Reply Obj. 1: Natural powers are determined in themselves to one thing, and therefore they do not need any determining habits. But this is not a cause of their having greater dignity, but rather lesser dignity, inasmuch as they extend to very few things.

Reply Obj. 2: A thing can be ordered by itself to its own proper act by means of some accident, but not by an external one, only by one that follows from the principles of the thing. For among accidents, some are closer to substance than others; for example, quality is closer to substance than action. And this is why fire heats by means of heat. And it will be the same way in the present issue, because virtues have a resemblance to natural principles.

Reply Obj. 3: Although producing such an action is in the power of the will, nevertheless, it is not in the will alone, but also in the lower powers, from which difficulty and resistance can arise. And that is why we need habits by which all difficulty is taken away.

Reply Obj. 4: As it says in the Metaphysics 2,¹ difficulty can be from ourselves or from things, and it is the same way with ease. Therefore, the ease that comes from the character of acts that are not of great weight does diminish the character of merit in itself; but the ease that is from the promptness of the doer does not diminish merit in regard to the essential reward, but increases it, because the greater the charity one acts with, the more easily one bears it, and the more he merits. And likewise, the more enjoyably he works because of the habit of virtue, the more enjoyable his action is and the more meritorious.

Reply Obj. 5: Perfections are proportioned to the things they perfect, for the more proper act is in the proper power, as it says in On the Soul 2.¹ And therefore it is not necessary that cognitive habits and habits of the affective part should be the same way, just as neither are the powers that are perfected by them.

Reply Obj. 1: What charity is can be known well by a person who knows what is required for an act of charity through his reason instructed by authority and faith. But whether charity exists cannot be known for certain, either by the person having it or by someone else. For since something is required for an act of charity that would make a person meritorious of eternal life, whether this is actually there cannot be known for certain. But from various signs a person can guess either that he has charity or that someone else does.

Reply Obj. 2: We do not understand the essence of the angels now because we know them by the act of our intellects, which are not proportioned to the act of their intellects, since they know in a much higher way. Our acts, on the other hand, are proportioned to the habits from which they are drawn.

Reply Obj. 3: There are two ways that the soul can reflect either on itself or on those things that belong to it by knowledge.

Reply Obj. 4: People who do not have virtue do have certain principles from which they can know the nature of virtue in the way described, as well as the fact that virtue does not exist in them but in others, when they see others doing acts such as belong to the virtues, and the way that virtuous people should act.

Reply Obj. 5: As has been said, all the knowledge by which the intellect knows things that are in the soul is founded on its knowing its own object, which has phantasms corresponding to it. For it is not necessary that knowledge is only about phantasms, but that its knowledge arise from phantasms, and that it leave an imagination about certain things.

Reply Obj. 6: It does not know the will and those things that pertain to it by any likeness abstracted from them, but only by the likeness of its own object, as was said.

Reply Obj. 1: The natural power by which someone is able to exist is determined to one thing: being. Therefore, the perfection of this kind of power is able to exist by the very nature of the power, and thus the power itself is called virtus. And other natural powers are called the same way. However, it is different with rational powers, which extend to several things.

Reply Obj. 2: And the reply to the second objection is evident from this.

Reply Obj. 3: Vis, force, is taken for anything that is the principle of a perfect activity, which the word virtus implies. For this reason, the powers of the soul should be called vires rather than virtutes, particularly those powers that have an ordering to acts that are carried out by physical means.

Reply Obj. 1: Virtue is called a mean in emotions actively, inasmuch as it draws emotions back to the mean. Therefore it is not necessary that it be in the genus of emotions.

Reply Obj. 2: The praiseworthy is not only what has the full account of virtue, but also whatever participates in something of virtue, just as acts that precede virtue are praised if they are ordered to it. And in this way modesty, mercy, and emotions such as these are praised, inasmuch as they result from good will, which shuns baseness and considers the evils of others as one’s own. Now, good will is one of the things that are required for virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Sin implies a defect in the power of the one acting. This is why emotion is more capable of being sin than virtue, although it does not have the full account of sin, in that it does not proceed from choice. For this reason, the first movements of emotions that are directly opposed to virtues are not mortal sins, but rather venial sins.

Reply Obj. 1: We merit both by habits and by acts, but by acts as the instruments of meriting, because merits are essentially acts; while we merit by habits as the principles of merit. And that is how we are said to merit by virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: Virtue is called the ultimate of a power in the same genus because it is the genus of principle in relation to whatever it is called the power or virtue of. But an act is the ultimate outside that genus. And therefore it is not necessary that an act be a virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Habits are determined to praiseworthy acts. But powers are not, but are open to contraries, as it says in the Ethics 5.¹ And therefore powers and habits do not have the same character.

Reply Obj. 1: Those words should be understood as referring to moral virtue, which the Philosopher is dealing with there, in the second way that something is called virtue. And this is also how he takes the term virtue in the Topics 4.¹

Reply Obj. 2: From this, the reply to the second objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 3: Virtue itself is materially the good of the intellect, since it is its end; for an end has the nature of good, as it says in the Metaphysics 3.¹

Reply Obj. 4: The consideration of the true is one activity of the intellect that virtue is ordered toward, but the habits that are said to be active are ordered further, to an external activity that is called “making” according as it passes into external matter to transform it, as we see in the mechanical activities. And it is called “action,” according as it is rooted in the person acting, as his activities and emotions are modified, which happens in the works of the moral virtues. And for this reason, prudence, which directs among the moral virtues, is called right reason about things to be done, in the Ethics 6;¹ while mechanical skill is called right reason about things to be made.

The answer to the first is clear based on the equivocation of the word mos, moris.

Reply Obj. 2: Intellectual virtues do not pertain to the study of ethics as though they were moral virtues by essence, but to the extent that they are used morally, because it is commanded by the will.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as the Commentator comments on the Ethics 6,¹ prudence is a middle between moral virtues and intellectual virtues, because it is essentially intellectual, since it is a cognitive habit, and perfects reason; but it is moral as to its matter, since it is directive of the moral virtues, since it is the right reason about things to be done, as was said.

Reply Obj. 4: The mean is determined by prudence as an intellectual virtue and by moral virtue according to prudence, but in different ways, because prudence determines the mean by the mode of something directing and presenting, but moral virtue by the mode of something executing and inclining toward the mean. This is why Cicero says¹ that it works in the manner of nature, and in this Socrates fails in not distinguishing moral virtues from intellectual ones, because he considered all virtues to be a kind of knowledge, as it says in the Ethics 6.²

Reply Obj. 1: It is true that man is naturally ordered to God both by knowledge and by affection, insofar as he naturally participates in him. Nevertheless, because there is a certain participation in him above nature, a certain knowledge and affection above nature are required; and the theological virtues are needed for this.

Reply Obj. 2: The happiness that the philosophers discussed is a happiness that humans can attain by their natural powers, and so we have, in ourselves, a natural inclination to that end. For this reason, no virtues inclining to that end are prerequisite; we need only the virtues that direct the works that are for that end. But this is not the case with the theological virtues.

Reply Obj. 3: Speculative principles are known by a different natural habit than conclusions—for principles are known by understanding, whereas conclusions are known are known by knowledge. But in the affections, a natural habit does not come first, but rather there is an inclination to the last end from the power’s very nature and proportionate to the nature, as was said. But for an end that is elevated above nature, which natural inclinations cannot reach, a divinely-given habit must precede the other habits, both in the intellect—that is, faith—and in the affections—that is, charity and hope.

Reply Obj. 4: Habits are distinguished not only by their subjects but also by their objects. Moral and intellectual virtues are therefore distinguished from one another on the part of their subject, as was said before, but theological virtues are distinguished from both moral and intellectual virtues on the part of the object, which is above the natural ability of either part. Therefore, one of the theological virtues, faith, has to do with knowledge and has certain things in common with intellectual virtues, while another, charity, has to do with the affections and has certain things in common with the moral virtues.

Reply Obj. 1: Fear does not name a motion toward God, but rather a fleeing from him, insofar as a person, in considering God’s majesty, out of reverence shrinks back to his own smallness. And therefore it does not name something needed for motion toward the end.

Reply Obj. 2: In the wayfaring state, wisdom is “about divine things” in the sense that we come to know the Creator by reasoning about his creatures. And so it is not about God as he is in himself, that is, as an end elevated above the ability of nature, like the virtue of faith.

Reply Obj. 3: Adoration does not have God as its object, but an offering made to God as due to him; but it does have God as its proximate end. Hence it is not a theological virtue but part of a cardinal virtue.

Reply Obj. 4: Theological virtues are not distinguished according to divine attributes, but according to what is required in someone who acts for the sake of an end before he can act for that end.

Reply Sed Contra 5: Knowledge of and affection for the end are not enough for someone to begin to act for the sake of the end, if he does not have confidence of obtaining the end, since otherwise he would never begin to act at all, especially when the end is elevated above the nature of the one acting.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith is called a substance not because it is in the genus of substance, but because it has a certain property of substance. For just as substance is the foundation and basis of all other beings, faith is the foundation of all spiritual edifices. And by this mode it is also said that light is the hypostasis of color, because all colors are founded on the nature of light.

Reply Obj. 2: In saying, things to be hoped for, he does not mean to establish the object of faith, but its end. Now although the final end of faith is truth itself, of which the vision is given as a reward for faith, nevertheless, the true does not have the character of an end. But since hope indicates a certain movement tending toward the end, things to be hoped for conveys the terminus of this motion, and thus it conveys the character of end. Now, in all the habits that pertain to the will, the end is first according to intention, although it comes after in attainment.

Reply Obj. 3: Love is common to both a thing already attained and a thing to be attained, but hope is only a thing to be attained, for: who hopes for what he sees? (Rom 8:24). Therefore, since faith is about things not seen, things to be hoped for conveys the relation to its own end according to the state in which faith exists, while “things to be loved” would not. This is why he says things to be hoped for, rather than “things to be loved,” for a definition should be given from what is proper to something.

Reply Obj. 4: Argument is properly said of reason’s progress from what is known to manifesting what is unknown, as Boethius says,¹ that the explanation of a a doubtful thing causes faith. And because the whole force of an argument consists in the middle term, from which it proceeds to the proof of unknown things, he therefore calls the middle the argument itself, whether it be a sign or a cause or an effect. And since in the middle term, or in the principle from which the argument proceeds, is contained the force of the whole process of argumentation, the word “argument” was expanded so that any short summary of a future explanation may be called an argument: for example, in individual letters of St. Paul arguments are sent ahead of time. And since a principle or a middle term is called an argument inasmuch as it has the virtue of manifesting the conclusion, and this virtue is in it by the light of the agent intellect, whose instrument it is, because all things that are argued are manifested by the light, as it says in Ephesians 5:13, this is why the very light by which principles are made manifest, as conclusions are made manifest by principles, can be called the argument of those very principles. And it is in these three last ways that faith can be called an argument. The first, as faith itself is what manifests something else, whether as one article makes manifest another, for example, the Resurrection of Christ making manifest the future resurrection; or as from the articles themselves certain other things in theology can be syllogized; or as the faith of one man strengthens the faith of another. The second way it can be called an argument is as a foretaste of the future vision in which the fullness of truth is known. The third way is as the infused light that is the habit of faith manifests the articles of faith, just as the light of the agent intellect makes manifest naturally known principles. But being an argument according to the first way is incidental to faith, which is why argument is included in the definition of faith according to the other two ways.

Reply Obj. 5: Argument and substance are not included in the definition of faith as its genus, but something closer to its act, as it is usual for habits to be defined by their acts, because that is how they are known. And one of those acts conveys the relation of faith to its object, while the other gives its relation to its ultimate end, as was said.

Reply Obj. 6: Doubt takes away the strength of adhering; however, what appears not does not take this away, but only removes the vision of the thing believed. Therefore it could not be said about doubtful things because faith has strong adherence, but it does say, of things not seen, because it does not have full vision.

Reply Obj. 7: Faith’s knowledge proceeds from the will, for no one believes unless he wishes to. And for this reason it is no wonder if in the definition of faith things that pertain to the affections are placed before those that pertain to knowledge.

