An International Quarterly for New Testament and Related StudiesNovum Testamentum XXXVI, 3 (1994), © E.J. Brill, Leiden IMZTIZ XPIZTOY: WITNESS OF THE FATHERS by ROY A. HARRISVILLE IIT Litchfield, MN The limited focus of this article will concern a number of passages in which the early Church Fathers quoted the x(n Xptstod formulation from the epistles of the apostle Paul. The debate concerning the rendering of niet Xptore6 is widely known.” Xptat05 may be grammatically interpreted as a subjective or objec- tive genitive. Many scholars have argued the case for one side or the other, bat for all the debating there has been no discussion which touches meaningfully on the early Church Fathers and their ' The Pauline passages in question are: Rom 3:22, 26: 4:16 (‘faith of Abraham"); Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 3:9. See also Eph 3:12 and Gal. 2:20, The “early Church Fathers” include Christian writers who wrote in Greek from the time of St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius together with, for the purposes of this article, Epiphanius of Salamis, the writer of the Acts of Peter, and one Latin author, St. Augustine. __1 The reader is referred to works such as Pierre Vallotton, Le Christ et la Foi: Etude de thologiebiblique (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1960); Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, Paul’s Understanding of Jesus: Invention or Interpretation? (Hull: University of Hull, 1963); D.W.B. Robinson, “ ‘Faith of Jesus Christ’ a New Testament Debate,” The Reformed Theological Review 29 (September-December, 1970): 71-81; George Howard, “The ‘Faith of Christ’,”” The Expository Times 85 (1974): 212-215, Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, Studies in Paul's Technique and Theology (London: SPCK, 1974); Sam K. Williams, ““The ‘Righteousness of God’ in Romans,” Joumal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 241-290; Arland J. Hultgren, “The Pistis Christou Formulation in Paul,”” Noown Tetamentun 22 (1980): 248-263; Luke Timothy Johnson, “Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus,” The Catholic Biblical Quartaly 44 (1982): 77-90; Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Nar- tative Substructur of Galatians 3:1-4:11, SBL Dissertation Series 56 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), ste pp. 158-162 for a brief history of the issue; Sam K. Williams, “Again Pistis Christou,”” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987): 431-447; Sam K. Williams, ‘“‘The Hearing of Faith: AKOH THE TEQD in Galatians 3," New Testa- ment Studies 35 (1989): 82-93; Moma D. Hooker, “IISTIE XPIETOY,”” New Testament Studia, 35 (1989): 321-342; Richard B. Hays, “Pistis and Pauline Christology: What is at stake?””, and James D.G. Dunn, “Once more, Pistis Christou,”” both in Sociely of Biblical Literature 1991 Seminar Papers 30 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991): 714-744,234 ROY A, HARRISVILLE IIT view of the matter, if any. The study of the phrase requires not only a close reading of Paul’s letters, but also of those who came afier him who employed the phrase as well. At the gathering of the Pauline Theology Group which met in Kansas City during the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting of November 1991, Bernadette Brooten confirmed this judgement with her inquiry con- cerning the patristic sources. At that meeting also Richard Hays asked the question, ‘Where is the evidence oudside the Pauline corpus for an objective genitive usage of the expression istic Xpusrob = “faith in Christ’”?””? This article is an attempt to answer that question. With the aid of the Ibycus computer and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae canon all the occurrences of mlstt¢/ees/w abzo5/Xpiarod *[nqe08 /"Iqa00 X ptat08, and so forth, which occur in the early Fathers were located! Only quotations of Paul’s language have been sear~ ched and identified to determine how the early Fathers understood the apostle’ s language and employed the phrase in question. Since the Fathers who wrote in Greck were closer than we to the apostle in time, culture, geography, and more importantly, language, their witness concerning this debate may be of considerable value. In the interests of fairness, care has been taken to allow the context of each quotation to dictate the rendering of the phrase in question. ‘The patristic rendering of mong Xprotot falls, generally, into three categories: (1) the Ambiguous Cases, (2) the Subjective Genitive, and (3) the Objective Genitive. 1. The Ambiguous Cases This category contains mostly quotations which include the Pauline phrases under discussion, but the larger contexts in which these phrases are found do not supply us with any clear and definite understanding of how each of the Fathers would render nin Xpiarod. In these cases, either the Fathers simply quote the phrase with no comment upon it, or their comments supply no clear and 8 Richard B. Hays, “Response to Paul Achtemeier’s Critique of Hays/Dunn and Retrospective Comments on Discussion of Histtg Xpovos,"” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature Pauline Theology Group, Kansas City, Kansas, November 26, 1991 4 Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Canon of Gretk Authorsand Works, Second edition, Luci Berkowitz, Karl A. Squitier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)