Sophia Scriptura

Hope

Christian hope: its object and grounds. Part of The Christian life.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

  • Epistle of Barnabas 1.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Three teachings of the Lord: hope, righteousness, and love.
  • 2 Clement 11.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Do not doubt; hope and endure for the reward.
  • Against Heresies 2.28.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Some questions, such as what God did before creation, must be left to God; Scripture then remains in harmony.
  • 42Anonymous · ca. 180–185 · Even if Christian hope were a delusion, it teaches a good life.
  • Prophetic Extracts 12.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We already have a pledge of eternal goods and hope for the rest; the beatitudes are our provisions for the journey.
  • Miscellanies 5.2.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's Socrates, in the Crito and Phaedrus, speaks of hope of another life after death and of the soul winged by love reaching the goal of hope and eternal life.
  • Arabic commentary on the Apocalypse, fragment 8 (on Rev 12, 14)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200-235 · Hippolytus explains the two wings given to the woman as hope and love.
  • On the Resurrection of the Flesh 23Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Paul speaks of a spiritual rising with Christ in baptism, but he and John and Peter place the real resurrection in the future, at Christ's appearing.
  • PG 12:1147 (Ps 4 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The sacrifices of the law are a copy and shadow, to be read symbolically and mystically; hope in the Lord follows righteous action; Origen takes up the philosophers’ question whether the perfect man hopes, answering from Scripture that love “hopes all things.”
  • PG 12:1149 (Ps 4 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Love “hopes all things,” the promised beatitudes; on Ps 4:6, “Who will show us good things?” is the cry of those who long to understand the promises, which only the wise, like Paul, can show; then an extract from Origen’s tome on the question what the good things are.
  • PG 12:1167 (Ps 4–5 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The end of Psalm 4 (the true bread; the Hebrew “from the time of” the harvest; Christ or the saint dwelling “alone” in hope) and the beginning of Psalm 5: only one whose King and God the Lord truly is can pray its words.
  • PG 12:1477 (Ps 60 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Ps 60 LXX (61):2–6: Christ the rock and guide, the hope of the nations, the eternal tent and the state beyond it in the Trinity, and the inheritance of those who fear God.
  • Homilies on Ezekiel 4.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · No one is saved by the righteousness of parents or saints; Noah, Daniel, and Job are named, following a Jewish interpreter, because each saw times of joy, sorrow, and joy restored.
  • Against Celsus 1.11Origen · ca. 248 · All human life—sailing, marrying, farming—rests on faith, so it is far more reasonable to trust God and Christ, who died for humanity and sent his disciples through the world.
  • Against Celsus 3.80Origen · ca. 248 · If Christian hope of blessed life is empty, so are the hopes of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle about the soul; only an Epicurean, who expects the soul to perish, could say so, and his own hope rests on pleasure of the flesh.
  • Commentary on Romans 4.6Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Abraham believed 'against hope in hope' when he had despaired of a son; faith, hope, and love are the foundation, growth, and summit of salvation; faith can be weak or healthy and grows by degrees; and since Abraham later fathered six sons, his 'body as good as dead' is read as the mortification of desire, so that he could beget Isaac and Christ, as believers too may 'beget Christ' through chastity.
  • Commentary on Romans 4.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Peace with God through Christ means abandoning the enmity of sin and fighting the devil, which itself brings peace; Christ is the door to grace through which only the truthful, righteous, and humble can pass; and the 'hope of the glory of God' looks beyond the glory seen in Moses and in Christ's earthly coming to the Father's glory at his return, for which we prepare by contemplation now.
  • Commentary on Romans 7.5Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains the groaning of those who have the “firstfruits of the Spirit,” offering three readings of the phrase (the Holy Spirit above ministering spirits, the apostles’ highest gifts, or the Spirit as firstfruits of many spirits), and teaches that adoption and redemption are now held in hope.
  • Commentary on Romans 10.9Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Paul calls on the 'God of hope' because the Gentiles hope in Christ, whose blood made peace in heaven and earth; fullness of peace belongs to those reconciled to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, believing in the fullness of the Trinity.
  • To Quirinus 3.10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Trust and boasting belong to God alone, not to human wisdom, strength, or princes, as the three young men in Daniel showed.
  • To Quirinus 3.45Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Hope looks to future things, so faith must wait patiently for what God has promised.