Reply Obj. 8: If a definition were given of a certain thing that completely comprehended all the principles of the thing, there would only be one definition for one thing. But because in some definitions, certain principles are included without others, it happens that definitions of one and the same thing may be varied. Now the definition given by the Apostle for faith comprehends all the principles of faith by which habits are usually defined: namely, end, object, and act. From these too may be understood genus and subject, for from its act we know which power is the subject of faith. And again, from its act we know the habit, which is the remote genus of faith; and from its end we know the virtue that is its proximate genus. And this is also found in what Damascene says, faith is the hypostasis of things that are hoped, the refutation of things that are not seen;¹ and he adds a certain quality of faith, that is, certitude, by including, unjudgable species, both certain, and which cannot be comprehended, of those things that have been announced to us by God, and the fruition of our petitions, that is, their fulfillment. For faith causes a certainty of both the things to be believed, as it is an argument, and the things to be attained, as it is the substance of things to be hoped for. However, Dionysius defines faith in On the Divine Names by saying, faith is the assembly remaining of believers, which assembles the just in virtue,² and this is the same as the Apostle says: substance of things hoped for. Meanwhile, Augustine says that faith is the virtue by which things that are not seen are believed;³ and this is the same as the Apostle saying, the argument of things that appear not; and at the same time he renders what Damascene says,⁴ that faith is assent without inquiry, because by saying without inquiry, he shows that matters of faith are not penetrable to inquiring reason. Now, Hugh of Saint Victor defines faith by something accidental to it, namely, certainty, when he says that faith is a kind of certainty of soul about absent things established above opinion and below knowledge.⁵ And this incidental aspect of faith can also be found in the Apostle’s definition in that faith is the argument of things that appear not, for argument implies certainty, which is why he places knowledge over opinion, while of things that appear not implies the absence of the knowable, by which faith is placed below knowledge. Therefore it is clear that the Apostle’s definition includes all the other definitions given for faith.

Reply Obj. 1: Because the senses are not related to multiple things but receive one thing determinately which they do not compare, this is the reason the determination of a power, even a higher one, is named from the senses, but in different ways. For the determination of thinking toward something is called as-sent because that something does not precede it. However, the determination of the will to one thing, which is called con-sent, because it presupposes thinking, with which it “senses together” when it tends toward whatever reason judges to be good. And thus consenting is said to belong to the will but assenting to the intellect.

Reply Obj. 2: By saying that faith is assent free from inquiry, Damascene excludes the inquiry of reason that terminates in the intellect, not the inquiry that inclines the will. And by the fact that the intellect was not brought to its terminus, a movement of the intellect remains, inasmuch as it naturally tends to its own determination. For this reason, faith consists in a middle between two lines of thinking, one of which inclines the will to believing, and this precedes faith; while the other tends to the understanding of those things that are already believed, and this one exists at the same time as the assent of faith. This is why it says in Isaiah 7:9, if you do not believe, you will not understand.

Reply Obj. 3: That power that is called cogitative by the philosophers is on the border between the sensitive and intellective parts, where the sensitive part touches the intellective part. For it has something from the sensitive part, in that it considers particular forms; and it has something from the intellective, in that it compares. This is also why it exists only in humans. And since the sensitive part is better known than the intellective part, that is why, just as the intellective part’s determination is named from the senses, as was said, so too the intellect’s process of comparing is named from thinking.

Reply Obj. 4: It is already clear from what has been said that this description only applies to believing.

Reply Obj. 1: Only one complete act of faith is named by all the things mentioned. But it is named in different ways from the different things that are found in faith: for by that act in which someone believes in God, he does believe God, and believes about God.

Reply Obj. 2: Although God’s existence can be demonstrated simply, nevertheless, that God is three and one, and other things that faith in God believes, cannot be demonstrated, and according to these it is an act of faith to believe in God.

Reply Obj. 3: A believer believes a man not as he is a man, but as God speaks in him, which can be inferred by certain evidence. But an unbeliever does not believe God in the person speaking.

Reply Obj. 4: To love is simply the act of charity, but to believe by loving is an act of faith moved by charity to its own act.

Reply Obj. 5: Those four pertain to faith according to its order to the will, as was said. But the will is of the end. Therefore those four are distinguished according to the things that are required for the attainment of the end. For the first thing required is an affection for the end, and loving in believing pertains to this. However, it is by love and desire for the end that someone begins to move toward the end; and going to him by believing pertains to this. Now, movement toward the end leads to someone being united with the end; and to adhere to him by believing pertains to this. Meanwhile, by union with the end a person arrives at participation of the perfections of the end, and being incorporated into his members by believing pertains to this.

Reply Obj. 1: When the certainty of faith is called a middle between the certainty of knowledge and opinion, it is meant not intensively by the mode of continuous quantity, but extensively, by the mode of numbers. For the certainty of knowledge consists in two things, namely, in the evidence and the firmness of adhering. But the certainty of faith consists in only one—the firmness of adhering. Now, the certainty of opinion is in neither one. However, the certainty of faith, which is what we are speaking about, is much more vigorous in that one thing than the certainty of knowledge is in those two. Or it could be said that it speaks about the faith that is opinion confirmed by reasons, not about infused faith.

Reply Obj. 2: A movement of doubt can happen to a believer by the fact that his intellect has not attained the vision of its intelligible on its own, as is the case in knowledge and understanding, but only by the command of the will. And for this reason, a person with knowledge is in that respect not further away from doubt than a person who believes, but someone who believes is further from doubt in the firmness of adhering than someone with knowledge according to those two respects.

Reply Obj. 3: That argument is built on insufficient grounds, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 1: “Substance” is not taken there for essence, but for form. Now, the form of faith is in a certain way charity, which is in the will, as will become clear below.¹

Reply Obj. 2: Knowledge and understanding have certainty from what pertains to knowing, namely, the evidence of what we are assenting to. But faith has certainty from what is outside the genus of knowing, existing in the genus of affection. And thus knowledge and understanding exist in, as their subject, the very thing that gives them certainty, but faith is not.

Reply Obj. 3: Merit subsists in the will as in its cause, inasmuch as the will always commands the meritorious act. However it is not always in the will as its subject, for a meritorious act is sometimes elicited by the other powers.

Reply Obj. 4: Unbelief is also in the intellect as its subject, while it is in the will as commanding the act of unbelief, and that is how the act of unbelief is demeritorious.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith inclines toward what is to be done and what is to be fled to the extent that the truth that can be considered in itself is taken as the rule of an activity.

Reply Obj. 2: As a truth that faith considers, it is taken as contrary or appropriate, according as faith induces either trembling or hope or the like.

Reply Obj. 3: The union of the intellect to the will does not cause the practical intellect, but its ordering to the work, for the will is common to both speculative and practical. For the will is of the end. But the end is found in the speculative and practical intellect.

Reply Obj. 1: Not every habit that has the intellect as its subject can be called an intellectual virtue, unless it perfects the intellect both as to its object and as to the mode of its act.

Reply Obj. 2: For the principles of the other sciences to be seen the light of the agent intellect is enough; and that is why the habit of those principles is a virtue. But for the vision of the articles of the faith, neither the light of the agent intellect is enough, nor the light of faith, and for this reason it is not an intellectual virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: The fact that faith does not err, but always speaks the truth is not from having a perfect mode of understanding, but rather from something else that is outside the intellect, namely, from an infallible reason, which directs the will.

Reply Obj. 1: The first proposition is true about the virtues known by the philosophers, who did not include any virtues apart from intellectual virtues, except for moral virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: The reason that inclines the will to believe the articles of the faith, is the first truth itself, which is infallible. But the reason that inclines the will to believe other things, is either some kind of fallible sign, or the statement of someone who knows, who can deceive or be deceived. And this is why the will does not give infallible truth to the intellect when it believes other things, as it does when it gives infallible truth in the belief of the articles of the faith. And therefore this faith is a virtue, and other kinds of faith are not.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith is not against reason, but above reason. And thus, it is said to negate reason, not as though destroying true reason, but as though enlisting it in service to Christ, as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 10.

Reply Obj. 4: Prophecy cannot be a virtue of any kind. It is not an intellectual virtue, since the intellect’s activity is not perfected by it in a manner connatural to the intellect, for the things that are revealed by prophecy cannot be resolved to naturally known principles. It is also not a theological virtue, since it does not have God as its object, but temporal things; nor again is the act of the intellect commanded through the prophet by his will.

Reply Obj. 5: Faith has its exemplar in God as to what there is of perfection in it, namely, knowledge and certainty. But it does not have an exemplar in God in what it possesses of imperfection, for it does not have the nature of a virtue from this.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith is not about something temporal as its object, but only to the extent that it pertains to eternal truth, which is the object of faith, does it fall under faith; for example, faith believes the Passion, inasmuch as God suffered.

Reply Obj. 2: Hope and fear pertain to the affections, whose proper object is good and evil, as such, and that is why they are diversified according to the difference of good and evil. But good and evil do not differ in the account of the true. And for this reason, faith, whose object is the true, is not differentiated by being in a certain way about goods and about evils.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith considers all those different things under one account, namely, according as they depend on the first truth. And this is why faith is not differentiated according to these things, although there are different sciences about them, which consider them under their proper accounts, which are different.

Reply Obj. 1: That objection proceeds from the order in time.

Reply Obj. 2: In spiritual things, “foundation” is said metaphorically by its resemblance to a material foundation. However, this similarity can be found in two things: in terms of order, since a foundation precedes the other parts; and also as to the virtue of a foundation, since a foundation holds up the whole structure. And both of these resemblances are found in faith, for it is naturally prior to all the others, and the others are strengthened by it, for without it, it is impossible to please God, as in Hebrews 11:6. Now, fortitude is called the foundation with respect to one of these, in that it makes the spiritual edifice strong against adversity, while humility strengthens it against prosperity, which is the occasion of sin, but fear strengthens it against sin itself, for the fear of the Lord drives out sin (Sir 1:27). For this reason, fear precedes the other things that pertain to the affections, since it introduces charity, as Augustine says.¹

Reply Obj. 3: Hope and charity are closer to the end as to its attainment, for charity in a certain way attains the end. And this is why they cannot be prior to faith in their nature, but they follow upon faith, for it displays to them the end.

Reply Obj. 4: Just as the end is prior in intention and posterior in being, so the closer something is to the end, the more prior it is in intention, although it may be more posterior in being, either in time or by nature. Thus, hope, which draws closer to the attainment of the end than faith, comes before faith in intention, but not in being. And accordingly, hope is said to lead to faith, not a faith that already existed, but the future faith that is proposed: just as when eternal goods are proposed to someone, first he wants them, second, he wills to hold fast to them by love, and third, he wills to hope about them, and fourth he wills to believe in them, so that someone who believes may already hope and love and have: and this is how faith is prior in being.

Reply Obj. 5: Although faith does presupposes the will, it does not presuppose a will that already loves, but a will that strives to love, inasmuch as it is faith. For the affections cannot be strengthened by love in anything in which the intellect is not strengthened by assent, just as also one cannot tend toward anything by desire which the intellect has not apprehended first. Therefore, this is the natural order of acts: first, God is apprehended, which pertains to the understanding that precedes faith; then a person wills to attain him; then one wills to love and so on, as was said before.

Reply Obj. 6: Faith does not pertain only to the contemplative life. Rather it is the principle of the active and contemplative life, inasmuch as it displays to both their end.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith, taken simply, precedes charity, since the initial willing that is required for faith is able to exist without charity. Formed faith, however, follows after charity.

Reply Obj. 2: All virtues share in the last end. For this reason, their acts do not differ according to the mode they receive from their order to this end, which is the mode charity gives to them, but rather according to the mode they have from the nature of the power they are in, and their proper objects. And according to this form, faith is distinguished from charity, and again, according to this form, it is not formed by charity.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith is formed by grace by means of charity, since it is insofar as an act of faith comes from charity that it is accepted by God.

Reply Obj. 1: Augustine uses the name “virtue” broadly for whatever disposition inclines to an act by which good is done.

Reply Obj. 2: To have a virtue, it is not only necessary that a man do the things that belonging to virtue—for example, that he do just things or brave things—but also necessary that he do them in the manner in which the virtuous man does them—even though in some way he can be praised from the very fact that he does what belongs to virtue. But as is clear from what has been said, this manner is lacking in the act of unformed faith; and therefore it is not a virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Even a disposition to virtue is opposed to vice; hence it is not necessary that unformed faith, which is opposed to infidelity, be a virtue.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first, therefore, it should be said that virtue is the genus of faith according to moral being. However, unformed faith is not wholly outside of this genus, but exists in it as something imperfect.

Reply Obj. 2: To the second, it should be said that a virtue gets its natural species from the form it has owing to the nature of the power that it is in and the nature of its proper object; but it gets its moral species from the form it has from the moving and directing power. And therefore it does not follow that formed and unformed faith differ in species, except as was explained.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third, it should be said, as was said above, that by those three descriptions, an act numerically one is designated with respect to different things. Hence, there is something in the act of formed faith that is not in the act of unformed faith, but nevertheless it is not entirely different.

Reply Obj. 1: An infused habit is similar to an inborn habit, because just as natural habits are given when we are created, infused habits are given when we are redeemed. However, a natural habit is like the understanding of first principles in that it requires the cognition to be determined through the senses, which acquired habits do not need, because when they are acquired they receive their determination through their act. And similarly, the habit of faith must receive its determination on our part, and it is in regard to this determination that faith is said to be acquired through the knowledge of theology, which distinguishes it into the articles of faith, just as the habit of recognizing first principles is said to be acquired through the senses in regard to distinct principles, but not as to the light by which we come to know the principles.

