CHAPTER II
THE CREED AND THE LORD'S PRAYER AS GUIDES TO THE
INTERPRETATION OF THE
THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES OF FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE
7. Let us begin, for example, with the Symbol11 and the Lord's
Prayer. What is shorter to hear or to read? What is more easily
memorized? Since through sin the human race stood grievously burdened
by great misery and in deep need of mercy, a prophet, preaching of the
time of God's grace, said, "And it shall be that all who invoke the
Lord's name will be saved."12 Thus, we have the Lord's Prayer. Later,
the apostle, when he wished to commend this same grace, remembered
this prophetic testimony and promptly added, "But how shall they
invoke him in whom they have not believed?"13 Thus, we have the
Symbol. In these two we have the three theological virtues working
together: faith believes; hope and love pray. Yet without faith
nothing else is possible; thus faith prays too. This, then, is the
meaning of the saying, "How shall they invoke him in whom they have
not believed?"
8. Now, is it possible to hope for what we do not believe in? We can,
of course, believe in something that we do not hope for. Who among the
faithful does not believe in the punishment of the impious? Yet he
does not hope for it, and whoever believes that such a punishment is
threatening him and draws back in horror from it is more rightly said
to fear than to hope. A poet, distinguishing between these two
feelings, said,
"Let those who dread be allowed to hope,"14
but another poet, and a better one, did not put it rightly:
"Here, if I could have hoped for [i.e., foreseen]
Indeed, some grammarians use this as an example of inaccurate language
and comment, "He said 'to hope' when he should have said 'to fear.'"
Therefore faith may refer to evil things as well as to good, since we
believe in both the good and evil. Yet faith is good, not evil.
Moreover, faith refers to things past and present and future. For we
believe that Christ died; this is a past event. We believe that he
sitteth at the Father's right hand; this is present. We believe that
he will come as our judge; this is future. Again, faith has to do with
our own affairs and with those of others. For everyone believes, both
about himself and other persons--and about things as well--that at
some time he began to exist and that he has not existed forever. Thus,
not only about men, but even about angels, we believe many things that
have a bearing on religion.
But hope deals only with good things, and only with those which lie in
the future, and which pertain to the man who cherishes the hope. Since
this is so, faith must be distinguished from hope: they are different
terms and likewise different concepts. Yet faith and hope have this in
common: they refer to what is not seen, whether this unseen is
believed in or hoped for. Thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is
used by the enlightened defenders of the catholic rule of faith, faith
is said to be "the conviction of things not seen."16 However, when a
man maintains that neither words nor witnesses nor even arguments, but
only the evidence of present experience, determine his faith, he still
ought not to be called absurd or told, "You have seen; therefore you
have not believed." For it does not follow that unless a thing is not
seen it cannot be believed. Still it is better for us to use the term
"faith," as we are taught in "the sacred eloquence,"17 to refer to
things not seen. And as for hope, the apostle says: "Hope that is seen
is not hope. For if a man sees a thing, why does he hope for it? If,
however, we hope for what we do not see, we then wait for it in
patience."18 When, therefore, our good is believed to be future, this
is the same thing as hoping for it.
What, then, shall I say of love, without which faith can do nothing?
There can be no true hope without love. Indeed, as the apostle James
says, "Even the demons believe and tremble."19
Yet they neither hope nor love. Instead, believing as we do that what
we hope for and love is coming to pass, they tremble. Therefore, the
apostle Paul approves and commends the faith that works by love and
that cannot exist without hope. Thus it is that love is not without
hope, hope is not without love, and neither hope nor love are without
faith.
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11 The Apostles' Creed. Cf. Augustine's early essay On Faith and the
Creed.
12 Joel 2:32.
13 Rom. 10:14.
14 Lucan, Pharsalia, II, 15.
15 Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 419. The context of this quotation is Dido's
lament over Aeneas' prospective abandonment of her. She is saying
that if she could have foreseen such a disaster, she would have
been able to bear it. Augustine's criticism here is a literalistic
quibble.
16 Heb. 11:1.
17 Sacra eloquia--a favorite phrase of Augustine's for the Bible.
18 Rom. 8:24, 25 (Old Latin).
19 James 2:19.