Temperance
141. The Virtue of Temperance
1. A virtue is a habit which disposes and inclines a person to act in accordance with reason. Now, reason indicates the need of measure and moderation; what supplies this need rightly is therefore a virtue. This is the virtue of temperance.
2. In one way temperance can be regarded as a general virtue, for ordinateness or moderation, which is the object of temperance, is found in all the moral virtues. Yet the virtue of temperance has a special phase of good in view: it holds back the appetites from inordinateness in their drive for what is most alluring. Hence, temperance is a special virtue.
3. Temperance controls desires and pleasures. It moderates the appetites for sensible and bodily delights; it also moderates the appetites that shrink from bodily evils. Fortitude controls the fear of evils. Temperance controls the pursuit of pleasurable goods, and also moderates the sorrow or distress caused by the lack of such goods.
4. Bodily goods cannot give pleasure unless they are somehow brought into contact with the bodily person of the one who enjoys them. Chief of such bodily goods are the goods of nutriment (food and drink) and of sex. Since bodily contact is involved in the use of these goods, the virtue which regulates their use, which is temperance, has to do with the tactile sense, the sense of touch or contact.
5. The principal use of the bodily and tactile goods with which temperance deals is the preserving of the human individual and the human species. And, as we have said, these goods are more a matter of the sense of touch than of sight, hearing, taste, or smell. That food, for instance, should have a pleasing taste or aroma, or that it should look attractive, is entirely a secondary matter in the service that it renders. For the essential point about food is that it supports life. Yet, since the sense of taste is closely allied with the tactile sense (for food comes into complete bodily contact with the organ of taste), the savors and flavors and amounts of food are proximately subject to regulation by the virtue of temperance.
6. Temperance regulates the use of bodily goods which belong to the order of man's natural and normal needs. This virtue, therefore, moderates and ordinates man's appetites to the end that he should use pleasurable goods according to the needs of life.
7. Since moderation, which is the characteristic of temperance, is required for virtue in general, temperance is a principal or cardinal virtue.
8. Temperance, in point of excellence, comes fourth in the list of cardinal virtues. These virtues, in the descending order of excellence, are: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance.
142. Vices Opposed to Temperance
1. Nature has associated pleasure with the operations necessary for life. Man is to make use of these pleasures in so far as they are required for his well-being. To reject pleasure to the extent of omitting what is necessary for preserving nature, whether in the individual or in the race, would be the vice of insensibility. Insensibility is a vice opposed to temperance. Now, insensibility is not to be confused with abstinence, which is useful and sometimes necessary even in the natural order. In the supernatural order it is right and reasonable, and hence virtuous, freely to renounce all use of sex, and much of the pleasure of the table, so that one may devote oneself more completely to the life of spiritual perfection.
2. Intemperance is the direct opposite to temperance. Aristotle calls it (Ethic. iii 12) a childish vice. The adjective is justified; intemperance, like an ill-trained and unruly child, is unreasonable, headstrong, willful, wanting its own way, knowing not where to stop, and growing stronger in its disgusting qualities the more it is indulged. Finally (and still like an unruly child), intemperance is corrected only by having its tendencies curbed and restrained.
3. Intemperance is a more grievous vice than cowardice, for there is in it more of a person's own choice. It is less excusable than cowardice, for of the two vices it is the more readily cured.
4. Intemperance is the most disgraceful of vices, for it indulges pleasures that men and animals have in common; it tends to level a man to the state of a beast. And intemperance so dims the light, and weakens the control of reason, that it makes a man slave to his bodily cravings. Hence, intemperance is both inhuman and slavish; it shames and disgraces its victim in the eyes of his fellowmen.
143. The Parts of Temperance
1. The integral or quasi-integral parts of a virtue are conditions required by its nature as that virtue. There are two such integral parts of temperance: shamefacedness by which one recoils from the disgrace of intemperance, and honesty by which one loves the beauty of temperance. The subjective parts of a virtue are its species, kinds, or types. The subjective parts of temperance are: abstinence, sobriety, chastity, purity. The potential parts of a virtue are other virtues allied with it or subordinate to it; these parts share the character of the virtue in question, yet they are not coextensive with it in scope, and they are not species or kinds of it. The potential parts of temperance are: continence, humility, meekness (or mildness), modesty.
144. Shamefacedness
1. Shamefacedness is a recoil from what is disgraceful; it is a drawing or shrinking back from what is base. In a broad sense, shamefacedness is a virtue. But, more strictly, it is to be called a praiseworthy passion, and not a virtue. It lacks the full perfection of a habit steadily inclining the will to good.
