Question II: Whether detraction is a mortal sin

It is most certain that direct detraction, with the intention of blackening reputation, is a mortal sin. So D. Bonaventure in the places cited, question 11; D. Thomas here, and the others commonly, as at Valencia question 17, p. 2; Fagundez book 8, chapter 1, number 8.

The Holy Doctor shows this with many testimonies of Scripture in the Bible of the Poor, chapter 71, where he shows it to be the wickedness of the impious and of the worst of men, and he gathers the gravity of this crime from the punishments inflicted by God.

Thus Numbers 14: the children of Israel detracted to their own harm from those who had brought back word of Josue and Caleb from the land of promise, proclaiming them liars and deceivers together with Moses. Numbers 16: Core, Dathan, and Abiron were swallowed alive into hell, and others were consumed by living fire.

Those who detract from Saul, 1 Kings, are called children of Belial. Absalom, 2 Kings 15, detracted from his father's government, and he was hung by God on an oak and damned.

Christ, Matthew 9, Luke 5 and 19, gravely reproached the Pharisees as they murmured, as being lost men.

It is proved by D. Bonaventure, and from Luke 19, out of Wisdom 1: Keep yourselves from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and from detraction refrain your tongue.

Then he recounts the murmurings of the people in the desert and their damnation, and adduces this from 1 Corinthians 10: Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer.

The Holy Doctor proves the same in the Mirror of the Soul, chapter 1, from that passage of Romans 1: Detractors are hateful to God, worthy of death; and not only they who do such things, but they also who consent to them.

It is proved secondly by D. Bonaventure in the Pharetra, book 3, chapter 3, from D. Isidore, in the Synonyms, chapter 10: Detraction is a grave crime; detraction is a grave damnation.

D. Bernard, sermon 24 on the Canticle: There is one detractor who speaks, and utters but one word; yet that one word, in one moment, infects the ears of a multitude of hearers and kills their souls. And book 2 of the Considerations: To detract, or to hear a detractor — which of these is the more damnable, I should scarcely venture to say.

D. Anselm, On Similitudes, chapter 147: There are three kinds of homicide which are punished with equal penalty: the killing of men, the detraction of neighbors, and fraternal hatred. And chapter 149: It is detraction whenever anyone says anything of another with the intention that he may be the less loved or esteemed.

The reasoning of D. Bonaventure, which all follow, is in the Mirror of the Soul, chapter 1: to steal another's goods is a grave sin in its genus, against the seventh precept, as if you stole a neighbor's ox or money; but reputation is a more precious thing than outward riches, as is said in Proverbs 23. Therefore it is worse to detract from reputation than to steal money; whence the Holy Doctor further deduces that such a one is more bound to restitution than a thief, because he took away a greater good against justice.