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cally, as active and passive1 senses of the same word, or logically, as subject and object of the same act; but there is a close moral affinity between them. Fidelity, constancy, firmness, confidence, reliance, trust, beliefthese are the links which connect the two extremes, the passive with the active meaning of 'faith.' Owing to these combined causes, the two senses will at times be so blended together that they can only be separated by some arbitrary distinction. When the members of the Christian brother- sometimes combined. hood, for instance, are called 'the faithful,' oi moroi, what is meant by this? Does it imply their constancy, their trustworthiness, or their faith, their belief? In all such cases it is better to accept the latitude, and even the vagueness, of a word or phrase, than to attempt a rigid definition, which after all can be only artificial. And indeed the loss in grammatical precision is often more than compensated by the gain in theological depth. In the case of 'the faithful' for instance, does not the one quality of heart carry the other with it, so that they who are trustful are trusty also2; they who have faith in God are stedfast and immovable in the path of duty?

The history of the terms for 'faith' in the three sacred languages of Christian theology is instructive from more points of view than one.

1. The Hebrew word signifying 'to believe, to trust,' is the Hiphil ¡DNM. i. Hebrew. The Kal is would mean 'to strengthen, support, hold up,' but is only found in the active participle, used as a substantive with the special sense, 'one who supports, nurses, trains a child' (raidaywyós, see note, Gal. iii. 24), and in the passive participle 'firm, trustworthy.' The Niphal accordingly means, 'to be firm, lasting, constant, trusty'; while the Hiphil ON, with which we are more directly concerned, is, 'to hold trustworthy, to rely upon, believe' (taking either a simple accusative or one of the prepositions, or ), and is rendered moreúw in the LXX, e.g. Gen. xv. 6. But there is in biblical Hebrew no corresponding substantive for 'faith,' the active principle. Its nearest representative is N, 'firmness, constancy, trustworthiness.' This word is rendered in the LXX most frequently by ảλnθεια, ἀληθινός (twenty-four times), or by πίστις, πιστός, ἀξιόπιστος (twenty times); once it is translated formpiyμévos (Exod. xvii. 12), once λoûtos (Ps. xxxvi. 3, where Symm. had dinvekŵs, Aq. tior). It will thus be seen that properly represents the passive sense of rioris, as indeed the form of the word shows. But it will at times approach near to the active sense; for constancy under temptation or danger with an Israelite could only spring from reliance on Jehovah. And something of this transitional or double sense it has in the passage of Habakkuk ii. 43. The latitude of the LXX translation, míoris, in that passage has helped out this meaning; and in St Paul's application it is brought still more prominently forward.

Thus in its biblical usage the word 2 can scarcely be said ever to have the sense 'belief, trust,' though sometimes approaching towards it.

1 Throughout this note I have used the terms 'active' and 'passive' in reference to the act of believing. If referred to the act of persuading they

would of course change places.

6

2 Qui fortis est, idem est fidens,' says Cicero, Tusc. iii. 7.

3 See the note on Gal. iii, 11.

ii. Greek. πίστις.

writers.

2.

