Peter Lombard on the Virtues: Distinction 33

PETER LOMBARD'S SENTENCES--"a florilegium of theological texts plucked from the writings of the Fathers . . . and arranged in four books: God, creation, Christ the 'Incarnate Word,' and the sacraments"--was the subject of legion commentaries. Peter Lombard (c. 1096-1164) was a Master of Theology and Bishop of Paris, and it is impossible to believe he could have anticipated the popularity of his anthology.  Commenting on the Sentences was de rigeur, and indeed soon became a requirement for those seeking Masters in Theology.

The Sentences of Peter Lombard are divided into four books.  The third book describes the benefits, both internal and external, that God gives us as part of our life in Christ, including the theological virtues (d. 23-32), the gifts of the Holy Spirit (d. 34-35) and the Ten Commandments (d. 37-40).  Planted as it were, like grout between two blocks of ashlar, we find a treatment on the cardinal virtues (d. 33) between the treatments of the theological virtues and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Similarly, we have a short treatment of the connection between the virtues (d. 36) found in between the treatment of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Ten Commandments.

Peter Lombard

These two short treatment on the virtues (d. 33 and d. 36) in the Sentences proved to be the source of a "detailed doctrine of cardinal virtues" as a result of development through the many commentaries inspired by Peter Lombard's work.

The cardinal virtues were found perfectly in Christ, and so it is toward Christ that Peter Lombard (affectionately called "the Master) turns in his treatment of the virtues in Distinction XXXIII.

We may as well quote the entire Distinction XXXIII:

DISTINCTION XXXIII

Chapter 1 (120)

1.  ON THE FOUR PRINCIPAL VIRTUES.  After the above matters, we must treat the four virtues which are called principal or cardinal; they are justice, fortitude, prudence, temperance.

2.  ON THEIR USES HERE.--IN BOOK 14, ON THE TRINITY.  Concerning these, Augustine says: "Justice consists in helping the wretched, prudence in guarding against treacheries, fortitude in bearing troubles, temperance in controlling evil pleasures."  [Aug., De Trin., 14.9.12]

3.  Of these, it is said in the book of Wisdom: He teaches sobriety and prudence, justice, and truth. [Wis. 8:7]  This text calls temperance sobriety, and fortitude truth.  These virtues are called 'cardinal,' as Jerome says [Cf. Jerome, Epist. 66 (ad Pammachium), n3]; 'by them, it is possible to live well in this mortal life,' and afterwards to come to eternal life.

Chapter 2 (121)

THAT THESE VIRTUES WERE IN CHRIST.  They were and are must fully in Christ, of whose fullness e have received [John 1:16]; in him, they had the same uses which they have in the fatherland, and even some of those which they have on the way.

Chapter 3 (122)

1.  ON THEIR USES.--AUGUSTINE, IN BOOK 14, ON THE TRINITY.  But "there is a little question a to whether these virtues, since they begin to be in the mind (which was a mind even when it existed before without them), cease to be when they have brought us to things eternal.  To some, it has seemed that they will cease, and in the case of three [of them], namely prudence, fortitude, and temperance, such an assertion seems not to be entirely empty." [Aug., De Trin., 14.9.12]

2.  ON THE USE OF JUSTICE IN THE FUTURE.  "For justice is immortal, [Wis. 1:15] and will then be made more perfect in us rather than cease to be, when we may blessedly live in contemplation of the divine nature, which created and established all other natures, and than which nothing is better and more loveable.  It pertains to justice to be subject to the rule of this nature, and so justice is wholly immortal; nor will it cease to exist in that [state of] blessedness, but it will be such and so great that it cannot be more perfect or greater." [Aug., De Trin., 14.9.12]

3.  ON THE USES OF THE OTHER THREE IN THE FUTURE.  "Perhaps, the other three virtues (prudence, but now without any risk of error, and fortitude without the trouble of bearing evils, and temperance without the thwarting of lust) will also exist in that [state of] felicity  there it will pertain to prudence to prefer to equate no other good to God; and to fortitude to adhere to him with the greatest steadfastness  and t temperance to take pleasure in no harmful defect."  [Ibid.]

4.  "But that which justice now does in assisting the wretched, and prudence in guarding against treacheries, and fortitude in bearing troubles, and temperance in controlling evil pleasures, will not at all exist there, where there will be no evil.  And so these works of these the virtues, which are necessary to this mortal life, like the faith to which they are to be referred will be reckoned among things past."  [Ibid.]  See, Augustine plainly states here that the aforesaid virtues will exist in the future, but they will then have other sues than they have now.

5.  BEDE.  And Bede agrees with him, speaking as follows, on Exodus: "The columns before which hands the veil are the heavenly powers, shining brightly with the four most excellent virtues, namely fortitude, prudence, temperance, justices; these are kept otherwise in heaven by the angels and the holy souls than they are here by the faithful."  [Ordinary gloss on Ex. 26:32, from Bede, De tabernaculo, 2.8]  Bede then distinguishes the uses of those virtues according to the present state and the future one, imitating Augustine in the distinctions placed above.*

As Houser summarizes Peter Lombard's thinking as found in Distinction 33:

For Lombard, then, the cardinal virtues are clearly Christian virtues: they are caused by God, and they lead us to 'eternal life.' Not distinguishing sufficiently between final and efficient causality, Lombard seems to have thought that, simply because they lead to the Christian end, the cardinal virtues must be 'infused,' that is, caused efficiently by divine grace rather than by human effort."

Houser, 41.

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*Peter Lombard, The Sentences (Book 3) (Giulio Silano, trans.) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008)
**The Latin text for Peter Lombard's Sentences may be found at: http://docteurangelique.free.fr/livresformatweb/complements/sentencesPierreLombardLatin.htm#_Toc83735191  The text is given here with footnotes and other academic instruments removed.

