Specific distinction of sins

301. Declarations. 1. That there are sins specifically distinct is certain from the precept of Christ by which we are commanded to confess sins in their lowest species. From this precept at the same time the practical importance of this question is understood: for the whole question is directed to this, that the confessor may be able to help the penitent in making a confession of mortal sins according to species and number.

Sin can be considered in two ways: first, insofar as it is a human act; and then insofar as it is a morally evil human act, which consists in privation or lacks due form. But in whatever way it is considered, it is clear that there are sins specifically diverse. And indeed not only the objects of sins, but also the forms which evil acts lack, are essentially diverse: for the forms which sinful acts lack are the opposed virtues or relations of fittingness with the precepts which are injured. But since acts are specified by objects, and privations receive species from the forms to which they are opposed, it is clear that morally evil human acts, or sins, are specifically diverse.

2. Now it is asked what the norm is according to which sins are specifically distinguished. Not all assign the same norm.

a. St. Thomas takes specific distinction from the formally diverse objects of sins: those sins differ specifically which turn about formally diverse objects; for human acts receive their species from the object.¹

b. Scotus takes it from the diverse virtues to which sins are opposed: those sins differ specifically which are opposed to diverse virtues; for privation receives its species from the opposed form, which in this case is virtue.²

c. Vasquez takes it from the diverse laws to which sins are opposed: those sins differ specifically which are opposed to morally diverse precepts; for sin consists in privation of fittingness with the precept which is violated through sin.³

These three norms for specifically distinguishing sins do not in fact differ from one another, but one explains and perfects another: for virtues are diverse according as their objects are diverse, and laws are diverse according as they regard diverse virtues. Therefore it can rightly be said: sins proximately receive specific distinction from the virtues or precepts to which they are opposed; remotely, from the objects to which they are referred. And indeed hatred of neighbor and theft are sins specifically distinct either because they turn about morally diverse objects, namely the person of the neighbor and the goods of the neighbor, or because they are opposed to essentially diverse virtues, namely charity and justice, or because they are contrary to formally diverse precepts, namely the precept of charity and the seventh precept of the decalogue.

¹ Summa I-II, q. 72, a. 1.

² In II, dist. 37, q. 1, n. 9.

³ Disputationes in I-II S. Thomae, disp. 98, c. 2.

302. The norm taken from virtues. But because of these norms the easier one is that which Scotus proposes, I shall explain it more fully.

For the rest, the following rules furnish only general norms for specifically distinguishing sins; but which sins in particular are opposed to virtues specifically diverse will have to be explained below, where the discussion is about precepts.

1. Those sins are specifically diverse which are opposed to diverse virtues.

a. Therefore heresy, despair, and hatred of God are sins diverse in objective species because they are against the three theological virtues diverse among themselves; perjury, theft, and lying are specifically diverse because they are opposed to diverse virtues, namely religion, justice, and truthfulness.

b. If one act is against several virtues diverse in species, it likewise contains in itself several sins diverse in species. Thus the killing of a priest contains two sins, one against justice, the other against religion; and the carnal sin of a priest with a married blood-relative contains four sins: against chastity, religion, justice, and piety.

2. Those sins are specifically diverse which are opposed to the same virtue in a morally diverse mode. For sometimes the object of a virtue is so universal that it contains in itself several objects diverse in moral estimation; therefore diverse precepts of the same virtue also exist. Thus the object of justice is morally diverse according as the goods of the neighbor are diverse, namely life, reputation, honor, or riches; therefore also diverse precepts, the fifth, eighth, and seventh, are referred to these goods. Likewise the object of temperance in the use of food is diverse according as it regards the quantity or quality of foods; wherefore a twofold precept also is had concerning this matter.

a. Therefore perjury, violation of a vow, and blasphemy are sins specifically diverse, because they are opposed to the virtue of religion in a morally diverse mode. Local, real, and personal sacrilege are sins specifically diverse, because a sacred thing, a sacred person, and a sacred place are objects diverse in moral estimation of the same virtue of religion. He who on feast days omits Mass and is occupied in servile works commits two sins, because he injures the virtue of religion in a morally diverse mode.

b. Sins of commission, which are contrary to a negative precept, and of omission, which are contrary to an affirmative precept, against the same virtue are sometimes not specifically diverse, namely if they are referred to the same moral object and precept, as theft and omission of restitution, i.e. taking away and retaining another's thing. But for the most part they are sins specifically diverse, because they regard objects and therefore precepts morally diverse. Therefore heresy and omission of an act of faith, despair and omission of an act of hope, hatred of God and omission of an act of charity, are sins diverse in objective species, because they regard diverse objects and precepts and therefore injure the same virtue in a morally diverse mode.

3. Those sins are specifically diverse which are opposed to the same virtue in a contrary mode, i.e. through excess and through defect: for any virtue has its own mean, and what is opposed to it on either side has a distinct malice and constitutes a sin specifically distinct.

Therefore prodigality and avarice are sins diverse in species, because the former is opposed to the virtue of liberality through excess, the latter through defect. Despair and presumption are diverse in species, because the former is opposed to the theological virtue of hope through defect, the latter through excess.

303. Whether a sin which is opposed to several precepts passed concerning the same matter contains several sins specifically diverse. A distinction must be made: a. If the precepts are formally diverse, i.e. if they were passed from a diverse motive, the sins opposed to them are specifically distinguished. Thus he who breaks a fast to which he is bound from a precept of the Church and from a vow commits two sins, because the precept of the Church obliges from the virtue of temperance and the vow from the virtue of religion.

b. But if the precepts are only materially diverse, i.e. if they were passed from the same motive, the sins opposed to them do not differ specifically, whether they were passed by the same or by diverse legislators.

Thus through theft one sin is committed, even if it is prohibited by natural, divine, and human law, because these laws were passed from the same motive of justice. The beneficed presbyter who does not recite the office commits one sin in species and number; likewise the religious priest who sins against chastity commits one sin against religion, because the obligation is imposed by the same legislator from the same motive of religion.

THE Council of Trent teaches¹ that all Catholics are bound by divine law to confess to a priest all the mortal sins into which they may have fallen after baptism. A confession of sin in general terms will not suffice, but as far as is possible the confession must be integral—that is, each and every mortal sin must be confessed according to number and species. The confessor, then, must know when this duty is sufficiently fulfilled, or he must know how to distinguish the different species of sin. To enable him to do this, theologians have formulated three rules, of which sometimes one, sometimes another, is more serviceable for determining the species of any particular sin.

¹ Trent, sess. 14, C. 5-

Rule I.—Sins differ specifically according as their formal object differs. This rule is merely an application of the universal principle that acts are specified by their formal objects. Sins are bad human acts, and so, as we saw when treating of human acts, their formal object gives them their specific moral quality. The formal, not the material, object specifies the sin—that is, the object, inasmuch as it is morally wrong, causes the will which tends to it to be a vicious will in a certain definite way. And so adultery is a specifically different sin from fornication, because in the former case right order is doubly violated in a way that does not belong to fornication.

Rule II.—Sins are specifically different according as they are opposed to specifically different virtues. The reason of this rule is fundamentally the same as that of the former, for virtues are specifically distinguished according to their acts, and acts are specifically distinguished according to their formal objects. And so, inasmuch as charity is a different virtue from justice, hatred, as being opposed to charity, is a specifically distinct sin from theft or detraction, which are against justice.

Rule III.—Those sins are specifically distinct which are transgressions of formally distinct laws.

Laws, however, are formally distinct not because they are made by different authorities; the same sin of theft is against the natural, divine, ecclesiastical, and civil law. But when the motives of two laws are different, and the legislators wished to impose on their subjects the obligation of the special motive which they had in view, the laws will be specifically different, and sins against them will be specifically distinct. Thus the Church commands her children to abstain from flesh meat on Fridays, in order to exercise themselves in the virtue of temperance by curbing their appetite; she forbids anyone to receive Holy Communion who has not been fasting from midnight, out of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament; these two laws, then, are formally different laws, and violations of them are specifically distinct sins. Sometimes the Church, in forbidding an action, does not choose to clothe her precept with the obligation of the motive which induced her to make the law, and then violations of the law will be simply sins of disobedience. Thus bad books are frequently forbidden with a view to safeguarding the faith, but one who reads such books unlawfully does not thereby and necessarily sin against the faith.

I. The notion of specific distinction. Specific distinction is the distinction by which one mortal sin differs from another, or one venial sin from another, in a morally diverse mode.

II. The root of specific distinction. 1. Sins of omission are distinguished by the omitted acts specifically distinct in moral being. For they are mere privations of a due act. Now privations are distinguished specifically by the forms specifically distinct of which they deprive. Therefore those sins of omission are of diverse species by which due acts of diverse moral species are omitted, for example, the omission of Mass and the omission of due alms (St. Alphonsus, III, 32).

2. With regard to sins of commission it is disputed whence their specific distinction is to be taken. Some, with Scotus,¹ take it from the specific distinction of the virtues to which they are opposed, or from the diversity of honorableness of which they deprive; others, with Vasquez,² from the specific distinction of the laws or precepts to which they are opposed; others, with St. Thomas (I-II, q. 72, a. 1), from moral objects diverse in species, because every act of commission is specified by the terminus ad quem, and not by the terminus a quo. Besides, the opinions set forth do not seem to differ very greatly among themselves, and in the end seem to return to the same thing; since virtues and precepts are distinguished in species according to objects (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 72, a. 1, ad 2; St. Alphonsus, III, 32).

¹ In II Sent., dist. 37, q. 1, n. 9.

² I-II, disp. 98, c. 2.

III. Norms determining specific distinction. Once it is posited that specific distinction is taken from the specific distinction of objects, the norms which determine the specific distinction of objects also assign the specific distinction of sins. Now objects, and consequently sins, are specifically diverse when they contain a special repugnance with the eternal law; this has place:

1. When they are opposed to diverse virtues. For just as any virtue has distinct goodness, so the object opposed to it contains distinct malice. Hence, for example, fornication, which is opposed to chastity, and theft, which is opposed to justice, are specifically distinguished (St. Alphonsus, III, 31).

2. When they are opposed to the same virtue, but according to a diverse reason (St. Alphonsus, cited place). Now objects can be opposed to the same virtue according to a diverse reason in two ways:

a) In a contrary mode, i.e., through excess and through defect. Thus, for example, prodigality through excess, and avarice through defect, are opposed to liberality.

b) In a mode not indeed contrary, but nevertheless morally diverse. Thus, for example, superstition, blasphemy, perjury, and sacrilege are opposed to religion in a diverse mode.

3. When they are opposed to laws or precepts morally diverse, i.e., issued from a diverse formal motive (n. 148). Thus, for example, violation of a fast imposed by law of the Church is opposed to temperance; violation of a fast obliging from a vow is repugnant to religion. Since in this case diverse virtues, or diverse offices of the same virtue, are injured, this rule is to be reduced to the preceding ones (St. Alphonsus, V, 33).

Sins specifically distinct are not had if someone injures several laws distinguished only materially, for instance, issued by different legislators, but from the same formal motive. Hence he is guilty of only one sin who commits theft prohibited by both divine and human law. The same must be said of him who "culpably omits Mass on a feast day occurring on a Sunday, because for both cases the hearing of Mass is prescribed on account of the formal motive of religion" (St. Alphonsus, cited place).¹

Corollary I. One act can contain several malices diverse in species. Thus, for example, he commits three sins specifically diverse who breaks a fast to which he is held by ecclesiastical law, by vow, and by the precept of a confessor. For he violates temperance, which the Church intends; religion, which commands the observance of a vow; and penance, from the motive of which the confessor imposes satisfaction (St. Alphonsus, V, 33). Likewise "a beneficed cleric, if he omits the Office and is unwilling to restore the fruits, will sin not only against religion, but also against justice" (St. Alphonsus, IV, 145).

Corollary II. Common estimation does not indeed found specific distinction, as is clear, but nevertheless it is an argument for it. Moreover, since sins diverse in species are usually indicated by diverse names, commonly from diversity of name one can conclude to diversity of sin.

Corollary III. Sins which are not repugnant to a determinate virtue, but to honorableness in common, such as the will of living badly, are said to be of an unnamed species.

¹ Resp. Buscod., 1873, p. 403.

Divisions.—There are various divisions of sins. Thus:

(a) according to the kind of delight that is taken in evil, sins are either spiritual (e.g., vainglory) or carnal (e.g., intemperance);

(b) according to the person who is more directly offended by evil, sins are either against God (e.g., heresy, despair, blasphemy), or against one’s neighbor (e.g., theft, calumny), or against oneself (e.g., intemperance, suicide);

(c) according to the greater or less gravity of the evil, sins are either mortal (e.g., blasphemy) or venial (e.g., idle thoughts);

(d) according as the evil is done by acting or not acting, sins are either of commission (e.g., theft) or of omission (e.g., failure to pay debts);

(e) according to the progress of a sin, there are three stages: first, it is a sin of the heart when it exists only in the mind, as when one entertains a wish for revenge; secondly, it is a sin of the mouth, when it is manifested in words, as when one uses contumelious language; thirdly, it is a sin of work when it is carried out in act, as when one strikes another in the face;

(f) according to the manner in which they deviate from the golden mean, sins are either of excess (e.g., extravagance) or of defect (e.g., miserliness);

(g) according to the manner in which its guilt is contracted, sin is either original (i.e., the loss of grace inherited from Adam) or actual (i.e., the stain derived from one’s own wrongdoing; sec 272 sqq.).

The Distinction of Sins.—There are three kinds of distinction of sins: (a) sins that differ according to theological species, that is, according as they turn or do not turn the sinner away from God as his Last End. There are only two theological species of sin, viz., mortal and venial; (b) sins that differ according to moral species, that is, according to their essences, or the various kinds of finite good to which they turn the sinner. There are many moral species of sins, for example, infidelity, uncharitableness, etc.; (c) sins that differ according to number, but agree according to moral species (e.g., two distinct acts of uncharitable hatred).

The criteria for the specific distinction of sins are two:

(a) that which makes sins to differ specifically is the difference of the objects to which they tend, inasmuch as these created goods are out of harmony in specifically different ways with the standards of morality (e.g., pride and gluttony); (b) that by which we recognize the specific difference of sins is the opposition they have to virtues or laws that are specifically different. Thus, pride is opposed to humility, gluttony to temperance—two different virtues.

The following rules assist us in recognizing specific distinctions of sins. (a) Those sins are specifically different which are opposed to virtues that are specifically distinct. Thus, infidelity and despair are different in species, because opposed to faith and hope, which are two distinct species of virtue. (b) Those sins are specifically different that are opposed to specifically different objects of one and the same virtue—that is, to functions of the virtue, or to laws concerning it that have intrinsically different motives. Thus, sins of murder, theft, and false testimony, though opposed to the same virtue of justice, are specifically distinct, since they contravene obligations of that virtue whose purposes are morally distinct. (c) Those sins are specifically different that are opposed in specifically different ways to the same object of the same virtue, one opposing that object by way of excess and the other by way of defect. Thus, miserliness and extravagance are specifically distinct sins, because one falls short of, while the other goes beyond, the golden mean that is found in liberality.

Sins are not specifically distinct: (a) when they are opposed to the same virtue in ways that are physically, but not morally, contrary. Thus, sins of omission and sins of commission are physically opposites, but they are not morally so, unless they offend against different moral objects in the ways explained in the preceding paragraph. Hence, to steal and to refuse to pay debts, to take and to keep what belongs to another, are not specifically different sins; whereas to violate two distinct precepts about the same virtue, one a command and the other a prohibition, is to commit two species of sin, one by omission, and the other by commission;

(b) when they are opposed to the same virtue with reference to commands that differ in their lawgivers, but not in their motives. Thus, God, the Church, and the State all forbid theft; but he who steals is not therefore guilty of three sins, for each lawgiver forbids theft from the same intrinsic motive, viz., because it is an injury.

One and the same act contains in itself many sins, when it has many malices specifically different. Thus, he who kills his parents violates two commandments relative to the virtue of justice; he who steals from a church is guilty of theft and of sacrilege.

Sins that are multiplied numerically within the same species are committed in three ways: (a) by purely internal acts, that is, acts that are completed within the powers of the soul and do not tend to execution in some external act (e.g., unbelief, envy, pride, delight in the thought of sin, etc.); (b) by internal acts that are not completed in the will, but tend to execution in some external act (e.g., the purpose or desire to injure another, to lie, etc.); (c) by external acts that are performed or neglected by the bodily faculties under command of the will (e.g., theft, quarrels, lies, omissions of duty, etc.).

Acts may be numerically one or many in two ways.

(a) Physically, there is one act when the agent moves or puts into action a power of the soul or body only once (e.g., to steal from a church). Physically, there are many acts when the agent exercises different operative faculties, or the same one different times (e.g., to put one’s hand many times into a money box in order to steal the entire contents).

(b) Morally, there is one act when a single physical act does not contain more than one species of morality, or when several physical acts are united as parts of one whole by reason of the intention of the agent, or the nature of the acts themselves. For example, the wish to steal is morally one act. The intention to steal, the decision to use certain means to accomplish this intention, the various attempts made, and finally the carrying out of the plan—all these form morally but one act, since the acts that follow are only the development of the original intention. Similarly, several curses hurled at another form morally one act, if all are uttered under the influence of the same passion of anger. Finally, acts of spying on another, of entering his house without permission, and of taking his property unlawfully, are morally one act, because the first acts are naturally the preparation for what follows.

Morally, there are several acts when a single physical act contains several species of malice (as when one steals from a church), or when there are several physical acts not united by any bond of common purpose or natural subordination (as when one steals on different occasions because an opportunity suddenly presented itself, or as when one misses Mass on different Sundays).

Objects of acts may also be numerically one or many in two ways.

(a) Physically, an object is one when it has its own proper individuality different from that of others. Thus, each coin in a pocket-book is physically one thing, each member of a family is physically one person. Objects are physically many, when they include more than one distinct thing or person. Thus, physically a pocket-book contains many objects, as does also a family.

(b) Morally, objects that are physically many become one, if they are not such as to require morally distinct acts in their regard, and if they form according to prudent judgment parts of an integral or collective whole. Otherwise, these objects are morally many. Example: Missing Mass for a whole year constitutes, morally speaking, many objects, since it implies many independent external omissions, or morally distinct acts. A box of ordinary coins, though it contains many individual pieces of money, is commonly regarded as one integral object; and likewise religious, civil, domestic, and financial bodies, though each is made up of many members, are each, morally speaking, but one person. The possessions of different proprietors, however, are not one moral object; neither do the individual, personal rights of the members of one group constitute a single object.

It is clear that two sins specifically different in malice are also numerically different (e.g., a sin of theft and a sin of calumny). The rules that follow will pertain only to sins that are of the same species, but that differ numerically within the species (e.g., two distinct sins of theft, two distinct sins of calumny).

The rules for the numerical distinction of sins within the same species suppose: (a) that the distinction be not taken from the object, which gives the specific difference, but from the repetition of acts with regard to one object, made either actually (by different acts) or equivalently (by what is equal to different acts); (b) that the distinction be not taken from a physical but from a moral consideration of the acts.

Three rules of numerical distinction will be given, one for each of the three following hypotheses: (a) many distinct acts are concerned with morally distinct objects of the same species; (b) many distinct acts are concerned with what is morally one object; (c) one act is concerned with what are physically many, but morally one object.

First Rule of Numerical Distinction.—Many sinful acts, each of which is concerned with an object that is distinct in number (morally speaking) from the objects of the other acts, make as many numerically distinct sins as there are acts and objects numerically distinct. Example: He who fires distinct shots and unjustly kills three persons is guilty of three murders.

Second Rule of Numerical Distinction.—Many sinful acts, all of which are concerned with an object that is (morally speaking) one and the same in number, make as many numerically distinct sins as there are acts numerically distinct according to moral estimation.

