Ask Mr Autodidact, NS 2: Faith Hope Charity
I have been asked more than once to clarify what is meant by faith, hope and charity. Faith and hope seem, in English at least, to overlap: If I have faith that my friend will pick me up for work in the morning, doesn't that mean that I hope he picks me up? As for charity, the same word in the New Testament is often translated as "love." Is charity primarily giving alms to the poor or liking other people, and if so, which people?
First off, faith and hope. Faith is a translation of the Greek πίστις (pistis), which means, basically, that we believe in or trust someone. Christ calls upon us not to believe a set of doctrines or a creed, but to put our trust, our ultimate reliance on Him. By contrast, έλπις (elpis) is expectation, particular the confident expectation that something will happen. In the case of Christianity, we are asked to expect of hope for the fulfillment of the teachings of the prophets, the Apostles, and, particularly Our Lord, and especially the promise of eternal life. It does not mean anything like the vain hope one might have of winning the lottery or landing a comfortable government sinecure.
Charity, as most people know, is αγάπη (love). Countless sermons have been preached on the difference between agape-love, philia-love, and eros-love, but, while some of them may contain a core of theological truth, they are not rooted in the everyday language of the Greeks. Yes, eros (as English derivatives suggest) is most often applied to sexual desire, but agape could also be used, as it is today in Greek, to mean boy-girl affection, and it can also express the pleasure or contentment we take in another person or even another thing. Philia, usually translated as friendship, is a word used throughout the Gospels and Epistles to express the ideal relationship between fellow-Christians. In very early Greek, the related adjective philos can means something like "one's own," and is over-translated by translators of Homer who speak of dear life or dear limbs. It is essentially the love of parent and children and of siblings for each other and by extension of the people we in English call friends. Early Christians called each other both "friends" and "brothers," and it is very difficult to distinguish philia from agape, though one might say that philia more emphasizes the bond between friends, while agape points to the inner feeling of compassion.
"Charity"--from Latin caritas, dearness, might have worked once, but the word now is highly misleading. Certainly, Christians will give alms to needy brothers and friends, but giving alms hardly begins to satisfy the requirements of Christian love/friendship. If we keep in mind its connection with philia, we shall not go astray. Agape commands us to treat other Christians as we would the members of our family.
So in the oft repeated sermon about Christ’s three-fold questioning of St. Peter around the fire on the shore which centers around Christ asking if St. Peter loves (agape) Him, and St. Peter, in humility, responds that he loves (philia) Him . . . the distinction in terms of love is valid but perhaps over-exaggerated to make a theological point?
Mr Cornell,
It’s especially good of you to ask the honest question. I too have often wondered. And why ask Peter three times after His resurrection as if referencing the three denials before His crucifixion. I also wonder what makes faith, hope and charity more unique gifts than those human virtues acquired by arduous practice, study and habit.
Robert, I started a long answer to your second question, but removed it. I think the triad of Faith Hope Charity can best be understood in the context of Paul’s epistle. He usually in his epistles is addressing a specific problem. Here he tells us that the Corinthians are dividing into factions but, instead of concentrating on leading Christian lives, they are quarreling over fine points about marriage and yet committing fornication. His emphasis on charity/agape is part of his argument to acknowledge the variety of gifts that may be possessed by other Christians, not to sin against charity by pretending to greater knowledge. We are to be faithful stewards of the divine mysteries entrusted to us. As stewards, we have been entrusted by our master whom we obey and trust. The hope of the plowman and the harvester is that he should reap the rewards of his labor and eat. He also says we should not only bear all things but have hope in all things, hope being the confidence that the faithful believer will be rewarded. This epistle, then, is not a treatise on the virtues but an appeal to practice these three requirements of Christian life.
The one peculiar phrase–at least to me–is : “There abideth…” The Greek verb μένω is a basic word meaning to stay or remain in one place. In Modern Greek it is the standard way of saying that one lives in a place. I can also, with a personal subject, mean one waits for and used impersonally it can mean, that it remains/is left to to something (with an infinitive). Aristotle among others uses it in the sense to continue to be what one was, and that may be the sense here. Other things come and go, but Faith Hope and Charity remain the same. In that case “abide” really is an excellent choice.
Perhaps the one peculiar part