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Roman Faith and Christian Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2018

Mark A. Seifrid
Mark A. Seifrid*
Affiliation:
Concordia Seminary, St Louis
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

These three short papers were delivered at the 72nd General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8–11 August 2017. The ‘Quaestiones disputatae’ session was chaired by the President of the Society, Professor Michael Wolter. The first two papers engage with Teresa Morgan's book, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and Professor Morgan responds to them in the third.

Type
Quaestiones Disputatae
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 247 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

12 It stands alongside Schlatter's, A. Der Glaube im Neuen Testament: Eine Untersuchung zur Neutestamentlichen Theologie (Leiden: Brill, 1885)Google Scholar, offering a Greco-Roman background to early Christian faith, rather than the Jewish background that Schlatter presented. It also may be compared to R. Bultmann's substantial contribution ‘πίστεύω, κτλ.’, TWNT vi.174–230 (including A. Weiser, ‘Der at.liche Begriff’, vi.182–97). Among recent works, see Schumacher, T., Zur Entstehung christlicher Sprache: Eine Untersuchung der paulinischen Idiomatik und der Verwendung des Begriffes πίστις (Bonner Biblische Beiträge 168; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Bonn University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; K. Haacker, “Glaube ii/1-3”, TRE 13, 277–304; and the massive collection of essays found in Frey, J., Schliesser, B. and Ueberschaer, N., eds., Glaube: Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt (WUNT 373; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017)Google Scholar. See further the review of literature in Schliesser, B., Abraham's Faith in Romans 4: Paul's Concept of Faith in Light of the History of Reception of Genesis 15:6 (WUNT ii/224; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 7–78 Google Scholar.

13 Morgan, Roman Faith, 11–15.

14 Morgan, Roman Faith, 15–23.

15 Morgan, Roman Faith, 2–4, 501–4. This conceptual evolution was present only incipiently in the New Testament writings. Not even in the Pastoral Epistles does ἡ πίστις signify ‘the faith’ as a body of doctrine in the way that it appears in later Christianity.

16 Morgan, Roman Faith, 179–204, 350, 392.

17 One note with respect to antiquity is in order. By the end of the second century, Christian apologists were concerned to define the relationship of ‘faith’ to knowledge in response to Platonic tradition, in which faith was regarded as something less than knowledge, even if it was more than opinion. This shift took place, however, precisely in response to Greco-Roman conceptions of faith as something inferior to knowledge. The question might be raised as to whether a l'histoire des mentalités approach may focus too narrowly on common social interactions and not fully take into account Hellenistic philosophical usage, which may well have been known to common people. See Bultmann, ‘πίστεύω, κτλ.’, 179–81.

18 Morgan, Roman Faith, 9. This distinction between ‘word’ and ‘concept’ was at the heart of James Barr's critique of the lexicographica sacra that lay behind the Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. See Barr, J., The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961) 187–205 Google Scholar, where he offers a trenchant critique of essays by A. G. Herbert and T. F. Torrance on biblical usage concerning faith, righteousness and truth. It is of relevance, too, that both of these studies from the 1950s (undoubtedly under the influence of Martin Buber) seek to incorporate the idea of ‘faithfulness’ on the basis of ‘Hebrew thought’ rather than by appeal to the Greco-Roman mindset.

19 Morgan, Roman Faith, 14.

20 On this topic, see Schumacher, Zur Entstehung christlicher Sprache, 17–72, 469–73, who engages the semantic question and locates ‘meaning’ (and especially innovation in meaning) largely – in my judgement too largely – in context rather than in terms.

21 It should be noted that the passage that Morgan cites is drawn from Bultmann's treatment of ‘the human being under faith’ and does not represent the whole of his understanding of faith in the New Testament. See Bultmann, R., Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961 4) 315–24Google Scholar.

22 Bultmann, ‘πιστεύω, κτλ.’, 205–8. Despite the uniqueness of Christian faith, Bultmann thus regards the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures and early Judaism as having its effect on the usage of earliest Christianity.

