THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORs: THE DoMINICAN Publishers: VoL. IV FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York City APRIL, 1942 No.2 THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES I. THE SENTIMENTAL P REVOLT AGAINST HARSHNESS RINCIPLES and programs of many religious organizations in the United States are concerned with the attitudes of their communicants toward our enemies during the war and in post-bellum peace negotiations. In these church pronouncements there is a manifest gentleness that approaches spiritual and religious flabbiness. This is a carryover from the prewar pacifistic activities, which are now necessarily quiescent but which did much to create among religionists the hopeful but spiritless quietism that left our nation unprepared to defend itself against the Axis powers. This current idealism about the gentle attitudes which Christians must take toward their savage enemies during and after the war is only a partial and disparate application of Christian principles to practical life. It pushes out of the picture basic and stern Christian virtues, and it leaves citizens and nations without the help of those vigorous and militant qualities demanded for an organized society in peace and war. Christianity itself is done no great service if, in the popular mind, it is identified exclusively with sentimental idealism to the neglect of the stern 193 194 IGNATIUS SMITH and rational realities of life. Christianity is done no service anywhere if persons with normal and God-given instincts of anger and indignation are made to feel that there is no place within the fold for them. There is need to open up to all a view of real and more complete Christianity as presented in the Catholic Church by the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. The definite indictment which can be brought against incomplete and sentimental Christianity is that, in order to create horror for criminal hatred and barbaric vengeance in war and at the peace table, it has exiled from life Christian obligations like holy anger and vindictive justice. Furthermore such partial Christianity has so overemphasized the gentle virtues of meekness, forgiveness, and mercy as to have fallen into vicious extremes of flabbiness against which these very gentle qualities are supposed to protect individuals and nations. In order to protect society against relying on brute power, it has attempted to lead Christians into a grovelling and supine inertia that is an apostasy from reaso:n. There is no intention of questioning the fine and humanitarian spirit that lies behind the efforts of pacifistic and unaggressive Christian leaders. They are rather the victims of two tendencies characteristic of partial Christianity for four centuries. One tendency is that of whittling down the content of Christian teaching and discipline to the proportions of human convenience, through a disregard of the rights of God and the ultimate needs of human nature. This is an apostasy from divine Intelligence. The other tendency is that of failing to adhere to first principles despite the temporary discomfort they may occasion and the consistency of conduct they may demand. This is an apostasy from human intelligence. Both of these tendencies are evident in . the contemporary life of partial Christianity. The apostasy from divine Intelligence began with the neglect of some of the teachings of divine Revelation, and was consummated in the open repudiation of these teachings. The Sacraments offer a striking example. First some of them were ignored, like Matrimony, Penance, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction; then they were dropped entirely. Now Baptism is THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 195 the only remnant of sacramental life on which partial Christianity can present any semblance of loyalty and united action. The divine commandments suffered in a similar manner. Of the Ten Commandments, some were ignored, under the pressure of economic change and consequent moral dissolution. The first three commandments are practically ignored by about seventy-five millions of partial Christians in the United States today. From neglect of these commandments our partial Christians pass on to the open repudiation of them and to the neglect of the others. A similar process of deterioration has taken place and is taking place in regard to the virtues of Christian living. Power politics found it convenient, with the help of Nietzsche, to scrap all the gentle Christian virtues and to make political capital of their opposite vices of hatred, revenge, and savage cruelty. Totalitarian ideology finds it convenient to repudiate Christianity in its entirety and to adopt controllable and kaleidoscopic paganism. Sentimentally partial Christianity :finds it convenient for its pacifistic and selfish purposes to neglect the sterner Christian qualities