materials which were subject to human observation, there would have been no room for faith. Science could have traced it to its origin. Evolution only pushes the statement a stage back. There is still an unseen force that does not submit itself to experimental science, and that is the object of faith. To find in this verse an aliusion to the noumenal and phen- omenal worlds would be fanciful.
Ver. 4. πίστει πλείονα θυσ- ίαν. . . . “ΒΥ faith Abel offered to God a more adequate sacrifice than Cain.” πλείονα literaily ‘‘more,” but frequently used to express ‘‘higher in value” ‘‘ greater in worth,” as in Mat. xii. 41, 42. πλεῖον ᾿Ιωνᾶ ὧδε, Luke xii. 23; Rev. ii. το. Does the writer mean that faith prompted Abel to make a richer sacrifice, or that it was richer because offered in faith? Many interpreters pre- fer the former alternative ; [‘‘ Der grossere Wert seines Opfers ruhte auf dem Glau- ben, der Herzenshingabe, die ihn das Beste der Herde wahlen liess” (Kiibel).] and the choice of the word πλείονα is certainly in favour of this interpretation. δι ἧς ἐμαρτυρήθη - - - “through which he was certified [or attested] as righteous”. It is questioned whether ἧς is the relative of θυσίαν or of πίστει. The succeeding clause which states the ground of the attestation, ἐπὶ τ. δώροις, determines that it refers to θυσίαν. God bore witness ἐπὶ tots δώροις αὐτοῦ, which 1s explained in Genesis iv. 4 where it says ἐπεῖδεν ὃ θεὸς ἐπὶ Αβελ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς δώροις αὐτοῦ. God looked favour- ably on Abel and on his gifts. How this favourable reception of his offering was intimated to Abel we are not told; but by this testimony Abel was pronounced δίκαιος, not “justified” in the Pauline sense but in the general sense “a righteous man”; as in Mat. xxiii. 35 ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος “ABeA τοῦ δικαίου. But this is not all that faith did for Abel, for καὶ δι αὐτῆς ἀποθανὼν ἔτι λαλεῖ, ‘tand through the same he, though dead, yet speaks,” 1.ε., speaks notwithstanding
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d Gen. v. 24 Eccl. xliv. 16, τοῦ et xlix.14. μὴ
καὶ δι ἰδεῖν θάνατον, καὶ ““
/ a,
e Gen. vi. >, 13; Eccl. τῷ Θεῷ xliv. 173 Rom. iii. yap 22; Phil. iii. 9.