“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Let us continue to explore the virtue of magnanimity as it is of great importance. There is a tendency among Thomistic Catholics to speak of the virtues in an Aristotelian way, adopting ideas from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics as a framework on which to build their understanding of Christian virtue. While Aristotle gave a succinct account of the natural virtues from his historically particular perspective, the Catholic view ought to be substantially different, given its far different, supernatural perspective. However, this is often not the case in our conversations of such things, especially magnanimity. The particular framework that I believe should be diminished in (or even irradicated from) the Catholic moral lexicon is the Aristotelian understanding of the virtues as a mean between extremes. For example, Aristotle would say that the virtue of liberality is situated between the extremes of prodigiousness and miserliness. This makes sense to worldly men like Aristotle. Moderation is and has always been commended as praiseworthy in the eyes of the world, especially when accompanied by fiscal success and fortune.
Aside from the obvious problems of Aristotle’s historical prejudices (racist xenophobia, sexism, hyper-elitism, etc.), his framework for understanding virtue is still mostly incompatible with the Christian understanding. Three examples of this incompatibility should suffice here. First, The Sermon on the Mount, the source and summit of Christian moral thought, is diametrically opposed to this framework; leaving aside Christ’s commands to “turn the other cheek” and “not let your left hand know what your right is doing,” the third beatitude bestows the whole world on the meek, rather than on the magnanimous commonly understood. Second, look at the writings and actions of St. Paul, who in First Corinthians calls the wisdom of the world (and Aristotle) foolishness to God, and who was possibly the furthest thing from a moderate man to have ever lived; simply read the chronicles of his trials and tortures for the sake of Christ. Third, the lives of the saints are, to a man, filled with extreme actions for love of Christ which are incomprehensible to the worldly mind; these are the lives on which we are to model our own, rather than the teachings of the Greek pagan Aristotle. I imagine if one were to give an account to God of one’s life using Aristotle’s framework, even if that life was virtuous within that framework, His response would mimic Jesus’ words, “what reward is there in that… do not the gentiles do the same?”
In fairness, Aristotelian principles were resituated and reinterpreted in a favorable light by the Angelic Doctor himself. But St. Thomas did so not out of necessity that people could understand Christian morality. In fact, I would contend that his Summa, intended for beginners in the spiritual life, was never meant to throw the reader headfirst into the deepest challenges of the Christian moral life. His use of Aristotelian moral principles (not the metaphysical ones) can be seen mostly as a concession to the spiritual position of the intended audience of the Summa, rather than the most perfectly Christian way to treat these matters.
Further, there is no denying that the lives of Jesus and Mary, our paramount examples, especially their actions on Good Friday would be most deplorable, despicable, and disgusting from Aristotle’s point of view; how could we possibly take such a point of view even as a starting point and still hope to model our lives after theirs? In closing, consider St. Paul boasting of his weakness that God might make him strong in grace; that is Christian magnanimity, not the middle road that the world praises, but a radical humility, radical love, radical faith. Therefore, let us boast only in Christ crucified, for it is in our meekness that He strengthens our souls so that we might become great in Him.
“But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to gentiles.” (1 Cor 1:23)