Whether Patience Is a Virtue?
Objection 1: It seems that patience is not a virtue. For the virtues
are most perfect in heaven, as Augustine says (De Trin. xiv). Yet
patience is not there, since no evils have to be borne there,
according to Isa. 49:10 and Apoc. 7:16, "They shall not hunger nor
thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun strike them." Therefore
patience is not a virtue.
Obj. 2: Further, no virtue can be found in the wicked, since virtue
it is "that makes its possessor good." Yet patience is sometimes
found in wicked men; for instance, in the covetous, who bear many
evils patiently that they may amass money, according to Eccles. 5:16,
"All the days of his life he eateth in darkness, and in many cares,
and in misery and in sorrow." Therefore patience is not a virtue.
Obj. 3: Further, the fruits differ from the virtues, as stated above
(I-II, Q. 70, A. 1, ad 3). But patience is reckoned among the fruits
(Gal. 5:22). Therefore patience is not a virtue.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Patientia i): "The virtue of
the soul that is called patience, is so great a gift of God, that we
even preach the patience of Him who bestows it upon us."
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 123, A. 1), the moral virtues
are directed to the good, inasmuch as they safeguard the good of
reason against the impulse of the passions. Now among the passions
sorrow is strong to hinder the good of reason, according to 2 Cor.
7:10, "The sorrow of the world worketh death," and Ecclus. 30:25,
"Sadness hath killed many, and there is no profit in it." Hence the
necessity for a virtue to safeguard the good of reason against
sorrow, lest reason give way to sorrow: and this patience does.
Wherefore Augustine says (De Patientia ii): "A man's patience it is
whereby he bears evil with an equal mind," i.e. without being
disturbed by sorrow, "lest he abandon with an unequal mind the goods
whereby he may advance to better things." It is therefore evident
that patience is a virtue.
Reply Obj. 1: The moral virtues do not remain in heaven as regards
the same act that they have on the way, in relation, namely, to the
goods of the present life, which will not remain in heaven: but they
will remain in their relation to the end, which will be in heaven.
Thus justice will not be in heaven in relation to buying and selling
and other matters pertaining to the present life, but it will remain
in the point of being subject to God. In like manner the act of
patience, in heaven, will not consist in bearing things, but in
enjoying the goods to which we had aspired by suffering. Hence
Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv) that "patience itself will not be in
heaven, since there is no need for it except where evils have to be
borne: yet that which we shall obtain by patience will be eternal."
Reply Obj. 2: As Augustine says (De Patientia ii; v) "properly
speaking those are patient who would rather bear evils without
inflicting them, than inflict them without bearing them. As for those
who bear evils that they may inflict evil, their patience is neither
marvelous nor praiseworthy, for it is no patience at all: we may
marvel at their hardness of heart, but we must refuse to call them
patient."
Reply Obj. 3: As stated above (I-II, Q. 11, A. 1), the very notion of
fruit denotes pleasure. And works of virtue afford pleasure in
themselves, as stated in _Ethic._ i, 8. Now the names of the virtues
are wont to be applied to their acts. Wherefore patience as a habit
is a virtue, but as to the pleasure which its act affords, it is
reckoned a fruit, especially in this, that patience safeguards the
mind from being overcome by sorrow.
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