Reply Obj. 2: In faith, there are four things to consider: what is to be believed, the reason determining the will to believing, the will commanding the intellect, and the intellect accomplishing it. And according to this, faith as to its determination and as to the act of it that is in us, although it is an infused habit, is said to come from four things that are in us. For as to what is believed it is said to come from hearing, because the determination of things to believe happens in us by the interior speech by which God speaks to us, or by an external voice. As to the reason that induces the will to believe, it is said to come from the vision of something that shows God to be the one who speaks in anyone who announces the faith. But as to the command of the will, faith is said to come from the will. While as to the intellect’s accomplishing it, the act of faith is said to come from the intellect.

Reply Obj. 3: Properly speaking, the philosophers did not believe in an omnipotent God, but rather they knew this, because they had proved it by demonstration. But if some people believed that without demonstration, they did not believe it as something God had said, but rather they believed a certain sign from which they had inferred it.

Reply Obj. 4: An infused habit of faith cannot result in an act unless the faith is determined either by God through revelation, or by another person through teaching: and this is similar to the habit of knowing first principles.

Reply Obj. 5: The perfection of divine works is from him, but what there is of any imperfection in them happens on the part of the one receiving the work.

Reply Obj. 6: In an act of sin there is not only a lack of due circumstances, but something undue is included; and that is why it is not only imperfect but also wicked—and this is why sin is said to not be from God. But in an act of unformed faith there is a lack of something that should be there, but there is not the inclusion of something that should not be there, so that act is imperfect but not wicked. And for this reason, the act is from God, but not the defect.

Reply Obj. 1: Although in the intellect of a demon there is not the obscurity that is in ours, due to sensation, still there is another obscurity because they cannot, through a supernatural cognition, attain the vision of the truth that they are compelled to believe through certain signs.

Reply Obj. 2: The faith that is in them is not the infused habit, but rather proceeds from their natural cognition.

Reply Obj. 3: In them the intellect is compelled to assent; whence it does not wholly proceed from free will.

Reply Obj. 1: Although they believe something that is above nature, still they do not believe it through the infused habit by which they are being directed, but through a [merely] human judgment.

Reply Obj. 2: The habit of a science inclines one to knowable things through the mode of reason, and therefore one who has the habit of the science can be ignorant of certain things that pertain to that habit. But the habit of faith, since it is not initiated by reason, inclines through the mode of nature, like even the habit of the moral virtues, and even the habit of first principles. And therefore as long as it remains, one believes nothing contrary to the faith.

Reply Obj. 3: Servile fear is caused in them also due to that human judgment, as is the case with the demons.

Reply Obj. 1: The imperfection faith has with respect to vision is according to the genus of knowledge, and therefore it pertains to the species of faith; and on account of this, faith passes away with the coming of vision. But it is not so in the case at hand, as was said.

Reply Obj. 2: Even servile fear is not taken away as to the habit of fear, but only as to its characteristic of servility.

Reply Obj. 3: In someone who has faith, grace does not cause another habit of faith—and this is not because the grace lacks efficacy, but because the subject of grace cannot receive something that it already has.

Reply Obj. 1: The fact that someone does good through unformed faith pertains to the substance of the habit, and therefore this remains once charity has come; whereas the fact that he does something good but not well pertains to its unformedness, and therefore this does not remain.

Reply Obj. 2: The light of unformed faith and the light of charity are not of the same account; consequently, charity at its coming does not have the effect of darkening faith, but rather brings it to completion, since faith is as matter with respect to charity.

Reply Obj. 3: The act of unformed faith falls short of the act of formed faith because of its unformedness, and in this respect it does not remain.

Reply Obj. 1: A dead work passes away, and cannot be taken up again the same in number, and therefore it cannot be made alive. But an unformed habit endures, and therefore it can be formed.

Reply Obj. 2: An accident does not change as though it were the subject of change, but because its subject stands in various ways with respect to it, and thus its subject is the subject of change, as is evident in the intensification and remission of heat.

Reply Obj. 3: One accident does not come to be out of grace and faith, but rather, the mode of charity comes to be participated in in such a way that it gives rise to the perfection of faith, just as the mode of prudence is participated in in such a way that it gives rise to the perfection of moral virtue. And therefore charity, when it comes, is said to form the preexistent faith.

Reply Obj. 1: The Passion and the other things that are contained in the Creed are related to the object of faith as its matter.

Reply Obj. 2: In Sacred Scripture faith is instructed with respect to things essential to the faith, such as the things that are said about God in it, and with respect to accidentals, such as the deeds of the patriarchs and the like, which pertain to the faith insofar as they were divinely inspired and said.

Reply Obj. 3: Although prophesy and faith are about the same thing, such as about the Passion of the Christ, still they are not in the same respect. For faith formally has to do with the Passion insofar as something eternal is a part of it, namely insofar as God is the one who suffered, whereas it has to do with the part that is temporal in a material way. But for prophesy the opposite is the case.

Reply Obj. 4: Universal forms do not move things insofar as they are considered in their universality, but insofar as they applied to some particular. And likewise, the first truth moves one to acting insofar it is applied to this or to that, just as when one considers that the end is that toward which this man or that man can reach. Or it could be said that universal forms are not things that subsist in the nature of things, and therefore they cannot be related to operation or action either as its principle nor as its terminus; and therefore the reasoning is not like that about God, who does subsist in himself.

Reply Obj. 5: Created beatitude consists in our activity with respect to God. Now, an activity is known from its object. Whence, principally faith is about God, and secondarily about created beatitude.

Reply Obj. 1: Although the first truth is simple according its reality, still according to notion many things are found in it, insofar as our intellect forms diverse true conceptions about it. And in virtue of this too it is able to compose and divide those diverse conceptions and form a proposition about God.

Reply Obj. 2: The activity of the intellect when composing and dividing traced back to the activity of it whereby it looks to something uncomposed. For what a thing is is the principle of demonstrating whether it exists, simply speaking, and that it is. And therefore too what comes after faith, in which our faith will be consummated, will be a vision of something uncomposed.

Reply Obj. 3: The object of charity is the good, which according to the Philosopher in the Metaphysics 6¹ is within things. Now, the object of faith is the true, which is completed through an activity of the soul. And because the composition and division that is found in propositions exists only through the soul, therefore the object of faith is composite, although the object of charity is not.

Reply Obj. 4: The determinate time is among the things that are related to the faith accidentally, just as it is also related to the predicate and the subject accidentally, which are what the intellect composes and divides. However, the things that are related to the faith accidentally are not necessary for salvation except after they have been determined through preaching and teaching.

Reply Obj. 5: Of those supporting the idea that faith is about the composite truth, some have said that this is the same proposition that is varied according to three times. But this was disproved in Book I.¹ And on account of this, others have said that the articles of faith are not the same in their essence, but only in their utility. But this too is not well said, since then faith would not be the same simply speaking, but only in a certain respect. And therefore it should be said that in the very article that is the composite object of the faith there is something material—the Passion itself, something formal—the divine reality, and something accidental—the time itself. Whence the faith is varied not with respect to its essence, but with respect to its accident.

Reply Obj. 1: The contingent cannot be the object of the faith except insofar as it stands under the divine foreknowledge. And according to this it has the necessity of a consequence, and in this way it falls under faith. Whence, just as foreknowledge cannot fail, neither can faith.

Reply Obj. 2: After Abraham’s time God was able to free the human race in a different way than through the Passion of the Christ, if we are speaking of his absolute power. But this is not the case insofar as it is considered in its order to his foreknowledge, for God cannot foreknow something and later it not come to pass, just as he cannot fail or change. And in this way the faith of Abraham was about the Passion of the Christ, insofar as it was subject to the divine foreknowledge.

Reply Obj. 3: Hope tends toward beatitude only on the supposition of merits; otherwise it would be presumption, not hope. Whence if while failing in merits someone does not attain beatitude as he hoped, the hope is not deceived. And likewise, neither is charity deceived, since it always wants what is pleasing to God. Whence, if someone later learns that something is not pleasing to God that he before thought was pleasing to him, human judgment has failed, not charity.

Reply Obj. 4: Faith is only about this particular host as consecrated according to the rite; but that this host has been consecrated according to the rite is only a human judgment. And in this way an error can happen in latria.

Reply Obj. 1: “Vision” here is be taken in a broad sense, following the first mode.

Reply Obj. 2: The terms of principles that are naturally known are comprehensible to our intellect. Therefore the cognition that arises from such principles is a vision. But this is not the case with the terms of the articles [of faith]. Whence, in the future, when God will be seen by his essence, the articles will be known and see through themselves, in the way that the principles of demonstration are.

Reply Obj. 3: The understanding by which we understand what is signified by the name comes before faith, but not the understanding by which we understand what the reality itself is. For names are imposed on God from their effects.

Reply Obj. 4: Prophesy has to do with a temporal thing as its proper object, which can be comprehended by the intellect. And this is why prophesy is a vision.

Reply Obj. 5: Faith is not about what is material in the object of faith—namely, a created reality—except insofar as is stands under what is formal, just as sight is not of color except insofar as it stands under light. And thus, faith does not fall under bodily vision or intellectual.

Reply Obj. 1: And thereby the reply to the first objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 2: Faith becomes determinate through hearing the teaching of someone who puts forward what should be rejected and what should be held to, but not from someone proving a proposition. And therefore such teaching does not causes knowledge.

Reply Obj. 3: Human reason comes before human authority, and divine reason comes before divine authority, which faith rests upon. Whence, our faith is related to the divine reason by which God knows just as faith of one who supposes the principle of a subalternated science relates to the subalternating science, which latter has proved it through its proper notion.

Reply Obj. 4: Arguments that force one toward faith, such as miracles, do not prove faith through themselves. Rather, they prove the veracity of the one declaring the faith. And therefore they do not cause knowledge of the things that are of the faith.

Reply Obj. 1: Gregory is speaking of perfect awareness, which includes vision.

Reply Obj. 2: What ascends into the heart is what can be formed by the heart’s operation—and this is what is seen. And in this way, what things God has prepared for those who love him do not ascend into man’s heart.

Reply Obj. 3: The cognition of faith has its origin in sensation insofar as it knows the significations of the words, which are proposed by sensible things. But these fall short of representing what faith properly is about, and therefore faith does not hold perfect cognition.

Reply Obj. 4: That properly speaking is said to be present whose essence is present to the intellect or sensation. And because this causes vision, Augustine says that things present are seen and absent things are believed. And on account of this also faith is likened to hearing, since it is of things that are absent, just as by hearing we know things that, although they are absent, are recounted to us.

Reply Obj. 1: The end of human life is the knowledge of God, even according to the philosophers¹ who place the ultimate happiness in the act of wisdom according to the cognition of the noblest intelligible thing. Now, a certain cognition of God exceeds our nature, such as the vision [of him] that is through his essence; and relative to this end he was not able to provide for us sufficiently through our natural powers. And therefore faith of the things that essentially pertain to faith was necessary. However, the other cognition of God is commensurate with our nature—namely, that which we can have about God through natural reasoning. But because this is possessed in the last [part] of human life, since it is its end, and human life must be regulated by our cognition of God, just as things that are for the end are regulated by the cognition of the end, therefore also he was not able to provide for man sufficiently through man’s nature, even as regards this cognition of God. Whence it was necessary that things become known from the beginning that reason was not yet able to attain—and this as regards the things presupposed to the end.

Reply Obj. 2: The good, as Dionysius says,¹ is diffusive of itself. Whence where a different notion of diffusion is known, a different notion of goodness is known. Therefore through natural reason the highest good can be known insofar as it diffuses itself by a natural communication, but not insofar as it diffuses itself by a supernatural communication. And according to this latter notion the highest good is the end of our life, and concerning which one must have faith, since reason cannot [attain] it.

Reply Obj. 3: The things that are for the sake of the end ought to be proportioned to the end. Whence, since the ultimate end of human life is above the faculty of nature, and consequently of reason—which reason conjectures about the end from the things that are for the sake of the end—even the things that are ordered to that end must be above the faculty of human nature and above reason. And thus not all things that are in the divine wisdom above reason pertain to the faith, but only the cognition of the supernatural end, and of those things by which we are ordered supernaturally into that end.

Reply Obj. 1: To believe a man without a probable reason is to believe too quickly, because one man’s cognition is not naturally ordered to another man’s cognition, such that it would be ruled by it. But it is ordered in this way to the first truth.

Reply Obj. 2: When a man believes he does not refuse reason, as though acting against it; rather, he transcends it, while resting on something higher directing it, namely, the first truth. For things that are of faith, although they are above reason, still are not opposed to reason. Now, to inquire about things that are above reason is not blameworthy but praiseworthy, for man ought to lift himself up to the divine, to whatever extent that he can, as the Philosopher says.¹

Reply Obj. 3: A man has discernment about things to be believed through the light of faith, just as one has a discernment of spirits through a certain grace that is given gratuitously. Whence, a man who has the light of faith does not consent to things that are against the faith except he discards the inclination of faith, from his own fault.

Reply Obj. 1: Reasoning sufficiently presenting an experience to faith constitutes vision, and therefore it empties the difficulty of belief. But one cannot have such reasoning about things that through themselves pertain to faith.

Reply Obj. 2: Faith is corrupted by disputations in one who does have a firm faith, due to a fault of his.

