Augustine of Hippo - The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope & Charity

The Augustine Catechism

The Augustine Series

Selected writings from The Works of Saint AugustineA Wanslation for the 21st Century

Volume I

The Augustine Catechism

The Enchiridion on Faith Hope and Charity

The Augustine Catechism

The Enchiridion on Faith Hope and Charity

Augustine of Hippo

Translation and Notes by

Bruce Harbert

Edited and with an

Introduction by

Boniface Ramsey

Published in the United States by New City Press

202 Cardinal Rd., Hyde Park, NY 12538

www.newcitypress.com

1999 Augustinian Heritage Institute, Inc . All rights reserved.

Cover design by Durva Correia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN (new ed.) 978-1-56548-298-2

We are indebted to Brepols Publishers, Turnholt, Belgium, for their use of the Latin critical text for Enchiridion ad Laurentium de Fide et Spes et Caritate, ed. E. Evans, Corpus Christianorum Latinorum 46 (Turnholt 1969) 49-114.

Nihil Obstat: John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., S.T.L., Censor Deputatus

Imprimatur: +Patrick Sheridan, DD, Vicar General, Archdiocese of New York

Archdiocese of New York, December 11, 1998

1st printing: July 1999

4th printing: March 2008

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

It is impossible to supply an exact date for the composition of the Enchiridion except to say that it was written sometime after the death of Jerome (which is alluded to in 23, 87) and before the composition of the treatise The Eight Questions of Dulcitius (which mentions the Enchiridion in 1, 10). Inasmuch as Jerome seems to have died in either 419 or 420, and inasmuch as the Eight Questions can very likely be dated to 422, it follows that our treatise was produced between 419 and 422.

At this point Augustine had already written, or was still in the process of writing, the works for which he is best known the Confessions , The Trinity , and The City of God . The Manichean and Donatist controversies, to which he had devoted generous attention and which had given him the occasion to make enduring theological contributions, lay largely behind him. The struggle with Pelagianism, on the other hand, was in full swing and would continue unabated until his death in 430 at the age of nearly seventy-six. Whatever its exact date may be, then, the Enchiridion is in any event a work of Augustines high maturity, produced when he was in his mid- to late sixties.

About the Laurence to whom the treatise is addressed we can venture relatively little. He is spoken of as the brother of Dulcitius in the book The Eight Questions of Dulcitius 1,10, and Revisions II, 59 refers to Dulcitius himself as a tribune and notary who was in Africa as the executor of the imperial orders handed down against the Donatists. This must mean, for want of anything more precise to say about him, that Laurence was a person of some consequence. The first words of the Enchiridion term Laurence learned and suggest that he is on the road to acquiring that wisdom which, according to Augustine, as we know from other contexts, far surpasses mere learning or knowledge. This may, however, be nothing more than a bit of customary epistolary courtesy.

From both Enchiridion 1,6 and Revisions II, 63 it is clear that Laurence requested the work from Augustine. The latter has it: He to whom the book was addressed had asked to have some little work of mine that would not leave his hands. That Augustine complied with Laurences request calls to mind that this was an era (which perhaps only ended in modern times) when simpler folk could approach intellectual giants and ask such favors of them in the expectation that they would be granted. Many of Augustines writings were produced in this way, at the behest of others. In fact, a letter that he wrote in response to a certain Dioscorus, who had importuned Augustine for information that Augustine himself considered vain and superfluous, expresses his willingness to answer all requests, despite his onerous responsibilities, so long as they are not improper. This same letter gives the reader some glimpse of those responsibilities, which left the bishop of Hippo little time for the more studious pursuits that he really enjoyed, and it serves to underline how remarkable his readiness to comply with these requests was. In the end, after having complained (at length) to Dioscorus, Augustine fulfills his demands as well, foolish as they may have been, doubtless thinking that thereby he was accomplishing at least some good. The Enchiridion , on the other hand, betrays none of the reluctance that the letter to Dioscorus does. Here Augustine was performing a labor that he must have felt was in keeping with his intellectual mission. Indeed, even though Laurence wanted something rather short, Augustine eschewed too great a brevity as being inadequate to the seriousness of the matter that Laurence had asked him to address (1, 2-3). Of course, he knew that what he wrote to Laurence (but probably to Dioscorus also, for that matter) would not be restricted to the recipients eyes but would be published and have a wider circulation.

Although Laurence may have wished for a more cursory treatment of his questions than that which Augustine eventually provided him, he was nonetheless not sparing in the number and scope of those that he posed. What is to be sought more than anything else? he wanted to know. What is to be avoided more than anything else? How are reason and faith related to each other? What is the beginning and the end of what should be held? How can Christian doctrine be summarized? What is a sure foundation of Catholic faith (1, 4.)? Augustine himself compresses all these questions into a single one when he says in 1, 2: Perhaps this is exactly what you wish me to explain briefly and to sum up in a few words: how God is to be worshiped.

Augustine replies to his own question by asserting: God is to be worshiped with faith, hope, and charity (1, 3). And he adds that once he has explained what the objects of these three virtues are what we should believe, what we should hope for, and what we should love (ibid.) he will have answered all Laurences questions. (The pursuit of this theme is the reason for the more correct if less popular title of the work On Faith, Hope, and Charity. Augustine himself refers to it as such in Revisions II, 63: I also wrote a book on faith, hope, and love. This little work [ opusculum ], he continues, is what the Greeks would call an enchiridion , a book that one could hold in ones hands, which is what Laurence wanted to have and which gave the treatise its familiar title.)

Of the three virtues upon which Augustine chose to focus in his response to Laurence, faith is far and away the one to which he devotes the most attention. The section on faith begins, it can be seen, at 3, 9, and it concludes at 29, 113. The section on hope is 30, 114-116, and that on charity is 31, 117-32,121. The disproportionate treatment is striking, particularly in view of the fact that charity was a kind of specialty of Augustines: it was a virtue that, along with humility, he bequeathed anew to the Christian tradition after its importance was so unmistakably emphasized in the New Testament. Augustine himself does not provide a clue as to why the three virtues were dealt with as they were, but two solutions suggest themselves. The first is that he did not feel that he could give a shorter account of faith namely, the tenets of the Christian faith than he actually did, and that, as a result, he had to compress his treatment of hope and charity if he wanted to stay within the bounds of a handbook or enchiridion , of which he seems to have been quite conscious. The second possible solution is that faith is discussed at greatest length because it is the most teachable of the three virtues, the most susceptible to being written about in a systematic way. Hope, on the other hand, is the most elusive of the three and could hardly but receive short shrift. And charity could be appropriately handled with brevity if it were clear that, as the last of the three, it was also the greatest of them and their raison dtre .