Exo 18:21 you choose from among .. men of v
Phi 4:8 if there is v any, if anything praiseworthy
2Pe 1:5 add to .. faith v; to v, knowledge
Latin, virtute. Habitual disposition of the soul for actions in accordance with the moral law. The enumeration of the norms of work and behavior of Christians: “All that there is that is true, noble, just, pure, kind, honorable, of all that is virtue and praiseworthy thing, all this keep it in account† , Phil 4, 8.
According to 2 P 1 5; 7, one v. another must be inferred: “From faith, virtue; of virtue, knowledge; of knowledge, temperance; of temperance, tenacity; of tenacity, piety; of piety, fraternal love; brotherly love, charity† . The works of the flesh are the vices, while the fruit of the Spirit is v., Gal 5, 19-23.
Digital Bible Dictionary, Grupo C Service & Design Ltda., Colombia, 2003
Source: Digital Bible Dictionary
(Heb., hayil, vigour, ability, often involving moral worth; Gr., arete, any excellence of a person or thing, dynamis, power, influence). The expression virtuous woman (Rth 3:11; Pro 12:4; Pro 31:10) means lit. a valuable woman. Sometimes the word is used in the sense of power (Mar 5:30; Luk 6:19; Luk 8:46; 2Co 12:9) and strength (Heb 11:11).
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
It is the goodness, chastity and probity of Pro 21:10-31. the reason for the “power” of Mark 5:30, Luke 6:19.
Christian Bible Dictionary
Dr. J. Dominguez
http://bible.com/dictionary/
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
In the OT this term is used with the idea of “capacity”, “skill”, together with a sense of right (“Furthermore, choose among all the people men of v., who fear God”). Ruth was “a virtuous woman” (Ruth 3:11). That sense of ability mixed with what is right, just and holy is highly appreciated when it comes to finding a wife († œWho can find a virtuous woman? For her esteem far exceeds that of precious stones †).
In the NT the term aretë is translated, equivalent to the Greek concept of excellence, the best. Paul recommends believers to always be thinking about the excellent things, the best things (“…if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, think about these things”). They are “chosen race, royal priesthood…. so that you may announce the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light † (1Pe 2: 9). In some versions of the Bible the word v. translates to dunamis, equivalent to †œpower† .
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
vet, This term denotes a motor moral excellence of upright and worthy actions. In the OT, Moses chose virtuous men to help him in the task of judging the people of Israel (Ex. 18:21-25). Ruth is described as a virtuous woman (Rt. 3:11). The virtuous woman is the crown of her husband (Prov. 31:10), and in Prov. 31:10 ff. her excellences are described. The Christian virtues must be what fills the mind of the Christian (Phil. 4:8); in 2 Pet. 1:5, virtue is the effect of faith in action; Christians are “a people acquired by God” in order to announce “the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2: 9).
Source: New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
It is an operative habit that Saint Thomas defines as “a good quality of mind, by which one lives righteously and which no one can use for evil”. The opposite attitude or habit is vice. In the virtues we can distinguish: a) natural virtues. that are acquired with the constant repetition of good acts, and are divided into dianoethics or intellectual and moral; b) cardinal virtues, what are prudence, justice, strength and temperance; c) supernatural virtues, which are habits infused by God into human faculties along with sanctifying grace that is infused into the essence of the soul through baptism. The common doctrine also places among these virtues the cardinal ones, which perfect and elevate those acquired by human effort. However, the main infused virtues continue to be the theological ones, since they have God as their formal object, while the cardinal virtues tend towards a finite good. The theological ones are faith, hope and charity. The latter is considered the queen of all other virtues, according to Saint Paul (1 Cor 13). Charity is intimately related to sanctifying grace and is lost with sin, while faith and hope can remain in the sinner without grace AND charity. At the moment of the infusion of sanctifying grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are also infused.
G. Bove
Bibl.: A, de Sutter, Virtue, in DE, 600-607. G, Germán Suárez, The theological life, Madrid 1962; J. Pieper, The fundamental virtues, Rialp, Madrid 1976; Ch. Bernard, spiritual theology, Athens, Madrid 1994, 141-171.
PACOMIO, Luciano, Encyclopedic Theological Dictionary, Divine Word, Navarra, 1995
Source: Encyclopedic Theological Dictionary
MORAL THEOLOGY
SUMMARY
I. Virtue:
1. The history of the term;
2. Contrasting contemporary assessments of the importance of virtue;
3. The problem.
II. The virtuous organism:
1. The elements that structure virtue:
a) Virtue is ordered to act,
b) Virtue connaturalizes with the good,
c) Virtue is a style of search and fidelity;
2. Persons and partakers of the divine nature (2Pe 1:4). Infused and acquired virtues: distinction and relationship;
3. The main categories of virtue:
a) The theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
b) Virtue in intelligence,
c) The moral-cardinal virtues.
