Section I — On Virtue

On Virtue

Virtue, as it was defined in General Ethics, can be called the Harmony of the moral life with the innate moral law, because it consists in the harmony of the human being’s psychic powers—knowledge, will, and consciousness—with the divine will, the divine law, the moral idea.

Is virtue innate?

The question is not appropriate, because the answer yes or no will not be entirely true; for if we nod yes, virtue might be identified with instinct and assimilated to the virtue of animals; but if we shake our heads no, then the human being might be considered free and released from every obligation toward virtue, as not having the disposition toward virtue innately. The inaccuracy of the answer testifies to the inappropriateness of the question.

(1) “Virtue,” says Sellingius, “is a state in which one conforms not to a law laid down outside oneself, but to a law inherent in the necessity of one’s own nature.” A good disposition of the soul concerning the whole of life (Stob. Ecl. Eth. 166).

Where does the defect of the question lie?

The flaw in the question lies in the assumption of the questioner, who views virtue as something other than what virtue actually is—either as a faculty of the soul, or as a concept, or as something completely foreign to human nature. Therefore the question must be formulated as follows:

Does Virtue Belong to Human Nature?

Absolutely. Virtue naturally belongs to the human being, because the human being, as morally free, is potentially moral—that is, virtuous. But the human being becomes actually moral (good, virtuous) by his free will and by divine help and assistance, because within the human being there exists both the disposition and the inclination to draw near to God continually through perfection and holiness.

Who is truly virtuous?

The one who wills virtue voluntarily and freely and who labors voluntarily for it, because what is unwilled and unfree, being involuntary, is not virtue. Virtue is chosen and voluntary and is joined to voluntary struggles, and the struggles are eternal, because of the eternal conflict of the flesh against the Spirit. “For the flesh covets against the Spirit, says the Apostle Paul, and the Spirit against the flesh.” And Job says that “life on earth is a trial.” Because of this struggle, virtue is the prize of the victors. It begins with choice, but is strengthened and perfected through struggle and vigilance.

When is virtue genuine and pure?

When it is pure and sincere; that is, when it is practiced by choice for the sake of virtue itself and not for the attainment of some goal. (6) One of the Fathers said somewhere that even the person who abstains from evil and does good only in hope of future blessedness or through fear of eternal punishment does not possess true virtue, nor has he been made like God.

What are the good things lavished by divine energy upon the virtuous person from pure and sincere virtue?

(1) Peace of soul and heart, (2) absolute confidence toward God, (3) ineffable love toward neighbor; 4) boldness before God and men; 5) courage in dangers, and endurance and consolation in afflictions; 6) true and steadfast hope; and 7) likeness to the divine.[1]

Does the word “virtue” appear in the Holy Scriptures?

The word “virtue” is not common in the Holy Scriptures; but the reality is expressed in other terms. such as (1) righteousness, (2) the mind of the Spirit, (3) holiness, (4) fear of God, (5) keeping the commandments, etc.

Is virtue absolutely necessary?

Most certainly. (1) Because it is a demand of the soul; because the human being by nature loves virtue, since by nature he desires the highest good, and (2) as the offspring of God we have by nature the capacity to become like God, and therefore we ought to become like Him. Holy Scripture says: “You therefore shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Is virtue one or manifold?

Virtue is essentially one and indivisible, as the enduring harmony of a person’s moral life with the moral law. Nevertheless, it is distinguished by ethicists according to kind based on the subjects with which it is concerned, for example into theological, moral, governing, political, and domestic virtues.

What are the theological virtues?

The theological virtues are the following three: faith, hope, and love (6). They are called theological because all three of these are traced back to God or to His divine attributes: for example, faith relates to His revealing Himself to the world, and consequently to the divine attributes of eternal Wisdom, power, divinity, goodness, righteousness, and holiness. Hope relates to the contemplation of glory and omnipotence, and consequently to the attributes of mercy, long-suffering, compassion, and love for mankind; and love relates to the perfections of the divine attributes—Wisdom, omnipotence, goodness, providence, and consequently compassion, love, and love for mankind—from which comes the salvation of the human race.

What are moral virtues?