DISTINCTIO XXXIII Caput 1 (120). 1. De quatuor virtutibus principalibus. Post praedicta de quatuor virtutibus quae principales vel cardinales vocantur disserendum est, quae sunt iustitia, fortitudo, prudentia, temperantia.
2. De usibus earum hic. — In XIV libro De Trinitate. De quibus Augustinus ait: "iustitia est in subveniendo nhiseris, prudentia in praecavendis insidiis, fortitudo in perferendis molestiis, temperantia in coercendis delectationibus pravis". 
3. De his dicitur in libro Sapientiae: Sobrietatem et prudentiam docet, iustitiarum et veritatem. Sobrietatem vocat temperantiam, et yen tatem vocat fortitudinem. Hae virtutes ‘cardinales’ dicuntur, ut ait Hieronymus; "quibus in hac mortalitate bene vivitur", et post ad aeternam vitam pervenitur.

Caput 2 (121). Quod hae virtutes In Christo fuerint. Quae in Christo plenissinime fuerunt et sunt, de cuius plenitudine nos accepimus; in quo habuerunt usus eosdem quos in patria habent, et quosdam etiam viae. 

Caput 3 (122). 1. De usibus earum. — Augustinus in XIV libro De Trinitate. Verumtamen "an hae virtutes, cum et ipsae in animo esse incipiant (qui cum sine illis prius esset, tamen animus erat), desinant esse cum ad aeterna.  Quibusdam visum est esse desituras; et de tribus quidem, prudentia scilicet, fortitudine, temperantia, cum hoc dicitur, non nihil dici videtur".
2. De usu iustitiae In fiituro. "lustitia enim immortalis est, et magis tunc perficietur in nobis quam esse cessabit, cum beate vivemus contemplatione naturae divinae, quae creavit omnes ceterasque instituit naturas, qua nihil melius et amabilius est. Cui regenti esse subditum, iustitiae est; et ideo immortalis est omnino iustitia; nec in illa beatitudine esse desinet, sed talis ac tanta erit, ut perfectior et maior esse non possit".
3. De usibus aliarum trium in futuro. "Fortassis et aliae tres virtutes, prudentia sine ullo iam peniculo errons, fortitudo sine molestia tolerandorum malorum, tempenantia sine repugnatione libidinum, erunt in illa felicitate: ut prudentiae ibi sit nullum bonum Deo praeponere vel aequare, fortitudinis ei firmissime cohaenere, temperantiae nuflo defectu noxio delectari".
4. "Quod vero nunc agit iustitia in subveniendo miseris, quod prudentia in praecavendis insidiis, quod fortitudo in perferendis niolestiis, quod tempenantia in coercendis delectationibus pravis, non erit ibi omnino, ubi nihil mali erit. Ista igitur virtutum opera, huic mortali vitae neces— sana, sicut fides ad quam referenda sunt, in praeteritis habebuntur". Ecce aperte hic dicit Augustinus quod praedictae virtutes in futuro erunt, sed alios usus tunc habebunt quam modo.
 5. Beda. Cui Beda consentit, super Exodum, ita dicens: "Columnae ante quas appensum est velum, potestates caeli sunt, quatuor eximiis virtutibus praeclarae, id est fortitudine, prudentia, temperantia,, iustitia; quae aliter in caelis servantur ab angelis et animabus sanctis, quam hic a fidelibus". Et consequenter assignat Beda usus illarum virtutum secundum praesentem statum et futurum, imitans Augustinum in praemissis assignationibus.

The entire Sentences can be found here: http://docteurangelique.free.fr/livresformatweb/complements/sentencesPierreLombardLatin.htm

Cardinal Virtues and Sts. Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory

THE AMBROSIAN SPIN ON the Platonic-Stoic notion of the virtues, and his denomination of the four principle virtues as "cardinal" proved to be popular. So we find the Ambrosian teaching adopted by other Church fathers, including such ecclesiastical lights such as St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Pope St. Gregory the Great.  Whether they adopted the notion directly from Ambrose or whether they arrived at the  conclusion that there was a compatibility of the Stoic teaching with Christian doctrine independently is difficult to establish.

St. Jerome clearly believed in the unity of the four virtues that St. Ambrose identified as cardinal.  In an epistle to Paulina (dated 397 A.D.), St. Jerome states: "The Stoics say the four virtues are closely connected to each other and mutually conjoined that whoever does not have one, lacks all."*  Contextually, it is clear that St. Jerome is mentioning the Stoic doctrine with approval.  St. Jerome likened the four virtues to the "law" of St. James, who in his epistle (James 2:10) had stated that he who keeps the whole law, but offends in one point, is guilty of failing the law in its entirety.  In a manner redolent of St. James, St. Jerome therefore understood that "whoever lacks one virtue lacks them all."

St. Augustine elaborated on the Ambrosian notion of the virtues to a much larger extent than St. Jerome.  R. E. Houser states that it was St. Augustine who drew "the full logical and rhetorical consequences of the Ambrosian doctrine" of the cardinal virtues.  Houser, 37.  For example, in his On the Practices of the Catholic Church (De moribus ecclesiae), St. Augustine stated that the Catholic moral practices (mores) depend upon two commandments, the commandments of love of God and love of neighbor, and that therefore the moral virtues may be defined in terms of love.

But if virtue leads us to the happy life, I would say that virtue altogether is nothing other than the highest love of God. For what is called fourfold virtue is named, so far as I can tell, from certain varied affections of love itself.

Quod si virtus ad beatam vitam nos ducit, nihil omnino esse virtutem affirmaverim nisi summum amorem Dei. Namque illud quod quadripartita dicitur virtus, ex ipsius amoris vario quodam affectu, quantum intelligo, dicitur.

De mor. eccl., 15.25.  By attaching the four cardinal virtues to love, St. Augustine was able to unify them, indeed reduce them to love, so that there were not four separate virtues, but one "fourfold virtue," four manifestations of charity.**  This shows a big distinction between the pagan notion of virtue (e.g., Socrates reducing them all to knowledge) and the Christian notion (reducing them all to love).

Pope St. Gregory the Great also adopted the Ambrosian synthesis in his great work on Christian morals, the Moralia on Job.  Pope St. Gregory analogized the virtues to the Beatitudes, and likewise came to the conclusion that all virtues stood or fell together:

[P]erfected virtues can in no way be disjoined, because there is not true prudence which is not just, temperate, and brave; nor perfected temperance which is not brave, just, and prudent; nor integral fortitude which is not prudent, temperate, and just; nor true justice which is not prudent, brave, and temperate.

