Treatise on the Love of God

In truth the great S. Augustine shows, in an epistle which he wrote to S. Jerome, that we may have some sort of virtue without having the rest, but that we cannot have perfect ones without having them all; whilst, as for vices, we may have some without having others, yea, it is even impossible to have them all together: so that it does not follow that he who has lost all the virtues has by consequence all the vices, since almost every virtue has two opposite vices, which are not only contrary to the virtue but also to one another. He who has forfeited valour by rashness cannot at the same time be taxed with cowardice; nor can he who has lost liberality by prodigality, be at the same time reproached with niggardliness. Catiline, says S. Augustine, was sober, vigilant, patient in suffering cold, heat and hunger; so that both himself and his accomplices deemed him marvellously constant; but this constancy wanted prudence, since it made choice of bad instead of good; it was not temperate, for it gave the bridle to repulsive uncleanness; it was not just, since he conspired against his country: it was not then constancy but obstinacy, which to deceive fools bore the name of constancy.