Among studies on faith in the New Testament, Teresa Morgan's distinctive and valid approach is that we best understand πίστις in the NT by locating it in the language and culture of the early Principate (8). NT studies are indeed illuminated by classical notions of πίστις/fides, divine-human or intra-human trust: πίστις/fides was ‘neither a body of beliefs, nor a function of the heart or mind, but a relationship which creates community’ (14; M. could not cite Rachel McKinnon, The Norms of Assertion: Truth, Lies, and Warrant (2015)). This is a detailed intellectual history study and word study. I appreciate M.’s defence of word studies — which are also concept studies, e.g. Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity (2007/20132), with the review by Carl O'Brien, CR 60 (2010), 390–1, on αἰώνιος and ἀΐδιος.
M.’s discussions cover a wide range of literary genres and areas, from historiography to philosophy, from legal documents to epistolography. In the Principate, pistis/fides is shown to operate in most social contexts, creating or mediating relationships (120). Cicero's discussion of Regulus’ fides exemplifies how the divine was foundational in guaranteeing fides; M. emphasizes how fides in every part of life was linked to the gods (103–6). Her analysis of pistis/fides in Graeco-Roman religiosity (ch. 4) shows that it is not belief (as also emerged from Ramelli, Maia 51 (2000), 67–83; Studi su Fides (2002), cited by M.), which is rather expressed through different terminology. Certainly, Greeks and Romans ‘believed that the gods existed’ (126) — here I recall Seneca's statement, ‘primus est deorum cultus deos credere’ (Ep. 90.50). M. correctly remarks that pistis in Plato is gnoseologically devalued as non-scientific and non-philosophical belief, but it is valued in Philo — and, I would add, in Plotinus (see Ramelli, JHI 75 (2014), 167–88).
Regarding Cotta's ambiguity between Academic scepticism and traditional priesthood in Cicero's De natura deorum, M. rightly stresses the problematic nature of tradition (148). This needed allegoresis in Stoicism and Platonism to become foundational for philosophical theology (as argued in my Allegoria (2004); IJCT 18 (2011), 335–71). M. rather highlights rationalizing, Palephatean exegeses (162–3), of the ‘historicizing’ kind, aimed at making myths ‘credible’. In master-slave pistis (51–5), fides was requested more of slaves than of masters. This lack of reciprocity is also evident in the Pastorals, which conform Paul's message to Greco-Roman societal expectations (Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery (2016)). To M.’s helpful analysis of inter-state relations and pistis between local kinglets and the emperor (95–104), I add the pistis/loyalty-language in the Abgar-Tiberius correspondence (Ramelli, in I. Ramelli and J. Perkins (eds), Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (2015), 205–45). Trust/loyalty is functional, involves reciprocity and enables new relationships and communities (174–5).
The Septuagint encourages no blind leaps of faith, but stresses God's trustworthiness as grounds for practising pistis. In Abraham's faith/trust, the πίστις-δικαιοσύνη association is usefully observed by M. (180–1). I find this also in the NT with Joseph, Jesus’ father, who is just and trusts God. In Wisdom of Solomon 1, δικαιοσύνη bases God-human and intra-human relations (192). Even God's pistis/faithfulness relates to God's δικαιοσύνη (199). Origen, I find, furthered this point stressing that Christ-God, faithful, is δικαιοσύνη itself (Cels. 6.64).
M.’s analysis of Paul yields one kind of pistis in 1Thessalonians and 1–2 Corinthians and another in Galatians, Romans and Philippians 3. 1 Thessalonians does not yet integrate Christ in pistis relations; in 1–2 Corinthians, Paul's self-designation as Christ's slave (on whose significance see my Slavery, ch. 2) integrates human and divine pistis. In 2 Corinthians and Galatians, Paul's infirmity ensures that his power comes from God, not himself (254). In Galatians, Romans and Philippians 3, pistis concerns human-Christ relations, bestowing δικαιοσύνη upon the faithful. Δικαιοσύνη is achieved through πίστις Χριστοῦ (Gal. 2:15–21; Rom. 3:21–6), interpreted as both objective and subjective genitive: Christ, faithful towards God and believers, and deserving trust, mediates human-God relations (268–72; 288–9). In Gal. 3, about Abraham's δικαιοσύνη through πίστις, M. translates πίστις as ‘trust’. Pistis is associated with obedience to Christ/God (for example, Rom. 1:5). In Ephesians, the faithfulness required of slaves towards their masters becomes an extension of their faithfulness towards God (316). In 1 Tim. 3:9, μυστήριον τῆς πίστεως is rightly argued to derive from mystery cult terminology (324, with Ramelli, in V. Cernuskova (ed.), Clement's Bible Exegesis (2016), 80–110).
As M. stresses, rendering ἡ πίστις in the NT as ‘the faith’ is unacceptable (265). The main meaning, as in the Graeco-Roman Umwelt, is ‘trust, relationship of trust’ — present in Q and going back to Jesus. Propositional belief emerges rarely, within disputes (346). For John, pistis is primarily trust in Jesus and relates to pre-election. In Peter's speech in Acts 2 the relation between repentance, belief and forgiveness is highlighted (233–4 with Ramelli in C. Fricke (ed.), The Ethics of Forgiveness (2011), 30–48). Pistis in the Principate and the NT has emotional connotations (M. follows recent reassessments of ancient emotions’ cognitive value), but remains a relational virtue. I agree about Paul as moderately influenced by Stoicism (491–2; Ramelli, Apeiron 47 (2014), 116–40; Slavery, ch. 2).
The title might mislead into thinking this book covers early Christian and Patristic texts, whereas only the early Principate, Septuagint, NT and immediate Umwelt (to the exclusion of ‘apocryphal’ Gospels and Acts, Marcion, ‘Gnostics’ etc.) are considered, although, as M. acknowledges (11), pistis in the NT has been studied most — much less in Patristic thought or ‘Gnosticism’. It will be important to follow M. in thinking about the rôle of pistis in Patristic thought and its relation to salvation. Even Origen thought that if all will be saved this is through pistis — and reconciled this with philosophy countering anti-Christian charges of fideism in Contra Celsum (Ramelli, VC 69 (2015), 123–56).