Reply Obj. 3: If human reasoning has been brought to bear, this does not cause a man to believe not purely for the sake of God, because, were it removed, he would still believe. Whence in and of itself it does not diminish the merit, unless due to some fault of the believer.

Reply Obj. 1: In non-complex things, speaking per se, there is only truth equivocally. Therefore, “indivisible” is to be understood not simply speaking, but in the genus of complex things.

Reply Obj. 2: An article of the faith is said to be about God either because it pertains to the divine nature or a divine person, either by reason of itself or by reason of its assumed nature, or his proper effect, which cannot happen by any created power, and cannot be perceived by human reason; and thus the objection comes to nothing.

Reply Obj. 3: An article is said to compel belief, not out of the necessity of force, but out of the necessity of the end, for without faith in the articles there can be no salvation.

Reply Obj. 4: The perception of divine truth that happens through natural reason tends toward the understanding of principles as to what it depends upon. But the perception of divine truth that is in an article tends toward the first truth not only as an end or object, but as toward what it is resolved into, as in the cause of its own credibility.

Reply Obj. 5: Hugh did not intend to define the word “article,” but to show the things that the faith is about; for it is about works of creation, for which nature was instituted, and about works of reparation, for which the grace of God is bestowed.

Reply Obj. 1: An object is proportioned to its habit in those things that pertain to the nature of the habit, but not in those things that arise from the disposition of the person having the habit.

Reply Obj. 2: That definition is given about an article through the act of faith. That is why it says, perception of divine truth. And thus what belongs to formed faith characterizes the act, not the object.

Reply Obj. 3: the answer to the third objection is similar.

Reply Obj. 1: Things that were handed on in Sacred Scripture but in different places had to be brought together in one place, so that the faith could be held more readily.

Reply Obj. 2: The fathers who announced other creeds after the apostles did not add anything of their own, but the things that they added they took from the Sacred Scriptures. And since some of the things in the Apostles’ Creed pose difficulties, the Nicene Creed, which more extensively described the faith in some of its articles, was formulated to explain it. And because certain things were implicitly contained in those creeds that needed to be explained on account of heresies that arose, the Athanasian Creed was added, which was specifically opposed to heretics.

Reply Obj. 3: At the time of Athanasius, heresies were arising especially against the person of the Son in both of his natures, and for this reason his creed is divided into two parts according to the two natures of Christ. However, other creeds that were composed not with the principal intention of combating heretics, but rather manifesting or elucidating the teaching of the faith, are divided into three parts according to the three persons of the Trinity, on which our faith is principally founded.

Reply Obj. 4: The Apostles’ Creed was formulated when the faith had not yet been made public, and therefore, it is said secretly; and because it was composed to set forth the teaching of the faith, it is said daily in Prime and in Compline, at the beginning of the day and night, as a sign that all our activity must take its beginning from our end, and because we are protected by our faith in adversity and prosperity. However, each of the other creeds was composed at a time when the faith had been disseminated, and that is why they are sung publicly. And because they were not composed for proposing the faith, but for defending or elucidating it, they are not said every day, but on days when people are most accustomed to come to church, and on days when a certain solemnity occurs that has to do with the articles in that creed. And since the Nicene Creed was composed to manifest the faith, it is said after the Gospel, as a sort of exposition of it. However, the Athanasian Creed, which was composed against heretics, is said during Prime, as though to drive off the shadows of heresy.

Reply Obj. 1: The Father is not sent like the other persons of the Trinity; and thus because of the effect of sending, more articles are appropriated to them than to the Father.

Reply Obj. 2: It is not an article of the faith that God is simple, but that God is as faith supposes, namely, having care of all things, rewarding and punishing—as the Apostle makes clear, for he delineates it like this in Hebrews 11:6: that he is, and that he rewards those who seek him. Likewise, the philosophers did not recognize God as Creator in the way that faith holds, namely, such that after things did not exist, they were brought forth into being. Rather, they take creation according to another mode, as was said in Book II.¹

Reply Obj. 3: All the articles, especially those that pertain to divine works, are proved by God’s omnipotence, in the same way that an angel proved the Incarnation when he came to the Virgin in Luke 1:37: because no word is impossible with God. And this is why omnipotence is particularly included as a sort of root of faith.

Reply Obj. 4: In the Creed is proposed to us the rule of faith toward which all people should reach. However, they should not strive to reach only an act of unformed faith, but also an act of formed faith; and this is why an act of formed faith is included in the Creed. Nevertheless, someone who has unformed faith and says the Creed does not sin, because he says this in the person of the Church.

Reply Obj. 5: Pope Leo says¹ that the preposition in should not be added here, so that we say, and in one holy Catholic Church, etc., but it should be said, and one holy etc. But Anselm says² that it can be said, in one, inasmuch as in this effect uncreated truth is understood, namely such that the meaning is, in one holy, that is, in the Holy Spirit uniting the Church.

Reply Obj. 6: As has been said, an article is indivisible truth existing above reason, and where diverse difficulties occur in which what is said is above reason, it is necessary to set forth diverse articles. However, holding that God was buried does not contain a different difficulty than holding that he suffered or died; and thus all this is included under one article. But his birth does contain a different difficulty beyond the difficulty of his conception, because in his conception there is the difficulty that God became man, and that his conception happened without male seed. But in his birth the difficulty is from the fact that he came out of the Virgin’s closed womb. And for this reason there are two articles.

Reply Obj. 7: On the part of the Son’s power is included the work that he performed in his assumed nature in seven articles, as was said.

Reply Obj. 8: As Innocent III says, the Nicene synod was chiefly convened against Arius, who denied that the Son was true God. And for this reason, the descent into hell was suppressed, which seemed most to detract from the Son’s divinity. Or it could be said that because that creed was promulgated to manifest the faith against heretics, but no error arises about the descent into hell, they did not take care to explain that article, but included it implicitly in the article on the Resurrection, in which is understood the terminus from which he rose; just as in the article on his conception they implicitly handed down the article on his birth, since there was no specific error about his birth.

Reply Obj. 9: Some philosophers held that the world had been created by God and yet it existed from eternity, as Augustine tells.¹ For this reason, the Nicene Creed which was specifically decreed in order to eliminate errors, specified maker, which emphasizes more the beginning of the world’s duration, and that it exists from God’s acting by his will, not by a necessity of nature.

Reply Obj. 10: Faith in the body of Christ and all the sacraments and the power of the keys and everything like this are included in the article that is about the effect of grace, which is, the holy Catholic Church. And this is why in the Nicene Creed it is added, I believe in one baptism. However, some people say that it can be reduced to the article on the Passion. But the first explanation is more probable.

Reply Obj. 1: In things that are necessary for salvation, God never abandons and has never abandoned a man seeking his salvation unless he remains so due to his own fault. Whence the explication of things that are necessary for salvation would either be divinely provided for a man, through a preacher of the faith, as is clear with Cornelius in Acts 10, or through a revelation. With such supposed, it is within the power of his free decision that he go forth into the act of faith.

Reply Obj. 2: If such a one does what in itself belongs to the pursuit of salvation, God would provide for the salvations of such a one in one of the described ways.

Reply Obj. 3: The solution is clear from what was said.

Reply Obj. 4: The things that are above reason pertaining to faith are not proposed to simple men such that the things themselves would be examined; rather, they are proposed to them in the enigma of the words, to which they would assent. And in this way the faith is said to be of the words, as was said above in the preceding distinction.¹

Reply Obj. 1: This is clear, because there is not the same account of all the articles.

Reply Obj. 2: Universal principles, wherein is implied the knowledge of particular conclusions, are known to man through the natural light. And therefore as regards implicit knowledge of a science, one man is not distinguished from another. But the light of faith, insofar as implicit knowledge is had, is an infused light that is infused in one and not in another. Therefore the account is not similar.

Reply Obj. 3: We are bound always and in all situations to the negative precepts, and thereby sins of transgression are sufficiently avoided. But a man is always bound to the affirmative precepts, but not in all situations, but according to a determinate place and time. Now, the affirmative precepts are about the acts of the virtues. Therefore a man is not always bound to exercising the act of a virtue, nor with respect to all the ways in which he can exercise it. Rather, it is enough that a man act at the obligatory time. And therefore it is not necessary that a man have explicit knowledge about all the articles of faith, but [only] about the ones that are necessary according to that time. And through this, all errors and doubts are sufficiently avoided, since just as the habit of temperance inclines one to resist luxury, so too the habit of faith inclines one to resisting all things that are against the faith. Whence in the time when there emerges the necessity of explicitly knowing it—either on account of a contrary teaching that is threatening, or on account of a powerful doubt that is arising—then a man of faith, from the inclination of his faith, does not consent to the things that are against the faith; rather, he defers his assent until he might be instructed more fully.

Reply Obj. 1: The simple are not condemned as heretics because they do not know the articles, but because they stubbornly defend the things that are contrary to the articles. This they would not do unless they were to have a faith corrupted by heresy.

Reply Obj. 2: By the very fact that someone takes up the office of teaching he is obligated to knowing the things that he ought to teach.

Reply Obj. 3: Those who know more are not called “great,” but rather those on whom lies the office of teaching the faith. These sometimes know less, as consequence of sin, to whom it is said, because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me (Hos 4:6). Yet neither is it due to the knowledge that is required of them that they report an inconvenience, since having knowledge is an honor for them.

Reply Obj. 1: The determinate knowledge of the principles of demonstration is acquired from sensation. Whence for their determination we do not need teaching, and in such principles a man has, from the beginning, an implicit knowledge of all the things that follow from them. Nonetheless, he has an implicit knowledge in another knower’s cognition insofar as he needs to receive knowledge through teaching, for the learner must believe. And therefore knowledge and faith are not alike, since there are not inborn natural principles within us to which the articles of the faith can be traced back. Rather, the entire determination of faith is in us through teaching, and therefore one must have an implicit faith in a man’s cognition.

Reply Obj. 2: Just as in movers there is found a first mover that is an unmoved mover, and a second mover that is both mover and moved, after which there is what is only moved, so it is in things that regulate. There is something that is regulating and in no way regulated—and this is the notion of the first rule, and such is God; there is also something regulating that is regulated—and such a rule of human faith is a divine man, as even the Philosopher says in the Ethics 3,¹ that the virtuous man is the measure of all human acts; and there is one who is only regulated, who are the lesser ones themselves.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as a man should obey a lesser power only in matters to which the higher power is not opposed, so too a man should measure himself to the first rule in all things according to his mode, but to the second rule a man should measure himself in matters that are not discordant with the first rule. For in matters that are discordant, it is no longer the rule. And on account of this, one should not assent to a prelate preaching against the faith, since in this he is discordant with the first rule. Nor is the subject wholly excused due to ignorance, since the habit of faith causes an inclination to the contrary, since it necessarily teaches one about all that pertain to salvation, according to 1 John 2:27. Whence, if a man is not too ready to believe every spirit when something unusual is preached, he would not assent; rather, he would ask someone else, or he would commit himself to God to not taking into himself the secret things of God that are above his own measure.

Reply Obj. 4: It was given to men to perform miracles so that it might be shown that God speaks through them. Nor must one have an implicit faith in such a man possessing revelation, as far as [how] such a man acquires his knowledge, divinely or through human reputation.

Reply Obj. 1: Charity is in the will. Now, things that pertain to the will do not need experience and time, as do things that are in the intellect, where faith is, except insofar as a habit must be acquired through practice—which is not the case for charity. And therefore the progress of charity, properly speaking, is not considered in reference to diverse time periods—except incidentally, insofar as in the time of the redeemer a fuller grace is poured out as regards the common state [of mankind], but not as regards individual persons.

Reply Obj. 2: The fact that the sciences progress with the succession of time periods is not only because of the imperfection of the things discovered, but also because of the inability of the learners, who were not able to receive the whole science from the beginning. And thus in things that are of the faith it happens that it was necessary that by small steps the human intellect was made accustomed to the things of the faith. On account of this the Lord said to his disciples, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12).

Reply Obj. 3: Those who immediately received from God knowledge of the faith, as regards things that were not made explicit to them, did not have an implicit faith in the faith of another man, but in the knowledge of God himself. On him they reposed what had been revealed to them of the secret things of divine wisdom.

Reply Obj. 4: An article is said to be an indivisible truth as regards what is made explicit in the article. But it is divisible as regards the things that are potentially contained in the article, insofar as it calls one what in a certain way it calls many. And these those things that precede the article and the things that follow upon it. And with respect to this an article of the faith can be explicated and divided.

Reply Obj. 5: Something that is contained in an article can be made explicit in two ways. In one way, insofar as one article sometimes is contained in another, or two in one common one; for example, the resurrection of the dead is in a way contained in the Resurrection of Christ, and the Passion and Incarnation in the common article that is the mystery of redemption. And in this way, an implicit faith is made explicit in the determinate articles of the faith. And this explication was completed through Christ. This is why one may not add to or take away from his teaching, as regards the essentials of the faith, as it says at the end of Revelation (Rev 22:18–19). But before the coming of Christ it was not complete; this is why, even as regards the great, it grew according to diverse time periods. In another way, that which is contained in an article is not an article, but something attendant on the article, and with respect to this the faith can be made explicit every day, and it has been made more and more explicit through the study of the holy.

