The Greco-Roman understanding of virtue was, in its purest form, not antithetical to but prophetic of the biblical Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. As H. Richard Niebuhr has shown in his illuminating study Christ and Culture (1951), the Roman Catholic church has a strong tradition of viewing Christ and Christianity as representing the culmination and fulfillment of both the Old Testament law and the highest wisdom of the ancients-Christ over culture, to use Niebuhr's memorable phrase.
