Let that therefore abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
For haply you might ask about the wages, and say, Behold, that which I have heard from the beginning I keep safe in me, I comply therewith; perils, labors, temptations, for the sake of this continuance, I bear up against them all: with what fruit? What wages? What will He hereafter give me, since in this world I see that I labor among temptations? I see not here that there is any rest: mere mortality weighs down the soul, and the corruptible body presses it down to lower things: but I bear all things, that that which I have heard from the beginning Wisdom 9:15 may remain in me; and that I may say to my God, Because of the words of Your lips have I kept hard ways. Unto what wages then? Hear, and faint not. If you were fainting in the labors, upon the promised wages be strong. Where is the man that shall work in a vineyard, and shall let slip out of his heart the reward he is to receive? Suppose him to have forgotten, his hands fail. The remembrance of the promised wages makes him persev...
Let that (faith) which you have heard from the beginning, abide in you: when you received the Christian faith, and were baptized in the name of the three divine Persons. The promise which was then made to you, was life everlasting. (Witham)
