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Paradoxical Virtue

Since the re-emergence of the tradition of virtue ethics in the early 1980s Reinhold
Niebuhr has often served as a foil for authors who locate themselves in that tradition.
However, this exercise has often proved controversial. This collection of essays
continues this work, across a wide range of subjects, with the aim of avoiding some
of the polemics that have previously accompanied it.
The central thesis of this book is that putting the work of Reinhold Niebuhr
and Christian realism in dialogue with contemporary virtue theory is a profitable
undertaking. An introductory essay argues against locating Niebuhr as a
consequentialist and in favor of thinking of his work in terms of dispositional ethics.
Contributors take different positions on whether Niebuhr’s dispositional ethics
should be considered a form of virtue ethics or an alternative to virtue ethics.
Several of the articles relate Niebuhr and Christian realism to particular virtues.
Throughout there is an appreciation of the ways in which any Niebuhrian approach
to dispositional ethics or virtue must be shaped by a sense of tragedy, paradox, or
irony. The most moral disposition will be one which includes doubts about its own
virtue.
This volume allows for a repositioning of Niebuhr in the context of contemporary
moral theory as well as a rereading of the tradition of virtue ethics in the light of a
distinctly Protestant, Christian Realist, and paradoxical view of virtue. As a result,
it will be of great interest to scholars of Niebuhr and Christian Ethics and scholars
working in Moral Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion more generally.

Kevin Carnahan is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the Central Methodist

University, Fayette, MO. He is Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian
Ethics; former President of the Niebuhr Society; and author of Reinhold Niebuhr
and Paul Ramsey (2010), From Presumption to Prudence in Just-War Rationality
(2017), several scholarly articles, and many popular and editorial pieces.

David True is Associate Professor of Religion at Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA.

He is Co-editor of Political Theology and is author of articles and book chapters
on fundamentalism, just war theory, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King,
Jr. He has also written for venues such as Religion Dispatches, the Christian Science
Monitor, Politico, and Political Theology Today. In addition, he is the Director of
Wilson College’s Orr Forum on Religion and The Wilson College Common Hour.
Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology
and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical

Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back
into focus for authors; international libraries; and student, academic and
research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge
research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist
focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in
the series take research into important new directions and open the field to
new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key
areas for contemporary society.

Theology Without Walls

The Transreligious Imperative
Jerry L. Martin

A New Theist Response to the New Atheists

Edited by Joshua Rasmussen and Kevin Vallier

Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience

Pastoral and Clinical Insights
Edited by Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook

The Fourth Pentecostal Wave in South Africa

A Critical Engagement
Solomon Kgatle

Resacralizing the Other at the US-Mexico Border

A Borderland Hermeneutic
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Paradoxical Virtue
Reinhold Niebuhr and the Virtue Tradition
Edited by Kevin Carnahan and David True

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religion/series/RCRITREL
Paradoxical Virtue
Reinhold Niebuhr and the Virtue
Tradition

Edited by Kevin Carnahan

and David True
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Kevin Carnahan and David
True; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Kevin Carnahan and David True to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Carnahan, Kevin, 1976– editor. | True, David, editor.
Title: Paradoxical virtue : Reinhold Niebuhr and the virtue tradition /
edited by Kevin Carnahan and David True.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019048705 (print) | LCCN 2019048706 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138588660 (hbk) | ISBN 9780429492150 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Niebuhr, Reinhold, 1892–1971. | Virtue. | Political
theology.
Classification: LCC BX4827.N5 P36 2020 (print) | LCC BX4827.N5
(ebook) | DDC 241.092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048705
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048706
ISBN: 978-1-138-58866-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-49215-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

Prefacevii

Introduction 1
KEVIN CARNAHAN

1 Niebuhr on the ironies of virtue and the virtue of irony 19

CHARLES MATHEWES

2 Hope, virtue, and politics in Reinhold Niebuhr’s works 33

ROBIN W. LOVIN

3 Virtue and the fragile Christian Realist 48

MARTHA TER KUILE

4 Reinhold Niebuhr: faith in and beyond history 66

SCOTT R. PAETH

5 Deceptive honesty: myth and virtue in Reinhold Niebuhr 82

DANIEL MALOTKY

6 The paradoxes of virtue: agape in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr 98

MARK DOUGLAS

7 Reinhold Niebuhr and the virtue of mutuality 115

DANIEL A. MORRIS

8 The humble place of humility in Reinhold Niebuhr’s ethics 132

JODIE L. LYON

9 Choosing sorrow: Niebuhr, contrition, and white catastrophe 144

CHRISTOPHER DOWDY
vi Contents
10 Reinhold Niebuhr, virtue, and political society: a key to the
Christian character of prophetic realism 165
R. WARD HOLDER

11 A Niebuhrian virtue of justice 182

KEVIN CARNAHAN

12 Reinhold Niebuhr and phronesis 201

TOM JAMES AND DAVID TRUE

13 Reinhold Niebuhr and the aesthetics of political leadership 220

TOM JAMES

14 The virtues of the social critic 239

JEREMY SABELLA

Contributor bios255
Index258
Preface

The idea for this volume emerged from a series of exchanges between the
co-editors (and occasionally Tom James) several years ago. While several
scholars had explored Niebuhr in relation to particular virtues or as tan-
gentially related to virtue ethics, we felt that the time had come for a more
comprehensive analysis of the relation between the two. K. Healan Gaston
(then President of the Niebuhr Society) was extremely gracious in setting up
a colloquium at Harvard Divinity School and in allowing us to take over
the meeting of the Niebuhr Society in November 2017. Many of the papers
in this volume grew from those meetings. We are grateful to Healan and
Harvard for their support.
We provided an outline of the general topic to our authors and tried to
keep them working on different subjects to avoid repetition. At the same
time, we allowed the authors to work with their own conceptions of virtue
ethics and their own readings of Niebuhr. As the reader will see, the authors
don’t always agree with one another. We take that to be a sign of lively
dialogue.
Portions of Daniel A. Morris’ essay have been previously printed in “ ‘The
Pull of Love’: Mutual Love as Democratic Virtue in Niebuhrian Political
Theology” Political Theology 17.1 (2016):73–90. The extracts from this
article have been used with the permission of the publisher. All other work
contained in this volume is original.
We would like to thank the contributors for their excellent work. We
would also like to thank our families for putting up with weekly phone and
Skype meetings to discuss and edit the papers in this volume. It is often said
that one learns a subject best by teaching it. In this process we have learned
that editing a book is another way to achieve such a thorough education. It
is an education for which we are grateful.
Kevin Carnahan
David True
Introduction
Kevin Carnahan

In 1961, Paul Ramsey’s War and the Christian Conscience was published.
While that text set Ramsey on the way to becoming one of the most active
just-war thinkers in the late twentieth century, perhaps it is most notable
for its contribution to another issue: the fight between deontologists and
consequentialists in Christian ethics.1 In an effort that he saw as recovering
the deontological grounding of just-war thinking, Ramsey waged his own
battle against those ethicists who narrowed moral analysis to an account of
consequences. Ramsey had a long list of adversaries in this battle, but on the
first page of the first chapter of his book he prominently highlighted “the
increasing pragmatism of the Niebuhrians.”2 A few pages later, presumably
to illustrate the problem, he quotes Reinhold Niebuhr: “To serve peace, we
must threaten war without blinking the fact that the threat may be a factor
in precipitating war.” Ramsey follows with his own apparent corrective:
“Morality, including political morality, has to do with the definition of right
conduct, and this not simply by way of the ends of action.”3 Ramsey thus
suggests that Niebuhr is a consequentialist: a theorist who treats morality as
a matter of act analysis, treats attaining good consequences as the only end
of morality, and treats all other factors only inasmuch as they contribute to
the gaining of good consequences of action.
Ramsey may have been the first to treat Niebuhr in this category, but
he is far from the last. Scholarship following Ramsey (often directly fol-
lowing) has often associated Niebuhr with consequentialism. Keith Pavlis-
chek writes of “the consequentialism or proportionalism of Niebuhr and his
modern disciples.”4 In a discussion of just-war thinking Edmund Santurri
and William Werperhouski briefly explore Niebuhr’s tendency “toward a
rough consequentialism.”5 Eric Gregory writes of “the soft consequential-
ism of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism.”6 Stanley Hauerwas locates
Ramsey’s approach to war as an attempt at “saving Niebuhr from the con-
sequentialism to which (without ‘justice more articulated’) his account of
violence seemed to commit him.”7 Samuel Wells writes that “Niebuhr is
committed to a consequentialist ethics since he is flexible about means so
long as the ends is justice.”8
2 Kevin Carnahan
But widespread as association of Niebuhr with consequentialism is, there
are significant problems with the claim that Niebuhr was a consistent con-
sequentialist. In 1950, when considering the possibility of the use of nuclear
weapons in a first strike against Russia, Niebuhr warned against “the sub-
ordination of moral and political strategy to military strategy.”9 Part of his
reason for advocating a refusal to use nuclear weapons in a first strike was
that there were some means which no ends could justify.

We would be saying by such a policy [refusing first use of Nuclear weap-

ons] that even a nation can reach the point where it can purchase its life
too dearly. If we had to use this kind of destruction in order to save our
lives, would we find life worth living? Even nations can reach a point
where the words of our Lord, “Fear not them which are able to kill the
body but rather fear them that are able to destroy both soul and body
in hell,” become relevant.
The point of moral transcendence over historical destiny is not as
high as moral perfectionists imagine. But there is such a point, though
the cynics and realists do not recognize it. We must discern that point
clearly.10

In 1957, Niebuhr found Karl Barth’s analysis of the Russian invasion of

Hungary to be lacking because he read Barth as failing to grasp the similari-
ties between the evil of the Communist regime and that of the Nazis that
had preceded them. Barth, Niebuhr concluded, was playing fast and loose
with the rules by which he judged international actors.

A little concern for “principles” would have instructed Barth that some
of the barbarism of Nazism was derived from the same monopoly
of irresponsible power from which the barbarism of Communism is
derived. Looking at every event afresh means that one is ignorant about
the instructive, though inexact, analogies of history which the “godless”
scientists point out for our benefit.11

Niebuhr’s rare comments on sexual ethics are perhaps his most deonti-
cally grounded. In 1949 he critiqued Bertrand Russel’s claim that modern
birth control created room for moral promiscuity.

Such a theory obviously disregards one important immutable aspect

of the human situation, namely, the organic unity between physical
impulses and the spiritual dimension of human personality. This organic
unity means that sexual relations are also personal relations and that
when they are engaged in without a genuine spiritual understanding
between persons and without a sense of personal responsibility to each
other, they must degrade the partners of the sexual union.12
 Introduction 3
Interestingly, Niebuhr’s private correspondence with Ramsey also reveals
his unease with contextualism and situationism in moral theology. In 1966,
when Ramsey invited Niebuhr to contribute to a book responding to Joseph
Fletcher’s Situation Ethics, Niebuhr declined citing health issues. But he was
clear in aligning his own thought with Ramsey against Fletcher. “Weakness
alone,” he wrote, “forbids me to go into detail on all the knotty problems
you discuss wisely.” Concerning the contextual ethics of Paul Lehmann,
Niebuhr went on to say: “His pragmatic emphasis is so great that I doubt
whether he has studied the whole problem of ethical standards sufficiently.”13
Aside from Niebuhr’s more deontic moments, another, more deeply and
consistently ingrained, facet of Niebuhr’s thought distinguishes his approach
from consequentialism. Niebuhr is constantly focused upon the dispositions
of moral actors. For instance, it is hardly debatable that sin is a central
category in Niebuhr’s theology, but sin is not fundamentally categorized in
terms of bringing about negative consequences, but in terms of a disposi-
tionally deficient reaction to the human predicament of being both free and
finite. In the tension between finitude and freedom, anxiety arises and the
human is tempted to seek a resolution by fleeing to one or the other extreme.
“It resides in the inclination of man, either to deny the contingent character
of his existence (in pride and self-love) or to escape from his freedom (in
sensuality).”14 It is these extremes that are constitutive of sin for Niebuhr. If
one eliminated the discussions of pride and pretension from Niebuhr’s writ-
ings, there would be hardly anything left.
Further, Niebuhr’s analyses of sin and how to deal with sin do not appeal
to a reductive account of extrinsic goods, but rather rely on deep appeals
to meaning that can only be found in the context of a lived narrative and
tradition. In this context, Niebuhr explicitly rejects “rationalist” theories
that would strip humans of their narratival and embodied context or reduce
morality to a formula. Take, for instance, Niebuhr’s treatment of what he
calls “the crown of Christian ethics”: forgiveness.
“Forgiveness,” he writes, “is a moral achievement which is possible only
when morality is transcended in religion.”15 Niebuhr critiques John Dewey
for his excessive rationalism, which would seek to “eliminate conflict and
unite men of good will everywhere by stripping their spiritual life of historic,
traditional, and supposedly anachronistic accretions.”16 According to Nie-
buhr, such a rationalist position attempts to overcome partiality by bringing
the agent to a view from nowhere. If only the human could leave behind
her or his humanity, then she or he would be able to appreciate the other.
Niebuhr rejects this perspective. Purely rational analysis, he suggests, will
be insufficient to wrestle with the passions involved in human conflict, espe-
cially on a global scale. Participants in these conflicts are “maintained by a
demonic fervor in which partial perspectives and devotion to a high ideal
are compounded. Where is the rationality which will resolve or modify this
fervor?”17
4 Kevin Carnahan
Niebuhr then looks to the Christian narrative. Here, Niebuhr finds the sto-
ries of Jesus distinguishing himself from the self-righteous and challenging those
who would throw stones to own up to their own sinfulness. Far from leading
to an attempt to raise oneself up above one’s own humanity, Niebuhr follows
these stories toward an acceptance of one’s own human frailty. It is only here
that one finds the possibility of a love that can address our vicious fervor.

Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not
good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live in a dimen-
sion deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as
well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that
the differences between the good man and the bad man are insignificant
in his sight.18

Niebuhr does not believe that this should lead us to an end of relative judg-
ments in the world. Rather, having grasped oneself as fragile and sinful, the
actor will be capable of better judgment. Accepting one’s place as a sinful
human in need of forgiveness, it becomes possible “to qualify the spiritual
pride of the usually self-righteous guardians of public morals. In the same
way it is possible to engage in social struggles with a religious reservation in
which lie the roots of the spirit of forgiveness.”19
It is worth noting that Niebuhr’s mature treatment of arch-consequentialists
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill parallels his treatment of Dewy. Utili-
tarianism, he argues, is an incoherent form of naturalism, which on the one
hand wishes to affirm natural desires, but on the other hand contends that
true morality can only be achieved when human reason enforces a kind of
stoicism (Mill) or when law enforces a more egalitarian distribution of goods
(Bentham).20 Neither, on Niebuhr’s judgment, have plumbed the depths of the
paradoxical nature of human existence. Neither has truly understood human
moral psychology.
Inasmuch as Niebuhr’s interest in disposition is concerned with judgment,
it is inevitably relevant to judgments about the consequences of human acts.
But it is worth stressing that Niebuhr does not treat dispositions as merely
instrumental. Take, for example, Niebuhr’s treatment of bomber pilots in
1943, during World War II. The pilots were obligated, he judged, to partici-
pate in their runs. But it was important how they participated. “We can do
these things without rancor or self-righteousness,” he wrote. Niebuhr then
considers a group of bombing pilots who have refused to take communion.
While lauding their conscientiousness, Niebuhr suggests that they continue
to participate in the sacramental practice, saying that

the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrament for the righteous but for sinners . . .
it mediates the mercy of God not only to those who repent of the sins they
have done perversely but also to those who repent of the sins in which
they are involved inexorably by reason of their service to a ‘just cause.’21
 Introduction 5
The poverty of moral language
So how did we get to the point that Niebuhr is interpreted by many primar-
ily as a consequentialist? In 1981 Alasdair MacIntyre famously suggested
that the language of moral philosophy was in what amounted to a post-
cataclysmic “state of grave disorder.”22 The cataclysm, according to MacIn-
tyre was the collapse of a worldview which included natural teleology. In a
world where beings had functions, it made sense to speak about the qualities
that these beings needed to inhabit and fulfill their telos. This system, how-
ever, broke down with the collapse of Aristotelian, teleological biology and
the rise of nominalist volunteerism. To patch the resulting void philosophers
proposed deontological and consequentialist systems of moral thought. But,
to no avail. These were edifices without grounding.
Whether or not one accepts the details of MacIntyre’s diagnosis or his
eventual prescription, it is wise to accept his judgment that the moral lan-
guage of the late modern period was impoverished. This poverty is relevant
to the study of Niebuhr’s ethics in at least two ways. First, Niebuhr’s sec-
ond order reflection on moral rationality at times exemplifies the lack of
adequate moral language to which MacIntyre refers. Second, Niebuhr is
often read through the lens of the debates between the impoverished options
during this period.
An example of Niebuhr’s own fumbling through the philosophical moral
categories available during this time can be found in his early justification of
the use of violence in Moral Man and Immoral Society. There, Niebuhr lays
out an unapologetically utilitarian argument. Niebuhr starts from the claim
that “nothing is intrinsically immoral except ill-will” where will is identified
with motive. He then goes on:

Since it is very difficult to judge human motives, it is natural that, from

an external perspective the social consequences of an action or policy
should be regarded as more adequate tests of its morality than hidden
motives. The good motive is judged by its social goal. Does it have
the general welfare as its objective? When viewing a historic situation
all moralists become pragmatists and utliltarians. Some general good,
some summum bonum, “the greatest good of the greatest number” or
“the most inclusive harmony of all vital capacities” is set up as the cri-
terion of the morality of specific actions and each action is judged with
reference to its relation to the ultimate goal.23

Internal dispositions are wiped away here in an epistemic fog, and concern
about the possibility of intrinsic wrong is eliminated in favor of a consistent
extrinsic teleology.
As always with Niebuhr, his argument ought to be read in context. Moral
Man and Immoral Society is deeply influenced by Marxist theory and Marx-
ism itself had consequentialist tendencies. It is no mistake that Niebuhr
6 Kevin Carnahan
includes here the claim that the objectives of “Marxian politics” are “iden-
tical with the most rational possible social goal, that of equal justice.”24 Fur-
ther, as always, Niebuhr’s choice of language here is partially for rhetorical
effect. If one is aiming at pacifism, consequentialism is an effective, if crude,
cudgel.
But the very fact that this seemed the best moral-linguistic option to Nie-
buhr supports MacIntyre’s point about the poverty of moral language in the
early twentieth century. There is a long tradition of Christian non-pacifism
which does not reduce to utilitarianism. Niebuhr himself, as the last sec-
tion suggests, will draw upon a much richer moral analysis in his own later
theory and analysis. But Niebuhr is not able at this time to articulate any of
this. He is left with the explicitly reductive claim that consequentialism is
the only real choice for all moral thinkers.
Niebuhr was wrong. There were and are many alternative modes of
thought for moralists. And even at this point Niebuhr’s first order moral
analysis works out of a broader set of moral concerns. He draws upon nar-
rative, develops accounts of positive and negative dispositions, and works to
reshape the moral location of his audience. But his own analysis of what he
is doing is impoverished. He does not have a moral-theoretical framework
robust enough to make sense of his own moral thought.
But this cannot be an end to the story of Niebuhr’s association with con-
sequentialism. It was in 1961, almost thirty years after Moral Man and
Immoral Society and after much of Niebuhr’s more developed moral analy-
sis, that Ramsey would link Niebuhr’s analysis with consequentialism, set-
ting the stage for much of the later interpretation of Niebuhr. So, why the
characterization?
Unfortunately, Ramsey’s analysis suffered from some of the same poverty
as Niebuhr’s own self-articulation. Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue can be
thought of as a book end with another article calling for a revision in moral
language in the twentieth century: G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Phi-
losophy.”25 In her 1958 article, Anscombe attacked secular deontology and
consequentialism (a term she coined in the article). Without a divine law
giver, she claimed, the idea of a law or rule governed moral language lacked
grounding. But even worse was the vacuousness of consequentialist eth-
ics, which abandoned even the meaningfulness of moral description terms
in favor of extrinsic goals. While Anscombe leaves open the option that a
theistic deontology might yet be workable she does not see it as a viable
option in a secular society. She opts to recommend a recovery of the central
concepts of virtue ethics. Unfortunately for the prospects of this recovery,
she goes on to state that at that time philosophy lacked an adequate moral
psychology to underwrite the development. So, in lieu of going directly to
virtue ethics, she then advises that philosophers turn their work to starting
with moral psychology.
Anscombe was right that the time had not come yet for virtue ethics.
But her article did clearly articulate the alternative options that would
 Introduction 7
dominate the interpretation of moral argument for the next several
­decades. William Frankena’s popular textbook Ethics, published in 1963,
offers deontology and utilitarianism as the two viable theories in moral
philosophy.26 Ramsey himself, even when his own first order moral analy-
sis manifested other options, thought largely within the structure of this
overarching binary.
Within mainline moral theology, the conflict between deontologists and
consequentialists reached fever pitch with Joseph Fletcher’s publication of
the explicitly consequentialist Situation Ethics in 1966. Ramsey had located
himself perfectly to fill out the binary on the deontological side. In this con-
text it was inevitable that moral theologians would be sorted into these two
categories, and Niebuhr was certainly not a consistent deontologist.
But the categories were never really adequate to make sense of moral
thought. Using consequentialism and deontology as the primary lenses
through which morality should be understood obscured the importance
of tradition, narrative, and character in moral thought. As Edmund Pin-
coffs argued in 1971, the consequentialist/deontologist debates boiled eth-
ics down to arguments internal to “quandary ethics,” focusing on narrow
construals of moral rationality applied to boundary cases and obscuring the
full shape of human moral life.27
Here it is worth noting the extent to which Niebuhr’s thought does not
fit with the categories at hand. In contrast to Ramsey, Niebuhr’s work never
engaged in the kind of abstract case-based analysis that constituted “quan-
dary ethics.” Niebuhr was consistently suspicious of abstraction. He was
more interested in actual political and moral events, contextualized in a
world of broader narratives. Indeed, many of Niebuhr’s critiques of conse-
quentialism could fit equally well as critiques of deontology. Each had the
tendency to treat morality as if it were best engaged with pure dispassionate
rationality. There are few positions that Niebuhr more consistently rejected
than this.
This has led some authors to throw up their hands. H. David Baer writes:
“If Niebuhr himself could strike good compromises because of his perspica-
cious judgment, he bequeathed no workable framework for others. He is a
thinker from who one can learn much, but never follow.”28 But if Niebuhr
failed to bequeath a framework, that was probably intentional. Not because
he advocated a “vague consequentialism,” as Baer posits, but because he
rejected the entire modern project of producing a rational formula for ethics.
While he left no formula, he may yet have bequeathed dispositions underly-
ing the kinds of judgments he made. This opens a new set of possibilities.

Why not virtue?

So, if Niebuhr does not fit as a consistent consequentialist or deontologist,
are there any promising alternatives for making sense out of his general posi-
tion? No doubt, there are some great advantages to conceiving of Niebuhr’s
8 Kevin Carnahan
work in the context of his own intellectual milieu. In addition to Marxism,
for instance, Niebuhr was influenced by the social theory of Ernst Troeltsch
and Max Weber, by Kierkegaard and Augustine’s conceptions of a depth of
human existence that goes beyond both passion and reason, and by William
James’ anti-reductive pragmatism.
Like Niebuhr, these sources, while not deontological, also resist easy
categorization as consequentialist. Troeltsch and Weber were interested in
the relation between culture, worldview, action, and social organization.
Against reductive accounts of materialism, they both sought to articulate
the ways in which beliefs and social traditions influence moral life. From
Kierkegaard and Augustine, Niebuhr drew an emphasis on the mystery of
the internal reality of human existence. It is here that Niebuhr developed his
conception of the human as inextricably caught in the paradox of finitude
and freedom, his understanding of sin, and his understanding of tragic his-
tory, and eschatological promise. From James, Niebuhr inherited an anti-
reductive phenomenology and an aversion to closed systematic accounts
of reality, moral or otherwise. At the very least, we can say that there are
no direct paths from these influences to the reductive treatment of morality
found in consequentialism.
But just as Niebuhr’s ethical thought has roots that extend back before
moral discourse was reduced to a battle between consequentialists and deon-
tologists, his thought also resonates with a category that has come to repre-
sent an alternative to consequentialism and deontology in recent discussion:
virtue ethics. Anscombe, Pincoffs, and MacIntyre, key critics of the reduc-
tive tendencies of modern moral language, all pointed the way toward an
alternative way of conceiving morality. They rejected the focus on abstract
rational formulas, boundary cases, and action analysis and turned attention
to dispositions, habits, tradition, narrative, and character.
The overlap between this development and Niebuhr’s analysis noted ear-
lier is striking. But while the overlap has been noted by some scholars, a full-
fledged exploration of Niebuhr in relation to virtue ethics has been slow to
emerge.29 In addition to academic inertia, a few factors intrinsic to the recent
recovery of virtue ethics have contributed to inhibiting this development.
First, is the ambiguous relation between the origins of the contemporary
revival and modernity. MacIntyre and many other virtue ethicists developed
their programs in the context of communitarian critiques of modernity. In
this process, there was little interest in recovering parallels to immediately
preceding moralists. One of the ironies of much of contemporary virtue eth-
ics is that it has proudly declared its emphasis on tradition while obscuring
its debts to the traditions that immediately precede it. In this, contemporary
virtue ethics has been distinctively modern in presenting itself as an absolute
break from its own parents as it appeals to idealized pictures of a return to
ancient sources. (An irony Niebuhr would have appreciated.) This tendency
makes the recovery of an early twentieth-century ethicist an unlikely project
for many contemporary virtue ethicists.
 Introduction 9
This tendency is related to the second factor that has delayed a full explo-
ration of Niebuhr’s relation to virtue ethics. One of the modern sources
which much of contemporary virtue ethics (especially in the MacIntyrian
tradition) simultaneously draws upon and obscures is that of G.W.F. Hegel.30
It is hard to read the work of communitarian virtue ethicists like M ­ acIntyre
and Stanley Hauerwas without being struck by the similarities between
their thought and the Hegelian notion of communally grounded Sittlichkeit.
And the critique of modernity offered by these thinkers parallels Hegel’s
criticisms of Kantian moral philosophy. Recognizing this lineage requires
acknowledging that this strain of the “recovery” of virtue ethics has always
already been involved in ongoing arguments within modernity. In this light
it is unsurprising that, while criticizing deontological and consequentialist
versions of modern moral philosophy, contemporary virtue ethicists in this
school have not doled out their criticism equally. While deontology has been
criticized for excessive rationalism and individualism, this does not compare
to the depravity that virtue ethicists have located in consequentialism. Sit-
tlichkeit is constructed as an opposite from Kantian autonomous reason,
but it is still Kantian in its adherence to duty above all else. With this inher-
itance, it is not surprising that a moralist whose thought fell more in the
Augustinian-Kierkegaardian and pragmatist traditions would be an unlikely
choice for a conversation partner, regardless of overlaps in other areas of
moral theory. Kierkegaard, it should be remembered, constructed his ethics
in part as a critique of Hegel’s.
Finally, there is a contingent factor that has already been mentioned.
When discussing Niebuhr’s own tendencies toward consequentialism above,
it was noted that he deployed this language most readily in his early efforts
to counter pacifism. It is notable, then, that the voice most associated with
the early recovery of virtue in Christian ethics, Stanley Hauerwas, locates
pacifism as central to his own, and his community’s identity. This led Hau-
erwas to be a natural critic of Niebuhr and a critic who engaged Niebuhr
in some of Niebuhr’s most consequentialist moods. In the process, many
have questioned whether the image of Niebuhr that Hauerwas produced
was accurate to the full depth of Niebuhr’s theology and ethics. Paul Ram-
sey, himself perfectly capable of criticizing Niebuhr, stated: “It is impossible
to recognize Niebuhr in what Hauerwas has written.”31 Given the tensions
between Hauerwasian and Niebuhrian theology and the influential status of
Hauerwas in the recovery of virtue ethics in theology it again makes sense
that a reading of Niebuhr in the context of virtue ethicist might originally
not have seemed viable.

Niebuhrian virtue?
All of the authors in this volume agree that Niebuhr should not be pigeon-
holed into the categories of consequentialism or deontology. There is,
however, disagreement about the extent to which Niebuhr ought to be
10 Kevin Carnahan
understood as a kind of virtue ethicist. This disagreement has to do with
differing understandings of Niebuhr’s emphases and with how to construe
virtue ethics itself.
While Niebuhr lived prior to the renaissance of virtue ethics, it is not quite
right to say that Niebuhr has no account of virtue. Niebuhr does talk about
“virtue” of a kind, but when he does, he is usually undermining claims to
have it. According to Niebuhr, people in all ages overestimate their virtue
and the ease of gaining virtue. Humans in their sin claim to be virtuous.32
Classically, virtues were understood as qualities that allowed an individ-
ual to fulfill her or his telos, the goal of life, and thus to achieve goodness.
Niebuhr rejects the idea that humans can achieve goodness within history.
Our finis comes before the realization of our telos, writes Niebuhr, and even
prior to that our character lacks the qualities necessary to achieve our telos.33
Further, while most virtue ethics from Aristotle on focuses on practice
and habituation, Niebuhr is critical of projects of social engineering and
education that claimed to be able to produce morally advanced people. The
problem of morality, for Niebuhr is rooted in humanity’s transcendence of
all social structures, including education and socialization. This frees us to
improve our social setting, but it also inevitably leads to our corrupting our
social setting. Social theorists are naive in thinking they could produce a
system without corruption and prideful in thinking that they could program
others for morality.
In all of this, Niebuhr sits clearly within the Augustinian tradition of
thought about virtue. Focusing away from human effort, this tradition has
tended to emphasize that all goodness comes from God. In its yearning for
the Kingdom, it has taken a limited view of what is possible in the time
between the resurrection and the Second Coming. Emphasizing the divine
turning of the will, it has challenged the efficacy of political and social
schemes aimed at perfecting citizens.
Of course, at the same time, Niebuhr critiqued Protestant versions of the
Augustinian tradition for being overly pessimistic, even specifically on the
issue of virtue. “Protestantism,” he writes, “has frequently contributed to
the anarchy of modern life by its inability to suggest and to support rela-
tive standards and structures of social virtue and political justice.”34 And as
noted above, his ethics are more dispositional than they are formulaic.
So how should Niebuhr be located in relation to virtue after the renaissance
of virtue theory in recent decades? Three general approaches are possible.
First, reject the claim that virtue language should monopolize the territory of
dispositional ethics, and locate Niebuhr as a non-virtue, dispositional ethi-
cist. This is the strategy endorsed in this volume by Charles Mathewes. Sec-
ond, critique Niebuhr in the light of more classical virtue theory. One finds
some of this approach in Christopher Dowdy’s chapter, which argues that
Niebuhr did reflect upon liturgical practice and context when developing his
concept of contrition, but failed to adequately expand his social context to
fulfill the requirements of contrition concerning race relations.
 Introduction 11
A third option is to expand and complicate the category of virtue ethics
to include a Niebuhrian dispositional ethics. Most of the authors in this
volume follow this path. But they complicate virtue theory in different ways.
Robin W. Lovin focuses on the infused virtues, especially hope and the way
that hope may allow us to act toward a telos that is impossible for us to
achieve. Martha ter Kuile looks to developments within the virtue tradition.
Niebuhr had contrasted Aristotelianism and Greek tragedy. Ter Kuile argues
that Martha Nussbaum’s picture of fragile virtue, born from a reading of
Aristotle and the tragedians, bridges some of the gap between the Aristote-
lian virtue tradition and Niebuhr’s ethics. Mark Douglas explores the idea
of a “red queen” virtue; one which does not so much make one good as it
prevents one from being worse.
Many of the authors in this volume explore the ideas of “paradoxical” or
“ironic” virtue. This is a virtue that is in part constituted by knowledge of
one’s own lack of virtue. Paradoxical virtue cannot be resolved. It is not as
if one comes to know of one’s viciousness and thereby overcomes it. Para-
doxical virtue depends on a continuing lively sense of one’s own failings,
including knowledge that one is currently falling short of the ideal even
while recognizing that the exact way one is failing is obscured by the self in
its viciousness. But equally, paradoxical virtue is not an acceptance of one’s
own failing. Paradoxical virtue resides in the dialectical space between one’s
knowledge of continuing vice and the impossible possibility of goodness. As
such, it is partially constituted by a kind of cognitive dissonance. Not a dis-
sonance, however, that stymies judgment and action. Rather, a dissonance
that makes for more responsible judgment and action.
In exploring these possibilities, this volume fits with efforts to reimagine
virtue under conditions of imperfection, such as can be found in Katie Can-
non’s treatment of “Unctuousness as a virtue,” Lisa Tessman’s Burdened
Virtue, and the aforementioned work by Martha Nussbaum on virtue and
fragility.35
Regardless of which strategy the reader finds most plausible it is to be
hoped that in reading they will gain new perspectives on Niebuhr’s ethics
and on dispositional or even virtue ethics in the process.