When the acts concerned with the same object are purely internal, they are multiplied numerically, according to moral estimation, in the following cases:

(a) when they are repeated after having been renounced by an act of the will. Example: He who hates in the morning, repents at noon, and returns to his hate in the afternoon, commits two sins of hatred;

(b) when they are repeated after having been voluntarily discontinued, if the interval between the two acts is so considerable that the second act is not a mere continuation of the first. Example: He who in his mind reviles an enemy passing by, then turns his attention to his work and thinks no more about his anger, and later, seeing his enemy again, reviles him mentally a second time, commits two sins;

(c) when they are repeated after having been involuntarily discontinued, if a notable period (say, three hours) intervenes between the two acts. Example: He who thinks thoughts of hatred until he falls asleep, or until he is distracted from them by something unusual going on about him, or by the entrance of a visitor, commits a second sin of hatred, when he returns to the same thoughts, if the interruption was so long that there is no moral connection between the two acts.

When acts tending to the same object are internal, but directed towards completion in some external act, they are multiplied numerically, in moral estimation, in the following cases:

(a) when they are repeated after having been renounced. Example: He who decides to steal, but repents for his sin, and then again decides to steal, commits two sins;

(b) when they are repeated after voluntary discontinuance, if the interval is not merely momentary. Example: He who thinks over a plan to acquire money unjustly, and then deliberately turns his thought away and gives all his attention to lawful affairs, but later resumes the dishonest planning, commits a new sin;

(c) when they are repeated after involuntary discontinuance, if the interval is notable in view of the external act desired, and nothing external was done that could serve as a link to unify the two acts. Example: A burglar plans a robbery that could easily be carried out at once, but he takes no steps to execute his plan, and soon forgets about it. A month later, passing the house he had intended to rob, he remembers his plan and carries it out. Two distinct sins were here committed.

Involuntary discontinuance does not, however, separate the acts into two distinct sins: (a) if the interval was brief in view of the external act that was desired (e.g., if the burglar above mentioned had forgotten his plan for a few days only before he renewed it and carried it out); (b) if something had already been done by reason of the first act (e.g., if the burglar, after resolving to rob the house, had procured keys or tools for the purpose, and had kept them with this in mind, although he allowed months and years to pass without making any attempt to fulfill his design).

When the acts tending to the same object are external, they are multiplied numerically in moral estimation, and make distinct sins as follows: (a) if the internal acts from which they proceed are numerically distinct sins (e.g., if a burglar attempts to rob a house, but leaves his work unfinished because he becomes conscience-stricken or is interrupted, and later makes another plan and another attempt, there are two sins); (b) if the external acts are of such a kind that no internal intention can make them morally one act, even when one follows directly upon the other (e.g., missing Mass on Sunday and again on the following day, a holyday, makes one guilty of two distinct violations of the law).

In the following cases, however, distinct external acts with reference to the same object do not multiply the number of sins: (a) when these acts form a part of one moral whole, and are intended as such by the agent (e.g., one who reads a forbidden book, but divides it into parts, reading only so many pages a day); (b) when these acts have to one another the relation of means to a common end, and they are intended as such by the agent (e.g., various preparations made for robbery).

Third Rule of Numerical Distinction.—One sinful act, internal or external, that is concerned with objects that are physically many, but morally one, makes but one sin in number. Example: He who steals a purse that contains ten bills commits one sin; he who calumniates a family of ten persons commits one sin; he who steals what is the common property of three proprietors commits one sin.

When the objects are not morally one of themselves, they may become so through the belief of the one who acts, since distinct malices are not incurred except as apprehended (see 588-592). Example: He who tells three different lies against a neighbor (e.g., that he is a thief, a drunkard and a liar), commits one sin of calumny, if he has in mind general injury to reputation, but does not think at the time of the special injuries contained in his calumny. Likewise, he who calumniates before ten persons commits but one sin of calumny, if, being in a passion, he thinks only of the harm he wishes to cause and not of the number of persons who are present.

When the objects are morally one, they may become many through the intention of the one who acts. Example: He who calumniates a family of three persons by saying they are all dishonest, commits three sins, if he intends three distinct injuries (e.g., against the business of one, the religious reputation of another, and the friendship of the third). So also he who steals part of the money in a purse, and later on, having another opportunity, decides to steal the rest, commits two sins.

When the objects are not morally one in themselves and cannot be apprehended as such, distinct sins are committed. Example: He who intends to miss Mass all year, foresees at least in a confused way many distinct violations of the law; he who purposes to rob various proprietors foresees at least in a vague way many separate and complete external acts of robbery.

Whence is the specific distinction of sins to be derived? St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 18, a. 2; q. 72, a. 1, 4, 6, 9, etc., teaches that it is to be derived from the object, because sin is a human act; and a human act takes its species from the object, and from the different aspect of the same object. And thus homicide, detraction, theft differ in species, because life, reputation, and a thing are goods which differ in species among themselves.

S. Th. de Malo, q. 2, a. 7. - Scotus, on the contrary, in 2 D. 37, q. 1, n. 9, thinks that it is to be derived from the virtue which is injured, and from the mode, whether opposite or merely different, by which the virtue is injured; because sin formally consists in the privation of the rectitude of the opposite virtue. But every privation is specified by the form opposed to it. And thus heresy, fornication, theft, are sins distinct in species, because they are opposed to virtues distinct in species: faith, chastity, justice. Presumption and despair, omission of the love of God and hatred of God, are distinguished in species, because the former injure hope in a contrary mode, the latter charity by defect and by excess. Detraction, calumny, theft, adultery, homicide, likewise differ in species among themselves, because they injure justice in a different mode. Likewise perjury, violation of vow, blasphemy, although they are against the same virtue of religion, nevertheless are diverse in species, because they are opposed to it in a different mode.

The one opinion is not opposed to the other, for sin is both: a human act and a privation, a human act materially, a privation formally. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 72, a. 1, 6. Wherefore one opinion perfects the other, and it can be said that sin is proximately specified from the rectitude or honorableness of the virtue to which it is opposed, remotely and fundamentally from the object. Laymann, l. 1, tr. 3, c. 2, n. 2. But both opinions fall back into nearly the same thing: "for virtues are distinguished in species according to objects." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 72, a. 1, ad 2. Whence the same St. Thomas, 2 D. 42, q. 2, a. 2, q. 1, ad 1, says: "Therefore it must be said that 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." For the matter is the same "about which virtue operates rightly, and the opposed vices recede from rectitude." S. Th. 2. 2, Prologue.

Cf. 1. 2. q. 71, a. 1; q. 72, a. 4, 8. But then there is had either a different object, or a different aspect of the same object; or a different virtue, or a different mode of injuring the same virtue, which bear before themselves a new moral species of sin, when these exhibit before themselves a special order of reason, or a special agreement or disagreement with right reason, namely when from this there is had a special reason why something is morally good or evil. "Wherever a different motive occurs, inclining the intention to sinning, there is a different species of sin." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 72, a. 8, 9; q. 71, a. 2; q. 79, a. 2, ad 3; 2. 2. q. 154, a. 11; L. 30, 31, 32.

Can there be a multiple species of one sin? - R. Affirmatively, since circumstances can be present to the object which change, or rather multiply, the species. And thus he who, bound by a vow of chastity, sins with a married blood relative commits four sins, diverse in species: against chastity, religion, piety, and justice. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 73, a. 7.

Are several sins distinguished in species from different precepts concerning the same thing? - When positive laws command or prohibit something, they constitute the act in that virtue with a view to which they command or prohibit it. Wherefore the transgression of the law is attributed to the vice opposed to that virtue. But this happens in four ways: 1. When they command or forbid something indifferent with a view to some special virtue, as, e.g., to abstain from servile works on a feast day with a view to religion; whence not to abstain from them is irreligiosity; to observe the natural fast by reason of due reverence toward the Most Holy Eucharist, whence not to observe it is sacrilege. - 2. When they command or prohibit an act of some special virtue or vice with a view to the same virtue, as to be present at Mass on a feast day with a view to religion, whence to be absent is likewise a species of irreligiosity; ecclesiastical fast with a view to temperance, whence to break it pertains to intemperance; marriage not to be entered with blood relatives, relatives by affinity, adoptive relatives, with a view to piety, whence to marry those persons is incest. - 3. When they command or prohibit an act of some special virtue or vice with a view to another virtue; whence he who steals a thing of the church, or strikes a cleric, from the intrinsic nature of the act itself, or by natural law, injures justice; but from the extrinsic law of the Church, he besides offends religion. Lugo, de Poenit., d. 16, n. 139; L. l. 1, n. 167; l. 6, n. 808. 4. If law commands or forbids something with a view to no special virtue, e.g., not to read proscribed books, that which is done according to that law looks to the virtue of obedience; that which is done against it pertains to the vice of disobedience. Of obedience, namely broadly taken, because in the proper signification of obedience its object is precepts, not laws; these are properly the object of legal justice.

Now, if various precepts all look to the same virtue, and are distinguished only on the part of the legislators, as in theft, which is prohibited by natural, divine, canonical, and civil law, they by no means induce a specific distinction of sins; because diversity of legislators does not make the precept formally diverse, but only materially. It is otherwise, however, if the precepts are distinguished on the part of the object itself, namely on the part of the proximate motive of the precept itself; because then diverse virtues are injured, as if someone were to break a fast commanded by the Church, and to which he had also bound himself by vow; for then he would injure temperance, from which the Church commands fast, and religion, from which God commands vows to be observed. L. 33; l. 1, n. 167; l. 4, n. 145; Lugo, l. c., n. 144 ff.

Resolves: Diverse causes by which some precept is imposed do not change the species of sin, nor increase sins in number. Hence, although by one and the same virtue of religion, with the precept of the Church acceding, both one who possesses a benefice and one who is constituted in sacred orders are obligated to the canonical hours, nevertheless a priest, for example, who has a parochial benefice commits one sin by not reciting the canonical hours. Likewise a religious priest who acts shamefully commits one sin of sacrilege besides the sin against chastity, although he is held to chastity both as priest and as religious. L. 33; l. 3, n. 455; l. 4, n. 145; l. 6, n. 808.

Note: He who sins from culpable ignorance, or because he acts while doubting, and he who sins in the cause, admits a sin of that species whose danger he undergoes and at least confusedly foresees; for each implicitly and, as it were, consequently wills it. Sanch., de Matr., l. 11, d. 41, n. 7. "Acts concomitant with omission, such as playing, eating, while, e.g., Mass is omitted, are not sinful unless they are the cause of the omission, for instance when play is the cause of omitting Mass.... But then the influencing acts put on the same malice of the omission, not a diverse one.... Wherefore it then suffices only to confess the omission. But if the action which is the cause of the omission is also a grave sin, namely if someone omits Mass in order to steal, the theft can be said in confession separately from the omission of Mass, because then the theft is only an aggravating cause, not one changing the species." L. 9, 60.

1. Pauperius, pressed by grave misery and a large family, burned with anger against God, because He had enriched other evil men with many riches, but had oppressed him, an honest man, with most grave poverty. Hence he proposed that thereafter he would no longer avoid any occasion of sinning, nor observe any precept, which he carried out for many years.

Q. 1. How are sins specifically distinguished? 2. What as to the case?

R. To the first, cf. I. M. 298 seqq. To the second: Pauperius, burning with anger against God, sinned most gravely against the charity of God. He also sinned most gravely by efficaciously proposing that thereafter he would avoid no occasion of sinning and no sin. But this sin is not a sin of some certain species, but of an unnamed species, which implicitly embraces all species of sins. Elbel, De Act. hum., 71; I. M. 318.

2. Confundius accuses himself, in sacramental confession, of evil thoughts had, to which he consented, saying: I had evil thoughts three times against chastity, four times against charity, five times against justice, and to these I always gave consent. But he omits explaining other circumstances. He is accustomed to do the same in his confessions where there is question not of simple delectation, but of inefficacious desire.

3. Dominicus, in confessing, says that he had the thing with a woman, and once detracted from the reputation of his neighbor. But as regards the first sin he omits saying that he sinned with his maidservant, who was at the same time consanguineous with him in the third degree, and on a Sunday, on which in the morning he had approached the sacred synaxis. As regards the other sin, he omits saying that he detracted from the reputation of a priest, and did this in church while he was hearing Mass.

Q. What as to the various cases?

R. 1. Confundius, speaking in itself, does not accuse himself rightly. For delectation is specified by the object thought, and by the apprehended circumstances of the same object. Wherefore the nature of an object of this sort and of the apprehended circumstances must of itself be declared, so that the lowest species of those evil thoughts and of the delectations in them may be declared. Likewise the nature of the object of an inefficacious desire, and of the circumstances changing its species, must be declared. And the desires themselves, although inefficacious, must be declared. For desires, although inefficacious, or although they lack the purpose of applying means to their execution, nevertheless differ essentially from simple evil delectation, and introduce a different species. Indeed, not otherwise than efficacious desires, they are clothed with all the species of the object toward which they tend. G. 158.

But Fr. Gury 160 notes: "The object specifically different of evil delectation must indeed of itself be declared, because complacency in a representation, for example, of a shameful look, differs in species from the representation of forni- cation, etc. But in practice it would be more difficult for the confessor to ask about these in particular, and this would induce most grave inconveniences, which are altogether to be avoided. Furthermore, those who easily give consent to evil thoughts are easily also judged to have adhered to whatever representations." Yet there is often no need of questioning. For first, penitents themselves, declaring other sins, or returning to what has already been accused, often explain the nature and lowest species of internal sins; without there being need on any part of the confessor for direct questioning, but only patience and due attention to an integral confession. Besides, often penitents in good faith from ignorance do not apprehend, in the object or in the interior act, a different specific malice, and therefore then, since they have not contracted such malice, they are not held to explain it. Finally, if there is inconvenience and danger in making an interrogation, the confessor can stand by the general rule, namely of judging concerning the sins heard in the obvious and natural sense, with attention to the matter of which there is question and to the condition of the penitent; nor then is there need of a subtler and troublesome inquiry. - I. M. 291; La-Croix, l. 6, p. 2, n. 1028 seqq.; Reuter, p. 2, n. 209.

1. The omission of the circumstance of the maidservant does not render the confession defective, because, speaking in itself, and excluding a special contract of committing the young woman to the special custody of the master, the sin of the master with the maidservant does not introduce a new species. Yet a circumstance of this sort can be asked by the confessor, so that the confessor may know the nature of the occasion in which the penitent is found. 2. The omission of the circumstance of consanguinity, on the contrary, renders the confession defective; since that circumstance introduces the species of incest. 3. The circumstance of Sunday and of Communion does not introduce the grave species of sacrilege, and therefore it did not have to be declared necessarily. Yet grave sacrilege would be had if someone immediately after Communion should perpetrate a shameful sin. 4. Detraction made from the reputation of a priest and in a sacred place and at the time of Mass does not constitute grave sacrilege, nor consequently must circumstances of this sort necessarily be declared. G. 146, 147, 148; I. M. 493, 502, 507, 798, 806-808; v. 2, n. 711-714.

We must treat 1. of specific distinction; 2. of numerical 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.

487. 1. State of the question. (A) Speculatively, theologians do not agree concerning the principle from which the specific distinction of sins is to be repeated. (a) St. Thomas repeats it from the formally diverse objects of sins;⁶ namely, sins differ in species when they are concerned with objects formally diverse in the being of morals; for primary morality is drawn from the object formally taken, as was said above, n. 114. (b) But Scotus repeats it from the diverse virtues to which sins are opposed;¹ for since sin is a privation, it takes its species from the form to which it is opposed, or from virtue. (c) According to Vasquez,² sins differ specifically insofar as they are opposed to morally diverse precepts; for since sin is a transgression of the law, or of a precept, it obtains its species from the precept which is violated.

⁶ St. Thomas, cited place, a. 1.

¹ Scotus, in 2 Sentent., dist. 37, q. 1, n. 9.

² Disput. in I-II S. Thom., disp. 98, c. 2.

488. (B) Practically, however, these three norms can be composed together; for it is true that sins are diverse in species according to the diverse precepts which are violated; but the precepts themselves are generally diverse because they regard diverse virtues; but virtues are not diverse except because they are concerned with specifically distinct objects. Whence it can be said that sins proximately receive their specific distinction from the precepts, or from the virtues to which they are opposed, but remotely from the moral objects concerning which they are concerned.

489. (C) It must likewise be noted that many faithful, ignorant of theological distinctions, bear judgment concerning the various species of sins according to the moral estimation of prudent persons, but that this is diverse according to places, times, moral education, etc. Whence, in practice, confessors ought to look into, insofar as they can, the subjective dispositions of penitents, and judge concerning the malice of sins according to the knowledge and advertence which was in the penitents, and indeed at the very time when they were sinning. Therefore if some apprehended only confusedly the diverse malices contained in their actions, and recognized only one sin in an act which, strictly speaking, had a threefold malice specifically distinct, they are not to be troubled to accuse distinctly what they had perceived obscurely; for they sinned according to the degree of knowledge proper to them: nothing is willed unless foreknown.

490. 2. Practical rules. (A) Sins which are opposed to diverse virtues must be held as specifically diverse; thus infidelity, despair, hatred of God are sins diverse in species, because they are opposed to the three theological virtues; likewise superstition, which is opposed to religion, is specifically distinguished from homicide, which is against justice. - Therefore, if one and the same act harms several virtues specifically diverse, it contains several malices specifically diverse; thus a priest perpetrating adultery with a married blood-relative commits four sins specifically diverse: against chastity, as is clear; against religion, because he is bound by the vow of chastity; against justice, he violates the right of the husband; and against piety, because he sins with a blood-relative.

(B) Sins opposed to the same virtue in a contrary mode are specifically diverse, for example, despair and presumption, which are opposed to the same virtue of hope, but in a contrary mode, the former namely by defect, the latter by excess.

(C) Sins likewise diverse in species are those opposed to the same virtue, but in a morally diverse mode, or to diverse functions of the same virtue; thus detraction, theft, homicide differ in species, although they are opposed to the same virtue of justice, because in a morally diverse mode they violate the rights of neighbor, namely the right to reputation, the right to external goods, the right to life: for these rights, according to the moral estimation of all, are altogether diverse.

491. N.B. When one and the same act is prohibited by various laws, it has only one malice, if precepts of this kind were enacted from the same motive: thus is theft, which is prohibited by natural, divine, canonical, and civil law, because of the same motive. But if the precepts were enacted from a diverse motive, one and the same act contains in itself several malices specifically diverse; thus he who breaks a fast to which he was held both from a vow and from a precept of the Church commits a twofold sin.

To enable men to understand the nature of sin, and for the practical purposes of catechetical instruction and Penance, Catholic moralists have divided sins into classes.

The most important division is that of mortal and venial sins, already dealt with in the previous chapter.

Other divisions are based respectively on the Decalogue, the duties violated by sin, the nature of man, the intrinsic character of different sins, man's relation towards himself and others, and the development of evil in the soul.

—The most popular division of sins is that which follows the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. This classification was confirmed by Christ Himself and adopted by St. Paul.¹ The order is not strictly logical, however, nor is it quite exhaustive, and hence the enumeration of sins based upon it is more or less external and does not, in fact, transcend the standpoint of the Old Law, except in so far as it interprets the Decalogue in the light of the New Testament. Nevertheless this division is useful, especially for the examination of conscience, which is one of the requisites of a good confession.²

² This division is adopted by Sabetti, Slater, Noldin, and other present-day moralists.

¹ Matth. V, 21 sqq.; XV, 19; XIX, 18; Mark X, 19 (a different order in Mark VII, 21 sq.); 1 Tim. I, 9 sq. (different in Rom. XIII, 9).—Cfr. N. Peters, Die älteste Abschrift der zehn Gebote und der Papyrus Nash, Freiburg 1905; M. Hetzenauer, Theologia Biblica, Vol. I, Freiburg 1908, pp. 634 sqq.

