Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, qq. 2, 3, 4, 5.

In the preceding dissertation we spoke of the ultimate end in general; now we must speak of the special ultimate end of man, which is Beatitude. It is defined by Boethius, III de Consol., prose 2: « A state made perfect by the assemblage of all goods; » by the Author¹: « A perfect good totally quieting and satisfying the appetite, » namely, the rational and ordered.

It can be considered in two ways, objectively and formally. Objective beatitude is that thing in the possession of which the appetite rests; the formal is the very attainment and possession of this thing: thus riches are the objective beatitude of the miser, the possession of them, the formal beatitude, in the way we spoke of the end which and by which.

I say: The objective beatitude of man consists in the uncreated good alone, namely God¹, according to that verse of Psal. LXXII, 25 and 26: What have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?... God is my portion for ever. Likewise that verse of Psal. XVI, 15: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear.

Proof 1°. Only the uncreated good can satisfy the appetite of man². Therefore. — Proof of the antecedent. The rational appetite, or will, cannot be satisfied except by its adequate object. But the adequate object of the will is not this or that good, but every good; just as the object of the intellect, which the will follows, is not this or that truth, but every truth. But God alone is every good, of whom all created goods are participations. Whence that verse of Exod., XXXIII, 19: I will shew thee all good. Therefore.

Proof 2°, by going through all created goods³. The beatitude of man does not consist in any created good. Therefore in the uncreated good alone. — Proof of the antecedent. Created goods are of a threefold kind, namely external goods or goods of fortune, goods of the body, and goods of the soul. But none of these can constitute the objective beatitude of man. Therefore.

Not the goods of fortune, which are riches, honor, fame, and power⁴: 1° Because they do not last, but easily slip away. 2° They do not exclude all evils, but are common to the good and the wicked. 3° They do not fully satisfy; for the more they abound, the more they inflame desire, according to that well-known saying: « The more waters are drunk, the more they are thirsted for. » 4° They do not suffice; for to those who have them, many other necessary things can be lacking, such as wisdom, health, etc. 5° From them evil can befall someone, as experience shows. But all these things are repugnant to true beatitude. 6° Finally, they come from external causes; but the beatitude of man is acquired through interior principles, namely the intellect and the will.

Not the goods of the body⁵; because both the being of the body and the other things which depend on the body, such as health, beauty, strength, pleasure, and other things of this kind, are unstable; they are common to the good and the wicked, indeed even to brute animals; nay, brute animals even surpass man in several of these, as deer in speed, lions in strength, etc. The other reasons too, which we brought forward against the goods of fortune, also apply here.

Not the goods of the soul⁶: 1° Not the soul itself considered in itself; for thus it is in potency, namely to knowledge and to virtue. But since potency exists for the sake of act, as for its complement, it is impossible that what is of itself existing in potency should have the character of the ultimate end. Not the other things which pertain to the soul, such as the powers, the acts, or the habits even of the virtues; because these are accidents and finite goods ordainable to God as the ultimate end. And as for the virtues, they do indeed pertain to happiness, but as the way to the goal; but the way is distinguished from the goal. Likewise, happiness is the reward of virtue. Therefore virtue is not happiness itself. Finally, virtue does not satisfy the appetite, but only rectifies it.

Supposing that man's objective beatitude is God, it follows that his formal beatitude is the attainment of God. We ask, therefore, here by what means man attains God, and consequently in what man's formal beatitude essentially consists. Among the various opinions on this question, three are more celebrated: some place man's formal beatitude in the acts of intellect and will together, as do many of the Society of Jesus; some in the act of the will alone, namely either in the love of friendship, as Scotus holds, or in fruition, as others hold; the Thomists, finally, with their Doctor, hic q. 3, place it in the act of the intellect alone.

Before the resolution, it must be observed that beatitude can be considered in two ways: as to state, and as to essence. As to state, it embraces all things that make a man fully blessed as to soul and body and all his powers; and thus it implies love, vision, fruition, joy, perpetuity, impeccability, the glory of the body, etc., and is defined by Boethius: « A state made perfect by the aggregation of all goods. » As to essence, it implies only that which among all these is first conceived, by which the highest good, or objective beatitude, is acquired, and which is the root from which the rest that are assigned flow: thus man, looked at as to state, expresses not only rationality but all the properties flowing from rationality — the capacity for laughter, the faculty of wondering, of speaking, a certain quantity of limbs, color, proportion, etc. But considered precisely and metaphysically as to essence, he expresses only rationality, as that which is first conceived in him as the root and cause of the rest. This question, therefore, is a metaphysical one about beatitude itself as to its quiddity and essence, and it must always be kept before one's eyes that the essence of formal beatitude is nothing other than the attainment of objective beatitude, since it is that by which the beatifying object is united to the subject capable of beatitude. And therefore that action constitutes the essence of formal beatitude which is formally attaining of the ultimate end; but those things which stand in a concomitant or consequent relation to it are its properties and adornments, and pertain to its state.

