A CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY

ON

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

BY

JAMES MOFFAT

D.D., D. Litt., Hon. M.A.(Oxon)

EDINBURGH

T & T. CLARK LIMITED, 59 GEORGE STREET

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of T. & T. Clark Ltd.

TO THE MEMORY OF

THREE SCOTTISH EXPOSITORS OF ΠΡΟΣ ΕΒΡΑΙΟΥΣ:

A. B. BRUCE,

A. B. DAVIDSON,

AND

MARCUS DODS

PREFACE

————

It is ten years since this edition was first drafted. Various interruptions, of war and peace, have prevented me from finishing it till now, and I am bound to acknowledge the courtesy and patience of the editor and the publishers. During the ten years a number of valuable contributions to the subject have appeared. Of these as well as of their predecessors I have endeavoured to take account; if I have not referred to them often, this has been due to no lack of appreciation, but simply because, in order to be concise and readable, I have found it necessary to abstain from offering any catena of opinions in this edition. The one justification for issuing another edition of ΠρὸσῈ̓βραίους seemed to me to lie in a fresh point of view, expounded in the notes—fresh, that is, in an English edition. I am more convinced than ever that the criticism of this writing cannot hope to make any positive advance except from two negative conclusions. One is, that the identity of the author and of his readers must be left in the mist where they already lay at the beginning of the second century when the guess-work, which is honoured as “tradition,” began. The other is, that the situation which called forth this remarkable piece of primitive Christian thought had nothing to do with any movement in contemporary Judaism. The writer of Πρὸς Ἐβραίους knew no Hebrew, and his readers were in no sense Ἐβραῖοι. These may sound paradoxes. I agree with those who think they are axioms. At any rate such is the point of view from which the present edition has been written; it will explain why, for example, in the Introduction there is so comparatively small space devoted to the stock questions about authorship and date.

One special reason for the delay in issuing the book has been the need of working through the materials supplied for the criticism of the text by von Soden’s Schriften des Neuen Testaments (1913) and by some subsequent discoveries, and also the need of making a first-hand study of the Wisdom literature of Hellenistic Judaism as well as of Philo. Further, I did not feel justified in annotating Πρὸς Ἐβραίους without reading through the scattered ethical and philosophical tracts and treatises of the general period, like the De Mundo and the remains of Teles and Musonius Rufus.

“A commentary,” as Dr. Johnson observed, “must arise from the fortuitous discoveries of many men in devious walks of literature.” No one can leave the criticism of a work like Πρὸς Ἐβραίους after twelve years spent upon it, without feeling deeply indebted to such writers as Chrysostom, Calvin, Bleek, Riehm, and Riggenbach, who have directly handled it. But I owe much to some eighteenth-century writings, like L.C. Valckenaer’s Scholia and G. D. Kypke’s Observationes Sacrae, as well as to other scholars who have lit up special points of interpretation indirectly. Where the critical data had been already gathered in fairly complete form, I have tried to exercise an independent judgment; also I hope some fresh ground has been broken here and there in ascertaining and illustrating the text of this early Christian masterpiece.

JAMES MOFFATT.

Glasgow, 15th February 1924.

Philo Philonis Alexandriai Opera Quae Supersunt (recognoverunt L. Cohn et P. Wendland).

INTRODUCTION

————

§ 1. Origin and Aim

(i)

During the last quarter of the first century AD a little masterpiece of religious thought began to circulate among some of the Christian communities. The earliest trace of it appears towards the end of the century, in a pastoral letter sent by the church of Rome to the church of Corinth. The authorship of this letter is traditionally assigned to a certain Clement, who probably composed it about the last decade of the century. Evidently he knew Πρὸς Ἐβραίους (as we may, for the sake of convenience, call our writing); there are several almost verbal reminiscences (cp. Dr. A. J. Carlyle in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, pp. 44 f., where the evidence is sifted). This is beyond dispute, and proves that our writing was known at Rome during the last quarter of the first century. A fair specimen of the indebtedness of Clement to our epistle may be seen in a passage like the following, where I have underlined the allusions:

36:2-5 ὃς ὢν ἀπαύγασμα τῆς μεγαλωσύνης αὐτοῦ, τοσούτῳ μείζων

ἐστὶν ἀγγέλων, ὃσῳ διαφορώτερον ὄνομα

κεκληρονόμηκεν· γέγραπται γὰρ οὕτως·

ὁ ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ πνεύματα

καὶ τοὺς λειτουργοὺς αὐτοῦ πυρὸς φλόγα.

ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ οὕτως εἶπεν ὁ δεσπότης·

υἱός μου εἶ σύ,

ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε·

αἴτησαι παρʼ ἐμοῦ, καὶ δώσω σοι ἔθνη τὴν κληρονομίαν

σου καὶ τὴν κατάσχεσίν σου τὰ πέρατα τῆς γῆς.

καὶ πάλιν λέγει πρὸς αὐτόν·

κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου,

ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου.

τίνες οὖν οἱ ἐχθροί ; οἱ φαῦλοι καὶ ἀντιτασσόμενοι τῷ

θελήματι αὐτοῦ.

To this we may add a sentence from what precedes:

36:1 Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν τὸν ἀρχιερέα τῶν προσφορῶν ἡμῶν, τὸν προστάτην καὶ βοηθὸν τῆς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν. 2:18 δύναται τοῖς πειραζομένοις βοηθῆσαι … 3:1 κατανοήσατε τὸν ἀπόστολον καὶ ἀρχιερέα τῇς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν.

The same phrase occurs twice in later doxologies, διὰ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως καὶ προστάτου (τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν, 61:3) (ἡμῶν, 64:1) Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. There is no convincing proof that Ignatius or Polykarp used Πρὸς Ἐβραίους, but the so-called Epistle of Barnabas contains some traces of it (e.g. in 4:9f. 5:5, 6 and 6:17-19). Barnabas is a second-rate interpretation of the OT ceremonial system, partly on allegorical lines, to warn Christians against having anything to do with Judaism; its motto might be taken from 3:6 ἵνά μὴ προσρησσώμεθα ὡς προσήλυτοι (v.l. ἐπήλυτοι) τῷ ἐκείνων νόμῳ. In the homily called 2 Clement our writing is freely employed, e.g. in

11:6 ὤστε, ἀδελφοί μου, μὴ διψυχῶμεν, ἀλλὰ ἐλπίσαντες ὑπομείνωμεν, ἵνα καὶτὸν μισθὸν κομισώμεθα. πιστὸς γὰρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος τὰς ἀντιμισθίας ἀποδιδόναι ἑκάστῳ ἔργων αὐτοῦ. 10:23 κατέχωμεν τὴν ὁμολογίαν τῆς ἐλπίδος ἀκλινῆ, πιστὸς γὰρ ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος.

1:6 ἀποθέμενοι ἐκεῖνο ὄ περικείμεθα νέφος τῇ αὐτοῦ θελήσει. 12:1 τοσοῦτον ἔχοντες περικείμενον ἡμῖν νέφος μαρτύρων, ὄγκον ἀποθέμενοι πάντα.

16:4 προσευχὴ δὲ ἐκ καλῆς συνειδήσεως. 13:18 προσεύχεσθε περὶ ἡμῶν· πειθὁμεθα γὰρ ὅτι καλὴν συνείδησιν ἔχομεν.

“It seems difficult, in view of the verbal coincidences, to resist the conclustion that the language of 2 Clement is unconsciously influenced by that of Hebrews” (Dr. A. J. Carlyle in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, p. 126). As 2 Clement is, in all likelihood, a product either of the Roman or of the Alexandrian church, where Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was early appreciated, this becomes doubly probable.

There is no reason why Justin Martyr, who had lived at Rome, should not have known it; but the evidence for his use of it (see on 3:1, 11:4 etc.) is barely beyond dispute. Hermas, however, knew it; the Shepherd shows repeated traces of it (cf. Zahn’s edition, pp. 439 f.). It was read in the North African church, as Tertullian’s allusion proves (see p. xvii), and with particular interest in the Alexandrian church, even before Clement wrote (cp. p. xviii). Clement’s use of it is unmistakable, though he does not show any sympathy with its ideas about sacrifice.1 Naturally a thinker like Marcion ignored it, though why it shared with First Peter the fate of exclusion from the Muratorian canon is inexplicable. However, the evidence of the second century upon the whole is sufficient to show that it was being widely circulated and appreciated as an edifying religious treatise, canonical or not.

(ii)

By this time it had received the title of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. Whatever doubts there were about the authorship, the writing never went under any title except this in the later church; which proves that, though not original, the title must be early. Ἑβραῖοι2 was intended to mean Jewish Christians. Those who affixed this title had no idea of its original destination; otherwise they would have chosen a local term, for the writing is obviously intended for a special community. They were struck by the interest of the writing in the OT sacrifices and priests, however, and imagined in a superficial way that it must have been addressed to Jewish Christians. Ἑβραῖοι was still an archaic equivalent for Ἰουδαῖοι; and those who called our writing Πρὸς Ἑβραίους must have imagined that it had been originally meant for Jewish (i.e. Hebrew-speaking) Christians in Palestine, or, in a broader sense, for Christians who had been born in Judaism. The latter is more probable. Where the title originated we cannot say; the corresponding description of 1 Peter as ad gentes originated in the Western church, but Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is common both to the Western and the Eastern churches. The very fact that so vague and misleading a title was added, proves that by the second century all traces of the original destination of the writing had been lost. It is, like the Ad Familiares of Cicero’s correspondence, one of the erroneous titles in ancient literature, “hardly more than a reflection of the impression produced on an early copyist” (W. Robertson Smith). The reason why the original destination had been lost sight of, was probably the fact that it was a small household church—not one of the great churches, but a more limited circle, which may have become merged in the larger local church as time went on. Had it been sent, for example, to any large church like that at Rome or Alexandria, there would have been neither the need nor the opportunity for changing the title to Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. Our writing is not a manifesto to Jewish Christians in general, or to Palestinian Jewish Christians, as πρὸς Ἑβραίους would imply; indeed it is not addressed to Jewish Christians at all. Whoever were its original readers, they belonged to a definite, local group or circle. That is the first inference from the writing itself; the second is, that they were not specifically Jewish Christians. The canonical title has had an unfortunate influence upon the interpretation of the writing (an influence which is still felt in some quarters). It has been responsible for the idea, expressed in a variety of forms, that the writer is addressing Jewish Christians in Palestine or elsewhere who were tempted, e.g., by the war of a.d. 66-70, to fall back into Judaism; and even those who cannot share this view sometimes regard the readers as swayed by some hereditary associations with their old faith, tempted by the fascinations of a ritual, outward system of religion, to give up the spiritual messianism of the church. All such interpretations are beside the point. The writter never mentions Jews or Christians. He views his readers without any distinction of this kind; to him they are in danger of relapsing, but there is not a suggestion that the relapse is into Judaism, or that he is trying to wean them from a preoccupation with Jewish religion. He never refers to the temple, any more than to circumcision. It is the tabernacle of the pentateuch which interests him, and all his knowledge of the Jewish ritual is gained from the LXX and later tradition. The LXX is for him and his readers the codex of their religion, the appeal to which was cogent, for Gentile Christians, in the early church. As Christians, his readers accepted the LXX as their bible. It was superfluous to argue for it; he could argue from it, as Paul had done, as a writer like Clement of Rome did afterwards. How much the LXX meant to Gentile Christians, may be seen in the case of a man like Tatian, for example, who explicitly declares that he owed to reading of the OT his conversion to Christianity (Ad Graecos, 29). It is true that our author, in arguing that Christ had to suffer, does not appeal to the LXX. But this is an idiosyncrasy, which does not affect the vital significance of the LXX prophecies. The Christians to whom he was writing had learned to appreciate their LXX as an authority, by their membership in the church. Their danger was not an undervaluing of the LXX as authoritative; it was a moral and mental danger, which the writer seeks to meet by showing how great their religion was intrinsically. This he could only do ultimately by assuming that they admitted the appeal to their bible, just as they admitted the divine Sonship of Jesus. There may have been Christians of Jewish birth among his readers; but he addresses his circle, irrespective of their origin, as all members of the People of God, who accept the Book of God. The writing, in short, might have been called ad gentes as aptly as First Peter, which also describes Gentile Christians as ὁ λαός, the People (cp. on 2:17). The readers were not in doubt of their religion. Its basis was unquestioned. What the trouble was, in their case, was no theoretical doubt about the codex or the contents of Christianity, but a practical failure to be loyal to their principles, which the writer seeks to meet by recalling them to the full meaning and responsibility of their faith; naturally he takes them to the common ground of the sacred LXX.

We touch here the question of the writer’s aim. But, before discussing this, a word must be said about the authorship.

Had Πρὸς Ἑβραίους been addressed to Jews, the title would have been intelligible. Not only was there a [συνα]γωγὴ Ἑβρ[αίων] at Corinth (cp. Deissmann’s Light from the East, pp. 13, 14), but a συναγωγὴ Αἱβρέων at Rome (cp. Schürer’s Geschichte des Jüd. Volkes3, iii. 46). Among the Jewish συναγωγαί mentioned in the Roman epitaphs (cp. N. Müller’s Die jüdische Katakombe am Monteverde zu Rom …, Leipzig, 1912, pp. 110f.), there is one of Ἑβρέοι, which Müller explains as in contrast to the synagogue of “vernaclorum” (Βερνάκλοι, βερνακλήσιοι), i.e. resident Jews as opposed to immigrants; though it seems truer, with E. Bormann (Wiener Studien, 1912, pp. 383 f.), to think of some Kultgemeinde which adhered to the use of Hebrew, or which, at any rate, was of Palestinian origin or connexion.

(iii)

The knowledge of who the author was must have disappeared as soon as the knowledge of what the church was, for whom he wrote. Who wrote Πρὸς Ἑβραίους? We know as little of this as we do of the authorship of The Whole Duty of Man, that seventeenth-century classic of English piety. Conjectures sprang up, early in the second century, but by that time men were no wiser than we are. The mere fact that some said Barnabas, some Paul, proves that the writing had been circulating among the adespota. It was perhaps natural that our writing should be assigned to Barnabas, who, as a Levite, might be supposed to take a special interest in the ritual of the temple—the very reason which led to his association with the later Epistle of Barnabas. Also, he was called υἱὸς παρακλήσεως (Acts 4:36), which seemed to tally with Hebrews 13:22 (τοῦ λόγου τῆς παρακλήσεως), just as the allusion to “beloved” in Psalm 127:2 ( = 2 S 12:24f.) was made to justify the attribution of the psalm to king Solomon. The difficulty about applying 2:8 to a man like Barnabas was overlooked, and in North Africa, at any rate, the (Roman?) tradition of his authorship prevailed, as Tertullian’s words in de pudicitia 20 show: “volo ex redundantia alicuius etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superinducere, idoneum confirmandi de proximo jure disciplinam magistrorum. Extat enim et Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos, adeo satis auctoritati viri, ut quem Paulus juxta se constituerit in abstinentiae tenore: ‘aut ego solus et Barnabas non habemus hoc operandi potestatem?’ (1 Corinthians 9:6). Et utique receptior apud ecclesias epistola Barnabae illo apocrypho Pastore moechorum. Monens itaque discipulos, omissis omnibus initiis, ad perfectionem magis tendere,” etc. (quoting Hebrews 6:4f.). What appeals to Tertullian in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is its uncompromising denial of any second repentance. His increasing sympathy with the Montanists had led him to take a much less favourable view of the Shepherd of Hermas than he had once entertained; he now contrasts its lax tone with the rigour of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, and seeks to buttress his argument on this point by insisting as much as he can on the authority of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους as a production of the apostolic Barnabas. Where this tradition originated we cannot tell. Tertullian refers to it as a fact, not as an oral tradition; he may have known some MS of the writing with the title Βαρνάβα πρὸς Ἑβραίους (ἐπιστολή), and this may have come from Montanist circles in Asia Minor, as Zahn suggests. But all this is guessing in the dark about a guess in the dark.

Since Paul was the most considerable letter-writer of the primitive church, it was natural that in some quarters this anonymous writing should be assigned to him, as was done apparently in the Alexandrian church, although even there scholarly readers felt qualms at an early period, and endeavoured to explain the idiosyncrasies of style by supposing that some disciple of Paul, like Luke, translated it from Hebrew into Greek. This Alexandrian tradition of Paul’s authorship was evidently criticized in other quarters, and the controversy drew from Origen the one piece of enlightened literary criticism which the early discussions produced. Ὅτι ὁ χαρακτὴρ τῆς λέξεως τῆς πρὸς Ἑβραίους ἐπιγεγραμμένης ἐπιστολῆς οὐκ ἔχει τὸ ἐν λόγῳ ἰδιωτικὸν τοῦ ἀποστόλου, ὁμολογήσαντος ἑαυτὸν ἰδιώτην εἶναι τῷ λόγῳ (2 Corinthians 11:6), τουτέστι τῇ φράσει, ἀλλὰ ἐστὶν ἡ ἐπιστολὴ συνθέσει τῆς λέξεως Ἑλληνικωτέρα, πᾶς ὁ ἐπιστάμενος κρίνειν φράσεων διαφορὰς ὁμολογήσαι ἄν. πάλιν τε αὖ ὅτι τὰ νοήματα τῆς ἐπιστολῆς θαυμάσιά ἐστι, καὶ οὐ δεύτερα τῶν ἀποστολικῶν ὁμολογουμένων γραμμάτων, καὶ τοῦτο ἂν συμφήσαι εἶναι ἀληθὲς πᾶς ὁ προσέχων τῇ ἀναγνώσει τῇ ἀποστολικῆ… Ἐγὼ δὲ ἀποφαινόμενος εἴποιμʼ ἂν ὅτι τὰ μὲν νοήματα τοῦ ἀποστόλου ἐστίν, ἡ δὲ φράσις καὶ ἡ σύνθεσις ἀπομνημονεύσαντός τινος τὰ ἀποστολικά, καὶ ὡσπερεὶ σχολιογραφήσαντός τινος τὰ εἰρημένα ὑπὸ τοῦ διδασκάλου. εἴ τις οὖν ἐκκλησία ἔχει ταύτην τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ὡς Παύλου, αὔτη εὐδοκιμείτω καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ. οὐ γὰρ εἰκῇ οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ἄνδρες ὡς Παύλου αὐτὴν παραδεδώκασι. τίς δὲ ὁ γράψας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν, τὸ μὲν ἀληθὲς θεὸς οἶδεν (quoted by Eusebius, H.E. vi. 25. 11-14).1. Origen is too good a scholar to notice the guess that it was a translation from Hebrew, but he adds, ἡ δὲ εἰς ἡμᾶς φθάσασα ἱστορία, ὑπό τινων μὲν λεγόντων, ὅτι Κλήμης ὁ γενόμενος ἐπίσκοπος Ῥωμαίων ἔγραψε τὴν ἐπιστολὴν, ὑπό τινων δὲ ὅτι Λουκᾶς ὁ γράψας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ τὰς Πράξεις. The idea that Clement of Rome wrote it was, of course, an erroneous deduction from the echoes of it in his pages, almost as unfounded as the notion that Luke wrote it, either independently or as an amanuensis of Paul—a view probably due ultimately to the explanation of how his gospel came to be an apostolic, canonical work. Origen yields more to the “Pauline” interpretation of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους than is legitimate; but, like Erasmus at a later day,2 he was living in an environment where the “Pauline” tradition was almost a note of orthodoxy. Even his slight scruples failed to keep the question open. In the Eastern church, any hesitation soon passed away, and the scholarly scruples of men like Clement of Alexandria and Origen made no impression on the church at large. It is significant, for example, that when even Eusebius comes to give his own opinion (H.E. iii. 38. 2), he alters the hypothesis about Clement of Rome, and makes him merely the translator of a Pauline Hebrew original, not the author of a Greek original. As a rule, however, Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was accepted as fully Pauline, and passed into the NT canon of the Asiatic, the Egyptian, and the Syriac churches without question. In the Syriac canon of a.d. 400 (text as in Souter’s Text and Canon of NT, p. 226), indeed, it stands next to Romans in the list of Paul’s epistles (see below, § 4). Euthalius, it is true, about the middle of the fifth century, argues for it in a way that indicates a current of opposition still flowing in certain quarters, but ecclesiastically Πρὸς Ἑβραίους in the East as a Pauline document could defy doubts. The firm conviction of the Eastern church as a whole comes out in a remark like that of Apollinarius the bishop of Laodicea, towards the close of the fourth century: ποῦ γέγραπται ὅτι χαρακτήρ ἐστι τῆς ὑποστάσεως ὁ υἱός ; παρὰ τῷ ἀποστόλῳ Παύλῳ ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἑβραίους. Οὐκ ἐκκλησιάζεται. Ἀφʼ οὗ κατηγγέλη τὸ εὐαγγέλιον Χριστοῦ, Παύλου εἶναι πεπίστευται ἡ ἐπιστολή (Dial. de sancta Trin. 922).

It was otherwise in the Western church, where Πρὸς Ἐβραίους was for long either read simply as an edifying treatise, or, if regarded as canonical, assigned to some anonymous apostolic writer rather than to Paul. Possibly the use made of Πρὸς Ἐβραίους by the Montanists and the Novatians, who welcomed its denial of a second repentance, compromised it in certain quarters. Besides, the Roman church had never accepted the Alexandrian tradition of Paul’s authorship. Hence, even when, on its merits, it was admitted to the canon, there was a strong tendency to treat it as anonymous, as may be seen, for example, in Augustine’s references. Once in the canon, however, it gradually acquired a Pauline prestige, and, as Greek scholarship faded, any scruples to the contrary became less and less intelligible. It was not till the study of Greek revived again, at the dawn of the Reformation, that the question was reopened.

