ViCe AnD VirTue 61 in a larger pattern within the Latin version of heightening God’s om- niscience and omnipotence. Complementing the emphasis on divine punishment, the Latin version assures the reader that pride, desire, and envy all entail the social punishment of shame and ignominy. The final facet of the consequences of vice is seen in the assurance that lust, drunkenness, and avarice are self-destructive in damaging either one’s soul or the overall quality of one’s life. The damage that sin does to the perpetrator’s own soul is a classic feature of virtue ethics, but it is also found more widely in the expansions and alterations on a variety of topics in the Latin version of Ben Sira (e.g. 14,4; 19,6; 20,8; 37,21- 22 [24-25]; cf. 18,33 [=Grii]) 76. Therefore, considered synchronically, the Latin version of Ben Sira differs from the Hebrew and Greek versions in a greater emphasis on certain vices in ways that both elevate their importance and also in- tegrate them into the larger contours of the moral theology of the book. Their content, amount, and distribution suggest that their piece- meal production arose through attempts to integrate the teaching already found in the book of Ben Sira with the increasing importance of virtue/vice thinking in late antiquity 77. The Catholic university of America Bradley C. GreGOry Washington D.C., 20064 u.S.A. Summary Beginning in the Second Temple period some Jewish literature begins to reflect an increased influence from Hellenistic conceptions of virtue and vice. This paper analyzes the expansions and alterations found in the Latin version of Ben Sira to show how the vices of pride, desire, and avarice are elevated in importance and integrated into the larger contours of the moral theology of the book. Their content, amount, and distribution suggest that their piecemeal production arose from attempts to integrate the virtue/vice thinking prominent in late antiquity into the teaching already found in the Book of Sirach. 76 See r. DeVeTTere, Introduction to Virtue Ethics: insights of the Ancient Greeks (Washington, D.C. 2002) 13-39. 77 my thanks to Jeremy Corley who kindly read and provided numerous insightful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.