I say 1°: Formal beatitude does not consist essentially in several acts, namely of intellect and will.

Proof. Formal beatitude is essentially the first attainment of the ultimate end. But this can belong to only one operation alone. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Several operations of different powers, namely of intellect and will, cannot proceed equally and simultaneously from their powers, but among them there necessarily intervenes an order of priority and posteriority; for the act of the will is subordinated to the act of the intellect and presupposes it, since nothing is willed unless it is first known. Therefore these two acts cannot be equally and simultaneously attaining acts of the ultimate end, but one is prior to the other, namely the act of the intellect, which is prior to and more powerful than the act of the will.

It is confirmed. The act of the will is not attaining, as I will prove in the following conclusion. Therefore.

I say 2°: Formal beatitude does not consist essentially in an act of the will¹.

Proof. Formal beatitude is essentially the attainment of the highest good. But no act of the will is the attainment of the highest good. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. 1° The act of the will is either desire, or love, or fruition and joy. But none of these acts is attaining of the ultimate end, or of the highest good: Not desire, because desire concerns a good that is absent and not yet possessed. Not love: both because love abstracts from presence and absence, for we love a good both present and absent; and because the love of the way and of the homeland are of the same species, but the love of the way is not attaining of the ultimate end. Not fruition or joy, because since fruition is a pleasant rest in a good possessed, it does not effect possession, but follows it; for the will enjoys the good and is delighted in it from the fact that it is present and that it possesses it, whether in reality, or in hope, or in memory, and not conversely does it possess it because it enjoys it and is delighted in it: thus the miser does not attain riches because he enjoys them, but on the contrary he enjoys them because he possesses them.

Proof 2° of the first minor. The will is an inclination toward the good. But an inclination toward the good is not attaining of the good: both because, otherwise, in order to obtain the good, it would suffice to will it, and by this very fact that the miser willed riches, he would have them; and because the effort of the will toward the good is of itself only affective, insofar as the good terminates its affection. But it is effective and possessive through something else: so that, if it is a sensible good, it is possessed through sense, e.g., sound through hearing, color through sight, flavor through taste; if it is a natural good, through natural union, for instance through contact or local non-distance, as a stone at the center; if it is an intelligible good, through the intellect, just as a learned man is said to possess wisdom by the intellect. Therefore. This conclusion will be confirmed still further by what follows.

I say 3°: Man's formal beatitude consists essentially in an act of the intellect, namely the clear vision of God², according to that saying of Ioann., XVII, 3: This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the true God, and that of Aug., lib. LXXXIII Quaestionum, q. 35, n. 2: « What else is it to live happily, than to possess something eternal by knowing it? »

Proof 1°, from the same principle as always. Formal beatitude is essentially the first attainment of the highest good. But this comes about through an act of the intellect, and not of the will. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. 1° The highest good is an intelligible good. But an intelligible good is acquired, not by desiring, but by understanding, just as a sensible good is acquired by sensing. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Thus the intellective nature stands to the intelligible good, as the sensitive nature stands to the sensible good. But the sensitive nature does not attain nor possess the sensible good through appetite, but through sense, as sound through hearing, flavor through taste, etc. Therefore the intellective nature does not attain the intelligible good through the will, but through the intellect. — Proof 2° of the first minor, from the distinction that exists between the intellect and the will. The intellect is occupied with its object, apprehending it and drawing it to itself, and thus making it effectively present to itself, either through species, or immediately in itself, if it is known without species, as with God; the will, on the contrary, is borne toward an object outside itself, and is only an inclination and a weighing toward it, according to the saying of Aug., lib. XIII Conf., c. 9, n. 10: « My weight is my love; by it I am carried wherever I am carried. » Therefore it belongs to the will to seek things and to rest in them once found, but to the intellect to apprehend, acquire, and possess things. And this is established by experience. For however much the will may strive, it never of itself attains the intelligible good, but as long as it is not known, it is said to be absent, and the will remains restless; but when it is perceived by the mind, the motion of the will comes to rest.