2. Shamefacedness has to do with action. It is not shame for the disgrace inherent in a vicious habit, but for the disgrace feared as the result of a bad deed contemplated or already performed. It is the shrinking from deserved reproach or ignominy for something vile that is proposed for doing, or for a vile thing already done.
3. A man is more likely to fear and to feel shame before those who are closest to him (his relatives, friends, and acquaintances), than before strangers. People unknown to a person, people in whose society he does not regularly move, inspire small shame; disgrace suffered before the eyes of strangers is quickly forgotten.
4. A man may become so immersed in evil that he loses shame, and may even boast of doing what is shameful. There are others in whom a lack of shame is not disgraceful, that is, people of sound virtue and aged people; these lack shame, not as by a deficiency, but they regard any shameful action as something so remote from themselves as to be negligible and worthy of no thought or concern. Of course, these persons are so disposed that if (by a well-nigh impossible supposition) they were to do a disgraceful thing, they would be ashamed of it.
145. Honesty or Decorousness
1. Honesty, as we use the term here, means goodness, decorousness, decency. Strictly speaking, honesty is a general term for any virtue, and for all virtues together.
2. Honesty is the same as beauty in the spiritual meaning of the latter word. For virtue gives the soul beauty; honesty means virtue; hence honesty and beauty of soul (that is, beauty of character, beauty of life) are the same.
3. What is honest has excellence in itself, and therefore deserves honor. What is pleasing or pleasant quiets desire and gives delight. What is useful is good as a means to obtain something else. Hence, there is a distinction between the honest and the pleasing, between the honest and the useful-even though it may happen that all three are found in one subject, as, for instance in the virtue of justice, which is honest, may be pleasing, and is certainly useful for righteous living. But the three things are not coextensive, and to find one is not necessarily to find all three.
4. Since temperance repels in man what is most unbecoming to him, that is, excess in animal lusts, it lends a spiritual beauty to a man, and we call that beauty honesty. Thus, honesty, the beauty-conferring expression of temperance, is a quasi-integral part of temperance itself.
146. Abstinence
1. Abstinence is essentially a keeping away, a refraining, entirely or in some degree, from anything. Specifically, as we employ the term here, abstinence is a retrenchment in the use of food or drink. It may be a total abstaining from certain kinds of food or drink; it may be a partial abstaining from nutriment in the sense that it is observed at certain times or in certain circumstances. When abstinence is ordinate, that is, in complete accord with right reason, it is either a virtue (that is, an enduring good habit) or it is a virtuous act.
2. As a moral virtue, abstinence tends to good under a special aspect, and therefore is a special virtue.
147. Fasting
1. Abstinence, as an act, is usually the refraining from the use of certain kinds of food or drink. Fasting is the refraining for determinate periods from all use of food. To illustrate: a Catholic abstains when he refrains from eating meat on Friday; but he fasts when he refrains from food and drink altogether for a time, or, in a less complete sense of the word fasting, when he limits himself to one full meal a day. Fasting is useful for: (a) controlling the lusts of the flesh; (b) freeing the mind from bodily concerns so that it may better contemplate heavenly things; (c) penancing the body in satisfaction for sins. That fasting is a virtuous act is manifest from these excellent uses that it serves.
2. Fasting is an act of the virtue of abstinence.
3. Fasting for the purposes indicated above (preventing, and atoning for sin, and raising the mind to contemplation) is a duty imposed by reason, and therefore by the natural law. The positive precepts of fasting which determine its manner and extent, and the times appointed for it, come from the Church which decides what is becoming and profitable, on this point, for her children.
4. The Church imposes the duty of fasting in general, but she makes exceptions for certain classes (the aged, the infirm, children), and grants dispensations in particular cases when this is necessary or advisable.
5. There is a notable fitness in the fasts imposed by the Church. The intensive and prolonged fasting-season of Lent comes every year, and the ember days and fasting vigils of certain feasts keep the faithful constantly in the spirit and practice of fasting, and yet without imposing great hardship upon them. And a rich symbolism attaches to the seasons of fasting, especially to the forty days of the lenten fast.
6. The eucharistic fast is the fast observed before receiving our Lord in Holy Communion. The ecclesiastical fast is the ordinary fast from food (not drink) imposed by the Church for certain days and seasons. The essence of the ecclesiastical fast seems to lie in the fact that only one full meal is taken on a fasting day.
7. The time for the one full meal permitted on a fasting day is determined by church law, even as the fast itself is so determined. The time of this meal is set for noon or the later part of the day, not the forenoon.
8. The strict fast of an earlier day, when the faithful were required to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods (butter, cheese), has been much mitigated in later times, and for good reasons.
148. Gluttony
1. Gluttony is excess in eating and drinking. It is an immoderate indulgence in the delights of the palate. Gluttony is therefore inordinate, therefore unreasonable, therefore an evil.
