been verified (Gen. xlii. 20), or a covenant which endures for ever (Ps. lxxxix. 28), or a heart found faithful (Neh. ix. 8), or a man who can be trusted (Neh. xiii. 13), or God Himself who keeps covenant (Deut. vii. 9), is 'faithful.'1 The difference between 'believing in' (placing trust in) and simple credence is marked in the Old Testament by different prepositions following the verb. It cannot be said that the verb is very common in the Old Testament in a religious sense; and there is in Biblical Hebrew no substantive properly meaning 'Faith' in the active sense. Accordingly, the Revised Version only admits the substantive Faith in two places (Deut. xxxii. 20, and Hab. ii. 4). These are not translations of the same Hebrew word. In Deut. xxxii. 20, the words are: 'they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no Faith.' Here one may doubt whether the meaning is not simply,' they cannot be trusted.' In Habakkuk, however, the active sense is apparently intended: the just shall live by his faith' ; but even here the sense is disputed, and the margin of the Revised Version has ' in his faithfulness.' I think, however, that the marginal rendering, though more in accordance with the usage of the word, gives a less satisfactory sense, because the context shows that a contrast is being drawn between the arrogant self-sufficiency of the Chaldæan and the humble trust in God of the 'just.' We may perhaps, then, hold that in this one passage of the Old Testament we have the word Faith used in something like its full Christian or Evangelical meaning, as an enduring attitude of the mind and heart towards God.

The notion of Faith, or rather, faithfulness, in the Old Testament is largely determined by the idea of a covenant between God and His people. Faith, trust, or faithfulness belongs to the parties to a covenant; it has no meaning outside that relation. The covenant was made between God and His people collectively; individuals were parties 1 Warfield in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. Faith.

to it as members of the favoured nation.1 Faith, or faithfulness, is the observance of a right attitude towards the covenant with God-it is the conscientious observance of the human side of the covenant, the divine side of which is grace and mercy. We may trace a development in the Jewish ideas about this covenant. With the decay of the national fortunes Faith became more spiritual and more individualistic. It became finally the mental attitude of those who waited for the consolation of Israel,' trusting in promises which seemed every year further from their fulfilment.

The Septuagint was not able to preserve the distinction, above referred to, between 'to trust to' and 'to trust in.' It usually renders both by LOTEVELV with the dative. Nor can the Greek reproduce all the meaning of the Hebrew words. It wavers in translating the Hebrew word for trustworthiness,' the nearest equivalent to Faith, and the corresponding adjective, rendering them sometimes by ἀλήθεια, ἀληθινός, and sometimes by πίστις and kindred adjectives. In Isa. vii. 9, there is a kind of play on words. 'If ye be not firm' (in Faith), 'ye shall surely not be made firm' (in fact); or, 'If ye hold not fast, ye shall not stand fast.' This is lost in translation. In the important verse, Hab. ii. 4, the Septuagint manifestly misunderstands the original, translating ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται = the just shall live through my faithfulness (to my covenant).' Still, the word TσTeve is satisfactory, as it has the right association with moral trust, as well as with what may be called the earlier Greek associations of Tíσris, as opposed to ἐπιστήμη.

Philo's notion of Faith is characteristic of his position as a mediator between Jewish and Greek thought. As a Jew, he emphasises trust as determining Faith; but his philosophy leads him to single out the unchangeableness of God almost exclusively as the ground and object of Faith.

A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, p. 280.

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There is not a great deal about Faith in his writings: what there is, is chiefly with reference to the standard case of Abraham's Faith. Abraham,' he says, 'saw into the unfixedness and unsettledness of material being, when he recognised the unfaltering stability which attends true being, and to which he is said to have completely trusted.' 'He anchored himself firmly and unchangeably on true being alone.' The only thing stable is Faith toward God, or toward true being.' 1 Philo's 'Faith' is thus a steady reliance on the eternal and unchangeable ideas of truth and righteousness, which lie behind the fleeting shows of phenomenal existence. The active sense has fairly established itself, but Faith for Philo differs rather widely from the Christian virtue in that it is the prize 2 and not the starting-point of the race, standing at the end, not at the beginning, of the religious life.

