Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Notandum 1. Sins can be considered either materially, and physically according to the entity of the act, or of a quasi-vicious act: or formally, and morally according to their deformity, and disconformity to the object, the precept, the end, the circumstances, and the rules of acting well and properly. It is certain, moreover, that sins viewed in the former manner are sometimes distinguished in species from one another; for sins of commission differ from sins of omission: likewise internal sins, which are perpetrated by purely internal acts, differ from those which are completed by an external work; for it is one thing to look upon a woman so as to covet her, and another to commit adultery with her: whence there remains here only to be examined from what source the specific and numerical distinction of sins ought chiefly to be sought according to their moral being: namely, whether from the circumstances with which they are affected, or from the precepts against which they fight, or from the objects about which they are occupied.

Notandum 2. The distinction of precepts can be considered in two ways: namely, either on the part of the one commanding, or on the part of the thing commanded. In the former way it is one thing that a precept be natural, that is, instilled into each man by the very guidance and light of nature, and another that it be positive, prescribed and laid down by edict and law from a superior. Further, the positive precept is divided into divine and human: human, moreover, into ecclesiastical and civil. In the latter way precepts are distinguished according to the diversity of the virtues which they command, or of the vices which they forbid. Now since every virtue has several acts specifically diverse, and diverse rules of acting by which it ought to be regulated, whereby it comes about that one can sin against it in many ways; thus, because the virtue of temperance, for example, is concerned with moderation in food, drink, play, and the pleasures of the body, thence it comes about that one can sin against it variously, namely by gluttony, by drunkenness, by fornication, etc.; hence it is that the same virtue can be commanded by various precepts. Indeed it even sometimes happens that one and the same act of virtue can be illicit, or necessary, by many precepts; for example, the sin of usury is prohibited by the law of nature, and also by positive divine, ecclesiastical, and civil law. Similarly the same act can be contrary to several virtues; thus theft of a sacred thing, or striking a Clerk, is at once repugnant to justice and to religion, or the reverence owed to things and persons dedicated to God, and also to obedience toward God and superiors, by whom these sins are forbidden.

Notandum 3. That as superiors who give commands have diverse rights by which they can command their inferiors, so inferiors contract various and distinct obligations of obeying them: whence it happens that when the title by which we are bound to obey them is specifically diverse, the disobedience also, which is committed against their precepts, is specifically diverse. Thus, because the right of Prelates Regular of commanding their religious is something religious arising from the vow of obedience, the question is raised whether disobedience committed against them is a sin against the virtue of religion specifically diverse from the disobedience which would be shown toward another superior; or whether he who does not obey sins more gravely against the commanding authority — having indeed one obligation against the virtue whose rectitude is commanded, and within whose species the thing commanded is constituted, and another against the religion of the vow.

These matters thus briefly premised, three points occur here to be determined: First, whether the specific distinction of sins is sometimes sought from the circumstances with which acts are affected: Second, whether from the objects about which they are occupied: Third, whether from the precepts in which they militate.

First Conclusion. — The specific distinction of sins is sometimes sought from circumstances specifically different. This is common among Theologians, against Durandus in 2. d. 38. qu. 1., where he teaches that no circumstance bestows upon a human act any goodness or malice, because, he says, when it bestows that, it passes into the reason of object, and ceases to be a circumstance. He holds, indeed, that some circumstances are moral in order to the physical entity of the act to which they accrue, but not in order to the act as moral; for thus, he says, circumstances take on the reason of object.

