THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

SECTION FIRST.

ITS CHARACTER AND HISTORY.

291. THE matter, style, order, and scope of this book are sufficient to impress upon it a peculiar character of majesty. The noble eloquence of its diction, and the calm authority and sublime simplicity of its tone, correspond to the profundity and elevation of its doctrines. We abstain, in general, from taking our arguments from internal criticism, and from seeking for them elsewhere than in the testimonies of history; but it is also from history, as the impression of all time, produced in favour of this book by the religious sublimity of its teachings. God, who had spoken by His prophets, has spoken to us at last by His own Son, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and as much superior to the angels as the Creator to the created. We must contemplate here the eternal existence of this Son of God, and His mysterious humanity; His eternal apostleship and priesthood, His ineffable sympathy, His all-powerful intercession, and the perfect fulness of His expiation; then, also, the divine harmony of the two Testaments, the identical characteristics of the elect in all ages, the ardent aspirations of the people of God relative to Christ, the eternal safety of those who belong to Him, the dreadful ruin of those who reject Him; lastly, the cloud of witnesses who attest the efficacy, the power, and the reality of faith. Such are the sublime teachings of this epistle; and the whole ending in a final act of adoration to that God of peace, who “brought from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the Everlasting, and who alone is able to work in us that which is acceptable in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever!”

292. Evidently written before the destruction of the temple,¹ and, according to all appearance, before the martyrdom of James, (which took place in 62,) and to whom it seems to allude,² this epistle, addressed, moreover, to converted Hebrews, and sent, consequently, either to Palestine, or, more particularly, to the church at; Jerusalem, or to the Hebrews scattered throughout the empire, — this epistle, we say, forms rather a treatise than,a letter. It must have first circulated from Jerusalem through all the Israelitish congregations in the East; and we might reasonably expect, supposing this scripture to be authentic, that, above all, the Israelitish churches of the Hast, the Syrian churches, and particularly the church of Jerusalem, would furnish us with the most authentic and trustworthy information respecting it. We can, also, readily grant that, if this scripture were supposititious, it would be among the Hebrews, rather than in any other part of the Christian world, that we should hear the most violent opposition to its legitimacy. An impostor would have sought for partisans, recommendations, and false testimonies, as far as possible, from the churches of Judea.

293. It is, then, precisely an historical fact, most worthy of | notice, that, uninterruptedly, from the days of the apostles, the Epistle to the Hebrews has been received as Divine at Jerusalem, among the Syriac Christians, and in all the churches of the Hast.

294. It must, also, be equally granted, that if, as it affirms, this letter was written from Italy a very short time before the Neronian persecution, it would be immediately acknowledged by the Christians of Rome; and it is equally admitted, even by opponents, that it was fully recognised and quoted in Rome by Clement, bishop of Rome, a contemporary of Paul, the most ancient and revered of the apostolic fathers.

295. Nevertheless, the churches of the West, and, more especially, that very church of Rome, after having at first rendered to the epistle a homage so early, and so decisive, began, towards the first half of the third century, to hear voices of opposition, on account of the Montanists and Novatianists.³

In consequence of this, we think it right to reserve a place apart for the Latin fathers in the review we are about to take of the testimonies of antiquity; and we shall begin with noticing on this subject the unanimity of the churches of the East. It will, perhaps, be more useful in this review to set out at first from the fourth century in the East, and to go back from that to the first, in order to redescend afterwards, in the West, to the fourth or fifth century.

SECTION SECOND.

THE TESTIMONIES OF THE EAST IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.

296. And, first of all, to what person more worthy of credence can we appeal, in the fourth century, than to the patriarch of the Hebrews, Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the most learned and most pious men of his age? He was born in 315. Already famous at the age of thirty-four, he composed his Catecheses, one of the most ancient expositions we have of the Christian faith, He was, also, one of the most eminent leaders of the Second Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 381.⁴ But Cyril, (we have already seen, Prop. 59,) when he gives, at Jerusalem itself, in his fourth Catechesis, a catalogue of the divine and inspired (αἱ θεὸπνευστοι) books of the Old and New Testaments, reckons in it, besides the seven Catholic epistles, the FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL, (τὰς Παύλου δεκατέσσαρας ἐπιστολάς,) and he declares that “the collection of all these books was transmitted to us by the apostle and ancient bishops, the presidents of the Church, (οἱ ἀποστολοι καὶ οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ἐπίσκοποι, οἱ τῆς ἐκκλησίας προστάται,
οἱ ταύτας [μονάς βιβλους] παραδουτες.)”

297. And again, what other witness in the Hast better informed than the learned Jerome? When he went from Rome to pursue his biblical studies in Palestine, he probably brought with him the prejudices of the Latins against the Epistle to the Hebrews. And yet he attests that he receives both it and the Apocalypse; and, moreover, he declares to the Christians of the West, in his letter to Dardanus, already quoted, (Prop. 290,) that not only it was actually received as Paul’s in all the churches of the East, but that it had been so by all the ancient writers in the Greek language, and that it was read daily in the assemblies of the Church. “This,” said he, “is what must be made known to all our churches, (that is, to the Latins,) though most of them believe it to be by Barnabas or Clement, (epistolam quae inscribitur ad Hebraeos, non solwm ab ecclesiis orientis, sed ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis Graect sermonis scriptoribus quasi Pauli apostoli suscipt, licet plerique eam vel Barnabae vel Clementis arbitrentur.) “And it little matters whose it is,” he adds, “since it is daily sanctioned by the reading of the churches, (et nihil interesse cujus sit, quam . . . quotidiè ecclesiarum lectione celebretur.)” “For if the custom of the Latins does not receive it into the number of the canonical Scriptures, (quod si eam Latinorum consuetudo non reciptt inter Scripturas canonicas,) yet we receive it, (et tamen nos eam suscipimus.) We must not follow in this the custom of these times, (among the Romans,) but rather the authority of ancient authors, (nequaquam haujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum scriptorum auctoritatem sequentes.)”⁵

Therefore it is generally believed that it was especially the testimony of Jerome, as well as that of Augustin, which was the instrument made use of by God to bring back the Roman church from the grave error into which it had fallen for so long a time on the subject of this epistle, and to restore this sacred book to its place in the canon of that church,

298. It would be difficult to present a witness in this age among the Orientals more worthy of our confidence ‘than Athanasvus, both from his place in the universal Church, and from his knowledge and discernment in Christian antiquities, This father, as we have said, (Prop. 65,) united with all the churches of the East in revering the Epistle to the Hebrews. We have read in his “catalogue of the Scriptures held as canonical and received as divine,” (τὰ καυονιζόμευα καὶ παραδοθέντα τε θεῖα εἶναι βιβλία,) these express words, “of Paul the apostle — there are fourteen epistles, (Παύλου ἀποστόλου ἐπιστολαὶ δεκατεσσαρες.)” He enumerates them, and puts the Epistle to the Hebrews in the tenth place, before his four pastoral epistles.