The data in connexion with the early fortunes of ΠρὸσἙβραίους in church history belong to text-books on the Canon, like Zahn’s Geschichte d. NT Kanons, i. 283 f., 577 f., ii. 160 f., 358 f.; Leipoldt’s Geschichte d. NT Kanons, i. pp. 188 f., 219 f.; and Jacquier’s Le Nouveau Testament dans L’Église chrétienne, i. (1911).

Few characters mentioned in the NT have escaped the attention of those who have desired in later days to identify the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. Apollos, Peter, Philip, Silvanus, and even Prisca have been suggested, besides Aristion, the alleged author of Mark 16:9-20. I have summarized these views elsewhere (Introd. to Lit. of NT.3, pp. 438-442), and it is superfluous here to discuss hypotheses which are in the main due to an irrepressible desire to construct NT romances. Perhaps our modern pride resents being baffled by an ancient document, but it is better to admit that we are not yet wiser on this matter than Origen was, seventeen centuries ago. The author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους cannot be identified with any figure known to us in the primitive Christian tradition. He left great prose to some little clan of early Christians, but who they were and who he was, τὸ μὲν ἀληθὲς θεὸς οἶδεν. To us he is a voice and no more. The theory which alone explains the conflicting traditions is that for a time the writing was circulated as an anonymous tract. Only on this hypothesis can the simultaneous emergence of the Barnabas and the Paul traditions in different quarters be explained, as well as the persistent tradition in the Roman church that it was anonymous. As Zahn sensibly concludes, “those into whose hands Πρὸς Ἑβραίους came either looked upon it as an anonymous writing from ancient apostolic times, or else resorted to conjecture. If Paul did not write it, they thought, then it must have been composed by some other prominent teacher of the apostolic church. Barnabas was such a man.” In one sense, it was fortunate that the Pauline hypothesis prevailed so early and so extensively, for apart from this help it might have been difficult for Πρὸς Ἑβραίους to win or to retain its place in the canon. But even when it had been lodged securely inside the canon, some Western churchmen still clung for a while to the old tradition of its anonymity,1 although they could do no more than hold this as a pious opinion. The later church was right in assigning Πρὸς Ἑβραίους a canonical position. The original reasons might be erroneous or doubtful, but even in the Western church, where they continued to be questioned, there was an increasing indisposition to challenge their canonical result.

(iv)

Thrown back, in the absence of any reliable tradition, upon the internal evidence, we can only conclude that the writer was one of those personalities in whom the primitive church was more rich than we sometimes realize. “Si l’on a pu comparer saint Paul à Luther,” says Ménégoz, “nous comparerions volontiers l’auteur de l’Épître aux Hébreux à Mélanchthon.” He was a highly trained διδάσκαλος, perhaps a Jewish Christian, who had imbibed the philosophy of Alexandrian Judaism before his conversion, a man of literary culture and deep religious feeling. He writes to what is apparently a small community or circle of Christians, possibly one of the household-churches, to which he was attached. For some reason or another he was absent from them, and, although he hopes to rejoin them before long, he feels moved to send them this letter (13:23f.) to rally them. It is possible to infer from 13:24 (see note) that they belonged to Italy; in any case, Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was written either to or from some church in Italy. Beyond the fact that the writer and his readers had been evangelized by some of the disciples of Jesus (2:3, 4), we know nothing more about them. The words in 2:3, 4 do not mean that they belonged to the second generation, of course, in a chronological sense, for such words would have applied to the converts of any mission during the first thirty years or so after the crucifixion, and the only other inference to be drawn, as to the date, is from passages like 10:32f. and 13:7, viz. that the first readers of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους were not neophytes; they had lived through some rough experiences, and indeed their friend expects from them a maturity of experience and intelligence which he is disappointed to miss (5:11f.); also, their original leaders have died, probably as martyrs (cp. on 13:7). For these and other reasons, a certain sense of disillusionment had begun to creep over them. Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is a λόγος παρακλήσεως, to steady and rally people who are πειραζόμενοι, their temptation being to renounce God, or at least to hesitate and retreat, to relax the fibre of loyal faith, as if God were too difficult to follow in the new, hard situation. Once, at the outset of their Christian career, they had been exposed to mobrioting (10:32f.), when they had suffered losses of property, for the sake of the gospel, and also the loud jeers and sneers which pagans and Jews alike heaped sometimes upon the disciples. This they had borne manfully, in the first glow of their enthusiasm. Now, the more violent forms of persecution had apparently passed; what was left was the dragging experience of contempt at the hand of outsiders, the social ostracism and shame, which were threatening to take the heart out of them. Such was their rough, disconcerting environment. Unless an illegitimate amount of imagination is applied to the internal data, they cannot be identified with what is known of any community in the primitive church, so scanty is our information. Least of all is it feasible to connect them with the supposed effects of the Jewish rebellion which culminated in a.d. 70. Πρὸς Ἑβραίους cannot be later than about a.d. 85, as the use of it in Clement of Rome’s epistle proves; how much earlier it is, we cannot say, but the controversy over the Law, which marked the Pauline phase, is evidently over.

It is perhaps not yet quite superfluous to point out that the use of the present tense (e.g. in 7:8, 20, 8:8f., 9:6f., 13:10) is no clue to the date, as though this implied that the Jewish temple was still standing. The writer is simply using the historic present of actions described in scripture. It is a literary method which is common in writings long after a.d. 70, e.g. in Josephus, who observes (c. Apion, i. 7) that any priest who violates a Mosaic regulation ἀπηγόρευται μήτε τοῖς βωμοῖς παρίστασθαι μήτε μετέχειν τῆς ἄλλης ἁγιστείας (so Ant. iii. 6. 7-12, xiv. 2. 2, etc.). Clement of Rome similarly writes as though the Mosaic ritual were still in existence (40-41, τῷ γὰρ ἀρχιερεῖ ἴδιαι λειτουργίαι δεδομέναι εἰσίν … καὶ Λευΐταις ἴδιαι διακονίαι ἐπίκεινται … προσφέρονται θυσίαι ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ μόνῃ), and the author of the Ep. ad Diognet. 3 writes that οἰ δέ γε θυσίαις αὐτῷ δἰ αἵματος καὶ κνίσης καὶ ὸλοκαυτωμάτων ἐπιτελεῖν οἰόμενοι καὶ ταύταις ταῖς τιμαῖς αὐτὸν γεραίρειν, οὐδέν μοι δοκοῦσι διαφέρειν τῶν εἰς τὰ κωφὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἐνδεικνυμένων φιλοτιμίαν. The idea that the situation of the readers was in any way connected with the crisis of a.d. 66-70 in Palestine is unfounded. Πρὸς Ἑβραίους has nothing to do with the Jewish temple, nor with Palestinian Christians. There is not a syllable in the writing which suggests that either the author or his readers had any connexion with or interest in the contemporary temple and ritual of Judaism; their existence mattered as little to his idealist method of argument as their abolition. When he observes (8:13) that the old διαθήκη was ἐγγὺς ἀφανισμοῦ, all he means is that the old régime, superseded now by Jesus, was decaying even in Jeremiah’s age.

(v)

The object of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους may be seen from a brief analysis of its contents. The writer opens with a stately paragraph, introducing the argument that Jesus Christ as the Son of God is superior (κρείττων) to angels, in the order of revelation (1:1-2:18), and this, not in spite of but because of his incarnation and sufferings. He is also superior (κρείττων) even to Moses (3:1-6a), as a Son is superior to a servant. Instead of pursuing the argument further, the writer then gives an impressive bible reading on the 95th psalm, to prove that the People of God have still assured to them, if they will only have faith, the divine Rest in the world to come (3:6b-4:13). Resuming his argument, the writer now begins to show how Jesus as God’s Son is superior to the Aaronic high priest (4:14-5:10). This is the heart of his subject, and he stops for a moment to rouse the attention of his readers (5:11-6:20) before entering upon the high theme. By a series of skilful transitions he has passed on from the Person of the Son, which is uppermost in chs. 1-4, to the Priesthood of the Son, which dominates chs. 7-8. Jesus as High Priest mediates a superior (κρείττων) order of religion or διαθήκη than that under which Aaron and his successors did their work for the People of God, and access to God, which is the supreme need of men, is now secured fully and finally by the relation of Jesus to God, in virtue of his sacrifice (6:20-8:13). The validity of this sacrifice is then proved (9:1-10:18); it is absolutely efficacious, as no earlier sacrifice of victims could be, in securing forgiveness and fellowship for man. The remainder of the writing (10:19-13:24) is a series of impressive appeals for constancy. The first (10:19-31) is a skilful blend of encouragement and warning. He then appeals to the fine record of his readers (10:32f.), bidding them be worthy of their own past, and inciting them to faith in God by reciting a great roll-call of heroes and heroines belonging to God’s People in the past, from Abel to the Maccabean martyrs (11:1-40). He further kindles their imagination and conscience by holding up Jesus as the Supreme Leader of all the faithful (12:1-8), even along the path of suffering; besides, he adds (12:4-11), suffering is God’s discipline for those who belong to his household. To prefer the world (12:12-17) is to incur a fearful penalty; the one duty for us is to accept the position of fellowship with God, in a due spirit of awe and grateful confidence (12:18-29). A brief note of some ethical duties follows (13:1-7), with a sudden warning against some current tendencies to compromise their spiritual religion (13:8-16). A postscript (13:17-24), with some personalia, ends the epistle.

It is artificial to divide up a writing of this kind, which is not a treatise on theology, and I have therefore deliberately abstained from introducing any formal divisions and subdivisions in the commentary. The flow of thought, with its turns and windings, is best followed from point to point. So far as the general plan goes, it is determined by the idea of the finality of the Christian revelation in Jesus the Son of God. This is brought out (A) by a proof that he is superior to angels (1:1-2:18) and Moses (3:1-6a), followed by the special exhortation of 3:6b-4:13. Thus far it is what may be termed the Personality of the Son which is discussed. Next (B) comes the Son as High Priest (4:14-7:28), including the parenthetical exhortation of 5:11-6:20. The (C) Sacrifice of this High Priest in his Sanctuary then (8:1-10:18) is discussed, each of the three arguments, which are vitally connected, laying stress from one side or another upon the absolute efficacy of the revelation. This is the dominant idea of the writing, and it explains the particular line which the writer strikes out. He takes a very serious view of the position of his friends and readers. They are disheartened and discouraged for various reasons, some of which are noted in the course of the epistle. There is the strain of hardship, the unpleasant experience of being scoffed at, and the ordinary temptations of immorality, which may bring them, if they are not careful, to the verge of actual apostasy. The writer appears to feel that the only way to save them from ruining themselves is to put before them the fearful and unsuspected consequences of their failure. Hence three times over the writer draws a moving picture of the fate which awaits apostates and renegades (6:4f, 10:26f., 12:15f.). But the special line of argument which he adopts in 5-10:18 must be connected somehow with the danger in which he felt his friends involved, and this is only to be explained if we assume that their relaxed interest in Christianity arose out of an imperfect conception of what Jesus meant for their faith. He offers no theoretical disquisition; it is to reinforce and deepen their conviction of the place of Jesus in religion, that he argues, pleads, and warns, dwelling on the privileges and responsibilities of the relationship in which Jesus had placed them. All the help they needed, all the hope they required, lay in the access to God mediated by Jesus, if they would only realize it.

This is what makes the writing of special interest. In the first place (a) the author is urged by a practical necessity to think out his faith, or rather to state the full content of his faith, for the benefit of his readers. Their need puts him on his mettle. “Une chose surtant,” says Anatole France, “donne le l’attrait à la pensée des hommes: c’est l’inquiétude. Un esprit qui n’est point anxieux m’irrite ou m’ennuie.” In a sense all the NT writers are spurred by this anxiety, but the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους pre-eminently. It is not anxiety about his personal faith, nor about the prospects of Christianity, but about the loyalty of those for whom he feels himself responsible; his very certainty of the absolute value of Christianity makes him anxious when he sees his friends ready to give it up, anxious on their behalf, and anxious to bring out as lucidly and persuasively as possible the full meaning of the revelation of God in Jesus. What he writes is not a theological treatise in cold blood, but a statement of the faith, alive with practical interest. The situation of his readers has stirred his own mind, and he bends all his powers of thought and emotion to rally them. There is a vital urgency behind what he writes for his circle. But (b), more than this, the form into which he throws his appeal answers to the situation of his readers. He feels that the word for them is the absolute worth of Jesus as the Son of God; it is to bring this out that he argues, in the middle part of his epistle, so elaborately and anxiously about the priesthood and sacrifice of Jesus. The idealistic conception of the two spheres, the real and eternal, and the phenomenal (which is the mere σκιά and ὑπόδειγμα, a παραβολή, an ἀντίτυπον of the former), is applied to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which inaugurates and realizes the eternal διαθήκη between God and man. In a series of contrasts, he brings out the superiority of this revelation to the OT διαθήκη with its cultus. But not because the contemporary form of the latter had any attractions for his readers. It is with the archaic σκηνή described in the OT that he deals, in order to elucidate the final value of Jesus and his sacrifice under the new διαθήκη, which was indeed the real and eternal one. To readers like his friends, with an imperfect sense of all that was contained in their faith, he says, “Come back to your bible, and see how fully it suggests the positive value of Jesus.” Christians were finding Christ in the LXX, especially his sufferings in the prophetic scriptures, but our author falls back on the pentateuch and the psalter especially to illustrate the commanding position of Jesus as the Son of God in the eternal διαθήκη, and the duties as well as the privileges of living under such a final revelation, where the purpose and the promises of God for his People are realized as they could not be under the OT διαθήκη. Why the writer concentrates upon the priesthood and sacrifice of Jesus in this eternal order of things, is due in part to his general conception of religion (see pp. xliii f.). For him there could be no religion without a priest. But this idea is of direct service to his readers, as he believes. Hence the first mention of Jesus as ἀρχιερεύς occurs as a reason for loyalty and confidence (2:14f.). Nothing is more practical in religion than an idea, a relevant idea powerfully urged. When the writer concentrates for a while upon this cardinal idea of Jesus as ἀρχιερεύς, therefore, it is because nothing can be more vital, he thinks, for his friends than to show them the claims and resources of their faith, disclosing the rich and real nature of God’s revelation to them in his Son. Access to God, confidence in God, pardon for sins of the past, and hope for the future—all this is bound up with the διαθήκη of Christ, and the writer reveals it between the lines of the LXX, to which as members of the People of God his friends naturally turned for instruction and revelation. This διαθήκη, he argues, is far superior to the earlier one, as the Son of God is superior to angels and to Moses himself; nay more, it is superior in efficacy, as the real is superior to its shadowy outline, for the sacrifice which underlies any διαθήκη is fulfilled in Christ as it could not be under the levitical cultus. The function of Christ as high priest is to mediate the direct access of the People to God, and all this has been done so fully and finally that Christians have simply to avail themselves of its provisions for their faith and need.

What the writer feels called upon to deal with, therefore, is not any sense of disappointment in his readers that they had not an impressive ritual or an outward priesthood, nor any hankering after such in contemporary Judaism; it is a failure to see that Christianity is the absolute religion, a failure which is really responsible for the unsatisfactory and even the critical situation of the readers. To meet this need, the writer argues as well as exhorts. He seeks to show from the LXX how the Christian faith alone fulfils the conditions of real religion, and as he knows no other religion than the earlier phase in Israel, he takes common ground with his readers on the LXX record of the first διαθήκη, in order to let them see even there the implications and anticipations of the higher.

But while the author never contemplates any fusion of Christianity with Jewish legalism, and while the argument betrays no trace of Jewish religion as a competing attraction for the readers, it might be argued that some speculative Judaism had affected the mind of the readers. No basis for this can be found in 13:9f. Yet if there were any proselytes among the readers, they may have felt the fascination of the Jewish system, as those did afterwards who are warned by Ignatius (ad Philad. 6, etc.), “Better listen to Christianity from a circumcised Christian than to Judaism from one uncircumcised.” “It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and ἰουδαΐζειν” (ad Magnes. 10). This interpretation was put forward by Häring (Studien und Kritiken, 1891, pp. 589 f.), and it has been most ingeniously argued by Professor Purdy (Expositor8, xix. pp. 123-139), who thinks that the emphasis upon “Jesus” means that the readers were exposed to the seductions of a liberal Judaism which offered an escape from persecution and other difficulties by presenting a Christ who was spiritual, divorced from history; that this liberal, speculative Judaism came forward as “a more developed and perfected type of religion than Christianity”; and that, without being legalistic, it claimed to be a traditional, ritualistic faith, which was at once inward and ceremonial. The objection to such interpretations,1 however, is that they explain ignotum per ignotius. We know little or nothing of such liberal Judaism in the first century, any more than of a tendency on the part of Jewish Christians to abandon Christianity about a.d. 70 for their ancestral faith. Indeed any influence of Jewish propaganda, ritualistic or latitudinarian, must be regarded as secondary, at the most, in the situation of the readers as that is to be inferred from Πρὸς Ἑβραίους itself. When we recognize the real method and aim of the writer, it becomes clear that he was dealing with a situation which did not require .any such influence to account for it. The form taken by his argument is determined by the conception, or rather the misconception, of the faith entertained by his friends; and this in turn is due not to any political or racial factors, but to social and mental causes, such as are sufficiently indicated in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους itself. Had the danger been a relapse into Judaism of any kind, it would have implied a repudiation of Jesus Christ as messiah and divine—the very truth which the writer can assume! What he needs to do is not to defend this, but to develop it.

The writing, therefore, for all its elaborate structure, has a spontaneous aim. It is not a homily written at large, to which by some afterthought, on the part of the writer or of some editor, a few personalia have been appended in ch. 13. The argumentative sections bear directly and definitely upon the situation of the readers, whom the writer has in view throughout, even when he seems to be far from their situation. Which brings us to the problem of the literary structure of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους.

(vi)

See especially W. Wrede’s monograph, Das literarische Rätsel d. Hebräerbriefs (1906), with the essays of E. Burggaller and R. Perdelwitz in Zeitschrift für Neutest. Wissenschaft (1908, pp. 110 f.; 1910, pp. 59 f., 105 f.); V. Monod’s De titulo epistulae vulgo ad Hebraeos inscriptae (1910); C. C. Torrey’s article in the Journal of Biblical Literature (1911), pp. 137-156; J. W. Slot’s De letterkundige vorm v. d. Brief aan de Hebräer (1912), with J. Quentel’s essay in Revue Biblique (1912, pp. 50f.) and M. Jones paper in Expositor8, xii. 426 f.

The literary problem of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is raised by the absence of any address and the presence of personal matter in ch. 13. Why (a) has it no introductory greeting? And why (b) has it a postscript? As for the former point (a), there may have been, in the original, an introductory title. Πρὸς Ἑβραίους opens with a great sentence (1:1f.), but Ephesians 1:8f. is just such another, and there is no reason why the one should not have followed a title-address any more than the other.1 It may have been lost by accident, in the tear and wear of the manuscript, for such accidents are not unknown in ancient literature. This is, at any rate, more probable than the idea that it was suppressed because the author (Barnabas, Apollos?) was not of sufficiently apostolic rank for the canon. Had this interest been operative, it would have been perfectly easy to alter a word or two in the address itself. Besides, Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was circulating long before it was admitted to the canon, and it circulated even afterwards as non-canonical; yet not a trace of any address, Pauline or non-Pauline, has ever survived. Which, in turn, tells against the hypothesis that such ever existed—at least, against the theory that it was deleted when the writing was canonized. If the elision of the address ever took place, it must have been very early, and rather as the result of accident than deliberately. Yet there is no decisive reason why the writing should not have begun originally as it does in its present form. Nor does this imply (b) that the personal data in ch. 13 are irrelevant. Πρὸς Ἑβραίους has a certain originality in form as well as in content; it is neither an epistle nor a homily, pure and simple. True, down to 12:29 (or 13:17) there is little or nothing that might not have been spoken by a preacher to his audience, and Valckenaer (on 4:3) is right, so far, in saying, “haec magnifica ad Hebraeos missa dissertatio oratio potius dicenda est quam epistola.” Yet the writer is not addressing an ideal public; he is not composing a treatise for Christendom at large. It is really unreal to explain away passages like 5:11f, 10:32f, 12:4f. and 13:1-9 as rhetorical abstractions.

Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was the work of a διδάσκαλος, who knew how to deliver a λόγος παρακλήσεως. Parts of it probably represent what he had used in preaching already (e.g. 3:7). But, while it has sometimes the tone of sermon notes written out, it is not a sermon in the air. To strike out 13:19, 22-24 or 13:1-7, 16-19, 22f. (Torrey)1 does not reduce it from a letter or epistle to a sermon like 2 Clement. Thus, e.g., a phrase like 11:32 (see note) is as intelligible in a written work as in a spoken address. It is only by emptying passages like 5:11f. and 10:32f. of their full meaning that anyone can speak of the writer as composing a sermon at large or for an ideal public. Part of the force of 5:11f., e.g., is due to the fact that the writer is dealing with a real situation, pleading that in what he is going to say he is not writing simply to display his own talent or to please himself, but for the serious, urgent need of his readers. They do not deserve what he is going to give them. But he will give it! A thoroughly pastoral touch, which is lost by being turned into a rhetorical excuse for deploying some favourite ideas of his own. According to Wrede, the author wrote in 13:18, 19 on the basis of (Philemon 1:22) 2 Corinthians 1:11, 2 Corinthians 1:12 to make it appear as though Paul was the author, and then added 13:23 on the basis of Php 2:19, Php 2:23, Php 2:24; but why he should mix up these reminiscences, which, according to Wrede, are contradictory, it is difficult to see. Had he wished to put a Pauline colour into the closing paragraphs, he would surely have done it in a lucid, coherent fashion, instead of leaving the supposed allusions to Paul’s Roman imprisonment so enigmatic. But, though Wrede thinks that the hypothesis of a pseudonymous conclusion is the only way of explaining the phenomena of ch. 13, he agrees that to excise it entirely is out of the question. Neither the style nor the contents justify such a radical theory,2 except on the untenable hypothesis that 1-12 is a pure treatise. The analogies of a doxology being followed by personal matter (e.g. 2 Timothy 4:18, 1P 4:11 etc.) tell against the idea that Πρὸς Ἑβραίους must have ended with 13:21, and much less could it have ended with 13:17. To assume that the writer suddenly bethought him, at the end, of giving a Pauline appearance to what he had written, and that he therefore added 13:22f., is to credit him with too little ability. Had he wished to convey this impression, he would certainly have gone further and made changes in the earlier part. Nor is it likely that anyone added the closing verses in order to facilitate its entrance into the NT canon by bringing it into line with the other epistles. The canon was drawn up for worship, and if Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was originally a discourse, it seems very unlikely that anyone would have gone out of his way, on this occasion, to add some enigmatic personal references. In short, while Πρὸς Ἑβραίονς betrays here and there the interests and methods of an effective preacher, the epistolary form is not a piece of literary fiction; still less is it due (in ch. 13) to some later hand. It is hardly too much to say that the various theories about the retouching of the 13th chapter of Πρὸς Ἑβραίονς are as valuable, from the standpoint of literary criticism, as Macaulay’s unhesitating belief that Dr. Johnson had revised and retouched Cecilia.

§ 2. The Religious Ideas

In addition to the text-books on NT theology, consult Riehm’s Lehrbegriff des Hebräerbriefs2 (1867), W. Milligan’s Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord (1891), Ménégoz’s La Théologie de l’ Épître aux Hébreux (1894), A. Seeberg’s Der Tod Christi (1895), A. B. Bruce’s The Epistle to the Hebrews (1899), G. Milligan’s The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (1899), G. Vos on “The Priesthood of Christ in Hebrews” (Princeton Theological Review, 1907, pp. 423 f., 579 f.), Du Bose’s Highpriesthood and Sacrifice (1908), A. Nairne’s The Epistle of Priesthood (1913), H. L. MacNeill’s Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (1914), H. A. A. Kennedy’s Theology of the Epistles (1919, pp. 182-221), and E. F. Scott’s The Epistle to the Hebrews (1922).

Many readers who are not children will understand what Mr Edmund Gosse in Father and Son (pp. 89 f.) describes, in telling how his father read aloud to him the epistle. “The extraordinary beauty of the language—for instance, the matchless cadences and images of the first chapter—made a certain impression upon my imagination, and were (I think) my earliest initiation into the magic of literature. I was incapable of defining what I felt, but I certainly had a grip in the throat, which was in its essence a purely aesthetic emotion, when my father read, in his pure, large, ringing voice, such passages as ‘The heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.’ But the dialectic parts of the epistle puzzled and confused me. Such metaphysical ideas as ‘laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works’ and ‘crucifying the Son of God afresh’ were not successfully brought down to the level of my understanding. … The melodious language, the divine forensic audacities, the magnificent ebb and flow of argument which make the Epistle to the Hebrews such a miracle, were far beyond my reach, and they only bewildered me.” They become less bewildering when they are viewed in the right perspective. The clue to them lies in the philosophical idea which dominates the outlook of the writer, and in the symbolism which, linked to this idea, embodied his characteristic conceptions of religion. We might almost say that, next to the deflecting influence of the tradition which identified our epistle with the Pauline scheme of thought and thereby missed its original and independent contribution to early Christianity, nothing has so handicapped its appeal as the later use of it in dogmatic theology. While the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους often turned the literal into the figurative, his theological interpreters have been as often engaged in turning the figurative expressions of the epistle into what was literal. A due appreciation of the symbolism has been the slow gain of the historical method as applied to the classics of primitive Christianity. There is no consistent symbolism, indeed, not even in the case of the ἀρχιερεύς; in the nature of the case, there could not be. But symbolism there is, and symbolism of a unique kind.

(i)

The author writes from a religious philosophy of his own—that is, of his own among the NT writers. The philosophical element in his view of the world and God is fundamentally Platonic. Like Philo and the author of Wisdom, he interprets the past and the present alike in terms of the old theory (cp. on 8:5, 10:1) that the phenomenal is but an imperfect, shadowy transcript of what is eternal and real. He applies this principle to the past. What was all the Levitical cultus in bygone days but a faint copy of the celestial archetype, a copy that suggested by its very imperfections the future and final realization? In such arguments (chs. 7-10) he means to declare “that Christianity is eternal, just as it shall be everlasting, and that all else is only this, that the true heavenly things of which it consists thrust themselves forward on to this bank and shoal of time, and took cosmical embodiment, in order to suggest their coming everlasting manifestation.”1 The idea that the seen and material is but a poor, provisional replica of the unseen and real order of things (τὰ ἐπουράνια, τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, τὰ μὴ σαλευόμενα), pervades Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. Thus faith (11:1f.) means the conviction, the practical realization, of this world of realities, not only the belief that the universe does not arise out of mere φαινόμενα, but the conviction that life must be ordered, at all costs, by a vision of the unseen, or by obedience to a Voice unheard by any outward ear. Similarly the outward priest, sanctuary, and sacrifices of the ancient cultus were merely the shadowy copy of the real, as manifested in Jesus with his self-sacrifice, his death being, as Sabatier says, “une fonction sacerdotale, un acte transcendant de purification rituelle, accompli hors de l’humanité” (La Doctrine de l’Expiation, p. 37). Such is the philosophical strain which permeates Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. The idea of heavenly counterparts is not, of course, confined to Platonism; it is Sumerian, in one of its roots (cp. on 8:5), and it had already entered apocalyptic. But our author derives it from his Alexandrian religious philosophy (transmuting the κόσμος νοητός into the more vivid and devotional figures of an οἶκος or πόλις θεοῦ, a πάτρις or even a σκηνὴ ἀληθινή), just as elsewhere he freely uses Aristotelian ideas like that of the τέλος or final end, with its τελείωσις or sequence of growth, and shows familiarity with the idea of the ἕξις (5:14). The τελείωσις (see on 5:9) idea is of special importance, as it denotes for men the work of Christ in putting them into their proper status towards God (see on 2:10). “By a single offering he has made the sanctified perfect for all time” (τετλείωκεν, 10:14), the offering or προσφορά being himself, and the “perfecting” being the act of putting the People into their true and final relation towards God. This the Law, with its outward organization of priests and animal sacrifices, could never do; “as the Law has a mere shadow of the bliss that is to be, instead of representing the reality of that bliss (viz. the “perfect’ relationship between God and men), it can never perfect those who draw near” (10:1).

This gives us the focus for viewing the detailed comparison between the levitical sacrifices and priests on the one hand and the κρείττων Jesus. “You see in your bible,” the writer argues, “the elaborate system of ritual which was once organized for the forgiveness of sins and the access of the people to God. All this was merely provisional and ineffective, a shadow of the Reality which already existed in the mind of God, and which is now ours in the sacrifice of Jesus.” Even the fanciful argument from the priesthood of Melchizedek (6:20-7:17)—fanciful to us, but forcible then—swings from this conception. What the author seeks to do is not to prove that there had been from the first a natural or real priesthood, superior to the levitical, a priesthood fulfilled in Christ. His aim primarily is to discredit the levitical priesthood of bygone days; it was anticipated in the divine order by that of Melchizedek, he shows, using a chronological argument resembling that of Paul in Galatians 3:8f., on the principle that what is prior is superior. But what leads him to elaborate specially the Melchizedek priesthood is that it had already played an important rôle in Jewish speculation in connexion with the messianic hope. Philo had already identified Melchizedek outright with the Logos or possibly even with the messiah. Whether the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους intends to contradict Philo or not, he takes a different line, falling back upon his favourite psalm, the 110th, which in the Greek version, the only one known to him, had put forward not only the belief that messiah was ἱερεὺς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισέδεκ, but the Alexandrian belief in the pre-existence of messiah (v. 3 ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρον ἐξχεγέννησά σε). Here then, by Alexandrian methods of exegesis, in the pentateuch text combined with the psalm, he found scripture proof of an original priesthood which was not levitical, not transferable, and permanent. This priesthood of Melchizedek was, of course, not quite a perfect type of Christ’s, for it did not include any sacrifice, but, as resting on personality, not on heredity,1 it did typify, he held, that eternal priesthood of the Christ which was to supersede the levitical, for all the ancient prestige of the latter. As this prestige was wholly biblical for the writer and his readers, so it was essential that the disproof of its validity should be biblical also. Though he never uses either the idea of Melchizedek offering bread and wine to typify the elements in the eucharist, in spite of the fact that Philo once allegorized this trait (de Leg. Alleg. iii. 25), or the idea of Melchizedek being uncircumcised (as he would have done, had he been seriously arguing with people who were in danger of relapsing into contemporary Judaism), he does seem to glance at the combination of the sacerdotal and the royal functions. Like Philo, though more fully, he notices the religious significance of the etymology “king of righteousness” and “king of peace,” the reason being that throughout his argument he endeavours repeatedly to preserve something of the primitive view of Jesus as messianic king, particularly because the idea of the divine βασιλεία plays next to no part in his scheme of thought. Sometimes the combination of the sacerdotal and royal metaphors is incongruous enough, although it is not unimpressive (e.g. 10:12, 13). Primarily it is a survival of the older militant messianic category which is relevant in the first chapter (see 1:8 f.), but out of place in the argument from the priesthood; the reference is really due to the desire to reaffirm the absolute significance of Christ’s work, and by way of anticipation he sounds this note even in 7:1, 2. Later on, it opens up into an interesting instance of his relation to the primitive eschatology. To his mind, trained in the Alexandrian philosophy of religion, the present world of sense and time stands over against the world of reality, the former being merely the shadow and copy of the latter. There is an archetypal order of things, eternal and divine, to which the mundane order but dimly corresponds, and only within this higher order, eternal and invisible, is access to God possible for man. On such a view as this, which ultimately (see pp. xxxi-xxxii) goes back to Platonic idealism, and which had been worked out by Philo, the real world is the transcendent order of things, which is the pattern for the phenomenal universe, so that to attain God man must pass from the lower and outward world of the senses to the inner. But how? Philo employed the Logos or Reason as the medium. Our author similarly holds that men must attain this higher world, but for him it is a σκηνή, a sanctuary, the real Presence of God, and it is entered not through ecstasy or mystic rapture, but through connexion with Jesus Christ, who has not only revealed that world but opened the way into it. The Presence of God is now attainable as it could not be under the outward cultus of the σκηνή in the OT, for the complete sacrifice has been offered “in the realm of the spirit,” thus providing for the direct access of the people to their God. The full bliss of the fellowship is still in the future, indeed; it is not to be realized finally until Jesus returns for his people, for he is as yet only their πρόδρομος (6:20). The primitive eschatology required and received this admission from the writer, though it is hardly consonant with his deeper thought. And this is why he quotes for example the old words about Jesus waiting in heaven till his foes are crushed (10:12, 18). He is still near enough to the primitive period to share the forward look (see, e.g., 2:2f, 9:28, 10:37), and unlike Philo, he does not allow his religious idealism to evaporate his eschatology. But while this note of expectation is sounded now and then, it is held that Christians already experience the powers of the world to come. The new and final order has dawned ever since the sacrifice of Jesus was made, and the position of believers is guaranteed. “You have come to mount Sion, the city of the living God.” The entrance of Jesus has made a fresh, living way for us, which is here and now open. “For all time he is able to save those who approach God through him, as he is always living to intercede on their behalf.” Christians enjoy the final status of relationship to God in the world of spirit and reality, in virtue of the final sacrifice offered by Jesus the Son.

(ii)

What was this sacrifice? How did the writer understand it? (a) The first thing to be said is that in his interpretation of the sacrifice of Jesus, he takes the piacular view. Calvin (Instit. ii.15. 6) maintains that, as for the priesthood of Christ, “finem et usum eius esse ut sit mediator purus omni macula, qui sanctitate sua Deum nobis conciliet. Sed quia aditum occupat justa maledictio, et Deus pro judicis officio nobis infensus est; ut nobis favorem comparet sacerdos ad placandam iram ipsius Dei, piaculum intervenire necesse est. … Qua de re prolixe apostolus disputat in epistola ad Hebraeos a septimo capite fere ad finem usque decimi.” Matthew Arnold is not often found beside Calvin, but he shares this error. “Turn it which way we will, the notion of appeasement of an offended God by vicarious sacrifice, which the Epistle to the Hebrews apparently sanctions, will never truly speak to the religious sense, or bear fruit for true religion” (St. Paul and Protestantism, p. 72). Arnold saves himself by the word “apparently,” but the truth is that this idea is not sanctioned by Πρὸς Ἑβραίους at all. The interpretation of Calvin confuses Paul’s doctrine of expiation with the piacular view of our author. The entire group of ideas about the law, the curse, and the wrath of God is alien to Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. The conception of God is indeed charged with wholesome awe (cp. on 12:28, 29); but although God is never called directly the Father of Christians, his attitude to men is one of grace, and the entire process of man’s approach is initiated by him (2:9, 13:20). God’s wrath is reserved for the apostates (10:29-31); it does not brood over unregenerate men, to be removed by Christ. Such a notion could hardly have occurred to a man with predilections for the typical significance of the OT ritual, in which the sacrifices were not intended to avert the wrath of God so much as to reassure the people from time to time that their relations with their God had not been interrupted. The function of Christ, according to our author, is not to appease the divine wrath (see on 2:9f, 17), but to establish once and for all the direct fellowship of God with his people, and a picturesque archaic phrase like that in 12:24 about the αἷμα ῥαντισμοῦ cannot be pressed into the doctrine that Jesus by his sacrifice averted or averts the just anger of God. On the other hand, while the author knows the primitive Christian idea of God’s fatherhood, it is not in such terms that he expresses his own conception of God. Philo (De Exsecrationibus, 9) describes how the Jews in the diaspora will be encouraged to return to Israel and Israel’s God, particularly by his forgiving character (ἑνὶ μὲν εἰπεικείᾳ καὶ χρηστότητι τοῦ παρακαλουμένου συγγνώμην πρὸ τιμωρίας ἀεὶ τιθέντος); the end of their approach to God, he adds, οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἢ εὐαρεστεῖν τῷ θεῷ καθάπερ υἱοὺς πατρί. But the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους lays no stress upon the Fatherhood of God for men; except in connexion with the discipline of suffering, he never alludes to the goodness of God as paternal, even for Christians, and indeed it is only in OT quotations that God is called even the Father of the Son (1:5, 5:5). He avoids, even more strictly than Jesus, the use of love-language. The verb ἀγαπᾷν only occurs twice, both times in an OT citation; ἀγάπη is also used only twice, and never of man’s attitude towards God. There is significance in such linguistic data; they corroborate the impression that the author takes a deep view (see on 12:23) of the homage and awe due to God. Godly reverence, εὐλάβεια (see on 5:7), characterized Jesus in his human life, and it is to characterize Christians towards God, i.e. an awe which is devoid of anything like nervous fear, an ennobling sense of the greatness of God, but still a reverential awe. This is not incompatible with humble confidence or with a serious joy, with παρρησία (cp. on 3:16). Indeed “all deep joy has something of the awful in it,” as Carlyle says. Ἔχωμεν χάριν is the word of our author (12:28); the standing attitude of Christians towards their God is one of profound thankfulness for his goodness to them. Only, it is to be accompanied μετὰ εὐλαβείας καὶ δέους. We are to feel absolutely secure under God’s will, whatever crises or catastrophes befall the universe, and the security is at once to thrill (see on 2:12) and to subdue our minds. Hence, while God’s graciousness overcomes any anxiety in man, his sublimity is intended to elevate and purify human life by purging it of easy emotion and thin sentimentalism. This is not the primitive awe of religion before the terrors of the unknown supernatural; the author believes in the gracious, kindly nature of God (see on 2:10, also 6:10, 13:16 etc.), but he has an instinctive horror of anything like a shallow levity. The tone of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους resembles, indeed, that of 1 p. 1:17 (εἰ πατέρα ἐπικαλεῖσθε τὸν ἀπροσωπολήπτως κρίνοντα κατὰ τὸ ἑκάστου ἔργον, ἐν φόβῳ τὸν τῆς παροικίας ὑμῶν χρόνον ἀναστράφητε); there may be irreverence in religion, not only in formal religion but for other reasons in spiritual religion. Yet the special aspect of our epistle is reflected in what Jesus once said to men tempted to hesitate and draw back in fear of suffering: “I will show you whom to fear—fear Him who after He has killed has power to cast you into Gehenna. Yes, I tell you, fear Him” (Luke 12:5). This illustrates the spirit and situation of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, where the writer warns his friends against apostasy by reminding them of ὁ θεὸς ζῶν and of the judgment. We might almost infer that in his mind the dominant conception is God regarded as transcendental, not with regard to creation but with regard to frail, faulty human nature. What engrosses the writer is the need not so much of a medium between God and the material universe, as of a medium between his holiness and human sin (see on 12:23).

(b) As for the essence and idea of the sacrifice, while he refers to a number of OT sacrifices by way of illustration, his main analogy comes from the ritual of atonement-day in the levitical code (Lev_16), where it was prescribed that once a year the highpriest was to enter the inner shrine by himself, the shrine within which stood the sacred box or ark symbolizing the divine Presence. The elaborate sacrifices of the day are only glanced at by our author. Thus he never alludes to the famous scapegoat, which bore away the sins of the people into the desert. All he mentions is the sacrifice of certain animals, as propitiation for the highpriest’s own sins and also for those of the nation. Carrying some blood of these animals, the priest was to smear the ἱλαστήριον or cover of the ark. This had a twofold object. (i) Blood was used to reconsecrate the sanctuary (Leviticus 16:16). This was a relic of the archaic idea that the life-bond between the god and his worshippers required to be renewed by sacred blood; “the holiness of the altar is liable to be impaired, and requires to be refreshed by an application of holy blood.”1 Our author refers to this crude practice in 9:23. But his dominant interest is in (ii) the action of the highpriest as he enters the inner shrine; it is not the reconsecration of the sanctuary with its altar, but the general atonement there made for the sins of the People, which engrosses him. The application of the victim’s blood to the ἱλαστήριον by the divinely appointed highpriest was believed to propitiate Yahweh by cleansing the People from the sins which might prevent him from dwelling any longer in the land or among the People. The annual ceremony was designed to ensure his Presence among them, “to enable the close relationship between Deity and man to continue undisturbed. The logical circle—that the atoning ceremonies were ordered by God to produce their effect upon himself—was necessarily unperceived by the priestly mind” (Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 337). What the rite, as laid down in the bible, was intended to accomplish was simply, for the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, to renew the life-bond between God and the People. This sacrifice offered by the highpriest on atonementday was the supreme, piacular action of the levitical cultus. Once a year it availed to wipe out the guilt of all sins, whatever their nature, ritual or moral, which interrupted the relationship between God and his People.2 For it was a sacrifice designed for the entire People as the community of God. The blood of the victims was carried into the inner shrine, on behalf of the People outside the sanctuary; this the highpriest did for them, as he passed inside the curtain which shrouded the inner shrine. Also, in contrast to the usual custom, the flesh of the victims, instead of any part being eaten as a meal, was carried out and burned up. In all this the writer finds a richly symbolic meaning (9:1f.). Jesus was both highpriest and victim, as he died and passed inside the heavenly Presence of God to establish the life-bond between God and his People. Jesus did not need to sacrifice for himself. Jesus did not need to sacrifice himself more than once for the People. Jesus secured a forgiveness which the older animal sacrifices never won. And Jesus did not leave his People outside; he opened the way for them to enter God’s own presence after him, and in virtue of his self-sacrifice. So the author, from time to time, works out the details of the symbolism. He even uses the treatment of the victim’s remains to prove that Christians must be unworldly (13:11f.); but this is an after-thought, for his fundamental interest lies in the sacrificial suggestiveness of the atonement-day which, external and imperfect as its ritual was, adumbrated the reality which had been manifested in the sacrifice and ascension of Jesus.