The sins against the Ten Commandments are enumerated in the following verses, handed down by the Schoolmen:

There is God, there is His name, there are sabbaths and parents; killing, adultery, theft, false witness, house, and wife.

Or, in amplified form:

Scorn idols; let God’s name not be vain to you; sanctify the sabbaths; hold parents in honor; be not a killer, adulterer, thief, or unjust witness; desire neither another’s wife nor another’s property.

2. SINS OF COMMISSION AND OMISSION. —This classification is purely formal and of no particular value for judging the nature of sin. a) When all other conditions are equal, a sin of commission is worse than a sin of omission because the negative precepts of the law bind under a more serious penalty than those which are affirmative, and to transgress them involves a more determined effort of the will. Since, however, sins of omission suppose a positive act of the will —refusal to obey God —and hence are voluntary, they, too, may be mortal.³ Sins of omission, furthermore, are often more dangerous to the soul than sins of commission, because less attention is paid to them, and they are rarely made the object of contrition and penitence by the careless. b) The division of sins into sins against God, against oneself, and against one’s fellowmen⁴ is likewise purely external, because every sin is by its very nature an offense against God and oneself, and in a certain sense also against one's fellowmen. Nevertheless, this classification is useful, and derives additional justification from the fact that some sins are more directly opposed than others to the duties which man owes to God, to his fellowmen, and to himself.

³ Cfr. Matth. VII, 19; XXV, 30. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 72, art. 6.

⁴ Cfr. Matth. XXII, 36-40; Tit. II, 12.—St. Thomas, ibid., art. 4.

FLESH. —This distinction is based on the composite nature of man and is mentioned in Sacred Scripture. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit." ⁵ Man is a compound of body and soul, and hence none of the sins that he is able to commit is either entirely spiritual or entirely carnal. True, the Bible sometimes applies the term "flesh" (σάρξ) to human nature as corrupted by sin, and St. Paul enumerates envy, wrath, dissension, etc., among "the works of the flesh." ⁶ But this cannot alter the obvious fact that a real distinction exists between spiritual sins (peccata spiritualia) and carnal sins (peccata carnalia).

⁵ 2 Cor. VII, 1. —Cfr. Matth. IV, 1-11; 1 Pet. II, 11; 1 John II, 16.

⁶ Gal. V, 19-21; cfr. 1 Cor. III, 3.—Cfr. H. H. Wendt, Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist im biblischen Sprachgebrauch, Gotha 1878, pp. 42 sqq., 78 sqq.

A carnal sin is one by which man gratifies some disorderly inclination of his sensitive nature —concupiscence of the eyes or concupiscence of the flesh. By the commission of such a sin man, who is a rational creature, subjects himself, as it were, to matter. The chief sins of the flesh are fornication, luxury, gluttony, avarice, greed, idolatry, and witchcraft.

Sins of the spirit are committed by indulging the disorderly inclinations that have their seat in the mind, e. g., pride, envy, hatred.⁷ These, to borrow a phrase from St. Thomas, are "the sins which consist in mental gratification."

⁷ Matth. IV, 1-9; Gal. V, 20; John II, 16.

Which of these two species is the more dangerous or the more grievous is difficult to say. Sins of the flesh easily attain consummation and develop into habits; but their guilt is diminished by the weakening of the will due to concupiscence. Sins of the spirit, on the other hand, involve greater malice and self-deception, —a circumstance that renders conversion more difficult, nay often impossible. Christ Himself assured the haughty Pharisees: "The publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you." 9 No sin is greater or more dangerous than pride and excessive self-esteem. St. Augustine observes that "A humble sinner is better than a just man puffed up with pride." ¹⁰ Christ says that the publican "went down into his house justified," whereas the Pharisee did not; and He adds: "Every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted." Broadly speaking, we may say that the sins of the flesh are less culpable than those of the spirit, but involve greater shame.¹¹

⁸ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 72, art. 2: "Those sins which are completed in spiritual delight are called spiritual sins; but those which are completed in carnal delight are called carnal sins, as gluttony, which is completed in delight in food, and lust, which is completed in venereal delight. Hence the Apostle also says: Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit." subiecti, oMatth. XXI, 31; cfr. Matth. XXIII, 13-33; Luke VII, 36-48; XVIII, 14; John VIII, 3-1 1. •verti cata

¹⁰ Serm., 170, n. 7: "A humble sinner is better than a proud just man." (Migne, P. L., XXXVIII, 930).

¹¹ Cfr. Luke XVIII, 14. St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 93, n. 15: "See, brethren: humility in evil deeds pleased God more than pride in good deeds; thus God hates the proud." (P. L., XXXVII, 1203). —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 73, art. 5: “Spiritual sins are of greater guilt than carnal sins. This is not to be understood as though every spiritual sin were of greater guilt than every carnal sin, but because, considering only this difference of spirituality and carnality, spiritual sins are graver than carnal sins, other things being equal. Three reasons can be assigned. The first is taken from the subject: spiritual sins are perfected in the spirit, whose office it is to turn to God and to turn away from Him; carnal sins, however, are consummated in the delight of the carnal appetite, whose principal tendency is to turn to bodily good. Therefore carnal sin as such has more of turning toward, and consequently also of attachment; but spiritual sin has more of turning away, from which the nature of guilt proceeds. Therefore spiritual sin as such is of greater guilt. The second reason can be taken from the one against whom the sin is committed. By carnal sin as such one sins against one’s own body, which according to the order of charity is to be loved less than God and one’s neighbor, against whom spiritual sins are committed. Therefore spiritual sins as such are of greater guilt. The third reason can be taken from the motive: the stronger the impulse to sin, the less a man sins; but carnal sins have a more vehement impulse, namely the concupiscence of the flesh innate in us. Therefore spiritual sins as such are of greater guilt.” —IDEM, De Verit., qu. 25, art. 6, ad 2: "Sins of the irascible appetite are graver, but sins of the concupiscible appetite are more shameful." —St. Gregory the Great, Moral., l. 33, c. 12, n. 25: "We know that it is sometimes a lesser thing to fall into corruption than to sin in silent thought from deliberate pride; but because pride is believed less shameful, it is less avoided. Men blush at lust all the more because all alike know it to be shameful. Hence it often happens that some, after pride, through an open fall into lust, blush at the evil of their hidden fault; and then they correct even greater things when, cast down in lesser matters, they are more gravely confounded. They recognize themselves as guilty among lesser sins who believed themselves free among graver ones." (Migne, P. L., LXXVI, 688).

Psychologically, we may distinguish between sins of thought, word, and deed. The Angelic Doctor explains the underlying process as follows: "The first beginning of sin is its foundation, as it were, in the heart; the second degree is the sin of word, in so far as man is ready to break out into a declaration of his thought. The third degree consists in the consummation of the deed. Consequently these three differ in respect of the various degrees of sin. Nevertheless it is evident that all three belong to the one complete species of sin, since they proceed from the same motive. For the angry man, through desire of vengeance, is at first disturbed in thought, then breaks out into words of abuse, and lastly goes on to wrongful deeds; and the same applies to lust and to any other sin."¹² Thus every sin is a sin of thought (peccatum cordis), because every sin originates in the mind.¹³ But not every evil thought "breaks out into words," much less does it culminate in sinful deeds.¹⁴ a) A thought, as such, is mortally sinful if the will consents to, and takes pleasure in, the evil suggestion offered by the senses or the imagination. The technical term of Scholastic theology for such wilfully entertained evil thoughts is morose pleasure (delectatio morosa). "Pleasure is said to be morose, not from a delay of time (mora), but because the mind in deliberating dwells (immoratur) thereon, and fails to drive it away, 'deliberately holding and turning over what should have been cast aside as soon as it touched the mind/ as Augustine says." ¹⁵ To take pleas- ure in an evil thought deliberately and with full advertence, is always a sin, —whether mortal or venial depends on the character of the thought itself. Not every thought of evil is in itself sinful. There is a distinction between taking pleasure in the thought of evil (delectatio de cogitatione ret malae) and taking pleasure in an evil object (delect atio de re mala cogitat a). Thinking about a sin for a good and sufficient reason, e. g., to study its nature and effects, to find an antidote against it, to protect others from its ravages, is not delectatio morosa.¹⁶*® Nor is it sinful to reflect with pleasure on the adroitness with which a sin has been committed, or other circumstances surrounding the same. Note, however, that the line of demarcation between what is sinful and what is permitted in such thoughts is difficult to draw. To rejoice over a sin (gaudium de peccato), whether it be one's own or that of another, is always forbidden.¹⁷ b) A thought becomes sinful as soon as the will harbors a desire to commit the evil deed (desiderium pravum inefficax). However, there is a distinction between conditional and unconditional desires.

¹² Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 72, art. 7: "Peccatum dividitur per these three—sin of the heart, mouth, and deed—not as though they were diverse complete species; for the consummation of sin is in the deed, whence sin of deed has the complete species. Its first beginning, however, is as a foundation in the heart; its second stage is in the mouth, insofar as a man readily breaks forth to manifest the conception of his heart; and the third stage is now in the consummation of the deed. Thus these three differ according to diverse stages of sin. It is evident, nevertheless, that these three belong to one complete species of sin, since they proceed from the same motive. For the angry man, because he desires vengeance, is first disturbed in his heart, secondly breaks forth into insulting words, and thirdly proceeds as far as injurious deeds; and the same is evident in lust and in every other sin." —Cfr. St. Gregory the Great, Moral., I. 4, c. 27, n. 30: "Kinds of sin are either committed secretly in the heart or perpetrated openly in deed." (P. L., LXXV, 661).

¹³ Cfr. Matth. IX, 4; XII, 34; XV, 18-19; Mark VII, 20-23. —St. Jerome, In lerem., I, c. 4. —P. A. Kirsch, Zur Geschichte der kath. Beicht, Wiirzburg 1902, pp. 50 sqq.

¹⁴ Cfr. Ps. XXXIII, 13 sqq.; Prov. XVIII, 21; Matth. XII, 36 sq.; XXIII, 3; Rom. II, 6; Gal. V, 19; Eph. IV, 29; V, 4; Jas. I, 26; III, 2; 1 Pet. III, 10.

¹⁵ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 74, art. 6, ad 3: “Delec- Delight is called morose, not from delay, but because deliberating reason lingers about it and nevertheless does not repel it, willingly retaining and turning over things which ought to have been rejected as soon as they touched the mind, as Augustine says.” (Migne, P. L., XLII, 1008).

¹⁶ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 74, art. 8: "Since every delight follows upon some operation, and again every delight has some object, any delight can be related to two things: the operation which it follows and the object in which one delights. It happens that an operation is the object of delight just as some other thing is, because the operation itself can be taken as a good and an end in which the person delighted rests. Sometimes the very operation which the delight follows is the object of delight, insofar as the appetitive power, to which delight belongs, reflects upon the operation itself as upon a certain good, as when someone thinks and delights in the very fact that he thinks, insofar as his thought pleases him. At other times the delight that follows one operation, for example some thought, has another operation as its object, as the thing thought of; and then such delight proceeds from an inclination of the appetite, not toward the thought, but toward the operation thought of. Thus someone thinking about fornication can delight in two things: in one way in the thought itself, in another way in the fornication thought of. Delight in the thought itself follows the inclination of the affection toward that thought; but the thought itself is not in itself a mortal sin—indeed, sometimes it is only venial, as when someone thinks about it uselessly, and sometimes it is entirely without sin, as when someone thinks about it usefully, as when he wishes to preach or debate about it. Consequently the affection and delight which is thus about the thought of fornication is not of the genus of mortal sin, but is sometimes a venial sin, sometimes none at all; hence even consent to such delight is not a mortal sin. But that someone thinking about fornication delights in the act thought of happens because his affection is inclined toward that act. Hence for someone to consent to such delight is nothing else than to consent that his affection be inclined toward fornication, for no one delights except in what conforms to his appetite. But for someone deliberately to choose that his affection should conform to things which are mortal sins in themselves is a mortal sin." Cfr. St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., 1. 2, n. 12-29.

¹⁷ Prov. II, 14. —Cfr. Prop. Damnat. sub Innocentio XI., n. 15: "It is lawful for a son to rejoice in the murder of his parent committed by himself while drunk, because of the immense riches consequently obtained from the inheritance." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1032).

A conditional desire (desiderium conditional um) is sinful unless the condition takes away the malice of the act. Father Slater explains this as follows: "There is no harm, for example, in saying: T should like to eat meat on a Friday, unless the Church forbade it;' and the same is true generally whenever the condition, 'If it were lawful/ is annexed to a merely positive prohibition If this condition is annexed to a desire against the natural law, as 'I should like to steal if it were lawful/ or 'I should like to commit fornication if it were not forbidden/ the condition does not remove all the malice of the vicious will, for the very tendency of the will toward such objects is against right reason. Such conditional desires then are sinful, unless they indicate a mere propensity towards such sins without any voluntary affection of the will. In any case, however, they are dangerous, and should not be indulged or expressed."¹⁸

¹⁸ Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, p. 150.— Cfr. Gen. III, 6; 1 Cor. X, 6; Gal. V, 24.

c) A sin of thought, lastly, is a complete sin, divided from the external act only by an accident, if there is present an efficacious desire (desiderium pravum efficax) and a definite intention to take the necessary means to accomplish the desired end (decretum peccandi).¹⁹

¹⁹ Cfr. Ex. XX, 17; Matth. V, 28.

Sins of word, taken generically, receive a specific malice when they are accompanied by deeds, as in contumely, lust, and the like, or when they give scandal.

St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, and other Fathers compare the evolution of sin from thought through word to deed with the three different ways in which our Lord raised the dead to life.²⁰ The analogy is striking and offers food for meditation.

²⁰ Cfr. St. Augustine, De Serm. Dom. in Monte, I, c. 12, n. 35 (Migne, P. L., XXXIV, 1247); Serm., 98, n. 5-7 (XXXVIII, 593); Serm., 128, n. 14 (P. L., XXXVIII, 720). —St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, 1. 4, c. 27, n. 52.

5. COOPERATION IN INJUSTICE. —Man, as a social being placed in the midst of his fellowmen, may become an occasion of, or accessory to, the sins of others.²¹ The distinction between peccata propria and peccata aliena is popular rather than scientific, for in the last analysis every sin is a peccatum proprium, inasmuch as it is caused by the ego of the sinner. But a man may share the guilt of another's sin by becoming accessory to it, i. e., by lending formal cooperation. This he may do negatively, by failing to prevent the other's sin, or by concealing or omitting to punish it if it is his duty to do so; or positively, by directly or indirectly seducing others, participating in, or at least consenting to, their evil actions, or glossing them over.

²¹ Cfr. Prov. XXIX, 24; Matth. XVIII, 6; Rom. I, 32; 1 Tim. V, 22; 2 John 10-11; Apoc. XVIII, 4. —St. Augustine, De Morib. Eccl., II, c. 17, n. 57: "It makes no difference whether you commit the crime yourself or wish it to be committed by another for your sake." (Migne, P. L., XXXVI, 162).

The different ways in which one may become accessory to the sins of others have been brought into hexameters as follows: Command, counsel, consent, flattery, harboring; participation, silence, not hindering, not disclosing; or:

He who persuades, commands, assents, incites, praises evil; he who keeps silent, indulges, helps, and tries to defend. As we know from the Catechism, a man may become accessory to the sins of others:

a) By counsel (consilium), i. e., by giving advice or urging motives, or by showing how an evil deed may be done, or the punishment due to it escaped.²² b) By command (iussio), i. e., by inducing another to do an injury, especially if one is a superior.²³ c) By consent (consensus), i. e., by agreeing to sinful proposals or suggestions.²⁴ As Father Slater points out, this sin is committed by members of legislative bodies when they agree together to pass an unjust law, and also by jurymen who concur in a wrong verdict.²⁵ d) By provocation (irritatio), i. e., by employing anger or ridicule for the purpose of persuading another to commit an injustice or to omit to make reparation for an injury committed. This sin is also committed by those who dress indecently, exhibit obscene pictures, sell or loan bad books, carry on unchaste conversations, etc., thereby causing others to sin.²⁶ e) By praise or flattery (palpo), i. e., by commending the wicked conduct of others, instigating them to rebellion against lawful authority, eulogizing their crimes, etc.²⁷ f ) By silence (reticentia), i. e., by omitting to dissuade others from sin or failing to censure their misdeeds, if one is in duty bound to do so; tolerating evil company or dangerous occasions, etc.²⁸ g) By connivance (conniventia), i. e., by neglecting to punish sinful conduct in children or subjects. Heli was punished "because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them." ²⁹

²² As when Caiphas advised the Jews to put Jesus to death. (John XI, 50).

²³ Cfr. Ex. I, 15 sqq.; 2 Kings XI, 14; Matth. II, 16.

²⁴ Cfr. Gen. XXXIX, 10; Acts VII, 57; XXII, 20; Eph. V, 6 sq.

²⁵ A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 420 sq.

²⁶ Cfr. Gen. III, 1-6.

²⁷ Cfr. Ez. XIII, 18; Rom. I, 32.

²⁸ Cfr. Lev. V, 1; Is. LVI, 10; Prov. XXIX, 25.

²⁹ Cfr. 1 Kings III, 13; II, 23 sqq.

h) By sharing in unjustly acquired goods (participatio, recursus), i. e., by knowingly buying them, accepting, receiving or selling them for the thief or robber, affording protection to wrong-doers, permitting one's property to be used for sinful purposes, assisting in forbidden commerce by carrying letters and messages, making or furnishing articles designed to destroy human life, etc.³⁰

i) By defense of the evil done (prava defensio), i. e., by excusing the evil conduct of others by word of mouth or in writing (novels, poems, plays), representing vice as mere weakness, etc.³¹

³⁰ Cfr. Matth. XXVIII, 12; Luke XXII, 3 sqq.

³¹ Cfr. Luke XI, 47 sqq.

The gravity of these sins depends upon the degree of cooperation furnished. Positive is always more culpable than negative cooperation. Among the various forms of positive cooperation the most reprehensible are those which exercise the greatest influence upon the conduct of others. Thus, to command a sinful act is a greater sin than merely to counsel it, and to counsel it a greater sin than merely to consent to its commission.

6. GENETIC DIVISION. —Sins may also be divided with respect to the various stages of malice through which they pass from their first beginning to the moment of consummation. There are three such stages. a) The first is represented by what are commonly known as the seven so-called capital sins, in which all others have their wellspring and root. Every sin is essentially an inordinate desire manifested in a "lusting of the flesh against the spirit" ³² through concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh, or pride of life, according to each man's character or social position. ³³ Concupiscence of the flesh reveals itself as gluttony and unchastity; concupiscence of the eyes, as avarice and envy; pride of life, as conceit and anger. To these palmary forms of inordinate desire must be added sloth, i. e., that lack of moral energy which enters into every sin and sometimes assumes the character of moral indifference. Actual sins, explains St. Bonaventure, have one beginning, a twofold root, a threefold stimulus, and a sevenfold source. The beginning is pride; the two roots are false respect and misdirected desire; the threefold stimulus is concupiscence in its three distinct forms; the seven sources are pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, intemperance, and unchastity, of which the first five are spiritual and the last two carnal sins.³⁴ b) The second stage is characterized by the sins of which Sacred Scripture says that they cry to heaven for vengeance. They mark the height of viciousness and are absolutely opposed to man's rational nature. c) The third stage consists in that wilful malice and impenitence which is known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.

³² Rom. VII, 14-23; Gal. V, 17; 1 Pet. II, 11.

³³ Cfr. 1 John II, 16; Matth. IV, 1-10.

