Passions and Sins. The Summa Halensis and John of La Rochelle

The Summa Halensis contains no systematic treatment of the passions of the soul and the role they play in the dynamics of sin. However, the analysis of the structure of the soul, contained in the De homine section of Summa, and largely based on the De anima of John of La Rochelle, highlights the role that sensualitas plays in the moral act. As an expression of human passibilitas, which is a consequence of original sin, sensualitas, which in turn includes the concupiscible (the appetite of good and the escape from evil) and the irascible (the impulse to obtain or reject something of arduous), represents the irrational part of the soul in which the affective impulses are rooted, and from which the virtues and vices originate.