of vindictive justice, punishment, courage, military prudence, and righteous anger. Already these dynamic qualities have been repudiated by some recognized Christian leaders. There is danger that they will be lost in the general apostasy from divine Intelligence. The apostasy from human reason is seen in the manifold paradoxes into which truncated and disparate .Christianity falls in adopting a pragmatic and sentimental policy of coasting into a chronic procrastination. These paradoxes of procrastination are not far removed from mental, moral, and social anarchy. Several favorite attitudes and policies of partial Christianity reveal this. In religious life the affair of baptism and the matter of selecting a church or creed are evaded by parents, turned over to children themselves, and postponed until the youngster is supposed to be capable of deciding. In the field of education the theory of self-activity is sovereign. Pedagogues hesitate to teach with authority because of fear of indoctrination. The reaching of conclusions is postponed until immature 196 IGNATIUS SMITH minds have completed their discussions and forums. Then the pedagogue must concur rather than demur. In social life at home, and elsewhere, the religious attitude which has negated the facts of the last judgment and the punishments of Hell finds reflection in the theory that authority, parental and political, must rule all by love rather than by fear of punishment. Inexperienced, amateur individuals usurp parental authority in the home, religious authority in the church, pedagogical authority in the school, and political authority in the state. This makes the individual sovereign everywhere and launches anarchy. This procrastinates the fulfillment of duty and passes the responsibility from one refuge to another. This creates the concatenation of paradoxes that always results from the abdication of rational principles and the sovereignty of sentiment. One must avoid punishment and govern only through love, but society has only punishments to offer as sanctions for laws. One must avoid indoctrination and yet teach the accumulated experiences of the past to the young. One must guard group interests and yet turn sovereignty over to individuals. One must preserve liberty and yet surrender the control necessary for the preservation of freedom. One must cultivate through religion the qualities that make for sound social living, and yet one must avoid the control that keeps many virtues from becoming vices. Partial Christianity with its apostasy from reason and its subsequent procrastination, anarchy, and paradox could not escape its present condition. Its historical antecedents have maneuvered it into its sentimental lack of sympathy for righteous anger, vindictive justice, and other stern virtues of Christianity, into its prewar pacifism and into its postwar program of softness. It is interesting to note the nonintellectual use made of Christ's teachings and life in overemphasizing some gentle virtues and in neglecting sterner qualities. II. pARADOXES OF CHRISTIANITY Frequent reference, in pacifistic and inferiority Christianity, is made to the meekness and mercy of Christ and to the THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 197 obligations of Christian men and nations to be gentle and nonresistant. In fact these well-intentioned persons make gentleness and mercy synonymous with nonresistance. They also make nonresistance and nonpunishment mandatory for every one and take away from all persons, public and private, the duty and the right of demanding justice. There is in this a sad confusion of the respective :force of precept and counsel, a misunderstanding of the nature and functions of justice, a failure to see the full picture of Christ's life and a convenient neglect of some of His narsher words. About the meaning of meekness and mercy and about the difference between counsel and precept we shall ask Aquinas to speak later. Attention is directed now to the partial understanding of Christ's life and words presented by partial Christianity. No time need be lost in proclaiming the mercy, the humility, the meekness, the charity, the patience, and all the other gentle and submissive virtues of the Master. But with equal readiness one must also proclaim that Christ was always just and also stern and rigourous when conditions demanded Him to be so. He violated none in the hierarchy and interlocked scale of virtues in order to be gentle. Negatively and positively He was stern. In a negative way Christ was stern in the punishments He failed to arrest and in the corrections He did not withhold when charity, justice, and truth demanded severity. Christ possessed all the virtues. 1 His most perfect grace perfected all the powers of His soul and all the acts of these faculties. He had the fine emotions of the nature He assumed, under perfect control and perfectly sublimated. 