  • To Demetrian 20Cyprian of Carthage · 252–253 · Like Habakkuk, Christians rejoice in God even when crops fail, awaiting heaven; yet they pray day and night for rain, peace, and the safety of their persecutors.
  • Lines 64–80Anonymous · 4th-5th century · The memory of the passion will keep the reader from trusting the passing world, sustain him with hope amid suffering, and lead his soul after death to reign with Christ among angels and saints.
  • Divine Institutes 6.9.17Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Virtue without hope is wretched and foolish.
  • Divine Institutes 6.9.18Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Without immortality, virtue is vanity.
  • Divine Institutes 6.9.21Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Without hope, choosing hardship is insane.
  • Divine Institutes 6.9.22Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Virtue needs a greater hope to be a good.
  • Preparation for the Gospel 11.4.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Not scepticism or mere virtue, but hope in God makes one blessed.
  • Demonstration of the Gospel 2.2.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah’s servant brings judgment to the nations, who hope in his name.
  • Theophany 3.79Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
  • Historical Fragments 2.1.1.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · Hilary opens his work with Paul's faith, hope, and love, which alone remain when other gifts pass away.
  • Historical Fragments 2.1.1.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · Faith, hope, and love alone continue into eternity, while prophecy, tongues, and knowledge pass.
  • Historical Fragments 2.1.2.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · Hope gives up present goods for the hundredfold reward and eternal life.
  • Life of Antony 42Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Demons mirror the soul they find: fear invites their attack, while joy in the Lord and hope drive them away, as with Job and Judas.
  • Letter 174Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil counsels a widow to keep the day of judgment before her eyes, to pray, and not to despair of God's goodness.
  • Homilies on the Psalms 7.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil explains Ps 7:1–6: only one who hopes in God alone can pray this verse; salvation is for the sick, deliverance for captives; “repayment” can mean a first gift; and the enemy tramples the soul of the one who lives by the flesh.
  • Homilies on the Psalms 32.10Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil ends his homily on Psalm 32 (33): God's eyes are on those who look to him; the humble hope in his mercy, not their works; the soul waits for him with joy in affliction; his name is holy for what it signifies; and his mercy is measured to our hope.
  • Homilies on the Psalms 59.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 60:8–12 Basil reads Moab, “the pot of washing,” as baptism, which admits even the excluded Moabite to the Church; the shoe cast over Edom is Christ's flesh, the fortified city the Church; and help from affliction is the Christian's true help, as with Paul, since affliction produces endurance and hope, and the sick, the poor and the dishonored are to rejoice and pray rather than trust human help.
  • Letter 365Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 360–390 · Gregory consoles a grieving woman: remembering God turns pain to joy, and those who chose the ascetic life expected affliction, not prosperity.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 51.22Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The prophet is a fruitful olive in God's house, the church, never cut off like the unbelieving branches; his hope reaches beyond death to the resurrection.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 55.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hope in God frees the saint from fear of men; Christ too, remaining God in the flesh, worked divine deeds and feared nothing from flesh.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 118.6.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Having God's promised mercy and salvation, the psalmist can answer those who mock his hope.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 118.7.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The seventh letter begins with the prayer that God remember his word, which gives hope that consoles in every trouble.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 127.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The full goods of Zion and Jerusalem await the age to come, when we shall see face to face and enjoy peace after the devil's defeat.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 129.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hope is open at every hour; like the eleventh-hour workers, those who come late receive the reward by God's mercy, so we must hurry now.
  • Tractates on the Psalms 145.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Blessed is the one who hopes in the Creator, the God of Jacob, who alone is true and judges justly for the wronged.
  • Commentary on Ephesians 1.18Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Victorinus distinguishes the spirit of wisdom, by which we understand divine things inwardly, from the spirit of revelation, which shows them as if from outside, and explains the hope of the calling and the inheritance of the sons.
  • Oration 17.2Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · David, in distress, longed for a dove’s wings yet found his remedy in hope and in remembering God, a cure within everyone’s reach.
  • Oration 18.42Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory consoles his mother by contrasting changeable human life with true life in God, calling sin the only real death, and urging her to bear widowhood with hope.
  • Tractates 1.2.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno begins a discourse on hope, faith and love, showing that without hope no human labour, and no Christian faith, has any point.
  • Tractates 1.2.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno praises faith as the foundation of hope and, from the example of Abraham, shows that faith and hope live or die together.