Yet this figurative category had its obvious drawbacks, two of which may be noted here. One (a) is, that it does not allow him to show how the sacrificial death of Jesus is connected with the inner renewal of the heart and the consequent access of man to God. He uses phrases like ἁγιάζειν (see on 2:11) and καθαρίζειν and τελειοῦν (this term emphasizing more than the others the idea of completeness), but we can only deduce from occasional hints like 9:14 what he meant by the efficacy of the sacrificial death. His ritualistic category assumed that such a sacrifice availed to reinstate the People before God (cp. on 9:22), and this axiom sufficed for his Christian conviction that everything depended upon what Jesus is to God and to us—what he is, he is in virtue of what he did, of the sacrificial offering of himself. But the symbol or parable in the levitical cultus went no further. And it even tended to confuse the conception of what is symbolized, by its inadequacy; it necessarily separated priest and victim, and it suggested by its series of actions a time-element which is out of keeping with the eternal order. Hence the literal tendency in the interpretation of the sacrifice has led to confusion, as attempts have been made to express the continuous, timeless efficacy of the sacrifice. That the death was a sacrifice, complete and final, is assumed (e.g. 7:27, 9:14, 10:10, 12, 14). Yet language is used which has suggested that in the heavenly σκηνή this sacrifice is continually presented or offered (e.g. 7:25 and the vg. mistranslation of 10:12 “hic autem unam pro peccatis offerens hostiam in sempiternum sedit”). The other drawback (b) is, that the idea of Jesus passing like the highpriest at once from the sacrifice into the inner sanctuary (i.e. through the heavens into the Presence, 4:14) has prevented him from making use of the Resurrection (cp. also on 13:12). The heavenly sphere of Jesus is so closely linked with his previous existence on earth, under the category of the sacrifice, that the author could not suggest an experience like the resurrection, which would not have tallied with this idea of continuity.

On the other hand, the concentration of interest in the symbol on the sole personality of the priest and of the single sacrifice enabled him to voice what was his predominant belief about Jesus. How profoundly he was engrossed by the idea of Christ’s adequacy as mediator may be judged from his avoidance of some current religious beliefs about intercession. Over and again he comes to a point where contemporary opinions (with which he was quite familiar) suggested, e.g., the intercession of angels in heaven, or of departed saints on behalf of men on earth, ideas like the merits of the fathers or the atoning efficacy of martyrdom in the past, to facilitate the approach of sinful men to God (cp. on 11:40, 12:17, 23, 24 etc.). These he deliberately ignores. In view of the single, sufficient sacrifice of Jesus, in the light of his eternally valid intercession, no supplementary aid was required. It is not accidental that such beliefs are left out of our author’s scheme of thought. It is a fresh proof of his genuinely primitive faith in Jesus as the one mediator. The ideas of the perfect Priest and the perfect Sacrifice are a theological expression, in symbolic language, of what was vital to the classical piety of the early church; and apart from Paul no one set this out so cogently and clearly as the writer of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους.

(iii)

Our modern symbolism does no sort of justice to the ancient idea of priesthood. Matthew Arnold says of Wordsworth:

“He was a priest to us all,

Of the wonder and bloom of the world,

Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.”

That is, “priest” means interpreter, one who introduces us to a deeper vision, one who, as we might put it, opens up to us a new world of ideas. Such is not the ultimate function of Christ as ἱερεύς in our epistle. Dogmatic theology would prefer to call this the prophetic function of Christ, but the priestly office means mediation, not interpretation. The function of the high priest is to enter and to offer: εἰσέρχεσθαι and προσφέρειν forming the complete action, and no distinction being drawn between the two, any more than between the terms “priest” and “high priest.”

The fundamental importance of this may be illustrated from the recourse made by Paul and by our author respectively to the Jeremianic oracle of the new covenant or διαθήκη. Paul’s main interest in it lies in its prediction of the Spirit, as opposed to the Law. What appeals to Paul is the inward and direct intuition of God, which forms the burden of the oracle. But to our author (8:7-13, 10:15-18) it is the last sentence of the oracle which is supreme, i.e. the remission of sins; “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and remember their sins no more.” He seizes the name and fact of a “new” covenant, as implying that the old was inadequate. But he continues: “If the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on defiled persons, give them a holiness that bears on bodily purity, how much more will the blood of Christ, who in the spirit of the eternal offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve a living God? He mediates a new covenant for this reason, that those who have been called may obtain the eternal deliverance they have been promised, now that a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions involved in the first covenant” (9:13-15). That is, the conclusion of Jeremiah’s oracle—that God will forgive and forget—is the real reason why our author quotes it. There can be no access without an amnesty for the past; the religious communion of the immediate future must be guaranteed by a sacrifice ratifying the pardon of God.

This difference between Paul and our author is, of course, owing to the fact that for the latter the covenant1 or law is subordinated to the priesthood. Change the priesthood, says the writer, and ipso facto the law has to be changed too. The covenant is a relationship of God and men, arising out of grace, and inaugurated by some historic act; since its efficiency as an institution for forgiveness and fellowship depends on the personality and standing of the priesthood, the appearance of Jesus as the absolute Priest does away with the inferior law.

This brings us to the heart of the Christology, the sacrifice and priestly service of Christ as the mediator of this new covenant with its eternal fellowship.

Men are sons of God, and their relation of confidence and access is based upon the function of the Son κατʼ ἐξόχην. The author shares with Paul the view that the Son is the Son before and during his incarnate life, and yet perhaps Son in a special sense in consequence of the resurrection—or rather, as our author would have preferred to say, in consequence of the ascension. This may be the idea underneath the compressed clauses at the opening of the epistle (1:1-5). “God has spoken to us by a Son—a Son whom he appointed heir of the universe, as it was by him that he had created the world. He, reflecting God’s bright glory and stamped with God’s own character, sustains the universe by his word of power; when he had secured our purification from sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; and thus he is superior to the angels, as he has inherited a Name superior to theirs. For to what angel did God ever say—

‘Thou art my Son,

To-day have I become thy Father’?”

(referring to the ancient notion that the king first became conscious of his latent divine sonship at his accession to the throne). The name or dignity which Christ inherits, as the result of his redemptive work, is probably that of Son; as the following quotation from the OT psalm suggests, the resurrection or exaltation may mark, as it does for Paul, the fully operative sonship of Christ, the only way to inherit or possess the universe being to endure the suffering and death which purified human sin and led to the enthronement of Christ. Our author holds that this divine being was sent into the world because he was God’s Son, and that he freely undertook his mission for God’s other sons on earth.

The mission was a will of God which involved sacrifice. That is the point of the quotation (10:5f.) from the 40th psalm—not to prove that obedience to God was better than sacrifice, but to bring out the truth that God’s will required a higher kind of sacrifice than the levitical, namely, the personal, free self-sacrifice of Christ in the body. Even this is more than self-sacrifice in our modern sense of the term. It is “by this will,” the writer argues, that “we are consecrated, because Jesus Christ once for all has offered up his body.” No doubt the offering is eternal, it is not confined to the historical act on Calvary. “He has entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (9:24): “he is always living to make intercession for us” (7:25). Still, the author is more realistic in expression than the tradition of the Testament of Levi (3), which makes the angel of the Presence in the third heaven offer a spiritual and bloodless sacrifice to God in propitiation for the sins of ignorance committed by the righteous. Our author assigns entirely to Christ the intercessory functions which the piety of the later Judaism had already begun to divide among angels and departed saints, but he also makes the sacrifice of Jesus one of blood—a realism which was essential to his scheme of argument from the entrance of the OT high priest into the inner shrine.

The superior or rather the absolute efficacy of the blood of Christ depends in turn on his absolute significance as the Son of God; it is his person and work which render his self-sacrifice valid and supreme. But this is asserted rather than explained. Indeed, it is asserted on the ground of a presupposition which was assumed as axiomatic, namely, the impossibility of communion with God apart from blood shed in sacrifice (9:22). For example, when the writer encourages his readers by reminding them of their position (12:24), that they “have come to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood whose message is nobler than Abel’s,” he does not mean to draw an antithesis between Abel’s blood as a cry for vengeance and Christ’s blood as a cry for intercession. The fundamental antithesis lies between exclusion and inclusion. Abel’s blood demanded the excommunication of the sinner, as an outcast from God’s presence; Christ’s blood draws the sinner near and ratifies the covenant. The author denies to the OT cultus of sacrifice any such atoning value, but at the same time he reaffirms its basal principle, that blood in sacrifice is essential to communion with the deity. Blood offered in sacrifice does possess a religious efficacy, to expiate and purify. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. We ask, why? But the ancient world never dreamt of asking, why? What puzzles a modern was an axiom to the ancient. The argument of our epistle is pivoted on this postulate, and no attempt is made to rationalize it.

In the Law of Holiness, incorporated in Leviticus, there is indeed one incidental allusion to the rationalé of sacrifice or blood-expiation, when, in prohibiting the use of blood as a food, the taboo proceeds: “the life of the body is in the blood, and I have given it to you for the altar to make propitiation for yourselves, for the blood makes propitiation by means of the life” (i.e. the life inherent in it). This is reflection on the meaning of sacrifice, but it does not carry us very far, for it only explains the piacular efficacy of blood by its mysterious potency of life. Semitic scholars warn us against finding in these words (Leviticus 17:11) either the popular idea of the substitution of the victim for the sinner, or even the theory that the essential thing in sacrifice is the offering of a life to God. As far as the Hebrew text goes, this may be correct. But the former idea soon became attached to the verse, as we see from the LXX—τὸ γὰρ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἀντὶ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐξιλάσεται. This view does not seem to be common in later Jewish thought, though it was corroborated by the expiatory value attached to the death of the martyrs (e.g. 4 Mac 17:22). It is in this later world, however, rather than in the primitive world of Leviticus, that the atmosphere of the idea of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is to be sought, the idea that because Jesus was what he was, his death has such an atoning significance as to inaugurate a new and final relation between God and men, the idea that his blood purifies the conscience because it is his blood, the blood of the sinless Christ, who is both the priest and the sacrifice. When the author writes that Christ “in the spirit of the eternal” (9:14) offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, he has in mind the contrast between the annual sacrifice on the day of atonement and the sacrifice of Christ which never needed to be repeated, because it had been offered in the spirit and—as we might say—in the eternal order of things. It was a sacrifice bound up with his death in history, but it belonged essentially to the higher order of absolute reality. The writer breathed the Philonic atmosphere in which the eternal Now over-shadowed the things of space and time (see on 1:5), but he knew this sacrifice had taken place on the cross, and his problem was one which never confronted Philo, the problem which we moderns have to face in the question: How can a single historical fact possess a timeless significance? How can Christianity claim to be final, on the basis of a specific revelation in history? Our author answered this problem in his own way for his own day.

(iv)

For him religion is specially fellowship with God on the basis of forgiveness. He never uses the ordinary term κοινωνία, however, in this sense. It is access to God on the part of worshippers that is central to his mind; that is, he conceives religion as worship, as the approach of the human soul to the divine Presence, and Christianity is the religion which is religion since it mediates this access and thereby secures the immediate consciousness of God for man. Or, as he would prefer to say, the revelation of God in Jesus has won this right for man as it could not be won before. For, from the first, there has been a People of God seeking, and to a certain extent enjoying, this access. God has ever been revealing himself to them, so far as was possible. But now in Jesus the final revelation has come which supersedes all that went before in Israel. The writer never contemplates any other line of revelation; outside Israel of old he never looks. It is enough for him that the worship of the OT implied a revelation which was meant to elicit faith, especially through the sacrificial cultus, and that the imperfections of that revelation have now been disclosed and superseded by the revelation in Jesus the Son. Faith in this revelation is in one aspect belief (4:2f.). Indeed he describes faith simply as the conviction of the unseen world, the assurance that God has spoken and that he will make his word good, if men rely upon it; he who draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he does reward those who seek him (11:6). Faith of this noble kind, in spite of appearances to the contrary, has always characterized the People. Our author rejoices to trace it at work long before Jesus came, and he insists that it is the saving power still, a faith which in some aspects is indistinguishable from hope, since it inspires the soul to act and suffer in the conviction that God is real and sure to reward loyalty in the next world, if not in the present. Such faith characterized Jesus himself (2:13, 12:2). It is belief in God as trustworthy, amid all the shows and changes of life, an inward conviction that, when he has spoken, the one thing for a man to do is to hold to that word and to obey it at all costs. This is the conception of faith in the early and the later sections of the writing (3:7f, 10:38-12:2). The difference that Jesus has made—for the writer seems to realize that there is a difference between the primitive faith and the faith of those who are living after the revelation in Jesus—is this, that the assurance of faith has now become far more real than it was. Though even now believers have to await the full measure of their reward, though faith still is hope to some extent, yet the full realization of the fellowship with God which is the supreme object of faith has been now made through Jesus. In two ways. (I) For faith Jesus is the inspiring example; he is the great Believer who has shown in his own life on earth the possibilities of faith.1 In order to understand what faith is, we must look to Jesus above all, to see how faith begins and continues and ends. But (II) Jesus has not only preceded us on the line of faith; he has by his sacrifice made our access to God direct and real, as it never could be before. Hence the writer can say, “let us draw near with a full assurance of faith and a true heart, in absolute assurance of faith” since “we have a great Priest over the house of God.” “We have confidence to enter the holy Presence in virtue of the blood of Jesus.” He does not make Jesus the object of faith as Paul does, but he argues that only the sacrifice of Jesus opens the way into the presence of God for sinful men.

This is the argument of the central part of the writing (chs. 7-10). Religion is worship, and worship implies sacrifice; there is no access for man to God without sacrifice, and no religion without a priest (see on 7:11). The relations between God and his People from the first1 have been on the basis of sacrifice, as the bible shows, and the new revelation in Jesus simply changes the old sacrificial order with its priesthood for another. The writer starts from a profound sense of sin, as an interruption of fellowship between God and man. He thoroughly sympathizes with the instinct which underlay the ancient practice of sacrifice, that fellowship with God is not a matter of course, that God is accessible and yet difficult of access, and that human nature cannot find its way unaided into his presence. Thus he quotes the 40th psalm (see p. xli), not to prove that God’s will is fellowship, and that to do the will of God is enough for man, apart from any sacrifice, but to illustrate the truth that the will of God does require a sacrifice, not simply the ethical obedience of man, but the self-sacrifice with which Jesus offered himself freely, the perfect victim and the perfect priest. All men now have to do is to avail themselves of his sacrifice in order to enjoy access to God in the fullest sense of the term. “Having a great Highpriest who has passed through the heavens, let us draw near.”

The conception of religion as devotion or worship covers a wide range in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. It helps to explain, for example (see above, p. xxxviii), why the writer represents Jesus after death not as being raised from the dead, but as passing through the heavens into the inner Presence or sanctuary of God with the sacrifice of his blood (4:14, 9:11f.). It accounts for the elaboration of a detail like that of 9:23, and, what is much more important, it explains the “sacrificial” delineation of the Christian life. In this ἀληθινὴ σκηνή (8:2), of God’s own making, with its θυσιαστήριον (13:10), Christians worship God (λατρεύειν, 9:14, 12:28, 13:10); their devotion to him is expressed by the faith and loyalty which detach them from this world (13:13, 14) and enable them to live and move under the inspiration of the upper world; indeed their ethical life of thanksgiving (see on 2:12) and beneficence is a sacrifice by which they honour and worship God (13:15, 16), a sacrifice presented to God by their ἀρχιερεύς Jesus. The writer never suggests that the worship-regulations of the outworn cultus are to be reproduced in any rites of the church on earth; he never dreamed of this, any more than of the ἡγούμενοι being called “priests.” The essence of priesthood, viz. the mediation of approach to God, had been absolutely fulfilled in Jesus, and in one sense all believers were enabled to follow him into the inner σκηνή, where they worshipped their God as the priests of old had done in their σκηνή, and as the People of old had never been able to do except through the highpriest as their representative and proxy. But, while the worship-idea is drawn out to describe Christians, in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους its primary element is that of the eternal function of Christ as ἀρχιερεύς in the heavenly σκηνή.

(v)

Symbolism alters as the ages pass. The picture-language in which one age expresses its mental or religious conceptions often ceases to be intelligible or attractive to later generations, because the civic, ritual, or economic conditions of life which had originally suggested it have disappeared or changed their form. This well-known principle applies especially to the language of religion, and it is one reason why some of the arguments in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους are so difficult for the modern mind to follow. There are other reasons, no doubt. The exegetical methods which the author took over from the Alexandrian school are not ours. Besides, historical criticism has rendered it hard for us moderns to appreciate the naive use of the OT which prevails in some sections of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. But, above all, the sacrificial analogies are a stumbling-block, for we have nothing to correspond to what an ancient understood by a “priest” and sacrifice. Dryden was not poetic when he translated Vergil’s “sacerdos” in the third Georgic (489) by “holy butcher,” but the phrase had its truth. The business of a priest was often that of a butcher; blood flowed, blood was splashed about. It was in terms of such beliefs and practices that the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους argued, rising above them to the spiritual conception of the self-sacrifice of Jesus, but nevertheless starting from them as axiomatic. The duty of the modern mind is to understand, in the first place, how he came by these notions; and, in the second place, what he intended to convey by the use of such symbolic terms as “blood,” “highpriest,” and “sacrifice.”

The striking idea of Christ as the eternal ἀρχιερεύς, by whom the access of man to God is finally and fully assured, may have been a flash of inspiration, one of the notes of originality and insight which mark the writer’s treatment and restatement of the faith. But originality is not depreciated by the effort to trace anticipations. What led him to this view? After all, the most brilliant flashes depend upon an atmosphere already prepared for them. They are struck out of something. In this case, it is not enough to say that the conception was merely the transference to Jesus of the Philonic predicates of the Logos, or the result of a bible-reading in the pentateuch. In the pentateuch the writer found proofs of what he brought to it, and the arguments in chs. 7-10 really buttress ideas built on other foundations.

(a) Once the conception of a heavenly sanctuary became current, the notion of a heavenly ἀρχιερεύς would not be far-fetched for a writer like this. Philo had, indeed, not only spoken of the Logos as a highpriest, in a metaphorical sense, i.e. as mediating metaphysically and psychologically the relations between the worlds of thought and sense, but in an allegorical fashion spoken of “two temples belonging to God, one being the world in which the highpriest is his own Son, the Logos, the other being the rational soul” (de Somniis, i. 37). Our writer is much less abstract. Like the author of the Apocalypse (see on 4:16), he thinks of heaven in royal and ritual imagery as well as in civic, but it is the ritual symbolism which is more prominent. During the second century b.c. the ideas of a heavenly sanctuary and a heavenly altar became current in apocalyptic piety, partly owing to the idealistic and yet realistic conception (see on 8:5) that in heaven the true originals were preserved, the material altar and sanctuary being, like the earthly Jerusalem, inferior representations of transcendent realities. From this it was a natural development to work out the idea of a heavenly highpriest. By “natural” I do not mean to undervalue the poetical and religious originality of the writer of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. The author of the Apocalypse of John, for example, fails to reach this idea, and even in the enigmatic passage in the vision and confession of Levi (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Test. Lev_5), where the seer tells us, “I saw the holy temple, and upon a throne of glory the Most High. And he said to me, Levi, I have given thee the blessings of priesthood until I come and sojourn in the midst of Israel”—even here, though the levitical priesthood, as in our epistle, is only a temporary substitute for the presence of God, the heavenly sanctuary has no highpriest. Nevertheless it was the idea of the heavenly sanctuary which held one germ of the idea of the heavenly highpriest for the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, as he desired to express the fundamental significance of Jesus for his faith.

(b) Another factor was the speculations of Philo about the Logos as highpriest (de Migrat. Abrah. 102, de Fug. 108 ff.), though the priestly mediation there is mainly between man and the upper world of ideas. The Logos or Reason is not only the means of creating the material cosmos after the pattern of the first and real world, but inherent in it, enabling human creatures to apprehend the invisible. This is Philo’s primary use of the metaphor. It is philosophical rather than religious. Yet the increased prestige of the highpriest in the later Judaism prompted him to apply to the Logos functions which resemble intercession as well as interpretation. Vague as they are, they were familiar to the author of our epistle, and it is probable that they helped to fashion his expression of the eternal significance of Jesus as the mediator between man and God. The Logos as highpriest, says Philo (de Somn. ii. 28), for example, is not only ἄμωμος, ὁλόκληρος, but μεθόριός τις θεοῦ ‹καὶ ἀνθρώπου› φύσις, τοῦ μὲν ἐλάττων, ἀνθρώπου δὲ κρείττων. Then he quotes the LXX of Leviticus 16:17. The original says that no man is to be with the highpriest when he enters the inner shrine, but the Greek version runs, ὅταν εἰσίῃ εἰς τὰ ἅγια τὼν ἁγίων ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς, ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἔσται, and Philo dwells on the literal, wrong sense of the last three words, as if they meant “the highpriest is not to be a man.” “What will he be, if he is not a man? God? I would not say that (οὐκ ἂν εἴποιμι). … Nor yet is he man, but he touches both extremes (ἐκατέρων τῶν ἄκρων, ὡς ἂν βάσεως καὶ κεφαλῆς, ἐφαπτόμενος).” Later (ibid. 34) he remarks, “if at that time he is not a man, it is clear he is not God either, but a minister (λειτουργὸς θεοῦ) of God, belonging to creation in his mortal nature and to the uncreated world in his immortal nature.” Similarly he pleads, in the de sacerdot. 12, that the function of the highpriest was to mediate between God and man, ἵνα διὰ μέσου τινὸς ἄνθρωποι μὲν ἱλάσκωνται θεόν, θεὸς δὲ τὰς χάριτας ἀνθρώποις ὑποδιακόνῳ τινί χρώμενος ὀρέγῃ καὶ χορηγῇ. Here we may feel vibrating a need of intercession, even although the idea is still somewhat theosophic.

