From the Encyclopedia Britannica - seven virtues, in Christianity, any of the seven virtues selected as being fundamental to Christian ethics. They consist of the four “natural” virtues, those inculcated in the old pagan world that spring from the common endowment of humanity, and the three “theological” virtues, those specifically prescribed in Christianity and arising as special gifts from God. The seven Christian virtues are the practical attitudes and habits adopted in obedience to the principles of morality.

The natural virtues are sometimes known as the four cardinal virtues (from Latin cardo, “hinge”) because on them all lesser attitudes hinge. They are

prudence - “marked by wisdom or judiciousness, prudent advice or shrewd in the management of practical affairs.” A prudent person is wise or sensible.

temperance - Habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions; restrained or moderate indulgence; moderation; as, temperance in eating and drinking; temperance in the indulgence of joy or mirth; specifically, moderation, and sometimes abstinence, in respect to using intoxicating liquors.

fortitude - Fortitude is the strength of character that enables a person to endure pain or adversity with courage. Although the word fortitude is rarely used in the most popular versions of the Bible, the concept is addressed often. Instead of fortitude, the word endurance, strength, or perseverance is used more often in our Bibles.

justice - 1. Biblical Justice Means Personal Accountability. For many modern people, justice has only one aspect, personal accountability. This aspect is certainly part of the biblical definition of justice. When a person does something wrong, a person in authority (judge, king, God, etc.) assigns a commensurate penalty for that crime.

This enumeration is said to go back to Socrates and is found in Plato and Aristotle. Late Roman and medieval Christian moralists—such as St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas—took over the list as a convenient summary of the teaching of the ancient philosophers and of the highest excellence at which they aimed.

To these four, Christianity added the three theological virtues of:

faith - Belief, trust, and loyalty to a person or thing. Christians find their security and hope in God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and say "amen" to that unique relationship to God in the Holy Spirit through love and obedience as expressed in lives of discipleship and service.

hope - Therefore, biblical hope is a confident expectation or assurance based upon a sure foundation for which we wait with joy and full confidence. In other words, "There is no doubt about it!" One of the verses in which we find the word hope is Hebrews 11:1. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

love -

1 Cor 13 - If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may [a]glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

This classification was taken over directly from the Apostle Paul, who not only distinguished these three as the specifically Christian virtues but singled out love as the chief of the three in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” According to Christian teaching, the theological virtues do not originate from humankind. They are imparted by God through Christ and are then practiced by the believer.

In the Christian ethic, love, or charity, becomes the ruling standard by which all else is to be judged and to which, in the case of a conflict of duties, the prior claim must be yielded.

Another iteration of the seven Christian virtues is seen in the seven heavenly virtues, which are considered the opposites of the seven deadly sins.