The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus :: Ordinatio. Book 3. Distinctions 26

Single Question. Whether Virtues, Gifts, Beatitudes, and Fruits are the Same Habit as Each Other

1. About the thirty fourth distinction I ask a whether the virtues, gifts, beatitudes, and fruits are the same habit as each other.

a.a [Interpolation] About the thirty fourth distinction, where the Master deals with the seven gifts, the question asked is whether...

2. That they are:

Because of what Gregory [Moralia 1 ch.27 n.38] says about Job 1.2, “Seven sons and three daughters were born to him.” [“Through conception of good thoughts, seven virtues of the Holy Spirit arise in us.”].

3. Further, if they were different from each other, none on one side would be the same as another on the other side. The consequent is false, for fortitude is a gift and fortitude is a virtue.

4. And if it be said that the latter and former fortitude are of different idea, on the contrary: they have acts of the same idea.

5. To the opposite:

There is not the same number of gifts and beatitudes; also, the things numbered do not agree, as is plain, for something is a beatitude which is not a gift, something is a gift which is not a virtue, and so on of others.

I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

1. Exposition of the Opinion

6. In answer to the question Henry says in Quodlibet 4 q.23 that, just as one can be disposed to intense pleasures in three ways, namely in a human way, in a superhuman way, and in an un-human way, so can one be disposed thus to inordinate sadnesses.

7. In the human way when one endures terrible things along with their due circumstances; and for this there is a moral virtue, acquired or infused, which however does not enable one to endure without sadness, according to Aristotle Ethics 3.10.1115b10-13 and Augustine On the Trinity 13.7 n.10 [cf. III d.15 nn.102-103].

8. In a superhuman way when one endures terrible things with joy, as was true of certain martyrs.

9. In an un-human but quasi-divine way when one not only endures death with joy but joyfully desires it, as Paul desired “to depart and be with Christ” [Phil. 1.3]. This is proved by Augustine in Homily 1 on John tr.1 n.4, treating of 1 Corinthians 1.10, “Why are there schisms among you? Is it not because you are men?”, where Augustine says “God wanted them to be gods,” as stated in the Psalm, “I said, you are gods.”

10. In this third way the virtue is heroic, and the Philosopher brings it together in opposition to bestiality, which is un-human as to vicious delights, Ethics 7.1.1145a22-23.

11. Henry says, therefore, that the virtues perfect man in a human way, the gifts in a superhuman way, and the beatitudes in an un-human way.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

12. But there are multiple objections to this opinion.

First because charity is the most excellent of the gifts of God, according to Augustine On the Trinity 15.19 n.37, and, what is more, according to the Apostle I Corinthians 13.2-3, “If I have fortitude and hand my body over to be burned” (which seems to be in the un-human way, because it is to ask to be burned for God), “but have not charity, it profits me nothing.” Therefore, it does not seem that any good perfects more excellently than charity does, which however is a virtue and of the first degree [n.7], if we are speaking of the moral and theological virtues.

13. Further, as to things terrible, the case is that the human will holds rightly to the mean through the habit of fortitude; therefore it will hold to the mean more rightly [sc. the second degree] and most rightly [sc. the third degree] as far as is possible for human nature, if it is possible. Either it is possible, then, from the same habit of fortitude of the same species to tend to the mean according to degrees that do not vary the species, and so a habit the same in species disposes one to endure something terrible in the supreme perfect way as in the lowest way. Or if not from the same habit but a different one, then the habit that disposes one to endure in the lowest degree is of necessity imperfect as to its act and object, because it cannot have perfection about enduring terrible things; but, in order to be perfectly disposed with respect to them, one needs to have a habit different in species. But a plurality of species should not, it seems, be posited without manifest necessity, unless one virtue does not suffice (which does not appear in this case).a

a.a [Interpolation] This can be got expressly from the Philosopher, Ethics 7.1.1145a15-35, and from Macrobius, Dream of Scipio I ch.8 nn.5-11, and from Henry [n.6], that all the virtues, if they are perfect, have one degree. Therefore...

14. Further, Christ was saddened during his passion (as said in d.15 n.65), and generally every martyr, left to himself if no miracle with respect to him is performed, endures whatever he voluntarily endures with some sadness [cf. d.15 n.62], as is plain from the passage of Augustine On the Trinity 13.7 n.10 [also City of God 14.10], where he argues against the philosophers who say they are blessed because they had whatever they wanted (for if prosperity befell them, they wanted it, and if adversity befell them, they wanted it, because they endured it patiently). He argues against them that in adversity they did not have what they wanted, because (as far as concerned themselves) they did not want adversity to happen to them; but if adversity did happen, they wanted to endure it patiently lest, by losing patience, they should be more miserable. And this seems persuasive, because patience is not possible about something desirable in itself. The martyrs in this life, therefore, when they endured adversity, had something that they did not in every way want, because the object of their patience was not in its absolute idea something desirable and wantable, but they endured it patiently because of God.

15. Further, it is impossible for the same person to do the same act humanly, superhumanly, and un-humanly at the same time. Therefore, when one has the gift of the Holy Spirit, the virtue acquired previously or infused in baptism is extinguished; or if it remains, it will not be able to issue in act, or it will not be needed, for one will have power for one’s act from the more perfect gift. The beatitudes will in the same way remove the necessity for the virtues and the gifts, which seems unacceptable, especially if the discussion is about the theological virtues, for charity is not extinguished in the fatherland, nor faith and hope in the wayfarer.

16. Further, the words ‘superhuman’ and ‘un-human’ are metaphorical, for every action of a man, properly speaking, is human. For just as a right action must conform to the object, to the end, and to the other circumstances, so also must it conform to the doer himself (for it does not befit me to do what befits a king, and much more does it not befit me to do what befits an angel). So, in order for a man’s action to be right, he must do it in a human way. Therefore, whatever habit disposes a man simply to do something in a human way, disposes him absolutely to doing it.

17. Further, if someone were always to be praying and the gift of understanding were to be given him and he did not exercise himself about things of faith, he would not be acting in a human way about these things, because he would not possess acquired faith - without which infused faith does not do its job [cf. Lectura III d.23 nn.48-50, d.25 n.35]. Yet he could act in a superhuman way because he would, according to you, have the gift of understanding. Therefore, he could act about things of faith more excellently than someone else who was skilled in Sacred Scripture - which we do not experience; on the contrary, anyone else (including this sort of person) would perhaps more easily err about things of faith than another who was well skilled in Scripture.

18. Again, whatever one can be well ordered and active about in a human way, one can be so in a superhuman and un-human way; therefore, there will be as many virtues as there are gifts and beatitudes [which is false].

19. Further, true beatitude would be found in the acts of one of the beatitudes as the supreme habit [d.36 n.26; Prol. n.287].

B. Opinion of Bonaventure

20. [Statement of the opinion] - Another opinion says it is the case that the virtues make one to act rightly, the gifts to act perfectly, and the beatitudes to act expeditiously.

21. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this view: by one and the same virtue I act rightly (because virtue is the rightness of power [Ethics 2.6.1106b36-07a2, 6.13.1144b27]), and act expeditiously (because virtue is a habit that makes one act expeditiously and easily [I d.17 n.7, 48-51]), and act perfectly (because virtue is both the perfection of him who possesses it in himself and the perfection by which his work is rendered perfect [Ethics 2.5.1106a15-17]).

C. Opinion of Aquinas

22. [Statement of the opinion] - Another statement is that there is something that must dispose the will to be movable by right reason, and such is what virtue is; and something that must dispose the will to be movable by the Holy Spirit, and such is what a gift is. And these two things are posited as movers of the will.

23. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this opinion. First, what it supposes is false, namely that reason moves the will such that the virtue is only a disposition of movability in the will. Second, the beatitudes are not in this way posited as distinct from the gifts and the virtues. Third, from the fact that God has given a habit to the will, he is always assisting the will and the habit to do the acts that befit them (as that after he miraculously gave sight to the blind man [John 9.1-38], he was always assisting the now sighted man to be able to be moved by the power of sight). Therefore, a thing is proportioned to the second and the first mover by something that is the same. Therefore, if a power is proportioned to itself by a habit, it is sufficiently proportioned to the Holy Spirit by the same habit and to any other mover. Therefore, it is not for this reason that other habits must necessarily be posited in the will.

D. Scotus’ own Opinion

1. Beside the Theological and Cardinal Virtues there is no Need for any Other Habit in this Life.

24. One can say to this question (without however making assertion) that in this life only the habits that are the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues are necessary.

a. Proof of the Opinion

25. The point is shown as follows:

For the need of an intellectual habit perfecting the intellect about things to be thought, and of a habit perfecting the intellect about things to be done, is proved by natural reason; and thus are got a speculative and a practical intellectual habit.

26. In like manner is proved by natural reason the need of a habit perfecting the appetite about desirable things in their order to oneself, and further about desirable things in their order to another; and thus is got the first distinction in appetitive virtue, namely in ordering these habits to oneself and to another.

27. As to what is in addition to these habits - although natural reason perhaps proves that man is not sufficiently perfected by these habits (which is something the solution of Prol. nn.62-65 rests on to show the necessity of another knowledge besides acquired knowledge), yet natural reason does not sufficiently prove with distinctness what intellective habit and what appetitive habit is different from the former ones. Still it is rationally held (according to the persuasive arguments set down in Prol. nn.13-18, 40-41) that, besides the former, there is need of the habits of the cognitive power and of the appetitive power that the Catholic Church teaches are necessary. And by faith we hold that three theological virtues are necessary, which are perfective of the soul in respect of the uncreated object [cf. Lectura d.23 n.48].

28. From these points I argue as follows: only those habits need to be posited in a wayfarer that he is (as to any object) perfected by to the extent that he can be perfected in this life. Of this sort are the seven virtues in general (ignoring the acquired speculative sciences). Therefore, besides the acquired speculative sciences, there will be no need to posit in the wayfarer any virtue simply other than the standard seven [sc. the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues].

29. Proof of the minor: the object about which the wayfarer can be perfected cannot be other than God and creatures.

As to God, the wayfarer is sufficiently perfected, and to supreme degree, by the three theological virtues (most perfectly so, as far as he can be, if those three habits are themselves most perfect).

As to creatures, ignoring the speculative virtues of the intellect, the wayfarer is sufficiently perfected by prudence - provided the prudence is most perfect, for then it is about everything doable as to every condition of the doable that is also most perfectly known. So, as regard appetite, the wayfarer is most perfectly perfected by the three moral virtues [justice, temperance, fortitude], if they are themselves most perfect, because then he is perfected both as regard others and what is desirable for others and as regard himself and what is desirable for himself (and this either primarily and directly, or secondarily because of the primary ones). And I understand by these four cardinal virtues not some numerically single habit in someone that would be at the same time universal temperance or justice (that is a temperance or justice about everything), but that the individual species of justice are present along with their proper individual singulars.⁸

30. Therefore a man who is perfected by the three theological virtues and by the speculative and practical virtues and by the moral virtues (which order him in respect of himself and others) - he is perfected as much as a wayfarer can be fitted to be. There does not seem, then, to be any necessity to posit any other habits than those that are the theological, the intellectual, and the moral virtues.

b. About the Connection of the Intellectual, Irascible, and Concupiscible Habits with these Seven Virtues

31. To be noted further is that, just as a habit in the category of quality is a certain intermediate genus, so it has under it many intermediate genera, until we come to the most specific species. For habit is either first divided into intellectual and appetitive (as seems probable), and the intellectual is further divided into acquired and infused, the appetitive likewise being divided into acquired and infused; or habit is first divided into acquired and infused, and then each member is divided into intellectual and appetitive - at any rate acquired intellectual habit is further divided into speculative and practical, and acquired appetitive habit divided into ordered to oneself or ordered to another. Now acquired speculative habit is divided into real and notional [of reason], because it is either about real being or being of reason. Now the acquired speculative habit about real being is divided according to the division set down in Metaphysics 6.1.1026a18-19, which is into physical, mathematical, and divine. And each of these is perhaps further divided into many divisions, before we come to the most specific species. But acquired practical habit is divided into that which concerns doable things and that which concerns makeable things, and the one about makeable things has several divisions, until we come to the most specific species (of which sort is, for instance, the one about this doable thing here). Finally, the building habit and the like, which is also practical about some doable thing, is divisible into many divisions (as will be plain in the question about the connection of the virtues, [d.36 nn.96-97]). For whether it is a practical science or a practical prudence, it is not single as to all doable things (as will be touched on in d.36 nn.98-99).

32. Of this whole division of intellective habits none is included in the number of virtues save the single infused virtue, which is faith, and a certain genus intermediate to many acquired practical virtues, which intermediate genus is called prudence. But even if, by numbering the species, including the sufficiently common ones, there could be got three divisions, namely faith and speculative science and prudence, yet, because speculative science does not perfect a man for operating well morally, for this reason it is not numbered among the virtues. For speculative science is less necessary for a man to live well humanly than prudence is, and less necessary also than faith for living well in the polity of the Church [cf. d.37 n.27].

33. Now, in the genus of appetitive habit, two acquired habits and two infused ones can be set down, if one stops at the first species under infused appetitive habit and the first under acquired appetitive habit. Under the infused indeed are first hope and charity; and under the acquired the virtues disposing appetite in relation to oneself and in relation to another. As to the second of these, it is called by the one common name of justice, but that in relation to oneself has no common name. And perhaps this is the reason that there is no stand made in the enumerating of the cardinal virtues, but further descent is made under the enumeration, because descent is made to proximate others under it [cf. Bonaventure Sent. III d.33 a. un. q.4; Aquinas Commentary on the Ethics 2.8].

34. Of things appetible for oneself, some are appetible of themselves, namely because they are of a nature to be at once agreeable; and some are to be first avoided, namely because they are of a nature to be disagreeable at once. Others are not appetible first nor avoidable first, but secondarily so, and are, because of the former, to be first desired or avoided. The virtue in general that disposes one with respect to appetible things is called temperance; the one with respect to avoidable things is called fortitude, since indeed things appetible belong first to the concupiscible power, and avoidable things first to the irascible power.

35. In order to see the distinction between these two powers, one must note that the concupiscible power has regard to that which is of a nature to be of itself agreeable or disagreeable; so that when nothing else is posited with respect to them save only that they are apprehended, then an act of being delighted or sad, of fleeing or pursuing, is of a nature, as far as concerns itself, to follow on necessarily.

36. Such agreeable things do not regard the irascible power as objects of it, for the act of the irascible power is to be angry; and to be angry, according to the Philosopher in Rhetoric 2.2.1378a31-33, is “to desire revenge according to an apparent end, because of an apparent slight.” The object therefore of the irascible power is revenge. Or more truly, if this is the ‘avengeable’ object of its act, which could be called the ‘angrifying’ object or let it be called, to speak in a more accustomed way, the ‘offending’ object, this offending object is not said to be what is immediately disagreeable to the concupiscible power, but to be what impedes what is first agreeable to it (for instance, if food is first agreeable to the taste appetite of a bird and is for this reason desired, what prohibits or removes this food offends the animal desiring it). This offending object is the object of the irascible power, about which the irascible power has a certain non-willing, not indeed the non-willing of what properly runs away (as the non-willing concupiscible runs away), but rather the non-willing of what repudiates or repels, because the irascible willingly repels it, and does not merely want what impedes it to be removed, but wants actively to remove it and to punish it further (see above d.26 nn.38-39).

37. Because, however, its act is to want to take revenge or not to want the object, and the unwilled object is still present, for this reason ‘to be angry’ is always with sadness (not only with sadness of the concupiscible power but also with sadness of the irascible power). But only at the time or instant when the irascible power perfectly has its act. This happens not by its refusing, as it were, what is desired (such as is the case when it does not avenge but wants to avenge). Rather it is when it is actually avenging that its act is perfect, similar to enjoyment on the part of the concupiscible power. And at that moment the anger of the irascible power is without sadness; indeed it is with its own great delight, according to Aristotle Rhetoric 2.2.1378b5-7 “the anger of a man is as honey.”

38. Therefore, just as the concupiscible power needs to be set in order as to things that are of a nature to be desired first (so that it does not desire them inordinately but according to the moderation of right reason), so too does the irascible power need to be moderated by a habit. This is so that it does not want immoderately to repel the things to be repelled by committing offense itself and taking immoderate revenge, but rather so that it want moderately to repel the things to be repelled and not to repel the things not to be repelled. The habit by which it is disposed to repel the things to be repelled has no name, though it can be called bellicosity or something similar. The habit by which it is of a nature not to repel things not to be repelled but to endure them is called patience. And because not to repel what offends is more difficult than to repel it, for this reason is patience fortitude of the noblest kind, according to the poetic saying “Patience is a noble class of victory; he who suffers patiently wins” [from an anonymous thirteenth century poet]. Therefore, the irascible power does not have for object the arduous or valuable [as Henry thinks] (which is what the concupiscible power has for object). Rather it has offense for object, so that its proper act is ‘to want to avenge’ or ‘not to want the offense’. This not-wanting is indeed, as it were, imperfect when the irascible power is angry but is not yet repelling or enduring, and this is for it what desire is like for the concupiscible power. Perfect not-wanting, when it moderately repels or endures what is not wanted, is for it what enjoyment is for the concupiscible power

39. The not-wanting that is ‘repelling the intruder in the future’ goes along with fear in the concupiscible power (unless the fear is too strong, so as to overcome the force of the irascible power). The not-wanting that is ‘repelling the present force impeding and offending the concupiscible power’ is, as it were, to desire to repel and is accompanied with sadness. The not-wanting that is ‘actually offending what, being an impediment before, was up to then offensive’ is the perfect not-wanting of the irascible power, which brings the power its own delight, and from then on it rests. Thus every act of the irascible power is ‘to want to repel’, and it does not stop there but seeks revenge (for an angry bird pursues a fleeing bird to punish it). Therefore this desiring, since the object does not absolutely have in it any idea of the appetible, does not occur about what exists for the end.

40. Hence there is a greater distinction between anger and concupiscible desire than between enjoying and using. For the irascible power is always sad when it does not have its revenge, as the concupiscible is sad about the absence of what it desires (but then the irascible is not sad about the presence of what it does not want, while the concupiscible is sad about this).

41. A sophism. If the irascible power desires revenge, then it desires the object to be present. One can concede that someone perfectly in anger does not want the offending thing not to be save by his taking revenge on it. Hence it is sad for the concupiscible power that the irascible does not have the object disagreeable to it [sc. so as to take revenge on it].

42. I reply that it is per accidens [sc. that the irascible power does not have that object]. Yet neither is this sad for the irascible power, but only [its not having] the pleasure of revenge, or the victory of the offender over the irascible power.

43. On the contrary: therefore the irascible power does not have a bodily organ [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 8 q.15, held that sensible passions belong to diverse sense organs of the body], because some determinate quality would be agreeable and some determinate quality disagreeable to that organ. So not just any impediment is disagreeable to the organ, for to be an offender is just a relation of the agent.

44. The offender does not possess a sensible quality by which he is disagreeable, the way he has something that is sad for the concupiscible power. But the offender, when he offends, offends by asserting or preventing, even if whatever sensible quality he has were displeasing or repugnant to the concupiscible power. So there is no particular organ that is changed by the sensible quality.

45. And if you say ‘not wanting one of the opposites belongs to him to whom belongs wanting the other opposite, therefore etc.’ I reply that when the irascible power has its act, there are always two unwanted things in it: one of them unwanted by the concupiscible power and the other by the irascible. The example given earlier [n.36] makes the fact plain: the thing not wanted by the concupiscible power is ‘lacking food’, and from this not-wanting there follows sadness in the concupiscible power, by which sadness it as it were flees the unwanted thing and does not expel it. For there is another unwanted thing, namely what takes the food away, and it is unwanted by the irascible power - not by an act of fleeing but by an act of expelling or repelling. And while the irascible power is not actually repelling, it suffers its own sadness.

46. Now it appears that these pains of the irascible and concupiscible powers are not the same pain, because for if the offending object is presented under the idea of being impossible to repel, there is greater sadness in the concupiscible power but there will not properly be anger in the irascible power. For no one greatly afraid is angry, according to the Philosopher Rhetoric 2.3.1380a31-33, and yet the more afraid someone afraid is, the more does he have the pain of the concupiscible power in flight from what is feared. And though the irascible power sometimes grieves about not being able to take revenge, namely when it has no power to do so, yet the concupiscible power grieves about something else, namely the lack of the desired object.

47. The pain too of the concupiscible power takes place with a change in the organ of the sensitive part different from the pain of the irascible power (cf. Aristotle De Motu Animalium 7.701b1-32): the pain of the concupiscible constricts just as its opposed delight dilates; and the pain of the irascible heats up, and is the boiling of blood about the heart. And from this it follows that, in the sensitive part, the concupiscible and irascible powers have diverse organs, because the same thing cannot be moved at the same time by contrary motions.

48. Now in the rational part there can be a similar distinction of objects as in the sensitive part.

For something is delightful first to the will, namely the good or what is agreeable to the will in itself, or even what is agreeable to it in the sensitive appetite (since the will is of a nature to experience pleasure along with the sensitive appetite, which it is connected with in the same supposit).

The will too can have an object offending it, both according to right reason and against right reason, and it can look at it as offensive in act, refusing it as offensive by a repelling and commanding act.

There is not, however, as great a distinction between these in the will as there is in the sensitive appetite, because the will is not organic [does not have a bodily organ]. Nor should one say that one of these is rather a force and the other a power, or conversely. But, like reason, it is distinguished into a superior and inferior part by comparison to diverse objects, though it is simply the same power.

49. About the term ‘force’ [n.48] I don’t know what one should say, for it is a superfluous word. The reason for operating about the distinct higher and lower objects is simply the same thing, as was said in II d.24 n.29.

50. In the same way one can say about the first and second classes of delightful and sad things [n.34] that the principle of handling them is altogether the same power and the same force, for a power is that whereby an able man is able and whereby an able man is brave. In spiritual things it is the same thing to be able and to be brave, and therefore this distinction will only be on the part of objects toward which an able man tends. It is as if we were to say that the intellect is distinguished into principles and conclusions, because it tends to the conclusions through the principles. But no one distinguishes the intellect into powers and forces because of such a distinction between principles and conclusions.

51. On the basis of these suppositions about the irascible and concupiscible powers [nn.35-50], I return to the virtues and say that the proper habit of the concupiscible power is called temperance, and the proper habit of the irascible power perfecting it in general is called fortitude, and this holds when speaking of acquired and infused habits. But both these infused habits perfect the concupiscible power, because God, whom these habits have for object, is not in any way not-wantable. Now although both these kinds in general, namely both fortitude and temperance, could be further divided, yet in the enumeration of the cardinal virtues they remain undivided.

c. The Seven Virtues Perfect the Wayfarer Simply

52. Accordingly, then, in the enumeration of the virtues there are three theological ones and four cardinal ones. Discussion of the theological ones is got from the Apostle in I Corinthians 13. About the cardinal ones there is Wisdom 8.7, “She teaches sobriety, and justice, and prudence, and virtue, than which nothing is more useful in life.”

53. This sevenfold number of virtues perfects the wayfarer simply, so that he is perfect according to the rank of these in their species. For according as these are more or less intense, not in themselves but in their capacity, he himself is more or less perfect. And if they are the most intense they can be in this life, man is simply perfect as far as he can be in this life (not paying attention for the present to the perfection that is had through the acquired speculative virtues, which were set aside above [n.28]). Through these seven virtues, to be sure, taking both them and their necessary species (which will be spoken of later [n.81]), provided they are in themselves most perfect, a man is simply most perfect both as regard God in himself and as regard everything else other than God, according as they are intelligible by practical reason and desirable for oneself and others. All this too in ordered relation to oneself, as far as the appetitive virtues are able in themselves or are so in order to the ultimate end -the end that the acquired virtues, combined with charity, are capable of.

2. About the Moral Virtues, the Beatitudes, the Gifts, and the Fruits, which are Reducible to the Aforesaid Seven Virtues

a. About the Three Moral Virtues

54. To understand further the said virtues, beatitudes, gifts, and fruits [n.1], one must note that the three acquired moral virtues, namely justice, fortitude, and temperance, are intermediate genera.

55. For there seem to be two desirable things that are first, namely honor and delight strictly taken, or everything that is a primary good, that is, agreeable, namely either honorable or delightful. For the useful cannot be a first motive for desiring something, since it is not desired save in its order to something else. The authority too in I John 2.16, “Everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life,” shows the same thing. For ‘desire of the eyes’, which clearly relates to wealth, cannot be first when speaking of wealth as it is a useful and non-delightful good; but if we speak of wealth as it is beautiful, that is, as it is a delightful good, in this way it can be desired first (like any other visible beauty). Therefore, the first things desirable by rational nature are, as was said, honor and delight strictly taken. So the first species of temperance, which give moderation as to what is desirable for oneself, will be two; for what moderates in the case of honors is called humility, what in the case of pleasures retains the name of the genus. And there are as many species of the temperance that moderates pleasures (for instance one about taste, another about touch) as there can be distinct pleasures to which the will is inclined. Nor is this true only of the pleasures of the senses which the will, which is joined to them, delights in; but it is true also of pleasures proper to the will itself as it is will - and it is in this way that the will of an angel, though it has no separate sensitive appetite, can desire the delightful good.

56. And the proof that these temperances are distinct is that there can be supreme delight in one of them and not in another. For someone can be temperate simply about sex, wanting only to use it with his own wife or simply not to use it, and intemperate about taste, wanting to eat what he should not eat or not wanting to eat what he should eat. Someone too can be temperate about things of sense and intemperate about things of speculation. For instance, if his will is supremely delighted by the fact that his intellect is thinking supremely about intelligible things, and this thinking is not as useful in itself as some other one, this delight is in itself immoderate and needs moderating, since it is in itself disordered.

57. The species of fortitude do not need to be thus explained for the present purpose, because only fortitude in itself and patience are, among others, here touched on. Patience, as was said before [n.38] is the noblest fortitude because it does not repel what is to be repelled, so that ‘to be patient’ is a sort of ‘to permit’. And just as one would say about permission that it is a positive act of willing or not-willing, or perhaps of ‘not willing to prevent’, so one would say the same about the sort of act that is the will’s being patient about terrible things.

58. Now justice needs to be subdivided according to what follows.

Here one must note that, in one’s ordering to another, one can be disposed rightly first by sharing oneself with another as much as one can, or by sharing with him something else or one’s own possessions.

59. The virtue that inclines to the first is friendship, whereby one gives oneself to one’s neighbor as far as one can give oneself, and as far as one’s neighbor can receive. And this is the most perfect moral virtue, because the whole of justice is more perfect than the virtues that relate to oneself, and this friendship is most perfectly justice.

60. But if one shares something else with one’s neighbor, this is either extrinsic goods or intrinsic goods. To share intrinsic goods, insofar as these belong to the support of individual human life, from the extrinsic goods that men need is called ‘commutative justice’; and it is the one that people more frequently call justice, to the extent something equivalent is exchanged. But if one shares with one’s neighbor something necessary for life in community, either this is rule, which belongs to the presiding magistrate, and this species of justice lacks a name but it can be called presiding justice or lordly justice. Or one shares with one’s neighbor the justice of subjection, and this species of justice is called obedience.

b. About the Beatitudes

61. On the basis of the above understandings, I say that the beatitudes which our Savior lays out in Matthew 5.3-10 are the same habit as the habits of the virtues. However sometimes more specific species of virtues are numbered than are included in the sevenfold number of virtues previously assigned [n.28]

62. Two species indeed of temperance are numbered by our Savior among the beatitudes. One is humility, which gives moderation about the first object of delight, honor, and he expresses it there as “Blessed are the poor in spirit...” Augustine says [Sermon on the Mount I ch.1 n.3], “The poor in spirit are rightly understood here as the just and God-fearers, that is, those who do not have a puffed up spirit.” Another species of virtue, which moderates the pleasures in general, is expressed by the words, “Blessed are the pure of heart.” For purity of heart is immunity of the will from every disordered delight, both by reason of the will itself and by reason of the sensitive appetites with which it is conjoined.

63. Fortitude is expressed there in its most perfect species in the words, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution.”

64. Three species of justice are expressed:

One to be sure, which exists in sharing oneself through friendship, is expressed when he says, “Blessed are the meek.”, for although friendship is more than benevolence (according to the Philosopher Ethics 8.2.1155b33-34), and benevolence is more than meekness, because the meek are those who do not offend or resist in evil, nevertheless through this minimum [sc. meekness], which is as it were least in friendship, is expressed the species of justice by which someone shares himself with his neighbor.

65. Another species, namely the one that is divided into justice of rule and obedience, is expressed by the words,” Blessed are the peacemakers.” Peace is kept by the fact that the ruler rightly rules and the subject rightly obeys.

66. A third species of justice, which concerns exterior things, is expressed by “Blessed are the merciful.” For in no other way can anyone be more perfectly disposed to sharing external goods with his neighbor than is the merciful man, who shares them not to have them back nor to be benefited first in turn by him with whom he shares. A generous man indeed, although he shares things with his friend, yet his generosity can be a lower one than is mercy, and so generosity is a more imperfect species of justice than mercy. The justice, then, that concerns temporal matters, is expressed by the Lord in its most specific species, in Luke 14.13-14, “When you make a feast.”

67. And thus we have the three moral virtues expressly in themselves or in their species.

68. As to the theological virtues our Savior expresses two of them: charity where he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”. Hunger indeed is not without distress, but the habit by which it is elicited is charity. For most properly is the charity of the wayfarer a habit by which we hunger for justice and love God in himself, who is true justice. The second theological virtue, namely hope, is expressed by the beatitude, “Happy are those who weep.”; for mourning is the habit of desiring the object of hope.

69. So, therefore, in the eight beatitudes are expressed two infused appetitive virtues and three moral virtues: fortitude in itself, temperance in two species, justice in three species. Now the two intellectual virtues, one acquired (as prudence), the other infused (as faith), are not expressed in themselves nor in their species, and are sufficiently given to be understood through the appetitive virtues, for the will is not best disposed without the corresponding virtue in the intellect.

c. About the Gifts

70. About the gifts I say that in that passage [Isaiah 11.2-3] the four cardinal virtues are numbered: Prudence through ‘the spirit of counsel’, for prudence is properly a habit of counsel, for it is properly a habit of right practical syllogizing, and thus to syllogize is to counsel. Hence the habit whereby one is good at counseling is the habit of prudence. Fortitude is expressed among the gifts by its own name. Fear is a species of temperance, for fear is altogether the same habit as humility, although named by a different name, as is plain from Augustine on Matthew 5.3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” [On the Sermon on the Mount I ch.4 n.11], and for this reason does Scripture frequently commend fear, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” etc. [Psalm 110.10, Proverbs 1.7, 9.10]. Nothing other than humility is the beginning of the virtues - there being something corresponding to it in the intellect. And, in the issue at hand, what is called ‘blessed’ must always be understood as to species or merit, as it is often elsewhere in Scripture, “Blessed is he who understands the needy and poor” and “Blessed is he who suffers temptation” and the like others [Psalm 40.1 James 1.12, Psalm 1.1, 33.9, 39.5, Ecclesiastes 14.1, Matthew 24.46, Revelation 1.3]. These passages do not mean to say that one is happy because one has a habit, which habit is blessedness, but because through the habit one merits blessedness. When piety is placed among the gifts, this is what our Savior calls ‘mercy’, and thus it is a species of justice [n.66].

71. Therefore express among the gifts are the four cardinal virtues and two of the infused virtues, which are named by their proper names:

For prudence is also called counsel [n.66], and fortitude is called by its own name, and the two others are not named under the idea of their intermediate species (which are numbered in the sevenfold list [nn.52-53]), but under certain of their species, namely temperance is named under fear and justice under charity.

72. The two infused virtues numbered there are charity, under the ‘Spirit of wisdom’ - for generally when wisdom is commended in Scripture (as in “Blessed the man who dwells in wisdom” [Ecclesiastes 14.22] and the like), wisdom is taken there for charity and is there charity. For wisdom [sapientia] is the habit whereby the object that is in itself ‘flavorful’ [sapidum] ‘tastes’ [sapit] to him who has it; that is, by which the good in itself pleases me, and is what in itself I want for myself. Through the other two gifts, namely intellect and science, is expressed infused faith, not that these two are ways of stating two habits (as wisdom states charity and fear states humility), but they are ways of stating one habit, as it is perfect or imperfect. And each can be given separately, or the first to be sure without the second though not conversely. Intellect can be taken for imperfect faith, which is knowledge of the first principles, and science for perfect faith, which is explicit knowledge of the articles - just as in the case of natural knowables intellect is said to be knowledge of principles and science of explicit conclusions. Hope is not listed here but is given to be understood by charity [which is expressed by wisdom], and wisdom is that whereby God in himself tastes for me, and by which the good tastes for me (for he who tastes both approves the taste in itself and desires it for himself).

d. About the Fruits

73. About the fruits [Galatians 5.22-23] I say that some of them are virtues (in the idea according to which they are numbered in the sevenfold list [n.53]); some are species of virtues (numbered in the same list); some are neither one nor the other but are delights consequent to acts.

74. For example, charity is there under its proper name, and faith likewise; but hope is included in what is called long-suffering (hence it is said of the patriarchs that they were long-suffering in hope, as if expecting with patience for a long time).

75. The moral virtues are also expressed there.

Fortitude in what is called patience.

76. Justice in its species, which is called mercy [n.66], and in what is called goodness, as he is commonly called good who shares himself with his neighbor. In another species of justice, namely in friendship [n.64], is expressed there benignity, which is as it were benevolence and good warmth. In a second species, which belongs to rule or subjection, is there mildness. Or obedience is specifically named there, for the mild man is he who carries out everything without murmuring.

77. Temperance is expressed in two of its species, namely continence and chastity, if it please to refer continence to other pleasures and chastity to sexual ones. Or they can be understood to be one species, as continence and chastity are said to be one species about all delightful things, the way the Philosopher in Ethics 7.8.1150a9-15 makes chastity to be a certain degree in any virtue.

78. Prudence is expressed there by modesty, for a modest man is he who holds to the due and right measure in acting, and it is the work of prudence to find and fix and determine the due measure in action.

79. Thus do we have in the list the three theological virtues in themselves. And we have fortitude under patience, justice in three of its species, temperance in one species or two species, prudence in one species. And thus we have all the [moral] virtues, both intellectual [sc. prudence] and moral [sc. the others].

80. Other things are numbered there, which are delights concomitant with or consequent to acts [n.73], namely joy and peace. For joy is properly delight within the will, and peace is the security of having the object in the same power without challenge.

3. Conclusion

81. Thus is it plain, therefore, how, by maintaining that the seven virtues (in themselves or in their species) sufficiently perfect man in this life, there will not be other habits necessary that are neither them nor species of them; and how neither in the beatitudes nor in the fruits nor in the gifts are other habits listed. And although there is a different explicit number of the beatitudes than of the gifts, this is because different species of the seven virtues are expressed in different places in different ways, and not because there are other habits that are not species of those virtues.

82. Also if the Scripture about the distinction of these virtues - because it sets down eight in one place, in another seven - were so much pondered on that it was necessary to distinguish them, why then are the distinct habits not also set down that the Apostles makes mention of in I Corinthians 12.7-10, where nine is the number set down? Why therefare are those habits not distinguished from others that are enumerated in II Peter 1.5-7, “Minister virtue in your faith...”? Scripture frequently, then, while really expressing the same things, expresses them under different terms, now omitting some and elsewhere expressly stating those thus omitted.

II. To the Principal Argument for the Opposite

83. As to the argument, then, for the opposite [n.5], it is plain that although the numbering is not the same, this numbering is not of habits distinct from habits but of species intermediate to another habit; or they are the most specific species contained under those habits; or some of them are omitted; also the things numbered are the same in one case as in the other, as has been explained [nn.81-82].

III. To the Argument on behalf of the Philosopher in the First Opinion

84. To the other argument adduced on behalf of the Philosopher from the first opinion, about heroic virtue [n.10], I say that he assigns four degrees in every goodness or virtue that belong to the same specific habit, namely: perseverance, continence, temperance, and heroic virtue. The most perfect degree then, though remaining within the same species, is heroic virtue; and it perfects, as others metaphorically say [Henry of Ghent, n.9], in an un-human way, for it is not commonly a feature of man to attain to that degree of the same species.

85. And as to what is added to the opposite about bestiality [n.10], one could say similarly that it is an excess in the same species of vice; but it can be better said that it is of another species, because about another object. But from this the proposed conclusion does not follow, because it is possible to err and act viciously about many things, but only about one thing, in its perfect conditions, is it possible to act rightly [cf. I d.48 nn.3-5, II d.40 n.8-11].

86. So although bestiality is a different habit from common human vice, because it is about another object, yet it does not follow that heroic virtue is of a different species from human virtue, for heroic virtue orders man about the same object, though more excellently; nor is it manifest that this excellence cannot be realized in another degree of the same species.

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