Question IV: Whether lawful liberal work becomes servile because it is done for gain

The FIRST opinion is that the extrinsic end of the worker makes liberal works servile, and that they are forbidden on the feast day. So hold many interpreters of Canon and civil Law on cap. 1. de Feriis, and on leg. omnes Iudices, Cod. de Feriis, and others, as Angel. and Rosella, Tabiena V. Feria, Richardus 3. dist. 37. art. 2. quaest. 4. Sylvester under the word Dominica, quaest. 4.

The SECOND opinion is that no liberal work directed to gain thereby becomes servile. So hold very many: Caietanus 2. 2. quaest. 122. art. 4. and in summa, v. Festorum violatio, Sotus lib. 2. de Iustitia, quaest. 4. art. 4. Navar. in manuali lat. cap. 13. Tolet. lib. 4. summa, cap. 24. Sayrus lib. 7. cap. 2. Philiarchus part. 2. lib. 3. cap. 23. Fum. V. fest. num. 23. Medin. Instruct. lib. 1. cap. 24. quaest. 1. Lopez Instit. p. p. cap. 52. Bonacina tom. 2. disp. 5. quaest. unic. puncto 2. num. 25. Laym. lib. 4. tract. 7. cap. 2. num. 3. P. Eligius Bassaeus V. festum, 2. num. 8. Azor 2. part. Inst. lib. 1. cap. 28. quaestio 1. Suarez tract. 1. de Rel. lib. 2. de festis, cap. 19. Fagundez on the first precept of the Church, lib. 1. cap. 10. This is the opinion of D. Bonaventure sermone 4. in decem praecepta, about the middle, where he adds that some mechanical works too are lawful for pleasure, and that no servile work is forbidden if elsewhere necessity or a just excusing cause occurs: to this Suarez subscribes.

I ASSERT with this opinion that a liberal work, with gain superadded, does not for that reason become servile.

It is PROVED from D. Bonaventure loco cit. and in 3. dist. 37. dub. 3. and in serm. 2. Sabbathi sancti: For God professes to forbid only work servile by its very nature: but an extrinsic end does not make servile that which is not intrinsically such; otherwise all the sciences and liberal arts would at once become mechanical from the end of the one who knows or learns them, which is exploded by the Philosophers. For the reason of liberality is taken from the end of the art, not from the extraneous end of the craftsman.

The ARGUMENTS on the contrary side collapse, by denying that those works become servile from an extrinsic end of mechanical gain. See Fagundez.