Question XI: Whether any obligation arises from a vow, and what it is

It is certain that a vow binds under sin to its fulfillment, as D. Bonaventure notes in Speculum animae, cap. 3, long after the middle, and first from Prov. c. 20, and Deut. 23, and 1 Tim. 5, and Ps. 75: Vow, and render to God, where the Gloss explains it: To vow is of the will; but to render is of necessity, as D. Bonaventure notes there. That it binds under mortal sin, Innocent III defines in cap. Licet, de Voto. So all Catholics hold.

The parents of the heretics of this age, Luther and Calvin, most bitter enemies of religion, are not ashamed to do away with even the most solemn vows.^{1 1} N. Editor's note: the print/OCR reads 'e medio tollere nisi sunt' (djvu: 'e medio tollere nifi funt'); 'nisi sunt' is not Latin here; rendered as 'nixi sunt' (striven), which the context requires.

FIRST they teach that Vows for the worship of God cannot be made except about things commanded; hence there is one common vow of the faithful, which we make in Baptism.

SECOND they teach that Vows about things not commanded can be made, if not for the worship of God, at least for carrying on the affairs of this life, or for avoiding sins.

THIRD, that the vows of monks are impious and void: this Luther teaches de votis monasticis, and Calvin lib. 4, Institut. cap. 13. Nor do they teach dissimilarly the Augustan Confession, art. 27, and the Confession of Württemberg, c. de votis monast., whom Bellarmine reports lib. 2, de Monach. cap. 15.

Peter Martyr, in his book on celibacy and monastic vows, says two things contrary to Luther. One is that all vows are to be reckoned among the Jewish ceremonies and are therefore abrogated; the other is that no vow is made in Baptism. As to monastic vows, he censures them with no less insolence.

I ASSERT first, that Vows pertain to the worship of God even about things not commanded.

It is PROVED first from Isaiah 19: In that day the Egyptians shall know the Lord, and shall worship him in victims and gifts: and they shall make vows, and shall perform them.

It is PROVED second, from Bellarmine following D. Bonaventure in 4 Sent., dist. 28, q. 1, art. 2: every honorable thing, even of the supererogation of virtue, is of itself acceptable to God: therefore also when offered by vow. The antecedent is proved from D. Bonaventure from Luke 2, where it is said that that Anna dwelt in the temple, serving God night and day; where the Greek has λατρεύουσα, which properly signifies worship, as D. Bonaventure indicates there on that passage, officiously rendering it, she was devoted, and devout toward God. The consequence is proved from D. Thomas, because by a vow one is established in good.

It is PROVED also from the Socratic Doctor in lib. 1, Pharetrae, cap. 38, where, following D. Gregory in Moralia 15, cap. 12, he calls virginity obsequium Deo, "an obsequy to God"; and D. Augustine in lib. de virginitate, cap. 27, where he describes the obsequy of virgins toward God, for they follow the Lamb; and from Cyprian de disciplina et habitu virginum, where he teaches that virgins are far and diametrically alien from the worship of the earth, because they follow Christ. See other things there.

It is PROVED third from the Scriptures, wherein it is found that the saints made vows about things not commanded. So Jacob in Genesis 28, where he first made a vow, promising God tithes of all things, and to raise upon it a stone house of God, if God had granted good fortune to his journey. But if these things had been commanded, Jacob would ill have done them under the condition of a prosperous journey. In 1 Kings 1, Anna vowed in the same spirit her son, if it should be given her by the Lord. So in 1 Paralipomenon 29, David vowed most many treasures together with his subjects for the temple to be built for the Lord, and it is written: The people rejoiced, when they promised their vows willingly: because they offered all with their whole heart to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with a great joy. Indeed, not even David himself heaped up so many treasures by command. So in 2 Paralipomenon 31, the children of Israel offered many animals, which they had vowed spontaneously, not by command. In 3 Esdras, Artaxerxes offered what he had vowed spontaneously. In Jonah 1, the men who were in the ship vowed to God, that they might be delivered from shipwreck; Heliodorus, in 2 Machabees 3, vowed many things for his own deliverance. The Blessed Virgin spontaneously offered and vowed virginity, as is said in Luke 1: How shall this be done, because I know not a man? as the holy Fathers testify: Gregory of Nyssa in his oration on the nativity of the Lord; Augustine in lib. de sancta virginitate, cap. 4; Bede on cap. 1 of Luke; Anselm in lib. de excellentia virginis, cap. 4; Rupert in lib. 3 in Cant.; Bernard in sermone 4 super Missus est; D. Bonaventure on Luke 1, and in the Biblia pauperum, cap. 25, where he also enumerates as vows all the things said above.

