Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
§ 3. On Patience
633. Notion. The third virtue joined to fortitude as a potential part is patience, which can be defined: a virtue by which someone so endures present evils (especially those inflicted by others) that he is not inordinately saddened by them;1139 or, as Cicero says: "Patience is the voluntary and prolonged endurance of arduous and difficult things for the sake of honorableness or utility."1140
If patience concerns the moderation of sadness arising from the imminence of death, it is an integral part of fortitude; but if the sadness arises from lesser evils, then it is only a potential part of this virtue.1141
The proximate matter of patience is present sadnesses rightly to be tolerated; but its subject is the concupiscible part.1142
1139 Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 136, a. 4 ad 2.
1140 De invent. rhetor. l. 2, c. 54.
1141 S. theol. 2, 2, q. 136, a. 4 ad 3.
1142 Ib., ad 2.
634. Patience is a special and very necessary virtue, because its principal act is rightly to moderate the passion of inordinate sadness, which is a very good and necessary office. For inordinate sadness is a great evil and an impediment to many goods. Whence it is said in Sacred Scripture: "Sadness hath killed many, and there is no profit in it."1143 "As the moth doth by a garment and the worm by the wood, so the sadness of a man hurteth the heart."1144 "Happy is he that hath had no sadness of his mind."1145 Sadness is indeed sometimes salutary, if it is assumed moderately and for a short time on account of the absence of spiritual goods or the presence of spiritual evils (especially sins); nevertheless, it must then be well tempered through patience. Sacred Scripture very frequently and urgently commends patience: "For patience is necessary for you."1146 "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not."1147 "In your patience you shall possess your souls."1148 St. Thomas1149 explains this text, saying: "Therefore a man is said through patience to possess his soul, insofar as he plucks out by the root the passions arising from adversities by which the soul is disturbed."
Some of the holy Fathers1150 wrote entire books concerning the virtue of patience, for example, St. Cyprian, who writes in the book On the Good of Patience:1151 "But patience, dearest brethren, not only guards good things but also repels adversities; favoring the Holy Spirit and cleaving to heavenly and divine things, it struggles by the bulwark of its virtues against the deeds of the flesh and body by which the soul is assailed and captured." St. Zeno, Bishop of Verona,1152 St. Augustine,1153 and St. Gregory the Great1154 also wrote excellently concerning patience. The first degree of this virtue is to tolerate afflictions without murmuring; the second, without lamentation and complaints before others; the third, with joy, like the Apostles, who went rejoicing from the presence of the Council because they had been accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus.
1143 Ecclus. 30:25.
1144 Prov. 25:20.
1145 Ecclus. 14:2.
1146 Heb. 10:36.
1147 Rom. 5:3ff.
1148 Luke 21:19.
1149 S. theol. 2, 2, q. 136, a. 2 ad 2.
1150 They are enumerated by Migne, Patr. lat. (Indices) 220, 666.
1151 n. 14 (Migne, Patr. lat. 4, 655).
1152 With great eloquence this author treats of the virtue of patience and at the end exclaims: "O how I wish, if I could, to celebrate thee more by conduct, O patience, queen of all things! ... Thou art every day both the mother and crown of martyrs; thou the wall of faith, the fruit of hope, the friend of charity! ... Happy, and eternally happy, is he who shall always have had thee in himself" (l. 1, tr. 6, n. 8; Migne, Patr. lat. 11, 317).
1153 Liber de patientia (Migne, Patr. lat. 40, 611).
1154 In evang. l. 2, hom. 35 (Migne, Patr. lat. 76, 1261).
635. Relation between patience and longanimity. To patience pertains longanimity,1155 which partly differs from it and partly agrees with it. It differs because the object of patience is an evil, whereas, on the contrary, the object of longanimity is a good; for longanimity is the virtue by which someone tolerates annoyances arising from the fact that he tends toward some good to be possessed after a long time. But since this long delay is accustomed to cause sadness and longanimity bravely tolerates this sadness, in this it agrees with patience, which is likewise the toleration of sadness.1156
1155 Langmut [longanimity].
1156 Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 136, a. 5.
636. Means for obtaining patience. To obtain the patience so necessary for the Christian life, it helps to consider: 1. the patience and longanimity of God tolerating sinners; 2. the patience of Christ in His life and death; 3. the patience of the saints; 4. the fruits of patience in each life, namely, satisfaction for sins committed and eternal glory in the future life; 5. the evils which arise from impatience, by which, namely, the merit of patience is lost, the evil is not diminished but rather increased, since impatience itself is often an evil more tormenting than that evil from which the impatience took its rise; finally, 6. that many sins often proceed from impatience, especially against charity.