Disiunctae autem perfectae esse nequaquam possunt, quia nec prudentia vera est quae iusta, temperans et fortis non est, nec perfecta temperantia quae fortis, iusta et prudens non est, nec fortitudo integra quae prudens, temperans et iusta non est, nec vera iustitia quae prudens, fortis et temperans non est.

Moralia in Job, 22.1.2***

The all-or-nothing view of virtues does no seem entirely satisfactory since it does not seem to be in full accord with our experience.  There seem to be a whole mass of men who are neither saints nor inveterate sinners, and it is difficult to believe that there is no such thing as authentic virtue even among the imperfect.  Similarly, there seems to be no sense of infused virtue versus acquired virtue, a distinction which was to arise during the middle ages.

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*Quatuor virtutes describunt Stoici, ita sibi invicem nexas, et mutuo cohaerentes, ut qui unam non habuerit, omnibus careat: prudentiam, iustitiam, fortitudinem, temperantiam. Has omnes sic habetis singuli, ut tamen emineatis in singulis.  Ep. 66.3 (ad Pammachium).
**Itaque illas quattuor virtutes, quarum utinam ita in mentibus vis ut nomina in ore sunt omnium, sic etiam definire non dubitem, ut temperantia sit amor integrum se praebens ei quod amatur, fortitudo amor facile tolerans omnia propter quod amatur, iustitia amor soli amato serviens et propterea recte dominans, prudentia amor ea quibus adiuvatur ab eis quibus impeditur sagaciter seligens. Sed hunc amorem non cuiuslibet sed Dei esse diximus, id est summi boni, summae sapientiae summaeque concordiae.
***Una virtus sine aliis, aut nulla est, aut minima.---Hoc autem primum sciendum est, quia quisquis virtute aliqua pollere creditur, tunc veraciter pollet, cum vitiis ex alia parte non subiacet. Nam si ex alio vitiis subditur, nec hoc est solidum, ubi stare putabatur. Unaquaeque enim virtus tanto minor est, quanto desunt caeterae: Nam saepe quosdam pudicos quidem vidisse nos contigit, sed non humiles; quosdam vero quasi humiles, sed non misericordes; quosdam quasi misericordes, sed nequaquam iustos; quosdam vero quasi iustos, sed in se potius quam in Domino confidentes. Et certum est quia nec castitas in eius corde vera est, cui humilitas deest, quippe quia superbia se intrinsecus corrumpente fornicatur, si semetipsum diligens, a divino recedit amore. Nec humilitas vera est cui misericordia iuncta non est, quia nec debet humilitas dici, quae ad compassionem fraternae miseriae nescit inclinari. Nec misericordia vera est quae a rectitudine iustitiae existit aliena, quia quae potest per iniustitiam pollui, nescit procul dubio sibimetipsi misereri. Nec iustitia vera est quae fiduciam suam non in conditore omnium, sed in se fortasse, aut in rebus conditis ponit, quia dum a creatore spem subtrahit, ipse sibi principalis iustitiae ordinem pervertit. Una itaque virtus sine aliis, aut omnino nulla est, aut imperfecta. Ut enim, sicut quibusdam visum est, de primis quatuor virtutibus loquar, prudentia, temperantia, fortitudine, atque iustitia; tanto perfectae sunt singulae, quanto vicissim sibimet coniunctae. Disiunctae autem perfectae esse nequaquam possunt, quia nec prudentia vera est quae iusta, temperans et fortis non est, nec perfecta temperantia quae fortis, iusta et prudens non est, nec fortitudo integra quae prudens, temperans et iusta non est, nec vera iustitia quae prudens, fortis et temperans non est.

St. Ambrose: The Virtues and the Beatitudes

SAINT AMBROSE FITTED THE CARDINAL VIRTUES into the teachings of Jesus as found in the New Testament. St. Ambrose found a connection between the beatitudes--the central focus of Christian life--and the cardinal virtues. He found there to be a parallel between the Lucan presentation of the beatitudes which are four in number with the four cardinal virtues of Christian life.  Given the focus of the Church on the  moral teachings of Jesus as found in the beatitudes, such a move would have been considered essential.

We find St. Ambrose's direct connection of the beatitudes in his exposition of the Gospel of Luke (Expositio Evangelii Secundum Lucam, 5.64-67).  The beatitudes in Luke are found in Luke 6:20–22, when Jesus addresses his followers in the so-called "Sermon on the Plain."  These are followed by the four "woes" that are parallel to the beatitudes in 6:24-26.

Accordingly, we have "Blessed are you who are poor: for yours is the kingdom of God."  Those who are poor display the virtue of temperance, a temperance which overcomes the seductions of the goods of the present life.  A temperate man will avoid the woe that Jesus imparts to the rich, for they have received their consolation in this life.  In the Ambrosian synthesis, the woes that Jesus imparts to the rich, are warnings against those who are intemperate.

"Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied," is a reference to those who hunger and thirst for the virtue of justice, a virtue which looks toward the needs of neighbor with a compassionate heart, one full of largesse and altruism.  Woe to those who are unjust, those who are filled now at the expense of their neighbor.

"Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh" is a reference to Christian prudence, one which avoids the mundane, and seeks the eternal, the lasting.  Woe to those who are imprudent, who laugh now, for they eventually will grieve and weep.

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan

Finally, the virtue of fortitude or courage is tied to the last Lucan beatitude: "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!  Behold, your reward will be great in heaven."  Woe when, because you renounced the Son of Man for lack of courage, you are well-spoken of.   The crown of suffering is the "consummation of courage" for the Christian.