(c) A third basis for the conception of Christ’s priesthood lay in the combination of messianic and sacerdotal functions which is reflected in the 110th psalm (see above, p. xxxiii), which in the Testaments of the Patriarchs (Reuben 6:8) is actually applied to Hyrcanus the Maccabean priest-king, while in the Test. Levi (18) functions which are messianic in all but name are ascribed to a new priest, with more spiritual insight than in the psalm itself. The curious thing, however, is that this Priest discharges no sacerdotal functions. The hymn describes his divine attestation and consecration—“and in his priesthood shall sin come to an end, and he shall open the gates of paradise and shall remove the threatening sword against Adam.” That is all. Probably the passing phase of expectation, that a messiah would arise from the sacerdotal Maccabees, accounts for such a fusion of messiah and priest. In any case its influence was not wide. Still, the anticipation is not unimportant for the thought of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, which rests so much upon the mystical significance of that psalm. Paul had seen the fulfilment of Psalm 110:1 in the final triumph of Christ as messiah over his foes (1 Corinthians 15:24, 1 Corinthians 15:25 δεὶ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρις οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ). But meantime Christ was in living touch with his church on earth, and Paul can even speak, in a glowing outburst, of his effective intercession (Romans 8:34 ὃς καὶ ἐντυγχάνει ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν). This is at least the idea of the highpriesthood of Christ, in almost everything except name, though Paul says as much of the Spirit (Romans 8:27 κατὰ θεὸν ἐντυγχάνει ὑπὲρ ἁγίων). Later, in the Fourth Gospel, a similar thought reappears; Christ is represented in priestly metaphor as interceding for his People (17:1f.), and the phrases (17:17-19) about Jesus consecrating himself (as priest and victim) that thereby his disciples may be “consecrated” ἐν τῆ ἀληθείᾳ (i.e. in the sphere of Reality), indicate a use of ἁγιάζειν which expresses one of the central ideas of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. But in the latter writing the idea is explicit and elaborate, as it is nowhere else in the NT, and explicit on the basis of a later line in the 110th psalm, which Paul ignored. Our author also knew and used the earlier couplet (10:13), but he draws his cardinal argument from v. 4 σὺ εἶ ἱερεὺς εἰς αἰῶνα κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισέδεκ.

(vi)

There is a partial anticipation of all this in the Enochic conception of the Son of Man. No doubt, as Volz warns us (Jüdische Eschatologie, p. 90), we must not read too much into such apocalyptic phrases, since the Son of Man is an x quantity of personal value in the age of expected bliss and salvation. Still, the pre-existent messiah there is Son of Man as transcendent and in some sense as human; he must be human, “Man,” in order to help men, and he must be transcendent in order to be a deliverer or redeemer. But the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, like Paul, significantly avoids the term Son of Man, even in 2:5f.; and although he has these two ideas of human sympathy and of transcendency in close connexion, he derives them from his meditation upon the real Jesus ultimately, not from any apocalyptic speculations. What he meant by the term “Son of God” is not quite plain. Philo had regarded the Logos as pre-existent and as active in the history of the people, and so he regards Christ; but while it seems clear (see on 5:5) that Christ is priest for him because he was already Son, the further questions, when did he become priest? and how is the Sonship compatible with the earthly life?—these are problems which remain unsolved. The interpretation of the function of Jesus through the phrase in the 2nd psalm (see on 1:5) hardly clears up the matter any more than in the case of Justin Martyr (Dial. 88). Later on, Hippolytus, or whoever wrote the homily appended (chs. 11-12.) to the Epist. Diognet., faced the problem more boldly and beautifully by arguing that “the Word was from the very beginning, appeared new, was proved to be old, and is ever young as he is born in the hearts of the saints. He is the eternal One, who to-day was accounted Son” (ὁ σήμερον υἱὸς λογισθείς, 11:5). Here “to-day” refers to the Christian era; evidently the problem left by the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, with his mystical, timeless use of the 2nd psalm, was now being felt as a theological difficulty. But this is no clue to how he himself took the reference. There is a large section in his thought upon Christ as the eternal, transcendental Son which remains obscure to us, and which perhaps was indefinite to himself. He took over the idea of the divine Sonship from the primitive church, seized upon it to interpret the sufferings and sacrificial function of Jesus as well as his eternal value, and linked it to the notion of the highpriesthood; but he does not succeed in harmonizing its implications about the incarnate life with his special γνῶσις of the eternal Son within the higher sphere of divine realities.

At the same time there seems no hiatus1 between the metaphysical and the historical in the writer’s conception of Jesus, no unreconciled dualism between the speculative reconstruction and the historical tradition. In Πρὸς Ἑβραίους we have the ordinary primitive starting-point, how could a divine, reigning Christ ever have become man? The writer never hints that his readers would question this, for they were not tempted by any Jewish ideas. He uses the category of the Son quite frankly, in order to express the absolute value of the revelation in Jesus; it is his sheer sense of the reality of the incarnate life which prompts him to employ the transcendental ideas. He does not start from a modern humanist view of Jesus, but from a conviction of his eternal divine character and function as Son and as ἀρχιερεύς, and his argument is that this position was only possible upon the human experience, that Jesus became man because he was Son (2:10f.), and is ἀρχιερεύς because once he was man.

(a) For our author Jesus is the Son, before ever he became man, but there is no definite suggestion (see on 12:2) that he made a sacrifice in order to become incarnate, no suggestion that he showed his χάρις by entering our human lot (διʼ ὑμᾶς ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος ὤν, ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος). Our author feels deeply the suffering of Jesus in the days of his flesh, but it is the final sacrifice at the end of his life which is emphasized. That he suffered as the eternal Son is understood: also, that it was voluntary (10:5f.), also that it was his human experience which qualified him to offer the perfect sacrifice, by God’s χάρις. But, apart from the (2:8f.) allusion to the temporary inferiority to angels, the writer does not touch the moving idea of the kenotic theories of the incarnation, viz. the “sense of sacrifice on the part of a pre-existent One.”2

(b) Since he knew nothing of the sombre view of the σάρξ which pervaded the Pauline psychology, he found no difficulty in understanding how the sinless Jesus could share human flesh and blood. The sinlessness is assumed, not argued (cp. on 4:15, 5:7). Yet the writer does not simply transfer it as a dogmatic predicate of messiahship to Jesus. One of the characteristics which set Πρὸς Ἑβραίους apart in the early Christian literature is the idea that Jesus did not possess sinlessness simply as a prerogative of his divine Sonship or as a requisite for the validity of his priestly function. It was not a mere endowment. The idea rather is that he had to realize and maintain it by a prolonged moral conflict ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ. This view goes back to direct historical tradition, with its deeply marked impression of the personality of Jesus, and no sort of justice is done to Πρὸς Ἑβραίους if its conceptions of the human Son as sinless are referred to a theoretical interest or dogmatic prepossession. Such an interpretation is bound up with the view that Πρὸς Ἑβραίους represents the more or less arbitrary fusion of an historical tradition about Jesus with a pre-Christian christology. But it is not enough to speak vaguely of materials for such a christology floating in pre-Christian Judaism and crystallizing round the person of Jesus, once Jesus was identified with the messiah. The crystallization was not fortuitous. What Πρὸς Ἑβραίους contains is a christology which implies features and characteristics in Jesus too definite to be explained away as picturesque deductions from messianic postulates or Philonic speculations. These undoubtedly enter into the statement of the christology, but the motives and interests of that christology lie everywhere. The writer’s starting-point is not to be sought in some semi-metaphysical idea like that of the eternal Son as a supernatural being who dipped into humanity for a brief interval in order to rise once more and resume his celestial glory; the mere fact that the eschatology is retained, though it does not always accord with the writer’s characteristic view of Christ, shows that he was working from a primitive historical tradition about Jesus (see above, pp. xliv f.). To this may be added the fact that he avoids the Hellenistic term σωτήρ, a term which had been associated with the notion of the appearance of a deity hitherto hidden.1 The allusions to the historical Jesus are not numerous, but they are too detailed and direct to be explained away; he preached σωτηρία, the message of eschatological bliss; he belonged to the tribe of Judah; he was sorely tempted, badly treated, and finally crucified outside Jerusalem. These are the main outward traits. But they are bound up with an interpretation of the meaning of Jesus which is not a mere deduction from messianic mythology or OT prophecies, and it is unreal, in view of a passage like 5:7f., e.g., to imagine that the writer was doing little more than painting in a human face among the messianic speculations about a divine Son.

(c) Neither is the sinlessness of Jesus connected with the circumstances of his human origin. No explanation at all is offered of how this pre-existent Son entered the world of men. It is assumed that he did not come out of humanity but that he came into it; yet, like Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel (1:9f.), our author is not interested in questions about the human birth. Even when he describes the prototype Melchizedek as “without father and mother” (7:3), he is not suggesting any parallel to the Christ; the phrase is no more than a fanciful deduction from the wording or rather the silence of the legend, just as the original priest-king Gudea says to the goddess in the Sumerian tale, “I have no mother, thou art my mother; I have no father, thou art my father.” It is impossible to place this allusion beside the happy misquotation in 10:5 “a body thou hast prepared for me,” and to argue, as Pfleiderer (p. 287) does, that the incarnation is conceived as purely supernatural. All we need to do is to recall the Alexandrian belief, voiced in a passage like Wisd 8:19 (“I was the child of fine parts: to my lot there fell a good soul, or rather being good I entered a body undefiled”); the good soul is what we call the personality, the thinking self, to which God allots a body, and birth, in the ordinary human way, is not incompatible with the pre-existence of the soul or self which, prior to birth, is in the keeping of God. The author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους could quite well think of the incarnation of Jesus along such lines, even although for him the pre-existent Christ meant much more than the pre-existent human soul.

The meaning of the incarnation is, in one aspect, to yield a perfect example of faith (12:2f.) in action; in another and, for the writer, a deeper, to prepare Jesus, by sympathy and suffering, for his sacrificial function on behalf of the People. The rationalê of his death is that it is inexplicable except upon the fact of his relationship to men as their representative and priest before God (2:11f.). From some passages like 5:3f, 7:27, it has been inferred that Jesus had to offer a sacrifice on his own behalf as well as on behalf of men (i.e. his tears and cries in Gethsemane), or that he only overcame his sinful nature when he was raised to heaven. But this is to read into the letter of the argument more than the writer ever intended it to convey. The point of his daring argument is that the sufferings of Jesus were not incompatible with his sinlessness, and at the same time that they rendered his sacrifice of himself absolutely efficacious. The writer is evidently in line with the primitive synoptic tradition, though he never proves the necessity of the sufferings from OT prophecy, as even his contemporary Peter does, preferring, with a fine intuition in the form of a religious reflection, to employ the idea of moral congruity (2:10).

(vii)

The symbolism of the highpriesthood and sacrifice of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary is therefore designed to convey the truth that the relations of men with God are based finally upon Jesus Christ. In the unseen world which is conceived in this naive idealistic way, Jesus is central; through him God is known and accessible to man, and through him man enjoys forgiveness and fellowship with God. When Paul once wrote, τὰ ἄνω φρονεῖτε, τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε, if he had stopped there he would have been saying no more than Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius might have said and did say. But when he added, οὗ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν (ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ καθήμενος), he defined the upper sphere in a new sense. So with the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. In the real world of higher things, “everything is dominated by the figure of the great High Priest at the right hand of the Majesty in the Heavens, clothed in our nature, compassionate to our infirmities, able to save to the uttermost, sending timely succour to those who are in peril, pleading our cause. It is this which faith sees, this to which faith clings as the divine reality behind and beyond all that passes, all that tries, daunts, or discourages the soul: it is this in which it finds the ens realissimum, the very truth of things, all that is meant by God.”1

Yet while this is the central theme (chs. 7-10), which the writer feels it is essential for his friends to grasp if they are to maintain their position, it is one proof of the primitive character of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους that it preserves traces of other and more popular ideas of Christianity. Thus (a) there is the primitive idea of the messiah as the heir, who at the resurrection inherits full power as the divine Son or Κληρονόμος. Strictly speaking, this does not harmonize with the conception of the Son as eternal, but it reappears now and then, thrown up from the eschatological tradition which the author retains (see above, pp. xxxiii f.). (b) The isolated reference to the overthrow of the devil is another allusion to ideas which were in the background of the writer’s mind (see on 2:14, 15). (c) The scanty use made of the favourite conception of Jesus as the divine Κύριος (see below, p. lxiii) is also remarkable. This is not one of the writer’s categories; the elements of divine authority and of a relation between the Κύριος and the divine Community are expressed otherwise, in the idea of the High-priest and the People.

Furthermore the category of the Highpriesthood itself was not large enough for the writer’s full message. (a) It could not be fitted in with his eschatology any more than the idea of the two worlds could be. The latter is dovetailed into his scheme by the idea of faith as practically equivalent to hope (in 10:35f.); the world to come actually enters our experience here and now, but the full realization is reserved for the end, and meantime Christians must wait, holding fast to the revelation of God in the present. The former could not be adjusted to the eschatology, and the result is that when the writer passes to speak in terms of the primitive expectation of the end (10:35-12:29), he allows the idea of the Highpriesthood to fall into the background. In any case the return of Jesus is connected only with the deliverance of his own People (9:28). He does not come to judge; that is a function reserved for God. The end is heralded by a cataclysm which is to shake the whole universe, heaven as well as earth (1:11f, 12:26f.), another conception which, however impressive, by no means harmonizes with the idea of the two spheres. But the writer’s intense consciousness of living in the last days proved too strong for his speculative theory of the eternal and the material orders. (b) Again, the Highpriesthood was inadequate to the ethical conceptions of the writer. It did involve ethical ideas—the cleansing of the conscience and the prompting of devotion and awe, moral consecration, and inward purity (these being the real “worship”); but when he desires to inspire his readers he instinctively turns to the vivid conception of Jesus as the ἀρχηγός, as the pioneer and supreme example of faith on earth.

The latter aspect brings out the idea of a contemplation of Jesus Christ, a vision of his reality (cp. 3:1, 12:1, 2), which, when correlated with the idea of a participation in the higher world of reality, as embodied in the Highpriest aspect, raises the question, how far is it legitimate to speak of the writer as mystical?

(viii)

To claim or to deny that he was a mystic is, after all, a question of words. He is devoid of the faith-mysticism which characterizes Paul. Even when he speaks once of believers being μέτοχοι Χριστοῦ (3:14), he means no more than their membership in the household of God over which Christ presides; there is no hint of the personal trust in Christ which distinguishes “faith” in Paul. As important is the consideration that the writer does not take the sacrifices of the levitical cultus as merely symbolizing union with God. Such is the genuinely mystical interpretation. To him, on the other hand, sacrifice is an action which bears upon man’s relation to God, and it is from this point of view that he estimates and criticizes the levitical cultus. But while technically he is not a mystic, even in the sense in which that much-abused term may be applied to any NT writer, he has notes and qualities which might be called “mystical.” To call him an “idealist” is the only alternative, and this is misleading, for idealism suggests a philosophical detachment which is not suitable to Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. On the other hand, his profound sense of the eternal realities, his view of religion as inspired by the unseen powers of God, his conception of fellowship with God as based on the eternal presence of Jesus in heaven—these and other elements in his mind mark him as a definitely unworldly spirit, impatient of any sensuous medium, even of a sacrificial meal, that would interpose between the human soul and God. Not that he uses any pantheistic language; he is more careful to avoid this than a writer like the author of First John. His deep moral nature conceives of God as a transcendent Majestic Being, before whom believers must feel awe and reverence, even as they rejoice and are thankful. He has a wholesome sense of God’s authority, and an instinctive aversion to anything like a sentimental, presumptuous piety (see above, pp. xxxv f.). Yet as he speaks of the Rest or the City of God, as he describes the eternal Sanctuary, or the unshaken order of things, or as he delineates the present position of God’s People here in their constant dependence on the unseen relation between Christ and God, he almost tempts us to call him “mystical,” if “mysticism” could be restricted to the idea that the human soul may be united to Absolute Reality or God. He is certainly not mystical as Philo is;1 there is no hint in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, for example, of an individualistic, occasional rapture, in which the soul soars above sense and thought into the empyrean of the unconditioned. He remains in close touch with moral realities and the historical tradition. But the spirituality of his outlook, with its speculative reach and its steady openness to influences pouring from the unseen realities, hardly deserves to be denied the name of “mystical,” simply because it is neither wistful nor emotional.

§ 3. Style and Diction

(i)

Πρὸς Ἐβραίους is distinguished, among the prose works of the primitive church, by its rhythmical cadences. The writer was acquainted with the oratorical rhythms which were popularized by Isokrates, and although he uses them freely, when he uses them at all, his periods show traces of this rhetorical method. According to Aristotle’s rules upon the use of paeans in prose rhythm (Rhet. iii. 8. 6-7), the opening ought to be ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮, while ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ should be reserved for the conclusion. Our author, however, begins with an introductory rhythm (cp. 1:5, 3:12) which seems to be rather a favourite with him, e.g. 3:1 7:10 12:25 13:20

though he varies it with an anapaest and an iambus ̮ ̮ ̱ ̮ ̱ (e.g. 2:1, 4, 5, 14, 11:16 διὸ οὐκ ἐπαισχ, 12:12 etc.), or ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ (as in 5:12, 6:4, 7:7, see below, 13:5 αὐτὸς γὰρ εἴρηκ, etc.), or ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱ (as in 2:3, 3:5, 11:6 πιστεῦσαι γὰρ δεῖ, 11:39 etc.), or even occasionally with three trochees ̱ ̮ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̮ (e.g. 12:8), or ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ (12:11, 13:13 etc.), or ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ (e.g. 1:13, 4:12), or even two anapaests (e.g. 1:6, 5:11, 13:10), or ̱ ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ (13:3). He also likes to carry on or even to begin a new sentence or paragraph with the same or a similar rhythm as in the end of the preceding, e.g. ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ in 4:11 and 4:12, or ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ in 7:21 and 7:22, or as in 8:13 ( ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱̮ ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ) and 9:1 ( ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱̮ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ ), or ̱ ̱ ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ as in 10:10 and 10:11, and to repeat a rhythm twice in succession, as, e.g., ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̮ in 2:3 (τηλικαύτης ἀ … ἥτις ἀρχὴν λα) ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱ in 4:10 (ὁ γὰρ εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὴν … ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ), or ̱ ̮ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ in 12:1 (τοιγαροῦν καὶ ἡμεῖς τηλικοῦτʼ ἔχοντες). The standard closing rhythm ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ does not clearly occur till 11:3 (γεγονέναι), 11:4 (ἔτι λαλεῖ), 11:23 (βασιλέως), and 12:24; it is not so frequent as, e.g. , ̮ ̮ ̱ ̱ (7:28, 29, 9:26, 10:34, 35; 11:13, 15, 28, 12:3 etc.). He also likes to close with a single or an echoing rhythm like ̮ ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ in 1:3 (σύνης ἐν ὑψηλοῖς), 2:10 (άτ ων τελειῶσαι), 2:18 (πέπονθε πειρασθείς … μένοις βοηθῆσαι), or ̱ ̱ ̮ ̱ in 7:19, 9:28 (ὀφθήσεται … σωτηρίαν), 11:4 (κεν τῷ θεῷ … αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ), 11:21 etc. A curious variety in almost parallel clauses occurs in 11:1

where the cross cadences are plain, as in Isokrates often. But at the end of sentences, as a rule, he prefers ̮ ̮ ̮ ̱ ̮ (παραρυῶμεν, 2:1, 8:6), or ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱̮ (ἧς λαλοῦμεν, 2:5, 7:6, 7 etc.) or ̱ ̮ ̱ ̱ ̱ (ων τελειῶσαι, 2:10, 2:18, 3:14, 4:3, 11, 11:21 etc.), sometimes the weighty ̱ ̱ ̱ ̱ (2:17, 8:2, 10:39, 11:9, 11:14 etc.), or ̮ ̱ ̮ ̱ (4:1, 5:3, 12, 10:2, 18, 27, 11:8) now and then, or one or even two (5:11) anapaests, often ending on a short syllable.

