Enchiridion
On Faith, Hope, and Love
Saint Augustine
Newly translated and edited
by
ALBERT C. OUTLER, Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Theology
Perkins School of Theology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas
This book is in the public domain.
CHAPTER I
THE OCCASION AND PURPOSE OF THIS "MANUAL"
1.
I cannot say, my dearest son Laurence, how much your learning pleases me, and how much I desire that you should be wise--though not one of those of whom it is said: "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputant of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?"1 Rather, you should be one of those of whom it is written, "The multitude of the wise is the health of the world"2; and also you should be the kind of man the apostle wishes those men to be to whom he said,3 "I would have you be wise in goodness and simple in evil."4
2.
Human wisdom consists in piety. This you have in the book of the saintly Job, for there he writes that Wisdom herself said to man, "Behold, piety is wisdom."5 If, then, you ask what kind of piety she was speaking of, you will find it more distinctly designated by the Greek term .e.seße.a, literally, "the service of God." The Greek has still another word for "piety," e.seße.a, which also signifies "proper service." This too refers chiefly to the service of God. But no term is better than .e.seße.a, which clearly expresses the idea of the man's service of God as the source of human wisdom.
When you ask me to be brief, you do not expect me to speak of great issues in a few sentences, do you? Is not this rather what you desire: a brief summary or a short treatise on the proper mode of worshipping [serving] God?
3.
If I should answer, "God should be worshipped in faith, hope, love," you would doubtless reply that this was shorter than you wished, and might then beg for a brief explication of what each of these three means: What should be believed, what should be hoped for, and what should be loved? If I should answer these questions, you would then have everything you asked for in your letter. If you have kept a copy of it, you can easily refer to it. If not, recall your questions as I discuss them.
4.
It is your desire, as you wrote, to have from me a book, a sort of enchiridion,6 as it might be called--something to have "at hand"--that deals with your questions. What is to be sought after above all else? What, in view of the divers heresies, is to be avoided above all else? How far does reason support religion; or what happens to reason when the issues involved concern faith alone; what is the beginning and end of our endeavor? What is the most comprehensive of all explanations? What is the certain and distinctive foundation of the catholic faith? You would have the answers to all these questions if you really understood what a man should believe, what he should hope for, and what he ought to love. For these are the chief things--indeed, the only things--to seek for in religion. He who turns away from them is either a complete stranger to the name of Christ or else he is a heretic. Things that arise in sensory experience, or that are analyzed by the intellect, may be demonstrated by the reason. But in matters that pass beyond the scope of the physical senses, which we have not settled by our own understanding, and cannot--here we must believe, without hesitation, the witness of those men by whom the Scriptures (rightly called divine) were composed, men who were divinely aided in their senses and their minds to see and even to foresee the things about which they testify.
