Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/614

Rh 592 ETHICS the development of Christian faith into true knowledge (Grnosis), and the value of the natural development of man through marriage for the normal perfecting of the Chris tian life. So again, there is a marked difference between the writers before Augustine and those that succeeded him in all that concerns the internal conditions of Christian morality. By Justin and other apologists the need of redemption, faith, grace is indeed recognized, but the theological system depending on these notions is not suf ficiently developed 1 to come into even apparent antagonism with the freedom of tha will. Christianity is for the most part conceived as essentially a proclamation through the Divine Word, to immortal beings gifted with free choice, of the true code of conduct sanctioned by eternal rewards and punishments. This legalism contrasts strikingly with the efforts of pagan philosophy to exhibit virtue as its own reward ; and the contrast is triumphantly pointed out by more than one early Christian writer. Lactantius (circ. 300 A.D.), for example, roundly declares that Plato and Aris totle, referring everything to this earthly life, &quot; made virtue mere folly ;&quot; though himself maintaining, with pardonable inconsistency, that man s highest good did not consist in mere pleasure, but in the consciousness of the filial relation of the soul to God. It is plain, however, that on this external legalistic view of duty it was impossible to main tain a difference in kind between Christian and pagan morality ; the philosopher s conformity to the rules of chastity and beneficence, so far as it went, was indistin guishable from the saint s. But when this inference was developed in the teaching of Pelagius, it was repudiated as heretical by the church, under the powerful leadership Augus- of Augustine (354-430) ; and the doctrine of man s inca- me&amp;gt; pacity to obey God s law by his unaided moral energy was pressed to a point at which it was difficult to reconcile it with the freedom of the will. Augustine is fully aware of the theoretical indispensability of maintaining Free Will, from its logical connexion with human responsibility and divine justice ; but he considers that these latter points are sufficiently secured if actual freedom of choice between good and evil is allowed in the single case of our progenitor Adam. 2 For since the natttra seminalis from which all men were to arise already existed in Adam, in his voluntary preference of self to God humanity chose evil once for all ; for which ante-natal guilt all men are justly condemned to perpetual absolute sinfulness and consequent punishment, un:ess they are elected by God s unmerited grace to share the benefits of Christ s redemption. Without this grace it is impossible for man to obey the &quot; first greatest command ment &quot; of love to God ; and, this unfulfilled, he is guilty of the whole law, and is only free to choose between degrees of sin : his apparent external virtues have no moral value, since inner Tightness of intention is wanting. &quot; All that is not of .faith is of sin ; &quot; and faith and love are mutually involved and inseparable ; faith springs from the divinely imparted germ of love, which in its turn is developed by faith to its full strength, while from both united springs hope, joyful yearning towards ultimate perfect fruition of the object of love. These three Augustine (after St Paul) regards as the three essential elements of Christian virtue ; along with these he recognizes the fourfold division of virtue into prudence, temperance, courage, and justice; which, however, he explains to be in their true natures 1 To show the crudity of the notion of redemption in early Christian ity, it is sufficient to mention that many fathers represent Christ s ran som as having been paid to the devil; sometimes adding that by the concealment of Christ s divinity under the veil of humanity a certain deceit was (fairly) practised on the great deceiver. 1 It is to be observed that Augustine does not himself understand by &quot;freedom &quot; the power of willing either good or evil, but the power of willing good. The highest freedom, in his view, excludes the possibility of wiling eril. only the same love to God in different aspects or exercises. The severe uncompromising mysticism of this view may be at once compared and contrasted with the philosophical severity of Stoicism. Love of God in the former holds the same absolute and unique position as the sole element of moral work in human action, which, as we have seen, was occupied by knowledge of Good in the latter ; and we may carry the parallel further by observing that in neither case is this severity in the abstract estimate of goodness necessarily connected with extreme rigidity in practical precepts. Indeed, an important part of Augustine s work as a moralist lies in the reconciliation which he laboured to effect between the anti-worldly spirit of Christianity and the necessities of secular civilization. For example, we find him arguing for the legitimacy of judicial punish ments and military service against an over-literal interpre tation of the Sermon on the Mount. And, more generally, by adopting and giving currency to the well-known distinc tion between evangelical &quot;counsels&quot; and &quot;commands,&quot; he defended the life of marriage and temperate enjoyment of natural good against the attacks of the more extravagant advocates of celibacy and self-abnegation ; although he fully admitted the superiority of the latter method of avoiding the contamination of sin. The attempt to Christianize the old Platonic list of Ambr virtues, which we have noticed in Augustine s system, was probably due to the influence of his master Ambrose ; in whose treatise De officiis ministrorum we find for the first time an exposition of Christian duty systematized on a plan borrowed from a pre-Christian moralist. It is inter esting to compare Ambrose s account of what subsequently came to be known as the &quot; four cardinal virtues &quot; with the corresponding delineations in Cicero s 3 De officiis which has served the bishop as a model. Christian Wisdom, so far as speculative, is of course primarily theological ; it has God, as the highest truth, for its chief object, and is therefore necessarily grounded on faith. Christian Fortitude is essentially firmness in withstanding the seductions of good and evil fortune, resoluteness in the conflict perpetually waged against wickedness without carnal weapons though Ambrose, with the Old Testament in his hand, will not quite relinquish the ordinary martial application of the virtue. &quot; Temperantia &quot; retains the meaning of &quot; observ ance of due measure&quot; in all conduct, which it had in Cicero s treatise ; though its notion is partly modified by being blended with the newer virtue of humility; virile in the exposition of Christian Justice the Stoic doctrine of the natural union of all human interests is elevated to the full height and intensity of -evangelical philanthropy ; the brethren are bidden to regard all things useful as the common property of all. Ambrose, we should observe, is thoroughly aware of the fundamental union of these different virtues in. Christianity, though he does not, like Augustine, resolve them all into the one central affection of love of God. The combination which Augustine introduced between these four cardinal virtues and the triad of Christian graces, Faith, Hope, and Love, determined the ground-plan of the treatment of systematic ethics for subsequent ecclesi astical writers generally. In antithesis to this list of Ecl e virtues, an enumeration of the chief deadly sins obtained astic currency. These were at first commonly reckoned as in t { 1( eight ; but a preference for mystical numbers characteristic &quot;Da of mediaeval theologians finally reduced the received list Ages. to seven. The statement of them is somewhat variously given by different writers, Pride, Avarice, Anger, Glut- 3 Cicero s works are unimportant in the history of ancient ethics, as their philosophical matter was entirely borrowed from Greek treatises now lost ; but the influence exercised by them (especially by the De Off/tils) over medieval and even modern readers was very considerable.