Calvin most immodestly dares to bark in the Commentary on this passage found in Marloratus, first rebuking the Most Blessed Virgin for infidelity, of whom Elizabeth cried out: Blessed art thou that hast believed, though the holy Fathers, on this passage, cry out with one voice that she never wavered in faith.

Next he rebukes the holy Fathers as absurdly and ridiculously gathering from this the vow of the Blessed Virgin, because (he says) if she had had a vow of virginity, she would have mocked Joseph by taking him as her husband, with great perfidy toward him, and to the mocking of God.

But the wisest Fathers thence solidly deduced the vow; for she alleges her difficulty in conceiving, because she will not know a man. And indeed she could, in harmony with Joseph after the betrothal and before the salutation of the Angel, have vowed virginity — upon which the whole edifice of Calvin collapses.

Yet I will never grant Calvin that the Blessed Virgin at any time had the mind of consummating the marriage; otherwise she would have been a virgin only in body, not in soul, as Bellarmine indicates in lib. 2, de Monachis, cap. 22, after D. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 30, dub. 5, litt. et quaest. 2.

Therefore it is answered with D. Bonaventure in the cited question that the Blessed Virgin before the betrothal had vowed virginity absolutely, and in this Scotus follows him in 4 dist. 30, quaest. 2. The same say Albert the Great de laudibus Virginis, and before them the holy Fathers Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine in the places adduced; nevertheless she had received a revelation concerning Saint Joseph, that he would never seek the conjugal debt, and therefore she confidently associated him with herself for most honorable causes, which we shall relate in the Treatise on Matrimony. She therefore entrusted the Most Blessed body to a spouse who could have consummated the marriage; yet she was certain that he would never wish to do so. But she was betrothed while the divine Spirit breathed upon her, which is sufficient for the reason of matrimony, as Bellarmine notes in the cited place, and Sanchez proves lib. 2, de Matrimonio, disp. 28.

Otherwise Calvin objects conjectures from his own inverted fantasy, namely that the Virgin spoke thus out of excess of mind, because she was about to conceive the Son of God, and therefore to exclude the embrace of a man — not that she had a vow of virginity.

But Calvin rashly prefers his conjectures to the assertion of so many Fathers. Nor does he sufficiently gather that it was said out of admiration; for the Angel answers the doubt, saying: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, etc., as D. Bonaventure notes on that passage, and Bellarmine after him. As if the Angel should say (the Socratic Doctor says): You ask how you shall conceive? To this I answer, that you shall be made fruitful without corruption; you shall conceive without lust; you shall bring forth without pain, not from the seed of man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But what Bellarmine adds, that the Blessed Virgin did not yet think herself to be the mother of God, does not please me; for in the preceding words the Angel had expressed it: This shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, etc.

Peter Martyr objects further that from those words the vow of the Blessed Virgin is not gathered, just as when Moses says in Exodus 6: How shall Pharaoh hear me, seeing I am of uncircumcised lips? and yet we would not gather that Moses vowed the circumcision of his lips. So in John 3 Nicodemus says: How can a man be born, when he is old? and yet from that you would not gather that he vowed old age: therefore neither is it gathered from similar words in the Blessed Virgin. These things, however, are senseless and frivolous: for the proposition of Nicodemus was whether a man could be born corporeally again and renew his life, which is impossible; he himself understood regeneration carnally, as proposed to him by the Lord; therefore he sets up a thing impossible and not depending on free will: How can these things be done? as D. Bonaventure notes on John 3. So Moses sets up an impediment to speaking which is necessary from nature; but the Blessed Virgin sets up an impediment depending on free will, namely to be joined to a man in marriage. But if she objects: How shall this be, because she was prohibited by the law — not indeed by the universal law, as is clear: therefore by the proper law of the Vow.

He objects further that the Virgin answered prudently, even though not bound by a vow — namely, if the birth were to come about in the ordinary way, it stood in the way that she was not yet mingled with a man; but if in a higher manner, she asks to be instructed.

But he explains it foolishly thus; for since the Angel brings in the future conception, what does it matter that she was not yet mingled with a man? It was enough to be mingled afterward; but if it was to be done in a higher manner, to set up the natural mode would have been beside the point.

Now I return to our proposition. The vows narrated in the Scriptures were about things not commanded, and yet the Lord required them as most pleasing to himself, as is written in Deut. 23 and Ps. 75: Vow, and render, as Saint Bonaventure weighs it in Speculo animae, cap. 3.

I assert second, that Vows do not pertain to Jewish ceremonies.

It is PROVED first from the cited place of Isaiah, which the holy Fathers Jerome, Cyril, and others interpret of Christians.

