Second Part: On the Virtue of Abstinence

S. Th. II-II, q. 146.

947. Abstinence sometimes signifies the mere withdrawal of food, and thus it is something indifferent, which from circumstance can become good or evil, for example, if it is done from vanity; but here it is taken insofar as it is regulated by reason, and thus it is a virtue moderating according to the dictate of reason the concupiscences and pleasures, or the affection and use, of foods, that is, of common food and drink, "so that man abstains from foods as he ought according to the fittingness of the men with whom he lives, and of his own person, and according to the necessity of his health" (a. 1).

It is a virtue, because it conserves the good of reason against the impetus of passions, namely, against the pleasures of foods. To moderate foods solely on account of health belongs to the art of medicine; to moderate the passions and pleasures of foods on account of the good of reason or the moral good belongs to temperance. - It is a special virtue: for where there is a special impediment to the good of reason, there must be a special virtue for conserving it. But the pleasures of foods are apt to draw man away from the good of reason, both on account of their greatness and on account of the necessity of foods, which man needs for the preservation of life, which man most greatly desires. - It is one virtue, because it has one object: the pleasures of foods to be moderated by reason, with due measure preserved. It can be defined: a moral virtue inclining to the moderated use of foods according as right reason has determined for the moral good.

948. The act of abstinence is threefold, diverse in degree:

1. moderate use of foods, or abstinence from excess: this is altogether due and of precept, by which it comes about that pleasure in the use of foods does not repugn to reason, and therefore it rather retains the general name of temperance;

2. greater but partial abstinence, from a motive of virtue, by which man's appetite inclines less toward food and deprives itself of a certain quality of food, for example, meats, either always or for a time: it is abstinence in a determined degree, greater than moral abstinence demands, which degree nevertheless can be prescribed by positive law: it is called abstinence in the strict sense (abstinence; onthouding);

3. perfect or total abstinence according to quantity, namely, from all food, but for a time: it is called fasting (jeune; vasten).

Hence we shall speak: 1. on fasting according to itself; 2. on the precept of ecclesiastical fasting; 3. on the precept of abstinence from meats; 4. on the subject of fasting; 5. on the violation of fasting; 6. on gluttony.