23 Bultmann, ‘πιστεύω, κτλ.’, 209.

24 Bultmann does, however, conjecture that where other ideas such as trust and faithfulness appear, the idea of the acceptance of the message of Christ might well be connoted. Bultmann, ‘πιστεύω, κτλ.’, 209.

25 Consequently, for Bultmann – mirabile dictu – in agreement with Schlatter, faith in the New Testament cannot be adequately understood as a human disposition, but finally in terms of the power and working of its object. See his review of the 4th edition of Schlatter's Der Glaube im Neuen Testament in ThLZ 54 (1929) 195–6Google Scholar.

26 Although Morgan's study certainly does not carry the baggage of German idealism, her insistence on the evolution of Christian faith out of its Greco-Roman context and the gradual developments within the Christian community is in some measure reminiscent of F. C. Baur's understanding (under the influence of Schelling) of the emergence of Christian faith. It was precisely at this point that Albrecht Ritschl broke with Baur, insisting that history cannot be understood merely as a causal nexus, but that the emergence of the particular and new must be taken in to account. On Ritschl's break with Baur, see Zachhuber, J., Theology as Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany: From F.C. Baur to Ernst Troeltsch (Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 135–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Morgan, Roman Faith, 4.

28 See n. 17, above. This seems directly relevant in view of the Septuagint, Philo and Josephus, where the usage of ‘faith’ language includes a cognitive dimension.

29 Cf. Schumacher, Zur Entstehung christlicher Sprache, 469–73, who concludes that Paul's use of πίστις does not differ from the usage of his time, the distinctive elements of his usage notwithstanding. The same may be said to hold for Septuagintal usage.

30 In the Septuagint, παρακαλῶ comes to mean ‘comfort’; ἐκκλησία comes to signify the gathered people of God; διαθήκη now means ‘covenant’. ‘To be justified’ (δικαιοῦσθαι) or similar expressions in Hellenistic usage was to have punishment rendered to oneself. καρδία appears where a Greek might have used νοῦς. Nor should we forget that the term νόμος itself takes on a special sense in the Septuagint. This sense was new to Greeks who came into contact with the synagogue, yet not so new that it was incomprehensible.

31 Indeed, in some instances their continuing education included such Aramaic terms as Μεσσίας (John 1.21; 4.25) and Μαρανα θα (1 Cor 16.22), not to mention the expressions presented as verba Jesu in the Synoptics.

32 In fact, the very term ‘counterculture’ – which immediately became widely used – was coined as a description of youthful opposition to the dominant culture. See Roszak, T., The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on a Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition (New York: Doubleday, 1969)Google Scholar.

33 Schliesser, B., ‘Faith in Early Christianity: An Encyclopedic and Bibliographic Outline’, Glaube (ed. Frey, J., Schliesser, B. and Ueberschaer, N.; WUNT 373; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017) 3, 17Google Scholar, citing Larry Hurtado and Eberhard Jüngel.

34 Acts 9.2; 18.25, 26; 19.9, 23; 22.4; 24.14. We should remind ourselves that ‘Christian’ is apparently an etic description (Acts 11.26). In other ways, too, earliest Christianity showed marks of linguistic innovation. It seems, for example, quickly to have developed a unique vocabulary of honorifics for the risen Jesus that likewise quickly vanished in early Christian usage (παῖς, ὁ ἅγιος καὶ δίκαιος, ἀρχηγὸς τῆς ζωῆς).