Chapter outlines
We begin with Charles Mathewes, who promptly launches an attack on
virtue theory and the idea that Niebuhr should be thought of as a virtue
ethicist. Mathewes does believe that Niebuhr’s ethics were broadly dispo-
sitional. Niebuhr should be read as opposed to the “juridical” theories of
utilitarianism and deontology, and many of Niebuhr’s critiques of ethics
in his own times overlap with those brought by virtue theorists. But for
Mathewes virtue theory is a theory about stable dispositions drawn from
established social custom that make the virtuous person good and allow the
virtuous person to gain reliable historical success. Niebuhr’s Augustinianism
12 Kevin Carnahan
leads him to undercut almost every part of this kind of theory. Open to
socially transcendent criticism, the Niebuhrian should not accept the kind
of conservative ethics that depend upon established social custom. Aware of
sin, the Niebuhrian should not think at any point that she has been made
“good.” And having seen the ironic reversals of the best laid plans of mice
and men, the Niebuhrian should never think that any human project pro-
duces reliable success.
To understand Niebuhr’s ethics more adequately, we need to free “dis-
position” and “habit” from the hegemonic hold of virtue theory. We need
to recognize the tension that has usually marked the relationship between
Christian theology and virtue discourse. And, especially in religious studies,
we must move beyond our oversimplified view of the options in ethics and
our fixation on the framework of virtue ethics. In Niebuhr’s case, Mathewes
finds that the language of irony allows Niebuhr to develop a different kind
of dispositional ethics, one that recognizes that neither we nor the world are
not good, and the world is not under our own control, one that disposes us
to bear on even in that kind of a world responsibly.
Passing up the option of folding up the whole project in the light of
Mathewes’ conclusions, we then move into Robin W. Lovin’s treatment
of Niebuhr and virtue. Surprisingly, perhaps especially in the light of
Mathewes’ critique, Lovin finds that in The Nature and Destiny of Man,
Niebuhr deploys the categories of Thomistic virtue theory to articulate his
own views of faith, hope, and love. Overlapping the medieval distinction
between the natural and theological virtues with his own distinction of
humanity as finite and transcendent, Niebuhr adopts a view of the theologi-
cal virtues completing rather than competing with nature.
While the tension between Lovin’s and Mathewes’ approaches to Niebuhr
and virtue are real, once one gets past some of the terminological disagree-
ments the overlaps in their positions are as interesting as where they diverge.
It is noteworthy that Lovin is approaching the theological virtues, clearly
the more “Augustinian” end of Thomas’ virtue theory. And the reading of
the Niebuhrian theological virtues that Lovin produces does not fit easily
within the kind of virtue theory that Mathewes critiques. Focusing on hope,
Lovin finds that the kind of virtue that Niebuhr supports is the virtue of
one who is not good and who does not live in a good world. Hope here is
a disposition which must break into the world and into the individual from
outside of “nature.” To borrow a bit of Thomistic language, hope must be
“infused,” because it cannot be justified by historical experience.
History does not provide reliable evidence of its own meaningfulness or
of the meaningfulness of human activities. Hope must transcend history to
exist, and it must ultimately be hope in what God will do with what we
have done rather than hope in what we are able to do by ourselves. But
while hope must transcend history, our activity within history is dependent
upon hope. Indeed, Lovin suggests that hope is necessary for more than
motivation. It is in transcending the self and the current situation of history
 Introduction 13
that we are able to become conscious of other possibilities, possibilities for
life better than the one we know. This capability for hope is a grounding
for human dignity. And it is hope that allows us to act in response to this
dignity even when we know that our action will be caught up in the irony
and paradox of our imperfect world. Thus, Lovin suggests, Niebuhr offers
us a kind of virtue beyond virtue. A virtue for when we know that virtue
will fail. This virtue does not solve the problem of goodness. It does not
allow the bearer to be good. But it does allow the bearer to live and act in
the midst of irony.
Scott Paeth continues to develop this picture of paradoxical virtue in his
treatment of faith. Niebuhr, he argues, should be located in a twentieth-
century movement to understand faith as more than belief in a set of propo-
sitions. Following Kierkegaard, and in conversation with theologians like
Paul Tillich, Emil Brunner, and his brother H. Richard, Reinhold Niebuhr
developed a conception of faith that constituted a transformed disposition
toward both the content of revelation and the broader world. But this faith
is not a simple faith. In relation to revelation, this disposition is “an appro-
priation of the truth of the foundational absurdity at the core of Christian
faith.” Thus faith is belief in that which is unbelievable. Faith then mediates
the person’s perception of the world. In faith one is able to see meaning in
the world and in action within the world. But this meaning is not inherent
in the world or produced by the work finite people do within it. Faith finds
meaning in the world in the light of its relation to that which is beyond the
world, in relation to God’s ultimate purposes and power. This faith allows
the individual to act in a world in which they are a creature, neither in con-
trol of the world, nor powerless.
Niebuhr’s engagement with revealed truth is also the topic of Daniel
Malotky’s chapter, which focuses on Niebuhr’s approach to myth. While
Stanley Hauerwas has argued that Niebuhr’s approach to both Christian
myth and Christian ethics are finally abortive, Malotky argues that we may
be able to see how Niebuhr avoids falling into the traps that Hauerwas
sees if we understand his approach to myth in terms of virtue. In particular,
Malotky focuses on the virtue of honesty. The virtue of honesty does not
follow a formula for speaking truth because it recognizes that truth is com-
plex. Honesty requires tact, attention to genre, and attentiveness to who is
due information. This, Malotky finds, overlaps significantly with the way
that Niebuhr understands the articulation of myth. Ultimate reality cannot
be approached directly and literally. Literalism is an inflexible rule which is
insufficient to talking about divine and human mysteries. Niebuhr rejects
literalism and embraces a “deceptive” element in all honesty about such
truths. The deception is only misleading if one confuses myth with literal
speech, however. If one understands the nature of myth, the “deceptive” ele-
ments are freed to reveal deeper truths than literalism is capable of holding.
Malotky believes this kind of approach fits both with Niebuhr’s approach
to myth and with Niebuhr’s anti-formulaic ethics.
14 Kevin Carnahan
Returning to a primary focus on ethics, we find Mark Douglas’ analysis
of love in Niebuhr’s thought. Douglas charts some of the recent history of
Augustinian/Lutheran engagements with virtue ethics before turning more
directly to Niebuhr. Agape, in Niebuhr’s thought, is famously located as an
impossible ideal. This makes it an unlikely site for an analysis of virtue. But
Douglas explores two ways in which agape might influence the Christian
in virtue-like ways. First, he explores the possibility that, even in its impos-
sibility, the draw and obligation of self-sacrificial love might serve as a “Red
Queen” virtue; this is as a spur that keeps us from falling further behind
morally in our condition of sin. Douglas then explores a more positive pos-
sibility; distinguishing between the subjective goal of self-sacrificial love and
the social goal, Douglas posits that the social goal of harmony may be more
historically viable than the subjective goal. As such, he suggests that love
would dispose us toward alternatives that increase the relative harmony of
the world around us.
Continuing the exploration of love, Daniel A. Morris looks toward the
development of a virtue of love as mutuality in order to develop a Nie-
buhrianism that might be more responsive to the concerns of the oppressed
in the world. Niebuhr has often been critiqued by feminists and liberation
theologians for his emphasis on the ideal of self-sacrificial love. This, they
posit, is an insufficient ground for a theology that arises from the margins
of society. Marginalized and oppressed populations need to be able to claim
their own value. The focus on self-sacrifice is detrimental here. Morris notes
that while Niebuhr did emphasize self-sacrificial love, he most often talked
about such love as an impossible ideal within history. When dealing with
practical political problems, Niebuhr was likely to deploy more realistic
forms of love. For Niebuhr mutuality was a form of love that presupposed
reciprocation of goods. Morris finds this to be fertile ground for the devel-
opment of a Niebuhrian virtue motivating liberative action.
Jodie L. Lyon also argues that Niebuhr’s theology has more resources for
assertiveness than his critics sometimes find. But she finds this in a rather
surprising place. One virtue that Niebuhr did explicitly talk about is humil-
ity. Given Niebuhr’s tendency to identify sin with pride, one might expect
humility to function as the central virtue for Niebuhr. But Lyon points out
that while this virtue is often identified with Niebuhrianism, it is not actu-
ally located at the center of Niebuhr’s ethics. This is because Niebuhr identi-
fies humility with the self-critical moment in moral judgment. Niebuhr sees
this as necessary. But if this is all the further that moral judgment goes, it
remains mired in inaction. Thus, humility needs to be balanced with a sense
(or perhaps a virtue) of responsibility in the midst of broken history. The
opposite of pride for Niebuhr, it turns out, is not humility, but love. And
within history love demands humility, but it also demands responsibility.
Christopher Dowdy keeps the reader in the territory of humility, explor-
ing the particular disposition of contrition. While Niebuhr is often critiqued
for lacking a robust enough ecclesiology and account of practices necessary
 Introduction 15
for virtue formation, Dowdy finds that Niebuhr’s treatment of contrition
includes substantial engagement with practices of liturgy and prayer. Com-
munal confession, for instance, is an important element in prompting con-
trition. Further, contrition is a disposition that Niebuhr believes qualifies
self-righteousness and opens the self to criticism. However, Dowdy finds
that Niebuhr himself was lacking in contrition when it came to the issue of
race relations in the 1950s. Following James Cone’s criticism of Niebuhr,
Dowdy argues that Niebuhr’s efforts to push for racial equality were too
moderate and qualified. Dowdy suggests that we can understand this failing
in part in relation to Niebuhr’s own account of contrition. Niebuhr’s contri-
tion arose from his own religious practice in his own community, but that
community was not adequately diverse. In order to prompt a more adequate
contrition, the present day Niebuhrian needs to purse a consistent project
of integration, moving oneself outside one’s comfort zone and into open
engagement with the oppressed.
Zooming out from contrition to gain a wider view of Niebuhr’s politics,
R. Ward Holder explores how the political structures and positions Niebuhr
endorsed relate to his account of the virtues and vices of humanity. Far from
endorsing a formalistic account of political justice, Holder shows that the
dynamism of Niebuhr’s political positions can be read as relating constantly
to the central idea of justice funded by the theological virtues of faith, hope,
and love. In some ways echoing Lovin’s chapter, Holder sees the more “nat-
ural” standards of justice as dependent on the “infused” theological virtues.
Kevin Carnahan continues the emphasis on justice, exploring the pros-
pects for a Niebuhrian virtue of justice. While Niebuhr did not develop such
a virtue, Carnahan finds that Niebuhr spent a great deal of time clearing
the space for individual agency and judgment in political matters. Against
encroachment from deterministic rationalism or natural impulse or from
established social structures, Niebuhr constantly asserted the importance
of transcendence in allowing the individual to gain critical perspective both
on the self and on the social structures in which it lives. Niebuhr also left
behind a set of rules of thumb that guide the agent in judgment without
determining judgment in the abstract. This, Carnahan posits, provides the
Niebuhrian with a site and dispositional guides which are appropriate to
a virtue of justice. Carnahan concludes with an argument that this virtue
would allow for the development of a more radical ethics than Niebuhr
endorsed in the middle of his life.
In classical virtue ethics, all of the virtues depend upon phronesis, the
intellectual/moral virtue that governs thought about particular situations.
Countering the view of Niebuhr as a one-off creative thinker, David True
and Tom James examine what phronesis looks like from a Niebuhrian per-
spective. They argue that Niebuhr’s vision of the world is shaped by a set of
enduring themes that provides shape to Niebuhr’s analysis. Their argument
is presented through case studies of Niebuhr’s work in two particular areas:
his analysis of the Vietnam War and his reaction to the Kinsey Report on
16 Kevin Carnahan
sexuality. They convincingly argue that while Niebuhr was not following a
systematic set of rules, he was relying on a robust intellectual framework to
shed light on contemporary issues.
Much of the renaissance of virtue ethics has focused on the way that liter-
ary sources shape our views of the world and of moral qualities. Interest-
ingly, Tom James finds that Niebuhr’s analysis of political leadership can be
understood in relation to his treatment of different types of literary charac-
ters and conflicts. Niebuhr explicitly critiqued the kinds of characters found
in the works of John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, and Ernest Hemmingway.
And he spent time considering the plight of Antigone in the ancient Greek
tragedy. This engagement with tragic literature is exactly the kind of thing
that has marked more recent virtue theory, especially in the vain explored
by Martha Nussbaum. While all of this provides a useful bridge to con-
temporary virtue ethics, James suspects that in order to gain an aesthetic
fitting for today’s politics, one should go further back in Niebuhr’s writing
to the character of the fanatic in Moral Man and Immoral Society. Thus,
paralleling Carnahan’s essay, James concludes with a critical note about the
current need to move in more radical directions than are usually identified
with Niebuhrianism.
Jeremy Sabella rounds out the book looking not at Niebuhr’s thought,
but his activity as a social critic. Sabella argues that Niebuhr’s judgments
about society and politics are marked by his dialectical thought, which in
an almost Aristotelian way seeks out the mean between extreme alterna-
tives. Niebuhr’s Augustinianism also disposed him against Manichean pic-
tures of the world. In contrast to those who see Niebuhr as offering utterly
unrepeatable judgments, Sabella suggests that Niebuhr’s judgments arise
from his own virtues, and that Niebuhr can serve for others as an exemplar
of those virtues. This provides a remarkably traditional conclusion to this
book which struggles with locating Niebuhr in relation to virtue. Perhaps
in Niebuhr’s practice, the relation was not so complicated as in his theory.
In this collection, the chapters tend to move from abstract to concrete
and from theoretical to practical. The book begins with an argument that
Niebuhr should be located as a critic of the virtue ethics tradition, moves
through multiple accounts of how Niebuhr’s thought or virtue ethics might
be complicated in ways that bring them closer together, and ends with a
look at Niebuhr as a paradigm for Christian Realist virtue. These chapters
do not resolve the question of how to relate Niebuhrianism and virtue eth-
ics. But they do show that there is a great deal to be gained in the exchange
between the two. Hopefully this will be a continuing dialogue.

