2. About the Moral Virtues, the Beatitudes, the Gifts, and the Fruits, which are Reducible to the Aforesaid Seven Virtues

a. About the Three Moral Virtues

54. To understand further the said virtues, beatitudes, gifts, and fruits [n.1], one must note that the three acquired moral virtues, namely justice, fortitude, and temperance, are intermediate genera.

55. For there seem to be two desirable things that are first, namely honor and delight strictly taken, or everything that is a primary good, that is, agreeable, namely either honorable or delightful. For the useful cannot be a first motive for desiring something, since it is not desired save in its order to something else. The authority too in I John 2.16, “Everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life,” shows the same thing. For ‘desire of the eyes’, which clearly relates to wealth, cannot be first when speaking of wealth as it is a useful and non-delightful good; but if we speak of wealth as it is beautiful, that is, as it is a delightful good, in this way it can be desired first (like any other visible beauty). Therefore, the first things desirable by rational nature are, as was said, honor and delight strictly taken. So the first species of temperance, which give moderation as to what is desirable for oneself, will be two; for what moderates in the case of honors is called humility, what in the case of pleasures retains the name of the genus. And there are as many species of the temperance that moderates pleasures (for instance one about taste, another about touch) as there can be distinct pleasures to which the will is inclined. Nor is this true only of the pleasures of the senses which the will, which is joined to them, delights in; but it is true also of pleasures proper to the will itself as it is will - and it is in this way that the will of an angel, though it has no separate sensitive appetite, can desire the delightful good.

56. And the proof that these temperances are distinct is that there can be supreme delight in one of them and not in another. For someone can be temperate simply about sex, wanting only to use it with his own wife or simply not to use it, and intemperate about taste, wanting to eat what he should not eat or not wanting to eat what he should eat. Someone too can be temperate about things of sense and intemperate about things of speculation. For instance, if his will is supremely delighted by the fact that his intellect is thinking supremely about intelligible things, and this thinking is not as useful in itself as some other one, this delight is in itself immoderate and needs moderating, since it is in itself disordered.

57. The species of fortitude do not need to be thus explained for the present purpose, because only fortitude in itself and patience are, among others, here touched on. Patience, as was said before [n.38] is the noblest fortitude because it does not repel what is to be repelled, so that ‘to be patient’ is a sort of ‘to permit’. And just as one would say about permission that it is a positive act of willing or not-willing, or perhaps of ‘not willing to prevent’, so one would say the same about the sort of act that is the will’s being patient about terrible things.

58. Now justice needs to be subdivided according to what follows.

Here one must note that, in one’s ordering to another, one can be disposed rightly first by sharing oneself with another as much as one can, or by sharing with him something else or one’s own possessions.

59. The virtue that inclines to the first is friendship, whereby one gives oneself to one’s neighbor as far as one can give oneself, and as far as one’s neighbor can receive. And this is the most perfect moral virtue, because the whole of justice is more perfect than the virtues that relate to oneself, and this friendship is most perfectly justice.

60. But if one shares something else with one’s neighbor, this is either extrinsic goods or intrinsic goods. To share intrinsic goods, insofar as these belong to the support of individual human life, from the extrinsic goods that men need is called ‘commutative justice’; and it is the one that people more frequently call justice, to the extent something equivalent is exchanged. But if one shares with one’s neighbor something necessary for life in community, either this is rule, which belongs to the presiding magistrate, and this species of justice lacks a name but it can be called presiding justice or lordly justice. Or one shares with one’s neighbor the justice of subjection, and this species of justice is called obedience.

b. About the Beatitudes

61. On the basis of the above understandings, I say that the beatitudes which our Savior lays out in Matthew 5.3-10 are the same habit as the habits of the virtues. However sometimes more specific species of virtues are numbered than are included in the sevenfold number of virtues previously assigned [n.28]

62. Two species indeed of temperance are numbered by our Savior among the beatitudes. One is humility, which gives moderation about the first object of delight, honor, and he expresses it there as “Blessed are the poor in spirit...” Augustine says [Sermon on the Mount I ch.1 n.3], “The poor in spirit are rightly understood here as the just and God-fearers, that is, those who do not have a puffed up spirit.” Another species of virtue, which moderates the pleasures in general, is expressed by the words, “Blessed are the pure of heart.” For purity of heart is immunity of the will from every disordered delight, both by reason of the will itself and by reason of the sensitive appetites with which it is conjoined.

63. Fortitude is expressed there in its most perfect species in the words, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution.”

64. Three species of justice are expressed:

One to be sure, which exists in sharing oneself through friendship, is expressed when he says, “Blessed are the meek.”, for although friendship is more than benevolence (according to the Philosopher Ethics 8.2.1155b33-34), and benevolence is more than meekness, because the meek are those who do not offend or resist in evil, nevertheless through this minimum [sc. meekness], which is as it were least in friendship, is expressed the species of justice by which someone shares himself with his neighbor.

65. Another species, namely the one that is divided into justice of rule and obedience, is expressed by the words,” Blessed are the peacemakers.” Peace is kept by the fact that the ruler rightly rules and the subject rightly obeys.

66. A third species of justice, which concerns exterior things, is expressed by “Blessed are the merciful.” For in no other way can anyone be more perfectly disposed to sharing external goods with his neighbor than is the merciful man, who shares them not to have them back nor to be benefited first in turn by him with whom he shares. A generous man indeed, although he shares things with his friend, yet his generosity can be a lower one than is mercy, and so generosity is a more imperfect species of justice than mercy. The justice, then, that concerns temporal matters, is expressed by the Lord in its most specific species, in Luke 14.13-14, “When you make a feast.”

