Love never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
Read Chapter 13
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Use your knowledge as a sort of tool to build the edifice of charity, which remains forever, even when “knowledge passes away.” For knowledge which is used to promote love is useful, but in itself and separated from love it turns out to be not only useless but even harmful.
Charity never faileth. It suffers no death; it will never cease: other gifts will cease in the heavenly glory. Heretics infer from this that, if charity never faileth, he who has it cannot sin, and is assured of his salvation. I reply, I deny the consequence. For charity never faileth, viz, by itself; for of its own accord it never deserts a Prayer of Manasseh , unless it be first through sin deserted by him. "Charity," says Cassian (Callat. iii. c7), "is one who never suffers her follower to fall by sin supplanting her." So long, therefore, as you give yourself to charity and will to keep her, you will never sin; but if you sin, it is not that charity in itself fails, but you yourself eject her by force.
Whether there be prophecies they shall fail. Not so much because of their obscurity as because they were here given to meet the imperfection of those who heard them, in order that they, being more untaught, might be taught by prophecy and tongues. Thus in heaven faith shall cease, be...
Prophecies and tongues last no longer than this life.
Knowledge shall be destroyed, that is, that imperfect knowledge we have in this world. For now we know only in part, we only see, as it were, through a glass, and imperfectly.
Faith, which is of things that appear not, and hope, which is of things that we enjoy not, will cease in heaven, but charity, the greater, or greatest even of these three, will remain, and be increased in heaven. (Witham)
Do you see when he put the crown on the arch, and what of all things is peculiar to this gift? For what is, fails not? it is not severed, is not dissolved by endurance. For it puts up with everything: since happen what will, he that loves never can hate. This then is the greatest of its excellencies.
Such a person was Paul. Wherefore also he said, If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh; Romans 11:14 and he continued hoping. And to Timothy he gave a charge, saying, And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all....in meekness correcting those that oppose themselves, if God perhaps may give them the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 2:24-25
What then, says one, if they be enemies and heathens, must one hate them? One must hate, not them but their doctrine: not the man, but the wicked conduct, the corrupt mind. For the man is God's work, but the deceit is the devil's work. Do thou not therefore confound the things of God and the things...
Having shown the excellency of love from its being requisite both to the spiritual gifts, and to the virtues of life; and from rehearsal of all its good qualities, and by showing it to be the foundation of exact self-denial; from another, a third head, again he points out its worth. And this he does, first from a wish to persuade those who seemed to be accounted inferior that it is in their power to have the chief of all signs, and that they will be no worse off than the possessors of the gifts, if they have this, but rather much better: secondly, with regard on the other hand to them that had the greater gifts and were lifted up thereby, studying to bring them down and to show that they have nothing unless they have this. For thus they would both love one another, envy as well as pride being hereby taken away; and reciprocally, loving one another, they would still further banish these passions. For love envies not, is not puffed up. So that on every side he throws around them an impre...
What about our enemies and the heathen? Should we not hate them? No, we do not hate them but their teaching; not the person but the wicked conduct and the corrupt mind. It is no surprise to discover that prophecies and tongues will pass away, but what about knowledge? Paul goes on to explain why he includes that as well.
Love is first among all the activities connected with virtue and all the commandments of the law. If, therefore, the soul ever attains this love, it will need none of the others, having reached the fullness of its being. It seems that love alone preserves in itself the character of the divine blessedness. And knowledge becomes love because what is known is by nature beautiful. .