Proof 2°. Since formal beatitude is man's ultimate perfection and the attainment of the highest good, it must be the act of the most excellent power³. But the intellect is a more excellent and nobler power than the will, both because it regards a more abstract and more immaterial object than the will, and because it is closer to the soul itself than the will, since it is the root of the will. Therefore. — But for this reasoning, consult Physicam Thomisticam.

Concerning the question proposed there have been two errors. The first was that of the Millenarians, who, from chapter XX of Apocal. badly understood, taught that Christ, after the universal resurrection of the flesh, would reign with the just for a thousand years before the universal judgment, and before these just would enjoy the vision of God in the heavens.

The authors of this error were Cerinthus the heresiarch and St. Papias the martyr, though in a different sense. Cerinthus, lying that revelations had been made to him by an angel, invented this millenarian kingdom as one to be spent in immoderate and obscene pleasures of the belly and the flesh; that the seat of this kingdom would be the city of Jerusalem, to be built anew, likewise the temple to be restored, the precepts and sacrifices of the Mosaic Law to be renewed, and men to be circumcised in the Jewish manner. Whence his followers were called in Greek Chiliastae, in Latin Millenarii. Papias, however, said that these thousand years were to be spent in the earthly Jerusalem in bodily pleasures indeed, but moderate and licit ones; nor does he make any mention either of the temple, or of the law, or of circumcision, or of sacrifices to be restored.

The other error is attributed to John XXII, Supreme Pontiff, who is said to have held and taught that the purged souls of the saints would not see God face to face, or, as he himself used to say, « facially, » before the general judgment.

I say 1°: The millenarian reign of Christ on earth with the saints is fictitious.

Proof 1° from Scripture. 1° In Matth., XXII, 30, it is said: In the resurrection they shall neither marry, nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God. Therefore the reign of Christ with the saints will not be in carnal pleasures, even moderate ones. 2° The angel foretells that the future reign of Christ will be eternal, Luc., I, 32 and 33: He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Proof 2° from the Fathers who attacked this error. Caius, a very ancient writer, in Eusebius, book III, ch. 22; Dionysius of Alexandria, in the book de Promiss.; Eusebius, the book III above cited, ch. 33; Jerome, in the Praefat. to book XVIII in Isaiam, and Augustine, book XX de Civit., ch. 7.

Proof 3° by reason. The millenarian reign of Christ on earth with the saints after the general judgment is fictitious, if the saints, immediately after death, once they are fully purged, obtain in heaven the clear vision of God, and in it the highest, unlosable, and eternal beatitude. But such is the case, as will be proved in the following conclusion. Therefore.

You will object 1° the celebrated and obscure passage of the Apocalypsis, where it is read that the just will reign with Christ a thousand years¹. Therefore.

I answer: I deny the consequence, because no mention is made there either of the law, or of circumcision being revived, or of the temple of Jerusalem being restored, as Cerinthus invented; nor of bodily pleasures, even moderate ones, as Papias fabled. And so that passage of the Apocalypsis is understood of the spiritual kingdom which the just carry on and will carry on with Christ throughout that whole interval which intervenes from the death of Christ up to the coming of Antichrist: so that « a thousand years, says Augustine, book XX de Civit., ch. 7, n. 2, he set down for all the years of this age, that by the perfect number the very fullness of time might be signified, » according to the solemn phrase of Scripture which often designates the greatest and indefinite multitude by the number a thousand, as that in Psal. CIV, 8: He hath remembered his covenant for ever: the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, that is, to many generations. Likewise Psal. LXXXIX, 4 and Iob, IX, 3. Augustine, loc. cit., and the most illustrious Bossuet, in Exposit. Apocal., ch. 20, interpret this whole passage in the sense given. See there.

You will object 2° and you will urge the authorities of many Fathers of the first three centuries, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Severus Sulpitius, and others who defended the millenarian reign of Christ. Therefore.

I answer that the aforesaid Fathers were deceived by apocryphal Sermons of the Lord, which Papias had written down from certain badly understood oral traditions of the Apostles. But when it became known that these sermons were spurious, all the Fathers immediately attacked this opinion about the millenarian reign of Christ.

I say 2°: The souls of the just, released from their bodies and fully purged, immediately obtain their beatitude, namely the clear and facial vision of God.

