Virtue

The umbrella term collects two distinct New Testament senses of virtue — the older English usage that names a power going out from a person, and the moral sense that names an excellence to be cultivated. UPDV translates the first sense as "power"; it preserves the word virtue itself for the second, where the moral register is in view.

Power going forth from Christ

In the Gospels, what older English calls "virtue" is rendered as the power that comes forth from Jesus. Two healing scenes carry the verb. The crowd around him simply needs contact: "And all the multitude sought to touch him; for power came forth from him, and healed [them] all." (Lu 6:19). The hemorrhaging woman draws the same kind of touch out of him without his initiation: "But Jesus said, Someone did touch me; for I perceived that power had gone forth from me." (Lu 8:46). The two verbs — came forth and had gone forth — describe a transmissive power keyed to physical contact.

The Markan summary at Gennesaret extends the pattern from Jesus' person to the hem of his garment: "And wherever he entered, into villages, or into cities, or into the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and implored him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole." (Mr 6:56). The healing power is treated as continuous and accessible — what the crowd sought from Jesus directly in Luke, they sought through the hem in Mark.

Virtue as moral excellence

Paul ends the Philippian charge to the mind with a list capped by the word: "Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things." (Php 4:8). Virtue stands at the end of the catalogue of whatever things, paired with praise — the two terms gathering up the moral and reputational worth of everything just listed.

Peter places virtue inside a chain of growth from faith. "Yes, and for this very cause adding on your⁺ part all diligence, in your⁺ faith supply virtue; and in [your⁺] virtue knowledge;" (2Pe 1:5). Faith is the ground; virtue is the first thing the believer must supply on top of it; knowledge is what virtue itself supplies in turn. The plural "you⁺" addresses the whole community; the call is to a corporate cultivation of these qualities by deliberate addition.