TерITатоvμеν), as seeing face to face' will be our condition in the future life. Then Faith will not be abolished, but will become eternal (1 Cor. xiii. 13). Faith, for St. Paul, blends with hope, and is almost identified with it (Rom. xv. 13; iv. 18-21; viii. 24). Hope adds joy and peace to believing; it has a moral basis, and may even be identified with the Christ in us (Col. i. 27). One other important aspect of Faith in St. Paul's Epistles must be mentioned before we pass on to the Epistle to the Hebrews. In Faith, as St. Paul understands it, lie the roots both of new ethical power and of a deeper knowledge of God.1 Practical and theoretical Christianity are both contained in it. The Christian stands fast in the Faith (1 Cor. xvi. 13), but also grows in Faith, and attains the stature of the perfect man by coming unto the unity of the Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God' (Eph. iv. 13). Behind the Rabbinical subtleties, which we find here and there in St. Paul's Epistles, we can trace plainly enough a sublime and profound conception of Faith, which may well be our guide in our coming investigation. The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has done for Faith what St. Paul has done for Love in 1 Cor. xiii. The eleventh chapter of the Epistle is a hymn in honour of Faith. It begins with the famous definition σTIV dè míσTIS ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων. 'Now Faith is the assurance of [or, the giving substance to] things hoped for, the proving [or, test] of objects not seen.' (R.V.) Пíoris has here no article. This is significant; for in this Epistle Faith is not the Christian Faith, but a psychological faculty. In this sense it is as wide as the human mind, and even Rahab may be adduced as an example of it. The meaning both of vπóσraσis and of λeyxos is disputed. For the former, the Revised Version gives the preference to 'assurance,' a meaning which is 1 Pfleiderer, ibid., p. 850. also assigned to it, probably rightly, in iii. 14, 'We are become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence (τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς ὑποστάσεως) frm unto the end. The Greek Fathers say that ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς ὑποστάσεως is Faith, as the 'beginning of our true nature,' that which causes us to become what we in truth are.1 (The paradox is indicated by the tenses γεγόναμεν, εάνπερ κατάσχωμεν.) This is a very interesting interpretation, and the thought is a fine one; but since the use of iróσTaσis in the sense of 'assurance' or 'resolution' is well established in later Greek, it seems more natural to take it so in this place. But we are not therefore obliged to take vπóστασis as assurance' in ch. xi. 1. In i. 3 it has the meaning of substance' or 'reality'; and all through the Epistle the distinction between heaven and earth, between spirit and flesh, is conceived Platonically as that between substance and shadow, truth and appearance, pattern and copy. Moreover, the passages quoted to justify the translation assurance' do not convince me that the unquestioned late-Greek meaning, 'firm endurance,' 'steadfastness,' is sufficient authority for translating ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις assurance with regard to what is hoped for.' Such an explanation seems not to have occurred to any commentator before Luther, and the Greek Fathers are not lightly to be set aside in such a case. Chrysostom's note is: 'For whereas things that are matters of hope seem to be unsubstantial, Faith gives them substance; or rather, does not give it, but is itself their being. For instance, the resurrection has not taken place, and is not in substance, but Faith gives it reality (vpíorno) in our soul.' If we take it so, the writer says that Faith gives substance, or reality, to things which we hope for, but which have not yet taken place. It does so by raising us above the categories of time into those of eternity, so that, 1 The reader should consult Bishop Westcott's edition of the Epistle to the Hebrews for a fuller discussion of this passage. even as Faith shows us that Christ offered Himself to God ' through an eternal Spirit' (ix. 14), in the world of timeless reality, so to the eye of Faith the future is as real as the present. "Exeyxos must correspond in meaning to VÓσTασis, and probably means 'proof,' 'test,' that which establishes (or rejects) the reality of unseen objects. Thus the full meaning of this noble definition-I cannot agree with Westcott's inference from the order σTv de TíσTIS that the object of the writer is not to give a formal 'definition '—is that Faith is the faculty which makes real to us the future and the unseen, and moreover enables us, in this region, to discern the true from the false. Things which in the succession of time are still hoped for, have a true existence in the eternal order; and this existence Faith brings home to the believer as a real fact.' (Westcott.) When we remember that Plato distinguishes knowledge (yv@ois) from opinion (óga), as being