  • Homilies 4.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · To the objection that one cannot give thanks under torture or loss, Basil answers that the apostle speaks to those whose souls, united to God, are above the sufferings of the flesh, and who have abundant reasons for joy.
  • Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:12–13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Christians who die in faith are not to be mourned like those without hope, since God will raise them with Jesus; only unbelievers are truly to be mourned.
  • Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 5:4–5Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Christians, as children of the day, must stay watchful, armed with faith, hope, and love, since Christ died so that living or dead they may live with him.
  • Commentary on Romans 4:17Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Abraham, father of all believers, trusted the God who gives life to the dead and believed against hope that he and Sarah would have countless descendants.
  • Commentary on Romans 8:17Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Sons of God inherit from a living Father; to be co-heirs with Christ, believers must suffer with him by enduring persecution and crucifying the flesh.
  • Commentary on Titus 2:11–12Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God’s grace revealed in Christ teaches us to confess the Creator in the unity of the Trinity and to live godly lives, awaiting the glory to be revealed at Christ’s judgment; faith without good works is vain.
  • Letter 59.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers Marcella that the things 'eye has not seen' are spiritual realities beyond present human knowledge, which Paul did not necessarily reveal to others.
  • Letter 60.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome turns from pagan examples to Christian hope, which changes mourning into joy.
  • On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 93Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · God, being the good itself, needs neither hope nor memory and has nothing outside him but evil, which is non-being; the purified soul, freed from desire, keeps only love and is united with God, being formed ever anew by what it finds.
  • On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 95Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · The purified soul, lacking nothing, has no further need of desire, hope, or faith; only love remains, as Paul says, and love is the very life of God, who never tires of the beautiful.
  • On the Making of Man 22Gregory of Nyssa · 379 · The resurrection waits until the full number of humanity, foreseen by God, has been born; then time will end and all will be changed at once; meanwhile we should prepare by good living, not calculate times.
  • On the Lord's Prayer 1135Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Worldly gifts are toys to lead us to ask the Father for greater things; to ask God only for earthly goods is to pray “like the gentiles,” who have no hope beyond this life. Homily 2 begins: Moses could not bring the people near to God at Sinai.
  • On the Complaints of Job and David 4.10Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · David lamented his long exile on earth, though hope of heaven consoled him.
  • On the Complaints of Job and David 4.12Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · In trouble, hope in God strengthens us, looking to the praise we shall give when we see his glory.
  • On the Life of Moses 401Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · As a falling body accelerates, so the soul freed from earthly ties rises ever higher toward the good; Moses, after every ascent of his life, still longs to see God as he is, because the lover of beauty is always drawn from what he sees to what lies beyond.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 3.3.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · As Paul moved from unworthiness to confidence in his crown, David now asks for the reward of his labors; hope spurs work.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 7.6.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 50: hope from God’s word comforts us in present troubles, as Paul says.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 7.6.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hope of glory makes every adversity bearable.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 7.7.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hope consoles in the time of humiliation, which is the time of temptation.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 9.3.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Jeremiah’s verses under the same letter show this good exclusion: patient hope shuts out impatience.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 10.4.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · When humiliation is complete, sin is loosed; desolation leads through humility and patience to hope and the Spirit’s comfort.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 11.5.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · He hoped in the Word, Christ, or in the prophetic word announcing his coming.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 15.24.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hope rests on Christ’s coming, the good shepherd who carries the lost sheep.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 15.27.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hope does not shame; affliction produces patience and proof, which strengthen hope.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 15.27.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Without hope patience fails; hope keeps outward struggles and inward fears from harming.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 15.28.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · One who trusts in Christ will not be ashamed; our expectation is eternal life and the kingdom.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 19.20.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The righteous add hope to hope in adversity; fullness of punishment brings release from sin.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 19.21.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Job kept hoping; the light of the ungodly goes out, but the righteous always have light.
  • Exposition of Psalm 118 21.22.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hope precedes salvation; those who do Christ’s precepts are his friends.
  • Letter 55.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that our passage from death to life begins now in faith and baptism and will be completed in the resurrection of the body.
  • Letter 55.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine interprets the breadth, height, length, and depth of the cross as cheerfulness in good works, hope of reward, patience, and the hidden sacrament, and the burial and resurrection as held in faith.
  • Letter 55.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine warns against expecting full blessedness in this life: the new life is begun in faith and hope and will be completed at the resurrection.
