Where the Authors Disagree
The places where St. Thomas and the manuals part ways, sorted by the kind of question and, under each, by virtue. Each name opens the fuller entry, where every author is quoted and linked. Differences of wording alone are left out.
How Grave It Is
Faith
UnbeliefUnbelief or hatred of God the gravest
Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, calls unbelief “the greatest sin among sins”, since no one in this life hates God except interpretatively (What unbelief is, and what kind of, n. 3). St. Thomas, Merkelbach, Prümmer and McHugh-Callan put hatred of God above it (I, n. 737).
UnbeliefPrivative unbelief: grave, light, or another sin
On privative unbelief: Noldin calls it “a grave sin of omission” (n. 27), as Marc and Sabetti-Barrett do, while Wouters says it “can more easily be venial or even no sin” by accident (n. 491). Merkelbach says it is not the sin of unbelief at all but a sin of ignorance (I, n. 736). McHugh-Callan calls privative unbelief a refusal to believe, a sin of commission (n. 818). Concina and Billuart take privative unbelief for a refusal, as McHugh-Callan does, and Billuart counts it a sin with contrary unbelief: “Privative and contrary unbelief is a sin” (On unbelief in general, n. 6).
Denial and Dissimulation of FaithShame of the faith
On being ashamed of the faith, Vermeersch says “Denial is grave in its whole genus; not so shame” (n. 42). Wouters holds it “always illicit to be ashamed of the faith” (n. 497).
Blasphemy“God damn”
On “God damn”: Prümmer does not dare to say it is no blasphemy, “for it seems to be blasphemy” (II, n. 532). Sabetti-Barrett says that among our people “by God” or “God damn” “of themselves contain only venial malice” as a vain use of the Name (n. 220). Billuart and Concina refuse the distinction between indignation against God and against a man: words like “his head, his death, his blood”, uttered “out of indignation against man, not against God”, “are contumelious to God, though uttered on occasion of another” (On blasphemy, n. 4); “it seems to me, however, more certain that such swearers are, absolutely speaking, to be reckoned as blasphemers” (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. V, n. I).
Sin Against the Holy GhostWhether the sin against the Holy Ghost is ever remitted
On the sin Christ named, Noldin holds it “indeed is remissible, yet in fact is never remitted”, and rejects those who say it is only ordinarily not remitted (n. 352, n. 352). Merkelbach says the sin against the Holy Spirit is remitted “with greatest difficulty, more rarely, and only as it were miraculously” (I, n. 476), and McHugh-Callan that there is no sin which, “if repented of, cannot be forgiven in this life” (n. 900).
FaithWhether confessions made in that ignorance must be repeated
Confessions made in ignorance of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Prümmer, after St. Alphonsus: a penitent in grave sin “must repeat confessions so made” (n. 499); Marc: he “is bound, after having been taught those mysteries, to repeat the confession”, St. Alphonsus “reforming his former opinion” (n. 427, n. 427). Merkelbach: they are more safely repeated, but “the faithful cannot be strictly obliged to this” (I, n. 708); Noldin: he “need not necessarily repeat the confessions made in this state of ignorance” (n. 10); McHugh-Callan, by probabilism: he “is not obliged to repeat his confessions” (n. 792). Concina: the affirming opinion “is common, and the contrary utterly false”, and those who confessed in that ignorance “must repeat their Confessions, as being null” (III, diss. I, ch. IV, n. VIII).
FaithWhat everyone must know: Pilate and the third day, the Hail Mary
The details of what all must know. Merkelbach counts among the things binding under light obligation the “circumstances of time: under Pontius Pilate, the third day” (I, n. 709); Noldin: these “need not be known even under light obligation” (n. 12); Vermeersch: they “may be unknown without punishment” (n. 11); McHugh-Callan: they “do not oblige to explicit faith under any sin” (n. 928). The Hail Mary: Marc, with St. Charles Borromeo, sets it among the things to be known by precept beside the Lord's Prayer (n. 427); Merkelbach binds it under light obligation, “at least as to substance” (I, n. 709); McHugh-Callan: “most suitable” (n. 920). Wouters adds to the sacraments to be known “according to many, Confirmation” (n. 489). Concina: “nor is explicit faith in the passion under Pontius Pilate required” (III, diss. I, ch. IV, n. X); he joins the Hail Mary to what must be known, “Necessary, moreover, is the knowledge of the precepts of holy Mother Church, and of the angelic salutation” (III, diss. I, ch. V, n. VII); and of the sacraments, Baptism, Penance and the Eucharist especially, “Yet ignorance of the other four is not harmless” (III, diss. I, ch. V, n. VI).
FaithNot learning the Creed and Our Father by heart
Learning the prayers by heart. Prümmer: per se no formula need be memorized, but “By accident there is a grave obligation of learning the Lord's Prayer by memory”, lest prayer be neglected altogether (n. 501); McHugh-Callan: “it seems that there is a serious obligation of memorizing at least the Our Father” (n. 923). Noldin, with most authors, makes the neglect a venial sin (n. 12); Marc: “sins venially” (n. 427); Vermeersch: not without “at least venial fault” (n. 13); Merkelbach binds the words under light obligation (I, n. 709). Bontempi reports Fagundez, Sanchez and Suarez requiring the words, and that “absolution is to be suspended for those who, though admonished repeatedly, refuse to learn them” (What things are to be believed by, n. 26). Concina makes the memorizing an ecclesiastical precept, “confirmed by long custom”, binding “at least as to the substance”, and adds that words learned without their sense give “a knowledge of words, not of truths” (III, diss. I, ch. V, n. XI, III, diss. I, ch. V, n. XII).
FaithWearing Masonic signs to hide one's faith
The signs of the Freemasons. Prümmer: “it is not licit to wear the distinctive signs of Freemasons” (n. 507); Noldin: wearing their insignia or using their grips “is illicit” (n. 20); so Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan. Vermeersch notes that Lehmkuhl and Genicot class them with vestments of sacred use (n. 24), and would have that understood only “when they certainly show adherence to a condemned sect” (n. 24): where the circumstances make their meaning uncertain, as for a stranger observing the sect or a Catholic fleeing persecution, he asks whether they may not “be tolerated for a proportionate cause” (n. 24).
BlasphemyWhether blasphemy is graver than heresy
Whether blasphemy is graver than heresy. Merkelbach reckons it two ways: taken abstractly “less grave than hatred of God, infidelity, despair, and idolatry”, yet “the greatest blasphemy is graver than the greatest infidelity or the greatest hatred of God” (I, n. 785). Concina reports the Salmanticenses holding it lighter than heresy, hatred of God and despair, and answers that “blasphemy, by its very kind, is graver than heresy itself”, and perfect blasphemy “is the greatest of all crimes”, with St. Antoninus and Navarrus (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. III, Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. IV).
BlasphemyBlasphemy in jest
Blasphemy in jest. The common distinction, as Concina reports it from Leander, with Castropalao, Tamburini and Sanchez: a mortal sin if the jest leaves the insult, not if it takes it away. Concina: “This distinction seems to me empty and worthless”; jest “does not diminish, but increases, the wickedness of blasphemy”, though words that only by hyperbole sound blasphemous, as calling a woman “goddess”, are not blasphemy (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. X, Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. XI).
Hope
DespairWhether despair is ever forgiven
On whether despair can be forgiven, McHugh-Callan says “it is not unpardonable” (n. 1070); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, that it “can scarcely be remitted” (Sole Question: Of what power despa, n. 17). Spirago says that as a sin against the Holy Ghost it “is never forgiven” (THE OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE).
PresumptionWhether presumption admits light matter
On light matter, Sabetti-Barrett holds presumption “mortal from its genus, but not from its whole genus” (n. 164). Merkelbach, Noldin and Wouters hold the presumption directly against hope mortal from its whole genus, and McHugh-Callan says presumption properly so called is never venial from lightness of matter (n. 1090).
PresumptionHow often presumption is committed
How often it is committed: Marc calls presumption “more frequent than desperation” (n. 463); Merkelbach says it is “rarely fully deliberate” (I, n. 835), and McHugh-Callan, Vermeersch and Noldin call presumption properly so called rare. Concina joins Marc: into presumption, “more frequently than into desperation, fall those sinners who trust that they will attain eternal glory without fasting, without the buffeting of the flesh, and without laborious works” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. VIII).
Charity
EnvyHow often it is mortal
All also allow that it can be venial: St. Thomas in its imperfect movements (II-II, q. 36, a. 3), Merkelbach and Noldin from lightness of matter (n. 952; n. 338). Prümmer and Wouters go further. Prümmer: “In practice envy by itself alone is rarely a mortal sin” (n. 422). Wouters: “more often it is venial” (n. 314). Billuart, with St. Thomas: venial “both from indeliberation of act, and from lightness of matter, as if it be about some slight good of the neighbor” (On hatred of God and of the neighbor;…, n. 10).
ScandalMortal of its nature, or by what it occasions
Bontempi, writing in 1676, says that every scandal “is mortal of its own nature” (Question II: Whether scandal is a specia, n. 1), where Noldin says it “will ordinarily be grave or light according as it furnishes an occasion of sinning gravely or lightly” (n. 104).
SlothSloth in the broad sense
Sloth in the broad sense is weighed differently. Prümmer holds it “a mortal sin from its genus” (n. 434). Marc calls it “sin per se venial, but disposing proximately to mortal sin” (n. 372). Vermeersch and Sabetti-Barrett make it grave only when a grave duty is left undone (n. 487; n. 145).
HatredRefusing satisfaction; going to law
Refusing satisfaction and going to law. Merkelbach's Pastoral Questions counts among those who sin from hatred those who “do not accept a fitting satisfaction” (Pastoral, Q. V), and Marc says such persons sin “of themselves gravely” (n. 500). Vermeersch: “strictly speaking, we are not forbidden not to accept an offered satisfaction and to pursue a juridical action for injuries. Yet this is dangerous” (n. 88). Prümmer reports that St. Alphonsus never dared absolve those who left their enemy to the judge, and calls this “rather strict” (n. 574).
HatredDenying the common signs of love today
Denying the common signs of love. Prümmer measures the sin by the hatred and the scandal (n. 575), as do Marc and Merkelbach's Pastoral Questions. Vermeersch warns that the older authors' answers “cannot prudently be inculcated today without a new examination” (n. 88), and that “the mere omission of the signification of love will rarely today be able to be condemned as grave” (n. 95).
HatredWhether hatred of God is simply the gravest sin
Hatred of God as the gravest sin. Prümmer gives the title to hatred of enmity “from its genus” and adds that “on account of special circumstances sometimes some other sin can be graver than hatred of God” (n. 564). Merkelbach and Noldin hold enmity toward God graver than abomination (I, n. 945); Marc says the two “do not differ in species” (n. 475). Concina gives the title to the hatred “by which the will detests God insofar as he prohibits sins and inflicts punishments” (III, diss. IV, ch. II, n. I), the hatred St. Thomas sets in God's effects, His forbidding of sin and inflicting of punishment.
Sins Against Charity Toward OneselfWhether charity toward oneself binds gravely
Whether this charity binds gravely of itself. Noldin: “there is no precept which from charity of self alone obliges under grave matter” (n. 70). McHugh-Callan: “The obligation is grave” (n. 1562). Prümmer says that one who rashly exposes himself to the danger of sinning “gravely wounds charity toward himself” (n. 388).
Sins Against Charity Toward OneselfGiving one's life for a neighbor
Giving one's life for a neighbor. Bontempi reports that Hurtado held “that it is a sin to die for the life of a neighbor” (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 9), and that others hold it licit (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 10). Wouters and Vermeersch count it no sin to yield a plank in shipwreck (n. 525).
StrifeWhether the aggressor's sin can be venial
In the aggressor, St. Thomas says it is a mortal sin, “for it is not without mortal sin that one inflicts harm on another even if the deed be done by the hands” (II-II, q. 41, a. 1). Merkelbach, Marc and McHugh-Callan allow it to be venial when slight: “if it does not exceed measure, as also a very light fight, it is venial” (I, n. 954); “frequently only a venial sin” (n. 1430).
War and SeditionFighting on a feast day without need
Fighting on feast days. St. Thomas: “as soon as the need ceases, it is no longer lawful to fight on a holy day” (II-II, q. 40, a. 4); Merkelbach likewise (II, n. 276). Bontempi: “It is nevertheless not a mortal sin, outside necessity, to fight on a feast day, provided Mass is heard” (By whom war may be waged, n. 12).
ScandalDancing decently: an innocent pastime, or to be shunned
Dancing: an innocent pastime, or to be shunned. Sabetti-Barrett: to attend and dance decently at honorable dances “can easily also be free of every sin” (n. 191), and a promise to give up dancing would be demanded “altogether imprudently” (n. 191); McHugh-Callan: in standard dances many find “innocent pastime”, with physical and social goods (n. 1457); Spirago: “In the art of dancing there is nothing evil or reprehensible” (VII. OCCASIONS OF SIN). Vermeersch: from worldly dances, as far as his condition allows, “a true Christian should abstain” (n. 132); Wouters would keep even respectable dances away, for the levity they breed (n. 470); Prümmer would have the young attend “more rarely” (n. 615). St. Alphonsus bids the nun “never on any account to dance” (True Spouse, ch. XXIV).
ScandalThe new close dances: illicit, or judged by the danger case by case
The new close dances. Prümmer: the tango, jazz and shimmy “are wont greatly to incite to lust and therefore are illicit” (II, n. 697); Merkelbach's Pastoral finds in such dances an amorous meaning “from which signification or indecency they can scarcely be freed” (Pastoral, Q. VI), though the older close dances are “not necessarily dishonorable” (Pastoral, Q. VI); Wouters: dances of close embrace are a proximate occasion “for many, especially young men”, not commonly for girls (n. 470). Sabetti-Barrett reports the round dances “reckoned by some” gravely illicit (n. 190), but holds their malice “consists only in danger”, to be judged case by case (n. 190), and refuses confessors leave to deny absolution to all who dance them (n. 191); the Pastoral likewise allows refusal only for a proximate occasion (Pastoral, Q. VI).
ScandalIntroducing a fashion of partial uncovering: mortal, or venial
Introducing a new fashion of partial uncovering. Marc: women who bring in a dress baring the arms or part of the breast where it does not prevail “are not excused from mortal sin”, though those who follow it once introduced are not of themselves condemned (n. 516); Noldin: “authors teach by common consent” that one can sin gravely by introducing what elsewhere custom has made harmless (n. 107). Merkelbach's Pastoral counts it mortal to introduce the baring of the upper breast against custom (Pastoral, Q. VI), but only venial to bare the arms or the breast moderately, “or introduce such a custom” (Pastoral, Q. VI). McHugh-Callan: the obscenity of dress “is largely dependent on its novelty” (n. 1457). Concina allows no appeal to custom at all. Of the bared breast: “Several more recent writers defend this nakedness of the bosom as innocent of grave fault, if it be according to the custom of the country. Hence I judge this opinion false, improbable, and lax”, and “Let Confessors, then, refuse absolution” to such women (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XVII, III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XVIII); against Diana, who excused excessive adornment “provided it be according to the custom of the country”, he asks, “Can the custom of the country, then, derogate from the holy Scriptures”? (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. IX).
CharityWhen inverting the order of charity is grave
When inverting the order of charity is a grave sin. Merkelbach: it “is not mortally evil unless there is question of extreme necessity; - or unless it is very notable and is done without any reason” (I, n. 915). Marc makes grave necessity enough: inversion “if it is a question of grave or extreme necessity, contains grave sin” (n. 484); Wouters asks both “extreme or grave necessity” and a notable inversion (n. 573). Prümmer says only that in “light necessity, some inversion of the order does not exceed the guilt of venial sin” (n. 582). Among the nearest kin they agree it is light; Bontempi reports Tanner, Bonacina and Filliucius judging it venial “because the distance is small and on either side the opinions are probable” (Whether a man ought to love his sp, n. 3).
CharityRefusing to speak to or greet an enemy
Refusing to speak to or greet one another. Prümmer: “ordinarily it is sin if two students of the same seminary, or two religious of the same convent” stop speaking and greeting, “since this is usually from hatred or from enmity and causes scandal” (n. 576). Noldin makes the same case a light sin when “the cause of enmity is light” (n. 83), and Vermeersch light where “two nuns, because of a moderate quarrel, break off communication for some days” (n. 88). Merkelbach: “it seems too general, what some say without restriction, that a religious who after ten days does not wish to speak to a confrere is not to be absolved” (I, n. 897), and in his regions the omission of a greeting “once or twice is often a venial sin” (I, n. 897). Vermeersch: “the mere omission of the signification of love will rarely today be able to be condemned as grave” (n. 95). Bontempi reports Fagundez and Suarez holding “that it is mortal to deny these signs of Charity”, while not to return a salutation “is per se only venial” (Whether we are bound to show the e, n. 12); Sabetti, with St. Alphonsus, says that where a greeting is a special sign the obligation to give it “is not grave” (n. 174). Concina: to return the greeting of one who greets you “is a duty, which cannot be neglected with deliberate mind without grave fault”, and the common signs are not to be suspended among “associates of the same body, college, and community”; yet “those who omit these signs are not straightway to be condemned of grave fault” (III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. IV). He sets among the lax opinions Vidal's, that those living in one college or order “can without the stain of mortal fault mutually deny particular signs of love” (III, diss. III, ch. II, n. VI). Billuart: to deny an enemy the common signs is to be “a scandal to him and to others” (Whether enemies are to be loved from…, n. 8).
CharityWishing a parent's death for an inheritance
Wishing a parent's death for an inheritance. Bontempi reports the dispute: Navarre held such desires mortal, “because the life of the neighbour is a good higher than riches”, while Sà, Azor, Sancius, Palaus and Bassaeus held them lawful; Bassaeus's proof he calls “frivolous” (How, and when, the precept of the, n. 3). Bontempi wrote before Innocent XI condemned the proposition “It is licit by an absolute desire to wish for the death of one's father, not indeed as an evil of the father, but as a good of the one wishing, because namely a rich inheritance will come to him”; Sabetti draws from it that “a wife cannot desire the death of her husband from the fact that she is unjustly badly treated by him” (n. 170). Concina sets out the lax opinions he rejects, Tamburini's and Castropalao's among them (III, diss. III, ch. II, n. II), and concludes: “Never, then, is it licit either to rejoice over, or to wish, evil to one's neighbor — and much less to oneself” (III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. VIII).
CharityWhether alms bind gravely in common necessity
Whether alms bind gravely in common necessity. Prümmer holds “a grave obligation of sometimes giving alms from goods superfluous to status”, with St. Alphonsus, while granting that the denial “is at least extrinsically probable” (n. 594). Merkelbach: “Indeed also probably in common necessity” (I, n. 931); Marc: “St. Alphonsus affirms, with the more common opinion” (n. 488); McHugh-Callan: the obligation “as it appears, is also grave” (n. 1238); Wouters affirms it, but a rich man sins gravely only “if he proposed never, or scarcely ever, to give alms except to one constituted in grave necessity” (n. 533). Noldin denies it can be established: “since the opinion affirming a grave obligation is not certain, but only probable, it cannot be established”, and names St. Antoninus and St. Thomas among those who deny it (n. 92). Vermeersch: “a grave obligation is not proved, although it is affirmed by many”, and less so today, when public subsidies provide for the poor (n. 105). Sabetti: “it is controverted among the Doctors” (n. 177). All say the confessor should not refuse absolution on this ground. Concina: “those rich are damned, unless they come to their senses, who do not fulfill the precept of almsgiving”, against Diana's objection that then “all the rich and their Confessors are damned” (III, diss. III, ch. VII, n. XV). Billuart: one who “never gave alms, or proposed never to give out of what is superfluous to status in common necessities, would not seem excusable from mortal sin” (Whether to give alms is a matter of…, n. 23).
Cooperation in Another's SinServing another's sin for a living
Serving another's sin for a living. Concina sets the cases against the Probabilists by name. Servants: “it is in no way licit to serve or minister to a prostitute at all”, against Laymann, Tamburini, Sporer and Caramuel (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XXVI, III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XXV); coachmen and boatmen who carry a master to his mistress, defended by Diana with Merolla, fall under Innocent XI's condemned proposition 51 (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XXII); letting a house to a prostitute who will keep a brothel there, affirmed by “Sanchez, Azor, Diana, Vasquez, Castropalao, Tamburini, the Salmanticenses, Sporer, and others”, he calls “illicit and vicious” (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XXVIII). Christian captives rowing Turkish galleys against innocent Christians sin gravely in his judgment, and he asks how the contrary escapes the same condemnation (III, diss. IV, ch. III, n. XIV); yet to borrow from a usurer ready to lend is lawful “grave necessity pressing”, with St. Thomas, since “to use another's sin for a good end is licit” (III, diss. IV, ch. III, n. XV).
Prudence
Imprudence in GeneralWhether venial from their kind
How grave the sins of imprudence are is disputed. Prümmer calls the four “venial from their kind” (n. 634). Merkelbach ascribes that view to “Lessius and generally the Jesuits who copy him” and holds the defect “not mortal per accidens, but per se and from its genus” (II, n. 36, ibid.).
NegligenceMortal negligence: per se or per accidens
Merkelbach answers those who read St. Thomas's two ways of mortal negligence (II-II, q. 54, a. 3) as mortal only per accidens: “negligence is always considered with the omitted work, and thus it is considered according to itself” (II, n. 36).
Prudence of the FleshWhether prudence of the flesh is mortal of itself
Marc says “This prudence is of itself mortal” (n. 397). St. Thomas, Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan make it mortal only when the evil end is the last end of life, and venial with a particular end (II-II, q. 55, a. 2). McHugh-Callan adds an improper use of the name, for care of the body for a good end, which “is not sinful, but virtuous” (n. 1676).
Justice
CovetousnessHow it is weighed
On gravity, St. Thomas, Prümmer and Merkelbach distinguish covetousness against justice, mortal in its genus, from covetousness against liberality alone. Noldin and Wouters state the rule by liberality, venial in itself, and add that it can become mortal when justice or charity is injured. Marc (n. 363) and Vermeersch (n. 491) state it the same way as Noldin and Wouters. McHugh-Callan takes avarice “as distinguished from theft and robbery” and so treats only the second kind (n. 2426). Sabetti-Barrett names both kinds (n. 141).
Vain Observance and MagicMortal or venial
The authors weigh vain observance differently. Marc calls it “a mortal sin from its whole genus” (n. 568). McHugh-Callan says there is “regularly only a venial sin” when it is of a non-religious kind (n. 2295), and Vermeersch that for such things theologians “hold it for merely venial” (n. 242). Prümmer, Noldin, Merkelbach, Wouters and Sabetti-Barrett make it grave of itself but often excused by the imperfection of the act (II, n. 516, n. 160, II, n. 787, n. 597, n. 206).
Rash Judgment and SuspicionThe gravity of suspicion
On the gravity of suspicion, St. Thomas calls the first degree “a venial and a light sin” (II-II, q. 60, a. 3), Merkelbach says “doubt or suspicion from its genus is not a grave sin but a light one” (II, n. 420), and Wouters says that they “ordinarily are only slight sins” (n. 1077). Prümmer reports that theologians “dispute greatly” whether rash suspicion is mortal from its genus (II, n. 200). Billuart takes the stricter side: “It is more probable that rash suspicion concerning the evil of one's neighbor, insofar as it comprehends doubt and opinion, is of its genus mortal sin”, when fully deliberate concerning a grave evil, and reads St. Thomas so, since suspicion too is “with contempt of one's neighbor” (On suspicion and rash judgment, n. 9, On suspicion and rash judgment, n. 15).
Theft and RobberyThefts by religious
Thefts by religious. Merkelbach reports that many treat religious as sons, requiring double, but finds this “too lax”, though a greater quantity than for others is required (II, n. 406); Marc says the rule for sons cannot be applied (n. 907); Vermeersch allows the matter to be increased “at least by half” (n. 660); Bontempi treats them as sons of moderately rich parents (On the thefts of religious, n. 3).
Theft and RobberyRestitution for small thefts that coalesced
Restitution for small thefts that coalesced. Wouters binds under grave sin only so far “that there no longer remains grave matter to be restored” (n. 1031); Bontempi rejects this, since the injury is grave by reason of the whole (Whether theft is mortal when, afte, n. 24).
Unjust DamageGrave damage from light fault
Grave damage from light fault. Prümmer sets out four opinions (II, n. 97) and prefers a light obligation to repair the whole (II, n. 97); Merkelbach binds lightly and only to partial repair, in proportion to the fault (II, n. 294); Sabetti-Barrett: “More probably he is held to nothing” (n. 425); McHugh-Callan reports that some deny and others affirm the duty (n. 1765). Billuart: “It is more probable that he who gravely damaged his neighbor through venial fault is held to some restitution”, against Lessius; to the whole under venial sin “is probable”, to a part only “equally probable”; and since grave damage rarely comes from a fault truly venial, “unless it be certainly established that the inadvertence was venial, it must be held in practice to be mortal” (Whether vehement theological fault…, n. 2, Whether vehement theological fault…, n. 5, Whether vehement theological fault…, n. 9).
Killing and Mutilating OneselfWishing for death to escape a grave evil
Wishing for death to escape a grave earthly evil. Noldin: licit, for example to escape a long illness (n. 329); Merkelbach: “of itself it is not sinful”, though imperfect (II, n. 354); Prümmer: something imperfect “and a venial sin” (II, n. 117).
Detraction and CalumnyTelling one prudent person
Telling a grave hidden sin, without cause, to one prudent man who will keep it. St. Thomas says such a man's good name is destroyed “not altogether but partly” (II-II, q. 73, a. 1, ad 2); Prümmer reads him as favoring the grave opinion and leaves the matter “uncertain” (II, n. 191); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, holds it mortal, since “reputation is often more harmed if it is said to one weighty person than if to many of the common people” (Whether, and how, restitution of f, n. 16); McHugh-Callan finds both opinions probable, the grave one “more common and more likely” (n. 2065). Noldin, who cites St. Thomas for this side, Wouters, Marc, Vermeersch, Sabetti-Barrett and Merkelbach hold it not grave, since reputation is the estimation of many (n. 647, n. 1069, n. 1200, n. 600, n. 316, II, n. 427).
Detraction and CalumnyDefaming oneself
Defaming oneself without cause. Merkelbach: of itself “only a sin of prodigality and of defect of charity toward oneself”, against justice only by accident (II, n. 432); Marc: regularly not mortal (n. 1200). Bontempi holds with St. Bonaventure that it is mortal, the Fathers' sayings on good name being “precepts for guarding against grave evils” (Whether anyone can defame himself, n. 3, Whether anyone can defame himself, n. 13).
ContumelyContumely graver than detraction?
Whether contumely is graver than detraction. St. Thomas: reviling is more grievous, “in as much as it implies greater contempt of one's neighbor” (II-II, q. 73, a. 3, ad 2); so Sabetti-Barrett, Bontempi and Vermeersch (n. 318, What contumely is, and whence it a, n. 15, n. 599). Noldin: graver only when reputation is injured with it; “But if honor alone is injured, it is a lighter sin than detraction” (n. 662).
DerisionA light jest taken very hard
A light jest that the other is foreseen to take very hard. Bontempi: “IF, however, you judge that he will be most gravely moved, it will be mortal” (On the malice of mockery, n. 4); Noldin: the jester “does not sin gravely, even if he knows that the other takes a light joke gravely”, the cause being the other's foolishness (n. 664); McHugh-Callan reports both opinions (n. 2109).
Rash Judgment and SuspicionGrave matter in judgment and in detraction
Whether the same matter is grave in rash judgment as in detraction. Wouters: grave matter is that which, “if it were revealed, would contain grave detraction” (n. 1077); Noldin: “graver matter is required to constitute grave judgment than grave detraction” (n. 661). Vermeersch makes a rash judgment grave even where telling one man would not be, since by it a crime is imposed “as if falsely” (n. 600). Billuart is with Wouters: “grave evil in this matter, as in the matter of detraction”, is whatever is highly disgraceful to the neighbor's good name, the quality of persons considered (On suspicion and rash judgment, n. 26).
Undue Worship of the True GodA preacher's invented story
A preacher who invents a story to move the people. Prümmer: even one “who invents an entire story” sins only venially (II, n. 501); so Noldin (n. 149), whom Merkelbach quotes, adding that the story be “(not miraculous)” (II, n. 772). Vermeersch excuses only a lesser thing, “as if, in confirming a true doctrine, some circumstance not explored is exhibited as certain” (n. 231); Marc counts it grave of itself to narrate false miracles to increase devotion (n. 554). Concina joins Marc: of one who “preaches fabricated miracles”, “All affirm that this is a most grave crime of superstition”, “nor does a pious intention of increasing devotion remove the guilt” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. I, n. VII).
Undue Worship of the True GodAuthors of superfluous worship
Superfluous worship is venial in all the authors, but Vermeersch adds: “Yet conscious authors of such superstitions cannot be excused from grave sin” (n. 233).
IdolatryIdolatry the gravest of all sins?
Whether idolatry is the gravest of all sins. St. Thomas: on the part of the sin itself “idolatry is the most grievous sin”, though heretics who knowingly corrupt the faith may sin more grievously (II-II, q. 94, a. 3). Merkelbach: considered in the concrete, “the greatest idolatry viewed objectively is graver than the greatest infidelity and the greatest hatred of God” (II, n. 775); McHugh-Callan likewise (n. 2279). Noldin: “the gravest after sins which are opposed to the theological virtues” (n. 152). Concina: idolatry is “the gravest of all the crimes opposed to religion”, but for the gravest of all he points to St. Thomas's other place, where “hatred of God, heresy, unbelief, and despair are the gravest of all crimes, being opposed to the theological virtues” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. III, n. V).
IdolatryPerfect or imperfect idolatry graver
Whether perfect or imperfect idolatry is graver. Prümmer, Noldin, Marc, Merkelbach, McHugh-Callan and Sabetti-Barrett: the imperfect, since it proceeds from malice, not ignorance (II, n. 503, n. 152, n. 556, II, n. 775, n. 2280, n. 204). Vermeersch: “perfect idolatry is objectively graver than imperfect”, though the imperfect can be subjectively graver (n. 237). Concina is with Vermeersch on the sin itself: idolatry joined with actual unbelief, “as when someone truly believes a creature to be God”, “involves the highest degree of malice” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. III, n. V).
DivinationConsulting a fortune-teller in jest
Consulting a fortune-teller in jest. Noldin, Marc, Merkelbach, Sabetti-Barrett, Vermeersch and Bontempi make it venial or no sin when done from curiosity without faith (n. 155, n. 563, II, n. 784, n. 209, n. 244, On divination by the elements, and, n. 5). Wouters makes it grave if done seriously, “even if only externally”, or if the soothsayer acts seriously, as formal cooperation (n. 600); Sabetti-Barrett likewise says that one who jests while the diviner acts seriously can “with difficulty be excused from gravely culpable cooperation” (n. 209); Merkelbach: if both jest, “no sin per se is present” (II, n. 784). Concina, of those who use lots and the cabala without believing in them: with the Salmanticenses, Sanchez and Lugo, “I myself would not dare to condemn them of mortal fault”, but “Whoever plays at such games even once sins venially”, and often is dangerous; with faith placed in them, they sin mortally, “those sin gravely who place faith in Egyptians, commonly called Gypsies” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. IV, n. XIII, III, diss. VIII, ch. I, n. XVIII).
Hypnotism and SpiritismLooking on at a séance
Looking on at a séance. Prümmer: watching sometimes from curiosity is “unlawful, but does not seem to be a grave sin” (II, n. 525); Noldin: present once or twice from curiosity, “he does not sin gravely” (n. 170); Merkelbach: mortal if habitual or with approval, scandal or danger, “otherwise it is probably only venial” (II, n. 780). Wouters: “It is gravely unlawful to attend spiritistic gatherings”, even without spiritistic intention (n. 605); Marc: they sin gravely who often assist, even from curiosity (n. 566); Sabetti-Barrett and Vermeersch give the Holy Office's answer of 1917 forbidding even looking on (n. 209, n. 248).
Tempting GodTempting God from curiosity: never light, or light in a small matter
Formal tempting of God from curiosity. Noldin: formal tempting is mortal from its whole genus and “does not admit smallness of matter” (n. 173); so Prümmer (II, n. 528). Marc reports many teaching that tempting God in a light matter from mere curiosity is only venial (n. 576), as Sabetti-Barrett holds; Bontempi reports both opinions, adding that the matter can be so small as to make it venial (What temptation is, and of how man, n. 4, What temptation is, and of how man, n. 6). Concina, against Marc's light illness: some say refusing medicine in a light illness in hope of God's help is venial, “But the more probable opinion is that this is always a grave fault”, the divine majesty being injured “always in the same way, however light or grave”; only imperfect deliberation makes it venial (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. I, n. IV).
