Faith, Hope and Love

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:13

Some time around 421, an elderly and very busy bishop received a letter from a layman named Laurentius, asking for a short book he could keep always beside him. What should be a man’s chief aim in life? What should he chiefly avoid? How far does reason support religion? What is the beginning of it all, and the end? What is the sum of the whole body of doctrine? It was the kind of letter any pastor receives: a sincere believer wanting the whole faith in a nutshell. Augustine answered it with the Enchiridion, which means handbook — “that is, one that can be carried in the hand,” he says with a smile, “not one to load your shelves.” It is the nearest thing he ever wrote to a summary of what he believed, and it is in the Ochorus library.

The whole faith in three words

His answer to all of Laurentius’s questions is disarmingly simple. God is to be worshipped, he says, with faith, hope and love. Know what to believe, what to hope for and what to love, and you have the whole of religion. Everything else is commentary. And he gives Laurentius two texts that every Christian already has by heart: the Creed, for faith, and the Lord’s Prayer, for hope and love.

“The true wisdom of man is piety,” Augustine begins, and he finds it in the book of Job.

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. JOB 28:28

He will not pretend that a short book can do what only a changed heart can. Proper instruction in the faith, he says, comes not from having a short treatise put into one’s hands, but from having a great zeal kindled in one’s heart. The handbook is a map, not a journey.

How the three hold together

Augustine is careful to show how the three graces differ and yet depend on one another. Faith can have for its object things past, present and future, and things good and evil; we believe that Christ died, that He reigns, that He will come, and we believe in the punishment of the wicked, though we do not hope for it. Hope is only of good things, only of things future, and only of things that concern the one who hopes. Love embraces both God and neighbour.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. ROMANS 8:24–25

And yet they cannot be pulled apart. Even the devils believe, he notes, but they have neither hope nor love, and so their belief only makes them tremble. The faith Paul commends is the faith that works by love. “Wherefore there is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith.”

For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. GALATIANS 5:6

He sums up their relationship in one lovely phrase, reflecting on the prophet’s promise that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Paul’s question, how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? “In these two you have those three graces exemplified: faith believes, hope and love pray.” Faith stands behind the Creed; hope and love kneel in the Lord’s Prayer. And since no one prays to a God he does not believe in, faith also prays.

Christ the foundation

For all its simplicity, the Enchiridion is not vague. Its long central section, the part on faith, walks through the Creed and covers creation and the goodness of all things, evil as the absence of good, the fall, grace, the incarnation, Christ the Mediator, the Holy Spirit and the church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection and the judgment. We have met much of it already in this book. And Augustine names the foundation of it all at the very start.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:11

He also gives Laurentius the shape of the whole Christian life: “we begin in faith, and are made perfect by sight.” Near the end he traces four stages of the soul — living by the flesh without struggle, then under the law and defeated by sin, then under grace and fighting by the power of love, and finally at rest in perfect peace — and sees the same four stages in the history of God’s people. We live now in the third: not yet at rest, but no longer alone in the fight.

Hope in the Lord’s Prayer

The section on hope is short, for Augustine says everything that belongs to hope is contained in the Lord’s Prayer. He walks through its petitions, noticing that the first three ask for things that will be perfected in eternity, while the last four concern our needs in this life.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. MATTHEW 6:9–10

There is great practical wisdom in this. If you want to know what a Christian may hope for, look at what Christ taught us to pray for. Hope is not wishful thinking about anything we happen to want. It is confident expectation of what God has promised, shaped and disciplined by prayer.

The greatest of these

The last section is on love, and it is where the book finds its end. All the commandments, Augustine says, are embraced in love, and he quotes Paul: the end of the commandment is charity. Whatever is done from fear of punishment or any other low motive, and not from love of God and neighbour, is not yet done as it ought to be. And love is not something we can generate. It is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Without that gift, the law can command, but it cannot help.

And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. 1 JOHN 4:21

He ends characteristically. He has written the book, he tells Laurentius, loving him very much as one of the members of Christ’s body. It is for Laurentius to judge whether to call it a handbook, or to use it as one. And then, with the dry humour of a man who has written a longer answer than he meant to: “May its value be equal to its length.”

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Try to write down, in a paragraph each, what you believe, what you hope for and what you love. What does the exercise reveal?

2. Recite the Apostles’ Creed slowly each morning this week, pausing on each line to affirm it as your own.

3. Pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly each evening, letting it correct and shape what you hope for.

4. Ask whether your faith is working by love. Choose one concrete act of love this week that flows from what you believe.

5. If you know a young believer who wants the faith in a nutshell, sit down with them and go through the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer together.

A PRAYER

Lord, You have given me faith to believe, hope to pray, and love to fulfil Your law.

Strengthen my faith in all You have revealed in Your Son. Discipline my hope by the prayer He taught me. Kindle love in me by Your Spirit.

Let my faith never be the faith of devils that tremble, but faith that works by love.

Begin in me by faith what You will perfect by sight, and make love the end of all I do. Amen.