299. We can also cite equally in this age Titus of Botsra in 362, the Council of Laodicea in 367, Epiphanius in 368, Basil the Great in 370, Gregory of Nazianzus in 370, Gregory of Nyssa and St Ephrem the Syrian in 371, Diodorus of Tarsus in 378, Amphilochius of Iconium in 380, Theodorus of Mopsuestia in 394, and Chrysostom in 398. We learn from Epiphanius (Haeres., 69) and from Theodoret⁶ that in their time, out of the pale of the Church, this epistle, on account of the striking testimony it bore to the divinity of Jesus Christ, was rejected by certain antitrinitarian heretics. “It is not to be wondered at,” (θαυμαστόν οὐδέν,) says this latter father, “if men tainted with the Arian malady (τὴν ἀρειαυικὴν εἰςδεξάμενοι νόσον) rave on the subject of the apostolic Scriptures, wishing to separate from them the Epistle to the Hebrews, and calling it illegitimate, (νόθον;) for if they dare to raise their voice against our God and Saviour, will they not dare to raise it against the most devoted and loud-sounding heralds of the truth? (τῳν εὐνόων αὐτοῦ καὶ μεγαλοφώυωυ τῆς ἀληθείας κηρύκων.)”

But we ascend to the third century.

SECTION THIRD.

WITNESSES OF THE EAST IN THE THIRD CENTURY.

300. Without stopping at Dionysius of Alexandria,⁷ and at the Council of Antioch, who: equally acknowledged the Epistle to the Hebrews as written by Paul, we cannot do better for this period than first of all to consult Eusebius, who distinguished himself already towards the end of the century, but who rather belongs to the next, and the great Origen, who begins the third century, and who, still much more learned, consecrated his powers and his life to the study of the Scriptures.

In the twenty-fifth chapter of his third book, Eusebius does not hesitate to class in the canon of uncontroverted books all the fourteen epistles of Paul, without excepting the Epistle to the Hebrews. “The fourteen epistles of Paul,” he says again, (in his third chapter,) “are evident and certain, (πρόδηλοι καὶ σαφεῖς;) but it will not be just to conceal the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it was disputed by the church of the Romans as not being Paul’s. (Ὅτι γε μὴν τινὲς ἠθετήκασι τὴν πρὸς εΕβραίους, πρὸς τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἐκκλησίας ὡς μὴ Παύλου οὖσαν αὐτὴν ἀντιλέγεσθαι φησάντες, οὐ δίκαιον ἀγνοεῖν.)”

Origen, almost a hundred years before, received it so fully for Divine, that he composed homilies to expound it to the people; and the following are his words elsewhere, in a passage preserved by Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl., vi. 25:) — “The style of the Epistle to the Hebrews has not the character of simplicity peculiar to this apostle, who calls himself a man rude of speech; but the epistle is more Hellenic in the construction of the style, (συνθέσει τῆς λέξεως ἑλληνικώτερα,) as every one who can judge of the difference of style will confess. But, on the other hand, the thoughts of this epistle are admirable, (θαυμάσια) and not inferior (οὐ δέυτερα) to the scriptures universally recognised as apostolic; and this any one will grant (συμψῆσαι) to be true who has devoted himself to apostolic reading. And I will declare what my opinion is,” he adds; “the thoughts are those of the apostle; but the phraseology and composition are those of a person who has recalled the apostolic instructions, or who has written notes on the things said by his teacher. If, then, any church regards this epistle as Paul’s, let it be held in honour for so doing, (εὐδοκιμειτω καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ;) for it is not without reason (Εἶκῆ) that the men of old time have handed it down as Paul’s. Who, then, was the writer? God knows — the truth, (τὸ μὲν ἀληθὲς Θεὸς Οἶδεν;) but the report has come to us, (ἡδε εἰς ἡμᾶς φθάσασα ἱστορία,) on the part of some, that Clement, who became bishop of the Romans, was the author; and of others, that it was Luke who wrote the Gospel and the Acts.”

Such, then, was the state of opinion in the East respecting this holy epistle, if we may judge by Origen and Eusebius. All held it to be divine; and almost all believed it to be Paul’s. This was the opinion, they tell us, of all the men of ancient times. These persons had handed it down as written by Paul; but some contemporaries of Origen were led, in no degree for historical reasons, but only on account of the elegance of the style, to believe that Paul could not have been the immediate author, and that he had suggested the thoughts to one of his fellow-labourers — to Clement, for example, or to Luke. And yet Origen only gives this as a report that had reached him, on the part of some, and not as an opinion which he had adopted.

SECTION FOURTH.

WITNESSES OF THE EAST IN THE SECOND CENTURY.

