The essence and principles forming virtue give rise to polyvalent meanings of virtue in Aquinas’s oeuvre. The highlighting of his language and use, therefore, ought not be thought an unimportant task. It constitutes a vital aspect of the larger question: In what way, if at all, can Aquinas’s account of virtue distinguish itself from the theological context in which that language of virtue was used? Before we can bring that larger question into sharper focus, we require an understanding of both Aquinas’s actual language and the relations pertaining among his various meanings of virtue.