2. Gluttony is usually not a serious sin, but it could be such a sin. It would be a mortal sin in a person so given to the delights of eating and drinking that he is ready to abandon virtue, and God himself, to obtain this pleasure.
3. Gluttony is a sin of the flesh, a carnal sin. Hence, in itself, it is not so great a sin as a spiritual sin or a sin of malice.
4. Gluttony denotes inordinate desire in eating and drinking. It shows itself in the avidity with which a person indulges his appetite; in his love of delicate and expensive foods; in the importance he attaches to the discerning of fine qualities in foods, vintages, cookery; in voraciousness or greediness; in eating or drinking too much. St. Isidore (De Summ. Bon. ii) says that a gluttonous person is excessive in what, when, how, and how much he eats and drinks.
5. A capital sin is a source-sin; a spring, large or small, from which flow many evil streams. Now gluttony leads readily to other sins, for it indulges pleasure of the flesh which is the most alluring of all pleasures. Gluttony is, therefore, a capital sin.
6. Gluttony leads to inordinate fleshly delight, to dullness of mind, to injudiciousness of speech, to levity of conduct, and to uncleanness.
149. Sobriety
1. Sobriety consists in the reasonable and temperate use of intoxicating drink. We call a man sober (in describing his habitual conduct) when he either drinks no intoxicants, or drinks them in such moderation that his faculties are never disordered by them. The word sober, and hence the word sobriety, derives from a word meaning measure, and therefore suggests the true meaning of the term: measure or moderation in drinking.
2. Sobriety is usually regarded as a special part of the virtue of temperance, and hence a special virtue.
3. No food or drink is, in itself, unlawful. Scripture says (Matt. 15:11): "That which goeth into the mouth doth not defile a man." Yet the drinking of intoxicants can be bad for several accidental reasons. Drinking becomes an evil: (a) when the person who drinks is abnormally susceptible to the influence of alcohol; (b) when a person has pledged his word not to drink; (c) when a person drinks too much; (d) when scandal (that is, bad example) is given by drinking.
4. Sobriety is a good and necessary virtue in all, and it is especially requisite for (a) the young, who readily give way to excess in pleasures, and who develop habits quickly; (b) women, whose natural refinement is quickly debased and made disgusting by intoxication; (c) teachers and pastors and parents, and all who instruct others, and all whose dignity or office demands a devout and attentive mind and the example of sober conduct.
150. Drunkenness
1. St. Paul (Rom. 13:13) gives the precept that we are not to engage "in rioting and drunkenness." Drunkenness is a species of the vice of gluttony. It is a manifest evil.
2. Drunkenness is a mortal sin in the person who willingly and knowingly deprives himself of the use of reason by excessive drinking. Reason is man's guide and control for the exercise of virtue and the avoiding of sin. Foolishly and unwarrantedly to deprive oneself of reason is therefore a serious fault.
3. Drunkenness is not the worst of sins, for it is a carnal sin, and hence is not so evil in itself as spiritual sins.
4. If a man becomes intoxicated without his fault, either because he does not know that what he drinks is intoxicating, or because he underestimates its strength, or because he is affected by the drink in a manner unusual and unexpected, he is not guilty of sin, and he is excused from the responsibility for any regrettable conduct which results from his intoxication. If, however, a person becomes intoxicated by his own fault, he is at least partially responsible for any evils that result from his excessive drinking, just as he is responsible for the intoxication itself.
151. Chastity
1. The word chastity derives from the chastening or rebuking of concupiscence. By such chastening, chastising or curbing, passion is held in control, and is kept in alignment with right reason. Chastity, therefore, is a virtue inasmuch as it steadily tends to keep human conduct under the control of reason.
2. And chastity is a special virtue for it concerns a special aspect of good, that is, the controlling, the keeping reasonable, of the tendencies of sex.
3. Chastity is not the same as the virtue of abstinence. For chastity is concerned with the control of sex pleasures, whereas abstinence is directly concerned with the control of the pleasures of the palate.
4. The words purity and chastity are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Chastity directly regards the sexual union. Purity refers to all that is in any way associated with this union. Thus a person is unchaste if he indulges in unlawful coition. But a person is impure by reason of thoughts, imaginings, words, desires, and actions that have an unlawful sexual reference. Unchastity involves impurity, but impurity can exist without unchastity.
152. Virginity
1. Virginity is basically derived from a word that means what is fresh, unseared, untouched by harming influence. The essential thing in virginity is not a condition of the body, but the perpetual refraining from the use or pleasures of sex.