PerjurySwearing to commit a light sin: grave or light
Swearing to commit a light sin. Prümmer: by the more probable opinion it seems grave (II, n. 459); Merkelbach: mortal from its whole genus (II, n. 798); Wouters and Marc, with St. Alphonsus, grave (n. 685, n. 610); Bontempi: one who swears it meaning to fulfil it “sins mortally” (Whether an oath made without justi, n. 3). Noldin: a light sin (n. 255); Vermeersch finds the malice remaining but the benign opinion of Lessius, Sanchez and Suarez probable (n. 193); Sabetti-Barrett sets St. Alphonsus against Suarez (n. 224); McHugh-Callan reports several opinions (n. 2250).
PerjuryBreaking a sworn promise in a light matter: light or mortal
Failing in a light matter a promise made on oath. McHugh-Callan: a venial sin of inconstancy; that every unfaithfulness is grave “is commonly denied” (n. 2261); Prümmer and Noldin call it breach of oath rather than perjury (II, n. 456, n. 254); Merkelbach: “rather a sin of omission” (II, n. 795). Bontempi holds it mortal with the first opinion and, as he reads him, St. Bonaventure, against Sanchez (Whether, and how, it is a sin to s, n. 19).
PerjuryOaths slipping out from an unretracted habit: light or mortal
Oaths that slip out from an unretracted habit. Noldin: of itself only light, being an oath lacking judgment, though grave by the danger of perjury (n. 255); Merkelbach: culpable in the habit, and grave if one is disposed to swear even false things (II, n. 799). Bontempi holds them mortal (When one who swears incautiously f, n. 7).
PerjurySwearing without due cause: grave or venial
Swearing without due cause. The Roman Catechism: “he who swears rashly and without deliberation commits a grave sin” (The Second Commandment). The manuals make an oath lacking judgment of itself venial (II, n. 458, II, n. 797, n. 255, n. 685, n. 612, n. 2250, n. 193, n. 224), and Bontempi too, unless due inquiry into the truth is gravely omitted (Whether an oath lacking judgment i, n. 2).
Taking God's Name in Vain“God damn” and like formulas: venial or blasphemous
“God damn” and like formulas. Sabetti-Barrett: “by God” or “God damn” of themselves are only venial, as vain use of the Name (n. 220), but “God damn your soul” is of itself blasphemous (n. 221). Noldin: such imprecations are blasphemies only when uttered against the creature as made by God, which the speaker ordinarily does not attend to (n. 208); McHugh-Callan: they are “usually not meant or understood” as wishing eternal punishment, and so are generally venial (n. 2113).
SacrilegeWorn vestments put to common use: unlawful or lawful once changed
Worn vestments put to common use. Prümmer finds it unbecoming to make a shirt even of torn and cut-up sacred linens (II, n. 553); Sabetti-Barrett: “it is not licit to mend profane garments from an old chasuble” (n. 215); Vermeersch reports St. Alphonsus finding light sacrilege in such use (n. 272). Vermeersch himself, Noldin and Merkelbach allow it once the form is changed, though not for sordid uses (n. 272, n. 179, II, n. 807).
SimonySacred functions done chiefly for money: venial or possibly mortal
Doing sacred functions chiefly for the money. The manuals deny it is simony (II, n. 563, n. 198). Prümmer: the canon who goes to choir only for the distributions “acts badly” (II, n. 563); Wouters and Marc: a venial sin, the order being inverted (n. 623, n. 588); McHugh-Callan: a sin of indevotion that “may even be mortal” (n. 2333). Concina, with St. Thomas, holds the contrary: “Guilty of simony are Canons who principally assist at choir on account of the distributions”, and “Those who preach either for the sake of applause or for the sake of gain are simoniacs” (XII, diss. II, ch. II, n. XXXII, XII, diss. II, ch. II, n. XIV).
SacrilegeMarried persons in a church: sacrilege, venial, or lawful for a cause
Married persons in a church. Bontempi sets out four opinions: always sacrilege (Navarre, Henriquez, Cajetan, Sylvius); only venial (the Gloss, with Soto not displeased); lawful for a cause and in secret; no fault in necessity, but mortal without cause (On sacrilege, n. 3, On sacrilege, n. 4). He holds that for a just cause and in secret there is neither fault nor violation of the church (On sacrilege, n. 9), the hope of offspring or pleasure being no just cause (On sacrilege, n. 10), danger of incontinence or a long siege being one (On sacrilege, n. 11). Noldin and Marc: sacrilege unless moral necessity excuses, Marc calling this “the more probable and more common opinion” (n. 26, n. 788); Wouters: “Many teach the same” (n. 42); Vermeersch: those shut up for weeks or in danger of incontinence “are excused by necessity itself” (n. 59). Prümmer: the older authors' question “can scarcely occur in our times” (II, n. 547).
DisobedienceFormal disobedience in light matter: always grave, or venial with imperfect contempt
Light matter. St. Thomas: disobedience to a superior's command “is a mortal sin”, venial sin being beside a precept rather than against it (II-II, q. 105, a. 1, ad 1); Noldin: formal disobedience “is always a grave sin” (n. 280). Prümmer: contempt of the person is mortal “although it concerns matter light in itself” (II, n. 579), but contempt of one command “admits slightness of matter” (II, n. 579); Merkelbach: venial “from imperfection of contempt” in light matter (II, n. 844); McHugh-Callan likewise (n. 2369), adding that contempt of a divine precept is grave even in small things, “perhaps” (n. 2369).
IngratitudeFormal ingratitude: ordinarily mortal, or only sometimes
How grave formal ingratitude is. Merkelbach: “of itself and ordinarily mortal”, as formal disobedience is (II, n. 878); McHugh-Callan: “from its nature seems to be a mortal sin” (n. 2379). Prümmer: it “can be a mortal sin if this contempt gravely offends the benefactor” (II, n. 609); Bontempi: “sometimes mortal; sometimes venial” (On ingratitude, n. 1); St. Thomas weighs the omission venial in itself, mortal from contempt or the benefactor's need (II-II, q. 107, a. 3).
LyingLying to save chastity: never, or the lesser evil for the weak
Lying to save chastity. St. Thomas: it is not lawful to lie “to deliver another from any danger whatever” (II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad 4); Spirago: not even to save one's life (What are the Reasons that should make us Ref). Bontempi reports St. Bonaventure: one who can expect not to consent should rather suffer violence than lie, but the imperfect who fears to yield may choose “the lesser evil, that of lying”, and this also to redeem another's (Whether among the degrees of lying, n. 17); elsewhere, with St. Bonaventure, he answers the soldier who saved a virgin that charity does not move to a lie (Whether every lie is intrinsically, n. 34).
Boasting and IronyBoasting of a sin never committed: grave, or venial of itself
Boasting of a sin one never committed. Vermeersch: such “fictitious boasting”, from human respect, “besides a lie, contains malice of itself grave” in grave matter, against the Christian's profession (n. 464). Merkelbach: where only some circumstance such as cleverness is approved, “which often happens if the matter concerns a fictitious work, of itself it does not exceed venial sin” (II, n. 867).
ProdigalityWhom the prodigal wrongs: only himself, or others too
Whom the prodigal wrongs. McHugh-Callan: his sin is not grave of its nature, “since it does not injure others” (n. 2428); Merkelbach: it is “only an excessive use of one's own goods” (II, n. 887). St. Thomas: the prodigal sins against himself, and “against others by spending the wherewithal to help others” (II-II, q. 119, a. 3, ad 1); Prümmer grounds the sin in man's being “not the absolute master of his goods” (II, n. 616).
JusticeA promissory oath in small matter
Whether a promissory oath binds gravely in a small matter. Prümmer: “greatly disputed”; Cajetan, Lessius, Valentia and Concina hold every breach of a valid oath grave perjury, and the “far more common and more probable opinion” admits small matter (II, n. 450). Merkelbach: it “probably admits lightness of matter, just as a vow does” (II, n. 755); Noldin and Marc: it binds gravely or lightly as the thing promised is grave or light (n. 250; n. 614); Wouters: “it is disputed whether the obligation is grave or light” (n. 689); Vermeersch: “practically, in no light matter will the obligation of a sworn promise have to be urged under grave sin” (n. 204). All hold an assertory oath to a falsehood grave in any matter. Concina in his own words: the failure is always mortal against the oath, though light against the promise, for “the oath takes its species from truth”, and to invoke God “as witness of falsity, even in the lightest matter, is a most grave injury against God”; the contrary of Soto, Suarez, Sanchez, Tamburini, Azor, the Salmanticenses and others is “False” (Theol. V, diss. II, ch. I, n. X, Theol. V, diss. II, ch. I, n. XV).
Temperance
DrunkennessLoss of reason for a short time
Marc says that drunkenness “is not mortal if it deprives one of reason for a short time” (n. 758). McHugh-Callan says this opinion “is commonly rejected” (n. 2480).
Excessive Self-AbjectionGiving up one's reputation
On giving up one’s own reputation without cause the authors weigh it differently. Noldin says it is not “against charity” and “does not exceed venial sin” unless reputation is needed for an office or others are harmed (n. 66). Merkelbach calls it “prodigality against charity toward oneself” (II, n. 169). Prümmer says that man “is gravely prohibited” from it, “especially if his infamy redounds upon his neighbor” (II, n. 7).
PrideHow pride is weighed
Prümmer, Noldin, Wouters, Marc, McHugh-Callan and Vermeersch weigh pride as complete (mortal) or incomplete (venial). Merkelbach weighs it by the contempt of God it contains: explicit, always mortal; implicit, mortal in grave matter but “often” venial, “also from lightness of matter” (I, n. 500).
GluttonyEating to vomiting
On vomiting the authors part. Noldin, Wouters, Merkelbach, Vermeersch, Marc and the Pastoral Questions hold eating even to vomiting venial; McHugh-Callan holds it “seems to be a mortal sin” when the quantity causes it (n. 2472). Vomiting in order to eat again Prümmer and Marc, after St. Alphonsus, scarcely excuse from mortal sin (n. 426); Vermeersch (n. 475) and Merkelbach (II, n. 979) hold it venial still, and Wouters reports the doubt and leans to venial (n. 319).
LustMerely sensual pleasure
On merely sensual pleasure sought for its own sake, Merkelbach holds that it “does not exceed venial fault”, adding that Cajetan and St. Alphonsus think otherwise (II, n. 1003). Marc holds the milder opinion “not practically probable” (n. 769), and Sabetti-Barrett says that in practice “there will always be some slight fault” (n. 280). Merkelbach's own Questions on Chastity and Lust add that such pleasure “is a sin grave by its genus” when it carries “the proximate danger of consenting” (Chastity and Lust, Q. II).
LustWhy lust directly willed admits no light matter
All hold that lust directly willed admits no light matter, but they give different reasons. Prümmer, Noldin, Marc and McHugh-Callan rest it on the danger of going further. Merkelbach adds that whoever seeks the incomplete pleasure implicitly wills the complete. Sabetti-Barrett calls venereal pleasure a begun emission (n. 280), an argument Noldin says “does not have universal value” (n. 11).
DrunkennessBrief drunkenness
Besides Marc: Noldin admits smallness of matter for perfect drunkenness lasting less than an hour (n. 343); Wouters says “according to most authors” it is not mortal when brief (n. 320); Merkelbach allows venial “from shortness of time”, adding that in practice this hardly applies (II, n. 986); Vermeersch reasons that where the danger of sin is absent, “the alleged reason of grave sin also will be absent” (n. 477). Prümmer rejects the opinion by name: “we do not admit the opinion defended by Lacroix, Noldin, and others” (II, n. 670).
DrunkennessDrinking to drunkenness but escaping its effect
Drinking to drunkenness but escaping its effect. Noldin: “he does not sin gravely who by a medicine prevents himself from being deprived of the use of reason” (n. 343); Marc: “it would be less grave” (n. 757). McHugh-Callan: such a one does not sin mortally by drunkenness, but “must sin mortally by reason of gluttony, injury to health, or scandal” (n. 2480); Prümmer: “in practice, such gluttons are scarcely excused from mortal sin” (II, n. 670).
DrunkennessMaking another drunk to prevent a greater sin
Making another formally drunk to keep him from a greater sin. Prümmer: it “is rightly denied by others” (II, n. 671); Vermeersch: “with the more probable opinion we have denied to be licit” (n. 479). Merkelbach: “According to some, this is probably licit” (II, n. 993); Sabetti-Barrett says it is more commonly denied but St. Alphonsus admits it as probable (n. 150).
DrunkennessDrunkenness for a grave cause
Drunkenness for a grave cause. McHugh-Callan reports that “Some theologians, however, refuse to excuse intoxication for any reason” (n. 2477), and Sabetti-Barrett that “It can never be lawful to assume drunkenness as a means” (n. 149). Merkelbach allows it even as a means, “because for the good of the whole it is licit to deprive oneself of the good of a part” (II, n. 985); Marc gives St. Alphonsus against, and Lessius for, drinking to escape a threatened death (n. 759).
DrunkennessNarcotics for the dying
Narcotics for the dying. Merkelbach holds it gravely illicit to deprive a dying man of reason, even one rightly disposed (II, n. 989). Vermeersch: “we incline toward the more benign side whenever no preparation for death is impeded” (n. 478).
Vices of Bearing, Play and DressPainting the face
How grave it is. Painting the face: St. Thomas calls it “a kind of falsification, which cannot be devoid of sin”, though mortal only for sensuous pleasure or in contempt of God (II-II, q. 169, a. 2, ad 2); Merkelbach counts simulated beauty a venial sin, and no sin where general custom has brought it in (II, n. 1067); Bontempi says it is not of itself mortal (On the adornment of women, n. 24) yet “vicious and reproved by the Saints” (On the adornment of women, n. 25). Prümmer says “there is no reason why cosmetics should be morally evil” apart from scandal and an evil end (II, n. 717), and McHugh-Callan “In itself there is no harm” (n. 2570).
LustDeflowering a consenting virgin: a species of its own, or only aggravating
The deflowering of a virgin who consents. St. Thomas makes it a determinate species of lust (II-II, q. 154, a. 6); Merkelbach keeps it a distinct species (II, n. 1008), yet holds it more probably adds no mortal malice to be confessed (II, n. 1008), and his Pastoral calls it “only a venial species” (Pastoral, Ar. II). Prümmer: an aggravating circumstance only, “the common opinion of modern authors” (II, n. 699); Noldin: no sin in the man specifically diverse from fornication (n. 24), though the virgin herself “commits the sin of prodigality”, a light one (n. 24); Wouters, with St. Alphonsus: it “lacks every injustice and is equivalent to mere fornication” (n. 44); Marc: “more probably within the same species” (n. 776); Sabetti-Barrett: “only aggravating” (n. 298); Vermeersch: no new malice, “at least no grave one” (De castitate, n. 318). McHugh-Callan reports authors who count it special only with violence or injury to the parents' right (n. 2529).
LustBreaking off sinful intercourse begun: lawful, or a graver sin
Breaking off the act once begun. Merkelbach's Pastoral: lawful from displeasure at the sin, even with danger of pollution, but not for fear of infamy (Pastoral, Ar. I); McHugh-Callan: the pollution “may be excused” if it comes from the good purpose to stop (n. 2526); Vermeersch, with Sanchez: lawful, and finishing it after a new deliberation more probably a new sin, though Palmieri inclines the other way (De castitate, n. 312). Wouters: lawful, “indeed there is an obligation of doing so” (n. 51). Bontempi rejects breaking off, as “a new sin against nature, graver than fornication” (On fornication, n. 9).
LustExpelling the seed after violence: unlawful, or probably lawful
Expelling the seed afterward. Merkelbach holds it unlawful even for a woman forced (II, n. 1010); so his Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. II) and Wouters with St. Alphonsus (n. 44). Marc: “Probably an oppressed woman does not commit sin who at once expels the seed”, the right of repelling aggression prevailing (n. 742), though one who sinned willingly may not (n. 742). Vermeersch goes further: he does “not contradict Alberti” that a woman who has sincerely repented of fornication may so impede generation (De castitate, n. 312).
LustPollution and fornication: which is simply graver
Pollution or fornication: which is graver. With St. Thomas the authors set the sins against nature highest in the genus of lust (II-II, q. 154, a. 12): Prümmer finds pollution “a graver injury to chastity than adultery”, though adultery is simply graver for its injustice (II, n. 704); so Merkelbach (II, n. 1015). Vermeersch grants that in the genus of lust “pollution exceeds fornication in gravity” (De castitate, n. 342), yet holds that “it must be said to have a guilt simply less”, fornication adding the danger of offspring, complicity, audacity and obstinacy (De castitate, n. 342). The Pastoral allows that a sin according to nature may be graver “on the part of the agent” (Pastoral, Q. Four).
LustA medicine so that natural emissions come more easily: lawful or not
Wishing for a natural pollution. Vermeersch, with Sanchez, Lessius and most: lawful “to desire it by a simple affection because of the conveniences which follow it”, and to rejoice in it (De castitate, n. 330); so the Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. I) and McHugh-Callan (n. 2536); Bontempi, with Navarre, Toledo and Sanchez, grants it against Valentia, Soto and Sylvius (Subdoubt IV: On pollution, n. 12, Subdoubt IV: On pollution, n. 11). Vermeersch further lets one whose emissions come with difficulty “take a suitable medicine” so that nature may act regularly (De castitate, n. 330); the Pastoral reports this as his judgment, while holding that one may not procure or assist it (Pastoral, Ar. I).
LustResisting carnal movements: whether displeasure alone suffices
Resisting carnal movements. Prümmer: theologians dispute whether one sins mortally who neither consents nor resists, but “in practice an act of displeasure of the will must be posited”, and that, seriously made, suffices (II, n. 690). Marc: where the danger is remote, it is only venial not to resist positively (n. 322); where proximate, one must resist, “at least through an act of simple displeasure” (n. 322). Noldin, without a reasonable cause for admitting them, requires positive resistance, since “an act of simple displeasure concerning the movement and carnal delectation does not suffice” (n. 50).
LustDelight of the widowed and betrothed, and the betrothed's kisses: lawful or not
The widowed and the betrothed. Prümmer, with Cajetan and Ballerini: “theoretically speaking, a widow can rejoice over licit acts had in marriage”, and joy of the betrothed in their future marriage is not clearly forbidden, though all counsel avoiding both (n. 401); McHugh-Callan counts the widower's memory without present commotion no sin (n. 2507). Wouters, with St. Alphonsus, “although many contradict”, holds such delight unlawful (n. 121); Marc, “according to the truer opinion” (n. 357). Of kisses between the betrothed, Vermeersch reports Sanchez, Cajetan and Navarre judging the pleasure they bring only venial (De castitate, n. 293), and rejects it “with most authors” (De castitate, n. 293); Sabetti-Barrett, with St. Alphonsus, likewise, though “perhaps it can sometimes be useful to confessors” (n. 282); Prümmer allows the kisses customary between them (II, n. 693).
LustNude statues, pictures and models: grave, or ordinarily not
Nude statues, pictures and artists' models. Noldin: a fixed and lingering look at plainly naked statues without necessity “is a grave sin”, unless they are very ancient (n. 57); Prümmer: truly artistic representations ordinarily are “not a grave danger for an adult and serious person” (II, n. 695); Marc reports St. Alphonsus that he does not know how a lingering look at a painted nude can be excused (n. 814), and Sabetti-Barrett agrees (n. 286); Vermeersch judges by cause, manner and object, “A painting sharpens the stimuli of the flesh more than a sculpture” (De castitate, n. 400). Of models, Prümmer, Noldin and McHugh-Callan allow them so far as the art truly needs them (II, n. 695, n. 60, n. 2511), while Marc calls it “sharply disputed” (n. 815); Noldin holds that without necessity those who pose sin gravely (n. 60), Vermeersch that those who charge such women with grave sin are “excessively severe” (De castitate, n. 399).
LustDesiring a sin on condition it were lawful: grave or not
Desiring a sin on condition that it were lawful. Marc: such a desire is regularly not grave, the condition taking away the malice (n. 349), and this is “sufficiently probable” even of things evil in themselves (n. 349); Wouters, with St. Alphonsus, doubts there is a true desire at all, though “most authors accuse” it (n. 125). Vermeersch: it is not lawful, as though grieving over the prohibition, “deliberately to adhere to this will” to fornicate if it were not forbidden (De castitate, n. 369); Prümmer counts what one would do “if it were licit” among inefficacious desires, every one of which is gravely illicit (n. 402).
TemperancePainting the face: a sin or no evil of itself
Painting the face. St. Thomas, after St. Augustine: it “is a kind of falsification, which cannot be devoid of sin”, though not always mortal; to hide a disfigurement is lawful (II-II, q. 169, a. 2, ad 2). Merkelbach holds the same, but excepts the case where custom is general, “because then it would deceive no one” (II, n. 1066). Prümmer: “Ancient authors spoke more severely concerning cosmetics applied to the face. But apart from scandal and every evil end, there is no reason why cosmetics should be morally evil” (II, n. 717). McHugh-Callan: “In itself there is no harm”, naming “facial paints, powders and cosmetics”, though there could be sin by accident, as by deception (n. 2570).
Which Side of the Mean
Fortitude
FortitudeTimidity and daring
They name the opposed vices from different sides. For St. Thomas, timidity is “by excess of fear” (II-II, q. 126, a. 2). Noldin follows the passions and so counts four: fearlessness and cowardice by defect, timidity and rashness by excess (n. 277). Merkelbach measures against firmness instead, so timidity is the vice “by defect” and fearlessness the vice “by excess” (II, n. 912, n. 913). Prümmer makes timidity and cowardice one vice under two names (II, n. 638). Vermeersch sets “timidity and sloth” by defect and “fearlessness that loves dangers and immoderate daring” by excess (n. 713).
FortitudeImpatience and insensibility
The same split recurs under patience. Wouters and Merkelbach put impatience by defect and insensibility by excess (n. 428, II, n. 926). Prümmer calls insensibility the vice “By defect” because it lacks sadness, and impatience the vice “By excess (of sadness, but by defect of endurance)” (II, n. 641). The authors agree on the vices and differ only in what they measure.
FearlessnessFearlessness: by excess or defect
Which side of the mean: St. Thomas sets fearlessness against fortitude “by deficiency of fear” (II-II, q. 126, a. 2), and Noldin lists it among the vices “by defect” (n. 277). Merkelbach, Marc and Vermeersch, measuring by fortitude rather than by fear, set it “by excess” (II, n. 911).
DaringWhether daring has a contrary deficiency
St. Thomas says the vice of excessive daring “has no contrary deficiency, save only timidity” (II-II, q. 127, a. 2, ad 3). Noldin, McHugh-Callan and Bontempi name a vice of falling short in daring, cowardice (n. 277, On the vices opposed to fortitude, n. 8); Prümmer and Merkelbach make cowardice only another name for timidity.
Temperance
PrideExcess or defect
Which way pride departs from humility is disputed. St. Thomas, Noldin and Wouters say by excess (II-II, q. 162, a. 1, ad 3; n. 336; n. 456). Prümmer and Merkelbach say by defect, and put inordinate self-abasement on the side of excess (n. 715; n. 1047).
AngerExcess or defect
Noldin, Prümmer and Wouters say anger is opposed to meekness by excess (n. 349; n. 709; n. 449). Merkelbach says “by defect”, and gives the excess to lack of anger (n. 1036).
TemperanceIntemperance and insensibility; cruelty
As with fortitude, the same vices are named from opposite sides. Noldin and Merkelbach put insensibility by defect and intemperance by excess (n. 284, II, n. 941); Wouters reverses them (n. 434). Prümmer calls cruelty the vice “by defect” (II, n. 710), Wouters and Noldin by excess (n. 452, n. 285). Marc sets insensibility by excess and intemperance by defect, and opposes to meekness “irascibility (defect) and excessive indulgence (excess)” (n. 410).
Lack of AngerLack of anger: by excess or defect
All set this vice against meekness, but name its side differently. Wouters and Prümmer call it the vice “by defect” (n. 449, II, n. 709), as Noldin does (n. 285). Merkelbach says irascibility is opposed “primarily and by defect”, and lack of anger “secondarily and by excess” (II, n. 1036); McHugh-Callan calls it “Sinful indulgence, which is opposed to meekness by excess” (n. 2550). The fault described is the same: too little anger where duty calls for it.
Cruelty and Excessive LeniencyCruelty: by excess or defect
McHugh-Callan sides with Prümmer: cruelty is “The extreme of defect”, and undue leniency the extreme of excess (n. 2552).
Excessive Self-AbjectionSelf-abjection: by excess or defect
Which side. Prümmer sets self-abjection against humility “by excess” and pride by defect (II, n. 715), and Merkelbach likewise, abasement “secondarily and by excess” (II, n. 1047); Wouters reverses the sides, self-abjection “By defect” (n. 456). Vermeersch names no such vice: against humility by defect he sets “timidity” and pusillanimity (n. 728); McHugh-Callan says abjection, as a turning from higher things, “is the same as littleness of soul” (n. 2561).
TemperanceHumility: pride by excess or by defect
Which side of humility pride stands on. St. Thomas: pride “may be opposed by excess, both to magnanimity and humility” (II-II, q. 162, a. 1); so Wouters, “By excess there is opposed pride” (n. 456), and Vermeersch, “by excess through pride and presumption” (n. 729). Prümmer turns it round: “Opposed to humility by excess is inordinate self-abjection”, and pride by defect (II, n. 715); so Merkelbach, “Inordinate abasement is opposed to humility secondarily and by excess; but by defect and primarily, pride is opposed” (II, n. 1047), and Marc, “inordinate self-abjection (excess)” and “pride (defect)” (n. 410). McHugh-Callan names “the extremes of pride and of abjectness or littleness of soul” (n. 2553). On the side of too little, Vermeersch sets not self-abjection but “timidity and pusillanimity”, vices “which are opposed to fortitude and magnificence” (n. 729).
What a Thing Is or Requires
Faith
ApostasyWho is an apostate
Prümmer alone holds that any Catholic who denies a single article “becomes a true apostate” (n. 512). Noldin and Wouters keep the name for total defection (n. 28, n. 492). Concina and Billuart side with Noldin and Wouters: the apostate “bids farewell to Christ and to his whole Religion”, the heretic “admits many others” (III, diss. I, ch. IX, n. IV); apostasy “is distinguished from heresy, which is a desertion of the faith as to a part only” (On apostasy, n. 2).
HeresyWhether culpable ignorance excuses from heresy
Bontempi does not join the manuals on culpable ignorance. He holds probable, with St. Bonaventure, the opinion “that no gravely culpable ignorance excuses from heresy” (Whether ignorance excuses from her, n. 2, Whether ignorance excuses from her, n. 7), though he grants the opposite opinion is probable too (Whether ignorance excuses from her, n. 25). Billuart and Concina join the manuals, excepting only affected ignorance: one who errs “through ignorance, even culpable, crass, and supine, yet not affected”, is “not a formal heretic”, though “he sins mortally against the affirmative precept of the faith” (On heresy, n. 7); material heresy is culpable if the ignorance is vincible, but where the error is affected, “for the end of speaking and living more freely, or of contradicting the authority of the Church: for then it is formal heresy” (III, diss. I, ch. IX, n. II).
Doubt in Matters of FaithWhether the doubter is a heretic
Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, holds that “one doubting concerning matters of faith is not properly a heretic” but an unbeliever “privatively” (Whether one who doubts about the a, n. 6, Whether one who doubts about the a, n. 9), though he reports that “the common opinion proclaims as a heretic” one who deliberately judges a matter of faith doubtful (Whether one who doubts about the a, n. 2). The manuals follow the common opinion. Concina: “the disagreement is of words rather than of the thing”. In a suspension after the laws of metaphysics one is no heretic; but since in practice a pertinacious doubter can scarcely avoid “some reflex judgment by which he judges the things of faith to be doubtful”, “in practice they are commonly heretics who with pertinacious mind doubt about the things of faith” (III, diss. I, ch. IX, n. III), and he sets Torrecilla's “One doubting in faith with a voluntary but merely suspensive doubt is not a heretic” among the lax opinions (III, diss. I, ch. II, n. X). Billuart: positive doubt makes a formal heretic, merely negative doubt does not; but where the suspension comes from the will moved by difficulties, “some hold, not improbably, that the malice of heresy is included therein” (On heresy, n. 12, On heresy, n. 13, On heresy, n. 14).
Denial and Dissimulation of FaithConcealing the faith when not bound
Whether to conceal the faith when not obliged: Prümmer, quoted by Merkelbach, says it is “much better to profess faith candidly” (I, n. 715), and McHugh-Callan that concealment “is not advisable” (n. 1008). Marc, after St. Alphonsus, says that when one is not asked, “often it is better” to cover the faith (n. 431), and Vermeersch calls concealment “per se lawful, and sometimes expedient” (n. 23). Billuart: “although it has never been licit to deny the faith, it is nevertheless licit sometimes to hide and dissemble it” (On the external act of faith, n. 13).
Denial and Dissimulation of FaithQuestioned by authority: must one answer
When questioned by public authority, Prümmer says “Theologians commonly teach” that one must confess even at the risk of life (n. 505). Marc, after St. Alphonsus, says “generally it is not true” that one so questioned must profess positively, unless silence would look like denial (n. 430). Bontempi reports four opinions, among them that one may keep silence or change the subject (Whether we are bound to confess fa, n. 10). Concina: “It is agreed among all” that those sin who keep silence before “the public Power sitting in tribunal” (III, diss. I, ch. VI, n. III).
BlasphemyBlasphemous words said as a mere interjection
Words of blasphemy said from habit as a mere interjection: Merkelbach holds that one who so utters them “commits the sin of blasphemy” (I, n. 783). Vermeersch, since the words are then without meaning, says “formal blasphemy seems to be denied”, though the scandal remains (n. 260). Concina says the opinion of Tamburini and Leander, that words uttered “through inadvertence arising from an inveterate custom, are not blasphemous in the least”, “inspires horror”: one who blasphemes from a habit not removed by penance “sins, then, a mortal sin, as often as he blasphemes”, while one who repents and labors to root it out “will sin only lightly” (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. V, Theol. III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. IX). Billuart: indeliberateness from a habit the blasphemer “does not care to eradicate as far as he can” does not excuse from mortal sin (On blasphemy, n. 12).
FaithWhether God's authority is itself believed in the act
Whether God's authority is itself believed in the act of faith. Prümmer: the motive is “the authority of God revealing, not known but believed” (n. 486); so, nearly, McHugh-Callan, for whom the one simple assent accepts “at the same time the authority of the Revealer and the truth of His revelation” (n. 799). Merkelbach: “in this act we do not believe nor in any way affirm the very authority of God revealing”; it is known beforehand and is only the motive (I, n. 694), and he rejects Suarez, who has it believed in the act (I, n. 694), and Lugo, who makes the act a reasoning (I, n. 694). Bontempi follows Lugo: God's veracity is the principle, and “the Truth of revelation is the conclusion deduced, as Lugo shows” (What the object of faith is, n. 34). Billuart is with McHugh-Callan: “by the same act we assent to the thing revealed and to the revelation” (On the habit of faith, n. 18), for the assent “is not discursive, but simple, and it rests solely in the testimony of the speaker” (What is the object of faith, n. 11).
FaithKnowing and believing the same truth at once
Knowing and believing the same truth. St. Thomas: “it is equally impossible for one and the same thing to be an object of science and of belief for the same person” (II-II, q. 1, a. 5). Merkelbach holds with him that at the moment of evident demonstration one “cannot at that moment accept the same truth on account of testimony, even divine testimony” (I, n. 680), though he may believe it “at another moment” (I, n. 680); McHugh-Callan: act of faith and act of knowledge cannot coexist about the same truth (n. 784). Wouters: “according to the more probable opinion even truths evidently known to reason, or admitted on account of their intrinsic evidence, can be believed by divine faith” (n. 358). Bontempi sets out St. Thomas and the Thomists against St. Bonaventure, Suarez, Lugo and others (Whether the object of faith can be, n. 1), and concludes with St. Bonaventure: “acts of faith and of science concerning the same object can exist” (Whether the object of faith can be, n. 12).
FaithA defined theological conclusion: divine or ecclesiastical faith
A theological conclusion the Church has defined. All agree that what is only virtually revealed is not, of itself, believed by divine faith. Once the Church has defined it, Prümmer: “then certainly that is to be believed by divine faith” (n. 484). Merkelbach: such things “are the object, not of divine faith, but of theological assent or even of ecclesiastical faith” (I, n. 675); Wouters: “More probably it must be held to be an assent of ecclesiastical faith” (n. 356). McHugh-Callan sets out both: many theologians make it ecclesiastical faith (n. 756); “Others deny the existence of such faith” and hold it believed with divine and Catholic faith after definition (n. 756).
FaithWhether God's wisdom is part of the motive of faith
God's wisdom in the motive of faith. Noldin: faith “rests on first truth, or on two divine perfections”, His wisdom and His veracity (n. 4). Merkelbach: the formal object is first truth in speaking, “insofar as it supposes first truth in knowing” (I, n. 667). Wouters: veracity alone constitutes it; “wisdom does not essentially constitute the formal object of theological faith, but nevertheless concurs toward it as a condition without which not” (n. 356). Billuart: the formal object by which is “the divine veracity revealing, connoting first truth in knowing, or the infinite wisdom of God”, since veracity “does not have that it be infallible unless it connote the infinite wisdom of God” (What is the object of faith, n. 5, What is the object of faith, n. 7).
