Foreword

The Concept and Task of Ethics

Ethics, as a word, is derived from ēthos (character), which in turn comes from ethos (custom). It characterizes the good quality of the actions of a person’s moral life.

This designation was received from Aristotle, who called ‘ethical’ the disposition that takes its position from the nature of custom. Between ēthos (character) and ethos (custom) there exists, according to Aristotle, the closest relation. “Moral virtue,” says Aristotle, “comes about (in a person) from custom, whence it has received its name, slightly modified from the word ethos (custom).” (Nicomachean Ethics 9.1) and again, “for character (ēthos) takes its name from habit (ethos).” “for they are called ‘ethics’ because of habituation.” (Magna Moralia 1.6).

Plutarch also speaks about the derivation of the word “ethics” from “ethos”: “If one were to call the moral virtues ‘ethical,’ one would not be mistaken.” (Plutarch, On the Education of Children). For no one is born good or bad by nature, but has the capacity or disposition toward both; one becomes this or that according to upbringing and education and the other circumstances of life in which one is developed and formed.

According to this, ethics is synonymous with habit, and denotes the disposition acquired through repetition and the unchanging inclination toward the performance of good actions.

Ethics as a science has the task of teaching those virtues in which people ought to train themselves, so that they may acquire stability through habit and become unshakable workers of moral virtues. Since ethics proposes to apply the moral principles of the holy Gospel in the moral life of the human being, so as to lead him to perfection, through which alone the human being becomes a partaker of divine goodness and blessedness, ethics is shown to be a most important discipline and ought to be regarded as the rule by which every Christian must measure all his moral actions.

Ethics, as a moral canon, shows Christians what is in harmony and what is in discord with the evangelical moral principles, what perfects and gives life, and what destroys and corrupts the beauty of the divine image, in whose likeness the human being was made. The moral perfection of the Christian is the means by which alone the Christian is able to enjoy eternal blessedness, eternal life, and to attain the highest good, which is the supreme desire of the human being.

Reasons for the development of the subject of ethics.

Question. What were the reasons that dictated the development of the discipline of ethics?

Answer. The following two: first, the scientific investigation concerning the concept of good and evil, and second, the obligation of man toward the moral law.

That is, first, whether all people at all times agree in their estimation of goods and their disapproval of evils, or whether they disagree. Whether the same moral practices are regarded by all people and at all times as good or bad, or conversely whether what is considered good by some is reckoned bad by others and vice versa.

And second, whether a human being ought to be good in character, and what authority obliges him, and what is the legitimacy, and what is the value and benefit of this goodness, and to what extent a human being can be good in morals, and how he can be.

From such questions, ethics as a science was born and gradually developed, engaging in the resolution of problems and difficulties relating to morals, and seeking the first principles of morality—on the one hand, to establish and ground it on secure foundations, and on the other hand, to regulate and order the moral life of human beings according to clear and recognized moral axioms.

History of Christian Ethics.

What was the development of ethics as a distinct discipline during the early centuries?

The development of ethics as a distinct discipline proceeded in accordance with the needs and circumstances. During the first centuries the fathers of the Church turned all their attention to the dogma of Christianity, which had been attacked by many heretics, whose defense they undertook by writing serious and profound dogmatic works. Ethics, however, they treated in homilies for the edification of the faithful, or in special treatises, or they interspersed various ethical questions in their treatment of dogma.

Where do we find the first development of Christian ethics?

We find the first beginning of Christian ethics in the Didache of the Twelve Apostles (published by Bryennios in 1884) in the exposition of the two ways of life and death. In the writings of the apostolic fathers we encounter various reflections on the new Christian law and the life of faith, love, and hope

The “Shepherd of Hermas” (150), by the brother of Pope Pius, is more ethical in content. Among the apologists, Justin the Philosopher and Martyr above all treats various ethical questions, which exalt the grandeur of Christian ethics through the Lord’s moral demands that aim at death.[1] The wise catechist of the School in Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria (217), is primarily a moral theologian, because his three-part work (Protrepticus, Paedagogus, and Stromata) revolves around the fundamental moral idea of gradual formation and development toward perfection. Particularly in the Paedagogus he provides an outline of Christian ethics in homilies addressed to catechumens. Exceptional is his moral treatise “Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?”, where the relation of the Christian to earthly goods is defined in an orthodox manner.