III. Be educated in virtue: be virtuous.
I. Virtue
1, THE HISTORY OF THE TERM. In ethical and religious language, virtue indicates either the goods that just and upright people pursue, and the prerogatives with which they are endowed and the qualities by virtue of which they do good. The latter is preferably the meaning analyzed here.
The history of the term is very complex. Virtue for the Greeks is areté, the adjective for people who are cultivated righteously. Philologists have discovered its traces in some ancient Indo-European roots. O. Bauerfeind (GLNT I, 1219-1227) indicates six different meanings of this polyseme: operation or excellent dowry; courage, military valor, merit, honorary title; act by which God makes himself known; glory and happiness; good to tend to. Already Plato (427-347 BC) uses areté in the meaning that will later become preferred, of the prerogative of the human spirit. Aristotle (384-322 BC), in the Nicomachean Ethics, presents the most complete elaboration of it. He describes it as the permanent attitude to do good well, for example to be fair. “It must be said, then, that every virtue (areté) perfects the good conduct of that being whose virtue it is, and makes its operation estimable” (1I, 6, 1106a, 14ss): Areté is a specific form of exés, habitus : the prompt and stable propensity to act (I, 13, 1103a, 9) is the habitat of the golden mean (II, 6, 11066, 36).
The Latin equivalent of areté is virtus, which, for example, in Cicero (106-43 BC) simultaneously connotes maturity and strength: vir and vis: the mature and strong person is the one who is fully himself and enjoys the prerogatives necessary to perform their own civil and human duties, despite obstacles and difficulties. “Appelata est enim ex viro virtus: viri autem propria maxime est fortitudo” (Tusculane II, 18).
The reconstruction of the evolution and elaboration of this concept is of great interest; they manifest the path traveled by human thought to reach an organic vision of the process through which the human being tends to his perfection.
All the elements that make up the concept of virtue are abundantly found in the biblical tradition. However, the term as such is almost absent. In the NT it is found only in Phil 4:8; 2Pe 1:5; 1Pe 2:9. The most related term is dynamis, also translated not randomly, in Latin, by, virtus.
The situation changes with the Greek and Latin Fathers. They use the term in a very varied sense. They call virtue the fruits of the Spirit, the beautiful and good works of believers. In the line of a tradition already attested by Philo (20 BC-50 AD), (Legum Alleg., I, 1Pe 52:48.49), who considered these prerogatives as gifts planted and perfected in the soul by the power of God , begin to give classroom virtue an important enhancement in their teaching on progress -in the good and the fight against vices and passions (if in bib1. T. Spidlik).
Augustine (334-430) (Libero Arbitrio II, c. 19: PL 2Cr 32:1268; Trinitate VI; c. 4: PL 42,927); Ambrose 1339-397) (Super Lucam,1. 5, c. 6, 20ss: PL 15, 1653C); Gregorio (540604) (Morelia: PL 76) are the most important witnesses of the increasingly explicit and detailed attention to the reality of virtue.
The introduction of the term in the theological tradition was also slow. O. Lottiri has described some stages of this process (if Les premiéres définitions el classifications des vertus au Moyen Age).
The most common definitions at that time were the one already mentioned, of Aristotelian origin: “Virtue is what makes the person who possesses it good and the work he or she does good”, and another, inspired by Augustine (De libero arbitrio II 19: PL 32 ,1268), is known in the formulation that it had in the Sentences of Pedro Lombardo: “Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which one lives righteously, of which no one misuses, that God works in us without us ” (11 S., d. 27, a. 2; cf HOLY ToM.4s, S. Th., I-II; q. 55, a. 4).
The scope and value of these descriptions vary according to the theo-anthropological conception of the authors who adopt them in their synthesis. Thomas Aquinas deals with virtue in various contexts. He is the subject of a “quaestio disputata”: De Virtutibus in communi; he speaks of it in the Commentary to Book II of the Sentences (II S., d. 27, a. 1; III S., 23, q. 1). It is, however, in S. Th., I-II (qq. 5570) and in II-II (qq. 1-170) that he most fully sets forth his view of the virtuous organism.
As theological reflection has advanced, the terms virtue and habit have acquired an increasingly specific, technical, varied and rich qualification. It is said, for example, that all virtues are habits, but not all habits are virtues. Grace is considered an entitatvo habitats, distinct from the operatives of the virtues, but it is not called a virtue.
The intellectual virtues are virtues, although in themselves they are not related to moral good. In the opposite field, vices are habits that corrupt, they do not constitute the subject.
These are, therefore, analogous terms, which in the various cases assume a specific connotation that contextualizes their scope and that, as a whole, show the rich pregnancy of these prerogatives of the human spirit.
In Spanish the terms that express these realities are custom, habit and virtue; the first two, more than translating, reveal its pregnant richness (cf. S. PINeKAERS, Virtue is everything except a…