Chapter 1 (86)
106 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
him."* See, you have it plainly stated here that God cannot be known, unless he is first believed in love.
5. THAT SOME THINGS WHICH ARE NOT KNOWN YET ARE BELIEVED AND
LOVED. But above it was said that no one can believe in God unless something is first understood.' And so we gather that some things which are to be believed cannot be known and understood unless they are first believed, and some are not believed unless they are first understood, and then they are understood more deeply through faith. Nor are those things entirely unknown which are believed before being understood, since faith comes from hearing;'" and yet they are partly unknown, because they are not understood. And so something is believed which is not known, but not entirely, as also something is loved which is not known.—ON THE TRINITY,
BOOK 8. Hence Augustine: "Something may be known and not loved; but I] ask whether it is possible that something which is not known be loved. If it cannot, then no one loves God before knowing him. But where are those three, faith, hope, and charity, unless in a soul which believes what it does not yet know, and which hopes for and loves that which it believes? And so even that is loved which is not known, but yet it is believed.""
DISTINCTION XX V
Chapter 1 (86) 1. ON THE FAITH OF THE ANCIENTS. In addition to the foregoing, we must address the sufficiency of faith for the salvation of those who lived before the coming of Christ and of those who come after. It appears that faith made progress with the passage of time, just as knowledge did. And so faith is called great because of knowledge and the quantity of articles, or because of constancy and devotion. But there is some measure of faith without which salvation was never possible. Hence the Apostle: The one who comes to God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of those who hope in him.'
2. THAT THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN SALVATION WITHOUT FAITH
IN THE MEDIATOR. But it is asked whether, before the coming [of Christ] or before the Law, belief in these things would have been sufficient for salvation. For in the time of grace, it is most certain that this does not suffice, because it is necessary to believe all that is contained in the Creeds.
'Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 8 c4 n6.
"In n3.
Ot Rom: lel ss '' Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 8 c4 n6.
'Hebr. 11, 6.
Distinction
XXV | 107
—But it seems that this did not suffice either before the coming [of Christ] or before the Law, because the authorities of the saints attest that, without faith in the mediator, no man would have been saved, either before or after.
3. AUGUSTINE. Hence Augustine, To Optatus: "That faith is sound by which we believe that no man, of whatever little or great age, is freed from the contagion of death and the burden of sin, which he has contracted by his first birth, except through the one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus.' It is by this most sound faith in this same man and God that even those just ones were saved who, before he came in the flesh, believed that he was going to come. For one and the same faith is theirs and ours." "Therefore, since all the just, whether before the incarnation or after, lived and live only by faith in the incarnation of Christ, as indeed it is written, there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved,* this same faith has had the power to save humankind from the very time that it became vitiated in Adam.""
4. IN THE BOOK ON CORRECTION AND GRACE. The same [Augustine]:
"No one is freed from the condemnation which came about through Adam, unless through faith in Jesus Christ."°—IN THE BOOK ON MARRIAGE
AND CONCUPISCENCE. The same [Augustine]: "The same faith in the mediator which saves us also saved the just ones of ancient times, both small and great. As we believe that Christ came in the flesh, so they believed that he would come; as we believe that he died, they believed that he would die; and as we believe that he rose again, so they believed that he would rise again. Both we and they believe that he will come to judge the living and the dead."
5. Gregory, On Ezechiel: "And those who went before, and those who followed, called out, saying: Hosanna to the son of David, etc.,* because all the elect, who could have been in Judea, or those who are now in the Church, believed and believe in the mediator of God and men."'—By these and many other testimonies, it is taught very plainly that no one has ever received salvation, except through faith in the mediator. And so, The one who comes to God must believe what the Apostle said above,'® but it is not sufficient.
21 Tim. 2, 5.
>Augustine, Epistola 190, c2 nn5-6.
*Act. 4, 12.
"Augustine, Epistola 190, c2 n8.
°Augustine, De correptione et gratia, c7 nll.
7Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia, bk 2 c11 n23.
8Mk. 11, 9; Mt. 21, 9.
*Gregory, In Ezechielem, bk 2 hom. 5 n2.
'At the end of nl.