  • Letter 92.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine consoles the widow Italica with Christian hope of reunion with the departed in the life to come.
  • Letter 120.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine distinguishes past things, believed only; future things, believed and hoped for; and eternal things, some invisible and seen by understanding, some visible like Christ's risen body.
  • Letter 140.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Earthly deliverance belongs to the old man descended from Adam; the new 'sons of men' in Christ hope for the eternal salvation that Psalm 36 distinguishes from the safety shared with beasts.
  • Letter 155.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christians endure this life in the hope of eternal happiness, as Christ's passion and resurrection teach; even Cicero called this life a death.
  • Letter 263.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says Christians may grieve for the dead, as Christ wept for Lazarus, but not long or like those without hope.
  • Letter 263.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine assures Sapida that her brother's body will rise, not a hair perishing, and that he is now clothed with immortality, a better garment than the tunic she made.
  • Soliloquies 1.6Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Reason compares knowing God to the sun lighting what the eye sees, and explains that the soul needs healthy eyes, looking and seeing, and that faith, hope and love are required for its healing.
  • Soliloquies 1.7Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Reason explains that once the soul sees God, faith and hope are no longer needed and only love remains, though in this life all three are still required.
  • Hexameron (Exameron) 3.53Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Trees without fruit serve as types: cedar and cypress for the church's pillars, palm and laurel for victory, willow for Christ's bonds of love, box for unfading hope.
  • Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.32.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Tribulation, drunk first, produces patience and hope.
  • Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.81.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The true remains are hope, faith and love; the remnant is saved by grace.
  • Sermon 4.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The exodus is a figure of baptism: sins are drowned like the Egyptians, and the baptized walk through this world's desert in hope, resisting temptations, toward the homeland.
  • Sermon 21.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The righteous rejoice in the Lord even now in hope, before they see him; unlike earthly loves, which disappoint when obtained, God when seen will surpass all that hope imagined.
  • Sermon 23.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The drunkenness the psalm promises is not carnal feasting but drinking love, which is present in the heart without place or footsteps; so we should learn to love God.
  • Sermon 27.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s words “I have made known to you all that I heard from my Father” speak of the future as already done, as Scripture often does, just as we are “saved in hope.”
  • Sermon 41.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Keeping faith with a poor friend in hope of his future wealth is not true friendship, and such hope may be disappointed; the verse must have a deeper sense.
  • Sermon 47.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The evil beasts are the enemies of Scripture; the desert where the sheep dwell in hope is the good conscience, refreshed by streams of remembered Scripture.
  • Sermon 53.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Our faith differs from the demons’ faith because it works through love and hopes for God’s promises; faith, hope, and love together cleanse the heart.
  • Sermon 70.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Spirit made Paul’s sufferings light; people of the world endure far worse for passing goods.
  • Sermon 87.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · All sins are forgiven to those who turn to Christ; despair kills souls, but God calls back the despairing through Ezekiel’s promise.
  • Sermon 105.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Faith, hope, and love, all three gifts of God, are needed to make the gift sweet, love being the greatest.
  • Sermon 105.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The egg is hope, which looks ahead to what is not yet seen and must not look back like Lot’s wife; the scorpion, which strikes from behind, is the world that tries to turn hope back to passing things.
  • Sermon 105.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God mixes bitterness into earthly happiness so that we seek true happiness; those who complain that everything is perishing in Christian times look back, while the hopeful bless the Lord at all times, like Job.
  • Sermon 105.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · All earthly kingdoms will end; Christians should set their hearts above and shelter their hope, the egg, under the wings of Christ, the hen of the Gospel, against the scorpion of blasphemers.
  • Sermon 108.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, who came, departed, and will come again, warns us to wait for the end with girded loins, abstaining from unlawful desires, and with lamps burning in good works, for we became Christians in hope of another world.
  • Sermon 124.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · This life is a tribulation between fear and pain, and only the Word who became flesh without change gives hope; the pool signifies the Jewish people within the five porches of the law, its stirring Christ’s passion, which the proud refuse; Christ took our birth and death to give us resurrection, so we should live as strangers in a short and passing life.
  • Sermon 127.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christians are not made for present goods but for what eye has not seen; like an infant who cannot believe he will grow up, we must believe what we do not yet see.