301. Having reached the second century, we can call in one of the most powerful testimonies, in the person of Clement of Alexandria, the most learned and influential man of his day, who taught with extraordinary success in the most learned city of the East. Born only forty years after the death of John, he said of himself, that “by his age he was near the apostolic times,” (Strom., i. 1;) so that when, like Origen, he supported his testimony by that of the ancients, these ancients could be no other than the contemporaries of the apostles themselves. He brought, very unwisely, no doubt, the pretensions and habits of his philosophy into the study of Christianity; but even this disposition, though it might injure the purity of his faith, perhaps would insure more independence in his judgment on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Here we have his own words, as preserved to us by Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl., iv., 14:) —

“The Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul. He composed it himself in Hebrew, and St Luke translated it into Greek.⁸ Hence the resemblance of his style to that of the Acts. And if Paul did not place at the head of his epistle either his name of Paul, or his title of apostle, it was for a good reason. He addressed himself to men who were very prejudiced against him. It was, then, a point of prudence to abstain from naming himself, in order not to deter any of them from undertaking to read it. Moreover, (and this is what the blessed presbyter said, ὁ μακάριος πρεσβύτερος)⁹ considering that our Lord, as far as He was the Apostle or Messenger of the Most High, had been especially sent to the people of the Hebrews, (άπεστάλη,) and the Epistle to the Hebrews is the only one in the New Testament in which he is called by that name, (Heb. iii. 1,) it was becoming that Paul should abstain from giving himself, in his epistle, the title of Apostle of the Hebrews, whether from modesty, or from reverence towards the Lord, or because he was simply himself the apostle of the Gentiles.”

302. This testimony of Clement of Alexandria, like that of Origen, is not only of great weight for any one who considers the character of these men of God, their learning, their travels, their proximity of time and place in reference to the epistle; but it is still more weighty, when we think of their prejudices as to the nature of its style, and its too Hellenic elegance. The historical evidence must have had irresistible force for these men to feel constrained, by the unanimous tradition of the churches of the East, to acknowledge that, notwithstanding, the epistle was Paul’s.

Moreover, it has been said, that the testimony of Clement was that of the Church of Alexandria, founded by the same Mark¹⁰ whom Peter (1 Ep. v. 13) calls his “son,” and whom Paul (2 Tim. iv. 11, Col. iv. 6) sent for when he was a prisoner at Rome, because “he was profitable to him,” he said, “for the ministry.”¹¹ This testimony hence becomes, as it were, the combined deposition of Mark, Peter, and Paul.

303. We might class among the witnesses in the East during the second century, as we are speaking in the name of the churches of Alexandria, Smyrna, and Ephesus, first of all Pantænus, the celebrated missionary of eastern nations, and the teacher of Clement of Alexandria; next, Ignatius and Polycarp, who, without expressly mentioning this epistle, allude to it very clearly; and, lastly, Irenæus himself, who, before his settlement in Gaul, (in 178,) belonged to Asia by his education. In fact, though this father has not clearly cited the epistle in his work on heresies,¹² he has made mention of it, according to what Eusebius tells us, and has cited certain passages in one of his works that is now lost.¹³ But we prefer coming to the very age of the apostles.

SECTION FIFTH.

WITNESSES OF THE EAST IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

304. In the first century we shall find, not in the East only, but also in the West, proof in abundance of the admission, already begun, of this epistle into the canon of Scripture, at Rome equally with Babylon. On the one hand, we see it translated in the first century into Syriac in the most ancient of the versions — the Peshito; — and, on the other, we can cite in its favour two unexceptionable witnesses, both contemporaries of Paul, and both martyrs. It was not without strong reasons that Clement of Alexandria and Origen had said that in their time the epistle had in its favour “ancient men.” Who could be “ancient men” to them, unless the contemporaries of the apostles, or their immediate successors? These two testimonies which are left us to cite are, first, that of Clement of Rome, who, in his letter to the Corinthians, has made such frequent citations from our epistle,¹⁴ as we have already shewn in our rapid analysis of it. He had it evidently in his hands when writing his letter. He does not name the author; but he cites whole passages from it, and paraphrases many others, and this fact, so prominent throughout his letter, has been already noticed by Eusebius and Jerome.

Our second witness is Simon Peter himself.

The Second Epistle of Peter, written a short time before his martyrdom, was addressed by him, as the apostle of the circumcision, to the converted Hebrews.¹⁵ He there speaks to them of another letter which Paul must have addressed to them, (iii. 15.) “As our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written to you, as also in all his epistles.” Paul, then, had written to these converted Hebrews. There must have existed somewhere a letter of his addressed to the Hebrews, and received as such by the churches of the circumcision; for it must be observed that Peter takes care to distribute Paul’s letters into two classes — that which he had written to the Hebrews, and “his other epistles.” This letter of Paul to the Hebrews could only be that to which all the churches of the East had given that title, and which they placed in the rank of his thirteen other letters.

305. Thus, then, the numerous testimonies, unanimous and constant, throughout the East in favour of the Epistle to the Hebrews go back in the Church to the highest antiquity. They can be traced without interruption or contradiction to the middle of the fifth century, and we have reckoned in this interval more than forty fathers among the Greeks who have received this epistle as Paul’s. If two or three among them speak of certain doubts, it is not in their own name. Raised by others among the Latins, and slowly raised, these doubts were rejected by all the Orientals.

SECTION SIXTH.

TESTIMONIES OF THE WEST.

306. It was otherwise among the churches of the West, but only setting out from the first half of the third century. After having been taught to reverence the Epistle to the Hebrews during the whole of the first century, the second, and the first years of the third, they ceased to render so constant a testimony to it as the churches of the East, and even went so far as almost all to give it up entirely, through the influence of Rome, for a very long time.

307. We have seen that, at the end of the first century, Rome furnished us, in the person of Clement, its bishop, with an unexceptionable witness of the belief which was then professed there. The same was the case with the other churches of the West during the whole course of the second century; for we have seen that Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, quoted it in one of his writings,¹⁶ and if at a later period this same author, in his book against heresies, avoided the express mention of it, it has been supposed that, occupying an eminent position in the West, he thought it his duty to avoid furnishing arguments to the Montanists by quoting a book by which they supported their errors. So again, in Africa, Tertullian, who was a Montanist, had first of all alleged very expressly the Epistle to the Hebrews in the twentieth chapter of his treatise, De Pudicitiâ, composed, according to Cave, in the latter part of the second century. He there cites the Epistle to the Hebrews, and, in its whole length, the passage in which the writer declares that men who have fallen away after receiving certain illumination, “cannot be renewed again to repentance.” He attributes the epistle to Barnabas, “the man whom Paul associated with himself,” he says; “that companion of the apostles, taught by them, and teaching with them,” (alicujus apostolorum comitis; — quem Paulus juxta se posuerit, . . . qui ab apostolis didicet, et cum apostolis docuit.) To these monuments of regard for this epistle which the Latin Church professed during the two first centuries and the first half of the third, we can now add a new important testimony, which has just been furnished us by the appearance of a long-lost work by Hippolytus the martyr “On Heresies.”¹⁷ This father, as is well known, though he came from the East, resided for a long time in Italy in the diocese of Rome. This long-lost work was printed at Oxford in 1851, very shortly after the discovery of the original. And as in 1628 the unexpected discovery of the Epistle of Clement of Rome changed the judgments formed by biblical critics respecting the authority which the Epistle to the Hebrews had in the first century in the Western Church, so in our own time the appearance of the work of Hippolytus, who cites the Epistle to the Hebrews as having apostolic authority,¹⁸ has enlarged our views of the approval given to this scripture by the Western churches till the middle of the third century. The death of Hippolytus is placed about the year 240. ‘

