Dist. 36, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/36/q/bon-sent-II-d36-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether the passions of the soul are punishments only, or punishments and sins at once.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the passions of the soul are punishments only, or punishments and sins at once. And that they are punishments and sins, it seems.

1. Everything for which one merits eternal death is sin; but for the passions of the soul one merits eternal death, Matthew the fifth: *He who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the fire of Gehenna*: therefore anger, which is a passion of the soul, is guilt; by parity of reasoning, the other passions of the soul also.

2. Likewise, everything which directly opposes a virtue is guilt; but anger and envy and the other passions of the soul oppose the virtues: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything which is against right reason is guilt; but a passion of the soul, which « is grief over another's good », is against right reason, which judges concerning that [good] that it ought to be rejoiced over: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, that most holds the character of guilt which is most impugnative of grace; but envy of a brotherly grace is most opposed to the grace of the Holy Spirit: therefore since this is a passion of the soul and a punishment, it seems that the passions of the soul are sins.

5. Likewise, to this same point there is the reasoning of Augustine, in the book *Of Eighty-three Questions*. For he argues thus: « Every disturbance is a passion; every desire is a disturbance: therefore every desire is a passion »; but it is plain that desire is guilt: therefore sin is a passion, and conversely; the same thing therefore returns as before.

**On the contrary:**
1. « In every sin, as Augustine holds in the book *On Free Will*, lust reigns »; but wherever lust reigns, there is wicked delight: therefore every sin, insofar as it is sin, delights. But passions of this kind punish and sadden it [the soul]: therefore it seems that they are not sins.

2. Likewise, every actual guilt is voluntary; but these passions of the soul are not voluntary: therefore they are not guilt, but only punishment.

3. Likewise, by every guilt we are blamed; « but by the passions of the soul we are neither praised nor blamed », as the Philosopher holds: therefore the passions of the soul are not sins.

4. Likewise, « opposites are by nature in the same genus », but no virtue is a passion, since every virtue is in the genus of habit: therefore no vice or sin is a passion.

5. Likewise, in every sin there is a conversion to a changeable good; but in passions of the soul of this kind, which are envy, anger, sadness, there is rather a weariness of the good and an aversion than a conversion: therefore such passions of the soul are not guilts.

### CONCLUSION.

> Certain passions of the soul are both punishments and sins, insofar as they arise either from the corruption of concupiscence, or from the disordered love of the deliberative will.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as the Master expressly says in the text and proves through the authority of Augustine, there are many passions of the soul which are not only penal, but also culpable, such as anger and envy. But although passions of this kind are sins, nevertheless they are not sins insofar as they are passions, as the same Augustine says, and it is had in the text: « But every passion, insofar as one undergoes it, is not sin »; rather passions of this kind are sins by reason of the disorder of the will joined [to them] either antecedently, or consequently.

On account of which it is to be noted that a certain passion is brought in from without, and around this there consists neither merit nor demerit, except insofar as it is rejected or accepted by the will. Hence to be killed for Christ is not meritorious, except insofar as it is willed by him who is killed. Hence properly speaking, in such passions the passion is not meritorious, but the suffering of the passion [is].

There is also another passion, which has its origin from within. And this can arise in two ways, because one arises from the corruption of nature, but another from the conversion of the free will. — And that which arises from the corruption of nature is in a twofold difference; since nature is corrupt with a vicious corruption through concupiscence, and is corrupt with a penal corruption through inflicted mortality. Those passions, therefore, which arise from the corruption of nature, as it is corrupt with a penal corruption, hold the character of punishment only, such as hunger and thirst; but those which arise from it [nature], as it is corrupt with a vicious corruption, hold not only the character of punishment, but also of guilt; such as are the disordered affections of the soul, which spring up from the disease of concupiscence, and such are the passions of anger and of envy and the like.

But according as passions of this kind arise from the conversion of the will to some lovable good, thus, according as the will has to convert itself in two ways, passions of this kind are in a twofold genus. For the will sometimes converts itself to the good simply, and then it detests and hates what is adverse to that good, namely sin; and in this way the passions arising therefrom are just and meritorious. — The will sometimes also converts itself to its own good and to the good as-now; and then the passions which arise therefrom are culpable and evil, just as also the will from which they arise; but they do not have the full character of evil and of guilt, except when they are consummated in the will, namely when someone wills to be angry and to envy and even to be saddened. — And thus it is clear that passions of this kind of the soul are sins, both insofar as they arise from the corruption of concupiscence, and insofar as they have their origin from the disordered love of the deliberative will. — The reasons, therefore, showing that some passions of the soul are sins, are to be granted.

