LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Concordia Lutheran Seminary

CHAMBERS: PISTIS CRISTOU IN PAUL
that observation is true involve a genitive pronoun, not a noun (or at least
not a solitary noun without an accompanying pronoun). 18 In such cases,
Williams argues, the presence of the definite article is not due to the
subjective sense which Paul is supposedly trying to convey, but rather due to
the pronoun. This directly undercuts one of Hultgren’s main points: the
argument that unless Paul specifically indicates the subjective sense of the
genitive by using the article, the genitive should be understood
objectively. 19 The article need not, according to Williams, have anything to
do with the subjective sense at all: therefore its absence (as in pi,stij
Cristou/) cannot be used in support of an objective understanding.
Further, Williams continues, the fact that Paul does not use pi,stij evn or
eivj when he seems to mean “faith in Christ” does not lead to the inverse
conclusion that he does mean “faith in Christ” every time he speaks of
pi,stij Cristou/. 20 It is a basic logical error, Williams points out, to claim
from the absence of any other standard formula for “faith in Christ” that Paul
must have intended pi,stij Cristou/ to carry that meaning. 21
Two other proponents of the subjective interpretation, Richard Hays and
Douglas Campbell, challenge Hultgren on another point as well. 22 While
Hultgren emphasises Paul’s use of phrases consisting of the three elements
(preposition) + (a noun other than pi,stij) + (Cristou/) in ways that
sometimes need to be construed subjectively and other times objectively,
Hays and Campbell draw on surveys of the usage (pi,stij) + (a genitive
other than Cristou/) to show that that particular kind of phrase always does
have a subjective meaning—not just in the NT but also in the LXX and in
Hellenistic Judaism.
In terms of expressions that are grammatically parallel to pi,stij Cristou/,
then, the evidence is absolutely evenly balanced. Those who favour a
18 Williams 432-33.
19 Ian G. Wallis concedes some value to both sides, on this one, noting that “The evidence
here favours the view that the presence of the article signals a subjective genitive, but there is
too much variation to be conclusive.” The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions,
SNTSMS 84 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 69-70.
20 Williams 433-34. Wallis draws the same conclusion by noting that “apart from Paul, there
are no unambiguous cases in the New Testament where pi,stij followed by Christ or God in
the genitive case must be interpreted objectively” (71).
21 Dunn’s comment on this conclusion is, however, apt: “the absence of such phrases [as
pi,stij evn or eivj] leaves the proponents of the subjective genitive with a somewhat surprising
conclusion: either pi,stij Cristou/ is Paul’s way of speaking of ‘faith in Christ,’ or Paul, for
some yet to be explained reason, seems to have avoided speaking of ‘faith in Christ’” (735),
emphasis original.
22 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ 163-64, and Douglas A. Campbell, “The Rhetoric of
Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Toronto, 1989, 97-98).
Campbell’s work was subsequently published in 1992 as JSNTSS 65.
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