35 Think, for example, of θεοδίδακτοι (1 Thess 4.9), ἀνακαινώσις (Rom 12.2), ἀρσενοκοίτης (1 Cor 6.9). Cf. Anderson, R. D., ‘Grappling with Paul's Language: How a Greek Might Struggle with Paul’, The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honour of Stanley E. Porter's 60th Birthday (ed. Dow, L. K. Fuller, Evans, C. A. and Pitts, A. W.; Biblical Interpretation Series 150; Leiden: Brill, 2016) 237–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Cf. Callahan, A. D., ‘The Language of Apocalypse’, HTR 88 (1995) 453–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Schnelle, U., ‘Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung’, NTS 61 (2015) 130 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Die Entwicklung einer eigenen Sprachwelt war ein entscheidender Schritt zur Eigenständigkeit der neuen Bewegung der Christen.’

38 Correspondingly, I am not quite persuaded that Augustine's later distinction between fides qua and fides quae should be regarded as unfortunate.

39 In the sixteenth century, Protestant theologians insisted that ‘faith’ is no mere notitia and assensus, but decisively fiducia. Knowledge was by no means excluded, but it was dethroned.

40 E.g. Deut 32.1–43; Isa 1.1–31; Hos 1.1–14.9, in all of which πίστις appears as ‘faithfulness’ along with related terms such as ἀλήθεια.

41 Cf. Num 20.12; Deut 9.23; 2 Chron 20.20; Ps 105.12, 24; Isa 7.9 (ἐὰν μὴ πιστεύσητε, οὐδὲ μὴ συνῆτε: NB that this translation turns the warning in a cognitive direction); Isa 53.1 (τίς ἐπίστευσεν τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν;); Jer 25.8; Hab 1.5; Tobit 14.4. See also Exod 4.1; 19.9; 2 Chron 32.15, where an intermediary delivers the divine word. In some instances, it is God's saving intervention itself that provokes this faith and trust. Yet in these cases God's intervention is generally preceded by a promise to save, cf. Exod 14.13; Deut 1.32; Ps 77.7, 22; Isa 28.16. The divine word of judgement and promise comes not merely to Israel: see Jonah 3.5 (καὶ ἐνεπίστευσαν οἱ ἄνδρες Νινευη τῷ θεῷ).

42 Cf. D. Lührmann, ‘Glaube’, RAC xi.56–9.

43 E.g. LXX Ps 94.7–11; Isa 28.16; 53.1; Hab 2.4.

44 I can find, for example, no usage of the active voice of the verb πιστεύω in the New Testament writings that in my judgement signifies anything other than ‘believe’ or ‘trust’ in some connection or another to a proclaimed message. The usage of πίστις, it seems to me, is weighted in this direction, even if there are a number of contexts in which it clearly means ‘faithfulness’ or in which its meaning may be debated.

45 Likewise, faith in Jesus cannot be separated from his life, death and resurrection. As Bultmann observes, faith in Jesus is not obedience towards a Lord who is already known. The existence of this Lord is recognised and acknowledged in faith itself. Bultmann, ‘πιστεύω, κτλ.’, 212.

46 In early Judaism faith in God was inseparable from Torah and Temple. See Sir 32.24 (ὁ πιστεύων νόμῳ προσέχει ἐντολαῖς, καὶ ὁ πεποιθὼς κυρίῳ οὐκ ἐλαττωθήσεται); 33.3 (ἄνθρωπος συνετὸς ἐμπιστεύσει νόμῳ, καὶ ὁ νόμος αὐτῷ πιστὸς ὡς ἐρώτημα δήλων). Schlatter argues quite plausibly that the very emergence of ‘Scripture’ was an act of Jewish faith. See Der Glaube im Neuen Testament, 22.

47 E.g. John 3.20–1; 6.44; Acts 11.18; 1 Cor 2.4–5; 2 Cor 4.6; Gal 1.6, 15–16; Eph 2.8.

48 Especially Gal 5.6, 13–14; Rom 13.8–10; 1 Cor 13.1–13; John 13.34–5; 1 John 4.7.

49 The Johannine writings do not present the idea of ‘love’ within a closed circle. They insist that love is present only within the light of Jesus, whose witnesses are to bring that light and faith to the world (John 17.17, 20).