While the Lucan four-fold version of the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke fit nicely with the four-fold scheme of the cardinal virtues, the beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew did not fit so nicely.  Yet Ambrose managed to find a parallel even here, largely through the use of allegory.  He insisted that the eight beatitudes of the Gospel of St. Matthew were reducible to the four of the Gospel of Luke and therefore also the four cardinal virtues.  "The four are in the eight, and the eight in the four," sed in istis octo illae quattuor sunt et in his quattuor illae octo.  (Exp. ev. sec. Lucam, 5.49)

The Matthean beatitudes are found in Matthew 5:3-10, and are part of the Sermon on the Mount:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:3) 
• Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted. (5:4) 
• Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (5:5) 
• Blessed they who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be satisfied. (5:6) 
• Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy. (5:7) 
• Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (5:8) 
• Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God. (5:9) 
• Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)

There are numerous ways where the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew and the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke may be reconciled or synthesized.  One way is to expand each Lucan beatitude into two Matthean beatitudes, so that two Matthean beatitudes correlate to one of Luke's beatitudes.  The other method--which was the method chosen by St. Ambrose--is to see all the beatitudes are contained within one another.

It was a Platonic nostrum that all the virtues had to be had together, so that the virtues while "ontologically distinct, are unified operationally."  One will recall that for Socrates the union of virtue was even more unified as "essentially one while operationally many."  Houser, 36.  So we find in St. Ambrose a Platonic, even a Socratic notion of one overarching virtue, a binding together of beatitude to beatitude, of virtue to virtue in a circular chain of virtue:

Therefore, the virtues are so connected and chained together, that whoever has one seems to have them all; and there accrues to the saints one virtue.

Conexae igitur sibi sunt concatenataeque virtutes, ut qui unam habet plures habere videatur, et sanctis una conpetit virtus.

Exp. ev. sec. Lucam, 5.62-3.  It was this synthesis of St. Ambrose that was to influence the teachings of the Fathers and the medieval "masters" or magistri.

St. Ambrose and the Cardinal Virtues

SAINT AMBROSE, THE REDOUBTABLE bishop of Milan, is the first of the sancti that we will look at in the issue of virtues.  St. Ambrose is particularly notable for his moral teachings.  With regard to virtues in particular, he is to be regarded as the one who "invented the term 'cardinal virtues' because he was an inveterately allegorical thinker."  Houser, 32.  As Peter Lombard put it in his Sentences: primus autem qui eas cardinales vocat est Ambrosius.  "The first therefore who called them [the four principle virtues] cardinal was Ambrose."  (2:188, n.3).*

An example of St. Ambrose's allegorical style is his On Paradise, written circa 377 A.D.  As Houser summarizes it:

[T]he fertile land of paradise is like a fertile soul; Adam is like its intellect and Eve like its senses. The four rivers in Eden are in reality the four great rivers of the earth. These rivers in turn are analogous to the four Platonic virtues within the soul, because each is 'principal' within its own realm.  Platonic analogy turned into Christian allegory when Ambrose connected the two sides of the comparison--the four rivers with the four virtues--through a common point of reference, namely, through God, who is at once the cosmic artisan who created the rivers of paradise, and, in the person of Jesus Christ, the wisdom producing virtue in individual men.

Houser, 32 (citing to De par. 3.18)

We have a similar allegorical notion of the four virtues in St. Ambrose's funeral oration for his brother Satyrus (ca. 378).  In this funeral oration--where St. Ambrose first appears to have applied the term "cardinal virtues"--St. Ambrose praised his brother for having lived the four-Platonic virtues, but in a manner which exceeded the limits placed upon these virtues by the philosophi.  After recalling emotionally past rememberances of life with his brother and regarding him as a true friend, an "other self," Ambrose launches into an analysis of his brother's life by framing it within the four cardinal virtues.

After handling prudence, courage, and temperance, St. Ambrose addresses justice:

What remains, in order to complete the cardinal virtues, is that we also show the parts of justice in him [referring to Satyrus]. For even though the virtues are born together and perfected together, nevertheless one desires to know the form and outline of each one of them, and especially of justice.

Superest, ut ad conclusionem cardinalium virtutum etiam partes in eo debeamus advertere. Nam etsi cognatur sint inter se concretaeque virtutes, tamen singularum aquedam form et expression desideraturs maximeque iustitiae.

Houser, 3 (quoting De excessu fratris Satyri 1.57).

The Four Virtues

St. Ambrose tied the cardinal virtues to his brother's life and its culmination in his death.  It was these four cardinal virtues that helped his brother Satyrus face death, and, in particular, that great confrontation after death of judgment.  This is the "cardinal" moment of one's life, and it is the "cardinal" virtues that are aimed at not only living life well here on earth, but preparing for the ultimate "crisis" of one's life: one's judgment before God.  For St. Ambrose, therefore, the cardinal virtues are directly tied to God, to a life that is consecrated to God, to a life which is lived with an eye to the summum bonum, the Almighty God of Jesus Christ.

Ambrose turned to Plato to explain his brother's life, not his death, because Plato's four virtues are designed for living, for living the whole of life with an eye to the good. Ambrose simply replaced the abstract Platonic good with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in so doing he gave Plato's four virtues a more concrete end than the philosophers ever had. This teleological orientation toward God would always be maintained by Ambrose's patristic and medieval descendants.

Houser, 35.  "In Ambrose's conception," Houser summarizes, "three features make the four virtues 'cardinal': they  involve death, judgment, and orientation toward God."  It was in this manner that St. Ambrose effectively transformed the four Platonic virtues that had already been developed by the Stoics into something entirely different.  As Professor Colish puts it in her book, The Stoic Tradition, "Ambrose seeks to bring the Stoic sage into the fullness of being through Christian redemption."  Houser, 35 n. 70.

St. Ambrose therefore transformed the virtues from philosophical concepts to theological concepts, from natural virtues to virtues that were engraced.  They become Christian virtues; indeed, they become the principal virtues of the Christian life.  Et omnes quidem virtutes ad spiritum pertinent, sed istae quasi cardinales sunt, quasi principales.  De off. min., 1.29.142.  After St. Ambrose treats of the philosophical virtues, they become baptized, and they arise from the water as if reborn into the cardinal virtues.  They thus become something that is intrinsically part of life in the Holy Spirit.