2. Reason requires that external or material goods be used in a due and proportionate way. Now, the use of sex for the propagation of the race is necessary, good, natural, reasonable. But such use, while necessary for people in general, is not necessary for each individual. The race is sufficiently propagated and assured of continuance and increase, even if a very large number of individuals live singly and make no use of sex at all. Hence, virginity is not unreasonable, for it does no harm to the common good. And if virginity is practiced for a good and holy reason, it is a most noble virtue.
3. Virginity as integrity of the flesh and freedom from sexual experience is natural to human beings from their birth. But virginity as a virtue is that virginity which is freely chosen for the purpose of serving God more completely, of giving the mind to the contemplation of divine things in the absence of family cares and with the sacrifice of family joys.
4. Virginity is directed to the good of the soul. Marriage is directed to the propagation of the race. In itself, therefore, virginity is more excellent than chaste marriage.
5. Virginity is the most excellent virtue in the genus or class of chastity. It surpasses the chastity of the married state, and the chastity of widowhood. But it is not the greatest of all virtues. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity are superior in excellence to virginity, as are the virtues of religion and the fortitude which sustains the martyr.
153. Lust
1. Lust is the vice of indulging in unlawful sexual pleasures.
2. The use of sex is not always lustful or sinful. There is a good and virtuous use of sex in marriage, when husband and wife perform their normal and natural function of sex without any inordinateness (that is, without anything that is in conflict with reason) and, therefore, without employing any unnatural or artificial means of thwarting the natural effect of their action. The only lawful and chaste use of sex is its lawful use in marriage.
3. Lust consists in disregarding the order and mode dictated by reason for the use of sex. Therefore, lust conflicts with reason, and is a sin. The habit of lust is a vice.
4. Lust is listed with the capital sins because many other sins flow from it as from their source.
5. St. Gregory (Moral. xxxi) enumerates "the daughters of lust" as follows: blindness of mind; thoughtlessness; rashness; inconstancy; love of self; hatred for God; worldliness; dread of a future life.
154. The Parts of Lust
1. The parts of lust are the species or types of lustful sins. These parts are six: fornication, adultery, incest, seduction, rape, unnatural vice.
2. Fornication is the normal, but unlawful, use of sex by an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. Fornication is a mortal sin, for it is a great inordinateness in the parties who are guilty of it; is opposed to the good of offspring (for only marriage establishes the home which children require, and to which they have a right), and it is plainly against the common welfare both in physical and moral effects.
3. Fornication is a grave sin of the flesh. It is not the greatest of all sins, for sins of the spirit, sins of malice, are more grievous than any carnal sin.
4. Kisses and touches that are lustful are also mortal sins.
5. Whatever occurs in sleep cannot be sinful in itself. Yet it may be sinful in its cause. If, before sleeping, a person is guilty of thoughts, desires, or deeds that are lustful, he is at least partly responsible for impurities that subsequently occur during sleep.
6. Seduction is the violation of a virgin. It is a species of lust, and is therefore a grievous sin.
7. Rape is a species of lust-and gravely sinful-in which force is employed in committing a lustful action.
8. Adultery is the normal, but unlawful, use of sex by a married and a single person, or by two married persons, who, however, are not married to each other. This grievous sin is far worse than fornication, for it violates not only chastity, but it is a gross violation of justice (committed against the true spouse of the married party, or against both spouses of the married parties). Besides, it is a more damaging offense against the common good than fornication is.
9. Incest is the use of sex by man and woman who are related by ties of blood, or by affinity, that is, by relationship arising out of a marriage. It has all the grievous character of lust, plus the violation of justice (if either party is married), and the violation of the virtue of piety.
10. Lust becomes sacrilege when it involves sacred or consecrated persons, things, or places.
11. Unnatural vice is any lustful perversion of normal and natural processes for procuring sex pleasures.
12. Unnatural vice is the worst of all sins of lust, for it is most gravely shameful as acting against the ordinance of nature. Yet all willful sins of lust are mortal sins.
155. Continence
1. Perfect continence is complete abstention from all sexual pleasures. But continence, in a more strict and more usual meaning of the word, is the steadfast resisting of sexual desires,
2. Therefore, that person is continent who refuses to surrender to the allurements which strongly attract the passions in the matter of sex.
3. Continence is the praiseworthy and virtuous stand of the will against lustful evil tendencies. It is a moral virtue, that is, a will-virtue.
4. Continence is regarded by some as a species of temperance. In itself, it stands to temperance as imperfect to perfect. For temperance belongs to the person whose appetites are positively ruled by reason, whereas continence is the stern control of appetites that resist the rule of reason.
156. Incontinence
1. Incontinence is the vice opposed directly to continence. It consists either in the impetuosity or the weakness of a soul which impulsively, and without the counsel of reason, surrenders to evil desires; or, after the counsel of reason, is weak and reluctant to accept the judgment of reason.
