Dist. 26, 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/3/d/26/q/bon-sent-III-d26-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether hope is a genus of virtue, or a most special species.*

Secondly it is asked, whether hope is a genus of virtue, or a most special species. And that it is a most special species seems to be the case.

1. A virtue is one by the unity of its object; but one is to hope in one alone, namely in God, according to what is often said in Scripture, that one is to hope in the Lord, not in any creature: therefore it seems that hope is a single virtue, in no way multiplied.

2. Likewise, the reward of all is one, and all await the one and highest Good, in which there falls no diversity according to species or according to form: therefore if hope is the awaiting of the eternal reward, it seems that that awaiting can in no way be formally diversified: therefore hope does not have under itself other differing species: therefore it has in itself the unity of a most special species.

3. Likewise, fewer things are to be hoped for than are to be believed — for we believe both rewards and punishments, but we hope for nothing but the rewards alone — therefore the unity in hope seems to be greater than in faith, or at least as great; but faith is one with the unity of a most special species: therefore hope also is.

4. Likewise, perfect holding [tentio] succeeds to hope, just as vision succeeds to faith; but the perfect holding of the highest Good is one according to species in all the Blessed, nor does it have to be diversified by other endowments differing in species: therefore neither does hope have to be subdivided into other virtues: therefore hope is a special virtue and has in itself the unity of a most special species.

**On the contrary:** 1. Of diverse acts there are diverse habits; but *to be confident* and *to await* are formally differing acts: if therefore *to be confident* pertains to hope, according as we are said to hope in the Lord; *to await* also pertains to hope, according as we are said to hope for future glory: it seems therefore that hope must be formally diversified and thus subdivided into other species.

2. Likewise, « hope is the awaiting of future beatitude », according as the Master says in the text, and is had in the Gloss on Romans, chapter five; but « beatitude is a state made perfect by the aggregation of all goods »: therefore hope awaits every good. But the awaiting must be diversified according to the diversity of the good awaited, and hope awaits not only one good, but rather the gathering of all goods: therefore it seems that it includes in itself the totality of all the virtues.

3. Likewise, every meritorious virtue makes a man tend toward attaining his end, which nevertheless he does not yet possess; but hope is that virtue by which one awaits the reward of all merits: therefore it seems that the virtue of hope is common to all the virtues: therefore it does not have the unity of a most special species.

4. Likewise, as joy stands in relation to a present good, so hope stands in relation to a future good; but the joy by which one rejoices over the act of a present virtue is not to be distinguished from the virtue itself, but rather is general to all the virtues — for he is chaste who restrains himself and by this very fact rejoices — therefore by parity of reasoning it seems that hope concerning a future good is common to all the virtues: therefore the virtue of hope does not have the unity of a most special species.

### Conclusion.

> Hope is one virtue and has the unity of a most special species.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as faith, although it is concerned with many things to be believed, is nevertheless one virtue, because there is principally one ground of moving in all things to be believed; so also the virtue of hope, however many and however great the goods it awaits, is one virtue and has the unity of a most special species, because there is one ground upon which it relies in awaiting. — For just as the virtue of faith, by assenting to the first Truth for its own sake and above all things, believes all those things which the highest Truth dictates to it are to be believed; so hope itself, by being confident in and relying upon the immense and most unfailing divine bounty, awaits all those things which God promises to it are to be given in return in the future. And just as the virtue of faith believes all whatsoever it believes, principally not only believing God, but also concerning God and about God; so hope itself, all the things which it awaits, not only awaits them from God, but also awaits to obtain them in God himself, so that by having God it may have every good. — Again, just as faith believes God as the moving ground and is occupied about him as about its object and tends into him as into its proper end; so also is hope itself. And since the unity of a virtue is regarded according to the unity of the moving ground and of the principal object and of the proper end; and all these are to be found in the virtue of hope just as in the virtue of faith: it must be conceded that hope itself is one with the unity of a most special species. — And the reasons which are brought forward for this part are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that of diverse acts there are diverse habits; it must be said that this is true when those acts are principal with respect to the habits; but when it is so, that one principally regards the habit of the virtue, and *another* has toward it an order and connection and natural consequence, it is not necessary that the habit be diversified on account of the diversity of those acts. And so it is found in the present case. For hope awaits the great goods promised precisely because it is confident of the immense bounty of the one promising; whence, since one of these acts is the ground of the other, hence it is that they do not pertain to diverse habits, but to one. Whence there is one habit by which we hope *in the Lord* and by which we hope *to have the Lord,* just as there is one by which we believe *God* and by which we believe *God*.

2. To that which is objected, that hope is with respect to every good, since it is with respect to beatitude; it must be said that just as *faith* believes that the just will attain beatitude, and *charity* desires that beatitude together with the totality of goods; and yet *faith* is one virtue, because it is not borne upon beatitude and the things that pertain to beatitude except under one ground; so also *hope* in awaiting the highest beatitude, and whatever of good is in it, does not depart from the unity of the habit and virtue, because there is one *ground of awaiting* in hope itself, namely in this, that it relies upon the immense and unfailing bounty. — *Moreover,* as to what is said, that « beatitude is a state made perfect by the aggregation of all goods »; this is not said by reason of the *multitude* and *variety* of goods, but it is said by *equivalence,* because that one good which is awaited will be so great that it will be equivalent to every good; in which manner the Lord said to Moses, in Exodus, chapter thirty-three, when he asked that he would show him his face: *I,* he says, *will show thee every good:* and therefore from this it does not follow that the virtue of hope is diversified, because it awaits the perfect beatitude.

3. To that which is objected, that every virtue tends and is ordered toward attaining its end; it must be said that to tend into an end can be in two ways: either by *meriting* and disposing, or by *awaiting.* The first mode of tending is common to all the virtues, but the other mode is proper to hope itself. For by no virtue do we *await* beatitude except by the mediation of hope itself, although by every virtue we *merit* that very beatitude. Indeed another virtue can *command* the act of awaiting, but no virtue except hope can *elicit* it, because it is the act of that virtue, speaking formally.

4. To that which is objected last, that as *to rejoice* over a present good stands to the virtues themselves, so *to await* a future good; it must be said that it is not alike: because *joy* arises from the complacency of a present good; but every virtue, insofar as it is such, since it consists in the full will, which will indeed takes complacency in its *object,* or in its *own act,* has a certain joy adjoined to it, as something essential to it. And this is what the Philosopher means, that no one is truly chaste unless the act and use of that virtue please him; and if it pleases him, by this very fact he rejoices, when he exercises that act. But it is otherwise with the awaiting of a future good; for the *virtues* can go forth into their acts, thinking nothing of the remuneration. *Moreover,* the awaiting of a future good is an act differing from the acts of the virtues themselves; but the *complacency* of the act of a virtue is the complement of the virtuous act itself. Therefore joy is not distinguished from the other species of the virtues in the way that hope is; nor is hope common and general to all, in the way that joy is.

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