Dist. 14, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 1
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-p2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the repetition of penance.*
### Question I. *Whether it can happen that one falls from true penance.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus, and it is shown that it can happen that one falls from true penance:

1. *By the example* of David, who, being penitent for the sin of Uriah's death — a penance which the Lord accepted — yet sinned in numbering the people, in the last chapter of Second Kings. —

2. Likewise, *by the authority* of the Lord: in the fifth chapter of John He said to the paralytic: *Go and sin no more, lest something worse befall you;* but He would not have threatened an evil on account of relapse, unless one could fall: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, it seems *by reason*: because penance has its being in free choice according to the state of the wayfarer, and this not by compulsion; but such a thing is changeable, and through its changeableness it can fall from the state of grace and justice: therefore also from penance.

4. Likewise, baptismal grace is greater than that of penance, and that of confirmation likewise; but after true grace of baptism and of confirmation it happens that one falls: therefore also after the grace of penance.

**On the contrary:** 1. Ambrose and Augustine thus define penance: «Penance is to bewail things done and not to commit things to be bewailed»: therefore if one admits or commits after the things to be bewailed, he did not previously repent: if therefore he repented, it is clear that he will commit no further. If you say that this refers to the same time, this is superfluous, because no one in the same time in which he bewails admits sins.

2. Likewise, Isidore: «Vain is the penance which a following fault defiles»: therefore if one sins afterward, the first penance was vain: therefore conversely, if it was true, he did not afterward sin.

3. Likewise, it seems by reason: because the offense is infinite, therefore also the satisfaction, if it is true, ought to be infinite: therefore since it is not infinite in intensity, at least it is infinite in duration: therefore if it does not last forever, it is not true penance nor satisfaction.

4. Likewise, it belongs to one truly penitent always to grieve, therefore always to detest sin; but for one always detesting it is impossible to rise again from grace: therefore one truly penitent, since he always detests the fault, it is impossible that he should fall.

> **Conclusion.**
> A man can fall from true penance, insofar as "true" implies the essence of penance, but not insofar as it includes final perseverance.

**I respond:** It must be said that some have erred concerning penance just as concerning charity. For they said that one who once has true charity never loses it: likewise also one who has true penance never loses it. — But this is  a manifest error, and against Scripture.

Now the reason which deceived these men was that they did not consider what is said or implied by this word *true,* when one says *true penance,* or *true charity.* For although *one* expresses the indivision of the principles of a being, and *true* the indivision of the being from its *being* or absolute act, insofar as it is apt to come to be in the intellect, and *good* the indivision from the act as referred to an end; nevertheless when *true* is reflected upon *good,* so that one says *true virtue,* it can imply both and be taken in both ways.

And therefore it must be understood that the *truth* of penance is taken in two ways, just as that of any virtue. For in one way that *virtue* is called *true* which has the *true work of virtue,* or is apt to have it, so far as in it lies; and this truth belongs to the essence of the virtue. In another way that *virtue* is called *true* which *leads to the end;* and this truth is not *essential* to the virtue, but nevertheless expresses the virtue's *state* or continuation.

— According to this it must be said that if penance be called *true* in the *first way,* as having the true act of virtue; thus it belongs to the truth of penance to detest the evil committed and for that time to commit none and to propose for the future not to commit — and from all these a man can fall, and thus from *true* penance, by truth said in the first way. But if it be called *true* because it *leads to the end,* as final and continued; from this one does not fall; but this it is not to be said that a man has except at the end, and after that it does not happen that he falls.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1 and 2.* To that which is objected first, that it belongs to its truth not to commit things to be bewailed; it must be said that if we speak of truth in the *first* way, it belongs to truth not to commit *then,* neither in act nor in intention, but not *afterward;* and so it is taken in those definitions. — Or if it be taken *for the future absolutely,* then it will belong to penance called *true* by the truth of perseverance or leading to the end. — And by this is clear that saying of Isidore: because it is called *vain* on account of the frustration of the end.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the offense is infinite; it must be said that God remits the *offense* through grace and for the *delight* exacts the penalty through penance; and therefore it is not necessary that it be infinite.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that one ought always to grieve; it must be said that one ought always to grieve *by habit;* but one who grieves *by habit* over a past sin, nothing prevents him from committing a future one *in act.* — Or otherwise: it is to be referred to final penance, as has been said.