2. Incontinence is a sin, because it conflicts with reason, and because it plunges a person into what is shameful. It is to be remarked, however, that the word incontinence is often used with no implication of lust at all; it is used to express eagerness, enthusiasm, urgency in acting, even in what is blameless or in what is good. Hence, care is to be taken in interpreting this word.
3. As continence has not the full perfection and scope of temperance, so incontinence has not the full character, and is not so grave a sin, as intemperance.
4. Incontinence, as referring to evil desires, is sometimes contrasted with wild and unbridled anger. Such anger is itself often called incontinence. Now, in itself, the incontinence of lustful desire is much worse than the incontinence of anger; it is a greater deordination of reasonable life, and a thing of far greater shame than anger is. In result, however, the case may be different. Incontinence of anger may lead to greater evils than does the incontinence of lust. For the incontinence of lust harms the man guilty of it, whereas the incontinence of anger may break out into violence that does damage to others also.
157. Clemency and Meekness
1. Clemency is the virtue which moderates the anger of a superior in punishing, or passing sentence upon, one who is subject to him. Meekness is the virtue which moderates anger in a person's own soul. Therefore clemency and meekness are not identical, although they appear very similar.
2. Moral virtues, or will-virtues, bring the appetites under the control of reason. It is clear that both clemency and meekness are moral virtues.
3. Clemency and meekness are aligned with the virtue of temperance, and are thus parts of that cardinal virtue.
4. Moral virtues are not so great, in point of nobility and excellence, as the theological virtues of supernatural faith, hope, and charity. Hence clemency and meekness are not the greatest of virtues. Nor are they so great as the virtues of prudence, justice, and fortitude.
158. Anger
1. Anger, strictly speaking, is a sense-appetite and sense-passion. Since its upheaval in the sensitive part of a man may be quickly admitted (by the will) into the rational or intellective part, it is called a "passion of the soul." Anger thus exercises an influence upon reason. Now, anger can influence reason in the right direction as well as in the wrong one. Therefore, there is such a thing as just or lawful anger. Scripture says (Psalm 4:5): "Be angry, and sin not." The anger of our Lord threatening hypocrites, or driving out the men who profaned the temple, gives us an example of righteous or lawful anger. Such lawful anger is never inordinate; it never sweeps a man off his feet, or inspires outrageous words or deeds.
2. But anger, though it can be lawful, is more often a striking back, with unjustified desire for revenge, at someone or something that has hurt one's self-esteem. Such anger is inordinate; it is an evil; it is a sin.
3. Yet anger is not a mortal sin unless a person, by consent of will, allows it to become so fierce as to make him willing to forego his serious duty to God or fellowmen. Therefore, a person submitting, through anger, to murderous impulses or intentions, is guilty of mortal sin.
4. In itself, anger, even as mortal sin, is not so inordinate or disgraceful a sin as lust or the incontinence of lustful desires. And in comparison with the vice of hatred, anger is, as St. Augustine says in his Rule, "as the mote to the beam."
5. Aristotle classifies anger as choler, sullenness, and sternness. A choleric person is quick to anger; a sullen person angrily nurses his injuries; a stern or bad-tempered person clings to the angry determination to be revenged.
6. Anger is one of the capital sins. For it is the fruitful source of many evils much worse than itself, such as serious injuries and murders. Other fruits of anger are: quarrels, physical attacks, cursings, uncharitable speech.
7. St. Gregory lists the "daughters of anger" as: quarreling (including physical encounter); vengeful thoughts and designs; clamor, or disordered and confused speech; contumely, or speech injurious to a neighbor; indignation, or bridling against what angers one as something base and unworthy; blasphemy, or offensive words directed against God.
8. A person who is wholly incapable of anger lacks something; he is in some way defective. As we have seen, there is such a thing as just and lawful anger. Were a person unable to resent evil, he would be deficient in the use of lawful anger.
159. Cruelty
1. Cruelty is hardness of heart which makes one willing to inflict injurious or excessive punishment. It is a vice which directly opposes the virtue of clemency.
2. Cruelty differs from brutality or savagery in this: cruelty recognizes its victim as one truly deserving punishment and is excessive in inflicting it; savagery or brutality takes inhuman and even bestial delight in the torture it inflicts on a human being, regardless of the guilt or innocence of its victim.
160. Modesty
1. Modesty is a virtue aligned with the virtue of temperance. Temperance regulates things difficult to control; modesty regulates things not difficult to control.
2. Modesty has to do with matters interior and external; it has place in the soul and character of a man, and in what he does or manifests outwardly. Modesty appears in things that belong to the virtue of humility, to studiousness (that is, the right effort after knowledge), to external movements, and to attire. We are to discuss all these matters in the pages that follow.
