virtue – Pat Answers Archives

Loyalty-Fidelity

“our ancient Brethren worshiped a deity under the name of Fides or Fidelity, which was sometimes represented by two right hands joined, and sometimes by two human figures holding each other by the right hands. “

Loyalty-Fidelity, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. 1375–1425; late Middle English fidelite (< Middle French) < Latin fidēlitās, equivalent to fidēli- (stem of fidēlis loyal, equivalent to fidē(s) faith + -lis adj. suffix) + -tās -ty

Fides (Latin: Fidēs) was the goddess of trust and bona fides (good faith) in Roman paganism. it is said that “our ancient Brethren worshiped a deity under the name of Fides or Fidelity, which was sometimes represented by two right hands joined, and sometimes by two human figures holding each other by the right hands.” Her priests were covered by a white veil as a symbol of purity which should characterize Fidelity. No victims were slain on her altars, and no offerings made to her except flowers, wine, and incense. Her statues were represented clothed in white mantles, with a key in her hand and a dog at her feet. The virtue of Fidelity is, however, frequently symbolized in ancient medals by a heart in an open hand, but more usually by two right hands clasped. She was one of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. Fides is everything that is required for “honor and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome.”. Fides also means reliability, “reliability between two parties, which is always reciprocal.” and “bedrock of relations between people and their communities”, and then it was turned into to an Roman deity and from which we gain the English word, ‘fidelity.’.

The Roman deity may have example in Regulus “who refuses to save himself at the expense of the Republic. Regulus defied his own best interests for those of his country. In this act alone, he acted with fides.”

She was also worshipped under the name Fides Publica Populi Romani (“Public (or Common) Trust of the Roman People”).

In the Gospel of Matthew 6:24, Jesus states, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. This relates to the authority of a master over his servants (as per Ephesians 6:5), who, according to Biblical law, owe undivided loyalty to their master (as per Leviticus 25:44–46). On the other hand, the “Render unto Caesar” of the synoptic gospels acknowledges the possibility of distinct loyalties (secular and religious) without conflict, but if loyalty to man conflicts with loyalty to God, the latter takes precedence.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition defines loyalty as “allegiance to the sovereign or established government of one’s country” and also “personal devotion and reverence to the sovereign and royal family”. It traces the word “loyalty” to the 15th century, noting that then it primarily referred to fidelity in service, in love, or to an oath that one has made. The meaning that the Britannica gives as primary, it attributes to a shift during the 16th century, noting that the origin of the word is in the Old French “loialte”, that is in turn rooted in the Latin “lex”, meaning “law”. One who is loyal, in the feudal sense of fealty, is one who is lawful (as opposed to an outlaw), who has full legal rights as a consequence of faithful allegiance to a feudal lord.

Often cited as one of the many virtues of Confucianism, means to do the best you can do for others.

“Loyalty” is the most important and frequently emphasized virtue in Bushido. In combination with six other virtues, which are Righteousness (義 gi?), Courage (勇 yū?), Benevolence, (仁 jin?), Respect (礼 rei?), Sincerity (誠 makoto?), and Honor (名誉 meiyo?), it formed the Bushido code: “It is somehow implanted in their chromosomal makeup to be loyal”.

Loyalty to duty. It is this which the story teaches us, and my readers may be interested to know that the same theme is taught in the Mahabarata, in the legend of the Last Journey of Yudisthira, which relates how he goes on a long journey which ultimately ends at the gates of Heaven. There he is told that he is welcome, but his dog, who has followed him, cannot enter Heaven, for Heaven is not the place for dogs. Whereupon the Indian king replies that the dog has followed him loyally throughout his lone, weary journey, and that to forsake a friend is as vile as to commit a murder. Rather than do such a foul deed he is prepared to give up all hope of Heaven. Immediately on his utterance of these words the dog changes form and stands beside him as Dharma, the god of Duty, and he enters into heaven.

Hope

In other words, hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.

Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: “expect with confidence” and “to cherish a desire with anticipation.”

From Middle English hope, from Old English hopa (“hope, expectation”), from Proto-Germanic*hupô, *hupǭ, *hupō (“hope”), from Proto-Germanic*hupōną (“to hope”), from Proto-Indo-European*kēwp-, *kwēp- (“to smoke, boil”). Cognate with West Frisian hope (“hope”), Dutch hoop (“hope”), Middle High German hoffe (“hope”). Extra-Germanic cognates include Latin cupio (“I desire, crave”) and possibly Latin vapor (“vapor; smoke”).

hope (countable and uncountable, plural hopes)

(countable or uncountable) The belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen.

