Article

Journal for the Study of

the New Testament
A Linguistic Analysis of πίστις 2020, Vol. 43(1) 108­–144
© The Author(s) 2020
χριστοῦ: The Case for the
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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X20949385
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Kevin Grasso
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract
This study seeks to demonstrate that the Pauline phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ is best
understood grammatically as the ‘Christ-faith’ in accordance with the so-called ‘third
view’, where ‘faith’ is taken to mean a system or set of beliefs, and ‘Christ’ qualifies what
the system is about. I argue that the grammar disallows the meaning ‘faith in Christ’
where Christ is the object of one’s ‘trust’, since objective genitives can only mean
‘belief of something (to be true)’, as is shown by an analysis of the data in the NT and in
Harrisville 1994; 2006. Additionally, the subjective genitive rendering often fails to make
sense within the literary context and faces its own grammatical difficulties. Drawing on
work from theoretical linguistics in lexical semantics and syntax, I show that the third
view meaning, translated as the ‘Christ-faith’, is the most likely rendering given the
context of each of the passages, the Greek case system and the meaning of the noun
πίστις as used in the NT and other Koine Greek writings.

Keywords
Pistis Christou, faith, Paul, linguistics, third view, Romans, Galatians

1. Introduction1
This study seeks to demonstrate that the Pauline phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ is best
understood grammatically as the ‘Christ-faith’ in accordance with the so-called

1. I would like to thank Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Jordash Kiffiak, Nick Messmer, Wes Olmstead,
Joshua Mann and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this
article. In addition, I thank Michael Grasso for discussing some of the exegetical issues with

Corresponding author:
Kevin Grasso, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Hebrew Language, 1 Meonot Bronfman, APT 14, Jerusalem
9785601, Israel.
Email: [email protected]
Grasso 109

‘third view’, where ‘faith’ is taken to mean a system or set of beliefs, and ‘Christ’
qualifies what the system is about. I argue that the grammar disallows the mean-
ing ‘faith in Christ’ where Christ is the object of one’s ‘trust’. Additionally, the
subjective genitive rendering – that is, ‘Christ’s faithfulness’ – often fails to
make sense within the literary context and faces its own grammatical difficulties.
Drawing on work from theoretical linguistics in lexical semantics and syntax, I
show that the ‘Christ-faith’ is the most likely rendering given the context, the
Greek case system and the meaning of the noun πίστις as used in the NT and
other Koine Greek writings.
This article opens, then, with a brief literature review of the grammatical2
arguments of relevance to the πίστις Χριστοῦ discussion. Second, I introduce the
concepts from theoretical linguistics relevant for the conversation. Third, I sur-
vey the uses of πίστις and πιστεύω in extant Koine texts in order to establish how
native speakers understood these words. Finally, using this data, my exegesis of
the relevant passages will lead us to conclude that the third view makes the most
sense contextually and syntactically.

2. Literature Review
The πίστις Χριστοῦ debate has been a long-standing battle between two major
camps who understand the genitive either as subjective or objective.3 The ‘third
view’ has received comparatively little attention. In Easter’s (2010) survey, this
reading receives a single sentence at the paper’s start, while the remainder of the
article compares and contrasts the ‘two’ sides. In spite of the entrenchment of
these two camps, there stands a general consensus that ‘We cannot hope to solve
such a delicate and sensitive issue as the meaning of the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ
simply by means of Greek linguistics, because there is more at stake – includ-
ing exegesis and theology’ (Porter and Pitts 2009: 53, emphasis original). This
assessment comes from the most linguistically oriented chapter in the collec-
tion of essays The Faith of Jesus Christ, which earlier hints that many scholars
‘despair of solving the issue linguistically’ (Porter and Pitts 2009: 35). Some
have even suggested that Paul was intentionally ambiguous to allow his audience
to understand the phrase in multiple ways (Jewett and Kotansky 2006: 277).4

me. A special thanks to Brooke Olmstead who greatly improved the paper on all levels both
with her comments on the language and as a stimulating conversation partner. Any mistakes
or errors are solely my responsibility. All translations from Greek are my own unless other-
wise noted. Italics are used for English examples, and single quotes are used for translations.
2. That is, this study focuses only upon grammatical arguments rather than theological arguments.
3. For a survey of recent scholarship, see Easter 2010 and Kugler 2016, and for historical schol-
arship, see Hunn 2009 and Schliesser 2015.
4. Below, I discuss the data in Harrisville 1994 about how the phrase was interpreted in early
110 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

Against these suggestions, I propose that modern linguistics literature enables

readers to eliminate the objective genitive position and to render the subjective
genitive position as highly improbable. Theoretical linguistics has developed
helpful tools to explore the scope of meaning in the genitive relation, the seman-
tics of nominals and the syntactic function of the dative – all of which are crucial
to a successful grammatical analysis of πίστις Χριστοῦ. By focusing on the below
arguments for each side, it will become apparent that supporters of the ‘two’
positions make exaggerated appeals to literary/thematic context in one way or
another. By addressing every argument given in Easter 2010 (cf. Kugler 2016), I
seek to demonstrate how each of these arguments (for both sides) either offers
support for the third view or does not adequately support the subjective and/or
objective positions.

2.1 Summary of the Objective Genitive Position

The objective genitive position is that the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ should be taken
to mean ‘faith in Christ’, where ‘Christ’ is the ‘object’ of faith. Following the
summaries in Easter 2010: 34-38 and Kugler 2016: 248-49, the objective read-
ing can be broken down into the six arguments given below. For each, I give the
section number(s) in this article where I deal with that particular argument and
note whether I agree (A), disagree (D) or remain neutral (N).

1. The lack of the article disfavors the subjective reading (4.2.1.3, 4.2.2
– A).
2. πίστις ἐν Χριστῷ is not a Pauline idiom (2.1 – D).
3. εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν in Gal. 2.16 explains πίστις Χριστοῦ (3.1
– D).
4. Works of law vs. πίστις Χριστοῦ – both must be human-oriented (5.1, 5.2
– A).
5. Abraham is a model of faith, not faithfulness (5.1 – N).
6. New Testament evidence for the objective genitive reading (4.2.1.3 – D).

Although the first argument about the article seeks to undermine the subjective
reading rather than offering a positive argument for the objective, I show below
that our understanding of the article actually presses against both of the domi-
nant positions (though more strongly against the subjective). The second point
is an argument from silence based on a reduced Pauline corpus. It also assumes
that Paul’s Greek was fundamentally different than other speakers’: Paul would
have had to have used a different construction, the genitive, to express the same

Christian writings, showing that, contra Harrisville’s interpretation of the data, πίστις Χριστοῦ
was consistently interpreted according to the third view, suggesting that it could not have been
understood in multiple ways.
Grasso 111

meaning that others were using the preposition for, which hardly seems tenable.
Thus, I leave aside this argument.
Many of the ‘grammatical’ arguments for the objective genitive appeal to the
sense of πίστις and/or πιστεύω in the surrounding context to support a similar
reading in πίστις Χριστοῦ (Matlock 2000; 2009: 77-78). Others argue that it is the
relationship between the noun/verb and its syntactic complement that carries
over to the phrase (e.g. Burton 1921: 121; Silva 2005: 160-61). If Paul uses a
particular relationship between πιστεύω and its complement in the same verse, so
the argument goes, why should he use a different relationship with the genitive
and the cognate noun in the same verse? A variation of the context argument is
used specifically with reference to Abraham as a model of faith. Proponents of
the objective position point out that it is Abraham’s ‘faith’ (and that towards
God) that is referred to throughout Rom. 4 and not his ‘faithfulness’, so the refer-
ent of πίστις in our phrase must also be ‘faith’, and not ‘faithfulness’, towards
God. These are arguments about the nature of roots and how they should be
interpreted when forming different words (e.g. nouns vs. verbs) in the same con-
text. I discuss this in 3.1 and 5.1.
Still others cite examples of the objective genitive in the NT outside of the
disputed texts. In section 4.2.1.3 below, I discuss how some of these examples
are, in my view, legitimate cases of objective genitives, but they have the wrong
meaning. In principle, however, this is not an argument for the objective genitive
in the specific contexts cited but an argument for the general possibility of an
objective genitive with πίστις.

2.2 Summary of the Subjective Genitive Position

The subjective genitive position is that the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ should be
taken to mean ‘faithfulness of Christ’, where ‘Christ’ serves as the subject of the
phrase. Although the subjective genitive position has been around for quite some
time (Schliesser 2015), the influential study of Hays (2002; originally published
in 1983) sparked renewed interest in it. From the outset, the position has been
characterized by an appeal to the narrative structure, and the story that Paul is
telling continues to be the foundational argument (Wright 2013: 836-38). While
these authors may be right about the story that Paul is telling, this does not neces-
sitate a subjective reading of πίστις Χριστοῦ, as will be shown below. The fol-
lowing six major arguments for the subjective reading have been cited (Easter
2010: 38-42; Howard 1992: 758; the sixth being from Howard who is drawing
on Kittel 1906: 424).
1. The objective genitive creates redundancies (5.2 – N).
2. πίστις followed by a genitive of a person never refers to faith in that per-
son (4.2.1 – A).
112 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

3. How does human faith reveal God’s righteousness? (4.2.3, 5.3 – A)

4. Hab. 2.4 and ἐκ πίστεως (5.2 – N).
5. Arrival of singular, external πίστις (4.2.3, 5.2 - A).
6. The genitive relation carries over from other uses of πίστις (5.1 – D).

Like the arguments cited above for the objective reading, some of the subjective
arguments are actually arguments against the objective position, specifically 1, 3
and 5. And again similarly, the subjective side makes several appeals to context,
particularly in 4 and 6. If Paul uses a subjective genitive in Rom. 3.3 and 4.16, so
the argument goes, why should he use a different kind of genitive in Rom. 3.22?
I discuss this more in 5.1.
The reference to Hab. 2.4 has also been a major argument for the subjective
camp. The basic idea is that the phrase ἐκ πίστεως is equivalent to διὰ πίστεως,
and both phrases refer to the citation of Hab. 2.4 previously in Rom. 1.17 or
anticipated in Gal. 3.6 (or implicit in the other passages) (Campbell 1994: 268).
The next line of reasoning is that whoever’s faith is referred to in Hab. 2.4 is also
being referred to in the πίστις Χριστοῦ passages. If we accept these premises, we
must still establish whose faith is being referred to in Hab. 2.4 in order to con-
clude who has faith in the relevant passages, but this also is disputed (cf. Campbell
2009a: 613-16; Watson 2009: 148-49). I leave this argument aside, since it is, on
principle, compatible with any position.5

2.3 Summary of the Third View

The third view understands the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ to mean something like the
‘Christ-faith’ where ‘Christ’ refers to the content of ‘faith’ (see 4.2.3 below). I
give the following six arguments in favor of the third view.

