What, then, are the particular forms or manifestations of character which result from the Christian interpretation of life? When we think of man as living in relation to his fellows, and engaging in the common activities of the world, what are the special traits of character which distinguish the Christian? These questions suggest one of the most important, and at the same time one of the most difficult, tasks of Christian Ethics—the classification of the virtues. The difficulty arises in the first instance from the ambiguity attaching to the term 'virtue.' It is often loosely used to signify a meritorious act—as in the phrase, 'making a virtue of a necessity.' It is frequently employed generally for a moral quality or excellency of character, and in this respect is contrasted with vice. Finally, virtues are sometimes identified with duties. Thus we speak of the virtue of veracity. But obviously we may also refer to the duty of veracity. The word aretê; signifies 'force,' and was originally used as a property of bodies, plants, or animals. {184} At first it had no ethical import. In Attic usage it came to signify aptness or fitness of manhood for public life. And this signification has shaped the future meaning of its Latin equivalent—virtus (from vis, strength, and not from vir, a man).
Plato gave to the term a certain ethical value in connection with his moral view of the social life, so that Ethics came to be designated the doctrine of virtues. In general, however, both by the Greek and Roman moralists, and particularly the Stoics, the word virtus retained something of the sense of force or capacity—a quality prized in the citizen. The English word is a direct transcript of the Latin. The German noun, Tugend (from taugen, to fit) means capability, and is related to worth, honour, manliness. The word aretê does not frequently occur in the New Testament.[1] In the few passages in which it appears it is associated with praiseworthiness. In one passage[2] it has a more distinctly ethical signification—'add to your faith virtue'—where the idea is that of practical worth or manhood.
Virtue may be defined as the acquired power or capacity for moral action. From the Christian point of view virtue is the complement, or rather the outcome, of grace. Hence virtues are graces. In the Christian sense a man is not virtuous when he has first appropriated by faith the new principle of life. He has within him, indeed, the promise and potency of all forms of goodness, but not until he has consciously brought his personal impulses and faculties into the service of Christ can he be called truly virtuous. Hence the Christian character is only progressively realised. On the divine side virtue is a gift. On the human side it is an activity. Our Lord's figure of the vine and the branches represents the relation in which Christian character stands to Christ. In like manner St. Paul regards the manifestations of the Christian life as the fruit of the Spirit—the inevitable and natural outgrowth of the divine seed of life implanted in the heart. Hence arises the importance of {185} cultivating the inner life of the spirit which is the root of all moral excellency. On the other hand it must be remembered that Christian morality is not of a different sort from natural morality, and the Christian virtues are not merely supernatural qualities added on, but simply human virtues coloured and transfigured by grace and raised to a higher value. The power to act morally, the capacity to bring all our faculties into the service of the spiritual life, is the ground of Christian virtue just as it is of every natural excellence. From this it follows that the distinction sometimes made between natural goodness and Christian goodness is unsound. A virtue is not a superlative act of merit, implying an excess of excellence beyond the requirements of duty. From the Christian standpoint there are no works of supererogation, and there is no room in the Christian life for excess or margin. As every duty is a bounden duty, so every possible excellence is demanded of the Christian. Virtues prescribe duties; ideals become laws; and the measure is, 'Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.' The Stoic maxim, 'Nothing in excess,' is inadequate in reference to moral excellence, and Aristotle's doctrine of the 'Mean' can hardly be applied without considerable distortion of facts. The only virtue which with truth can be described as a form of moderation is Temperance. It has been objected that by his doctrine of the 'Mean' Aristotle 'obliterates the awful and absolute difference between right and wrong.' If we substitute, as Kant suggested, 'law' for 'mean,' some of the ambiguity is obviated. Still, after all extenuation is made it may be questioned whether any term implying quantity is a fit expression for a moral attribute.[3]
At the same time the virtues must not be regarded as mere abstractions. Moral qualities cannot be isolated from the circumstances in which they are exercised. Virtue is character in touch with life, and it is only in contact with actual events that its quality can be determined. Actions are not simply good or bad in themselves. They must {186} always be valued both by their inner motives and intended ends. Courage or veracity, for example, may be exercised from different causes and for the most various ends, and occasionally even for those of an immoral nature.[4]
For these and similar reasons some modern ethical writers have regarded the classification of the virtues as unsatisfactory, involving arbitrary and illogical distinctions in value; and some have even discarded the use of the word 'virtue' altogether, and substituted the word 'character' as the subject of ethical study. But inasmuch as character must manifest itself in certain forms, and approximate at least to certain norms or ideals of conduct, it may not be altogether superfluous to consider in their relation and unity those moral qualities (whether we call them virtues, graces, or norms of excellence) which the Christian aims at reproducing in his life.