³⁴ Brevil., P. III, c. 9: "Concerning the origin of the capital sins, this is to be held in summary: sin has one beginning, a twofold root, a threefold fuel, and a sevenfold head or capital sin. The one beginning is pride, according to the words of Scripture: Pride is the beginning of every sin. The twofold root is fear that wrongly abases and love that wrongly inflames. The threefold fuel corresponds to the three things in the world: concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life. The sevenfold head is pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. Of these, the preceding five are spiritual sins, but the last two are carnal.” (Opera, ed. 2a, Vicetia, p. 225).—-Cfr. Hugh of St. Victor, De Fructibus Carnis et Spiritus, c. 3-10 (Migne, P. L., CLXXVI, 999); St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 84, art. 4.

READINGS.—St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 1a 2ae, qu. 72, art. 1-7. —Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 149 sqq.; 418 sqq. —H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 11th ed., pp. 320 sqq. —A. Tanquerey, Synopsis Theol. Mor. et Pastor., Vol. I, pp. 276 sqq., 282 sqq—A. Lehmkuhl, S.J., Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 11th ed., pp. 199 sqq.

The so-called capital sins (peccata capitalia) must not be conceived as transient acts. They are rather the fundamental vices from which all sins flow, or the bad habits that manifest themselves in actual sins.¹ Hence the capital sins are neither by nature nor in their concrete manifestation always mortal, and it is a mistake to call them "deadly." The specific character and gravity of each may be determined by the presence or absence of certain marks or characteristics.

¹ Cfr. Hugh of St. Victor, Summa Sent., tr. 3, c. 16: "From these, as from seven fountains, all corruptions of souls flow. They are not called capital because they are greater than others, since others are equally great or greater, but capital because all the others arise from them. For there is none which has not arisen from one of these." (Migne, P. L., CLXXVI, 113). — St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, q. 84, art. 3: "A sin is called capital insofar as it metaphorically signifies the beginning or direction of others. Thus a capital vice is one from which other vices arise, especially according to the origin of the final cause, which is the formal origin; and therefore a capital vice is not only the beginning of others but is also directive and in a certain way leading of others. For an art or habit to which the end pertains always exercises primacy and command over those things that are for the end. Hence Saint Gregory compares capital vices of this kind to commanders of armies." (Moral., 1. 31, c. 45, n. 87-88; Migne, P. L., LXXVI, 620 sq.).

The capital sins are usually enumerated in the following order: Pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. From the initials of the Latin words superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia, the Schoolmen formed the catch-word saligia as an aid to the memory.

This septenary number, which may be traced back to St. Gregory the Great, became established at the time of Peter Lombard. Previously, theologians were wont to count eight or even nine capital sins.²

² Cfr. Greg. M., Moral., XXXI, c. 45; O. Zockler, Evagrius Ponticus, Munich 1893, p. 104.

I. PRIDE. —Pride (superbia, cenodoxia) is inordinate self-esteem or love of one's own preeminence, coupled with a desire of inducing others to accept the exaggerated opinion one has formed of oneself. This vice manifests itself in as many different ways as there are objects which man is able to claim as real or supposed excellences or prerogatives.³

³ Cfr. Luke XVIII, 9-14. —St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 93, n. 15: "Who is proud? He who does not do penance by confession of sins, so that he may be healed through humility. Who is proud? He who wishes to claim for himself even those few good things which he appears to possess and detracts from the mercy of God. Who is proud? He who, even if he attributes to God the good things he does, nevertheless insults those who do not do them and exalts himself above them." (Migne, P. L., XXXVII, 1203). —Cfr. S. Haidacher, Des hi. Johannes Chrysostomus Biichlein iiber die Hoffart, pp. 34 sqq.

Pride may take the form of vanity, presumption, ambition, or arrogance.

I. VANITY. —Vanity is pride inspired by an overweening conceit in one's personal appearance, attainments or characteristics, especially when coupled with an excessive desire for notice or approval. This vice makes a man foolish in the eyes of his fellowmen, injures the moral character, favors sensuality and extravagance, and often entails poverty and want. Intentional neglect of one's personal appearance or of the rules of taste and good breeding may also be put down as a kind of vanity.

2. PRESUMPTION. —Presumption is an exaggerated notion of one's intellectual or moral excellence, talents, virtues, etc., attended by the wish to undertake things that are above one's capacity. Intellectual presumption renders a man ridiculous, while moral presumption is destructive of religion and morality and often entails hypocrisy.⁴ 3. AMBITION. —Inordinate ambition (prava ambitio) is an unreasonable striving after dignities, honors, or power. Ambition is commonly only a venial sin, but becomes mortal when it employs grievously sinful means and disregards the distinction between true and false honor.⁵

⁴ Cfr. Matth. VI, 1-6; VII, 1-5; Luke XVIII, 10-14; 1 Tim. VI, 4. —St. Jerome, Epist., 148 (a/. 14), n. 20: "It is one thing to possess virtue, another to possess the likeness of virtue; one thing to follow the shadow of things, another the truth. Far more hideous is that pride which lies hidden under certain signs of humility. For I do not know how it is that vices concealed under the appearance of virtues are more shameful." (Migne, P. L., XXII, 1214).

⁵ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theof., 2a 2ae, qu. 131 sq.

There is a just ambition which moves a man to desire dignities and honors with moderation for the purpose of being able to accomplish more for the glory of God and the welfare of his fellowmen. "If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work/' says St. Paul.⁶

⁶ 1 Tim. III, 1. —Cfr. C. Gennari, Consultazioni Morali-Canoniche, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Rome 1902, p. 638. — Homer, Iliad, VI, 208. —It is not honors and titles as such that are forbidden, but the inordinate desire for them.

4. ARROGANCE (superbia completa sive perfecta) is that haughtiness and proud contempt of others which leads a man to despise and transgress human and divine laws. This vice frequently accompanies wealth, high social position, noble birth, etc., and sometimes develops into tyranny, nay rebellion against God and self-deification.⁷

⁷ Cfr. Gen. III, 5; Is. XIV, 14; Judges VII, 2; IX, 38; 1 Mace. VII, 34; 2 Mace. V, 21; Matth. IV, 9. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 162; Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, 193, sqq.; Horace, Satyrae, I, 6, 5, 10, 64; IDEM, Epod., IV, 5 sq.

Arrogance often leads to boastfulness, which is the habit of bragging inordinately about one's own good qualities or talents, nay, even defects or sins, and to hypocrisy, i. e., feigning virtues that one does not possess.

Pride "is so serious an evil because it strikes at the root of the primary obligations of reverent obedience towards our Lord God and love of our neighbor, because it is opposed to the truth, and because of its universality; it is in the heart of every man and quickly grows to fearful dimensions unless corrected or subdued." ⁸ That there is a legitimate pride appears from I Cor. XV, 10: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and the grace he gave me hath not been fruitless; nay, I have labored more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Still the Apostle warns against "being more wise than it behooveth," ¹⁰ and "being wise in your own conceits."¹¹ n Opposed to pride is the virtue of humility, which keeps a man in his proper place both with respect to God and his fellowmen. Humility is highly recommended by our Divine Lord as the fundamental virtue of the Christian life, and He has set Himself up as a model thereof. Matth. XI, 29: "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart."¹²

⁸ Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, p. 155. "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not fruitless; rather, I labored more than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me."

¹⁰ Rom. XII, 3, 16.

¹¹ 1 Tim. VI, 17. —Cfr. Homer, Iliad, I, 244; Odyssey, IX, 20; Horace, Carmina, IV, 2, 40: "Sapere av.de," i. e., boldly strive for wisdom.

¹² Cfr. Ecclus. X, 15; Matth. V, 3; XVIII, 3; Luke XIV, 1; John V, 14; James IV, 6. —St. Bernard, Tract. de Gradibus Humilit. et Superbiae, IV, n. 14 sqq.: "The great and thick beam in the eye (Matt. VII, 5) is pride in the mind, which by a certain vain bulk of self—unhealthy, swollen, and not solid—darkens the eye of the mind and overshadows the truth, so that, if it occupies your mind, you can no longer see yourself or perceive yourself as you are or as you are able to be; rather, as you love yourself, so you think yourself to be or hope that you will be. For what else is pride but love of one’s own excellence? Therefore, one who takes care to know the truth fully in himself must remove the beam of pride that shuts the eye away from the light, arrange ascents in his heart by which he may seek himself within himself, and thus attain the first degree of truth." (Migne, P. L., CLXXXII, 949).

II. COVETOUSNESS. —Covetousness or avarice (avaritia, philargyria) is an inordinate love of earthly things, an immoderate desire to possess, keep, and increase them (tenacitas). With regard to no other sin is it so difficult to draw a line of demarcation between what is licit and what is forbidden as with regard to avarice, which loves to hide under the cloak of duty, frugality, and other virtues. It is sinful to attach one's heart to earthly goods, to serve Mammon instead of God,¹³ to be niggardly toward one's fellowmen and unscrupulous in the satisfy one's greed. Avarice leads to mendacity, deceit, perjury, treason, theft, and every other kind of injustice.¹⁴ St. Paul no doubt had these consequences in mind when he censured avarice as "the root of all evils." ¹⁵ Among the consequences of covetousness are insatiability, discontent, fear of persecution and poverty,¹⁶ and that "infatuation of self-love," as Blair calls it, which so often ends in impenitence.¹⁷

¹³ Cfr. Matth. VI, 21, 24; Eph. V, 5; Col. III, 5. —Cfr. St. Polycarp, Epist. ad Philipp., c. 11: "If anyone does not abstain from avarice, he will be defiled by idolatry and will be reckoned as among the Gentiles, who do not know the judgment of the Lord." (Ed. 2a, F. X. Funk, p. 308).

¹⁴ Cfr. Gen. XXXI, 7; Ecclus. XXXI, 5-7; Is. V, 8; Jer. XXII, 17; Am. VIII, 5-6; John XII, 4-6.

¹⁵ 1 Tim. VI, 10.—Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 84, art. 1. —Sophocles, Antigone, 221 sq.

¹⁶ Cfr. Matth. XIII, 22.—Ps.-Augustine, Append. Serm., 293 (a/. 250 de Temp.), n. 1: "Avarice, I say, must be despised; like fire, the more it receives, the more it seeks." (Migne, P. L., XXXIX, 2301). —Horace, Carm., Ill, 16, 17: "Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam." —IDEM, Satyrae, I, i, 28 sqq. —Juvenal, Satyrae, XIV, 28-29. —When these pages were being prepared for the printer, the Fortnightly Review (St. Louis, Mo., Vol. XXIV, No. 9) published the following: "Mrs. Hetty Green, who died not long ago, leaving an estate of about $100,000,000, according to testimony filed in a surrogate's court by her son, lived under at least six assumed names, and probably many others, hoping thus to elude schemers who might be seeking her money, and murderous cranks, such as the one who tried to kill her friend Russell Sage. She never owned in New York so much as a three-legged stool in the way of furnishings for what men call a home, and moved from one $10 to $15 boarding-house to another, in constant fear that her fellow-boarders would learn her identity. This immensely wealthy woman, who possessed the means to gratify her every whim, lived almost like a criminal dreading arrest. She dreaded to lose the very wealth which oppressed her, and the world's richest woman was perhaps more familiar with the fear of poverty than many a penniless clerk on the pay-roll of her estate.... If she had labored to reduce her own fortune by wise and unselfish giving, her journey might have been more cheerful, for thus she might have escaped the limitations of poverty and at the same time divested herself of the heaviest burdens of wealth." VI, 9.

¹⁷ Cfr. Luke XII, 15-21; 1 Tim.

Ordinary sins of covetousness are in themselves venial, but become mortal if they lead to the transgression of precepts that bind under pain of grievous sin. Al- though covetousness is in itself but a venial sin, "yet it is very dangerous because of man's proneness to it, and because the vice is apt to grow fast by what it feeds upon, until it becomes mortally sinful. Holy Scripture frequently condemns it and warns us against it." ¹⁸ III. LUST. —Lust (luxuria)¹⁹ is an inordinate desire for the pleasure which has its seat in the organs of generation. Sins of lust may be internal (thoughts and desires) or external (words and acts). In these sins there is no smallness of matter (parvitas materiae), but every act of wrongful indulgence in venereal pleasure, if directly sought or consented to, is grievously sinful. No sin against chastity is venial except that which remains internally incomplete (actus imperfectus), not on account of outward circumstances, but because the will resists.

¹⁸ Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 157 sq. —Cfr. 1 Tim. VI, 9, etc.

¹⁹ Cfr. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2a 2ae, qu. 153 sq.: St. Alphonsus, Theol. Moralis, 1. Ill, n. 412 sqq. (ed. Gaude, Vol. I, pp. 665 sqq.).

Not all sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, therefore, are mortal. If an impure thought, word, or act is freely willed, or, a fortiori, if it is deliberately excited, it is a mortal sin. Not so if it arises in the mind against one's will or without one's deliberate consent. External acts, such as immodest touches, looks, etc., are mortally sinful if due to lust; they are venially sinful if due to curiosity or inadvertence, and transient in character; and they are not sinful at all if performed for some reasonable cause, even though accompanied by venereal pleasure, provided, of course, no consent is given to such pleasure.

The usefulness of this title is both doctrinal, since a distinct notion of specification helps the understanding concerning sins not a little, and practical, since for the penitent and confessor some knowledge of moral specification is necessary for defining the obligation of sacramental accusation.

— I. Moral specification of venial sin. The question concerning the specification of venial sin cannot be doubtful. For in venial sin there is nothing except an undue conversion to a creature. Therefore specification will necessarily be made from the side of that undue conversion. Whether you say: specification is made from the object to which the conversion is made, or whether you say: specification is made from the disorder of that conversion, the matter falls back into the same thing: you only change what is said in the direct case or in the oblique. Suppose immoderate eating. If you specify by appetite for food, since the object is affected by privation, in estimating the object one will advert to the privation by which it is affected, or to the note of intemperance; if you specify by contrariety to the virtue of temperance, in estimating that privation, one will attend to that which remains of order in that appetite, that is, to the relation of food to the man for whom it is destined. Besides, every privation receives its quasi-species from the opposite form. That form is revealed by the object itself. Wherefore practically one comes to the same conclusions. St. Thomas himself admits this: if you prefer to distinguish sins according to the opposed virtues, "it would return to the same thing; for virtues are distinguished in species according to objects" (1, 2, q. 72, art. 1 ad 2).

Yet because disorder is not voluntary according to itself, while conversion to the object is voluntary, for the sinner intends to exercise an act of the will in such matter, it is better said that sins are specified according to objects. For a species is constituted according to that which is of itself, and not according to that which is per accidens, "because those things which are per accidens are outside the notion of the species." And therefore sins are distinguished in species from the side of voluntary acts, rather than from the side of the disorder existing in sin. Therefore, if we wish to speak accurately, we shall say that the species of venial sins are distinguished, more than by departure from the order which deforms the act, by the deficient goodness of the object.

And add this. If you specify by the object, from the beginning you exclude that error by which you might think that from the virtue to which the sin is opposed the ultimate specification is already taken; whereas several sins diverse in species are opposed to the same virtue, for example, justice. Thus homicide and theft are both opposed to commutative justice, and nevertheless are separated by no slight diversity of species.

— II. Moral specification of mortal sin.

When mortal sin is being treated, beyond the privation of rectitude which is detected in the object itself and participated by the agent, another privation is had, that is, aversion from the end, which follows in the agent upon conversion to a commutable object and is proper to him. For the ultimate end belongs to the agent, but not to the object as such. Now, if this privation specified mortal sin, mortal sin could not pertain to the same species as venial sin (cf. n. 393). Furthermore, since that privation is total, all mortal sins would be of the same gravity. But now, from the reason given above, mortal sins also are specified from the object to which the sinner turns himself. Hence they differ among themselves in gravity. And because they agree in the notion of undue conversion but do not differ infinitely, mortal and venial sins can occur in the same moral species (1, 2, q. 72, art. 5 ad 1).

The doctrine handed down is confirmed by the very names of sins in Sacred Scripture: those names designate positive acts. For example, St. Matt. 19, 19: "Evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies." Acts, however, borrow their species from the moral object.

— Rule. Therefore as many as are the morally diverse objects at which evil acts are terminated, so many are the species of sins. But they are morally diverse when they have a diverse repugnance with right reason and divine law; or when there is a diverse reason why they do not befit a rational creature. Cf. Vasquez on 1, 2, q. 72, art. 1, n. 14; Billot, De peccato, th. 2.

This rule is adequate; the others which are proposed either illustrate or apply it.

[Supplementary note to n. 428.] Nevertheless, it must not be passed over that complete acts and incomplete acts pertain to one perfect species of sin; but incomplete acts, as such, differ specifically from complete acts. Cf. S. Th. 1, 2, q. 72, art. 7, c. and ad 3.

— III. Practical investigation. Therefore practically it must be asked why the action is evil, or why it disagrees with the rule of morals. If the reason is positive law, one must further investigate for what end the law commands; if it concerns a particular precept, one must see by what title it has been given; if the obligation has been voluntarily assumed by vow, oath, promise, covenant, one must inquire of what genus the obligation assumed is. For actions which are not evil except because they are prohibited do not directly reveal their relation to the rule of morals. This is manifested by the end of the law or precept, if this flows from jurisdiction; by the title of the one commanding, if the Superior has only the domestic authority of a father or prefect of a community; by the moral intention of one voluntarily obligating himself.

Once this reason has been found, the ultimate species is not always yet reached, because, in moral estimation, the rule of morals is violated in diverse ways by action, by omission, by excess, by defect; and goods of grace, of life, of honor, of external possessions are related diversely to the person. Wherefore, certainly, sins which are opposed to diverse virtues vary at least specifically, but acts diverse among themselves in species are also opposed to one and the same virtue. Hence this insufficient rule must be used cautiously: "As many as are the violated virtues, so many are the species of sins." Thus idolatry, atheism, superstition differ from one another in species, although all three are opposed to the virtue of religion.

— Diversity of legislator does not change the species. Because laws do not obligate to formal obedience (by which one obeying wills to execute the precept because it is a precept), diversity of legislator (unless diversity of motive comes upon it) does not induce a special malice: thus sin against an ecclesiastical precept by which the divine precept is determined is of one species (say annual confession, paschal communion). In the same way, he is guilty of one sacrilege who violates the vow which he has as a subdeacon and as solemnly professed.

But several specific malices can deform one sin. Thus he who from the law of the Church, from a vow, from an oath, ought to assist at the same sacred service, fails by omission against a threefold specific obligation: for law intends worship to be offered to God; vow obligates lest you be unfaithful to God; oath, lest you invoke God as witness of falsity. This threefold malice of one sin is opposed to the one virtue of religion.

— I. The moral specification of sin, not only of venial sin, which is clear, but also of mortal sin, is made from the object to which the sinner turns himself inordinately, because from this side alone the act is voluntary of itself; therefore, when mortal sin is being treated, it is not made from aversion from God, the ultimate end, which is the same in every grave sin.

II. Therefore as many as are the morally diverse objects at which evil acts are terminated, so many are the species of sins.

Wherefore one must see why the action is evil. And furthermore it must be attended that violation of order by action and excess differs morally from the same violation by omission and defect. And according to the diverse relation to the person, the sins vary by which the person is violated either in soul, or in body, or in reputation, or in honor, or in exterior goods.

But diversity of legislator does not change the species, since no obligation of formal obedience is imposed.

Usefulness. To fundamental Theology there pertain certain general indications concerning sins which are of such a nature that their generic explanation helps the understanding of special sins, or permits the logical arrangement of sins. Moreover, there will be two chapters of this title. In the first we shall treat of the subjective notion of certain sins, that is, of internal sins; in the other we shall treat of certain objective notions: that is, of capital sins, of sins against the Holy Spirit, and of sins which call down avenging wraths from heaven.

373. The Council of Trent¹⁰⁰ teaches that in the sacrament of penance mortal sins must by divine right be manifested according to their species and number. Therefore penitents, and especially the confessor, must know the rules of distinction, both specific and numerical, of sins. These rules, as to specific distinction, are customarily expressed in these little verses:

Object, virtue, diverse precepts, and mode Give species to sins, and diverse guilt of the thing.