From Origen (185–258), apart from various moral homilies and opinions on moral questions, we have two specific moral treatises: first, a work on prayer, and second, an exhortation to martyrdom.

A moral character also marks the work of Methodius, bishop of Olympus (or Patara), the Symposium of Virgins, or On Purity.

In the Western Church, Tertullian (160–240) was richest in moral monographs, and secondarily, Ambrose (340) and Lactantius (325).

He was named Eubulus because of his wisdom and virtue, and afterward he was martyred in the province of Tyre in 311.[2]

During the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Centuries

During the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, valuable moral homilies and important monographs on various ethical questions were written. In this period the following are distinguished: Athanasius the Great (296–373) (Life of the Great Antony), Ephraim the Syrian (379), Basil the Great (329–379) in his homilies, his ascetical works, and his moral rules both in their longer and shorter forms, Gregory of Nyssa (341–394) in his work on the life of the blessed Macrina, his own sister, in which he regards as the highest ideal “the philosophical and immaterial conduct of life, the angelic and heavenly life,” and in his five homilies on prayer, where he interprets the Our Father. Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389), bishop of Sasima, in his sermons and letters (on peace, love of the poor, etc.). Macarius the Great in his fifty homilies on ascesis and Christian perfection; Nilus (451), a devoted disciple and admirer of the holy Chrysostom, who wrote many letters and numerous works of moral and ascetic content; the divine Chrysostom (344–407), who in his golden and immortal homilies treated all the topics of ethics with depth and clarity; Isidore of Pelusium (440) in his letters (approximately 3,000 according to some, 4,000 according to others); Theodoret of Cyrus (on divine love). John of the Ladder (580–649), author of the Paradise; and Maximus the Confessor (662) in his chapters on love. Here the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite should also be mentioned. In the Western Church the most distinguished are the holy Ambrose (340–397), who wrote various moral treatises, among which the De Officiis ministrorum stands first, a counterpart to Cicero’s De officiis. This work was directed primarily at the clergy, but also at all the faithful. God was here presented as the summum bonum, and pietas est fundamentum omnium virtutum. The holy Augustine (354–430), an outstanding Father and ethicist, in his writings de moribus ecclesiae catholicae, de natura boni, de fide et operibus, enchiridion ad Laurentium, de fide, spe, caritate, de mendacio, de civitate dei, confessione. The great one among the others, epistola 52 ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum et monachorum, and Gregory the Great (590–604) in his beatum Job moralium (libri 35).

During the Middle Ages the Christian spirit was occupied with the collection of canons and outlines of the moral life from the moral writings of the Fathers of the preceding period.

Thus we have the moral precepts of John of Damascus (616–760), Isidore of Seville (sentiarum sive de summo bono libri 3), Bede the Venerable (Scinthille patrum), Alcuin de virtutibus et viciis, 36 chapters, a collection of Christian moral maxims, John Scholasticus (564), Patriarch of Constantinople, a collection of canons, John the Faster (882–598), the Confessional, and Theodore of Canterbury, the poenitentiale.[3] Among all the scholastics who dealt with various moral questions, the most distinguished is Thomas Aquinas (1274), the greatest ethicist of the Middle Ages, who after Aristotle exercised the greatest influence in various moral monographs, especially on the basis of Aristotelian philosophy and the theology of the holy Augustine. Parallel to scholastic theology, which eventually degenerated into a lifeless casuistry (Casuistica), mysticism developed, turning its attention to the interior contemplation of God and the depths of the religious life. Thomas à Kempis, who wrote the most edifying work On the Imitation of Christ, was filled with such a spirit. Luther also had the mystics of Germany as guides in his journey, having been first impelled to his work by them. After the revival of letters and the religious reformation of the sixteenth century in the West, a more scientific treatment of this subject began. Philip Melanchthon was the first to set forth the general principles of Christian ethics in the spirit of the Lutheran Protestants in his Loci Communes and also, following Aristotle’s principles, occupied himself more with the Philosophiae Moralis Epitome, while in the Calvinist church ethics was first separated from dogmatics in the work Ethica Christiana.[4] His example was followed in the Lutheran church by George Calixtus, who wrote a moral theology. In the Roman Church during this period, Christian ethics advanced in the casuistic method; casuistry fell into Jesuitism, whose three destructive moral principles are well known:

(1) He was first called ecumenical by the Emperor under Maurice.

three destructive moral principles: first, moral probabilism (Probabilismus); second, the sanctification of any means whatsoever by the end (methodus dirigentae intentionis) (finis licitus est etian media licita sunt, honestanfur media ex causa fininalia); and third, mental reservation (Conventio sive resservatio mentalis). The most notable Jesuit ethicists are Busenbaum and Gury, whose ethics was introduced into most of the priestly schools of Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, England, and North America. The principles of the Jesuits were opposed (668) by the Jansenists, Nicholas (Nicole) Arnold, and Pascal in his famous Provincial Letters.

In more recent times, Kant provided the impetus for a deeper study and more scientific treatment of the subject, freeing ethics from eudaimonism by proclaiming the absolute authority of the commandment of duty (the categorical imperative), but at the same time separating ethics from religion. Against the principles of Kant arose Flatt and Baum, who grounded ethics on the principles of Christian faith. No less significant for the deep and scientific treatment of both Christian and philosophical ethics are the ethical writings of Schleiermacher, who treated Christian ethics scientifically and on the basis of Sacred Scripture and the Church. Since then many ethicists have appeared who have set forth the subject with great scientific rigor, but not entirely uninfluenced by philosophical principles. The most distinguished of these are Rothe, Harless, Wuttke (two volumes outstanding for the history of catholic ethics), Schmid, Palmer, Cuilmar, Alex, von Oettingen (the founder of moral statistics), the Dane Martensen, (in two volumes or very voluminous), Hofman, Frank (professor at Erlangen, of whom Luthard said that he is in my view the systematic theologian, the architect of dogmatics and ethics), Dorner, Luthard (as an apologist), and Beck.

And among the Catholics there began, through a discourse that was both satirical and gracious, to combat the destructive moral principles of the Jesuits.

A more systematic treatment of the subject. Such Catholic moral theologians mentioned are Sailer Hircher, Martin, Worner, Simaz, Pruner, and others. In our Church, because of various reasons and circumstances, serious scholarly works were not written, but various moral handbooks were written with a sound scholarly spirit. Such are the Evangelical Law of Gennadios Scholarios, the Christian Morality of Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, and the Handbook of the Orthodox Christian by Alexander Sturdza.

In more recent times, the scholarly approach of the West began to exert influence among us as well. Of such a character are the Safe Guide to Christian Ethics by Detinos, the Moral Confession of Moschopoulos, the Ethics of Gogos from the Russian, the Ethics of Robotos, of Michael Apostolides, of Diomedes Kyriakos, of Palamas, the Elements of Ethics of Neophytos Vamvas and his Natural Theology and Christian Ethics, recently published by us.

Among our Russian brothers, works on ethics were written by Theophylact of Borsk, Platon of Moscow, Innocent of Penza, and others.

Sources of Christian Ethics

The first and most certain source of Christian ethics is divine revelation, the word of God, both written and unwritten, interpreted according to the spirit of the Orthodox Church, which is the vigilant guardian and faithful interpreter of the divine word. For in various circumstances the Orthodox Church in local and Ecumenical Holy Synods has issued various canons pertaining to the regulation and formation of Christian morals.

Besides the aforementioned sources, Christian ethics also has other consultative sources. Such are the consultative sources that the moral writings of the holy Fathers of the Church possess. As auxiliary sources, they have dogmatics, the ecclesiastical history of Christian morals, canon law, philosophical ethics, the history of philosophy, psychology, the philosophy of religions, the statistics of morals, history, and other disciplines having some relation to the moral condition of all humanity.