swalljowed up in that perfect bliss to which we shall come :
32 ON CHKISTIAN DOCTHINE. [BOOK L begin to shake. And then, if faith totter, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also faU from love ; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist. But if he both believes and loves, then through good works, and through diligent attention to the precepts of morality, he comes to hope also that he shall attain the object of his love. And so these are the three things to which all knowledge and all prophecy are subservient : faith, hope , love.
Chap, xxxviii.—Zore neverfallcth.
42. But sight shall displace faith ; and hope shall be swalljowed up in that perfect bliss to which we shall come : love, on the other hand, shall wax greater when these others fail. For if we love by faith that which as yet we see not, how much more shall we love it when we begin to see ! And if we love by hope that which as yet we have not reached, how much more shall we love it when we reach it ! For there is this great difference between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eternity : an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with greater ardour when it is in possession than while it is still an object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it comparatively wortliless when he finds it of less value than he thought; on the contrary, however high the value any man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he will find it, when it comes into his po.ssession, of higher value still.
Chap, xxxix.—lie xcho is mature in faith, hope, and love, needs Scripture no lonijer,
43. And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope, and love, and who keeps a iirm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others.
Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on tlie strength of tliese throe graces. So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fuHilled :