ARTICLE VI

In the Sixth Article We Ask: Do WE MERIT BY OUR PASSIONS?

Difficulties:

It seems that we do, for

1. We merit by fulfilling commands. But by divine commandments we are induced to rejoice, to fear, to grieve, and to have other such passions, as Augustine says. We therefore merit by our passions.

2. According to Augustine such passions of the soul are not had without the will. In fact they are nothing but acts of will. But by our acts of will we can merit not only materially but also formally. Then so can we by such passions.

3. Psychical passions come closer to being voluntary than do bodily passions, because the psychical passions are to some extent within our power in so far as the concupiscible and the irascible powers obey reason, whereas bodily passions are not. But bodily passions or sufferings are meritorious, as is evident in the case of martyrs, who merit the aureola of martyrs by their bodily passions. With all the more reason, then, are psychical passions meritorious.

4. The answer was given that bodily passions or sufferings are meritorious in so far as they are willed.--On the contrary, the will to suffer for Christ can also be in one who will never suffer, and yet he will not get the aureola. A bodily passion therefore merits the aureola not only by reason of being willed but by being actually undergone.

5. If from the intensification of a given thing there follows the intensification of reward, that thing is essentially and not just materially meritorious. But from the intensification of bodily passion or suffering there follows the intensification of reward, because the more a person suffers, the more gloriously he will be crowned, as is said. We consequently merit by our passions or sufferings essentially and not just materially.

6. Hugh of St. Victor says: "After the act of will there follows the deed, so that the will is increased in its own work." Thus the external deed contributes something to merit. But the will can similarly be increased in passion. Passion therefore contributes something to merit; and so the conclusion is the same as before.

7. Since merit is situated in the will, that in which the will terminates as formally completing it must pertain to merit as formally completing it. But in so far as a passion is willed, it is the object of the will; and so it determines the will more or less formally. The passion itself therefore pertains formally to merit.

8. Some of the confessors endured more grievous trials than some of the martyrs. It is accordingly said of them that they underwent a protracted martyrdom, though the passion of certain martyrs was finished in a short space of time. Yet the aureola is not due to the confessors. It accordingly seems that the bodily passion of the martyrs in itself directly merits the aureola.

9. Commenting on the words of the Epistle of St. James (1:2): "My brethren, count it all joy . . . ," the Gloss says: "Tribulation increases justice in the present life and the crown in the future." But it increases these only by meriting. Since tribulation is suffering or passion, passion is meritorious.

10. The same appears from what is said in the Psalm (115:15): "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." But precious means worthy of a price. Now the price of our labors is the reward which we merit by our labors. We can therefore merit by our passions.

11. It was said in answer that we merit by our passions or sufferings in so far as they are willed.--On the contrary, there is the truth which St. Lucy expressed: "If you cause me to be violated against my will, my chastity will be doubled in value for my crown." Even the undergoing of rape, then, which she would have suffered in this life, would have been meritorious for a crown. Thus passion or suffering does not merit merely because it is voluntary.

12. Difficulty is a necessary condition for merit. This is clear from what the Master says: in the state of innocence man did not merit, because nothing urged him to evil or drew him away from good. Now since passions or sufferings occasion difficulty, they therefore seem to have a direct influence upon merit.

13. Fear is a type of passion. Now we can merit by it even formally, since it is in the intellective part, as is clear when we fear things that we know only by the intellect, as eternal punishment. We can therefore merit by our passions.

14. Reward corresponds to merit. But the reward of glory will be not only in the soul but also in the body. Then merit too consists not only in the action of the soul but also in the passion of the body.

15. Where there is greater difficulty there is a greater score of merit. But there is greater difficulty regarding sufferings and passions than regarding the operations of the will. Sufferings and passions are therefore more meritorious than the acts of the will, which are, however, formally meritorious.

16. We formally merit by virtues. But certain passions are listed by the saints as virtues--pity and repentance, for example. And certain ones are set down by the philosophers as laudable and the mean between extreme vices, as shame and indignation are instanced by the Philosopher. But all this refers to virtue. We therefore merit formally by passions.