2 He was subject to sensile pain 3 and also experienced sorrow and grief/ that issued from His knowledge of the perils that beset Himself and His neighbors.5 But as much as Jesus grieved over the distressful punishments that would befall those whom He loved, His virtue 1 Summa Theol., III, q. 7, a. 2. For the benefit of those who wish to make an extended study of these virtues in the works of St. Thomas, copious references will be given throughout this study. 2 Ibid., q. 15, a. 4. • Ibid., a. 6. 5 Lac. cit. 3 Ibid., a. 5, ad 3. 198 IGNATIUS SMITH demanded that justice take its course. He wept over the city of Jerusalem and lamented its coming destruction, but He did not prevent this calamity. He grieved over the treachery of Judas, but His virtues forbade the arresting of the just fate of the traitor. Jesus sorrowed in the garden over His coming crucifixion and death and over the punishment His murderers would bring on themselves, but He did not stop the divine tragedy by permitting the truthfulness of the prophecies to be gainsaid or the justice of God to be thwarted. Jesus found no pleasure in the denial by Peter, but He did not prevent Peter's denial and subsequent embarrassment. Positively, the conduct of Christ bristled with incidents which showed, side by side with His humility and meekness, His agressive interest in charity, justice, and truth. Parabolic though he may be, Dives is an impressive indication of the devotion of Christ to drastic and punitive action. The cursed and blighted fig tree is also an indication of Christ's ire in the name of justice. That love of neighbor may demand aggressive action against enemies of human welfare is shown in the habitual aggressiveness of Jesus against the Scribes and Pharisees because they blockaded the boulevards between men and God. Actions speak more loudly than words when Christ chases the moneylenders out of the Temple. Gentleness is in the background while vigorous action in the name of justice and charity take the center of the stage. Jesus was capable of and manifested righteous, zealous, and intelligent anger. 6 The sorrow which is caused by the knowledge of an injury done to oneself or to others is followed naturally and honorably by a desire to right and avenge the wrong. Anger is therefore a, combination of sorrow and the desire for vindication. This combination existed in Christ in a perfect degree and under the perfect control of reason and justice. St. Thomas calls this type of anger with its concomitant and laudable desire for just vindication ira per zelum 7 (anger inspired by zeal), and calls attention to the fact that in Christ such anger never impeded • Ibid., q. 15, a. 9; Ill Sent., d. XV, q. fl, qua.es. 2. • Loc. cit. THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 199 understanding. 8 The divine as well as the human dignity of the Savior would not be demeaned by His voluntary and reasonable anger. 9 The righteous indignation of Christ when He beheld the profanation of the Temple by cattle dealers and moneychangers showed itself in vigorous action. He drove out the men with lashes, He drove out the cattle and birds, He poured out the money and He overturned the tables and stalls. He was angry because justice and religion had been violated and for their restoration as well as for the punishment of the culprits Christ took vigorous action. 10 This is a phase of the character and the conduct of Jesus which partial Christianity is wont to conceal when it campaigns for quietistic pacifism. The possibility of remaining a devout Christian even while seeking aggressive vindication of justice is founded on the words of Jesus. The Master surrendered and abdicated none of the gentler virtues when He poured vitriolic denunciation on the Scribes and Pharisees. It was essential for the triumph of truth, for the salvation and happiness of the people, for the sake of obedience to the Man God and for the vindication of justice that these false leaders be exposed in all their raw viciousness. And Jesus spoke with a plainness and force that must embarrass the sentimental and delicate partial Christians of this day who have a smug disdain for what they characterize as "name calling," even in the interests of justice and truth. In His denunciation of them Christ was not as concerned about excusing, condoning, and glossing over their crimes as some of His halfway followers in the United States are concerned in softening their words and their characterizations of the ugly rottenness of the ideology and the conduct of Axis paganism. Jesus called them, among other things, "brood of vipers," 11 " an adulterous generation," 12 " whited sepulchres," 13 " hypocrites," 14 " blind guides." 15 The divine Preacher denounced them while they were present and while they were absent, and Ibid., quaes. 3, sol. 2, ad 3. • Summa Theol., I, q. 3, a. 2, ad 2. 10 In Joann., ii, 2. 11 Matt., iii, 7. 8 Ibid., xii, 39. Ibid., xxiii, 27. " Ibid., xv, 8. -.s Ibid., xxiii, 24. 