Moral virtues are all actions that are in harmony with the rational nature of the human being and relating both to ourselves and to our neighbor, that is, to the human being;

so the moral virtues encompass all moral actions that relate to the spiritual and bodily nature of the human being.

What are the foundational virtues?

Foundational are those that relate to the soul’s faculties of the human being.

Which are considered civic virtues?

Civic virtues are considered those that relate to the social relations of the human being.

What are considered domestic virtues?

Domestic virtues are considered those that relate to one’s own household.

Do all these virtues differ essentially from one another?

All the virtues do not differ essentially or at all from one another, because virtue is one, stable, and unchangeable; the distinction is made for the scientific teaching of the subject of ethics. We will divide them into theological and moral, because in the concept of moral virtue every particular concept is contained.

On the Moral Value of Virtue.

What is the moral value of virtue?

The moral value of virtue is absolute. It is considered more in terms of its inner nobility than its outward disposition or energy. Virtue, according to its moral value, is nobility of spirit, nobility of heart, and nobility of soul. Plato says concerning the moral value of virtue: “Virtue would be a kind of health and beauty and well-being of the soul” (Plato, Republic 448), and again, “All the gold on earth and under the earth is not worth as much as virtue.” [Plato, Laws], and Isocrates says: “There is no possession more honorable or more secure than virtue” (see Treasury of Sayings, vol. 1, ch. 114, ch. 515). “The absolute value of virtue consists in this: that it is not only the way that leads to likeness to God, but also the very likeness itself.”

On Religious Value

What is the value of virtue from a religious perspective?

From a religious or spiritual perspective, the value of virtue is the spiritual and true worship befitting man and pleasing to God, because true, pure virtue is the worship of God in spirit and truth (1) and the religious observance that is pure and undefiled (2). Concerning worship without virtue, the Savior said of the Jews what Isaiah said: “This people honors me with their mouth and with their lips, but their heart is far from me”; therefore, worship without virtue is vain babbling. Worship requires fervent and pure zeal for union with God. But these things are found in virtue alone.

Concerning Virtue in Relation to Happiness

What is the relation of virtue to happiness?

The relation of virtue to happiness is the relation of the spiritual person to spiritual goods, because the happiness of the virtuous person is spiritual enjoyment.

Concerning Virtue in Its Relation to Blessedness

What is the relation of virtue to blessedness?

The relation of virtue to blessedness is a relation of human nature to divine nature, because the human being, by being assimilated to God through virtue, becomes a partaker of God’s goodness and blessedness according to divine good pleasure.

Aristotle says the following concerning happiness and blessedness: “So the energy of God, which surpasses in blessedness, would be contemplative; and of human activities, the one most akin to this would be most productive of happiness.” A sign of this is also that the other living creatures do not partake of happiness, being completely deprived of such activity. For to the gods the whole of life is blessed, but to human beings, insofar as some likeness of such activity belongs to them. But none of the other animals is happy, since they in no way share in contemplation. And as far as contemplation extends, so does happiness, and to those to whom contemplating belongs more fully, so does being happy, not accidentally but in accordance with contemplation. For virtue is honorable in itself. “So happiness would be a kind of contemplation.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics X, 8.3) See On Happiness.

Aristotle says that happiness consists in activity and virtue in a complete life (Nicomachean Ethics X, 6).

The Stoics said that external things pose no obstacle to happiness, but that the virtuous person is blessed even if burning in the Bull of Phalaris. (from Gregory the Theologian, Letter 32, to Philagrius.)

On the Theological Virtues, that is, Faith, Hope, and Love

On Faith

What is faith?

“Faith is unhesitating assent to what has been heard, in full assurance of the truth of what has been proclaimed by the grace of God,” says Basil the Great. Clement says: “Faith is a concise knowledge of urgent matters.” And the Apostle Paul defines faith as follows: “Now faith is the hypostasis of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen.” (1) And Chrysostom says: “Faith is the unwavering and unhesitating hope both of what has been promised to us by God and of the success of our petitions.” (see Treasury of Dogmas, Vol. 4, chs. 4, 2, 3, 5, 6.)

To which divine attribute is faith particularly related?

