For what it's worth, I actually think the OED might have missed a trick there (it's a brilliant resource, but it's not infallible)... To me the wider context of the Becon quote would suggest that the phrase is probably not being used in a purely idiomatic sense here, and there's at least an element of literally adding faith to a bunch of other qualities:

O God be merciful to me a sinner. Cry with the Leper and saye: O Lord, if thou wilt thou art hable to make me cleane. Cry with the blinde man and saye: O Iesu the sonne of Dauid, haue mercye on me. Cry with the woman of Ca∣nane and say: haue mercy on me O Lord thou sonne of Dauid: My doughter is greuously vexed of y^e deuil. Cry with the Centurion & say: I am not worthy that thou shouldest entre vnder my rofe, but speke the word only, and my sōne shalbe heled. But vnto this your harty repentaunce & humble con∣fessiō of your sinnes, you must put mighty & strong faith, beleuing y^t God y^e father for his promise sake made vnto all penitent sinners in Christes bloud, wil frely & merci∣fully forgeue you all your sins, be they neuer so manye or greuous. for without this faith all y^t euer you do, is nothing worth, as thapostle saith. Whatsoeuer is not of faith, is sinne. Cain repented and confessed his fault, saying: my sin is greater, then I may deserue to be forgeuen. But because he wanted faith, he fell into desperation & was dampned: Iudas repented & confessed his sinne, saying: I haue synned, betraying the innocent bloud, yea he also made satisfac∣tion: suche as it was, but not withstandinge because he added not faith vnto his repentaunce, confession and satisfaction, all was in vaine. Peter his fellowe disciple sinned also greuously, but because he earnestlye repented, and also faithfully beleued to haue remission of his sinnes by the precious bloud of his maister, whome he before had both denied & forsworne he was forgeuen, and receiued into fauour againe. For by faith are we made of the children of wrath, the sonnes of God.

(Apologies for the lengthy quote)

Elisabeth

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 12:03 AM, Kathryn Walls <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

RE: “Add faith vnto your force” (FQ 1.i.19.3):

In her new book, Spenser’s Narrative Figuration of Women in The Faerie Queene, Professor Judith Anderson takes issue with my argument (in God’s Only Daughter, 2013) to the effect that “prior to Redcrosse’s abandonment (which I see as coinciding with her redemption), Una is, as [I put] it, ‘chronically fallible’” (Narrative Figuration, 36). Anderson devotes considerable space to my interpretation of Una’s “add faith unto your force” as (from the Protestant point of view) an appeal to the egotism of her knight (caught as he is in the grip of Error) –expressive not of Christian doctrine but of worldly wisdom.  I first proposed this interpretation in 2009 (“Add faith vnto your force”: The Meaning of Una’s Advice in The Faerie Queene 1.i.19.3 (NQ 254 [December 2009], 530-32). In the article as in my later monograph, I justified my interpretation by referring to the OED gloss on “to add faith to [something]”, as an idiomatic expression for “to give credence [to it], to believe in it”.  Anderson suggests that my interpretation is undermined by one of the citations in the OED entry as revised and expanded in the most current (online) edition of the OED.  The citation at stake (it is the second of five under the definition “to give credence to; to believe or make believable” [add, v. 1. b.])  reads: “Iudas repented & confessed his sinne, . . . but . . . because he added not faith vnto his repentaunce, confession and satisfaction, all was in vaine.” While Anderson’s evident assumption that I had not checked the updated edition is incorrect (cf. God’s Only Daughter, p. 23, fn. 18), I do agree that this citation points in a different direction from the other four with which it is grouped. The faith mentioned here as potentially additional seems to be justifying faith. Indeed, this citation is very strangely inconsistent with the definition it is designed to support and thus with my gloss on Una’s injunction (which is, I hasten to say, supported by the entry as a whole).  Spoken by a character in a dialogue by the staunch Protestant reformer Thomas Becon, who is elsewhere in his works predictably clear on the point that justifying faith, being foundational, cannot be supplementary, it may well be an ironic usage. Its ambiguity disqualifies it from being invoked as a context for FQ 1.i.19.3.  I would refer anyone interested in pursuing the point to my article “OED Add, v. 1. b. ‘to add faith to’: a problematic citation”, NQ 63: 1 (March 2016), 22-23.  There is also a relevant discussion on the list, which is very useful. Initiated by James Nohrnberg (Nov. 21, 2013), it may be found in the Archive.  (I searched under “add faith”.)

 

 

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