HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, a book of the New Testament, which in the oldest mss. bears no other title than "To Hebrews," i.e., Christians of Jewish extraction. It was, how ever, directed to a definite circle of readers with whom the author had personal relations (xiii. 19, 23) . Probably, then, the original limited address, or rather salutation, fell away when this appeal in letter form passed into the wider circulation which its contents merited.
Authorship.—In the earlier mss. it is anonymous ; and the Roman Church, where the first traces of the epistle occur, about A.D. 96 (I Clement), and which was in constant connection with provincial churches, was at a later date sure only that it was not by Paul (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iii. 3) . The Alexandrine tradition, on the other hand, dwells on its affinities to Paul's thought. Origen implies that "the men of old" regarded it as Paul's. But he feels that the language is un-Pauline, though the "admirable" thoughts are not second even to Paul's. Thus he is led to the view that the ideas were orally set forth by Paul, but that the written form was due to some one giving free interpretation of his mind. According to some this was Clement of Rome ; others named Luke ; but the truth, says Origen, is known to God alone. (Euseb. vi. 25, cf. iii. 38) . From the time of Origen the theory of Paul's own authorship became prevalent in the East. The earliest north African tradition preserved by Tertullian (De pudicitia, c. 2o), but hardly invented by him, ascribed the epistle to Barnabas. Yet it was probably only an inference, as if this "word of exhortation" (xiii. 22) must needs be by the Son of Exhortation (Acts iv. 36; see BARNABAS). On the whole, then, the earliest traditions in East and West alike agree that it was not by Paul, but by one of his associates.
This is also the result reached by modern scholarship. Follow ing the lead of Erasmus, Luther (who suggests Apollos) and Calvin added the decisive argument that Paul, who lays such stress on the fact that his gospel was not taught him by man (Gal. i.), could not have written Heb. ii. 3. And since the revival of the historical sense, more than a century ago, opinion has set irrevocably against Pauline authorship. Its type of thought is really different. The Jewish Law is viewed not as a code of "works of righteousness," as by Paul, but as a system of religious rites (vii. II) shadowing forth the way of access to God in wor ship, of which the Gospel reveals the archetypal realities (ix. 1, I I, 15, 23 seq., x. I sqq., 19 sqq.) . The Old and the New Cove nants are related to one another as imperfect (earthly) and perfect (heavenly) forms and methods of salvation—differing in point of spiritual reality—each with its own type of sacrifice and priesthood. Thus the conception of Christ as High Priest emerges, for the first time, as a central point in Christianity. The Old Testament is cited after the Alexandrian version more exclusively than by Paul, even when the Hebrew differs. Nor is this accidental. The author was, in fact, a Hellenist who lacked knowledge of the Hebrew text, and derived his metaphysic and his allegorical method from the Alexandrian rather than the Palestinian schools. Yet the epistle has Pauline affinities, and can hardly have orig inated beyond the Pauline circle, to which it is related, not only by the author's friendship with Timothy (xiii. 23), but by many echoes of the Pauline theology, and even, it seems, of passages in Paul's epistles (see Holtzmann, Einleitung in das N.T., 1892, p. 298). Everything turns, then, on internal criticism of the epistle, together with such personal allusions as it affords.
