Virtue in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas's View

One of the most basic concepts in Aristotle's philosophy of ethics is virtue, and understanding it can pave the way to understand and evaluate Aristotle’s moral system. On the other hand, St. Thomas Aquinas, most prominent follower of Aristotle in the Medieval Ages, seems to have approached virtue, follow the same way Aristotle followed, but the difference between the two is that Aquinas lends a transcendent meaning to the previous notion of virtue. The main question of this essay is what position virtue has in Aristotle's moral system, and whether or not the meaning of virtue in Aquinas's discipline is identical with that of Aristotle. Having noticed that Aristotle has offered a human, worldly, and rational definition of happiness, good, and virtue and that Aquinas strenuously strove to adjust these concepts to the philosophical- Christian system which he advocated, the present paper tries to answer the aforementioned questions. Finally the author briefly analyzes the view of each of and criticizes these two philosophers.