17. Merit and demerit, being contraries, are in the same genus. But demerit is found in the genus of passions; for the first movements, which are sins, are passions. Anger and sloth also are passions, and yet they are listed as capital sins. The Apostle (Romans 1:26) calls sins against nature "shameful passions." Then we also merit by passions.

To the Contrary:

1'. Nothing can be meritorious unless it is within our power, because according to Augustine "it is by the will that one sins or lives rightly." But passions are not in our power, because, as Augustine says, "we yield to passions unwillingly." We therefore do not merit by passions.

2'. Whatever is a preamble to willing cannot be meritorious, since merit depends upon the will. But the passions of the soul precede the act of the will, since they are in the sensitive part, whereas the act of the will is in the intellective part; but the intellective part receives its object from the sensitive. The passions of the soul therefore cannot be meritorious.

3'. Every meritorious deed is praiseworthy. But according to the Philosopher "we are neither praised nor blamed for passions." We therefore do not merit by our passions.

4'. The ability to merit was greater in Christ than it is in us. But Christ did not merit by His passion. Then neither do we merit by our passions.--Proof of the minor: To merit is to make one's own something which is not one's own or at least to make more one's own what is less one's own. But Christ was not able to make His own what was not His own or to make more His own what was less so, because from the first instant of His conception everything that comes under the heading of merit was most completely due to Him. Christ therefore merited nothing by His passion.

5'. It was answered that He merited by making what was His in one way His in more ways.--On the contrary, a double bond makes the obligation greater. In like fashion a double reason for indebtedness makes a greater debt. Therefore, if Christ was not able to cause something to be more due to Him, neither was He able to make something due to Him in more ways.

6'. Difficulty diminishes voluntariness. Since merit must be voluntary, difficulty therefore seems to diminish merit. But passions cause difficulty. They therefore diminish merit rather than contribute to it.

REPLY:

If meriting is taken in the strict sense, we do not merit by our passions directly but, so to speak, indirectly. Since we speak of meriting in connection with recompense, to merit in the proper sense is to acquire something for oneself as a recompense. Now this is not done unless we give something that is equal in value to that which we are said to merit. We cannot give anything, however, unless it is ours and we have dominion over it. But we have dominion over our acts through our will--not only over those which are immediately elicited by the will, such as loving or willing, but also over those which are elicited by other powers at the command of the will, such as walking, speaking, and the like. These actions, however, are not equal to eternal life in value as if they were a price paid for it, except in so far as they are informed by grace and charity. Consequently, in order that an act may be directly meritorious, it must be an act either commanded or elicited by the will, and must moreover be informed by charity.

Because the principle of an act consists in the habit and the power and even the object, we are on this account said to merit secondarily, as it were, by our habits and powers and objects. But what is primarily and directly meritorious is a voluntary act informed by grace. Passions, however, do not belong to the will either as commanding or as eliciting them; for the principle of passions as such is not in our power, whereas things are said to be voluntary from the fact that they are in our power. Passions accordingly sometimes even anticipate the act of the will. Directly, then, we do not merit by passions. Yet, in so far as they in some way accompany the will, they somehow have a bearing upon merit so that they can be called meritorious indirectly.

Now a passion has a bearing upon the will in three ways: (1) As the object of the will. In this sense passions are said to be meritorious inasmuch as they are willed or loved. That by which we essentially merit in this case will not be the passion itself but the willing of the passion. (2) As arousing or intensifying the act of the will. This can come about in two ways, either directly or indirectly--directly when the passion arouses the will to something like itself, as when the will is inclined by concupiscence to consent to the thing coveted or by anger to will revenge; or indirectly when by furnishing the occasion a passion arouses the will to its contrary, as in the case of a chaste person, when the passion of concupiscence wells up, the will resists with a greater effort; for we try harder in regard to difficult things. Thus passions are said to be meritorious inasmuch as the act of the will aroused by the passion is meritorious. (3) Conversely, when a passion is aroused by the will because the movement of the higher appetite overflows into the lower. For example, when by his will a person detests the filth of sin, the lower appetite is by that very fact moved to shame. In this sense shame is said to be either praiseworthy or meritorious by reason of the act of will which caused it.