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*In Latin, of course, the term cardo (pl., cardines; the adjectival form is cardinalis) or term "cardinal" is most frequently said to mean hinge-like.  In light of St. Ambrose's allegorical viewpoint, we can see the cardinal virtues as being the four hinges upon which the doors of the moral life swing.  However, the term cardo also can mean the tenon and mortise which dovetail to form a door's frame.  In Roman surveying, the term cardo mean the baseline or datum for the surveyor's measurement of the field.  The terms was also extended to include more comprehensively an entire geographical district, region, or boundary.  Houser, 33-34.  The term cardo was used by numerous Latin authors (Varro, Pliny, Cicero, Ovid, Statius, and Seneca) to refer to the poles of the earth or the points of a compass.  It was used by Pliny to refer to those days when the seasons would change.  Quintilian used the term to refer to the points on an ecliptic.  Servius, who was a contemporary of St. Ambrose, used the word to refer to the four winds.  Houser, 34 n. 67.  The allegorical possibilities of the word cardo are therefore quite rich.  As Houser summarizes it: "These meanings, however, are not haphazard but are united by he notion of something which is extraordinarily important, in no small part because it is a point of transition."  Indeed, Seneca used the term cardo to refer to that very important transition, death.

Seneca and Virtue: Four Political Virtues

LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA, known as Seneca the Younger (to distinguish him from his father, Seneca the Elder), was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and writer (ca. 4 B.C. to 65 A.D.). Famously, he was tutor and counselor to the emperor Nero, who, in his caprice, eventually sentenced the probably innocent Seneca to death (by forced suicide) for allegedly taken part in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero.

Seneca, like Cicero, was not a markedly innovative thinker, so Stoicism cannot be said to have been developed as a result of his writings.  With respect to the Stoic doctrines on virtue, we find that he accepts the four-fold division of virtue.  Seneca also accepted the Chryssipian schema of have sub-virtues underneath  the cardinal virtues, sort of like children beneath the skirts of their mother.  

Seneca was highly favored by the early Christians. Tertullian referred to Seneca as "frequently our own," saepe noster, and St. Jerome referred to him as "our Seneca" in his Ad Jovinian I.49. He was even supposed (falsely) to have known and corresponded with St. Paul. Such correspondence is certainly apocryphal. Even the rigorist Tertullian calls Seneca "our Seneca."

His popularity was no less keen in the middle ages.  "His influence was paramount in the early middle ages and the most notable doctrine about the cardinal virtues that this favorite of emperors handed onto the medievals was the way he gave it a secular and political interpretation."*  Houser, 30.  The virtues as presented by Seneca were seen by the medieval ruler as essential in the recipe for governing.  From Seneca, rulers would have "learned that the four Stoic virtues were the best guides to practical life, that they come together as a 'package' of four virtues necessarily united together, that they involve other virtues connected with them, and above all that they are most fitting for emperors and princes."  Houser, 31.  Machiavelli, then, the consummate anti-medievalist, may be said to have been an anti-Seneca.  Machiavelli's virtù is something quite different from Seneca's virtue.

Seneca between Plato and Aristotle 
From and early 14th century manuscript

Seneca's Stoic virtues--with their political twist--can be distinguished from the Ambrosian Christianization of the Stoic virtues, where the virtues as seen as part of an entire way of life, and not simply limited to political circumstance.  The Senecan notion is secular; the Ambrosian notion is religious.  We see, therefore, two strands of virtue-thought: the Senecan political virtues and the Ambrosian personal or religious virtue. The Senecan teaching we find for example in Martin of Braga's (ca. 520- ca. 580 A.D.) treatise on virtue entitled Formula vitae honestae or in Isidore of Seville.  We find the Ambrosian notion adopted by Pope Gregory I (ca. 540-614 A.D.).  This dual strand of virtue thought continued well into the middle ages.

Seneca's treatment of the virtues is probably worth a series of posting, but at this juncture, we shall not focus on Seneca.  Instead, we shall view him as an interim figure between the pagan world and the Christian world, for we are leaving behind the pagan world and entering into the Christian.  From the philosophical sage, we enter into the world of the Christian saint.  From philosophi  to sancti.  And we will never be able to look at virtue from the vantage point of the man without grace.

But for all his popularity and his supposed tie to St. Paul and supposed conversion, Seneca was not a Christian saint; yet he was a Stoic, albeit one with a fine sense of style and dedication to Stoic principles and values, particularly that quality of apatheia, a sort of self-possession of emotions that allowed one to go through life entirely nonplussed by its vicissitudes.  He was perhaps, along with Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, one of Stoicism's most famous advocates.  His 124 moral epistles to Lucilius were perhaps the most famous and popular of his works, though his works on constancy (De constantia) and mercy (De clementia) were also popular.

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*It is perhaps not proper to call these virtues "cardinal," since as Houser says later on, the Stoic development of the virtues classified the four virtues through "prolonged meditation on Socrates and whose primary exponents were Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.  But as much as these three great ethical schools had done, they had not made the cardinal virtues 'cardinal.'  This innovation required the wholesale revolution in thought known as Christian wisdom."  Houser, 31.

Cicero: The Cardinal Virtues and their Subparts

CICERO HAS NEVER BEEN regarded as a philosophical innovator; rather, he was a philosophical conservative: a traditionalist who handed down, we may assume quite faithfully, the teachings of the Stoics which he regarded as important, especially in his early works, which is where we should place his De inventione.

We might expect Cicero then faithfully to hand down the Stoic teaching of the four cardinal virtues, and he does not disappoint.  He also appends to the four cardinal virtues, the Chryppian sub-parts that were ordered underneath these four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.  The entire virtue taxonomy of Cicero is of course under the umbrella of living in agreement with the law of nature, a law which is ultimately founded upon a cosmic reason.

Cicero defines prudence using the characteristic Stoic categories of the morally good, the morally evil, and the morally indifferent.  "Prudence is knowledge of things that are good or bad or neither.  Its parts are memory, understanding, and foresight."  Prudentia est rerum bonarum et malarum neutrarumque scientia.  Partes eius: memoria, itnelligentia, providentia.  De inv., 2.160.