Faith is particularly related to divine revelation and confirms the recognition in God of the divine attributes of Wisdom, of eternal power, of divinity, of goodness, of righteousness, and of holiness. Whoever confesses divine revelation confesses the Wisdom of God that so wisely created the world of beings, both visible and invisible. (2) Faith confesses His ineffable goodness, through which He was pleased to make known to us the dogmatic truths through supernatural revelations, to give commandments, the divine law and the promises, and to teach through revelation all truth. Likewise, he confesses His eternal power manifested in the creation of the universe, and His divine providence. Likewise, it confesses the divinity and holiness of God revealed in all things. Likewise, the believer confesses His righteousness, which is attested by the destruction of the devil’s power, from which He delivered us.

So what do we receive and confess by believing?

“and teachers, and in the end saved him through His Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.” Moreover, we receive and confess the revealed Godhead in three hypostases: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a Trinity consubstantial and inseparable.

Moreover, we believe and confess that through divine revelation there have been made known to us the things concerning God, the things concerning man, the things concerning the life to come, the things concerning recompense, and all truth.

Is faith a product of knowledge, that is, of the intellect, or of feeling, that is, of the heart?

Faith is properly a product of the heart, because the heart receives or rejects faith. Hence it is neither imposed nor reckoned a duty, but is reckoned and is a virtue. Therefore faith is a characteristic peculiar to virtue: no one virtuous is an unbeliever, nor is anyone faithful devoid of virtue, just as no one vicious is faithful, nor is anyone faithful vicious. The good Nathanael, as soon as he saw, became faithful; the vicious Judas lived as an unbeliever, as did the unbelieving Jews.

What are the characteristics of faith?

The characteristics of faith are the following: living, active, formative, illuminating, sanctifying, revealing, strengthening. All these make it luminous; luminosity is the distinguishing mark of true faith. Because of this particularity of faith, the Savior said to his disciples: “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven”; and the Evangelist: “that we shall see him as he is.”

If, then, faith is light and possesses the characteristics mentioned, unbelief is therefore darkness and deprivation of all things. And if faith is the highest of the virtues, unbelief is the highest of the vices.

Concerning Hope

What is hope?

Hope is the expectation of good things; an innate consolation, an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, faith confessed in deed.

What is the foremost good that is expected?

God, whose enjoyment we desire. The Evangelist says, “We are now children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be; but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him.” And: “We shall bear the image of the earthly man and the image of the heavenly man.”[2]

What are the secondary goods?

The means of salvation and life provided by God.

Or to which attributes of God does hope refer?

The one who hopes in the glory, the omnipotence, the goodness, the righteousness, the compassion, and the love for humanity expects to see the glory of God and be satisfied: “I shall be satisfied when Your glory appears.”

Moreover, he hopes to obtain salvation through divine help and support: “I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you.”

What are the characteristics of hope?

To provide courage, bravery, fortitude, endurance, strength, unyielding resistance, and expectation. All these things bear witness to the power of hope.

Is hope a fruit of the spirit or of the heart?

Hope is a fruit of the heart, as is faith, of which it is the confirmation and confession; therefore it coexists with faith: where faith is, there also is hope; no one who is faithful is without hope, and no one without hope is faithful. Hence hope, like faith, is a virtue; therefore it is not imposed from outside. Hope that does not spring from faith, that does not have its seat in the heart, turns out rather to be a vice, because it begets irrational courage and irrational thoughts that assault the divine attributes. True hope leads to salvation; false hope leads to destruction; false hope leads very quickly to despair, and despair is a lack of faith and virtue.

Hope in Christ is a sweet expectation of eternal life. Therefore the Apostle Paul also says to the Romans: “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Rom. 5:1–5. Cf. also 8:24–25 and 1 Cor. 13:12–13).

The Image of Hope

Hope, a delightful sound, full of joy, of good things!