1. Lack of article suggests the nominal is not an AS-nominal6 (4.2.1.3, 4.2.2).

2. No early evidence for native speakers understanding the phrase as subjec-
tive (4.2.1.2).
3. Wrong meaning in the objective reading (4.2.1.1-3).
4. The types of verbs predicated of πίστις (4.2.3, 5.2).

5. My personal position on the issue is that linking πίστις Χριστοῦ with Hab. 2.4 based on the
similarity of meaning between ἐκ and διά is probably incorrect. And even if the prepositions
were serving identical functions, the noun πίστις would still not need to refer to the same
thing.
6. The term AS-nominal refers to Argument Structure nominals, which are deverbal nominals
that retain the same argument structure as their underlying verbal counterparts. For more on
this term, see section 3.2.
Grasso 113

5. The third view meaning fits contexts both about Jesus’ work and the
response to Jesus (5.2).
6. Examples from the early church fathers in Harrisville 1994 support the
third reading (4.2.1.2).

Arguments 1, 2 and 3 are all negative arguments against the objective and subjec-
tive positions, while 4, 5 and 6 are positive, grammatical arguments for the third
view. Sprinkle helpfully lists and summarizes the proponents of the third view,
noting also three variations in how the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ is defined: ‘content
of the gospel (Christ-event), the preached gospel (the message about the Christ-
event), or the sphere of salvation created by the gospel (i.e., the church)’ (2009:
175). I hope to provide some clarity on the meaning πίστις brings to the table in
the phrase under discussion because it has been, in my view, sometimes sloppily
described. For instance, Schliesser (2016: 282) says that the third view highlights
‘the eschatological quality of πίστις’. The noun πίστις itself, however, does not
have any eschatological quality associated with it. It may be used in eschato-
logical contexts, but its meaning, its specific contribution to the context, does not
seem to be about eschatology. Nevertheless, advocates of the third view seem to
consistently place emphasis on πίστις as an event, drawing on contexts where
the noun is connected with an event, such as in Gal. 3.22-26 and Rom. 3.22-26. I
discuss this more in 4.2.3 and 5.2-3. My translation of the phrase as the ‘Christ-
faith’ is meant to highlight the type of faith as that which is centered on the Christ.

3. Linguistic Framework
This section is devoted to introducing the crucial concepts for my analysis.
Drawing on work done in theoretical linguistics on case and nominals, I show
that there is a distinct semantic difference between arguments introduced by
prepositions and objective genitives which are, in fact, underlying accusatives.
By ‘argument’, I mean another word or phrase required by the verb or noun to
complete the concept the verb or noun is associated with.7 Arguments introduced
by a preposition have the meaning ‘trust in’ (for more on this meaning, see n. 29
below), while arguments introduced by the accusative or an objective genitive
have the meaning ‘believe something to be true’. Bare dative arguments occupy
a middle ground, and their meaning can be disambiguated based on the seman-
tics of the argument itself (whether it is something to be ‘trusted in’ or ‘believed
to be true’).

7. For example, walk requires one argument, which is animate, to do the act of walking (e.g.
Kathy walked), whereas hit requires two arguments, one that does the hitting and one that is
being hit (e.g. The ball hit the fence). Other kinds of words have arguments as well, but they
are irrelevant here.
114 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

3.1 The Roots of Nouns and Verbs

Before discussing nouns and verbs, I start with what is considered to be the most
basic unit of all words in Distributed Morphology: the root.8 There is a tremen-
dous amount of literature on roots in linguistics, particularly on what information
they actually contain.9 For our purposes, the important point is how a noun and
a verb formed from the same root (which I will designate as √root) should relate
to each other. The objective genitive position has claimed that the noun formed
from √πιστ should have the same meaning as the verb formed from √πιστ when
used in the same context. This is an empirical claim: there should be no (or few)
examples of a noun and verb with different senses when the same root is used
in the same context. This claim, however, cannot be sustained. For example,
consider the two English clauses the doctor examined the patients and he put
their examinations on the table (for similar examples, see Grimshaw 1990: 49).
In the first clause, the verb examine (derived from √exam) refers to an event,
but in the second clause, a noun with the same root is used (examination) with
a different sense, i.e. a concrete entity, not an event. Likewise, J. Grimshaw’s
(1990) seminal study insists that many nominals are systematically ambiguous,
communicating different meanings if they function as an event (on the one hand)
or an entity (on the other). Subsequent work agrees that shared meaning between
nouns and verbs with a common root depends upon whether or not the noun has
a verb phrase embedded within it and refers to the same event as the verb (for
examples, see (1) below).10 Shared meaning, then, is not simply determined by
proximate context and shared roots.

3.2 Nominals
The above discussion on roots leads us to nominals. Consider the following para-
digm from the English pair believe and belief.
(1)11
a. John believed Mary that she raised a pet bear.
b. John believed Mary.

8. Distributed Morphology is a very influential morphological theory in linguistics that essen-

tially collapses morphology into syntax. For an introduction, see Embick 2015.
9. For helpful discussions, see Marantz 2000; Borer 2005: 3-13; Alexiadou, Borer and Schafer
2014; Harley 2014.
10. There are syntactic tests that reveal whether a verb phrase is embedded in a noun or not (see
a list of the syntactic distinctions in Borer 2013: 52).
11. In keeping with standard practice for linguistic articles, I number the examples that demon-
strate a grammatical point outside the body of the text to aid the reader when I refer back to
previous examples and grammatical issues. For the sake of brevity, I include some original
language examples in the body of the text, though longer examples I also set apart from the
main body.
Grasso 115

c. John believed in Mary.

d. John’s belief of Mary that she raised a pet bear (was unfounded).
e. John’s belief of Mary (was unfounded).
f. John’s belief in Mary (was unfounded).

The above examples suggest that belief in English is a deverbal noun because
it shares the same syntactic patterns with its verbal counterpart. A variety of
terms have been used for such nominals, but their defining characteristic is that
they are nouns with underlying verbs that refer to the same event as the verb
from which they are derived, i.e. they are deverbal nouns. I will combine the
terminology in Borer 2013 and Lieber 2016 and call the deverbal nouns that take
their verbal arguments and refer to the event denoted by the verb ‘AS-nominal
readings’ (Argument Structure nominal) and those that do not refer to events and
do not take the arguments of their verbal counterparts I will call ‘R-nominal
readings’ (Referential nominal). Both terms are called ‘readings’ because the
distinction between AS-nominal and R-nominal readings does not actually divide
up the nominals themselves but how they are understood, since the same nomi-
nal can be an AS-nominal in one context and an R-nominal in another context
(see Lieber 2016: 3-5 for discussion). AS-nominal readings share the argument
structure of their underlying verb.12 By ‘argument structure’ I mean the number,
type and meaning of the noun(s) that a verb requires to complete the concept the
verb is associated with. Compare, for example, the parallel arguments required
by the following verb and noun pair: the enemy destroyed (verb) the city and the
enemy’s destruction (noun) of the city.13 The nominal counterpart to the verb
destroy has the same argument structure as the verb because the number, type
and meaning of the arguments are identical. From this we begin to understand
what a true objective genitive is: it is an AS-nominal reading that requires an
object just like its corresponding verb.
Consider again the paradigm in (1). The nominal belief has the same argument
structure and meaning as the verb believe, which means it has AS-nominal read-
ings. Pressing the implications of this reading of belief further, an enormous
body of research in lexical semantics has also demonstrated that when the syntax
of the sentence changes, the meaning of the verb/noun also changes.14 The impli-

12. This goes against the statement in Porter and Pitts 2009: 47 that ‘the πίστις Χριστοῦ con-
struction, however, functions at the word-group level where subject-object relations are not
grammaticalized ... The labels unwarrantedly move the discussion to the clause level, treating
πίστις as a Predicator and Χριστοῦ as a subject or object, when the relations are strictly nomi-
nal.’ Many linguists have recognized the fundamental similarity between verbs and nouns that
refer to events (again, see Grimshaw 1990).
13. This example is derived from Grimshaw 1990: 46; see her discussion there for more examples.
14. See Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2005 for a survey. The interaction between the meaning of
words and the syntactic construction in which they are found is a central topic in linguistics.
116 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

cation of this is simple: a change in the argument structure from believe x to

believe in x is accompanied by a change in meaning, and this also holds for the
corresponding structures of the AS-nominal belief of x and belief in x. Roughly
speaking, to believe something means to believe it is true, while to believe in
something means (in English) to ascribe existence, an ability or some other
modal meaning to it.15 The implication of this discussion is that we can use the
argument structure of a verb as a guide to help us determine the meaning of a
nominal if the nominal has an AS-nominal reading.
Like the nominal belief in English, πίστις has an AS-nominal reading with a
parallel argument structure to its related verb πιστεύω.

