Dist. 14, Part 1, 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/4/d/14/q/bon-sent-IV-d14-p1-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether penance is a general or a special virtue.*

Secondly it is asked, whether penance is a general or a special virtue. And it is shown that it is general:

1. Augustine in the book *On the Five Responses*: "Penance is a certain most excellent and perfect thing, recalling all defects to perfection"; but it is by another habit that the defect of the concupiscible and the irascible [power] is restored: therefore penance regards all habits. But it could not do this, if it were a special virtue: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it appears *by reason*; for it belongs to the same virtue whose [property] it is to take delight in something, to be saddened by and to detest its opposite; but it belongs to continence to take delight in the act of chastity: therefore it belongs to the same [virtue] to detest the act of incontinence, and so of the others. But the penitent detests every sin: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, "habits are known through acts, and acts through objects"; but the object of penance is sin in general, because it itself detests every sin and expels every sin: therefore penance is a general and common virtue.

**On the contrary:** 1. It belongs to a special virtue to love the good, because it is good, namely [to the virtue] of charity: therefore by similarity, it belongs to a special virtue to hate or detest evil, because it is evil; but this belongs to penance: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it belongs to a special gift to flee from doing evil, or to turn away from evil, as [it belongs] to fear: therefore it belongs to a special virtue to flee from evil already done; but this belongs to penance: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, penance is ordered to only one act of free choice, not to all, because [it is ordered] only to repenting and grieving: therefore etc.

> **Conclusion.** Penance is a special virtue.

**I respond:** It must be said that here there was a manifold position. — For some wished to say that it is a general virtue, and is a part of general justice, whose [property] it is to do good and turn away from evil. Hence just as to do every good belongs to general justice, so to turn away from every evil deed belongs to general justice; and this belongs to penance: and therefore penance is a part

of general justice. And since general justice is so called not by *predication*, but by a certain *aggregation* of virtues, because it comprehends many virtues — just as one vineyard [comprehends] many vines, as Chrysostom says, so penance comprehends all virtues — when one repents of the evil of lust, it touches the chord of continence; when of the evil of pride, the chord of humility; so that the belly of conscience may resound in weeping like a lyre, according to that [word] of Isaiah, the sixteenth [chapter]: *My belly shall sound like a lyre for Moab*; because, if according to all the virtues the sins of others are to be wept over, much more one's own.

But this position ought not to stand: because, although penance regards evil in *general*, nevertheless it regards [it] under its *proper account* and has a *special act*, which requires a virtue not only commanding but eliciting; so that, just as *anger through zeal*, which detests every sin in one's neighbor, is a special virtue, because it regards it under the account of [being] deserving of punishment; and *obedience* [is] a special virtue, because it regards the carrying out [of a command] under the account of a mandate: so too penance [is] a special virtue, because it regards [sin] under the account of an evil proper [to oneself], perpetrated by oneself against God, inasmuch as man is on this account deserving of punishment.

1. To the objection therefore which is raised on the contrary, that it has a general effect; it must be said that this is true by reason of the *connection of the virtues*, because it repairs all defects; and it is more true of it than of another [virtue], because the act of others is in *forming*, but the act of penance in *reforming*.

2. To the objection which is raised, that it belongs to the same virtue to rejoice over something and to be saddened by its opposite; it must be said that this is true *commandingly*, but not *elicitively*. And this is clear, because charity dictates and commands the fleeing of sin: but nevertheless fear elicits the motion of flight. For it belongs to one virtue to command, and to another to elicit, as obedience dictates that God be obeyed in this precept: *Thou shalt not commit adultery*, and continence elicits [the act].

3. To the objection which is raised concerning the object, it must be said that although it is not contracted to a special sin, nevertheless it considers it under a *special and proper account*, that is, inasmuch as [it is] perpetrated by oneself and offensive to God, with whom one wishes to be reconciled and to make amends; therefore it is a special virtue, because a virtue is reckoned general or special, not by reason of the object, which is *material*, but according as it has the account of a *motive*.

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