“God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”
Since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect (teleioo) — the mystery unfolds: God provided (problepo) something better (kalon) for 'us' (believers in Christ); the Old Testament faithful cannot be perfected (teleioo) apart from the Christ-event. The patriarchs and prophets await the Christian fulfillment of the promises they embraced. This is the meaning of 'the great cloud of witnesses': they surround us as those whose faith finds completion only in Christ.
Church Fathers on Hebrews 11:40
At all times indeed, but especially then when I reflect upon the achievements of the saints, it comes over me to feel despondency concerning my own condition, because we have not even in dreams experienced the things among which those men spent their whole lives, not paying the penalty of sins, but always doing rightly and yet always afflicted. For consider, I beseech you, Elijah, to whom our discourse has come round today, for he speaks of him in this passage, and in him…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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