Sometimes it’s contempt: when he counts pagan virtue, not as holy, only less vile {civ. Deiy.13). Sometimes it's ambivalence: when he calls Regulus, the bravest and most distinguished of the Romans {civ. Dei 1.24), and then discounts this virtue on account of the impiety that accompanies it [civ. Dei XIX.25). For an account of this rhetorical strategy that accents the ambivalence, see Lamb, “Commonwealth of Hope,” especially chaps. 4 and 6.