Ancient Greek · Greek
πίστις
pistis
Nearest English gloss
trust / faithfulness / faith
What the gloss loses
English “faith” often sounds like interior conviction, or like a denominational membership. Pistis in the Pauline letters can mean trust placed, fidelity kept, or the faithfulness of the one trusted. The gloss flattens a relation into a feeling.
Etymology
From the verb πείθω (peithō), to persuade or to be persuaded. In classical use pistis can mean trust, fidelity, a pledge, even a financial surety. It is not originally a word for believing six impossible things before breakfast.
History
Paul writes to a divided assembly in mid-first-century Corinth that πίστις, ἐλπίς, and ἀγάπη remain. and that the greatest of these is ἀγάπη. Later Latin gave fides, spes, caritas; the King James Bible often said “charity” for the third. Modern English usually says “love.” None of these is a universal psychology. They are a particular triad from a particular letter.
What can be entrusted when certainty is absent?