Justice for Cicero is "the habit of mind (habitus animi) that preserves the common utility while also giving to each what is his due."  Jusititia est habitus animi communi utilitate conservata suam cuique tribuens dignitatem.     De inv., 2.160.  Justice, of course, is the most extrinsic of the virtues since it is concerned with those other than the subject: the common good or the private good of another person.  Yet even here , in the most extrinsic of the virtues, we find the characteristic Stoic interiorization of virtue.  While concerned with externals, the focus is on the interior disposition, the habitus animi, of the virtuous person.  "In this way, the traditional Platonic and Aristotelian matter of Cicero's definition--concern for the common good and the private good of others--is given a Stoic form."  Houser, 27.

Cicero further explores justice and finds species or sub-parts of justice.  However, he divides these into to general categories depending upon whether the "law of nature" (ius naturae) or the "law of custom" (consuetudine ius) is involved.

Under the rubric of the law of nature, Cicero finds six sub-parts or species of justice: religion (religio), piety (pietas), consideration (gratias), retribution (vindicatione), honor (observantia), and truth (veritas). These sub-parts will be adopted and developed by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Under the rubric of the law of custom, Cicero finds three sub-parts: agreements (pactum), equity (par), and written judgments (iudicatum).  The notion of equity will be used by St. Thomas Aquinas, but the other two sub-parts--agreements and written judgments--are too legally-focused for St. Thomas Aquinas to be concerned with.

Houdon's Cicero inveighing against Cataline. 1803. Louvre Museum

Courage or fortitude is next.  Courage is defined as the "considered undertaking of dangers and endurance of hardships."  Fortitudo est considerata periculorum susceptio et laborum perpersio.  De inv., 2.163.  To some extent, the Ciceronian notion of fortitude is broader than the Aristotelian notion of fortitude.  The latter saw it as resolve in the face of death.  The sub-parts of fortitude or courage are identified by Cicero as magnificence (magnanimitas), confidence (fidentia), patience (patientia), and perserverance (constantia).*

Temperance Cicero defines as the "domination of reason over desire and over other incorrect inclinations of the mind, domination that is firm and attains the mean."  Temperantia est rationis in libidinem atque in alios non rectos impetus animi firma et moderata dominatio.  De inv., 2.164.  Here is the characteristic Stoic ratio or logos.  An interesting feature of the definition is that we have here not the "political" rule of Plato of reason over the passion, but more of a "tyrannical" rule of reason over passion.  Reason dominates over desire and passion in the Stoic view of things.**  Another interesting feature is the broadening of this virtue relative to the Aristotelian notion.  While Aristotle limited temperance to sex and nutrition, Cicero clearly extends it to cover any potentially improper inclination (libido).  Cicero does, however, adopt the Aristotelian notion of "mean."

Three subordinate virtues are identified by Cicero as being ordered under temperance: continence (continentia), clemency (clementia), and modesty (modestia).  Clemency is defined as "sympathy of the higher ranks for the lower," and "it seems a peculiarly Roman virtue and original with Cicero."  Houser, 29.  On the other hand, the other two notions, continence and modesty, are clearly Stoic in origin.  We find these for example, in Stobaeus, Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius.

For Cicero, continence is defined as "that by which cupidity is ruled by the governance of good counsel."  Continentia est per quam cupiditas consili guvernatione regitur. De inv., 2.164.  The extent of continence is, of course, directly tied to the understanding of what cupidity comprehends.  If cupidity is understood to be limited to nutritional or sexual desires (as was largely understood to be the case by the medieval schoolmen, then continence will likewise be limited by this understanding).  It appears that Cicero had a broader notion of continence than was later to be the case with the scholastic understanding of the term, which limited it to nutritional and sexual desires.

Cicero was again not an original thinker.  "Cicero himself tended toward syncretism."  Houser,30.  But he was the link or bridge as it were between the original Greek Stoic thinkers and the later medieval thinkers.  "The main challenge for the scholastic masters was to try to bring a millenium-old Stoick skeleton present in lists of virtues they found in old books like Cicero's."  Houser, 30.
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*Houser observes: "Cicero's definition of magnificence shows he actaully had magnanimity in mind, and with this emendation the list of virtues subordinate to courage is thoroughly Stoic, and all four will be adopted by Philip [the Chancellor], Albert [the Great], and Aquinas."  Houser, 28.
**The Stoic conception of the passions and desires as being slave to reason is, of course, totally the opposite of Hume's famous formulation that reason is the slave to the passions.

The Virtues of Cicero: The De Inventione

MOST OF THE WORKS OF THE STOIC philosophers have been lost. What we do have is mainly fragmentary evidence and the secondary sources of Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Stobaeus. However, the Stoic doctrines were popular with the Romans, and we find their doctrines, we may assume faithfully expressed, in the works of the Roman stoics, Cicero and Seneca being perhaps the most important.

One of the works of Cicero (106-43 B.C.) to which we may turn for discussion of the virtues based upon Stoic principles is his De inventione.  That youthful work was written (in Latin) circa 87 B.C.  In it, as in his other works, Cicero adopts the Chrysippian model of the four principal or cardinal virtue (we might view them as the genera), with a whole panoply of subordinate virtues that are species of the four genera.  The four principal virtues--prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice--together constitute the sum total of duty (kathēkon (καθήκον), officium), but they are filled out, as it were, with these subordinate virtues.

Although Cicero wrote of the virtues in other works, in particular his De officiis, a work whose very title incorporates the sum total of the virtuous life and the product of the virtues, the De inventione is important because it, more than any other work,* is the source that fed the medieval writers and their virtue taxonomy.  From Cicero's lips, as it were, to the ears of Philip the Chancellor, St. Albert the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Bust of Cicero

Cicero's De inventione is a manual of rhetoric,** and it is only as an aside that it handles the virtues.  Cicero distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic goods.  The intrinsic good is called the "honorable good," the bonum honestum.  Ultimately, the bonum honestum is the fruit of virtue.  Extrinsic goods or bona utilia are things that are extrinsically good (such as money) or things that are intrinsically neutral but useful.  These extrinsic goods or intrinsic but neutral goods are the handmaidens as it were of the intrinsic good, the bonum honestum.

