Salesian Literature

Chapter 10  :  The virtues of the pagans – a digression

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Once upon a time the philosophers of ancient world had splendid things to say in praise of the moral virtues – even of religion.  Plutarch’s comment on the Stoics, however, is still more applicable to the rest of the pagans.  It is common enough, he says, to see ships bearing imposing names – the Victory, for example, or the Courageous, or the Sun – yet they are ever at the mercy of wind and wave.  So it is with the Stoics: they boast of not being slaves to passion, untouched by fear, sorrow, anger, men who remain unmoving and unmoved; yet all the time they are prey to dissension, anxiety, rashness and other inconsistencies.

 

In God’s name, Theotimus, I ask you, what virtue can there be in people who deliberately go out of their way to turn every religious principle upside down? It was Aristotle, who pronounced this horrible pitiless sentence:

 

When we have to decide between leaving children to die or bringing them up, this is the principle to follows: no deformed child is ever to be reared.  If a man finds that he is going to have twice as many children as he can cope with, yet the local laws and customs forbid the abandoning of children, he is to anticipate the difficulty and procure abortion.

 

God alone knows what kind of philosophers were men who taught a philosophy of such cruelty, such brutality!  How dreadful, to find so eminent a philosopher advising abortion!  “To prevent a child from being born, once it has been conceived, “ says Tertullian, “is murder by anticipation.”  “It means,” says St. Ambrose, when he took the pagans to task for such barbarity, “that you deprive children of life before you have scarcely given it to them.”

 

The pagans, to be sure, if they practised virtue, did so mainly to win some temporal advantage.  Such virtue was apparent only, since it lacked a right intention – the essence of all true virtue.  “Pagan fortitude stems from human greed,” says the Council of Orange, “while Christian fortitude is rooted in charity.”  In St. Augustine’s view, pagan virtues look like virtues, but that is all; they are never done for the right reason, but for something transitory.

 

With the pagans one vice was crushed by another, vice making room for vice, but never for virtue.  By the single vice of vain glory they crushed avarice and several other vices; why, sometimes they even scorned vanity for vanity’s sake.  Take that pagan who showed least signs of vanity, but who trampled upon Plato’s sumptuous couch.

 

“Diogenes, what are you doing?” Plato cried.

“I’m trampling upon Plato’s ostentatiousness,” came the answer.

“True enough,” retorted Plato, “but how ostentatiously you’re doing it!”

 

No love of integrity drove those worldly philosophers to practise virtue, but love of fame.  Their virtues differed as much from true virtues as fame does from integrity, or as loving a thing for its own sake differs from loving in search of reward.  Those who serve king and country in order to feather their own nests are normally eager to make an excited show of their services; but those whose service is dictated by a love for king and country act with greater nobility, greater heroism – and, consequently, their service has greater value.

 

The early Fathers of the Church described the pagans as both possessing virtues and lacking them at the same time.  The actions of those pagans seemed to shine with the light of virtue, but not only did they lack the life-giving warmth of charity, which alone could have made them perfect, they were not even capable of receiving it – through their lack of faith.

 

That is why it always surprises me when I find people in admiration of pagan virtues – not because their admiration of the imperfect virtues of pagans is unreasonable, but because they fail to admire the perfect virtue of Christians, virtues which are so much more worth admiring and which alone are worth imitating.

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