19 13 9l00 IGNATIUS SMITH actively spread a contempt for the vices they lived and the havoc they wrought. His caustic condemnation of these enemies of human happiness, temporal and eternal, could be imitated with dignity and with service to truth and justice by contemporary semi-Christian preachers before whose pulpits and on whose horizon stands an army of satanic successors of the diabolical Scribes and Pharisees. Christ's vigorous preaching might be censored by some broadcasting companies and their editorial boards today, but He was the paradigm of the preacher who St. Thomas says ought to be a "soldier," a titurator/ 6 and a trumpet who calls all to a spiritual warfare. 11 It is clear that ultra-pacifistic Christian leaders are disturbed by the belligerent denunciatory and punitive utterances of Christ. This pacifistic passion is not satisfied with trying to submerge the irate utterances of Christ; it attempts to interpret the Christian philosophy of meekness and forgiveness more abasingly than Christ Himself intended. Take as an example of this tendency the distorted meaning read into the passages: "You have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say not to resist evil: but if anyone strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other." 18 This has been used often as the charter of universal nonresistance and supine pacifism, very contrary to the true Christian meaning disclosed by the Angelic Doctor. 19 The meaning of this is that one is not allowed to repel injury by taking revenge (ulciscendo) or with the purpose of cruelty. But the question is asked by St. Thomas whether nonresistance to evil is a matter of precept or counsel and the answer IS gtven: Injury can be private and particular, or public; if public, it should be fought against at the command of the ruler. Augustine remarks further that the courage which defends one's homeland, or the oppressed, against the oppressor, or one's friends against robbers, is in full accord with justice. Hence, the precept is for the ruled as well as for the rulers. If the injury should be private, it may be 1" 17 ln 1 Cm·., ix, lect. 1. ln Is., !viii. 10 Matt., v, 38, 39. ln Matt., v, 9. THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 201 repelled in three ways; it may be impeded ... or it may be forestalled by discussion. These failing, when necessary, that is, when there is no way of avoiding conflict, injury may be fought against either without arms (in which circumstances clerics might participate) or by attacking the oppressor, but always with the proper moderation. To refrain from the use of arms in resisting evil is of precept for clerics, but of counsel for layfolk. Of course, to fight with the intention of exacting revenge is forbidden by precept to alt:w It would seem from this that under certain circumstances nonresistance would be criminal and that in all but a comparatively few cases it is more or less optional. This is a little bit different f:rom the interpretation usually placed on the words by quietistic Christians. The same distortion of Christ's words and the same confusion of precept with counsel are found in the interpretations of similar passages. These facts make necessary the heeding of certain warnings in building up a nonresistant Christianity that neither does justice to Christ's teachings, nor makes intelligible traditional Catholic teaching, nor fully explains the duties of Christian citizenship in contemporary political society and especially in American democracy at war for peace. These warnings, which will be explained, are: I) Counsels must not be confused with precepts; 2) virtues must not be abused and isolated one from another; 3) the freedom and rights of individuals must not be confused with the freedom and rights of the state; 4) utopian idealism must give place to sound realism in moral and political life. III. INTELLIGENT wARNINGS Counsels and precepts differ in the extent of their respective obligating power. To observe the counsels is more difficult than to observe the precepts or commandments especially in :regard to external actions/ 1 because counsels are instruments for attaining the higher or contemplative life. 22 The counsels reenforce the commandments and they protect the keeping of •• Loc. cit. 01 Quaes. Quod., IV, a. ad 9. •• Ibid., ad 5. IGNATIUS SMITH the precepts. 23 But the counsels do not obligate as many Christians as do the precepts which fall upon all. 24 The keeping of the commandments is essential for salvation while the observance of the counsels is essential only for a higher spirituallife. 25 In regard to counsels it is commanded that the soul be kept in readiness for them, 26 though under certain unusual conditions a counsel of Christ may become a precept for some. Thus resistance with arms to an invading enemy in the home may be refrained from by the laity; they may practice the counsel of nonresistance if the safety of no one else is involved. But a cleric must practice nonuse of arms. 26 " A counsel, as opposed to a precept, is an amicable persuasion. 