Faith, Hope, and Charity

Lately I’ve been posting on world building, the mimetic aspect of narrative, and I will continue that series later, but today I thought I would take a break and talk about style. Recently I came across an interesting passage in Herbert Read’s English Prose Style, first published in 1966. I wouldn’t place it at the top of my list of books on style, but he does have some good things to say, and he quotes some interesting passages.

Chapter IV, which is about sentence construction, includes a brief discussion of punctuation. Read says there are three methods of punctuation: by structure (that is, by the grammar of a sentence), by respiration (by where we breathe), and by rhythm (by the flow of the words). I would say that most of the time these three aspects of a sentence should coincide. He gives as an example of punctuation by structure a passage, written in 1594, by Richard Hooker, an English theologian (1554–1600), from a book titled Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (I.11.6). I don’t know much about Hooker—he seems to have been important as an opponent of Puritan tendences in the English church—but the passage Read quotes is interesting. It may be helpful to start with a brief summary.

In this passage Hooker is discussing three divine virtues: faith, hope, and charity. The object of faith, he says, is eternal truth; the object of hope is resurrection and everlasting goodness; the object of charity is the beauty which shines in the face of Christ. Faith begins with a dim perception and ends with the vision of God; hope begins with a trembling expectation and ends with fruition of the ineffable; and charity begins with an inclination of the heart towards the divine and ends with endless union with it. With that summary, let’s look at the passage:

“Concerning faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God; concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the inclusive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that faith, hope, and charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed?”

According to Read, the structure of the sentence is determined by the punctuation; I would say, on the contrary, that the punctuation is determined by the structure. This sentence is a perfect example of the coincidence of structure, respiration, and rhythm.

This sentence is a Ciceronian period—it’s a complex sentence, with parallel structures, the syntax and meaning of which are suspended and only resolved by the end—in this case, by the very last word, “revealed”. Ciceronian periods are named after the Latin orator and politician Cicero, who was a master of periodic structure, though he could also write excellent simple sentences when he wanted to. Periods are easier to construct in Latin than in English. Latin sentence structure often leaves the verb to the end (Subject, Object, Verb), whereas the normal structure of an English transitive sentence puts the verb in the middle, between the subject and the object (Subject Verb Object). Periods in English are more common in older styles, but they can also be found in current writing, if you look for them.

This period is composed of a series of nested parallel constructions. Here is an analysis of the beginning of the sentence:

A. Concerning faith,
B. the principal object whereof
C. is that eternal verity
D. which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ;

A. concerning hope,
B. the highest object whereof
C. is that everlasting goodness
D. which in Christ doth quicken the dead;

A. concerning charity,
B. the final object whereof
C. is that incomprehensible beauty
D. which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God;

This part of the sentence is a tricolon, a structure of three elements (as in, for example, “of the people, by the people, and for the people”). Tricolon is one of the most common of the rhetorical figures. We can note the parallel but varied constructions of “principal object” and “highest object” and “final object”; also “eternal verity” and “everlasting goodness” and “incomprehensible goodness”; and of course the repetition of “Christ” in each member of the tricolon, expanded in the third instance to “Christ the Son of the living God”. (As a footnote, the word “quicken” means “brings to life”; compare the phrase “the quick and the dead”, which means “the living and the dead”; and the quick of your finger is the living part underneath the non-living nail.)

The sentence continues with a second tricolon which repeats and extends the first:

E. concerning these virtues,
F. the first of which beginning here
G. with a weak apprehension of things not seen,
H. endeth with the inclusive vision of God in the world to come;

F. the second beginning here
G. with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of,
H. endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express;

F. the third beginning here
G. with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach,
H. endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men;

The sentence ends with a repetition of the three key terms and the final predication, which resolves both the meaning and the grammar: “concerning that faith, hope, and charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed?” As a piece of verbal architecture, this sentence is impressive—though some will find it excessive. In my next post I will look at the context of the sentence, both internal and external.

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