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and perform their duties. Masters must put a new spirit into their oversight ; slaves must become only the more diligent and faithful in their service ; husbands and wives must remain faithful to tlieir marriage vows, even when the new bond to Christ has been fashioned.
Within the Christian Church those called to any duty were required to exercise their gifts faith- fully. He who was called to be a minister of God was reminded that a steward must be found faith- ful (1 Co 4^). Each one must be faithful to the graces given by the Spirit, whether of prophecy, teaching, giving, or ruling (Ro 12^). St. Paul claimed that he exhibited his faithfulness in teach- ing when he was dealing with the case of fathers and their unmarried daughters (1 Co 7^). When he was expressing his judgment on this matter he said that lie had no ' command ' {evLTayi^i') to con- vey, but he gave his settled 'opinion' (yvwix-Qv), conscious that in so doing he was faithful to his stewardship under Christ.
As apostles were expected to be faithful in their teaching, so all Christians were expected to be faithful to the teaching they had received. As some of them were in danger of being ' carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error' (Eph 4" ; cf. He 13"), they must all be on their guard to hold fast the faith of Christ, and, in spite of all anti-Christian influences, they must hold the tradi- tions which they were taught, whether by word or by Epistle of the Apostle (2 Th 2'»). Indeed, in the Epistle to the Hebrews faith itself is almost iden- tified ^^'ith steadfast loyalty to the Unseen God, and thus passes into faithfulness, which marks the believer under manifold trials.
In the apostolic life faithfulness to friends, and especially to those who were fellow-workers, was greatly prized. The first necessity for a Christian worker is that he should be, like Lydia, ' faithful to Christ' (Trt(TTT]v T(fi Kvplw, Ac 16^") ; but he should be also, like Timothy, ' faithful in Christ ' (Tncrrou iv Kvplq}, 1 Co 4"), i.e. faithful in the sphere of Chris- tian duty. This faithfulness is required to be shown not only to those for whom work is done, but also to those with whom it is done. Thus when St. Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Colossians of Tychicus his messenger as ' the beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord' (Col 4''), and of Onesimus as 'the faithful and beloved brother ' (4^), he has before his mind chiefly the fidelity of these two brethren to himself the apostle and prisoner of the Lord. In 2 Tim. we have represented the unfaithfulness of Denias, who had forsaken the Apostle, ' having loved this present world ' ; the faithfulness of St. Luke his companion — the beloved physician, who had re- mained true to him to the end ; and the renewed faithfulness of John ]Mark, who had deserted St. Paul at one time, but who in later years was a proved and faithful servant (2 Ti 4'"- ").
Christian faithfulness was to be observed through- out the whole of life, and especially through the many trials and tribulations of Christian experi- ence. In the Epistles of St. Paul we find the Apostle on no fewer than six different occasions calling upon his readers to 'stand fast': 'Stand fast in the faith' (crrriKere, ' stand firmly and faith- fully.' 1 Co 16^3) . . stand fast in the ifberty ' (Gal 51) ; ' in one spirit' (Ph V) ; 'in the Lord' (Ph 4^, 1 Th 3^) ; ' and hold the traditions which ye were taught '(2 Th 2'=). St. Paul was urgent that be- lievers should be faithful to the highest in all their varied experiences. In the Apocalypse we find the same insistence. The Church at Smyrna was exhorted to be 'faithful unto death' (Rev 2^°), and the Church at Pergamum was commended for faithfulness even in the days when ' witness-
ing' for Christ became 'martyrdom' in the later meaning of that word (v.^^). This extreme faith- fulness was founded on faith in God and love to Christ, but it was glorified still further by the expectation of 'receiving the promise' (He 10^), of enjoying the 'great recompense of reward' (v.35), and of being awarded 'the crown of life' (Rev 2^"). Even when faithfulness meant for apos- tolic Christians their resisting unto blood, they were sustained by the thought of the Master, who after enduring the Cross had entered into His joy and was set down at the right hand of the throne of God (He 12^).
Literature.— 'W. A. Butler, Sermons'^, 1st ser., 1852, p. 155 ; H. Bushnell, The Aew Life, 1860, p. 191 ; J. L. Jones, Faithfulness, 1S90, p. 2 ; A. Shepherd, 'The ResponsibUity of God, 1906 ; W. H. G. Thomas, in Westminster Bible. Confer- ence, Mundesley, 1912, p. 143. D. MACRAE TOD.
FALL. — It is now generally recognized by scholars that the story of the Fall in Genesis is to be regarded neither as literal history, as Irenjeus, TertuUian, and Augustine taught, nor as allegoiy, as Clement and Origen, following Philo, held ; but as a myth, common to the Semitic group of re- ligions, in which an attempt is made to explain the origin of the evils from which mankind sutlers. This myth has, however, been transformed to bring it into accord with the ' ethical monotheism ' of the Hebrew religion. For the present purpose, the exposition of the apostolic (in this case exclu- sively the Pauline) doctrine, it is not necessary to examine any alleged similar myth in other re- ligions, to cite any of the supposed Babylonian parallels, to enter into the details of the narrative in Genesis, or to exhibit the truth under the mytho- logical form, which expositors have found in the story (for all these particulars the artt. in HDB i. 839, SDB p. 257, and DCG i. 571 may be con- sulted).