161. Humility as a Species of Modesty
1. The tendencies of a man (that is to say, his appetites) need two types of virtue for their just regulation: one to support them in weakness, one to moderate them when they are inordinately impulsive or strong. Humility is of the second type. It is the virtue which restrains a man lest he be immoderate in his striving to reach high goals.
2. Humility is in the appetitive order, not the knowing order. It is a moral virtue, a will-virtue, not an intellectual virtue.
3. Humility is not a pose. The humble man does not bow to all others as though they were in all respects superior to himself. But humility does honestly recognize that all good, all excellence, is in God, and that all creatural good comes from God. Therefore, humility sees God in every fellowman, and bows to that which is divine.
4. Humility is a virtue allied with temperance through the medium of the virtue of modesty, which is a part of temperance.
5. So excellent and necessary a virtue is humility that its rank is first after the theological virtues, the intellectual virtues that regard reason itself, and the virtue of justice.
6. Humility is a moral virtue, not an intellectual one. But it does involve the knowledge that we are what we are, and are not to think more of ourselves than facts warrant. And back of the act of humility is reverence for God. The inward disposition of humility has outward manifestations which, in many instances, are expressive of modesty. Some writers, like St. Benedict in his Rule, enumerate degrees of humility according to inner disposition and outer sign.
162. Pride
1. Pride is the habit, the vice, which disposes a man to make himself more than he is.
2. Pride is a special vice, for it has the special object of inordinate esteem for one's own excellence. Yet pride has also the character of a general vice, for it is involved, directly or indirectly, in other sins, and notably in all sins of malice.
3. Pride aspires; it tends; it desires something-not simply, but as involving some element of difficulty. The proud man is under pressure; he makes effort to be more than he actually is. Now, a habit that involves drive and effort (and, by that token, involves difficulty with which effort grapples) belongs to the appetitive part of man; it has its subject in the will. Pride resides in the will.
4. St. Gregory (Moral. xxiii 4) lists four species of pride: (a) thinking that one's good is from oneself; (b) thinking that one's good is from God but is owing to one's own deserts; (c) claiming excellence not possessed; (d) despising others and wishing to seem the exclusive possessor of what one has.
5. Pride is an assumed self-sufficiency which omits or discounts God in considering what one is. This is manifestly a very great inor-dinateness, and is, in its genus or kind, a serious or mortal evil. Yet, to be mortally sinful, an individual act of pride would have to be a conscious and fully willed misprising of God. Most acts of pride are venial sins by reason of deficiency of awareness, or lack of full consent of the will.
6. Since pride is a direct turning away from God and is a practical act of contempt for God, because it is an unwillingness to be subject to him, it ranks with that actual hatred for God which we have called the very worst of sins.
7. Aversion from God is in all sins, but it is the very essence of pride. Other sins involve this aversion by their nature as sins; pride is this aversion. Aversion from God is consequent upon other sins; in pride this aversion is the sin itself. Hence the first and worst of all sins is the sin of pride; it shares this evil distinction with hatred for God.
8. Pride, as a special sin, is the source of many other sins, and is therefore listed as a capital sin. But pride, as a general sin, is not merely the source of other sins; it is actually in them. St. Gregory (Moral. xxxi 17) calls pride the queen of vices which conquers the heart of a man and delivers it to the capital sins. And therefore St. Gregory does not mention pride itself as one of the capital sins, for he considers it the mother of them all.
163. The Sin of the First Man
1. Adam's sin could not have been a sin of the flesh. For in the state of innocence there was no rebellion of flesh against spirit. Therefore, the first inordinateness in the human appetite could not possibly have been a desire for any material or sensible good. The first human sin must have been connected with the desire for some spiritual good. And, since the actual desire must have been ordinate (because inordinateness did not come into man until the first sin was committed), the inordinateness must have been in the thing desired. This thing must have been something beyond the reach or above the mark of a human being. And to aspire to such a thing is pride. Hence, the first human sin was a sin of pride. The ordinate desire of the first man was made inordinate by the unsuitableness of a too-excellent object, and the desire was thus transformed into a prideful aspiring.
2. The first sin, a sin of pride, was the first man's willful desire to have something that belongs to God alone. It may be said that man, made in God's image, tried to extend unduly that image in himself. In particular, the first man wanted "knowledge of good and evil," so that, by his own natural power and without reference or deference to God, he could know what was good or evil for him to do, and could know beforehand what good and evil would happen to him. Thus, in a fashion, the first man aspired to a kind of equality with God, and so he sinned by pride, even as the fallen angels sinned by pride.
