Dist. 16, Part 1, 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/16/q/bon-sent-IV-d16-p1-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On contrition with respect to its quiddity.*
### Question I. *What contrition is according to its substance.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus. The Masters say that contrition is a sorrow voluntarily taken up for sins; and that it is so, it seems:

1. Because, as Ambrose says, "penitence is to bewail things committed"; and again: "Penitence is a sorrow and bitterness of mind for the sins which each one has committed"; but this is neither confession nor satisfaction: therefore [it is] contrition.

2. Likewise, Augustine: "One must grieve and be purged by grief"; but contrition is that in penitence which purges away sins: therefore contrition is a sorrow.

3. Likewise, it seems so by reason: because the first thing which is in penitence is to dissent from the sin committed; but what has been done is necessarily done; but when something displeases someone vehemently, which nevertheless he cannot bring about that it should not have been, it generates sorrow: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Just as it is necessary for one truly penitent to grieve, so also to feel shame: therefore shame belongs to penitence; and it is neither confession nor satisfaction: therefore [it is] contrition, and so etc.

2. Likewise, in penitence there is not only grieving, but also rejoicing — whence in the preceding distinction: "Let him grieve and rejoice over the grief" — therefore just as contrition is called sorrow, so also it ought to be called joy.

3. Likewise, it seems that it is not sorrow: because, as Augustine says in the fourteenth book *On the City of God*, "sorrow is a dissent from those things which befall us unwillingly"; but contrition is a dissent from sins, which befell us willingly: therefore etc. If you say that sins were first pleasing and willed, but afterward displease and are not willed, and for that time there is sorrow; on the contrary: sorrow is from the conjunction of something disagreeing, therefore from opposites, from a dissent from what disagrees there is not sorrow, but joy: therefore if sins displease, and through contrition one dissents from sins; it seems that contrition is not sorrow, but joy.

4. Likewise, the contrite one grieves over the sin committed, either therefore because he wills it not to have been done, or because he wills [it]. If because he wills [it]; since it has been done, then what he wills comes about. If because he does not will [it]; but every will which seeks the impossible and shuns the necessary is indiscreet: therefore since the will of the contrite one is not such, it is clear etc. — If you say that this is true of an absolute will, but not of a velleity, and such is contrition; on the contrary: the contrite one has a will informed by virtue and grace; but every such [will] consists in full consent: therefore the will of the contrite one is not a velleity, but a full will; and so that reply is null.

5. Likewise, sorrow and fear differ, because sorrow is an affection concerning a present evil, but fear concerning a future one; but the sin is past, and contrition is over it: therefore it is not sorrow. If you say that it is not present according to affection, but according to regard; likewise the future too is present according to regard: therefore just as there is sorrow over the past, so also over the future.

Likewise, since contrition is sorrow, why is it rather named by the name of contrition than of sorrow?

> **Conclusion.** Contrition is sorrow by essence, insofar as sorrow is taken for the dissent of the will, not for a sensible passion.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as sin is perpetrated through consent, so on the contrary it is deleted and destroyed through the dissent of the rational will; and since dissent from a thing which it is impossible should not be generates sorrow, as Augustine says: therefore it must be said that contrition is sorrow by essence. — But it must be noted that sorrow is said in two ways: in one way [it is] the dissent of the will itself, in another way the passion resulting in the one perceiving from that dissent, through

which a man bursts into tears; and that dissent is of the essence of contrition, but that passion is its effect.

1. 2. As to what is objected, then, that there is shame and joy, just as also sorrow; it must be said that shame follows upon that dissent, insofar as he dissents from the sin as from something base. Joy too follows, insofar as from that dissent he perceives himself to be removed from the sin; but the passion which is sorrow follows more immediately. For the vehement dissent itself from a thing which we do not will to be, and yet is, immediately generates sorrow, because [it is] dissent; but because [it is] from something base, [it generates] shame; and because it removes from it, joy.

