§ 2. The Malice of Simony

St. Thomas, 2, 2, q. 100, art. 1, recognizes a threefold ratio of malice in simony: "because a spiritual thing cannot be compensated by any earthly price," since it far transcends earthly things; because the sale of a thing whose dominion is not had is not lawful, and the Pope himself is not lord but principal dispenser of spiritual things (l. c. ad 7); because it is repugnant to the origin of spiritual things, since they have come to us from the gratuitous Will of God. Therefore contempt of the transcendence of spiritual things and of their gratuitous origin, besides usurpation of perfect dominion, composes this malice. Yet especially injurious to a sacred thing is the equation of a spiritual thing and a temporal price. Commonly, moreover, they judge that in simony there is had a special ratio of real sacrilege, which, outside this case, they refuse to subdivide into other species. And because no gift of grace can become venal without grave irreverence both toward the gift itself and also toward God, and the quantity of the price does not change this irreverence, in simony of divine law it is denied that slightness of matter can be had. Yet often the smallness of the reward can prove that a simoniacal mind was absent.

In simony of ecclesiastical law no comparison is made of a spiritual thing with a temporal thing. It is therefore a certain extension of simony to cases not comprehended by natural law; but, since it is forbidden by the same motive, each simony is of the same moral species, namely real sacrilege. Although this simony admits slightness of matter. Yet in the forbidden exchange of two spiritual things there can be present an intention of temporal gain and an abusive usurpation of dominion over a sacred thing. Wherefore simony itself of ecclesiastical law can sometimes be vitiated by some simony of divine law. For this reason we preferred above to recount the examples of simony of ecclesiastical law as at least infected with this genus of simony.