FaithWhether a baptized child at reason can be saved without an act of faith
One baptized in infancy who reaches reason, keeps from mortal sin, and is never sufficiently taught the faith. Merkelbach: “he will be saved without an act of faith” (I, n. 707); Noldin: such are to be counted with infants until instructed, “and therefore can be saved even without an act of faith” (n. 8). Prümmer, against Lugo and Elbel, who say the same: “We deny that this can be admitted”, “because every adult capable of reason (and not only an adult sinner who wishes to be justified) is bound to obtain beatitude as a reward for good works” (n. 497). Concina is with Prümmer: “adults having the use of reason, though baptized in infancy, cannot attain eternal salvation without actual faith” (III, diss. I, ch. IV, n. III).
FaithExplicit faith in the Trinity and Incarnation: necessary as a means?
Explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation since the Gospel, as a means. St. Thomas holds it necessary (II-II, q. 2, a. 8); Bontempi calls it “THE TRUE teaching” (What must be believed by the neces, n. 18). Merkelbach: the affirmative opinion “is more probable” but not altogether certain (I, n. 707); McHugh-Callan: so “A majority of theologians hold, and with greater probability it seems” (n. 787); Prümmer: “This affirmative opinion must be followed in practice” (n. 499). Wouters: “the contrary opinion also is probable” (n. 488); Marc: the denial is “sufficiently probable” (n. 427); Sabetti-Barrett: “the negative opinion is certainly probable” (n. 157); Noldin calls the denial “theoretically more probable” (n. 10). Vermeersch, with Suarez and Lugo, makes it necessary “like baptism itself, in reality, or in desire” (n. 10). In practice all would have the dying instructed if possible, and absolved only conditionally if not. Concina will not call the denial probable at all: “The contrary opinion, which Fr. Sporer defends — who cites for it Laymann, Tanner, and other more recent writers — is false, and adverse to the luminous testimonies of God”, and the Salmanticenses' and Roncaglia's justification by a merely implicit faith per accidens is “Arbitrary and utterly fictitious” (III, diss. I, ch. IV, n. VI, III, diss. I, ch. IV, n. VII). Billuart: “This opinion is more probable and more common” (Whether it is of the necessity of…, n. 5).
FaithThe commandments: believed, or only known
Whether the commandments must be believed or only known. Noldin: “The precepts of the decalogue must not only be known, but also believed” (n. 12); Bontempi, with Suarez: “faith in the Decalogue is also necessary for its observance” (What things are to be believed by, n. 18); Wouters sets the Decalogue among the things that “by explicit faith there must be believed” (n. 489); Merkelbach: it “at least implicitly must be believed” (I, n. 709). Sabetti-Barrett: “Many affirm this, because the precepts of the Decalogue were revealed that they might be observed by all; but several rightly contradict it”, since they can be known without revelation and were given for doing; they must be known, not necessarily believed (n. 157). Billuart counts among the things all are bound “to believe explicitly” under mortal sin “all the precepts of the Decalogue and of the Church” (The remaining difficulties concerning…, n. 2).
FaithWhether the act of faith is due of itself at death
Whether the precept of faith binds of itself at death. Merkelbach counts death among the times it binds of itself (I, n. 790); Prümmer: “More probably” (n. 502); Marc: “as is more commonly taught” (n. 426); Wouters: “Thus many” (n. 489). Noldin: “it cannot be proved with certainty that faith is necessary at that time, unless a vehement temptation against faith urges”; the sinner needs it to be reconciled, which is another obligation (n. 14). Sabetti-Barrett: the question “has been resolved, at least practically”, since the dying must receive the sacraments (n. 153); McHugh-Callan sets it under the act of charity due at death (n. 935); Vermeersch leaves death out of the times the act is due of itself (n. 19). Concina: “At the time of death the precept urges of itself” (III, diss. I, ch. V, n. XIII), and he sets Leander's denial among the lax opinions (III, diss. I, ch. II, n. VI); Billuart: it “binds per se in danger of death” (The remaining difficulties concerning…, n. 12).
FaithWhen a question from authority obliges one to confess
Questioned about the faith by public authority. Prümmer: one is bound, even at the risk of life, “if he is questioned by public authority in a cause of faith” (n. 505); Noldin, “whether this happens publicly or privately” (n. 16); Merkelbach counts silence or ambiguity then a denial, generally (I, n. 712). Vermeersch: “at least if the legal order is observed by the one questioning” (n. 20); Wouters: only “when someone is summoned before the law” (n. 490); Marc: “outside the order of law” one may keep silence (n. 430); Sabetti-Barrett, with Kenrick, where the laws ignore religion one may “reject the interrogation as out of order” (n. 153); McHugh-Callan requires that the questioner have the right by law and ask “out of hatred of the faith” (n. 995). Bontempi reports St. Thomas against silence, others for it, and others who bind only a grave person or one questioned publicly (Whether we are bound to confess fa, n. 10). Concina: “It is agreed among all” that those sin who, questioned “by the public Power sitting in tribunal, keep silence”; before a private person “the circumstances of persons, of time, and of place must be regarded”; and the faithful must answer “a catholic Superior interrogating them about the faith”, “even if the Prince be a layman” (III, diss. I, ch. VI, n. III).
FaithWhether a pastor may flee persecution
A pastor in persecution. Noldin: “pastors of souls, bishops, and parish priests, cannot licitly flee” (n. 23); Prümmer: they must stay at the risk of life “if their flight would expose the people committed to them to grave danger of apostasy” (n. 505); so Merkelbach and Marc. Vermeersch leaves it to the pastor's judgment whether to confirm the others by staying, or “to withdraw himself for a time so that from a safe place he may administer the territory and reserve himself for the good of more persons” (n. 23); McHugh-Callan: if his life is needed and others can supply his absence, flight is even a duty (n. 1005); Spirago: “they may fly if their presence is not required, or if it seems likely to give rise to fresh persecutions” (VIII. ON THE DUTY OF CONFESSING OUR FAITH). Concina: pastors “can licitly flee, and sometimes ought, when tyrants rage against them personally, and other ministers are present”, as St. Athanasius did; but when none are present and the flock is “in grave danger of losing the faith, then the Pastors cannot flee” (III, diss. I, ch. VI, n. V).
FaithWhether a convert may stay hidden for life
A convert who must stay hidden. Noldin: a conversion may be hidden for a time, but “concealment for a long time is illicit” (n. 16); McHugh-Callan: “it cannot be permitted permanently” (n. 992); Vermeersch agrees that one who would be a hidden Christian all his life is not to be received (n. 26), yet where even a private profession would bring excessive evil and the public good commands silence, “it will be lawful to be a hidden Christian and to satisfy the debt of Christian profession through a posthumous revelation” (n. 26).
FaithMeeting a temptation against faith: an act of faith, or turning away
Meeting a temptation against faith. Spirago: “we should not argue with them, but should make an act of faith and pray for more faith” (VII. ON THE ABSENCE AND LOSS OF FAITH); Vermeersch: a simple, general act made calmly “will for the most part help in the temptation itself” (n. 17). Merkelbach's Pastoral: they are to be “fled and contemned without positive effort”, by turning to other things, with one general act afterward if wished, “nor afterward let new acts of faith be formed, lest agitation grow” (Pastoral, Q. I, Pastoral, Q. I); McHugh-Callan warns that the act may be harmful, “as prolonging or intensifying the temptation (a thing that is not infrequent)” (n. 934); Merkelbach's Summa: the act is “not fitting for the scrupulous” (I, n. 790). Concina: “He who feels himself agitated by these straits should elicit acts of faith, and desist from the conflict”; but “If he who doubts is distressed by scruples, let him count the doubts as nothing, and turn his mind elsewhere” (III, diss. I, ch. IX, n. III).
FaithA certain private revelation: must others believe it?
A private revelation certainly from God. Merkelbach: the one to whom it is made must believe it, but “for others it probably suffices that they do not contemn them” (I, n. 674); McHugh-Callan: it should receive the assent of divine faith, and “This applies to those to whom and for whom they were given, and probably to others also” (n. 758).
Denial and Dissimulation of FaithWearing the dress or standards of unbelievers
Wearing the dress or standards of unbelievers. All forbid what is instituted to profess a false sect, and allow, for a grave cause, what marks only a nation (n. 22). Billuart, by that rule, allows the turban and says “the same of their standards in war, that thus they may be deceived and conquered”, though it is never lawful “to wear the image of Mohammed hung about the neck” (On the external act of faith, n. 13, On the external act of faith, n. 9). Concina forbids the garments of infidels instituted to profess a false sect, “whatever Azor, with certain others, asserts to the contrary” (III, diss. I, ch. VI, n. VIII), and sets among the lax opinions Antonio of the Holy Spirit's, that for a great cause Christians may use “the priestly garment of the Turks, or a banner on which Mahomet is depicted” (III, diss. I, ch. II, n. VII).
Hope
HopeThe motive of hope
The motive of hope is the chief dispute. For St. Thomas hope leans on God's help (II-II, q. 17, a. 1). Prümmer and Merkelbach name it “omnipotence assisting” and “the omnipotence of God giving aid” (n. 536, I, n. 799); God's goodness and fidelity are supposed, but “the ultimate and immediate motive of hope is only aiding omnipotence” (I, n. 799). McHugh-Callan agrees: hope rests “proximately on God’s almighty power and radically on His goodness” (n. 1026). Noldin names instead “the supreme fidelity of God promising” (n. 43), and Sabetti-Barrett defines hope as expecting “from the promise of God” (n. 162). Vermeersch joins the three: “the Omnipotence of God, His Supreme relative Goodness, and His fidelity in promises” (n. 57); so Wouters, who with St. Alphonsus admits “that this fidelity is also a constitutive part of the formal object” (n. 360), and Marc, who gathers them into “the BENEVOLENCE OF GOD, considered as presupposing omnipotence” (n. 456). Merkelbach answers that those who join the three “do not solve the knot of the question” (I, n. 800). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, makes the object God as an arduous good, “yet to be attained by divine liberality, truth, and omnipotence upheld” (What the formal object of hope is, n. 7). Merkelbach rejects the opinion of Scotus and Suarez in so many words: “The proper motive of hope is not God as our supreme good” (I, n. 801); Bontempi agrees, “the formal object of Hope is not God as a good” (What the formal object of hope is, n. 9). Prümmer reports that theologians “do not agree on this point” (n. 536). Concina names the formal object “God himself as omnipotent — that is, the aiding omnipotence”, and the foundations of hope “the omnipotence of God, his mercy, and the immense merits of Christ the Lord” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. II); Billuart, “assisting omnipotence, that is, affording or offering helps” (On hope in itself and on its object, n. 17).
HopeThe division of servile fear
On servile fear, Prümmer accepts the division “into simply servile fear and servilely servile fear” (n. 542), and Noldin and Bontempi draw the same line (n. 46, What the object of fear is, n. 3). Merkelbach mentions it and says “not rightly”: servilely servile fear “has nothing in common with servile fear except the name”, and is rather to be reduced to worldly fear (I, n. 824). Marc keeps other names: his “Servile fear of God (formally, called by others servilely servile)” is evil, and his “Initial fear (or materially, called simply servile by others)” is good (n. 457), so that Marc's initial fear is not the initial fear of St. Thomas, which “does not differ essentially from filial fear” (II-II, q. 19, a. 8). Concina does not draw the line at all: “Servile fear is good; God urges it”, and it is “from the Holy Ghost, yet it is not a gift of the Holy Ghost” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. V).
HopeWhether the vision of God is the object of hope
Whether the vision of God belongs to the object of hope. All agree that God Himself is hoped for: “we should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself” (II-II, q. 17, a. 2). Merkelbach rejects those who make the principal object “the very vision or possession of God”; the vision “is only the condition required so that God may be attained and possessed” (I, n. 805, I, n. 805). Wouters, with the Thomists, holds objective beatitude alone, which “seems to be admitted as more probable”, the vision being only a condition (n. 360); Prümmer, with Billuart, makes God the object, “not formal beatitude, which is a created act” (n. 535). Vermeersch has God directly and “in oblique, the subjective happiness of His possession” (n. 57). McHugh-Callan: “Connoted in this object is the beatific vision”, and he counts in the primary object “essential beatitude, that is, the beatific vision” (n. 1019, n. 1020). Bontempi takes the middle opinion with St. Bonaventure: “not the vision itself alone, but God also, is the material object of Hope”, and “formal beatitude also enters into the reason of the object of this virtue” (What the material object of hope i, n. 7, What the material object of hope i, n. 14). Billuart: the formal object is “not formal but objective beatitude”, “although it connotes formal beatitude, or the beatific vision” (On hope in itself and on its object, n. 11).
HopeWhether hope requires God's promise
Whether hope requires God's promise. Noldin: “as faith supposes revelation, so hope supposes the divine promise of those things which we hope for as a necessary condition” (n. 43); Wouters: the promise is “a condition without which there is no eliciting of an act of hope” (n. 360); St. Alphonsus, as Marc gives him: “without this promise, we would not be able to hope for salvation with certain confidence” (n. 456); Bontempi speaks of “the primary foundation of hope, which is the promise of God” (Whether a certain object is set fo, n. 8). Prümmer: “theological hope is at least possible without this promise” (n. 536). Merkelbach: “even if God had promised nothing or were not faithful in promises”, a probable appearance of His help would be “a sufficient foundation for hoping, although this hope would not be certain” (I, n. 800).
HopeWhether the arduous belongs to hope's formal object
Whether the difficulty of the good belongs to hope's formal object. Merkelbach: that the good be future and arduous is required, but “These indeed are not the motive of hope, but are conditions required for the material object” (I, n. 807); Wouters passes over “the opinions of the few who assign as the formal object of the virtue of hope either the arduousness of the good to be obtained” (n. 360). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, Henry and Durandus (What the formal object of hope is, n. 2): “the aspect of the Arduous enters into the notion of the object” (What the formal object of hope is, n. 14), for hope perfects the irascible as faith the reason and charity the concupiscible; and he presses Mastrius's admission that “Arduous is the formal reason of the object of hope” (Whether hope remains in the blesse, n. 28).
HopeWhere hope's certainty comes from
Where hope's certainty comes from. St. Thomas: as nature works with certainty, so hope tends to its end “as though sharing in the certainty of faith” (II-II, q. 18, a. 4); Merkelbach: “the act of hope is certain with a certitude derived from the certitude of faith”, absolutely on the part of its motive, and “on our part hope has only a conditioned certitude” (I, n. 819, I, n. 819). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, will not have it all borrowed: “Hope has its own certainty” (Whether a certain object is set fo, n. 7); St. Thomas's likeness to the certainty of nature “does not please him” (Whether a certain object is set fo, n. 14); and he adds a certainty that comes from charity, which “does not belong except to the just” (Whether a certain object is set fo, n. 8). Marc: the uncertainty of our justification “is morally taken away through the exercise of charity”, and that of our perseverance “can be taken away in great part” by daily prayer and devotion to our Lady (n. 458, n. 458).
HopeWhether Christ hoped for the glory of His body
Whether Christ hoped. St. Thomas: as a wayfarer in the passibility of His body, Christ could “hope for the glory of impassibility and immortality, yet not so as to the virtue of hope” (II-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1); Merkelbach: “he could hope for the glory of the body, which was arduous for him, as to be merited by the Passion” (I, n. 817); Prümmer denies Him the virtue (n. 539). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure: “Christ had hope not in himself, but in his members”; what He had for Himself was “a certain expectation of some spiritual benefit, which nevertheless is not hope”, and “neither was the glory of his body itself arduous for Christ, as Coninck thinks” (Whether hope remains in the blesse, n. 26).
HopeWhich presumption destroys the habit of hope
Which presumption destroys the habit of hope. All agree that unbelief destroys it, by removing its foundation, and despair. Merkelbach: also “that presumption which removes the motive of hope” (I, n. 818), both the Pelagian and the Lutheran, which is “directly opposed to the motive of hope” (I, n. 834); so Vermeersch, “by the two reasons of presumption properly so called” (n. 66), and McHugh-Callan, for whom presumption properly so called “takes away the virtue of hope” (n. 1085); Prümmer, “Through presumption and gravely culpable desperation, as directly contrary to the virtue of hope” (n. 538). Noldin names, beside despair and hatred of God, only that “through Pelagian presumption, the habit of hope is lost” (n. 52). Wouters: the Pelagian and Protestant presumptions destroy it only because “it indirectly destroys the formal object of hope by destroying its foundation” (n. 515), as “unbelieving presumption” (n. 361).
HopeWhether the sinner keeps hope
Whether the sinner keeps hope. The manuals hold that it remains in the sinner who keeps the faith and has not despaired or presumed; Prümmer: “the Council manifestly supposes that hope can remain in a sinner” (n. 538), and the sinner's act of hope is among the dispositions for justification (n. 44); Bontempi: “Hope remains even when Charity is destroyed” (Whether hope is at times formless, n. 10). St. Thomas distinguishes hope in general from “the movement of living hope”, which alone proceeds from charity (II-II, q. 17, a. 8, ad 2). Spirago teaches in the catechism that “the sinner can hope in God only when he really repents and is willing to reform his life” (THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN HOPE), and that “we can attain to this hope only by sanctifying grace” (THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN HOPE); he does not distinguish living hope from lifeless. Billuart: “Hope remains in all faithful wayfarers, even in sinners who do not despair or presume” (In whom hope is found, n. 1), and unformed hope “is a virtue, but an imperfect one” (On hope in itself and on its object, n. 3).
HopeWhether hope is due at once with the use of reason
When the precept first binds. Prümmer, Merkelbach, Noldin, Wouters, McHugh-Callan and Marc set the first act of hope at the beginning of the use of reason, or of the moral life, when eternal beatitude is first sufficiently proposed (n. 545, I, n. 839, n. 45, n. 513, n. 1096, n. 460). Vermeersch: “the obligation of an act of hope immediately from the use of reason is controverted” (n. 60); Bontempi: it binds “after the use of reason, not immediately, but not after much time” (Whether there is a precept of hopi, n. 13). Concina: “This precept obliges as soon as the light of reason shines forth” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. IV).
HopeWhether an act of hope is due of itself at death
Whether an act of hope is due of itself at death. Prümmer and Merkelbach count the article of death among the times the precept binds of itself (n. 545, I, n. 839), and so Wouters (n. 513) and Marc, “in danger of death” (n. 460). McHugh-Callan: “It seems that at the end of life one is especially bound”, yet for one who has received the Last Sacraments and is not tempted to despair “there is no manifest need of making an express act of hope” (n. 1096, n. 1096). Vermeersch gives it only “As many wish, around the end of life” (n. 58), and Noldin, counting the times it binds of itself, does not name death (n. 45). So Concina: it obliges “when one must depart from this world” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. IV).
HopeWhether acts of fear are commanded of themselves
Whether acts of fear are commanded of themselves. St. Thomas: “precepts of filial fear are given in the Law, even as precepts of love”, and servile fear was urged by admonition after the Law was given (II-II, q. 22, a. 2); Merkelbach repeats him (I, n. 840). Wouters: “To the act of hoping there corresponds the act of fearing eternal damnation, which likewise obliges” (n. 513); McHugh-Callan holds that “the principles and conclusions given above for hope can be applied also to fear” (n. 1104). Marc: “Nor are we bound directly, from a special precept, to exercising explicit acts of fear”, with Valentia and Sanchez (n. 461); Bontempi reports Caspensis that “these precepts of the fear of God are not special”, so that a defect of fear is never a special sin to be confessed (On the effects, and the precept, o, n. 4). Concina: “Is there a precept of fear? Answer. All affirm it”, and “This precept is a peculiar one” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. VI).
HopeInitial fear: imperfect filial fear, or its own kind
Initial fear: a beginning of filial fear, or a fear of its own. St. Thomas: initial fear “does not differ essentially from filial fear”, as imperfect charity does not differ in essence from perfect (II-II, q. 19, a. 8); Prümmer: “It does not differ essentially from filial fear” (n. 542); Merkelbach: it “is not a new species of fear, but is filial fear” in an imperfect state (I, n. 825); McHugh-Callan makes initial and perfected fear “two degrees of filial fear” (n. 1055). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure: “they do not differ only as the less perfect from the more perfect; but by the principal motive” (Whether initial and filial fear di, n. 10). Concina: initial fear “is not distinguished from the first except as the imperfect from the perfect” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. V).
HopeWhether filial fear grows with charity
Whether filial fear grows as charity grows. St. Thomas: “filial fear must needs increase when charity increases”, for the more one loves, the more one fears to offend (II-II, q. 19, a. 10); so Prümmer, Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan (n. 542, I, n. 825, n. 1056). Bontempi sets out St. Thomas's opinion and St. Bonaventure's objection to it (Whether, as charity grows, fear di, n. 3), and concludes with St. Bonaventure “that as charity grows, Fear diminishes with respect to anxiety”, while “reverential fear grows” (Whether, as charity grows, fear di, n. 6, Whether, as charity grows, fear di, n. 10).
HopeWhether our own merits are a ground of hope
Whether our own merits are a ground of hope. St. Thomas: the habit of hope “does not flow from our merits, but from grace alone”, though hope is said to arise from merits as to the thing hoped for (II-II, q. 17, a. 1, ad 2). McHugh-Callan counts “our own merits” among the motives of hope, “since they are instruments used by God” (n. 1023); Prümmer: “our merits acquired under the influence of grace found in us hope of eternal life” (n. 537); Bontempi: “the confidence of the Saints is born also from good merits” (Whether hope arises from merits, n. 4); Vermeersch: “he hopes more perfectly who, in the state of grace, actually has merits” (n. 57). Merkelbach admits them, but “not indeed because in this way they are the motive of hoping, but because they are dispositions required” (I, n. 802); and McHugh-Callan himself says of grace and merits already had, “It is not in this sense that divine help is called the motive of hope” (n. 1025).
Charity
HatredAbomination of the person, or enmity
Abomination of the person. Noldin holds that hatred of abomination “which is referred to the very person of the neighbor, is from its genus a mortal sin” (n. 100), and Wouters that it “excludes one's neighbor from common charity” (n. 542). Merkelbach makes abomination of a person a hatred of the person's quality: “when there is question of a person it is called hatred of a quality” (I, n. 944); in a footnote he answers those who call the turning from a person as unworthy of all love a hatred of abomination, saying that this is already hatred of enmity (I, n. 946). Vermeersch likewise: “Hatred of abomination does not affect the person himself but his malice” (n. 88). Bontempi defines abomination as that “by which we abominate someone as unworthy of our friendship” (What the object of hatred is, and, n. 2). Billuart counts both kinds “ex genere suo mortal sin”, yet adds that “Hatred of abomination is rarely mortal; because simple displeasure at a created person subject to many defects and without imprecation of evil on account of them does not seem so great a disorder” (On hatred of God and of the neighbor;…, n. 3, On hatred of God and of the neighbor;…, n. 4).
SchismWhether schismatics keep jurisdiction
Jurisdiction. St. Thomas holds that the power of jurisdiction “does not remain in heretics and schismatics”, so that whatever they do of that kind “is invalid” (II-II, q. 39, a. 3). Bontempi reports this as the second of three opinions (What punishments are owed to schis, n. 12), and a middle one that “the manifest Schismatic and heretic loses the power of jurisdiction ipso facto; but not the occult one” (What punishments are owed to schis, n. 13). McHugh-Callan says only that jurisdiction “may be lost through schism” (n. 1374), and that the Roman Church “has allowed ecclesiastical jurisdiction to remain in the schismatic Oriental Churches for the conferring of the Sacraments” (n. 1375).
SchismWhat makes a schismatic
What makes a schismatic. Prümmer's definition names only “pertinacious withdrawal from the obedience due to the Supreme Pontiff” (n. 509); St. Thomas and the others add the refusal “to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy” (II-II, q. 39, a. 1). Marc calls schismatics “properly so called” those “who boldly establish or follow new Churches” (n. 1317); McHugh-Callan says schism “does not necessarily include affiliation with some schismatical body or the setting up of such a body” (n. 1364).
War and SeditionThe three conditions of a just war
The three conditions. St. Thomas's are authority, a just cause and a right intention (II-II, q. 40, a. 1), and Prümmer, Merkelbach, McHugh-Callan, Marc and Bontempi give the same three. Noldin's third is instead “A morally certain right” (n. 353); Sabetti-Barrett's third is “the due mode of waging war” (n. 277). Marc and Bontempi add that where right intention alone is lacking, no obligation of restitution follows (n. 750, What conditions are required for a, n. 22). Billuart gives St. Thomas's three: “legitimate authority of declaring war, just cause and right intention” (On war, n. 5).
War and SeditionHow certain the right must be for offensive war
Certainty for offensive war. Noldin requires a morally certain right, and reports that some say a probable or more probable right suffices, naming St. Alphonsus among the latter (n. 353); Wouters quotes St. Alphonsus that a war “can scarcely ever seem just if it is inferred from things merely probable and not certain” (n. 751). Marc: “they are not to be heard who think that for offensive war either greater probability or equal doubt suffices” (n. 750). McHugh-Callan reports that “Some moralists believe that a high degree of probability” suffices, and prefers the opinion that none does (n. 1395). Billuart, a probabiliorist, forbids a doubtful prince to declare war for reparation of injury, “because in doubt, especially of such moment, the safer part must be chosen”; subjects ordered to fight may fight in doubt, but not volunteers or foreigners, though “several weighty authors judge” a merely negative doubt enough for them, and “those who are ready to make war whether the war be just or unjust, are certainly in the state of damnation” (On war, n. 15, On war, n. 18, On war, n. 20, On war, n. 21).
ScandalSinning before the hardened or the holy
Sinning before the hardened or the holy. Marc, with St. Alphonsus, says there is no scandal before those so wicked or so upright “that no one is moved to sin” (n. 506), and Merkelbach, Noldin and Vermeersch agree. McHugh-Callan allows it only “If he is certain that the witnesses will not be weakened morally on his account” (n. 1462), and adds two cases “when even the very good may become bad” (n. 1463). Bontempi: “many do not excuse doing works in the face of the perfect which inflame; for even these fall, as David” (Whether scandal is a special sin, n. 28).
ScandalWhether a right act can be scandal
Wouters defines scandal as any work giving an occasion of ruin “and is placed without sufficient cause” (n. 546), and counts among such works one “altogether right, as if you pray before impious persons who for that reason are about to break forth into blasphemies”. St. Thomas and the others keep active scandal to what is less right; Noldin says an action good or indifferent without appearance of evil “is not properly scandal given” (n. 105).
ScandalCounselling the lesser evil
Counselling the lesser evil. Prümmer: “Negatively, unless that lesser evil is virtually included” in the greater (n. 611); Bontempi: “the first opinion”, the negative, “is the more probable” (Whether it is lawful to persuade o, n. 4). Noldin allows it only for an evil of the same species (n. 113). Marc allows it “whether this lesser evil which is advised is of the same species or of a diverse species” (n. 509); Sabetti-Barrett, with St. Alphonsus, holds the limitation to the same species “does not seem necessary” (n. 185). Vermeersch takes a middle view: lawful when the lesser evil is contained in the greater or falls on the same person (n. 128). Concina: “The more probable opinion, and the true one to me, denies it: since it is never licit to counsel an evil, however small”, so that one may not persuade a thief to rob a rich man rather than a poor one, “whatever Molina and Sanchez say to the contrary” (III, diss. IV, ch. III, n. XVII).
Cooperation in Another's SinWhether immediate cooperation is ever lawful
Immediate cooperation. Merkelbach holds that immediate cooperation, “even merely material, is illicit”, except sometimes in goods of fortune (I, n. 489), and Noldin and Vermeersch agree. McHugh-Callan reports it “held lawful by some authorities, but there are others who say that all immediate cooperation is sinful” (n. 1526).
Cooperation in Another's SinA servant carrying letters of illicit love
A servant carrying a master's letters of illicit love. Prümmer allows it to servants, and reads St. Alphonsus as opposed only in appearance (n. 621). Wouters, with St. Alphonsus, denies it (n. 564), and so does Marc (n. 518). Sabetti-Barrett forbids letters known to be shameful but allows, for a proportionate cause, letters that only arrange a meeting (n. 196). Merkelbach gives both sides (I, n. 492). Concina: “It is likewise forbidden to carry love letters containing base things”, “because such persons become partakers of the sins”, and he rejects Tamburini's excuse for one who fears to lose a valued friendship (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XXIV).
CharityOne attribute, or God's whole goodness, as the motive
Whether God may be loved with charity for one perfection. Noldin: the motive is “constituted not only by the accumulation of all perfections, but also by each single attribute of God, whether absolute or relative” (n. 55), and the relative attributes move us most. Wouters, who reports that some hold “any divine perfection whatever suffices” (n. 364), holds with St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus “that this goodness is composed of all God's perfections” (n. 364); so Marc, for whom it “is not some particular attribute of God” (n. 465), and Merkelbach, against those who make it “some divine perfection abstracted from the rest” (I, n. 876). Prümmer: “In practice this controversy is of little or no utility” (n. 554), for whoever passes from one attribute to love God above all has charity.
CharityHow charity grows: by added degrees, or by deeper hold
How charity grows. St. Thomas: “charity can by no means increase by addition of charity to charity”; it grows by its subject partaking of it more (II-II, q. 24, a. 5); Merkelbach: “not indeed by addition of charity to charity” but by the same charity inhering more firmly (I, n. 867); McHugh-Callan: it grows “in that it becomes more deeply rooted” (n. 1124). Bontempi sets this down as the Thomists' view, a growth “by a deeper rooting alone in the subject” (Whether charity increases, and how, n. 3), and holds against it: “The TRUE opinion of the Theologians, however, is that charity is increased by the addition of degrees” (Whether charity increases, and how, n. 4), so that “the augmentation of charity is made by a newly added degree of charity” (Whether charity increases, and how, n. 43).
CharityWhen charity grows: at every act, or at a fervent one
When charity grows. St. Thomas: “charity does not actually increase through every act of charity, but each act of charity disposes to an increase”, which comes when one “breaks out into an act of more fervent love” (II-II, q. 24, a. 6); Merkelbach follows: “not that every act of charity in fact increases it, but that this is done only through an intense act” (I, n. 870). McHugh-Callan: “Every act of charity, even the less fervent, contributes to an increase” (n. 1126), and the increase merited by the less fervent acts “is not conferred until the moment one enters into heaven or purgatory” (n. 1127). Bontempi, against Scotus, calls it “the common opinion of the Theologians” (Whether charity increases, and how, n. 44) that “this augmentation is made immediately after meritorious acts” (Whether charity increases, and how, n. 44). Billuart with McHugh-Callan: “Every act of charity, even remiss, whether elicited or imperate, merits de condigno the increase of charity”, but the increase owed to remiss acts “is not conferred in this life, but deferred until entry into glory”, with John of St. Thomas and Gonet against Báñez and Contenson (On the Subject, Cause, Increase, and…, n. 19, On the Subject, Cause, Increase, and…, n. 31, On the Subject, Cause, Increase, and…, n. 28).
CharityWhether charity can grow without limit
Whether charity can grow without limit. St. Thomas: “it is not possible to fix any limits to the increase of charity in this life” (II-II, q. 24, a. 7); Merkelbach: “Charity can be increased without end, as was defined in the Council of Vienne” (I, n. 868); McHugh-Callan: “as long as a person lives here below, he may continually grow in charity” (n. 1128). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, holds that “the supernatural disposition” does not “dilate the power of capacity to infinity, but unto a limited term” (Whether charity can be increased w, n. 1), for “if it were augmentable to infinity, it would have no end”; to St. Thomas's answer that its end lies in the other life he replies, “Yet this does not resolve it” (Whether charity can be increased w, n. 9, Whether charity can be increased w, n. 10). The opening of Bontempi's question is lost with a page of the only copy of the volume.
CharityWhether an act of charity is necessary as a means
Whether an act of charity is necessary as a means. Prümmer: it is, for the sinner who cannot receive the sacrament, and “after habitual charity has been obtained, at some times in life” (n. 561); McHugh-Callan: “The act of charity is also necessary as a means of salvation to all adults”, since one justified with attrition and the sacrament, “by his voluntary acceptance” of grace, “thus makes an act of charity” (n. 1604, n. 1604). Merkelbach: “in the present economy of the New Law it is not necessary by necessity of means” (I, n. 971); so Noldin, “except in defect of a sacrament” (n. 58), Marc, “except hypothetically” (n. 469), and Vermeersch (n. 75). Wouters sets out both opinions for the sinner (n. 517) and denies it for the just (n. 517).
