Fennie pray a cost in the news

and there's to all of physical

and bless you all of physical.

He bless you, Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Kings

College London and the LMU in Munich. Online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, what comes naturally? Ethics in Albert and Aquinas. Down through the

ages there haven't been many things upon which philosophers agreed, but nearly all of them have been willing to admit that Socrates was a pretty great guy.

Seen as a paragon of virtue in antiquity, he was still admired in medieval times, especially by such

boosters of classical philosophy as Peter Abilard.

Nor was Socrates the only hero of pre-Christian times.

There was Cato, for instance, who heroically killed himself when Julius Caesar destroyed the Roman Republic.

Dante duly praised Cato in his convivio and placed him among the saved in his divine comedy.

Likewise, the 14th century English thinker Robert Holcott allowed that Socrates was saved and given eternal life. These posthumous tributes show how difficult some

medieval's found it to accept that Christians had a monopoly on virtue. But from a

theological point of view this was rather inconvenient.

How did Socrates and Cato manage to be so virtuous, given that they were pagans, who lacked

belief in the Christian God and lived too early to receive Christ's offer of grace.

Augustine's view on this matter was a strict one.

Though pagans may on occasion seem virtuous, their virtue is in fact false.

For their actions, no matter how admirable they may seem, are not directed towards the true goodness of the Christian God.

In his city of God, Augustine argued at length that the courage, integrity, and justice, displayed

by famous Romans, were grounded in the wrong motives.

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