How truly wonderful is your power! How wonder-working! Your energy! You are truly beautiful as a daughter of heaven. Who can describe your beauty? Who is able to recount your benefits? Your power is the pillar that supports the afflictions of men, and your energy bears the dominion of the kingdom of good things. You are an inalienable gift of God, for you were fashioned together with the human soul to strengthen it in the trials of life, to prove it superior to circumstances and an undefeated contender; you were given to award it the victory and to adorn its head with unfading crowns. You were given to him innately, so that you might lead him to perfection, so that you might lift him up to the heights and bring him out of the chaos into which he would have fallen without you. You were given to him as guide and helmsman, so that you might direct his course in the storm-tossed sea of life, often covered by gloomy darkness and troubled by all kinds of winds, threatening the seafaring or wave-tossed vessel with shipwreck through successive waves. O! What is more beautiful than hope? What is brighter than this, or holier, or more precious, or greater, or better? Truly, nothing. Behold, a sick man lies on his bed suffering incurably, and when he has been abandoned by everyone, hope alone sits unceasingly by his pillow, comforting, strengthening, and consoling the one who suffers terribly, and relieving his afflictions. Hope strengthens timid hearts and makes them strong and courageous, so that they may face calamities. Hope in God gives life to the one who has already despaired from the struggle, and with new strength invigorates his weakened sinews. Hope in God drives out dark and dreadful despair, and draws down divine mercy and salvation. Hope in God saves those who have fallen. Hope in the mercy of God lifts up the broken; it looses the bonds of those in chains. Hope shines like the rosy-fingered dawn in the moral firmament and illuminates the days of the afflicted soul that have been darkened by gloom; it pours the balm of consolation upon the wounds of the grieving heart. It takes hold of the orphans. And it supports the widow. Hope in recompense consoles the one who is wronged and relieves the one who is oppressed; hope strengthens the elderly so that they may bear old age without complaint; it emboldens abandoned virgins to live in chastity, and young men to prove themselves good men. It wipes away the warm tears from the eyes of the unfortunate.

Hope in eternal life makes death painless for the one who walks toward it. Hope comforts the one breathing his last, strengthens the one fighting courageously, consoles the one condemned to death, supports the one living miserably, and makes the one struggling for virtue, for truth, for justice, for the beautiful and the good, unyielding and unconquerable.

Hope is progress, development, and advancement. If you remove hope from the field, the world would vanish from despair. Hope is the creative power of all good things. Hope guides the wise and learned person in his investigations and subjects him to countless labors and struggles; hope teaches those sailing on a wooden raft how to cross the dark sea. Hope moves everyone to their various undertakings. Hope nourishes and gives life.

Hope regenerates the human being corrupted by sin and truly reveals a virtuous and good man. Truly great is hope, a divine gift, because it alone strengthens all things, beautifies all things, perfects all things, secures all things, and advances all things. Let us ask humanity, and it will answer with one voice that hope in God, promising eternity, has saved humanity by guiding it safely along the long course of its life. The heroes, the martyrs of faith, of freedom, of knowledge, of the good, of the beneficial, of the just, and in general all the great men who have benefited humanity, who have offered themselves as holy sacrifices on the altar of virtue, were led as by a hierophant and high priest, by hope, to the living God, the eternal one, who grants to those who commune with him eternal life. Truly blessed is the one who hopes in the Lord.

Despair is opposed to hope.

Despair! A dreadful sound, full of condemnation! Of every kind of evil! Who can number the evils that accompany it? Who can depict her? She is black as a daughter of Hades,