Sanday and Headlam3 have a valuable note on the use of the word Faith in the apocryphal literature. In the Psalms of Solomon it is attributed to the Messiah Himself; in the other books it is characteristic of his subjects. Thus 4 Esdras vi. 28, florebit fides et vincetur corruptela '; vii. 34, 'veritas stabit et fides convalescet.' In the Apocalypse of Baruch we have, incredulis tormentum ignis reservatum.' In other places we have 'Faith and works' in combination, indicating that the discussion of their relative merits did not originate in the Christian Church.

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We now come to the New Testament. I think that for our purposes it will be most convenient to take the Synoptic Gospels first, as a record of our Lord's actual teaching about, and attitude towards, Faith; the Pauline conception of Faith next; the Epistle to the Hebrews third;

1 Cf. E. A. Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary.

• Philo, De Praem. et Poen., ii. p. 412, διδακτικῇ χρησάμενος ἀρετῇ πρὸς τελείωσιν ἄθλου αἱρεῖται τὴν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν πίστιν.

3 On Romans i. 17.

and the Johannine interpretation of our Lord's teaching last. This order is not intended to imply any disparagement of the Fourth Gospel as a historical document; but St. John certainly wrote for his own generation, and it is possible to speak of a Johannine doctrine of Faith, which must not be taken out of its chronological place.

The Triple Tradition does not agree in any saying of Christ containing the verb TOTE VELV; and in the use of the substantive Tίoris the only verbatim agreement is 'thy faith hath saved thee,' of the woman with the issue of blood. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that our Lord spoke of 'Faith' and 'believing' in the technical religious sense which is characteristic of the New Testament as a whole. There seems to be no objection on linguistic grounds. Not only did the Hebrew word acquire an active meaning in Rabbinical literature, but in the Aramaic dialect (according to Lightfoot on Galatians, p. 154), an active form had been developed. How far this language was original with Him, it is difficult to say. It is extremely probable that the words were often on the lips of the simple folk in Palestine who waited for the kingdom of God.' We have seen that all was ready for the richer doctrine of Faith which was part of Christ's message. The devout country people among whom He was brought up had not much to learn about confidence in God, about conviction of the reality of the unseen, or about patient waiting for the consolation of Israel.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Faith generally means confidence in Christ's power to perform some particular thing. It would be superfluous to enumerate the cases in which Faith is mentioned as the condition of miracles of healing. In these instances, Faith is simply the psychological state which alone makes the patient susceptible to cures of this kind. There are, however, many passages, especially if we add the uses of the verb TσTEVEL to those of the substantive, in which the wider sense of trustful self-surrender

to Christ, or to God, is clearly indicated. There is only one place in the Synoptics, I think (Matt. xxiii. 23), in which iσris means 'integrity'; and so strong have its theological associations already become, that it is never used of man's faith in man. When it has an object, that object is in the genitive, as St. Mark xi. 22, 'have faith in God'; not with a preposition (év, eis, πpós, éñí) as in the Epistles. But in the large majority of cases, it is used absolutely. When 'Faith' is primarily expectation of a miracle, a deeper thought is sometimes present. In the case of the paralytic, remission of sins precedes the physical cure (Matt. ix. 1-8); and in Luke vii. 50 the characteristic words, thy Faith hath saved thee,' are used of forgiveness only, when there has been no miracle. Our Lord must have spoken much of the moral force of Faith, of what is now sometimes called the dynamic of religion. In the figurative and even hyperbolical language which He often used in popular teaching, He said that Faith, though no larger than a grain of mustard-seed, can remove mountains (Matt. xvii. 20), a phrase which became familiar to Christians (1 Cor. xiii. 2) at a very early date. Cf. also Mark ix. 23 If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.' That this Faith ought to be but is not always an abiding state is shown by the words to Peter (Luke xxii. 32), 'I have prayed for thee, that thy Faith fail not.' There are some who 'for a while believe, but in time of temptation fall away' (Matt. xiii. 20). In Matt. xvi. 17, 'These signs shall follow them that believe,' we have an approximation to the use of the participle as a designation of the Christian society, the believers,' which we find in the Acts.1

One passage in the Synoptists seems to me to stand quite alone-Luke xviii. 8. ' When the Son of Man cometh, shall

1 It is worth while also to call attention to Matt. xxiii. 23. 'justice, mercy and faith.' Cf. Micah vi. 8 of which these words may be a reminiscence. The third virtue, Faith, is added by Christ.