For Cicero, virtue is "a habit of the mind in agreement with the way of nature and reason."  Nam virtus est enim habitus naturae modo atque rationi consentaneus.  (De inv., 2.159)  This is a classic Stoic definition.  It stresses the interior component (habit or habitus), being something of the mind, something interior, and unconcerned with consequences or external actions.  The notion of "agreement" (consentaneus)   coincides with the Greek Stoic Zeno's famous formula of harmonious living with nature, the "to live in agreement" ( to homologoumenos zēn ).  The standards to which the habit conform are nature (natura) and  that reason (ratio) which lies behind nature.  Here, the natura-ratio notion is a direct adoption of the physis-logos formula of the Greek Stoics.

It is within this notion of a greater law of reason that is found within nature that the virtues must be understood.  In the next posting, we shall look at the virtues as Cicero understood them in his De inventione.  But it should never be forgotten that the concept of virtues presupposed a natural law, a law found in nature which was ultimately based upon a reasonable order, an ordo rationis.

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*Other works that informed the medieval scholastics included lists by the Greek Aristotelian Andronicus of Rhodes (1st century B.C.) known as De passionibus and the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero by Macrobius. But these did not have the influence of Cicero's De inventione.
**"Invention" is the discovery of or coming upon (invenire) of arguments, one of the five traditional components that governed the rhetorician's art.  The others were arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

Stoics: The Chrysippian Synthesis

THE STOICS NOT ONLY HAD a negative principle, the principle of apatheia, indifference to passions, but they also had a positive program that focused upon the Platonic four cardinal virtues, each ontologically  different, but all operationally connected so that if you had one you had all, and if you had all you had one.  For the Stoic, wisdom was the necessary and sufficient condition for acquiring moral virtue.  The Stoics therefore seemed to have adopted the Socratic formula that knowledge was virtue.

But there were different strands of thinking regarding the positive program.  Zeno, while maintaining the Platonic four-virtue schema, further described the interaction of these virtues as being interlaced.  Plutarch described Zeno's insight as being that the four virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice "as being not separate yet other and different from each other."  Virtue for Zeno according to Plutarch "is on, though it seems to differ in its actions in relation to its disposition relative to things."  The four virtues which seems in practical application to be one, worked hand in glove, with prudence being the chief virtue.  Thus justice could be described as prudence in distribution of goods.  Temperance could be defined as prudence in choices regarding goods.  Courage could be defined as prudence in endurance of evils.  Effectively, then, Zeno could say that all virtue is prudence.  Houser, 24.

Chrysippus

Chrysippus, while not rejecting the four-fold division of Plato and the operational unity of the virtues under the banner of prudence, yet believed that each virtue had its "peculiar quality."  The distinction between the virtues was real, not simply a distinction in the mind.  Chrysippus apparently expanded on the four-fold nomenclature since he was accused of building up a "swarm of virtues" both unusual and unknown."  Houser, 24.  Though Plutarch excoriated Chrysippus, Chrysippus' idea ultimately bore fruit.  As Houser expresses it:

[I]n truth, Chrysippus made a great contribution to virtue theory, by showing how to make room for more than Plato's four virtues, while keeping the four. He did so by inventing the distinction between four "primary" virtues and the other virtues "subordinate to them."

Houser, 24-25 (quoting Plutarch, De virtute morali, 440e-441d).

Ultimately, the Chrysippian taxonomy stuck.  It stuck because it had the merit of avoiding two extremes.  It avoided on the one hand the extreme of "too much reductionism, as found in Socrates, Plato, and Zeno," where the "four" virtues were really "one," the difference between them being almost virtual or nominal.  But Chrysippus also avoided the Aristotelian extreme where one had a "hodge-podge of virtues related only by prudence."  Houser, 25.  The Chrysippian model, therefore, took the insights of Aristotle and adapted them to the taxonomy of Plato and yielded a multiplicity of virtues, but all ordered under the four cardinal virtues.

It was this schema which ultimately became mainstream, and it would "come to dominate Stoicism and prove attractive to virtue theories from Cicero to Aquinas" and beyond.  Houser, 25.

Stoics: Apathy as the First Step to Virtue

THE STOIC MORAL PROGRAM consisted of a negative and a positive content.  The first, negative concern was control of the passions, to achieve a state of apatheia or passionlessness.  Once the passions were controlled and replaced with their reason-based opposites (eupatheia), the soul could be channeled to conform within the guidance of the four cardinal virtues.  Subject the soul to the guidance of the virtues once the state of apatheia was achieved was the positive part of the Stoic program.

In analyzing the passions, the Stoics rejected the teachings of Plato and Aristotle as to the composition of the soul.  They rejected Plato's famous teaching (in his Republic) that the soul was the city or polis writ small, and that it was tripartite, composed of a spirited (θυμητικὸν), concupiscent (ἐπιθυμητικὸν), and rational nature (λογιστικόν): two stallions being guided by the driver of reason into virtue.  They rejected Aristotle's view that virtue was a sort of harmony or mean among the virtues, an interrelationship of various parts.  They saw the passions as competitors with reason, not as something needing to be controlled by reason.  For this reason, the passions had to be suppressed and replaced with good passions, one's entirely in accord with reason.

Plutarch outlines the Stoic view of things as it came to the soul (which had no real parts) and virtue (which was equivalent to reason):

All [the Stoics] commonly hold that virtue is a certain character (diathesin) and power of command in the soul, generated by reason, or rather, virtue is reason, consistent and firm and unchangeable. And they think that the passionate and irrational part is not distinguished by some distinction in nature from the rational part of the soul, but the same part of the soul, which they call the reasoning and commanding part, when as a whole it turns or changes during passions or changes in character or habit it becomes vice or virtue. It has nothing irrational in itself, but is called irrational when a strong and dominant excessive impulse has carried it off toward something wrong and contrary to reason.

Plutarch, De virtute morali, 441c-d* (quoted in Houser, 22-23).  The logos or reasonable part of man was the chief of virtue.  The objective was to have the whole soul act in common with reason, and to avoid its opposite: that the whole soul instead should be under the guidance of passion.  The Stoics, of course, are famous for their recipe of control over the passions.  The recipe for virtuous living was to live a passionless life, the famous apatheia.

Apatheia by Don Michael, Jr. 

