, Pharetra, chapter 14: Excessive confidence overthrows one standing, and desperation after the fall does not permit one to rise again; yet the latter opposes hope more than the former, since it fails from it entirely, and casts one down even in this life into the abyss of Anxiety: therefore of what power it is, and what sin it is, must first be briefly seen.
LICET a Praesumptione, pariter et Desperatione Spes experiatur in ruinam, dicente D. Chrysostomo apud Seraphicum lib. 3. Pharetrae cap. 14. Confidentia nimia stantem evertit, et desperatio post lapsum non permittit resurgere, posterior tamen plus spei adversatur, quam prior, cum tota ab ea deficiat, et in Anxietatis barathrum etiam in hac vita deiiciat: Ideo cuius sit potentiae, et quod peccatum, prius breviter videndum.