This is now decided as a matter of faith in the Council of Florence, last session, where it is said, « that souls stripped of their bodies and purged are received into heaven at once, and behold clearly the one and triune God as he is. » The same had been defined earlier by Benedict XII, the successor of John XXII, who had also declared the contrary to be heretical, in the decretal Benedictus Deus.

The Apostle plainly indicates this truth, ad Philip., I, 23, when he says: Having a desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. For this desire of the Apostle would have been useless, had he not hoped that he would see God immediately after death.

The Holy Fathers teach the same, Fulgentius, serm. de S. Stephano; Cyprian, in the booklet ad Fortunat., ch. 12; Gregory, Sup. Psal. IV poenit.; Chrysostom, hom. X in II ad Cor.; Ambrose, book X in Luc.; Augustine, in Psal. CXIX, and others.

You will object: John XXII defined the contrary to our conclusion. Therefore,

I answer: I deny the antecedent. For although John XXII inclined very strongly to the contrary opinion, and perhaps held and taught it as a private doctor, yet he never defined it as a dogma of faith. This is clear from Benedict XII, his successor, in the Bull Benedictus Deus, in which the Most Holy Pontiff speaks thus: « And when that same predecessor of ours, to whom the determination of the aforesaid matters pertained, was preparing himself for the decision of controversies of this kind, strictly enjoining and commanding, in his public Consistory, both his brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, of whose number we then were, and the Prelates and Masters in Theology, many of whom were present, that concerning the aforesaid matter of the vision, when they should be required by him, each one should deliberately say what he thought; yet, overtaken by death, as it pleased the Lord, he was not able to complete it. »

Add that John XXII himself, in the document of the Canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas, says « that he has been received into the fatherland for perpetual eternities, that his soul possesses heaven, and, placed among the heavenly hosts, glorifies God². » </content>

The essential properties of beatitude are especially love, impeccability, and perpetuity or inamissibility.

You will ask 1° whether those who see God love him necessarily, with a necessity as to exercise.

I answer Upon the beatific vision there follows a happy necessity of loving, even as to exercise. This is the more common opinion, against the Scotists.

Proof There is a necessity of exercise when there does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain in the blessed the faculty of suspending love toward him. Therefore. — The minor is proved. There does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act when there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning that act; for the will is a blind power following the lead of the intellect, in whose indifference its freedom is rooted. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and the exercising of love toward him. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Through the clear vision of God the intellect proposes God to the will as the highest good, supremely lovable, and love of him as the embrace and enjoyment of a good so great and infinite: nor can it represent it otherwise, since it is immune from error, so that neither in the object nor in the love of it can there appear even a shadow of evil, or of tedium, or of weariness, or of anything in any respect unfitting, or that would impede a greater good. Therefore in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and love of him.

You will ask 2° whether the blessed are impeccable intrinsically.

It is certain that the blessed neither sin nor will sin any more. But the question is whether they also lack the faculty of sinning, and whence this impeccability arises. Scotus, with his followers, says that it arises from without, namely from the will and help of God protecting and preserving the blessed from sin. St. Thomas, with his followers, and more commonly, says that it arises from the intrinsic nature of beatitude, namely from the vision and love. With whom

I answer The blessed are absolutely impeccable intrinsically, namely both from the vision of God and from love of him¹.

Proof of the first part. 1° There cannot be sin in the will unless there is in the intellect a defective dictate, either from error, or from ignorance, or from inconsideration, by which it proposes to the will something to be willed here and now which in reality is not to be willed, as being contrary to or falling short of the right and true end. But an intellect clearly seeing God cannot have this defective dictate. Therefore. — The minor is proved. An intellect seeing God clearly sees the highest and total good, necessarily to be loved here and now. But, given such a vision, the intellect cannot apprehend and propose to the will any lovable good against or outside God, that is, without subordination to him and with deficiency from him: otherwise it would no longer apprehend God himself as the highest and total good, since it would apprehend some lovable good outside him; nor would it apprehend him as necessarily to be loved, but with indifference, such that he might be loved or set aside through an incompatible love of some extraneous good deficient from him. Therefore.

Proof of the second part of the answer. Through beatific love, man is turned by a continuous act toward God as toward his ultimate end, and is inseparably united and adheres to him; but through sin, he is actually turned away from God as his ultimate end, or at least deflects, if the sin is venial. But an actual aversion or defection from God cannot stand together at the same time with an actual conversion and adherence to him. Therefore.