CharityWhether an act of charity is due of itself at death
Whether an act of charity is due of itself at death. Prümmer: “Thus the by far more probable opinion” (n. 563); so Merkelbach (I, n. 972), Marc, “Most probably” (n. 472), and Wouters: “if the precept did not then urge, it would never urge” (n. 519). Noldin: “this obligation exists only for those who are in mortal sin and cannot receive the sacrament” (n. 59); Sabetti-Barrett: one absolved with attrition is “not to be obliged”, “because a special precept is not established, even though the contrary opinion is much more common” (n. 167). McHugh-Callan: the duty for one already in grace “is considered as doubtful by some authorities” (n. 1600); Vermeersch: “as many wish” (n. 74). So Billuart: “It obliges per se at the end of life” (On the precept of charity, n. 20); and Concina, against Castropalao, who had found the obligation not altogether certain: “When the moment of separation from this world, and of conjunction with God, is at hand, are we not commanded to elicit an act of love”? (III, diss. II, ch. II, n. IV).
CharityAn act of charity after mortal sin: when due
After mortal sin. That one must at once make an act of charity “today has been abandoned by all” (Prümmer, n. 563), and an obligation soon after justification by attrition “cannot be demonstrated by any probable argument” (Noldin, n. 59). Yet Merkelbach: “those do not satisfy this precept who remain for a long time in the state of mortal sin, or are justified only with imperfect contrition” (I, n. 971), and Marc says the same of those who remain so “for months” (n. 473); McHugh-Callan: “a delay beyond four or five months according to some authors would be notable” (n. 1598). Wouters binds one of itself after hatred of God (n. 519).
CharityA natural friendship with God
A natural friendship with God. Bontempi, against Vasquez (Whether besides infused charity th, n. 3): “The true opinion therefore is, that a twofold love of God is given, certainly of friendship”, one toward God as natural end, the other as supernatural (Whether besides infused charity th, n. 4). Merkelbach: in a state of pure nature “there would have been no equality nor friendship between God and us, although nevertheless on each side there would have been love of benevolence” (I, n. 854); Vermeersch: “in the natural order, love between God and man would not have been a love of friendship” (n. 71). McHugh-Callan grants that “Natural love of God, indeed, is possible without grace” (n. 1122).
CharityHow mortal sin takes charity away
How mortal sin takes charity away. St. Thomas: by placing an obstacle to God's outpouring of it, as light ceases in the air when the sun is blocked (II-II, q. 24, a. 12). Merkelbach: mortal sin takes it away “not only meritoriously, but also physically and efficiently expels it” (I, n. 873). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure and Scotus, against the Thomists: “grace and sin are opposed morally, not physically” (Whether charity can be lost, and h, n. 45); “Charity is not expelled in combat by sin, but fails from the demerit of the sinner and God refusing influx” (Whether charity can be lost, and h, n. 39). Billuart: that one act does not destroy a habit “is true of acquired habits, but not of infused habits, such as charity is” (On the Subject, Cause, Increase, and…, n. 49).
CharityGiving one's life for another's
Giving one's life for another's bodily life. St. Thomas: “if a man of his own accord offer himself for that purpose, this belongs to the perfection of charity” (II-II, q. 26, a. 5, ad 3). The later authors allow it from a motive of virtue. Merkelbach: charity “often permits and advises him to expose his life” for friendship, gratitude, the honor of God or the common good (I, n. 909); Noldin: “he can licitly prefer the life of the neighbor for preserving even an equal or inferior person” (n. 77); Marc: one “can per se, and from the motive of virtue, immolate his own life for preserving another's” (n. 482); Vermeersch: “we can per se, but are not bound to” (n. 84); Prümmer, after St. Thomas, because one “loves the good of virtue more than bodily good” (n. 580). McHugh-Callan is more guarded: “At least, it is more probable that this is lawful” (n. 1169), and he forbids offering oneself “as substitute for a condemned criminal” (n. 1169). Bontempi reports that the older authors divided. Durandus, Richard, Gabriel, Paludanus and Bellarmine denied it, citing St. Augustine that such a death “exceeds the rule of doctrine” (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 8), and Hurtado “lays down that it is a sin to die for the life of a neighbor” (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 9). Azor, Soto, Victoria and Tanner held it lawful (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 10). Bontempi himself, with St. Bonaventure, calls it heroic charity when the death is undergone “in order to God” (Whether a man ought to love himsel, n. 12).
CharityA mother's life and her child's baptism
A mother's life and her child's baptism. Marc holds flatly: “A mother is bound to undergo a dangerous operation so that the infant can be extracted and baptized” (n. 483). Prümmer grants the obligation in principle, “even with danger to life”, but adds that “almost never is a strict obligation to be imposed on her”, since the infant may not survive the operation and can be baptized in the womb (n. 583). McHugh-Callan frees her from the operation “if it is uncertain that the baptism can be administered” (n. 1166), and Sabetti likewise: “A mother is not bound to undergo danger of life so that her offspring may be baptized, when it is uncertain whether it will survive for baptism” (n. 170). Bontempi holds with the common teaching that the neighbor's salvation comes before our life (Whether the eternal salvation of t, n. 1), and reports that Sancius and Sà denied any duty to prevent a neighbor's spiritual harm at the cost of one's body, “otherwise a pregnant mother would be held to allow herself to be cut open so that the infant could be baptized” (Whether the eternal salvation of t, n. 3). Concina holds the opposite of Marc, with St. Thomas: “A pregnant mother who is unable to give birth is not bound to suffer a deadly cutting of the womb, that the child enclosed in the womb may be baptized: because evils are not to be done that goods may come” (III, diss. III, ch. III, n. XIV).
CharityHow much extreme bodily need requires
How much a neighbor's extreme bodily need requires. Merkelbach: he must be aided “under grave sin, with notable proper temporal detriment”, though not by extraordinary means nor at the cost of life (I, n. 909); the rule that charity does not oblige with great inconvenience “does not hold in extreme necessity” (I, n. 910). Noldin: “with great inconvenience indeed, yet not with danger to life or of an almost equal good” (n. 79); Marc: “he must be helped with great inconvenience” (n. 483). Prümmer denies it: in extreme bodily necessity “no one is bound to assist neighbor with grave harm, because he is not even bound to preserve his own bodily life with great harm”, so that “a rich man is not bound to give a great sum of money to save a sick neighbor from certain death” (n. 584). Sabetti stands between: “with a great inconvenience indeed, but not with the greatest, such as the donation of a great sum of money would be even for a rich man” (n. 169).
CharityWhen parents come before wife and children
When parents are helped before wife and children. Ordinarily the wife comes first, then the children, then the parents. Prümmer reverses the order “in extreme necessity, namely, if there is question of danger of life” (n. 581), and so Merkelbach, Vermeersch and McHugh-Callan (I, n. 914; n. 86; n. 1181); Sabetti says parents are there “more probably” to be preferred (n. 169). Marc extends the reversal to quasi-extreme necessity: “if the necessity is extreme, or quasi-extreme, on both sides” (n. 484). Wouters extends it to grave: “In extreme or grave necessity parents are to be preferred to spouse and children” (n. 573); Bontempi reports Tanner holding “that even in a grave necessity, which is not extreme, parents are rather to be helped than children”, Cajetan and Valencia holding the opposite, “that in extreme necessity the obligation of helping a son prevails”, and Sà, who “simply prefers the wife to the mother” (Whether a man ought to love his sp, n. 1). St. Thomas says only that “in certain cases a man ought to succor his parents rather than his wife” (II-II, q. 26, a. 11, ad 1). Concina sets the parents first outright: “First of all are to be preferred father and mother; then wives and children. Wives are to be preferred to parents only as regards habitation and a more tender love”, the preference binding “only when extreme necessity presses” (III, diss. III, ch. III, n. XV). Billuart: “Speaking absolutely, however, the father in necessity is to be preferred to the son”, and the wife is loved “more intensively than father and children” but the father “more objectively and appreciatively” (What order is to be kept in the love…, n. 13).
CharityWhether every man is bound to labor
Whether every man is bound to labor. Noldin: though no divine precept binds each man directly, “there exists a universal precept of labor for the human race”, and “indirectly labor is prescribed more or less to all” (n. 67); to avoid the dangers of idleness a man is bound “to apply himself to some honorable labor”, and games do not suffice (n. 68). Marc speaks of “the obligation of laboring and of embracing a certain state of life” (n. 476). Prümmer concludes “that every man is not strictly obliged to labor”, since idleness “can also be avoided in other ways” (n. 569). On strikes, Noldin counts it an injury when a willing worker is hindered, “which is done by socialists especially in strikes” (n. 69); Prümmer holds “that a work stoppage is not intrinsically evil, although it is to be avoided as far as possible” (n. 569).
CharityGoing to law against an enemy
Going to law against an enemy. St. Alphonsus, quoted by Prümmer: “In practice I have never dared to absolve any of those who said that they had spared their enemies, but had wished justice to have its place”. Prümmer answers: “This opinion seems to be rather strict”; without hatred or disordered revenge “it does not seem to be sinful to go to a judge”, though it is “rather rarely expedient” (n. 574). Noldin allows it in principle and adds: “in practice this must altogether be dissuaded” (n. 84). Merkelbach allows it too, but in practice a sufficient satisfaction offered must generally be accepted, since “it is difficult that someone seek public vengeance from a judge from pure love of justice” (I, n. 898). Vermeersch: “Yet this is dangerous”; if a very grave penalty awaits the enemy, the fault “will easily have been grave against charity” (n. 88). Bontempi: “remission is to be urged, especially if he is to be punished by death, mutilation, etc.” (Whether we are bound to show the e, n. 19). Concina: “Absolutely, it is wiser to remit all things”; and if the offender spontaneously offers fitting satisfaction, “when the offended party appeals to the tribunal, he does not seek to have his injured right repaired, but to indulge vengeance and hatred” (III, diss. III, ch. IV, n. VII). Billuart: the offended party may seek satisfaction before a judge, but not “when he himself offers a reasonable one”, since “this can scarcely happen without some appetite for vengeance” (Whether enemies are to be loved from…, n. 15).
CharityWishing that God permit another's fall
Wishing that another fall into sin. Merkelbach: “it is illicit to desire for any wayfarer that he be damned or that he sin, because this is simply evil” (I, n. 889). McHugh-Callan agrees that “He who wishes sin approves of the offense to God”, but adds: “it does not seem unlawful to wish that God permit a person to fall into sin, as a means to a spiritual awakening” (n. 1144). St. Thomas reads the curses of Scripture as wishing “that the sin be destroyed, but that the man may live” (II-II, q. 25, a. 6, ad 3).
CharityA proximate danger of sin to help a neighbor
A proximate danger of sin to help a neighbor in extreme spiritual need. Prümmer: one may never “expose himself to a certain danger of sinning” for any good of a neighbor, though a less proximate danger may be borne (n. 580). Marc: not “unless the danger by some reason becomes remote” (n. 482); McHugh-Callan forbids exposing oneself “to the certain and proximate danger of sin for the sake of another’s spiritual progress” (n. 1163). Merkelbach allows a proximate danger to be “rendered remote” by suitable remedies, and says that “sometimes it is necessary so to act” for a neighbor in extreme spiritual necessity (I, n. 907); Noldin: “it is permitted to expose oneself to proximate danger of sinning, with remedies nevertheless applied against sin” (n. 77). Sabetti, after St. Alphonsus, goes furthest: one may even be bound “when a fall is otherwise very probable”, if one arms oneself with the means (n. 170). Concina is stricter than any: “you are not bound — nay, you ought not — to expose yourself to a probable danger of sinning” (III, diss. III, ch. III, n. XIV).
CharityOurselves and our neighbors in heaven
Ourselves and our neighbors in heaven. St. Thomas: as to the good wished, the blessed love better men more than themselves, but “a man will love himself more than even his better neighbors, because the intensity of the act of love arises on the part of the person who loves” (II-II, q. 26, a. 13); Merkelbach: “appreciatively and intensively, ourselves more” (I, n. 915); McHugh-Callan: “each loves self with a more intense love” (n. 1182). Bontempi sets out St. Bonaventure's second opinion, that the order which charity has from the nature of its subject will not remain in heaven, so that each “will rejoice as much in the good of his neighbor as in his own” (Whether the order of charity remai, n. 8), with St. Anselm's words, “where no one loves another less than himself” (Whether the order of charity remai, n. 9). The first opinion, that the order of this life remains entire, St. Bonaventure calls “that of very many” (Whether the order of charity remai, n. 4).
CharityWhether nature loves God more than self
Whether nature itself inclines us to love God more than ourselves. St. Thomas: “not only man, so long as his nature remains unimpaired, loves God above all things and more than himself, but also every single creature, each in its own way” (II-II, q. 26, a. 3). Bontempi reports that Coninck denied it (Whether nature inclines more to lo, n. 1); that Scotus, who holds the conclusion, attacks St. Thomas's argument from the part and the whole (Whether nature inclines more to lo, n. 6), as does Durandus (Whether nature inclines more to lo, n. 12); and that Coninck tried to reconcile the two sides by saying nature dictates an appreciative love of God above all, “but not a more intense one” (Whether nature inclines more to lo, n. 26). Bontempi answers: “But our question concerns appreciative love” (Whether nature inclines more to lo, n. 27).
CharityWhether works for the neighbor need charity's motive
Whether works done for the neighbor must come from charity's motive. Noldin: “to satisfy this precept it is not required that works of beneficence toward the neighbor be done from the motive of charity, but it suffices that they be done from another lower motive, for example, mercy, kindness” (n. 72). McHugh-Callan: “The motive of charity is absent, therefore, when one loves only one’s friends, when one is kind to others out of pity”, if there is no thought of God (n. 1582); the precept is met when “the supernatural motive directs our love of neighbor, if it is present virtually”, and natural motives are good “provided their influence is subordinated to the divine friendship” (n. 1584). Bontempi gives St. Gregory: “If anyone loves anyone, but does not love him for God's sake, he has not Charity” (Whether God, and the neighbor, are, n. 13). Prümmer: purely natural love of neighbor “is licit per se, provided it is not disordered”, but it is not the charity commanded (n. 570). Concina treats a related point, whether the love of neighbor needs an act distinct from the love of God: “Certain authors of a more benign turn deny it; but their opinion is false” (III, diss. III, ch. III, n. IV). Billuart: to love the neighbor “for benefits received, for his outstanding qualities” as his own perfections “is not the love of charity” but natural love (Comprising all that concerns charity…, n. 17).
CharityAlms in grave necessity: from which goods
Alms in grave necessity: from which goods. Prümmer: from goods superfluous to one's station; “Thus the opinion today is common” (n. 593); Noldin: “from goods simply superfluous” (n. 91). Merkelbach adds “indeed even from things necessary to one's state, when this can be done without grave inconvenience” (I, n. 930); Sabetti, when the necessity “approaches extreme necessity”, from goods in some way necessary to one's state (n. 176). St. Thomas says that to give from what one's station needs “is a matter not of precept but of counsel” (II-II, q. 32, a. 6). Bontempi sets out the dispute: Cajetan, Sanchez, Navarre and others deny any such duty outside extreme necessity, while Paludanus, Victoria, Cano, Valencia and Tanner, with St. Bonaventure, hold one bound “provided it can be done with less inconvenience than that which the needy neighbor undergoes” (Whether anyone is bound at some ti, n. 2); he sides with them: “nor is it true, as Diana says, that the rich have a right to live splendidly in their own state at so great damage and misery to the poor” (Whether anyone is bound at some ti, n. 7). Prümmer adds that St. Antoninus and Medina held such alms “not of precept, but only of counsel. This opinion today is obsolete.” (n. 593). Vermeersch notes a second dispute, whether one must relieve the man in grave need oneself or may keep the alms for another good work: “Many permit this option” (n. 105). Concina: “Not only out of superfluities, but even out of what is necessary to the becomingness and seemliness of their state”, “as the more common opinion — and to me the true one — teaches” (III, diss. III, ch. VII, n. XVI). Billuart, of grave necessity: “we are bound under mortal sin to relieve him from some way out of things necessary to status”, calling it “more common” (Whether to give alms is a matter of…, n. 18).
CharityHow much the rich must give
How much the rich must give. St. Alphonsus held that in common necessity the fiftieth part of the revenue beyond one's station suffices, “and a proportionally smaller part if the income is enormous”; Merkelbach adds that the estimate “can be regarded as rather benign” (I, n. 931). The smaller part for great wealth is not an easier rule for the very rich: the precept binds the rich together, so that each must give what would suffice if all did the same, and Konings gives the reason, “if individual rich persons spent that quantity on the poor, it would already be sufficient for meeting common necessities” (n. 285); so Bucceroni, “this precept does not oblige all in solidum, but commonly all the rich” (n. 411). In the Theologia moralis St. Alphonsus gives the fiftieth part as the more common opinion (II, n. 32); in the Homo apostolicus he states it as his own, of the revenues that remain over, as Ballerini notes (Gury-Ballerini). Sabetti: “it seems more probable that it is enough” (n. 177); Wouters: St. Alphonsus held it “for the circumstances of his time” (n. 534). Prümmer: “Nothing certain can be answered in this question” (n. 595); Noldin: the figure “seems to lack a solid foundation” (n. 91); McHugh-Callan: “other moralists believe that today the amount cannot be fixed mathematically” (n. 1253). Vermeersch reverses the scale. Since the needs are now national and inexhaustible, the part given should follow capacity, as taxes do, and he proposes one that rises with revenue, from 20 to 40 per cent for one without a family to support, half that with three to six children; he notes that “in the age of St. Alphonsus they rather diminished the same proportion” (n. 108). For beneficed clerics Bontempi reports the broadest opinion as “the fourth part of revenues” (Whether alms ought to be given fro, n. 27). Concina will name no figure: “Some of the Theologians assign a tenth part of the revenues”, others more or less, and since superfluities “are enclosed within no certain limit” they have no precise measure (III, diss. III, ch. IX, n. IV); with St. Augustine he would have the rich “Keep for your Lord the place of one child” (III, diss. III, ch. IX, n. VII).
CharityWhether all superfluities must be given
Whether all one's superfluities must go to the poor. McHugh-Callan: “There are theologians who hold that one is bound to give away all one’s superfluous wealth in alms, even apart from cases of extreme or grave necessity; but others teach that, while this is of counsel, it is not obligatory” (n. 1251). Wouters judges “that doctrine is not sufficiently proved”, and lets superfluous goods be partly kept “for greater security regarding the future time, and for greater honest delights” (n. 534); Marc: “The rich are indeed not bound to distribute the whole of what is superfluous” (n. 488); Noldin: the rich who spend on superfluous uses or set goods aside to increase their riches “are not to be accused of sin” (n. 91). Vermeersch, taking alms in the fuller sense, would have one without family burdens “assign all, at least, of the revenues which are left over to pious works” (n. 108). Concina holds the strict side: “Christ commands, and the Fathers inculcate, that all superfluities be distributed” (III, diss. III, ch. IX, n. IV), the rich being bound “to lay out what is superfluous both to nature and to state upon the poor pressed by common necessity” (III, diss. III, ch. VII, n. XIV). Billuart the other: in common necessity the rich man “is not held straightway to give everything superfluous to status, but he can reserve it” for other pious uses or “for rationally augmenting his status” (Whether to give alms is a matter of…, n. 22).
CharityAlms in extreme need: owed in justice?
Whether alms to one in extreme need are owed in justice. Bontempi sets out two opinions: that alms are then given “out of mercy alone” (Soto, Bellarmine, Suarez, Vasquez, Molina and many others) (Whether alms is owed in justice to, n. 1), and that they are owed in justice (St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Cajetan, Navarre, the Fathers); he holds the second: “I ASSERT, with this opinion, that alms are owed to one in extreme indigence out of justice”, since goods were made private on that condition (Whether alms is owed in justice to, n. 4). Prümmer: “the obligation of giving alms is properly an obligation of charity and of general justice, but not of commutative justice”, so that a poor man unduly refused “cannot in the least secretly compensate himself”, unless his need is extreme (n. 589); McHugh-Callan: a mere refusal brings no duty of restitution, for “restitution is the giving back to another of what strictly belongs to him” (n. 1240). Bontempi also reports many (Diana, Coninck, Vasquez and others) who allow a poor man “even in a grave but not extreme necessity” to take from rich men who are bound to give (Whether alms is owed in justice to, n. 15).
CharityA wife's alms from her husband's goods
A wife's alms from the household. Bontempi, with St. Augustine: “a married woman cannot make alms from the goods of her husband, but only from her own”, though of earned revenues “at least the twentieth part she can give” (Whether alms ought to be given fro, n. 18). The later authors allow more. Merkelbach: “in our regions, without consent, she can give moderate, not extraordinary” alms (I, n. 932), though if he forbids it altogether “sometimes perhaps it would be better to abstain” (I, n. 932); Marc: “and this even if the husband were unwilling, because custom grants her this right” (n. 489); Prümmer: if the husband “were too greedy and did not wish to give due alms”, she may still give moderately, especially to her poor parents (n. 596); Vermeersch: “A wife, as such, can, in our regions, give moderate alms” (n. 107).
CharityHow much hope of success correction needs
How much hope of success makes correction binding. Merkelbach: “if correction is doubtfully going to profit but certainly not going to harm, it must be done”, and it is to be omitted only when amendment is “equally hoped for and harm feared” (I, n. 938; I, n. 938). Vermeersch says both that the conditions are such “that in doubt you are excused” and that “In doubt, however, correction is to be presumed useful” (n. 115). Noldin: “In doubt whether it will profit, admonition should be omitted” (n. 96); Marc: “in doubt whether it will be profitable or harmful, you are not bound” (n. 493). Wouters asks “That there be great hope of fruit” (n. 538); Sabetti, “some hope, indeed a greater probability, of amendment” (n. 179). St. Bonaventure, in Bontempi: one is bound when he “believes with probability that it will profit, and not harm” (Whether fraternal correction is a, n. 2). St. Thomas: correction is foregone “when it is deemed probable that the sinner will not take the warning, and will become worse” (II-II, q. 33, a. 6). Concina: “When it is doubted whether the correction will bring forth more evil than good, one must abstain from it. But if the doubt is not of a greater evil, but only of the profit, correction must be made” (III, diss. III, ch. X, n. XVIII); Billuart: “If it be doubted whether it will profit, and it is certain it will not harm, it is to be applied”, and where harm is as doubtful as profit, “the greater is to be preferred to the less” (Whether fraternal correction is a…, n. 10).
CharityWarning one who breaks a law in ignorance
Warning one who breaks a law in ignorance. Noldin: “A strict obligation of admonishing the neighbor does not exist in a private man, whether the neighbor sins against the natural law or against positive law”, against St. Alphonsus and many others, who hold that one who breaks the natural law in ignorance must be warned; these, he says, grant that one who breaks a human law need not be (n. 98). Merkelbach: “according to many it is probable that private persons are not bound to instruct others as regards material sins committed only against positive law (divine or human)” (I, n. 941). Wouters: the warning binds of itself “if there is question of divine law, whether natural or positive”, but for human law “it quite probably does not oblige”, citing St. Alphonsus (n. 540). Marc, citing the same place of St. Alphonsus, holds the opposite for human law: “Yet the affirmative opinion is more probable and more common” (n. 496). The place itself explains it. There St. Alphonsus calls it probable that private persons are not bound to correct sins against a law that is only positive, but holds the contrary more probable and more common, that all are bound, since the transgression, though material, is still evil once the law is laid down (Theologia moralis II, n. 36); and he lists this among the questions on which he changed his mind, the negative having seemed more probable in his first edition (Elenchus quaestionum reformatarum, q. 5). Wouters follows the opinion St. Alphonsus allows as probable, Marc the one he prefers, in St. Alphonsus's own reason; Noldin's report that he grants the negative does not match n. 36. Vermeersch: “there is at least a light obligation of warning him who materially violates that law” of nature (n. 113), while for a human precept broken by forgetfulness “not a few deny every obligation” (n. 113). Prümmer: “Equals who are private men are commonly not bound to warning”, unless harm, scandal or an intrinsic evil is in question (n. 603). All bind superiors and confessors. Concina binds even in invincible ignorance: “the precept presses above all when the neighbor labors under a double misery”, and “If the invincible ignorance be only of ecclesiastical law, the precept presses even then” (III, diss. III, ch. X, n. VIII).
CharityTaking a hidden fault straight to the superior
Taking a hidden fault straight to the superior. Most of the later authors allow it, the superior acting as a father, when that promises better amendment: Noldin, if amendment “is more easily and efficaciously obtained through the superior” (n. 97); Wouters: “it suffices that this seem more expedient” (n. 539); Vermeersch quotes St. Thomas's Quodlibet, that one who intends the brother's amendment “by denouncing he does not sin” (n. 116). In the Summa St. Thomas lets the matter be made known to the prelate before the witnesses “in so far as the prelate is a private individual who is able to be of more use than others” (II-II, q. 33, a. 8), but holds that if a prelate commands against the Lord's order “both would sin, the one commanding, and the one obeying him” (II-II, q. 33, a. 7). Bontempi reports the permissive opinion as widely held, by St. Antoninus, Gerson, Sylvester “and all the Theologians of the Society of Jesus” (Whether the order of fraternal cor, n. 2), and rejects it: “IT MUST BE ASSERTED, with this opinion, that in fraternal correction the order of the Gospel is to be observed by commandment” (Whether the order of fraternal cor, n. 10), for “No one is the Lord of another's reputation” (Whether the order of fraternal cor, n. 16); the prelate may not be told “before witnesses have been called in, or at least one” (Whether the order of fraternal cor, n. 29). Concina keeps the order with Bontempi: “Rarely, however — nay, most rarely — is this correction better performed by the Prelate”, for “private men very easily deceive themselves and feign this greater efficacy at their pleasure” (III, diss. III, ch. X, n. XXV). Billuart allows it when the prelate “is pious, discreet, spiritual, not bearing rancor or hatred against the subject” (On the order of fraternal correction, n. 8).
CharityWhether a sinner must amend before correcting
Whether a sinner must amend himself before correcting another. St. Thomas: sin does not take away right judgment, “and in this respect he may be competent to find fault with others for committing sin”, though a sin of one's own is a hindrance (II-II, q. 33, a. 5). McHugh-Callan: “there does not seem to be any obligation of correcting self before correcting others”; it is counseled, and required only for special reasons (n. 1281); Noldin: the sinner “is not exempted from the obligation” (n. 96); Merkelbach requires a sinner to amend first only if he is a superior, gives scandal, or alone can save a dying neighbor (I, n. 943). Marc: “if he is a public sinner, ordinarily he ought to abstain from correction” (n. 492). Bontempi reads Christ's “Take heed to yourselves” as: “First make yourself fit, that you may be able to correct another” (Whether fraternal correction is a, n. 8). Concina: “Sinners, then, just as they are bound to corporal almsgiving, are likewise bound to spiritual”, though it is their duty “before they correct others, to detest their own crimes” (III, diss. III, ch. X, n. XI).
CharityWisdom: speculative or practical, and its seat
Whether the gift of wisdom is speculative or practical, and where it resides. St. Thomas: “wisdom as a gift, is not merely speculative but also practical”, contemplation coming first (II-II, q. 45, a. 3); its essence is in the intellect, its cause in the will (II-II, q. 45, a. 2). Merkelbach: “at once speculative and practical” (I, n. 922); McHugh-Callan: “Primarily, Wisdom is speculative” (n. 1612). Bontempi, after St. Bonaventure, sets it against the gift of understanding, which “is for speculation”: “the gift of Wisdom, however, is practical” (On the spiritual delights of wisdo, n. 14). He makes the intellect only its “quasi-subject”, “overflowing its operations into the will” (What kind of gift wisdom is, n. 9), and defines the gift as a habit “rendering the soul easily mobile toward loving and tasting” (What kind of gift wisdom is, n. 8). He also defends the old reading of wisdom as “sapid knowledge” against St. Thomas, who doubts that this is the true sense of the text cited for it (What kind of gift wisdom is, n. 11).
CharityWhether God must be loved more intensely than any creature
Whether God must be loved more intensely than any creature. Concina: “It is agreed among all that this precept does not command intensive love”, but “appreciative love, by which we choose God before, and prefer him to, all other goods” (III, diss. II, ch. III, n. IX). Billuart grants that it would be inordinate “to choose to love a creature more intensely than God”, reports that “Some of the Louvain theologians affirm this, with Peter Soto” when the act falls short of that intensity, some calling it mortal, others venial, and holds with “The more common opinion”: “He does not sin against the precept of charity who loves his neighbor with a more intense love, whether natural or supernatural, than God” (Whether God is to be loved from…, n. 7, Whether God is to be loved from…, n. 8).
EnvyEnvy: whether sorrow at another's good is a sin
Whether sorrow at another's good as lessening one's own is a sin at all. St. Thomas, Marc and Billuart define envy by exactly that sorrow. Concina records among the lax opinions Tamburini's, that when one grieves for another's good “as immediately causing my own evil, there will be no fault”, and that St. Thomas and the other Doctors “ARE TO BE UNDERSTOOD to have described envy from its effect” (XII, diss. I, ch. I, n. XLV, XII, diss. I, ch. I, n. XLVI).
Prudence
PrudenceWhat foresight regards
Foresight divides them too. Wouters has it foresee “future contingents” (n. 375). Prümmer allows both senses, “either for the ordering of means to an end” or “for the consideration of future events” (n. 631). Merkelbach warns that “Several understand foresight to be mere cognition of future events, but this is not according to the mind of St. Thomas” (II, n. 25).
Excessive SolicitudeWhat makes care for the future excessive
On solicitude for the future, Wouters names only its untimeliness, being solicitous “before the opportune time” (n. 376). Merkelbach and Noldin speak of an excessive occupation of the mind, Merkelbach adding “with anxiety and little confidence in divine providence” (II, n. 44). St. Thomas gives both (II-II, q. 55, a. 7).
PrudenceWhat shrewdness regards
On shrewdness, St. Thomas speaks of a “quick conjecture of the middle term” (II-II, q. 48), and Wouters of “finding a suitable means” (n. 375). Noldin alone turns it to the future: “shrewdness in considering future events” (n. 265).
PrudencePrudence: its formal object
Its formal object is named six ways. Prümmer: “the human act under the aspect of practical truth and good” (n. 627); Merkelbach: “their practical truth, that is, rectitude or conformity to right appetite and to the due end and moral law” (II, n. 11). Noldin: “natural honesty” (n. 263); Wouters: “the conformity of practical judgment with the moral order, or with the supernatural end” (n. 372); Marc: “the mean of reason, between defect and excess; or practical rectitude” (n. 391); McHugh-Callan: “the right deliberation, decision, and direction” given to human acts “with a view to the observance of the golden mean” (n. 1629). Prümmer and Merkelbach name the truth of its judgment, Noldin the honesty of the act, Wouters its fit with the moral order, Marc and McHugh-Callan the mean.
PrudenceWhether prudence sets the ends of the moral virtues
Whether prudence sets the ends of the moral virtues. St. Thomas: “it does not belong to prudence to appoint the end to moral virtues, but only to regulate the means” (II-II, q. 47, a. 6); so Merkelbach, McHugh-Callan and Bontempi, who give the ends to synderesis (II, n. 12; n. 1631; What the offices of prudence are, n. 1). Bontempi names Scotus against them, “where he contends that the ends themselves are set before the moral virtues by Prudence” (What the offices of prudence are, n. 1). Merkelbach meets a text of St. Thomas that seems to say the same (I-II, q. 66, a. 3, ad 3): there prudence sets the end “not first but in application to special matter, by determining what sort it is in the concrete and in particular” (II, n. 12).
PrudencePrudence in sinners: false, or true but imperfect
Whether sinners have any true prudence. St. Thomas distinguishes a “false prudence”, for an evil end; a true but imperfect prudence, for some particular good end, or which counsels and judges well but fails to command; and the perfect, which alone “cannot be in sinners” (II-II, q. 47, a. 13). Merkelbach: “in sinners there can be imperfect prudence” (II, n. 19); Marc: “only imperfect prudence can exist” in them (n. 392); McHugh-Callan: evil and imperfect prudence “are of course found in sinners” (n. 1651). Bontempi says without that distinction: “in sinners prudence is false; I speak of those sinning mortally” (Who share in prudence, n. 3). Of acquired prudence, McHugh-Callan holds that it “is lost by repeated acts of mortal sin”, “but not by one sole act” (n. 1652); Bontempi, that it “is not in those who sin very frequently” (Who share in prudence, n. 6).
Justice
JusticeVindicative justice
Vindicative justice divides them most. Prümmer sets out three opinions and concludes “let each one abound in his own sense” (II, n. 71). Noldin says it can “in no way” be “numbered as a fourth species among the subjective parts of justice” (n. 272). Merkelbach ascribes a fourth species to “Some among more recent authors, after Schmalzgrueber” and reduces it to the three (II, n. 256). Wouters reduces it to legal justice, “unless, which seems not altogether improbable, it must be held as a special virtue and a potential part of justice” (n. 382). St. Thomas assigns public vengeance to commutative justice and private vengeance to the annexed virtue (II-II, q. 80). McHugh-Callan has it “elicited by commutative justice” (n. 1707); Marc says it “primarily pertains to legal justice”, yet often to commutative justice too (n. 400); Sabetti counts it among four justices, but adds that “many do not hold vindicative justice as a peculiar species of justice distinct from the others” (n. 346). Concina divides it: in the judge or prince vindicative justice “is an act of true commutative justice; but in the persons injured it is not true justice, but a potential part of the same”, with St. Thomas (IX, diss. I, ch. III, n. V, IX, diss. I, ch. III, n. VI).