St. Thomas¹⁰¹ draws specific distinction from objects formally diverse. For just as the object is the first foundation of morality,¹⁰² so also the disordered moral object is the first specifying principle of sin. For acts are specified from the object. But the disordered moral object, as it is taken here, also includes those circumstances which redound to the moral essence. Cf. what was said above in n. 144 sqq. concerning the morality of acts arising from circumstances and end.

Scotus¹⁰³ repeats the specific distinction of sins from the diverse virtues to which sins are opposed; thus, for example, lust is distinguished in species from theft, because lust is opposed to the virtue of temperance, but theft to the virtue of justice. St. Thomas¹⁰⁴ also knew this rule and did not reject it; yet he writes: "Sins are distinguished in species more according to objects than according to opposites, although, even if they are distinguished according to opposed virtues, it would come back to the same thing; for virtues are distinguished in species according to objects."

Vasquez¹⁰⁵ thinks that the specific distinction of sins must be drawn from morally diverse precepts to which individual sins are opposed. For sin is a voluntary transgression of law or precept, and therefore where there are diverse precepts, there are diverse sins. But if someone asks why the precepts are diverse, he will have no other response except that such precepts have diverse moral objects. Therefore the fundamental reason on account of which sins are specifically distinguished must be drawn from an object formally diverse in the genus of morals. That objects only physically diverse cannot specify sins is clear of itself; for example, the act of stealing an ox and of stealing a horse have a physically diverse object, but the moral object is altogether the same. But when are objects distinguished in moral being? When they have a special and distinct repugnance with the eternal law or right reason. But that a special repugnance of this kind is present is discerned when acts:

a) Are opposed to diverse virtues. For just as each special virtue has a special and distinct goodness, so the act opposed to it has a special malice. Thus an act of lust is opposed to the virtue of temperance, but an act of theft to the virtue of justice. Further, since the virtue of temperance is specifically distinct from the virtue of justice, acts of lust and acts of theft also are specifically distinct sins. If one physical act wounds several virtues diverse in species, it contains as many sins specifically distinct as the virtues it has wounded; for example, he who kills his own father wounds the virtues of justice and piety, and therefore commits two sins distinct in species.

b) Are opposed to the same virtue, but in a morally diverse mode, for example, one act by excess, another by defect, or in other modes which according to prudent judgment are held as altogether diverse; for example, prodigality and avarice are opposed to the same virtue of liberality, but the former by excess and the latter by defect, and therefore they are two sins specifically distinct; or theft, robbery, detraction, and calumny are all opposed to the one virtue of justice, and indeed by defect, but in modes morally so diverse that they are held as special sins.

c) Are opposed to precepts not materially but formally diverse. Precepts are judged only materially diverse when they have indeed been made at diverse times or by diverse lords, but on account of the same intrinsic motive of virtue. But if the intrinsic motive is diverse, the precepts are judged formally diverse. Thus, for example, theft, which is prohibited by a precept civil, natural, and divine, is only one sin in species, because those three precepts have one intrinsic motive, namely to preserve the order of justice. On the contrary, a priest who violates chastity, to which he is bound by force of a vow and by force of the virtue of chastity, commits a twofold sin specifically distinct, because he transgresses two precepts formally diverse, namely the sixth precept of the Decalogue and the precept of the vow.

Recapitulation. From what has been said thus far it follows that sins are specifically distinguished according to morally diverse objects. But objects are morally diverse when they have a specific disorder against right reason and the eternal law. But that specific disorder is recognized from the fact that sins:

a) are opposed to diverse virtues;

b) are opposed to one virtue but in a diverse way;

c) are opposed to formally diverse precepts.

¹⁰⁰ Sess. 14, can. 7 de poenit. (Denz. n. 917); cf. prop. condemned (2) of Peter de Osma (Denz. n. 725).

¹⁰¹ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 72, a. 1.

¹⁰² Cf. above n. 111.

¹⁰³ In 2, dist. 37, q. 1, n. 9.

¹⁰⁴ S. theol. l. c. a. 1 ad 2.

¹⁰⁵ Disp. in 1, 2 S. Thom. disp. 98, c. 2.

374. Resolutions. 1. A brother having carnal intercourse with his married sister commits three specifically distinct sins, because he wounds three virtues, namely chastity, piety, and justice.

2. Lascivious thoughts, lascivious words, fornication, self-abuse, etc., are sins diverse in species in the matter of lust, because they are indeed opposed to one and the same virtue of chastity, but in diverse modes, since they have special disorders against right reason and against the virtue of chastity.

3. If someone culpably violates the fast of Friday in Lent, to which he is bound a) from a precept of the Church, b) from the salutary penance of confession, c) from a vow, he commits a threefold sin specifically distinct, because there is a threefold disorder and a threefold precept formally diverse. For there is a threefold intrinsic motive, namely the virtues of temperance, penance, and religion.

375. Scholion. On the specific difference between mortal and venial sin. Since, according to the truer opinion explained above, the notion of sin belongs not univocally but only analogically to mortal and venial sin; but since on the other hand it is most certain that mortal sin differs maximally from venial sin, theologians are accustomed to say: Mortal and venial sin differ according to theological species, because the first turns away from God and the other does not. But other sins, whether mortal or venial, differ among themselves according to moral species, as lust differs from blasphemy, or as a jocose lie differs from an idle word. Nevertheless venial sin can be referred to the same moral species to which mortal sin is referred. Thus theft of one obol, which is a venial sin, is referred to the same moral species of theft to which theft of 1000 francs is referred, which is a mortal sin.

St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 72; St. Alphonsus, V, 31; ed. G., II, p. 732; H. Ap., III, 55; Lugo, de Poenit., disp. 16; Aertnys, l. I, n. 220; Lehmkuhl, I, n. 348; D'Annibale, Summula Theol., I, n. 278 seqq.; Gopfert, Moralth., vol. I, § 37.

323. The Council of Trent teaches (Sess. XIV, c. 7) that by divine right there must be declared in confession both the species and the species-changing circumstances of sins, and their number. Hence sins must carefully be distinguished: 1. according to moral species; 2. according to number.

STATUS OF THE QUESTION. That sins are distinguished into various species is clear. But it is asked whence this specific distinction of them must be taken, in other words, what is the reason why some sin has a special deformity or opposition with respect to the law of God.

In solving this question, the opinions of theologians do not agree. Some, with St. Thomas, think that specific distinction must be taken from objects diverse in species; because, they say, sin does not have species on the part of aversion..., but on the part of conversion, according as it is a certain act. But others, with Scotus, hold that it must be taken from the virtues to which sins are opposed; because sin, taken formally, consists in opposition to the virtue of which it deprives. Each opinion is probable, and practically each in reality coincides in the same thing, as St. Thomas also adverts (1.2, q. 72, a. 1, ad 2).

And indeed, to say, for example, that theft takes its proper species from this, that for its object it has another's good unjustly taken away, or from this, that it is opposed to the virtue of justice, plainly comes back to the same thing. Yet since the method according to which sins are distinguished through oppositions to virtues is plainer and easier, we shall hold this very one (V, 32; H. Ap., III, 55).

324. PRINCIPLE. The specific distinction of sins is taken from opposition to several diverse virtues, and from diverse or contrary opposition to one and the same virtue. It helps to resolve that principle into several special rules:

RULE 1. Sins which are opposed to virtues specifically diverse are specifically diverse. The reason is because each virtue has a special distinct goodness, or conformity with the divine law; therefore similarly a sin opposed to some virtue contracts a special and proper deformity, or malice, for itself.

Hence you will resolve: 1. Therefore heresy, despair, hatred of God, perjury, fornication, theft, lying, etc., are specifically diverse, because they are opposed to virtues specifically diverse; namely, heresy to faith, despair to hope, hatred of God to charity, perjury to religion, fornication to chastity, theft to justice, lying to veracity.

2. Therefore in one and the same act several sins specifically diverse can be found, because one and the same act can include opposition to diverse virtues. Thus, in the voluntary killing of a cleric, there is found a double sin specifically diverse, one against justice, and the other against religion; and a fourfold sin in the crime of a man bound by a vow of chastity and sinning with a married blood-relative, since diverse virtues are wounded, namely justice, piety, religion, and chastity.

RULE 2. Sins opposed in a diverse way to the same virtue, or which wound goods specifically diverse of the same virtue, are specifically diverse. For one and the same virtue can have for object various goods which, according to moral estimation, are specifically diverse: for example, the virtue of justice has for object goods of fortune, goods of reputation, goods of life, etc. Whence it includes various rectitudes or honesties, and these specifically diverse. Therefore also the sins which are opposed to these diverse rectitudes or honesties have diverse malices, and are distinguished in species (Konings, n. 212).

Hence you will resolve: 1. Therefore theft, robbery, detraction, contumely, homicide are specifically diverse; for although the aforesaid sins are opposed to the same virtue of justice, nevertheless they wound diverse goods of this virtue: theft, namely, goods of fortune; robbery, the good or inviolability of the person; detraction, the good of reputation; contumely, the good of honor; homicide, the good of life.

2. Local, real, and personal sacrilege are also specifically diverse, although they are opposed to the same virtue of religion; for a sacred thing, a sacred person, and a sacred place are goods specifically diverse according to moral estimation.

3. The violation of ecclesiastical fast through the use of flesh meat, and the violation of the same fast through multiple refection, are specifically diverse; because the former violation is opposed to the virtue of temperance insofar as it moderates the quality of food; but the latter, insofar as it moderates the quantity of food.

4. Sins of commission and omission against the same virtue are, for the most part, specifically diverse; for ordinarily they wound diverse goods or offices of the same virtue; and thus heresy and the omission of a prescribed act of faith differ in species; despair and the omission of an act of hope; hatred of God and the omission of an act of charity.

On the contrary, they do not differ in species if they wound the same good of virtue. But this happens when the affirmative and negative precept are reduced to the same thing; because then to commit is the same as to omit. Hence theft and the omission of restitution are not specifically diverse, because it is the same thing to carry off and to retain another's property.

Note. When the diversity of goods of some virtue is sufficient that by reason of it sins be judged specifically diverse must be sought both from the nature of the several goods and from the common judgment of theologians.

RULE 3. Sins which are opposed to the same virtue in a contrary way, that is, through excess or through defect, are specifically diverse (V, 30). The reason is because movement is specified by the term to which. Now excess and defect are terms specifically diverse; therefore the movements also, or acts of the will, which are terminated at them, are specifically diverse (St. Thom., 1.2, q. 72, a. 8; cf. 1.2, q. 23, a. 2).

Hence you will resolve: despair and presumption are specifically diverse sins, which indeed are opposed to the same virtue of hope, but in a contrary way: despair, namely, through defect; but presumption through excess. Likewise avarice and prodigality, which are opposed to the same virtue of liberality, prodigality through excess, avarice through defect. Similarly flattery and excessive harshness, the former of which recedes by excess, the latter by defect, from the same virtue of affability. Likewise sluggishness in learning due knowledge, which by defect, and excessive curiosity, which by excess, are repugnant to the same virtue of studiousness.

Corollary. Sins which are repugnant to several laws or precepts issued from a diverse formal motive, namely toward the special good of a virtue, include several malices diverse in species.

For in such a case diverse virtues, or honesties of virtue, are wounded, which the various laws intend: as if someone broke a fast prescribed by the Church and promised by himself to God through a vow, he would wound both temperance, from which the Church commands fasting, and religion, from which God commands vows to be observed. On the contrary, if laws have been issued from the same formal motive (or from the same intrinsic end of the work), and are distinguished only on the part of legislators (as is the case in theft, which is prohibited by divine and human law), they do not introduce a specific distinction of sins; because diversity of legislators does not make the precept formally diverse, but only materially (V, 33).

Hence the omission of the sacred rite on a feast day which is at the same time Sunday constitutes one species of malice, because the hearing of Mass is prescribed by each law from the same formal motive of religion, and therefore from one intention of the legislator (Reuter, de Leg., n. 147; de Pecc., n. 345).

325. Questions. QUAER. 1. How can it be discerned whether laws, several in number, have been issued from the same FORMAL MOTIVE, or from a diverse one?

It is noted beforehand. The difficulty can exist only concerning positive laws. For diverse obligations of the natural law are not given except on account of diverse goods of virtue. Hence it is evident that all obligations of the natural law have a distinct formal motive. Thus, for example, the killing of a priest is prohibited from a double formal motive of justice and religion (V, 33; Salmant., tr. 20, c. 12, n. 9-12).

Resp. 1. Positive laws whose matter is morally diverse have a diverse formal motive: for example, the law prohibiting servile works on feast days, and the law prescribing the hearing of the sacred rite on the same days, indeed have the motive of the worship of God, but in a diverse way. Wherefore he who transgresses this double precept commits two sins, and these diverse in species. On the contrary:

2. Positive laws whose matter is morally the same are judged to have the same formal motive. Thus, for example, the threefold law of fasting, on account of a vigil, on account of Ember Days, and on account of Lent, has one formal motive, the honesty of temperance. Except if from circumstances, from the context of the law, from the penalties joined to it, the contrary is certainly clear: for example, if a confessor, after hearing sins, imposes on a penitent a fast already prescribed by the Church, this fast is rightly judged to be prescribed from a new formal motive, namely from the motive of penance. Wherefore the penitent violating it commits a double sin, one against temperance, and the other against religion.

3. A positive law which has the same matter with the natural law has regularly been issued from the same formal motive of the natural law, whose execution it is judged to urge. Thus human laws prohibiting homicide, theft, etc., have been issued from the very motive of the natural law.

QUAER. 2. Whether PRECEPTS strictly so called, not otherwise than positive laws, have a diverse formal motive according to diversity of matter?

Resp. Negatively. Precepts strictly so called, or commands of a Superior, are regularly judged to be imposed not from a diverse, but from the same formal motive of obedience; just as vows of themselves are specified from the virtue of religion, although their matters of themselves look to diverse virtues (cf. III, 335; IV, 38).

Hence: 1. If a Superior gives diverse precepts in free matter, that is, in matter which by no law is here and now prescribed, for example, if he prescribes study, prayer, some act of charity; the inferior who transgresses those various precepts does not commit sins distinct in species, but sins only against obedience. Therefore the matter of disobedience is not to be declared in confession, but only the number of transgressions (2.2, q. 104, a. 2, ad 1). 2. But if the Superior absolutely prescribes a thing already prescribed by some law (for example, a father who, in order to conquer the sloth or levity of his son, with his paternal authority interposed, prescribes to him the hearing of Mass on a feast day), the inferior contumaciously refusing commits two sins distinct in species: one indeed against the law of the Church; the other against obedience owed to one legitimately commanding. Yet otherwise it must be said if the Superior does not strictly prescribe, but only admonishes (cf. n. 690 seqq.).

Note. Sometimes a virtue obliges indirectly, namely from the command of another virtue. In this case, the omission of the commanded act is a sin, not against the virtue from which it was to be elicited, but against the commanding virtue. Thus he who, pressed by a vehement temptation against chastity, omits to pray, sins not indeed against religion, but against chastity; and the reason is because the obligation of the means and of the end is the same.

326. This is the question: whence sins which are contained within the same species receive numerical distinction or individuation. The difficulty of the matter arises from this, that moralists take an act morally; because, on the one hand, acts physically several and diverse can morally constitute only one sin, and because, on the other hand, an act physically one can be morally multiple and make several sins. To solve this question, authors commonly assign a double source of numerical distinction, or a double root, one on the part of the subject, the other on the part of the object; namely, on the part of the subject, the multiplicity of morally interrupted acts; but on the part of the object, the diversity of total objects.

It is clear that where in one act several sins specifically distinct are given, for example, against justice and charity, these are also multiplied numerically.

327. Things to be noted beforehand. By moral interruption is understood that circumstance of an act by which it comes about that the act in itself, absolutely, is terminated, and so is disjoined from the following act, that in no way can it be considered as constituting morally something one with it.

A twofold INTERRUPTION OF ACTS is distinguished: one voluntary, the other involuntary.

Voluntary interruption (or interruption from the choice of the agent) is that which occurs either through formal retraction, as if someone truly repents of an evil act; or through free cessation from an act, say, if someone from weariness or fatigue, without the purpose of proceeding further, desists from what has been begun, or also turns himself to other things. In these cases, if he returns to the evil will, the new act will be morally diverse from the first, since it does not proceed from the first, and therefore it will be a new sin (V, 38).

But involuntary interruption (or interruption beyond the choice of the agent) is that which occurs through the natural cessation of an act, for example, on account of distraction, on account of sleep, etc.; likewise on account of a notable delay of time, so that, according to the nature of the action, the act of the will is judged by the judgment of prudent men already to have ceased.

To moral interruption is opposed MORAL UNION, by which it comes about that several acts coalesce into one. It is commonly had from a double cause: 1. if the acts proceed from the same impulse of concupiscence, or from the same affection of the will; 2. if they are ordered by the agent, by nature, or by human institution to some principal act primarily intended.

328. PRINCIPLE. There are as many sins as there are morally interrupted acts of the will concerning the same object. The reason is because through such interruption acts of the will become complete, and each is constituted in its own proper malice, and therefore through a new act of the will new malice is begotten.

But since, among sinful acts, there are distinguished merely internal acts, that is, sins of heart; internal acts to be consummated externally, that is, efficacious desires, purposes which tend efficaciously to external sins of mouth or work; and finally external acts, diverse rules must be established, so that the application of the aforesaid principle to each category can be made more easily.

RULE 1. MERELY INTERNAL acts, unless they proceed from the same impulse of passion, are interrupted through any natural cessation whatsoever.

St. Alphonsus explains the matter thus (V, 37; H. Ap., III, 58): "If they are sins of heart, which are entirely perfected internally, as hatreds, heresies, morose delectations, base desires, etc., these, as soon as they are multiplied, are interrupted; so that there are as many sins as there are acts of the will consenting to them. The reason is because, with respect to such acts, one does not depend on another, and therefore they cannot be morally continued ... And therefore the penitent indeed ought to explain, if he can, how many times he consented in will; but if he cannot, because the depraved disposition of soul was long-lasting, then it suffices to confess the time in which he persevered with such a disposition, explaining, at least in general, whether those interruptions (besides the ordinary interruptions of sleep, etc.) were notably rare or frequent. But if several acts of this kind proceed from the same impulse of concupiscence, they constitute one mortal sin, even if some brief interval intervenes among the acts."

RULE 2. Internal acts TO BE CONSUMMATED EXTERNALLY for the most part are not interrupted by ordinary natural cessation (say, by sleep, common distractions); but they are interrupted by a lengthy interval of time. The reason is because these acts, through a tendency to the external work, are connected, and coalesce into one; but this connection can no longer endure after some interval of time, as is clear.

But what is to be judged a LENGTHY TIME cannot be precisely indicated; for, according to the nature of the thing and the vehemence of the passion, acts of the will endure unequally, so that in some matters they are prolonged little, in others much. But thus St. Alphonsus (V, 38; H. Ap., III, 60): "I think," he says, "that the impulse of one act can with difficulty be prolonged (ordinarily speaking) more than for two, or three days at most. Hence, he who perseveres in an evil will beyond two or three days ought to explain the time; so that thus the number of internal acts concerning external sins may be understood morally."

We said: for the most part; excepted are "acts of the will which proceed from the first depraved purpose and endure in some effect which conduces to perfecting one external sin only; because then, however long a time the depraved will endures, those acts (as ordered to one perverse end) constitute one sin" (V, 40; H. Ap., III, 61).