3. Was the sin of our first parent more grave than other human sins? In itself, as we have seen, pride is the greatest of sins. Yet there are degrees of pride, and many sins of pride, as acts performed, are not more than venial sins. And even in grave sins of pride there are rank and scale: the pride of denying or blaspheming God is more grave than the pride of coveting the enlargement in oneself of the divine image. Therefore, taken simply as a sin of pride, the sin of Adam was not the most grievous sin of its kind. Nor was Adam's pride more grievous in itself than the pride of other men. But when we consider Adam's sin, not simply or absolutely, but in relation to the one who committed it (a perfect man, with a nature entirely untroubled by unruly passions, and dowered with most wonderful supernatural gifts and graces) we must conclude that this was indeed the most grievous of all the human sins of pride. Therefore, summing the matter up, we say: taken simply or absolutely, the sin of Adam was not the most grievous of human sins; taken relatively (that is, in relation to the state of perfection of the sinner), it was the most grievous of sins.
4. The sin of the first woman was, in itself, more grievous than the sin of the first man. For while Adam and Eve both sinned by pride, Eve believed the devil, God's enemy, and, in full awareness that what the devil suggested was against God's will, she ate the fruit to obtain the sort of knowledge that belongs to God alone. The sin of Adam did not spring from trust in the devil; Adam wanted the inordinate good and wanted it pridefully, but not inasmuch as it was clearly seen in opposition to God's will (as devil-inspired), but as aspired to by his own unaided power. Further, the woman not only sinned, but tried to lead the man to sin; she sinned both against God and neighbor. Yet it is Adam's sin, not Eve's, that brought deprivation and punishment upon the race, and is "the original sin."
164. The Punishment of the Sin of Adam
1. If a person, because of a fault, is deprived of what was bestowed on him as a favor, the deprivation is a punishment for the fault. Now, the perfect subjection of man's lower powers to reason was a great favor bestowed on man. Out of this perfect subjection of body to spirit came soundness of health and perfection of bodily function, and the supervening gift of bodily immortality was assured. But when man sinned the great favor mentioned was withdrawn (indeed, man's sin rejected the favor), and it was withdrawn in punishment for the sin. The withdrawal of the favor meant that man was no longer immortal in his bodily life; it meant that he would die. Therefore, death is manifestly in punishment for Adam's sin. Says St. Paul (Rom. 5:12): "By one man sin entered the world, and by sin, death."
2. Scripture recounts other punishments for Adam's sin: expulsion of our first parents from Paradise; fatiguing toil; pains of childbirth; reluctance of the earth to yield fruits, etc. {-All these punishments were blessings for fallen man. Once fallen, man would have found Paradise and life as it was before Adam's sin, so delightful that he would no longer have had thought or time for God. Fallen man cannot stand a diet of Paradise. Were it not for the hardships and punishments we must bear in consequence of Adam's sin, we should all inevitably go to hell. Herein appear the infinite love and mercy of God: when he strikes us in punishment, while we are wayfarers, his blow turns into the caress of blessing.-}
165. The Temptation of Adam
1. Man, dowered with free will, had to exercise that free will in choosing or rejecting God. Had there been no trial, no temptation, man would have had a kind of mechanical progress from Paradise to heaven, and the greatest of his gifts, the gift that makes him most like to God in his being (that is, free will) would have been a vain and unused gift. Free human nature had to have a chance to choose freely, and this was given in the temptation. There was no need for Adam to succumb to the temptation. He had a perfect human nature, and he had supernatural grace and supernatural gifts. No creature could harm him or force his choice, against his will. That Adam sinned, that he chose to abuse freedom instead of using it, was his own fault.
2. The manner and order of the first man's temptation were entirely suitable. The temptation was rounded and complete. It appealed to the intellect and will; the appeal was made through the senses; into the whole event of the temptation there entered one of the man's own species, the woman; one thing of the animal order, the serpent; and one thing of the vegetal order, the tree with its fruit.
166. Studiousness
1. Studiousness is the virtue which disposes a person to apply his mind for the purpose of acquiring and extending knowledge.
2. The virtue of studiousness is a part of the virtue of temperance. For it is the function of temperance to moderate appetite, to prevent excess, in the use of material goods. In reference to the spiritual appetite for knowledge, studiousness has this temperance-function of moderating desire and preventing excess. The tie-up of studiousness with temperance is effected through the virtue of modesty (See above, q. 160).
167. Curiosity
1. Curiosity, in our present use of the word, is the vice which stands opposed to studiousness. Curiosity throws aside the moderating influence of studiousness, and disposes man to inordinateness in seeking knowledge. This inordinateness appears in a variety of ways. Thus: (a) a man may seek knowledge to take pride in it; (b) he may seek to know how to sin; (c) he may seek useless knowledge and waste effort which should be expended in learning what he needs to know;
(d) he may seek knowledge from unlawful sources, as from demons;
(e) he may seek creatural knowledge without referring what he knows to God; (f) he may foolishly risk error by trying to master what is beyond his capacity.