JusticeWhether only commutative justice is justice strictly
Merkelbach rejects the opinion that “only commutative justice” is justice strictly so called (II, n. 256). Wouters reports both sides of the question, noting that some deny a true division because “the reason of justice is found perfectly in commutative justice alone” (n. 382). Marc calls distributive justice “imperfect justice, because it is not founded upon strict right, but upon a debt of fittingness”, and says legal justice “falls short of the notion of perfect justice” (n. 400). Sabetti: the other justices share in commutative justice, “which alone is such strictly”, and those who break the laws “are called rebels or wicked, but not unjust” (n. 346). McHugh-Callan: “Particular justice partakes more of the nature of justice” (n. 1703). Noldin calls the right of distributive justice less strict, “although both are true right, properly so called and perfect” (n. 270). Concina: that legal justice “is not justice in the whole rigour of the term the Salmanticenses and others contend; but the opposite opinion is to me the more probable”, though “the right of distributive justice is imperfect, founded not in the thing or to the thing” but in fitness (IX, diss. I, ch. III, n. III, IX, diss. I, ch. III, n. VII). Billuart: particular justice is divided into commutative and distributive “as into essentially distinct species”, the distributive rendering what is owed “not simply, but secundum quid” (On the division of justice, n. 2, On the division of justice, n. 4).
JusticeWhat social justice is
Social justice is named differently. Merkelbach holds it “nothing other than legal justice” and says of those who also call distributive justice social, “but not rightly” (II, n. 256). Noldin reports both uses, “either legal justice” or “at the same time legal and distributive justice” (n. 272). Prümmer and Wouters give it as another name for legal justice (II, n. 71, n. 382).
Hypnotism and SpiritismWhether hypnotism is lawful
On hypnotism they begin from opposite sides and come near each other. Noldin: “Hypnotism of itself is illicit”, though “it can licitly be employed” with conditions (n. 749). Prümmer: “Hypnotism is not unlawful in itself; often, however, it becomes unlawful because of abuse” (II, n. 523). Wouters: “although free from superstition, is nevertheless unlawful without a grave cause” (n. 603). On spiritism they agree: Noldin calls it “a new superstition” (n. 168), and Wouters says it “is superstitious” (n. 605). Marc holds scientific hypnotism licit with due conditions, “the more common opinion” (n. 570), though Noldin counts Marc among those who forbid it absolutely (n. 749); Merkelbach and Vermeersch take its proper facts for natural (II, n. 789, n. 251).
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateWhether the accused must tell the truth
Whether the accused must tell the truth has changed with the procedure. St. Thomas: “the accused is in duty bound to tell the judge the truth which the latter exacts from him according to the form of law” (II-II, q. 69, a. 1). Merkelbach gives that as the rule “considered in himself”, then adds: “by present-day law he is not held to confess a crime committed by himself” (II, n. 641). Prümmer, Noldin and Wouters say the same (II, Section 5, n. 732, n. 1142), and Prümmer notes that the older opinions “are not always applicable today” (II, n. 163). The Roman Catechism keeps St. Thomas's rule: “God commands him to confess the truth, if he is interrogated judicially” (The Eighth Commandment); Vermeersch: “by no civil law is the accused held to confess the delict” (n. 695). Bontempi, against the Thomists, denies that a half-proof suffices for questioning the accused, so that “confessors ought not to force penitents to confess, if they have hope of escaping death” (Whether the accused is bound to co, n. 9).
Injustice in GeneralKilling one who consents
Killing one who consents. Wouters holds, “against many”, that injustice is done to the one consenting himself, since his right persists (n. 976). Noldin says the act “is unjust against God, but cannot be unjust against him who consents” (n. 411); McHugh-Callan, that it is unjust “to God and to the State” (n. 1725). Prümmer and Marc say injustice is done, Marc because the right is inalienable and cannot be yielded “without injury to others” (II, n. 76, n. 723). Vermeersch holds the opposite: the rule “suffers no exception”, since one who cannot transfer an inalienable right can still not oppose it, though such consent is not always honest nor removes the act's other malice (n. 575).
Respect of PersonsThe worthy or the worthier
The worthy or the worthier. St. Thomas: the elector in conscience must elect “one who is better” (II-II, q. 63, a. 2, ad 3), and Merkelbach rejects the opinion that only a worthy man is owed as “not conformable to the mind of St. Thomas” (II, n. 622). Bontempi holds the worthier is owed “for any Ecclesiastical benefice whatever” (Whether, and how, it is a sin of a, n. 12). Vermeersch requires the more worthy for public offices but grants the contrary opinion “extrinsic probability” (n. 571); Wouters says naming a worthy man, though less worthy, does not injure commutative justice toward the society (n. 1048). Billuart: conferring a benefice on the less worthy, the more worthy passed over, “regularly speaking, is illicit, but valid”, the common opinion; mortal where the care of souls is annexed, “venial only, more probably” for simple benefices of lesser moment (On respect of persons in the…, n. 4, On respect of persons in the…, n. 10, On respect of persons in the…, n. 12).
Respect of PersonsRestitution to the worthier passed over
Restitution to the worthier passed over. Vermeersch, Merkelbach, McHugh-Callan and Wouters owe none unless a competition gave a strict right (n. 571); Bontempi reports Molina, Salon and Bannes holding that distributive injustice itself binds to restitution to the worthier (Whether, and how, it is a sin of a, n. 43). Billuart: outside the concursus nothing is owed the worthier passed over, who has “not strict right to the benefice, but only a right of aptitude and proportion”; to the Church restitution is owed of itself, “But it seems that the Church neither demands this restitution nor binds to it” (On respect of persons in the…, n. 19, On respect of persons in the…, n. 17).
Theft and RobberyTaking in grave necessity
Grave necessity. Prümmer, Merkelbach and Marc: it is not lawful to take another's goods in grave necessity, as Innocent XI's condemned proposition 36 shows; Merkelbach adds that it lessens the sin (II, n. 86, II, n. 411, n. 913). Sabetti-Barrett says it depends on how “grave” is meant: a quasi-extreme necessity is treated as extreme (n. 407). Vermeersch: one in grave necessity who takes “some modest thing” after asking in vain does not steal (n. 660). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure: “in urgent necessity it is lawful to take what is necessary” (Whether in extreme, or urgent, nec, n. 11).
Theft and RobberyThings of great value in extreme necessity
Things of great value in extreme necessity. Merkelbach and Marc allow even a thing of the greatest value, though the owner is not bound to give it (II, n. 411, n. 914), and Sabetti-Barrett a great sum to escape death (n. 407). Wouters allows extraordinary things in extreme necessity but not in quasi-extreme (n. 1032). Prümmer distinguishes, and holds that one in more remote extreme necessity probably cannot take a great sum (II, n. 87).
Theft and RobberyWhether extreme necessity gives ownership
Whether extreme necessity makes the thing one's own. Prümmer and Noldin say the needy man makes it his own (II, n. 86, n. 425), and Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, that dominion passes (Whether in extreme, or urgent, nec, n. 1). Merkelbach: this necessity “does not make the poor man the owner of another's thing” but gives only a right to take it (II, n. 412).
Unjust DamageDamaging the wrong owner by mistake
Damaging the wrong owner by mistake, as when one burns Paul's house thinking it Peter's. Merkelbach binds to restitution and calls the contrary “a mere subtlety” (II, n. 296); Prümmer says the contrary “conflicts too much with men's moral sense” (II, n. 99); Noldin binds in theory (n. 463) but says one who follows St. Alphonsus cannot in practice be obliged (n. 463); McHugh-Callan: the error “probably does not excuse” (n. 1764). Marc and Sabetti-Barrett, with St. Alphonsus, hold that there is probably no obligation before a judge's sentence (n. 950, n. 425).
Unjust DamageRepairing personal harm with money
Repairing personal harm with money. St. Thomas: where the equivalent cannot be restored, compensation is owed “as far as possible” (II-II, q. 62, a. 2, ad 1). Merkelbach reports that many recent authors with St. Alphonsus deny it (II, n. 297), and judges St. Thomas more probable in speculation but the other opinion usable in practice (II, n. 297). Concina joins St. Thomas: “The other opinion, which is the more probable, affirms it” (IX, diss. II, ch. V, n. II).
Cooperating in Another’s InjusticeThe confessor who does not warn of restitution
The confessor who does not warn of restitution. Prümmer, Merkelbach and Marc say mere omission does not bind him to restitution, since his office does not guard temporal goods (II, n. 110, II, n. 316, n. 989); Noldin binds him if he positively frees with grave fault one who must restore (n. 497). McHugh-Callan counts among negative cooperators bound to restitution “confessors who culpably neglect to give penitents needed spiritual advice” (n. 1780). Bontempi reports Navarrus and others binding him (On the indirect causes of loss, n. 8) and holds with St. Bonaventure that he is not bound (On the indirect causes of loss, n. 10).
Cooperating in Another’s InjusticeServants and goods in their care
Servants. Merkelbach and Prümmer bind a servant for goods specially committed to his care (II, n. 316, II, n. 110), Merkelbach whether the damage comes from strangers or from fellow servants; Sabetti-Barrett holds that servants are probably not bound, except those set over a special thing (n. 441). Concina binds servants who keep silent while “strangers filching their master's goods” whatever the goods, but against fellow servants only for goods “entrusted to their own custody”; of common things stolen by domestics they sin against charity but “are free from the burden of restitution” (IX, diss. II, ch. II, n. XX).
AbortionWhen the soul is infused
When the soul is infused. Prümmer and Marc say that animation at or soon after conception is now commonly admitted (II, n. 138, n. 740); Wouters calls it “freely disputed” (n. 732); McHugh-Callan says the theory of Aristotle and St. Thomas, of later animation, “still has great probability physically”, though in practice life must be held to begin at conception (n. 1848); Vermeersch warns against concluding that the soul is present from the first moment (n. 622). All forbid the direct abortion of a fetus not yet animated.
AbortionA doubtful or ectopic pregnancy
A doubtful or ectopic pregnancy. Noldin, with Genicot, and Sabetti-Barrett allow removing what may be a fetus or a tumor when the mother is in danger (n. 341, n. 273); Wouters holds that the same rules as for a certain fetus apply (n. 738); McHugh-Callan accepts as safe in practice the excision of the diseased tube in a tubal pregnancy (n. 1848).
Killing and Mutilating OneselfA condemned man ordered to kill himself
A condemned man ordered by the judge to kill himself. St. Thomas: “no man is judge of himself”, though he may commit himself to the judgment of others (II-II, q. 64, a. 5, ad 2). Merkelbach would “not dare to condemn as certainly illicit” the case of one who does so at public command (II, n. 350); Sabetti-Barrett reports that the common opinion denies it and calls the other probable (n. 264); McHugh-Callan reports that some authors allow it (n. 1856).
Killing and Mutilating OneselfMutilating oneself to escape a tyrant
Mutilating oneself to escape death at a tyrant's hands. Marc, after Lugo, allows it (n. 756); Bontempi, with St. Thomas and Soto, says no one is bound or able to do it, though Bassaeus allows it (Whether the mutilation of a limb i, n. 4).
Killing and Mutilating OneselfSelf-killing at God's inspiration
Self-killing at God's inspiration. Merkelbach says it “certainly is licit” (II, n. 350), and Marc likewise, citing the virgins honored by the Church (n. 753); McHugh-Callan says “whether God has ever done this is uncertain”, and some explain those cases by invincible ignorance (n. 1856).
Killing a Criminal or an AggressorIntending the aggressor's death
Whether the aggressor's death may be intended. St. Thomas: “it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense”, except for those with public authority (II-II, q. 64, a. 7); Merkelbach holds bloody defense to be “nothing except indirect killing”, against Lugo and Waffelaert (II, n. 361), and McHugh-Callan that one must intend only to stop the attack (n. 1834). Wouters reports Cajetan and Billuart allowing only indirect killing and holds the contrary, that the killing may be taken as a means (n. 746). On the reason, Sabetti-Barrett says the aggressor “cannot retain the right to his own life” against the innocent (n. 268); Vermeersch rejects any “conflict of rights” and rests it on the double effect (n. 607).
Killing a Criminal or an AggressorStriking first against a planned attack
Striking first against a planned attack. Noldin: it is not lawful to kill one who lays snares and will attack later (n. 332); Merkelbach: to kill before the aggression is to forestall it, not to defend (II, n. 361), and McHugh-Callan requires at least a moral aggression (n. 1830). Marc calls the contrary more probable, though with St. Alphonsus scarcely to be held in practice (n. 734).
Killing a Criminal or an AggressorKilling to defend lesser goods
Lesser goods defended by killing. Prümmer, Noldin, Wouters, Marc and Sabetti-Barrett allow it for goods of great value and for chastity (II, n. 122); Merkelbach calls the defense of great goods already possessed only probable (II, n. 362) and the defense of chastity “very doubtful” (II, n. 362); McHugh-Callan reports both as disputed where life is not also threatened (n. 1840, n. 1841).
The DuelFighting when refusal means death
Fighting when refusal means certain death. Sabetti-Barrett allows one “to fight for mere defense, even by accepting weapons from the adversary”, if no other escape exists (n. 275), and McHugh-Callan likens the case to unjust aggression, though hard to picture (n. 1436). Bontempi calls it “altogether false” that a duel may be held to protect life (Whether, and how, the duel is unla, n. 19), and rejects Sanchez, Bannes and Cajetan, who allow accepting a duel offered to protect one's goods or life (Whether, and how, the duel is unla, n. 23).
Cheating and UsuryWhy moderate interest is now lawful
Why moderate interest is now lawful. Merkelbach: because in present economic conditions extrinsic titles “ordinarily” exist (II, n. 579); Prümmer takes the title of civil law as settled by the Holy See's responses (II, n. 288); Marc likewise, noting the clause “until the Holy See has issued a definitive decision” (n. 1112); Noldin: the Church permits it “even if another title making the gain honorable does not exist” (n. 586); Vermeersch: it is lawful “while the present condition of society perseveres” (n. 450); Sabetti-Barrett calls not improbable the view that rests it on the fruitfulness of money itself (n. 528). Concina, writing before those responses, rejects the “trading” loan, gain on it being lawful “provided it be moderate and consonant with the laws of the country”: “These crafty and inept fictions both the divine Scriptures and the Fathers explode” (IX, diss. IV, ch. II, n. II, IX, diss. IV, ch. II, n. III).
Cheating and UsuryPrices of necessities in scarcity
Prices of necessities in scarcity. Vermeersch holds that justice itself sets a maximum price on necessary things, though too little recognized to ground restitution (n. 464); McHugh-Callan calls exorbitant prices raised on public distress a cruel injustice, “profiteering” (n. 2128). The others measure the price by the common estimate.
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateA judge privately certain of innocence
A judge who privately knows the accused to be innocent, when the evidence proves him guilty. St. Thomas: the judge must sift the evidence, but if “he is unable to reject that evidence juridically, he must, as stated above, follow it in pronouncing sentence” (II-II, q. 67, a. 2); Merkelbach follows him, calling the exception for capital penalties “not logically founded” (II, n. 637). Bontempi holds the opposite: “a judge can by no means condemn an innocent man to any punishment, and especially to death” (Whether a judge can condemn to dea, n. 12). Prümmer sets out three opinions, St. Thomas's last (II, n. 158); Noldin lets the judge absolve or condemn “at his pleasure,” “since the matter is much controverted among theologians” (n. 723); Marc and Sabetti-Barrett report St. Alphonsus as siding with St. Bonaventure in capital cases (n. 2302, n. 559); McHugh: the judge “must not condemn, if there is any legal way to avoid it”; otherwise he follows St. Thomas with “the lightest penalty allowed by the law” (n. 1951, n. 1953). All agree he must first try every means of freeing him, and that jurors may never vote against an accused they certainly know to be innocent (n. 2302).
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateThe price of an unjust sentence
Whether a judge paid for an unjust sentence must give up the price once it is given. St. Thomas distinguishes a giving unlawful in itself, as in simony, where the receiver “must not retain the price,” from a giving for an unlawful purpose, as a harlot's hire, which “she may keep” (II-II, q. 62, a. 5, ad 2). Prümmer puts the bribe with the second: the judge “can retain the gift accepted, just as a prostitute can retain the price” (II, n. 157); so Merkelbach, by “the principles concerning a base contract” (II, n. 636), Noldin and Wouters (n. 721, n. 1136), and Sabetti-Barrett calls it probable (n. 559); McHugh finds “no natural obligation” to the giver, though the law may void the bargain (n. 1946). Bontempi puts it with the first: the price is “liable to restitution by the law of nature, and therefore before every sentence”; it is to be “restored to the giver” (On the injustice of false witnesse, n. 22, On the injustice of false witnesse, n. 21). All agree it must be returned if the sentence has not yet been given, and that the injured party's damage must be repaired.
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateA silent witness and restitution
Whether a witness lawfully questioned who keeps back the truth, without lying, owes restitution. Merkelbach: one who “held himself negatively, is not held,” unless his office bound him to denounce (II, n. 642); so Noldin, since he “does not positively inflict damage, but only does not impede it” (n. 741), Wouters (n. 1146), Sabetti-Barrett (n. 564), and McHugh, who counts him a negative cooperator against legal justice and charity (n. 1993). Bontempi holds that he “sins against Justice” and is bound to restitution (Whether anyone is sometimes bound, n. 6). Of one not questioned who could save an innocent man, Bontempi agrees with the rest: he sins against charity, “not against justice” (Whether anyone is sometimes bound, n. 26).
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateA guilty man fleeing a prison of punishment
Whether a guilty man may flee a prison assigned as his punishment. St. Thomas: one condemned to death “is not bound to do anything from which death would result” (II-II, q. 69, a. 4, ad 2). Bontempi calls flight the common opinion, many extending it to prison for a time and the galleys (Whether the accused can flee, and, n. 6); Prümmer: “theologians commonly teach that even one justly condemned can flee from prison,” though today flight “often is against right and necessary love of oneself, and therefore illicit” (II, n. 164). Wouters and Sabetti-Barrett, with St. Alphonsus, deny it unless the prison is excessively harsh (n. 1144, n. 562); Marc denies it for a prison “not very hard” (n. 2311); Noldin denies it unless the penalty is atrocious, noting others who allow it simply (n. 733); Merkelbach allows it “at least in order to evade death or harsh prison” (II, n. 641). McHugh sets out the three opinions (n. 1982).
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateBribing or drugging the guards
What a prisoner who may flee can do to the guards. Merkelbach: an innocent man “can, by giving money, induce guards not to obstruct his flight” (II, n. 641); Noldin lets one unjustly condemned corrupt a guard “who has been forewarned” (n. 733); Wouters forbids corrupting the guard to one “justly condemned” (n. 1144). Marc forbids it even to one unjustly condemned, “since this is intrinsically evil” (n. 2311); so Bontempi, “because the guards are bound by justice and a just oath to keep guard” (Whether the accused can flee, and, n. 13), and McHugh (n. 1977). Prümmer and Wouters allow making the guards drunk (II, n. 164, n. 1144); Bontempi forbids a sleeping potion or drink as mortal (Whether the accused can flee, and, n. 16).
Sins of Accuser, Accused, Witness and AdvocateDamage done in breaking prison
Whether one who lawfully breaks prison must repair the damage. Prümmer: the affirmative “seems truer,” if the damage is notable (II, n. 164); Noldin: not the guards' loss, but “according to the common opinion” the broken prison (n. 733); McHugh: not ordinary damage such as “a hole cut in a wall” (n. 1983); Marc: not even the keeper's loss, “for he uses his own right” (n. 2311); Bontempi: not the damages that followed (Whether the accused can flee, and, n. 12).
Detraction and CalumnyA sentence told in another region
A crime established by a judge's sentence, told in another region. Noldin, Wouters, Marc, Vermeersch and McHugh-Callan allow it anywhere, the sentence having taken away the right to reputation in that matter (n. 651, n. 1069, n. 1200, n. 600, n. 2054); Merkelbach forbids it as against justice, “because there the accused has not been deprived of the right to reputation” (II, n. 430).
Detraction and CalumnyA crime public in one place, told elsewhere
A crime public in one place by the fact, told where it is unknown and would not soon be known. Merkelbach and Wouters hold it unjust, except for crimes that make a man dangerous to others (II, n. 430, n. 1069); Noldin finds probable the opinion allowing it for all crimes (n. 651); Marc gives three opinions and calls the more common, that it is not grave, “very probable” when limited to crimes which make a man pernicious (n. 1200); Sabetti-Barrett, with St. Alphonsus, probably not mortal (n. 316); Vermeersch follows Lugo in allowing it (n. 600); Prümmer counts it against charity, not justice (II, n. 194); McHugh-Callan reports the opinions and judges that one who speaks of it without necessity sins against charity, “if not against justice” (n. 2056).
Detraction and CalumnyRecalling a forgotten crime
Recalling a crime once public, now amended and forgotten. If it was public by a judge's sentence, Noldin, Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan find no injustice, only a sin against charity (n. 651, II, n. 430, n. 2058), and Wouters allows it (n. 1069); Vermeersch judges the mind of today's legislator to be against stirring up “the memory of an ancient condemnation” (n. 600). If it was public only in fact, Noldin and Merkelbach hold it against justice, the right to reputation having revived (n. 651, II, n. 430), Wouters “as it seems” (n. 1069), and McHugh-Callan reports many holding the same (n. 2058); Prümmer finds no violation of justice (II, n. 194); Marc, mortal “at least against charity” (n. 1200).
Detraction and CalumnyTaking back a true detraction
How the detractor, who told the truth, may take it back. Noldin allows equivocal words, “that he erred, that he was deceived” (n. 656), and so Sabetti-Barrett (n. 315) and Marc, who gives St. Alphonsus's counsel to say “I drew this out of my head” (n. 1206); Merkelbach allows amphibology but prefers praise, the other way being one which “smells of mental restriction” (II, n. 445). Vermeersch: “The use of mental restrictions, which others concede and even command, cannot be approved by us” (n. 603); McHugh-Callan has him say only that his statements “were unjust” (n. 2093).
Detraction and CalumnyMoney for a lost good name
Money for a good name that cannot be restored. Noldin, Marc and Wouters: he is not bound, “because reputation and money are not goods of the same order” (n. 655, n. 1205, n. 1074); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure: it “cannot be made” (Whether, and how, restitution of f, n. 11); Merkelbach: it “can be counseled” where the defamed man is poor and willing (II, n. 445); McHugh-Callan: he “should make a profitable compensation by the bestowal of a benefit”, money if the defamed man is satisfied with it (n. 2094). Wouters lets the defamed man take money from a defamer who unjustly refuses to restore (n. 1074).
Detraction and CalumnyRetracting on oath
Whether the calumniator must swear to his retraction or bring witnesses. Noldin and Merkelbach require these means if the retraction would not otherwise be efficacious, “because they are not considered very difficult” (n. 656, II, n. 445); so Wouters and Marc (n. 1073, n. 1206), and McHugh-Callan an affidavit (n. 2093). Bontempi reports the moderns binding to this and wonders at it: the ancient theologians “require only a simple retraction” (Whether, and how, restitution of f, n. 6).
Detraction and CalumnyUsing knowledge unjustly gained
Revealing, for a grave cause, a crime learned unjustly, as by reading another's letters. Merkelbach: unlawful, unless one already had a right to use that means (II, n. 429); Marc and McHugh-Callan set it among the conditions of lawful revelation that the knowledge not be unjustly gained (n. 1198, n. 2070). Prümmer reports Lugo and St. Alphonsus denying, Lessius and Concina affirming, because to use the knowledge once acquired “is contrary to no natural or positive law” (II, n. 192).
ContumelyMust a superior ask pardon
Whether a superior who has insulted a subject must ask pardon. Noldin: superiors “are never obliged” (n. 665); McHugh-Callan: “an apology is never necessary” (n. 2025); Prümmer and Wouters likewise, at least for a contumely not so grave (II, n. 185, n. 1083); Merkelbach: rarely, though sometimes useful for edification (II, n. 447). Bontempi objects: “what turns my stomach is that some of the authorities cited compel subjects to ask pardon, but never superiors”, for restitution must equal the injury (Whether, and how, restitution of f, n. 40).
ContumelyA private insult, repaired in justice?
Whether an insult given privately, with no one by, must be repaired in justice. McHugh-Callan reports two opinions, one owing only satisfaction, and that not before a judge's sentence (n. 2022); Vermeersch rejects Molina's view that only charity binds, “because dishonoring, as such, is damnose” (n. 596); Marc: it must be repaired, “according to the common and true opinion” (n. 1215); Merkelbach: repaired privately (II, n. 447).
ContumelyWhether asking pardon always suffices
Whether asking pardon always suffices. Noldin, after Lessius, and Merkelbach: by asking pardon any injury, even to the most noble, is sufficiently repaired (n. 665, II, n. 447); Marc, with St. Alphonsus, holds it “more probable” that for a very grave injury to a superior one must ask it on bent knees (n. 1215); McHugh-Callan: so humiliating a satisfaction, being penal, can await an order from authority (n. 2022).
CursingCursing things without reason
Cursing things without reason. St. Thomas allows it in their relation to man, as Job cursed his day and David the mountains of Gelboe (II-II, q. 76, a. 2); Noldin: “if there is an honorable end of cursing creatures, there is no sin” (n. 208); McHugh-Callan allows cursing them as figures of evil (n. 2117). Bontempi reports St. Bonaventure as holding “universally that it is not lawful to curse these”, and reads Job and David otherwise (On curses, n. 17), though he also reports Tanner's distinctions (On curses, n. 23).
Rash Judgment and SuspicionRestitution for a rash judgment
Whether a rash judgment calls for restitution. Noldin: “the obligation of restitution does not arise from rash judgment as such”, it being an internal violation of justice (n. 659); Wouters: such judgments oblige “to a certain species of restitution, namely that one lay aside the aforesaid judgment” (n. 1077); Marc: one is “held from justice to reform his suspicion and his judgment” (n. 1194); Merkelbach: bound to put them away and to conceive a good estimation (II, n. 444).
Violating a SecretAn entrusted secret and the innocent condemned
An entrusted secret that would save an innocent man condemned for the crime of the one who confided it. Prümmer: it may be revealed, since “I ought rather to save the life of the innocent man than the life of the guilty man”, and the contrary opinion “does not seem sufficiently proved” (II, n. 180). Noldin: its obligation does not cease for a crime already committed, “even if by manifestation the damage of the innocent person could be averted” (n. 670); so Sabetti-Barrett, while the guilty man is not bound to betray himself (n. 325), Vermeersch, for whom “even the damage of an innocent person must be put after it” (n. 699), Wouters (n. 1089), and Merkelbach, unless the guilty man himself made the accusation (II, n. 855); Marc allows silence “unless the guilty person unjustly strives to accuse the innocent” (n. 1187). McHugh-Callan reports both opinions (n. 2418).
Violating a SecretReading torn-up letters
Piecing together and reading letters torn up and thrown away. Prümmer, with St. Alphonsus against Lugo, holds it against justice (II, n. 181); so Merkelbach, the tearing being “as it were destruction” (II, n. 856), Wouters, McHugh-Callan and Marc (n. 1090, n. 2411, n. 1188). Noldin: it “is probably not against justice” (n. 671); Vermeersch: the one who throws them out “admits the voluntary danger”, and the reader yields “only to venial curiosity” (n. 700).
Violating a SecretA secret promised at the cost of life
A secret promised to be kept even at the cost of life. Prümmer: by “the truer opinion” the promise is to be kept, though several authors permit breaking it for a most grave reason (II, n. 180); Marc: “very probably” it binds, the opposite being “also sufficiently probable” (n. 1186); Wouters sets out both opinions (n. 1089); Noldin: a promised secret does not bind with grave inconvenience “unless someone expressly obligated himself otherwise” (n. 668).
DivinationHow far a dream may be believed
How far a dream may be believed. Noldin: if it is probable that God sent it, “we can believe it and direct our actions according to it” (n. 156); Wouters: one is free of superstition if it is “at least permissible to suspect” that it is from God (n. 600). Marc: in doubt, “faith is not to be applied to them” (n. 565); Bontempi: “if there is not probability that those dreams are from God, it will not be permitted to give faith to them” (On divination from dreams, n. 3); Vermeersch would have one “almost certain” of its divine origin before trusting it fully, though following an indifferent sign without full faith is no certain sin (n. 244). Concina: dreams that are honorable and turn the mind to good may be believed from God, but “If, after sufficient diligence, they remain doubtful, they are to be disregarded — this being the safer course”, and they should be told to a prudent confessor (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. VI, n. IV).
Vain Observance and MagicFearful avoidances: superstition at all?
Whether fearful avoidances, as of thirteen at table or a journey on Friday, are superstition at all. St. Thomas: observances of lucky and unlucky days are “superstitious and unlawful”, being remains of idolatry (II-II, q. 96, a. 3); Marc counts refusing to sit thirteen at table among vain observances (n. 568). Noldin: “properly speaking, a sin of superstition is not committed by these”, though they are foolish (n. 160); Vermeersch finds in them no tacit pact but “a fearful rather than strictly superstitious mind”, a venial defect of trust (n. 242); McHugh-Callan: regularly venial, often no sin (n. 2295). Concina: those who will not sit thirteen at table “are guilty of superstition”; if from a vain fear and popular rumor, without firm conviction, “ignorance would excuse them from grave fault — especially if the diners are simple, uneducated people”, but persons of standing “I would scarcely excuse” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. II, n. IX).
Hypnotism and SpiritismA turning table and its answers
A turning table and its answers. Its simple rotation: Noldin permits it “with a protestation against the influence of the demon premised” (n. 167); Wouters calls it “of itself lawful” (n. 601); Marc “not evidently illicit” (n. 566); Prümmer and Merkelbach explain it naturally yet would keep the faithful from it (II, n. 521, II, n. 780); Sabetti-Barrett calls it controverted, but “certainly it is not to be permitted” (n. 209); McHugh-Callan reports the authorities divided (n. 2297). Its answers by knocks: Prümmer and Merkelbach find answers to what someone at the table knows explicable naturally (II, n. 521, II, n. 780); Noldin and Sabetti-Barrett hold any consultation of the table illicit, “even if questions are proposed concerning merely indifferent matters” (n. 167, n. 209).
Tempting GodPreaching unprepared: tempting God, presumption, or neither
Preaching without preparation. Noldin: light in one merely negligent, but an untaught cleric who hopes the matter will be suggested by God sins gravely (n. 173); Marc: venial (n. 577); Prümmer weighs it chiefly by the scandal (II, n. 528); McHugh-Callan counts the unprepared lecturer as tempting God interpretatively (n. 2302). Merkelbach and Vermeersch: one who expects no special aid does not tempt God at all, though he sins otherwise, Vermeersch calling it “rather presumption” against another precept (II, n. 793, n. 255). Bontempi rejects Navarrus's view that it is mortal, unless the disposition of tempting God or scandal intervenes (What temptation is, and of how man, n. 7).
PerjuryAn oath confirming grave detraction: venial as an oath, or a second mortal sin
An oath confirming a grave detraction. Noldin: as an oath it is venial, “even if the sin against charity or justice is grave” (n. 255). Prümmer counts two mortal sins, the detraction and the abuse of an oath (II, n. 459); Merkelbach, Marc, Sabetti-Barrett and Vermeersch make the oath grave when it is used as the instrument of the detraction, to win it belief, though an assertory oath on an evil thing is otherwise venial (II, n. 798, n. 609, n. 224, n. 193); so Wouters (n. 685). Bontempi argues that bringing God as witness to a mortal sin already done is itself mortal (Whether an oath made without justi, n. 12).
SacrilegeStealing a purse in a church: sacrilege, or only if the church held it
Theft of a thing not sacred, such as a purse, in a church. Prümmer, with St. Alphonsus and the words of the canon, holds every grave theft in a sacred place a true sacrilege (II, n. 548); so Marc, more probably, though he would not urge its confession, the matter being doubtful (n. 582, n. 582); Bontempi cites St. Bonaventure for it (Sole Question: What sacrilege is, n. 10). Noldin, Merkelbach and Wouters make it sacrilege only when the thing belongs to the church or was given into its keeping (n. 178, II, n. 805, n. 616); McHugh-Callan, Vermeersch and Sabetti-Barrett likewise deny it, Sabetti-Barrett calling the negative “certainly probable” (n. 2312, n. 269, n. 215). Concina is with Prümmer: local sacrilege is committed “If someone steals in a Church a sacred thing from a sacred place, or a non-sacred thing from a sacred place, or a sacred thing from a non-sacred place” (III, diss. VIII, ch. III, n. VII).
