Thomas Aquinas — "The virtue of chastity is a part of temperance."
The virtue of chastity is a part of temperance.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Chastity isn't a standalone virtue but belongs under the broader category of temperance — the ability to moderate desires and impulses. Temperance governs all appetites; chastity specifically moderates sexual desire. Placing chastity here frames it as rational self-mastery rather than arbitrary religious rule. Controlling physical urges is simply one application of the larger discipline of keeping all passions in check, aligned with reason and human flourishing.
Relevance to Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas was a Dominican friar bound by vows of celibacy who famously resisted family attempts to break his religious calling — including an episode where relatives sent a woman to seduce him. He synthesized Aristotelian ethics with Catholic theology. For Aquinas, chastity wasn't mere repression but rational ordering of appetite, consistent with his broader Summa Theologica project of showing that faith and reason point toward the same ordered, virtuous life.
The era
Aquinas lived in 13th-century Europe when the Catholic Church dominated moral life and Aristotle's works, recovered via Arabic translations, were reshaping theology. Celibacy was prized in monastic culture as spiritually superior to marriage. By grounding chastity in Aristotelian temperance rather than divine command alone, Aquinas gave it a philosophical foundation accessible to reason — a signature move of Scholasticism, which sought to reconcile classical Greek philosophy with Christian doctrine.
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