ACC ~ 1 Timothy 1 v5b

LOVE BASED ON TRUTH. AUGUSTINE: Faith, hope and charity, those three virtues for whose building up is mounted all the scaffolding of the Bible, are only in the soul that believes what it does not yet see, and hopes and loves what it believes. Therefore there can be love even of One who is not known, if yet he is believed. Doubtless, we must beware lest the soul, believing what it does not see, fabricates for itself an image of that which is not and bases its hope and love upon a lie. Then there will not emerge that “charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment.” ON THE TRINITY 8.4.6.

AN UNFEIGNED FAITH. AUGUSTINE: When anyone knows the end of the commandments to be charity “from a pure heart, and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith” and has related all of his understanding of the divine Scriptures to these three, he may approach the treatment of these books with security. For when he says “charity” he adds “from a pure heart,” so that nothing else would be loved except that which should be loved. And he joins with this “a good conscience” for the sake of hope, for he in whom there is the smallest taint of bad conscience despairs of attaining that which he believes in and loves. Third, he says “an unfeigned faith.” If our faith involves no lie, then we do not love that which is not to be loved, and living justly, we hope for that which will in no way deceive our hope. ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 1.40.44.

BEHOLDING THROUGH A MIRROR. AUGUSTINE: When the promised vision, “face to face,” has come, we shall behold the Trinity—that Trinity which is not only incorporeal but perfectly inseparable and truly changeless—far more clearly and surely than we now behold its image in ourselves. This present vision, through a mirror and in an enigma, as offered to us in this life, belongs not to any one who can perceive in their own mind all that we have here set out by our analysis but to those who see the mind as a reflective image. In this way they are able to relate what they see to the One whose image it is. They reach through their actual vision of the image to a presumptive vision of the original, which cannot yet be seen face to face. The apostle does not say, “We see now a mirror” but “we see now through a mirror.” Those who see the mind as it may be seen, and in it that Trinity of which I have attempted to give a variety of descriptions, yet without believing or understanding it to be the image of God: they are seeing as if in a mirror. But so far from seeing through the mirror him who is now to be seen only in that way, they are unaware that the mirror seen is a mirror—which is to say, an image. If they knew it, they might be conscious of the need to seek and in some measure even now to see, through this mirror, him whose mirror it is—their hearts being purified by faith unfeigned, so that he who is seen now through a mirror may at last be seen face to face. But if they despise the faith that purifies hearts, no understanding of the most subtle analysis of our mind’s nature can serve but to condemn them, on the testimony of their own understanding itself. ON THE TRINITY 15.23.44-15.24.44.

THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS. AUGUSTINE: Now, you know, I think, not only the nature of your prayer but its object, and you have learned this, not from me but from him who has humbled himself to teach us all. Happiness is what we must seek and what we must ask of the Lord God. Many arguments have been fashioned by many men about the nature of happiness, but why should we turn to the many men or the many arguments? Brief and true is the word in the Scripture of God, “Happy is the people whose God is the Lord.”“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith,” that we may belong to that people and that we may be able to attain to contemplation of God and to eternal life with God. LETTERS 130.12.24.

THE END OF ALL YOUR ACTIONS. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: Ascend the mountain and see the end. Christ is the mountain; come to him, and from there you will see the end of all perfection. What is the end? Ask Paul, “Now the purpose of this charge is charity, from a pure heart and a pure conscience and faith unfeigned,” and in another place, “love is the fulfillment of the law.” … Therefore, whatever you do, do it for the love of Christ, and let the intention or end of all your actions look to him. Do nothing for the sake of human praise, but everything for love of God and the desire for eternal life. SERMONS 137.1.

1 Tim