From this rule it is inferred: 1. "If someone proposes to kill a man, and for this reason prepares arms, takes the road, and kills the enemy, he commits one sin, although for many days he has sought him and has repeated the will several times. Thus the Doctors commonly with St. Thomas (2 Sent., d. 42, q. 1, a. 1). 2. If someone resolves not to restore another's thing, and always remains in the same will (even for a year), he commits one sin; because in that retention never retracted the first will virtually remains ... Yet it must be adverted that if a thief is rendered impotent to restore, and then, having become able, with opportunity given, does not restore, he commits a new sin. The reason is because in that case, through that time of impotence, the will of not restoring does not persevere in effect" (V, 40).

RULE 3. EXTERNAL acts: a) are morally interrupted, if they are complete in themselves, or if the agent intends to rest in them; b) on the contrary, they are not interrupted, but coalesce into one, if they are ordered to the consummation of the same sin, or proceed from the same impulse of concupiscence, or from the same affection of the will (V, 41; H. Ap., III, 62).

I. These acts therefore ARE INTERRUPTED: 1. When they are complete IN THEMSELVES, that is, consummated in their own species, so that they cannot be ordered to another sin of the same species. Wherefore he commits two sins who twice pollutes himself, twice fornicates with the same woman, twice communicates unworthily, etc., even if he perpetrates these crimes within a brief space of time. They are interrupted 2. when the agent intends to rest in them, that is, if they are not subordinated to some completed principal act: say, if someone has several touches, without intention of copula; or if he strikes several times, without intention of killing; or if he several times steals parts from a heap, without intention of carrying off the whole heap; because then each act has its completed malice. Likewise, if someone having kisses, touches, etc., did not will copula from the beginning, but afterwards, on account of increased lust, perfected copula, it is not enough if he confesses only the copula; for then all the acts ought to be explained as distinct sins, because, since one rests in them, each act has in itself its own consummated malice. Thus commonly the Doctors. And the same must be said of him who had the mind only of wounding an enemy, and then, inflamed by anger, killed him: he commits two sins (V, 43).

II. But external acts ARE UNITED: 1. If they are ordered to the consummation of the same sin. Hence, if someone, for consummating copula, sends before acts, kisses, and speeches, it suffices if he confesses only the obtained copula. And probably the same must be said of touches immediately following, because they are very likely applied as the complement of the obtained copula (V, 41, fin.). Yet there is excepted the case if, even while the physically same purpose remains, so great an interval of time intervenes that, according to common estimation, the acts can no longer be called concatenated, that is, so that the preceding act is no longer the proximate disposition to the following act, or its quasi-beginning, although it tends remotely to it.

From this it is inferred: a) He who, from the intention of stealing a heap of wheat, which he cannot carry off all at one time, by repeated times, on the same night, steals parts of the same heap, commits one sin. But he who, from the same intention, steals parts on several occasions morally interrupted (that is, distant from one another by such an interval that one act cannot be called the continuation of the preceding other), sins as many times as he returns to stealing.¹ b) Similarly, a young man who, from the intention of fornicating, meets a girl with longer spaces interposed, and gradually, through acts less libidinous, induces her to fornication, commits not one, but several sins; because those external acts are no longer morally united, since they were not the proximate disposition to the fornication which afterwards followed, or its quasi-beginning.

2. If they proceed from the same impulse of concupiscence, or from the same affection of the will; say, if someone from the same impulse strikes an enemy several times, dishonestly touches himself several times, blasphemes the same Saint or several holy days several times, several times in the same matter insults someone, or detracts from him (V, 41). But this, as has already been said, does not hold for those sins of work which are complete in themselves: for these cannot coalesce into one.

329. IT IS ASKED. Whether the MEANS employed for sinning must be explained in confession as numerically distinct, if the sin afterwards was not consummated?

Resp. Affirmatively. For then those means are no longer united, and, even if indifferent, they are informed by the internal malice, and therefore must be explained as external sins, or works begun (V, 42; H. Ap., III, 62).

Whence: 1. If these means were indifferent, as to take a road, to carry a ladder for theft, etc., it must be explained in general whether any means of this kind were employed, and how many times with moral interruption. 2. If the means were evil in themselves, as kisses, touches, speeches for seducing a girl, they must be declared in species, at least by reason of scandal, by which both the charity owed to the neighbor is violated, and the virtue which those means induce one to wound.¹

It must be noted beforehand. The total or adequate object is called that which morally constitutes something one and integral in itself, so that it is neither part nor complement of another; which so terminates one act that it divides it morally into several. Wherefore it must be observed that some objects, physically distinct, can coalesce into one moral object; others cannot. Thus diverse things estimable by price, as sheep, oxen, houses, etc., of the same owner, coalesce into one good of fortune. On the contrary, the lives of several men, whether of body or of soul, cannot coalesce into one; nor the honors or reputations of several men, or temporal goods, unless perhaps these last are possessed by common ownership (Kon., n. 226). In this matter common estimation has very great force.

330. PRINCIPLE. There are as many sins numerically distinct as there are total objects, or objects morally diverse. Thus St. Alphonsus (V, 45; VII, 28; H. Ap., III, 64), with Tournely, Salmant., Croix, D'Annibale (I, n. 286), and others.

This rule is indeed not admitted by some for those cases where those several objects are reached by one external act, for example, if someone by one detraction wounds the reputation of several persons, or by one blow kills several. The reason alleged by them is that a multiple total object multiplies only the malice of the act, and that malices are not to be confessed. But the second opinion, which can be called the more common, teaches that, even in this case, diversity of total objects well constitutes sins diverse in number. The reason: just as one act regarding several objects diverse in species includes several sins diverse in species, to be explained in confession, so an act regarding several objects includes several sins diverse in number. For a sinful act is a movement or tendency of the will into its object as into its term; whence it follows that, if the object is total, the act also is totally terminated or individuated as many times as there are total objects. Besides, there ought to be as many sins as there are morally distinct rights wounded. This is clear by an example admitted by all: "if a married man has copula with a married woman, no one denies that he commits a double injustice: one, because he violates the right of his own wife; the other, because he cooperates so that she violates the right of her husband. Therefore, by the same single act, there can well be several sins diverse in number against the same virtue."²

331. From these things you will resolve: I. He commits several sins:

1. Who by one shot of a gun kills several men; or by one detraction defames many members of one family; or by one speech is a scandal to several.

2. Who, by one act, commits theft against several persons: but this is not understood if he steals the goods of a monastery or chapter, because those goods belong to the community, but not to the individuals.

3. Who, by one act of the will, proposes for several days to omit the Office or fasting; or wishes evil to several persons; or wishes (that is, efficaciously desires) to approach several women, or several times the same woman.

II. He commits one sin:

1. Who denies several articles of faith; for since there is one formal (and total) object of faith, namely the veracity of God revealing, he who denies one article is just as much an unbeliever as he who denies all.

2. Likewise, probably he commits one sin who, by the same act, blasphemes against the twelve Apostles; because the college of the Apostles is one total object, and besides, all blasphemies against the Saints take their malice from one relation to God, or from one congregation of Saints.

3. Similarly, he who desires several evils for an enemy, for example, infamy, death, etc., but apprehends them under one aspect of evil, namely as means to his destruction, probably commits only one sin, which is sufficiently declared by these words: I desired grave evil for my neighbor. But he who efficaciously desired for his enemy diverse evils, specifically and in particular considered, certainly ought to confess all those things distinctly, because they are diverse sins (V, 46, 50; H. Ap., III, 64, 65).

332. Questions. QUAER. 1. Whether he commits diverse sins who detracts from someone IN SEVERAL MATTERS, or affects him with diverse contumelies?

Resp. More probably he commits several sins. The reason is because diverse rights to reputation or honor, which belong to the other, are wounded; for by the fact that someone has been defamed in one crime, he is not therefore defamed in another.

"Yet here it must well be adverted that little women and common people, who while quarreling together from the same impulse load each other with diverse contumelies, commit one sin (and this light). The reason: because, according to common estimation, these do not wound reputation and honor, since, on the one hand, insults among persons of this kind are not apprehended as grave; and on the other hand, those hearing give no faith to them, and therefore such quarrelers for the most part are excused from mortal sin, unless perhaps they reproach the adversary concerning some particular fact" (V, 48).

QUAER. 2. Whether he who detracts from someone BEFORE SEVERAL PERSONS commits several sins?

Resp. Probably he commits only one sin of detraction. "The reason is because to detract before several persons is only an aggravating circumstance, since the right to reputation is one among all, not multiple." Nevertheless easily, in the case, there will be scandal, by reason of which he commits as many sins as there are persons to whom the detraction is a scandal (V, 49).

QUAER. 3. Whether a priest who, in mortal sin, successively absolves SEVERAL persons or ministers the sacred Eucharist to SEVERAL persons commits several sacrileges?

Resp. to the first. Some deny it, because formally he inflicts one irreverence upon God; as he who steals several sacred vessels commits one sacrilege. "But more truly Concina, Croix, and others teach that he commits as many sacrileges as he imparts absolutions, because each absolution is an individual sacrament."

Resp. to the second. A priest who, in mortal sin, ministers the Eucharist successively to several persons more probably commits only one sacrilege, because there is one administration, and therefore one banquet (V, 50, q. 6).

Note. In practice it must be said that per se a penitent ought not to be vexed with questions concerning the total object, because, as the learned D'Annibale says, only the conscience of those sinning numbers sins, and it everywhere ignores subtle and exquisite things. Yet per accidens, for example, for rightly forming the judgment of the confessor, questioning and confession are urgent.

We must treat 1° of specific distinction; 2° of numerical distinction.

208. Preliminary Note. - Formal sins, of whatever kind they are, all agree in this, that they contain moral malice or repugnance with the eternal law of God. Nevertheless, since the eternal law of God, although one in itself, by order to the rectitudes which it demands and which are specifically distinct, is equivalently diverse and multiple (equivalently, namely, it is one thing insofar as it demands the rectitude of justice, another insofar as it requires the rectitude of charity, religion, etc.); hence also malice, or repugnance with the eternal law, by order to the same specifically distinct rectitudes, becomes wholly diverse and multiple (plainly, for example, the malice of theft will be one thing and the malice of blasphemy another, since theft is repugnant to the eternal law insofar as this demands the rectitude of justice, but blasphemy insofar as it requires the rectitude of religion); and therefore formal sins themselves too can differ altogether among themselves, and in fact do differ, according to the difference or diversity of moral malice contained in them.

From this understand how deservedly in Moral Theology there is treatment of the specific distinction of sins; and this all the more because, from the Council of Trent,¹ there is a strict obligation of divine law to expose, in Sacramental Confession, all mortal sins committed after Baptism according to species and circumstances changing the species.

With this premised, concerning the specific distinction of sins let there be a threefold question. And so:

209. • Quaer. 1° What sins differ among themselves in species?

Resp. Those sins differ in species which from the object, circumstances, or end of the one operating have malice or repugnance with the eternal law specifically diverse.

It is said: 1° which from the object, circumstances, or end of the one operating; because these three constitute the principles of morality, that is, the sources from which human acts take their goodness or malice, and the specific diversity of the same goodness or malice; as will be explained more broadly in the following number.

It is said: 2° specifically diverse repugnance; because repugnance diverse only in this sense, that it is notably greater or lesser, does not render sins distinct in species, as St. Thomas expressly teaches:² "more and less do not diversify species. . . . Hence to take another's thing in great or in small quantity does not diversify the species of sin. . . . Just as that which differs in whiteness according to more and less does not differ according to the species of color." - Indeed, greater repugnance, where it transfers sin from venial to mortal, is said to cause a theological or demeritory species, namely insofar as venial sin does not merit privation of grace and glory, as does mortal sin; but, a theological difference of this kind, which is taken according to guilt, as the Angelic Doctor observes,¹ cannot be a difference constituting diversity of moral species, about which we are treating here; for guilt, or penalty, as an effect follows fault, already constituted in its moral species.

Note. - Therefore, in order to know the specific distinction of sins, it is necessary accurately to know their specific repugnance with the eternal law. But since that repugnance, in so multiple a variety of sins, not rarely lies hidden rather obscurely, hence of itself:

210. • Quaer. 2° Whence can specifically diverse repugnance be discerned, and consequently the specific distinction of sins in particular?

Resp. For the solution of this question we assign four rules, commonly received by Theologians, and to each of them we add certain practical resolutions.

First Rule. - Sins which are repugnant to diverse virtues are distinguished in species; for just as any virtue has special and proper goodness, so also the sin repugnant to it has special and proper malice.

Resolves. - Therefore the following are distinguished in species: heresy, despair, hatred of God, perjury, fornication, theft, lying, etc.; because these sins are repugnant to diverse virtues, namely heresy to faith, despair to hope, hatred of God to charity, perjury to religion, fornication to chastity, theft to justice, lying to veracity.

211. Second Rule. - Sins which are repugnant indeed to the same virtue, but in a contrary mode, namely one by excess and the other by defect, are distinguished in species; for contrariety, as St. Thomas notes from the Philosopher,² "is a difference according to form," and therefore "contraries differ according to species." Nor does it matter that contraries are opposed to the same virtue, which is in the middle between them; for virtue has some likeness to one of the extremes, as between fortitude and daring, between prodigality and liberality; but between the extreme vices there is every kind of unlikeness.

Resolves. - Therefore the following are distinguished in species: despair and presumption, which are indeed repugnant to the same virtue of hope, but in a contrary mode, namely despair by defect, presumption by excess; likewise avarice and prodigality, which are opposed to the same virtue of liberality, but prodigality by excess, avarice by defect; similarly flattery and excessive harshness, of which the first by excess, the other by defect, departs from the same virtue of affability; - likewise sloth in learning due knowledge, which by defect, and excessive curiosity, which by excess, is repugnant to the same virtue of studiousness.

212. Third Rule. - Sins which are repugnant indeed to the same virtue and even in the same mode, for example by defect, but under a diverse respect, that is, according to various specifically distinct goods which are contained under the same virtue, are distinguished in species; for one and the same virtue, respectively to the diverse goods which it contains under itself, can have diverse rectitudes, and so, for example, one and the same virtue of justice obtains a wholly diverse rectitude according as it protects goods of fortune, or goods of reputation, or goods of life, etc.; since these goods themselves are specifically diverse in moral estimation. Therefore sins also, although opposed to the same virtue in the same mode, nevertheless respectively to the diverse rectitudes of this virtue can have diverse malices.

Resolves. - a) Therefore the following are distinguished in species: theft, rapine, detraction, contumely, homicide, all of which indeed in the same mode are repugnant to the same virtue of justice, but under a diverse reason; theft namely insofar as that virtue protects goods of fortune; rapine, insofar as it protects goods or inviolability of the person; detraction, insofar as it protects the good of reputation; contumely, insofar as it protects the good of honor; homicide, insofar as it protects the good of life. - b) Likewise local, real, and personal sacrilege differ in species, although they are opposed to the same virtue of religion in the same mode; for a sacred thing, a sacred person, and a sacred place are goods specifically diverse in moral estimation. - c) Thus also violation of ecclesiastical fasting by the eating of meat is distinguished in species from violation of the same fast by multiple refection; because the former violation is repugnant to the virtue of temperance insofar as it moderates the quality of food; but the latter, insofar as it moderates the quantity of food. - Finally from the third rule it can still be deduced that sins of commission and sins of omission are indeed not always, but for the most part, distinct in species, although they depart from the same virtue in the same mode; for ordinarily they injure diverse goods or offices of the same virtue. And so heresy (a sin of commission) and omission of a prescribed act of faith (a sin of omission) differ in species; despair and omission of an act of hope; hatred of God and omission of an act of charity.

Note. - When the diversity of goods of some virtue is sufficient so that by reason of this sins are judged distinct in species, must be sought both from the nature of the individual goods and from the common judgment of Theologians.

213. Fourth Rule. - Sins which are repugnant to several laws made from a diverse formal motive are distinguished in species; for since laws made from a diverse formal motive have for their end a diverse honesty of virtue, therefore the sins opposed to them have diverse malice in species. - Yet where sins are repugnant indeed to several laws, but laws made from the same formal motive, they are not distinguished in species; for several laws made from the same formal motive, and therefore diverse only from the number of legislators, according to common estimation morally constitute only one law.

Resolves. - a) Therefore one omitting Mass on a feast day which is also Sunday does not for that reason commit two sins distinct in species; because the hearing of Mass is prescribed by each law from the same formal motive of religion. The same must be said of one not fasting on some vigil which falls on a day of the Ember Days of Lent; because that threefold law of fasting was again made from the same formal motive of temperance. Likewise one must establish this concerning him who violates a vow or oath repeated several times; or even concerning him who commits homicide or theft, although each of these is repugnant to several laws, namely to the law of nature, to positive divine law, to ecclesiastical law, and to civil law; for these diverse laws prohibit homicide or theft from the same formal motive of justice, and therefore they are morally judged as one law.

b) On the contrary, he who on Saturday is held to fast from a vow, from the precept of the confessor, and from ecclesiastical law, if he does not fast, commits three sins distinct in species: the first against religion by force of the vow, the second against the virtue of penance by force of the precept of the confessor, and the third against temperance by force of ecclesiastical law; for this threefold precept of the vow, the confessor, and the Church was made from the diverse formal motive of the said virtues.

Note. - To discern rightly whether laws, several in number, were made from the same or from a diverse formal motive, before all else one must inquire what is proximately and immediately intended by the author of the individual laws; for that very thing is the formal motive - the form or soul - of the law. Thus, indeed, laws several in number are only numerically or formally diverse, according as the same or diverse honesty of virtue was proximately and immediately intended by their author. But of itself it is licit to presume (unless something else is established from the context of the law, circumstances, or interpretation) that the legislator proximately and immediately intends that very thing which is called the intrinsic motive of the law, or the end of the work, that is, that very thing to which the matter of the law, with attention to the circumstances, tends of its own nature; just as, for example, a fast imposed by the confessor after sins have been heard, with attention to this circumstance, by its own nature pertains to the virtue of penance; a natural fast before Holy Communion to the virtue of religion; an ecclesiastical fast to the virtue of temperance. . . . Hence the intrinsic motive of the law, or the end of the work, of itself is judged to coincide with the formal motive of the law. And therefore, if some other motive is added to the law which is called extrinsic, or the extrinsic end of the one operating, for example, if the legislator expresses that he was also moved to make the law from the motive of another honesty, to which namely the matter of the law can indeed be referred in some way, but nevertheless does not tend of its own nature; that extrinsic motive is judged secondary and remote only, but not immediate and formal, provided that from the context of the law, etc., the contrary is not established. Let the example here be the law of fasting of Ember Days, and the law of fasting on the vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each law has the same intrinsic motive (namely the honesty of temperance), and therefore the same formal motive; for although the Church was also moved to make the first law from the extrinsic motive of obtaining worthy Ministers from God, and to make the other from the extrinsic motive of honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary, nevertheless we rightly judge that the same formal motive remains for each law; because those extrinsic motives of themselves are only secondary and remote, nor has the Church anywhere signified that she prescribed the aforesaid fasts immediately and proximately from those motives, or wills them to be observed from them.

Note. - Nevertheless transgressors of such laws can by accident contract a new specific malice by reason of scandal or by reason of a depraved end or affection, for example, if they violate them from contempt of their extrinsic motive, of the priesthood, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, etc., from grave acedia, etc. The same should be observed in the resolutions of the following number.

214. • But as regards precepts strictly so called (cf. n. 97. 98), namely: precepts which parents impose on children, or masters on their domestics; all these are regularly judged to be imposed not from a diverse, but from the same formal motive of obedience, although their matters of themselves regard diverse virtues, for instance: if a parent prescribes for a son attendance at school, prayer, hearing Mass, etc. Hence children, by transgressing the precepts of parents, indeed sin several times against obedience; but of themselves they do not commit sins distinct in species, and therefore of themselves they also are not held in Confession to declare in precisely what matter they were disobedient to parents. - The same ordinarily seems to have to be judged concerning the ordinances of Regular Superiors, who, according to Reuter,¹ are not accustomed to command religious subject to themselves except from the same formal motive of obedience. Likewise you will regularly resolve the same concerning vows, which are as it were particular precepts imposed on oneself by the one vowing from the same formal motive of religion, so that one breaking two vows, for example, one of fasting and the other of praying the rosary, would not commit sins distinct in species, and therefore in Confession would satisfy by saying: "twice I broke a vow in grave matter." Make exception for a vow of observing a law.