Notes
1 Wayne G. Boulton, Thomas D. Kennedy, and Allen Verhey’s popular reader,
From Christ to the World: Introductory Readings in Christian Ethics excerpted
Ramsey’s work here to represent the deontological standpoint in Christian ethics
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 212–15.
 Introduction 17
2 Paul Ramsey, War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be
Conducted Justly? (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1961), 4.
3 Ibid., 6.
4 Reinhold Niebuhr, “Christian Realism, and Just War Theory: A Critique,” in
Christianity and Power Politics Today: Christian Realism and Contemporary
Political Dilemmas, ed. Eric Patterson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
5 “Augustinian Realism and the Morality of War: An Exchange,” in Augustine
and Social Justice, ed. Teresa Delgado, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth (Lex-
ington Books, 2015), 168–69.
6 “Remember the Poor: Duties, Dilemmas, and Vocation,” in God, the Good and
Utilitarianism, ed. John Perry (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 192.
7 “A Church Capable of Addressing a World at War,” in The Hauerwas Reader,
ed. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Duke University Press, 2001), 447.
8 “The Nature and Destiny of Serious Theology,” in Reinhold Niebuhr and Con-
temporary Politics: God and Power, ed. Richard Harries and Stephen Platten
(Oxford University Press, 2010), 85.
9 “The Hydrogen Bomb,” in Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writ-
ings of Reinhold Niebuhr, ed. D. B. Robertson (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1957), 237.
10 Ibid.
11 “Why Is Barth Silent on Hungary,” in Essays in Applied Christianity, ed. D. B.
Robertson (New York: Living Age Books, 1959), 187.
12 Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 181. See also Niebuhr’s reaction
to the works of Alfred Kinsey, “Kinsey and the Moral Problem of Man’s
Sexual Life,” in An Analysis of the Kinsey Reports on Sexual Behavior in
the Human Male and Female, ed. Daniel Geddes (New York: Dutton, 1954),
62–70.
13 Reinhold Niebuhr to Paul Ramsey, 18 June 1966, Box 20, Paul Ramsey Papers,
Duke University Library.
14 The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (London: Nesbit
and Co., 1941–43), 1:178–79.
15 An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2013), 223.
16 Ibid., 224.
17 Ibid., 225.
18 Ibid., 226.
19 Ibid., 229.
20 Nature and Destiny, 1:107.
21 “The Bombing of Germany,” in Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter
Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr, ed. D. B. Robertson (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1957), 223.
22 After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2007).
23 Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), 170.
24 Ibid., 171.
25 “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, 33:124 (January 1958), 1–19.
26 William Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1963).
27 “Quandary Ethics,” Mind, 80:320 (October 1971): 552–71.
28 H. D. Baer, Recovering Christian Realism: Just War as a Political Ethic (Lan-
ham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 4.
29 For a treatment of Niebuhr’s relation to virtue ethics, see Robin W. Lovin, Rein-
hold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),
18 Kevin Carnahan
89–105, 153–57; Daniel A. Morris, Virtue and Irony in American Democracy:
Revisiting Dewey and Niebuhr (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015).
30 On this point see Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 2004), 137–38; Richard Bernstein, Philosophical Profiles:
Essays in a Pragmatic Mode (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1986), 138–39.
31 Richard John Neuhaus, Reinhold Niebuhr Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1985), 105.
32 See, for instance, Nature and Destiny, 1:99–205.
33 Ibid., 2:297.
34 Ibid., 1:64.
35 Katie Canon, Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community (New York:
Bloomsbury Academic, 1998); Lisa Tessman, Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics
for Liberatory Struggles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Martha
Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
1 Niebuhr on the ironies of
virtue and the virtue of irony
Charles Mathewes

In this chapter I want to make three points: one exegetical, one substantive,
and one disciplinary. My exegetical point is that Reinhold Niebuhr didn’t
have a theory of virtue, and would have had a hard time developing one.
My substantive point is that this isn’t a bad thing, because virtue ethics
as an approach has some real limitations, for Christian ethics in general
and for Christian political ethics in particular. My disciplinary point, made
mostly indirectly, is that the fact that virtue ethics is so prominent in the
sub-fields of religious ethics and Christian ethics – both of which are effec-
tively within religious studies – suggests something of how those sub-fields
have a confused picture of the opportunities and challenges of philosophical
discussion, because we are not properly educated in disciplinary discussions
beyond our own.
I hope this argument will teach us something about Niebuhr, to be sure,
but I hope it will also give people a view of virtue theory that is, I think,
as important as it is commonly neglected, and for the same reason: that it
suggests limits to the usefulness of virtue-theoretical approaches for under-
standing human life, limits that make the vast and uncritical use of virtue
theory in Christian ethics, and in religious ethics as well, questionable, and
questionable in a way that has heretofore gone unqueried.

The recovery of virtue in twentieth century thought

Virtue is a popular language in religious ethics and Christian ethics these
days. It is so, I think, because we religious ethics scholars are impressed with
what Anglophone philosophical ethics has done with it. Indeed, we have
done little but transpose philosophical conceptions of virtue into a religious-
studies idiom, and typically with very little if any modification.
Why, then, is it important in philosophy? It developed, I think, as a reac-
tion. “Virtue” was rediscovered in the twentieth century by thinkers trying
to find a way around the two dominant ethical positions, namely deonto-
logical ethics, typically of a Kantian sort, and consequentialist ethics, usu-
ally of a Millian sort. These two were both caught in a metaethical stalemate
over the ontological status of ethics and ethical reasons; furthermore, many
20 Charles Mathewes
felt that neither was properly adequate as a philosophical anthropology or,
more precisely, a moral psychology – that these proposals’ visions of ethical
theory as juridical or technocratic rather than developmental were false.1
Of course, virtue ethics is not the only expression of deep disaffec-
tion with the twentieth century’s dominant moral theories. An analogous
approach is visible in the work of Iris Murdoch’s (mostly abortive) Plato-
nism, which was to some degree followed up by John McDowell and Sabina
Lovibond, and has a fellow traveler in Robert Merrihew Adams. Another is
the broadly Humean approach, an anti-metaphysical common-sense appeal
to basic dispositions, followed by thinkers like Annette Baier or (arguably)
Allan Gibbard, and I think also deeply attractive to many ethical natural-
ists and anti-realists who seem to dominate philosophical metaethics today.
And of course there are very many deontologists and consequentialists who
recognize these same worries, feel their power, yet remain committed to
revising their own ethical approaches from the inside – thinkers like T.M.
Scanlon, Christine Korsgaard, or Barbara Herman in philosophy, and John
Hare in philosophy of religion; and the vast alp of Derek Parfit’s On What
Matters – a work that may turn out to substantially alter the direction of
moral philosophy, though I suspect it will take several decades to digest.2
Indeed it is the case that, in Anglophone philosophy anyway, most ethics
are done in one of these two styles, and not as virtue ethics. That the fields
of religious ethics and Christian ethics barely register any of these facts is,
I think, significant – significant of what, I will come to later.
Furthermore there are other, perhaps more radical and (I think) still more
powerful alternatives to virtue theory, beyond the ken of most analytic phi-
losophers. Many of these approaches are broadly Nietzschean and ascetic in
character, and they describe the moral adventure of the human more primar-
ily in terms of suffering rather than doing. This distinguished line of thinkers
includes figures such as Benjamin Constant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Theodor Adorno, and contemporary and
near-contemporary figures would include Bernard Williams, Michel Fou-
cault, Judith Butler, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, and Jonathan Lear.
Nonetheless, virtue theorists were some of the first to elucidate these wor-
ries in an analytically legible way. Hence virtue theory appealed to many
scholars because it seemed able to identify usefully distinct facets or rela-
tively discrete capabilities in a human personality, and to offer an account
of both how those capabilities develop and how they may be activated in
certain moral scenarios in a reasonably predictable manner and with rea-
sonably predictable consequences. Thinkers like Elizabeth Anscombe and
Philippa Foot blazed this trail and were followed by later writers such as
Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum. But for all of these thinkers,
note, virtue theory appeared dialectically as a way to articulate a series
of quite fundamental concerns about other options available. Anscombe
employed virtue theory to orient her worries about the nihilism of conse-
quentialism; Foot did so to enunciate her concerns regarding the inhumanity
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 21
of deontology; Nussbaum deployed Aristotle against a “Platonism” which
was really more a Kantian denial of tragedy; and MacIntyre basically didn’t
like anybody, and said everyone was most fundamentally described as being
after virtue.
These twentieth-century reappropriations of virtue theory are often
called “neo-Aristotelian,” and for good reason. As some have noted, this
appeal to virtue ethics remains distinctly modern, even historicist, because
its advocates were more or less Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) in their self-
conscious attention to context and local community, which earlier virtue
theories rather notoriously did not theorize. This virtue theory is shaped by
two, perhaps contradictory, ambitions: one, to speak beyond the bounds of
Aristotle’s moral imagination of adult Greek males in a self-governing polis,
to make this ethic something realizable by all of humanity; and, second, to
recognize the contingency, perhaps even constructivist, nature of the good-
ness or excellence that is achievable thereby.
This dual attention – to historical and cultural context and to the univer-
sally inclusive ambitions of our ethical ideals – is admirable. But as critics
of modern reappropriations of virtue theory have pointed out, these com-
mitments have created other problems as well. In one way, modern vir-
tue theory has had a hard time either, first, pressing against the bounds of
whatever normative context in which it finds itself – of offering a means of
radical critique of the social context the virtue theorist finds herself in, and
the social practices she deems it necessary to master in order to achieve the
postulated good life; or, second, providing an account of how the virtue
system so cultivated is in fact part of a morally realist vision of the human
good – that is, how virtue theory so construed offers more than a strategy
for simply tweaking the local cultural etiquette of some community, how it
might speak to the deeper good of the human as a whole. (These complaints
go back to older complaints of Kantians against Hegelians.) I am not saying
that advocates of these views have not responded to these problems; I’m
just saying that the critics – ranging from Kantians through Adornians to
straight-up Nietzscheans – haven’t found the responses satisfying.3
I called virtue theory “bourgeois” just above, and since I mean some-
thing more than a gauchiste sneer by that term, I owe you an explanation
of it here. By “bourgeois” I mean something unreflectively committed to
their local communities’ conventions about good and bad, unimaginatively
materialist and relentlessly short-term, powerfully unwilling to ask ques-
tions about the frame of reference within which it comfortably exists. I do
not mean that a bourgeois mindset cannot be morally serious: no one is
more morally earnest than a bourgeois about saving the norms within which
they have their being. (The fact that Aristotle’s citizens lived in a polis and
Bürgers lived in cities is, I think, not accidental.) It simply asserts that they
care about the frame of understanding they possess more than they do about
the reality or truth that that frame is supposed to bring into focus for them,
and they will defend the frame even against concerns that it is inadequate.
22 Charles Mathewes
Wittgenstein once used the word in this way, critically but descriptively, to
describe the work of his friend and colleague the mathematician-­philosopher
Frank Ramsey.4
It is worth noting, by the way, that Niebuhr used this term as well, and
used it not just ornamentally but functionally (possibly more than he did the
term virtue, by the way), in something like the way I mean it here – not to
sneer, nor simply to designate a socio-economic class, but more broadly to
identify a kind of moral imagination (however emaciated) that is representa-
tive of that class. What he was trying to get at with the term was a disaffec-
tion with less radical analyses of the community. And that suggests the real
point of using the term: it highlights a dangerous complacency to a moral
worldview, one which renders it potentially vulnerable to anesthetizing of
our moral anxieties.
The kinds of concerns I mean here did not emerge with the coining of the
term “bourgeois,” of course. They have a much older pedigree, and have
been provoked not only by virtue theories but also by idioms analogous to
virtue. Examples are not very hard to find. For a pre-modern one, we might
look to Abu Hamid al-Ghazâlî’s The Deliverance from Error. In that book
al-Ghazâlî talks about the problem of taqlîd, or social conformism, the pre-
reflective authority of parents and teachers, the sheer droning momentum
of habit. The book is sparked by his realization that he would have been
just as fervent a Jew or Christian as he was a Muslim, and so he needed
to find a way. Escaping the bonds of taqlîd was central to al-Ghazâlî’s life
and the radical changes he narrates in The Deliverance.5 Similarly, Christian
languages of apocalypticism, or Kierkegaardian ironism about whether one
can be a Christian in Christendom, are potential hosts for these worries as
well. Perhaps it might have been more theologically honest to employ one of
these. But for now I am simply trying to offer an immanent critique of virtue
theory, especially as it is deployed in contemporary academic discourse, and
for this “bourgeois,” I think, will do, and do nicely.
What all of these concerns share in common is the idea that a given social
order may provide a sufficiently coherent way of life to reproduce itself
successfully, generation after generation, yet still may have things radically
wrong – that the patterns of a reasonably flourishing human society can
very well still not be in alignment with the way things “ought” to be, that
the fundamental principles that should guide successful action, and form
proper humans, may not be reasonably accessible from within a roughly
coherent form of life. The worry about virtue theories that is consequent to
this concern is that virtue theory, because it is so fundamentally an imma-
nent theory of moral critique and moral formation, cannot accommodate
this deep metaphysical concern, and so suffers from a lack of truly radical
critical energies.
It is important to see what these critics mean by this worry, and what
they do not need to mean. First of all, they do not need to affirm that there
were no “cracks” in the social order through which especially perceptive
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 23
or morally sensitive or courageous (or, on the contrary, especially demonic)
individuals might “escape” the immanent normativity; indeed, by and large,
they would argue, they themselves had escaped through such fissures. (This
is in some ways the common story shared by, say, Plato, Mary Wollstone-
craft, and Frederick Douglass.) Nor, second, would an argument that an
imperfect human society was “bound” to collapse be finally satisfactory to
them as a counter-argument; human societies have taken the most diverse
forms, and many of the most terrible of them have been quite successful,
and intergenerationally sustainable, on any reasonable definition of success;
consider pre-Columbian Aztec society, say, or Tokugawa-era Japan, or Feu-
dal Europe, or the slave societies of the southern United States before the
Civil War, and the Jim Crow United States, north and south, after the Civil
War. Even in recent decades humans have been taught this again and again,
by totalitarian regimes and by concentration camps; as Dostoevsky said,
“Man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I believe that is the
very best way of defining him.”6 The human is too plastic to be relied upon
to stand upright on their own. Virtue theory fondly assumes that it can rely
upon a convenient resilience and facile elasticity in human beings, a more
durable capacity to “snap back” into our “right” form once fundamentally
alien and extrinsic pressures are relieved.7
Nor, third, do they need to deny that human morality is deeply impli-
cated in a larger picture of human psychology, with matters of character
and disposition and motivation and appetite and desire and nature. Virtue
theory has too often made a virtue out of the vice of “straw-manning” its
opponents, as Christine Korsgaard’s work (among many other responses
to virtue theory) very ably demonstrates.8 The fact that humans are funda-
mentally creatures of routines, structures, drives, and even habits (“habit”
as a category should not be simply ceded to virtue theory) ought to be com-
monplaces of almost any analysis of human morality. And indeed they are.
Iris Murdoch famously accused mid-century Anglophone and Continental-
existential philosophy alike of focusing too exclusively on “the quick flash
of the choosing will,” and she demanded a more realistic account of the
human be a part of any future ethical theory.9 Charles Taylor’s first book
was on The Explanation of Behaviour, and it intentionally critiqued reduc-
tionistic determinisms in favor of a more richly hermeneutical philosophical
anthropology, while Allan Gibbard’s rich expressivist-naturalist account of
morality cannot be dismissed as ignoring human psychology or our embed-
dedness in a natural history, though it is premised on basically Humean
premises, not Aristotelian ones.10 The question is not whether these are all
important features of (features that need to be factored into) any adequate
account of human morality. The question is how, and in what ways, and in
what hierarchy of importance.
In the world of religious ethics, however, “virtue theory” has grown to
almost swallow the tradition of ethical analysis entirely. We take the supe-
riority of virtue theory over all other approaches as effectively axiomatic.
24 Charles Mathewes
We then silently assume, I suspect, that virtue theory is not simply superior
to its live-option rivals; we assume it is, in fact, true. It seems to press itself on
us with a power we take to be like the power of Newton’s theory of gravity.
But this impression can be questioned, and in fact we err if we think that
the word “virtue” simply and unarguably picks out a straightforward “nat-
ural kind,” a feature of human nature, a set of capacities humans inevitably
possess. It is neither nature’s language, nor God’s; it is not unmistakably
legible on the surface of reality, nor is it uniquely obvious as a description
of the deep structure of human affairs.11 It is rather a historically contextu-
alized idiom, a human language we use to make sense of the moral life, a
contingent descriptive tool.
It is not only that most religious and theological ethicists have mistak-
enly assumed that virtue theory is the universal consensus among our philo-
sophical colleagues, and ontologically cosmically obvious to boot; it has
also become so popular that our fields need to be reminded that “virtue”
was often quite suspicious to significant strands of Christian thought. But
in fact that is true: Christian thought has often had an ambivalent relation
with virtue. There is a very old tradition of Christian critiques of virtue
language, beginning perhaps in Paul’s quasi-Stoic anthropology that may
itself at least tacitly critique certain construals of virtue language. More well
known is Augustine’s engagement with virtue theory, which is substantial.
He critiqued it in two ways. First, he argued it must be rooted in theological
energies not obviously (to us) immanent in the experienced created order of
nature (the theological virtues of faith, hope, charity). Second, he so empha-
sized the providential inscrutability of the everyday and the semiotically
transcendent character of action, so as to undo the confidence that typically
accompanies virtue theory – the confidence that actions are what they pre-
sent themselves to be in the moment, and that the immediate context of an
act is decisive in making it what it is.12
Broadly Protestant moral thought has had a long-standing and in some
ways polemical relationship to such virtue theories as well, though some
recent work seems to have forgotten that.13 Certainly Protestants agreed
with virtue accounts on the importance of dispositions and the psychologi-
cal orientation of the self coram Deo, but they were quite dubious about
the possibilities of organizing a theologically viable picture of the human
life around a developmental picture of the human. Luther’s well-known sus-
picion of Aristotle is more than ad hominem, and Calvin’s own discussion
of sanctification goes well out of its way to emphasize its Stoic and dispo-
sitional character rather than its areteological character. In general, we can
say that the magisterial Protestants’ emphasis on grace is a mark of how
deeply they drank at the apocalyptic and revolutionary wells which watered
so much of early Christianity, and how suspicious they were of the sacra-
mental/confessional and penance structure of high medieval moral thought,
practically and conceptually. Later Protestants, especially Reformed scho-
lastics, re-appropriated the language of virtue in interesting ways, but it
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 25
always sat uneasily beside the sharper, and more stochastic, emphasis on
radical divine sovereignty and grace.14 Despite recent efforts, Protestantism
has never been especially hospitable to virtue theory.