As to its first readers, with whom the author stood in close relations (xiii. 19, 23, cf. vi. so, x. 3 2-34) , it used to be agreed that they were "Hebrews" or Christians of Jewish birth. But this can not be inferred simply from the fact that the epistle approaches Christian truth through Old Testament forms. That was the common method since the Jewish scriptures were the Word of God to all Christians alike. Still the exclusive use of the argument from Mosaism, as itself implying the Gospel of Jesus the Christ as final cause (Taos), does favour the view that the readers were of Jewish origin. Further, there is no allusion to the incorporation of "strangers and foreigners" (Eph. ii. 19) with the people of God. Yet the readers are not to be sought in Jerusalem (see e.g., ii. 3), nor anywhere in Judaea. The whole Hellenistic culture of the epistle (let alone its language), and the personal references, notably that to Timothy in xiii. 23, are against any such view. Caesarea, as a city of mixed population and lying just outside Judaea proper, would satisfy many conditions of the prob lem. Yet these might exist among other members of the Disper sion, like "the Jews of Asia" whose zeal for the Temple and the Mosaic ritual customs led to Paul's arrest in Jerusalem (Acts xix. 27 seq., cf. 20 seq.) . The dispersed Christian Jews, who kept in touch with the Temple by annual contribution to its services, would tend to continue their reliance on those services for the forgiveness of their recurring "sins of ignorance" even after the great initial Messianic forgiveness coming with faith in Jesus. Accordingly many of them, while placing their hope for the future upon Messiah and His return in power, might seek continuous cleansing of conscience in the old mediatorial system. In particu lar the annual Day of Atonement might be relied on, and that in proportion as the expected Parousia tarried and the first en thusiasm of a faith that was largely eschatological died away, while ever-present temptations pressed the harder as disappointment and perplexity increased.
Such was the general situation of the readers, men who rested partly on the Gospel and partly on Judaism. For lack of a true theory as to the relation between the two, they were now drifting away (ii. 1) from effective faith in the Gospel, as being mainly future in its application, while Judaism was a very present, concrete, and impressive system of religious aids—to which also their sacred scriptures gave constant witness. The points at which it chiefly touched them may be inferred from the author's counter-argument, with its emphasis on the spiritual ineffectiveness of the whole Temple-system, its high-priesthood and its supreme sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. With pas sionate earnestness he sets over against these his constructive theory as to the efficacy, the heavenly yet unseen reality, of the definitive "purification of sins" (i. 3) and perfected access to God's inmost presence, secured for Christians as such by Jesus the Son of God (x. 9-2 2) ; and traces their moral feebleness and slackened zeal to want of progressive insight into the essential nature of the Gospel as a "new covenant," moving on a totally different plane of religious reality from the now antiquated covenant given by Moses (viii. 13).
The following plan of the epistle may help to make apparent the writer's theory of Christianity as distinct from Judaism, which is related to it as "shadow" to reality : Thesis: The finality of the form of religion mediated in God's Son, i. 1-4.
i. The supreme excellence of the Son's Person (i. 5–iii. 6), as compared with (a) angels, (b) Moses.
Practical exhortation, iii. 7–iv. 13, leading up to: ii. The corresponding efficacy of the Son's High-priesthood (iv. 14–ix.) .
(I) The Son has the qualifications of all priesthood, especially sympathy.
Exhortation, raising the reader's thought to the height of the topic reached (v. II–vi. 20).
(2) The Son as absolute high priest, in an order trans cending the Aaronic (vii.) and relative to a Taber nacle of ministry and a Covenant higher than the Mosaic in point of reality and finality (viii., ix.).
(3) His Sacrifice, then, is definitive in its effects (TETEX ELWKE), and supersedes all others (x. I-18) .
iii. Appropriation of the benefits of the Son's high-priest hood, by steadfast faith, the paramount duty (x. 19–xii.). More personal epilogue (xiii.).