308. It was at Rome, about the beginning of the third century, that the same presbyter Caius, who is reputed to have started the first doubts respecting the Apocalypse, also was the first to express similar doubts respecting the Epistle to the Hebrews in a treatise against the Montanists. From this period it seems that the credit of this scripture declined among the Latins, so that Tertullian, who, before the attacks of Caius, had quoted it freely, referred to it with a kind of reserve in his subsequent writings, in deference to the Latin Church. This is a remark of Hug. The canon of Muratori, of which the date is uncertain, though attributed by many to Caius, is certainly posterior to Marcion; it does not contain the, Epistle to the Hebrews.¹⁹ And after Tertullian, Cyprian, in the same locality, did not receive it. He names seven churches to which Paul wrote, and does not speak of the Epistle to the Hebrews.²⁰ From that time the Latins expressed themselves to the same purport, till towards the end of the following century,

309. The cause of this deviation. of the Western churches, as we have already said, is nut unknown. The Montanist controversy had first suggested it to Caius; and when, half a century later, the Novatianists renewed the doctrine, and the rigorous discipline of Montanus, supporting it, as he did, on this scripture, as we learn from Jerome, Augustin, and Epiphanius, the Latins, desirous of combating them more advantageously, were induced to reject it. And we have already heard Philastrius tell us expressly, that the liturgical use of this epistle ceased in some churches, on account of what it says of repentance, (vi. 4, &c.,) and on account of the Novatians;²¹ but he classes these notions and usages among the heresies of certain persons, (haeresis quorumdam de Epistola Pauli ad Hebraeos.)

310. Yet it must be understood that this late and temporary opposition of the Latins, so far from weakening our faith in the canonicity of this book, ought rather to serve for its confirmation, since it proves to us the inability of all its assailants to bring against it any historical fact, any opposite tradition, or any argument of importance. If a work of Cicero were presented to us, which all the writers of the same age had unanimously attributed to him, and which all of the next century had always included in the collection of his works, we should not make a difficulty of believing it to be his, even if we should be told of persons far from Rome, and three centuries after him, who, without giving good reasons, or disputing the existence uf the testimony of antiquity, had simply raised against the book the same objections which one of our contemporaries might make in the present day.

311. But, whatever might be the opposition of the Latins during the last half of the third century, and the first half of the following, our epistle, which had never ceased to be received by all the Greeks, began anew, from the middle of this fourth century, to be received in the West. In 354, Hilary of Poitiers regarded it as Paul’s. He was followed by Ambrose, bishop of Milan; by Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, and by many others; until, at last, Jerome and Augustin, better informed than their contemporaries, enlightened them on this question by appealing to the historic proofs, to the testimony of the Orientals, and to the authority of all Christian antiquity. It was, probably, their influence which caused it to be received as Paul’s by the Council of Carthage, in 397. From the fifth century, all the churches, to our own day, have received it.

SECTION SEVENTH.

RECAPITULATION OF THESE TESTIMONIES.

312. From all these facts we conclude: —

(1.) That the canonicity of the epistle, immediately after its publication, was acknowledged in the West, as well as in the East — at Rome, as at Jerusalem.

(2.) That the same testimony was rendered later, without interruption, throughout the East, among Syriac Christians and Greek Christians.

(3.) That this recognition continued among the western churches during the second century and the first half of the third.

(4.) That if the Latin Christians, and especially those of Rome, hesitated in reference to it, or even refused to receive it, during the latter half of the third century and the first half of the fourth, they at last came over unanimously to the primitive testimony of the universal church, which had been the constant and invariable testimony of the churches of the East.

(5.) That the Church of Rome has varied, and gravely erred on this important point; and that if, for 1500 years, it has remained obedient to the authority of the constant testimony of the Hast, it, nevertheless, maintained on this subject (to employ the language of Tertullian, Augustin, and Philastrius, against those who rejected any of the books of the second-first canon) a heresy of two centuries.²²

(6.) That if this long-retained error, before the epoch of the definitive settlement of the canon, has no importance for the question of its providential preservation, because the churches were not to be entirely unanimous on the whole entire canon till that epoch, yet the fact is of crushing weight against the pretensions of a Church which styles itself the judge of controversies and of the truth.

(7.) That this same Church errs at the present day, if not more gravely, at least more irrationally, in assuming, in spite of such manifest facts, to be the infallible depository of the Scriptures for all other churches, and in repeating, after Gregory VII.,²³ “that no chapter of any book in the Bible can be held to be canonical without the authority of the sovereign pontiff.”

(8.) That what Christianity owes to the Church of Rome in this matter is, that it has twice made war on the canon, and twice broken on this point the unity of the Church; first of all, by rejecting for two centuries an epistle which had been recognised by herself for the two preceding centuries, and which she has recognised afresh from the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth; next, in presuming alone, ten centuries later, to introduce the Apocryphal books into the canon of the Old Testament, «in spite of the strong remonstrances of all the rest of Christendom, which, while causing them to be read publicly, had always rejected them for fifteen centuries both in the East and the West.

