La fe propia de los católicos en los In Epistulam Iohannis ad Parthos Tractatus de San Agustín

Abstract

In his Tractatus on the first letter of John, St. Augustine interprets the apostolic text with the current ecclesial key, equating dissidents of the community of the letter with the Donatists schismatic. But to this equating was opposed the fact that, while the dissidents had a Christological faith different to the faith of the community, the Donatists had the same Christological faith
that of Catholics. To solve the problem the saint extends the content of this faith: true faith on Christ –Head– involves the true faith over the Church –His Body–. In a second stage, he extends the concept of true faith in another sense to unite it inseparably to the ecclesial love. This is precisely the very faith of Catholics (“believe in”), other than the faith of the Donatists and other heretics, coinciding with the demons, who also believe that Christ is the Son God (“believe that”), but they do not love him. The core of the study constitutes the faith of Catholics with their specific aspects and impacts; but this core is preceded by other general aspects of faith present in the Augustinian text: nature, characteristics, origin, dialectic between believing and understanding, relationship with Scripture, and followed by brief comments on the damage to the faith and the lack of faith.