1. But to that which is first objected to the contrary, that lust reigns in every sin; it must be said that this is true, according as lust is called a wicked will; but it is not necessary, according as lust is called immoderate delight. — Nevertheless it can be said that even in these sins lust is found with respect to its proper motive. For the envious man delights in the singularity of [his own] good, and the angry man delights in the obtaining of vengeance. Indeed, what is more, just as the just man from the rectitude of his will delights in grieving over the evil of guilt, so also the envious man finds a certain refreshment in grieving over another's prosperity, so that the delight is over one thing, and the sadness over another. For just as someone, when he has lost that which he greatly loved, is vehemently saddened, and it is a great consolation to him to be able to be saddened, and there alone does he find rest in weeping and grief, as Augustine in the fourth [book] of the *Confessions* says of himself; so the envious man, in grieving over another's good, in that passion

finds a certain delight in this, that it pleases him to waste away over another's good; that delight, nevertheless, is much sprinkled with bitterness.

2. To that which is objected, that the passions are involuntary; it must be said that the involuntary is said in two ways, just as also the voluntary: in one way that is called voluntary whose principle is the will; in another way that is called voluntary which the will accompanies. And according to this twofold mode the involuntary is said in two ways: in one way, that the involuntary be that which is not from an efficient will; in another way, that the involuntary be that which does not come about with an accompanying will. Taking the involuntary, therefore, in the first way, thus it holds the truth concerning the passions which come about from without, because their principle is outside; but the voluntary is that whose principle is in itself. But it does not hold the truth in the passions which are from within, as was shown before, but rather they can be voluntary, not only as from an accompanying will, but rather as from a causing will, while it loves something in a disordered way.

3. To that which is objected, that by the passions we are neither praised nor blamed; it must be said that this is true, speaking per se; yet inasmuch as they have their root from the will, and the will accompanies them, we can be both praised and blamed, as was shown before. Therefore that reasoning does not conclude that passions of this kind are not sins, but that they are not sins, insofar as we undergo them.

4. To that which is objected, that no virtue is a passion; the response is now plain. For some virtue can consist around the passions, such as patience and fortitude, inasmuch as those passions are made voluntary. So also in the matter at hand it is to be understood to be. — Nevertheless it can be said that, although a passion is not a virtue except from the act of a will simultaneously coexisting, yet some passion, insofar as it issues from a vitiated and corrupt nature, can be sin. Nor is that reasoning valid, since more things are required to complete the good than to commit the evil.

5. To the last [objection] the response is now plain. For these passions arise from the conversion of the will to a changeable good, and therefore they are sins; for no one would ever envy another, unless he loved his own good too much; and as Damascene holds, « anger is the avenger of injured concupiscence »; indeed generally, as Augustine shows in the fourteenth [book] *On the City of God*, all passions of this kind have their origin from love.

### SCHOLION

**I.** The question is about penal passions taken generally, inasmuch as they comprehend all the penal affections of the soul, as is explained in the text. A passion, as passion, is neither sin nor merit, but only insofar as it has a manifold relation to the will. — But how the soul can undergo [passion] is explained in IV. *Sent.* d. 44. p. II. a. 3. q. 2; how one merits through passion, in III. *Sent.* d. 18. a. 1. q. 3. Concerning the passions, as they are affections of the soul, cfr. III. *Sent.* d. 26. a. 1. q. 1. and especially St. Thomas, *Summa* I. II. q. 22. and following.

**II.** St. Thomas, here a. 2; *Summa* I. II. q. 24. a. 1-4. — B. Albert, here a. 5; *Summa* p. II. tr. 22. q. 132. m. 1. a. 3. and m. 2. — Petrus a Tarantasia, here q. 1. a. 3. — Richard of Middleton, here a. 1. q. 2. — Aegidius Romanus, here q. 1. a. 3. — Dionysius the Carthusian, here q. 3.

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