Disputation — Bontempi, Palladium Theologicum V · from Schola Thomistica
Disputation IV: On Hope
The Seraphic Doctor, in his Diaeta, titulo 5, cap. 4, de spe, on that text Deuteron. 24: You shall not take in pledge the lower millstone, nor the upper, among the other virtues warns that hope and fear are not to be withheld from the sinner: for spiritual Hope is the lower millstone, and sustains the soul from below, and raises it upward, lest through excessive dejection it rush into despair. But Fear is the upper millstone, pressing the soul downward, lest it vanish through elation: between these millstones (says the holy Doctor) the best milling of the soul takes place, that is, the contrition of sin. Of the first millstone, namely of hope, we must treat here; but of fear I shall treat in the following disputation.
De Spe.
INGENVE Seraphicus in Diaeta, titulo 5. cap. 4. de spe, ad illud Deuteron. 24. Non accipias loco pignoris inferiorem, et superiorem molam, inter caeteras virtutes monet, spem et timorem peccatori non subtrahendum: Spes etenim spiritualis mola est, et Inferius sustinet animam; sursumque elevat, ne per nimiam deiectionem in desperationem ruat. Timor vero est mola superior, animam deorsum premens, ne per elationem evanescat: inter has molas optima fit (inquit S. Doctor) animae molitura, seu peccati contritio. De prima mola, nimirum de spe agendem hic; de timore autem, sequenti disputatione agam.
Within this disputation
- Question I: What hope is
- Question II: What the material object of hope is
- Question III: What the formal object of hope is
- Question IV: Whether a certain object is set forth for hope, and is hoped for
- Question V: Whether hope is a virtue
- Question VI: Whether hope is a theological virtue
- Question VII: Whether hope is at times formless
- Question VIII: Whether hope arises from merits
- Question IX: Whether hope precedes charity
- Question X: What the proximate subject of hope is
- Question XI: Whether hope remains in the blessed