Chapter Seven - Aquinas's Aristotelian defense of martyr courage

Summary

The virtue of courage has long been central to debates over the relationship between Aristotle and Aquinas. The chapter provides a fresh look at Aquinas's relationship to the Nicomachean Ethics by returning to the core primary texts on courage that bear on Aquinas's appropriation of Aristotle: the Nicomachean Ethics itself, Albert the Great's first commentary on the EN, Aquinas's commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences (Scriptum super libros Sententiarum), his commentary on the EN (Sententia libri Ethicorum), and the Summa theologiae. Aquinas divides the virtues into those concerned with interior passions and those concerned with external actions. Aquinas discussion of fortitude is largely consistent with the expositions offered in the Sentences commentary and the SLE. Courage on Aquinas's own account is most perfectly realized in the endurance of martyrdom, which clings to the Divine good by grace. Courage fully articulated is dramatically different from courage as understood by Aristotle.