I still have some hope that I can get to work on time.After losing my job, there’s no hope of being able to afford my world cruise.There is still hope that we can find our missing cat. (countable) The actual thing wished for. (countable) A person or thing that is a source of hope. We still have one hope left: my roommate might see the note I left on the table. (Christianity, uncountable) The virtuous desire for future good.

Hope and forgiveness can impact several aspects of life such as health, work, education, and personal meaning. There are three main things that make up hopeful thinking:

Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

In other words, hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.

Hope is the second round in the theological and Masonic ladder, and symbolic of a hope in immortality. It is appropriately placed there, for, having attained the first, or faith in God, we are led by a belief in His wisdom and goodness to the hope of immortality. This is but a reasonable expectation; without it, virtue would lose its necessary stimulus and vice its salutary fear; life would be devoid of joy, and the grave but a scene of desolation. The ancients represented Hope by a nymph or maiden holding in her hand a bouquet of opening flowers, indicative of the coming fruit; but in modern and Masonic iconology, the science of Craft illustrations and likenesses, it is represented by a virgin leaning on an anchor, the anchor itself being a symbol of hope .
Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

Justice

The Lord’s mission was to redeem us from sin, not to redistribute our property or impose an economic equality on us.

The concept of justice is based on numerous fields, and many differing viewpoints and perspectives including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. It is the moderation or mean between selfishness and selflessness – between having more and having less than one’s fair share.

Plato’s definition of justice is that justice is the having and doing of what is one’s own. A just man is a man in just the right place, doing his best and giving the precise equivalent of what he has received. This applies both at the individual level and at the universal level.

Socrates argues that lovers of wisdom – philosophers, in one sense of the term – should rule because only they understand what is good, (moral). If one is ill, one goes to a medic rather than a farmer, because the medic is expert in the subject of health. Similarly, one should trust one’s government to an expert in the subject of the good, not to a mere politician who tries to gain power by giving people what they want, rather than what’s good. Socrates uses the parable of the ship to illustrate this point: the unjust government is like a ship in open ocean, crewed by a powerful but drunken captain (the common people), a group of untrustworthy advisors who try to manipulate the captain into giving them power over the ship’s course (the politicians), and a navigator (the philosopher) who is the only one who knows how to get the ship to port. For Socrates, the only way the ship will reach its destination – the good – is if the navigator takes charge.

But we must be wary of the current “social justice” snare. Many good people over many years have been beguiled by the Left’s use of the term “social justice.” This is because fair-minded folks rightly love justice and hate injustice. But “social justice”—or, at least, how it’s often used by liberal Leftists—isn’t necessarily justice.

The modern left’s “social justice” strives for absolute economic equality. It endeavors to reduce, if not erase, the gap between rich and poor by redistributing wealth. This is “justice” more akin to Marx and Lenin, not according to Moses or Jesus. It is a counterfeit of real justice, biblical justice. Modern notions of “social justice” are often wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The fundamental error of today’s “social justice” practitioners is their hostility to economic inequality, per se. “Social justice” theory fails to distinguish between economic disparities that result from unjust deeds and those that are part of the natural order of things.

We are different from each other. We are unequal in aptitude, talent, skill, work ethic, priorities, etc. Inevitably, these differences result in some individuals producing and earning far more wealth than others. To the extent that those in the “social justice” crowd obsess about eliminating economic inequality, they are at war with the nature of the Creator’s creation.

The Bible doesn’t condemn economic inequality. You can’t read Proverbs without seeing that some people are poor due to their own vices. There is nothing unjust about people reaping what they sow, whether wealth or poverty.

Jesus himself didn’t condemn economic inequality. He told his disciples, “ye have the poor always with you” (Matthew 26:11), and in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:24-30) he condemned the failure to productively use one’s God-given talents—whether many or few, exceptional or ordinary—by having a lord take money from the one who had the least and give it to him who had the most, thereby increasing economic inequality.

The Lord’s mission was to redeem us from sin, not to redistribute our property or impose an economic equality on us.

By all means, let us tackle persistent injustices. But let us be careful to abide by the biblical standard of impartiality and equal treatment by law, lest we create additional injustices.

Prudence-the mother of all virtues

Culture and disciplined actions should be about the beneficial action.

Prudence (Latin: prudentia, contracted from providentia meaning “seeing ahead, sagacity”) is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason.

It is often associated with wisdom, insight, and knowledge. In this case, the virtue is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place. Although prudence itself does not perform any actions, and is concerned solely with knowledge, all virtues had to be regulated by it. Distinguishing when acts are courageous, as opposed to reckless or cowardly, is an act of prudence.

In modern English, the word has become increasingly synonymous with cautiousness. In this sense, prudence names a reluctance to take risks, which remains a virtue with respect to unnecessary risks, but, when unreasonably extended into over-cautiousness, can become the vice of cowardice.

