The arguments in favor of establishing the evangelical counsels.
The arguments in favor of establishing the evangelical counsels.
§ 93. What arguments do they use in support of the evangelical counsels? Bellarmine (De monach., bk. 2, chs. 9–12) sets up a four classes of arguments, the first of which he draws from Scripture; the second, from the examples of the early church; the third, from the testimonies of the ancients; and the fourth, from reason.
As regards the first class, which has been taken from the statements of Scripture, the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5–7] was once the foremost and most powerful foundation for the idea about the counsels. They imagined that most of its parts were evangelical counsels but not general commandments. But Bellarmine produces no arguments from Matthew 5 without admitting that Christ’s sermon was not against the actual moral Law but against the Pharisees’ corruption of the Law. Therefore he looks for other supports in Scripture.