Thesis 4>20
Latin
Secunda est quod peccato mortali finiti temporis non debetur pena infinita secundum tempus, sed finita tantum.
Copy-text Farmer 1998 (farmer1998:21879-21880), whose OCR numbers the thesis '4220'; to be collated against the Rome print of 7 December 1486 (farmer1998:28040-28041). 'Pena' is the spelling of poena in Farmer's text (farmer1998:21879). Garsia uses the same phrase, 'pena infinita secundum tempus' (edelheit2022:20160-20161).
English
The second is that a mortal sin lasting a finite time is owed no penalty infinite in time, but only a finite one.
'Secunda' refers back to the preamble of 4>19, which announces two conclusions and asserts both only as probable (farmer1998:21873-21876). 'Finiti temporis' qualifies the sin and 'secundum tempus' the penalty: the thesis compares durations and says nothing about the intensity of the penalty (farmer1998:21879-21880). The distinction between a penalty's intensity and its duration is the one on which Garsia's quotation of Thomas turns (edelheit2022:20192-20196). 'Debetur' ('is owed') places the claim in the order of justice, the terms in which Garsia's source asks whether an eternal penalty is owed to mortal sin by justice (edelheit2022:20190-20192).
Doctrine
The thesis is the second of a pair announced in 4>19, whose first member holds that mortal sin in itself is a finite evil; 4>20 concludes that a sin of finite duration is owed a penalty (poena) finite in duration (farmer1998:21873-21876; farmer1998:21879-21880). The passage of Thomas that Garsia quoted against Pico gives a penalty two quantities, intensity of bitterness and length of time: the penalty matches the fault in intensity, so that the graver sin receives the graver penalty, but its duration does not follow the duration of the fault (edelheit2022:20190-20196). Edelheit summarises Garsia's reading: the gravity of the sin and the sinner's intention fix the gravity of the punishment, and the time the sin lasted is no factor (edelheit2022:20135-20140). Pico's thesis rests on the contrary principle, that the time of the fault bounds the time of the penalty (farmer1998:21879-21880). Before the commission Pico narrowed its scope: the thesis did not concern those who remain impenitent in mortal sin, who would indeed be punished for eternity, but only those who had lived in sin and repented (farmer1998:21937-21940). The editor infers that this restriction turned the thesis toward the question of what penalty remains owed after repentance, a question the sources consulted do not develop (farmer1998:21937-21940). On the finitude of the fault itself, the premise the thesis presupposes, see the entry on 4>19 (farmer1998:21876).
Context
This is the second of the thirteen propositions censured by the commission Innocent VIII created in February 1487, and the Apology answers it in its second question, on the punishment of mortal sin (copenhaver2022:514-515; copenhaver2022:847; fornaciari2010:1034). It comes from the section of theological conclusions that Pico declared 'a communi modo dicendi theologorum satis diversam', which supplied nine of the thirteen (farmer1998:21432-21435; farmer1998:21461-21462). Its preamble, shared with 4>19, withholds firm assertion only because of the sayings of the saints (farmer1998:21873-21875). By Farmer's cumulative count it is the 590th thesis of the printed text (farmer1998:21929-21930). The commission judged theses by the force of their words (ex vi verborum), a phrase that recurs in four of its verdicts (copenhaver2022:557-560). Garsia, a Thomist member of the commission, answered the Apology's defence of this thesis in his book of 1489 (copenhaver2022:548-550; edelheit2022:20130-20136); Copenhaver spells his name Garcia, Edelheit Garsia (copenhaver2022:549; edelheit2022:20130).