215. • Quaer. 3° Can several sins distinct in species be found in one and the same act?

Resp. Since one and the same act physically, both from the object and from circumstances and the end of the one operating, can be repugnant to diverse virtues, or to the same virtue in a contrary mode or under a diverse respect, or even to several formally diverse laws; hence it is manifest of itself that in one and the same act there can be found several sins distinct in species, or several malices specifically diverse. And so, for example, the killing of a cleric in a church is a threefold sin distinct in species: one against justice, and two others against religion, namely according to the two diverse goods of this virtue which are violated: the sacred place and the sacred person. - Likewise he commits four sins distinct in species who, bound by a vow of chastity, sins with a married blood relative; because he violates four diverse virtues, namely justice, piety, religion, and chastity. Let the things handed down before in the Treatise on Human Acts be recalled here as to the individual principles of morality.

216. Preliminary Note. - The dissertation now to be undertaken on the numerical distinction of sins claims for itself no less attention than the inquiry of the preceding article on their specific distinction; since, from the Council of Trent,¹ all and each mortal sins committed after Baptism, of which memory is had after diligent examination of conscience, must be declared in Sacramental Confession, not only according to species, but also according to number. - But sins are said to be distinct according to number, or numerically distinct, if they are several in number, for example two homicides, three thefts, etc.; and hence the whole argument of the present article can be reduced to this one general question: When must sins be judged to be several in number? or, what comes to the same thing: whence must their numerical distinction be sought? Yet observe that in this question the discussion concerns only sins diverse in number alone, that is, sins of the same species which are several in number; for if the discussion concerns sins distinct in species, it is of itself clear that they are also distinct in number; for things which differ in species by that very fact are not one, but several, and therefore numerically diverse.

This being noted beforehand, concerning the numerical distinction of sins of the same species let there be three sections.

§ I. Whence The Numerical Distinction Of Sins Of The Same Species Is To Be Sought.

217. • According to the mind of St. Alphonsus,² this distinction is to be taken from a twofold root, namely 1° from the multiplicity of acts of the same species which do not coalesce into one act of sin, and 2° from the multiplicity of objects of the same species which do not coalesce into one object; and therefore, with the same Saint as guide, these two general principles can rightly be established.

Principles. - I. Several acts of the same species, which do not coalesce into one act of sin, constitute as many sins as there are acts.

II. One act, having several objects of the same species which do not coalesce into one object, contains as many sins as there are objects.

That these principles may be better understood and made accommodated to practical use, in the two following sections we shall investigate: 1° with respect to the first principle, when several acts must be judged not to coalesce into one act of sin; 2° with respect to the second principle, when several objects must be judged not to coalesce into one object.

§ II. Which Acts Do Not Coalesce Into One Act.

218. • The following are judged not to coalesce: a) acts which are disparate among themselves, and b) acts between which there intervenes a moral interruption.

Those acts are called disparate which do not concur as means, beginnings, or complements toward the same work to be consummated in its own species. Wherefore:

1° Among themselves all acts complete in themselves, that is, consummated in their own species, are disparate.

2° Likewise preliminary acts, that is, not consummated, which are posited without the intention of arriving at the consummated act, are judged to be disparate from the consummated act, if the latter afterwards follows, with the will changed and increased.

3° Similarly acts not consummated, which indeed are posited with the intention of arriving at the consummated act, but by accident do not attain to it, are again rightly held as disparate from this act, intended to be consummated but by accident not consummated.

4° On the contrary, as often as such acts not consummated are posited with the intention of arriving at the same consummated work, and actually attain to this also, so often they are not disparate from the consummated work, but coalesce with it into one act of sin, provided nevertheless that between them there does not intervene a moral interruption, concerning which below in the second Point.

219. Resolves from 1°. - Therefore two fornications, two homicides, etc., are disparate acts, and therefore numerically two sins, because individual fornications, individual homicides, are complete acts. Hence acts of this sort, complete or consummated in their own species, must always be set forth in Sacramental Confession according to their number, even if perhaps they proceed from the same intention or from the same impulse of the will; for instance, if someone from the same impulse of the will successively kills several persons, or from the same heat of lust fornicates several times, etc. Likewise if a priest in the state of mortal sin celebrates three Masses successively on the day of the Nativity of the Lord; for individual Celebrations, in moral estimation, are acts complete in themselves, and therefore disparate among themselves. Likewise, from the truer opinion of St. Alphonsus and one whose opposite must wholly be denied,¹ if a priest, in mortal sin, successively absolves several persons; because individual absolutions are individual Sacraments, and therefore actions disparate among themselves. Yet the same Saint thinks otherwise² concerning a priest who, in the state of mortal sin, in one successive course distributes Holy Communion to several persons. Indeed such a priest, in distributing the Most Holy Eucharist, according to the opinion which Alphonsus defends against Lugo, sins mortally by the sin of sacrilege, but does not commit numerically several sins, because such a distribution, made to several in one course, is judged in moral estimation to be one action, one banquet, although it consists of many guests, and therefore the individual distributions, in the case, will not be actions disparate among themselves.

220. Resolves from 2°. - Therefore obscene words, touches, kisses, etc., had with another person, without the intention of arriving at the consummated act of lust, for instance at fornication, are acts disparate from the fornication itself, if this afterwards follows because lust has been increased; and therefore kisses of this sort, etc., separately from the fornication afterwards following, must be declared in Confession. Likewise grave woundings inflicted on someone, without the will of killing him, are disparate from the killing itself, if afterwards it happens because anger has become more inflamed; and as such they must be explained in Confession. Cf. St. Alphonsus.³

Note. - If you ask here whether those very acts not consummated, as kisses, etc., in the first case, and woundings in the second case, are also disparate among themselves mutually, so that in Confession it is necessary to say how many times they took place? I answer affirmatively; because these acts, as is supposed, are by no means ordered from the intention of the sinner to the consummated act, but are done solely on account of their own delectation; and hence it is the common opinion of the Doctors that in Confession it must be declared how many times. - Nevertheless one exception must be admitted, namely: if these acts proceed from the same impulse, even with a certain brief interval; for then they can morally be estimated as one continued act, and therefore then it will suffice that in confession there be simply set forth what was done, for example: I acted dishonestly with another person by touches and kisses; I injured my neighbor by gravely wounding him. - The same you will rightly judge concerning locutions which, while remaining in the same matter and person, are uttered several times in one course from the same vehemence of affection, and thus morally become as it were one continued locution; for instance, if someone in the same matter, from the same impulse, several times curses the same person, several times blasphemes or perjures himself, etc.

221. Resolves from 3°. - Therefore depraved conversations, touches, kisses, etc., had with another person from the intention of arriving at the consummated act of fornication, are disparate from this very intended fornication, if by accident it is not consummated, and consequently must be opened separately from it in Confession. - Wherefore St. Alphonsus rightly notes altogether¹ that, separately from the intended sin, as sins numerically distinct from it, there must be explained the acts not consummated which were posited as means toward consummating the sin, if afterwards the sin is not consummated, as Viva teaches, asserting that the common opinion so holds. And this not only if the aforesaid acts are evil of themselves, as touches and dishonest conversations are; but also, according to a very probable opinion, if they are indifferent of themselves, as to take the road, prepare arms for homicide, etc.: "because then the sin does not remain merely internal, but is externalized in those actions, which all become evil, since they are informed by the malice of the depraved end."

Note. - If here again you ask whether these acts not consummated, in the supposed case, are also disparate among themselves mutually, and as such must be declared in Confession according to the number of each? I answer negatively; because from the intention of the sinner they are ordered to the same work to be consummated in its own species; and hence for confession it will suffice that, separately from the intended sin, you say: I posited several acts for the purpose of committing this or that sin, which I nevertheless did not consummate. So St. Alphonsus.²

222. Resolves from 4°. - Depraved conversations, touches, kisses, etc., had with another person from the intention of fornicating, and actually also attaining to fornication, are not disparate from the fornication itself, and therefore do not constitute new sins, but morally coalesce into one complete work, one numerically consummated sin; because according to the common course such acts are as a certain introduction, a proximate disposition, a remote inchoation, or complement of the consummated work itself. Wherefore there is no obligation of explaining them separately in Confession; but it will suffice if it is said: I committed fornication with such and such a person; since actions preceding this are understood from common occurrence. So St. Alphonsus³ with the common opinion. - Moreover let it be well noted that actions of this sort preceding, as also complacency concerning fornication consummated, when they are had immediately after the fornication and are by no means intended toward a new fornication, probably are not new sins to be explained in Confession; because then they seem to be employed as a complement of the obtained fornication.

223. • Acts in the same species of evil, and conversant about the same object, are called morally interrupted when between them there intervenes a breaking off of the evil will, so that the subsequent acts proceed from a new decree of the will. - But that it may be determined more accurately in which acts moral interruption actually has place, with attention to the distinction between internal and external acts:

Quaer. 1° When are INTERNAL ACTS morally interrupted?

Resp. They are morally interrupted:

1° If the first will is expressly revoked by a contrary will; for this prevents the posterior act from being able to be called a continuation of the prior, since in reality it proceeds from a new decree of the will. Hence, if you take complacency in an evil delectation, and then elicit an act of displeasure; or if you will to kill your enemy, and then retract that will by putting away the hatred, or also by an act of charity toward the enemy; if afterwards you return to the evil will, you commit a new sin, numerically distinct from the prior one.

2° If the first will is virtually or tacitly revoked, namely by voluntary advertence to matters with which the evil will is incompatible; or even by taking up a state incompatible with the first evil will. Thus St. Alphonsus,¹ after the common opinion, teaches. Hence he who turns his soul to pious thought, for example by attending to a sermon, by reciting prayers, etc., tacitly revokes the preceding evil will, and therefore, if afterwards he resumes that evil will, he sins anew. Likewise he who resolves to steal something, and in the meantime, before the execution of the theft, becomes gravely ill, so that during the time of the infirmity he is incapable of carrying out the theft; if afterwards, after recovering health, he returns to the same purpose, he commits a new sin, because through such impotence the first purpose was morally interrupted.

3° If the first will ceases naturally, that is, through a cessation not freely chosen, but caused by natural distraction, inadvertence, or oblivion, lasting for a more or less notable time according to the nature of the diverse acts. But, concerning this third mode of moral interruption, Theologians greatly disagree. Some think that internal acts are not morally interrupted at all by natural cessation alone, at least ordinary cessation, for instance by common distractions, by sleep, etc. Others on the contrary opine that any internal acts whatever are morally interrupted by any natural cessation whatever, even ordinary. But among these St. Alphonsus held a middle way; his opinion, safe in practice, seems capable of being explained briefly thus:

224. Opinion of St. Alphonsus. - In this controversy concerning the moral interruption of internal acts through natural cessation, first, according to the holy Doctor, a distinction must be made between merely internal sins, that is, those which either are wholly consummated internally in their own species, as hatred, heresy, envy (sins of the heart strictly so called), or at least are committed internally only, without effectively tending to an external sin, as morose delectation and inefficacious desire; - and sins not merely internal, that is, those which effectively tend to an external sin of mouth or deed, as an efficacious desire or purpose of blaspheming or stealing. But after this distinction has been premised, according to the mind of the same holy Doctor one may establish thus:

A. Merely internal sins are morally interrupted by natural cessation, even ordinary cessation, for instance by common distractions, by sleep, etc., so that they are numerically distinct as often as they are repeated after such cessation. - Yet here attention must be given to the vehemence of the affection by which the will is borne into the object; for the given resolution is understood with this limitation: unless several acts of this sort proceed from the same vehemence of affection, or from the same impulse of passion; for then they constitute only one sin, even if a certain brief distraction intervenes between the acts. - From these things it is inferred, for Confession, that he who recalls that he took delight many times in the same object, and especially if this happened on the same day, must say how many times he yielded to this evil will, if he can remember this, at least confusedly; that is, if he is able to estimate how often the evil will, either not interrupted or interrupted and then reassumed, lasted through a notable time. But if he cannot - as ordinarily happens, when the depraved disposition was long-lasting - let him say through how much time he persevered in that disposition and whether the interruptions were notably rare or frequent.¹ Cf. nevertheless n. 1424, Principle III, 1°, c), § Some Doctors.

B. Sins not merely internal, namely efficacious desires or firm evil purposes concerning an external sin of mouth or deed, more probably are not morally interrupted by ordinary natural cessation alone, whether by common distractions or sleep; but only by the intervention of a long time, which long time, ordinarily speaking, is judged by the holy Doctor to be present as often as more than two or at most three days intervene between the purposes, since such force does not seem to be present in one single act of the will that it can efficaciously endure beyond that time. Therefore, if the penitent has persevered beyond two or three days in an evil purpose, in Confession he must explain the time, saying for example: for the whole month or week I remained in the purpose of stealing, which I renewed about so many times before the consummation of the theft; so that thus the number of internal sins concerning external sins may be understood by the confessor.² Yet it must carefully be observed here whether perhaps by force of the evil purpose some external effect has already been produced, conducing to the consummated external sin; for then the first purpose is judged not to be morally interrupted, but to persevere, so long as that external effect lasts; and hence the aforesaid resolution - that an evil purpose is morally interrupted by the intervention of a long time - must be received with this limitation: unless nevertheless the efficacy of the first purpose virtually perseveres in some external effect; for then the evil purposes, through whatever time they last, constitute one sin only. Hence, if someone proposes to kill a man, and therefore prepares arms, takes the road, and finally kills him, he commits one sin in number, although he sought him for many days, and meanwhile also thought about other things, renewed the purpose a hundred times, etc. Similarly, if someone proposes not to restore another's property, and remains in this purpose - even for a year - he commits one sin only; because in the very retention of the other's property the efficacy of the first purpose virtually perseveres. Yet where the thief becomes incapable of restoring, and afterwards again becomes capable and does not restore, he commits a new sin; because during the time of that incapacity there is nothing in which the efficacy of the first purpose virtually persevered.

225. • Quaer. 2° When are EXTERNAL SINS morally interrupted?

Resp. There is no need here for discourse about external sins which are disparate, which of themselves are morally disjoined and therefore numerically distinct, as was explained more broadly in Point I, n. 218 sqq. Hence the question proposed in this sense is to be understood of external sins which, according to themselves, are not disparate, for example kisses or touches which of themselves and from the intention of the agent tend and attain to fornication. But external sins of this sort are morally interrupted in three cases, namely:

1° When between them there intervenes an express or tacit revocation of the evil purpose; concerning which case see the things handed down before at n. 223.

2° When between them there intervenes a simple cessation of the evil purpose beyond two or three days, without some external effect having been produced in which the purpose is judged morally to persevere; concerning which case see the notes above at n. 224, B.

3° They are still morally interrupted, or, to speak more accurately, in a certain broader sense they become disparate and numerically several, when between them, even while the same purpose remains physically, there intervenes such an interval of time that the external acts themselves can no longer be called concatenated, that is, so that the preceding act is no longer the proximate disposition or as it were an inchoation of the subsequent act, although it remotely tends to it. But when such concatenation, because of an interval of time, is actually absent must be judged from the nature and circumstances of the acts themselves, especially with regard to common sense and the natural estimation of men. - Generally I would think it can be said: that it is rather easily lacking in sins of the mouth, especially if they are done from levity or custom, for instance in curses, blasphemies, perjuries, not uttered from the same impulse; - and then that it is lacking in sins of deed when the intervening delay of time is in no way customarily apprehended as brief. But if commonly it is apprehended as brief, sins of deed, notwithstanding such interval of time, still seem to be concatenated and morally united. - Hence I resolve: a) He who, from the intention of stealing a heap of wheat, which he cannot carry off wholly at one time, repeatedly on the same night steals part, commits one sin only; but he who from the same intention on alternate nights does this, seems to commit as many sins as there are acts. L. II. 44 at the beginning. b) Youths sin by several sins who, from the intention of fornicating, at times notably distant according to common sense, approach another person, with libidinous acts, and thus finally arrive at fornication; because those external acts, in the case, are no longer concatenated, since they are not the proximate disposition or a certain quasi-inchoation of the subsequent fornicary intercourse. On the contrary, they would sin by one sin only if, in the same morally continuous approach, some delay intervened between the libidinous acts, for example because of conversation with a third person. c) Similarly, if someone, laboring servilely on Sunday, wishes to rest a little and therefore is occupied by sleep; but then, awakened, begins again to work, he commits one sin only. - Likewise he sins by one sin who interrupts the eating of meat on a fast day for a little while, for example to receive a guest, etc.

§ III. Which Objects Of The Same Species Do Not Coalesce Into One Object.

226. • Several objects in the same species of evil, about which one and the same act is conversant, are judged not to coalesce when one object is not part of another, or, in other words, when those several objects do not constitute, as parts, one total object. Such especially are: the lives of several men, whether of body or of soul; - and the honors, reputations, or temporal goods of several men, unless perhaps they are possessed by common dominion.

Resolves with St. Alphonsus.¹ Therefore he commits sins several in number: 1° Who by one act kills several men; or gives scandal to several; or affects several with contumely. 2° Who in one discourse detracts from several, even of the same family or community; except perhaps, according to Dens, in the case where the reputation were proper to some community precisely as such; as if someone should unjustly say of some monastery that regular discipline is not observed in it. 3° Who by one act imprecates some evil on several; or also steals from several, unless nevertheless the goods carried off by theft are possessed by those several with common dominion, for instance by reason of undivided inheritance, by reason of community, etc. 4° Who by one act desires to commit several fornications, whether with diverse persons or with the same one. - From these things the resolution for other similar cases will easily be clear.

227. Questions. - Quaer. 1° Does he who detracts from someone before several commit as many sins as there are persons among whom the other is defamed?

Resp. Probably he does not commit several sins of detraction; because he does not seem to injure several objects or rights, since the right to reputation, which chiefly consists in the opinion of the multitude, is one and not multiple, both among all and among individuals. Hence by reason of such detraction it will suffice that in confession it be said: I detracted from someone before several.² Nevertheless the same detractor, in the case, commits several sins of scandal; and by reason of this, the number of persons must be set forth.³

Quaer. 2° Does he who in one discourse detracts from another in distinct matters, saying for example that he is unjust, lustful, and a man without religion, commit as many sins as the matters are diverse?

Resp. More probably affirmatively, at least of itself; because such a detractor violates a multiple right to diverse reputations which do not coalesce into one reputation; for he who has been defamed in one crime is not for that reason defamed in another. Yet by accident detraction of this sort not rarely constitutes one sin only, namely: when the circumstances in which those diverse insults are uttered are such that the hearers easily understand them to be uttered from anger, and therefore do not attribute faith to them. Hence women of the lower class and common people who, quarreling together, from the same impulse load one another with diverse contumelies, commit one sin only. Indeed those quarreling in this way, for the most part, are excused from mortal sin, unless perhaps they reproach the adversary with some particular fact.¹

Quaer. 3° What must be said concerning him who by one continuous act wishes diverse evils to another, as infamy, poverty, etc.?

Resp. According to a sufficiently probable opinion, he commits one sin in species and number, as often as, as more frequently happens, those evils are apprehended under the reason of evil in general. But otherwise, if the will is borne advertently to wishing those diverse evils to him, as they are distinct; and otherwise also a fortiori, if he desires actually to inflict those diverse evils on another.²

Quaer. 4° Of how many sins is he guilty who by one act denies several articles of faith?

Resp. Of one only; because the formal object of faith is not multiple, but one, namely: the veracity of God revealing; and hence he who denies several articles of faith is no more an unbeliever than he who denies one.³

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 72; De Malo, q. 2, a. 6.