Aristotle gives a lengthy account of the virtue phronesis (Ancient Greek: ϕρόνησις), traditionally translated as “prudence”, although this has become increasingly problematic as the word has fallen out of common usage. More recently ϕρόνησις has been translated by such terms as “practical wisdom“, “practical judgment” or “rational choice“.

The function of a prudence is to point out which course of action is to be taken in any concrete circumstances. It has nothing to do with directly willing the good it discerns. Prudence has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise.

Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness; mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism.

Culture and disciplined actions should be about the beneficial action. Its office is to determine for each in practice those circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. which should be observed. So it is that while it qualifies the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless rightly styled a moral virtue. The difference between prudence and cunning lies in the intent with which the decision of the context of an action is made.

Consider how much improved our plight would be if folks in general and our public servants in particular exercised rational judgement and prudence in their affairs both personal and public.

Fortitude or Courage

Thucydides, a 5th Greek historian said; “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”

Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss.

“First, in feelings of fear and confidence the mean is bravery (andreia). The excessively fearless person is nameless…while the one who is excessively confident is rash; the one who is excessively afraid and deficient in confidence is cowardly.“
— Aristotle

Fear and confidence in relation to courage can determine the success of a courageous act or goal. The confidence that is being discussed here is self-confidence; Confidence in knowing one’s skills and abilities and being able determine when to fight a fear or when to flee from it. The ideal in courage is not just a rigid control of fear, nor is it a denial of the emotion. The ideal is to judge a situation, accept the emotion as part of human nature and, we hope, use well-developed habits to confront the fear and allow reason to guide our behavior toward a worthwhile goal.

Civic courage is described as a sort of perseverance – “preservation of the belief that has been inculcated by the law through education about what things and sorts of things are to be feared.”

Thucydides, a 5th Greek historian said; “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”

Our Founding Fathers understood the virtue of courage. What a pity that so many of our citizens, and particularly our public servants have lost sight of it.

Golden Triangle-Cardinal Virtues-Temperance

Temperance is a virtue akin to self-control. It is applied to all areas of life. St. Thomas calls it a “disposition of the mind which binds the passions”.

The four classic cardinal virtues in Christianity are temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. Christianity derives the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love (charity) from 1 Corinthians. Together these make up the seven virtues.

Temperance is defined as moderation or voluntary self-restraint. It is typically described in terms of what an individual voluntarily refrains from doing. This includes restraint from retaliation in the form of non-violence and forgiveness, restraint from arrogance in the form of humility and modesty, restraint from excesses such as extravagant luxury or splurging now in the form of prudence, and restraint from excessive anger or craving for something in the form of calmness and self-control.

It is generally characterized as the control over excess, and expressed through characteristics such as chastity, modesty, humility, self-regulation, hospitality, decorum, abstinence, forgiveness and mercy; each of these involves restraining an excess of some impulse, such as sexual desire, vanity, or anger.

Temperance is a virtue akin to self-control. It is applied to all areas of life.

St. Thomas calls it a “disposition of the mind which binds the passions”.

Consider the major improvement in our current society if we learned to apply the lesson of temperance and generally subdue our passions.

Morals and virtue

As Franklin explained, “As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” In other words, if we don’t govern ourselves, we have no choice but to be governed from above.

Virtue (Latin: virtus, Ancient Greek: ἀρετή “arete”) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual greatness. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards. Doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.

The Founders Warned Us: With Loss of Virtue Comes Loss of Our Republic.

It is the secret at the heart of America’s founding—one that we have largely forgotten. Unlike other countries, America is not defined by a particular ethnic or religious group. Instead, our country was formed around an idea: liberty. But what does it take to maintain liberty?

Now, in order to find the answer to this question, we have to go back 229 years, to 1787. Having won the American Revolution, our founders went about creating a new form of government—one that would be strong, but not TOO strong; one that relied on self-government.

As their summer-long convention finished, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” He famously replied: “A republic, madam—if you can keep it!”

And what could cause us to lose the republic? Well, that’s simple: the loss of virtue.

John Adams wrote that “the only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue.” Have you heard that lately? Me neither.

What Franklin understood—and what modern crime statistics tragically bear out—is that if citizens do not voluntarily practice virtue, the authorities have no choice but to attempt to enforce it.

Beginning tomorrow I will be starting a series of blog posts outlining the Golden Triangle of Freedom. The argument boils down to this: Freedom requires virtue; virtue requires faith; and faith in turn requires freedom. Remove any one of the triangle’s sides, and the whole structure collapses. In the posts following I will begin outlining the first leg of the “Golden Triangle”, virtue.