Hebrews 11:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Faith requires a vigilant and youthful soul, rising above everything perceptible and soaring higher than the feeble thoughts of men. It is impossible to be a believer except by being freed from the ordinary order of things. Therefore, since the souls of the Hebrews were weak, and though they had begun with faith, afterward they grew faint because of circumstances, I mean sufferings and afflictions, and fell into despondency and wavering, the Apostle first encouraged them by their own struggles.

That is, in this very faith all the ancients were borne witness to by God. They confessed that they worshiped Him.

There are also witnesses who bear witness to it. These are men of ancient times, in whom it was revealed, although it was not seen among those who lived in the middle period, between the ancient and the new. There is also proof that it reveals the invisible. What proof is this? The testimony concerning the ancients, that is, the witness of Scripture concerning faith, namely that by it the ancient fathers were borne witness to.

"For by it the elders obtained a good testimony," that is, the saints who lived of old and shone forth before the Law and under the Law. The Apostle places first what was originally handed down to us in writing. The first teaching handed down to us in writing is this: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1), and the rest that is said about creation.

Thus, according to the Apostle, faith is realization and confidence in the unseen. By the words "realization" and "confidence," the Apostle indicates those higher qualities of true and unshaken faith which he wished to see in the Palestinian Hebrews, and which must be in all of us. Concerning the Apostle's words about faith, Blessed Theodoret observes: "Faith becomes for us an eye for contemplating what is hoped for. What has not yet come into being it already shows as accomplished. When all the dead are still in the graves, faith paints the resurrection for us and teaches us to represent immortality in the dust of bodies." Only with these strong and exalted qualities can faith be called by its proper name. In this faith, according to the Apostle's expression, the ancient preachers of the Old Testament received testimony. That is, by it they were glorified and became pleasing to God.

Why, then, must Christian faith be distinguished by the qualities indicated by the Apostle? Because the ancient pious people of the Old Testament, who had such faith and were guided by it in life, received approving testimony from God (v. 2, ἐμαρτυρήθησαν; cf. 3 Jn 1:12).