1. Furthermore, those four virtues which I have touched on briefly—even if they exist there too, yet they exist in a far different manner than in this life, where they fight without ceasing against the vices, and, on account of the uncertain outcome of the doubtful struggle, sometimes abandon the negligent who refuse to obey them, sometimes either approach others whose sins they despise, by God's mercy, or return to them. For though temperance will be there, it will not be to restrain or conquer evil desires or vices; but to perfect those whom here it defended from the assault of intemperance, so that the blessed enjoyment of their reward may perfectly suffice for those who are perfect on every side. 2. There too will be fortitude of soul;
not to repel any evils, or to bear them with equanimity, but to keep the blessed bravely in the eternal good, free from all evils. There, in all who are perfect, will be perfect justice, not to discern between virtues and vices—where the bodies themselves will no longer be vicious—but to bestow eternal rewards on the perfect. This will come to pass when, all carnal concupiscence having been consumed, neither will the spirit lust against the flesh, nor the flesh against the spirit (Gal. 5:17); but the soul, made subject to God, with the flesh subject to itself, shall reign in everlasting peace, and shall cleave to its Creator happily forever.
And prudence, which here too is held to be clear—where it enlightens the prudent in a kind of enigma—what will it be like there, where it will display the truth to the perfect (whom here its inquiry delighted) without any deceiving figures? So that, divinely illumined by the full perception of prudence and wisdom, they may recognize, without any hindrance of corruption and mortality, all those things which here they perfectly desired to know yet could not; and may behold with unveiled face not only the reasons of all creatures, but also the very eminence of their Creator?