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The Hearing of Faith: AKOH ΠІΣΤΕΩΣ in Galatians 3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Sam K. Williams
Sam K. Williams
Affiliation:
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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Extract

At Gal 3. 2 and 3. 5 the apostle Paul sets ἔργα νόμου, ‘works of (the) Law’, over against ἁκοη πίστεως in two rhetorical questions with which he begins his attack against the position of his nomistic opponents in the Galatian churches. One hopes that this phrase άκοη πίστεως was less puzzling to the Galatian Christians than it has been to modern interpreters. The problem of interpretation is compounded by the fact that both words of the phrase can have quite different meanings. 'Ακοή can mean either the faculty or act of hearing or a message or report (that is, what is heard). Πίστις can name either a ‘subjective’ human act or attitude or the object of believing (that is, the Christian proclamation). Two important recent studies of Galatians have added their support to the view that by áκοη Paul means not ‘hearing’ but ‘proclamation’. In his Galatians commentary Hans Dieter Betz translates άκοη πίστεως as ‘[the] “proclamation of [the] faith”’. In The Faith of Jesus Christ, Richard B. Hays argues at some length that Paul means either ‘the message that evokes faith’ or ‘the message of faith (= the gospel-message)’.

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 82 - 93
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

page 82 note 1 Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 128.Google Scholar

page 82 note 2 (SBLDS 56; Chica, CA: Scholars, 1983) 143–9; the phrases in quotation marks occur on 148 and 149. Other scholars who prefer one of these translations (or something very similar) include Meyer, H. A. W., Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Galatians (Meyer K; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1880)Google Scholar: ‘the report, the message of faith, which treats of faith’ (136); Schlier, Heinrich, Der Brief an die Galater (Meyer K; 10th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1949)Google Scholar: ‘[die] Predigt des Glaubens’ (78), ‘die Verkündigung, mit der der Glaube heraustritt’ (81), ‘[die] Offenbarung, die den Glauben entzündet’ (82); Oepke, Albrecht, Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater (THKNT; 3rd ed.; ed. Rohde, Joachim; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1973)Google Scholar: ‘Glaubenspredigt’ (99), ‘term. techn. für die prophetische Verkündigung und bei Paulus für die apostolische Predigt’ (101), ‘Heilskunde, die auf Glauben abzielt’ (101); Mussner, Franz, Der Galaterbrief (HTKNT; Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 1974)Google Scholar: ‘Glaubensverkündigung’ (205), ‘zunächst die Glaubenspredigt’, but Mussner adds that the act of hearing is not to be dismissed (207); Ebeling, Gerhard, Die Wahrheit des Evangeliums (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1981)Google Scholar: ‘Glaubensbotschaft’ (210, 219); Kittel, Gerhard, ‘άκούω κτλ’, TDNT 1 (1964) 221Google Scholar: ‘the “preaching of faith”, i.e., proclamation which has faith as its content and goal’.

page 83 note 1 The following phrases, here translated literally, occur in Paul's letters: the obedience of faith (Rom 1. 5, 16. 26); the law of faith (Rom 3. 27); the righteousness of faith (Rom 4. 11, 13); ‘the footprints of the … faith of our father Abraham’ (Rom 4. 12); the measure of faith (Rom 12. 3); the proportion of faith (Rom 12. 6); the same spirit of faith (2 Cor 4. 13); the household of faith (Gal 6. 10); your joy of faith (Phil 1. 25).

page 84 note 1 Explaining his translation of άκοη πίστεως as ‘[the] proclamation of [the] faith’, H. D. Betz writes: ‘The translation of άκοη unavoidably shifts the emphasis from the hearing to the preaching of the message’ (Galatians, 128, n. 3).Google Scholar Betz does not defend this shift of emphasis, and I emphatically question its validity.

page 85 note 1 In addition to this parallelism of thought, I note the redundancy of ή δὲάκοη διàρήήματοςΧριστο at 10. 17b if άκοή is taken to mean ‘message’. The term ῤμα occurs four times in Ro-mans 10. In vv. 8 (twice) and 18 it refers without question to the word (or words) proclaimed by Christian preachers. There is no good reason to suppose that it has some other reference in v. 17. The ῤμα ΧριστοÛ must be the proclamation about Christ, not, as Johannes Munck thinks, the word by which Christ commissioned the disciples (Christ and Israel: An Interpretation of Romans 9–11 [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967] 94Google Scholar). Nor is there persuasive reason to think, with Käsemann, that 17b means that the Christian proclamation (άκοή) has its origin in the word (Ṗμα) of the exalted Lord (Commentary on Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980] 295).Google Scholar The origin of the proclamation is not Paul's emphasis in Romans 10, nor would he declare that the Christian message came from the risen Christ (not even Gal 1. 11–12 can be stretched to say that). No, v. 17b has to mean that hearing is dependent upon (the proclamation of) the word whose content is Christ and his significance for the world.