SacrilegeBreaking a private vow of chastity: sacrilege or not
Breaking a private vow of chastity. Prümmer, McHugh-Callan and Vermeersch: not sacrilege properly so called, no one being made a sacred person by a private vow (II, n. 544, n. 2313, n. 267); so Sabetti-Barrett, probably (n. 215); Wouters reports the dispute (n. 614). Noldin denies it strictly, yet with St. Alphonsus allows the affirming opinion as probable in practice (n. 177); Marc: “others, perhaps more probably, affirm” (n. 581). All agree it is a sin against religion as well as against chastity (n. 215).
SacrilegeBreaking the vows of poverty and obedience: sacrilege or not
Breaking the vows of poverty and obedience. Merkelbach counts it personal sacrilege, these vows consecrating the person as chastity does (II, n. 804); Bontempi too names the breaking of a vow (Sole Question: What sacrilege is, n. 7), and St. Alphonsus, writing for religious, calls the violation of poverty “a sacrilegious theft” and taking back the will once given “sacrilege” (True Spouse, ch. IX, True Spouse, ch. VII). McHugh-Callan, naming Merkelbach, holds the opposite better (n. 2313); Wouters: the violation of a vow other than chastity “does not involve sacrilege” (n. 614); Marc reports the Salmanticenses affirming of any vow and Suarez denying (n. 581).
SacrilegeWhat profanes a church: only the acts the Code names, or more
What else profanes a church. Vermeersch admits as local sacrilege only the acts the Code names as violating a sacred place, against the stricter authors (n. 268). Merkelbach adds external sins specially repugnant to the place (II, n. 805); Marc, all sins against its sanctity (n. 582); Noldin reports de Lugo teaching that every sin in a church has some note of sacrilege (n. 178); Wouters: every external sin has some malice of sacrilege, though commonly slight (n. 616). McHugh-Callan: not every grave sin in a holy place, but theft and impurity are sacrilegious (n. 2312).
SacrilegeTithes and dues withheld: sacrilege or not
Tithes and dues withheld. Bontempi counts the withholding of what is owed to clerics, such as tithes, as personal sacrilege (Sole Question: What sacrilege is, n. 6); Prümmer reports some holding the defrauding of tithes true sacrilege and others a sin of irreligion (II, n. 554). Vermeersch: not paying owed tithes or legacies “is not sacrilege,” the Church not yet possessing them (n. 270); so Noldin, Wouters and McHugh-Callan of what is owed but not yet handed over (n. 179, n. 618, n. 2313).
SimonyA price for the labor of the sacred act itself: simony or not
A price for the labor that belongs to the sacred act itself. Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, holds that even for the ordinary labor of the Mass a price may be received, adding “Woe to innumerable priests” if the contrary were true (How simony is known on the part of, n. 18, How simony is known on the part of, n. 21). Prümmer, Merkelbach, Noldin, Marc and McHugh-Callan make the sale of labor intrinsic to a sacred function simony of divine law, “the most common opinion” (II, n. 562, II, n. 812, n. 185, n. 589, n. 2328); Vermeersch agrees that such labor is valued only from the spiritual work (n. 276); Noldin reports some thinking it remains a physical action that may be paid (n. 198).
SimonyPaying a priest who will not give a sacrament free: never, or for grave cause
Paying a priest who will not give a sacrament without money. St. Thomas: an adult in danger of death “must by no means pay a price for Baptism, and should rather die without being baptized” (II-II, q. 100, a. 2, ad 1). Noldin, Wouters and Marc allow money to be given for a grave cause, as the redeeming of an unjust vexation and the permitting of another's sin, not as a price (n. 200, n. 624, n. 588); McHugh-Callan: in danger of death “it would not be simony to pay the money” (n. 2334). Concina holds with St. Thomas: if a priest at the point of death will not baptize without money, a layman may baptize a child, and for an adult with no other priest at hand “the baptism of desire would supply”; “Whence is rejected the opinion of those who teach that money can be given for the bending of the will of an avaricious priest” (XII, diss. II, ch. II, n. XIV).
SimonyA gift binding a youth to the sacraments: simony or not
A gift that binds a youth to the sacraments. Wouters, with St. Alphonsus, makes it simony if the giver means to bind the other strictly (n. 623), reporting others who deny it even then (n. 623); Noldin reports the dispute (n. 194); Prümmer allows such gifts under a condition but not under a pact strictly so called (II, n. 563). Vermeersch and McHugh-Callan find no simony, the spiritual work not serving the giver (n. 285, n. 2334).
SacrilegeTouches, looks and obscene talk in a church: sacrilege or not
Lesser sins of lust in a church: touches, kisses, looks, obscene talk. Wouters and Marc hold them sacrilege, more probably, even when secret (n. 42, n. 788); Prümmer reports St. Alphonsus calling this the more probable opinion and would have the place confessed, though some hold the contrary probable (II, n. 547); McHugh-Callan: “probably” sacrilegious (n. 2312), “at least if they are of an enormous kind” (n. 2533). Merkelbach admits only acts “disposing altogether proximately to the complete act” (II, n. 1013); so his Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. V). Noldin: “this must probably be denied” (n. 26); Sabetti-Barrett: “the negative opinion seems probable” (n. 215); Bontempi denies it outside the danger of pollution, with Sanchez and Navarre, and reports Diana calling the opposite scrupulous, though Ledesma excepts obscene words said aloud (On sacrilege, n. 12). Vermeersch finds no grave local sacrilege even in secret pollution, “and much more from imperfect acts” (De castitate, n. 339).
SacrilegeSecret pollution in a church since the Code: sacrilege or not
Secret pollution and fornication in a church since the Code, which no longer counts the emission of seed among the acts that violate a church. Prümmer: it still seems true sacrilege, “since the Code of Canon Law has changed nothing in this matter”, and the place must be confessed (II, n. 547); Noldin: certain (n. 26); Marc, “although the crime is hidden” (n. 788); Sabetti-Barrett, certain (n. 215); Wouters, more probably even in secret (n. 42); McHugh-Callan: sacrilegious, “though under the Code it does not seem to be a desecration” (n. 2312). Vermeersch alone denies grave local sacrilege to secret pollution: “Yet its truth escapes us”; lust is referred to one's own body, not to the place, and “secret blasphemy is more repugnant to the sanctity of a place than secret pollution” (De castitate, n. 339). Fornication in a church he does hold grave local sacrilege, for its impiety and the other person drawn in (De castitate, n. 314).
SacrilegeA sin of lust soon after Communion: sacrilege or doubtful
A sin of lust soon after Communion. Prümmer: whether it takes on the grave species of real sacrilege within half an hour “seems doubtful and not solidly proved”, unless the sin is willed in relation to Communion (II, n. 702). Noldin holds it sacrilege while the species are not yet corrupted (n. 26); so Marc, “as long as the sacred species remain” (n. 789), Wouters (n. 42), McHugh-Callan (n. 2533), and Vermeersch, “according to the common estimation”, within half an hour (n. 269, De castitate, n. 314).
SacrilegeA vowed person leading another into sin without lust of his own
A vowed person who leads another into sin. Vermeersch: one who “without his own lust” persuades a person not sacred to sin “is not sacrilegious” (n. 267, De castitate, n. 314); so Merkelbach's Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. V); Wouters, “quite probably”, if he acts from a motive other than lust (n. 42). Marc counts sacrilege where he leads from an affection toward lust, or “pollutes him with his hands, although without his own pleasure” (n. 787).
SacrilegeCemeteries and semi-public oratories: sacred places for carnal sacrilege or not
Which places are sacred for carnal sacrilege. Noldin counts a blessed cemetery (n. 26); Merkelbach, “churches and cemeteries consecrated or blessed” (II, n. 1013); McHugh-Callan names public and semi-public oratories and consecrated cemeteries among sacred places (n. 2311). Wouters doubts of both semi-public oratories and cemeteries (n. 42); Vermeersch admits only a church or public oratory, and that at least solemnly blessed, against Lehmkuhl (De castitate, n. 314, De castitate, n. 314); Merkelbach's Pastoral names a church or public oratory (Pastoral, Ar. V).
DisobedienceThe superior's wish without a command: matter of obedience or not
The superior's wish, known but not commanded. St. Thomas: “the superior's will, however it become known, is a tacit precept” (II-II, q. 104, a. 2). Prümmer reports Cajetan and Lehmkuhl counting its fulfilment true obedience, Lessius and Billuart not, and calls the question “of little importance” (II, n. 575); yet whoever leaves such a wish undone “does not commit a sin of disobedience” (II, n. 575). Merkelbach: it “does not pertain to obedience strictly so called” (II, n. 839); so Wouters (n. 400). Noldin reports Lessius against Lehmkuhl (n. 280); Marc admits it to obedience taken “a little more broadly” (n. 690); McHugh-Callan: on the first opinion the omission “is disobedience”, on the second only a want of its spirit (n. 2355). St. Alphonsus, for religious: “a truly obedient man never waits for a command” (True Spouse, ch. VII).
DisobedienceWhat makes disobedience a special sin: contempt, a true precept, or the precept's motive
What makes disobedience a special sin. With St. Thomas, Prümmer, Merkelbach, Noldin, McHugh-Callan and Bontempi place it in contempt, the command broken in order not to submit (II-II, q. 105, a. 1, ad 1, n. 2367). Marc, with Lessius, places it in the breaking of a true precept of a superior (n. 690), contempt making it mortal. Wouters: only when the precept itself was given from the motive of obedience, “which often does not occur” (n. 400).
Vengeance Without MeasureA private man punishing lightly: lawful or not
A private man punishing. Prümmer: punishment belongs to public authority, but for lesser punishments permission may be presumed, so that “it does not appear unlawful to give a light slap to a boy who has inflicted some injury” (II, n. 610); McHugh-Callan lets private persons use moderately “such punishments as are not forbidden to private persons”, as the denial of friendship (n. 2381). Wouters: the execution itself “is dishonorable for a private man” (n. 408); Merkelbach: private persons “cannot exercise vengeance by themselves” (II, n. 882); Bontempi: vengeance properly so called is done only by one having power, “which only a superior is” (On vindication, n. 4). Merkelbach's Pastoral counts it anger, venial in light matter, when one so avenges himself as to pull a boy a little by the ear (Pastoral, Q. VII).
LyingThe intention to deceive: of the essence of a lie, implicit, or only its perfection
The intention to deceive. St. Thomas: it “does not belong to the species of lying, but to perfection” (II-II, q. 110, a. 1); so Wouters and Sabetti-Barrett, who do not require it (n. 1062, n. 310). Prümmer, after the Thomists against the Scotists, holds an implicit intention of deceiving to belong to its essence (II, n. 166); Merkelbach: “implicitly included” (II, n. 857); Noldin: “virtually and implicitly” (n. 636). Marc writes it into the definition (n. 1177), as Bontempi does with St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, for whom it is the lie's formal part (What a lie is, n. 4). Vermeersch asks instead for formal speech: that one “reasonably be judged to will to communicate” his mind (n. 703).
LyingSaying the truth one thinks false: a lie, or lying only in a qualified sense
Saying what is true while thinking it false. St. Thomas and the manuals call it a lie (II-II, q. 110, a. 1, II, n. 166). Bontempi follows St. Bonaventure, who “holds that falsity is also required for a lie”: such a man is lying, but tells a lie only in a qualified sense (What a lie is, n. 5, What a lie is, n. 11).
LyingA false statement to guard a secret against aggression: lawful defense or a lie
A false statement to guard a secret. Vermeersch: against an unjust aggression, when no other resource remains, one may “defend your silence or secret by a false statement”, the words being chosen only as defense, by double effect, as in killing an aggressor (n. 705, n. 705); he cites Genicot-Salsmans that all admit the answer needed to keep a secret, and “They differ only in explanation” (n. 705). Merkelbach names him and rejects the comparison: a lie is against the very essence of speech, and so illicit “even for just defense” (II, n. 862). Wouters answers the double-effect argument: if a secret cannot be kept without a lie, “the obligation of hiding ceases” (n. 1064). Prümmer and Noldin reject the “psychological lie” or false-speaking that some admit, Prümmer finding it largely “a dispute about words” (II, n. 169, n. 638); Marc: those who define a lie by the hearer's right “stand apart from the common opinion” (n. 1177); Sabetti-Barrett: “They certainly err who place the malice of a lie” in the hearer's right (n. 313). Concina keeps to St. Augustine, who knew two remedies only, silence, and an open refusal, “I will neither betray, nor will I lie”: “No other way of concealing truth did Augustine recognize — not internal restrictions, not material locutions, not amphibologies of words, not other inventions of more recent authors” (Theol. V, diss. III, ch. V, n. III).
LyingThe accused who denies his crime: a lie, or a stratagem of defense
The accused who denies his crime. Vermeersch: in the secular forum the accused who denies guilt, or tells a devised “system” of defense, is not judged to open his mind, but uses “as it were, a military stratagem” (n. 705). Prümmer: he “lies if without mental restriction he denies the crime committed” (II, n. 166); Wouters gives the same case of an accused before an eyewitness judge (n. 1062). Merkelbach and Marc allow him a restricted denial only when he is questioned by one to whom he is not bound to confess, or not legitimately (II, n. 871, n. 1183). The Roman Catechism: the guilty, judicially interrogated, must confess the truth (The Eighth Commandment).
Mental Restriction and AmphibologyA restriction used without just cause: a lie, or only a sin against trust
A restriction used without a just cause. Merkelbach distinguishes: an amphibology without cause sins against truth but is not a lie (II, n. 861), while a restriction without cause “makes a lie”, since the circumstances then do not indicate it, and sworn is perjury (II, n. 861). Noldin, Prümmer, Sabetti-Barrett and Vermeersch count it a sin, the needless occasion of another's deception, but not a lie (n. 640, II, n. 172, n. 313, n. 705).
Mental Restriction and AmphibologyMixed speeches before Innocent XI: lawful equivocation or lies
Restrictions the older authors allowed. Bontempi, writing in 1676, before Innocent XI condemned the strict restriction in 1679, weighs “mixed speeches”, part of the sense in the voice and part in the mind, as “I will give them to you” meaning “if I owe them” (On the other things that are reduc, n. 14): Soto, Cajetan and Azor call them lies (On the other things that are reduc, n. 15), but “The TRUE opinion” admits them when one is asked unlawfully (On the other things that are reduc, n. 17), and he defends St. Francis, who with his hand in his sleeve said a man “did not pass this way” (On the other things that are reduc, n. 18). Noldin: since the condemnation no theologian allows the purely mental restriction, “even if before this several had not judged it illicit” (n. 640); Prümmer rejects restrictions that “by certain older authors were held lawful” (II, n. 173). Concina sets all these devices against St. Augustine, for whom there was no way of concealing the truth beyond silence and an open refusal, “not internal restrictions, not material locutions, not amphibologies of words” (Theol. V, diss. III, ch. V, n. III), and reports how, after 1679, Cattaneo extended the use of words in a sense of one's own “to the avoidance of any notable inconvenience whatsoever” (Theol. V, diss. III, ch. VII, n. IX).
Mental Restriction and AmphibologyTelling the customs officer one carries nothing: lawful, or not for clerics
The customs officer. Merkelbach: one not liable to a duty “can deny that he has merchandise liable” (II, n. 870); so Marc (n. 1183). Noldin allows it of itself, but the officers commonly mean whether anything would be dutiable if found, and “deservedly expect a response without restriction”, especially from clerics (n. 641); Prümmer: for a cleric “in our times it seems illicit” (II, n. 173).
Mental Restriction and AmphibologyThe adulterous wife denying to her husband: lawful, or only probably
The adulterous wife questioned by her husband. Wouters, with St. Alphonsus, lets her deny it, meaning “in such a way that she must manifest it” (n. 1065); Marc likewise, adding that once she has confessed it sacramentally she may say “I am innocent of this crime” (n. 1183); Merkelbach: “probably” (II, n. 871). Noldin allows the restriction (n. 641), but the old answer meaning “idolatry” he calls purely mental (n. 641). Concina answers Sanchez, Castropalao and Bonacina, who let her deny it even on oath, from St. Augustine's case of the suspected wife made to swear: “Is such a doctrine consonant with Augustine's mind, and teaching, who, in express words, teaches the opposite of the adulteress!” (Theol. V, diss. III, ch. VIII, n. VII).
JusticeIntegral parts of justice: two acts, or two justices
St. Thomas calls doing good and declining from evil “quasi-integral parts” (II-II, q. 79, a. 1). Merkelbach adds that they are “proper to justice itself” because in the other virtues to do good is the same as to avoid evil (II, n. 250). Prümmer notes that “Some modern authors enumerate as integral parts of justice constitutive justice” and “restitutive justice, which repairs injured justice”, against St. Thomas's two (II, n. 72).
JusticeLegal justice: a special virtue, or general
Whether legal justice is a special virtue. St. Thomas: it “is a special virtue in respect of its essence”, though “virtually general” (II-II, q. 58, a. 6). Prümmer reports “those who think that this general justice is not a special virtue” and answers that it is held “better and more rightly” to be one (II, n. 71); so Merkelbach, Wouters and Marc; Noldin: it is called general “not because it has no special object” (n. 272); McHugh-Callan: “Essentially, it is a distinct virtue” (n. 1702). Bontempi names Buridan, who “thinks that Legal Justice is any virtue whatever” as it serves the common good (Whether justice is a special virtu, n. 13), and holds against him that it “is not a general virtue” (Whether justice is a special virtu, n. 15). Vermeersch calls it “a general virtue, lacking special matter and commanding in the matter of all virtues” (n. 349), and gives the good acts citizens do freely for the common good to piety and the other virtues: “This escapes not a few writers today” (n. 347).
JusticeWhat right is, and its first sense
What right is, and which sense comes first. St. Thomas: “jus” first meant “the just thing itself” (II-II, q. 57, a. 1, ad 1); Merkelbach: “Properly, and indeed in its primary signification, that which is just” (II, n. 149). Noldin puts the power first: “Right, in its proper and primary sense, signifies the inviolable moral power” (n. 266). What it essentially is: Merkelbach, “a moral preference” by which one is preferred to all others in the use of a thing (II, n. 151), as Lugo taught; Bontempi reports Lugo, that right “is nothing else than a certain moral prelation” (Whether right is the object of jus, n. 15), and rejects it: “all of these relapse into the same circle”, for the preference is an effect of right (Whether right is the object of jus, n. 16); with Tanner he thinks it “can scarcely be explicated by any common concept” (Whether right is the object of jus, n. 17). Vermeersch makes formal right “the inviolable autonomy of the person”, and calls the usual description by an inviolable faculty “more common but less accurate” (n. 346). Billuart sets the just thing first and the faculty second, yet “right taken in this second way is the foundation of right taken in the first way”, since “right and debt are correlatives” (What is right, and of how many kinds, n. 1, What is right, and of how many kinds, n. 2).
JusticeJustice or mercy: which is the greater
Whether justice or mercy is the greater. St. Thomas sets legal justice “foremost among all the moral virtues” and particular justice above the rest (II-II, q. 58, a. 12), yet calls mercy, of the virtues toward our neighbor, “the greatest” (II-II, q. 30, a. 4). McHugh-Callan argues “The superiority of justice to fortitude, temperance, and the annexed virtues, such as mercy” (n. 1715), while granting that “some authorities hold” religion and mercy “more important than justice” (n. 1717). Bontempi: “particular Justice is not simply more perfect than all the other virtues which are toward another; for Mercy seems more perfect”, and piety, and much more religion (Whether justice is the most excell, n. 3). Merkelbach ranks religion and penance above justice (II, n. 148).
JusticeWhether commutative justice ever measures by proportion
How the two particular justices measure. St. Thomas gives distributive justice “geometrical proportion” and commutative justice “the arithmetical mean” (II-II, q. 61, a. 2). Bontempi reports that Vasquez and Turrianus deny commutative justice any geometric equality, lest the species be confused, while Suarez, Lugo and Poncius allow it when a bankrupt must pay many creditors in proportion (Whether distributive justice diffe, n. 10); Amicus “for that reason denies that they are specifically distinguished” (Whether distributive justice diffe, n. 12). He reports too that Lugo makes distributive justice compare several persons in every act (Whether distributive justice diffe, n. 14), which Suarez, Poncius and Mastrius deny, since a bishop can confer a benefice without comparing anyone (Whether distributive justice diffe, n. 15); Bontempi sides with Lugo: “this reason is frivolous”, for Trent requires the worthier to be chosen (Whether distributive justice diffe, n. 16).
JusticeRestitution in money for a harm of another order
Whether a harm of another order must be made good in money. St. Thomas: when what was taken cannot be restored in equivalent, “compensation should be made as far as possible”, in money or in honor for a limb (II-II, q. 62, a. 2, ad 1). Prümmer reports St. Alphonsus calling the denial “more probable and more common”, with Báñez, Lessius and Lugo, and answers that its reason “does not seem convincing” (II, n. 204). Merkelbach: “speaking speculatively, the opinion of St. Thomas seems more probable”, though in practice the other may be used (II, n. 297). Marc follows St. Alphonsus but grants that St. Thomas's opinion “is also probable” (n. 928). Noldin denies it, reading St. Thomas's words “of counsel, not of precept” (n. 433); Vermeersch: “This reason seems to be preferred” (n. 587); Sabetti: “neither can compensation be made” (n. 413). All grant that money is owed once a judge has imposed it. Concina: “The other opinion, which is the more probable, affirms it”, since a life or limb, though it cannot be given back, “can nevertheless in some manner be compensated with goods of fortune” (IX, diss. II, ch. V, n. II).
JusticeReturning a stolen thing to the thief for the price
Returning a stolen thing to the thief to recover the price. Prümmer sets out both sides: Cajetan, Soto, Concina and Billuart bind the buyer in good faith to the owner even at the loss of his price; St. Antoninus, Báñez, Lugo and Lessius let him return it to the thief, and “St. Alphonsus favors this opinion” (II, n. 214). Merkelbach gives both, the second as probable: “it can probably be returned to the thief” (II, n. 301); Marc: “very probably, and perhaps more probably” (n. 939); Sabetti: “more probably the buyer can send the thing back to the thief” (n. 418); Vermeersch: “Many permit him to do this” (n. 651); McHugh-Callan: “it is held by some” (n. 1774). Marc, with St. Alphonsus, allows it even to one who bought knowingly, as “absolutely probable and perhaps more probable” (n. 942). In their own words: Concina, “The opinion true to me is that the buyer in the case proposed is bound to restore the thing to the lord, as St. Thomas teaches” (IX, diss. II, ch. I, n. XXV); Billuart, “It is more probable that he who buys a stolen thing in good faith, when he knows it is stolen, is held to render it immediately to the true owner, and not to the thief, even though he would not recover his price from the thief” (Whether one who in good faith bought…, n. 2).
JusticeRestitution lost in the confessor's hands
Whether a debtor from injury is freed when money handed to his confessor perishes. Prümmer reports Tanquerey, Lessius and Lehmkuhl holding him “immune from a new restitution”, grants that the opinion is probable, “but in practice one should nearly always proceed in another manner” (II, n. 239). Merkelbach: “not according to the rigor of principles”, yet “perhaps not improbably” (II, n. 331). Noldin sets Lugo against it, notes that St. Alphonsus “does not judge probable, but does not dare to condemn” it, and finds it “truly probable” (n. 511); McHugh-Callan: “It is held as probable” (n. 1792). Marc holds the debtor from delict not freed, quoting St. Alphonsus's “neither do I dare” (n. 1013); Wouters: St. Alphonsus “deservedly prefers the contrary opinion” (n. 1015).
JusticeA debtor entering religion
Whether a debtor who cannot pay may enter religion. St. Thomas: after surrendering his property “he may lawfully enter religion, nor is he bound to remain in the world in order to earn the means of paying the debt” (II-II, q. 189, a. 6, ad 3). Bontempi reports Gerson and many Parisian doctors denying it (Whether entrance into religion exc, n. 4), very many affirming it with St. Thomas (Whether entrance into religion exc, n. 5), and a middle opinion, of Sanchez, Navarre and Lessius among others, that he must wait if he hopes to pay within a year or two (Whether entrance into religion exc, n. 6); he holds with St. Thomas, on his own reasoning (Whether entrance into religion exc, n. 17). Vermeersch: one who hopes to pay shortly, “say after one or two years”, must defer it (n. 681); Sabetti allows it “more probably in itself, if he must wait through a notable time” (n. 463). Prümmer forbids it while the creditor is known and may discover the debtor, for the Church's law and the scandals that civil law can raise, and allows it when the creditor is unknown (II, n. 243).
JusticePrayer: whether inward attention is of its essence
Whether inward attention belongs to the essence of prayer. St. Thomas: attention “is absolutely necessary” for prayer's third fruit, the refreshment of the mind, while for merit and impetration the first intention suffices (II-II, q. 83, a. 13). Prümmer: “theologians dispute sharply whether external attention suffices” for the Office; Cajetan, Soto, Concina, Billuart and St. Alphonsus deny it, Durandus, Lugo, Noldin “and many modern authors” affirm it (II, n. 355); for himself, “the essence of private prayer cannot subsist with external attention alone” and voluntary distraction (II, n. 357). Noldin: “Internal attention is not required for the essence of prayer”, so long as it was present at the beginning (n. 139); Vermeersch: distraction “does not take away the substance of prayer, at least of vocal prayer” (n. 189); McHugh-Callan reports both opinions: “According to the opinion of many modern authors, external attention suffices” (n. 2174). Merkelbach: prayer lasts “as long as the first intention of praying and attending is not revoked” (II, n. 672). Wouters quotes St. Alphonsus against the virtual attention of the distracted: “I have never been able to understand how attention can virtually remain in one who is distracted” (n. 583). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, requires attention for satisfying the Office (Whether attention is necessary in, n. 3). Concina, whom Prümmer counts among the deniers: “there is a precept of reciting the Canonical Hours with internal attention”, by natural and divine law, a purpose of attending not revoked “by a contrary act, or by a voluntary distraction, or by an external action which by its own nature carries the mind elsewhere”; and the Salmanticenses' rule that voluntary distraction leaves virtual attention standing “is false to me” (III, diss. VI, ch. VIII, n. V, III, diss. VI, ch. VIII, n. III).
JusticeThe souls in purgatory: praying for us, and invoked
Whether the souls in purgatory pray for us, and may be invoked. St. Thomas: they “are not in a condition to pray” but rather to be prayed for (II-II, q. 83, a. 11, ad 3). Prümmer: they “can more probably pray both for themselves and for those living on this earth”, though “The older theologians seem more commonly to deny” it (II, n. 334); one may invoke them privately, but it “does not seem to be something to be preached publicly from the pulpit” (II, n. 344). Noldin: “It is very probable” both that they intercede for us and that we may invoke them, Bellarmine and Suarez departing from St. Thomas (n. 141); Bontempi: “it is probable that the souls of Purgatory pray for us” (Who ought to pray, n. 9); McHugh-Callan: it is lawful “privately to invoke” them (n. 2159). Merkelbach leaves both questions “disputed” (II, n. 665); Wouters: “There is no obligation of invoking souls detained in purgatory” (n. 585).
JusticePrayer for another: whether infallibly heard
Whether prayer for another is infallibly heard. St. Thomas: “we are not always heard when we pray for others”, and he names praying “for ourselves” among the four conditions (II-II, q. 83, a. 15, ad 2). Prümmer follows him: “it sometimes happens that prayer made for another does not impetrate” because of an obstacle in the other (II, n. 352). Noldin reports “others with Suarez” who “teach that of itself even prayer made for others has infallible efficacy”, the promise being general (n. 145). Merkelbach: whether prayer for another “who is well disposed is infallible is disputed” (II, n. 679); so Wouters (n. 586).
JusticeFear and the validity of a vow
Whether fear makes a vow void. Grave fear unjustly struck to extort a vow voids it; Prümmer: “Thus from positive ecclesiastical law” (II, n. 397); Noldin: “but also by the law of nature” (n. 214); Wouters: “It is disputed whether such fear also by natural law impedes the validity of a vow” (n. 642). Of light fear so struck, Prümmer: “Light fear does not invalidate vows”, against Busembaum, Navarre, Schindler and Noldin (II, n. 397); Noldin: “There are those who probably extend this same thing even to light fear” (n. 214); Merkelbach: “indeed probably” it voids a vow “extorted by slight fear unjustly inflicted”, if it was the sole cause (II, n. 713). Concina: a vow from grave fear unjustly struck is valid by natural law, “the common opinion of the Theologians”, for “fear diminishes, but does not take away, the voluntary”; by the Church's law only the solemn vow of profession is void, the opinion holding other such vows valid seeming “more probable”; and “Light fear does not invalidate a vow” (III, diss. IX, ch. IV, n. XV, III, diss. IX, ch. IV, n. XIV).
JusticeA husband annulling his wife's vows
Whether a husband may annul all his wife's vows. St. Thomas: no vow stands “of a wife, without the consent of her husband” (II-II, q. 88, a. 8, ad 3). Marc, with St. Thomas and many others: “a husband can directly irritate the vows of his wife emitted during the time of marriage”, even those that touch none of his rights (n. 638); Merkelbach: “The husband, probably, can annul the vows of his wife, because he is the head of the woman” (II, n. 735). Prümmer: it “is greatly disputed”; the negative “seems to be truer and more common”, the wife's subjection reaching only to the duties of marriage, so that he may annul only vows that hinder his rights (II, n. 418); Noldin: “very controversial”, and the denial “seems to be preferred” (n. 231). McHugh-Callan reports both (n. 2228). Concina is with Prümmer: the husband may annul only vows touching “marriage, the governance of the family, the administration of goods, and the education of children”; the contrary, held by “grave and numerous Theologians”, is false of vows on her paraphernal goods, and he cannot annul her vows of hearing Mass or of not asking the debt (III, diss. IX, ch. V, n. XVI).
JusticeObedience: whether it needs a true precept
Whether obedience needs a true precept. St. Thomas: its object is “a command tacit or express, because the superior's will, however it become known, is a tacit precept” (II-II, q. 104, a. 2). Prümmer: “Theologians dispute whether formal obedience demands a true command of the superior” or whether a known wish suffices, and calls the controversy of little importance (II, n. 575). Noldin: “Lessius indeed holds (n. 27) that obedience requires a true precept”, while Lehmkuhl counts it true obedience to do a superior's will unbidden (n. 280). Marc, with Lessius: disobedience is a special sin “only when a true precept issued by a Superior is transgressed” (n. 690).
JusticeThe cross and images: relative latria or a lesser worship
With what worship the cross and images of Christ are honored. Prümmer: “The other part of this thesis is disputed”; Bellarmine was the first to deny that any image is to be adored with latria, while St. Thomas and the older theologians, with the Second Council of Nicaea and Trent, give the cross and images of Christ a relative latria (II, n. 386). Merkelbach: they receive relative worship, as “the name and images of God, the cross of Christ, the instruments of the Passion, and relics are worshiped” (II, n. 653). Marc gives holy persons a twofold reverence, a relative latria and an absolute dulia (n. 536). Concina gives the cross latria with St. Thomas, “since the Cross of Christ is his image. Now the image of Christ is adored with the same worship as Christ himself”, the true Cross besides “on account of physical contact, and that precious blood with which it was sprinkled” (III, diss. VII, ch. I, n. VI).
Fortitude
FortitudeWhether martyrdom requires death
Whether martyrdom requires actual death divides them. St. Thomas: “the perfect notion of martyrdom requires that a man suffer death” (II-II, q. 124, a. 4). Prümmer: St. John, preserved from the boiling oil, “is not to be called a martyr in the strict sense” (II, n. 623). Merkelbach agrees, while granting that those miraculously preserved “have the merit of martyrdom” (II, n. 908). Noldin and Wouters hold otherwise. Noldin: “It is not required that death actually follow,” and St. John “underwent true martyrdom, but not completed martyrdom” (n. 280). Wouters: “according to the more common opinion it is not demanded that death in fact follow” (n. 418). Bontempi holds with St. Thomas: “for the perfect notion of Martyrdom it is required that one endure death for Christ” (On martyrdom, n. 21).
FortitudeMartyrdom: first grace by the work done, or with contrition
Whether martyrdom gives first grace by the very work done. Bontempi reports Soto, Bellarmine, Suarez, Lessius and many others holding that martyrdom, “by privilege and the special promise of Christ”, justifies like a sacrament (Whether martyrdom confers first gr, n. 1), and St. Bonaventure, Alexander of Hales and St. Thomas, with Vasquez, holding that it does not, so that contrition is needed in one in mortal sin; he takes the second: “Martyrdom has not the power of conferring first grace ex opere operato” (Whether martyrdom confers first gr, n. 4). Prümmer: in adults martyrdom needs “at least” attrition (II, n. 624), and for infants it works “as though ex opere operato” (II, n. 624); Noldin: “perfect contrition is not required, but that attrition suffices”, its effect coming from the work done, as in baptism (n. 281).