As lack of insight lay at the root of their troubles, it was not enough simply to enjoin the moral fidelity to conviction which is three parts of Faith to the writer, who has but little sense of the mystical side of faith, so marked in Paul. There was need of a positive theory based on real insight, to inspire faith for more strenuous conflict with the influences tending to the apostasy from Christ, and so from "the living God," which already threatened some of them (iii. 12). Such "apostasy" was not a formal abjuring of Jesus as Messiah, but the subtler lapse involved in ceasing to rely on relation to Him for daily moral and religious needs, summed up in purity of conscience and peace before God (x. 19-23, xiii. 20 seq.). This "falling aside" (vi. 5, cf. xii. 12 seq.), rather than conscious "turning back," is what is implied in the repeated exhortations which show the intensely practical spirit of the whole argument. These exhortations are directed chiefly against the dullness of spirit which hinders progressive moral insight into the genius of the New Covenant (v. II–vi. 8). The antidote to such "profane" negligence (ii. I, 3, xii. 12 seq., 15717) is an earnestness animated by a fully-assured hope, and sustained by a "faith" marked by patient waiting (p aepoOv,uta) for the inheritance guaranteed by Divine promise (x. II seq.). The out ward expression of such a spirit is "bold confession," and mutual encouragement therein (iii. 6, 12 seq.) ; while the sign of its decay is neglect to assemble together for mutual stimulus, as if it were not worth the odium and opposition from fellow Jews called forth by a marked Christian confession (x. 23-25, xii. 3)—a very dif ferent estimate of the new bond from that shown by readiness in days gone by to suffer for it (x. 32 seq.). Their special danger, then, the sin which deceived (iii. 13) the more easily that it represented the line of least resistance (perhaps the best para phrase of "the besetting sin" in xii. I ), was the exact opposite of "faith" as the author uses it, especially in the chapter of Old Testament illustrations, and of which Jesus Himself was at once the example and the inspiration (xii. 2 sqq.). To quicken this by awakening deeper insight into the real objects of "faith," as these bore on their actual life, he develops his high argument on the lines already indicated.
Their situation was so dangerous just because it combined inward debility and outward pressure, both tending to the same result, viz., practical disuse of the dis tinctively Christian means of grace, as compared with those recognized by Judaism, and such conformity to the latter as would make the reproach of the Cross to cease (xiii. 13, cf. xi. 26). But the practical surrender of what was distinctive in their new faith meant a theoretic surrender of the value once placed on that element, when it was a living religious experience far in advance of what Judaism had given them (vi. 4 seq., x. 26-29). This twofold infidelity, in thought and deed, God, the "living" God of progress from the "shadow" to the substance, would yet
(x. 3o seq., xii. 22-29). For it meant turning away from an appeal that had been known as "heavenly," for something inferior and earthly (xii. 25) ; from a call sanctioned by the incomparable authority of a greater than Moses and all media of the Old Covenant, even the Son of God. Thus the key of the whole exhortation is struck in the opening words, which contrast the piecemeal revelation "to the fathers," in the past, with the com plete and final revelation to themselves in the last stage of the existing order, in a Son of transcendent dignity (i. I sqq., cf. ii. I sqq., x. 28 seq., xii. 18 sqq.) . This goes to the root of their difficulty, ambiguity as to the relations of the old and the new elements in Judaeo-Christian piety, so that there was danger of the old overshadowing the new, since national Judaism remained hostile. At a stroke the author separates the two. There is no use, religiously, in falling back upon the old forms, in order to avoid the social penalties of a sectarian position within Judaism, when the secret of religious "perfection" or maturity (vi. 1, cf. the frequent use of the kindred verb) lies elsewhere. Hence the moral of his whole argument as to the two covenants, though it is for mulated only incidentally amid final detailed counsels (xiii. 13 seq.) is to leave Judaism and adopt a purely Christian standing on the same footing with their non-Jewish brethren in the local church. For this the time was now ripe; and in it lay the true path of safety—eternal safety as before God, whatever man might say or do (xiii. 5 seq.). The obscure section xiii. 9 seq., is to be taken as "only a symptom of the general retrogression of religious energy" (Jiilicher) and not as bearing directly on the main danger of these "Hebrews." External Occasion.—In trying further to define the readers addressed one must note the stress laid on suffering as part of the divinely appointed discipline of sonship (ii. Io, v. 8, xii. 7 seq.), and the way in which the analogy in this respect between Jesus, as Messianic Son, and those united to Him by faith. is set in relief. He is both the inspiring example for heroic faith in the face of unbelievers (xii. 3 sqq.) and the mediator qualified by experience of suffering to sympathize with His tried followers, and so to afford them moral aid (ii. 17 seq., v. 8 seq., cf. iv. 15). This means that suffering for Christianity, at least in respect of possessions (xii. 5 seq., cf. x. 34), was imminent for those ad dressed; and it seems as if they were mostly men of wealth and position (xiii. 1-6, vi. Io seq., x. 34). Such would also possess a mental culture (cf. v. II seq.) capable of appreciating the form of an epistle "far too learned for the average Christian" (Jiilicher), yet for which its author apologizes as inadequate (xiii. 22). It was now long since they themselves had suffered seriously for their own faith (x. 32 seq.) and the writer's impatience to hurry to their side implies that the crisis was both sudden and urgent.
