Equality Among Virtues

A virtue in itself is not capable of being greater or lesser. But in its subject (that is, in the person who has it) a virtue can be greater or lesser at different times; it can be greater or lesser in different persons at the same time.

And virtues, by comparison with one another,can be greater or lesser. St. Paul says that charity is greaterthan faith or hope. But different virtues in the one subject arenot properly to be compared and called greater or lesser. The fingers of a perfectly formed hand are of different sizes, yet theyare proportionally equal inasmuch as each finger is fitted to its own proper use. So it is with virtues in a person.

Considered in themselves, the intellectual virtues are more excellent than the moral virtues, for they pertain to theintellective part of man, while the moral virtues regulate the passions which are essentially of the sensitive part. But considered in the service which they render to man, the moralvirtues are more excellent than the intellectual virtues; they do more to get a man on towards his last end.

The chief moral virtue is justice. Justice regulatesoperation, so that everyone shall have what is exactly right and due. Thus justice is most closely allied with reason itself, whichis the mean or measure of all the moral virtues. Other moralvirtues are subordinate to justice. In the descending order of excellence, we have justice, fortitude, temperance; and all ofthese are suffused with prudence.

Among the intellectual virtues, wisdom is the greatest. Wisdom exercises judgment over the other intellectual virtues,directs them, and, as a master architect, builds with them.

We have the testimony of Sacred Scripture (I Cor.13:13) that charity is the greatest of the theological virtues. Ofcourse, all the theological virtues have God as their object, andon this score there is no greater or lesser among them. But charity is closer to that common object than are faith and hope. Faithpertains to what is not yet seen; hope, to what is not yet possessed; charity, albeit imperfectly, possesses its object in the present clasp of love.