(2)
a. ἵνα κριθῶσιν πάντες οἱ μὴ πιστεύσαντες τῇ ἀληθείᾳ (2 Thess. 2.12)
in order that all may be judged who do not believe the truth
b. οὐ μόνον τὸ εἰς αὐτὸν πιστεύειν (Phil. 1.29)
not only to trust in him
c. ὅτι εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἀπαρχὴν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἐν … πίστει ἀληθείας (2 Thess. 2.13)
because God chose us as the first-fruits for salvation by … belief of the truth
d. τὸ στερέωμα τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως ὑμῶν (Col. 2.5)
the steadfastness of your trust in Christ

Examples (2a-d) demonstrate that – like the English word belief – the Greek
nominal πίστις has AS-nominal readings, since it has the same argument struc-
ture as its underlying verb πιστεύω. (2a) has a bare dative complement meaning
‘something believed to be true’, and in (2c), a (objective) genitive complement
functions as the argument of the noun πίστει with the same meaning. On the
other hand, the verb in (2b) has a prepositional complement (εἰς αὐτὸν) in the
same way that the AS-nominal reading in (2d) has a prepositional complement
(εἰς Χριστὸν). What is noteworthy here is that a change in syntax reflects a change
in meaning for πίστις. Although an objective genitive reading is possible for
πίστις (just as the underlying verb can take a bare dative or accusative with cer-
tain nouns), it has a different meaning than πίστις ἐν/εἰς (just as the underlying
verb has a different meaning with these prepositional complements).
The above discussion has sought to show what an objective genitive is, how it
is derived and its distinctive semantic nature. We now turn to consider the

Some have argued that words may determine the syntactic context in which they are found,
while others have argued that the syntactic context determines the meaning of the words (for
a more historical introduction as well as current trends in the literature, see Marantz 2013).
This, of course, does not mean that a change in meaning will always be reflected in the syntax.
15. This is a grossly oversimplified definition of both believe and believe in, but the specific
meaning of the English word believe is inconsequential for my argument. What is important
is that the two different meanings are reflected in the syntax.
Grasso 117

subjective genitive. Although J. Dunn (2002: 265-66) criticizes the subjective

genitive position for having an unclear referent (for discussion, see 4.2.2 below),
most of its proponents understand the phrase to speak of Christ’s faithfulness to
God’s plan/his own death (cf., e.g., Hays 2002: 150-53; Wallis 1995: 85-87;
Wright 2013: 839). On this understanding, the subjective reading would also be
an AS-nominal, referring to the event of Christ being faithful to his mission (or
to the God who ordained that mission).16
I have argued that πίστις has AS-nominal readings, but it must also be noted
that many deverbal nouns are ambiguous between AS-nominal and R-nominal
senses. πίστις is no different; it also has R-nominal readings (see the senses in
Danker 2000: 820).17 As suggested above, R-nominals are distinct from
AS-nominals in that they do not refer to an event, but an entity (whether concrete
or abstract).18 R-nominal readings also have the potential to be relational. For
example, the noun brother speaks of an entity but requires another argument, for
a brother must always be a brother of someone.19 In other cases, the argument of
such nouns can refer to the content of the noun: e.g. the report of the crime is on
the table. Here, of the crime refers to the content of the report. Following Kratzer
(2006: 1), I will call these content nouns. As an R-nominal, then, πίστις may
depict something like a system of beliefs, similar to the English noun faith. For
example, the faith of Islam refers to the system of beliefs of which Islam is the
content. In this way, πίστις may be used as a relational R-nominal, with its geni-
tive argument introducing the content. This definition for πίστις is not new (cf.
Danker 2000: 820), and it is precisely this sense of the noun that I will argue is
at play in the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ. In sum, the noun πίστις is an inherently
relational noun which may have either an R-nominal or an AS-nominal reading,
and these senses can be distinguished by syntax and the semantics of the noun.

16. From this point forward, I will simply assume the subjective genitive position is ‘Christ’s
faithfulness to God’, though what he is faithful to is irrelevant for my argument. Alternatively,
what is called the subjective reading could be something like Christ’s faithfulness as an
abstract quality, but this does not seem to be argued for (nor would it be a subjective genitive
in this case, since ‘faithfulness’ as an abstract quality would not be an AS-nominal, and the
genitive would be possessive, not subjective).
17. In fact, many nouns formed with the -ις ending in Greek show this pattern. For example,
βρῶσις (‘consumption’) may refer either to the act of eating or to the thing eaten. Other such
examples are the following: γνῶσις (‘knowledge’), ἀποκάλυψις (‘revelation’), παράδοσις
(‘handing over/tradition’), παράκλησις (‘request’), etc. See the definitions in BDAG for this
alternation.
18. For more on this ambiguity, see Asher 2011: 291.
19. For the different types of concepts a noun may encode, see Löbner 2011: 279.
118 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

3.3 Case
3.3.1 Genitive Case.  In linguistics, the genitive has been treated in various frame-
works, but there is a general consensus on how relational nouns should be ana-
lyzed in the genitive construction: the noun in the genitive should stand in the
relation expressed by the relational noun (Partee and Borschev 1998: 1-2; Vikner
and Jensen 2002: 196-97; Asher 2011: 274-80). Consider the noun brother again.
When another noun is placed in the genitive after brother, as in the brother of
Sue, the entity referred to by the phrase must be someone who stands in the rela-
tion specified by the noun brother (i.e. a male with the same parents), and that
relation is with Sue. Similarly, the phrase the sister of Sue refers to someone in a
sister-relation to Sue. With relational nouns, the genitive interpretation is not
random: it is determined by the relation encoded in the noun itself.20
Because πίστις is a relational noun, readers do not need to guess about the rela-
tion between πίστις and the genitive noun. The relation will be determined by the
sense of the noun – and especially, whether it has an AS-nominal or R-nominal
reading. In sum, then: (1) if πίστις is an AS-nominal with the objective genitive
rendering, the relation between the nouns in the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ would be
equivalent to the relationship between the verb and its object, i.e. πιστεύω Χριστόν
or πιστεύω Χριστῷ21 (ὅτι …); (2) with the subjective genitive construal, the noun
Χριστοῦ would be equivalent to the subject of the corresponding verb, i.e. Χριστός
πιστεύει (εἰς τινά); (3) finally, if πίστις is an R-nominal requiring an argument
clarifying the content of faith, the genitive phrase would qualify the type of faith.

3.3.2 Dative Case.  Before delving into the data, it is important to note that the
dative case can serve (at least) two distinct functions with verbs: an applicative
function and prepositional function. First, the Greek dative can add an argument
to a verb, which is the applicative use (Cuervo 2003; Pylkkänen 2008). This can
be seen in the example in (1) above, such as John believed Mary that … and also
in Jn 4.21 (given below in (4)), where the dative introduces the one who spoke
or is associated with the proposition to be believed. Crucially, the proposition
can be deleted when supplied by the context, e.g. John believed Mary. When a
human applicative argument is introduced with such verbs, an implied proposi-
tion is associated with the person in the dative case.22 The noun referring to a
person (i.e. Mary) has been coerced into functioning like a proposition. As a

20. Although this is generally true, Asher (2011: 279-80) does show that the relation can be over-
ridden by a very strong context, but as his examples prove, the context must be extraordinarily
clear. Given the existence of the debate itself, I assume the context is not sufficiently clear to
override the relation found in the noun πίστις itself.
21. The difference between the bare accusative and bare dative will be discussed in more detail
below.
22. This has been called coercion in the linguistics literature; see Pustejovsky 1995: 118-22 and
Asher 2011: 256 for analyses and discussion.
Grasso 119

result, notice how the semantics of the verb is identical in sentences like John
believed Mary, John believed Mary that she raised a pet bear, and John believed
that she raised a pet bear. Each formulation communicates the same sense of
believe, i.e. ‘to believe something is true’. An example of a person being coerced
into a proposition is given in (3), and (4) shows an example with the proposition
explicit.

(3)
εἰ ἀλήθειαν λέγω, διὰ τί ὑμεῖς οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι; (Jn 8.46)
If I speak truth, why do you not believe me?

(4)
πίστευέ μοι, γύναι, ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα… (Jn 4.21)
Believe me, woman, that an hour is coming …

And finally, the dative noun in such constructions need not be a person. The
applicative can also be a content noun with an implicit proposition (e.g. John
believed the report vs. John believed the report that Mary raised a pet bear). In
Koine, the content noun may likewise function as a bare dative applicative.

(5)
εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει (2 Thess. 2.11)
in order that they might believe the lie

In English, both Mary and the report function as applicative nouns after believe,
and both would be expressed in the dative case in Koine (as per (4) and (5)
above).
Other than the applicative use described above, the dative has been shown to
have strong similarities with prepositional phrases (Baker 1997).23 Thus, the
dative may stand in for certain prepositions, which means that it may have an
identical meaning to πιστεύω εἰς. This is the standard way that Josephus, for
example, expresses the meaning ‘trust in’, and the bare dative is found, though
rarely, in the NT as well.24

23. Although I make the terminological distinction between an applicative dative and a prepo-
sitional dative, they would ordinarily both be called applicatives in the linguistics literature
(Cuervo 2003). The difference between the two would be in their position in the syntax,
which would determine their meaning. However, this is not relevant for our purposes, so I
make the terminological distinction between the two meanings for the sake of clarity.
24. In fact, Josephus almost never uses a preposition with the verb πιστεύω, and I did not find a
single example of him using the preposition with this same sense, which is most similar to
πιστεύω εἰς in the NT. He always uses the bare dative for that meaning, at least in Antiquities
and Against Apion.
120 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

(6)
Κρίσπος δὲ ὁ ἀρχισυνάγωγος ἐπίστευσεν τῷ κυρίῳ (Acts 18.8)
But Krispos the synagogue leader trusted in the lord

Given the applicative and prepositional uses of the bare dative, it is apparent
that there is a potential ambiguity in a clause like πιστεύει μοι: it can mean ‘he/
she believes me (that …)’ or ‘he/she believes in me’, i.e. trusts in me. However,
a crucial difference between the two remains: the former involves an implicit
proposition, whereas in the latter, the person is the only argument of the verb.
Attention to this distinction will help us to disambiguate the two relevant senses
of πίστις/πιστεύω, namely ‘believe something to be true’ and ‘trust in’.

4. The Data
With these details in mind, we can now examine the Koine Greek data.25 In line
with the brief discussion above, I will argue that there are no clear instances of
an objective genitive meaning ‘trust in’.26 We will identify the various argument
realizations with πιστεύω before doing the same for πίστις. Following this task,
we will look at the semantics of the objective, subjective and relational (third
view) genitives with πίστις.

4.1 The Semantics of πιστεύω and its Arguments

As demonstrated above in (2), the verb πιστεύω can have a variety of argument
structures. What is crucial for the argument against the traditional objective geni-
tive reading is that the construction underlying the actual objective genitive is
one where the noun πίστις means ‘to believe the truth of’ something, not to ‘trust
in’ (which is expressed with prepositional complements or the prepositional use
of the bare dative; cf. Wallis 1995: 70). I treat the possible argument structures of
πιστεύω below and explain the semantics of each, discussing them in the follow-
ing order: accusative (along with ὅτι), accusative and dative, dative, and prepo-
sitional complement.

4.1.1 πιστεύω + Acc. or ὅτι Clause.  When the verb πιστεύω takes a single accusative
argument, it means ‘to believe something to be true’. There are only five

25. This includes my corpus of the NT, the LXX, Josephus’s Antiquities and Against Apion, the
Apostolic Fathers, the Pseudepigrapha and Philo.
26. Some that support the subjective genitive side have also argued this (Howard 1967: 460-61;
Robinson 1970: 78-79; Williams 1987: 434), but they have failed to answer the rebuttals
(Dunn 2002: 253; Moo 1996: 225) or explain why this would be the case linguistically. For a
discussion of the issue and more references to both sides, see Easter 2010: 39.
Grasso 121

examples in the NT of πιστεύω as an active verb with a single, accusative argu-

ment, one being Jn 11.26.27

(7)
καί πᾶς ὁ ζῶν καὶ πιστέυων εἰς ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ ὰποθάνῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. πιστεύεις τοῦτο;
(Jn 11.26)
All who live and trust in me will certainly never die. Do you believe this?