The influence of the Greek rendering however doubtless reacted upon the original, and in the rabbinical Hebrew it seems decidedly to have adopted Aramaic. this meaning (see Buxtorf Lex. Rabbin. 8. v.). The Aramaic dialects did something towards fixing this sense by an active form, derived from the same root, but from the conjugation Aphel (corresponding to the Hebrew Hiphil). Thus in the Chaldee of the Targum of Jonathan, the word denoting the faith of Abraham, Gen. xv. 6, is up, and the Syriac renders Tíoris in the New Testament by the same word 2010.07. Unlike the Hebrew, the Greek word seems to have started from the active meaning. In its earliest use it is opposed to 'distrust'; Hesiod Classical Op. 342 πίστεις δ ̓ ἄρ τοι ὁμῶς καὶ ἀπιστίαι ὤλεσαν ἄνδρας (comp. Theogn. 831 πίστει χρήματ ̓ ἀπώλεσ ̓ ἀπιστίῃ δ ̓ ἐσάωσα); and this is perhaps the sense most favoured by analogy1. But even if it had not originally the passive sense of faith side by side with the active, it soon acquired this meaning also, e.g. Asch. Fragm. 276 οὐκ ἀνδρὸς ὅρκοι πίστις ἀλλ ̓ ὅρκων ἀνήρ : and πίστις became a common technical term for a 'proof.' The transition was aided by the indefiniteness of the grammatical form, and such phrases as ríσtiv exew Tivós formed a link of connexion between the two. The English word 'persuasion' will show how easily the one sense may pass into the other. In the same manner σròs has both meanings, 'trusty,' as Hom. Il. xvi. 147 πιστότατος δέ οἱ ἔσκε, and trustful, as Asch. Prom. 917 τοῖς πεδαρσίοις KTÚTTOLS TIσTÓS. So also amiσTOs means both 'incredulous' (Hom. Od. xiv. 150), and 'incredible' (Æsch. Prom. 832).

Old Testament.

With this latitude of use these words passed into the language of theology. In the Old Testament, there being no Hebrew equivalent to the active meaning, mioris has always the passive sense, 'fidelity,' 'constancy 3,' unless the passage in Habakkuk be regarded as an exception. So again there is no clear instance of moròs with any but the passive sense.

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Strom. ii. p. 432, Potter. With these
data it is difficult to decide between
two solutions; either (1) It may be in-
ferred from the varying position of μov
that the word had no place in the ori-
ginal text of the LXX; in this case St
Paul (Gal. iii. 11, Rom. i. 17) may have
quoted directly from the LXX; or (2) 'Ex
πίστεώς μου was the original reading,
afterwards altered into μου ἐκ πίστεως το
remove any ambiguity as to the sense.
In this latter case the LXX translators
must have read
my faith' (for

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The usage of the Apocrypha is chiefly valuable as showing how difficult Apocry it is to discriminate the two meanings, where there is no Hebrew original pha. to act as a check, and how easily the one runs into the other; e.g. Ecclus. xlvi. 15 ἐν πίστει αὐτοῦ ἠκριβάσθη προφήτης καὶ ἐγνώσθη ἐν πίστει αὐτοῦ πιστὸς ὁράσεως, I Macc. ii. 52 ̓Αβραὰμ οὐχὶ ἐν πειρασμῷ εὑρέθη πιστὸς καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην ; Ecclus. xlix. 1ο ἐλυτρώσατο αὐτοὺς ἐν πίστει Anidos. In these passages the active sense seems to be forcing itself into notice; and the writings of Philo, to which I shall have to refer presently, show that at the time of the Christian era míσris, 'faith,' 'belief,' had a recognised value as a theological term.

sense.

In the New Testament rioris is found in both its passive and its active New Tes On the one hand it is used for constancy, trustworthiness, whether tament. of the immutable purpose of God, Rom. iii. 3 τηv níστw тoû ƉEOû Kaтapynoel, or of good faith, honesty, uprightness in men, Matt. xxiii. 23 dþýκαтe τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου, τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ ἔλεος καὶ τὴν πίστιν (see the note on Gal. v. 22). On the other hand, as 'faith,' 'belief,' it assumes in the teaching of our Lord, enforced and explained by St Paul, the foremost place in the phraseology of Christian doctrine. From this latter sense are derived all those shades of meaning by which it passes from the abstract to the concrete; from faith, the subjective state, to the faith, the object of faith, the Gospel, and sometimes, it would appear, the embodiment of faith, the Church (see Gal. i. 23, iii. 22—26, vi. 10).