27 A counsel never obligates unless by some circumstance it passes over into the realm of precept. 28 A perpetually celibate life is counselled by Christ; it is not a matter of obligation unless one in the priesthood or with a solemn perpetual vow of chastity should adopt the counsel and make it preceptive. 29 A parallel situation is found in the case of meekness, mercy, gentleness, and other submissive Christian virtues. There are heroic degrees of these virtues which must be practiced by some exceptional. souls called to and obligated to achieve high perfection and union with God by charity. Others, the majority of men, have no such call to an heroically perfect life and no corresponding obligation to live the counsels. There are grades of perfection so and the perfection of life consists essentially in precepts and accidentally in counsels. 31 The inequality of the perfection of .charity is :referred to by Aquinas when he says that the perfection of charity on the part of the one loving is threefold: in act, in Summa Theol., II-II, q. ]89, a. I, ad 5. Ibid., I-II, q. 108, a. 4, ad 4. 25 Ibid., II-II, q. 43, a. 7, ad 4. 26 De Virt., q. 3, a. !'l; Ill Cont. Gent., 130; Summa Theol., I-II, q. 108, a.3. ••• Ibid., II-II, q. 40, a. 3. 27 Q. D. de Ver., q.l7, a. 3, ad 2. 28 Summa Theol., II-II, q. l!'l4, a. 3, ad 1; IV Sent., d. XIX, q. !'l, a. 2, quaes. l. 20 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 108, a. 4, ad l. ao Ibid., II-II, q. 184, a. 3; q.l86, a. !'l. 31 De Regimine Principum, 6. 23 24 THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VmTUES 203 seeking, in habit. The first is found in the blessed, the second in perfect wayfarers, the third-to which all are bound-is found in those having charity. 32 An unfair procedure not sanctioned by complete Christianity is the bigotry and intolerance of men who crusade for counsels by trying to change them into commandments and to make them obligatory for all. They try to dragoon into a life of heroic perfection persons whom neither nature nor grace has fitted for such a life. Heroic submission, meekness, and gentleness are not binding on all men. Some have neither the ability nor the right to practice them; justice and charity often make aggressiveness and vindication mandatory. Though a preacher should aim at the betterment of all, he must remember that while all are obliged to tend to the perfection of charity, not all are obliged to have it in that heroic degree. 33 The abuse of virtues and their dislocation are chargeable to many who, innocently or otherwise, insist on drafting Christ into the service of pacifism and in Christian condonation and encouragement of injustice. It is possible to be too generous and turn charity into a vice. It is possible to be too meek and turn abasement into a crime against justice. It is possible to isolate love of enemies from prudence and thus turn charity into a criminal mockery of truth. During the tensions created by war it is imperative that the real nature of virtue be respected and that the consolidation of virtues be maintained. This means that the mediety and rationality of real virtue must be protected against extremes and emotion and that unity must be preserved against dislocation. Virtue must stand midway between extremes and it must be rational. In moral virtues, like the meekness and gentleness to which special reference is made here, it is essential that a golden mean be held. 34 This is particularly true where the departure from the golden mean is so subtle and gradual that the virtuous subject is unaware of the transition. Many of our Summa Theol., II-II, q. a. 8; q. 184, a. Ill Sent., d. XXIX, a. 8, quaes. S!. •• Summa Theol., I-II, q. 66, a. 3, ad 3; Ill Sent., d. XXIX, q.l, a.l. 32 33 204 IGNATIUS SMITH hypersympathetic peacemakers would resent the insinuation that sentiment and emotion have made their virtues fictitious and false. 35 They fail to realize that control is necessary to keep virtue within moderation and that fear of ruining a virtue through the development of an erosive vice is necessary .36 A defective virtue is likely to become, very rapidly, a vice, 37 and constant vigilance must be exercised to keep to the middle course or the formal element of a moral virtue. 38 Not the least of the difficulties of virtuous living is that of preserving from deteriorating, through excess, virtues already acquired. 39 One test that can be used to test the genuineness of a virtue is to see whether it really makes the possessor of the quality good/ 0 and whether at the same time it is not defeating other virtues,H but is strengthening genuinely good inclinations of human nature. 