This example shows the contrast between ‘trusting in’ and ‘believing something’.
When Jesus asks Martha πιστεύεις τοῦτο, he is asking whether she believes the
previous proposition to be true. Πιστεύω with accusative case always has this
meaning in my corpus.28 Although there are only a handful of examples of
πιστεύω with the accusative, there are many more examples of the same sense
with ὅτι clauses. In other words, this sense of πιστεύω can take either of these
two syntactic patterns.
As previously observed, applicative arguments can be added with the dative
case. In (1) and (4), we saw that an applicative can be added before a proposition,
and that argument is usually the one who said the proposition, e.g. John believed
Mary that … This pattern is, then, the same as the ὅτι clause. We have simply added
an argument that is associated with the proposition, but the semantics of the verb
has not changed. In (3) above, we saw that the proposition itself can be deleted if
the context supplies it. In the same way that a person can be associated with a
proposition, (5) demonstrated that a content noun will be in the dative after πιστεύω,
but as a content noun, it has an implicit proposition. Thus, we see the following
options for the complement in this pattern: (1) an accusative noun referring to a
proposition, (2) a proposition (with ὅτι), (3) an applicative person and a proposi-
tion, (4) an applicative person with an implicit proposition and (5) an applicative
content noun with an implicit proposition. I include all of these options under the
accusative pattern because, even though they appear quite differently, they share
precisely the same semantics with predictable and expected patterns. All of these
are essentially the same construction at the level of interpretation: they all mean to
believe a proposition, whether implicitly or explicitly expressed, to be true.

4.1.2 πιστεύω + Acc. + Dat.  I distinguish between the sense with the accusative
outlined above from the sense with an accusative and dative, which always
requires both arguments. In this sense, πιστεύω means ‘to entrust’. Whereas the
construction above only requires two arguments (i.e. a believer and a thing to be
believed), this pattern requires there to be something entrusted, someone entrust-
ing and someone being entrusted with that something. Because this construction

27. The examples are the following: Jn 11.26; Acts 13.41; 1 Cor. 11.18; 13.7; 1 Jn 4.16.
28. Other references outside the NT include the following: Hab. 1.5; Josephus, Ant. 8.232;
14.284, 455; 16.125, 190; Polycarp, Philippians 8.2; Ign. Smyrn. 3.1.
122 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

is not relevant to my argument, I do not discuss it further, but only note that,
again, the syntax reflects a difference in meaning.29

4.1.3 πιστεύω + Dat./Prepositional Complement.  As previously established, the bare

dative is ambiguous, sometimes being equivalent to πιστεύω with an accusative
and other times to πιστεύω with a preposition. We noted – in (3), where a person
stands in for a proposition, and in (5), where a content noun is found in the dative
– that the argument of the verb can be realized as a dative without a change in the
verb’s semantics. Thus, such uses of the bare dative were categorized under the
accusative pattern because there is an implicit proposition, which seems to rep-
resent the accusative argument. When πιστεύω takes a prepositional comple-
ment, however, the meaning changes, and the dative may also be used for this
sense in place of the preposition (see (6) above).
The meaning of πιστεύω εἰς/ἐν, identified in (6) as ‘trust in’, has been noted in
the literature and is well attested in the NT and other Koine texts.30 Although the
bare dative is ambiguous, the NT makes a fairly systematic syntactic distinction
between the two interpretations. Even though ‘trust in’ can sometimes be close
in meaning to ‘believe something to be true’ in English, this article forthwith
uses ‘trust in’ in a separate way that represents an underlying Greek phrase
which, as shown by the definition in BDAG, includes an element of commitment
that is not present in a simple conviction that something is true. The meaning of
‘trust in’, as in (8), is almost always expressed with a prepositional complement,
whereas the meaning of belief in a proposition associated with a person is almost
always expressed with the bare dative.31

(8)
ὁ πιστεύων εἰς τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον· ὁ δὲ ἀπειθῶν τῷ υἱῷ οὐκ ὄψεται ζωήν (Jn 3.36)
The one who trusts in the son has eternal life, but the one who is disobedient to the
son will not see life.

29. Clear examples of this sense in the NT are Lk. 16.11; Jn 2.24.
30. I translate this sense as ‘trust in’ throughout, but the specific nuance of the definition is irrel-
evant for my argument. It only must be different than ‘believe something to be true’, which it
is, I believe, on all accounts of the objective genitive reading. For this sense, Danker (2000:
820) says there is an ‘implication of total commitment to the one who is trusted’. If this is cor-
rect, the phrase would mean something between ‘trust in’ and ‘be faithful/loyal to’ in English
(since the former does not imply ‘total commitment’ while the latter would), but I leave this
aside for further research. The precise rendering into English is also, of course, dependent
upon the subtle differences between ‘trust in’, ‘believe in’, ‘have faith in’ and ‘be faithful to’
in English itself.
31. There are some counterexamples to this generalization. Sometimes, the bare dative has the
sense of ‘trust in’, as in the following examples: Jn 6.30 (parallel to εἰς); 8.31 (parallel to εἰς);
Acts 18.8. There is one example which seems to go the other way with εἰς introducing a per-
son that is associated with a proposition: Rom. 4.18. The generalization is, nevertheless, quite
robust.
Grasso 123

At least in this context, πιστεύω εἰς entails obedience. Just as one cannot simul-
taneously ‘have eternal life’ and ‘not see life’, so one cannot be both ‘disobe-
dient’ and πιστεύων εἰς (i.e. something close to ‘faithful to’) at the same time.
Although I am uncertain whether the use of the prepositional complement with
πιστεύω exclusively means ‘trust in’, it does seem to carry this meaning in con-
texts involving ‘trust in’ a person, particularly a leader.32
We have seen that πιστεύω has three different senses, each reflected in its
argument structure, particularly in the different types of complements the verb
takes. This is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Argument structures and meanings of πιστεύω

Argument structure Sense Complement(s)

1. πιστεύω + (Dat.) + ‘Believe something to Proposition (implicit or explicit),
Acc./Prop. be true’ person associated with
proposition, or content noun

2. πιστεύω + Dat. + Acc. ‘Entrust something to A recipient and an entity

someone’ (abstract or concrete)
3. πιστεύω + Prep. Comp. ‘Trust in someone’ A person or a mission/cause
4. πιστεύω + Dat. Ambiguous between 1 Ambiguous between 1 and 3
and 3

Of great importance is the fact that the distribution between argument structure
and semantics in the table above (with attention to the verb πιστεύω) is paral-
leled in the nominal domain when πίστις has an AS-nominal reading. In the ver-
bal domain, πιστεύω will always have an accusative associated with it when it
means ‘believe something to be true’. Sometimes, this will be explicit, as in (7)
above, but in most cases, the accusative will be the implicit proposition associ-
ated with a person or a content noun. Again, such content nouns are special pre-
cisely because they carry propositional content with them that can ‘satisfy’ the
need for this sense to have a propositional complement, which would be realized
in the accusative case. In this sense, bare dative content nouns with πίστις func-
tion equivalently to accusatives with πιστεύω.
In the nominal domain, however, these content nouns will surface as geni-
tives, since they actually carry with them an (accusative-marked) proposition.
On the other hand, the nominal meaning of ‘trust in’ is expressed with a dative or
prepositional complement. Thus, the objective genitive, being a true object in the

32. Again, see Morgan 2015: 36-172 for a comprehensive overview of ways in which πίστις/
πιστεύω is used with different relationships.
124 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

accusative case, must have sense 1 in the chart above (or 2 in theory, but this
sense is irrelevant), and the data presented below shows this to be the case. It
follows that the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ, if it is an objective genitive, cannot mean
‘trust in Christ’, but only ‘belief of Christ’, i.e. some proposition associated with
him. Since there is no appropriate proposition in the context (again, this proposi-
tion is normally something a person has said), the genitive cannot be objective
(nor do translations agree with such a rendering in the first place, since transla-
tions never have ‘belief of Christ’). The traditional objective reading position is,
therefore, linguistically impossible, since the true objective genitive signals the
presence of an argument with propositional content and not the ‘trust in’ sense
normally assumed.

4.2 πίστις and its Arguments

We have seen that πίστις, like many other nominals, is ambiguous between an
AS-nominal and R-nominal reading. As noted above, the AS-nominal reading
will inherit the argument structure from the underlying verb πιστεύω. Because
the specific genitive relation is typically determined by the relational element of
the noun (if it has one), we examined the types of relations that the underlying
verb in πίστις had to its arguments. However, when πίστις has an R-nominal read-
ing, it has a slightly different meaning and relation to its argument. From these
observations, we can anticipate the three options for the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase in
the literature: the genitive is either the object of an AS-nominal (objective geni-
tive), the subject of an AS-nominal with an implicit argument (subjective geni-
tive) or a complement of a relational R-nominal (third view). The interpretation
of the phrase, then, will be determined in part by the reading of πίστις, since its
sense will determine the relation that the following genitive has.

4.2.1 The Objective Genitive.  As I have suggested, when an objective genitive is

used with the noun πίστις, the meaning is very close to John’s belief of Mary (i.e.
belief that propositional content of some kind is true). In order to demonstrate
this further, we will look at two influential studies of Harrisville (1994, 2006).
Harrisville aims to show that πίστις Χριστοῦ was understood as an objective
genitive by its original audience; that the objective genitive with the noun πίστις
is ‘good Greek’ by giving examples of it in Classical Greek authors (Harrisville
2006); and that the Early Church Fathers’ comments on the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase
reveal that they understood it as an objective genitive (Harrisville 1994). My
position is that all of the examples of the objective genitive given in Harrisville
2006 should be understood as ‘belief of a proposition (to be true)’ rather than
‘trust in’ someone. Likewise, I contend that all of the Early Church Fathers
understood the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase as the third view, but Harrisville misread
them because he assumed that the genitive could only be objective or subjective.
After treating these two studies, I will demonstrate how all the other passages in
Grasso 125

the NT with πίστις followed by a genitive can be understood in one of these two
ways: either the genitive is not actually objective or πίστις communicates the
sense ‘belief of a proposition’.