Reception
Farmer reports that the discussion before the commission turned on this thesis, 4>19 entering only briefly (farmer1998:21936-21937). After interrogating Pico at length the commission found that his response added error to error, and unanimously judged thesis and response false, erroneous and heretical (farmer1998:21940-21942). Blum's translation of the verdict list from the notarial record gives 'Wrong, erroneous, heretical' against 4>20 (dougherty2008:2183-2184; dougherty2008:2197-2199). The editor notes that the formula equals the verdict on 4>8 in severity, less its clause about Scripture (farmer1998:21696-21697; farmer1998:21941-21942). In the Apology Pico repeated that out of reverence for the saints he had never asserted the opinion in that form, only that it could be defended as probable (edelheit2008:16763-16765). Garsia's reply held that the thesis, taken by the strict force of its words, must be understood of mortal sin properly so called, since the meanings of words follow common use (edelheit2022:20198-20201). He then defined culpability (reatus) as the obligation to punishment that follows the fault, an effect of the sin rather than the sin, on the authority of Thomas and the Lombard (edelheit2022:20201-20208).
Historiography
Copenhaver lists the question as Q2, 'Sin', and his book, which focuses on six of the thirteen questions, indexes Q2 at four pages (copenhaver2022:847; copenhaver2022:249-250; copenhaver2022:13604). Edelheit (2022) is the only scholar consulted who discusses the doctrinal exchange, through Garsia; he observes that here Pico seems to lean on Thomas as well, while Garsia insists that Thomas meant the opposite (edelheit2022:20130-20136). Edelheit reads Garsia's method in this reply as a turn from the common way to the common use of words and the clarification of concepts such as obligation, guilt, punishment and culpability (edelheit2022:20170-20174). Edelheit (2008) groups this question with the others in which Pico insists that his theses are probable and defensible while attacking the commission (edelheit2008:16738-16741). The editor notes that Pico's reported defence here restricted the thesis's subject, from mortal sinners in general to the repentant, rather than reanalysing its logical form as he did for 4>8 (farmer1998:21937-21940; copenhaver2022:1995-2007). The thesis shows how far Pico would press a proportional idea of justice against the Thomist separation of duration from gravity before the commission, and how quickly he limited it when pressed (farmer1998:21936-21940; edelheit2022:20192-20196).
Pico's sources
- Thomas Aquinas, commentary on Sentences IV, distinction 46, question 1, article 3: the position 4>19-20 appears to oppose (Farmer) (farmer1998:21936)
- Thomas Aquinas on the Sentences, book 4: the penalty answers the fault in intensity, not in duration, as quoted by Pedro Garsia: cited by Pico in his support according to Garsia, who reads it against him (edelheit2022:20190-20196)
Quotations cited
- “false, erroneous, and heretical” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:21941)
- “Wrong, erroneous, heretical” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:2199)
- “Non autem correspondet duratio pene durationi culpe” — Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy (edelheit2022:20195)
- “the duration of the sin is not a factor in determining the nature of the punishment or its duration” — Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy (edelheit2022:20139)
- “de rigore sermonis rationabiliter est intelligenda de peccato mortali proprie dicto” — Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy (edelheit2022:20198)
Not established
- Aquinas's Sentences IV, distinction 46, question 1, article 3 was not opened; that Garsia's quotation from 'quarto sententiarum' (edelheit2022:20190-20192) is that article is the editor's inference.
- The Apology's Q2 was not opened; how Pico argued the thesis there, and which passage of Thomas he claimed, is not established by the sources consulted.
- The notarial record (Dorez and Thuasne 1897) is not in the corpus; Pico's restriction of the thesis to the repentant is known only through Farmer (farmer1998:21937-21940).
- What finite penalty Pico thought owed to the repentant, and whether he had purgatory in view, is not established by the sources consulted.
Discussed in
- M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (2008)
Farmer's cross-references
- 1>2 Qui dicunt innascibilitatem esse positiuam proprietatem constituentem patrem in esse hypostatico incommunicabili, ab opinione sancti doctori
- 1>7 De attrıbutorum distinctione non discordant Thommas et Scotus.
- 4>19 Nisi essent dicta sanctorum quae in manifesto sui sermonis uidentur dicere oppositum, firmiter assererem hanc et sequentem conclusionem; ass