42 The controls which keep virtue from going to extremes are found in the rational and not in the emotional nature of man. Emotion is too unsteady a guide to be entrusted with the direction of virtue and the appetency from which it springs is too unpredictable. 43 Whether a virtuous act be so called because it springs from a virtue or prepares the way for a virtuous habit, 44 it is inextricably involved with cold, ing intelligence in its genesis and in its endurance. Intellect and will must be sovereign if virtue is to remain virtuous. Right choice is paramount/ 5 and right reason is basic in virtue. 46 The virtue remains a virtue only so long as it retains its relation with reason. 47 In fact the distinction and classification of the virtues rests 'on the correlation between the faculties Summa Theol., IT-II, q. 2:3, a. l; a. 7, ad 2:. Ibid., q. 123, a. 4, ad 2:. 37 Ibid., q. 107, a. 2:. 88 IV Sent., d. XV, q. 1, a. 1, quaes. 1. 39 De Virt., q. 1, a. 13, ad 1; Summa Theol., I-II, q. 63, a. 4. •o Ibid., II-II, q. 47, a. 4; De Virt., q. 1, a. 2:. 45 IV Se:nt., d. XIV, q. 1, a. 1, quaes. 2. 41 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 2:3, a. 7. 46 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 149, a. 2:. '"Ibid., q. 108, a. 2:. 47 11 Sent., d. XXVII, a. 2:, ad L '"Ibid., I-H, q. 59, a. I. •• II Sent., d. XLIV, q. 2:, a. 16. 35 36 THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 205 of the soul and reason/ 8 and reason becomes the taproot of all the virtues. 49 Apostasy from reason is incompatible with virtuous living, 50 and volition and election radicated in intelligence are supreme. 51 The very definitions of a moral virtue indicate these facts: " A moral virtue is only a certain participation of right reason in the appetite," 52 and " A moral virtue is a certain disposition or form sealed and impressed on the appetite by reason." 53 Control by cool reason is particularly necessary during the stress of war if virtues are to remain such. " The seal of reason on the lower powers formally perfects the moral virtues," 54 and " The habits of the moral virtues are caused in the appetitive powers in that they are moved by reason." 55 While intelligence must exercise power in the control of virtue, 56 special phases of rational life have priority in preserving the golden mean. " The end of any moral virtue is the attainment in its proper material of a mean determined according to the right reason of prudence." 57 Prudence is the wellspring of intelligence in which all the moral virtues share. 58 Discretion likewise is necessary to prevent sensile emotion from taking charge of and degrading a virtue. Discretion belongs to prudence; it is the cause, guardian, and moderator of the virtues. 59 The degradation of virtues, especially of the gentle virtues, is affected not only by apostasy from reason but also by dislocation and amputation. The virtues, moral and intellectual, are interlocked. The psychological unity of human personality, with a variety of faculties resident in the one soul indicates this fact. This consolidation of the virtues is discovered in more objective analysis. The object o£ one virtue frequently becomes the terminal of another, 60 and frequently one virtue will ema•• Summa Theol., I-II, q. 60, a. 5. •• De Virt., q. l, a. 4, ad 3. 60 S1tmma Theol., II-II, q. 47, a.l. 51 II Sent., d. XXIV, q. 3, a. :2, ad 3. •• De Virt., q. 1, a. 12, ad 16. •• Ibid., a. 9. •• Q. D. de Ve1·., q. :24, a. 4, ad 8. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 51, a. 2. •• Ibid., II-U, q. 47, a. 6. 57 Ibid., I-II, q. 66, a. 3, ad 3. 68 Ill Sent., d. XXVI, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3. •• Ill Sent., d. XXIII, q. 2, a. 5. 60 ln 1 Tim., lect. 2. 66 206 IGNATIUS SMITH nate from another either as a cause or a predisposition. 61 This means, concretely, that real mercy is displaced by the vice of softness unless justice and prudence are in controL It means too that patriotism is affected by religion and that love of country may disintegrate into jingoistic hatred unless charity is operative. It means also that prudence is likely to be debilitated into cunning under pressure of lust and greed. The moral virtues are so connected that they must stand or fall together. 62 This interlocking of the virtues is disclosed further by the fact that often one virtue will regulate many grades of emotion, 63 and that many forms of vice may ensue upon the collapse of one virtue. 64 There is an arresting fact, however, from the viewpoint of the solidarity and subsidiarism of the virtues. Despite inequalities of virtues in the same person, 65 they march to progressive perfection or dissolution together. All the virtues in the same person are equal by proportion because they have equal increase. 