Types

Some good dispositions a person may have by nature. Thus, one may be naturally humble, compassionate. These do not have the merit of true virtue and receive it only when a Christian, having resolved to advance in all virtues, acquires them through free choice. Most of them must be acquired through labor and struggle, as Saint Macarius the Great teaches. Such are especially those opposed to the chief passions, for example gentleness, humility, disinterestedness, chastity, and so forth. Some, finally, the most essential to Christian life, are established in the heart together with the awakening of the decision to repent, through the Divine action of the All-Holy Spirit. These are: faith, hope, and love, which are therefore called divinely infused, or Divine virtues. Thus Scripture says that faith is a “gift of God” (Eph. 2:8) and that “love… is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5), that “we are born to hope” (1 Pet. 1:3).