4.2.1.1 The Meaning of the Objective Genitive – Another Look at Harrisville 2006.  When
approaching the objective genitive cases cited by Harrisville, we must ask
whether the nouns refer to things to be believed (either content nouns or proposi-
tions which may or may not be associated with a person) or people to be trusted.
What is striking about the data in Harrisville 2006 is that many of the objective
genitives are clearly content nouns, which is expected in my account, since true
objective genitives with πίστις have a proposition associated with them. Again,
these nouns are unique because of the implicit content associated with them, on
account of which they behave like propositions. Consider one such noun, γραφή
‘writing/written thing’, as found in Plato’s Phaedrus: ἅτε διὰ πίστιν γραφῆς
ἔξωθεν ὑπ’ ἀλλοτρίων τύπων (Plato, Phaedrus 275a) ‘because, due to belief of
something written, produced outside of themselves …’.33
Harrisville also includes examples of the genitive after the verb πιστεύω, all of
which introduce a proposition or a content noun: Demosthenes, On Organization
13.32 and Philippic II 6.20; Plato, Symposium 207c; and Xenophon, Memorabilia
1.2.8. At other times, Harrisville gives examples where the sense of πίστις is
simply not ‘belief’ as an AS-nominal, so the genitive, likewise, cannot be objec-
tive.34 In sum, the data presented in Harrisville 2006 ultimately offers robust
support that objective genitives have a particular meaning, and that meaning is
not ‘trust in’ someone.
Problematically, Harrisville (2006) frequently labels each of his examples as
either subjective or objective genitives, but such miscategorizations reflect a
deeper issue at the heart of the whole debate. Scholarship has long understood
the genitive with πίστις to be either subjective or objective, but this should not be
the case for nouns, like πίστις, which have both AS-nominal and R-nominal
readings. We should not expect there to be only two options for the genitive,
which presses us to take another look at Harrisville’s other influential study on
the interpretation of πίστις Χριστοῦ by the Early Church Fathers.

4.2.1.2 The Third Option – Another Look at Harrisville 1994.  Harrisville (1994) claims
that there are clear examples of at least some Early Church Fathers understanding
πίστις Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive. However, Harrisville himself never discusses

33. Similar examples are common in Harrisville 2006, and they include the following: with ὅρκος
(‘oath’) in Aeschines 3.208 and Euripides, Medea 492 and with νόμος (‘law’) in Hyperides
6.25.
34. The following senses are found: sense of ‘oath/pledge’ in Euripides, Medea 413, Demosthenes,
Against Timotheus 49.43, and Lysias 18.19; sense of ‘confidence’ in Demosthenes, On the
Crown 18.215 and Against Leptines 20.17 and Thucydides, Histories 7.67.4.
126 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

a third option, and throughout the article he uses the impossibility of a genitive being
subjective as a basis for calling it objective (Harrisville 1994: 237-39). But a closer
look at each of the contexts reveals that the examples he gives as ‘objective’ actually
support the third view. In each case, what is significant is the type or quality of the
faith under discussion – namely, that it is a faith that concerns Christ. This is exactly
the meaning the third view advocates for. For example, Harrisville quotes this trans-
lation of Acta Petri ch. 3:

If your god [referring to Christ] has power enough – he whom the Jews destroyed, and
they stoned you who were chosen by him – let him show that [πίστις αὐτοῦ] is of God;
let it be shown at this time whether it be worthy of God.35

Harrisville goes on to say that the phrase πίστις αὐτοῦ ‘must … refer to con-
temporaneous faith’. This context does, indeed, seem to disallow a subjective
genitive reading, but the third view is not ruled out. Furthermore, it seems odd to
discuss whether ‘trust in Jesus’, the act of trusting, is of God, but it is perfectly
natural to say that one religious system is of God and another is not – which is
exactly what the context demands. What makes the third view reading stand out
here is that the discussion is all about the nature or content of this πίστις. The
question under discussion is how the faith which concerns Christ should be con-
sidered; whether Peter trusts in Christ or not is not in question.
In addition to the example above, P. Sprinkle (2009: 180-82) has already
shown that several other passages in Origen treated by Harrisville are better
understood with the third view reading. My claim is stronger: all the passages he
cites are better understood with this reading. Even a cursory look at the contexts
cited in Harrisville 1994 reveals that the nature or content of πίστις is what is at
issue. He quotes, for instance, Origen of Alexandria from Selecta in Psalmos;
after a verse with the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase, Origen says, ‘For those who rightly
believe faith is reckoned as righteousness’. The contrast, then, is not between
those who trust in Jesus and those who do not, but those who have a kind of faith
that is right (i.e. the content is right) versus those who have a kind of faith that is
wrong.
Harrisville examines four other passages from Origen and Chrysostom that
are relevant for this discussion.

(9)
καὶ δικαιῶν τὸν ἐκ πίστεως, τουτέστιν τὸν πιστεύοντα εἰς Ἰησοῦν καὶ διὰ Ἰησοῦ τῷ
Θεῷ, καὶ οὐκ ἄτοπ̣ όν γε προλαβόντας εἰς τὸ ‘δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ’ εἰπεῖν
[ὅτι] ὥσπερ Ἀβραὰμ ἐπίστευσεν τῷ Θεῷ καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην, οὕτως τοῖς

35. All of the examples Harrisville cites are also anarthrous, which, as discussed below, is also
support for the third view.
Grasso 127

πιστεύσασιν εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἢ εἰς τὸν Θεὸν διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ λογίζεται ὁ Θεὸς τὴν πίστιν εἰς
δικαιοσύνην, καὶ οὕτω δικαιοῖ τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ
And justifying the member of the faith, that is the one who trusts in Jesus and through
Jesus in God – and it is not out of place, indeed, to say beforehand ‘justifying the
member of the Jesus-faith’ which is to say that like Abraham trusted in God and it was
counted to him as righteousness, so to the ones who trust in Jesus, or in God through
Jesus, God counts that faith as righteousness – and thus he justifies ‘the member of the
Jesus-faith’ (Origen, Commentarii ad romanos on Rom. 3.26).

(10)
… ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐκ Θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην, τὴν διὰ τῆς πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Εἶτα λέγει ποίας
πίστεως· … τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν κοινωνίαν
τῶν παθημάτων αὐτοῦ.
‘… but the righteousness of God, the one through the Jesus-Christ-faith.’ Then he says
what kind of faith ‘… to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing
of his sufferings.’ (Chrysostom, De incomprehensibili dei natura, Homily 2, line 419)

(11)
Τί δέ ἐστι, Φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι; Οὐ προσήλυτοι, ἀλλ’ ἐκ πρώτης ἡλικίας ἐντραφέντες τῷ νόμῳ,
τὴν σύντροφον ἀφέντες πολιτείαν, κατεφύγομεν εἰς πίστιν τὴν εἰς Χριστόν. Εἰδότες ὅτι
οὐ δικαιωθήσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, εἰ μὴ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ ἡμεῖς
εἰς Χριστὸν ἐπιστεύσαμεν.
But what is it to be ‘Jews by nature’? We are not proselytes, but from the first age were
trained in the law, leaving that way of life which one is raised in, we fled to the faith,
namely the one in Christ. ‘Knowing that man will not be justified from works of the
law, but through the Jesus-Christ-faith, we, too, trusted in Christ’. (Chrysostom, In
Epistulam ad Galatas 61.633 Homily B, section 5, lines 65-69)

(12)

Πάλιν ἐὰν συνῶμεν τὴν γενομένην ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ζωήν, τὸν εἰπόντα Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ζωή, ἐροῦμεν
μηδένα τῶν ἔξω τῆς πίστεως Χριστοῦ ζῆν, πάντας εἶναι νεκροὺς τοὺς μὴ ζῶντας θεῷ
Again, if we know the one who became life in the word, the one who said, ‘I am the
life’, we will say there is no life for the ones outside of the Christ-faith, or all are dead
who do not live for God. (Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Joannis 2.16.115)

We begin with Origen’s commentary on Rom. 3.26. Origen begins by discussing

who is the ‘one of faith’ (τὸν ἐκ πίστεως) whom God justifies, identifying that
person as the one who ‘trusts in Jesus’ (τὸν πιστεύοντα εἰς Ἰησοῦν). The mere fact
that Origen feels the need to clarify the referent of the phrase ‘the one of faith’ by
using a participle with a prepositional complement does not suggest that the two
phrases are equivalent (contra Harrisville 1994: 238), but rather that they have
128 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

distinct meanings that refer to the same referent. The one who belongs to the
Christ-faith is such because he or she trusts in Jesus, but that does not make the
two phrases semantically equivalent. In the broader sweep of the passage, Origen
seeks to explain how ‘the member of the Jesus-faith’ is connected to Abraham’s
faith who, it is said, trusted in God, not Jesus. In other words, not only does God
count righteous those that trust in him, but he also counts righteous those who
are of the Jesus-faith because they trust in Jesus and, through Jesus, in God. In
line with the third view (discussed more fully below), it is the type of faith that
matters: faith having to do with Jesus or faith having to do with God.
The next excerpt is from Chrysostom. Immediately after quoting Phil. 3.9, he
asks the question ‘what kind of faith’ (ποίας πίστεως). This is exactly the question
prompted by a third view reading of the phrase because the quality or kind of
faith is the thing at stake. Thus, Chrysostom is asking something like ‘What
exactly is this Christ-faith like?’ The answer is that being a part of this kind of
faith means ‘to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings’. But notice what Chrysostom does not ask. After quoting the verse,
he does not ask, ‘What does it mean to have faith in Jesus’, but rather he ques-
tions the nature of the faith, again in line with the third-view meaning.
Harrisville identifies passages (11) and (12) as two examples where the objec-
tive rendering ‘may be argued against’ (1994: 239). Both are contrasting two
different lifestyles. In (11), we see Jews who leave their way of life under Torah
to flee to the ‘faith which is in Christ’ (πίστιν τὴν εἰς Χριστόν), and the support for
taking such an action is taken to be Gal. 2.16. As noted by Harrisville, Chrysostom
does not directly comment on the meaning of the verse, but in the immediate
context he does contrast the lifestyle of Torah with trusting in Jesus. There is
nothing incompatible with a third-view reading here. The Christ-faith represents
the alternative system to the Torah system, and the way to become a part of that
system is to ‘trust in Jesus’ (πιστεύω εἰς Χριστόν) (as is found in every context in
which the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase is used). In this respect, (12) is very similar. It is
only those who are included in the ‘Christ-faith’ (τῆς πίστεως Χριστοῦ) system
that have life; everyone ‘outside’ is ‘dead’.
If my assessment is correct, each of these early occurrences of the πίστις
Χριστοῦ phrase can be read with the third-view reading, and each context sug-
gests that this is the correct reading. Harrisville (1994) does effectively show,
however, that no one understood the genitive in the disputed phrase to be subjec-
tive. And because of his assumption that an argument against the subjective is an
argument for the objective, he concludes that the Early Church Fathers read the
phrase objectively, but this, as we have seen, need not be the case. But significantly,
as noted above and discussed below, the third-view reading is close at times to
the objective reading (since the one who buys into the Christ-faith system does
so by trusting in him), though they still have different meanings.
Grasso 129