67. And thus we have the three moral virtues expressly in themselves or in their species.

68. As to the theological virtues our Savior expresses two of them: charity where he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”. Hunger indeed is not without distress, but the habit by which it is elicited is charity. For most properly is the charity of the wayfarer a habit by which we hunger for justice and love God in himself, who is true justice. The second theological virtue, namely hope, is expressed by the beatitude, “Happy are those who weep.”; for mourning is the habit of desiring the object of hope.

69. So, therefore, in the eight beatitudes are expressed two infused appetitive virtues and three moral virtues: fortitude in itself, temperance in two species, justice in three species. Now the two intellectual virtues, one acquired (as prudence), the other infused (as faith), are not expressed in themselves nor in their species, and are sufficiently given to be understood through the appetitive virtues, for the will is not best disposed without the corresponding virtue in the intellect.

c. About the Gifts

70. About the gifts I say that in that passage [Isaiah 11.2-3] the four cardinal virtues are numbered: Prudence through ‘the spirit of counsel’, for prudence is properly a habit of counsel, for it is properly a habit of right practical syllogizing, and thus to syllogize is to counsel. Hence the habit whereby one is good at counseling is the habit of prudence. Fortitude is expressed among the gifts by its own name. Fear is a species of temperance, for fear is altogether the same habit as humility, although named by a different name, as is plain from Augustine on Matthew 5.3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” [On the Sermon on the Mount I ch.4 n.11], and for this reason does Scripture frequently commend fear, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” etc. [Psalm 110.10, Proverbs 1.7, 9.10]. Nothing other than humility is the beginning of the virtues - there being something corresponding to it in the intellect. And, in the issue at hand, what is called ‘blessed’ must always be understood as to species or merit, as it is often elsewhere in Scripture, “Blessed is he who understands the needy and poor” and “Blessed is he who suffers temptation” and the like others [Psalm 40.1 James 1.12, Psalm 1.1, 33.9, 39.5, Ecclesiastes 14.1, Matthew 24.46, Revelation 1.3]. These passages do not mean to say that one is happy because one has a habit, which habit is blessedness, but because through the habit one merits blessedness. When piety is placed among the gifts, this is what our Savior calls ‘mercy’, and thus it is a species of justice [n.66].

71. Therefore express among the gifts are the four cardinal virtues and two of the infused virtues, which are named by their proper names:

For prudence is also called counsel [n.66], and fortitude is called by its own name, and the two others are not named under the idea of their intermediate species (which are numbered in the sevenfold list [nn.52-53]), but under certain of their species, namely temperance is named under fear and justice under charity.

72. The two infused virtues numbered there are charity, under the ‘Spirit of wisdom’ - for generally when wisdom is commended in Scripture (as in “Blessed the man who dwells in wisdom” [Ecclesiastes 14.22] and the like), wisdom is taken there for charity and is there charity. For wisdom [sapientia] is the habit whereby the object that is in itself ‘flavorful’ [sapidum] ‘tastes’ [sapit] to him who has it; that is, by which the good in itself pleases me, and is what in itself I want for myself. Through the other two gifts, namely intellect and science, is expressed infused faith, not that these two are ways of stating two habits (as wisdom states charity and fear states humility), but they are ways of stating one habit, as it is perfect or imperfect. And each can be given separately, or the first to be sure without the second though not conversely. Intellect can be taken for imperfect faith, which is knowledge of the first principles, and science for perfect faith, which is explicit knowledge of the articles - just as in the case of natural knowables intellect is said to be knowledge of principles and science of explicit conclusions. Hope is not listed here but is given to be understood by charity [which is expressed by wisdom], and wisdom is that whereby God in himself tastes for me, and by which the good tastes for me (for he who tastes both approves the taste in itself and desires it for himself).

d. About the Fruits

73. About the fruits [Galatians 5.22-23] I say that some of them are virtues (in the idea according to which they are numbered in the sevenfold list [n.53]); some are species of virtues (numbered in the same list); some are neither one nor the other but are delights consequent to acts.

74. For example, charity is there under its proper name, and faith likewise; but hope is included in what is called long-suffering (hence it is said of the patriarchs that they were long-suffering in hope, as if expecting with patience for a long time).

75. The moral virtues are also expressed there.

Fortitude in what is called patience.

76. Justice in its species, which is called mercy [n.66], and in what is called goodness, as he is commonly called good who shares himself with his neighbor. In another species of justice, namely in friendship [n.64], is expressed there benignity, which is as it were benevolence and good warmth. In a second species, which belongs to rule or subjection, is there mildness. Or obedience is specifically named there, for the mild man is he who carries out everything without murmuring.

77. Temperance is expressed in two of its species, namely continence and chastity, if it please to refer continence to other pleasures and chastity to sexual ones. Or they can be understood to be one species, as continence and chastity are said to be one species about all delightful things, the way the Philosopher in Ethics 7.8.1150a9-15 makes chastity to be a certain degree in any virtue.

78. Prudence is expressed there by modesty, for a modest man is he who holds to the due and right measure in acting, and it is the work of prudence to find and fix and determine the due measure in action.

79. Thus do we have in the list the three theological virtues in themselves. And we have fortitude under patience, justice in three of its species, temperance in one species or two species, prudence in one species. And thus we have all the [moral] virtues, both intellectual [sc. prudence] and moral [sc. the others].

80. Other things are numbered there, which are delights concomitant with or consequent to acts [n.73], namely joy and peace. For joy is properly delight within the will, and peace is the security of having the object in the same power without challenge.