and and instruction by obedience: and
consequently obedience is requisite for religious perfection.

Reply Obj. 1: To obey one's superiors in matters that are essential
to virtue is not a work of supererogation, but is common to all:
whereas to obey in matters pertaining to the practice of perfection
belongs properly to religious. This latter obedience is compared to
the former as the universal to the particular. For those who live in
the world, keep something for themselves, and offer something to God;
and in the latter respect they are under obedience to their
superiors: whereas those who live in religion give themselves wholly
and their possessions to God, as stated above (AA. 1, 3). Hence their
obedience is universal.

Reply Obj. 2: As the Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 1, 2), by
performing actions we contract certain habits, and when we have
acquired the habit we are best able to perform the actions.
Accordingly those who have not attained to perfection, acquire
perfection by obeying, while those who have already acquired
perfection are most ready to obey, not as though they need to be
directed to the acquisition of perfection, but as maintaining
themselves by this means in that which belongs to perfection.

Reply Obj. 3: The subjection of religious is chiefly in reference to
bishops, who are compared to them as perfecters to perfected, as
Dionysius states (Eccl. Hier. vi), where he also says that the
"monastic order is subjected to the perfecting virtues of the
bishops, and is taught by their godlike enlightenment." Hence neither
hermits nor religious superiors are exempt from obedience to bishops;
and if they be wholly or partly exempt from obedience to the bishop
of the diocese, they are nevertheless bound to obey the Sovereign
Pontiff, not only in matters affecting all in common, but also in
those which pertain specially to religious discipline.

Reply Obj. 4: The vow of obedience taken by religious, extends to the
disposition of a man's whole life, and in this way it has a certain
universality, although it does not extend to all individual acts. For
some of these do not belong to religion, through not being of those
things that concern the love of God and of our neighbor, such as
rubbing one's beard, lifting a stick from the ground and so forth,
which do not come under a vow nor under obedience; and some are
contrary to religion. Nor is there any comparison with continence
whereby acts are excluded which ar