We shall consider therefore, first, the natural elements of virtue as they have been disclosed to us by classical teachers. Next, we shall compare these with the Christian conception of life, showing how Christianity has given to them a new meaning and value. And finally, we shall endeavour to reveal the unifying principle of the virtues by showing that when transformed by the Christian spirit they are the expressions or implicates of a single spiritual disposition or totality of character.
I
The Natural Basis of the Virtues.—At a certain stage of reflection there arises an effort not merely to designate, but to co-ordinate the virtues. For it is soon discovered that all the various aspects of the good have a unity, and that the idea of virtue as one and conscious is equivalent to the idea of the good-will or of purity of heart. Thus it was seen by the followers of Socrates that the virtues are but different expressions of one principle, and that the ultimate good of character can only be realised by the actual pursuit {187} of it in the recognised virtues. We do not sufficiently reflect, says Green, how great was the service which Greek philosophy rendered to mankind. From Plato and Aristotle comes the connected scheme of virtues and duties within which the educated conscience of Christendom still moves when it is impartially reflecting on what ought to be done.[5] Religious teachers may have extended the scope of our obligations, and strengthened the motives which actuate men in the performance of duty, but 'the articulated scheme of what the virtues and duties are, in their difference and their unity, remains for us now in its main outlines what the Greek philosophers left it.'[6]
Among ancient moralists four virtues, Wisdom, Courage, Temperance,
Justice were constantly grouped. They were already traditional in
Plato's time, but he adopts them as fundamental. Aristotle retained
Plato's list, but developed from it some minor excellences.
Virtue, according to Plato, was the health or harmony of the soul; hence the principle of classification was determined by the fitness of the soul for its proper task, which was conceived as the attainment of the good or the morally beautiful. As man has three functions or aspects, a cognitive, active, and appetitive, so there are three corresponding virtues. His function of knowing determines the primal virtue of Wisdom; his active power constitutes the virtue of Courage; while his appetitive nature calls for the virtue of Temperance or Self-control. These three virtues have reference to the individual's personal life. But inasmuch as a man is a part of a social organism, and has relations to others beyond himself, justice was conceived by Plato as the social virtue, the virtue which regulated and harmonised all the others. For the Stoics these four virtues embraced the whole life according to nature. It may be noticed that Plato and Aristotle did not profess to have created the virtues. Wisdom, fortitude, temperance, and justice were, as they believed, radical principles of the moral nature; and all they professed to do was to {188} awaken men to the consciousness of their natural capacities. If a man was to attain to fitness of life, then these were the fundamental and essential lines on which his rational life must develop. In every conceivable world these are the basal elements of goodness. Related as they are to fundamental functions of personality, they cannot be less or more. They stand for the irreducible principles of conduct, to omit any one of which is to present a maimed or only partial character. In every rational conception of life they must remain the essential and desirable objects of pursuit. It was not wonderful, therefore, when we remember the influence of Greek thought upon early Christianity, that the four classical virtues should pass over into Christian Ethics. But the Church, recognising that these virtues had reference to man's life in relation to himself and his fellow-men in this world alone, added to these the three Pauline Graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, as expressive of the divine element in man, his relation to God and the spiritual world. The first four were called natural, the last three supernatural: or the 'Cardinal' (cardo, a hinge) and the 'Theological' virtues. They make in all seven, the mystic perfect number, and over against these, to complete the symmetry of life, were placed the seven deadly sins.