4.2.1.3 The Objective Genitive with πίστις in the NT.  We have already established
that there are two possible explanations of the πίστις + genitive cases mentioned
in the corpus: belief of propositional content to be true or the genitive is not
actually an objective genitive but a relational genitive with an R-nominal read-
ing (the third view). A clear example of the former is found in 2 Thess. 2.13: ὅτι
εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἀπαρχὴν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος καὶ πίστει ἀληθείας
‘Because God chose you as a firstfruits for salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth’. The latter can be found in Rev. 14.12: οἱ τηροῦντες
τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν πίστιν Ἰησοῦ ‘The ones who keep the command-
ments of God and the Jesus-faith’. In 2 Thess. 2.13, the noun ἀλήθεια is a content
noun, and it is preceded by two other instances of the verb πιστεύω with content
nouns in the dative. From the context, the question is clearly whether falsehood
or truth is believed to be true. The phrase thus means ‘belief of the truth’, i.e.
belief that the truth is actually true.36 Revelation 14.12, on the other hand, is sim-
ply not an objective genitive. The angel calls on people to keep ‘the Jesus-faith’.
The point is that they must hold fast to that particular type of faith in light of the
chaos surrounding them and with so many people abandoning the faith.
Scholars have identified many objective genitives across the NT as support for
the ‘faith in Christ’ rendering. D. Moo (1996: 225) lists the typical verses cited:
Mk 11.22; Acts 3.16; Jas 2.1; Rev. 2.13; 14.12; Col. 2.12; Phil. 1.27; 2 Thess.
2.13. If what I have argued is true, each of Moo’s examples must be understood
in one of two ways: (1) a true objective genitive with the wrong meaning, e.g.
Mk 11.22 (person for proposition, θεοῦ); Acts 3.16 (content noun, ὄνομα); Col.
2.12 (proposition, τῆς ἐνεργείας τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν); 2 Thess.
2.13 (content noun, ἀλήθεια); or (2) the third-view reading, which can be found
in Phil. 1.27;37 Jas 2.1; Rev. 2.13; 14.12.
In order to avoid belaboring the same points made above with Harrisville’s
examples, I address only two of the more difficult texts cited by Moo: Mk 11.22
and Jas 2.1. We can compare Mk 11.22 to our assessment of 2 Thess. 2.13 above,
since the noun in the genitive is something to be believed. At first glance, ἔχετε
πίστιν θεοῦ looks problematic for my position because the noun θεός is not a con-
tent noun and thus, not typically something that can be ‘believed to be true’.
However, as we have seen in 3.3.2 above, it is linguistically plausible to keep the
objective reading if we allow θεοῦ to stand in for a proposition. This would retain

36. The KJV translates the phrase that way as well. It should be noted that the phrase ‘belief in
the truth’ in English may be quite similar to ‘belief of the truth’, but this is an overlap between
belief of and belief in in English, not necessarily in Greek.
37. Phil. 1.27 is a truly ambiguous use in the context. Paul could either be saying they should be
struggling to continue in ‘believing the gospel’ or for the sake of the ‘faith of the gospel’. The
content noun in this context makes the choice difficult, but this is still perfectly in line with
what I am proposing.
130 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

the meaning of the objective genitive with πίστις established above while staying
faithful to the context. Jesus is not telling his disciples to ‘have faith in God’ with
the sense ‘trust in him’, but instead, to ‘believe God’ that he can answer prayer.
For this reason, Jesus encourages his followers ‘to not doubt’ in the following
verse. The question under discussion is whether the disciples will believe the
truth of something (God’s ability to answer), not whether they ‘trust in’ someone.
Mark 11.22 does contain an example of the objective genitive, then, but it does
not mean ‘trust in God’.
Another difficult example often cited is Jas 2.1: Ἀδελφοί μου, μὴ ἐν
προσωπολημψίαις ἔχετε τὴν πίστιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῆς δόξης ‘My
brothers, do not show partiality as you hold the faith of our lord of glory, Jesus
Christ’. This text has been treated in various ways in the debate; for example,
Lowe (2009: 240) notes that Dunn (2002: 253) says it is probably subjective
(though he is on the objective genitive side) and Wallace (1996: 116) calls it
objective (though he is on the subjective side). Lowe himself takes the phrase to
be subjective, but he describes it as ‘speaking of “Jesus’ faith” as illustrated by
the tradition of his life and teaching’ (2009: 255). In Lowe’s view, then, James is
encouraging the believers to act in line with a certain ‘tradition’, which, once
again, fits the third-view meaning perfectly. A faith like the Jesus-faith should
not be prejudiced, as James describes. Once this interpretation is allowed for, it
becomes clear that it is not only a viable option, but it is the most salient
reading.
In this section, we have seen that the objective genitive reading, as it has tra-
ditionally been understood, is not an option for the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase. The
argument structure of the ‘trust in’ sense with πίστις always includes a dative
argument or a prepositional complement, not a genitive.38 Careful examination
of a broad sweep of texts has demonstrated that an objective genitive with πίστις
simply cannot mean ‘trust in’.

4.2.2 The Subjective Genitive.  In addition to both the exegetical reasons to dismiss
the subjective genitive reading (treated below) and the absence of native speak-
ers of Koine Greek reading the phrase subjectively (4.2.1.2), there remain two
basic linguistic cases in the literature that have been made against this interpreta-
tion: a missing argument of the noun and the absence of the article.
In the first place, the interpretation of πίστις Χριστοῦ with a subjective genitive
is missing an argument. In the AS-nominal reading, πίστις requires two argu-
ments like its corresponding verb πιστεύω, i.e. there is someone that must
‘believe/trust’, and there is something or someone that must ‘be believed/trusted’.

38. The relevant verses with their respective prepositions are (εἰς): Acts 20.21; 24; 26.18; Col.
2.5; 1 Pet. 1.21; (ἐν): Rom. 3.25; 1 Cor. 2.5; Gal. 3.26; Eph. 1.15; Col. 1.4; (πρός): 1 Thess.
1.8; (ἐπί): Heb. 6.1; (bare dative): Gal. 2.20.
Grasso 131

Both of these arguments may be expressed with the noun πίστις, as shown in
(13).

(13)
ἀκούσαντες τὴν πίστιν ὑμῶν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (Col. 1.4)
Having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.

I do not mean, of course, that both arguments must always be expressed. If the
argument is easily recoverable from the context, then the author need not express
it, as shown, for example, by Luke’s frequent omission of the second argument39
of the verb πιστεύω in Acts.40 So what does the omission of the argument tell us
in the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrases? It tells us either that πίστις in the phrase in ques-
tion is not an AS-nominal reading, in which case it cannot be a subjective geni-
tive, or that there is an implicit argument easily recoverable from the context. In
Acts, it is clear what the second argument is: the phrase ‘in Jesus’. Dunn’s (2002:
265-66) question to the subjective genitive side about what the phrase would
refer to is relevant here because it is not immediately clear to whom or to what
Christ would be faithful. On the other hand, the entire subjective genitive posi-
tion is grounded upon the supposition that the ‘narrative substructure’ of a book
like Galatians or Romans actually does supply the needed context (Hays 2002:
112-15). Thus, I leave this issue aside, noting only that it is something those on
the subjective side must account for.41
Second, we turn to how the article relates to the interpretation of nouns. In
Grimshaw’s (1990: 54-55) influential study on deverbal nominals, she claims
that nominals with argument structure must be definite, but this has since been
refuted in Lieber 2016: 51. Following Lieber, I do not think that AS-nominal

39. I use the term ‘second argument’ for the argument that comes second in the English ordering,
e.g. in Emily believed Greg, Greg would be the second argument. The linguistic term for this
is actually the internal argument, but this is a more complicated term for a number of reasons,
so I avoid it here. Thus, the ‘first argument’ is used for the subject, and the ‘second argument’
is used for the complement (whether that is a direct object or an oblique complement, as in
Emily believed in Greg).
40. See Acts 2.44; 4.4, 32; 5.14; 8.13; 11.21; 13.12, 39, 48; 14.1; 15.5, 7; 17.12, 34; 18.8, 27;
19.2, 18; 21.20, 25; 26.27.
41. Although I do not take a strong stance on either side here, I would tend to favor Dunn’s argu-
ment. While the death of Jesus is referred to in each of the contexts, that in itself would be an
odd second argument of the noun (i.e. it would be odd to say ‘Jesus is faithful to his death’).
Jesus’ death as the accomplishment of his mission or God’s purpose would make more sense,
but equivalents of ‘his mission’ or ‘God’s purpose’ are much less obvious in the contexts
(and are often read into the contexts). Although an argument could be made for Galatians and
Romans in this respect, Philippians would be a much more difficult case. Since Paul seems to
have the same basic idea in mind in each passage and this missing argument would be very
difficult to recover from the context in Philippians, I believe Dunn’s point stands here.
132 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

readings need to be definite, but they do show a strong tendency towards

definiteness. Whether or not an article is required for an AS-nominal reading, it
should be noted from the outset that the presence of the article would not make
the reading an AS-nominal – it would only be normal for AS-nominal readings.
R-nominal readings can also take the article. For Greek, Burton (1921: 482)
notes that the article is ‘almost invariably present’ when there is a subjective
genitive.42 Thus, we can conclude from both the linguistics literature and the
Greek data that there is, at the very least, a strong tendency for AS-nominals with
a subjective genitive to be definite, which renders the subjective genitive gram-
matically possible but unlikely. This combined with the fact that the native
speaker evidence we have disfavors the subjective reading suggests that we
should look for an alternative reading.