Reply Obj. 1: The angels learned of the mystery of the Incarnation first, before men, as Dionysius says in the Celestial Hierarchy,¹ as regards what should be believed pertaining its very substance, but not as regards all the circumstances of the articles. These they later knew as they came about. We have spoken about this more fully in Book II.²

Reply Obj. 2: The authorities introduced in the text are speaking about after sin, whether before or after the law was given.

Reply Obj. 3: Although the divine law was not given commonly to all the nations—as were the Jews, from whom the Christ was to be born, and thus it was necessary that the faith be more powerfully thriving among them—nonetheless, revelations were made to many gentiles, through angels, about the Christ. This is clear of the Sybil, who prophesied explicitly about Christ;¹ it is even written in the Roman histories that in the time of the emperor Constantine there was found in Greece a body in a sepulcher with a metal plate on its breast on which was written, the Christ will be born of a Virgin and I believe in him. You will see me again, O Sun, under the times of Irene and Constantine.² Even those to whom no special revelation was made were able to be saved, even if they had heard nothing of the law of Moses, nor knew nothing about it, since that law was not given to all, but only to the Jews. Whence these others did not sin if they did not keep the observances of the law. But it is otherwise for the law of Christ, which has been proclaimed to all. Yet they were saved by an implicit faith in the redeemer, when they put an implicit faith in God’s knowledge, or in things that they learned indeterminately from God, whoever they were. This is just as the great among the Jews, as regards things that were not yet revealed to them, as long as they do not stubbornly hold to something contrary, against one preaching the faith.

Reply Obj. 4: Although nature was not sufficient through itself for knowledge of a redeemer, yet it was sufficient with the written law in the time of the law, and helped by grace before the law.

Reply Obj. 1: John the Baptist knew these articles fully, so he had no doubt about them. However, he was able to doubt, without any prejudice to his salvation, about the other article about the Passion, implicit in that time—namely, about his descent into hell—although he did not do so stubbornly. This is clear, because he asked his to be taught. Or it could be said, as others say, that he himself had no doubt, but he as it were appeared to doubt insofar as he asked, not for his own sake, but for the sake of instructing his disciples. Or it was a doubt not based on ignorance, but on wonder and piety.

Reply Obj. 2: The article about his conception was implicitly contained in the article about his birth, insofar as the former is the way to birth; the article about the descent into hell is in the article about the Passion; and article about the Ascension is in the article about the Resurrection, since the victory of one who rose is completed in it.

Reply Obj. 3–4: Whence the reply to the third and fourth objections is clear

Reply Obj. 5: In Christ’s judgment nothing will be merited for us, but that which he merited before he will render to us.

Reply Obj. 1: The Apostle asserted that the things that any man must believe explicitly in any state; but this was not the case with the knowledge of the Trinity.

Reply Obj. 2: For being directed to the end one must know not only the end, but also the things without which one cannot go to the end. And therefore one must have explicit knowledge about the faith in the Trinity, since without their being sent one cannot come to the end of beatitude.

Reply Obj. 3: Because it was not necessary that they believe all things explicitly, therefore the mystery of the Trinity was not stated manifestly in the Old Testament. Rather, it was there in a veiled way, so that the wise could receive it.

Reply Obj. 1: The appetitive part has two kinds of movement: pursuit and flight. Now, hope’s object, which is the difficult and arduous good, is of a nature to move the appetite to pursuit by reason of its goodness, but to move it to flight by reason of its difficulty. However, the latter movement is held back by hope. This is why hope includes the first movement, in which the character of a passion is preserved, while it brings a steadfastness that gets rid of the second movement, which is flight.

Reply Obj. 2: Hope is not distinguished from memory as to its essence, but as to the effect that is common to memory and hope, which is delight. And so it does not follow that they would share in the same genus.

Reply Obj. 3: Names are often imposed on hidden things from their signs; for example, essential differences are named from accidentals. Now, the sign of someone steadfastly extending his desire toward something desired is usually that he frequently directs his sight toward it, in order to see if he can approach it from any side. And this is why this disposition of steadiness with movement is called expectation.

Reply Obj. 4: Animals understand the nature of what is beneficial and what is harmful, not by reason’s investigation, as with humans, but by an instinct of nature, which is called an estimation. In the same way they also know something that will be in the future without understanding the notion of future, not by comparing the present and the future, but by a natural instinct, according to which they do what needs to be done either from an interior impulse or an exterior impulse of nature—for example, when they do something to take precautions about future events that depend on the movement of the sky, as though impelled by it. This is why people can sometimes know something about future events from animals’ activities, as sailors know about a coming storm from the movement of dolphins descending from the surface of the water; and ants store grain in their holes when rain is coming.

Reply Obj. 5: What is future according to reality can be present in imagination. And since it is the nature of the good to move the desire when it is imagined or understood, an emotion can follow in the desire if good is present in either way, as it says in On the Soul 3.¹

Reply Obj. 1: Difficult or arduous adds a certain specific character of goodness, namely, a certain preciousness arising from the fact that it cannot be had easily, as they say, “everything rare is costly.”

Reply Obj. 2: The rational nature in itself is able to compare and distinguish. Therefore, the good that is desirable of itself, or that needs comparing and distinguishing to be desired, moves the rational appetite according to the nature of rational apprehension. Therefore, the rational appetite is not diversified by this, but it is called the will universally. But this is not the case with the sensitive appetite, as is clear from what has been said.

Reply Obj. 3: Insofar as hope is about something difficult and arduous, it does not delight a person, but rather afflicts him, since that fact makes it far away. But to the extent that it is about a good that is possible to acquire, it does cause delight. For anything that is in potentiality already has the beginnings of its being; and in the same way, anything that is apprehended as possible to gain is apprehended as already present in a certain way. And this is how hope causes delight, and this delight is not in the concupiscible faculty, but in the irascible faculty: for every power desires what is best suited to it, and is delighted by it, as will be said further on.¹ Now the arduous good, by the fact that it is possible to gain, is most suited to the irascible power, and that is why it tends toward it.

Reply Obj. 4: The object of the irascible power is the difficult good; however, something is no longer difficult once it is possessed—only when it is not possessed. And this is why all the emotions of the irascible power, like fear and hope, have to do with the future.

Reply Obj. 5: The object of the irascible faculty is the difficult good, which sometimes has its goodness from an ordering to something else. For this reason, in the act or movement of the irascible faculty, there is a double terminus.

Reply Obj. 1: As was said above,¹ expecting entails stretching one’s desire toward something with a steadfastness that prevents flight or withdrawal. Now this steadfastness arises from the difficulty of the thing that the desire tends toward, because it is not easily to be had, for what is easily obtained is acquired without delay. And since the good with difficulty is properly the object of the irascible faculty, expecting properly pertains to the irascible’s tending toward some good. However, it is related to hope as common to proper, inasmuch as hope adds a sureness about the expectation.

Reply Obj. 2: Damacene is speaking broadly, for he takes the expected good for the good that is not yet had, which is common to both concupiscence and hope.

Reply Obj. 3: Movement from the starting point and movement to the ending point are sometimes contrary, sometimes the same, and sometimes separate things. For if the starting terminus and the ending terminus are contrary to each other, the movement is contrary, like going from black to white. But if the starting point and the ending point are the same thing, then the movements are the same, like moving from white to white. But if they are different, not contraries, then the movements are separate and different, like moving from white to hot. Hope and fear are related to each other in this last way, for the contrariety that is found in the irascible power is according to easy and difficult, or else possible and impossible, but not good and evil, because that is the focus of the concupiscible power. Now if the proper nature of the irascible object were considered, then fear would be contrary to hope, because fear moves away from the difficult, while hope moves toward it. But if the nature of the difficult were considered, then they would be sepearate things, because fear moves away from something difficult in the genus of evils, while hope moves toward the difficult in the genus of goods.

Reply Obj. 4: The passions¹ of the cognitive powers are from things according to their spiritual existence. And since contraries do not have contrariety according to this kind of being, contrary passions are not caused by contraries in the cognitive powers. But the appetitive passions come from things according to their own natural being, because appetite is concerned with good and evil which are in things, as the Philosopher says in the Metaphysics 6.² And for this reason, it is when they have contrariety according to their natural being that they cause contrary passions.

Reply Obj. 5: Since something arduous or difficult is the proper object of the irascible, the differences causing opposition in the irascible passions are whether the difficulty overcomes this faculty or does not overcome it, and whether it is a difficult good or evil. Thus confidence or boldness is the movement of the irascible faculty when it judges that the difficult will not exceed the faculty, which hope does specifically about goods, while daring does about evils, except that daring sometimes carries this to excess, and so it is sometimes taken into the evil. However, when the difficult is judged to surpass the faculty, the desire’s movement toward good or evil is diffidence. If the unconquerable difficult is a good, this specifically causes despair; if it is an evil, then fear. Meanwhile, anger is a passion composed of daring or pain, along with hope, as is clear from what was said above.

Reply Obj. 1: Love does not name the terminus of the movement of the concupiscible, since it does not arise from union with the thing, as delight and joy do.

Reply Obj. 2: The concupiscible movement can terminate further in the future; and this is why concupiscence and desire are not principal passions. However, the movement of the irascible does not—it terminates in the near future; and this is why hope and fear are principal passions.

Reply Obj. 3: The power that hope is in takes its name from anger, because it is the final one of its passions, since a name usually comes from the things that are last in something. However, it is not principal, because its movement is toward the harmful—not as something to be fled, which belongs to the character of evil and the harmful, but as something to be attacked.

Reply Obj. 4: The same thing is to be said about daring. For fear, which entails fleeing, results from the nature of evil, since of itself it is something to be fled not to be attacked, as daring does. And this is why it is not a principal passion.

Reply Obj. 5: Repentance is contained under sadness. And it should be known that all the emotions mentioned can be reduced to these principal passions: either as species to genus, as wonder is related to fear; or as the imperfect to the perfect, as concupiscence is to joy; or as effect to cause, and as the participating to participated, as daring and anger are to hope. For hope tends toward the arduous good, which in itself is such as should be tended toward. Now, daring and anger tend toward confronting an arduous harm, which is not such that it should be tended toward, but rather fled. However, they do tend toward this inasmuch as it takes part in some character of good: its victory. And this is the way that daring and anger participate in hope, as something that is per accidens participates in what is per se.

Reply Obj. 1: Hope, insofar as it exists in the rational appetite—that is, the will—is not a passion, properly speaking, as is evident from what was said in Distinction 15.¹

Reply Obj. 2: The Philosopher is speaking there about those emotions as passions of the sensitive part, and thus they need the body essentially; or else, he speaks about them as they exist in the intellective part, which needs the body inasmuch as it receives from the senses or from sensitive power, as long as we are in the state of earthly wayfarers.

Reply Obj. 3: Some people distinguish a human irascible power from an animal irascible power, and the same way with the concupiscible power, and they say that the animal power is in the sensitive part, but the human one in the intellective part. But this is not true: for the rational appetite is not divided between irascible and concupiscible, as was said above.¹ For this reason, the irascible appetite is called human, not by its essence, but by participation, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 1,² and also Damascene says.³ Thus, when it is objected that hope is in the irascible power, this is true of hope as a passion.

Reply Obj. 4: The movement of intellectual apprehension goes from things into the soul, and since in the intellectual soul something is received abstracted from all its material individuating conditions, no intellectual apprehension is concerned with any determinate time, although it could be about any time, for time is involved in composing and dividing, as it says in On the Soul 3.¹ And this is also why, since memory is a part of the image that is in the intellectual part, memory belongs to all times, as was said in Book I.² On the other hand, the movement of the appetite’s activity goes from the soul to the things, and therefore, since things in themselves fall under the here and now, the activity of the intellectual appetite can also be concerned with a certain time.

Reply Obj. 5: Delight, as was previously said, arises from two sources. One way is from the act itself that is appropriate to a power: and in this way, the intellect’s delight has no contrary. For since the thing understood is received in the intellect in an entirely immaterial way, it cannot inflict any injury on the intellect, as something sensed does corrupt the senses when it is extreme. And therefore, every act of the intellect is appropriate to the intellect, and delightful, no matter what it is that is understood; and this is why the delight of the intellect has no contrary. The other way that delight arises is from being united with the appropriate thing that the activity is about. And since what is understood can be fitting to the one who understands or unfitting, inasmuch as it is a certain kind of thing, although inasmuch as it is understood it is always fitting, this is how there can be a delight that is in the intellectual part, there can be a contrary sadness, which is not a passion, as was said.

