II. To the Initial Arguments

29. As to the first argument [n.3] I deny the minor.

To the first proof [n.3] I say that perpetual use of reason is a greater good than an act of virtue; and therefore he who has by some act deprived himself of the perpetual use of reason would sin mortally, indeed most mortally. But the lack of the use of reason for a moment is not as great an evil as an act opposed to an act of virtue; nor is anything that takes away the use of reason for a time a sin, for extreme torments, even minimal ones, impede thus the use of reason just as pleasures do, and yet the martyrs, when knowingly exposing themselves to such torments, did not sin but merited.

30. To the confirmation [n.3] I concede that such an act would not be licit for them before the contract, but it is licit after the contract, not because they can license themselves, but because they do a certain act upon which God licenses them for a certain subsequent act that would otherwise not be licit for them. Hence this proof seems to give conviction that not from the justice alone by which they mutually give themselves is this use licit on their own authority, but on the added approbation of the superior.

31. As to the next [n.4] the answer is plain from the solution of the question [n.13], because a spouse does not at that time have the right to ask.

32. As to the next [n.5], the Apostle does not say absolutely that one should abstain at a sacred time, but he counsels it for a time, so that they may be free for prayer, and so that they may again go back to it lest Satan tempt them. And as to what is added about Jerome, and it is in Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 33 q.4 ch.1, “Whoever renders the debt to his wife cannot eat the flesh of the Lamb” - I reply: he cannot at all do it with due reverence. And when you say he is not excluded from receiving communion because of an act of a precept, I deny it, for an act is prescribed on account of which he is less disposed to receive reverently. If however you speak of being excluded by necessity of the precept I concede the fact, because I do not see how he would, for this alone, sin mortally if he received the body of Christ.

33. To the last one [n.6] I say that one should regularly abstain in a sacred place, because the danger of fornication does not threaten with such immediacy that it would not be possible for the debt to be rendered in advance in a non-sacred place. If however it were necessary for them to remain together for a long time in a sacred place, one might deny he sins if he render the debt when asked. And what is added about the interdict of a place, perhaps he would say that a place is not, because of a hidden act, so under interdict, at least publicly, that divine worship should be publicly foregone in the same place.