(9.) That the infallibility assumed by Rome, as the patrimony of the apostle Simon Peter, is already condemned by the single fact that it has not been able to guard a scripture which the same Simon Peter had expressly recommended as making a part of the sacred oracles, and which had been recommended also a very short time after by that Clement whom it has made the second, or third, or fourth of its own bishops.²⁴

(10.) That, very far from giving authority to our canon of the New Testament, the Church of Rome has received its own from the Greek Church, (at least as far as concerns the Epistle to the Hebrews,) and that it has not been owing to it that we have not lost throughout the West this holy scripture.

(11.) Lastly, that the authority of the canon as to the New Testament is founded neither on Rome, which, by its own confession, has gravely varied and erred respecting it, nor on any particular church, nor on any provincial council, nor on any universal council, but only on the unanimous, unpremeditated, involuntary, and providential consent of all Christendom on this subject. For, with enormous divergences on every other subject, we see at the present day throughout the world all churches, good and bad, kept by God in unity on this one point; as we sce, on the other hand, the whole ancient nation of Israel, and all the modern Jews, remain equally in unity respecting the Old Testament, because the oracles of God were confided to them for the Old, as they are to us for the New. But we can only glance at this thought here, since it is out of the circle of our present investigations,

SECTION EIGHTH.

THE PAULINE²⁵ AUTHORSHIP OF THIS EPISTLE.

313. The Pauline authorship of this epistle must be carefully distinguished from its canonicity in studying the history of the canon. The apostolicity of a book, indeed, would not alone be a reason of its canonicity, because all the writings, discourses, and actions of an apostle or a prophet were not necessarily nor continually inspired. Inspiration was a miraculous gift, (χάρισμα,) and miraculous gifts were intermittent according as the Spirit descended on the men of God. A scripture was infallible and Divine when the Spirit of God had caused it to be written, and only then; and the Spirit of God caused it to be written when He saw good, whether the writer was an apostle, as Paul or Peter, or whether he was not an apostle, but only a prophet, as Luke or Mark.

Many fathers of the first ages believed this epistle to be Divine, without believing it to be Paul’s; and many modern theologians, on other accounts worthy of regard, have thought it right to apply this distinction to the Epistle to the Hebrews. In our opinion they are mistaken as to fact, but not as to principle. Thus our two greatest reformers, Luther and Calvin, spoke at a time when this subject was less studied, and, particularly, when Clement’s epistle had not been recovered, who, at Rome, and in the very age of the apostles, bears so clear a testimony to this holy scripture.²⁶ Luther attributed it to Apollos, without supporting this gratuitous conjecture by any historical argument. Calvin himself, without attempting any hypothesis, wrote at the head of his commentary, “Ego ut Paulum agnoscam auctorem, adduct nequeo. Yet for myself,” he adds, “I receive it without any difficulty among the apostolic epistles; and I doubt not that it is only by a device of Satan that some persons were formerly found disposed to exclude it from the number of authentic books.” Beza also says, in the first note of his commentary, “Let the judgments of men remain free on this point; only (he adds) let us all agree to this, that this epistle was really dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

314, Many of the fathers who were most attached to the canonicity of this epistle, (such as Dionysius and Clement of Alexandria, Euthalius, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Jerome,) have yet supposed, on account of its elegance, that it was composed in Hebrew by Paul, but translated into Greek by Luke or Barnabas. This is only a hypothesis. It does not directly affect its canonicity; but we reject it, because there are three powerful reasons which unite to impugn it.

(1.) Those persons who speak of this Hebrew original have never pointed out any one who has seen it.

(2.) The superior elegance of this epistle may be accounted for, as we shall presently shew.

(3.) It would be an historic error to imagine that Hebrew, in Paul’s days, was better adapted than Greek to the religious wants of the whole Jewish people. Greek was universally understood, even in Jerusalem; it was spoken in that city about four centuries before;²⁷ and the Jews of “the dispersion,’ who made use of it throughout the East, often knew nothing of Hebrew. Thus we see that the greater part of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem had separate synagogues to celebrate their worship in Greek.

(4.) Nothing in this epistle indicates a translation; everything, on the contrary, bears the impress of originality.

(5.) Paranomasias, that is to say, allusions founded on the similarity and vocal affinity of expressions, abound in it, and betray inevitably an original writing.²⁸ Particularly, Calvin remarks, “What is said of the nature of a testament in the ninth chapter can be taken from no other source than a Greek word.”

(6.) The comments of the author on the passages he cites from the Old Testament lead also to the same conclusion; for they attest that the citations have been taken, not from the Hebrew original, but from the Septuagint version.²⁹

315. Though many fathers and many scholars, while admitting the divinity of this scripture, have wished to find another author than Paul for it, we shall be able, on the contrary, to establish by strong arguments that it was indeed our apostle who wrote it.

(1.) Nothing has ever been alleged against this testimony of history excepting presumptions and conjectures.:

(2.) The expressions of the epistle about Timothy can belong, it appears, to no one but Paul. “Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you,” (xiii. 23.) Now Paul had already associated himself with Timothy in seven other of his epistles,³⁰ besides writing two to him. He made him his companion in his voyage to Jerusalem, (Acts xx. 4.) He often speaks of him elsewhere, as here, as “his brother and fellow-labourer.”³¹ He even calls him “his son,’ (1 Tim. i. 2,) while no other person in the New Testament presents, even distantly, this character of intimacy with Timothy.

(3.) The author of this epistle speaks of his “bonds,” (x. 34) and Paul was in bonds when this epistle was written.

(4.) The author tells the Hebrews that he hopes to visit them soon, (“with whom, if he comes shortly, I will see you.”) Paul was then on the point of being released from confinement.

(5.) The author salutes them in the name of “the brethren of Italy,” (xiii. 21,) and Paul was then in Italy.

(6.) The epistle must have been written during the reign of Nero, and in Paul’s lifetime, that is, before the year 68 or 65. In fact,

It represents the temple at Jerusalem as still standing, and its worship as still celebrated — the last war of the Romans against the Jews as about to commence: “As ye see the day approaching,” (x. 25;) (but that terrible day had not yet dawned.)

Timothy is still living, and inclined to leave Italy, in order to visit the Hebrews with the author of this letter.