  • Sermon 153.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · To leave the flesh is to stop trusting in oneself and to put one’s hope in God, the only refuge against desire made stronger by the Law; without the Law sin lay hidden, with it sin revived.
  • Sermon 156.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine contrasts the Epicureans, who lived by the flesh, and the Stoics, who lived by their own soul's virtue, with Paul at Athens, who lived according to God and placed happiness in hope in the Lord.
  • Sermon 157.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine exhorts his hearers to hope for the unseen eternal things God promises, not the deceiving world's present pleasures, and to ignore those who mock them with “Let us eat and drink.”
  • Sermon 157.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ's passion teaches patience and his resurrection grounds hope, since what we hope for is already accomplished in our head; being scourged is a mark of sonship.
  • Sermon 158.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Hope sustains the pilgrim on the way and will cease when the reality comes; in this hope the martyrs endured for Christ, who now dwells in hearts by faith.
  • Sermon 170.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul calls himself both imperfect and perfect because human perfection is to know one is not perfect; reading Scripture should show us our guilt and turn our desire toward the future righteousness.
  • Sermon 173.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christians must grieve, but not as those without hope: the departed soul leaves the body lifeless, yet Paul's promise of resurrection and of being always with the Lord consoles, for Christ too passed through death.
  • Sermon 210.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · This life is the “little while” of sorrow and labor before the joy no one can take away; meanwhile we fast and pray in hope, with the Spirit as pledge.
  • Sermon 234.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We, who believe, are better off than the Emmaus disciples who had lost hope, whom the thief on the cross outdid; Christ is known in the breaking of bread, which by his blessing becomes his body.
  • Sermon 236.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The disciples, having lost hope at Christ's death, called him only a prophet; on the road he showed them from the Scriptures that the Christ had to die.
  • Sermon 255.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · To the sons of men belongs hope under God’s wings and the promise of the abundance of his house; now love sings Alleluia in hope and hunger, then it will sing in enjoyment.
  • On Christian Doctrine 1.15Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Christ's resurrection, ascension, and coming judgment strengthen hope, and the gift of the Spirit is a foretaste of the reward to come.
  • On Christian Doctrine 1.38Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Faith will give way to sight and hope to possession, but love will grow, since eternal goods, unlike temporal ones, surpass all expectation when attained.
  • On Christian Doctrine 1.39Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · One firmly grounded in faith, hope, and love needs the Scriptures only to teach others; love, the greatest, will remain forever.
  • Confessions 13.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · We live by faith, not sight; Paul, as the Bridegroom's friend, calls the church to hope and purity until we see God as he is.
  • Confessions 13.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Still partly an abyss, the soul hopes in God until the night passes and it becomes wholly light.
  • Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · From the context of 2 Cor 5 and parallels in Ephesians and Romans, Augustine shows that Paul speaks of Christ’s risen, immortal state and of believers’ hope, not of a denial of Christ’s flesh.
  • Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Jeremiah 17 as forbidding hope in a mere man yet declaring that Christ is man, so that hope rests in Christ as God made man.
  • Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The righteous are found not in separated assemblies but throughout the city on Daniel’s mountain, groaning over the sins among them; in hope their citizenship is already in heaven, free of the wicked, but in reality they bear them in the Catholic Church until the final separation.
  • Literal Commentary on Genesis 11.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The first man, though he did not foreknow his sin, could be happy in paradise in a lesser way, rejoicing in hope of the change to come.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 1.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We lift our eyes to the 'mountains', the human writers of Scripture, but our hope rests not in them but in the Lord who enlightens them.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 7.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The poor people of Christ, one body groaning among the chaff, finds its joy within, not in the passing pleasures of the world's festivals; what remains for ever is the Word, who became flesh so that we might lay hold of him.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 10.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine closes by urging humility and joy in hope, with all desire directed to Christ.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 28.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The upright in heart blame themselves and praise God; like their head, Christ's members say to the world's lovers that their time has not yet come.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 30.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We too are warned not to judge by persons; the Jews sought earthly promises of the Old Testament, while we, made new, hope for an eternal homeland.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 33.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Men are endangered both by presumptuous hope and by despair; God offers forgiveness to the despairing and makes the day of death uncertain for the presumptuous.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 34.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Beyond the health shared with beasts, men hope for the drink of God's house and the fountain of life; Christ, light from light, was made under the sun, his light tempered by the cloud of the flesh.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 34.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Following is present, having the light is future: now we follow by faith, then we shall see; meanwhile we desire God, who alone sees that desire and gives himself.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 35.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · When Christ comes, Scripture's lamps will no longer be needed; we shall see the Word himself, the light from which every ray now reaches us.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 38.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · “If you do not believe that I am” restored hope to those who would believe; even those who shed Christ's blood could be forgiven, as the robber was saved on the cross.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 40.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We must stretch out our desire for the glory to come, loving God more than money and using the world like an inn on a journey, trusting him who called us.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 86.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ says he has made all things known because he speaks of the future fullness of knowledge as already done, as Scripture speaks of salvation already received in hope.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 101.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The "little while" until we see Christ is the whole present age; Christ's going to the Father is why he is not now seen, and the church waits in joyful hope.
