en
negligence is due to contempt.

But if negligence consists in the omission of an act or circumstance
that is not necessary for salvation, it is not a mortal but a venial
sin, provided the negligence arise, not from contempt, but from some
lack of fervor, to which venial sin is an occasional obstacle.

Reply Obj. 1: Man may be said to love God less in two ways. First
through lack of the fervor of charity, and this causes the negligence
that is a venial sin: secondly through lack of charity itself, in
which sense we say that a man loves God less when he loves Him with a
merely natural love; and this causes the negligence that is a mortal
sin.

Reply Obj. 2: According to the same authority (gloss), a small
offering made with a humble mind and out of pure love, cleanses man
not only from venial but also from mortal sin.

Reply Obj. 3: When negligence consists in the omission of that which
is necessary for salvation, it is drawn to the other more manifest
genus of sin. Because those sins that consist of inward actions, are
more hidden, wherefore no special sacrifices were prescribed for them
in the Law, since the offering of sacrifices was a kind of public
confession of sin, whereas hidden sins should not be confessed in
public.
_______________________

QUESTION 55

OF VICES OPPOSED TO PRUDENCE BY WAY OF RESEMBLANCE
(In Eight Articles)

We must now consider those vices opposed to prudence, which have a
resemblance thereto. Under this head there are eight points of
inquiry:

(1) Whether prudence of the flesh is a sin?

(2) Whether it is a mortal sin?

(3) Whether craftiness is a special sin?

(4) Of guile;

(5) Of fraud;

(6) Of solicitude about temporal things;

(7) Of solicitude about the future;

(8) Of the origin of these vices.
_______________________

FIRST ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 55, Art. 1]

Whether Prudence of the Flesh Is a Sin?

Objection 1: It would seem that prudence of the flesh is not a sin.
For prudence is more excellent than the other moral virtues, since it
governs them all. But no justice or temperance is sinful. Neither
therefore is any prudence a sin.

Obj. 2: Further, it is not a sin to act prudently for an end which it
is lawful to love. But it is lawful to love the flesh, "for no man
ever hated his own flesh" (Eph. 5:29). Therefore prudence of the
flesh is not a sin.

Obj. 3: Further, just as man is tempted by the flesh, so too is he
tempted by the world and the devil. But