Question One: On Observance in General

S. Th. II-II, q. 102.

833. Observance (respect; reverence, high esteem) is the virtue by which men excelling in dignity are deemed worthy of a certain worship and honor. It is a virtue, because it renders a debt. For in superiors two things can be considered: 1) the excellence of state with a certain power over subjects (for that which moves to an end has excellence over that which is moved), by reason of which there is owed to them the simple worship of honor, which is testimony of excellence (a. 2), from which fear follows by reason of the power which they have for coercing (ad 3); 2) the very office of governance, by reason of which there is owed to them a special worship of service, by which someone obeys their command and repays a return for benefits (a. 2 and ad 3). But to those who excel in knowledge, virtue, and other gifts, although they do not govern actually, because nevertheless they are fit for governing, therefore honor is owed, which pertains reductively to the same virtue of observance (a. 1, ad 2). Hence this is divided into two parts or species: dulia and obedience.

834. Object of observance. - The material object which it intends to exhibit is worship and service toward superiors, namely, acts by which we render due honor to them and attest their excellence and our subjection.

The primary material object which principally, per se, and by reason of itself it intends to exhibit by worship, is the due equality between the honor exhibited and the right of superiors to it, by which equality the honor is proportioned to the right which superiors have to it.

The formal object by which, or proximate motive on account of which we exhibit worship to them, is the special honesty of the said equality.

835. Corollaries. - 1. Piety toward country differs from observance toward the prince: the former, even in the prince, wishes to honor the country as the principle of our origin, so that the term of the honor is not the prince himself but the community; the latter honors the prince in himself for his personal glory, so that the term is the prince himself, who is not the principle of origin but only the governor (a. 3).

2. Just as religion, which gives worship to God, surpasses piety, by which parents are honored (a. 3), and is more eminent piety; so piety surpasses observance, which exhibits worship to persons constituted in dignity, and is more eminent observance: for parents are joined to us more substantially, and therefore we are more obliged to them (a. 1, ad 1 and a. 3).

3. The debt which observance attends to is a strict or legal debt, because our superiors have a true right that they be honored; which is necessary to urge for the order of society. Yet since in the same order of things, namely, of governance, it cannot render that debt to equality, therefore it falls short of strict justice and is a virtue annexed to it (a. 2, ad 3). But if it is a question of superiors to whom we are not subject, honor is owed to them from a certain honesty only and a moral debt (a. 2, ad 2).