In the first way, then, passion has a bearing upon the will as its object, in the second as its principle, and in the third as its effect. Thus the first way is more remote from meritoriousness; for with equal reason gold or silver could be called meritorious or demeritorious on the grounds that by willing these we merit or incur demerit. The last way is closer to merit, since the effect receives something from the cause and not the other way about. Thus if merit is taken in its strict sense, we do not merit by our passions except indirectly.

Merit, however, can be taken broadly in the sense in which any disposition that confers a fitness to receive something is said to merit it; for example, if we should say that by reason of her beauty a woman merits marriage to a king. In this sense even bodily passions are said to merit inasmuch as those passions make us in some sense fit to receive some glory.

Answers must therefore be given to each set of difficulties.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. By God's commandments we are admonished to rejoice or to fear in so far as joy and fear and the like consist in acts of the will and are not passions, as is clear from what was said previously, or also in so far as such passions follow from the will.

2. Augustine says that these passions are acts of will because they come about in us from our will. Thus he adds: "In general depending upon the various things sought or shunned, not only is a man's will attracted or repelled, but it is also changed and turned into these different affections." Or else he is speaking of these passions in the sense in which the terms designate acts of the will, as has been said.

3. The bodily passion of a martyr has nothing to do with the meriting of the essential reward except in so far as it is willed, but it has bearing upon an accidental reward, the aureola of martyrs, through the kind of merit which confers a certain fitness for the aureola; for it is fitting that one who is conformed to Christ in His passion should be conformed to Him in His glory, as we gather from the Epistle to the Romans (8:17): "Yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him." We should bear in mind, however, that the will cannot have the same attitude toward bodily sufferings when a man is not suffering them as it has because of their keenness while he is actually suffering them. In such matters, then, according to the Philosopher it suffices for a brave man not to be saddened. Consequently the bodily passion actually being experienced is both the sign of a firm and constant will and also that which evokes it, because a man makes an effort regarding difficult things. And so the aureola is not due to the confessor, though it is due to the martyr.

4. The answer is clear from what has just been said.

5. An increase in the rewards follows from an intensification of the suffering either because of a certain fittingness or because of the intensity of the will.

6. Even though the will is increased in both a passion and an external act, the case is not the same for both; for the act is commanded by the will, but the passion is not. They therefore do not have the same bearing upon merit.

7. The object determines the will as to the species of the act. Strictly speaking, however, merit consists in the act, not from the viewpoint of the species of the act, but from that of its root, which is charity. Thus it is not necessary that we formally merit by a passion even though it does stand as the object.

8. All the toil which a confessor endures over a long period of time cannot, under the aspect of the genus of the deed, equal the death which a martyr undergoes even in a moment. For by death one is deprived of what is most valued, life and being; and for this reason it is the ultimate among things that strike terror, according to the Philosopher, and in its regard the virtue of bravery is exercised most of all. This appears very clearly from the fact that men worn out with long-continued afflictions shrink away from death, choosing in effect to undergo further afflictions rather than death. The Philosopher accordingly says that a man of virtue exposes himself to death, choosing rather "one good and great deed than many small ones," as if that act of bravery in facing death outweighed many other virtuous deeds.

Consequently, from the standpoint of the genus of his deed, the least martyr merits more than any confessor whatever. From that of the root of his deed, however, the confessor can merit more to the extent that he acts from greater charity, because the essential reward corresponds to the root, charity, whereas the accidental reward corresponds to the genus of the act. Hence it is that a confessor can surpass a martyr in the essential reward, but the martyr surpasses him in the accidental reward.

9. That comment in the Gloss is speaking of tribulation in so far as it is willed or excites the will.

10. The same is to be said of this difficulty.

11. For a virgin who would be violated for the sake of Christ, that very violation would be meritorious, just like the other sufferings of the martyrs, not because the violation itself would be voluntary, but because its antecedents, her remaining constant in the confession of Christ, from which the violation followed as a consequence, would be voluntary. Thus that violation would be voluntary, not with an absolute will but with a will in some sense conditioned, seeing that the virgin chooses to suffer this disgrace rather than deny Christ.

