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St. Augustine
Enchiridion
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CHAPTER XXXI - Love


117. And now regarding _love_, which the apostle says is greater than the other two - that
is, faith and hope - for the more richly it dwells in a man, the better the man in whom it dwells.
For when we ask whether someone is a good man, we are not asking what he believes, or hopes,
but what he loves. Now, beyond all doubt, he who loves aright believes and hopes rightly.
Likewise, he who does not love believes in vain, even if what he believes is true; he hopes in vain,
even if what he hopes for is generally agreed to pertain to true happiness, unless he believes and
hopes for this: that he may through prayer obtain the gift of love. For, although it is true that he
cannot hope without love, it may be that there is something without which, if he does not
love it, he cannot realize the object of his hopes. An example of this would be if a man hopes for
life eternal - and who is there who does not love that? - and yet does not love _righteousness_,
without which no one comes to it.
Now this is the true faith of Christ which the apostle commends: faith that works through
love. And what it yet lacks in love it asks that it may receive, it seeks that it may find, and
knocks that it may be opened unto it.
246 For faith achieves what the law commands [fides
namque impetrat quod lex imperat]. And, without the gift of God - that is, without the Holy
Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts - the law may bid but it cannot aid
[jubere lex poterit, non juvare]. Moreover, it can make of man a transgressor, who cannot then
excuse himself by pleading ignorance. For appetite reigns where the love of God does not.
247

118. When, in the deepest shadows of ignorance, he lives according to the flesh with no
restraint of reason - this is the primal state of man.
248 Afterward, when "through the law the
knowledge of sin"
249 has come to man, and the Holy Spirit has not yet come to his aid - so
that even if he wishes to live according to the law, he is vanquished - man sins knowingly and is
brought under the spell and made the slave of sin, "for by whatever a man is vanquished, of this
master he is the
slave"
250. The effect of the knowledge of the law is that sin works in man the whole round of
concupiscence, which adds to the guilt of the first transgression. And thus it is that what was
written is fulfilled: "The law entered in, that the offense might abound."
251 This is the
_second_ state of man.
252
But if God regards a man with solicitude so that he then believes in God's help in fulfilling His
commands, and if a man begins to be led by the Spirit of God, then the mightier power of love
struggles against the power of the flesh.
253 And although there is still in man a power that
fights against him - his infirmity being not yet fully healed - yet he [the righteous man]
lives by faith and lives righteously in so far as he does not yield to evil desires, conquering them
by his love of
righteousness. This is the _third_ stage of the man of good hope. A final peace is in store for
him who continues to go forward in this course toward perfection through steadfast piety. This
will be perfected beyond this life in the repose of the spirit, and, at the last, in the resurrection of
the body.
Of these four different stages of man, the first is before the law, the second is under the law,
the third is under grace, and the fourth is in full and perfect peace. Thus, also, the history of
God's people has been ordered by successive temporal epochs, as it pleased God, who "ordered
all things in measure and number and weight."
254 The first period was before the law; the
second under the law, which was given through Moses; the next, under grace which was revealed
through the first Advent of the Mediator."
255 This grace was not previously absent from those
to whom it was to be imparted, although, in conformity to the temporal dispensations, it was
veiled and hidden. For none of the righteous men of antiquity could find salvation apart from the
faith of Christ. And, unless Christ had also been known to them, he could not have been
prophesied to us - sometimes openly and sometimes obscurely - through their ministry.

119. Now, in whichever of these four "ages" - if one can call them that - the grace of
regeneration finds a man, then and there all his past sins are forgiven him and the guilt he
contracted in being born is removed by his being reborn. And so true is it that "the Spirit
breatheth where he willeth"
256 that some men have never known the second "age" of slavery
under the law, but begin to have divine aid directly under the new
commandment.

120. Yet, before a man can receive the commandment, he must, of course, live according to
the flesh. But, once he has been imbued with the sacrament of rebirth, no harm will come to him
even if he then immediately depart this life - "Wherefore on this account Christ died and rose
again, that he might be the Lord of both the living and the dead."'
257 Nor will the kingdom of
death have dominion over him for whom He, who was "free among the dead,"
258 died.





246 Matt. 7:7.



247 Another wordplay on cupiditas and caritas.



248 An interesting resemblance here to Freud's description of the Id, the primal core of our unconscious life.



249 Rom. 3:20.



250 2 Peter 2:19.



251 Rom. 5:20.



252 Compare the psychological notion of the effect of external moral pressures and their power to arouse guilt feelings, as in Freud's notion of "superego."



253 Gal. 5:17.



254 Wis. 11:21 (Vulgate).



255 Cf. John 1:17.



256 John 3:8.



257 Rom. 14:9.



258 Cf. Ps. 88:5.





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