A Fury; her homeland is Tartarus. She ascended from the depths of Hades to the earth, in order to plunge creation into gloomy Tartarus; she was born in order to destroy the existence of men and to blot them out from the face of the earth; Wherever her name resounds, there corruption and destruction establish their dominion. Desolation and annihilation follow in her footsteps; an avenging demon directs her paths, and fear and trembling accompany her appearance. Despair! Your name expresses denial of all things, denial of hope, denial of heaven, denial of the Creator of all, and your denial expresses your impiety toward God. You deny His providence and omnipotence, and you reject the existence of the Savior and redeemer of those in danger; wherever you enter, from there you drive out hope, on which the world is founded; your work is destruction, and your mission is annihilation; You terrify the naturally bold, you frighten the naturally courageous, you make the brave man a coward, you render the daring man timid, you discourage bold champions, you strike down noble defenders who fight for homeland and freedom, you crush those who contend for virtue and truth, and you turn those who labor for justice, the good, and knowledge into deserters and shield-throwers, and you hand everyone over as captives to the enemy. You came forth from Tartarus, envying the happiness and blessedness of man, and you visited the earth in order to cut short his journey toward progress, to turn him back as he runs in his course, and to halt his labors as he works for happiness and perfection. You came to bind his intellectual and bodily powers and activities and to bring about his erasure and annihilation. You came to pour out misery, tribulations and distresses among human communities, and to drench the flower-crowned earth with abundant tears. For you hate the happiness of men and war against their joy. Your very name torments with dark thoughts even the man who has already grown old and is already walking toward the end of life, and discourages and strikes down the young man who has already entered the course and is in the fullness of life and vigor as a runner, and causes the virgins who fight for virtue and truth to despair and delivers them to destruction, and you, striking down all people in general, bring them to ruin. You present the idea of death to those who are not suffering, and you lead youth to destruction even when the unfortunate are not unfortunate, against their own life, and you overthrow the strength of hearts. You persuade the one who finds himself in distress to disregard divine and human laws, and to become guilty of crime. You counsel evil things and commit all crimes. Your appearance is accompanied by thick and gloomy darkness, and covers all things with black clouds. Wherever you pass by, there no ray of light shines through. Everywhere your presence stirs up storms in the hearts of men, and raises up raging and foaming waves, which flood and sink the tossing vessel and all its crew. No one can be saved from this shipwreck; the bottom of the abyss becomes the eternal tomb of the shipwrecked; wretched is the human being who has abandoned hope, the anchor of salvation, and given himself over to despair.

Concerning Love

What is love toward God?

Love toward God is devotion to Him with all the soul, with all the heart, with all the strength, and with all the mind. But since devotion is impossible for one who does not know God, it follows that devotion to God is knowledge of God. For devotion is born from love, and love from knowledge.

Where does love for God come from?

1) From the divine perfections revealed in the mind and the heart: for example, of His glory, wisdom, omnipotence, goodness, providence; and 2) from the divine grace that fills the human heart, dwelling in it, giving it life and warming it, and teaching about the divine perfections, as well as about compassion, love, kindness toward humanity, etc. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).[3]

What place does love as a virtue hold among the virtues of faith and hope?

The first: what the Apostle Paul said, that faith, hope, and love remain, these three; But the greatest of these is love.

He himself says that love is poured out from God. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Rom. 5:5).

Concerning the characteristics of love for God

What are the characteristics of love for God?

The characteristics of love for God are the following: sincerity, purity, selflessness, energy, fearlessness; these characterize true love for God. Whoever does not have such love is led astray, thinking that he loves God; For love that is not of this kind is not truly love, nor is it simple virtue, nor virtue at all, because it is not a pure prompting of the heart, but a prompting of the mind. it is love of the lips. Both the prophets and our Savior condemned such love. The prophets in many places rebuke the Jewish people for such love. The prophet Isaiah says in rebuke: “This people honors me with their mouth and with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” And the Evangelist John says: “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth, and by this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.” “ for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” (2)

Q: What other characteristics mark rational and genuine love?

The longing for union with God; as the deer longs for the springs of water, so the loving soul longs for God; therefore the prophet-king David says, “When shall I come and appear before the face of God?” (3); 2) the willing fulfillment of the commandments of the divine law and the identification of one’s own will with the divine will; and 3) love for one’s neighbor.

What are the vices that oppose love?

These are ten: 1) hatred toward God and toward one’s neighbor, 2) indifference to spiritual things, 3) envy, 4) discord, 5) word-battle, 6) strife, 7) sedition, 8) unjust war, 9) schism, 10) scandal.

(3) Psalm 51.[4]

On the Moral Virtues.

What is a moral virtue?

A moral virtue is a rational action in harmony with the rational nature of man and with the divine law written in his heart.

Are the virtues distinguished from one another?

Certainly. Into primary and derivative.[5]

Which are the primary moral virtues, and which are the derivative?

