This book is a brief handbook (in the Greek language, an "enchiridion").
Its formal title is, On the proper mode of serving God, through Faith, Hope, and Love.
Augustine speaks of this book in his Retractations, 1. if. c. 63, as follows:
"I also wrote a book on Faith, Hope, and Charity, at the request of the person to whom I addressed it, that he might have a work of mine which should never be out of his hands, such as the Greeks call an enchiridion (a handbook)."
"There I think I have carefully treated of the manner in which God is to be worshipped, which knowledge divine Scripture defines to be the true wisdom of the human species."
The Enchiridion is among the final books by Augustine. It was written after the death of Saint Jerome, which occurred on 30th September 420.
Augustine had an exchange of letters with Jerome. In the Enchroidion he alludes in chapter 87 to Jerome "of blessed memory" (sanctae memoriae Hieronymus presbyter), i.e., as deceased.
Augustine usually refers to this book by the title, "On Faith, Hope and Love," because he develops his subject under these three headings (compare with 1 Corinthians 13:13).
He follows under the first heading the order of the Apostles Creed, and then refutes, without naming them, the Manichean, Apollinarian, Arian, and Pelagian heresies.
Under the second heading Augustine gives a brief exposition of the Lord's Prayer.
The third part is a discourse on Christian love.
(Continued on the next page.)
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