The letter is cited by Clement, the companion of Paul, (Phil. iv. 3,) in the epistle which this father wrote to the Corinthians in ' the name of the Church of Rome. And notice, on this fact, the reasoning of Eusebius himself. “Clement, in his letter to the Corinthians,” he says, “introduces many thoughts from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and even with the peculiar expressions of this epistle, indicating evidently by this that it was not to him a new work,”³²

Lastly, this letter is cited even by the apostle Peter, who is said to have suffered martyrdom in the same year as Paul; for we have seen that in his second epistle, written to the same persons as the first, (2 Pet. iii. 1,) he reminds them that Paul had written a letter to them, — “As our beloved brother Paul also, according unto the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you,” (2 Pet. iii. 15.)

(7.) All the weight of historic testimony is in favour of the Pauline authorship of this epistle. It is certain that, being addressed especially to the church at Jerusalem, the mother of all the rest, and for thirty-six years the centre of Israelitish Christianity, it was read from the first as Paul’s in all the assemblies of the East. We have already seen the testimonies of the East to its canonicity for four centuries. But these same fathers, while speaking sometimes of doubts entertained among the Latins, not only believed Paul to be the author, but said that they received this belief from the ancient bishops who preceded them. Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, stating it to be his, declares that such was the tradition “of the apostles and ancient bishops, the presidents of the churches,” (Prop. 59.) Jerome likewise attests that this epistle “ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis Graeci sermonis scriptoribus QUASI PAULI apostoli suscipi.” Athanasius, the Council of Laodicea, Basil, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian, Chrysostom, and many others, give the same testimony. Eusebius declares it to be Paul’s, saying, at the same time, that the church of the Romans disputed the fact, supposing that Clement of Rome might have been the translator. Theodoret cites Eusebius as having said that all the ancients believed it was written by Paul. He says that the Arians had begun to call it in question, on account of the testimony it bears to the divinity of Jesus Christ; but he adds, that it was read in the churches from apostolic times.³³ Origen,³⁴ while believing it to be Paul’s, cites, nevertheless, in order to explain its great elegance, suppositions, the report of which (he says) had reached him,³⁵ respecting the part that this or the other apostolic man had taken in its composition; but yet he takes care to remind his readers, that it is not a light thing (εἰκῆ) that ancient men have transmitted it as Paul’s to the men of his time. And, lastly, Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, tells us expressly that it is the work of Paul, (Παύλου μὲν εἷναί φησι,) though thinking that perhaps it was written in Hebrew by the apostle, and was translated by Luke into elegant Greek.

(8.) Lastly, the very numerous marks of resemblance between this epistle and the other compositions of Paul, equally attest that he is its author. Many able critics have exhibited these marks with great distinctness, We may see them more closely in Spanheim, Braun, Carpsovius, Lardner, Macknight, La Harpe, Moses Stuart, and Tholuck; and Reuss himself,³⁶ who does not ascribe this epistle to Paul, has had the candour to express himself in the following terms on these analogies: —

“The resemblances which our epistle presents to the Pauline modes of expression are so numerous and striking, that the readiness with which it is ascribed to Paul is not at all surprising. - They consist in a series of terms equally familiar to the two authors, as well as, in the main, of the same doctrinal ideas.

“We shall proceed to point out some of these resemblances: —

“Bursts of feeling, expressed in language very concise, and familiar to St Paul.

“Elliptical expressions, which must be completed by what goes before and what follows.

“Abrupt transitions to subordinate subjects, with a quick return to the principal topic.³⁷

“Answers addressed to the thoughts of the reader, and applying to objections which are not expressed,

“A hortatory .and moral conclusion of the epistle, from the eleventh chapter, such as Paul was accustomed to make in his other epistles.

“Exhortations very similar to those made by Paul elsewhere.

“Jewish interpretations of Scripture which are only found in St Paul’s writings.

“Doctrines that none of the other inspired writers have mentioned: the mediation and intercession of the Saviour;³⁸ the title of Mediator given by Paul alone to Jesus Christ;³⁹ Christ presenting His sacrifice in heaven, and exercising His priesthood only in heaven.

“Frequent resemblances of style and expression between this epistle and the thirteen others of Paul; — for example, the frequent use of the particle τέ; or, again, this passage, Heb. xiii. 5, compared with Rom. xii. 9, where we find two nominatives absolute, and besides a feminine noun in the nominative absolute, followed by a masculine participle in the nominative absolute, (ἡ ἀνείπη ἀνυπόκριτος, ἀποστυγοῦντες . . .) a structure which is found nowhere else in the New Testament.

“Take, as examples, again, the following passages: —

“Heb. ii. 4, compared with Rom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; and 2 Thess. ii. 9; Heb. iii. 1, compared with Phil. iii. 14; Heb. v. 12, compared with 1 Cor. iii. 2; Heb. viii. 1, compared with Eph. i. 21; Heb. ix., x. 1, compared with Col. ii. 17; Heb. x. 33, compared with 1 Cor. iv. 9; Heb. xiii. 9, compared with Eph. iv. 14; Heb. xiii. 10, 11, compared with 1 Cor. ix. 18; Heb. xiii. 20, 21, compared with Rom. xv. 33, xvi. 20; Phil. iv. 9; 1 Thess. v.23 2 Cor. xiii. 11,”

But what can our opponents set against all these arguments of criticism and history? No historical testimony, only presumptions and hypotheses. These we shall proceed to answer.

SECTION NINTH.

OBJECTIONS.

316. It is objected, in the first place, that Paul the apostle to the Gentiles was not the apostle of the Jews, and was not bound to write to them. But does he not say that he was the apostle of all, that “he might by all means save some?” (1 Cor ix. 19, 22.) Did he not in every city begin his ministry with the Hebrews? Was he not “a Hebrew of the Hebrews?” (Phil. iii. 5.) Was it not his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel that they might be saved?” (Rom. x. 1.) Was he not “in great heaviness and continual sorrow” for the Hebrews, his “kinsmen according to the flesh?” (ix. 2.) Had he not very recently gone up to the capital of the Hebrews to carry to his “nation the alms” of the churches? (Rom. xv. 25; Acts xxiv. 17.) Could he do otherwise (we ask, on the contrary) than write to them?

