Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Hebrews XI. 2. 641
to the invisible, or more exactly : to good things, which are not seen
eXeyx^^ ov l3?.eTT0fisvG)v. "EXeyxog does not, however (as Olshausen
thinks), signif}^ "persuasion," " the state of being persuaded,'' but
" demonstration," " actual proof." Faith is, therefore, not merely
a subjective persuasion that those possessions although unseen are yet
present ; but it is an act which itself gives the knowledge and proof
of the existence of those things not seen. The fact of faith is itself
the proof of the reality of its object. In faith the actual power of the
thing believed is already manifest. Thus the author has had a
reason for using in the first member, precisely the word v-noaTaoL^,
"grounding," " state of being grounded." He will represent faith not
as a theory but as a life-power, which, inasmuch as it actually grasps
at the future and unseen possessions, is thereby actually assured of
them. (And so Thomas Aquinas is, although not exegetically, yet
substantially right when he explains t Am^o/ievwv vnoaraacg from this,
that faith is " the subsistence of the things hoped for themselves,
the beginning of their possession already entered upon."
'TTrSoTaaig
does not signify " subsistence," but the idea of Thomas Aquinas is
quite the correct one.) For that is just the nature and characteristic
quality of faith, that it begins not with theories and arguments,
but with acts. Credo ut intelligam. As the new-born child does
not first receive instruction on the necessity of breathing, and then
resolve to breathe, but first breathes, and then grows to the youth
who learns to understand the process of breathing, so also must that
which is bom of the spirit in us first inhale in deep inspirations the
heavenly breath of life, ere it can grow up to full knowledge. And
as the drawing of the breath is itself the surest proof of the existence
of a life-bringing atmosphere which we breathe, so is the act
of that faith which lays hold oh the future and unseen possessions,
and draws strength from them, the most satisfactory proof of the fact
that these possessions are more than mere fancies and chimeras.
SECTION FOURTH.
THIRD MOTIVE.
THE HISTORICALLY DEMONSTRATED POWER OF
FAITH.
(xi. 2—xii. 3).
In ver. 2 the theme of a new train
yap with the concluding ideas of the foregoing.
Tvp?]Or]aav ol -npeof^vrepoi.
of thought is connected by
'Ev ravT^ yap ifiap-
Maprvpeladai occurs in an absolute sense in
Acts vi. 3 and other passages, in the signification " to have for oneeelf
a good witness," '^ to stand in good repute." Almost all com-