From the book
The Sophic Hydrolith, Water Stone of the Wise
Anonymous and companion authors · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordFaith names both the Christian confession's articles and the living trust said to arise through hearing God's Word.
- In the Sophic HydrolithThe benefits section says the art mirrors the articles of Christian faith: Trinity, incarnation, suffering, resurrection, and the person's movement toward new life.
- In this editionThe English distinguishes “articles of our Christian faith,” “saving faith,” and “true, living faith.”
- A place to readAll articles of faith are pictured; human works without cleansing are vain.
Meaning
Faith names both the Christian confession's articles and the living trust said to arise through hearing God's Word. The distinction between doctrinal content and active reception matters. The treatise also insists that works without the necessary purification are vain, while later describing good works as the expression of faith active through love. It does not make outward works the independent cause of saving faith.
Use in the book
The benefits section says the art mirrors the articles of Christian faith: Trinity, incarnation, suffering, resurrection, and the person's movement toward new life. It singles out purification from original sin as necessary, without which human conduct and works are otherwise nothing. This claim sets the frame for the later account; successful activity does not itself supply the missing spiritual beginning.
The theological discussion then distinguishes Christ's completed obedience and redemption from the recipient's weakness in grasping and appropriating its benefit. The problem lies in reception, not in an unfinished Christ. Word, saving faith, and unfeigned love are named as the three parts required by God. Faith is expressly a particular divine gift, comes through the Word, unites hearts, and is tried in tribulation. It is not manufactured by self-will or supplied as a payment for grace.
The later account traces true living faith to inward and divine hearing as to a spring. Such faith is active through love: toward God in humble obedience, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving; toward the neighbour in beneficent good works. The direction of the explanation is important. Living faith expresses itself in love and action, while the author rejects a claim to know God that has no corresponding conduct. The evidence of life is not made its autonomous cause.
Love consequently becomes the bond of perfection and is measured by concrete regard for the visible neighbour. The passage's long scriptural chain prevents “inward” from meaning merely private feeling. Faith's invisible source and its social enactment remain related, and neither a bare profession nor accumulated external achievement exhausts the term.
Places to read
- Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 9All articles of faith are pictured; human works without cleansing are vain.
- Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 41Saving faith is God’s gift, comes through his Word and is tested in tribulation.
- Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 46Living faith arises from inward hearing of the pure Word and works through love.
Translation
The English distinguishes “articles of our Christian faith,” “saving faith,” and “true, living faith.” These phrases translate different constructions rather than introducing three unrelated faculties. “Active through love” preserves the source's account of how faith works, while “a particular gift of God” preserves its origin. Keeping both avoids two opposite misreadings: that works earn regeneration, or that a faith which never acts toward others satisfies the author's argument.
Attested forms
Articuln vnsers Christlichen Glaubens; alle Wercke; vergebens vnd nichts; seligmachende Glaub; Gab Gottes; lebendiger glaube; durch die liebe thätig