This essay seeks to abstract from the works of Maximus the Confessor (580–662) a ‘theory’ of virtue ethics that engages Maximus’s own categories and language while still developing conversation with contemporary virtue ethics. First is a reconstruction of the larger cosmological (and moral) ‘narrative’—the oikonomia Maximus sees embodied in sacred history—that frames his essentially teleological understanding of the formation of virtue in created beings. The second part of the essay explores Maximus’s doctrine of the moral self as a synthesis of (...) ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ dimensions, and details three identifiable protocols by which moral agents cultivate the Christian virtues: first, the development of intellectual virtues such as prudence that serve clear vision (theoria) of worthy moral ends; second, the appropriate ‘use’ of the passible faculties of desire and temper in alliance with reason; and third, the conditioning of the virtues within moral communities (monastery or church) characterized by relations of accountability, imitation, and the traditioning of moral wisdom. (shrink)

Incorporating Martha Nussbaum's work on the “intelligence” of human emotions in Greco‐Roman moral philosophy, Robert Kaster's analysis of the “narrative scripts” of rivalrous emotions in antiquity, and René Girard's insights into the role of “mimetic desire” in human envy, this article explores the strategies of two major early Christian bishops, Cyprian and Basil of Caesarea, to “read” and to cure the variant scripts of envy and related invidious passions in concrete ecclesial contexts. The article also examines certain monastic theologians in (...) late antiquity who aspired to preempt invidious passions by encouraging salutary scripts of competition in virtue that realized equality of honor in their respective communities. (shrink)

In Moral Formation and the Virtuous Life, volume editor Paul M. Blowers has translated and gathered several key texts from early Christian sources to explore the broad themes of moral conscience and ethics. Readers will gain a sense of how moral formation was part of a process sustained by pastoral instruction and admonition based on ritual practice (baptism, eucharist, and liturgy) as well as learned ethical behaviors related to moral issues, such as sexual ethics, marriage and celibacy, wealth and poverty, (...) pagan entertainment, military service, and more. (shrink)