Piety as beginning and end of the virtues

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The work opens with a maxim on piety, then explains how knowledge of God as the sustaining and creating cause of all things is taught by sight and by the natural law.

Piety must be cultivated above all things. It is rightly called the mother of the virtues, for it is the beginning and end of the virtues. Both sight and the natural law teach us to know God, the sustaining and creating cause of all things: sight, as it falls upon visible and firmly established things; the natural law, as through those same visible and ordered things it reasons out their author.

Greek

Εὐσεβείας ἐπὶ πᾶσι φροντιστέον, ἣν μητέρα φασὶ τῶν ἀρετῶν, ὀρθῶς λέγοντες· αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἀρχὴ καὶ τελευτὴ τῶν ἀρετῶν. Τὸ εἰδέναι θεὸν καὶ τὴν πάντων συνεκτικήν τε καὶ ποιητικὴν αἰτίαν καὶ ὄψις διδάσκαλος καὶ ὁ φυσικὸς νόμος· ἡ μὲν τοῖς ὁρωμένοις προσβάλλουσα καὶ πεπηγόσιν, ὁ δὲ διʼ αὐτῶν τῶν ὁρωμένων καὶ τεταγμένων τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τούτων συλλογιζόμενος.

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About this text

Six short sentences on piety, knowing God, and purified speech attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgus.

Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213–c. 270) wrote these Sentences as a collection of brief moral and theological maxims, apparently preserved as excerpts. They urge piety as the foundation of the virtues and contrast sincere faith with costly but empty religion.

The work opens by insisting that piety must be cultivated above all things, since it is rightly called the mother of the virtues and is their beginning and end. Knowledge of God as the sustaining and creating cause of all things is taught both by sight and by the natural law. The remaining sentences contrast simple, open-air faith with costly piety, and three gathered in the Lord's name with many who deny the divinity.

The work affirms that piety alone is an unchangeable and abiding good, and warns that what is not attainable is somehow not believed because of envy, since to profane souls nothing of good things is credible.

Printed text used

Translated from PG 10 (Greek)

This work has passed our source check. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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