Reply Obj. 1: Hope, as a passion, is not a virtue, but only as it exists in the appetite of the intellectual part. But the names of the other passions cannot so appropriately be applied to virtues as hope can, because hope is said about an ordering to the good and thus involves a movement of desire toward good; and this has a certain resemblance to the intention and choice of the good that is required for any virtue. Now, fear is said about an ordering toward evil. But although drawing away from evil does pertain to virtue, nevertheless, the perfection of virtue does not consist in this, but rather in choosing the good. Meanwhile, joy and sadness have more to do with the impression of good and evil on the desire than the movement of desire toward them, and so they do not have a resemblance to the choice of virtue.

Reply Obj. 2: The kind of arduous thing that the acquired virtues order one toward is the end proportionate to a natural faculty, which is why nature on its own account is determined toward hoping for that end. For this reason, it does not need any habit superadded to it by which it is ordered toward it. But the arduous thing that is eternal life exceeds any faculty of nature. Therefore, since of itself nature is not determined to hope for it, it must be determined by an infused habit, and this habit is hope, which is a virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: There are many ways that hope is said. Sometimes it names a passion, and then it is not a virtue. Sometimes it names a habit inclining to an act of the will resembling the hope that is in the sensitive part as a passion, and then it is a virtue. Then, sometimes it names the act itself, and then it is an act of virtue. But sometimes it names the thing itself that is hoped for: awaiting our blessed hope (Tit 2:13); and then it is the object of a virtue. And sometimes it names the certainty that results from hope, as in, endurance . . . produces hope (Rom 5:4)—that is, the certainty of hope—and then it names a state of perfection in virtue, as to certainty of intention. Thus, the habit of hope that is a virtue does not proceed from merits, but the object, that is, the thing hoped for, is given in return for merits. And thus, too, the act of hope tends toward its own object on the presupposition of merits, and according to this it is said to come from merits by reason of its act.

Reply Obj. 4: The hope that is a virtue is not opposed to the fear that is a gift, because hope is extended toward God from the consideration of divine munificence, while fear means a shrinking back from the consideration of one’s own smallness. And since the shrinking back of fear and the extending forth of hope are not according to the same thing, they are not contraries.

Reply Obj. 5: Doing something for the sake of some temporal benefit causes an act to be for the sake of repayment, but doing it for the sake of eternal reward does not. For self-restraint is not sufficient for salvation, if a person is restrained only out of the love of modesty, as it says in the Book of Church Doctrine;¹ and it is by the same reasoning with other human acts. Or it could be said that an act is said to be seeking repayment when it is done for the sake of reward, but not when it is about the reward itself. Therefore, although the act of hope is to look forward to heavenly beatitude, which is a reward, it does not look toward it for the sake of reward itself, but by the inclination of the habit, just as happens in the other virtues. And furthermore, it does not look forward to it inasmuch as it is a reward, but as the summit of some arduous thing, for it has God as it principal object.

Reply Obj. 1: Some people say that even reason’s appetite is divided into irascible and concupiscible: and according to this opinion, the premise is false. But all the authors who distinguish irascible from concupiscible—whether saints or philosophers—include the irascible and concupiscible in the sensual appetite. Therefore, it should be said that the subject of hope, when it names a theological virtue, is not the irascible power but the will, whose act can be called hope; unless perhaps we called the will itself the irascible power, as having acts similar to the acts of the irascible power, but then irascible and concupiscible would not be different powers, but would name the same power, the will, according to different acts.

Reply Obj. 2: As was said above,¹ there are two kinds of extending toward something arduous: either extending toward a good in order to acquire it, and then, this extending is hope; or toward some arduous evil, in order to repel it, and then this extending is daring. And similarly, there are two kinds of drawing back from something arduous: either it is a good that is given up because of the difficulty, and that is despair; or an evil which is fled because of the difficulty, and that is fear.

Reply Obj. 3: The expectation of patience is the expectation of divine help in danger, while the expectation of forbearance is the expectation of divine help in the endurance of an action tending toward some arduous good to be obtained. Thus, it is clear from what has been said that the expectation of patience and forbearance are participations in the expectation of hope, according as posterior virtues participate in something of prior ones. For example, all moral virtues participate in prudence, and all other virtues participate in a certain part of charity, namely, the desire for the highest good, for the sake of which they work.

Reply Obj. 4: Magnanimity is closer to hope than the other virtues mentioned, because it is also about the extension of desire toward some arduous good to be obtained. And therefore it is involved with the passion of hope and its opposites, so that there are three virtues in the irascible power, corresponding to the three kinds of passions. Magnanimity belongs to the genus of hope and the other passions surrounding it, which have the expected arduous good as their object; while fortitude is about fear and daring; and meekness is about anger. Nevertheless, magnanimity is not the same as the virtue of hope, because it is about the arduous things that exist in human affairs, not the arduous thing that is God. For this reason, it is not a theological virtue, but a moral one, participating in some part of hope.

Reply Obj. 1: The object of all the theological virtues is the same thing according to reality, but it differs according to notion: for, as it is the first truth, it is the object of faith; as it is the greatest good, it is the object of charity; as it is the highest of arduous things, it is the object of hope. And since beatitude names the most arduous thing, as the complete state of all goods combined, as Boethius says,¹ this is why beatitude is especially mentioned in the definition of hope. Now, habits and powers do not differ by their objects according to a real difference in object, but according to the different notions of the object, and these notions formally complete the object itself.

Reply Obj. 2: Those two are not sufficient for someone to begin to act for the end, as was said in the main body of this article.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith means looking forward as the origin of expectation, by showing that what is looked forward to is possible to acquire.

Reply Obj. 4: Tending toward the desirable belongs just as much to the irascible appetite as to the concupiscible appetite, but in different ways. For, tending toward a certain good as it is a good, simply, belongs to the concupiscible power, but tending toward something as arduous and difficult, belongs to the irascible power: and both hope and charity tend toward God in these different ways.

Reply Obj. 1: Hope does not presuppose merit actually, but in reaching its objective. For a person does not hope because of merits as though preexisting merits produced the act of hope, but because by the merits that he displays, he hopes to attain beatitude.

Reply Obj. 2: Formed faith tends toward God out of love; but unformed hope does not tend toward God out of love, but out of desire.

Reply Obj. 3: Love is taken there broadly for imperfect love, which is desire, because it is the first appetitive movement of virtue. But desire is not sufficient to form acts of virtue.

Reply Obj. 1: Certainty exists first and principally in the understanding, but by a likeness and by participation, it exists in all the works of nature and virtue.

Reply Obj. 2: The certainty of understanding is from itself; however, the certainty of nature is in something else that orders it towards its end. Thus, the certainty of understanding never fails, but the certainty of nature does fail—not in itself, but incidentally, since such a defect is not from its own direction to the end, which it has its certainty from, but from something accidental to it. For example, fire has an absolute certainty of heating, and yet it does fail sometimes because of some other impediment. And it is the same way with hope. This is also why the very certainty of nature’s inclination is called hope, as is clear from Romans 4:18: in hope he believed against hope.

Reply Obj. 3: And the same thing should be said to the third objection.

Reply Obj. 4: As long as we are in this life, there can be incidental impediments to hope obtaining its end, although it has a certainty to itself. And for this reason, the fear of separation accompanies hope now; but in the future, when there will be no incidental impediment, there will not be any fear of separation, nor any hope either, for what we were hoping for, we will have then.

Reply Obj. 5: Although I do not know whether I will have charity in the end, nevertheless, I do know that the charity and merits that I aim to have do lead with certainty to eternal life.

Reply Obj. 1: “Hope” there is taken for looking forward to a reward of special distinction,¹ about which there cannot be hope, properly speaking, because hope has God for its object. Therefore it does not follow that Christ had hope, properly speaking.

Reply Obj. 2: And the same thing should be said to the second objection, because the glorified body is not the main thing in beatitude.

Reply Obj. 1–2: And by this the answers the objections are clear.

Reply Obj. 1: The deferral of the ancient patriarchs’ hope did not cause them affliction, because they were not able to feel affliction. Or it could be said that although hope causes affliction by reason of a lack to the one hoping, nevertheless, by reason of its certainty it causes delight. And since the hope that is in them could not fail, the delight that was caused by hope’s certainty absorbed every affliction that could arise from a lack.

Reply Obj. 2: Although they are not in the state of meriting, nevertheless, they merited before, and their hope arises from those merits.

Reply Obj. 1: Hope there is taken improperly for the expectation of the delaying of judgment. This is also why they say to Christ, have you come here to torture us before the time? (Matt 8:29).

Reply Obj. 2: Faith is not so much about those things that pertain to oneself as hope is. For this reason, they can have faith about God and about other things, but not hope about themselves. Or it could be said that unformed faith does not tend toward God at all, as hope does even when unformed in some way, as was said before. And thus it is not the same with faith and hope.

To the fourth it should be said that although someone foreknown for heaven does not have eternal life in the truth of the matter, and thus it is not future for him, it is nevertheless future as to his own estimation, otherwise he would not hope for it. And again, inasmuch as it is in the order of divine munificence and the person’s own possibility either to receive grace or to merit, as something is said to be future when its happening has causes ordained in nature, although it may never happen, according to what the Philosopher says in On Generation and Corruption 2,¹ that “future” means someone who is approaching, not someone who will approach.

Reply Obj. 1: The word “virtue” is not used here to refer to a habit, as in the Ethics 2,¹ but more broadly, for anything that can be the principle of some activity or motion. And since love brings about an inclination to activity, as was said, therefore Dionysius calls love a virtue.

Reply Obj. 2: Love is said to be “of something already had” as that which is formed already has its form. But this formation is preceded by the desire that tends toward being formed, as reason precedes understanding or knowledge, and so [from the vantage of desire] love is said to be of something not had. Whence love is called a unitive power formally, since it is the very union or connection or transformation by which the lover is transformed into the beloved and in a way is turned into him. Or it may be said that the quieting of affection suggested by the word “love” can only exist when two are found to be suited for each other, a fittingness that follows the extent of the participation of the one in that which belongs to the other, and in this way, the lover in a sense has the beloved. Whence the conjunction implied in “to have” is the conjunction of thing to thing, and this is preceded by the union of thing to affection, which is love.

Reply Obj. 3: The root of love, speaking of its essential meaning, is the likeness of the beloved to the lover, since it is owing to such a likeness that the beloved is good and suitable for him. But it happens incidentally that unlikeness can be a cause of love and likeness a cause of hate, and this, in three ways.

Reply Obj. 4: In love there is a union of lover and beloved, but there is also a threefold division. For by the fact that love transforms the lover into the beloved, it makes the lover enter into the interior of the beloved and vice versa, so that nothing of the beloved remains not united to the lover, just as a form reaches to the innermost recesses of that which it informs and vice versa. Thus, the lover in a way penetrates into the beloved, and so love is called “piercing”; for to come into the innermost recesses of a thing by dividing it is characteristic of something piercing. In the same way does the beloved penetrate the lover, reaching to his innermost recesses, and that is why it is said that love “wounds,” and that it “transfixes the innards.” But because nothing can be transformed into another without withdrawing, in a way, from its own form, since of a single thing there is a single form, therefore preceding this division of penetration is another division by which the lover, in tending toward the beloved, is separated from himself. And according to this, love is said to bring about ecstasy and to burn, since that which burns rises beyond itself and vanishes into smoke. Further still, because nothing withdraws from itself unless it is unbound from what was containing it within itself, as a natural thing does not lose its form unless the dispositions retaining this form in the matter are unbound, it is therefore necessary that that boundedness by which the lover was contained within his own bounds be taken away from him. And that is why love is said to “melt the heart,” for a liquid is not contained by its own limits, while the contrary disposition is called “hardness of heart.”

Reply Obj. 5: Union is twofold. For a certain kind of union unifies [only] in a qualified sense, like the union of things brought together by their surfaces touching; and such is not the union of love, since, as was said, the lover is transformed into the inner identity of the beloved. There is another union that unifies simply speaking, like the union of continuous things and of form and matter; and such is the union of love, since love makes the beloved the lover’s form. Thus, in addition to “union” Dionysius adds “concretion,” in order to differentiate it from the first union, since those things are called “thoroughly mingled” which are made to be simply one. Accordingly, another version gives "continuative."¹

Reply Obj. 6: Appetite, as was said, moves while being moved. Thus passion, since it is moved by what is loved, moves in keeping with the demands and needs of what is loved.

Reply Obj. 7: The very inclination of superiors to provide for inferiors, which is in them owing to their proper forms, is called their love, as will be evident below.¹

Reply Obj. 8: Among things which are equal simply speaking, it is not unfitting that one be greater than another, in precisely that respect in which one is needed by the other.

Reply Obj. 9: The being-turned by which inferiors are turned toward superiors is their being-ordered to an end intended by the superiors. And although the principle of this kind of being ordered is from without insofar as the inferiors are ordered by those superiors to the ends of the superiors, nevertheless it is from an intrinsic principle insofar as there is a certain inclination to this in the inferiors themselves, whether from nature, as in natural love, or from the will, as in animal love. And it is on account of this that God is said to “dispose all things sweetly,” insofar as singular things of themselves do that to which they are ordered.