He is true to the ancient principle of Isokrates, however, that prose should be mingled with rhythms of all sorts, especially iambic and trochaic, and there even happen to be two trimeters in 12:14, besides the similar rhythm in 12:13, 26. Also he secures smoothness often by avoiding the practice of making a word which begins with a vowel follow a word which ends with a vowel (δεῖ τὰ φωνήεντα μὴ συμπίπτειν). Parallelisms in sound, sense, and form are not infrequent. These σχήματα of Isokrates can be traced, e.g., in 1:2, 3 where, by ἀντίθεσις, ὅν … πάντων answers to ὄς … ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ, as διʼ οὗ … ἐποίησεν to φέρων … δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, or as in 11:1, which is, however, a case of παρίσωσις or parallelism in form. As in Wisdom, the accumulation of short syllables, a characteristic of the later prose, is frequent in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους (e.g. in 2:1, 2 … , 6:9, 10 … , 10:25, 11:12, 19, 12:8, 9, 13:4 etc.). At the same time, Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is not written in parallel rhythm, like Wisdom (cp. Thackeray’s study in Journal of Theological Studies, vi. pp. 232 f.); it is a prose work, and, besides, we do not expect the same opportunities for using even prose-rhythms in the theological centre of the writing, though in the opening chapters and towards the close, the writer has freer play. One or two samples may be cited, e.g., in the two parallel clauses of 1:2:

or in 1:3 where answers to

In 2:16 the two clauses begin with ̱ ̱ ̱ and end with

the verb being obviously repeated to bring out the anapaestic rhythm. The “cretic” ( ̱ ̮ ̱ ), which is particularly frequent, is seen clearly in a carefully wrought passage like 4:8-10:

There is a repeated attempt at balance, e.g. of clauses, like (11:33):

where both have the same number of syllables and end on the same rhythm; or, in the next verse, where

is echoed in while there is a similar harmony of sound in the closing syllables of

and in vv. 37 and 38; the balancing is obvious in

or in the chiming of 38 and 39:

As for the bearing of this rhythmical structure on the text, it does not affect the main passages in question (e.g. 2:9, 6:2); it rather supports and indeed may explain the omission of τῷ before υἱῷ in 1:1, and of ὅλῳ in 2:2, as well as the right of μελλόντων to stand in 9:11 and in 10:1; it might favour, however, ἀγγέλων γενόμενος instead of γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων in 1:4, and the insertion of ἡ στεῖρα in 11:11 and of ὄρει in 12:18, if it were pressed; while, on the other hand, as employed by Blass, it buttresses the wrong insertion of μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν in 3:6, and inferior readings like συγκεκερασμένους and ἀκουσθεῖσιν in 4:2, ἐκδεχομένοις (D*) in 9:28, εἰ in 12:7, ἐν χολῇ in 12:15, and ἀνέχεσθαι in 13:22. But the writer is not shackled to στίχοι, though his mind evidently was familiar with the rhythms in question.

(ii)

There are traces of vernacular Greek, but the language and style are idiomatic on the whole. Thus the perfect is sometimes employed for the sake of literary variety, to relieve á line of aorists (e.g. 11:17, 28), and indeed is often used aoristically, without any subtle intention (cp. on 7:6 etc.); it is pedantic to press significance into the tenses, without carefully watching the contemporary Hellenistic usage. The definite article is sparingly employed. Μέν … δέ, on the other hand, is more common, as we might expect from the antithetical predilections of the author in his dialectic. As for the prepositions, the avoidance of σύν is remarkable (cp. on 12:14), all the more remarkable since our author is fond of verbs compounded with σύν. Oratorical imperatives are used with effect (e.g. 3:1, 12, 7:4, 10:32 etc.), also double (1:5, 1:13, 14, 12:5-7) and even triple (3:16-18) dramatic questions, as well as single ones (2:3, 4, 7:11, 9:13, 14, 10:29, 11:32, 12:9). The style is persuasive, neither diffuse nor concise. The writer shows real skill in managing his transitions, suggesting an idea before he develops it (e.g. in 2:17, 5:6). He also employs artistically parentheses and asides, sometimes of considerable length (e.g. καθώς … κατάπαυσίν μου 3:7-11, 5:13, 14, 8:5, 11:13-16), now and then slightly irrelevant (e.g. 3:4), but occasionally, as in Plato, of real weight (e.g. 2:16, 7:12; οὐδὲν … νόμος 7:19, 10:4; πιστὸς γὰρ ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος 10:23; ὧν οὐκ ἦν ἄξιος ὁ κόσμος 11:38, 13:14); they frequently explain a phrase (τοῦτʼ ἔστιν τὸν διάβολον 2:14; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτῶν 7:5; ὁ λαὸς γὰρ ἐπʼ αὐτῆς νενομοθέτηται 7:11; ἥτις … ἐνεστηκότα 9:9; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν … κτίσεως 9:11; τοῦτʼ ἔστιν τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ 10:20, 12:20), especially an OT citation (e. g. 4:10, 6:13, 7:2, 7; αἵτινες κατὰ νόμον προσφέρονται 10:8) on which the writer comments in passing. One outstanding feature of the style (for Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is λέξις κατεστραμμένη, not λέξις εἰρόμενη in the sense of rapid dialogue) is the number of long, carefully constructed sentences (e.g. 1:1-4, 2:2-4, 2:14, 15, 3:12-15, 4:12, 13, 5:1-3, 5:7-10, 6:4-6, 6:16-20, 7:1-3, 8:4-6, 9:2-5, 9:6-10, 9:24-26, 10:11-13, 10:19-25, 11:24-26, 12:1, 2, 12:18-24). Yet his short sentences are most effective, e.g. 2:18, 4:8, 10:18, and once at least (3:16-18) there is a touch of the rapid, staccato diatribê style, which lent itself to the needs of popular preaching. He loves a play on words or assonance, e.g. καρδία πονηρὰ ἀπιστίας ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι (3:12), παρακαλεῖτε ἑαυτοὺς … ἆχρις οὗ τὸ σήμερον καλεῖται (3:13), ἔμαθεν ἀφʼ ὧν ἔπαθεν (5:8), καλοῦ τε καὶ κακοῦ (5:14), ἅπαξ προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας (9:28), τοσοῦτον ἔχοντες περικείμενον ἡμῖν νέφος μαρτύρων … τρέχωμεν τὸν προκείμενον ἡμῖν ἀγῶνα (12:1), ἐκλέλησθε τῆς παρακλήσεως … μηδὲ ἐκλύου (12:5), μένουσαν πόλιν ἀλλὰ τὴν μέλλουσαν (13:14). Also he occasionally likes to use a term in two senses, e.g. ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ … πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος (4:12, 13), and διαθήκη in 9:15f. From first to last he is addicted to the gentle practice of alliteration, e.g. πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις (1:1), πᾶσα παράβασις καὶ παρακοή (2:2), ἀφῆκεν αὐτῷ ἀνυπότακτον (2:8), τὸν ἀπόστολον καὶ ἀρχιερέα (3:1), καίτοι … ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (4:3), ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν (4:12), ἀπάτωρ, ἀμήτωρ, ἀγενεαλόγητος (7:3), διὰ τὸ αὐτῆς ἀσθενὲς καὶ ἀνωφελές (7:18), εἰς τὸ παντελὲς … τοὺς προσερχομένους … πάντοτε ζῶν (7:25), οἱ κεκλημένοι τῆς αἰωνίου κληρονομίας (9:15), εἰσῆλθεν ἅγια Χριστὸς ἀντιτύπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν, ἀλλʼ εἰς αὐτόν (9:24), ἐπεὶ ἔδει αὐτὸν πολλάκις παθεῖν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (9:26), ἅπαξ ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων εἰς ἀθέτησιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας (9:26), ἀποκεῖται τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἅπαξ ἀποθανεῖν (9:27), ἐν αὐταῖς ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν (10:3), ἀδύνατον γὰρ αἷμα ταύρων καὶ τράγων ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας (10:4), θλίψεσιν θεατριζόμενοι (10:33), εἰ μὲν ἐκείνης ἐμνημόνευον ἀφʼ ἧς ἐξέβησαν (11:15), πᾶσα μὲν παιδεία πρὸς μὲν τὸ παρόν (12:11), περισσοτέρως δὲ παρακαλῶ τοῦτο ποιῆσαι (13:19). On the other hand, he seems deliberately to avoid alliteration once by altering διεθέμην into ἐποίησα (8:9).

One or two other features of his style are remarkable. There is, for example, the predilection for sonorous compounds like μισθαποδοσία and εὐπερίστατος, and also the love of adjectives in a privative, which Aristotle noted as a mark of the elevated style (Rhet. iii. 6, 7); in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους there are no fewer than twenty-four such, while even in the historical romance miscalled 3 Mac. there are no more than twenty. Other items are the fondness for nouns ending in -ις (cp. on 2:4), the extensive use of periphrases (cp. on 4:11), and of the infinitive and the preposition (see on 3:12). The use of a word like τε is also noticeable. Apart from eleven occurrences of τε καί, and one doubtful case of τε … τε … καί (6:2), τε links (a) substantives without any preceding καί or δέ; (b) principal clauses, as in 12:2; and (c) participial clauses, as in 1:3, 6:4. Emphasis is generally brought out by throwing a word forward or to the very end of the sentence.

The writer is also in the habit of interposing several words between the article or pronoun and the substantive; e.g.

1:4 διαφορώτερον παρʼ αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα.

4:8 οὐκ ἂν περὶ ἄλλης ἐλάλει μετὰ ταῦτα ἡμέρας.

10:11 τὰς αὐτὰς πολλάκις προσφέρων θυσίας.

10:12 μίαν ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν προσενέγκας θυσίαν.

10:27 πυρὸς ζῆλος ἐσθίειν μέλλοντος τοὺς ὑπεναντίους.

12:3 τὸν τοιαύτην ὑπομενενηκότα ὑπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν εἰς αὐτὸν ἀντιλογίαν.

Further, his use of the genitive absolute is to be noted, e.g., in—

2:4 συνεπιμαρτυροῦντος τοῦ θεοῦ κτλ.

4:1 καταλειπομέης … αὐτοῦ (seven words between μή ποτε and δοκῇ τις).

4:3 καίτοι τῶν ἔργων … γενηθέντων.

7:12 μετατιθεμένης γὰρ τῆς ἱερωσύνης.

8:4 ὄντων τῶν προσφερόντων κατὰ νόμον τὰ δῶρα.

9:6 τούτων δὲ οὕτω κατεσκευασμένων.

9:8 τοῦτο δηλοῦντος τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ Ἁγίου … ἔτι της πρώτης σκηνῆς ἐχούσης στάσιν.

9:15 θανάτου γενομένου … παραβάσεων (ten words between ὅπως and τ.ἐ. λαβῶσιν).

9:19 λαληθείσης γὰρ πάσης ἐντολῆς … Μωυσέως.

10:26 ἑκουσίως γὰρ ἁμαρτανόντων ἡμῶν.

11:4 μαρτυροῦντος ἐπὶ τοῖς δώροις αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.

Finally, there is an obvious endeavour to avoid harsh hiatus, sometimes by the choice of a term (e.g. διότι for ὅτι, as in Polybius and Theophrastus, or ἄχρις for ἄχρι, or ὡς for ὅτι), and a distinct fondness for compound verbs; Moulton (ii. II), reckoning by the pages of WH, finds that while Mark has 5∙7 compound verbs per page, Act_6∙25, Hebrews has 8∙0, and Paul only 3∙8.

His vocabulary is drawn from a wide range of reading. Whether he was a Jew by birth or not, he goes far beyond the LXX. His Greek recalls that of authors like Musonius Rufus and the philosophical Greek writers, and he affects more or less technical philosophical terms like αἰσθητήριον, δημιουργός, θέλησις, μετριοπαθεῖν, τελειόω, τέλος, τιμωρία, and ὑπόδειγμα. He was acquainted with the books of the Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and perhaps even Philo. This last affinity is strongly marked. The more he differs from Philo in his speculative interpretation of religion, the more I feel, after a prolonged study of Philo, that our author had probably read some of his works; it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that his acquaintance with the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria included an acquaintance with Philo’s writings. However this may be, the terminology of the Wisdom literature was as familiar to this early Christian διδάσκαλος as to the author of Jam_1

As for the LXX, the text he used—and he uses it with some freedom in quotations—must have resembled that of A (cp. Buchel in Studien und Kritiken, 1906, pp. 508-591), upon the whole. It is to his acquaintance with the LXX that occasional “Semitisms” in his style may be referred, e.g. the ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου of 1:1, the καρδία ἀπιστίας of 3:12, the ἐν τῷ λέγεσθαι of 3:15, the θρόνος τῆς χάριτος of 4:16, and the phrases in 5:7, 9:5 and 12:15. But this is a minor point. We note rather that (a) he sometimes uses LXX terms (e.g. δυναμεῖς) in a special Hellenistic sense, or in a sense of his own. (b) Again, it is the use of the contents of the LXX which is really significant. The nearest approach to Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, in its treatment of the OT, is the speech of Stephen, the Hellenistic Jewish Christian, in Acts 7:1-53, where we have a similar use of the typological method and a similar freedom in handling the OT story (cp. EBi 4791, e.g. Acts 7:29 = Hebrews 11:27), which proves how men like these writers, for all their reverence for the LXX, sat wonderfully free to the letter of the scripture and employed, without hesitation, later Jewish traditions in order to interpret it for their own purposes. But Stephen’s reading of the OT is not that of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους. The latter never dwells on the crime of the Jews in putting Jesus to death (12:3 is merely a general, passing allusion), whereas Stephen makes that crime part and parcel of the age-long obstinacy and externalism which had characterized Israel. In Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, again, the κληρονομία of Palestine is spiritualized (3:7f.), whereas Stephen merely argues that its local possession by Israel was not final. Stephen, again, argues that believers in Jesus are the true heirs of the OT spiritual revelation, not the Jews; while in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους the continuity of the People is assumed, and Christians are regarded as ipso facto the People of God, without any allusion to the Jews having forfeited their privileges. Here the author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους differs even from the parable of Jesus (cp. on 1:1); he conveys no censure of the historical Jews who had been responsible for the crucifixion. The occasional resemblances between Stephen’s speech and Πρὸς Ἑβραίους are not so significant as the difference of tone and temper between them, e.g. in their conceptions of Moses and of the angels (cp. on Hebrews 2:2). For another thing, (c) the conception of God derives largely from the element of awe and majesty in the OT (see on 1:3, 4:13, 10:30, 31, 12:29). This has been already noted (see pp. xxxv f.). But linguistically there are characteristic elements in the various allusions to God. Apart altogether from a stately term like Μεγαλωσύνη (1:3, 8:1) or Δόξα (9:5), we get a singular number of indirect, descriptive phrases like διʼ ὃν τὰ πάντα καὶ διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα (2:10), τῷ ποιήσαντι αὐτόν (3:2), πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος (4:13), τὸν δυνάμενον σώζειν αὐτὸν ἐκ θανάτου (5:7), ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος (10:23, 11:11), τὸν ἀόρατον (11:27), τὸν ἀπʼ οὐρανῶν χρηματίζοντα (12:25). After 1:1, indeed, there is a slight tendency to avoid the use of ὁ θεός and to prefer such periphrases of a solemn and even liturgical tone. It is noticeable, e.g., that while ὁ θεός occurs about seventy-eight times in 2 Co (which is about the same length as Πρὸς Ἑβραίους), it only occurs fifty-five times in the latter writing. The title (ὁ) Κύριος is also rare; it was probably one of the reasons that suggested the quotation in 1:10f. (κύριε), but it is mainly applied to God (12:14), and almost invariably in connexion with OT quotations (7:21, 8:2, 8:8f, 10:16, 10:30, 12:6, 13:6). Once only it is applied to Jesus (2:3), apart from the solitary use of ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν in 7:14 (+ Ἰησοῦς, 33, 104, 2127) and in the doxology with Ἰησοῦς (13:20). It is not a term to which the author attaches special significance (cp. on 7:24). Ἰησούς, as in (i) 2:9 (τὸν δὲ βραχύ τι παρʼ ἀγγέλους ἠλαττωμένον βλέπομεν Ἰησοῦν), (ii) 3:1 (κατανοήσατε τὸν ἀπόστολον καὶ ἀρχιερέα τῆς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν, (iii) 4:14 (ἔχοντες οὖν ἀρχιερέα μέγαν διεληλυθότα τοὺς οὐρανούς, Ἰησοῦν), (iv) 6:20 (ὅπου πρόδρομος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν εἰσῆλθεν Ἰησοῦς), (v) 7:22 (κατὰ τοσοῦτον καὶ κρείττονος διαθήκης γέγονεν ἔγγυος Ἰησοῦς), (vi) 10:19 (ἐν τῷ αἵματι Ἰησοῦ), (vii) 12:2 (τὸν τῆς πίστεως ἀρχηγὸν καὶ τελειωτὴν Ἰησοῦν), (viii) 12:24 (καὶ διαθήκης νέας μεσίτῃ Ἰησοῦ), (ix) 13:12 (διὸ καὶ Ἰησοῦς), (x) 13:20 (τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν), is generally the climax of an impressive phrase or phrases. The unique use of this name in such connexions soon led to liturgical or theological expansions, as, e.g., 3:1 (+ Χριστόν, Cc K L Ψ 104 326 1175 syr arm Orig. Chrys.), 6:20 (+ Χριστός, D), 10:19 (+ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, 1827 vg), 13:12 (+ ὁ, 5 [as Colossians 3:17] 330 [as Colossians 3:17] 440 [as Romans 8:11] 623, 635, 1867, 2004: + ὁ κύριος, 1836: Χριστός, 487), 13:20 (+ Χριστόν, D Ψ 5, 104, 177, 241, 323, 337, 436, 547, 623c 635, 1831, 1837, 1891 latd f tol syrhkl Chrys.). Χριστός (3:6, 9:11, 24), or ὁ Χριστός (3:14, 5:5, 6:1, 9:14, 28, 11:26), has also been altered; e.g. 3:14 (κυρίου, 256, 2127: θεοῦ, 635: om. τοῦ, 467), 5:5 (om. ὁ, 462), 6:1 (θεοῦ, 38, 2005: om. 429), 9:24 (+ ὁ Cc D Ψ 104, Ap.256;, 263, 326, 467, 1739, 2127 arm: Ἰησοῦς, 823 vg Orig.), but less seriously. Ἰησοῦς Χριστός only occurs thrice (10:10, 13:8, 21).

So far as vocabulary and style go, there are certain affinities between Πρὸς Ἑβραίους and (a) the Lucan writings, (b) 1 Peter, and, to a less degree, (c) the Pastoral Epistles; but an examination of the data indicates that the affinities are not sufficient to do more than indicate a common atmosphere of thought and expression at some points. I do not now feel it safe to go beyond this cautious verdict. The author of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους has idiosyncrasies which are much more significant than any such affinities. His literary relations with the other NT writers, if he had any, remain obscure, with two exceptions. Whether he had read Paul’s epistles or not, depends in part on the question whether the quotation in 10:30 was derived outright from Romans 12:19 or from some florilegium of messianic texts; but, apart from this, there are numerous cases of what seem to be reminiscences of Paul. As for 1 Peter, our author has some connexion, which remains unsolved, with what probably was an earlier document.

To sum up. He has a sense of literary nicety, which enters into his earnest religious argument without rendering it artificial or over-elaborate. He has an art of words, which is more than an unconscious sense of rhythm. He has the style of a trained speaker; it is style, yet style at the command of a devout genius. “Of Hellenistic writers he is the freest from the monotony that is the chief fault of Hellenistic compared with literary Greek; his words do not follow each other in a mechanically necessary order, but are arranged so as to emphasize their relative importance, and to make the sentences effective as well as intelligible. One may say that he deals with the biblical language (understanding by this the Hellenistic dialect founded on the LXX, not merely his actual quotations from it) … as a preacher, whose first duty is to be faithful, but his second to be eloquent” (W. H. Simcox, The Writers of the NT, p. 43).

§ 4. Text, Commentaries, etc

(i)

The textual criticism of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους is bound up with the general criticism of the Pauline text (cp. Romans in the present series, pp. lxiii ff.), but it has one or two special features of its own, which are due in part (a) to the fact of its exclusion from the NT Canon in some quarters of the early church, and (b) also to the fact that the Pauline F (Greek text) and G are wholly, while B C H M N W p 13 and 048 are partially, missing. It is accidental that the Philoxenian Syriac version has not survived, but the former phenomenon (a) accounts for the absence of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους not simply from the Gothic version, but also from the old Latin African bible-text for which Tertullian and Cyprian, the pseudo-Augustinian Speculum and “Ambrosiaster,” furnish such valuable evidence in the case of the Pauline epistles. The (b) defectiveness of B, etc, on the other hand, is to some extent made up by the discovery of the two early papyrus-fragments.

The following is a list of the MSS and the main cursives, the notations of Gregory and von Soden being added in brackets, for the sake of convenience in reference:

Codicum Index

א saec. iv. (v.) [01: δ 2].

A saec. v. [02: δ 4].

B saec. iv. [03: δ 1] cont. 1:1-9:18: for remainder cp. cursive 293.

C saec. v. [04: δ 3] cont. 2:4-7:26, 9:15-10:24, 12:16-13:25.

D saec. (vi.) [06: α 1026] cont. 1:1-13:20. Codex Claromontanus is a Graeco-Latin MS, whose Greek text is poorly1 reproduced in the later (saec. ix.-x.) E = codex Sangermanensis. The Greek text of the latter (1:1-12:8) is therefore of no independent value (cp. Hort in WH, §§ 335-337); for its Latin text, as well as for that of F=codex Augiensis (saec. ix.), whose Greek text of Πρὸς Ἐβραίους has not been preserved, see below, p. lxix.

H saec. vi. [015: α 1022] cont. 1:3-8, 2:11-16, 3:13-18, 4:12-15, 10:1-7, 32-38, 12:10-15, 13:24-25: mutilated fragments, at Moscow and Paris, of codex Coislinianus.

K saec. ix. [018:I1].

L saec. ix. [020: α 5] cont. 1:1-13:10.

M saec. ix. [0121: α 1031] cont. 1:1-4:3, 12:20-13:25.

N saec. ix. [0122: α 1030] cont. 5:8-6:10.

