Question IV: On shamefacedness

SHAMEFACEDNESS properly is not a virtue, although it is a certain laudable passion. So St. Thomas art. 1, Aristotle 2. Eth. cap. 7, and lib. 4. last cap.

THE REASON is, for Virtue is an elective habit, or one operating by election, and if it has the perfect state it excludes in the agent the fear of a base and disgraceful thing, as of an evil difficult and arduous to avoid; nor does it actually admit anything base, wherefrom disgrace would be feared. But Shamefacedness, since it is nothing else than fear of some base and disgraceful thing, properly is not a habit but a passion; nor is its motion by election, but from a certain impulse of passion; nor does it exclude the fear, or opinion, of a base thing as possible, arduous, or difficult to avoid, but rather includes it.

BUT its subject is not the old, nor the wicked, nor the perfect. For since shamefacedness is the fear of some baseness, two things are required for it: that the baseness be held evil by you, and that to the one feeling shame it be esteemed difficult to avoid. From defect of the former condition wicked men lack shamefacedness, of whom Hierem. 3: Thou hast the forehead of a harlot, thou wouldst not blush. From defect of the second condition the old and the perfect lack shamefacedness, who are nevertheless so disposed that, if anything base were in them, they would be ashamed, as Aristotle says 4. Eth. last cap.

WHENCE St. Ambrose, lib. 1. off. cap. 18: Beautiful is the virtue of the young, shamefacedness, and its sweet grace, which is seen not only in deeds but also in their very words. See St. Bonaventure lib. 1. Pharetrae, cap. 30.

AND St. Jerome epist. 14, cited by St. Bonaventure lib. 4. Pharetrae, cap. 14: Let shamefacedness adorn prudence, and let modesty, which has ever been the chief thing in women, surpass all virtues in thee.

AND St. Bernard serm. 86. in Cant.: Shamefacedness is the special glory of conscience, the first-fruits of the virtues, and the mark of all honesty.

HE also there recites many Fathers admitting shamefacedness even in perfect men, not in order to evil, or present baseness, but to what is past, inasmuch as it is present in memory and has imminent evil effects.

IN 4. dist. 16. part. 1. dub. 11. he places shamefacedness unto repentance in great sinners. Again he confirms this from the Fathers, loc. cit. Pharetrae. But no wonder: for they no longer have the character of the wicked, while they repent of their sins.