Reply Obj. 1: Dionysius takes “love” as a common term, applicable to natural love, sensitive love, which he calls “animal,” and intellective love, which he calls “intellectual” as far as men are concerned, “angelic and divine” as far as separate substances are concerned. And he sets down these five, because there cannot be more levels of appetite: in God there is voluntary appetite only, for he determines all things and is not determined by anything; in angels, there is the voluntary with the natural, inasmuch as they are determined by God to the willing of something by nature; in man, the voluntary with the sensitive and the natural; in animals, the sensitive with the natural; and in other things, the natural only.

Reply Obj. 2: The Commentator, in the passage cited, defines love insofar as it may be applied to all things in common.

Reply Obj. 3: Delight is caused by the conjunction of a suitable [good], for a suitable good, when it comes, perfects the one to which it comes, and gives rest to that one’s inclination; and this being-at-rest, insofar as it is perceived, is delight.¹ For this reason Plato said² that delight is a sensible generation into one’s nature, that is, a perceived emergence into what is connatural. Whence delight in no way exists in things that do not have knowledge. For beings with knowledge, however, there are two inclinations to whatever is fitting: natural appetite and animal appetite. Each of these inclinations is given rest when its object is present, and in each case the being-at-rest is perceived, too, so that delight is caused on both accounts. The delight, or pleasure, that is the being-at-rest of natural appetite is therefore found [to occur] in every power when its appropriate object is joined with it, whereas the delight that is the being-at-rest of animal appetite only arises in the concupiscible power or in the will. If one is speaking with precision, the former delight is only called “delight”³ and the opposite passion, “pain.” But the latter delight has in addition the name “joy,” and the opposite passion is called “sadness.” Whence, while pleasure and pain are in some way in all powers of the soul, joy and sadness are only in the concupiscible power or in the will.

Reply Obj. 4: One should reply to this as to the first, since the argument is based on natural appetite.

Reply Obj. 5: Animal love does not pertain to the irascible power, since the object of love is a good, as such—not a good under the aspect of being, in addition, arduous or difficult, which sort of good is the proper object of the irascible power.

Reply Obj. 1: As in the operation of intellect a sort of circle is brought to completion, so also in the operation of affection. Starting from the certitude of the principles to which it immovably assents, intellect proceeds, by reasoning, to conclusions, in the knowledge of which it rests with greater certitude to the extent that those conclusions are resolved back into the first principles whose power is manifested in them.

Reply Obj. 2: Love naturally precedes delight, for delight comes about from a thing’s being joined to something really suited for it, whereas love makes what is loved to be suitable and as if connatural to the lover, insofar as it unites the lover’s affection to the loved, as was said. And so, delight arises from the real presence of the loved. But since the delightful, too, can be loved as a certain good, it thus happens per accidens that a love may be caused by delight, as an act may be caused by an object or an end; for the one who loves something for the sake of the delight chiefly loves delight itself.

Reply Obj. 3: What is good is more vehement in acting than what is evil, since good does not necessarily have evil mixed up with it, whereas evil necessarily has good mixed up with it. Again, what is good acts by its own power, but what is evil acts by the power of the good [mixed up with it], as Dionysius says in On the Divine Names.¹ Hence, what is good is more loved than the evil opposed to it is hated.

Reply Obj. 4: Love is prior to anger and more vehement, for anger is caused by sadness, as was said earlier,¹ even as all the irascible passions are caused by concupiscible passions. And since love is prior to and more vehement than the other concupiscible passions, it will be prior to and more vehement than the irascible passions. Yet even though anger gives birth to hatred, still it does not destroy love; rather, anger comes after the destruction of love, since appetite cannot be moved to the point of harming something unless beforehand one’s feelings toward the object had been distanced from love.

Reply Obj. 5: Peace is not distinct from love, but is something of love, for it bespeaks the resting, as it were, of the appetite [in what is loved]. Love, in addition to this, bespeaks the lover’s transformation into, and his turning toward, the one loved. Thus peace is a mean between desire and love.

Reply Obj. 1: The Philosopher speaks there of powers insofar as they are properties of that in which they are. An alternative explanation would be that for the Philosopher the term “intellect” embraces both the intellect and the will corresponding to it, as also the term “reason” at times embraces both reason and will. Therefore, one should not see in this passage a comparison of intellect to will, but rather of intellectual powers to inferior powers.

Reply Obj. 2: While the first principle in any genus is most perfect, still it need not be the case that everything which is prior be more perfect, given that something can be prior in the way of generation which is less perfect than what will result in time, as a boy is less perfect than a man, and the one learning a science than the one who knows it. And thus, too, does knowledge take precedence, in a way, over love.

Reply Obj. 3: That argument holds concerning intellect and will only with respect to the being in which they exist. An alternative explanation would be that the other animals participate in intellect in some way, through a kind of obscure resonance, inasmuch as they have powers of sensing, just as they participate in will inasmuch as they have sensual appetite—for which reason the “voluntary” is found in brute animals, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 3,¹ though they do not have will properly speaking.

Reply Obj. 4: Will and love are not excluded from the contemplative life, as neither is intellect from the active life; and therefore the ranking cannot be established according to the ranking of the two lives.

Reply Obj. 5: A particular only has the notion and nature of the universal [under which it is belongs] to the extent that the universal nature is found in it. Hence, it is impossible that a universal notion be more present in a particular than in the universal itself, although the notion of something else might be found more in a particular than in the universal. For example, a human cannot be more of an animal than animal in common, but he can be more good, or something of this sort. And so, neither the true nor any good, taken as a particular, can be said to be more eminent than the good itself.

Reply Obj. 6: That argument holds concerning things below the soul, and therefore less spiritual than it.

Reply Obj. 7: Although the beatific vision will not be lacking love in the content of the reward, as neither in the gaining of merit was the wayfarer’s love altogether lacking in knowledge of God, nevertheless, the reward is assigned more to knowledge and the meriting more to love, because reward has to do with a receiving by which someone is perfected in himself, while merit has to do with the activity by which someone stretches out toward the one who will reward him, and joins himself to him.

Reply Sed Contra 13: Love, properly speaking, only exists in things that are knowers ; but the term “love” is carried over to things to which the term “knowledge” cannot be extended. The reason for this is that love is spoken of whenever the one loving is ordered to another thing. Now, one thing can be ordered to another even when the ordering comes from an outside mover. Accordingly, the terms “love” and “appetite” can be given to things lacking knowledge, when they are ordered to something else by genuine knowers—and it is of these latter that love is properly said, insofar as they are ordered, in and of themselves, to what is loved. “Knowledge,” on the other hand, is spoken of whenever a thing known comes to be in the knower according to the knower’s mode—namely, according to spiritual and immaterial being. Yet such a disposition can only exist in anything owing to a property of its own nature. Hence, the term “knowledge” cannot be extended to things that do not have such a nature, as if one were to say that non-sensing things naturally “know,” as they naturally “love” or “desire.”

Reply Obj. 1: Any friendship includes concupiscence or desire, and adds something beyond it, as was said.

Reply Obj. 2: Charity adds something beyond rational love and love.

Reply Obj. 3: And a similar response should be made to the third, about benevolence, to the fourth, about concord, and to the fifth, about beneficence.

Reply Obj. 6: Peace may be traced back to concord—except that, to be precise, peace is spoken of more in regard to removal of disagreement between parties, while concord is spoken of more in regard to the union itself between them.

Reply Obj. 7: Charity is a friendship, but adds something beyond friendship commonly so-called, namely, a specification of who the friend is, since it is friendship toward God, who is more precious and dearer than all things.

Reply Obj. 1: The kind of friendship discussed by the Philosopher is caused either by an inclination of nature, as in friendships based on pleasure or utility, or by the inclination of a virtuous habit, with that natural inclination presupposed, as in friendship based on what is noble, insofar as everything that makes people alike tends to cause love between them. And so, friendship is not set down as a virtue of theirs, but rather as something following upon the virtues. Yet the friendship we have with God cannot have any such foundation, since it exceeds the boundaries of nature. We must therefore be lifted up to this friendship by a special gift; and this gift we call a virtue.

Reply Obj. 2: Charity is not said to be the end of the commandments as if it were the ultimate end of the virtues, but rather as being that by which all the other virtues are given their proper ordering to the ultimate end. And in the passage cited, the Apostle excludes from charity three things repugnant to true friendship: first, insincerity, as found in those who simulate friendship, when they are not really friends, which he excludes by saying sincere faith, taking faith here to mean fidelity; second, an evil foundation, as found in people who come together to share a certain sin and become friends on that account, which he excludes by saying a good conscience; third, an ulterior motive, as found when someone loves a friend for the sake of lucre, which he excludes by saying a pure heart.

Reply Obj. 3: Since virtues are praiseworthy, they must have a point of origin within us. By contrast, pleasure,¹ since it comes from being joined with something fitting, is spoken of as a certain reception, and so as a passion, which originates from an agent. For this reason, pleasure belongs rather to the aspect of reward. But love signifies the stretching out of the appetite into the thing loved and implies this activity. Accordingly, charity is set down as a virtue, but enjoyment, which pleasure implies, is set down as a dowry.

Reply Obj. 4: Charity, as is evident from what was said before, includes friendship, love, and desire. But a natural desire can only be for a thing that is capable of being possessed naturally; hence a natural desire for the highest good is in us by nature—in the sense that, and so far as, this highest good can be participated in by us through its natural effects. Similarly, love is caused by likeness; hence the highest good is naturally loved above all things, insofar as we have a likeness to him through natural goods. But since nature cannot arrive at the highest good’s activities, which are his very life and happiness—cannot arrive, that is, at the vision of the divine essence—for the same reason, it does not attain the intimacy with him of a friendship that makes friends live together and share in the same works. And so there is a need for charity, by which we would have friendship with God, to be added above [what is possible to nature]—both that we might love him as he is in himself, having been made like unto him through sharing in spiritual gifts, and that we might desire him as sharable by his friends in the state of glory.

Reply Obj. 5: Desire does not suffice; there must also be a sharing of life, as was said.¹

Reply Obj. 6: The difficulty found in works of virtue is not always a difficulty of labor or of something saddening; rather, the matters handled by a virtue are correctly said to involve difficulty to the degree that the right handling of them is on a level beyond the powers of those who lack that virtue.

Reply Obj. 1: “The part of the soul that is rational by essence” does not mean reason alone, but also includes the appetite annexed to reason, namely, the will. Hence the Philosopher says in On the Soul 3¹ that “the will is in reason.” And so, charity is neither a moral virtue, since it is not about the passions belonging to the sensitive appetite, which is rational by participation, nor an intellectual virtue, ,for it is not with respect to powers of apprehension that it exists in the part rational by essence, but it is a theological virtue.

Reply Obj. 2: Mortal sin is not always said to be “in the reason” as in a subject, since at times it has for its subject the irascible power, at times the conscupiscible; but mortal sin is always “in the reason” as in the power directing the act of sin, and “in the will” or free will as in the power commanding and eliciting the act of sin. In this way, charity, too, has reason—or rather, understanding—as director of its acts.

Reply Obj. 3: Prudence is chief among moral virtues insofar as it directs all of them, and on this account it pertains to reason; whereas charity is chief by way of commanding various acts and conjoining the lover to an end and forming the appetite, all of which pertains to the will.

Reply Obj. 4: Charity’s subject, properly speaking, is neither sensitive appetite nor free will but simply the will, which, although related in a certain way to all human acts as their cause, nevertheless does not stand in the same relation toward all. For certain acts it elicits of itself, inasmuch as it is a specific power—for example, the very act of willing—while other acts it commands, inasmuch as it is universal mover of the soul’s powers. Accordingly, virtues that bring to perfection acts merely commanded by the will do not have the will itself for their subject, but instead, whatever specific powers elicit those acts, whereas the virtues that bring to perfection acts that the will elicits do have the will for their subject; and so, the same account cannot be given for all of them. To love, however, is an act elicited by the will, for it implies a resting of the will and a certain transformation into the thing loved. Thus, charity, which brings this act to perfection, has the will for its subject.

Reply Obj. 5: As was said above,¹ virtues are necessary for us in order that the soul’s natural powers should be determined to good. Thus, for matters in regard to which natural powers are, of their nature, determined to good, virtues are not required. Now the will has for its object the good, which is the end. Hence, as far as its own nature is concerned, the will is naturally determined to good—the good proportionate to human nature. And for this reason the philosophers posited no virtue in the will with respect to the ultimate end. Nevertheless, some acquired virtue must be posited in the will insofar as the will is concerned with things that lead to the end—the virtue, namely, of justice, as will be explained below,² which has to do with goods that come into the use of daily life. Even so, justice is counted among moral virtues, since, although the will according to its essence is in the part of the soul that is rational by essence, nevertheless owing to a likeness between its act and theirs it is grouped together with the irascible and concupiscible powers, which are called rational by participation. Moreover, the will itself in some way participates in reason, insofar as it is directed by reason in the latter’s function of apprehending goods. According to the doctrine of the faith, however, an ultimate end is given that exceeds natural inclination. It is therefore necessary, according to theologians, to posit some virtue in the will, for the purpose of lifting it up to this end; and this we call charity.

