In the Acts of the Apostles, πίστις and πιστεύειν occur very frequently. With the definite article, íσTis means the Christian faith (ch. vi. 7; xiii. 8; xvi. 5; xxiv. 24). On the other hand, #λýpηs #íorews means 'full of enthusiasm and strength based on Faith in Jesus Christ' (vi. 5 ; xi. 24). 'Faith in the Lord Jesus,' in the Acts, involves mainly belief in His resurrection and exaltation, and in 'the forgiveness of sins' (v. 30, 31). Profession of this Faith is followed at once by baptism (xvi. 31-33). Sanctifying Faith (xv. 2; xxvi. 18) must be distinguished from this first impulse to become a believer. Contrast the past tense in xiv. 23; xviii. 27; xix. 2 with the present in ii. 44; xxii. 19.

It remains to consider the teaching of the Fourth Gospel about Faith. Let us assume that this treatise was written between 100 and 120 A.D., and that, though it is based on genuine recollections or traditions of our Lord's teaching, it was written with the special design of offering a certain presentation and doctrine of the Person of Christ, as a solution of doubts and controversies which pressed for settlement at the beginning of the second century.

We have seen that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has his own presentation of Faith to offer to the world. Steeped in Alexandrian philosophy, which called men to 'flee hence to our dear country,' he conceives of Faith as life in the eternal order, in the heaven which is all around us if we could only see it, and dilates on the heroism which should be the fruit of this heavenly vision. The writer was a scholar and thinker, and he has written for the scholars and thinkers of all time. St. John (I will keep the traditional name without raising the question of authorship) writes for a wider circle. The Church at the end of the first century was already distracted by the beginnings of the movement known as Gnosticism. It is true that the great Gnostics of the first half of the second century were outside the Church, and only half Christian.

But within the Christian societies a party of knowledge and a party of Faith contended against each other. St. Paul's enthusiastic praises of growing knowledge (ríyvwois) had encouraged the professors of knowledge 'falsely so called' (evdóvvμos yvôσis, 1 Tim. vi. 20) to graft their barbarised Platonism on Christianity, even in the lifetime of the Apostle (Col. ii. 6-9). On the other side, the party of bare Faith (in miσris) had already come to deserve the taunts of the educated pagans. Faith, for them, was not a moral, but an anti-intellectual principle. They said, as Celsus tells us about the Christians of his own generation, ‘Do not inquire, only believe (μὴ ἐξέταξε, ἀλλὰ πίστευσον). And their belief was of a childish, apocalyptic character, full of miracles and dreams of a coming reign of the saints. In fact, the situation which St. Paul already discerned was now clearly defined. The Jews require miracles; the Greeks metaphysics.' St. John, even more fully than St. Paul, presents both with 'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. i. 22-24).

St. John studiously avoids the two catchwords yvôσis and Tiσris, and uses only the verbs, which really agree better with the essentially dynamic character of Faith and knowledge in his theology. He tells us frankly that his object in writing is that his readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have life through His name. Faith in the Person of Christ is everywhere central in this Gospel; and he teaches us, by various indications, what Faith is. He uses TwτEVELV with five constructions. It is used absolutely; with the dative; with eis; with eis Tò ovoμa; and with T. Origen distinguishes believing on the name of Christ' as a lower grade of Faith than believing on Christ Himself. This sounds over-subtle, but is probably correct. To believe on the name of Christ has special reference to the public confession of Faith at baptism. They that believe on His name' (i. 12; ii. 23) practically means 'baptized

Christians.'1 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 åπeißeîr), 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 mureve 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.

6

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.

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.' 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.