Although the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, in a certain brief summary contain all the precepts of living well, and by that very fact also of dying well; yet the Holy Spirit, the primary author of all the divine books, for the better understanding of this most healthful art, willed to add three other virtues, which help men in a wonderful way to live well and also to die well. These are sobriety, justice, and piety; of which the Apostle Paul speaks thus in his Epistle to Titus: "The grace of God our Savior hath appeared to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2). This therefore will be the sixth precept of living well and dying well: that, "denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in this world"; here is contained the sum of the whole divine law, contracted into one sentence of incredible brevity. "Decline from evil, and do good" (Ps. 36), says the holy prophet David. In evil there are two things: a turning away from God, and a turning toward creatures — according to that word of Jeremiah: "My people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water" (Jer. 2:13). What then will he do, who wishes to decline from both evils? He will deny ungodliness and worldly desires. For ungodliness turns us away from God, and worldly desires turn us toward creatures. But as to doing good, we then fulfill the law when we live soberly, and justly, and piously — that is, when we are sober toward ourselves, just toward our neighbor, and pious toward God.
But it is good to explain these things a little more fully, so that this most healthful and most brief precept may be more easily reduced to practice. What then is ungodliness? A vice contrary to piety. What is piety? A virtue, or gift of the Holy Spirit, by which we regard God, worship Him, and venerate Him as our Father. We are therefore commanded so to deny ungodliness that we may "live piously in this world"; or, what amounts to the same thing, so to live piously in this world that we deny all ungodliness. But why are these two things stated, when either one would suffice? Doubtless it pleased the Holy Spirit to speak in this way, so that we might understand that, if we wish to please God, we must cultivate piety in such a manner that it has no impiety mixed with it. For there are not lacking among Christians those who cultivate piety while they pray to God, while they assist at the tremendous sacrifice, while they listen to the priest preaching; but meanwhile they either blaspheme God in jest, or swear by God without cause, or do not fulfill the vows they have made to God. And what else is this, but to worship God piously and yet to be impious toward God? Those therefore who desire to live well, so that it may be given them to die well, must so worship God in piety that they deny all impiety — nay, even every shadow, however faint, of impiety. For it is of little profit to hear Mass daily and to venerate Christ in the sacred mystery, if meanwhile you impiously blaspheme God, or swear by Him
This too must be diligently noted: that the Apostle did not say "denying ungodliness," but "all ungodliness" — that is, every kind of impiety; and not only the heinous sort, but even the slightest. This is said against those who make little of swearing without necessity, of looking at women in holy places with a wanton eye, though not a lascivious one, of conversing during the sacred solemnities, and of committing other sins of the kind — as though they did not believe that God is present, and beholds all things, and marks even the slightest sins. "Our God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and showing mercy unto thousands, to those who love Him and keep His commandments" (Exod. 20). This very thing the Son of God taught by His own example: for although He was meek and humble, and "when He was reviled, did not revile; when He suffered, He threatened not" (1 Pet. 2), yet when He saw in the temple those who were selling doves, and the money-changers sitting there (John 2), inflamed with great zeal, He made a scourge of little cords and drove out the sellers and the buyers, and overturned the tables of the money-changers; and He said: "It is written: 'My house is a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of thieves." And this very thing He did twice: once in the first year of His preaching, as St. John testifies, and once in the last year, as the other three Evangelists testify (Matt. 21; Mark 11; Luke 19; John 2). Let us proceed to the second virtue, which directs our actions toward our neighbor. The second virtue is justice, of which the Apostle says: Denying worldly desires, let us live justly. Here that general maxim also has its place: Turn away from evil and do good (Ps. 36); for there can be no true justice toward one's neighbor where worldly desires do not cease. For what do worldly desires signify, if not the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which are not of God but of the world, or of this present age? Therefore, just as justice cannot exist together with the pride of life, so worldly desires cannot in any way be joined with true justice. A son of this world may indeed feign justice in word and tongue, but in deed and in truth he will by no means be able to practice it. Most wisely, therefore, the holy Apostle did not say only, Let us live justly; but he premised, Denying worldly desires, to signify that the root infected with the poison of concupiscence must first be torn up, before the good tree of justice can be planted in a good and perfect heart.
What it is to live justly does not seem open to doubt; for it is known to all that justice commands this, that to each one be given his due. Render to all their dues, says the Apostle: tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor (Rom. 13). Tribute is owed to the ruler, honor to parents, fear to masters; for thus the Lord speaks through Malachi: If I am a father, where is My honor? and if I am a master, where is My fear? (Mal. 1). To the seller is owed a just price, to the laborer a just wage, and in like manner for the rest. And with no less reason — indeed with far greater — those whose office it is to exercise distributive justice ought to confer these things on the more deserving, and not, through respect of persons, on those more closely connected or more beloved. If anyone, therefore, wishes to learn the art of living well and dying well, let him hear the Wise Man crying out at the beginning of his book: Love justice, you that judge the earth (Wis. 1). Let him also hear St. James lamenting in his Epistle: "Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped your lands, which has been kept back by you through fraud, cries out; and their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." (James 5).
There remains the third virtue, which is sobriety, to which worldly desires are no less opposed than they are to justice. For by sobriety in this place we do not understand only the virtue opposed to drunkenness, but in general the virtue of temperance or moderation, which makes a man measure according to reason, and not according to desire, the things that are necessary for sustaining or preserving the body. Now this virtue is most rarely found among men, and worldly desires seem to have filled the houses of nearly all the rich. But the wise ought not to look to what fools do, however many and almost innumerable they may be, but to what the wise do. Certainly Solomon was most wise, and yet he prayed to God, saying: Two things I have asked of You; deny them not to me before I die. Give me neither beggary nor riches; give me only the necessaries of life (Prov. 30). The Apostle Paul was wise and he said: Having food, and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content; for we brought nothing into this world, and without doubt we can carry nothing out (1 Tim. 6). And this reasoning is most wise. For why should we be anxious about superfluous riches, when we cannot carry them with us to the place to which we are going through death? Christ the Lord was not only wiser than Solomon and Paul, but was divine wisdom itself; and yet He said: Blessed are the poor, and woe to you that are rich (Luke 6). And of Himself He said: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay His head (Luke 9). If in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand (Deut. 19), how much more ought every word to stand in the mouth of these three wisest of men? And what if we add that the riches which are superfluous to us are not ours but the poor's, as the common opinion of the holy Fathers and scholastic Doctors holds? Are they not fools, who diligently guard that for which they will be condemned to hell by divine judgment?
If anyone, therefore, desires to learn thoroughly the art of living well and dying happily, let him not follow the crowd, which does not believe or esteem anything but what it sees; but let him follow Christ and His Apostles, who taught by word and deed that present things are to be disregarded, and that the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ are to be looked for (Tit. 2). For truly, so great is that which we hope for at the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven to judgment, that all the glory, and all the riches, and all the past joys of this world are to be accounted as though they had never been; and they are to be judged most foolish and most unhappy, who in a matter of such moment have chosen to put their trust in fools rather than in the wise.