It is PROVED second from D. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 38, art. 2, quaest. 3, from that verse of the Psalm soon adduced: Vow, and render to the Lord, which Saint Doctor proves to be understood of us from the Gloss, which says: To vow is of the will, but to render is of necessity. The same Saint Augustine has here. Hence the heretic's response collapses, that the speech was to the Jews.

It is PROVED third from D. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 38, dub. 4, litt., from that passage, cap. 5 of the former Epistle to Timothy, where of certain widows he says: When they have been wanton in Christ, they will marry: having damnation, because they have made void their first faith. In which place by first faith all the Greek and Latin interpreters understand the vow of continence. Hence Saint Augustine on the cited place of Psalm 75, Vow, and render, says: Let each one vow what he can, render it, and be not slothful to vow: for you shall not fulfill it by your own strength, and then, expounding the place of the Apostle, says: What is, they have made void their first faith? They vowed, and did not render.

This the Fourth Council of Carthage expounds, which consisted of 214 Bishops, in canon one hundred and four. And the Fourth Council of Toledo, which consisted of seventy Bishops.

The same three most holy supreme Pontiffs expound with this reasoning: Clement in lib. 3, Constit. cap. 1 et 2; Innocent I in epistola secunda, cap. 13; Gelasius I in epistola 1, cap. 23. Likewise Tertullian in lib. de monogamia, not far from the end; Basil in lib. de Virginitate, past the middle; Jerome in lib. 1 in Jovin., and on cap. 44 of Ezech.; Epiphanius in haeresi 48; Augustine in lib. de sancta Virginitate, cap. 23, and lib. de bono viduitatis, cap. 8 et 9, and the cited place on Ps. 75; Fulgentius in epistola 1. Besides these also all the expositors thus, both the Greeks, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Oecumenius; and the Latins, as Ambrose, Primasius, Bede, Haymo, Sedulius, Anselm, D. Bonaventure, and others.

Luther de votis monasticis answers that by the first faith is to be understood, not the vow — which nowhere is taken under the name of faith — but the Christian faith; which those widows had lost, who, that they might more easily be permitted to marry, fell away from the Christian faith. Therefore he says they went after Satan, and raged wantonly against Christ.

But this interpretation is audacious; and indeed that the promise is meant by faith, D. Bonaventure shows from D. Gregory to Boniface, which is found in 17 quaest. 1, cap. Viduae a proposito, which he also condemns with Apostolic authority, as is related in the text of dist. 38, cap. 1. The same Saint Bonaventure observes in 3 dist. 23, dub. 2, adducing this passage for the keeping of a promise, where he notes it is also taken for the fidelity of a promise owed: Jerem. 7, Fidelity is perished; and of the saint, as is said of Joseph in Gen. 44: I received him into my fidelity; so in Rom. 3 it is said: Shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect?

But what he says, that they fell away from the faith in order to marry, is false; for even Christian widows could marry, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinth. 7. But to go after Satan, and to wanton against Christ, aptly signifies the sacrilege of the sin of lust.

Calvin's instance was also similar to these, who adds another exposition: that these widows promised continence, but could not licitly unless they were sixty years old, at which time they are no longer fit for marriage. Therefore the Apostle says: Let a widow be chosen no less than sixty years of age; this therefore makes nothing toward establishing the vows of religious women, who vow even in the flower of their age.

But why does the Apostle rebuke them, if they made void their vows, or if the vows did not bind? Truly the time of sixty years was not prefixed to the vow when making it, but either to the office of a deaconess, as Tertullian says de velandis virginibus, and lib. 1 ad Uxorem, and others; or to admission into the number of those widows who were to be fed from the alms of the Church, as Chrysostom and Ambrose expound here, and Jerome in his epistle to Salvina.

Calvin's THIRD answer is, that that promise was not a vow made to God, but a pledge to the Church not to marry, that they might more freely discharge the office of deaconesses.

But the Fathers say the opposite: that if the pledge had been made to the Church alone, it could easily have been dispensed.

They INSTANCE: the Apostle there says: I will that the younger marry.

It is ANSWERED that he says this by way of indulgence, not of command, as he himself testifies. But of this below.

Peter Martyr says this passage is ambiguous, because it is expounded in many ways, and therefore is not fit for doctrine; then he says it sounds not of damnation, but of a certain infamy, or accusation, or mark, because they did not persevere; and he draws this from Bucer.

But all the holy Fathers expound a true eternal damnation of those widows who married after the vow; and in this sense the Apostle everywhere takes damnation before God and men, Rom. 3 and 13.

Moreover, John also in cap. 3 uses the same word κρῖμα not once but thrice: The Son of Man came not to judge the world — which signifies not a judgment of discussion, but of damnation, as Saint Bonaventure rightly notes there.