page 86 note 1 Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (London/New York: Macmillan, 1896) 135.Google Scholar

page 86 note 2 The Faith, 147.Google Scholar

page 86 note 3 The Faith, 148.Google Scholar

page 87 note 1 I argue for this rendering of καθώς (as well as the parallel between Christians and Abraham) in ‘Justification and the Spirit in Galatians’, JSNT 29 (1987) 91–100 (at 93–4).Google Scholar

page 87 note 2 Richard Hays argues that Christians share the blessing of Abraham not because their faith imitates Abraham's faith but because they participate in Christ (The Faith, 202). But why do interpreters face an either/or decision here? Why must we choose between ‘like Abraham's faith’ and ‘in Christ’? Hays' view leaves unanswered the question: How does one participate in Christ? I would say: by faith! I would ask my same ‘why either/or?’ question again in response to Hays' assertion that‘… the blessing is given to the Gentiles not in consequence of their faith, but in consequence of Abraham's …’ (203). Abraham's faith may be essential in the divine salvation scheme, but it is not sufficient. Gal 3. 8 requires us to understand Paul's έκ πίστεως as his interpretation of the scripture quotation's έν σοί; at any rate, he closely associates the two. Hays rejects the view that έκ πίστεως here refers to the faith of Christians. (It is not clear, however, whether he thinks έκ πίστεως refers to God's faithfulness or Abraham's faith. On the one hand he writes: ‘The most natural reading, from a syntactical point of view, would be to interpret έκ πίστεως as an adverbial modifier expressing the manner in which God performs his act of justifying the Gentiles …’ [205]. On the other hand he says that Gal 3. 8 establishes the point that ‘They [the Gentiles] are included not on the ground of their own faith, but on the ground of Abraham's faith, which is deemed to have a vicarious soteriological effect’ [205].) I take the traditional view that έκ πίστεως refers to the Christian's faith. Just as έν σοί describes Christians (i.e., it is Christians who are ‘in Abraham’), so too does the corresponding phrase έκ πίστεως.

page 88 note 1 The Faith, 140–1.Google Scholar

page 88 note 2 I surmise that Hays' understanding of 3. 14b is determined by his view that Paul under-stands the Habakkuk quotation (Gal 3. 11) messianically; that is, the righteous one who lives by faith is the Righteous One, Christ (cf. 150–7). This view, however, is not valid. ‘It is clear’, Paul writes, ‘that no one is justified before God in the Law.’ The scriptural proof for this claim is Hab 2. 4, whose subject is ò δíκαιος. The quotation will not serve to substantiate Paul's claim that no one is justified in the Law unless it describes what is universally the case. 'Ο δίκαιος, accordingly, in order to correspond to ούδείς, its negative counterpart, must mean, in effect, any righteous person.

page 89 note 1 For the relation of the faith of Christ and the faith of Christians see my essay ‘Again Pistis Christou’, CBQ 49 (1987) 431–7.Google Scholar

page 89 note 2 The Faith, 175.Google Scholar

page 89 note 3 The Faith, 198.Google Scholar

page 89 note 4 The Faith, 141.Google Scholar

page 90 note 1 Galatians, 133, n. 50.Google Scholar

page 91 note 1 E.g., 1 Kgs 22. 19–23; Isaiah 6; Jer 1. 11–16; Ezekiel 1; Amos 7. 1–9, 8. 1–3, 9. 1–4; Zechariah 1–6.

page 91 note 2 One should not, however, overemphasize this distinction between seeing and hearing, for the vivid images of the prophets' oracles often appeal to the ‘mind's eye’. Intriguing is the expression ‘the word (or oracle) … which he saw’ (e.g., Isa 2. 1, 13. 1; Mic 1. 1; Hab 1. 1). Note also the implications of Gal 3. 1: Jesus Christ crucified was vividly presented right before the Galatians’ very eyes, this presentation obviously made in the preaching of the gospel. On the expression οις κατ' όφθαλμους προεγράφη see Betz, , Galatians, 131.Google Scholar

page 91 note 3 Examples: Exod 6. 12, 15.26; Deut 4. 30, 27. 10; Josh 1. 18; Judg 2. 20; 1 Sam 8. 7; 1 Kgs 12. 24; Isa 1. 19; Jer 3. 13, 11. 3. Cf. BDB, (I., m., n., o.).

page 91 note 4 The Oral and Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 141–55.Google Scholar

page 91 note 5 The Oral and Written Gospel, 153.Google Scholar

page 92 note 1 The Presence of the Word (New Haven/London: Yale, 1967) 130.Google Scholar

page 92 note 2 The Presence of the Word, 128–30.Google Scholar

page 92 note 3 Kelber, , The Oral and Written Gospel, 146, 163.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 Keck, Leander E., Paul and His Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 52.Google Scholar