432. Principle I. Sins are distinguished in species immediately and proximately according to diverse formal objects, or objects distinct in moral species. For sin is not a simple privation but a voluntary act deprived of due rectitude; whence, just like other human acts, sins will have their species immediately from the object: thus idolatry, homicide, and gluttony are distinguished (a. 1). But since end or good is the proper object of the will, it follows that sins are distinguished in species according to diverse ends (ad 1), whether of the one acting (for example, to steal for revenge or for fornication), or especially those intrinsic to the work itself (for example, gluttony toward pleasure, theft toward money; gluttony from love of delicious food or from love of much food).

433. Principle II. Sins are not distinguished in species immediately and proximately insofar as they are opposed to diverse virtues from which they recede (as Scotus taught), or to precepts (as Vasquez says): for the privation which is had in sin, namely, recession from virtue or law, is not intended by the sinner but is outside his intention, whence it is not per se and directly the object of the will and of the human act, nor therefore does it give species to the evil act (a. 1).

Nevertheless St. Thomas observes that it comes to the same thing whether sins are distinguished in species according to objects or according to the virtues to which they are opposed, because the virtues themselves are distinguished in species from objects (ad 2); or even according to precepts, because these differ according to diverse object, motive, and end, and also according to diverse virtues, since they are made for this, that we may operate according to virtue. Therefore, although sins do not immediately take their species from the law which they transgress, or from the virtue from which they recede, nevertheless they can be said to receive species remotely and mediately from them.

1. From Laymann, Noldin took this, and Tanquerey follows him: that sins proximately receive specific distinction from the virtues or from the precepts to which they are opposed, remotely from the objects about which they are concerned. But precisely the contrary must be said.

434. The following practical rules are usually constructed, by which the specific distinction of objects and consequently of sins is easily discerned:

The first, altogether universal, to which all the others can be reduced: Those sins are diverse which are concerned with formally diverse objects; but objects are formally diverse not according to physical being but according to moral being, that is, according to special agreement or repugnance with right reason and the eternal law. Hence to steal a sheep, a horse, or money is the same sin in species, although the objects are materially diverse, because they agree in one moral reason, in taking another's good; on the contrary, homicide, adultery, and theft are diverse because they contain diverse repugnance to reason, since they injure a diverse right: to life, to a wife, to exterior goods (a. 1 and ad 3).

The second: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to diverse virtues; for individual virtues have their own proper goodness. Hence theft, fornication, and perjury are distinguished because they are opposed to justice, chastity, and religion (ad 2).

The third: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to the same virtue but in a contrary mode, that is, by excess and defect, as presumption and despair to hope, prodigality and avarice to the virtue of liberality: for they are placed from an opposite motive and recede from virtue by a diverse reason (a. 8).

The fourth: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to the same virtue, not in a contrary mode but in a diverse mode, on account of a special repugnance with right reason and law; in other words, those which are against diverse goods, rectitudes, honesties, or offices of the same virtue, for example, homicide and theft, theft and robbery, contumely and detraction, real, personal, and local sacrilege, violation of a vow and of an oath, idolatry and magic, perjury and blasphemy: for then diverse goodness is injured and in the objects there is deformity of a distinct reason.

The fifth: Those sins are diverse which are repugnant to formally diverse precepts, that is, precepts enacted from a diverse motive or intrinsic end; but not those which are repugnant to several precepts enacted from the same intrinsic motive, even if they are enacted by diverse legislators. Hence he who is bound by vow and by the precept of a confessor to fast on Friday of Ember week, if he does not fast, commits a threefold sin specifically distinct against temperance, religion, and the virtue of penance; on the contrary, one omitting Mass on a feast day falling on Sunday, or not fasting on an Ember Saturday falling on a vigil, because each precept is of the same reason on the part of the end or intrinsic motive; likewise there is only one sin which is prohibited by natural, divine, ecclesiastical, and civil law, such as homicide.

435. Circumstances of themselves only aggravate sin. - For many pertain to the same object and the same matter; for example, from the same motive the prodigal gives when, where, and to whom he ought not, and the illiberal man accepts when and where he ought not and more than he ought. Nevertheless they change the species if they include a special and distinct deformity with reason or proceed from a special motive; but then they do not remain circumstances, but become as it were a secondary object of the act and have the notion of a specific difference. Thus theft of a sacred thing is distinguished in species from simple theft, likewise various sins of gluttony, such as eating too much or food too delicious (a. 9).

436. Corollaries. - A. Therefore the following are distinguished in species: a) carnal and spiritual sins, because they tend to formally diverse objects: for carnal sins, namely, gluttony and lust and those which are reduced to them, have as their end carnal pleasure which is perfected in the touch of the body; spiritual sins have spiritual pleasure which is consummated in the cognition of some thing, as the five other capital sins do (a. 2).

b) Likewise sins against God, against oneself, and against neighbor, for the objects and virtues by which man is ordered to God, to neighbor, and to himself are diverse in species. Let it be noted that every sin which is against neighbor and against oneself is also against God; but here under the name of sin against God there comes that which is proximately, immediately, and specially against Him, without being against neighbor and oneself (a. 4).

B. Sins are not distinguished in species: a) because they differ according to guilt of punishment, as mortal and venial sins do. For the will of the sinner does not intend the punishment of sin, but this is per accidens and outside his intention. Since, therefore, guilt of punishment is not the object of the sinful act but follows per accidens, it does not cause a specific difference.

Mortal and venial sin differ infinitely on the part of disorder or privation, but not on the part of conversion to created good, on the part of the act and object, from which nevertheless they have species. Therefore nothing prevents mortal and venial sin from being found in the same moral species, as the first movement in the genus of adultery, or theft of ten centimes, is venial (a. 5).

Likewise b) because they are sins of heart, mouth, and deed: for although per accidens they differ in completed species if they are consummated and perfect, whether by thought, word, or deed, as heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, because then they have diverse ends or objects; nevertheless per se they indicate only degrees of one sin in species, whose first beginning is in the affection of the heart, second degree in the manifestation of the mouth, third in the consummation of deed; for example, the desire, proposal, and perpetration of adultery; to conceive anger in the heart toward another, to express it in harsh words, and to strike him (a. 7).

Hence 1) they are not distinguished when they are joined together at the same time;

2. but if one or another degree is found separately and the will does not proceed further and does not execute the sin, then they are distinguished in incomplete species, because then they stand as incomplete and complete species in the same mode as part of a movement and the whole movement, an imperfect work and a completed work, for example, the placing of a foundation and the building of a house. Thus internal lust, imperfect lust of the mouth, sight, or touch, and consummated or perfect lust of deed (ad 3).

Likewise c) because they are sins of commission and omission: for although according to physical being they are distinguished in species and even in genus, according to moral being they are not necessarily distinguished in species, because they can be concerned with the same object, tend to the same end, and proceed from the same motive, as to seize another's goods and not to restore, to stay awake and to sleep against the precept of a superior, to omit Mass or to steal for adultery, etc. (a. 6).

The specific distinction of sin arises from a special malice, or from the diverse deformity by which one sin differs essentially from another.

Various rules are assigned by theologians for knowing this specifically diverse deformity. The first of all, and the more fundamental, they take from the diversity of objects; for as all human acts, so also sins are distinguished primarily and of themselves in species according to their objects. - Cf. St. Thom. 1-2, q. 72, art. 1. But precisely because this rule is fundamental and remote, the Doctors establish two others, which are proximate, easier, and more accommodated to practice.

Rule I. The specific distinction of sins is taken from opposition to diverse virtues, or from opposition indeed to the same virtue but according to the diverse offices which it prescribes to be observed, or finally from opposition to the same virtue according to its extremes. The reason for the first is clear, because individual virtues have their own special and altogether distinct goodness; therefore sins opposed to them also necessarily contract a special turpitude. Thus denial of revealed truth, despair, and hatred of God differ among themselves in species, because they are opposed to three diverse virtues, namely faith, hope, and charity. - The reason for the second is that a virtue which demands that diverse offices be observed is virtually multiple, and to violate it according to these imports a diverse repugnance to the moral order. Thus homicide, theft, and detraction differ among themselves in species, although they are opposed to the same virtue, namely justice, because they are opposed to diverse offices of the same virtue, which commands that no one be injured whether in the goods of life, or in the goods of fortune, or in the goods of reputation. The reason for the third is that extremes are contraries, and contraries, according to St. Thom. 1-2, q. 72, art. 8, differ according to species; thus presumption and despair differ among themselves in species, because one through excess, the other through defect, is opposed to the same virtue of hope. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 31.

Rule II. The specific distinction of sins is taken also from violation of precepts morally diverse. For sin is 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 omission of Mass on a feast day, omission of the commanded fast, omission of annual confession or paschal communion, differ among themselves in species. But precepts are called morally diverse as often as they have a diverse object, such as fast, hearing of Mass, abstinence from meats; or as often as the intrinsic motive of the precept is diverse, although the object is the same. Thus he who in Lent omits the fast to which from another source he is bound by reason of sacramental penance commits a twofold sin diverse in species. 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. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 33.

But if someone rightly attends, he will perceive that this second rule either is reduced to the first, or at least cannot in any way be brought into use without the first. For the objects of various precepts are diverse in the genus of morals only because they pertain to diverse virtues, or to diverse offices of the same virtue; but the intrinsic motive of each precept is the very virtue or office of virtue to which the precept is referred.

You Will Resolve. 1st. 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.

2nd. He sins in a threefold way who kills a priest or religious in a church; because he violates justice by killing, and religion in two specifically diverse ways, namely by violating a sacred person and a sacred place.

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

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

DISSERTATION II

ON THE SPECIFIC AND NUMERICAL DISTINCTION OF SINS

St. Thomas, q. 72.

As regards the sin of omission, since it is in itself a mere privation of the act due, it is certain that it is specifically distinguished by the acts themselves omitted specifically distinct in moral being; as all other privations are specifically distinguished by the opposite forms by which they deprive; namely in that manner in which privations can be distinguished. The question is therefore of the sin of commission.

I say: Sins are specifically distinguished by their order to objects specifically distinct in moral being ¹; because every act is specified by its object. Therefore an act morally evil is specified by an object morally evil. ¹ Ibid., a. 1, c.

It is confirmed. Every motion is specifically distinguished by order to the term to which. But, in sinful motion, the object is the term to which. Therefore.

This conclusion all Thomists hold with the Author, and many outsiders, even those among the Thomists who place the formal element of sin in the privative; because, they say, with diverse order to formally diverse objects standing, there follows diverse privation.

I said in the conclusion: « By order to objects specifically distinct in moral being; » because the specific distinction of objects in the order of being contributes nothing to the specific distinction of sins; for whether one steals a sheep or a horse, he commits a sin of the same species, namely of injustice. But

The question is whence the object has that it be specifically distinguished in moral being.

I answer. Generally speaking, objects are specifically distinguished in moral being when they have a special and distinct repugnance with the eternal law and right reason. Now they have a special and distinct repugnance or disconformity with the eternal law and right reason from a multiple head: 1° when they are opposed to different virtues; 2° when they are opposed to the same virtue, but in a different way, as is evident in theft and robbery, which although they are opposed to the same virtue of justice, are nevertheless specifically distinguished, because they are opposed to it in a different way; 3° when they are opposed to different precepts, not materially and on the part of the principle or commander, but formally on the part of the thing commanded or intrinsic motive. Whence it can be said that sins are also distinguished specifically, namely radically and mediately, by the virtues and precepts to which they are opposed.

Conclusions

From what has been said you will infer 1° that one who omits Mass on a feast day falling on Sunday, or does not fast on an ember Wednesday falling on the vigil of St. Matthew, commits in each case one sin specifically and numerically, in the first case against religion, in the second against temperance, because both the precept of hearing Mass on Sunday and on a feast day, and both of fasting on ember days and on the vigil of St. Matthew, are of the same account on the part of end and intrinsic motive. For the end and intrinsic motive of hearing Mass on Sunday and a feast day is the honesty of religion, and of the precept of fasting on the ember days and the vigil of St. Matthew, the honesty of temperance. Nor does it matter that perhaps the legislator, in commanding Mass on the day of St. Matthew, or fasting on his vigil, intended to honor the saint; for that end or motive is extrinsic and of the agent, just as if in commanding a fast he intended rain, fair weather, or peace, which ends or extrinsic motives do not constitute precepts of different account. Say the same of one who violates the same vow or oath repeated several times, of omitting the canonical hours to which he is bound by title of benefice and sacred order.

You will infer 2° on the contrary, that one who is bound by vow and the precept of his confessor to fast on the Friday of the ember days, if he does not fast, commits three sins specifically distinct: first, against temperance, by force of the ecclesiastical precept; second, against religion, by force of the vow; third, against the virtue of penance, by force of the precept of the confessor. For these three obligations are from different intrinsic motives, and thus of distinct account; for the intrinsic motive of the ecclesiastical precept is temperance, of the vow is religion, of the precept of the confessor imposing a fast after sins heard, with attention to the nature of the work and the circumstances, is punishment and satisfaction for sins.

It is certain 1° that these sins, considered materially and in physical being, differ not only in species, but in genus ¹. For the sin of commission, materially considered, is a positive act deprived of rectitude; the sin of omission is the lack or privation of an act owed. But of act and non-act, of being and non-being, there is no univocal genus, that is, expressed by one and the same name in the same sense. ¹ Here q. 72, a. 6, c.

It is certain 2° that sins of commission and omission, even considered formally and in moral being, can be distinguished in species, if they are exercised about diverse matters; for it is evident that omission of hearing Mass is distinguished in moral species from theft.

But the question is whether, if they are referred to the same object and proceed from the same motive, they are distinguished in species, as theft and non-restoration of a theft. Wherefore

I say: Sins of omission and commission, considered in moral being, if they proceed about the same object from the same motive, are of the same species ². ² Ibid.

It is proved. 1º. Sins, like other human acts, have their species from the end. Therefore, if the sin of commission and of omission are ordered to the same end, or proceed from the same motive, they will be of the same species: namely, if they are ordered to the same end of the work, they will be of the same essential species, as to seize another's goods and not restore them; if to the same end of the agent, they will be of the same accidental species, as to omit Mass and steal in order to commit adultery.

It is proved. 2º. To do good and, from the same motive, to omit the opposite evil do not constitute distinct moral species, but are integral parts of the same justice, as St. Thomas teaches, II II°, q. 79, a. 1, c, according to that of Psalm XXXI, 15: Decline from evil and do good, « because both, says the holy Doctor, are required for the perfect act of justice. » But proportionally they stand thus: in the genus of evil, to do evil and, from the same motive, to omit the opposite good, stand as, in the genus of good, to do good and to omit evil. Therefore.

It is confirmed by the example of motion. Although in motion recession from the term from which and access to the term to which involve two changes, namely from being to non-being, and from non-being to being, they nevertheless do not constitute diverse species of motion, but one, which is adequately constituted from both as from integral parts. But in the motion of sin, recession from good takes place through omission, access to evil through commission. Therefore.

From these you will rightly observe, according to the mind of St. Thomas, that sins of commission and omission are not said to be of the same species as two individuals, e.g., two men contracting the same human species, but because they stand as integral parts from which one species in the genus of morals is adequately constituted, in that proportional manner in which the integral parts of penance constitute one sacrament.

From what has been said you will infer that an act which is borne directly upon an omission, e.g.: « I will not hear Mass, » although it be a commission, belongs nevertheless to the sin of omission, and is of the same moral species with it.

You will ask which sin is the graver, whether of commission or of omission.

I answer. Speaking per se and other things being equal, the sin of commission is the graver. For it is graver to hate God than, under pressure of a precept, not to love him; graver to afflict parents with insult than not to reverence them at the proper time.

Caius, a young Catholic and a member of a certain secret society, receives a command from its head to kill Tullius, a traitor to the society. In order to do this, he seeks the place where Tullius lives, attaches himself to him as a companion, and investigates everything about his manner of life so that he may perpetrate the crime more easily and safely. Nevertheless, more than once, led by remorse of conscience, he determines to leave the business unfinished and, in order to provide for his own life, to flee the country. Nonetheless, he prepares weapons and at length, some weeks after undertaking the purpose, especially because of a deed discovered by him which renders Tullius exceedingly hateful to him, he provokes Tullius to a quarrel in a secret place and kills him. Hence it is asked:

1. How do sins acquire various species?

2. How are sins distinguished with regard to number?

3. What things must Caius mention in order to confess integrally?

1. See the answer to this question in Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 141.

2. The answer to this question is in Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 143.

3. What particulars of his crime must Caius mention so as to make a full confession ?

Caius, a young Catholic who belongs to a secret society, received orders from its head to kill Tullius, who had betrayed its secrets. To execute the mandate Caius found out where Tullius lived, made his acquaintance, and studied his manner of life, in order to be able to kill him with greater security and ease. More than once he determined not to commit the crime and to fly the country. However, he bought weapons, and at length after some weeks, especially on account of having found out something about Tullius which made him an object of great hatred to him, Caius provoked him to a quarrel in a lonely place and killed him. Caius must, of course, confess that he has committed homicide, and he must say as far as he can how often he changed his mind about committing the crime, for such changes of resolution will break up the sin into as many smaller ones as there are changes. He need not mention any other circumstance, for the means which he took to commit the crime were indifferent in themselves and only gave unity to the internal intention. The grave hatred, too, is sufficiently confessed by confessing the murder itself, which is a mortal sin against charity, unless before the murder was committed and on other occasions the hatred was manifested in ways which had nothing to do with the crime which followed, for then there would be as many different sins of hatred as there were different manifestations of it. The quarreling which immediately preceded the murder formed part of the final crime and need not be distinctly and separately confessed.

Titius, a confessor, notices that some penitents do not sufficiently distinguish the different species of sins when they confess fornication although they ought to say adultery. Hence, when he hears the confessions of adults who confess fornication, he is accustomed to ask whether they are joined in marriage; nevertheless, he remains uncertain whether or not he ought to ask whether they are betrothed, for if betrothed persons sin with someone other than the betrothed, they violate the fidelity of betrothal, which obliges from justice. Titius is likewise uncertain whether he ought to ask those confessing incest about the degree of consanguinity or affinity. To furnish Titius with some light, it is asked:

1. Whence is the specific distinction of sins derived?

2. What circumstances must necessarily be expressed in confession?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. Whence is the specific distinction of sins derived?

Sins are specifically distinct when their formal objects are specifically different, or when they are opposed to specifically distinct virtues, or when they are transgressions of formally distinct laws.¹

2. What circumstances must necessarily be mentioned in confession?

Those circumstances which change the moral or theological species of the sin must be mentioned in confession. There is a controversy among divines as to whether circumstances which notably increase or diminish the malice of a sin, but which do not change its nature, should be mentioned in confession. The negative opinion is probable and safe.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 165.

3. The case. If Titius has learned by experience that in a certain place penitents do not sufficiently distinguish between adultery and fornication, he does well in general to ask those who confess fornication whether they are married. He will not be obliged to put this question in every case of such a sin being confessed; without doubt the confessions of some penitents will be so minute and descend to particulars in such a way that he will be able to rely on the theological accuracy of the terms which they use. There is no necessity for Titius to ask those penitents who confess fornication and deny that they are married whether they are betrothed. Some theologians, it is true, teach that the circumstance of betrothal changes the species of a sin of fornication committed with another woman, but others deny it, on the ground that betrothal is only a promise to give marital rights; it does not actually give them.

Titius should not ask questions about the degree or kind of relationship when incest is confessed, for it is probable that incest committed with any relation is of the same species, unless it is committed with a relation of the first degree of consanguinity in the direct line, and as this sin is very rare and asking about it might give scandal to the penitent, the confessor should not ask about it, unless in a particular case he has good reason to suspect that in fact such a sin was committed.