aken in a wide sense for the performance of any action
that may be a matter of precept, and disobedience for the omission of
that action through any intention whatever, then obedience will be a
general virtue, and disobedience a general sin.

Reply Obj. 2: Obedience is not a theological virtue, for its direct
object is not God, but the precept of any superior, whether expressed
or inferred, namely, a simple word of the superior, indicating his
will, and which the obedient subject obeys promptly, according to
Titus 3:1, "Admonish them to be subject to princes, and to obey at a
word," etc.

It is, however, a moral virtue, since it is a part of justice, and it
observes the mean between excess and deficiency. Excess thereof is
measured in respect, not of quantity, but of other circumstances, in
so far as a man obeys either whom he ought not, or in matters wherein
he ought not to obey, as we have stated above regarding religion (Q.
92, A. 2). We may also reply that as in justice, excess is in the
person who retains another's property, and deficiency in the person
who does not receive his due, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. v,
4), so too obedience observes the mean between excess on the part of
him who fails to pay due obedience to his superior, since he exceeds
in fulfilling his own will, and deficiency on the part of the
superior, who does not receive obedience. Wherefore in this way
obedience will be a mean between two forms of wickedness, as was
stated above concerning justice (Q. 58, A. 10).

Reply Obj. 3: Obedience, like every virtue, requires the will to be
prompt towards its proper object, but not towards that which is
repugnant to it. Now the proper object of obedience is a precept, and
this proceeds from another's will. Wherefore obedience makes a man's
will prompt in fulfilling the will of another, the maker, namely, of
the precept. If that which is prescribed to him is willed by him for
its own sake apart from its being prescribed, as happens in agreeable
matters, he tends towards it at once by his own will and seems to
comply, not on account of the precept, but on account of his own
will. But if that which is prescribed is nowise willed for its own
sake, but, considered in itself, repugnant to his own will, as
happens in disagreeable matters, then it is quite evident that it is
not fulfilled except on account of the precept. Hence Gregory says
(Moral. xxxv) that "obedience perishes or diminishes when it