Many attempts have been made to identify the home of the Hellenistic Christians addressed in this epistle. For Alexandria little can be urged. "Alexandrine" ideal ism and allegorism was a mode of thought diffused throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, and the divergencies from Philo's spirit are as notable as the affinities (cf. Milligan, ut infra 203 sqq.) . For Rome there is more to be said, in view of the reference to "them of Italy" (xiii. 23 seq.) ; and the theory has found many supporters. It usually contemplates a special Jewish-Christian house-church, like that meeting in the house of Prisca and Aquila (Rom. xvi. 5)—a chapter which some hold to have been part of a recension sent to Ephesus (see ROMANS, EPISTLE To). Little, however, really points to Rome and a good deal points away from it. The words in xii. 4 "Not yet unto blood have ye resisted," would ill suit Rome after the Neronian "bath of blood" in A.D. 64 (as is usually held), save at a date too late to suit the reference to Timothy. Nor does early currency in Rome count for much, any more than do the words "they of Italy salute you." Read in the light of the reference to Timothy they rather suggest that he had been in prison in Rome and was about to return, possibly in the writer's company, to the region which was apparently the headquarters of both. Now this in Timothy's case, as far as we can judge, was Ephesus; and it is natural to ask whether it will not suit all the conditions of the problem. It suits those of the readers, as analysed above, a house-church which the gospel had reached as it had also the writer himself through certain hearers of the Lord (ii. 3), not necessarily apostles (cf. the Ephesian group of Acts xix. I sqq.). And it has the merit of suggesting to us as author the very person of all those described in the New Testament who seems most capable of the task, Apollos, the learned Alexandrian (Acts xviii. 24 sqq.), connected with Ephesus and with Paul and his circle (cf. I Cor. xvi. 12), yet having his own distinctive manner of presenting the Gospel (1 Cor. iv. 6). That Apollos visited Italy during Paul's imp, isonment in Rome is a reasonable inference from Titus iii. 13 (see PAUL) ; and if so, it is quite natural that he should be there again about the time of Paul's martyrdom. With that event it is again natural to connect Timothy's imprisonment, his release from which our author records in closing; while the news of Jewish success in Paul's case would enhance any tendency among Asian Jewish Christians to shirk "boldness" of confession in fear of further aggression from their compatriots. On the chronology adopted in the article PAUL, this would yield as date for the epistle A.D. 61-62. The place of writing would be some spot in Italy ("they of Italy salute you") outside Rome, probably a port of embarkation for Asia, such as Brundisium.
Be this as it may, the epistle is of great importance, as reflecting a crisis inevitable in the develop ment of the Jewish-Christian consciousness, when a definite choice between the old and the new form of Israel's religion had to be made, both for internal and external reasons. It seems to follow directly on the situation implied by the appeal of James to Israel in dispersion, in view of Messiah's winnowing-fan in their midst (James i. 1-4, ii. 1-7, v. 1-6 and especially v. 7–II). It may well be the immediate antecedent of that revealed in I Peter, an epistle which perhaps shows traces of its influence (e.g., in i. 2, "sprink ling of the blood of Jesus Christ"). It is also of high interest theologically, as exhibiting, along with affinities to several types of New Testament teaching (see STEPHEN), a type all its own, and one which has had much influence on later Christian thought (cf. Milligan, ch. ix.) . Indeed, it shares with Romans the right to be styled "the first treatise of Christian theology."