Niebuhr the ironist, not the virtue theorist

Given that Niebuhr himself was a Protestant theologian who repeatedly
emphasized his inheritance from Augustine, it should be perhaps more rec-
ognized than it is that he would be suspicious of virtue. For that he is, is
undoubtable. The essays in this collection confirm this, though they try to
put a more positive spin on Niebuhr’s relation to “virtue” by offering dif-
ferent construals of what that term might mean. That is fine, just so long
as we acknowledge that virtue theory has historically been, and remains
today, in its neo-Aristotelian manifestations, the kind of thing that Niebuhr
rejected. Certainly he also critiqued contemporary philosophical ethics as
did virtue theorists, though in a less explicitly academic register. Most com-
monly he critiqued what he saw as the modern belief that all evil is sim-
ply the result of ignorance or imperfect social systems, and was therefore
removable. More specifically, he condemned the sterility of contemporary
ethical frameworks, whether the confident technocracy of normlessly smug
utilitarianism or pragmatism, or the sadistic severities and “humorless ideal-
ism” of a Kantian-juridical moralistic “view from nowhere” that was tone
deaf to the worries about its psychological plausibility for actual human
beings. (Niebuhr offered a parallel critique of Roman Catholic “Natural
Law” accounts as well.)
But none of that means that Niebuhr would have felt comfortable with
a virtue theory. On the contrary, following earlier Protestant thinkers and
Augustine, whenever he studies it, he troubles virtue. He wants to do so
via the register of irony, which so far as I know none of the earlier worriers
about virtue explicitly employ.
I have constructed a very provisional database on every use of “virtue”
or “virtuous” in Niebuhr’s Interpretation of Christian Ethics, The Nature
and Destiny of Man, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Faith and History,
The Irony of American History, and the collection Love and Justice.15 In all
these books I looked at each use of the word, and in none of them – by a
quick survey, at least – did I find any substantive discussion of virtue. Nie-
buhr certainly used the word “virtue,” but to me it seems safe to say that
there was no explicit theory of virtue prominent, functional, or even visible
in Niebuhr’s moral theory. “Virtue” is not a discrete weight-bearing term in
his theological ethics.
Why would he not use virtue? Obviously any answer must be hypotheti-
cal, because he does not directly answer, but here is one proposal. Virtue
theories assume a reliability of character, a durability to moral progress,
and the stability of the moral context; they posit the in-principle clarity or
at least intelligibility of the psyche, and the general prospective legibility of
26 Charles Mathewes
moral scenarios; and opposition to each of these features was structurally
quite central to Niebuhr’s own work. We might say that virtue theory seems
to stand opposed to just those aspects of Christian tradition which Niebuhr
deemed central to his construal of the Christian faith: virtue theory insuffi-
ciently accommodates and represents the dynamic dialectic of sin and grace,
and fails to make sufficient room for the dynamic agency of the human’s
enframing moral and spiritual order, which is another way of saying provi-
dence, or a living God. Instead, virtue is asymmetrically dynamic: while the
agent’s enframing context is understood to act upon the agent in a slow and
steady manner, the self is truly the actor in this story.16
Furthermore, for Niebuhr, happiness is not what he would call a “sim-
ple possibility.”17 He does not grant the stability of the moral self, or the
stability of the moral horizon; he thinks both forms of stability are in fact
delusions, and any moral theory that does not recognize that fact and incor-
porate it into its foundational picture of the world is misdirected. This is
what he meant when he said,

The real question is whether a religion or a culture is capable of interpret-

ing life in a dimension sufficiently profound to understand and antici-
pate the sorrows and pains which may result from a virtuous regard for
our responsibilities; and to achieve a serenity within sorrow and pain
which is something less but also something more than “happiness.”18

Finally, Niebuhr was interested especially in responsible action in public

life, and while that meant he was directly concerned with the dispositional
development of citizens and leaders to take on these duties, he may have
worried that the discourse of virtue would be too parochially individual-
centered, even with a serious Hegelian attention to Sittlichkeit, to bring
into proper focus the full scope of the ethical situation. Furthermore, vir-
tue theories seem interestingly ill-equipped to handle the complicated scale-
problems of public action, by which I mean the fact that an individual’s
public actions may lead to consequences tremendously out of scale to the
initial acts. These differences of scale may speak to some crucial distance
between the moral drama of the deliberating self and the at times tremen-
dously consequential global effects of their local little dramas. Virtue theory
seems almost uniquely unhelpful in grappling with this problem, and given
its inescapability to Niebuhr’s primary context, it poses especially pointed
difficulties for an incorporation of the theory into his thought.
Instead, he employed a language of tension, contradiction, and paradox –
in short, a language of irony. As he said, “Man is an ironic creature because
he forgets that he is not simply a creator but also a creature of history.”19
As he defined it:

Irony consists of apparently fortuitous incongruities in life which are

discovered, upon closer examination, to be not merely fortuitous.
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 27
Incongruity as such is merely comic. It elicits laughter. This element of
comedy is never completely eliminated from irony. But irony is some-
thing more than comedy. A comic situation is proved to be an ironic one
if a hidden relation is discovered in the incongruity. If virtue becomes
vice through some hidden defect in virtue; if strength becomes weakness
because of the vanity to which strength may prompt the mighty man
or nation; if security is transmuted into insecurity because too much
reliance is placed upon it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not
know its own limits – in all such cases the situation is ironic. The ironic
situation is distinguished from the pathetic one by the fact that the per-
son involved in it bears some responsibility for it. It is differentiated
from tragedy by the fact that the responsibility is related to an uncon-
scious weakness rather than to a conscious resolution. While a pathetic
or tragic situation is not dissolved when a person becomes conscious of
his involvement in it, an ironic situation must dissolve, if men or nations
are made aware of their complicity in it. Such awareness involves some
realization of hidden vanity or pretension by which the comedy is turned
into irony. This realization either must lead to an abatement of the pre-
tension, which means contrition, or it leads to a desperate accentuation
of the vanities to the point where irony turns into pure evil.20

Note the allowance of responsibility in that description, indeed its essen-

tiality to his vision. A recognition of the fundamentally ironic quality of
human existence alters one’s expectations for what humans can amount to,
and thus decisively informs the quality and quantity of advice one can give
humans in order to allow them to amount to even that little bit, but it does
not make moral guidance utterly impossible.
In lieu of the idea of virtue as any sort of durable moral armor or habit
of prospective action that can equip us to master the vicissitudes of history,
he proposed an ethic fundamentally of responsive, petitionary appeal to
others, and especially the divine other, a recovery of a relationship, not the
fabrication of a persona:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore

we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore
we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be
accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous
act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is
from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of
love which is forgiveness.21

Of course, such a vision still allows for an effort to cultivate dispositions, but
the dispositions differ from virtues in not being fundamentally an orientation
for or springs of action, but rather responses to what our actions are already
28 Charles Mathewes
seen to be. In fact this seems phenomenologically more accurate to the vast
and typically untheorized mass of human existence; for most of life is not
active but reactive, then responsive, only tertiarily pro-active. This vision,
then, may be less prospective than retrospective, less pragmatic than contem-
plative, leaning towards brooding, crucially reflexive, but it may be all the
more truthful for that. Thus we must learn to cultivate a character in which:

the possibility and the necessity of living in a dimension of meaning

in which the urgencies of the struggle are subordinate to a sense of
awe before the vastness of the historical drama in which we are jointly
involved; to a sense of modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power
available to us for the resolution of its perplexities; to a sense of con-
trition about the common human frailties and foibles which lie at the
foundation of both the enemy’s demonry and our vanities; and to a
sense of gratitude for the divine mercies which are promised to those
who humble themselves.22

Awe, modesty, contrition, gratitude; hope, faith, forgiveness: all these are
reflexive, self-referential, subject-sensitive; does that make them distinct
from virtues such as courage, justice, prudence, and the like? Those are
typically more immediately “outside-sensitive,” more a matter of sensitive
awareness of the context, not the subject. It is easy to overstate this; after all,
courage is indexed to the person as a mean between rashness and timidity.
Nonetheless, as a matter of emphasis it seems plausible; again in the case of
courage, the main prompts to determine and orient the courageous action
are features of the situation, not aspects of the agent.
In contrast, the theological “virtues” emphasized by Niebuhr focus their
primary attention on the subject, to their relationship to their environment and
to the determining features or agents in that environment. The self-referential
awareness inherent in the dispositions is the device that cultivates irony, as
subjects so constituted see themselves within a frame, being acted upon, rather
than as a god, acting upon that frame. To learn irony, then, is to learn in this
way to be a creature – not just a natural animal, but a being playing a role in
a larger whole where there is an author, but the author is simply not me, but
rather a commanding intelligence transcending and overseeing the immanent
natural powers which we perceive. The fundamental question here to be asked,
then, is not: how do I become what I am designed to become? but rather how
do I find my “role” in the drama that is being enacted in this life?23
Some may find in that the roots of Niebuhr’s own virtue theory. I allow
that it is how a language of “virtue” can find its way into Niebuhr’s idiom.
But that is quite some distance from enrolling him in the club of virtue
theorists who would have Aristotle as their leader. Niebuhr’s account of the
self shares many words and not a few concerns with virtue theories; but its
originary impulses, and fundamental apprehension of the world, seems to
me distinct enough to not be countable among its conquests.
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 29
Conclusion
The initial invitation to write this chapter came in the form of a letter, and
the letter proposed that “reading Niebuhr in the context of virtue ethics is an
extremely profitable undertaking.” I agree with this, but perhaps not in the
way that the authors intended. Niebuhr did not use a language of virtue, and
while he used the word “virtue,” he never seems to have considered taking it
very seriously as a functional category in his thought. And, as I hope is clear
to readers by now, I think he was wise not to spend any time considering
it. It would ill-fit his sense of the complex tragedy of human life in general
and public life in particular; it would not comport well with his vision of
the human as caught by God’s grace as an act of extraneous and always-
surprising mercy; and it would run against his larger vision of the human as
caught amidst the ironies of history and their own existence in this dispensa-
tion, where their virtue lies mostly in their constant pleading for forgiveness.
This suggests something that is important to keep in mind, and that our
field as a whole has seemed to forget, in our eagerness to embrace virtue
theory. Most basically, virtue theory is a deeply conservative language. It
presumes the basic stability and reliability of the moral order in its cognitive
and affectional dimensions, and a fundamental continuity between different
levels of the moral universe. It is also, in this way, very much a parochial
moral language, a language of the parish, of the village, not of the cosmos.
In both ways it is, at its heart, a radically non-revolutionary moral lan-
guage. But Christian ethics, arguably even more than most other religious
traditions (due not least to its apocalyptic strands), is or of right ought to
be at heart revolutionary – radically transformative, calling its listeners to
a kind of life they have barely begun to imagine could be real, a life that is
true life, not a life lived on the outside of creation’s skin, but life lived inside
its veins, drenched in its living blood. It seems to me that virtue theory
fundamentally stands in real tension with any vision like this – a vision of a
cosmos dynamically governed by a living and surprising God, whose actions
may be at least superficially inscrutable, not infrequently more disruptive
than restitutive, and definitely unpredictable. Niebuhr, like many Christian
thinkers, had very little elective affinity for virtue’s presuppositions. Despite
virtue theory’s many insights, it remains unclear, at least to me, why other
Christian ethicists should want to think otherwise.