66 Neither the virtues of war nor the moral qualities of peace are safe when isolated from supporting virtues and they are slaves of vicious sentiment when they desert reason. Public leaders looking toward the peace chamber must keep in the differences between the rights and duties of an individual as such and the rights and duties of a nation responsible for the protection of its people and responsible for orderly relations with other single units in the family of nations. It is conceivable that while an individual may have the right, and in some cases the duty, to practice heroically the virtues of the counsels where he alone is concerned with the consequences, a nation would have no such right either in regard to its own people or other nations. Surrender of the right of punishing criminals and abdication of the duty of punishing gangster nations might violate both distributive justice and commutative justice. Such right the state does not possess, and yet 61 11 Sent., d. XLIV, q. S, a. I, ad 6. •• Summa Theol., I-II, q. 65, a.l; De Virt., q. 5, a. S, 3. 65 De Virt., q:5, a. 3. 63 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 60, a. 4. 66 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 66, a. 1, ad l. ••Ibid., II-II, q. 9£, a. l. THE MILJ;TANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 207 overkind persons will bring American Beauty roses to criminals in the death cell and are deeply worried that the war will produce, in our people, harsh feelings toward the Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese. Such mollifiers are dangerous diplomats to have at a peace table where fear of punishment may be the only sanction available for creating submission to international law. One set of virtues may come to the foreground when a man is acting as an independent individual, another set must be stressed when he is meeting the responsibilities of parental authority, and still another set of virtues assumes importance when he is acting in the capacity of a citizen. 67 In a parallel way public authority may have to vary the virtues in relation to the events with which it must deal. Turning the other cheek after an assault may be optional, as a counsel, to the average lay person. It would be forbidden to public authority where such submission would damage the commonweal of its own people and of society at large. 68 In this light one can understand the statement of St. Thomas: "A prince should rule his subjects with mercy, his captives with rigid justice." 69 Political authority is obligated to a new set of virtues on the assumption of o:ffice/0 and among these is the obligation of coercing to sound citizenship those who are inclined to crime. 71 A fourth danger to complete international thinking against which warning must be issued is that of overoptimistic idealism. Kindly and gentle persons are likely to believe that all others are like themselves. Their virtues are so Pollyannish and utopian that they become a vicious menace to public weal. They have urgent need of a realistic point of view which commands a vision of real facts, means, ends, and circumstances. Individuals and nations have tendencies to crime as well as to virtue. Not all individuals and not all nations can be won by love; many can be controlled by fear of reprisal. Christian nations must be astute in dealing with governments that are conducted on standards of pagan trickery and force. It is realDe Virt., q. l, a. 10; Q. D. de Malo., q. 4, a. l. 70 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 47, a. n, ad I. ln Matt., vi. 69 1n Ps., ii, n:xii. "ln Rom., v, lect. 6. 67 68 208 IGNATIUS SMITH ism to recognize that Christian virtues are under a handicap when in competition with qualities adopted by pagans as virtuous strength and repudiated by the followers of Christ as vicious weakness. One of the reasons for the tardiness of the coming supremacy of the United Nations is that their diplomats have been dealing with low pagan power politics from the level of Christian idealistic presumptions, and have failed to see many traps into which they have been lured. These Christian diplomats have failed to realize, until too late, that trust can be carried too far, that justified suspicion can be a virtue, 72 and that doubt is not always rash .and vicious. Appeasement, mercy, generosity, meekness are poor weapons for Christian nations to use when dealing with demoniac power governments that have only contempt for them. To the foreground, now and at the peace table, must come a galaxy of sturdy and tough Christian virtues. An understanding of some of them, in the thought of Aquinas, is timely, because these forms of honorable and virtuous hardness are repudiated with disdain by the satinhearted borderline cowards of this day. Vindictive justice, just anger, righteous indignation, and virtuous disdain ought to be restored to an honorable place in American attitudes. In order to forestall an obvious objection, it should be noted here that, not superior sanctity, but :rather the integrity of right reason, is :required for the just judgment which is essential to righteous punishment. 