12. There are two kinds of difficulty: one which comes from the magnitude and excellence of the task, and this kind is required for virtue; another which is from the agent himself to the extent that he is deficient or hampered in his correct operations, and this kind is removed or diminished by virtue. It is in the latter sense that passions cause difficulty. The first kind of difficulty, on the part of the task, has a direct bearing upon merit in the same way as the excellence of the act; whereas the second, from the weakness of the agent, has no bearing upon merit unless perhaps as an occasion, inasmuch as it supplies the occasion for a greater effort. It is not true, however, that in his first state Adam would not have been able to merit--if we grant that he had grace, even though there were nothing drawing him away from good or urging him to evil--because, if he had stood fast, he would have arrived eventually at glory; and it is clear that this would not have been without merit. Nor does the Master say that he would not have been able to merit in the first state, but he does say that he would have been able to avoid sin without meriting; for he could avoid sin without grace because nothing was pushing him to evil, and without grace nothing can be meritorious.

13. That fear of eternal punishment which is directly meritorious is in the will and is not a passion strictly speaking, as is clear from what has already been said.* A passion of fear can, however, be aroused in the lower appetite by reason of eternal punishment either because of an overflow from the higher appetite into the lower or because the intellect's conception of eternal punishment is represented in the imagination, with the consequence that the lower appetite is moved through the passion of fear. But such fear does not have anything to do with merit except indirectly, as has been said.*

14. [This answer is missing.]

15. If we are speaking of difficulty on our part, then passions and sufferings involve more difficulty than acts of the will. But in that case the difficulty does not contribute anything to merit except indirectly, as has been said; and similarly neither do passions and sufferings. But if we are speaking of the difficulty which comes from the excellence or goodness of the task, which does contribute to merit directly, then there is greater difficulty in acts of the will.

16. Some passions are called laudable by the philosophers because they are the effects and signs of a good will, as is evident in the example of shame, which shows that the man's will is averse to the filth of sin, and in that of pity, which is a sign of love. On this account the names of these passions are sometimes used by the saints for the habits which elicit the act of will which is the source of these passions.

17. First movements do not have the complete nature of sin or demerit but are in a way dispositions for demerit just as venial sin is a disposition for mortal sin. The movements of sensuality themselves, then, do not have to be directly meritorious, because what is meritorious cannot be anything but a voluntary act, as has been said.* But those passions are sometimes called vices or sins inasmuch as acts of the will or even habits are designated by the names of passions. Moreover, vices against nature are called passions even though they are voluntary acts, inasmuch as by such vices nature is disturbed from its proper order.

Answers to Contrary Difficulties:

1'. We yield to passions unwillingly, not as regards consent, since we do not consent to them except by our will, but as regards some bodily alteration such as laughter and weeping and the like. Consequently, in so far as by our will we consent or refuse consent to them, they are meritorious or demeritorious.

2'. Though the passions of the lower appetite sometimes anticipate the act of the will, they do not always; for the appetitive powers do not stand in the same relationship as the apprehensive. Our intellect receives its object from sense; consequently there cannot be an operation of the intellect unless there is some previous operation of sense. The will, however, does not receive anything from the lower appetite, but rather moves it; and so it is not necessary that a passion of the lower appetite precede the act of the will.

3'. Even though passions are not directly praiseworthy, they can nevertheless be praiseworthy indirectly, as has been said.*

4'. By His passion Christ merited for Himself and for us. For Himself He merited the glory of His body; for although He merited this through His other merits which preceded it, yet the splendor of the resurrection is by a certain fittingness properly a reward of the passion, because exaltation is the proper reward of humility. He merited for us, moreover, inasmuch as in His passion He gave satisfaction for the sin of the whole human race, but not by His preceding works, though He did merit for us by them. Retribution by way of suffering is required for satisfaction as a sort of compensation for the pleasure of sin.

5'. By His passion Christ did not make the glory of His body due after it was not due, nor did He make it more due after it was less due. He did, however, make it due in another way than that in which it was due before. But it does not follow that He made it more due. This would follow if the cause for which it was due were either increased or multiplied, as happens when an obligation is increased by a twofold promise. But that did not occur in the case of the merit of Christ, because His grace was not augmented.

6'. Directly difficulty hampers voluntariness, but indirectly it increases it in so far as a person makes an effort against the difficulty. But the difficulty itself contributes to satisfaction by reason of its penal character.