Notes
1 See Jennifer Welchman, “The Fall and Rise of Aristotelian Ethics in Anglo-
American Moral Philosophy: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in The
Reception of Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Jon Miller (New York: Cambridge University,
2012), 262–88. I must acknowledge the importance of several decades’ conver-
sation with my friend and UVA colleague Talbot Brewer; see especially his The
Retrieval of Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2009).
2 Derek Parfit, On What Matters, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011);
Derek Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
30 Charles Mathewes
More generally, see David Bourget and David J. Chalmers, “What Do Philoso-
phers Believe?” Philosophical Studies, 170:3 (2014): 465–500.
3 For an example of such a project, see Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabili-
ties: The Human Development Approach (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2011). For a critique of Nussbaum’s “capabilities”
project as still caught in a parochial mindset despite its disavowals of such, see S.
Charusheela, “Social Analysis and the Capabilities Approach: A Limit to Mar-
tha Nussbaum’s Universalist Ethics,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33:6
(November 2009): 1135–52. For critiques of Nussbaum’s virtue theory as una-
ble to accommodate the kind of radical critique she sometimes says she seeks to
offer – especially in her writings on tragedy – see Bernard Williams, Shame and
Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and Jonathan Lear,
“Testing the Limits: The Place of Tragedy in Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Aristotle and
Moral Realism, ed. R. Heinamann (London: University College Press, 1995),
61–84. I think that the best attempt at bringing together the “virtue approach”
and the “critique approach” – and one of the few from the Anglophone side
of ethical reflection – is Sabina Lovibond’s Realism and Imagination in Ethics
(University of Minnesota Press, 1983), which attempts to fuse a Wittgensteinian
deflationary approach about the moral life with a Foucauldian genealogical one,
but how exactly her approach is a “virtue theory” is open to debate. It is better
described, I think, as a “sensibility theory,” a fairly distinct ethical position in
anglophone philosophical ethics. Other reflections on this project include Ber-
nard Williams, “Nietzsche’s Minimalist Moral Psychology,” in Making Sense of
Humanity: And Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
65–78; Amy Allen, “Discourse, Power, and Subjectivation: The Foucault/Haber-
mas Debate Reconsidered,” Philosophical Forum, 40:1 (Spring 2009): 1–28.
4 “Ramsey was a bourgeois thinker, i.e. he thought with the aim of clearing up the
affairs of some particular community. He did not reflect on the essence of the
state – or at least he did not like doing so – but on how this state might reason-
able be organized. The idea that this state might not be the only possible one
partly disquieted him and partly bored him. He wanted to get down as quickly
as possible to reflecting on the foundations – of this state. This was what he was
good at and what really interested him; whereas real philosophical reflection
disquieted him until he put its result (if it had one) on one side as trivial.” See
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1984), 17.
5 al-Ghazâlî, The Deliverance from Error, trans. R.J. McCarthy S.J. (Louisville,
KY: Fons Vitae, 2000).
6 Memoirs from the House of the Dead, trans. Jessie Coulson (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1956), 9. See also Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarian-
ism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951); Czeslaw Milosz, The Cap-
tive Mind (London: Secker and Warburg, 1953); Primo Levi, If This Is a Man
(New York: Orion Press, 1958).
7 A separate but not entirely unrelated point is the problem of the so-called fun-
damental attribution error often employed (I think philosophically naively) in
empirical psychology to discredit any account of durable character. This is a large
topic and, so far as I can tell, one entirely unknown in religious ethics and Chris-
tian ethics; for some useful pieces on this, see Candace Upton, “The Empirical
Argument Against Virtue,” Journal of Ethics 20 (2016): 335–71 and the essays
collected in the double issue of Journal of Ethics, 13:2–3 (September 2009).
8 Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1996); Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), would demonstrate my point just
as well.
 The ironies of virtue and virtue of irony 31
9 Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1970), 53.
10 Charles Taylor, The Explanation of Behaviour (London: Routledge Kegan Paul,
1964); Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judg-
ment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
11 For example: we often say things like “Chinese thought had a virtue theory
just as sophisticated as any Aristotelean account,” but what we mean is that
different idioms are broadly comparable in some interestingly salient ways. We
do not mean to say, for instance, that ren – a Chinese term that is sometimes
attempted to be passed off to us untroublingly, as having a semantic range that
encompasses “humanity,” “humaneness,” “goodness,” “benevolence,” and
“love” (the range and diversity of terms itself suggesting how distant this con-
cept is from ones more familiar to native English speakers) – we do not mean to
say, I say again, that ren is somehow the same thing as any of these; it merely,
as it were, gestures in their direction. It is more right – though of course much
less illuminating, indeed almost (and I think appropriately) apophatic – to say
that the gestures that ren makes are gestures akin to those made by the terms
“humanity,” “humaneness,” “goodness,” “benevolence,” and “love” in Eng-
lish. Whether all these terms are picking out some relatively distinct segment
of human reality, and whether they are all picking out the same segment, are
further questions.
12 The first theme is visible as early as de moribus, but the latter really comes into
its own in Augustine’s critique of virtus in Book 5 of City of God, and in later
reflections in that work on this; consider virtues as forma amor, to which we
adhere in his Ep. 155.12–13. The second is scattered through his work but most
powerfully visible in City of God 19 and 20, regarding the moral obscurity of
moral reward and punishment in this world; see City of God 19.27. “In this life
justice consists more in the forgiveness of sins than the perfection of virtue.”
These worries about a too-straightforward appropriation of virtue language in
the past few decades’ redeployment of Augustine’s thought in Christian ethics
and religious ethics go back to one of the earliest moments of that redeploy-
ment, namely, James Wetzel’s groundbreaking Augustine and the Limits of Vir-
tue (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
13 For an example of one recent Protestant (especially Reformed) attempt to fuse
with scholastic thought, see Manfred Svensson and David VanDrunen, Aquinas
Among the Protestants (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2018). For a rival view, one
with which I have some real sympathies, see Gerald McKinney’s “Karl Barth and
the Plight of Protestant Ethics,” in The Freedom of a Christian Ethicist, ed. Brian
Brock and Michael Mawson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2016), 17–37.
14 Elizabeth Agnew Cochran, Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics (London: Blooms-
bury, T&T Clark, 2017), tries to develop Stoic theories of moral dispositions and
habits as virtue talk for Protestants. The question of whether virtue theory can
be readily bendable in Stoic directions is discussed a little later in this chapter.
15 The database I used was hastily and generously constructed as a collection of
PDFs by Kevin Carnahan and Christopher Dowdy after a lamentation I posted
on Facebook in the summer of 2017. I could not have done this without them,
or my research assistant Gabrielle Boissoneau who compiled the overall data
for me.
16 He seems to have shared the suspicions of his brother H. Richard Niebuhr
regarding the idea of “man the maker,” as the latter unfolded those suspicions
in The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (New York:
Harper & Row, 1963). I come back to this later.
17 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Charles Scrib-
ner’s Sons, 1952), 46.
32 Charles Mathewes
18 Ibid., 52. See also: “final wisdom of life requires, not an annulment of incongru-
ity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.” Ibid., 62–63.
19 Ibid., 156.
20 Ibid., xxiii–iv. For a suggestive post-Kierkegaardian version and expansion of
parallel ideas, see Jonathan Lear, A Case for Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2011).
21 Niebuhr, Irony, 63.
22 Ibid., 174.
23 Echoes of Niebuhr’s The Responsible Self are not accidental.
2 Hope, virtue, and politics in
Reinhold Niebuhr’s works
Robin W. Lovin

Introduction
Embedded in The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr offers this
summary of three key Christian ideas:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore

we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore
we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be
accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is
quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from
our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love
which is forgiveness.1

In the chapter where these aphorisms appear, they are a counter to the
American “pursuit of happiness,” with its conviction that everything we
­
might reasonably desire is at our disposal. Niebuhr quickly moves on to a cri-
tique of the drive for mastery that characterizes liberal idealism as much as its
Marxist and Fascist ideological rivals. The brief evocation of hope, faith, and
love is memorable, even inspiring, but taken by itself, the paragraph gives little
hint of how important these theological virtues are to his work as a whole.
Partly, this reflects the dialectical method in Niebuhr’s work. He never
claimed to be a systematic theologian, and as Scott Paeth and Mark Douglas
point out, his studies of faith and love sometimes fail to make his theological
presuppositions explicit2 and sometimes, perhaps, lack an adequate theolo-
gian foundation.3 But the light theological touch in The Irony of American
History may also be deliberate on Niebuhr’s part. In his works from the
1950s, he does not delay the secular reader with the details of doctrine or
historic theological debates. He writes instead in the tradition of the Hebrew
prophets. What matters is that his readers grasp the judgment that falls on
them, and on him as well. “The prophet himself stands under the judg-
ment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.”4
Anything that conveys a claim of privileged moral status, special access to
34 Robin W. Lovin
religious truth, or a suggestion that the writer knows something the reader
could not be expected to understand just gets in the way of the message. So
it falls to us to discern the theological position behind Niebuhr’s aphorisms
in order to see the deep themes that run through all his work.
Those themes become clearer when we follow his dialectical method,
which begins with a criticism of prevailing attitudes and values and then
reconstructs a more realistic alternative, drawing on biblical sources. Often,
this dialectic emerges in the trajectory of Niebuhr’s own work. In Moral
Man and Immoral Society, he made his mark on American social thought by
demolishing both the pious confidence that love could transform the social
order and the liberal faith in progress based on reason and technology.5 But
a dialectical turn from criticism to reconstruction began almost immedi-
ately, as questions from theologians obliged him to reconsider the dominant
role of Marxist materialism in his critique. In response, Niebuhr moved to
provide a biblical account of moral meaning that reasserts the importance of
grace, as well as judgment, in the search for social justice. This reconstruc-
tion of Christian ethics around prophetic themes is set out in An Interpreta-
tion of Christian Ethics, and it is also important in Reflections on the End
of an Era.6 But we see the turning point most clearly in the transition from
the first to the second volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man. In the
first volume, based on Niebuhr’s Gifford Lectures in the spring of 1939, the
Christian view of human nature exposes the excesses of pride and destroys
all claims to ultimate meaning or final judgment within history.7 The overall
effect of this Christian critique is at least as comprehensive as the social criti-
cism in Moral Man and Immoral Society, and it cuts even deeper, since it is
human nature itself that is flawed, and not just human society.8 None of our
truths is completely true, and none of our achievements is permanent. We
commit our worst sins in the course of trying to deny this.
The second volume, based on lectures that began in October, neverthe-
less affirms possibilities that lie beyond pride, failure, and self-deception.
There is a human destiny that transcends the failures of every scheme and
system and survives even the catastrophes that result from well-intentioned
efforts to make limited goods perfect and permanent. Understanding human
nature need not lead to cynicism or despair. Beyond Marx and Machiavelli,
there is Augustine.9 Some interpreters relate this encouraging message to the
beginning of the Second World War between the first and second series of
lectures. Bombs were falling, sometimes as Niebuhr spoke, and the audience
needed at least to hear that all was not lost.10
As a lecturer, Niebuhr was certainly responsive to the moods of his audi-
ence, but the turn here is not just rhetorical. His elaboration of the Chris-
tian view of human destiny predates his Gifford Lectures and, indeed, runs
parallel to the criticism of liberal optimism in his occasional writings.11
What appears already in An Interpretation of Christian Ethics receives a
full statement in Nature and Destiny: the fulfillment of history will not be
found within it. The human destiny announced by the Hebrew prophets, the
 Hope, virtue, and politics in Niebuhr’s work 35
teaching of Jesus, and the theology of Augustine is not just another version
of the fulfillments preached by social reformers, pious moral crusaders, and
Marxist economists. History will not be brought to completion by human
pride, and forgiveness for the evils wrought by that pride must enter into
history from beyond it, with a word of judgment that precedes the word
of grace. That is the message of prophetic Messianism, incorporated into
Augustine’s great Catholic synthesis and never quite grasped by apocalyptic,
revolutionary, or utopian models, which have to see results now.

The theological virtues and Niebuhr’s theology of history

The succinct, memorable, and readily accessible statement that we are saved
by hope, faith, love, and forgiveness thus has complex theological origins.
Most readers of The Irony of American History would have recognized the
familiar trio of faith, hope, and love, slightly reordered in Niebuhr’s pres-
entation from their original appearance in I Corinthians 13:13. Probably
only those few familiar with the details of Roman Catholic moral theology
would have thought of these three as the theological virtues. (And what
would a good Catholic be doing reading a Protestant theologian in 1952?)
Yet it is precisely at the turning point between the two volumes of Nature
and Destiny that Niebuhr enters into unusually detailed treatment of the
virtues of faith, hope, and love, drawing on the important distinction made
by Catholic moral theology between these three “theological” virtues and
other “moral” or “natural” virtues, such as courage, temperance, prudence,
or justice.12 This systematic exposition is located just here, Niebuhr sug-
gests, because it informs our questions about whether history ends only
in frustration of human nature’s excessive ambitions or has a destiny that
includes human fulfillment.13
Somewhat surprisingly, his structuring of the questions draws on a Thom-
ist account of virtue in which grace completes nature, rather than replacing
it. Niebuhr is normally resistant to the fine distinctions of Scholastic theol-
ogy, and even here he interjects a warning against a “sharp and absolute
distinction” between moral and theological virtues.14 But the way in which
faith, hope, and love perfect and transform the human capacity for courage,
justice, and other virtues provides him with an analogy for the way that
faith, hope, and love point to the fulfillment, rather than the negation, of
human history.15 Taking hope seriously as a theological virtue turns out to be
crucial for understanding how human nature and human destiny are related.
Niebuhr’s turn to the theological virtues for this purpose is all the more
interesting because virtue did not occupy a prominent place in Protestant
ethics at the time. As Kevin Carnahan has pointed out, the theoretical ques-
tion that preoccupied those who had to think about hard choices was the
contest between rules and consequences, whether conformity to duty or
realization of good should be the measure of our actions.16 Niebuhr had lit-
tle interest in such abstractions, and while he intuitively gravitated toward
36 Robin W. Lovin
a richer language of moral evaluation that included intentions and disposi-
tions, as well as goals and duties, he did not often gather the various atti-
tudes he wanted to commend under the general term “virtue.” In fact, he
uses “virtue” and “virtuous” most often to indicate a self-asserted righteous-
ness that he calls into question, as in the addendum immediately attached to
the statement that we must be saved by love: “No virtuous act is quite as vir-
tuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.
Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”17
Here, love is not a virtue that is commended to us. It is something which
we need from others, and finally from God, because our own claims to vir-
tue are always exaggerated and our accomplishments less durable than we
suppose. That nicely summarizes the critical task that dominates his account
of human nature in the first volume of Nature and Destiny. It is distinctive
to human nature that it is composed both of nature and spirit. We are lim-
ited to a finite, physical life, and yet we are capable of an “indeterminate
transcendence” of these limitations. As a result, we always want more of life
than we can obtain from it. And always – “inevitably but not necessarily,”
as Niebuhr puts it – we claim for ourselves and from others more than we
deserve. To give purpose to our lives and meaning to our collective history
is not in our hands, no matter how often we tell ourselves how good we are
and how much we have accomplished.18
So what could ideas about virtue contribute to this “most vexing” of
human problems, the problem that we ourselves are?19 For Niebuhr, it seems
that the account of virtue developed in Christian tradition, and especially
in Catholic moral theology, provides the most realistic statement of the
relationship between human sin and human possibility. At the same time
it offers a practical understanding of the moral life that does not presume
the perfectibility of human lives or human institutions. The aspirations that
transcend our limited circumstances can be fulfilled only in a destiny that
lies beyond history and thus beyond human achievement.
The basic problem, which Niebuhr delineates in sharp contrasts, is that
the account of sin that is central to the Christian understanding of human
nature seems to preclude any meaningful human destiny.

Every facet of the Christian revelation, whether of the relation of God

to history, or of the relation of man to the eternal, points to the impos-
sibility of man fulfilling the true meaning of his life and reveals sin to be
primarily derived from his abortive efforts to do so.20

Yet the church also seems to contradict this, both in its performance and its
proclamation. The church does things that are intended to make a differ-
ence in history, and it proclaims that fulfillment of life is available through
Jesus Christ.

