VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 367

speaking of virtue: “Rejoice in the Lord. Let your moderation be known unto all men. Be careful for nothing, but in everything let your requests be made known unto God; and whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”¹ Observe, he gives up all attempt at definition; he leaves the definition to every man’s heart, though he writes so as to mark the overflowing fulness of his own vision of virtue. And so it is in all writings of the Apostles; their manner of exhortation, and the kind of conduct they press, vary according to the persons they address, and the feeling of the moment at which they write, and never show any attempt at logical precision. And, although the words of their Master are not thus irregularly uttered, but are weighed like fine gold, yet, even in His teaching, there is no detailed or organized system of morality; but the command only of that faith and love which were to embrace the whole being of man: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”² Here and there an incidental warning against this or that more dangerous form of vice or error, “Take heed and beware of covetousness,” “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees;” here and there a plain example of the meaning of Christian love, as in the parables of the Samaritan and the Prodigal, and His own perpetual example: these were the elements of Christ’s constant teaching; for the Beatitudes, which are the only approximation to anything like a systematic statement, belong to different conditions and characters of individual men, not

which is quite lost in our translation;³ but the very allowance of influence to these minor considerations is a proof how little any metaphysical order or system was considered necessary in the statement.

¹ [Philippians iv. 4-8.]

² [Matthew xxii. 40. The following references in this section are Matthew xvi. 6; Luke xii. 1, 15; Mark viii. 15; Luke x. 20, xv. 11; and Matthew v. 3-11; 1 Corinthians x. 4, i. 30.]

³ [IIeplhrwmenouV pash adikia porneia, ponhia, ple jonou ... asunetouV, asunqetouV, astorgouV, aspondouV. . . .]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]