FortitudeFortitude: its parts integral or potential
All five give the same four virtues as both integral and potential parts. Wouters follows St. Thomas closely: “these four parts” are integral when they “are restricted to the proper matter of fortitude”, and become distinct virtues when referred to lesser matters (n. 419).
Temperance
TemperanceWhether continence is a virtue
Noldin calls continence “the virtue firming the will” (n. 285). St. Thomas says it “does not attain to the perfect nature of a moral virtue” (II-II, q. 155, a. 1), and Merkelbach, that it is “not a virtue in the strict and full sense” (II, n. 1030). Marc too calls it “a virtue which resists movements of concupiscence” (n. 410); McHugh-Callan, “less than a moral virtue” (n. 2544); Bontempi, “not a wholly perfect virtue” (On continence, n. 2).
PrideWhether pride can be for another's sake
Whether pride can be for another's sake is answered both ways. Marc: a mother who seeks her daughter's excellence “without respect to herself” commits “not properly pride, but another vice akin to pride” (n. 360). McHugh-Callan counts as pride the greatness “of those things with which the ego is identified, such as one’s own children” (n. 2557).
PrideThe root of humility
On the root of humility, Merkelbach and Bontempi give St. Bernard's knowledge of oneself, by which one “becomes vile to himself” (II, n. 1042). Vermeersch prefers to place it “rather than in one's own nothingness itself, in the origin of every good from God” (n. 724).
LustWhy virginity is a virtue of its own
On why virginity is a virtue distinct from chastity, Marc gives “a special difficulty, and indeed a very great one” (n. 764); Merkelbach gives “a special excellence” (II, n. 999), and Wouters notes that St. Thomas argues “from a special matter of good having special excellence, rather than from the special difficulty” (n. 20).
GluttonyHuman flesh in extreme hunger
On eating human flesh in extreme hunger, Noldin, Merkelbach, Wouters, McHugh-Callan, Marc and Vermeersch allow it (n. 339). Bontempi denies it, “not even in extreme necessity” (On gluttony, n. 30).
DrunkennessWhether pleasure belongs to drunkenness
Whether pleasure belongs to the sin. Merkelbach sets its formal object as “for the sake of pleasure” (II, n. 985), and Noldin defines it “from pleasure alone”, yet holds it remains drunkenness when no pleasure is felt (n. 341). McHugh-Callan says the pleasure “is not essential, it seems” (n. 2476), and Sabetti-Barrett defines it “whether this is done from or with pleasure, or without pleasure” (n. 147).
LustRape: violence alone, or abduction from place to place
What rape requires. With St. Thomas, Merkelbach holds “that violence alone is essential to rape”, without carrying away (II, n. 1009); his Pastoral notes that what the moderns call stuprum St. Thomas calls rape (Pastoral, Ar. II); so Sabetti-Barrett for the internal forum (n. 299), and McHugh-Callan, who keeps it apart from the canonical crime of abduction (n. 2529). Noldin, Marc and Bontempi require abduction from one place to another: force used in the same place is not rape (n. 27, n. 779), and leading a woman a few steps aside “will be fornication” (On abduction, n. 2). Merkelbach does not count fraud or importunate prayers as the violence of rape (II, n. 1009); Bontempi does (On abduction, n. 4). Of a minor who goes willingly without her parents' knowledge, Prümmer, Sabetti-Barrett and the Pastoral say rape (II, n. 700, n. 300, Pastoral, Ar. II), Merkelbach's Summa “not properly rape” (II, n. 1009).
LustAdultery with the spouse consenting: whom it wrongs
Adultery with the spouse consenting: whom it wrongs. All hold it still adultery, Innocent XI having condemned the contrary (II, n. 703). Wouters: the wrong is done “against the husband himself”, his right persisting (n. 37). Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan: not to the consenting husband but to the married state (II, n. 1011, n. 2530); so the Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. III). Vermeersch: by his assent the spouse “can certainly remove” the injustice toward himself, piety and religion remaining wronged, so that such adultery “differs in species” from the common kind (De castitate, n. 313, De castitate, n. 313).
LustTolerating prostitution: lawful as the lesser evil, or not today
Tolerating prostitution. Prümmer gives the common teaching after St. Augustine and St. Thomas that the magistrate may tolerate it, but whether greater evils are so avoided “is a very difficult question of fact” (II, n. 698); McHugh-Callan: “Practically, the question is open to dispute” (n. 2528). Marc: the denying opinion is “practically more probable” (n. 775); Noldin: “Brothels seem in no way to be tolerated” (n. 18); Wouters: the severer opinion of St. Alphonsus now “seems wholly to be followed” (n. 34).
LustA confessor or spiritual father who sins with one in his care: injustice or not
A pastor or confessor who sins with those in his care. Noldin, Wouters, Marc, the Pastoral and Vermeersch: a pastor with a parishioner is not incest, but adds injustice (n. 21, n. 39); Marc reports several extending it to a guardian (n. 786). A confessor outside confession commits neither incest nor that injustice (Pastoral, Ar. IV); Vermeersch, with de Lugo, against Sanchez (De castitate, n. 320), but judges more severely a spiritual director appointed by authority (De castitate, n. 320). Bontempi reports authors on both sides of incest between confessor and penitent (On incest, n. 14).
LustWhere pollution's malice lies; whether women, boys and eunuchs commit it
Where pollution's malice lies, and whether women, boys and eunuchs commit it. Prümmer places it “formally in venereal pleasure inordinately desired” (II, n. 705); Wouters reports Eschbach and Noldin placing it chiefly in the pleasure, and rejects it for the disorder of the act itself (n. 50); the Pastoral: it is “badly defined” as pleasure or as loss of seed (Pastoral, Ar. I); Vermeersch: the prohibition is of using the generative faculty, “not a prohibition against pouring forth semen” (De castitate, n. 329); Sabetti-Barrett: the malice is not in the loss of seed but in seeking outside marriage the pleasure bound to it (n. 304). From this follows the dispute on women: Noldin: “female pollution is not a consummated sin against nature” (n. 30); Wouters finds it disputed (n. 50); Merkelbach, Marc and the rest hold the same sin in women (II, n. 1016, n. 793). Of boys and eunuchs, Sabetti-Barrett reports many holding them “immune from the malice of pollution” (n. 304); the Pastoral excludes boys, “not in infants and boys” (Pastoral, Ar. I); Vermeersch counts all capable of intercourse the same, “against Noldin” (De castitate, n. 328).
LustSodomy: the same sex alone, or congress in a vessel
What sodomy requires. Noldin: it does not belong to intercourse “that there be penetration of some vessel” (n. 42); Marc likewise (n. 802); Vermeersch: “no penetration of the sexual organ into any vessel is required” (De castitate, n. 343). Wouters: without congress in a vessel it “is not sodomy”, but pollution with a sodomitic affection (n. 52); Merkelbach: “intercourse to an undue vessel is required” (II, n. 1015); so his Pastoral (Pastoral, Ar. II). Between women, accordingly, Wouters holds it cannot be exercised, the structure being normal (n. 52), the Pastoral that a perfectly consummated act is perhaps impossible (Pastoral, Ar. II), while Noldin and Vermeersch admit it (n. 42, De castitate, n. 343).
LustDelight in a pictured sin: whether it takes the circumstances
Delight and the circumstances of what is pictured. Prümmer: whether delight in a represented sin takes its circumstances (another's wife, a kinswoman) is disputed, and “Each opinion, namely, the affirmative and the negative, is theoretically probable” (II, n. 686). Noldin and Merkelbach: it does not, unless the will delights in those circumstances (n. 62, II, n. 1023); Marc agrees speculatively, but notes that in practice “the opposite opinion greatly pleases St. Alphonsus” where a determinate person is pictured (n. 357).
TemperanceTemperance's matter: touch, or taste and touch
Touch, or taste and touch. St. Thomas: temperance “is about pleasures of touch”, the pleasures of food and drink themselves coming by touch; taste and the other senses only “secondarily” (II-II, q. 141, a. 4; II-II, q. 141, a. 5). Merkelbach: “the principal pleasures of touch” (II, n. 937); McHugh-Callan: “the two delights of touch” (n. 2465). Noldin names taste beside touch: of the species, “two temper taste, but the third tempers touch” (n. 285); so Vermeersch, “moderating the delights of taste and touch” (n. 718), and Marc (n. 407); Wouters gives abstinence “the pleasure of touch and taste” (n. 435).
TemperanceVirginity: whether a vow is needed
Whether the virtue of virginity needs a vow. St. Thomas: “Virginity as a virtue denotes the purpose, confirmed by vow, of observing perpetual integrity” (II-II, q. 152, a. 3, ad 4). Prümmer: “St. Thomas seems to require still further a vow of virginity”, and counts the question of no great moment in practice (II, n. 677). McHugh-Callan: “it seems more probable that this purpose must be expressed as a vow”, though “it is also held as probable that unvowed virginity may be called a lesser degree” of it (n. 2490). Wouters: “It is disputed whether a vow is also required” (n. 22). Noldin's definition asks only “a firm purpose of the will of abstaining perpetually” (n. 3).
TemperanceVirginity: what loses it beyond repair
What loses virginity beyond repair. St. Thomas: the purpose is recovered by penance, but not the matter, for one who has known venereal pleasure cannot cease to have known it (II-II, q. 152, a. 3, ad 3). Noldin: authors “dispute whether through immodest acts voluntarily admitted without effusion of semen virginity is lost reparably or irreparably”, and holds with Lessius that such acts do not lose it irreparably, so long as the integrity of the flesh remains (n. 4). McHugh-Callan: where the will to sin was of itself such as to bring that experience, though it did not, “it seems that the virtue cannot be recovered” (n. 2489). Wouters: “It is disputed whether virginity is lost irreparably through consent in a complete act while it is taking place”, the act having arisen apart from the will (n. 23).
TemperanceStudiousness: chiefly of the mind or of the senses
Where studiousness chiefly works. St. Thomas puts its matter in knowledge, for man “naturally desires to know something” (II-II, q. 166, a. 2). Merkelbach: “It is subjected principally in the will for intellectual cognition, but secondarily in the concupiscible appetite for sensitive cognition” (II, n. 1052). Prümmer: “Studiousness indeed principally concerns the moderation of sensitive cognition in sight and hearing, because disorder more easily arises there”, though it “must not rarely be exercised also in intellectual cognition” (II, n. 716).
Where It Belongs
Faith
FaithBlasphemy: under faith or religion
St. Thomas and Merkelbach place blasphemy under faith, as opposed to confessing it (II-II, q. 13, a. 1, I, n. 733). Prümmer places it among the vices against religion, and Noldin and Wouters under the second precept. Billuart sets it under both: “insofar as it contains implicitly or explicitly something false concerning God, it is opposed to the confession of faith; insofar as it is a dishonoring of God, it is opposed to religion” (On blasphemy, n. 14). Concina treats it with the tempting of God and sacrilege, among the sins against religion, holding with St. Thomas that it “is opposed to the confession of faith, not to faith by its very nature” (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. III, n. II).
CredulityCredulity: against faith or prudence
McHugh-Callan says credulity “is opposed rather to prudence” and does not destroy faith (n. 847), where Prümmer, Noldin and Marc set it against faith itself, by excess (n. 509).
FaithThe habit that moves the will to believe
What disposes the will to command the assent. Prümmer and Noldin posit a habit in the will besides the habit in the intellect: “an infused habit is required in the will for eliciting the act of pious credulity” (n. 491, n. 3). Merkelbach: “it cannot be concluded that there exists in the will a certain special habit” (I, n. 716); that habit “is charity, which orders man to the ultimate end” (I, n. 716); so Marc, with Billuart (n. 423). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, makes it faith itself: “the habit of faith gives the will its virtue, that it may command its acts to the intellect” (Whether faith resides in the intel, n. 39), against Scotus, who requires no habit at all (Whether faith resides in the intel, n. 34).
Hope
HopeHatred of God: under hope too
Noldin sets one form of hatred of God, hatred of abomination, among the sins against hope, as “directly opposed to hope” (n. 48), and treats it again under charity (n. 62). Vermeersch notes that authors “are accustomed to oppose to hope a certain hatred of God”, but holds that it “rather is opposed to imperfect charity which is presupposed to hope itself” (n. 68): it is opposed to “the love of God which some call the love of hope” (n. 64). The other authors treat it under charity.
DespairWishing for death: against hope or not
On wishing for death from weariness of life, Noldin says “it is not a sin against hope” (n. 47), and McHugh-Callan agrees. Marc counts “the inordinate affection of heavenly happiness, by which beatitude is sought from weariness of life” among the sins against hope's desire, venial unless there is express rebellion (n. 462).
PresumptionHoping for help in sin: presumption or blasphemy
Hoping for God's help in sin: Noldin, Wouters and Prümmer count it a way of presumption. Merkelbach's note answers Suarez that it is a great blasphemy but not a disordered expectation, and so not presumption against hope (I, n. 834); McHugh-Callan calls it “blasphemous hope” (n. 1081), and Vermeersch a sin “not against hope but against religion” (n. 67). Prümmer likewise counts “tempting God” as presumption (n. 549), which McHugh-Callan sets apart from it (n. 1081).
PresumptionPutting off repentance: against hope or charity
On putting off repentance, Merkelbach counts hoping for “time for penance precisely at the end of life” as presumption beside hope (I, n. 834); Vermeersch, McHugh-Callan and Marc count sinning in hope of later repentance a sin against charity toward oneself rather than against hope (n. 63). Concina goes further than any: Christians who live “in games, in banquets, in solaces”, though they “do not commit the sin of presumption properly so called, which is joined with heresy”, are “in a continual sin of carelessness of their own eternal salvation”, and “This crass negligence alone, this stupid torpor and indolence in the gravest business of eternal salvation, is a grave sin” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. VIII).
HopeHoping for another's salvation: hope, or charity
Hoping for another's salvation. St. Thomas: presupposing the union of love, “it is the same virtue of hope, whereby a man hopes for himself and for another” (II-II, q. 17, a. 3); Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan follow him (I, n. 807, n. 1022). Prümmer: one who hopes for his neighbour's salvation “does this because the neighbor is another self, and his beatitude increases his own beatitude” (n. 539). Bontempi: “to desire beatitude for another, as it is a good, is not an act of Hope; but of Charity”, since hope rouses the soul against difficulties in its own pursuit (Whether hope remains in the blesse, n. 11).
Charity
ScandalWhich virtue indirect scandal offends
The one real dispute: whether indirect scandal sins against the virtue it leads another to break as well as against charity. Prümmer says no: “against charity, but not against that virtue which is injured by the scandalized person” (II, n. 608). Noldin agrees: “through indirect scandal one sins only against charity” (n. 104), and Merkelbach holds it “probably against charity alone” (I, n. 960). Both Prümmer and Noldin record St. Alphonsus on the other side, and Wouters follows, saying “against many” that the same seems to hold of occasional scandal as of causal (n. 548).
CharityWhere cooperation is treated
Prümmer, Noldin and Wouters treat cooperation in another's sin here, among the sins against charity (n. 617). Merkelbach treats it earlier, in the treatise on sins (I, n. 489), and St. Thomas has no question on it here.
CharityWhere war is treated
War is placed differently. St. Thomas treats it here, Merkelbach adds that such sins “are better considered in the treatise on Justice” (I, n. 955), and Prümmer defers it to the second volume because “by war not only charity but also justice is usually violated” (n. 604).
Sins Against Charity Toward OneselfDefaming oneself: charity or liberality
Defaming oneself. Noldin says it is not against charity, but “a vice of prodigality against liberality” that “does not exceed venial sin” (n. 66). McHugh-Callan treats the sacrifice of one's own reputation under charity to self: it “is not lawful, however, unless there is a proportionately grave reason” (n. 1576).
Cooperation in Another's SinWhich virtue material cooperation offends
Which virtue material cooperation offends. Merkelbach: it is “a sin against the virtue which is injured by the sin of the principal agent”, and at the same time against charity (I, n. 489). Noldin sets it against “the precept of charity” (n. 118). Vermeersch reports Cardinal d'Annibale, who “judged that charity alone is wounded”, and denies that the cooperator shares the malice of the principal act (n. 132).
CharityThe desire to possess God: charity or hope
The desire to possess God: charity or hope. Marc: “The desire of POSSESSING GOD is an act of charity”, indeed more perfect than others (n. 468); Vermeersch: it “is practically an act of charity” unless “explicitly thrust down to one's own consequent happiness” (n. 71). Wouters: the desire of possessing God for His glory is charity, “but the desire of possessing God on account of attaining one's own beatitude is an act of hope” (n. 364). Noldin calls such love “imperfect charity” and places it in hope (n. 54); Merkelbach lets charity itself elicit it, “provided it is subordinated to it” (I, n. 879). Prümmer rejects the older authors for whom “the love of noble concupiscence” justifies, unless what is meant is the desire to be united to God, which is charity (n. 558). Concina calls the love of God for His benefits “a love of chaste concupiscence”, the more imperfect, and the love of Him because He is good “one of charity and of friendship” (III, diss. II, ch. V, n. XI); against those condemned by Innocent XII he holds that “The two respects are distinct; but the one does not exclude the other” (III, diss. II, ch. V, n. XII). Billuart: it is lawful to serve God for the eternal reward as an end “not ultimate, but further orderable to God”, “so affected, that if no beatitude were to be hoped for, we would nonetheless love him and serve him” (Whether, and in what sense, it is…, n. 6, Whether, and in what sense, it is…, n. 10).
CharityWhere charity resides
Where charity resides. St. Thomas puts it in the will and denies it to the concupiscible, which belongs to the sense appetite: “the concupiscible cannot be the subject of charity” (II-II, q. 24, a. 1, ad 1). Bontempi gives St. Bonaventure's teaching that “it is in the concupiscible part, as Hope is in the Irascible” (What is the proximate subject of c, n. 3), meaning not the sense appetite “but in the concupiscible of the rational appetite” (What is the proximate subject of c, n. 4). Spirago, in the catechism: “love to be an act of the understanding, the affections, and the will” (III. THE PRECEPT OF THE LOVE OF GOD).
Prudence
NegligenceWhether negligence comes from lust
On its origin, St. Thomas, Prümmer, Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan name lust as the source of precipitation, inconsideration and inconstancy, not of negligence (II-II, q. 53, a. 6, II, n. 38). Bontempi gives all four to lust, “although they arise also from other sins, especially Sloth” (On negligence, n. 3).
PrudenceNegligence: a failure to command, or to execute
St. Thomas places negligence in reason's failure to command, “a lack of solicitude on the part of the reason in commanding what it should command” (II-II, q. 54, a. 3), and Prümmer keeps it apart from slothfulness and torpor, which “pertain to execution” (n. 634). Noldin's short definition speaks only of execution: “a matter deliberated and determined is not committed to execution at the opportune time” (n. 264).
PrudencePrudence: whether command is of reason or of the will
Whether its chief act belongs to reason. St. Thomas makes command “the chief act of the practical reason, and consequently of prudence” (II-II, q. 47, a. 8), and Prümmer, Merkelbach and Wouters follow him: “The act of commanding is the principal and proper act of prudence” (n. 630). Vermeersch makes the most proper act “The preceptive election of an action indicated as honorable”, composed of the intellect's conclusion “and of the consent of the will” (n. 157). Bontempi denies command to the intellect altogether: “imperium is nowhere conceded to the intellect, against the Thomists” (Whether prudence is a virtue, n. 26), for “command belongs to the will, which is as it were the queen” (What the offices of prudence are, n. 13). Prudence, for him, directs as the assessor directs a judge, “yet not by commanding” (Whether prudence is a virtue, n. 26).
Justice
Rash Judgment and SuspicionWhich virtue the lesser degrees offend
Noldin and Wouters differ on which virtue the lesser degrees offend. Noldin: “Suspicion and doubt, if they are voluntary, are sins against charity” (n. 659). Wouters: “Judgment, opinion, and doubt, rashly conceived, are sins, and indeed against justice” (n. 1077). Billuart counts rash suspicion against both: “Therefore against justice. Also against charity” (On suspicion and rash judgment, n. 10).
Violating a SecretTruthfulness, justice or charity
Prümmer reckons this a sin against truthfulness: “violation of a secret violates it by excess” (II, Section 4). Noldin and Wouters ground a natural secret in justice or in charity, according to the harm done (n. 667, n. 1089). Merkelbach names both as well: “against charity and at the same time against fidelity or justice” (II, n. 855).
Respect of PersonsUnequal burdens: distributive or commutative
Burdens. McHugh-Callan counts partiality in imposing burdens as favoritism (n. 1809); Vermeersch and Noldin say an inequitable distribution of burdens violates commutative justice itself (n. 572, n. 274). Merkelbach says distributive justice regards “first and directly” the distribution “not of burdens but of the goods of the community” (II, n. 618). Billuart is with Vermeersch and Noldin: in the bad distribution of burdens “there is found a violation of commutative justice even toward private persons” (What is respect of persons, n. 4).
Respect of PersonsDenying due honor: distributive justice or observance
Where it belongs. Bontempi holds that denying due honor is against distributive justice (Whether acceptance of persons has, n. 6), against Cajetan and Lessius, who say it is against observance only (Whether acceptance of persons has, n. 5).
Theft and RobberyA common thing stolen in a church: sacrilege?
A thing that is not sacred, stolen in a church. Merkelbach counts it local sacrilege only if it had been handed over to the custody of the place (II, n. 403), as most authors do (What quantity is required for mort, n. 24); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, makes any non-sacred thing taken from a sacred place a species of sacrilege (What quantity is required for mort, n. 25).
WhisperingWhispering: charity or justice
Whether whispering is of itself against justice. Merkelbach: always, “because it takes away from another the good of friendship, for preserving which, once friendship has been entered, he has a strict right by reason of possession” (II, n. 434); Wouters, with St. Alphonsus against many, likewise where a friendship already acquired is taken away even by means not unjust (n. 1079). McHugh-Callan: by its nature “only a sin against charity, for the injured party has no strict right to friendship” (n. 2104); Bontempi counts it against justice at least when done by deceit, fraud, lies or revealing secrets (On the malice of whispering, n. 9).
CursingCursing: charity or justice
Whether cursing is against justice or only charity. St. Thomas: to wish another evil is “of its very nature, contrary to charity” (II-II, q. 76, a. 3); Noldin: “ordinarily is opposed only to charity” (n. 208); McHugh-Callan: “essentially opposed to charity” (n. 2113). Merkelbach adds justice, cursing being “a dishonoring” of the one cursed (II, n. 441); Prümmer: opposed “only to charity or justice” (II, n. 534); Bontempi: against charity when the evil is wished by God or the elements, against justice when it is wished unjustly, as by homicide (On curses, n. 25).
Vain Observance and MagicSuperstition or a sin against oneself
When the effect sought is within nature's power. Bontempi, after Valencia, holds that the observance then “seems a sin against charity toward oneself” rather than superstition (On superstitious observances for w, n. 2); Merkelbach and the rest find tacit invocation wherever the means lack natural or instituted power, whatever the effect (II, n. 786).
SimonyA stipend above the rate: simony, or only injustice
A stipend above the rate, or one the Church forbids. Noldin reports several calling it simony, the excess being asked for the spiritual thing (n. 198), but himself denies it (n. 198); so Prümmer, probably (II, n. 563), Wouters (n. 626), Vermeersch, who allows at most a presumption of the external forum (n. 279), and Sabetti-Barrett before God (n. 218). Merkelbach lists asking beyond the lawful offerings as simony of the Church's law (II, n. 813), where Vermeersch finds it “unjust rather than simoniacal” (n. 277). Yet Vermeersch judges a stipend for a forbidden second Mass of the day simony of divine law (n. 280); McHugh-Callan reports the excess as controverted (n. 2330).
SimonyA rich monastery asking support at profession: simony of divine law or of the Church's law
A rich monastery asking support of one professed. Noldin: not simony of divine law if it is asked for support and not for entrance (n. 199); Wouters: not of divine law, but “certainly” of the Church's law (n. 626); Vermeersch: at least of the Church's law, and by St. Thomas of divine law, though controverted (n. 282). Marc: unlawful, the right to live from the goods of a sufficiently wealthy monastery being joined to profession (n. 589). Concina allows nothing for entrance beyond the novice's food and clothing in probation, “UNDER WHATSOEVER PRETEXT”, as Trent says, and the canons “rout all the aforesaid little distinctions” (XII, diss. II, ch. II, n. XVII).
SimonySelling indulgenced rosaries: simony of the Church's law, or none
Selling rosaries and medals enriched with indulgences. Prümmer, Noldin and Marc list it as simony of the Church's law (II, n. 564, n. 186, n. 590). Merkelbach: “not simony” if nothing is asked for the blessing, though the indulgences are lost (II, n. 813); so Vermeersch (n. 277); Wouters: the prohibition “is not proved” (n. 626).
IngratitudeThanks owed to God: gratitude, or religion
Thanks owed to God: gratitude or religion. Prümmer, with St. Thomas, reduces it to religion (II, n. 605); Merkelbach calls religion, piety and observance “eminent gratitude” (II, n. 875), and ingratitude toward God a general circumstance of every sin (II, n. 878); McHugh-Callan counts it gratitude only in a wide sense (n. 2374). Bontempi follows St. Bonaventure, who assigns gratitude toward God: religion commands its acts, but “Religion is not formally gratitude” (On gratitude, n. 3). Spirago puts gratitude to God first (XII. THE DUTY OF GRATITUDE).
Flattery and QuarrelingFlattery: a sin against truth (eighth commandment), or against affability
Flattery: a sin against truth, or against affability. The Roman Catechism sets it under the eighth commandment (The Eighth Commandment), and Spirago among the kinds of falsehood (THE COMMAND AGAINST UNTRUTHFULNESS), the flatterer praising “against one’s own conviction” (THE COMMAND AGAINST UNTRUTHFULNESS); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, counts among its kinds even the praise of a good one truly has (On friendship, n. 5). St. Thomas and the manuals set it against affability, as an excess in pleasing (II-II, q. 115, a. 1, II, n. 612, II, n. 889), Thomas noting that it is contrary to detraction “as regards what is said, but not directly as regards the end” (II-II, q. 115, a. 1, ad 3).
JusticeThe ruler's lawmaking: legal or commutative justice
By which justice the ruler makes good laws. St. Thomas puts legal justice “in the sovereign principally and by way of a mastercraft” (II-II, q. 58, a. 6); Merkelbach: in the prince “principally and, as it were, architectonically” (II, n. 260); Noldin: the prince exercises it “by prescribing those things which are necessary for procuring the common good” (n. 272); Prümmer: by its command “the prince establishes good laws” (II, n. 71). Vermeersch: “to establish good laws, to administer well the republic or the Church is for rulers an office of commutative justice” (n. 347); legal justice only disposes princes “to fulfilling their own office of commutative justice” (n. 349).
JusticeJudgment: an act of justice, distributive justice or prudence
Whose act judgment is. St. Thomas: judgment “belongs properly to justice”, as an act of justice in that it inclines one to judge aright, and of prudence in that prudence pronounces it (II-II, q. 60, a. 1). McHugh-Callan: “the proper act of the virtue of justice” (n. 1727); Merkelbach places it under distributive justice, judgment “which primarily and formally is an act of distributive justice” (II, n. 132). Bontempi: the judgment one forms privately about a neighbor's probity “pertains to Prudence, not to Justice” (Whether judgment is an act of just, n. 10); McHugh-Callan calls rash judgment “a sin against justice, because it infringes the strict right of the neighbor” (n. 1739). Billuart: judgment “is an act of justice, because it belongs to justice to define and determine what is just” (Whether judgment is lawful, n. 1).
Fortitude
VaingloryCapital vice, or daughter of pride
For St. Thomas and Merkelbach, and for Prümmer in reporting St. Thomas, vainglory is the capital vice that stands next under pride. For Noldin and Wouters it is a daughter of pride (n. 336; n. 303).
Effeminacy and PertinacityThe chief vice against perseverance
Prümmer calls the vice by defect “softness or inconstancy” (II, n. 642); the inconstancy against prudence, in reason's command, is another vice (vices against prudence). Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, makes obstinacy “the chief vice opposed to Perseverance” (On the vices opposed to perseveran, n. 1), where St. Thomas treats effeminacy first.
Temperance
PrideAmong the seven, or above them
St. Thomas, with St. Gregory, leaves pride out of the seven and puts vainglory in its place (II-II, q. 162, a. 8). Merkelbach agrees (n. 496). Noldin and Wouters count pride as the first of the seven (n. 335; n. 299). Prümmer lists vain glory among the seven but gives pride the first article and treats the two together (nn. 407-408). McHugh-Callan follows St. Thomas, calling pride “the queen and mother of the seven capital vices” (n. 2560).
GluttonyDrunkenness: under gluttony, or apart
St. Thomas, Prümmer, Merkelbach, Noldin and Wouters count drunkenness under gluttony. St. Thomas calls it “a species under its genus” (II-II, q. 150, a. 1), Prümmer “that species of it” (n. 425), and Merkelbach calls gluttony a capital vice “in the broad sense (drunkenness included)” (n. 980); Noldin and Wouters make it the second kind (n. 339; n. 318). St. Thomas and Merkelbach still treat it apart, under sobriety (II-II, q. 150; Question Two). Noldin's section on it runs far longer than the rest of the vice, into morphine and alcoholism (nn. 341-348).
LustWhere Noldin treats lust
Noldin's article on the capital sins passes over lust, though it is named among the seven. A note there says it is treated in the separately issued work on the sixth precept (n. 337). That work defines it (n. 9) but lists no daughters.
IntemperanceIntemperance in honors
Noldin defines both vices of temperance in general, which moderates the appetite “especially with regard to honors and pleasures” (n. 283): intemperance exceeds “in seeking and enjoying honors and pleasures” (n. 284). Merkelbach and Vermeersch keep the vice to the pleasures of touch and taste (II, n. 942, n. 722), as St. Thomas does.
Vices of Bearing, Play and DressTo which virtue bearing belongs
Where it belongs. St. Thomas says the moderation of bearing “may be reduced to two virtues”, affability and truthfulness (II-II, q. 168, a. 1, ad 3); Merkelbach says it is ruled and commanded by truth and affability but elicited by modesty (II, n. 1058); McHugh-Callan sets the vices of decorum under sincerity, self-respect and consideration for others (n. 2566).
Vices of Bearing, Play and DressGlory sought from plain dress
Where it belongs. Glory sought from plain or neglected dress: St. Thomas calls it “a sin of superstition” (II-II, q. 169, a. 1, ad 2), Merkelbach says it “pertains to hypocrisy” (II, n. 1064), and McHugh-Callan names it an “itch for notoriety” (n. 2569).
How Many
Faith
UnbeliefKinds of unbelief
Noldin and Wouters distinguish three kinds, adding a “privative” unbelief between the other two (n. 26, n. 491). St. Thomas and Prümmer name only two (II-II, q. 10, a. 1, n. 510). Concina and Billuart count three as well, negative, privative and contrary, but their privative is McHugh-Callan's, a refusal: it “positively resists the preaching of the faith, and refuses to receive the faith” (III, diss. I, ch. VII, n. I); it “does not will to assent to it, without however asserting the contrary” (On unbelief in general, n. 1).
UnbeliefMoral species of unbelief
Merkelbach holds paganism, Judaism and heresy “three morally distinct species”, to be declared in confession (I, n. 739). Wouters says heresy and apostasy “do not differ in species from positive infidelity” (n. 492), and Vermeersch that contrary infidelities do not; McHugh-Callan reports both views (n. 822).
FaithFaith's properties: four, five or seven
How many properties. Prümmer names four, “supernaturalness, freedom, infallibility, firmness or constancy” (n. 486); Wouters five: “truth, certitude, obscurity, liberty, and necessity” (n. 358); McHugh-Callan five: supernatural, obscure, free, a simple assent and not a reasoning, firm (n. 799). Merkelbach draws seven from their sources: infallibility and obscurity from the object, liberty from the will, reasonableness from the judgment of credibility, supreme certitude, supernaturality, and lastly “on the part of the subject, irrevocability belongs to faith” (I, n. 728, I, n. 728).
FaithHow often an act of faith is due
How often the act of faith is due. Prümmer: since faith and charity have almost the same necessity, “the precept of faith also obliges at least in any five-year period”, and of the yearly, monthly and Sunday rules: “All these opinions are arbitrary and rest on no solid foundation” (n. 502). Merkelbach: “more probably, three or four times a year” (I, n. 790); Marc: “at least once in the year, as Doctors admit with sufficient probability” (n. 426); Sabetti-Barrett: no more often than once a year (n. 153). Noldin: “altogether indeterminate” (n. 14); Vermeersch: impossible to define (n. 17); McHugh-Callan: “There is no solid support for any of these opinions” (n. 933). All agree a Christian life fulfils it. Concina will not enter the dispute: the reckonings of the Casuists “do not foster, but weaken, the exercise of faith; and, as it seems to me, they are also vain”; “I should scarcely count him a Christian who within a year elicited an act of faith only once. This frequency of acts I dare not define” (III, diss. I, ch. V, n. XIII). Billuart: it binds “many times in life”, but how often “cannot be determined with certainty. Marvelously on this point authors vary” (The remaining difficulties concerning…, n. 13, The remaining difficulties concerning…, n. 14).