The primary moral virtues are the principal virtues from which the remaining virtues are derived, and they are traced back to the innate moral faculties: the rational, the spirited, and the desiring. The virtues of the intellect are traced back to the rational faculty, the virtues of the heart or of feeling to the spirited faculty, and the virtues relating to desires in general to the desiring faculty. The virtues of the intellect are, first, prudence. From prudence, as from a primary cause, are begotten wisdom, understanding, knowledge, truth, and counsel. The virtue of the heart, or of the spirited faculty, is courage. From courage are derived strength and boldness, endurance, magnanimity, greatness of soul, generosity, almsgiving, and magnificence. The virtues of the appetitive part are self-control, from which come purity, virginity, integrity, and so on.

Are there other principal virtues besides the principal moral virtues already mentioned that are not reducible to the categories already discussed?

Certainly. According to Plato, justice is “for in justice is summed up every virtue,” but according to the Holy Scriptures, which do not reject this notion of justice, the holy fear of God is higher. as that which comprehensively embraces every virtue, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the one who fears the Lord will greatly delight in His commandments.

On the Virtues of the Intellect: Namely, Prudence, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Truth, and Counsel.

What is prudence?

Plato, giving the definition of prudence, says: “A power productive in itself of human happiness; knowledge of good and evil.”[6]

“a disposition by which we judge what should be done and what should not be done” (Plato, Definitions). That is why he also says in the Meno: All the undertakings and endurances of the soul, when led by prudence, end in happiness, but when led by foolishness, in the opposite. Theodoret says, “Prudence is the wakefulness of the reasoning faculty within us.”

What is wisdom?

Wisdom is knowledge of ignorance, says Cleobulus of Rhodes. Plato says, “Wisdom is knowledge without presuppositions.” knowledge of things that always exist; “theoretical knowledge of the cause of things” (Plato, Definitions); Gregory says: The Theologian says, “The first Wisdom is a praiseworthy life purified for God.”

What is understanding?

Aristotle says: It is a critical kind of knowledge that only judges what is good and what is evil. Understanding and prudence are not the same thing. “For prudence is prescriptive—what one should or should not do is its end—while understanding is only critical.” (Nicomachean Ethics, ch. 10).

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is self-knowledge, for to be ignorant of oneself is worse than the most extreme madness and delirium; the latter is a disease of necessity, but the former is the result of a corrupted will (Chrysostom). Clement of Alexandria says that knowledge is the knowledge of God; but if you wish to know God, first know yourself—so say Evagrius, Nilus, and others. Holy Scripture calls knowledge light, saying, “Take care lest the light in you be darkness” (Luke 11:35).

What is truth?

Truth is a clear word full of power and persuasive to the mind and the heart. But absolute truth is the Word of God, which through faith gives full assurance to believers concerning what God is, what man is, and what the world is; because faith in the divine truth is a light that illuminates and exposes all things. According to these things, we may say that absolute truth is right faith.

On Counsel

Counsel is the helmsman of reasoning and the light of thoughts, and the advisor of good decisions.

What are the corresponding vices of the intellect?

Foolishness, senselessness, folly, vanity, lack of understanding, falsehood, lack of counsel, etc.

What is foolishness?

The absence of prudence, and a deficiency of discernment even in ordinary and human matters. Hence the fool says, There is no God; he abandons the law, and praises impiety. (See Treasury.)[7]

What is folly?

The deprivation of right reason and spiritual blindness. From this the senseless person is handed over to many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. (1 Tim. 6:9) Thesaurus, Vol. 4, p. 149.

What is lack of understanding?

A lack of understanding.

What is vanity?

Fruitless labor of the spirit and unprofitable desire of the heart. The vain person always builds without foundations and adorns outward things; his works have no depth, nor do his plans contain anything good.

What is folly?

A disease of the spirit and an inability of judgment to discern between good and evil, through which one is always led astray.

What is falsehood?

A lie is a multifaceted statement containing deceit, presented as truth by the liar for the purpose of deceiving others for his own advantage. Scripture calls falsehood the offspring of the devil. (John 8:44).

What is thoughtlessness?

Thoughtlessness is unexamined deliberation and a lack of right reasoning: Like a city with its walls broken down, so is a man who does everything without counsel. (Proverbs of Solomon)

Concerning the Virtues of the Spirited Part: Courage, Endurance, Magnanimity, Greatness of Soul, Magnificence, Strength, and Boldness: What Is Courage?