All other senses however are exceptional, and íσris, as a Christian virtue, certainly has the active meaning, 'trust,' 'belief.' But the use of the adjective οἱ πιστοὶ for the Christian brotherhood cannot be assigned πιστός. rigidly either to the one meaning or the other. Sometimes the context requires the active, as Joh. xx. 27 μὴ γίνου ἄπιστος ἀλλὰ πιστός (comp. Gal. iii. 9), sometimes the passive, as Apoc. ii. 10 yívov Tɩтòs äxpi davátov. But when there is no context to serve as a guide, who shall say in which of the two senses the word is used? For the one it may be urged that the passive sense of Tσròs is in other connexions by far the most common, even in the New Testament; for the other, that its opposite aniotos certainly means an 'unbeliever.' Is not a rigid definition of the sense in such a case groundless and arbitrary? For why should the sacred writers have used with this meaning only or with that a term whose very comprehensiveness was in itself a valuable lesson1?

application of the passage (supposing him to quote from the Hebrew), but also from the fact that all the Greek Versions collected by Origen so read it. See Jerome on Gal. iii. 11, and on Hab. ii. 4, Op. vI. p. 608 sq (ed. Vall.).

1 The difficulty of exact definition in similar cases is pointed out in a sug. gestive essay in Jowett's Epistles of St Paul II. p. 101 (2nd ed.). With Prof. Jowett's applications of his principles I am far from agreeing in many cases, and I consider his general theory of

the looseness of St Paul's language
an entire mistake; but as a protest
against the tendency of recent criticism
to subtle restrictions of meaning, un-
supported either by the context or by
confirmed usage, this essay seems to
me to be highly valuable. The use of
ol TiσTol is an illustration of this diffi-
culty. The expression 7 evayyéλio»
τοῦ Χριστοῦ is another. What is meant
by 'the Gospel of Christ'? Is it the
Gospel which speaks of Christ, or the
Gospel which was delivered by Christ,

iii. Latin. fides.

English.

Results of the fore

3. It has been seen that the meaning of the Greek mioris was reflected on its Hebrew original. No less was this meaning infused into its Latin rendering. The verb moreuw was naturally translated by 'credo,' but this root supplied no substantive corresponding to míoris, no adjective (for 'credulus' was stamped with a bad meaning) corresponding to morós. Words were therefore borrowed from another source, ‘fides,' 'fidelis.' Now 'fides,' as it appears in classical writers up to the time when it is adopted into Christian literaturo, is not so much 'belief, trust,' as 'fidelity, trustworthiness, credit.' Its connexion in some expressions however led the way toward this active meaning, at the very threshold of which it had already arrived1. In the absence therefore of any exact Latin equivalent to the active sense of Tiσris2, the coincidence of 'fides' with some meanings of the Greek word, and the tendency already manifested to pass into the required sense 'belief, trust,' suggested it as the best rendering. Its introduction into Christian literature at length stamped it with a new image and superscription. In the case of the adjective 'fideles' again, the passive sense was still more marked, but here too there was no alternative, and the original Toì was, as we have seen, sufficiently wide to admit it as at all events a partial rendering.

The English terms 'faith, faithful,' derived from the Latin, have inherited the latitude of meaning which marked their ancestry; and it is perhaps a gain that we are able to render πίστις, πιστοί, by comprehensive words which, uniting in themselves the ideas of trustfulness' and 'trustworthiness,' of 'Glauben' and 'Treue,' do not arbitrarily restrict the power of the original.

The faith of Abraham.

From the investigation just concluded it appears that the term 'Faith' can scarcely be said to occur at all in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old

or the Gospel which belongs to Christ?
or rather, does it not combine all these
meanings in itself?

1 Instances of such expressions are,
'facere fidem alicui,' habere fidem ali-
cui'; comp. Ter. Heaut. iii. 3. 10 'Mihi
fides apud hunc est me nihil facturum.'
The trustworthiness, demonstrability,
proof of the object, transferred to the
subject, becomes 'assurance, conviction,'
and so Cicero Parad. 9, in reference to
arguments in public speaking says,
'fides est firma opinio.' See the whole
passage. This sense of 'conviction' is,
I believe, the nearest approach to the
Christian use of the term. It never,
so far as I am aware, signifies trustful-
ness, confidence, as a quality inherent
or abiding in a person. To assert a
negative however is always dangerous,
and possibly wider knowledge or re-

search would prove this position untenable. At all events the ordinary sense of 'fides' in classical writers is 'trustworthiness, credit, fidelity to engagements.'