P saec. ix. [025: α 3] cont. 1:1-12:8, 12:11-13:25.

p13 saec. iv. [α 1034] cont. 2:14-5:5, 10:8-11:13, 11:28-12:17: Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv. (1904) 36-48. The tendency, in 2:14-5:5, to agree with B “in the omission of unessential words and phrases … gives the papyrus peculiar value in the later chapters, where B is deficient”; thus p13 partially makes up for the loss of B after 9:14. Otherwise the text of the papyrus is closest to that of D.

p18 saec. iv. [α 1043] cont. 9:12-19: Oxyrhynchus Papyri, viii. (1911) 11-13.

Ψ saec. (vi. ?) viii.-ix. [044: δ 6] cont. 1:1-8:11, 9:19-13:25.

W saec. (iv.-vi.) [I] cont. 1:1-3, 9-12, 2:4-7, 12-14, 3:4-6, 14-16, 4:3-6, 12-14, 5:5-7, 6:1-3, 10-13, 20, 7:1-2, 7-11, 18-20, 27-28, 8:1, 7-9, 9:1-4, 9-11, 16-19, 25-27, 10:5-8, 16-18, 26-29, 35-38, 11:6-7, 12-15, 22-24, 31-33, 38-40, 12:1, 7-9, 16-18, 25-27, 13:7-9, 16-18, 23-25: NT MSS in Freer Collection, The Washington MS of the Epp. of Paul (1918), pp. 294-306. Supports Alexandrian text, and is “quite free from Western readings.”

048 saec. v. [α 1] cont. 11:32-13:4. Codex Patiriensis is a palimpsest.

0142 saec. x. [06].

0151 saec. xii. [x21].

Three specimens of how the MSS group themselves may be printed. (a) shows the relation between M and the papyrus p13:

M agrees with p13 in eight places:

3:1 Ἰησοῦν.

3:3 δόξης οὗτος (+ K L vg, alone).

3:4 πάντα.

3:6 ἐάν.

3:9 ὑμῶν ἐν δοκιμασίᾳ.

3:10 ταύτῃ.

3:13 τις ἐξ ὑμῶν.

4:2 συγκεκ(ε)ρασμένους.

It opposes p13 (+ B) in

3:2 + δλῳ.

3:6 ὅς.

3:6 + μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν.

3:9 + με.

4:3 οὖν.

4:3 + τήν before κατάπανσιν.

M has some remarkable affinities with the text of Origen (e.g. 1:3, 1:9, 2:1). (b) exhibits the relations of א and D*, showing how A and B agree with them on the whole, and how p13 again falls into this group:

א and D* agree in

1:2 position of ἐποίησεν A B M

1:8 + καί before ἡ ῥάβδος A B M

2:1 παραρυῶμεν A B*

2:7 + καὶ κατέστησας … σου A

2:15 δουλίας

3:1 om. Χριστόν A B M p13

3:4 πάντα A B M p13

3:10 ταύτῃ A B M p13

3:19 διʼ (Song of Solomon 7:9) A B M p13

4:1 καταλιπομένης (alone), except for p13

4:7 προείρηται A (B) p13

4:15 συνπαθῆσαι A B*

4:16 ἔλεος A B

5:3 διʼ αὐτήν A B

5:3 μερὶ ἁμαρτιῶν A B

6:10 om. τοῦ κόπου A B

6:16 om. μέν A B

7:5 Λευί

7:6 om. τόν before Ἀβραάμ B

7:10 om. ὁ before Μελχισεδέκ B

7:11 αὐτῆς A B

7:11 νενομοθέτηται A B

7:16 σαρκίνης A B

7:17 μαρτυρεῖται A B

8:2 om. καί before οὐκ ἄνθρωπος B

8:4 οὖν A B

8:4 om. τῶν ἱερέων A B

8:11 om. αὐτῶν after μικροῦ A B

9:5 χερουβίν (alone of uncials)

9:9 καθʼ ἥν A B

9:21 ἐράντισεν A

9:24 om. ὁ before Χριστός A

10:10 om. οἱ before διά A

10:12 οὗτος A

10:16 διάνοιαν A

10:23 λελουσμένοι

11:3 τὸ βλεπόμενον A p13

11:19 δυνατός

11:29 + γῆς A p13

11:30 ἔπεσαν A p13

11:32 με γάρ A

11:34 μαχαίρης (so 11:37) A

12:5 παιδίας A

12:8 position of ἐστε A p13

12:9 πολύ (so 12:25) A

12:21 ἔκτρομος (alone)

13:3 κακουχουμένων A M

13:4 γάρ A M

13:8 ἐχθές A M

13:21 ἐργῷ

13:21 om. ἐργῷ

(c) exhibits characteristic readings of H, with some of its main allies:

1:3 καθαρισμόν א A B Db H* P vg arm

2:15 δουλίας א D* H P

3:13 τις ἐξ ὑμῶν p13 א A C H M P vg pesh arm boh

3:14 τοῦ Χριστοῦ γεγ. א A B C D W H M P vg

3:17 τίσιν δέ א B C D H P K L Sah

4:12 ἐνεργής א A C D H P L vg

4:12 ψυχῆς א A B C H P K L (vg arm boh)

4:15 συνπαθῆσαι א A B* C D* H

10:1 θυσίας (- αὐτῶν) A C D H K L vg

10:1 αἷς D* H L

10:1 δυνάται D H K L vg boh

10:2 om. οὐκ H* (vg) pesh

10:2 κεκαθαρισμένους א D H P K

10:6 ἠυδόκησας A C D* W H P

10:34 τοῖς δεσμίοις p13 A D* H vg pesh boh

10:34 έαυτούς p13 א A H vg boh

10:34 ὕπαρξιν p13 א* A D* H* vg boh

10:35 μεγάλην μισθ. א A D W H P

10:37 χρονιεῖ אc A Dc W H P K L

10:38 μου ἐκ πίστεως א A H* vg arm

12:11 πᾶσα δέ p13 אc A Dc H K L vg pesh boh

12:13 ποιήσατε א A D H K L

12:15 αὐτῆς (p13) A H P

12:16 αὐτοῦ אc D* H P K L

13:21 om. τῶν αἰώνων Cc D H arm

13:23 ἡμῶν א* A C D* W H M vg pesh arm boh sah

13:25 ἀμήν. אc A C D H P M K vg pesh (arm) boh

Cursives

1 saec. x. [δ 254]

2 saec. xii. [α 253]

5 saec. xiv. [δ 453]

6 saec. xiii. [δ 356] cont. 1:1-9:3, 10:22-13:25

31 saec. xi. [α 103]

33 saec. ix.-x. [δ 48] Hort’s 17

35 saec. xiii. [δ 309]

38 saec. xiii. [δ 355]

47 saec. xi. [O π 103]

69 saec. xv. [δ 505]

88 saec. xii. [α 200]

90 saec. xvi. [δ 652]

93 saec. x. [α 51]

103 saec. xi. [O 28]

104 saec. xi. [α 103]

112 saec. xi. [E π 10]

177 saec. xi. [α 106]

181 saec. xi. [α 101]

188 saec. xii. [α 200]

189 saec. xiii. [Θ δ 30]

203 saec. xii. [α 203]

206 saec. xiii. [α 365]

209 saec. xiv. [δ 457]

216 saec. xiv. [α 469]

217 saec. xi. [α 1065] cont. 1:1-6:5

218 saec. xiii. [δ 300]

221 saec. x. [α 69]

226 saec. xi. [δ 156]

227 saec. xii. [α 258]

241 saec. xi. [δ 507]

242 saec. xii. [δ 206]

253 saec. xi. [δ 152]

255 saec. xi. [α 174]

256 saec. xii. [α 216]

257 saec. xiv. [α 466]

263 saec. xiii.-xiv. [δ 372]

293 saec. xv. [α 1574] cont. 9:14-13:25

296 saec. xvi. [δ 600]

323 saec. xi.-xii. [α 157]

326 saec. xii. [α 257]

327 saec. xiii. [O36]

330 saec. xii. [δ 259]

337 saec. xii. [α 205]

371 saec. xiv. [α 1431] cont. 7:3-13:25

378 saec. xii. [α 258]

383 saec. xiii. [α 353] cont. 1:1-13:7

418 (x.) saec. xv. (x.) [α 1530] cont. 1:1-13:17

424 saec. xi. [O12] Hort’s 67

429 saec. xiii.-xiv. [α 398]

431 saec. xii. [δ 268]

436 saec. xi. [α 172]

440 saec. xii. [δ 260]

442 saec. xiii. [O18]

456 saec. x.? [α 52]

460 saec. xiii.-xiv. [α 397]

461 saec. xiii. [α 359]

462 saec. xv. [α 502]

487 saec. xi. [α 171]

489 saec. xiv [δ 459] Hort’s 102

491 saec. xi. [δ 152]

506 saec. xi. [δ 101]

522 saec. xvi. [δ 602]

547 saec. xi. [δ 157]

614 saec. xiii. [α 364]

623 saec. xi. [α 173]

633 saec. xi. [α 161]

639 saec. xi. [α 169]

642 saec. xv. [α 552] cont. 1:1-7:18, 9:13-13:25

794 saec. xiv. [δ 454]

808 saec. xii. [δ 203]

823 saec. xiii. [δ 368]

876 saec. xiii. [α 356]

913 saec. xiv. [α 470]

915 saec. xiii. [α 382]

917 saec. xii. [α 264]

919 saec. xi. [α 113]

920 saec. x. [α 55]

927 saec. xii. [δ 251]

941 saec. xiii. [δ 369]

999 saec. xiii. [δ 353]

1108 saec. xiii. [α 370]

1149 saec. xiii. [δ 370]

1175 saec. x. [α 74] cont. 1:1-3:5, 6:8-13:20

1243 saec. xii. [δ 198]

1245 saec. xi. [α 158]

1288 (81) xi. [α 162]

1311 saec. xi. [α 170]

1319 saec. xi. [δ 180]

1518 saec. xi. [α 116]

1522 saec. xiv. [α 464]

1525 saec. xiii. [α 361] cont. 1:1-7:8

1610 saec. xiv. [α 468]

1611 saec. xii. [α 208]

1739 saec. x. [α 78]

1758 saec. xiii. [α 396] cont. 1:1-13:14

1765 saec. xiv. [α 486]

1827 saec. xiii. [α 367]

1831 saec. xiv. [α 472]

1836 saec. x. [α 65]

1837 saec. xi. [α 192]

1838 saec. xi. [α 175]

1845 saec. x. [α 64]

1852 saec. xi. [α 114] cont. 1:1-11:10

1867 saec. xi.-xii. [α 154]

1872 saec. xii. [α 209]

1873 saec. xii. [α 252]

1891 saec. x. [α 62]

1898 saec. x. [α 70]

1906 saec. xi. [O π 101]

1908 saec. xi. [O π 103]

1912 saec. x.-xi. [α 1066]

2004 saec. x. [α 56]

2055 saec. xiv. [α 1436] cont. 1:1-7:2

2127 saec. xii. [δ 202]

2138 saec. xi. [α 116]

2143 saec. xi.-xii. [α 184]

2147 saec. xii. [δ 299]

Of these some like 5 and 33 and 442 and 999 and 1908 are of the first rank; von Soden pronounces 1288 “a very good representative” of his H text. Yet even the best cursives, like the uncials, may stray (see on 4:16). As a specimen of how one good cursive goes, I append this note of some characteristic readings in 424 **:

1:3 om. αὐτοῦ after δυνάμεως M Orig d e f vg

om. ἡμῶν א* A B D* M P

2:9 χωρίς M Orig

3:1 om. Χριστόν א A B D* C* M P d e f vg sah

3:6 ὅς D* M d e f vg

3:10 ταύτῃ א A B D* M sah

 -4:14 πίστεως

 -5:12 ὑμᾶς (om. τινά)

8:4 om. τῶν ἱερεων א A B D* P d e f vg

9:9 καθʼ ἥν א A B D* f vg

9:23 καθαρίζεται (ἀνάγκη) D* Orig

10:1 δύνανται א A Db C P [sc. D*, Orig]

10:30 om. λέγει κύριος א* D* P d e f vg

10:34 δεσμίοις A H D* (Orig??) f vg

11:5 om. αὐτοῦ א* A D* P d e f vg

12:15 αὐτῆς A P

12:25 ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ א M b

12:26 σείσω א A C M f vg

Latin Versions

A. Old Latin (vt), saec. ii. (?)-iv

Hebrews is omitted in the pseudo-Augustinian Speculum (= m) and in codex Boernerianus (= g), but included in—

d (Latin version of D)

e (Latin version of E)

f (Latin version of F)

r (codex Frisingensis: saec. vi., cont. 6:6-7:5, 7:8-8:1, 9:27-11:7)

x*2 (codex Bodleianus: saec. ix., cont. 1:1-11:23)

Of these, r (corresponding to the text used by Augustine), with the few quotations by Priscillian, represents the African, d (in the main)1 and x*2 the European, type of the Old Latin text; but f is predominantly vulgate, and it is doubtful whether x*2 is really Old Latin. On the other hand, some evidence for the Old Latin text is to be found occasionally in the following MSS of—

B. Vulgate (vg), saec. iv

am (Codex Amiatinus: saec. vii.-viii.)

fuld (Codex Fuldensis: saec. vi.)

cav (Codex Cavensis: saec. ix.) Spanish

tol (Codex Toletanus: saec. viii.) Spanish

harl (Codex Harleianus: saec. viii.)

c (Codex Colbertinus: saec. xii.)

Though c is an Old Latin text for the gospels, Hebrews and the rest of the NT are vulgate; but He 10-11 in harl (which elsewhere has affinities with am and fuld) is Old Latin, according to E. S. Buchanan (The Epistles and Apocalypse from the codex Harleianus [z = Wordsworth’s Z2], numbered Harl. 1772 in the British Museum Library, 1913). Both in harl and in e, 11:3-33 has a special capitulation; harl, which adds after “the prophets” in 11:32—“Ananias azarias misahel daniel helias helisaeus”—apparently points to 11:3-32 having been at one time added to the original text which ran (11:2, 33): “in hac enim testimonium habuerunt seniores qui per fidem uicerunt regna,” etc. Of these MSS, fuld represents an Italian text, cav and tol a Spanish (the former with some admixture of Old Latin); am (whose text is akin to fuld) is an Italian text, written in Great Britain. At an early date the Latin versions were glossed, however (cp. on 7:1, 11:23).

Egyptian Versions

sah = Sahidic (saec. iii.-iv.): The Coptic Version of the NT in the Southern Dialect (Oxford, 1920), vol. v. pp. 1-131.

boh = Bohairic (saec. vi.-vii.): The Coptic Version of the NT in the Northern Dialect (Oxford, 1905), vol. iii. pp. 472-555.

In sah Πρὸς Ἑβραίους comes very early in the Pauline canon, immediately after Romans and Corinthians, even earlier than in the first (a.d. 400) Syriac canon, whereas in boh it comes between the Pauline church letters and the Pastorals. The latter seems to have been an early (i.e. a fourth century) position in the Eastern or Alexandrian canon, to judge from Athanasius (Fest. Ep. xxxix.); it reappears in the uncials א A B1 W. Not long afterwards, at the Synod of Carthage (can. 39), in a.d. 397, it is put between the Pauline and the Catholic epistles, which seems to have been the African and even the (or, a) Roman order. This reflects at least a doubt about its right to stand under Paul’s name, whereas the order in sah and the primitive Syriac canon reflects a deliberate assertion of its Pauline authorship. The Alexandrian position is intermediate.

The data of the Egyptian versions are of special interest, as several of the uncials have Egyptian affinities or an Egyptian origin, and as Πρὸς Ἑβραίους was early studied at Alexandria. Thus, to cite only one or two, boh is right, as against sah, e.g. in the rendering of πρός in 1:7, in omitting ὅλὑ (3:5), in rendering ὑποστάσεως as “confidence” in 3:14, in rendering ἐν Δαυείδ (4:7) “in David,” in reading παθεῖν in 9:26, in rendering ὑπόστασις by “assurance” (so syr arm) in 11:1, in taking καλούμενος by itself (11:8), in keeping ἐλιθάσθησαν before ἐπρίσθησαν (11:37, though ἐπειράσθησαν, = were tempted, is inferior to sah’s omission of any such term), in reading ἐπαγγελίαν (11:39, where sah agrees with W in reading the plural), etc. On the other hand, and in a large number of cases, sah is superior, e.g. at 2:17 (“a merciful and faithful highpriest”), at 3:6 (omitting μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν), at 4:2 (συγκεκερασμένος), in rendering κρατῶμεν (4:14) “let us hold on to,” in maintaining θεός in 6:3 (for “Lord” in boh), in omitting τοῦ κόπου in 6:10, in reading ἱερεῖς (with W) in 7:28, in reading ὑμῶν in 9:14, in rendering the last words of 9:28, in rendering ἁμ … ἀντιλογίαν in 12:3 etc. Note also that sah agrees with arm in inserting τῆς before ἐπαγγελίας in 4:1, ὕστερον λέγει in 10:16, 17, and γάρ in 12:4, while boh agrees with arm in adding εἰπεν in 1:8 and αἰώνιος at 5:10, and both agree with arm in omitting καί in 1:6. Both translate εἰσερχόμεθα (4:3) as a future, read ἀπιστίαν in 4:6 (with vg and arm), omit κατὰ τὴν τ. M. in 7:21, take ἀγιον as an adjective in 9:1, read μελλόντων in 9:11, take ἧς in 11:7 to mean the ark, read ἡ στεῖρα in 11:11, render ὅγκον by “pride” in 12:1, take ὑπομένετε as imperative in 12:7, and refer αὐτήν to τόπον μετανοίας in 12:17. Sah has some curious renderings, e.g. “hewed out” for ἐνεκαινίσεν (10:20), “the place of the blood” for αἵματος in 12:4, and actually “hanging for them another time” (ἀνασταἑροῦντας ἐαυτοῖς, 6:6); in general it is rather more vivid and less literal, though boh reads “through the sea of Shari” [?slaughter] in 11:29 (sah is defective here), which is singular enough. On the other hand, sah is more idiomatic. Thus it is in sah, not in boh, that νωθροὶ γένησθε (6:12) is rendered by “become daunted.” The differences in a passage like 12:22f. are specially instructive. Sah takes πανηγύρει with what follows, boh with ἀγγέλων (“myriads of angels keeping festival”); on the other hand, sah is right as against boh’s reading of πνεύματι (v. 23), while both render “God the judge of all.” In v. 26 both render ἐπήγγελται literally by “he promised,” but boh translates παραλαμβάνοντες in v. 28 as a future and χάριν as “grace,” whereas sah renders correctly in both cases. In ch. 13, sah seems to read περιφέρεσθε in v. 9 (“be not tossed about”), inserts ἔργῳ (as against boh), and reads ἡμῖν in v. 21; in v. 22 it reads ἀνέχεσθε; in v. 23, while boh renders ἀπολελυμένον by “released,” sah renders “our brother Timotheos whom I sent” (which confuses the sense of the passage altogether), and, unlike boh, omits the final ἀμήν. It is significant that sah1 often tallies with r as against d, e.g. in 6:18 (ἰσχυράν), 7:27 (ἀρχιερεῖς), though with d now and then against r, as in 11:6 (δέ). It agrees with d and eth in reading πνεῦμα in 1:7, ὡς ἱμάτιον in 1:12 (as well as ἑλίξεις), and καὶ τῶν τράγων in 9:19, but differs from d almost as often, and from eth in reading ταύτῃ in 3:10, in omitting κατὰ τ. τ. M. in 7:21, etc. Unexpectedly a collation of sah and of eth yields no material for a clear decision upon the relation of the texts they imply.

Syriac Versions

For the Old Syriac, i.e. for the Syriac text of Hebrews prior to the vulgate revision (Peshiṭta) of the fifth century, we possess even less material than in the case of the Old Latin version. Hebrews belonged to the old Syrian canon, but the primitive text can only be recovered approximately from (i) the Armenian version,2 which rests in part upon an Old Syriac basis—“readings of the Armenian vulgate which differ from the ordinary Greek text, especially if they are supported by the Peshiṭta, may be considered with some confidence to have been derived from the lost Old Syriac” (F. C. Burkitt, EBi 5004); from (ii) the homilies of Aphraates (saec. iv.), and from (iii) the Armenian translation of Ephraem Syrus (saec. iv), Commentarii in Epp. Pauli nunc primum ex armenio in latinum sermonem a patribus Mekitharistis translati (Venice, 1893, pp. 200-242).

Hebrews is not extant in the Philoxenian version of a.d. 508, but the Harklean revision of that text (a.d. 616-617) is now accessible in complete form, thanks to R. L. Bensly’s edition (The Harklean Version of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 11:28-13:25, now edited for the first time with Introduction and Notes, Cambridge, 1889). The Peshiṭta version is now conveniently accessible in the British and Foreign Bible Society’s edition of The New Testament in Syriac (1920).

The early evidence for the use of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους may be chronologically tabulated as follows:

MSS. Versions. Writers.

100-200 Clem. Rom.

200-300 (Old Syriac)(Old Latin) Clem. Alex. Tertullian

Origen (-248)

300-400 p13 p18 Eusebius (-340)

Basil (-379) Lucifer (-371)

B Sahidic (?) Cyril of Jerus. (-386) Priscillian (-385)

Apollinaris (-392) Ambrose (397)

א (?) vulgate (370-383) Chrysostom (-407) Jerome (-420)

Theodore of Mopsuestia

400-500 W (?) peshiṭta (411-435) Augustine (-430)

Cyril of Alex. (-444)

A C Armenian Theodoret (-458)

048

500-600 D d

fuld Ethiopic Fulgentius

H r

600-700 harklean (616-617)

700-800 am Bohairic (?)

