Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/93

 v] ETHICS 75 (verecundia) and warns against anger (iracundia). Through all of this, Cicero's treatise is in his mind and often quoted. Again, Ambrose (1, 105, following De Off-, I, xxix, 141) shows how his mode of regarding virtue is some- times the Ciceronian, i.e. the pagan stoi co-eclectic. In acting, says Cicero, and Ambrose after him, three things are to be considered ; first, that appetitus should obey reason ; secondly, that we should bestow pains in proportion to the weight of the matter ; and, thirdly, that we should observe the fitness of times and places. Ambrose agrees with Cicero that the first is the most important. These were the principles of pagan ethics. Ambrose might apply them somewhat differently from Cicero, and nevertheless be reasoning in a pagan way. A man who regarded the future life as all-important would apply these principles differently from one to whom the present life was the main matter. Ambrose continues, pointing out (I, 107-114) how Abraham and Jacob and Joseph observed these principles ; and then argues that their conduct exhibited the four car- dinal virtues, prudentiay justitia, fortitudOf and tempe- rantia. He discusses these virtues as constituent parts of good conduct. Primus officii fons prudentia estf says Ambrose, a phrase which hardly represents a Christian point of view (I, 126 ; cf. De 0/f., I, v, sec. 15). The discussion of the virtue of fortitudOf which follows (1, 175, et seq.), is stoical in tone. Likewise Ambrose follows Cicero closely in the treat- ment of the seemly, decorum (I, 221, et seq., De Ojf., I, xxvii, 96-98), even to the point of saying, — what is sheer stoicism, — decorum est secundum naturam viv€r€