ment faith, then love. But it is not as I fear and hate a wild beast (since fear is twofold) that I fear the father, whom I fear and love at once. Again, fearing lest I be punished, I love myself in assuming fear. He who fears to offend his father, loves himself. Blessed then is he who is found possessed of faith, being, as he is, composed of love and fear. And faith is power in order to salvation, and strength to eternal life. Again, prophecy is foreknowledge; and knowledge the understanding of prophecy; being the knowledge of those things known before by the Lord who reveals all things.
The knowledge, then, of those things which have been predicted shows a threefold result,—either one that has happened long ago, or exists now, or about to be. Then the extremes[1] either of what is accomplished or of what is hoped for fall under faith; and the present action furnishes persuasive arguments for the confirmation of both the extremes. For if, prophecy being one, one part is accomplishing and another is fulfilled; hence the truth, both what is hoped for and what is past is confirmed. For it was first present; then it became past to us; so that the belief of what is past is the apprehension of a past event, and the hope which is future the apprehension of a future event.
And not only the Platonists, but the Stoics, say that assent is in our own power. All opinion then, and judgment, and supposition, and knowledge, by which we live and have perpetual intercourse with the human race, is an assent; which is nothing else than faith. And unbelief being defection from faith, shows both assent and faith to be possessed of power; for non-existence cannot be called privation. And if you consider the truth, you will find man naturally misled so as to give assent to what is false, though possessing the resources necessary for belief in the truth. "The virtue, then, that encloses the church in its grasp," as the Shepherd says,[2] "is Faith, by which the elect of God are saved; and that which acts the man is Self-restraint. And these are followed by Simplicity, Knowledge, Innocence, Decorum, Love," and all
- ↑ i.e. Past and Future, between which lies the Present.
- ↑ Pastor of Hermas, book i. Vision iii. chap. viii.