3. To that which is objected, that the sin befell us willingly; it must be said that sin is voluntary as to the delight, but not voluntary by reason of the malice and the deformity and the penalty. But that does not solve [it], because sorrow is not only concerning the deformity, but also concerning the delight. — Therefore it must be said that for him to grieve it suffices that that over which he grieves be unwilled for the time in which he grieves; yet it is not necessary that [it be unwilled] at every time. And as to what it adduces to the contrary, that dissent from a disagreeing thing generates joy; it is true, when there is only dissent, as for instance when he shuns lest he commit a sin, he does not grieve, but rejoices; but when there is dissent with conjunction, then there is sorrow; and so it is in contrition, because he would not have wished to sin, and yet it is necessary that he sinned.

4. To that which is objected, that the contrite one wills the impossible; it must be said that he wills by velleity, not by absolute will; just as someone out of piety, concerning him who has died, would wish that he were alive.

And as to what it objects, that virtue is in full consent; it must be said that semifull consent is either on account of a defect of the will, as the slothful man wills and does not will, [and such] is not of grace, but of sloth; and such a velleity is either on account of a defect of the thing willed, because it is not apt to be chosen, since it is impossible, and such [consent] is well from virtue, as is clear in piety; and this is full consent on the part of the will, because the will is reflected upon itself and wills that it so will.

5. To that which is objected, that sorrow is concerning the present; it must be said, as was said, that it is concerning the present according to regard. — As to what is objected to the contrary, that it does not suffice that it be present according to regard; some reply that it is present according to reputation, because for such [present] the truly contrite one reckons himself, as if he were infected with the sin previously committed. — But that does not solve [it], because, granted that it were established to him concerning his present justice, nevertheless he would still grieve over the past. — Therefore others say that it is present according to effect, because remnants remain. — But then, granted that no remnants remained, nevertheless a man would still grieve over the evil which he did.

Therefore it must be said that for making sorrow it suffices that the thing which displeases the will be present to regard, not according to conjecture, but according to certitude, because it is so and cannot be otherwise; and then there is sorrow, whether that over which there is groaning be present, or past, or future. Whence when it is told me with certitude that someone whom I love will die, it generates sorrow in me; much more concerning the past, in which there is perfect certitude.

To that which is asked: why is it rather named by the name of contrition; and what is the suitability of sorrow to contrition? some say that it is reckoned by this name because, just as a healing ointment is made from many herbs ground in a mortar, so the ointment of compunction is made from the herbs of sins, which were born in our land, while they are ground in the little mortar of conscience; thus Bernard seems to say upon the Canticle. — But then from this [grinding] a man would not be called contrite, but grinding.

Therefore it must be added that in this contrition three things are to be attended to: what is ground, by what it is ground, and to what the contrition is terminated. What is ground is the heart of the sinner, which is as an earthen vessel filled with the venom of sin, according to that of Deuteronomy the thirty-second: *Their wine is the gall of dragons* etc. — That by which it is ground is a twofold millstone: one raising upward from above, and this is the hope

of pardon from the consideration of mercy; the other millstone, pressing downward, is the fear of penalty, coming from the consideration of divine justice. And concerning these millstones it is said in Deuteronomy the twenty-fourth: *You shall not take the lower and the upper millstone in pledge.* — This vessel is here ground, because it is hard, that it may be softened — for the hard heart will fare ill in the last day — or better, that the delight of sin may be totally poured out. Therefore it is called contrition, not fracture, "because fracture is into larger parts," contrition into smaller; and when the fracture is into larger parts, the flavor in some way remains; but that neither flavor nor truth may remain, therefore it is ground into the smallest parts. — And this delight is totally removed through eternal penalty and is removed through grace; and therefore in both ways [there is] contrition, both in eternal penalty, according to that of Ecclesiasticus the twenty-seventh: *The offense shall be ground together with the offender*; and through grace, in the Psalm: *A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise*; but otherwise: because there [in eternal penalty] it is ground into dust, not that another vessel may be made, because of the impious it is said: *Not so the impious, not so, but like dust* etc.; but in the contrition of grace there is contrition for generating a new and solid vessel through the moisture of grace and of tears; and therefore it is rightly called contrition, not attrition, because of the ground parts there is a union, that a vessel may be made unto honor, according to that of Paul: *He is a vessel of election to me*, Acts the ninth; and to the Second to Timothy the second: *If anyone shall cleanse himself from these*, he shall be a vessel etc. And thus the reason of the saying is clear.