Book Access - "A Forgotten World" Ch. 1 of "Virtue Stands in the Middle" by Dr. Christopher Gustafson STD

A Forgotten World - Ch. 1

Dr. Christopher Gustafson STD is a Catholic theologian in the United States. GPQ did an interview with him on his upcoming book, Virtue Stands in the Middle, which you can access here. He has graciously offered to share parts of his upcoming book on virtue. The work not only delves in Catholic tradition and teaching on virtue and vice, but offers access to many images of the symbolism and iconographic tradition of the Seven Lady Virtues. Below is access to chapter one. 

"Images of Lady Justice similar to this modern statue (at right) are often seen in courthouses, law firms and in other legal media in western culture. Her telltale scales (“the scales of justice”) indicate to us that she somehow represents the virtue of justice. Traditionally, she also has a sword (“the sword of justice”) to indicate that justice must sometimes be enforced. Moreover, since the 16th century, she is often blindfolded to indicate that justice is impartial or immune to outside influence (“justice is blind”). Lady Justice is still familiar to us even in the 21st century. She is one of the last vestiges of a world of virtues that once existed. Lady Justice is one of dozens of virtues whose feminine images were recognizable to Europeans up until the 18th and even 19th centuries. To the left, we again see Lady Justice with her familiar scales and sword in an illuminated manuscript from the 13th century. On the next page, we see her once again with her scales on the cover of a book of the Gospels from the middle of the 9th century. This is over a thousand years ago. Her image was already well-established by that time. It was already over a thousand years old. ... (continue below)"