concerned with reality and not with appearance, we may say that this Epistle claims for Faith the rank of potential Gnosis, instead of allying it with opinion, as the classical usage of Tíσris tended to do. If Dr. Du Bose is in substantial agreement. Beneath or behind the things that are seen and are temporal there is an Eternal Unseen. What is it? The Word of God. that answer is not true, there is no object or function of Faith, and no religion. Suppose it to be true, and that not only is the Word of God as the reality of things the true objective matter of Faith, but that Faith is the true subjective apprehension and possession of that objective reality, does the fact without us produce the intuition of it within us; or is the intuition itself the proper prius and reality? Does hypostasis mean objective substance or subjective assurance? I ask simply to bring out this fact, that in the divine and absolute religion of Jesus Christ Faith and fact are treated as having been made one, as being now identical. Faith is not only assurance; it is the present B possession, the very substance and reality of its object. Assurance is substance, Faith is fact, promise is fulfilment, hope is possession and fruition-all not so much through any inexplicable virtue in Faith itself, as because Faith is the laying hold of and uniting itself with that Word of God which is at once the substance of all reality and the light of all truth.' 1 This notable chapter contains other important dicta about Faith. Without Faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him' (v. 6). Faith demands the existence of its Object; God is a fact, not an ideal. Faith also demands that its Object shall be active-that God shall be experienced, and not merely thought of as existing. Again, Faith is explained to be 'a seeing of the invisible' (v. 27). The invisible' is God, as the gender shows. Faith is seeing God during our earthly pilgrimage. Augustine's comment is true and fine. 'Errabant quidem adhuc et patriam quærebant; sed duce Christo errare non poterant. Via illis fuit visio Dei.' 2 The doctrine of Faith in this Epistle is not at variance with that of St. Paul, but it is liberated from the Rabbinical form which is the result of St. Paul's Jewish education. The idea that Faith consists in accepting the free gift of the righteousness of God, has no place in this Epistle. 'On the other hand, the notion of Faith as exalting us above the trammels of our life in time, enabling us to view history as a whole, and to assume a heroic attitude in face of temporal sufferings by regarding events sub specie æternitatis, is peculiar to this Epistle, and is a most inspiring thought. It has affinities to Philo's conception of Faith, and is, no doubt, a line of thought natural to Alexandrian idealism. The Epistle of St. James contains an energetic protest 1 Du Bose, High Priesthood and Sacrifice, pp. 224-6 (abridged). against the notion that 'Faith,' whether understood as mere fiducia or mere orthodoxy, is of any saving value without 'works '-consistency of life. He uses 'Faith' in a narrower sense than St. Paul, and insists passionately on what to St. Paul would have been a truism, that Faith must be known by its fruit. St. James was a moralist, and would have agreed with Matthew Arnold that conduct is all but an insignificant fraction of human life. The protest was needed, but it does not touch St. Paul or his teaching. It is not even certain that the author of this epistle, whoever he was, was thinking of St. Paul's teaching on the subject. The relation of Faith and works was a standing thesis for discussion in Jewish schools, and naturally was also debated by Christians.1 But though there is no contradiction between St. Paul and St. James, the protests of the latter do touch some post-Reformation teaching about Faith. We cannot be surprised either at Luther's contemptuous judgment of this epistle, or at his subsequent acknowledgment that he had spoken too hastily. St. James's real meaning is well brought out by the eloquent Julius Hare,2 whose discourses on Faith ought never to be forgotten by English theologians. 'Faith' without works is a dead Faith, not a living, a nominal Faith, not a real, the shadow of Faith, not the substance. And why is this, except because Faith, if it be living, if it be real, if it be substantial, is a practical principle, a practical power; nay, of all principles, of all powers, by which man can be actuated, the most practical; so that when it does not show forth its life by good works, we may reasonably conclude that it is dead; just as we infer that a body is dead when it has ceased to move, or that a tree is dead when it puts forth no leaves.' 3 1 See Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 157 seq.; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 104-6. The Jewish discussions were based on Gen. xv. 6. Hare, The Victory of Faith and other Sermons, p. 36. The use of Tloris in 1 and 2 Peter, and in Jude, is not important for this discussion. See Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 36. |