Reply Obj. 1: The neighbor is not the chief object of charity itself, as was said.

Reply Obj. 2: Theological virtues direct one also as regards things that lead to the end—not, indeed, according to the proper notions of the things that lead to the end, but according to the nature of the end. For even as faith causes one to believe certain things about creatures on account of the first truth from which one receives faith, so, in like manner, does charity cause one to love men insofar as they are capable of participating in the divine goodness, which is the ultimate end.

Reply Obj. 3: A material diversity of objects suffices for numerical diversity of acts, but only a diversity of formal objects brings about diversity of species among acts. Now, a formal diversity of object derives from that notion of the object to which either a habit or a power chiefly refers. Accordingly, while loving God and loving neighbor are indeed diverse acts, they still pertain to the same habit, just as seeing white and seeing black, or seeing something close at hand and seeing something far away, are numerically different acts of sight taking place in different ways, yet pertain to one seeing power. And thus, too, diverse commandments are given about acts of charity, according to the diverse measures they have.

Reply Obj. 1: Just as in the realm of sciences perfection is imparted to all the other sciences by a single special science distinct from them, namely, first philosophy, insofar as its object is common in reality to the objects of all the other sciences, so, too, is it in the realm of virtues: that which pertains to a single virtue can be placed in the common definition of virtue, as is evident with prudence, which perfects the notion of virtue in all the moral virtues. And so, right reason, which pertains to prudence, is placed in the definition of virtue as such, as is evident from the Ethics 2: virtue is a choice-productive habit consisting in a mean determined by reason, as a wise man would determine it;¹ nor from this should it be concluded that prudence is not a special virtue, but rather, that it is a general rule of all virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: Acts of other virtues are not attributed to charity as though it elicits them itself, but rather because it commands them. It does, however, have a special act to elicit, namely loving God.

Reply Obj. 3: Charity’s object is not any good whatsoever, but the divine good; and this good also, although it is in some way present in all goods, nevertheless has a special notion, as was said.

Reply Obj. 4: The commandment pertaining to charity does not embrace all the other commandments as though it were a sort of universal in comparison to those things, but instead in the manner of a sort of leading-back of the others to it, since all commandments are ordered to that one, just as the acts of all the other virtues are ordered to the act of charity, insofar as it commands them all. Hence, from this fact is established, not that charity is a general virtue, but that it is a general mover of all the virtues.

Reply Obj. 1: Charity is the exemplar form of the virtues. But there are two kinds of exemplar form. One is the original in imitation of which something is made; and for this [sort of imitation to occur], nothing other than a mere likeness is required, as we say that real things in the world are exemplar forms of paintings. Another kind of exemplar form is that according to the likeness of which something is made and through participation in which it has being, as the divine goodness is the exemplar form of every goodness, and the divine wisdom, of every wisdom; and such an exemplar form need not be of one and the same species with the effects caused by it, since participants do not always participate [in the perfections of their cause] in the mode of that cause in which they participate. And this is the way in which prudence is the form of the other moral virtues, for, by impressing upon lower powers a sort of seal of prudence, it gives to the habits found in them the notion of virtue. And something similar holds for charity with respect to all the other virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: Lower powers are not perfected by the perfection of virtue except by participating in the perfection of higher-ranking ones. Now, since higher-ranking things are formal with respect to lower-ranking things, as being more perfect, what is participated in from the higher-ranking is formal in the lower-ranking. Hence, for the perfection of virtue in any power is required [a participation in] as many forms as are higher-ranking with respect to that power. For example, reason is higher-ranking than the concupiscible appetite, as placing order in it; and so, prudence, which is reason’s perfection, is the form of temperance, which is a virtue in the concupiscible appetite. Similarly, the will is higher-ranking than reason, insofar as reason’s act is viewed as a voluntary and meritorious act; and so, charity is the form of prudence and temperance alike. Similarly, the soul’s essence is superior to the will, insofar as the will and all the other powers of the soul flow from the soul’s essence; and so, grace, which is the perfection of the soul’s essence, establishing it in spiritual being, is the form of charity, prudence, and temperance alike. Nor would charity be a virtue if it were without grace, as neither would prudence be a virtue if it were without charity, nor temperance, without charity and prudence—as long as we are speaking of infused virtues ordered to gaining merit.

Reply Obj. 3: Reason imposes a manner of acting on all the powers under its governance, and the will, likewise, on all the powers lower than it. But the philosophers did not maintain that virtue was given form by anything other than prudence because neither in the will, so far as it pertains to the ultimate end, nor in the soul’s essence, did they posit any perfection added over and above that of human nature. Nevertheless, the natural perfection in which all the virtues participate remains.

Reply Obj. 4: Exemplar form comes together with agent and end in something numerically one, as is evident with God, but intrinsic form does not.

Reply Obj. 5: Lower things participate in the perfections of higher things after the former’s own manner; and so, the participants’ participations are determined for them by their own capacity and nature. Accordingly, any virtue in a lower power has a certain form by which it is constituted a virtue owing to its participation in a higher power’s perfection, while it has the form by which it is this virtue from the nature of the particular power in which it exists, through that power’s determination to its proper object. And any virtue places into its own act this form and manner of acting as well as the form or manner it has from the higher power, as, for example, [infused] temperance places into its act a manner of acting proper to temperance, as well as that which it has from prudence, from charity, and from grace.

Reply Obj. 1: To faith is specifically opposed not every sin, but rather, every infidelity; and so, just as the habit of faith is entirely taken away when a man errs about one article of faith, as was said above, so the habit of charity is entirely taken away when any sin opposed to charity is committed. Hence, nothing ever remains unformed in charity, whereas this can happen in the other virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: A man does not know whether or not the rational love he is aware of having is specifically the rational love that is charity. Hence, just as a man does not know whether or not he has grace, so he does not know whether or not he has charity.

Reply Obj. 3: Fear does not require a sharing of divine life, as does the love of charity. And therefore love and fear are not similar in this respect.

Reply Obj. 1: Intellect is quicker to this extent, that it precedes affection [by giving it its object]; but in the act of loving, affection reaches more into a thing’s innermost being, as was said above.

Reply Obj. 2: Love must be of that which is somehow known and seen, but not necessarily of that which is known and seen directly. Hence that which is known in another can yet be loved directly.

Reply Obj. 3: A good is more lovable to the extent that it is more fully known—especially that good which is the end, and in which is found nothing offensive to affection. And therefore since God is more fully known in heaven than now, so he will be more fully loved. But that difference on the part of knowledge will be due to something proper to knowledge, namely, to know something per se, not in and through another; and accordingly there will not be the same ratio of knowledge [in heaven as in the wayfaring state]. There will be a difference in affection, however, not in regard to what pertains to it through itself, but rather due to the difference in knowledge. So, the nature of this love will remain the same, but the love will differ in its intensity, as the greater from the lesser.

Reply Obj. 4: The fact that love tends from visible to invisible things does not derive from something on its part, but rather from something on the part of knowledge, namely the kind of knowledge preceding it. Hence in each authority adduced mention was made of knowledge.

Reply Obj. 5: Neither the nature of the soul’s powers, nor that which follows upon them according to their nature, is taken away through sin.

Reply Obj. 1–3: And from this repsonse, the solution to all the objections is clear.

Reply Obj. 1: Since the love by which we love God is finite, it has [as a matter of fact] a certain mode to which it attains [at any given moment]; but it does not have a mode according to which it stops or ought to stop, as have the other virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: As was said above,¹ that through knowledge things are in a certain way drawn into the one knowing; and therefore things pertaining to knowledge are measured by the knower’s own capacity, although the truth of the knowledge is measured by the thing itself. But through love the lover is drawn toward the very one loved, and therefore love is to be measured by the very thing loved rather than by the one loving.

Reply Obj. 3: No matter how much God is loved, the act will not be immoderate, since it does not exceed the proportion [befitting] to its object.

Reply Obj. 4: When it is stated that “charity has no measure,” we should understand the statement in regard to the act charity elicits, not in regard to the acts it commands, since those acts ought to receive modes in accordance with the various natures of their proper objects, concerning which those acts are done.

Reply Obj. 1: What the law commands to be done can be fulfilled and is fulfilled by all in the state of salvation.

Reply Obj. 2: The acts of the other virtues are not the end of the commandment, as is the act of charity. The act of charity therefore has a mode which belongs in one way to the end and, in a different way, to the wayfaring state. It is not the same, however, with other virtues.

Reply Obj. 3: Insofar as charity is laid down as a commandment of the law, it binds us to whatever is to be fulfilled in the wayfaring state; whereas in regard to that which will be fulfilled of charity in heaven, it is laid down rather as an article of faith than a commandment of the law.

Reply Obj. 1: Augustine is speaking there of the love which is God, and by this love the neighbor is loved effectively and exemplarily.

Reply Obj. 2: Virtue or what is noble is not the final cause on account of which a friend is loved; rather it is that which makes him lovable formally. Hence it does not follow that virtue is more lovable than a friend is, or lovable for the same reason a friend is, even as it does not follow that whiteness is more white than a white body.

Reply Obj. 3: It does pertain to charity to love love, but not as if it were that in which charity has its term.

Reply Obj. 4: Charity has its term in things that are referred to beatitude, precisely as things capable of participating in beatitude. In this way, virtue is not referred to beatitude, since virtue itself cannot become blessed.

Reply Obj. 5: The end in which charity chiefly has its term is uncreated beatitude itself. But as for created beatitude, the same reasoning applies as was given above of the virtues.

Reply Obj. 1: A love for inanimate things does pertain to charity [in the manner explained], yet such things are not charity’s object.

Reply Obj. 2: While God loves all creatures from charity, nevertheless he has charity only for rational creatures that he created for the sake of beatitude, through which they are made sharers of his own life.

Reply Obj. 3: The likeness of image that is found in rational creatures makes them capable of sharing one and the same life with God and with each other, namely, the life of glory. The likeness of trace that is found in other creatures does not suffice for this. Whence there is no parallel.

Reply Obj. 4: Faith does not imply some association between the believer and the one believed in, as charity implies between the lover and the beloved. Hence the same reasoning does not apply to both.

Reply Obj. 1: “Human life” may be spoken of in two ways: either that kind of life which accords with [mere] human nature, and if spoken of in this way, angels do not share in human life; or that kind of life which belongs to man by his participation in the divine life, and if spoken of in this way, the angels do share in human life.

Reply Obj. 2: Men and angels are naturally suited to converse with each other in heaven, where we shall be equal to the angels, as is said in Matthew 22:30. And we converse in some way with the angels even in this life, insofar as we lead an angelic life on earth.

Reply Obj. 3: Friendship requires not a strict equality but a proportionate equality—in other words, that one friend behaves toward the other in keeping with his own proportion, as is said in the Ethics 8.¹ Nevertheless, a great inequality dissolves friendship, namely, when they do not share the same life.

Reply Obj. 4: When it comes to our souls, we share more in common with angels than with brute animals, but when it comes to our bodies and bodily powers, we share more in common with brute animals than with angels. But, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 9,¹ man is more that which falls on the side of the soul than that which falls on the side of the body, because each thing is [in a way] that which is most powerful in it. Simply speaking, therefore, we stand further from brute animals than we do from angels.

Reply Obj. 1: Charity does not require actual communication in divine life; it is enough that the communication exist in potency, since what is in potency already in a certain way is.

Reply Obj. 2: We ought to hate in evil people that according to which they are unlike us and ought to do all in our power to destroy it. And to do this is precisely to love their nature, because their malice is repugnant to the good of nature.

Reply Obj. 3: While evil people do not rejoice in the same things right now, still it is possible that they may come to rejoice in the same things the good rejoice in. For this reason, the Philosopher says in the Ethics 9¹ that friendship should not be immediately broken off with one who, having been good, becomes evil, but on the contrary we should help such ones recover the good of virtue even more than we would help them recover lost temporal goods.

Reply Obj. 4: While evil people do not actually return love right now, nevertheless they are naturally capable of returning love, especially in the future life; and it is the sharing of that life that charity especially takes into consideration. Hence returning love for love can certainly take place, even among those who were never acquainted with each other in this life.

Reply Obj. 5: An evil person is divided in himself, because owing to his affection for malice he fights against the goodness of his nature; and it is in view of this inner strife that he is said to “hate himself.” We, however, ought to love evil people with respect to the nature they have, not with respect to their malice.

Reply Obj. 1: This gloss should be understood in regard to that fellowship of reason in which an order to the life of grace remains, since charity requires sharing of this kind.

Reply Obj. 2: As long as they are in this life, a potential for grace remains in sinners, at least by reason of their nature; but no such potential remains in the damned and in the demons. Hence the same argument does not apply.

Reply Obj. 3: God loves the nature of the demons, not as though he has charity for it, but insofar as it is his effect. And this is the way we, too, ought to love it.

Reply Obj. 4: The fact that demons are useful to us in our meriting and that their acts and life redound to the glory of God is incidental and beyond their intention; and no judgment about anything should be based on what is incidental.