The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology

In this volume, William C. Mattison, III demonstrates that virtue ethics provides a helpful key for unlocking the moral wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount. Showing how familiar texts such as the Beatitudes and Petitions of the Lord's Prayer are more richly understood, and can even be aligned with the theological and cardinal virtues, he also locates in the Sermon classic topics in morality, such as the nature of happiness, intentionality, the intelligibility of human action, and the development of virtue. Yet far from merely placing the teaching of Aristotle in the mouth of Jesus, he demonstrates how the Sermon presents an account of happiness and virtue transformed in the light of Christian faith. The happiness portrayed is that of the Kingdom of heaven, and the habits needed to participate in it in the next life, but even initially in this one, are possible only by God's grace through Jesus Christ, and lived in the community that is the Church.

• Proposes a thoroughly scriptural Catholic moral theology, based on the Sermon on the Mount, to appeal to those who think moral theology needs to be more fully rooted in Scripture
• Presents an account of virtue ethics as corroborated by the biblical text, which in turn the scriptural text specifies and extends
• Proposes a schema of how the seven main theological and cardinal virtues in the Thomistic tradition are found in the Sermon and transformed in the context of Christian faith
• Provides a more ready account of how the Sermon can be lived and served as a resource for Christian formation and education