HEBREWS, one of the canonical books of the New Testament, usually spoken of as °The Epistle to the Hebrews.* The fact that it lacks the introductory formula naming author and recipients, to be expected in every ancient letter, has led some to deny that this writing is a letter. But this form may in this case, as often, have been placed on a separate sheet and become lost, or for some other reason have failed to be copied. At any rate many ex pressions show that it really was a letter ad dressed by some individual to a definite group of early Christians. In the King James version it was styled 'The Epistle of Paul the Apostle,* and thus has been perpetuated an early Alex andrian tradition, which later became the uni versal opinion for many centuries. But this view was at first unknown in Rome and the West, where are the earliest traces of the use of this writing, and it differs from the ac knowledged epistles of Paul in both style and thought. The language is here more idiomatic and choice; clauses and sentences are connected by an array of conjunctions largely different from those used by Paul; instead of his abrupt, almost disconnected course of expres sion, earnest to vehemence, we find in He brews a series of balanced periods, flowing smoothly even when most emphatic and a style abounding in almost artificial devices of rhetoric. There is no less difference in the theological conceptions and their presentation. While not antagonistic to Paul's doctrines, being rather complementary, the doctrinal teachings here are yet variant, as, for example, the teachings as to the divine Sonship of Christ; the nature of faith, and the value of the law of Moses.
While the Pauline authorship is now set aside as out of the question by the practically unanimous judgment of critics of every school, there is no general agreement as to who did write the book. Clement of Rome and Luke have been urged for no reasons except value less suggestions made by Clement of Alexan dria and his pupil Origen. Harnack has con jectured that it may have been written by Pris cilla in association with her husband, Aquila, but this view can satisfy only such as regard it as addressed to Roman Christians. The con jecture of Luther that Apollos was the author has been widely accepted, while the later sug gestion that it was written by Barnabas has met with the approval of many scholars of the highest rank The latter view has in its favor, to be sure, the only ancient testimony of real weight, that of Tertullian, but it must be allowed that either Barnabas or Apollos would meet all the requirements of the case so far as they are now known, and consequently that the authorship cannot be positively decided.
There is no less uncertainty in naming the persons to whom it was originally addressed. The title prefixed very early, though in all probability not originally, was To Hebrews,° and the view that it was addressed to Jewish Christians is nearly universal. Not a few scholars, however, have lately declared in favor of the view that it was written rather to Gen tile Christians. The decision hinges on the answer to the question whether the danger against which the author warns his readers is relapse into heathenism or relapse into Juda ism. On the one side it is urged that relapse into Judaism could not properly be designated (apostasy from the living God,° while on the other side it is urged that, while Judaism was in the author's mind good as compared with heathenism, yet its acceptance at cost of a sur render of all that was distinctively Christian might reasonably be styled apostasy. It has certainly seemed to most that the fact that the whole thought of the book is the superiority of Christianity over Judaism proves that the dan ger against which the first readers were warned was relapse into what the author regarded as relatively worthless because an outgrown and outworn stage of divine revelation, and that the opinion that apostasy into heathenism was the readers' danger is only can ingenious paradox,° even though an amount of ingenuity has been expended in support of this hypothesis, suffi cient to render it plausible.° To some extent the questions as to place and date depend for their answer upon the conclu sion as to the character of the first readers. If addressed to Hebrew Christians, it is scarcely possible that its date can be later than 68, just before the Jewish War which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the final removal of the danger of relapse into Judaism, while the fact that it is addressed to a second gen eration of believers and the references to the lapse of considerable time make it necessary to set the date as late as possible. If addressed to Gentile Christians, it might be dated as late as 85 or even 90. But that in any case it is a 1st-century production is guaranteed by the use made of it by Clement of Rome before the year 100.