Dist. 16, Part 1, Art. 3, 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-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On contrition with respect to its duration.*

Next, with respect to the third article, the question is asked concerning the duration of contrition. And about this two things are asked. First it is asked whether contrition is an instantaneous or a successive motion. Second it is asked concerning the long-lastingness of contrition, whether a man ought always to be contrite.

### Question I. *Whether contrition is an instantaneous or a successive motion.*

Concerning the first, it is shown that it is successive, in this way.

1. Every act, with respect to which there is a less-lasting and a more-lasting, is successive; but such is contrition: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, "our understanding is with the continuum and with time," as the Philosopher says, because it belongs to the soul as united to a body; but contrition likewise belongs to the soul as united to a body: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, every comparative regard is successive; but in contrition there is a comparative regard, because one grieves over sin in comparison to God, whom one offends: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, that contrition is induced successively seems to be the case: because every form having part and part is induced successively; but contrition has part and part, since it can be intensified and remitted: therefore it is induced successively.

5. Likewise, every form which has a contrary disposition in the matter is induced successively; but contrition has to be induced into free will subjected to sin, through which it is deprived of grace and made prone to e-

vil, which proneness corresponds, as its opposite, to contrition, just as fault corresponds, as its opposite, to grace: therefore it is induced successively.

**On the contrary:**
1. Contrition is necessary for the justification of the impious; and that justification is in an instant: therefore so too is contrition.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the fourteenth book *On the Trinity* says that if an eye were actually seeing, and an object were created opposite it, the two would exist and be seen at once: therefore if the act of sight can be in an instant, much more can the act of intellect and affection: therefore so too contrition.

3. Likewise, "delight is in an instant," as the Philosopher holds, because it has itself after the manner of rest and not of the fitting conjunction itself of the fitting with the fitting: therefore so too sorrow, which is opposed to it; but contrition is sorrow: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, for illumination local distance is required, and yet the illumination in the eye and the being of light is in an instant: therefore much more in the first act of grace is the change sudden.

### Conclusion

> Contrition is successive with respect to its duration and to its preparation in becoming, but with respect to its being and to the induction of the form it is instantaneous.

**I respond:** It must be said that one may speak of contrition with respect to its duration, and with respect to its being, and with respect to its becoming. If with respect to duration, since it lasts a long time; in that respect I say that it is successive, just as the living of a man is. If with respect to being, because it is a fixed act in the detestation of sin and an act after the manner of rest; in that respect I say that its being is in an instant. — If with respect to becoming, a distinction must be made, because in the becoming there is preparation and the induction of the form. I say therefore that the preparation for the act of contrition is successive, because many things must first be considered; but the dissent of the soul itself afterward comes to be in an instant. —

**To the arguments.** The reasons proving that it is instantaneous, since they prove with respect to the induction into being and to the being itself, are true.

*To 1, 2.* The first two reasons, which prove succession, are to be understood of the induction and preparation of nature; for the long-lastingness is by reason of the succession; likewise our understanding is by reason of the acquisition of the species through sense and imagination.

*To 3.* But as to what is objected, that it has successive being through comparing; it must be said that comparison can be twofold: in one way, a discursion from one thing to another, and this is successive; and in another way, a comparing of two things according to some respect; and then several things are taken in one account, and such comparison can be in an instant and at once concerning several things; otherwise one could never judge concerning musical consonance, since one power judges concerning two sounds compared with one another.

*To 4.* As to what is objected, that it has part and part; it must be said that a form which has part and part is either educed from matter or proceeds from an agent. If it is educed from matter; thus, because there it has a part of its essence, since the contrary is there, inasmuch as contraries have one common nature, it is educed successively, as whiteness. But a form which is wholly from without is given whole and at once, such as is the form of light, which, although it has part and part, yet not in matter, because its opposite is privation. Such is contrition, as a motion proceeding from grace and free will, not educed from matter.

*To 5.* As to what is objected, that the contrary has [a disposition] in the matter; it must be said that there is a having of a contrary disposition in the matter, yet in no way resisting; and this does not make succession in the induction of the form nor in the preparation, as when God made wine from water. And there is a having [of it] as resisting the in-formation; and then there is succession in the induction, as

when from hot cold comes to be. And there is a having [of it] as resisting not the in-formation, but the use; and thus proneness resists the use of grace and contrition, not the in-formation, because it is present at the same time; and this posits a succession in the duration and in the use of contrition, not in the first induction. For proneness, since it is a punishment, stands together with contrition; but fault, since it is a privation, does not resist, just as neither does darkness resist the induction of light.