Virtue

Virtue - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

VIRTUE, n. vur'tu. [L. virtus, from vireo, or its root. See Worth.] The radical sense is strength, from straining, stretching, extending. This is the primary sense of L. vir, a man.]

1. Strength; that substance or quality of physical bodies, by which they act and produce effects on other bodies. In this literal and proper sense, we speak of the virtue or virtues of plants in medicine, and the virtues of drugs. In decoctions, the virtues of plants are extracted. By long standing in the open air, the virtues are lost.

2. Bravery valor. This was the predominant signification of virtus among the Romans.

Trust to thy single virtue.

[This sense is nearly or quite obsolete.]

3. Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the abstaining from vice, or a conformity of life and conversation to the moral law. In this sense, virtue may be, and in many instances must be, distinguished from religion. The practice of moral duties merely from motives of convenience, or from compulsion, or from regard to reputation, is virtue, as distinct from religion. The practice of moral duties from sincere love to God and his laws, is virtue and religion. In this sense it is true,

That virtue only makes our bliss below.

Virtue is nothing but voluntary obedience to truth.

4. A particular moral excellence; as the virtue of temperance, of chastity, of charity.

Remember all his virtues.

5. Acting power; something efficacious.

Jesus, knowing that virtue had gone out of him, turned - Mark 3.

6. Secret agency; efficacy without visible or material action.

She moves the body which she doth possess,

Yet no part toucheth, but by virtue's touch.

7. Excellence; or that which constitutes value and merit.

- Terence, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable, the sticking in of sentences.

8. One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy.

Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.

9. Efficacy; power.

He used to travel through Greece by virtue of this fable, which procured him reception in all the towns.

10. Legal efficacy or power; authority. A man administers the laws by virtue of a commission.

In virtue, in consequence; by the efficacy or authority.

This they shall attain, partly in virtue of the promise of God, and partly in virtue of piety.

vur'-tu: This word has two quite distinct meanings in the King James Version: (1) It was formerly often used in the now obsolete sense of "manly power," "valor," "efficacy" (Latin, virtus, "manly strength" or "excellence," from vir, "man"):

"Trust in thy single virtue; for thy soldiers

All levied in thy name, have in thy name

Took their discharge."

--Shakespeare, King Lear, V, iii, 103 ff.

It was also used in the sense of a mighty work, a miracle. Thus Wycliffe translates Mt 11:20: "Thanne Jhesus bigan to saye repreef to cities in whiche ful many vertues of him weren don." So in the King James Version, Mr 5:30; Lu 6:19; 8:46, in the sense of "power," "miraculous energy or influence" (dunamis, "inherent power, residing in the nature of a thing"; contrast exousia, "power arising from external opportunity or liberty of action"). In these passages it is translated in the Revised Version (British and American) "power" (as elsewhere in the King James Version; compare Ac 3:12, etc.). (2) In its ordinary modern meaning of "moral goodness" it occurs in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) The Wisdom of Solomon 4:1; 5:13; 8:7; Php 4:8; 2Pe 1:3,5. In these passages it stands for arete, the usual classical term for "moral excellence" (originally "fitness" of any sort), used in Septuagint to translate words meaning "glory," "praiseworthiness," as in Hab 3:3; Isa 42:12; 63:7 (of God); Zec 6:13 (of the Messiah). The Septuagint sense may color the meaning of the word as applied to God in 2Pe 1:3 the Revised Version (British and American); as also in its plural use (of God) in 1Pe 2:9 (the King James Version "praises," the Revised Version (British and American) "excellencies").

The adjective "virtuous" occurs in the King James Version, the English Revised Version Ru 3:11; Pr 12:4; 31:10 (the American Standard Revised Version "worthy"), and the adverb "virtuously" in Pr 31:29 (the American Standard Revised Version "worthily"), in each case for chayil, "strength," "force" (whether of body or of mind), then in a moral sense of "worth," "virtue."

D. Miall Edwards