73 IV. THE MILITANT VIRTUES Vindictive justice brackets together a corps of firm and toughsouled qualities and unites them with charity. Justice, in a way, spreads itself over all the moral virtues, 74 but in its stricter sense it looks to the payment of debts, 75 and vindication is one of its subjective parts. 75 • Vindictive justice has respect to an offense that has been committed, which has upset rational order 72 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 60, a. 3. Ibid., q. 23, a. 5. 74 Ibid., q. 58, a. 6. 73 75 Ibid., a.ll. ••• Ill Sent., d. XXXIII, q. 3, a. 4, quaes. 1. THE MILITANT CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 209 and for which reason and order demand reparation. 76 In no other disorder is apostasy from reason so far-reaching and vicious as in that caused by violations of justice. 77 The cunning of smart men and the power of the mighty are weapons with which the structure of orderly justice is wrecked. 78 In its eternal perspective this sabotaged justice is adjusted by God in the endless punishments of the next world. 79 The truth and the goodness of the Deity demand the restoration of order through the vindications of justice. 80 Here on earth wise, just, and beneficent government is disclosed by the concern of earthly rulers for order established and protected by the vindication of justice. 81 The ordinary implement of vindictive justice is punishment, either medicinal or obliterating. 82 Punishments should have in mind both the restoration of the just order disrupted by sin and the correction of the sinner. 83 Medicinal punishment with this double intention should be distasteful to the culprit: it is of the nature of punishment to be against the will. 84 Given this condition, the action of the just punitive agent is good even though the culprit be indignant. 85 This principle might be kept in mind at the peace table by the delegates of the victorious United Nations in their negotiations. They will be there, not to barter, but to pass just and punitive sentence on the guilty instigators of total war. The vindication of justice and the future and peaceful health of society demand distasteful medicine 86 for the Axis governments and even for the civilian populations who have made them possible. Satisfaction must be demanded in the name of charity, justice, and order, which have been violated and which must be restored. 87 Correction is a function of charity, 88 and in its coactive phase it IS an •• IV Sent., d. XV, q. l, a. 1, quaes. 2. •• Summa Theol., II-II, q. 55, a. 8. 78 In Job, vii, lect. l. •• IV Sent., d. XLVI, q.l, a.l, quaes. 2. 80 Summa Theol., I, q. Ql, a. Q. 81 Ibid., a. l. •• De Anima, a. Ql, ad QO. 2 111 Cont. Gent., 144. •• Summa Theol., I, q. 64, a. 3. •• Q. D. de Malo, q. 1, a. 4, ad 9. Theol., I-II, q. 87, a. 7. •• IV Sent., d. XV, q. 1, a. 1, quaes. I. ""IV Sent., d. XIX, q. 5!, a. I. 83 210 IGNATIUS SMITH inescapable duty of justice, 89 all the more difficult when the culprit is proud and stubborn. 90 In such a situation severity, another virtue, will reenforce the demands of vindictive justice. Severity will give that firmness which sentimental sympathy might abdicate but which :right reason demands. 91 The desire for vindication, in itself, is a natural urge of human nature. It is more natural to demand reparation for injuries done us than not to demand such atonement. 92 Vindication, therefore, strengthening a natural impulse, becomes a special virtue, 93 and is reenforced by the noble virtues of courage, just anger, and charity. 9 "' Vindication remains a virtue as long as it keeps the golden mean between cruelty and savagery, at the one extreme, and unjust pardon at the other. 95 It remains a necessary virtue when :reparation is demanded not merely for the purpose of inflicting evil on culprits but to reform them, to restrain their lawless impulses and to guarantee the peace of others. 96 Such vindication to be effective and rational will deprive culprits, individual and national, of those values which they prize most highly .97 Vindication is. a quality that cannot be scrapped in international relations or in national autonomy. The tendency to go soft on this phase of justice is too widespread even though it is explicable. In the religious field, the neglect or denial of eternal punishment on sentimental grounds has created a habit of mind that asserts itself in sentimental softness everywhere. In the ethical and juridical field, the eradication of objective norms of right and wrong and the annihilation of responsibility and culpability have anathematized vindictive justice and punishment. It is to be hoped that the contagion will be arrested by war and that at the peace conference vindictive justice will be restored to its honorable place in the hierarchy of fine moral qualities. Two virtues that may be coupled and which need emphasis in 89 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 33, a. 1. 90 IV Sent., d. XIX, q. !