Then he admits it: why were those widows infamous for marrying, if they were hindered by no vow?

I ASSERT lastly, that Baptism is not a vow. So D. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 38, quaest. 2, ad primum, and commonly the Thomists on the same distinction.

It is PROVED from Bellarmine cap. 19, lib. 2, de Monach., with the argument of Saint Bonaventure: Vows must be spontaneous. So Deut. 23: If thou hast made a vow, thou shalt not delay to render it: for the Lord will require it. And if thou delay, it shall be reckoned to thee for sin. If thou wilt not promise, thou shalt be without sin. But the promise made in Baptism is necessary, nor can it be said of it: if thou wilt not promise, thou shalt be without sin; for all are bound by divine law to receive Baptism. It is CONFIRMED: vows made for little ones by their parents are not valid unless they be afterward confirmed by those very ones in whose name they were made, when they come to adult age, as D. Bernard teaches in his epistle to Robert; but the promise made in Baptism binds little ones even if made through others: therefore.

It is CONFIRMED from Bellarmine following D. Bonaventure, because since it is neither necessary nor very useful to vow the commandments, it is not credible that God wished to bind us to these.

You will OBJECT first, against the first assertion: every voluntary worship cannot please God, from Col. 2, where the Greek has voluntary worship for every superstition, and Rom. 14: Whatsoever is not of faith is sin; but of faith we do not have that this worship pleases God: therefore.

It is ANSWERED that the Apostle here rebukes certain worships invented gratuitously, without order to the divine obsequy — such as were the frequent washings of the Jews, and now of the Turks, who ascend to prayer washed many times over; for these worships are rebuked elsewhere by the Apostle, and by Christ in Luke 11, as Saint Bonaventure observes on that passage; but this worship, which the Socratic Doctor in 4 dist. 13, dub. 4 calls standing and long-lasting, he rebukes as an ancient error.

That of Rom. 14 is understood of him who acts not from conscience; for thus faith is taken here, as Saint Bonaventure notes in 3 dist. 23, dub. 2, and elsewhere passim; and this is the common exposition, as Bellarmine notes.

The Pseudo-Martyr OBJECTS second, against the second assertion, because in the new testament the name of vow is not found, nor need it be; for in Baptism we profess the faith of Christ — what need, then, of vows about it? For so evangelical liberty is diminished by vows. Nay, injury is done to God, making necessary what he himself made free.

It is ANSWERED easily, that in the new testament the reality of the vow is found, as we saw above. Rightly indeed are we said to have received all things from God, and to give them to God, as the Council of Orange says in can. 11, because they are delivered over to our power; for God receives these for his own obsequy, as D. Bonaventure says in quaest. 1 et 2. Nor is evangelical liberty violated, which frees not from a law to be observed, but from sin, as the Apostle says Rom. 6. Nor is any injury done to God, for he shows himself delighted by these things.

He OBJECTS third, against the third assertion: Christians sin more gravely by violating the law than do the heathen.

It is ANSWERED that they are punished more gravely on account of the guilt of an ungrateful mind.

They OBJECT fourth, D. Augustine on Ps. 75, where he says, we have vowed the divine law.

D. Bonaventure ANSWERS on cap. 1 of the Rule, that there to vow is taken broadly; and if it be taken strictly, already the heretics hear that they are held by the law of God; for there he speaks thus: Vow, and render to the Lord your God, all of you in common. What ought we to vow? To believe in him, to hope from him for eternal life, to live well according to the common manner. For there is a certain manner common to all: not to steal, not to commit adultery; not to love violence; not to be proud; not to kill a man, not to hate a brother, not to weave mischief against anyone. All these we ought all to vow. Have you heard, sectaries, Augustine? Does he patronize you in this way?

They OBJECT fifth: the Church compels the baptized to keep the law, but not the heathen or the Jews: therefore in Baptism they contracted some special obligation.

It is ANSWERED that he compels them to keep it insofar as they have been made sons and members of the Church; for members are subject to the head, and the son to his parents.

There remains now to see from what virtue this obligation arises.

I ASSERT fourth, that it arises from the virtue of Religion.

It is PROVED from D. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 38, passim, because by a vow something is promised to be done in obsequy of God, which is the formal object of religion.

But it is called an act of Justice IMPROPERLY by D. Thomas 2 p., quaest. 80, art. 1, insofar as religion is a potential part of justice. Nor can anyone, by title of justice, bind himself to God by vowing, because between God and us true justice cannot intercede, as I showed in the first part of the first part, Tract. 1, disp. 17, quaest. 1. So Sanchez lib. 4, cap. 11, num. 8.