Article I. On Specific Distinction

The specific distinction of sin arises from special malice, or from diverse deformity, by which one sin differs essentially from another. For the malice of sins is various according to the diversity of objects to which the sinner turns himself. Thus homicide, theft, and luxury differ in species.

157. Rules. - Rule I. The specific distinction of sins is taken from opposition to diverse virtues, and also from morally diverse deformity against the same virtue.

The first reason is clear, because individual virtues have their own special and wholly distinct goodness; therefore also the sins opposed to them necessarily contract a special baseness. Thus denial of revealed truth, despair, and hatred of God differ among themselves in species. Why? Because they are opposed to three virtues diverse in species, namely Faith, Hope, and Charity.

The second reason is that where there is morally diverse malice against some virtue, it is opposed to the same in a special mode, and constitutes a new class of deformity. But this malice is morally diverse when it is opposed to various duties of the same virtue, or harms this virtue in a mode wholly disparate and opposed. Thus homicide, theft, and detraction differ among themselves in species, although they are adverse to the same virtue, namely justice. Why? Because they are opposed to diverse duties of that virtue, which commands that no one be harmed either in the goods of life, or in the goods of fortune, or in the goods of reputation. - St. Lig., no. 31.

158. • Rule II. The specific distinction of sins is also taken from the violation of precepts morally diverse. For sin is a transgression of law, or of a precept; therefore where precepts differ among themselves in moral species, the sins opposed to them also ought to differ in species. Thus the omission of Mass on a feast day, the omission of a commanded fast, the omission of annual confession or Paschal Communion, differ among themselves in species. Precepts are called morally diverse whenever they have a diverse object, such as fasting, hearing Mass, abstinence from flesh meats; or whenever the motive of the precept is diverse, even though the object is the same. Thus he perpetrates a twofold sin diverse in species who in Lent omits the fast to which from another source he is held by reason of sacramental penance. On the contrary, theft is one sin, although it is prohibited by divine and human law, because the reason of the prohibition is the same. - St. Lig., book 5, no. 33.

Some add a third rule, repeated from objects ¹; hence the following little verses:

¹ The more weighty Theologians propose this rule not as a third one separated from the others, but rather as the primary one, to which the others are reduced as to root or foundation. Confer Suarez (On 1.2, treat. 3, disp. 7, sect. 7, nos. 4 and 6), and Laymann, who (book 1, treat. 3, ch. 2, no. 2) writes: The specific unity or diversity of sins... is taken proximately and formally from the rectitude or honesty of the virtue to which they are opposed: but remotely and fundamentally from the object. And Tanner (disp. 2, On Human Acts, q. 5, dub. 2, no. 49): And this, namely that sins are distinguished according to opposite virtues, in reality is not diverse from that which is to be distinguished in species according to objects, since the virtues themselves are distinguished in species according to objects. But St. Thomas had gone before (1.2, q. 72, art. 1, ad 2): Sins are distinguished in species more according to objects than according to opposites; although even if they are distinguished according to opposite virtues, it would return to the same thing: for virtues are distinguished in species according to objects. And again (2, dist. 42, q. 2, art. 2, q. 1, ad 1): The division of sin into its essential species is through the opposite of virtue, because it must be according to the object from which sin and virtue are specified.

Virtue, precept, diverse objects, and mode Give species to sins, and diverse guilt.

159. Resolves. - 1. He commits four diverse sins who, bound by a vow of chastity, sins with a married blood relative, because he violates four diverse virtues, namely chastity, religion, piety, and justice.

2. He sins triply who kills a Priest or Religious in a Church; because he violates justice by killing, and Religion in a twofold mode specifically diverse, namely by violating a sacred person and a sacred place.

3. He does not commit sins diverse in species ² who omits Mass on a Sunday on which another feast of precept falls, for example the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, nor he who violates the fast of a vigil or of the Ember Days falling in Lent, because those precepts are not formally diverse.

² Indeed he does not even commit two sins of the same species, but only one. total object, because each act of the will has its own total object.

4. On the contrary, by a single act he perpetrates three sins diverse in species who omits the fast to which on the same day he is obliged from a precept of the Church, from a vow, and from sacramental penance; therefore in confession the violation of this threefold obligation must be disclosed.

5. Heresy and the omission of an act of Faith which ought to be made by precept differ in species; likewise despair and the omission of an act of Hope; or hatred of God and the omission of an act of due Love; and so also most sins of commission and omission, of which one is opposed to an affirmative precept, the other to a negative one.

6. Detraction, rash judgment, and contumely differ in species, because they harm justice in a diverse mode. But thefts do not differ in species because of the diverse goods of fortune carried off, because these, since they are referred to the same commerce and the same use of men, are morally reckoned one thing.

7. Violation of a fast by eating flesh meat and by multiple refection differs in species, because a virtually twofold precept is violated, insofar namely as it prescribes the quality and quantity of food.