Whether Vengeance Is a Special Virtue?
Objection 1: It seems that vengeance is not a special and distinct
virtue. For just as the good are rewarded for their good deeds, so
are the wicked punished for their evil deeds. Now the rewarding of
the good does not belong to a special virtue, but is an act of
commutative justice. Therefore in the same way vengeance should not
be accounted a special virtue.
Obj. 2: Further, there is no need to appoint a special virtue for an
act to which a man is sufficiently disposed by the other virtues. Now
man is sufficiently disposed by the virtues of fortitude or zeal to
avenge evil. Therefore vengeance should not be reckoned a special
virtue.
Obj. 3: Further, there is a special vice opposed to every special
virtue. But seemingly no special vice is opposed to vengeance.
Therefore it is not a special virtue.
_On the contrary,_ Tully (De Invent. Rhet. ii) reckons it a part of
justice.
_I answer that,_ As the Philosopher states (Ethic. ii, 1), aptitude
to virtue is in us by nature, but the complement of virtue is in us
through habituation or some other cause. Hence it is evident that
virtues perfect us so that we follow in due manner our natural
inclinations, which belong to the natural right. Wherefore to every
definite natural inclination there corresponds a special virtue. Now
there is a special inclination of nature to remove harm, for which
reason animals have the irascible power distinct from the
concupiscible. Man resists harm by defending himself against wrongs,
lest they be inflicted on him, or he avenges those which have already
been inflicted on him, with the intention, not of harming, but of
removing the harm done. And this belongs to vengeance, for Tully says
(De Invent. Rhet. ii) that by "vengeance we resist force, or wrong,
and in general whatever is obscure" [*_Obscurum._ Cicero wrote
_obfuturum_ but the sense is the same as St. Thomas gives in the
parenthesis] "(i.e. derogatory), either by self-defense or by
avenging it." Therefore vengeance is a special virtue.
Reply Obj. 1: Just as repayment of a legal debt belongs to
commutative justice, and as repayment of a moral debt, arising from
the bestowal of a particular favor, belongs to the virtue of
gratitude, so too the punishment of sins, so far as it is the concern
of public justice, is an act of commutative justice; while so far as
it is concerned in defending the rights of the individual by whom a
wrong is resisted, it belongs to the virtue of revenge.
Reply Obj. 2: Fortitude disposes to vengeance by removing an obstacle
thereto, namely, fear of an imminent danger. Zeal, as denoting the
fervor of love, signifies the primary root of vengeance, in so far as
a man avenges the wrong done to God and his neighbor, because charity
makes him regard them as his own. Now every act of virtue proceeds
from charity as its root, since, according to Gregory (Hom. xxvii in
Ev.), "there are no green leaves on the bough of good works, unless
charity be the root."
Reply Obj. 3: Two vices are opposed to vengeance: one by way of
excess, namely, the sin of cruelty or brutality, which exceeds the
measure in punishing: while the other is a vice by way of deficiency
and consists in being remiss in punishing, wherefore it is written
(Prov. 13:24): "He that spareth the rod hateth his son." But the
virtue of vengeance consists in observing the due measure of
vengeance with regard to all the circumstances.
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