From these arguments you have that not only the sin of commission, but also of omission, is incompatible with beatitude, since for this no less than for that a defective dictate is required, and each is against or apart from God.

You will ask 3° whether beatitude, once obtained, is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible.

It is of certain faith, against the error of Origen, that beatitude will endure without end into perpetual eternities. So the Scriptures testify everywhere. Sap., V, 16: But the just shall live for evermore. Ioann., X, 28: I give them life everlasting. Matth., XXV, 46: And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting. And elsewhere many times. And this has been defined in the Lateran Council, under Innocent III, in the chapter Firmiter de SS. Trinit., and all the faithful profess in the Creed « to believe in life everlasting. »

But the question is, as in the foregoing, whether this perpetuity belongs to beatitude intrinsically and from its own nature, as St. Thomas and the Thomists hold; or only intrinsically, from God's concurrence preserving it, as Scotus and the Scotists hold.

I answer The beatitude of the saints is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible. This is the more common opinion, with the Author².

Proof 1°. Beatitude is of itself perfectly satisfying and quieting of man's desire. But man naturally desires to retain the good which he has, and to have the faculty of retaining it. Therefore.

Proof 2°. The beatific vision has of itself no cause by which it could lose its being. Therefore of itself it demands inamissibility. — Proof of the antecedent. The beatific vision can cease only from a threefold cause: 1° on the part of the subject seeing God, because he no longer wishes to see; 2° on the part of God withdrawing that vision; 3° on the part of some created cause corrupting it through the introduction of a contrary form. But it cannot cease: 1° on the part of the seeing subject; because, since that vision actually joins the soul to the fount of all good, the will cannot find in it any insufficiency, or any inconvenience, or any note of evil, by which it might be moved to cease from it; 2° nor on the part of God; because, although God could absolutely annihilate it, yet since the withdrawal of a beatitude once given judicially as a wage and reward is the greatest punishment and the greatest loss, God, according to the exigency of things and his ordinary power, does not inflict any punishment, especially the greatest, except on account of some fault, which, as we proved above, the blessed cannot commit; 3° nor finally on the part of a created agent; because, since through that vision and union which is immediate to God, the mind is raised above all created agents, there is nothing that could act upon it. Therefore.

Seek many other things concerning the beatific vision in Tract. de Deo uno.

Since through beatitude there is an intimate union between the soul and God, and a certain spiritual marriage, dowry is here spoken of after the manner of the dowry which is given for the support of carnal marriage and the adornment of the bride, fitting and disposing her for marriage. And although the dowry is ordinarily conferred by the father or the parents of the bride, sometimes, however, for certain reasons, it is also conferred by the bridegroom, for instance out of his excessive love for the bride. And so it is in the present case¹. The dowry of the blessed is therefore defined as « a perpetual adornment of soul and body bestowed by God, sufficient for life and continuing without interruption in eternal beatitude. »

There are, therefore, in the blessed, dowries of the soul and dowries of the body.

1° Three dowries of the soul are commonly assigned in the blessed², namely vision, comprehension or holding, and delight, corresponding to the three theological virtues: vision, to faith; comprehension, to hope; delight, to charity.

But although these names sound like operations, they are not, however, here taken for the operations of seeing God, of comprehending Him, and of delighting in Him; for in these operations consists beatitude itself and the union of the soul with God. They are understood, rather, as habits or qualities adorning and disposing the soul for this perfect union; just as the dowry, in carnal marriage, is not the union itself of the bride with the bridegroom, but something adorning and disposing the bride for that union. These habits or qualities, however, are nothing other than the light of glory and the habit of charity, not as they are the eliciting principles of the operations, but as they raise the soul to a state higher and more perfect than the state of the wayfarer, whose imperfections they exclude. Therefore.

Vision, as a dowry, is the light of glory, not insofar as it is, as I have already said, the eliciting principle of the beatific vision, but as it is a quality disposing and perfecting the intellect to receive the divine essence in place of the intelligible species, and clarifying it in such a way that it is free from all obscurity.

Comprehension, according to some, is likewise the light of glory itself, not as clarifying the intellect and disposing it to receive the divine essence in place of the species, but as habitually holding fast the actual vision itself. According to others, it is the habit of charity, not as the eliciting principle of love, but as embracing the highest good so firmly that it is in a state of having nothing further to hope for, but of possessing all things which it wills, and when it wills: and this is the proper state of the comprehensor, as it is opposed to the state of the wayfarer, which is a state of contingency, hope, and love.