4.2.3 The Third View – Relational Genitive

If the objective genitive view cannot be linguistically sustained, and the sub-
jective genitive view is also grammatically unlikely, what exactly would πίστις
mean in the third view? πίστις with this sense has an R-nominal reading and is
a content noun, which means it takes another noun as an argument that supplies
the content of the ‘faith’. The various senses of the verb, noun and adjective that
this root can have clearly have something to do with a mental state of cognitive
commitment to something (whether that means ‘fidelity’ or ‘to believe’ or ‘the
evidence’ that might cause one to believe).43 It can also represent a system to be
adopted or to be faithful to, which I will call a ‘system of thought’. I suggest that
πίστις, in this sense, is a system of thought that one may hold to, which, depend-
ing on the content, may entail a certain way of life (cf. Oakes 2018: 264-68)
Philippians 1.27 offers one of the clearest examples of the third sense:
συναθλοῦντες τῇ πίστει τοῦ εὐαγγελίου44 ‘struggling for the faith of the gospel’.
The word gospel here is the content of the faith, or the system of thought that
concerns the gospel, as should be expected for a genitive phrase with content
following πίστις. Note that this meaning is actually very close to how some have
actually described the objective and subjective positions – namely as adjectival
in character (even if none of these writers (Williams 1987: 437; Seifrid 2001:
146; Hultgren 1980: 257) are explicit advocates of the third view). This is
because relational nouns have a similar relationship to their argument that an

42. See also Porter and Pitts 2009: 49-51 for a discussion. A representative sample are the follow-
ing: Mt. 9.2, 22, 29; 15.28; Mk 2.5; 5.34; 10.52; Lk. 5.20; 7.50; 8.25, 48; 17.19; 18.42; 22.32;
Acts 15.9; Rom. 4.5, 9; Col. 1.4; 2.5. Note that the noun not only has to have a genitive, but
it has to be an AS-nominal as well for the example to be relevant.
43. It should be noted that by ‘mental state’ I do not mean something that is merely cognitive, but
the mental state may entail obedience, such as in the ‘trust in’ sense.
44. See also The Epistle to Diognetus 11.6 for the same phrase clearly meaning ‘faith of/which
concerns the gospel’.
Grasso 133

adjective has to a noun it modifies. In a phrase like the picture of Mary, for
instance, Mary describes or qualifies the type of picture, just as blue in blue ball
describes or qualifies the type of ball. Compound words in English can also be
used attributively (i.e. basically as an adjective; Borer 2005: 133; Lieber 2016:
162-69), so the translation ‘the Christ-faith’ attributes the property of being about
the ‘Christ’ to the content noun ‘faith’, which matches the semantic description
we have given for the phrase.
Philippians 1.27 is not unique – support for the ‘system of thought’ interpreta-
tion can be found across the NT.45 As something that can be believed or commit-
ted to, the phrase πίστις in this sense can be preached (Gal. 1.23), be rejected
(Acts 13.8), can come (Gal. 3.23) or can have certain actions linked with it (Rom.
1.5), to name only a few of its possible associated events. This is, I suspect, the
reason why third-view advocates often associate πίστις Χριστοῦ with an event.
When πίστις has this interpretation, it can have all kinds of events predicated of
it, though the noun itself does not refer to the event. That said, when πίστις has
an AS-nominal reading, the noun does refer to the event (or, more accurately, the
state), but it is normally odd to predicate an event of an event. Consider again
examination. In the sentence The doctor’s examinations came in the mail, the
noun must have an R-nominal reading because it has another event, come, predi-
cated of it. This contrasts with the ungrammatical sentence *The doctor’s exami-
nations of the patients for three hours came in the mail46 where examinations
cannot have another event like come predicated of it because the noun itself is an
AS-nominal (forced by the adverbial). In other words, we should expect an event
such as come, like we find in Gal. 3.23 discussed in 5.2 below, to be predicated
only of R-nominal readings and not of an AS-nominal reading, since events/
states themselves do not normally ‘come’.
Finally, an anonymous reviewer suggests that the article should also be
expected with the third-view reading, since ‘the faith (of Christ)’ also seems to
be definite, at least in English. The use of the article is a particularly difficult
issue in general linguistics (see Lyons 1999 for the standard overview), and there
is a good deal of variation from language to language. Without going into the
complex discussion of determiners in general, several comments can be made.
First, as pointed out in Peters 2014: 1-3, the Greek and English article do not
behave the same way, so it cannot be concluded that because our phrase would

45. See, for example, Acts 6.7; 13.8; 16.5; Rom. 1.5; Gal. 1.23; 6.10; Eph. 4.13; Col. 2.7; Phil.
1.27; 2 Thess. 1.11; 1 Tim. 4.6; Jude 3; etc. The equivalent Hebrew word ‫ ֱאמוּנָ ה‬is also found
with an almost exact parallel sense in Avot 6.6 in the phrase ‫אמונת חכמים‬, where the sense
seems to be ‘the system of thought associated with the sages’ or ‘the faith of the sages’.
Thanks to Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal for this reference.
46. The * symbol is used here to mark a sentence as ungrammatical as is standard in linguistics
literature.
134 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

require an article in English, it should also require one in Greek. Second, Lyons
(1999: 10) points out several reasons for using the definite article in English, one
being that the noun phrase is inherently unique. For example, the word sun is
inherently unique because there is only one of them, it referring to the single star
in our solar system. Thus, in English, it is ungrammatical to say *a sun is shin-
ing.47 However, this is not the case with Greek, which allows ἥλιος (‘sun’) to
occur without the article.48 The same could be said for the much more common
noun Χριστός, which we would also expect to be definite in English (‘the Messiah’
not ‘a Messiah’) because there was only one expected Christ. The point of this
discussion is to show that the reason why we would mark the third-view meaning
definite in English is because of the uniqueness of the referent (there is only one
‘Christ-faith’), but this requirement for definite marking does not hold in Greek.
With that being said, much more work needs to be done on the Greek definite
article, particularly as it interacts with the semantics of different kinds of nouns,
and while the absence of the article seems to support the third view (since
AS-nominals have a strong tendency to be used with the article in Greek, and at
least some unique nouns, like Χριστός, often do not have the article where we
would expect them to in English), I do not consider the article to be a conclusive
argument for any position.
Having discussed the objective, subjective and relational genitive, I summa-
rize the meanings and structures of πίστις in Table 2.

Table 2. Argument structures and meanings of πίστις

Argument structure Sense Complement Type of nominal
1. (ἡ) πίστις + Gen. ‘Belief of some- Proposition, person AS-Nominal,
thing (to be associated with corresponding to
true)’ proposition, or 1 in Table 1
content noun
2. (ἡ) πίστις + Dat./ ‘Trust in someone’ A person or a mis- AS-Nominal,
Prep. sion/cause corresponding to
3 in Table 1
3. πίστις + Gen. ‘System of Person or entity R-nominal,
thought/object about which the relational
of belief’ faith concerns content noun

47. This assumes the sense of sun being referred to is ‘the star in the solar system with the earth in
it’ and not ‘any star within a solar system’. The latter might be used by a science fiction writer,
for example, to refer to one of two stars in the same solar system.
48. The examples are the following: Mt. 13.6; Lk. 21.25; Acts 27.20; 1 Cor. 15.41; Rev. 7.2; 22.5.
Grasso 135

5. Exegesis
We turn finally to the passages with πίστις Χριστοῦ. I do not intend to offer
a comprehensive treatment, but rather, to point out the elements in particular
contexts that are relevant for determining the meaning of the phrase. I treat the
following texts in turn: Gal. 2.16; 3.22; Rom. 3.22, 26; Phil. 3.9; Eph. 3.12. First,
however, I briefly discuss the relationship between context, syntax and exegesis.

5.1 Context, Syntax and Exegesis

Precisely because an appeal to context has dominated the line of defense for both
subjective and objective positions, we need to think carefully about the relation-
ship between context, syntax and exegesis. Advocates of the objective genitive
have argued that because the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ is contrasted with ἔργα νόμου,
it must also be ‘human-oriented’. This is, in my view, a legitimate appeal to con-
text since the two phrases are clearly contrasted in the immediate context (Gal.
2.16; Rom. 3.21-22; Phil. 3.9). Yet, the objectivists’ frequent appeal to the ‘faith’
of Abraham rather than his ‘faithfulness’ is an illegitimate appeal to context.
Likewise, the subjectivists’ attention to other genitive relationships that πίστις
can have in the surrounding context makes the same mistake. In these cases,
both sides argue that the meaning of a noun or the genitive relation is taken from
another proximal occurrence of the same noun or genitive relation, but this is not
nuanced enough. With regard to the latter, we normally do not determine genitive
relations on the basis of other genitive relations; they are determined on the basis
of the relational element encoded in the words (as discussed above). Likewise,
we are comfortable interpreting a sentence like The lunch was delicious but took
forever (from Asher 2011: 11), even though there are two different senses of the
word lunch used in the same sentence: the actual food and the event of sharing
the meal. In the same way, it would not have troubled an ancient reader to use
two different senses of πίστις in the same context. Context often allows for many
readings, but the syntax and semantics constrain the possible interpretations that
context allows.

5.2 Galatians 2.16; 3.22

With the preceding discussion in mind, I treat Gal. 3.22 first, since it is clearer
and can help us understand Gal. 2.16.

(14)
ἀλλὰ συνέκλεισεν ἡ γραφὴ τὰ πάντα ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν ἵνα ἡ ἐπαγγελία ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ δοθῇ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν (Gal. 3.22)
But the scriptures imprisoned everything under sin in order that the promise from the
Jesus-Christ-faith might be given to those who trust [in him].
136 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

This verse is immediately followed by another reference to πίστις which has

seemed peculiar to many exegetes who assume either the subjective or objec-
tive reading of πίστις Χριστοῦ. The subsequent verse says that faith ‘came’ and
‘was revealed’, which has led some scholars to suggest that πίστις here means
something like the message of Christianity (Mundle 1932: 93; Lightfoot 1890:
148; Longenecker 1990: 145; cf. Schliesser 2016: 279). As noted by Sprinkle
(2009: 178-80), this interpretation fits perfectly within the third view, and the
events predicated of πίστις also suggest an R-nominal reading rather than an
AS-nominal reading (see 4.2.3 for discussion). The πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase in this
context refers to a system of thought about the person Jesus and what he has
done, which is the content of the message. And although that message certainly
includes his ‘faithfulness to his mission’ (as detailed in Gal. 3.10-14), this mean-
ing is probably not explicitly expressed in πίστις Χριστοῦ. This is where the third
view and the subjective genitive readings overlap: the Christ-faith includes the
story of Christ, of which his faithfulness to his mission is central.
In spite of this overlap with the subjective reading, each of the contexts with
the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase do seem to contrast one system of thought with another,
normally that of ἔργα νόμου. The third view also fits this context, as exemplified
in Gal. 2.16.