Ψ tol

800-900 K L

M N f Sedulius Scotus

P cav

900-1000 e (?)

0142

א A B C H M Ψ W (with p13) would represent von Soden’s H text (approximating to WH’s Neutral), his I text (corresponding to WH’s Western) being represented by K L P among the uncials. But the difference between these in the Pauline corpus are, he admits, less than in the case of the gospels. Bousset (in Texte und Untersuchungen, xi. 4, pp. 45 f.) has shown that אc H (which tend to agree with Origen’s text) have affinities with Euthalius; they carry with them a number of cursives (including 33. 69. 88. 104. 424**. 436 and 1908), and enable us to reconstruct the archetype of codex Pamphili, i.e. the third century recension of Origen’s text. This group would therefore stand midway between B א A C and the later K L (with majority of cursives). But no exact grouping of the MSS is feasible. The text has suffered early corruption at several places, e.g. 2:9, 4:2, 7:1, 10:34, 11:4, 11:37, 12:3, 12:18 and 13:21, though only the first of these passages is of real, religious importance. But, apart from this, the earliest MSS betray serious errors (cp. on 7:1, 11:35), as though the text had not been well preserved. Thus B, for all its services (e.g. in 6:2), goes wrong repeatedly (e.g. 1:3, 1:8, 4:12), as does א* (e.g. 1:5 om. αὐτῷ, 4:9, 6:9, 9:17 τότε, 10:32 ἁμαρτίας), and even p13 in 4:3 (ἐλεύσονται), 10:18 (ἁμαρτίαις), 11:1 (ἀπόστασις), etc. The errors of W are mainly linguistic, but it reads ἐνθυμήσεως in 4:12, πίστεως in 6:11 etc. A test passage like 2:14, where “blood and flesh” naturally passed into the conventional “flesh and blood,” shows the inferior reading supported not only by K and L, as we might expect, but by f and tol, the peshiṭta and eth. Similarly the wrong reading μαρτυρεῖ in 7:17 brings out not only K and L again but C D syr and a group of cursives, 256. 326. 436. 1175. 1837. 2127. In 9:28 only arm inserts πίστει after ἀπεκδεχομένοις, but the similar homiletic gloss of διὰ πίστεως before or after εἰς σωτηρίαν turns up in A P syrhkl, and in 38. 69. 218. 256. 263. 330. 436. 440. 462. 823. 1245. 1288. 1611. 1837. 1898. 2005. In 9:14 the gloss καὶ ἀληθινῷ is supported also by A P as well as by boh and one or two cursives like 104. To take another instance, the gloss καὶ δακρύων (in 10:28) has only D* among the uncials, but it is an Old Latin reading, though r does not support it, and it was read in the original text of the harklean Syriac. Again, in 11:12, what B. Weiss calls the “obvious emendation” ἐγεννήθησαν is supported by א L p13 Ψ and 1739, while in the same verse καὶ ὡς ἡ (κάθως, D) carries with it א A D K L P p13, and D Ψ omit ἡ παρὰ τὸ χεῖλος. When M resumes at 12:20 it is generally in the company of א A D P (as, e.g., 12:23, 24, 25, 13:5, 9, 20), once (12:27 om. τήν) with D* (om. ἐξουσίαν, 13:10), once with K L P (κακοχ. 13:3) against א A D*. Such phenomena render the problem of ascertaining any traditional text of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους unusually difficult. Even the data yielded by Clement of Alexandria1 and the Latin and Egyptian versions do not as yet facilitate a genealogical grouping of the extant MSS or a working hypothesis as to the authorities in which a text free from Western readings may be preserved.

(ii)

The eighteen homilies by Origen († 253) are lost, though Eusebius (cp. above, pp. xviii-xix) quotes two fragments on the style and authorship. The Ἀπολογία Ὠριγενοῦς of Pamphilus (partially extant in the Latin version of Rufinus) implies that he also wrote a commentary on the epistle, but this is lost, and the Syriac commentary of Ephraem Syrus († 373) is only extant in the Latin version of an Armenian version (cp. above, p. lxxi). We are fortunate, however, in possessing the first important exposition of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, viz. the homilies of Chrysostom († 407), extant in the form of notes, posthumously published, which the presbyter Constantine had taken down. Chrysostom’s comments are drawn upon by most of the subsequent expositors. The foremost of these Greek exegetes is Theodore of Mopsuestia († 428), who is the first to show any appreciation of historical criticism (Theodori Mopsuesteni in NT Commentaria quae reperiri potuerunt, collegit O. F. Fritzsche, 1847, pp. 160-172). The exposition by his contemporary Theodoret of Cyrrhus († 458) is based almost entirely upon Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia (Theod. Comm. in omnes Pauli epistolas, ed. E. B. Pusey, 1870, 2. 132-219). Similarly, the work of Oecumenius of Tricca in Thrace (tenth century) contains large excerpts from previous writers, including Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Photius (cp. Migne, PG. 118-119). Theophylact, archbishop of Bulgaria (end of eleventh century), also draws upon his predecessors (cp. Migne, PG. 124), like Euthymius Zigabenus (beginning of twelfth century), a monk near Constantinople. The latter’s commentary on Hebrews is in the second volume (pp. 341 f.) of his Commentarii (ed. N. Calogeras, Athens, 1887). In a happy hour, about the middle of the sixth century, Cassiodorus (Migne’s PL. 70. p. 1120) employed a scholar called Mutianus to translate Chrysostom’s homilies into Latin. This version started the homilies on a fresh career in the Western church, and subsequent Latin expositions, e.g. by Sedulius Scotus, W. Strabo, Alcuin, and Thomas of Aquinum, build on this version and on the vulgate. An excellent account of these commentaries is now published by Riggenbach in Zahn’s Forschungen zur Gesch. des NTlichen Kanons, vol. 8. (1907).

Since F. Bleek’s great edition (1828-1840) there has been a continuous stream of commentaries; special mention may be made of those by Delitzsch (Eng. tr. 1867), Lünemann (1867, 1882), Moses Stuart4 (1860), Alford2 (1862), Reuss (1860, 1878), Kurtz (1869), Hofmann (1873), A. B. Davidson (1882), F. Rendall (1888), C. J. Vaughan (1890), B. Weiss (in Meyer, 1897), von Soden (1899), Westcott3 (1903), Hollmann2 (1907), E. J. Goodspeed (1908), A. S. Peake (Century Bible, n.d.), M. Dods (1910), E. C. Wickham (1910), A. Seeberg (1912), Riggenbach (1913, 1922), Windisch (1913), and Nairne (1918).

Other works referred to, in this edition,1 are as follows:—

Bengel (Bgl.) J. A. Bengelii Gnomon Novi Testamenti (1742).

Blass F. Blass, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch: vierte, völlig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner (1913); also, Brief an die Hebräer, Text mit Angabe der Rhythmen (1903).

BGU Aegyptische Urkunden (Griechisch Urkunden), ed. Wilcken (1895).

BM Greek Papyri in the British Museum (1893 f.).

Diat E. A. Abbott, Diatessarica.

EBi The Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899-1903, ed. J. S. Black and T. K. Cheyne).

Erasmus Adnotationes (1516), In epist. Pauli apostoli ad Hebraeos paraphrasis (1521).

ERE Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. J. Hastings).

Expositor The Expositor. Small superior numbers indicate the series.

GCP Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, von L. Mitteis und U. Wilcken (1912), I. Band.

Helbing Grammatik der Septuaginta, Laut- und Wortlehre, von R. Helbing (1907).

IMA. Inscriptiones Graecae Insul. Maris Aegaei (1895 f.).

Josephus Flavii Josephi Opera Omnia post Immanuelem Bekkerum, recognovit S. A. Naber.

LXX The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint Version (ed. H. B. Swete).

Magn Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander (ed. Kern, 1900).

Michel Recueil d’Inscriptions Grecques (ed. C. Michel, 1900).

MitteisWilcken Grundzüge u. Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (1912).

Moulton J. H. Moulton’s Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. i. (2nd edition, 1906).

OGIS Dittenberger’s Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (1903-1905).

OP The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (ed. B. P. Grenfell and A. Hunt).

Pfleiderer Primitive Christianity, vol. iii. (1910) pp. 272-299.

Philo Philonis Alexandriai Opera Quae Supersunt (recognoverunt L. Cohn et P. Wendland).

Radermacher Neutestamentliche Grammatik (1911), in Lietzmann’s Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (vol. i.).

ReinP Papyrus Grecs et Démotiques (Paris, 1905), ed. Th. Reinach.

Syll Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum2 (ed. W. Dittenberger).

TebtP Tebtunis Papyri (ed. Grenfell and Hunt), 1902.

Thackeray H. St J. Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek (1909).

Weiss B. Weiss, “Textkritik der paulinischen Briefe” (in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, vol. xiv. 3), also Der Hebräerbrief in Zeitgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung (1910).

WH Westcott and Hort’s New Testament in Greek (1890, 1896).

Zahn Theodor Zahn’s Einleitung in das NT, §§ 45-47.

Zahn Theodor Zahn’s Einleitung in das NT, §§ 45-47.

1 Cp. R. B. Tollington’s Clement of Alexandria, vol. ii. pp. 225 f.

2 It is quite impossible to regard it as original, in an allegorical sense, as though the writer, like Philo, regarded ὁ Ἑβραῖος as the typical believer who, a second Abraham, migrated or crossed from the sensuous to the spiritual world. The writer never alludes to Abraham in this connexion; indeed he never uses Ἑβραῖος at all.

LXX The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint Version (ed. H. B. Swete).

383 [α 353] cont. 1:1-13:7

1 There is a parallel to the last words in the scoffing close of an epigram in the Greek Anthology (9:135): γράψετις ; οἶδε θεός· τίνος εἴνεκεν ; οἶδε καὶ αὐτός.

Erasmus Adnotationes (1516), In epist. Pauli apostoli ad Hebraeos paraphrasis (1521).

2 “Ut a stilo Pauli, quod ad phrasin attinet, longe lateque discrepat, ita ad spiritum ac pectus Paulinum vehementer accedit.”

188 [α 200]

1 According to Professor Souter (Text and Canon of NT, p. 190) the epistle is ignored by the African Canon (c. 360), Optatus of Mileue in Numidia (370-385), the Acts of the Donatist Controversy, Zeno of Verona, an African by birth, and Foebadius of Agen (ob. post 392), while “Ambrosiaster” (fourth century?) “uses the work as canonical, but always as an anonymous work.”

Josephus Flavii Josephi Opera Omnia post Immanuelem Bekkerum, recognovit S. A. Naber.

1 Cp., further, Professor Dickie’s article in Expositor8, v. pp. 371 f. The notion that the writer is controverting an external view of Christ’s person, which shrank, e.g., from admitting his humiliation and real humanity, had been urged by Julius Kögel in Die Verborgenheit Jesu als des Messias (Greifenswald, 1909) and in Der Sohn und die Söhne, ein exegetische Studie zu Hebrews 2:5-18 (1904).

1 Ep. Barnabas begins with ἀδελφοί, οὔτως δεῖ ἡμᾶς φρονεῖν περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ὡς περὶ θεοῦ, etc.; 2 Clement starts with a greeting, χαίρετε, υἱοὶ καὶ θυγατέρες, ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς ἐν εἰρήνῃ.

1 To excise 13:1-7 as a “formless jumble of rather commonplace admonitions” is a singular misjudgment.

2 The linguistic proof is cogently led by C. R. Williams in the Journal of Biblical Literature (1911), pp. 129-136, who shows that the alleged special parallels between Heb_13 and Paul are neither so numerous nor so significant as is commonly supposed, and that the only fair explanation of Heb_13 as a whole is that it was written to accompany 1-12.

Philo Philonis Alexandriai Opera Quae Supersunt (recognoverunt L. Cohn et P. Wendland).

1 A. B. Davidson, Biblical and Literary Essays (p. 317).

1 The writer is trying to express an idea which, as Prof. E. F. Scott argues (pp. 207 f.), “underlies all our modern thought—social and political as well as religious,” viz. that true authority is not prescriptive but personal; “the priesthood which can bring us nearer God must be one of inherent character and personality.”

1 W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites (1907), pp. 408 f.

2 Cp. Montefiore, op. cit., pp. 334 f.

1 As Professor Kennedy points out, with real insight: “all the terms of the contrast which he works out are selected because of their relation to the covenant-conception” (p. 201).

1 “It was by no divine magic, no mere ‘breath, turn of eye, wave of hand,’ that he ‘joined issue with death,’ but by the power of that genuinely human faith which had inspired others in the past” (MacNeill, p. 26). Bousset’s denial of this (Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1915, p. 431f.: “man wird bei dem Jesus d. Hebräerbriefe so wenig wie bei dem paulinischen noch im strengen Sinne von einem subjectivem Glauben Jesu reden können”) is as incomprehehsible as his desperate effort to explain Hebrews 5:7-10 from the fixed ideas of the mystery-religions.

1 i.e. from the inauguration of the διαθήκη at Sinai, though he notes that even earlier there was sacrifice offered (11:3).

1 As H. J. Holtzmann (Neutest. Theologie2, ii. 337) and Pfleiderer (p. 287) imagine.

2 H. R. Mackintosh, The Person of Christ, pp. 265 f.

1 He does not use the technical language of the mystery-religions (cp. on 6:4), and they cannot be shown to have been present continuously to his mind. If the argument from silence holds here, he probably felt for them the same aversion as the devout Philo felt (de Sacrif, 12), though Philo on occasion would employ their terminology for his own purposes.

Pfleiderer Primitive Christianity, vol. iii. (1910) pp. 272-299.

1 Denney, The Death of Christ, pp. 239, 240.

1 The soundest account of Philo’s “mysticism” is by Professor H. A. A. Kennedy in Philo’s Contribution to Religion, p. 211 f.

Thackeray H. St J. Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek (1909).

Blass F. Blass, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch: vierte, völlig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner (1913); also, Brief an die Hebräer, Text mit Angabe der Rhythmen (1903).

Moulton J. H. Moulton’s Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. i. (2nd edition, 1906).

WH Westcott and Hort’s New Testament in Greek (1890, 1896).

LXX The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint Version (ed. H. B. Swete).

Philo Philonis Alexandriai Opera Quae Supersunt (recognoverunt L. Cohn et P. Wendland).

1 On the philosophical background of ideas as well as of words, see A. R. Eagar in Hermathena, xi. pp. 263-287; and H. T. Andrews in Expositor8, xiv. pp. 348 f.

A [02: δ 4].

EBi The Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899-1903, ed. J. S. Black and T. K. Cheyne).

33 [δ 48] Hort’s 17

104 [α 103]

2127 [δ 202]

C [04: δ 3] cont. 2:4-7:26 9:15-10:24 12:16-13:25.

K [018:1:1].

L [020: α 5] cont. 1:1-13:10.

Ψ̠[044: δ 6] cont. 1:1-8:11 9:19-13:25.

326 [α 257]

1175 [α 74] cont. 1:1-3:5 6:8-13:20

D [06: α 1026] cont. 1:1-13:20. Codex Claromontanus is a Graeco-Latin MS, whose Greek text is poorly* reproduced in the later (saec. ix.-x.) E = codex Sangermanensis. The Greek text of the latter (1:1-12:8) is therefore of no independent value (cp. Hort in WH, §§ 335-337); for its Latin text, as well as for that of F=codex Augiensis (saec. ix.), whose Greek text of Πρὸς Ἐβραίους has not been preserved, see below, p. lxix.

1827 [α 367]

5 [δ 453]

330 [δ 259]

440 [δ 260]

1836 [α 65]

487 [α 171]

177 [α 106]

241 [δ 507]

323 [α 157]

337 [α 205]

436 [α 172]

547 [δ 157]

623 [α 173]

1831 [α 472]

1837 [α 192]

1891 [α 62]

256 [α 216]

462 [α 502]

38 [δ 355]

263 [δ 372]

1739 [α 78]

823 [δ 368]

c (Codex Colbertinus: saec. xii.)

B [03: δ 1] cont. 1:1-9:18: for remainder cp. cursive 293.

H [015: α 1022] cont. 1:3-8 2:11-16 3:13-18 4:12-15 10:1-7, 32-38 12:10-15 13:24-25: mutilated fragments, at Moscow and Paris, of codex Coislinianus.

M [0121: α 1031] cont. 1:1-4:3 12:20-13:25.

N [0122: α 1030] cont. 5:8-6:10.

W [I] cont. 1:1-3, 9-12. 2:4-7, 12-14. 3:4-6, 14-16 4:3-6, 12-14 5:5-7 6:1-3, 10-13, 20 7:1-2, 7-11, 18-20, 27-28 8:1, 7-9 9:1-4, 9-11, 16-19, 25-27 10:5-8, 16-18, 26-29, 35-38 11:6-7, 12-15, 22-24, 31-33, 38-40 12:1, 7-9, 16-18, 25-27 13:7-9, 16-18, 23-25: NT MSS in Freer Collection, The Washington MS of the Epp. of Paul (1918), pp. 294-306. Supports Alexandrian text, and is “quite free from Western readings.”

048 [α 1] cont. 11:32-13:4. Codex Patiriensis is a palimpsest.

אԠ[01: δ 2).

1 An instance may be found in 10:33, where a corrector of D obelized the first and last letters of ὀνειδιζόμενοι and wrote over it θεατριζόμενοι. In E we get the absurd νιδιζομενοθεατοιζομενοι (cp. Gregory’s Textkritik des NT, i. 109).

P [025: α 3] cont. 1:1-12:8 12:11-13:25.

p [α 1034] cont. 2:14-5:6 10:8-11:13 11:28-12:17: Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv. (1904) 36-48. The tendency, in 2:14-5:5, to agree with B “in the omission of unessential words and phrases … gives the papyrus peculiar value in the later chapters, where B is deficient”; thus p 13 partially makes up for the loss of B after 9:14. Otherwise the text of the papyrus is closest to that of D.

p [α 1043] cont. 9:12-19: Oxyrhynchus Papyri, viii. (1911) 11-13.

0142 [0:6].

0151 [x 21].

boh The Coptic Version of the NT in the Northern Dialect (Oxford, 1905), vol. iii. pp. 472-555.

sah The Coptic Version of the NT in the Southern Dialect (Oxford, 1920), vol. v. pp. 1-131.

442 [O 18]

999 [δ 353]

1908 [O π 103]

1288 [α 162]

424 [O 12] Hort’s 67

m m the pseudo-Augustinian Speculum.

g g codex Boernerianus.

d (Latin version of D)

e (Latin version of E)

f (Latin version of F)

r (codex Frisingensis: saec. vi., cont. 6:6-7:5 7:8-8:1 9:27-11:7)

x (codex Bodleianus: saec. ix., cont. 1:1-11:23)

1 The text of d corresponds to that of Lucifer of Cagliari (saec. iv.), who quotes 3:5-4:10 and 4:11-13 in his treatise De non conueniendo cum haereticis, xi. (CSEL., vol. xiv.). According to Harnack (Studien zur Vulgata des Hebräerbriefs, 1920) it is d, not r, which underlies the vulgate (cp. J. Belser on “die Vulgata u. der Griech. Text im Hebräerbrief,” in Theolog. Quartalschrift, 1906, pp. 337-369).

am (Codex Amiatinus: saec. vii.-viii.)

fuld (Codex Fuldensis: saec. vi.)

cav (Codex Cavensis: saec. ix.) Spanish

tol (Codex Toletanus: saec. viii.) Spanish

harl (Codex Harleianus: saec. viii.)

1 Yet in the archetype of the capitulation system in B Πρὸς Ἑβραίους must have stood between Galatians and Ephesians, which “is the order given in the Sahidic version of the ‘Festal letter’ of Athanasius” (Kirsopp Lake, The Text of the NT, p. 53).

vg vg Vulgate, saec. iv.

1 It rarely goes its own way, but the omission of any adjective at all with πνεύματος in 9:14 is most remarkable; so is the reading of ὐμᾶς for ἡμᾶς in 13:6 (where M Orig have one of their characteristic agreements in omitting any pronoun).

2 Mr. F. C. Conybeare kindly supplied me with a fresh collation.

69 [δ 505]

88 [α 200]

218 [δ 300]

1245 [α 158]

1611 [α 208]

1898 [α 70]

2005 [α 1436] cont. 1:1-7:2

Weiss B. Weiss, “Textkritik der paulinischen Briefe” (in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, vol. xiv. 3), also Der Hebräerbrief in Zeitgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung (1910).

1 The original text in one place at least (cp. on 11:4) can be restored by the help of p13 and Clement.

253 [δ 152]

Zahn Theodor Zahn’s Einleitung in das NT, §§ 45-47.

1 Some references, in the textual notes, are the usual abbreviations, like Amb = Ambrose, Ath or Athan = Athanasius, Cosm = Cosmas Indicopleustes (ed. E. O. Winstedt, Cambridge, 1909), Cyr. = Cyril of Alexandria, Euth. = Euthalius, Hil. = Hilary, Lucif. = Lucifer, Sedul. = Sedulius Scotus, Thdt. = Theodoret, Theod. = Theodore of Mopsuestia, etc.