Delight is likewise the very habit of charity as causing beatific delight. — See the Angelic Doctor, quaest. cit. in nota, art. 5.

2° The dowry of the blessed body, which is already possessed in the body of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and which we ourselves shall enjoy after the resurrection, is nothing other than a supernatural quality flowing from the blessed soul into the body united to it and fully subjected to it, perfecting it and disposing it for beatitude and glory. For just as the soul, through certain dowries, is disposed and perfected with a view to union with God, so also the body, when in the resurrection it is again united to the blessed soul.

Four dowries of the glorious body are assigned³, namely impassibility, subtlety, agility and clarity, which the Apostle expressed, I Cor., XV, 42-44, in these words: It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption, behold impassibility; it is sown in dishonour, it shall rise in glory, behold clarity; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power, behold agility; it is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body, behold subtlety. And so

Impassibility is « a supernatural quality flowing from the blessed soul into the glorious body, excluding from it corruptive passion. »

Subtlety is « a supernatural quality flowing from the blessed soul into the glorious body, rendering it able to penetrate another body, » so that it can, at will, lay aside or retain the mode of its quantity that fills a place and excludes other bodies. Thus the glorious body of Christ entered in unto the disciples, the doors being shut, and penetrated the tomb and the very heavens.

Agility is « a supernatural quality flowing from the blessed soul into the glorious body, rendering it most swiftly movable, » yet not in an instant, but according to time and successively, according to that word of Isa., XL, 31: They shall take wings as eagles.

Clarity is « a supernatural quality flowing from the blessed soul into the glorious body, making it luminous and diaphanous, » like crystal, so that in it there appears the wonderful interior organization of all its parts. — See much more in the Angelic Doctor, quaest. cit.]

[The golden crown is a crown; the aureole, a small crown superadded to the greater crown¹, according to the word of Exod., XXV, 24 and 25: You shall make for it... a crown wrought with open work, that is, carved out, four fingers high, and upon it another little golden crown. Thus the golden crown signifies the essential reward of the blessed; the aureole, the accidental and diminished reward, and is defined as, « an accidental joy concerning an excellent victory. » For the just win a twofold victory in this life: one common, by the power of charity, and to this corresponds the golden crown, or the essential reward; the other special, by the power of some other virtue, namely either fortitude, or virginity, or zeal for instructing and teaching the way of salvation, against a threefold enemy, namely the world, the flesh, and the devil. The martyrs conquer the world by contempt of death, which is the greatest of all the evils that the world can inflict; virgins conquer the flesh, by resisting its allurements; as many as teach the way of salvation conquer the devil, while by their salutary warnings and instructions they drive him out from the hearts of men in which he reigned. And to this threefold, surpassing victory corresponds a threefold aureole, namely of martyrs, of virgins, and of doctors.

The martyr to whom the aureole belongs is he who has suffered either death or mortal wounds in testimony of the faith or of some other virtue. The virgin to whom the aureole is due is a person of either sex who preserves, with firm purpose, an integrity of the flesh free from all voluntary lust. But if by mental consent to the pleasures of the flesh, whether licit or illicit, one interrupts this purpose and afterward resumes it, one does not lose the aureole; otherwise, if by an external act, since virginity of the mind, voluntarily lost, is reparable, but not that of the flesh. The doctor to whom the aureole belongs is not only one who has been decorated with the doctoral laurel, but whoever, whether man or woman, spreads the salutary doctrine of faith and morals, whether by writing, or by word, whether privately, or publicly, according to the word of Dan., XII, 3: They that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.

You will ask whether the aureole is also due to the body.

I answer that the aureole is properly in the mind²; for it is a joy concerning those works for which the aureole is due. But, just as from the joy of the essential reward, which is the golden crown, a certain comeliness overflows into the body, which is the glory of the body, as was said concerning the endowments of the body, so from the joy of the aureole some comeliness results in the body, so that thus the aureole is principally in the mind, but by a certain overflow shines forth also in the flesh. Soto, in IV Sent., dist. 49, q. 5, a. 2, considers it probable that the brightness of glory forms a little white crown on the head of virgins, a purple one on the head of martyrs, a greenish one on the head of doctors. — See, if you please, in St. Thomas, q. 96, a. 11, 12 and 13.]