There are virtues of the body and virtues of the soul. Those of the body include fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, ministering to people's needs, working with one's hands so as not to burden or in order to give to others. Those of the soul include love, long-suffering, gentleness, self-control and prayer. If as a result of some constraint or bodily condition, such as illness or the like, we find we cannot practise the bodily virtues mentioned above, we are forgiven by the Lord because He knows the reasons. But if we fail to practice the virtues of the soul, we shall not have a single excuse, for it is always within our power to practice them. (Maximos the Confessor)

Virtue is a very Roman word. It means manly, as in virile. But the concept is very Greek. Virtue is the Latin translation of the Greek ἀρετή or arete.

To be virtuous is to fulfill one's potential, to be what we are meant to be. For a classical writer to be virtuous is to embody both general excellence and particular goodness.

Maximos has described the specific potentials of body and soul. They share a self-giving, even a self-sacrificial quality.

Selflessness is also at the core of pre-Christian arete. Courage - the voluntary giving of the self for a cause beyond the self - is a pre-eminent virtue.

While the Romans and Greeks perceived arete could and should be cultivated, it was crucially important to give attention to one's particular goodness. Odysseus ought not envy Achilles, Praxiteles is meant for sculpture, Homer for poetry, each of us is blessed with a particular virtue.