In categorizing the passions (so as to try to overcome them), the Stoics developed a sophisticated taxonomy.  For example, Diogenes Laertius identifies twenty-six different species of passions, but they can be placed within four main categories or types: desire (epithymia), fear (phobos), pleasure (hēdonē), and pain (lupē). (See Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 7.111-14).  Interestingly, they viewed these passions as intellectual judgments, kriseis, and therefore controllable.  Virtue was achieved, not by controlling the passions or subjecting the to the guidance of reason, but by routing them out of the soul altogether.  Then, one expected to replace them with their good opposites.

The good opposites of the passions, the "good passions" or eupatheia, were identified as proper willing  or rational appetite (boulēsis) which was the counterpart to desire  (epithymia), caution or rational avoidance (eulabeia) which was the counterpart to fear (phobos), and joy or rational elation (charan), the opposite of pleasure (hēdonē).**  (See Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 7.117)

Replacing the irrational and therefore bad passions with the reason-inspired and therefore good passions was the goal of the negative project of the Stoics.


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*κοινῶς δ᾽ ἅπαντες οὗτοι τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς διάθεσίν τινα καὶ δύναμιν γεγενημένην ὑπὸ λόγου, μᾶλλον δὲ λόγον οὖσαν αὐτὴν ὁμολογούμενον καὶ βέβαιον καὶ ἀμετάπτωτον ὑποτίθενται: καὶ νομίζουσιν οὐκ εἶναι τὸ παθητικὸν καὶ ἄλογον διαφορᾷ τινι καὶ φύσει ψυχῆς τοῦ λογικοῦ διακεκριμένον, ἀλλὰ ταὐτὸ τῆς ψυχῆς μέρος, ὃ δὴ καλοῦσι διάνοιαν καὶ ἡγεμονικόν, δι᾽ ὅλου τρεπόμενον καὶ μεταβάλλον ἔν τε τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς καθ᾽ ἕξιν ἢ διάθεσιν μεταβολαῖς κακίαν τε γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀρετήν, καὶ μηδὲν ἔχειν ἄλογον ἐν ἑαυτῷ.
**Diogenes Laertius does not give an account of the good passion associated with the bad passion of pain (lupē), but we might suppose that irrational pain would be replaced by some sort of rationally-inspired avoidance of what is harmful or vicious.  "Such an expansion [in avoiding the seeming good and acquiring the truly good] seems but another word for virtue."  Houser, 24.

Stoics: The Exaltation of Moral Intention

IN OUR LAST POSTING, we discussed the Stoic concept of duty--a notion encapsulated in Greek in the word καθῆκον, kathēkon, pl., καθήκοντα, kathēkonta, and the Latin word officium--a term which ought to be understood as meeting fittingness or conformity with nature.  While this was an important, even central, concept of Stoic ethics, it ought not to be understood as being sufficient for virtue.  There was more to virtue than mere conformity with nature.

For example, in his De finibus (written ca. 44 B.C.), Cicero outlined five steps requisite for moral development.  In order to do one's duty, in order to comply with nature, five things were required. These five steps were viewed as a sort of hierarchical ladder, from low to high, and it was only in completing the fifth and highest rung that one could say that virtue had been achieved.

The first such rung in the Ciceronian schema was the lowest, and it was one that humans shared with the brute animals.  This was the innate inclination that all animals have to preserve their own nature or existence.  The inclination towards self-preservation is a strong natural instinct, and it is one found present in both brute animals as well as reasonable man.  It was expected that man, to comply with his duty, should strive to effect, to realize that inclination towards self-preservation and therefore avoid self-destructive behavior and strive also to incorporate behavior that allowed one to thrive (eating, procreation, etc.)

Life alone was clearly not sufficient to live a virtuous life.  What had to be done was to develop a sort of habitual preferential attitude toward duty, so that duty became a sort of second nature.  Cicero viewed this process as having three steps, each one being an increased perfection of the virtue of duty.  (See De finibus, III.20)  The first step occurred as one held on to what is good and rejected what was evil so that one developed a preference for the former and a dis-preference for the latter (ut ea teneat quae secundum naturam sint pellatque contraria; qua inventa selectione et item rejectione).  That developed preference matures into a dutiful preference (cum officio selectio), then finally a permanent dutiful preference, which leads to the threshold of an unwavering, constant and harmonious accord with nature (ea perpetua, tum ad extremum constans consentaneaque naturae).  It is in this final step where good, that is virtue, can be said to first exist.

Young Cicero Reading, fresco by Vincenzo Foppa

This internalization of what is in accord with nature is at the heart of Stoic virtue.  It should be stressed that this interiorization was not a utilitarian or consequentialist ethic.  The focus is not on the external act as much as the internal disposition of the actor.  Though at first focus is on the act and its conformity with nature, the objective is to develop an keen sense of the order in nature, of the desirability of one's acts in conformity with that order, and an interior disposition and ready duty to conform to that order, and so, finally, to live a life fitting and harmoniously compliant with the order of nature.

As Houser puts it:

At first, we concentrate on 'things done in accord with nature,' but virtue refocuses on 'seeing the order of things that should be done,' order that is not an individual action but the plan that organizes individual actions. Virtue leads us to perform actions with consequences 'finely done (honeste facta),' to be sure, but virtue consists in 'the fine itself (ipsumque honestum),' that is, in the inter character and habit of virtue. The safe focuses on inner intention and character (diathesis), because these are what constitute virtue, properly speaking. The Stoic conception of virtue, then manifests 'the exaltation of moral intention.'

Houser, 22 (quoting Cicero, De finibus, and P. Donini, "Stoic Ethics," in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, 717)

Taking the Aristotelian example of an archer striving to hit the target, for the Stoic hitting the target--while important--is not what determined whether the archer was virtuous.  What was important was not the success of hitting the target, what was important was "to do all he can do aim straight."  If external forces resulted in the arrow missing the mark, that was not the result of lack of virtue, but rather non-moral forces at work.  Virtue consisted not so much in success, but in an internal disposition which strove for success by conforming oneself to the order in nature steadily and with unflappable resolve.

This internal disposition, of course, reached full flower in the apothegms of Epictetus, the words of Seneca, and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius.