Dist. 16, Part 1, Art. 4, 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-a4-q1
----------------------------------------
### Article IV. *On contrition with respect to intensity.*

Next, concerning the fourth article, inquiry is made about the intensity of contrition; and concerning this two things are asked. First it is asked whether contrition can be intensified. Second, whether one ought to be more intensely contrite over one sin than over another.

### Question I. *Whether contrition can be intensified.*

Concerning the first point — that it can be intensified — it seems so:

1. Because contrition is the act of some virtue; but any virtue can be intensified, as was proved in the first [book] concerning charity; but when its virtue is augmented, its motion is augmented: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, in contrition there are but two things, namely sorrow and grace, and the one is as it were the formal element, the other as it were the material; but it is possible for sorrow to be intensified in us, it is also possible for grace to be augmented: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, if it cannot be intensified, then it is equal in all; but, contrition being equal, justification and gratification are equal: therefore on this basis all would be equally just.

4. Likewise, in every act of the soul in which it happens that one makes progress through habituation and continuation, it happens that the act itself is intensified; this is evident; but there is progress in the multiplication of contrition and its frequent repetition: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Nothing is intensified whose « imposition [of name] is at the limit »; but the imposition of contrition is at the limit, because contrition is a division into the least [parts]; but than the least there is nothing less: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, nothing is intensified than which nothing can be thought or be greater; but than that which has an infinite effect, nothing can be greater, since it is infinite: therefore nothing of this kind can be intensified. But contrition is of this kind, since it blots out every fault, which belongs to an infinite power: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything that is intensified is intensified either by approach toward the true imposition of the name, or by purification from a contrary; but contrition is not intensified by *purification from a contrary*, since at once, when it exists, it totally expels every fault, because it has grace conjoined to it; nor by approach toward the true imposition of the name, because its « imposition is at the limit »: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if it is intensified, then either by grace or by free choice. Not by free choice, since contrition is a gratuitous motion, and such a motion is measured according to the quantity of grace; but the increase of grace and charity cannot be from free choice, but from God. If by grace; on the contrary: grace, of itself, moves free choice uniformly: therefore it does not seem to intensify contrition in it. Furthermore, intensity or increase is reckoned according to that in which the formal character of quantity consists; but quantity is on the side of matter, whereas the formal character of contrition belongs rather to grace than to the material element: therefore according to that [formal character] it is not intensified nor augmented.

### Conclusion.

> Contrition can be intensified and augmented both according to the fervor of its motion, and according to the augmentation of the virtue of penance brought about through grace.

**I respond:** It must be said that contrition is a motion of a virtue having the quantity of the virtue, just as it is a virtue, from which it [comes]. Hence it has both augmentation and intensification according to that from which it receives quantity; and this is the virtue of penance. Hence, just as it is certain that charity is augmented, so too is penance; and through this it is certain that contrition is both intensified and augmented.

Hence it must be noted that, just as charity is said to be intensified with respect to *fervor*, and to be augmented with respect to its essential virtue; and the first is from the cooperation of free choice, the second from a heavenly gift: so too in the case at hand it must be understood that the motion of contrition can be more fervent according to the cooperation of free choice. Hence from equal grace a more fervent motion is sometimes elicited, sometimes a lesser, according to the cooperation of free choice. But properly speaking, it is not called greater unless the virtue of penance is augmented; and this is through grace. — Therefore the reasons showing that contrition can be intensified are to be granted.

**To the arguments:**

1. To the objection that it is a division into the least [parts]; it must be said that contrition has a relation both to the object, upon which it is directed, and to the power from which it arises, whether this be called a habit, or free choice. According to its comparison to the object, since it expels everything mortal and as it were reduces it to dust, it cannot be intensified. It also has a comparison to the power from which it proceeds; and according to that way it can be intensified; and along the first way the argument proceeds, and therefore it does not conclude.

2. To the objection that it belongs to an infinite power; it must be said that contrition does not blot out [sin] except by the power of grace; and grace is a gift through which He dwells in us whose power is infinite; and it is that [power] which can [produce] an infinite effect, and to that power expulsion is attributed primarily and *per se*, and to contrition through it. And therefore it does not follow that contrition is infinite; but [only] that it is conjoined with a power whose operation is infinite.

3. To the objection that it does not approach more nor recede; it must be said that both are false — rather, by reason of grace it approaches more, while by reason of sorrow, I say, it recedes more. For sorrow has opposition not only to fault, but also to the consequences and inclinations of sin, which in a certain manner are little by little remitted in us and expelled by the intensity of sorrow, in proportion as the sorrow is purer and more intense. But the approach toward the true imposition [of the name] is not reckoned in this — that it does not have a true name — but because it does not participate in it at the limit according to the formal character of the gratuitous.

4. To what is asked, whether it is intensified according to the intensity of sorrow or of grace, or whether by free choice or by grace; the answer is now evident. For if we speak of fervor, I say that it is from free choice; but if we speak with respect to true augmentation, then I say that it comes immediately from the exercise of penance, and once this is augmented, the sorrow of the rational part is augmented, which is [the sorrow] of detestation or displeasure. — And if you ask whence it comes; I say that [it is] from God effectively, from free choice dispositively, from grace completively. — And if you object that grace is uniform, and moreover that it is a form; it must be said that, although it gratifies uniformly, nevertheless inasmuch as it is more fully infused by God and more abundantly given, it gratifies more. — And again, although [it is] from grace, since this is a form, the quantity of mass does not principally have its origin [from it], for that is principally from matter; yet the quantity of virtue, which is from form, does have its origin [from it]; and contrition is quantified by this kind of quantity. And from this it is evident how, or whence, it has quantity, and whence it has intensity, and in what manner.