Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 12.djvu/235

]. Happy is he who speaks in the ears of the hearing. Now Faith is the ear of the soul. And such the Lord intimates faith to be, when He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;" so that by believing he may comprehend what He says, as He says it. Homer, too, the oldest of the poets, using the word "hear" instead of "perceive"—the specific for the generic term—writes:

For, in fine, the agreement and harmony of the faith of both contribute to one end—salvation. We have in the apostle an unerring witness: "For I desire to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, in order that ye may be strengthened; that is, that I may be comforted in you, by the mutual faith of you and me." And further on again he adds, "The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." The apostle, then, manifestly announces a double faith, or rather one which admits of growth and perfection; for the common faith lies beneath as a foundation. To those, therefore, who desire to be healed, and are moved by faith. He added, "Thy faith hath saved thee." But that which is excellently built upon is consummated in the believer, and is again perfected by the faith which results from instruction and the word, in order to the performance of the commandments. Such were the apostles, in whose case it is said that "faith removed mountains and transplanted trees." Whence, perceiving the greatness of its power, they asked "that faith might be added to them;" a faith which salutarily bites the soil "like a grain of mustard," and grows magnificently in it, to such a degree that the reasons of things sublime rest on it. For if one by nature knows God, as Basilides thinks, who calls intelligence of a superior order at once faith and kingship, and a creation worthy of the essence of the Creator; and explains that near Him exists