|
12. There is, however, some question raised, whether the virtues
likewise by which one lives well in this present mortality, seeing that
they themselves begin also to be in the mind, which was a mind none the
less when it existed before without them, cease also to exist at that
time when they have brought us to things eternal. For some have
thought that they will cease, and in the case of three prudence,
fortitude, temperance such an assertion seems to have something in it;
but justice is immortal, and will rather then be made perfect in us
than cease to be. Yet Tullius, the great author of eloquence, when
arguing in the dialogue Hortensius, says of all four: "If we were
allowed, when we migrated from this life, to live forever in the
islands of the blessed, as fables tell, what need were there of
eloquence when there would be no trials, or what need, indeed, of the
very virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude when nothing
of either toil or danger was proposed to us; nor justice, when there
was nothing of anybody else's to be coveted; nor temperance, to
govern lasts that would not exist; nor, indeed, should we need
prudence, when there was no choice offered between good and evil. We
should be blessed, therefore, solely by learning and knowing nature,
by which alone also the life of the gods is praiseworthy. And hence we
may perceive that everything else is a matter of necessity, but this is
one of free choice." This great orator, then, when proclaiming the
excellence of philosophy, going over again all that he had learned from
philosophers, and excellently and pleasantly explaining it, has
affirmed all four virtues to be necessary in this life only, which we
see to be full of troubles and mistakes; but not one of them when we
shall have migrated from this life, if we are permitted to live there
where is a blessed life; but that blessed souls are blessed only in
learning and knowing, i.e. in the contemplation of nature, than
which nothing is better and more lovable. It is that nature which
created and appointed all other natures. And if it belongs to justice
to be subject to the government of this nature then justice is certainly
immortal; nor will it cease to be in that blessedness, but will be
such and so great that it cannot be more perfect or greater. Perhaps,
too, the other three virtues prudence although no longer with any risk
of error, and fortitude without the vexation of bearing evils, and
temperance without the thwarting of lust will exist in that
blessedness: so that it maybe the part of prudence to prefer or equal
no good thing to God; and of fortitude, to cleave to Him most
steadfastly; and of temperance, to be pleased by no harmful defect.
But that which justice is now concerned with in helping the wretched,
and prudence in guarding against treachery, and fortitude in bearing
troubles patiently, and temperance in controlling evil pleasures, will
not exist there, where there will be no evil at all. And hence those
acts of the virtues which are necessary to this mortal life, like the
faith to which they are to be referred, will be reckoned among things
past; and they make now a different trinity, whilst we hold, look
at, and love them as present, from that which they will then make,
when we shall discover them not to be, but to have been, by certain
traces of them which they will have left in passing in the memory;
since then, too, there will be a trinity, when that trace, be it of
what sort it may, shall be retained in the memory, and truly
recognized, and then these two be joined by will as a third.
|
|