BlasphemyBlasphemy against the saints: another species
Blasphemy against the saints: another species? Concina reports the Salmanticenses, Azor, Bonacina and others denying it, since religion is one virtue, and holds the opposite “more probable”, the goodness of God and of the saints, and the worship owed them, differing by more than species. Whatever the case, with Suarez, “it must be explained in confession whether one's blasphemies were against God, against the Virgin, or against the Saints”, and Tamburini's view that the number suffices “cannot be tolerated” (Theol. III, diss. III, ch. III, n. V, Theol. III, diss. III, ch. III, n. VI, Theol. III, diss. III, ch. III, n. VII).
Hope
PresumptionWays of presuming
Merkelbach sorts presumption as against hope or beside hope (I, n. 834). Noldin and Wouters number five ways (n. 51, n. 515), and Prümmer four (n. 549).
DespairCauses of despair
On its causes, Merkelbach gives lust to despair improperly so called and sloth to despair properly so called (I, n. 832); St. Thomas derives despair from both, from sloth “in a more special way” (II-II, q. 20, a. 4). Prümmer, Wouters and Marc add defect of faith; Marc and Sabetti-Barrett add melancholy; Bontempi, with St. Gregory, pride.
HopeHow often an act of hope is due
How often an act of hope is due. Merkelbach reports those who say “at least once a year”, others each month or week, and holds “more probably: several times, at least three or four times a year” (I, n. 839); Marc: “at least once in any year” (n. 460); Noldin: the time “cannot be determined. Yet it must be elicited frequently” (n. 45); Vermeersch: “This cannot be defined.” (n. 58); Prümmer: “authors do not agree” (n. 545); Bontempi: often enough “that one is not without an act of hope for many years” (Whether there is a precept of hopi, n. 13). “But, practically, there is agreement among theologians” that those who pray and keep the duties of a Christian life fulfil it (n. 1097). Concina will have none of an indeterminate time: the precept “presses of itself unto the frequenting of the acts of this virtue”, and of those who teach “that there is no determinate time at which such a precept presses” he writes, “By what reason so great a paradox can be asserted by Christian men, I truly do not perceive” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. IV).
Charity
SlothDaughters of sloth
St. Thomas, Prümmer and Merkelbach give six daughters. Noldin and Wouters give five. Noldin calls the five the “principal” daughters and leaves out faint-heartedness (n. 350). Wouters, quoting St. Alphonsus, joins faint-heartedness and despair as one (n. 329). Marc, Vermeersch and Bontempi give St. Thomas's six. Sabetti-Barrett names only “Torpor, wandering of the mind, nausea in prayer, etc.” (n. 145).
EnvyDaughters of envy
St. Thomas, Prümmer, Merkelbach, Noldin, Wouters and McHugh-Callan give the same five daughters. Marc and Vermeersch give four, without affliction at prosperity (n. 369; n. 474). Sabetti-Barrett names “detraction, calumny, whispering, contumely, etc.” (n. 143). Bontempi, after St. Bonaventure, names many more (n. 9).
HatredWhether the evils wished must be named in confession
Whether the evils wished must be named in confession. Merkelbach holds that hatreds wishing diverse evils by an inefficacious desire “are probably of the same species” (I, n. 947), and Wouters and Vermeersch agree that the species of evil need not be told. McHugh-Callan says that “he who out of hatred wishes the death of his neighbor, adds the guilt of murder to hatred” (n. 1317), and counts the evil wished among the circumstances that “may add a new sin” (n. 1319); he does not draw Merkelbach's line between an inefficacious wish and an efficacious purpose.
Sins Against Charity Toward OneselfConfessing a sin against oneself as such
Confession. Merkelbach, Noldin and Prümmer hold that the malice against charity toward oneself need not be confessed as such, since “these sins always injure another precept or virtue” (I, n. 888). McHugh-Callan agrees, but adds: “It is necessary to declare a want of charity to self, if one has expressly intended such a sin” (n. 1578).
CharityHow often an act of charity is due
How often an act of charity is due. Prümmer: nothing certain “except that an act of charity must be elicited more often than every five years” (n. 563); Merkelbach, “more probably: several times, at least three or four times a year” (I, n. 972); Sabetti-Barrett: “the opinion of those who oblige to it only once a year can safely be held” (n. 167); Marc gives St. Alphonsus: “the opinion of those who require it once a month is more pleasing to me” (n. 472), and Spirago teaches with him that one who neglects it a whole month “can scarcely be exempt from mortal sin” (III. THE PRECEPT OF THE LOVE OF GOD). McHugh-Callan runs from “once in three years” to daily (n. 1597); Noldin: “it must not be said that they are obliged to this either each week, or each month, or each year” (n. 59); Vermeersch: “What son asks how often he must actually demonstrate his affection toward his parents?” (n. 74). Concina will not let the question be put. He reproves Castropalao's “a few times in his life” (II, diss. II, ch. II, n. VI), calls the question of once a year “most like this one: Whether a living man is bound to produce acts of life once in a year?”, and warns that the just who love God “only once — I do not say in a year or in a month, but in a week — they will gradually become lukewarm, then cold, and at last sinners”: “Those disputations proceed from the brain of men, not from the holy Scriptures, which command a continued and perennial love” (III, diss. II, ch. IV, n. X, III, diss. II, ch. IV, n. XIV). Billuart: “But how often and when, is uncertain”; some assign feast days, others “once or twice in the week”, and the faithful “are to be exhorted to exercise themselves often” (On the precept of charity, n. 21, On the precept of charity, n. 22).
CharityHow often private men are bound to correct
How often private men are bound to correct. Billuart reads the four conditions as seldom met together: “since these conditions are rarely found all together, rarely also are private men held, at least under grave sin, to fraternal admonition” (Whether fraternal correction is a…, n. 14). Concina reads the same conditions the other way: “Rare is the amendment of offenders — not so much on account of their malice, as on account of the defect of correctors”, and “As for me, I have found more who have received correction than who have scorned it” (III, diss. III, ch. X, n. XVIII).
Prudence
PrudencePrudence: one virtue, or one for each moral virtue
One prudence or many. St. Thomas makes prudence one special virtue, set apart by its object (II-II, q. 47, a. 5), with species only by the multitude it governs (II-II, q. 50, a. 1). Bontempi: “all Thomists admit one Prudence”; Scotus, with the Nominalists and the Scotists, “held that there are as many formal Prudences, specifically distinct, as there are acquired moral virtues about them” (Whether there is one prudence for, n. 1). He argues that prudence gained about the mean of fortitude does not bring that of temperance, “as experiment shows” (Whether there is one prudence for, n. 7), and concludes: “There is therefore ONE generic Prudence, and many species” (Whether there is one prudence for, n. 12). Merkelbach, of those who add species “for diverse particular affairs”: “this seems to be contrary to St. Thomas and Cajetan” (II, n. 27).
PrudencePrudence: two potential parts or three, and whether distinct
How many potential parts, and whether they are other virtues. St. Thomas, Prümmer, Noldin, Wouters, Marc, Merkelbach and Bontempi give three: “eubulia, synesis, gnome” (n. 633). McHugh-Callan gives two, one for each lesser act: “The principal act of prudence is direction, its secondary acts are deliberation and decision”, and so “wise deliberation” and “wise decision” (n. 1646). St. Thomas holds eubulia “a distinct virtue from prudence” (II-II, q. 51, a. 2), and Merkelbach: “Potential parts are true virtues, but annexed” (II, n. 30). Lessius, as Merkelbach reports him, held them “not really distinguished from prudence”, to which Merkelbach answers: “Thus prudence would not be a cardinal virtue” (II, n. 30).
Justice
CovetousnessDaughters of covetousness
St. Thomas, Prümmer and Merkelbach give seven daughters. Wouters gives six, without perjury (n. 307). Noldin gives “chiefly five”, without violence or perjury (n. 337). Marc gives five after St. Alphonsus: disquiet of mind, hardening of heart, violence, perfidy and betrayal (n. 363). Sabetti-Barrett names “perfidy, deceit, etc.” (n. 141). Vermeersch's print joins the description of restlessness to hardness of heart (“hardness of heart, or too great an application to acquiring or conserving riches”), and names five (n. 471).
JusticeAnnexed virtues
They count the annexed virtues differently. Merkelbach gives “eight” principal ones, adding penance to religion and mercy to liberality (II, n. 258). Wouters counts “nine” with penance as its own (n. 384). Prümmer gives three and six, with penance “closely related to vindication” (II, n. 73). Noldin alone lists obedience among them apart from observance (n. 273).
Theft and RobberyHow small thefts coalesce
How small thefts coalesce. Prümmer names two ways, intention and repetition (II, n. 82); Merkelbach three, intention, moral conjunction and physical conjunction (II, n. 407), setting conspiracy aside as another question (II, n. 407); Noldin three, intention, conspiracy and multiplication (n. 419); Marc four, adding grave damage (n. 908); Vermeersch five (n. 660).
Cooperating in Another’s InjusticeWays of cooperating in injustice
How many ways. St. Thomas's nine ways (II-II, q. 62, a. 7) are repeated in his verse by all the manuals, six positive and three negative. The Roman Catechism instead counts seven classes bound to restitution (The Seventh Commandment), and adds that those who approve and commend thefts are not “entirely innocent of this crime” (The Seventh Commandment).
Detraction and CalumnyCalumny and detraction: one species or two
Whether calumny is another species than detraction. Marc: it “differs in species from simple detraction” (n. 1195); Merkelbach, Prümmer, Wouters and Vermeersch hold them one species of injury, calumny adding a lie (II, n. 428, II, n. 190, n. 1068, n. 599); Noldin calls them specifically diverse only by the lie, which is not mortal (n. 648). Noldin and Sabetti-Barrett reject St. Alphonsus's view that detractions about crimes of different kinds differ in species (n. 648, n. 316); McHugh-Callan sets out both questions (n. 2039).
DerisionDerision: its own species?
Whether derision is its own species. St. Thomas: “derision is a special kind of sin”, since its end, to shame, is distinct (II-II, q. 75, a. 1, ad 3); so Merkelbach, “of a diverse species” from contumely (II, n. 440), Wouters and McHugh-Callan (n. 1084, n. 2106). Prümmer reduces mockery and derision “to the same moral species of contumely” (II, n. 183), and Marc and Noldin count them among the ways contumely is given (n. 1211, n. 662).
CursingSeveral evils in one curse
Wishing several evils in one curse. McHugh-Callan: several sins, by the specific difference of the evils wished, though some count one (n. 2116); Merkelbach: one sin when they are wished under the general aspect of evil, several only by an efficacious desire to inflict them (II, n. 441); Vermeersch: the one who hated need not, for the most part, declare the species of evil wished (n. 90).
Rash Judgment and SuspicionRash judgment and detraction: one species or two
Whether rash judgment is another species than detraction. Merkelbach, after Lugo, says that as detraction takes away a good name among others, so rash judgment among ourselves, “And thus it differs in species from detraction” (II, n. 420); Wouters reports it disputed, some holding the difference merely material (n. 1077).
DivinationDivination and vain observance: one species or two
Whether divination and vain observance are two species. St. Thomas sets them apart as species of superstition by their ends, knowledge and help (II-II, q. 92, a. 2); Merkelbach keeps the difference “by intrinsic end” (II, n. 785) but adds that “according to many” all their modes are one moral species (II, n. 786). Prümmer, Noldin, Wouters, Marc, McHugh-Callan and Sabetti-Barrett hold them one moral species, the virtue of religion being injured in the same way (II, n. 516, n. 160, n. 599, n. 567, n. 2295, n. 211). Vermeersch rearranges the whole matter “to attend to formal differences” (n. 235). Concina grants that “The more common opinion teaches that these divinations do not differ in moral species”, yet an express pact “must be disclosed in confession absolutely”, against the Salmanticenses, its malice being so distinct “that even common sense itself perceives it” (Theol. III, diss. II, ch. IV, n. XI, Theol. III, diss. II, ch. IV, n. XII).
SacrilegeSacrilege: three species or two
Three species or two. Vermeersch: that local and real sacrilege differ formally “seems capable of being safely denied,” so that the three are reduced to two (n. 265); Wouters finds the difference hard to see, yet hesitates to leave the common opinion (n. 612). Merkelbach, Noldin and McHugh-Callan hold three distinct species, with St. Thomas (II, n. 802, n. 176, n. 2315).
JusticeHow often the precept of prayer binds
How often the precept of prayer binds of itself. Prümmer: some say “every week”, others with St. Alphonsus every month or two, others every year, and “All these opinions cannot be strictly proved”; it binds “several times in life” (II, n. 347). Merkelbach: some say “at least once in a year”, others monthly or weekly, “others more probably: at least several times in a year” (II, n. 677). Noldin: St. Alphonsus says every month, and “there are those who say that to have prayed once a year is sufficient” (n. 147); Marc: “more often in the year, indeed frequently” (n. 549). Concina: once a year, the Salmanticenses' opinion, “I reject as evidently false”; when they call the monthly rule harsh, “even in this censure they are shamefully deceived”; “That the precept of praying presses on every Lord's day is certain to me”, though the precept “admits the exception of parvity of matter”, and confessors should not straightway condemn the lukewarm of grave fault (III, diss. V, ch. II, n. VIII, III, diss. V, ch. II, n. X, III, diss. V, ch. II, n. XII).
JusticeNeglecting to pray in temptation: a second sin?
Neglecting to pray in a grave temptation: a second sin, against religion? Concina: “Lessius, Villalobos, Prado, the Salmanticenses, and others deny it. Graver Theologians, with St. Thomas, affirm it. This opinion is more probable to me, and true”, since the precept of praying “presses by accident at the time of a most grave temptation”, so that one who consents without imploring help “commits two sins: one against chastity, the other against the virtue of Religion” (III, diss. V, ch. II, n. XIII).
Fortitude
VaingloryDaughters of vainglory
Noldin names no daughters of vainglory, saying only that it shows itself in three ways: boasting, ostentation and hypocrisy (n. 336). Wouters gives St. Thomas's seven, but as the ways one sins by vain glory rather than as daughters (n. 303).
VaingloryAn eighth daughter of vainglory
Bontempi, after St. Bonaventure, gives eight daughters, adding incontinence (On the vices opposed to magnanimit, n. 8), which he defines as “the will, by conforming itself, seeking to be praised by those who are evil” (On the vices opposed to magnanimit, n. 12).
AmbitionWays ambition is inordinate
St. Thomas gives three ways in which the desire of honor is inordinate (II-II, q. 131, a. 1), and Bontempi follows him. Merkelbach gives four, adding honor sought “for a blameworthy thing, as for sin or for a thing acquired by sin” (II, n. 918).
Impatience and InsensibilityVices opposed to patience
Bontempi names no second vice: “no vice opposed to patience by defect is commonly assigned, because the more lightly adversities are borne, the more it is held worthy of praise” (On the vices opposed to patience, n. 3). The others name insensibility or hardness, which Merkelbach says is “consonant neither with human nature nor with social life” (II, n. 926).
Temperance
AngerSpecies of anger
St. Thomas's three species of anger are the choleric, the sullen and the stern (II-II, q. 158, a. 5). Noldin's three are different: rancor, madness and fury (n. 349).
TemperanceSpecies of temperance
St. Thomas counts four species, the fourth being purity, “as to the pleasures incidental to the act” (II-II, q. 143), and Prümmer follows, calling it pudicity (II, n. 647). Merkelbach, Noldin and Wouters count three: “abstinence, sobriety, and chastity” (n. 285), with Merkelbach treating pudicity inside chastity (II, n. 945). McHugh-Callan: “Chastity and decency are not separate virtues” (n. 2487); Marc and Vermeersch count four, “chastity and modesty about venereal things” (n. 409), “chastity and modesty of purity” (n. 723).
AngerWouters's additions to anger's daughters
Wouters keeps St. Thomas's threefold arrangement, under “in the heart”, “in the mouth” and “in deed”, but adds cursing and fights to the list (n. 325).
GluttonyDaughters of gluttony
St. Thomas and eight of the authors give St. Gregory's five daughters; Marc names the fifth “incontinence” rather than uncleanness (n. 365). Sabetti-Barrett puts drunkenness first among what comes from gluttony and leaves out unseemly joy (n. 146), and Bontempi adds Isidore's reckoning of two daughters, comessation and drunkenness (On gluttony, n. 12).
LustDaughters of lust
The other authors give St. Gregory's eight daughters, four in the reason and four in the will. Sabetti-Barrett names six effects, among them “languor of faith, indeed even loss of faith” (n. 142). Vermeersch names seven, three of them in the will (he leaves out horror of the future age), and adds: “The four latter effects, but not the former, are grave from their kind” (n. 473). Marc holds the four in the will “per se mortal”, and the four in the reason mortal only “when the ultimate end is placed in the creature, or a grave precept is neglected” (n. 367).
PrideDaughters of pride
The four manuals name three daughters of pride. St. Thomas names none, since “the end of every vice is directed to the end of pride” (II-II, q. 132, a. 4), and treats presumption, ambition and vainglory as sins against magnanimity (II-II, qq. 130-132).
LustIncest in the first degree: a species of its own, or one with the rest
Incest in the first degree. Marc: incest between parent and child differs in species from the rest, “according to the common opinion of the Doctors” (n. 786); so Wouters, with St. Alphonsus (n. 39); Prümmer would have the degree declared (II, n. 701). Noldin holds all degrees probably of one species, St. Alphonsus's exception being “not certain” (n. 22); Vermeersch rejects it, “But in vain” (De castitate, n. 315); Merkelbach: all carnal incests “probably of the same species” (II, n. 1012). Bontempi reports three opinions, from “all degrees of consanguinity are distinct in species” to all of one species, and would have the degrees specified (On incest, n. 6, On incest, n. 9). Marc adds that brother and sister is disputed (n. 786).
LustIncomplete acts: a species of their own, or one with the complete
Whether the incomplete acts are a species of their own. McHugh-Callan: “Theoretically, it is more probable” that they do not differ from the complete sins they tend to (n. 2519). Merkelbach: immodesty differs in species from consummated lust “as an imperfect species differs from a perfect one” (II, n. 1026); so Vermeersch, when one stops at them (De castitate, n. 350). Among themselves, Prümmer reports the common modern opinion that looks differ in species from touches (II, n. 692), and finds Billuart's contrary “theoretically true” (II, n. 692); Merkelbach: touches take the species of the person touched, looks do not (II, n. 1026).
One Word, Two Senses
Faith
Faith“Formal object”: God, or the authority of God revealing
“Formal object” in two senses. Prümmer names God, the first truth in being, “the formal object which” of faith, and the authority of God revealing “the formal object by which” (n. 482). Merkelbach keeps “formal object” for the authority of God revealing alone (I, n. 667) and calls God “the primary or principal material object” (I, n. 672), noting that “certain theologians call the primary material object the formal object which” (I, n. 666). Wouters, Marc and McHugh-Callan speak as Merkelbach does (n. 356, n. 754); Bontempi calls God “the principal object, and the object of attribution” (What the object of faith is, n. 7). They differ in words, not in what they teach. Billuart speaks as Prümmer does: the formal object which, “or, as others call it, the object of attribution of faith, is first truth in being, or God himself as God” (What is the object of faith, n. 3); so Concina, for whom the material object “is also called the formal object which” (III, diss. I, ch. III, n. III).
FaithCharity “the form” of faith: accidental, or only a metaphor
Charity “the form” of faith. St. Thomas: “charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity” (II-II, q. 4, a. 3). Merkelbach calls it “the form (extrinsic, directive, and accidental) of faith” (I, n. 717). Wouters: charity “cannot be called its substantial or accidental form” (n. 355); Bontempi: it is not the form “either essential, as the soul is to man; or accidental, as whiteness to the Swan” (Whether faith is perfected by char, n. 1), and “charity is called the form of faith only metaphorically” (Whether faith is perfected by char, n. 1).
FaithLifeless faith: no virtue, or an imperfect one
Whether faith without charity is a virtue. St. Thomas: “lifeless faith is not a virtue” (II-II, q. 4, a. 5); Merkelbach: without charity “it is not a virtue simply so called” (I, n. 717). Bontempi reports almost all the theologians saying “that unformed faith is not simply a virtue” (Whether, and how, faith is a virtu, n. 1) and holds with St. Bonaventure that it “is most properly a virtue” (Whether, and how, faith is a virtu, n. 2); Noldin: “a true virtue and true faith” (n. 6); McHugh-Callan: “a true virtue” but “an imperfect virtue” (n. 800). Prümmer reconciles them: where the name is denied, “perfect virtue is to be understood” (n. 492). Billuart reconciles them as Prümmer does: when the Fathers deny faith or any virtue without charity, “they speak of living faith and of the virtues in their perfect state of being” (On the subject of faith, n. 5).
Faith“Indirect denial” of the faith: never, or for a just cause
Indirect denial of the faith. Prümmer: “It is never licit to deny faith, neither directly nor indirectly” (n. 504); Merkelbach forbids it too, meaning an act “which is held by others as a denial of faith”, such as taking part in heretical rites (I, n. 712). Noldin: “From a just cause it is permitted indirectly to deny faith” (n. 24); but by this he means an act indifferent in itself which others mistake for a denial, where “the action indifferent in itself is illicit so far as from it there follows deception and scandal of others” and a just cause may permit that effect (n. 24). The difference is in the word.
Hope
PresumptionExcess of hope
The word “excess” is used two ways. St. Thomas says presumption “does not denote excessive hope, as though man hoped too much in God” but hoping for what is unbecoming to Him (II-II, q. 21, a. 2, ad 2). Merkelbach defines it as “any immoderate or excessive hope” (I, n. 833), and Prümmer says the presumptuous man “hopes too much from God” (n. 549). Concina uses both words of the same sinners: presumption is “a perverse, or inordinate, confidence in the divine mercy”, and they “persevere in sins from an excessive confidence in the divine mercy” (III, diss. I, ch. XI, n. VIII).
Charity
EnvyZeal
The word “zeal” is used two ways. Prümmer says envy “sometimes is also called livor, zeal, jealousy” (n. 421), while St. Thomas and the rest set zeal apart from envy as the sorrow of lacking the good oneself.
SlothWandering of mind
The last daughter shifts in meaning. St. Thomas has “wandering after unlawful things” (II-II, q. 35, a. 4, ad 2). Noldin has someone wandering “about illicit things in the exercise of spiritual matters” (n. 350), and Wouters only “in the exercise of spiritual things” (n. 329).
ContentionContention, sinful or praiseworthy
Prümmer defines the sin with Cicero's words, contention is “sharp speech fitted for confirming and refuting” (n. 604); St. Thomas cites the same words of Tully for contention “in keeping with the persons and the matter”, which is “praiseworthy” (II-II, q. 38, a. 1). Bontempi defines contention only as an altercation “against the truth, aimed at attacking it” (What sin contention is, and how gr, n. 1), and so leaves no praiseworthy kind. Concina gives St. Thomas's praiseworthy contention its rule: “Acrimony must never be poured out upon persons, but only, with due sparingness, upon errors”, and holds that refuting errors in writing carries less danger, since “often the authors of the errors are either dead or absent” (III, diss. IV, ch. II, n. VII).
ScandalScandal of the little ones
What “scandal of the little ones” names. For Prümmer, Merkelbach and Noldin it is scandal taken from a good action through ignorance or weakness (n. 606). Bontempi calls it the scandal given, “that which arises from the Active Scandal of another” (What scandal is, and of how many k, n. 8), and Vermeersch likewise: “If it is connected with active scandal, it is called scandal of the little ones or of the weak” (n. 120). Noldin warns: “Since this division is not taken in the same way by all, attention must be paid to the sense which individual authors put under these terms” (n. 103). Concina holds it rare: “the scandal of the little ones — of those who sin either from ignorance or from mere weakness — rarely occurs. For men commonly sin from malice, and so the scandal is pharisaical” (III, diss. IV, ch. IV, n. XX).
Cooperation in Another's SinFormal cooperation
What counts as formal. Noldin notes that “St. Alphonsus (n. 63) presents another notion of formal cooperation”, so that some cases are solved differently (n. 117). Vermeersch counts as formal the cooperation that by its nature carries the malice of the principal act, adding: “Others call this immediate material cooperation” (n. 129).
Charity“Heart,” “soul” and “mind” in the great commandment
Heart, soul and mind in the great commandment. St. Thomas reads the heart as the will's intention, the mind as the intellect, the soul as the lower appetite, the strength as the outward act, and notes that Chrysostom, St. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa read them otherwise (II-II, q. 44, a. 5). Spirago reads the heart “with the will”, the soul “with the understanding” and the mind “with the affections” (II. THE TWO COMMANDMENTS OF CHARITY). Vermeersch: “Among the Hebrews, the heart signifies intellect and affection” (n. 73); Merkelbach and McHugh-Callan allow that all may mean one thing, “synonymous significations of the one thought” (I, n. 974, n. 1558).
Prudence
PrudencePolitical prudence: the ruler's or the subject's
St. Thomas, Prümmer, Merkelbach and Wouters distinguish the prudence of the ruler, called regnative or regal, from the political prudence of subjects. Noldin has no regnative prudence and gives the name political to the prudence “by which a society of men living under the same laws is ruled” (n. 265). Lessius, as Merkelbach reports him, understood civil prudence “not as the virtue of subjects who obey laws, but of judges and magistrates who see to it that laws are observed”, and held “there is no need of a peculiar prudence in a citizen”; Merkelbach answers: “Nevertheless these things are not conformed to the interpretation of St. Thomas” (II, n. 27).
PrudenceSolicitude: of command only, or of all three acts
Solicitude, of command only or of every act. St. Thomas ties it to command, prudence's “chief act is a command about what has been already counselled and judged”, and so “one should be quick in carrying out the counsel taken, but slow in taking counsel” (II-II, q. 47, a. 9); Merkelbach: “quickness in commanding and pursuing those things which are to be done” (II, n. 13). Prümmer and Marc require it in all three acts: “These three acts, that they may be done well, must be exercised with solicitude and diligence” (n. 630); “must be exercised with solicitude and fitting diligence” (n. 392). Merkelbach names Lessius and Billuart for that view and answers that it is true, “but then solicitude and diligence are taken in another and diverse, broader sense” (II, n. 14).
PrudenceDocility and caution in St. Bonaventure's sense
Docility and caution, two senses. For St. Thomas docility is readiness to be taught, “especially by old folk who have acquired a sane understanding of the ends in practical matters” (II-II, q. 49, a. 3), and so in all the manuals; Prümmer: “an affection and promptitude for learning” (n. 631). St. Bonaventure, as Bontempi gives him, takes it the other way: “Docility is the power of teaching, in this order, that you first instruct yourself, and afterward others” (What prudence is, n. 8). Caution, for St. Thomas, guards “against the hindrance of acts of virtue” (II-II, q. 49, a. 8, ad 1); St. Bonaventure's is “the prudence of discerning vices that bear the appearance of virtues” (What prudence is, n. 8).
PrudencePrudence “simply”: the personal or the regnative
Which prudence is prudence simply. St. Thomas gives prudence “in its special and most perfect sense” to the king (II-II, q. 50, a. 1). Merkelbach keeps both: personal prudence is “prudence absolutely and simply so called”, since it makes a man good, the others only a good citizen, king or father (II, n. 28); “Nevertheless regnative prudence is the most perfect” (II, n. 28). Marc says of the prudence that rules others: “It is not simply prudence, because it does not always render him who has it better” (n. 394). Vermeersch notes the lower sense of the word: a prudence “which is called prudence in a certain respect, even saints can lack” (n. 162).
Justice
The DuelDuel
One word, two senses: “duel”. Prümmer and Merkelbach define it without regard to its end, “for the sake of vainglory, of saving honor, of preserving an office, of taking revenge” (II, n. 124, II, n. 365); Bontempi defines it by its end, a combat “to redeem the truth of some matter, or to purge a crime”, the judicial duel (Whether, and how, the duel is unla, n. 2).
IdolatryMaterial idolatry
One word, two senses: “material” idolatry. For Prümmer, Noldin and the rest it is idolatry feigned outwardly from fear, and grave (II, n. 503, n. 151). Sabetti-Barrett calls material the idolatry that is “inculpable”, as when a priest by invincible error exposes an unconsecrated host, and names the feigned kind “simulated” (n. 204).
IngratitudeMaterial ingratitude: a venial omission, or no special sin at all
“Material” ingratitude means two things. Prümmer: the omission of due gratitude without contempt, ordinarily venial, under which he sets not repaying, concealing and not acknowledging the benefit (II, n. 609). Merkelbach: anything omitted or done against a benefactor without contempt, “not a special sin” but a circumstance of another (II, n. 878); McHugh-Callan: “any injury done a benefactor without contempt”, an aggravating circumstance (n. 2377, n. 2378), while the culpable neglect of thanks he counts formal (n. 2377). St. Thomas sets out the grades of omission and of contrary deed without these words (II-II, q. 107, a. 2).
ProdigalityLiberality: giving to the needy for God, or the right measure with money
“Liberality”, the virtue prodigality exceeds, means two things. In Spirago it is giving to the needy for the love of God, so that one who gives for praise “has no claim to the virtue of liberality” (LIBERALITY); Bontempi, with St. Bonaventure, calls it “the virtue dispensing benefits” (On liberality, n. 1). In the manuals it is the right measure in using money, distinct from mercy and beneficence (II, n. 615): McHugh-Callan: it “may be without charity” (n. 2424); Merkelbach: “it gives even to the unknown, not only to friends” (II, n. 884).
JusticeBreaking a vow: sacrilege or not
Whether breaking a vow is sacrilege. Prümmer: Cajetan holds that breaking any true vow is sacrilege, the thing vowed being made sacred; the common opinion denies it; others confine it to the vow of chastity, or to the public vow of chastity; “This controversy is a dispute about a name” (II, n. 403). Merkelbach: “of itself it is not sacrilege, because it is not the violation of a sacred thing” (II, n. 722); McHugh-Callan: sacrilege “is committed only by sins against certain vows”, such as a public vow of chastity, not a vow to fast (n. 2209); Vermeersch: breaking a simple vow “differs specifically from sacrilege”, and is graver (n. 221).
JusticeEquity and epikeia
Equity: two virtues under one name, and where each belongs. St. Thomas makes epikeia “a subjective part of justice”, above legal justice, “a higher rule of human actions” (II-II, q. 120, a. 2). Prümmer: “Epikeia can be taken in a twofold sense”, the benign reading of a law, joined to legal justice, and a natural equity that remits strict right, “midway between justice and charity” (II, n. 617). Merkelbach separates them: epikeia “pertains to legal justice, of which it is a subjective part or species” (II, n. 891); equity in the use of one's right is “a virtue annexed to particular justice or a potential part” (II, n. 892). McHugh-Callan likewise gives legal equity “the rank of a subjective part” (n. 2430). Vermeersch treats equity as the annexed virtue and bids the reader distinguish epikeia from it (n. 685). Marc counts equity among the annexed virtues, “although this is rather referred to legal justice” (n. 403).
Fortitude
VaingloryVanity
“Vanity” is used in two senses. For Noldin it is one kind of vainglory, seeking praise “from goods of lesser moment” (n. 336); McHugh-Callan uses it for vainglory itself (n. 2450).
FortitudePerseverance and constancy
Noldin writes “perseverance or constancy” as one part (n. 278). St. Thomas says the two “differ as to those things which make it difficult to persist in good” (II-II, q. 137, a. 3), and Merkelbach follows (II, n. 930).
Temperance
AngerIrascibility
The word “irascibility” shifts. Marc and Sabetti-Barrett call it the habit of anger (n. 370; n. 144). Merkelbach uses it for the vice itself (II, n. 1037).
LustLuxury; purity
Two words are used in more than one sense. “Luxury” in our English of Merkelbach, Vermeersch and Bontempi is lust itself (luxuria), while McHugh-Callan uses it for “an excessive desire of health and comfort” (n. 2492). “Purity” in the English Summa is pudicitia, the modesty about the signs of lust; McHugh-Callan uses it for chastity and modesty together (n. 2486), and Noldin for abstinence from illicit emission, as against pudicity (n. 3).
Vices of Bearing, Play and DressRusticity
One word, two senses: “rusticity”. Prümmer, Merkelbach and Wouters give the name to the defect in bearing (II, n. 717, II, n. 1059, n. 462); Bontempi gives it to the defect in play (Last Question: On the other vices, n. 24), which Wouters calls “moroseness” (n. 465) and St. Thomas calls “boorish or rude” (II-II, q. 168, a. 4). And Vermeersch's “Moroseness or contention” is the vice against affability, not against eutrapelia (n. 735).