Theodoret says concerning courage: “This is the just movement of the spirited part, just as the other is unjust and disordered.”

What Does Clement of Alexandria Say Concerning Courage?

Clement, describing the character of courage, says: “Courage consists not only in enduring circumstances, but also in not caring about pleasure and desire, grief and anger, and in general in resisting everything that either by force or by some deceit captivates us.” For we must endure not only evils and evil things, but also fearful things . . . “The forms of courage are endurance, magnanimity, greatness of soul, generosity, and magnificence.” But Gregory— How does Gregory of Nazianzus define courage? Courage is firmness in the face of fearful things. Scripture calls courage “strength.” Isidore says: The Pelusiot says, “We consider courage to be contempt for difficulties and bearing what happens nobly.” (See Thesaurus, Vol. 1, chapters 134 and 135.)

What are the vices opposed to this virtue?

The vices opposed to the virtue of courage are cowardice, desertion, and betrayal.

What is endurance?

According to Plato, “Endurance is the patient bearing of pain for the sake of what is good; the patient bearing of toil for the sake of what is good” (Plato, Definitions). Endurance is a virtue that enables the virtuous person to bear misfortunes and hardships nobly.

What is the vice opposed to it?

Yielding and giving way to evil, avoidance of labor, and listlessness; for the one who does not endure sorrows and toils for the sake of the good yields and gives way to the dominance of evil, and becomes listless, indifferent to the consequences of such dominance.

What are the consequences of a lack of endurance?

The dominance of ignorance and evil; for the one who lacks endurance becomes both ignorant and evil.

What is magnanimity [or nobility of soul]?

To think and act in great and noble ways. In this virtue are nobility, generosity, long-suffering, forgiveness, and freedom from remembrance of wrongs.

What is nobility?

Plato defines nobility thus: “Nobility is the virtue of a noble character, the leading of the soul toward words and deeds” (Plato: Definitions). Theopompus says that those who choose what is good in common are noble. Euripides says:

“For the good man is noble in my eyes, but the one who is not righteous, even if he is born of a better father than Zeus, seems to be ignoble.”

Plutarch says: “This is true nobility: likeness to righteousness.” But Phalaris says: “I know only one nobility—virtue; all the rest is chance.” (See Treasury of Sayings, Vol. 4, p. 391.)

What are the opposites of nobility?

Boorishness and the choice of injustice.

What is magnanimity (generosity)?[8]

To generously bestow great goods upon others in order to make them sharers in one’s own good fortune—this is the virtue. Almsgiving and generosity also trace back to this.

What is the opposite vice?

Stinginess, greed, love of money, selfishness, mercilessness, and the like.

What are long-suffering and forgiveness?

Remission of every debt of any kind whatsoever out of love for one’s neighbor.

What are the opposite vices?

Harsh demand for payment of debt and vengeance.

What is freedom from remembrance of wrongs?

The forgetting, out of love, of the wrongs done to us by other people.

What is the opposite vice?

Remembrance of wrongs.

What is magnanimity?

Magnanimity is the moral strength by which one proves superior to circumstances.

What is the opposite vice?

The opposite vice is smallness of soul, that is, the lack of moral strength, on account of which the small-souled person is defeated by circumstances.

What is magnanimity?[9]

Disdain for all bodily things as worthless in comparison with invisible realities. No circumstance will grieve the magnanimous person, nor will any passion disturb him at all, nor will the sins of base and contemptible people move him, nor will the impurity of the flesh humble him. For he is inaccessible to the humiliating passions, which cannot even approach him because of the loftiness of his disposition. (See Nicomachean Ethics, bk. IV, ch. 2.)

What is the opposite vice?

Pettiness. From this vice, as from a spring, flow small-mindedness, hypersensitivity, distress, and the like.

On the Virtues of the Desiring Part, That Is, Chastity, Purity, and Virginity.

What is chastity?

What Pythagoras calls the strength of the soul is chastity. For chastity is the light of an impassible soul. Truly, chastity is the light of the soul, because it drives away the darkness of the passions and illuminates the eyes of the mind to gaze rightly. And truly it is the strength of the soul, because it preserves the soul by not permitting it to be weakened by the activity of desires.