The Christian gospel nonetheless enters the world with the proclama-
tion that in Christ both “wisdom” and “power” are available to man;
Another random document with
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 I acted wisely in always avoiding the match.
This reading must be erroneous, because, so far from having
always avoided the match, Chremes himself originally proposed it to
Simo, (vide p. 15, l. 18.) and afterwards renewed his consent to it.
(Vide p. 58. l. 24.)

NOTE 178.

Davus.—’Tis true, I saw old Canthara, with something under her

cloak.
There is great ingenuity displayed in the conduct of this scene.
Davus affirms this, as Donatus observes, “Hoc dicit ut leviter
redarguat Mysis, non ut vincatur,” that Mysis may easily confute him;
and prove that it is the child of Pamphilus which must terrify
Chremes. He contradicts her, that she may (in Chremes’ hearing)
enter into the proof of what she says. Instead of Cantharam, Nonnius
thinks that Terence meant cantharum, a large jug; and that he
intended Davus to say, that the child was brought to Glycera’s house
in a large cantharus. Vide Nonnius’s Miscell., B. 1, and his remarks
on the whole of this scene.

NOTE 179ᴬ.
Mysis.—Thank Heaven, that there were some free-women present
when my mistress was delivered.
No person could appear as a witness in the Athenian courts of
justice, who was not free-born, and also possessed of a fair
character. Those who were ἄτιμοι, infamous, were not permitted to
give testimony. In particular cases, strangers and freedmen were
admitted as witnesses. Every person who was appealed to as a
witness, was compelled either to state what he knew of the affair, or
to swear that he was ignorant of all the circumstances of it: if he
refused to give any answer whatever, he incurred a heavy fine.
 NOTE 179ᴮ.

Mysis.—By Pollux, fellow, you are drunk.

To accuse a person of intoxication was considered in Athens and
Sparta as one of the greatest affronts that could possibly be
committed. Very severe laws were framed in Greece for the
punishment of those who were seen in a state of intoxication. The
Athenian archons suffered death, if detected in this vice. The Greeks
accused the Scythians of having taught them habits of drunkenness.
The Spartans affirm, that Cleomenes became first drunk, and
afterwards mad, by his associating and drinking with them.
Σκυθησι, δε ὁμιλησαντά μιν ακρηποτην και εκ τουτου μανῆναι.
Herodotus.

NOTE 180.
Davus.—One falsehood brings on another: I hear it whispered about
that she is a citizen of Athens.
The citizens of Athens were called γηγενεῖς, or sons of the earth,
and ἀστοὶ. They were called also τεττιγες, or τεττιγοφορους, wearers
of grasshoppers; this appellation, authors have derived differently.
Tretzes thinks it was to designate them as fluent orators. Lucian
considers it merely as a distinction to divide them from the slaves:
and others say, it was because they thought that grasshoppers
sprung from the earth; and therefore chose them for the symbol of a
people who pretended to the same origin: vide Note 154. The
Athenians were called also πολίται. The citizens were divided by
Cecrops into four tribes, (vide Poll., B. 3. 64,) each tribe was divided
into three classes, and each class into thirty families. The names of
the tribes were, 1. Κεκροπὶς, 2. Αὐτόχθων, 3. Ἀκταία, 4. Παραλιά.
These names were afterwards changed by Cranaus, (vide Plut. in
Solon,) and also by Ericthonius and Erectheus. When the number of
the inhabitants increased, new tribes were added. To obtain the
Athenian citizenship was deemed so glorious, that foreigners of the
very first rank eagerly sought this distinction; which it was extremely
difficult to gain: as the Athenians would never admit any persons but
those who had signalized themselves by their virtue and bravery.

NOTE 181.

Davus.—And that he will be compelled to marry her.

The Athenian laws did not allow of polygamy: if Glycera,
therefore, had been proved to be a citizen, her marriage with
Pamphilus would have been valid; and Philumena, if married to him,
must have been divorced. We are to suppose, that the apprehension
of this circumstance induces Chremes to break off the marriage.

NOTE 182.

Davus. (half aloud.)—He has heard all: what an accident.

——Audistin’ obsecro?
These words are usually read as addressed directly to Chremes;
but it appears more probable that Terence intended Davus to speak
them as if he meant no one to hear what he said, and yet contrive to
raise his voice loud enough for Chremes to overhear him pretend to
be alarmed, lest what Mysis had been saying should do any
mischief. This feigned consternation was calculated to strengthen
Chremes’ belief of the genuineness of the previous scene.

NOTE 183.

This impudent wench ought to be taken hence and punished.

——Hanc jam oportet in cruciatum abripi.
The usual reading is cruciatum hinc abripi; but hinc cannot be
necessary to the sense, and spoils moreover the harmony of the
line. Neither of the two ancient manuscripts of Terence, in the royal
library at Paris, have hinc. There are a great many disputed readings
in the plays of Terence, which, by a reference to the various ancient
MSS. of our author now extant, might probably be determined. An
edition of the plays, regulated by the authority of these MSS., would
doubtless be highly serviceable. The most learned woman of her
age, Madame Dacier, whose translation of Terence is alone sufficient
to perpetuate his name and her own, in her preface to that
inestimable work, speaks at length, and in very high terms, of the
MSS. of Terence, in the library of his most Christian Majesty. She
expresses herself as follows: “I found in them (the MSS.) several
things which gave me the greatest pleasure, and which satisfactorily
prove the correctness of the most important alterations which I have
made in the text, as to the division of the acts, which is of great
consequence.” Madame D. reckons the MSS. to be eight or nine
hundred years old. Vide Madame Dacier’s Translation of Terence,
Edition of Rotterdam, 1717, Preface, page 38. Among the books
which his holiness Pope Sixtus V. caused to be removed to the
Bibliotheca Vaticana, which he placed in the old Vatican palace, or
the Palazzo Vecchio, there was a very curious MS. of the comedies
of Terence, which was particularly valued for the representation
which it contained of the personæ, or masks, worn by the ancient
actors. It was also extremely curious in other respects. Those who
enjoy an opportunity of consulting this MS. might derive much and
very profitable amusement from a perusal of it. If it still remain in
Rome, it may be seen, on application to the chief librarian, who is
generally a member of the sacred college. A very curious MS. of
Virgil, of the fourth century, written in the Literæ unciales, and Henry
VIII.’s MS. de Septem Sacramentis, were formerly shewn to
strangers with the before-mentioned MS. of Terence.

NOTE 184.
Davus.—That’s the bride’s father: I wished him to know all this; and
there was no other way to acquaint him with it.
Terence here (say the critics) obliquely praises himself, and the
art which he has displayed in this scene. The only scenes of a
similar nature, (I mean where the plot is carried on by a concerted
conversation intended to be overheard by some person who thinks it
genuine,) which are equal to this scene in the Andrian, are the ninth
scene of the second act, and the first scene of the third act of
Shakspeare’s comedy of Much Ado about Nothing.
The before-mentioned scene from the Andrian has been wholly
omitted by Sir R. Steele. Sealand does not renew his consent to the
marriage till the end of the fifth act.
M. Baron has introduced Crito earlier than he appears in the Latin
play, and closes the fourth act with Glycera’s appeal to Chremes;
and two subsequent scenes between Glycera, Mysis, Pamphilus,
and Davus. Glycera’s appeal to Chremes is extremely pathetic. It
concludes with the following lines:—
“Vous en qui je crois voir un protecteur, un père
Ne m’abandonnez pas à toute ma misère
En m’ôtant mon époux, vous me donnez la mort.
Vous pouvez d’un seul mot faire changer mon sort.
C’est donc entre vos mains qu’aujourd’hui je confie
Mon repos, mon honneur, ma fortune, et ma vie.”
Andrienne, A. IV. S. VIII.

NOTE 185.
Davus.—Do you think that a thing of this sort can be done as well by
premeditating and studying, as by acting according to the natural
impulse of the moment?
“It is an observation of Voltaire’s, in the Preface to his comedy of
L’Enfant Prodigue, that although there are various kinds of
pleasantry that excite mirth, yet universal bursts of laughter are
seldom produced, unless by a scene of mistake or æquivoque. A
thousand instances might be given to prove the truth of this judicious
observation. There is scarce any writer of comedy who has not
drawn from this source of humour. A scene, founded on a
misunderstanding between the parties, where the characters are all
at cross-purposes with each other, never fails to set the audience in
a roar; nor, indeed, can there be a happier incident in a comedy, if
produced naturally, and managed judiciously.
“The scenes in this act, occasioned by the artifice of Davus
concerning the child, do not fall directly under the observation of
Voltaire; but are, however, so much of the same colour, that, if
represented on the stage, they would, I doubt not, have the like
effect, and be the best means of confuting those infidel critics who
maintain that Terence has no humour. I do not remember a scene in
any comedy where there is such a natural complication of pleasant
circumstances. Davus’s sudden change of his intentions on seeing
Chremes, without having time to explain himself to Mysis; her
confusion and comical distress, together with the genuine simplicity
of her answers; and the conclusion drawn by Chremes from the
supposed quarrel; are all finely imagined, and directly calculated for
the purposes of exciting the highest mirth in the spectators. The
words of Davus to Mysis in this speech, “Is there then,” &c., have the
air of an oblique praise of this scene from the poet himself, shewing
with what art it is introduced, and how naturally it is sustained. Sir
Richard Steele had deviated so much from Terence in the original
construction of his fable, that he had no opportunity of working this
scene into it. Baron, who, I suppose, was afraid to hazard it on the
French theatre, fills up the chasm by bringing Glycerium on the
stage. She, amused by Davus with a forged tale of the falsehood of
Pamphilus, throws herself at the feet of Chremes, and prevails on
him once more to break off the intended match with Philumena. In
consequence of this alteration, the most lively part of the comedy in
Terence becomes the gravest in Baron: the artifice of Davus is
carried on with the most starch formality, and the whole incident, as
conducted in the French imitation, loses all that air of ease and
pleasantry, which it wears in the original.”—Colman.

NOTE 186.

A. IV. S. 10.—Crito. (to himself.) I am told, &c.

 Crito is what Scaliger calls a catastatic character, because he is
the chief personage of the catastasis, (καταστασις,) vide Note 144,
and introduced for the purpose of leading the way to the catastrophe
of the piece.

NOTE 187.

Rather than live in honest poverty in her own country.

Quæ se inhonestè optavit parare hîc divitias
Potius, quàm in patriâ honestè pauper vivere
Some editors (vide Joan. Riveus) read this passage differently,
Quæ se inhonestè optavit parere hîc divitias
Potius, quàm in patriâ honestè paupera vivere.
Others, instead of Quæ se read Quæ sese: this is a very elegant
pleonasm.

NOTE 188.

That wealth, however, now devolves to me.

The inhabitants of the island of Andros were subject to the
Athenian laws, which prohibited women from bequeathing by will
more than the value of a medimnum (μεδιμνον) of barley. The
medimnum was equal to four English pecks and a half. Therefore, as
Chrysis had not the power of bequeathing her property, Crito claimed
it as heir at law. The Athenian laws relating to wills were very
numerous, and very strict in guarding against an improper
appropriation of property. Slaves, foreigners, minors, and adopted
persons, as well as those who had male heirs, were, by the laws of
Solon, rendered incapable of making a will.
Those persons who had no offspring of their own, frequently
adopted the children of others, who inherited their estates.
Sometimes foreigners were adopted, after having received the
freedom of the city. A person who succeeded to the property of
another, as heir at law, was bound, under a heavy penalty, to take
care, (if on the spot,) that funeral honours were paid to the
deceased. This was reckoned a point of great importance: the
Greeks were willing to proceed to any extremity rather than suffer
their friends to want the rites of sepulture, as we see in Lucretius,
who describes the outrageous actions to which the people were
driven during a plague; when they committed acts of the greatest
violence, rather than permit their friends to want funeral honours.
“Multaque vis subita, et paupertas horrida suasit;
Namque suos consanguineos aliena rogorum,
Insuper instructa ingenti clamore locabant:
Subdebantque faces, multo cum sanguine sæpe
Rixantes, potiùs quam corpora deserentur.”
Lucretius.

Compelled by poverty to desperate deeds,

Their rage another’s funeral pile invades:
With furious shouts they rend his corse away,
Then to the pile their own dead friends convey.
They guard the spot, until the rising flames}
Consume the load the lofty pile sustains,}
And fight, and bleed, and die, ere quit their loved remains.}

NOTE 189.

Mysis.—Bless me! whom do I see? Is not this Crito, the kinsman of

Chrysis? It is.

Quem video? estne hic Crito, sobrinus Chrysidis.

Sobrinus means literally a mother’s sister’s child, or what we call
in English, a maternal cousin-german: but this particularity is not
admissible in a translation.
 NOTE 190.

Crito.—Alas! poor Chrysis is then gone.

Here is an additional instance of Terence’s infinite attention to
manners, and of his success in presenting to his readers a perfect
copy of the customs and habits of the Greeks. Crito, though he
alludes to the death of Chrysis, avoids any mention of death; and
breaks off in a manner which is infinitely more expressive than words
could have been. Some of the ancients, the Greeks in particular,
studiously avoided, as much as possible, any direct mention of
death, which they accounted to be ominous of evil; and always
spoke of human mortality, (when compelled to mention it,) in soft and
gentle expressions. They were even averse to write θανατος, death,
at full length; and not unfrequently expressed it by the first letter θ;
thus, if they wished to write down the circumstance of any person’s
decease, they wrote the name of the deceased, and affixed to it the
letter θ, vide Note 113, also Isidor. Hispal. Orig. B. 1. C. 23. In
breviculis, quibus militum nomina continebantur, propria nota erat
apud veteres, quæ respiceretur, quanti ex militibus superessent,
quanti in bello excidissent, τ in capite versiculi posita superstitem
designabat, θ verò ad unius cujusque defuncti nomen adponebatur.

NOTE 191.
And the example of others will teach me what ease, redress, and
profit, I have to expect from a suit at law: besides, I suppose by
this time, she has some lover to espouse her cause.
Madame Dacier, in a brilliant and acute critique, has explained
this passage in a most perspicuous and comprehensive manner.
——Nunc me hospitem
Lites sequi, quam hîc mihi sit facile atque utile,
Aliorum exempla commonent.
“Présentement qu’un étranger comme moi aille entreprendre des
procès, les exemples des autres me font voir combien cela serait
difficile dans une ville comme celle-ci.”
 “I have found, in a copy of Terence’s plays, a marginal note, in my
father’s hand-writing, to the following effect: Hunc locum non satis
potest intelligere qui librum Xenophontis περὶ Ἀθηναίων πολιτείας
non legerit. He who has not read the short treatise of Xenophon on
the civil government of the Athenians, can never perfectly
comprehend the full force of this passage. I profited by this
information: I have read this short treatise, and have been extremely
pleased with it: the trouble the perusal cost me has been amply
repaid, as I have ascertained by reading this treatise, that the
inhabitants of those cities and islands which were subject to the
Athenian government were obliged, when they had a suit at law
pending, to plead it in Athens, before the people: it could be decided
no where else. Crito, therefore, could not have expected impartial
judgment from that tribunal, which would certainly have favoured
Glycera, the reputed sister of Chrysis, who had settled in Athens, in
preference to a stranger like Crito. So much for the success of the
affair: next the delays are to be considered, which, to a stranger, are
so doubly annoying. For law-suits at Athens were protracted to an
almost endless length: the Athenians were such a very litigious
people, and had so many law-suits of their own, and celebrated so
many festivals, that they had very few days to spare, and the suits of
strangers were so lengthened out, and deferred from time to time,
that they were almost endless. In addition, moreover, to the
uncertainty, and the delay, there was a third inconvenience, still more
disagreeable than either of the others, which was, that in a case of
that kind, it became necessary to pay court to the people at a great
expense. Crito, therefore, had sufficient reason to feel repugnant to
engage in a process which might be so protracted and so expensive,
the event of which (to say no worse) was extremely precarious. I
hope I have rendered this passage perfectly clear.”—Madame
Dacier.