2 The Latin language indeed offered two words of a directly active meaning, 'fidentia' and 'fiducia'; but the former of these seems never to have obtained a firm footing in the language (see Cic. de Inv. ii. 163, 165, Tusc. iv. 80), and the signification of both alike was too pronounced for the sense required. 'Fidentia' does not occur at all in the Latin translations (if the Concordance to the Vulgate is sufficient evidence); 'fiducia' is not uncommon, frequently as a rendering of παρρησία, less often οἱ πεποίθησις, θάρσος, but never of πίFides, fiducia, occur together in Senec. Ep. 94.

στις.

tion.

Testament. It is indeed a characteristic token of the difference between going inthe two covenants, that under the Law the 'fear of the Lord' holds very vestigamuch the same place as 'faith in God,' 'faith in Christ,' under the Gospel. Awe is the prominent idea in the earlier dispensation, trust in the later. At the same time, though the word itself is not found in the Old Testament, the idea is not absent; for indeed a trust in the Infinite and Unseen, subordinating thereto all interests that are finite and transitory, is the very essence of the higher spiritual life.

ham's

In Abraham, the father of the chosen race, this attitude of trustfulness Lesson of was most marked. By faith he left home and kindred, and settled in a Abrastrange land: by faith he acted upon God's promise of a race and an inhe- faith ritance, though it seemed at variance with all human experience: by faith he offered up his only son, in whom alone that promise could be fulfilled1. Thus this one word 'faith' sums up the lesson of his whole life. And when, during the long silence of prophecy which separated the close of the Jewish from the birth of the Christian Scriptures, the Hebrews were led to reflect and comment on the records of their race, this feature of their great forefather's character did not escape notice. The two languages, which having supplanted the Hebrew, had now become the vehicles of theological teaching, both supplied words to express their meaning. In the Greek Tioris, in the Aramaic ', the hitherto missing term was first found.

As early as the First Book of Maccabees attention is directed to this lesson: 'Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness??' Here however it is touched upon very lightly. But there is, I think, sufficient evidence to show that at the time becomes of the Christian era the passage in Genesis relating to Abraham's faith had a thesis become a standard text in the Jewish schools, variously discussed and schools. commented upon, and that the interest thus concentrated on it prepared the way for the fuller and more spiritual teaching of the Apostles of Christ.

This appears to have been the case in both the great schools of Jewish theology, in the Alexandrian or Græco-Judaic, and the Rabbinical or Jewish proper, under which term we may include the teaching of the Babylonian dispersion as well as of Palestine, for there does not seem to have been any marked difference between the two.

of the

Of the Alexandrian School indeed Philo is almost the sole surviving (i) Alexrepresentative, but he represents it so fully as to leave little to be desired. andrian Judaism. In Philo's writings the life and character of Abraham are again and again commented upon. The passage of Genesis (xv. 6), doubly familiar to us from the applications in the New Testament, is quoted or referred to at

1 Acts vii. 2-5, Rom. iv. 16—22, Heb. xi. 8-12, 17—19.

2 I Macc. ii. 52. Other less distinct references in the Apocrypha to the faith of Abraham are 2 Macc. i. 2, Ecclus. xliv. 19-21. In both passages πιστός occurs, but not πίστις.

The history of Abraham is made

the direct subject of comment in the
works of Philo entitled De Migrat.
Abrah. I. p. 436 (Mangey), De Abrah.
II. p. 1, Quaest. in Gen. p. 167 (Aucher),
besides being discussed in scattered
passages, especially in Quis Rer. Div.
Her. I. p. 473, De Mutat. Nom. I. p.
578.

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