317. Paul, it is said, again, has not named himself in the epistle; while he had always taken care to inscribe at the head of his thirteen letters his name and apostolic title. We reply —

(1.) That he had manifest reasons of prudence, if not entirely to conceal his name, at least not to. make it prominent. We have stated them elsewhere.

(2.) That the book being rather a treatise than a letter, the author had not the same reasons for putting his name.⁴⁰

(3.) That the book, whoever was the author, was written by a person who judged it desirable not to put his name. “And if any argues that for this reason it was not Paul’s, (said Primasius, an African bishop of the sixth century,) it could not be any more by Barnabas, nor by Clement, nor by Luke, nor by any one else, since no one has put his name to it, (quod nullius nomine titulatur.)”⁴¹

(4.) Those Hebrew Christians to whom the letter was at first addressed certainly knew what hand had written it, Can we doubt it when we read the words, “Pray for us. I beseech you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you. Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you,” (xiii. 18, 19, 23, 24.)

(5.) It is sufficiently evident that this letter would not have been read, from the first century in Jerusalem and in the assemblies of the Hast, if the leaders of all these ee? had not known the author.

(6.) It was desirable that it should circulate among the believing Hebrews, the Judaising Christians, and the unconverted Hebrews; but it would have been imprudent to have placed at its head a name which would have made them reject it without examination.

(7.) Lastly, we may say with Dr Wordsworth,⁴² that if the name of Paul is not at its head, yet his farewell and his signature are at the end; for the apostolic salutation which he was wont to use, was, as he said himself, his distinctive mark in all his letters.⁴³ “The salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is the token in every epistle; so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all;” by which he means to say, that these words, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” or their equivalent, were the formula of salutation which he took care to write with his own hand at the end of every letter. We know that he always dictated them, with the single exception of the Epistle to the Galatians. He contented himself with putting this token or signature. It was a token, he said himself, by which all his epistles might be recognised. But it must be carefully observed, that while this formula is read in all the thirteen other letters of Paul, it does not occur in any of the epistles written during his lifetime by any other of the apostles, and that we only see it employed, after his death, in the last verse of the Apocalypse, and in the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, and in the discourses of the fathers, who were eager to adopt it after him. But this mark, invariably and exclusively attached to all his letters, is equally so to the Epistle to the Hebrews, (xiii. 24, 26.)

318. In the third place, it is objected that Paul said, that he was “not taught the gospel by any man,” (Gal. i. 1, 11, 12, ii. 6-15) and shewed himself very jealous of the independence of his ministry. Could he then say of the salvation which he announced those words which are read in the third verse of the second chapter, “the salvation which first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto Us by them that heard him?” We reply, that it was one of Paul’s habits to employ the first person plural when he had only his readers in view; so that no conclusion could be drawn in reference to his own person. Thus, for example, in the preceding part of the verse he had said, “How shall WE escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Paul, in speaking of this danger, was thinking of his readers, and not of _ himself. And so again, when he said in the thirteenth chapter of Romans, (verse 11th,) “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep,” he was not asleep himself, and had no idea of including himself in the WE, which he employed simply as a communicative pronoun, (un pronom communicatif.) Yet even as to Paul it would be true that the salvation “spoken by the Lord was confirmed to him by those who heard it.”

319. But, lastly, the objection urged most strongly to prove that this epistle could not have been written by Paul is the classic purity of its language, the Hellenic finish of the composition.

(1.) Our answer to this is, that it was quite natural that the apostle on this solemn occasion should think it his duty to bestow more care on this writing, which formed a treatise rather than a letter, and which he addressed to all the Hebrew nation. He wished to exhibit to his people, in an attractive representation, the holy and majestic unity of the Divine revelations under the two economies — the innumerable relations of the Old Testament to the New — the beneficent and glorious light which the later manifestations of the Son of God shed upon Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets. He developed to the Hebrews the importance and sublime meaning of their own cultus when explained by the gospel, the Divinity of the Messiah announced in their scriptures, His holy humanity and humiliation equally foretold, His apostleship, His royal priesthood, His expiatory blood, and His ascension to the heavens; in. a word, the true Temple, the true Priest, the true Tabernacle, the true Victim, the true Passover, the true Holy of Holies, and likewise the true faith of the true worshippers, and their true sacrifices of praise and oblation.

(2.) There is not a writer who has not had, among his compositions, some writing or other in which he has aimed to surpass himself, in the purity of its language, and the elevation of its style. Thus Cyprian, in his letter to Donatus; thus Tertullian, in his Apology; thus Calvin, in his treatise on clemency, or in his epistle to Francis I.; thus St Paul himself, in his letter to Philemon.

(3.) Do we not know that the apostle, independently of his inspiration, was, in respect of style, equal to his theme, both by education and genius? Was he not born, and was he not taught Greek literature, in the Greek colony of Tarsus, a city renowned for its culture? Was he not heard to cite, on many occasions, the Greek poets? (Acts xiii. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 33; Titus i, 12;) and does he not shew, in other parts of his writings, what he was able to do? If he was, as he said, “a common man as to speech,” (ἰδιώτης τῳ λόγω,) it was in his accent, and not in expression or thought. And, if he judged it wise to write letters to the Gentiles without preparation, he might also think it wise to address one to his own people in a composition more captivating and more studied.

320. We must, then, conclude, from all these testimonies and facts, that Eusebius, at the beginning of the fourth century, very legitimately included our Epistle to the Hebrews in the first canon; because it had been received for two centuries by all Christendom, both Eastern and Western, from its first appearance; and because it had never ceased to be received by all the churches of the East. Yet while, like this father, putting it, according to our historical estimate, among the homologoumena, and in the first canon, we have thought proper to assign it and the Apocalypse a place by themselves, on account of the late opposition made for a time against it by the Latin Church only. Moreover, that church, which owned the authority of this sacred book during the first and second century, and then disowned it during the third and fourth, has ended by ranking it, for fourteen hundred years, in conformity with the universal Church.