NOTE 192.
Chremes.—Cease your entreaties, Simo; enough, and more than
enough, have I already shewn my friendship towards you: enough
have I risked for you.
 Monsieur Baron, in his Andrienne, has given a literal translation of
this scene between Simo and Chremes, which, from its serious cast,
appears, perhaps, with more dignity in a poetical dress, than it would
have received from prose. A learned translator of Terence, who was
also an ingenious critic and a successful dramatist, speaks of
Baron’s play in the following terms: “Its extreme elegance, and great
superiority to the prose translation of Dacier, is a strong proof of the
superior excellence and propriety of a poetical translation of this
author:” (Terence.) Colman’s Notes on Terence’s Plays.
The celebrated writer, who made this remark, has himself
employed verse throughout the whole of his translation of our
author’s plays: and, in the preface to that work, has delivered his
opinion very strongly in favour of the composition of comedy in
verse, even in the most comic scenes: and argues, that as Terence
wrote in verse, a translation of his plays ought to be in verse also.
I must observe that though the comedies of Terence certainly are
not prose, yet they are a species of verse so nearly approaching to
prose, that many eminent critics have denied that they were written
with any regard to measure: they are, therefore, as well calculated,
perhaps, as prose, for comic expression. But we have in English no
measure at all similar to that used by Terence, nor have we, in my
opinion, any measure of verse whatever, in which the most
humorous passages in comedy can be so forcibly expressed as they
may be in prose. The practice of modern dramatists entirely favours
this opinion. Our great Shakspeare, even in tragedy, changes from
verse to prose, when he introduces a comic scene, as we see in
Hamlet, A. 5. S. 1, 4., Coriolanus, A. 2. S. 1., Antony and Cleopatra,
A. 2. S. 6, 7, Othello, A. 2. S. 11, A. 3. S. 1. Could the wit of
Congreve, Farquhar, Cibber, Sheridan, and many other eminent
English dramatists (among whom I may number Mr. Colman
himself,) have been measured out into verse without a diminution of
the poignancy of its expression? If the answer to this question be, as
I think it must, in the negative, it must surely be decisive against the
general introduction of verse into comedies; a species of writing, in
which the ridiculous, according to Aristotle, ought to claim a
principal share.
 NOTE 193.

A citizen of Athens.
Athens, the most celebrated city of Greece, was the capital of that
part of Achaia, which, lying towards the sea-shore, (ἀκτὴ,) was
called Attica. It was called Athens after Minerva, (vide Note 94,)
Cecropia after Cecrops, and Ionia after Ion. The circumference of
this city, at the time of its greatest prosperity, is computed at twenty-
three English miles. A much greater space was enclosed within the
walls than was required by the usual inhabitants of the city, because,
in time of war, the country people were compelled to take refuge
within the walls. Aristophanes tells us, (in his Knights,) that these
country people, in time of war, dwelt in huts, resembling bee-hives in
shape, which were erected in the squares, and other open places.
This accounts for the magnitude of the city, so disproportionate to
the usual number of inhabitants in time of peace, when they did not
amount to a hundred thousand persons. Athens was governed by
kings for the space of 460 years: by magistrates, chosen for life,
during about 300 years more: after that time, their rulers were
allowed to hold their offices for ten years only; and, at last, for no
longer than one. The citadel, or upper city, which was called the
Ἀκρόπολις, was ornamented with the most magnificent temples,
monuments, and statues. It contained the temples of Minerva,
Neptune, Aglauros, Venus, and Jupiter. Dicearchus tells us, that the
enormous disproportion in the size of the temples which were
magnificent, and of the houses which were low and small,
considerably diminished the beauty of the city. Athens was
sometimes called the academy of the Roman empire, and the
fountain of learning: learned men, and philosophers of different
countries, resorted to this celebrated city in great numbers. The
Romans scarcely considered a liberal education as completed,
without the student received his final polish at Athens. (Vide Horace
Sat., B. 2. S. 7. L. 13., Pliny, 7. E. 56.) After a career of glory, which
must render the name of Athens immortal, that city sunk beneath the
all-conquering power of the Romans, B. C. 85; and the Athenians
never regained their importance in the scale of nations.
 Athens is now called Setines; Dr. Chandler gives it the name of
Athini. It contains 15,000 inhabitants, and is the see of a Greek
archbishop.

NOTE 194.

There is a grave severity in his countenance; and he speaks with

boldness.

Tristis severitas inest in voltu.

Gravity, among the ancient philosophers, was recommended as
one of the greatest ornaments of old age.
“Lætitia juvenem, frons decet tristis senem.”
Seneca. Hip., A. II. S. II.
Graceful is gaiety in youth: in age
Gravity most becomes us.
Old men, among the Greeks, sometimes affected the manners
and exercises of youth: a species of weakness which the literary
men of their age reprobated with very poignant ridicule.
Theophrastus admirably exposes people of this sort in his portraiture
of those who begin to learn in old age. (Vide Theoph. Moral
Characters.)

NOTE 195.

Simo.—Seize this rascal directly, and take him away.

——Sublimem hunc intrò rape quantum potes.

There is a sort of pun here upon the word sublimem. Terence
alludes to the prisons where slaves were confined, which, in Athens,
were usually in the loftiest part of the house: so that Simo says, take
him up, and also take him up to the top of the house: this is the force
of the word sublimem in this passage.
 Slaves, in Greece, were treated with great indulgence, and never
chained but for some heinous fault, or when they were brought into
the slave-market, (vide Plautus’s Captives, A. 1. S. 2,) and then they
were only worn for a short time. As Simo here commands that Davus
should be put into chains, we are to suppose him to be exasperated
to the utmost, which naturally leads ad finem epitaseos, to the end of
the epitasis. The anger of Simo, the distress of Pamphilus and
Glycera, the imprisonment of Davus, and the anxious suspense of
Charinus, are what Scaliger (Poet, B. 1. C. 9.) calls the negotia
exagitata, or the confused and disturbed state of affairs, which the
catastrophe is to reduce in tranquillitatem non expectatam, into a
sudden and unexpected tranquillity.

NOTE 196.
Simo.—I’ll not hear a single word. I’ll ruffle you now, rascal, I will.
Davus.—For all that, what I say is true.
Simo.—For all that, Dromo, take care to keep him bound.
S. Nihil audio. Ego jam te commotum reddam.
D. Tamen etsi hoc verum est.
S. Tamen. Cura adservandum vinctum.
The word commotum seems to have been imperfectly understood
by Donatus and some other commentators, who have interpreted it
as signifying motion; and would translate the line thus, “I’ll make you
caper! I’ll make you dance to some tune, sirrah!” which is extremely
foreign to its true meaning. Simo uses the phrase commotum
reddam instead of commovebo, for the sake of a pun which Terence
makes with the word reddam: which cannot be perfectly preserved in
English.
In the seventh scene of the second act, Davus jests upon the
empty larder, and says,
Indeed, Sir, I think you are too frugal: it is not well timed.
 Simo is quite nettled at this severe joke, which leads him to think
his stratagem discovered, and he cries out Tace: hold your tongue;
upon which, Davus, delighted with his success in tormenting his
master, says to himself Commovi, I’ve ruffled him now. Simo
accidentally overhears this, and most severely retorts on him his own
expression,
Ego jam te commotum reddam: I will ruffle you now, rascal; I will pay
you back your ruffling.
The wit of the sentence depends on the word reddam; which
allows of a double construction, as reddo taken separately, signifies
to pay back, to requite, and to retaliate. Simo may, therefore, be
understood to say, that he pays him back the ruffling he received.
But, for this conceit, Simo would have said, Commovebo, which is
Davus’s own word: the sense would then have been clearer, though
Terence has the same expression in another scene in this play,
Quos me ludos redderet,
where reddo has the same meaning with facio: which is frequently
used by Plautus, as “ludos facere.”

NOTE 197.

Can he be so weak? so totally regardless of the customs and laws of

his country?
The Athenian laws prohibited a citizen from marrying with a
woman who was not a citizen, vide Note 181. A law was passed by
Pericles, that the children of a marriage in which both parties were
not citizens, should be considered as νοθοι, illegitimate. Pericles
himself violated this law, when he had lost all his legitimate children.
As this is one of the most lively and interesting, so it is also one of
the most instructive scenes of this comedy. How noble are the
sentiments! How engaging the mutual affection of the father and son,
which, in spite of their disagreement, is visible in all they say to each
other. How amiable are the efforts of Chremes to soften the anger of
the justly-offended Simo! He forgets his own disappointment, and the
slight his daughter Philumena had received from Pamphilus, and
endeavours to reconcile him to his father. It is impossible to read this
beautiful scene, without being both affected and improved by the
perusal of it.

NOTE 198.

Persons are suborned hither too, who say that she is a citizen of
Athens. You have conquered.
The subornation of false witness was punished in Athens with the
greatest severity. Both the suborner and the perjured were subject to
the same punishment. Upon a third conviction, the offender was
branded with infamy, and forfeited his estate. The Athenians, in
general, were so celebrated for their love of truth, that the words an
Attic witness were used proverbially to designate a witness, whose
truth and honour were proof against corruption.

NOTE 199.

If you insist on your marriage with Philumena, and compel me to

subdue my love for Glycera, I will endeavour to comply.
This speech is exceedingly artificial. Pamphilus, in the hearing of
Chremes, the father of his intended wife, confesses his love for
another; and owns, that it must cost him a severe struggle to
conquer his affection for her, and resolve to wed Philumena. The
knowledge of this was sufficient to deter Chremes from giving his
daughter to Pamphilus.

NOTE 200.
I implore only, that you will cease to accuse me of suborning hither
this old man. Suffer me to bring him before you, that I may clear
myself from this degrading suspicion.
 “Pamphilus had all the reason in the world to endeavour to bring
Simo and Crito together, that so he might clear himself of such a
scandal as his father very reasonably imputed to him. And this was
all the young gentleman’s design, but the poet had a far greater,
which the audience could not so much as suspect: namely, the
discovery of Glycerie, which comes in very naturally.”—Echard.

NOTE 201.

Chremes.—Simo, if you knew this stranger as well as I do, you

would think better of him; he is a worthy man.
M. Baron in this and the following scenes gives almost a literal
translation from Terence: and the Andrienne concludes exactly in the
same manner with the Latin play; excepting the affranchisement of
Davus, with which M. Baron makes Pamphilus reward his faithful
services.
In the Conscious Lovers, Sir R. Steele changes Crito into Isabella,
the aunt of Indiana, whose real birth is discovered by Sealand’s
making her a visit, to inquire into the nature of her connexion with
young Bevil: the discovery is made by Sealand himself, who
recognizes one of the ornaments worn by his daughter. He gives
Indiana willingly to her preserver Bevil, jun., and Lucinda, who was
intended to be the wife of Bevil, was, upon his marriage with her
sister Indiana, given to Myrtle, the lover whom she herself had
always favoured.

NOTE 202.

Simo.—A sycophant.
The word sycophant was an epithet of peculiar opprobrium at
Athens, and of very singular derivation. In a season of great scarcity,
a law was passed at Athens, prohibiting the exportation of figs; and
afterwards, through neglect, remained unrepealed. Hence, those
malicious men who informed against those who transgressed it,
were called συκοφάνται, and this appellation was afterwards always
applied to false witnesses, and busy and malicious informers.

NOTE 203.
Crito.—Chrysis’ father, who received him, was my relation, and, at
his house, I’ve heard that shipwrecked stranger say, that he was
an Athenian: he died in Andros.
——Tum is mihi cognatus fuit,
Qui eum recepit: ibi ego audivi ex illo sese esse Atticum:
Is ibi mortuus est.
The word recepit, in this sentence, alludes to the Roman customs
respecting foreigners. Crito had just before used the term applicat,
he applied for assistance. When an exile or foreigner arrived at
Rome, he was said applicare, to apply to some person to become
his patron; as every stranger at Rome was compelled to obtain the
protection of one of the citizens, who succeeded to his effects at his
death: jure applicationis. When a Roman citizen agreed to accept of
a foreigner as his client, he was said recipere, to receive him.

NOTE 204.
Crito.—At least I think it was Phania: one thing I am sure of, he said
he was from Rhamnus.
Rhamnus was a small town in the north of Attica, and only a few
miles to the north-west of Marathon. It seems to have been famous
for little but a magnificent temple of Nemesis, and an exquisite statue
of that goddess, sculptured by Phidias; hence she was sometimes
called Rhamnusia, thus by Ovid,
——Assensit precibus Rhamnusia justis.
Metam., B. 3. L. 406.
Rhamnusia heard the lover’s just request.
 We must not understand Crito to mean, that Phania was a
Rhamnusian, because we know that he and Chremes both resided
in the city of Athens. Phania probably was prevented, by the
confusion of the war, from obtaining a vessel at the Piræus, or either
of the Athenian ports; and therefore returned to Rhamnus, and
embarked for the opposite coast of Attica. Phania might, therefore,
call himself Rhamnusius from Rhamnus, as being bound from
Rhamnus to Smyrna, or any other Asian port. Some, instead of
Rhamnus and Rhamnusius, read Rhamus and Rhamusius.

NOTE 205.

Crito.—The very name.

Chremes.—You are right.
Crito.—Ipsa est. Chremes.—Ea est. Terence has shewn his usual
art in the arrangement of these two speeches. Upon hearing the true
name, one would have expected that the father would have been the
first to recognize it, but he prudently delays until Crito confirms the
truth of his testimony by agreeing to the name of the long-lost
Pasibula. This is finely imagined by the author, as Chremes might
very well be supposed to suspect that this discovery was a trick of
Davus’, (who might have heard of the loss of this infant daughter,)
and taken Crito for an accomplice in the conceived imposture.
Chremes, therefore, waited to know whether Crito recognised the
name of Pasibula, which, if the story had been false, must have been
unknown to him: for the high character of Pamphilus placed him
beyond the reach of suspicion.

NOTE 206.
Simo.—Chremes, I hope you are convinced how sincerely we all
rejoice at this discovery.
——S. Omnes nos gaudere hoc, Chreme,
Te credo credere.
 In many of the old editions of our author, this passage is written
omneis nos gaudere; this variation has a reference to the measure of
the verse. I have seen one edition in which the line is written omnis
nos gaudere.

NOTE 207.
Pam.—Oh! that is certain.
Simo.—I consent most joyfully.
P. Nempe.
S. Scilicet.
Some commentators interpret these words from Pamphilus and
Simo, (Nempe and Scilicet,) as a hint to Chremes, respecting the
dowry which they expected to receive with Glycera; and think that
the actor who personates Simo ought to produce a bag of money,
that he may “suit the action to the word.” An ingenious critic,
speaking of this vague and fanciful conjecture, observes, as follows:
“This, surely, is a precious refinement, worthy the genius of a true
commentator. Madame Dacier, who entertains a just veneration for
Donatus, doubts the authenticity of the observation, which is
ascribed to him.” Certainly, if either of the words could be wrested to
such a meaning, it must be Nempe, but Terence has represented
Pamphilus as a character, so noble, generous, and high-spirited, that
we cannot consistently suppose that he would suffer any mercenary
considerations to delay for a single moment his acceptance of his
beloved Glycera, when offered to him by her father.

NOTE 208.

Chremes.—Pamphilus, my daughter’s portion is ten talents.

A Table of the Money current in Greece.

equal to worth (sterling)
£. s. d. qrs.
Lepton 0 0 0 011⁄112