Chrysostom says: “Chastity is all the manifold self-control concerning the body, the leadership of the spirit, the freedom of the soul, the crown of virtues, the capstone of virtues.” What is this manifold self-control concerning the body? Let us hear from Basil the Great: “to admit no stimulus from pleasure, but to be disposed with self-control and unyieldingly toward every harmful enjoyment.”

Plato says: “Not to be alarmed by desires, but to hold them lightly and in an orderly manner; this is self-control.” Through these things Plato made clear the moral strength of the truly virtuous person, through which alone temperance can be preserved.

Iamblichus says: “Self-control is voluntary restraint in things that are permitted, not in things that are forbidden.” Therefore, the temperate person is not the one who refrains from what is forbidden, but the one who abstains from what is permitted, because what is prohibited is also unlawful, and not doing unlawful things is not temperance but observance of the law; whereas voluntary restraint from what is permitted is truly temperance. “that it comes about through deliberate choice and philosophical reasoning.”

Holy Scripture says: “Self-control is a sacrifice to God and reasonable worship.” Temperance is truly a sacrifice to God, because on the sacred altar of love toward God the temperate person offers his own heart as a sacrifice, casting away every disordered desire. It is also a rational worship, because the temperate person worships God in spirit and truth, seeking to live, as a rational being, a life fitting to his rational nature.

Who is truly temperate?

Isidore of Pelusium says: “The one who preserves the ship tossed by waves in the very height of the storm by bridling nature—this one is temperate.” For self-control in old age is not continence, but rather the inability to indulge. Plato calls the temperate person a friend of God, as one who is like Him. Eusebius says: “Temperance prepares for the soul a life that is free from turmoil, calm, and peaceful.”

On Purity

What is purity?

To think holy thoughts is purity, according to Clement of Alexandria. Therefore he says: “Be pure not by washing, but by intellect.” And again, “For purity is the sincerity of the intellect and of works and of thoughts, and also of words, and sinlessness in dreams.” Pure is everyone who is conscious of no evil in himself. And John of the Ladder says: “Purity is reverence toward sins against God, the natural service of honor to God.”[10] Purity is the perfection of chastity; therefore the vices opposed to purity are those opposed to chastity.

What are the vices opposed to chastity?

Licentiousness and incontinence.

What is licentiousness?

The tyranny of the passions, enslavement of the spirit, worship of idols, service to matter, sickness of the soul, darkening of the intellect, the summit of vice, enmity toward the divine. But the licentious person, though he was in honor, did not understand, but was compared to the senseless beasts and made like them.

And what is incontinence?

He ran after his desires and was not restrained from God who made him. He gave his soul satisfaction.

On Virginity

What is virginity?

According to Jerome: “Virginity is a sacrifice to Christ that has an angelic imitation.” “When the Son of God came down to earth, He established an angelic way of life, so that He who is worshiped by angels in heaven might have angels on earth.” Truly it is a sacrifice to Christ, because it is done for Him and for His love, since the virgin seeks how to please Christ, according to the apostle Paul. It is an angelic imitation, because virgins live on earth as an angel of God.

Ignatius the God-bearer called the virgins priests of Christ. Truly they are such, because they offer worship to God in spirit.

Saint Ambrose calls the virgins martyrs. Truly martyrs: because through complete self-denial they are deemed worthy of the gift.

Saint Cyprian calls virginity the flower and rose of the Church. Most true! For the fragrance of sweet-smelling myrrh breathes forth from virginity, and virgins are lilies planted in the paradise of the Church.

Saint Athanasius says, ‘Virginity is an inexhaustible treasure, an unfading crown, a temple of God, a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, a precious pearl, a trophy over Hades and death.’

According to the divine revelation, virgins are those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth no deceit was found. For they are blameless before the throne of God. (Revelation 14:4–5).

Gregory the Theologian urges the virgin to guard not only her body in virginity, but also her ears and her eyes and her tongue, saying:

Be a virgin in your ears and eyes and tongue. “For sin runs swiftly upon all.”

Chrysostom says: Virginity is neither good nor bad in itself, but becomes so from the intention of those who pursue it.