2. Curiosity appears also in the order of sense-knowledge. Inordinateness here appears in an excessive love of sight-seeing; of neglecting study to gaze idly on a meaningless spectacle; of looking needlessly on what may occasion evil thoughts; of observing the actions of others to criticize and condemn them, and so on. If, however, one is intent upon material things in an ordinate way (that is. in a way that accords with reason) one exercises studiousness, not curiosity, even in the order of sense-knowing.
168. Modesty as Decorum
1. Outward activity, bodily movement or conduct, falls under the rule of virtue. For such activity is to be controlled by reason, and reason is disposed by virtue to rule ordinately. Man is meant to live rightly by inner righteousness and outer decorum. Modesty as decorum is the virtue which steadily disposes a person to regulate his external conduct so that it is well-ordered, fitting, and beautiful.
2. Man needs at times the relaxation of play, whether in words or deeds. For man is liable to weariness of mind and soul, as of body. He finds rest in bodily repose, and in mental divertisement. Now, the body takes rest, not only in quiet inaction, but also in games. And the soul finds an easing of tensions in lighter occupations, among which are games or play of nonathletic type. Since there is need of ordinate-ness or good order in necessary relaxation, there is a virtue respecting recreation and games. Aristotle (Ethic. iv 8) calls this virtue eutra-pelia, which means "the habit of a pleasant and cheerful turn of mind." This virtue of eutrapelia finds outer manifestation in attitudes, words, and actions. The function of this virtue brings it under the head of modesty as decorum. Eutrapelia, the virtue of a pleasing turn for games, relaxation, and recreation, requires regulating by certain conditions: (a) games, and other modes of pleasure in recreation, must include nothing indecent or injurious; (b) a person must not be completely lost in his addiction to favorite pastimes; (c) all recreational activities must be suitably ordered with references to persons, times, and places, and other circumstances which can influence the character and effect of human action.
3. Play goes beyond reason and sins by excess when it is either (a) discourteous, scandalous, obscene or insolent, or (b) inordinate in point of circumstances-place, time, etc. The first type of inordinate-ness in games or play is sinful in itself, and may easily be mortally sinful. The second type is mortally sinful if it would make a person disobey the laws of God or the Church; if, for instance, a Catholic were willing to miss Mass on Sunday rather than forgo a game in which he is avidly interested. But, for the most part, excess in games and in addiction to them is not mortally sinful.
4. It is not reasonable for a person to be wholly mirthless, and to make himself a dull burden to others in their recreation and games. Such a person is rude and boorish, and his conduct is from a vice rather than from a virtue. Lack of mirth, however, is less unreasonable than excess of mirth.
169. Modesty in Dress
1. St. Ambrose (De Offic. i 19) says that the body should be clad and adorned appropriately, unaffectedly, simply; not in an overnice fashion, nor with costly and dazzling apparel. Modesty has a place in regulating the attire. In dress, as in all outward things, there is a reasonable and decent norm. Dress should not conflict too gaudily with established custom, provided the custom itself is decent. Nor should dress too largely absorb a person's interest and attention, for excessive pleasure in dress is vainglory. On the other hand, a person offends modesty by slovenliness in dress, and by negligence, and by want of cleanliness. A person also offends by seeking the reputation of one who is wholly unconcerned with such things as his appearance and attire; thus a man makes his very negligence a matter of vainglory.
2. Modesty in dress is particularly important for women. For a woman's attire may incite a man to lust, whereas it is quite unlikely that a man's dress should be any incitement to a woman. In point of dress and adornment, a married woman should strive, within the bounds of decency, dignity, and modesty, to please her husband. Unmarried women should avoid all that can be called lewd or extreme. For the rest, neither woman nor man should dress for mere frivolity, vanity, or display.
170. The Precepts of Temperance
1. The Ten Commandments are precepts of temperance inasmuch as they make for moderation and right order in human conduct. In special, the sixth and ninth commandments are precepts of temperance, for they forbid inordinateness of sex in deed and desire, and this is something directly pertinent to temperance.
2. The precepts of the virtues allied to temperance as its parts are also found in the Decalogue. For, though the parts of temperance refer directly to a man's self rather than to God and neighbor, as the Ten Commandments do, yet their effects reach out to others, and this fact brings them under the preceptive force of the commandments. Thus anger, for instance, may lead to murder; pride may lead to the dishonoring of parents, and to sins directly against God. Thus the effects of sins opposed to the parts of temperance may come under the commandments directly.