But we must now pass on to the second canon, or to the antilegomena, which contain (as we have said) only 222 verses, a thirty-sixth of the New Testament; and we shall establish their firm authenticity, like the first, by history, before proceeding to consider them under another point of view.

1) See Heb. ix. 6, 7, x,1-3, 11.

2) Heb. xiii. 7. Τὴν ἔκβασιν τῆς ἀναστροφῆς.

3) No doubt because they erroneously supported their views by chap. vi. See Kirchhofer on the Canon, pp. 240, 243, 247, 425, (Quellensammlung zur Gesch. des Neutest, Can. bis auf Hierom. Zurich, 1842.)

4) See Socrates, Hist. Hccl., v., 8.

5) See also his Epistle 125 to Evagrius. “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” he says, “which all the Greeks receive, and some of the Latins, (quanir omnes Graeci recepiunt, et nonnulli Latinorum.)”

6) Interpret. Ep. ad Heb., Proem. Opp., tom. iii., p. 541.

7) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 41.

8) We shall refute the supposition in the sequel.

9) It has been thought that Clement was speaking here of the pious Pantænus, the apostle of India, who was living at Alexandria in 216, where he had established a school, and where Clement himself was one of his disciples.

10) Eusebius, Hist. Ecel., v., 10; Jerome, De Viris Illustr., xxxv.

11) Irenæus, Adv. Haeres., iii., 1.

12) Haeres., ii., 55, (Heb. i. 8;) iii, 6, (Heb. iii. 5;) iv., 26, (Heb. x. 15) iv., 30, v., 5, (Heb. xi. 5.)

13) Hist. Eccl. v., 26. It is in his book, Διαλὲξεων διαφόρων· ἔν ᾤ τῆς πρὸς Ἐβραίους ἐπιστολᾶῗς . . . μνημονεύει, ῥητα τινα ἐξ (αὐτῆς) παραθέμενος.

14) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii, 38. Clem. ad Cor., (Prop. 258,) ch. xxxvi., (Heb. i. 3-5, 7, 13-15, viii. 1-3;) ch. xvii., (Heb. iii. 2;) ch. xxi., (Heb. iv. 12;) ch. xxvii., (Heb. vi. 18;) ch. xxiii., (Heb. x. 37;) ch. ix., (Heb. xi. 5, 8, 31;) ch. x, (Heb. xi, 8;) ch. xii, (Heb. xi. 31;) ch. xviii., (Heb. ili. 2, xi. 2, 4, 5, 87, 89;) ch. lvi., (Heb. xii. 6;) ch. xliii., (Heb. iii. 5.)

15) 2 Pet. i.1; compare with 1 Pet. i, 1.

16) This was, as we have said, his βιβλίον τι ὃιαλὲἕεων διαφόρων. Eusebius, Hist. Ecel., v., 26.

17) Κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσιων ἔλεγχος.

18) See Bunsen’s Hippolytus; 4 vols.; London, 1852. Vol. i, p. 127.

19) See Propp. 193, 198.

20) Cyprian, Testim. ad. Judaeos, i, 20; De Exhortatione Martyr, cap. ii Propp. 62, 63.

21) De Haeresibus, 40; Bibl. Patrum Max., v., p. 711. “De poenitentia autem propter Novatianos.”

22) The two former apply to the rejection of the Apocalypse; the third to that of the Epistle to the Hebrews. (See Propp. 282, 302.)

23) See the Annales of Baronius for the year 1076.

24) The second, according to Jerome; the third, according to Augustin; the fourth, according to Irenzus. See Hefele, Patr. Apostol. Opera, p. 21. Tubing., 1847.

25) On this subject the reader may consult the first volume of Moses Stuart; the Theses of Professor La Harpe, (Toulouse, 1832;) the Introduction of Hug, and that of Guericke, (1854;) and Fr. Spanheim, De Auctore Epistolae ad Hebr. Exercitationes, Heidelberg, 1659: (He maintains the Pauline authorship.)

26) It was only in 1628 that Cyril Lucar sent from Constantinople to Charles I. of England the ancient Alexandrian manuscript of the Scriptures, which, happily was found to contain the long-lost epistle of Clement.

27) The city submitted to Alexander the Great in the year 332 B.C., and the epistle was written about A.D. 64.

28) See, in the Greek, Heb. ii. 7, 8, (compared with Ps. viii.,) v. 8, 14, vii. 13, 19, ix. 10, x. 34, xi. 37, xiii. 14.

29) See Heb. x. 4, 5, compared with Ps. xl. 7; viii. 8, ix. 14, 22, compared with Jer. xxxi. 31, 32, and other passages quoted in Dr Owen’s learned exposition, (5th exercitation.)

30) Phil. i. 1; 2 Cor. i 1; Col. i. 1; 1 Thess. i, 1; 2 Thess. i.1; Rom. xvi, 21; Philem. 1.

31) 2 Cor. 1. 1; Philem. 1; Col. i. 1

32) Hist. Eccl., iii, 38. Σαφὲστατα παρίστησιν ὅτι μὴ νεὸν ὑπάρχει τὸ σύγγράμμα.

33) Arg. in Epist. ad Hebraeos. Opp., tom. iii, p. 341. Halle, 1768-1774.

34) Origen, who quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews more than two hundred times, (Kirchhofer, Quellensammlung, &c., p. 244,) repeatedly asserts that it was by Paul.

35) Εἷς ἡμᾶς φθάσασα ίςτορία.

36) Hist. de la Théologie Chrétienne au Siècle Apostolique, tom. ii., p. 550. -

37) See i. 2-4, iii. 7, 11, 14, iv. 2.

38) Heb. iv. 15, 16, vii. 22, 25; Rom. viii. 24; Gal. iii, 19, 20.

39) Heb. vii. 22, viii: 6, ix. 15, xii 24; 1 Tim. ii. 5.

40) It is short for a treatise, and would be long for a letter, (303 verses.) The author, also, at the close, apologises for its brevity.

41) Ad Hebraeos Praefatio, Lugduni, 1537, p. 473.

42) On the Canon, p. 234. London, 1847.

43) 2 Thess. iii. 17; 1 Cor. xvi. 21; Col. iv. 18.