Christians. The office attributed to the Holy Ghost in our catechism—that of 'sanctifying all the elect people of God '-is quite Johannine. In ch. i. 7 we have, ‘John came to bear witness to the Light, that all men through him might believe.' This shows that Faith is the trust of those who see things as they are, and not blind credulity. Nathaniel believes' that Christ is the Son of God and King of Israel, through a sign: Christ promises him a more spiritual basis for a higher kind of belief. In iii. 16-21, the evangelist's comment on the discourse with Nicodemus, we have Faith opposed to rebellion or disloyalty (for this is the Biblical sense of deer), and thus we get a nearer determination of Faith as including obedience and loyalty. In the discourse about the Bread of Life, in ch. vi., the persistent demands of the Jews for a sign are rebuked by our Lord: 'Ye have seen Me, and yet believe not'; and their question, "What must we do, that we may work the works of God?' is met by the remarkable declaration, 'This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He sent.' Personal devotion includes the 'works of God,' and these works will never be done without it. In xii. 44 Christ says, 'He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.' Faith in Christ and Faith in God are identical; but the former is the way to the latter. Those who seek 'glory' one from another, instead of the glory that cometh from the only God (v. 44), cannot believe. In the last discourses there is less about believing, and more about the peace and joy to which Faith conducts. In ch. xvii. Christ does not pray that His disciples may 'believe,' but for higher things. Lastly, in the all-important concluding words of ch. xx., Faith without sight receives the last beatitude.

If we compare all the places where TOTEUεLV is used in St. John, we shall conclude, I think, that the two meanings of intellectual conviction and moral self-surrender are

1 Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary.

about equally emphasised. Faith is allegiance to Jesus Christ, and as such a condition of eternal life (i. 6; vi. 40), which latter is also a progressive stage, depending on knowledge (xvii. 3) as well as Faith. Believing is not a consummation or a goal, but a number of different stages, by which different individuals pass towards the one Centre, in whom they are to have life.'1 Thus the rival claims of Faith and Knowledge are reconciled, by lifting both into a higher sphere, and fixing both on the Person of Christ.

In this short review of the development of the concept 'Faith' in the Bible, I have tried to show how here, as in other cases, there was a fusion of Jewish and Hellenic modes of thought. At the end of the first century we find Faith established as a characteristic Christian virtue or temper, with a full and rich meaning. The Christians called themselves 'Believers,' and spoke of 'the Faith' without further specification of what they believed or trusted in. But they were conscious that the word included moral devotion and self-surrender to Christ, a firm conviction that by uniting themselves to Him they would find remission of sins and eternal salvation, and intellectual conviction that certain divinely revealed facts are true.

1 Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary.

CHAPTER II

FAITH AS A RELIGIOUS TERM-continued

(b) In the Church

In order to form an adequate judgment on the meaning of Faith' in Christian theology, we must pursue our investigation into the writings of Christian theologians.

6

The Apostolic Fathers' do not yield us much in the way of illustration, until we come to Ignatius. This writer employs (Ep. ix.) a curious metaphor: Ye were drawn up on high by the cross of Christ, using the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means by which you ascended, and your love the way which led you up to God.' Here Faith is the motive force, love a kind of inclined plane. In ch. xiv. of the same epistle he says: 'Faith and love towards Christ Jesus are the beginning and end of life. The beginning is Faith, and the end is Love.'1 We shall find this delimitation of the provinces of Faith and Love repeated more than once by Clement of Alexandria. Cf. especially Strom. vii. 10: Christ is both the foundation and the superstructure, through whom are both the beginning and the end. Faith is the beginning, Love the end.' And ib. ii. 13: 'Faith leads the way; Fear edifies; Love perfects.' There are signs even in the New Testament that this was an accepted maxim in the Church: in 2 Pet. i. 5-7, Faith and Love begin and end the list; and in 1 Tim. i. 5 we have, the end of the commandment is Love.' So Hermas (iii. 8) has the following scheme: 1 Cf. also Smyrn. 6, Faith and love are everything.

'From Faith arises Self-restraint; from Self-restraint, Simplicity; from Simplicity, Guilelessness; from Guilelessness, Chastity; from Chastity, Intelligence; and from Intelligence, Love.' The pedigree is silly enough; but the positions of Faith and Love are evidently fixed.1

The writer of the Epistle to Diognetus has (ch. viii.): 'He has manifested Himself through Faith, to which alone it is given to behold God.' Theophilus (i. 8) uses Faith as equivalent to Trust, and argues that without Faith almost all action would be impossible. In the Clementine Recognitions (ii. 69), Peter is made to say, 'It is not safe to commit these things to bare Faith without Reason, since truth cannot be without reason. He who has received truths fortified by reason, can never lose them; whereas he who receives them without proofs, by simple assent, can neither keep them safely, nor be sure that they are true. The more anxious any man is in demanding a reason, the more secure will he be in keeping his Faith.' This language reminds us of the Cambridge Platonists, especially of Benjamin Whichcote, who says, When the doctrine of the Gospel becomes the reason of our mind, it will be the principle of our life.'

More interesting and important is the doctrine of Faith in Clement of Alexandria, whom I have already quoted.2 'Faith,' he says (Strom. ii. 2), 'which the Greeks disparage as futile and barbarous, is a voluntary anticipation, the assent of piety-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, as the inspired Apostle says. Others have defined Faith to be an uniting assent to an unseen object. If then it be choice, the desire is in this case intellectual, since it desires something. And since choice is the beginning of action, Faith is the beginning of action, being the foundation of rational choice, when a

1 Cf. a similar list in Hermas, ix. 15.

2 The second book of the Stromateis contains a full and very instructive discussion of Faith.

man sets before himself, through Faith, the demonstration which he anticipates. Voluntarily to follow what is useful is the beginning of understanding it. Unswerving choice, therefore, gives a great impetus towards knowledge. The exercise of Faith at once becomes knowledge, built on a sure foundation.'

The followers of Basilides, he proceeds, regard Faith as a natural endowment, defining it as 'finding ideas by intellectual comprehension without demonstration.' 'The Valentinians assign Faith to us simple folk, but claim that knowledge arises in themselves (who are saved by nature) through the advantage of a germ of higher excellence, saying that it is as far above faith as the spiritual is above the animal.' To this Clement objects, as making Faith an innate faculty and not a matter of rational choice. We cannot justly be punished for lacking a power which is given or withheld by external necessity; and if this is the true account, he who has not Faith cannot hope to acquire it.

First principles are incapable of demonstration. The First Cause of the Universe can be apprehended by Faith alone. For knowledge is a state of mind resulting from demonstration; but Faith is a grace which from what is not demonstrable leads us to what is universal and simple. We can learn nothing without a preconceived idea of what we are aiming at; Faith is such a preconception. This is what the prophet meant when he said, ' Unless ye believe, ye will not understand,' and what Heraclitus meant when he said, 'If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.'

The Basilidians (ch. vi.) define Faith to be the assent of the soul to any of those things that are not present to the senses. This assent is not supposition, but assent to something certain. Faith is the voluntary supposition and anticipation of comprehension.

Faith must not be disparaged as simple and vulgar. 'If