(15)
εἰδότες [δὲ] ὅτι οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν ἵνα δικαιωθῶμεν ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ καὶ οὐκ
ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ὅτι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σάρξ. (Gal. 2.16)
But knowing that a human is not justified from works of the law but through the
Jesus-Christ-faith, we also trusted in Jesus Christ in order that we might be justified
from the Christ-faith and not from works of the law because from works of the law,
no flesh will be justified.

Like Gal. 3.22, this passage also contrasts two systems of thought: a system
that would include justification49 by ‘works of the law’ and a system where
justification is by ‘the Christ-faith’.50 Subjectivists have repeatedly pointed
out a problem of redundancy for the objective genitive position (see Matlock
2007 for a discussion). Why would Paul say that a person is justified by ‘faith

49. I am aware of the difficulties of translating δικαιοσύνη. However, the differences between the
possible translations of δικαιοσύνη are not directly relevant to my argument, so I translate it as
justified and leave the issue aside here.
50. When I say that ἔργα νόμου stands for a system of thought here, it should be remembered
that I define such systems as potentially entailing certain actions. The point is that ἔργα νόμου
represented not just deeds done, but a worldview in which it is particularly the Jewish νόμος
that is crucial for justification.
Grasso 137

in Jesus Christ’ and ‘we have faith in Jesus Christ’? Although I do not con-
sider redundancy to be an argument against the objective genitive position (see
2.2),51 if the third view is admitted, there is no discussion of redundancy. The
Jesus-faith has come, which is the thing by which God justifies, and Paul also
describes the human response in that system, namely to ‘trust in’ Jesus. In this
point, at least, the third view overlaps with the objective genitive reading. The
Jesus-faith would not only include what Jesus has done, but also the human
response to the revelation of Israel’s true Messiah-King. Essential to the early
Christian message of the faith was a call for people to commit themselves to
the ‘way’ of Jesus the Messiah rather than to Jewish observances (Gal. 2.20-
21) – though this ‘trust in’ him is not explicitly expressed in the formulation
πίστις Χριστοῦ.
In spite of these points of overlap, I am not suggesting that the third view is
some sort of hybrid between the subjective and objective genitive readings,
which is not tenable grammatically.52 Nevertheless, the third view accommo-
dates both contexts about Christ’s work and about the human response to Christ.
In passages like Gal. 2.16 and 3.22, both sides have claimed to have ‘context’ on
their side for one reason or another. Indeed, the third view’s embrace of both
allows us to remain agnostic about difficult, debated issues in the passages
(including the significant question of whether Hab. 2.4 refers to Christ’s faith
(Campbell 2009b: 58-61) or the believer’s (Watson 2009: 148-48); see 2.2
above). This leads us to our next passage: Rom. 3.22, 26.

51. Matlock (2007: 178) points out that those on the subjective side are willing to admit repetition
for emphasis in other contexts (and gives many examples in Paul where this is indeed the
case) and that repetition is simply given different labels by each side: emphasis on the objec-
tive side and redundancy on the subjective side. I remain neutral on this argument because
using it as an argument either way already presupposes a certain syntactic analysis of the
phrase, and Paul could easily either be avoiding redundancy or emphasizing something, again
as shown in Matlock 2007: 176-78. What should be pointed out is that a basic conversational
principle developed in the sub-field of pragmatics in linguistics is the ‘maxim of quantity’,
which states that one should be as informative as possible and no more (Grice 1975: 45-46).
However, Grice’s maxims are often flouted for rhetorical effect, so even though we should
not expect redundancy, it is, obviously, not uncommon (as exemplified by this note). Thus,
as stated previously, I do not take this point to be for or against the objective position, only
noting that the third view renders it a non-issue like the subjective would.
52. That is, the genitive relation was almost certainly not understood as both, as suggested in
Hooker 1989: 341-42 and more recently in Morgan 2015: 271-73, who focuses on Christ as
the locus of faithfulness between humanity and God more generally. Simply put, such double
meanings do not represent how language ordinarily works, and it takes a very special context
for that to be plausible.
138 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

5.3 Romans 3.22, 26

Here is Rom. 3.22a, 26:

(16)
22 δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας … 26 ἐν
τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι
αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ. (Rom. 3.22a, 26)
But the righteousness of God [has been revealed] through the Jesus-Christ-faith for
all who trust [in him] … in the forbearance of God, to show his righteousness in the
present time, so that he might be just and justify the one of the Jesus-faith.

Like the passages in Galatians, Rom. 3 has been pivotal in the πίστις Χριστοῦ
debate. As noted above, and as has been widely noted by scholars, the two pas-
sages are remarkably similar and surely represent the same basic thought in
Paul’s thinking. The key arguments in favor of the third view in Galatians also
apply here: the verb reveal suggests an R-nominal reading just like come as does
the contrast with another system of thought ἔργα νόμου.
In addition to these factors, it is worth repeating here that the anarthrous ren-
dering of πίστις (though similar to the Galatians passage) presents a problem for
both the objective and subjective positions, since both must assume that πίστις is
an AS-nominal. As noted above, AS-nominals are normally definite, and nouns
with a clear subjective genitive almost always have the definite article in Koine.
More striking than the anarthrous phrase in Rom. 3.22 is the repetition of that
phrase in Rom. 3.26. The definite article can, of course, be used anaphorically,
and this is common when the same phrase is repeated in a single context. Let us
consider what would happen if Paul had used the article. If he had, we may have
understood the noun to be an AS-nominal, since they are ordinarily definite.
However, he leaves off the article initially in Rom. 3.22. This suggests that the
genitive should not be taken as either subjective or objective, because the anar-
throus use makes an AS-nominal unlikely. When he comes back to the phrase in
3.26, he could use the article anaphorically, but this might suggest that he under-
stands the phrase differently, as an AS-nominal rather than an R-nominal. Thus,
when no article is used where an anaphoric use would be appropriate, it may
suggest that Paul was trying to employ more unambiguous syntax intentionally:
syntax that supports the third view. It seems unlikely that Paul would use the
subjective or objective genitive without the article twice in the same passage,
especially since this is extremely rare with πίστις across the NT. Still, more work
needs to be done on the article in Greek and thus, the anarthrous rendering should
not be understood as a decisive argument for any position.
Finally, it should be noted that the context in Rom. 3.22-26 is very similar to
Gal. 2–3, speaking to both the human response as well as the work of Jesus.
Verse 26 probably provides the best example of how the third view may overlap
with the objective position. God justifies ‘the one of the Jesus-faith’, i.e. the one
Grasso 139

who adopts the system of thought which concerns Jesus. Again, the third view
fits both the syntax and meaning of the phrase here.

5.4 Philippians 3.9

As the reader might anticipate, the arguments for the third view in the above pas-
sages are equally applicable to Phil. 3.9.

(17)
καὶ εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ, μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου ἀλλὰ τὴν διὰ πίστεως
Χριστοῦ, τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει. (Phil. 3.9)
And I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness from the law but
through the Christ-faith, the righteousness from God based on trusting [in him].

Yet, there is an important difference between this passage and those previously
cited: the inclusion of the adjunct phrase ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει. Unlike our other pas-
sages, Phil. 3.9 lacks a clause affirming that ‘we have trusted in him’ following
the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase. But I propose that ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει functions equivalently
to such a phrase, which would assign to πίστις an AS-nominal reading, i.e., ‘on
the basis of trusting (in him)’. In this case, the object is easily recoverable from
the context, the sense would parallel the phrases in the other passages, and the
article is present, which makes an AS-nominal reading more plausible.

5.5 Ephesians 3.12

Finally, we come to the last passage in the debate. It is unique because it has both
a different context and structure than the other passages.

(18)
ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν παρρησίαν καὶ προσαγωγὴν ἐν πεποιθήσει διὰ τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ.
(Eph. 3.12)
in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through his faith.

First, the question under discussion in the other passages was how God’s right-
eousness is revealed, but the δικαι- root is missing from the context in Ephesians.
Instead, the author of Ephesians discusses how his readers can have confidence
before God. Second, the contrasting system of thought in the other passages
(ἔργα νόμου) is also lacking from the immediate context in Eph. 3.12. The third-
view reading is less salient, then, since the question under discussion is not
clearly the quality or nature of the faith as opposed to another system. Still, it is
not unreasonable to assume, with the third view, that it is the nature of the faith
(the Christ-faith) that enables a person to have confidence before God.
Syntactically, the article is present only in the Ephesians passage, which
makes it more likely than the others to be an AS-nominal. In addition, a plausible
140 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1)

second argument for πίστις is explicitly mentioned in the context: πρόθεσις ‘plan’
(Eph. 3.11). Explicit mention of a possible second argument in the immediate
context would make the absence of the second argument more plausible in our
phrase. All of this suggests that if a subjective genitive rendering of our phrase is
to be found, it would be here, though the third view is also possible.

6. Conclusion
In this paper, I have analyzed the controversial phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ using mod-
ern linguistic tools. Much of the discussion in the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate has
assumed either a subjective or objective genitive reading and has not given due
attention to the minority position, the third view. I have shown that the objective
genitive position cannot be sustained linguistically, the subjective genitive posi-
tion has its own problems, and the neglected third view actually has the support
of the Early Church Fathers and fits each of the contexts well. Ultimately, the
third-view interpretation of the ‘Christ-faith’ is not merely a contender in the
debate; it is the most linguistically plausible meaning of the phrase in light of
πίστις’s range of meaning, the syntax of the πίστις Χριστοῦ phrase, the context
surrounding the phrase, and early interpretations of the phrase by native speakers
of Koine. Having shown that this is the most likely reading, as Harrisville (2006:
358) states: ‘The rest is theology’.
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Bell, B. 2020 ‘The Cost of  Baptism? The Case for Paul’s Ritual Compen-
sation’, JSNT, 42.4: 431–452. DOI: 10.1177/0142064X20914514
In the above mentioned article, on page 440, note 20 regarding Håkan Tell should
read as follows:
20. As Håkan Tell (2009: 14) writes in his discussion of the discourse of greed
levelled against sophists in antiquity, a ‘fee can be described as a gift or a bribe,
but the practice of charging money can also go without comment. The language
surrounding monetary transactions in antiquity is notoriously difficult to assess.’
Thank you to Michelle Christian for pointing me to this article, and for discus-
sion of her research on ancient economy and money.