c. The Seven Virtues Perfect the Wayfarer Simply

52. Accordingly, then, in the enumeration of the virtues there are three theological ones and four cardinal ones. Discussion of the theological ones is got from the Apostle in I Corinthians 13. About the cardinal ones there is Wisdom 8.7, “She teaches sobriety, and justice, and prudence, and virtue, than which nothing is more useful in life.”

53. This sevenfold number of virtues perfects the wayfarer simply, so that he is perfect according to the rank of these in their species. For according as these are more or less intense, not in themselves but in their capacity, he himself is more or less perfect. And if they are the most intense they can be in this life, man is simply perfect as far as he can be in this life (not paying attention for the present to the perfection that is had through the acquired speculative virtues, which were set aside above [n.28]). Through these seven virtues, to be sure, taking both them and their necessary species (which will be spoken of later [n.81]), provided they are in themselves most perfect, a man is simply most perfect both as regard God in himself and as regard everything else other than God, according as they are intelligible by practical reason and desirable for oneself and others. All this too in ordered relation to oneself, as far as the appetitive virtues are able in themselves or are so in order to the ultimate end -the end that the acquired virtues, combined with charity, are capable of.