The conclusion is therefore proved: a sin is said to be specifically distinguished by that from which it has a new and specifically distinct disconformity with reason and the rules of right living: but it sometimes has this from the circumstances accompanying the act; therefore sins take on a diverse species from them. The major stands. The minor is proved: First, from the Council of Trent, Session 14, Canon 5, where it defines that in confession those circumstances are to be disclosed which change the species of the sin: the same Council teaches in cap. 5 of the same session in these words: it is gathered, furthermore, that those circumstances also are to be explained in confession which change the species of the sin. It holds, then, that some circumstances introduce a new species of sin into the act. Second, the same minor stands from the doctrine of the Holy Fathers, who in wondrous manner exaggerate the malice and deformity which sinful and evil acts take on from the circumstance of person, or place, or time. Thus St. Isidore, lib. Sententiarum, cap. 18, teaches that sin is aggravated by the condition of the person; Sins, he says, which are light in beginners are accounted grave in perfect men; for a sin is recognized as the graver, the greater he is held to be who sins. For the accumulation of offense grows according to the order of merits, and often what is forgiven to the lesser is imputed to the greater. Hence Salvian, lib. 4 De Providentia, demonstrates that Christians sin more gravely than infidels in committing the same vicious act. For every fault, he says, of Christians is an injury to the Divinity; more atrociously do we sin under the profession of the holy name; the very religion which we profess accuses our errors. Similarly, from the sanctity of a place vitiated and profaned by sin, the Holy Fathers sometimes gather the diversity and gravity of sins: thus St. Jerome rebukes Sabinianus the Deacon because he solicited a certain consecrated Virgin from the Monastery of Bethlehem unto defilement and flight; and he explains the enormity of this crime from the circumstance of the sacred place in which it had been committed, in these words: Most wretched of mortals, you — that cavern in which the Son of God was born, and the Truth sprang out of the earth, and the earth gave her Fruit — are you about to enter to plot defilement? Do you not fear lest the infant cry out from the manger, lest the Virgin in childbirth laugh at you, lest the Mother of the Lord behold? Angels cry out, shepherds run, the star glows above, Magi adore, Herod is terrified, Jerusalem is confounded — and do you creep into the chamber of the Virgin to deceive a virgin? "I yield," says the wretch, "and I shudder as much in mind as in body; I cannot go further; tears burst forth before words, and in indignation together with grief the breath is choked in the very passage of his throat." — Finally, the Holy Fathers gather even the enormity of sin from the circumstance of time. Thus St. Leo, Sermon 5 on the Passion, exaggerates the gravity of the crime of the Jews from the fact that they killed Christ on the feast of Pascha. When, he says, they who ought to have adorned the temple, cleansed what had been defiled, provided victims, and shown a holier diligence in the legitimate purifications, having conceived the fury of a parricidal hatred, rush to one work, in one crime they conspire with like cruelty.

You will say 1: That anything should confer malice upon human acts, it must be willed: but everything that is willed is an object of volition, just as everything known is an object of the intellect: therefore sins take their species and gravity not from a circumstance, but from an object. — I distinguish the major: it must always be willed per se primarily, and directly, I deny; secondarily, and indirectly, I concede. And similarly distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence. For although only the object specifying the act essentially is willed directly and primarily, nevertheless circumstances are willed secondarily and indirectly, on account of the close connection which they have with the object specifying the act; for since the will is a spiritual power not tied to an organ, it can reflect upon itself, and tend voluntarily not only toward the specifying object, but also toward the circumstances accompanying the act, or toward the very act itself, though attended by such and such a circumstance.

You will say 2: Moral goodness, or malice, is something intrinsic to the human act; circumstances, however, are something extrinsic to it: but nothing intrinsic can be derived from the extrinsic; for nothing is denominated intrinsically from a form which does not inhere in it: therefore a human act cannot be, nor be denominated, vicious from circumstances. — I distinguish the minor: nothing intrinsic can be physically and entitatively denominated from the extrinsic, I concede; nothing intrinsic can be morally denominated from something physically extrinsic, I deny. Otherwise it would follow that the object would not give to the human act any intrinsic moral goodness or malice; for the object is as extrinsic as the very circumstances. Therefore, by the same reason by which human acts derive from the object an intrinsic, specific, and essential goodness or malice, on account of the transcendental and intrinsic order which the very act has toward that object agreeing or disagreeing with the rules of right living, with equal right they borrow their moral goodness or malice from extrinsic circumstances, on account of the similar order which the human act has toward those circumstances. Consult what we said above concerning this Doctor, Tract. De Angelis, pag. 101.

Second Conclusion. — The specific distinction of sins is not derived from the object considered entitatively, much less insofar as those material objects bear a diverse disconformity with the rules of right living, and diversely deprive of the rectitude which ought to inhere in acts. This is the doctrine of the Doctor in 2. d. 37. num. 9., where, after he had said that privations are distinguished in species by the specific distinction of habits, and in number by the numerical distinction of habits, he adds:

sins, which are certain privations, namely of rectitudes which ought to inhere in acts, are formally distinguished by the distinction of such rectitudes, so that when diverse rectitudes in species ought to be had, there are deficiencies diverse in species. And so sins are not distinguished by comparison to objects, which are not evil except materially: but the formal reason in them is distinguished in comparison to one rectitude and another in species, which ought to inhere.

The truth of this conclusion is evident with regard to both parts: for the entitative diversity of objects can sometimes be attained by one and the same sinful act: for theft can tend toward things specifically diverse, for instance toward bread, money, clothes, etc., nor does it take on specific diversity from them, unless in those material objects there appears a diverse and dissimilar indecency and dissonance with the rules of right living: thus the taking away of life, honor, and worldly goods import a diverse malice of sin in species, and constitute a diverse species of sinful act, namely homicide, detraction, and theft: for the reason that those takings-away of diverse things confer a diverse indecency and dissonance with respect to the rules of right living. — But in order that an object may confer special formal goodness or malice upon a human act, it is not necessary that that objective malice be known and willed directly, or per se, but it suffices that it be known and willed indirectly: for the difference between good and evil acts on the part of cognition and volition can be affirmed thus, that for formal goodness to be attributed to the act, the will must will the good and honest because it is good: but for malice it suffices to will the evil on account of something else, and not abstain from it, so that we do that which pleases from elsewhere, or omit that which displeases from elsewhere; for, says Martinonus, Disputation 10, Section 2: he who prays in a sacred place does not give special goodness to his act from that circumstance unless reverence for the sacred place moves him to pray there, and he prays in the sacred place because it is sacred. But if he kill in a sacred place, he contracts from it the malice of sacrilege, although he does not kill in that place because it is sacred: for it suffices that he do not abstain from perpetrating homicide on account of the reverence of the place, which he owes it, and that he wish to satisfy his hatred notwithstanding the reverence of the sacred place. The general reason is, because it is base and unseemly for rational nature to will or accept evil, not only directly and for its own sake (and indeed it is impossible per se purely and precisely to will or accept it), but also on account of something else: and those are condemned in Scripture who say: Let us do evil, that good may come. Rom. 3, verse 8. For the will by which one wills evil, that is, the dishonest, is by that very fact evil, from whatever motive he wills it, because by that very fact he postpones honesty to baseness against right reason, and against what he ought to do. So that if anyone should sin formally with the sin of theft, it is not necessary that he commit adultery; he does not cease to be a thief properly and formally, although he be moved to theft by the affection of another sin.

Third Conclusion. — The specific distinction of sins is not rightly sought from the diversity of precepts which come from superiors commanding the same thing within the same species of virtue, or with the same motive: but it is so sought if they regard diverse virtues, and have a diverse formal motive. This conclusion has two parts, of which

The first is evident of itself: for the diversity of sins must be weighed from the object which is forbidden, not on the part of the commander, or legislator, who stands in the manner of an extrinsic cause: now several extrinsic causes concurring to the same effect do not vary its formal reason: therefore neither does the diversity of those commanding, or forbidding, the same act effect its specific diversity. It is confirmed: theft, for example, is forbidden in fact by the divine law, which is the act of God, and by human law, which is the act of man; yet on that account it is not held to be a multiple sin, when the same act of stealing is exercised about the same object and with the same motive: therefore the diversity of commanders does not effect a diversity of sin.

The second part is also evident, because as often as a precept is specifically diverse, so often the sins opposed to it have a distinct object and motive; for so often one sins against a diverse title and diverse rule of acting according to the dictate of right reason; but every virtue has precepts specifically diverse, or diverse rules of acting: for it is one thing the precept by which temperance commands moderation in jests, games, and the pleasures of the body, against which one sins by scurrility, luxury, and other vices: and another, by which it commands moderation in food and drink, against which one sins by drunkenness, gluttony: therefore since sins are specified and distinguished from objects and motives, the consequence is that precepts so distinguished import a specific distinction of sins.

From these gather, that a violent striking of a Clerk, for example, takes on two species of malice, namely injustice and sacrilege, because an act of this sort is prohibited by natural and positive law from two motives specifically diverse, namely from the motive of justice proceeding from natural law, and from the motive of religion from positive law. But it must be said otherwise of him who breaks the fast on a vigil falling within the Ember days, or omits Mass on a feast day which falls on a Sunday: for although a twofold precept of fasting on that same day concurs, one indeed by reason of the vigil, another by reason of the Ember days, nevertheless because in both cases there is the same intrinsic end, and the matter of the same virtue, namely abstinence, is immediately regarded, thence it comes about that the transgression of that precept is a single sin. The same must be said of the omission of Mass on a feast day falling on Sunday. Whoever desires more, let him consult our Academic Philosophical [course], Disp. de bonitate et malitia actuum humanorum.