  • Tractates on the Gospel of John 111.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's prayer that those given him by the Father may be with him is a sure promise, for the will of Father, Son and Spirit is one.
  • Homilies on the First Epistle of John 4.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The Christian life is holy longing, by which God enlarges the soul to receive what is promised, as Paul stretched toward the prize; we must empty ourselves of evil to be filled with God.
  • On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.9Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · “He who is born of God does not sin” does not prove sinlessness: baptism forgives all sins, but renewal is gradual, so the baptized are children of God in so far as renewed and children of this world in so far as still old.
  • City of God 10.25Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine teaches that the righteous of old were justified by faith in the mystery of Christ, and expounds Psalm 73 to show that man's good is to cleave to God and hope in him with the angels.
  • City of God 11.12Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Adam in paradise had greater present delight, but the righteous now, though suffering, have the surer hope of eternal happiness.
  • City of God 12.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The doctrine that the blessed must return to misery in endless cycles is impious and destroys love and hope; even Porphyry rejected it, and the souls' final freedom shows that genuinely new things happen, such as man's creation.
  • City of God 15.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Seth's son Enosh, who 'hoped to call on the name of the Lord', prefigures the city of God, which lives by hope in the resurrection of Christ.
  • City of God 15.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The genealogy of Seth restarts from Adam (Gen 5:1) because only the heavenly city's times are reckoned; the city of God must learn to hope in God, not in its own free choice.
  • City of God 19.4Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine answers that eternal life is the supreme good and eternal death the supreme evil, and argues that the miseries of this life, the constant war of virtue against vice, and even the Stoic defence of suicide show that happiness here can only be held in hope.
  • City of God 19.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine says that the citizens of the heavenly city may be called happy now only in hope, since all present goods without that hope are false happiness.
  • On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · 1 John's texts on not sinning apply to what is born of God in us, while 1 John 1:8 applies to the remaining infirmity inherited from Adam, healed fully only at Christ's appearing.
  • On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Even regenerate parents beget children of this world, because they beget through the concupiscence that belongs to the old man, which a believer must not love.
  • The Institutes 9.13John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Dejection is overcome by meditating on the promised blessedness, so that neither misfortune nor prosperity moves us.
  • Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine explains that present righteousness is 'perfect' only in knowing and confessing its imperfection, as Paul does in Philippians 3.
  • Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · God is worshipped by faith, hope, and love, and explaining what each concerns will answer all Laurentius's questions.
  • Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Faith differs from hope, since faith concerns good and evil, past, present, and future, while hope concerns only one's own future good; yet love, hope, and faith cannot exist without one another.
  • Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 114Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · From the faith of the Creed springs hope, whose objects are those of the Lord's Prayer, for hope must be placed in God alone.
  • The Conferences 11.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon teaches that people refrain from sin through fear of punishment, hope of reward, or love of goodness itself; the third belongs to God and to those who bear his image.
  • On the Gift of Perseverance 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination should be preached pastorally: addressed to the church as believers, speaking of those who will not persevere in the third person, urging prayer for the uncalled, and teaching hope in God rather than oneself, not in the harsh second-person form proposed by the objectors.
  • Part 6Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author answers the charge that confessing Christ's manhood is hoping in a man, citing the Scriptures on Christ as man and arguing that our hope is in God the Word acting through his flesh.
  • Letter to Valerian, paragraph 22Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · As anyone would wait a day for gold rather than take copper now, we should prefer eternal goods; hope by its nature looks to what is not yet seen.
  • Tome to the Armenians 7Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 435-437 · Hope makes future things present to the mind and joins the one who longs to the object of longing.