From the ἡμῶν … ἡμῶν of the epilogue the writer now passes into a moving appeal to his readers (12:1f.).

1 Therefore (Τοιγαροῦν, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:8), with all this host of witnesses encircling us, we (καὶ ἡμεῖς, emphatic) must strip off sin with its clinging folds, to run our appointed course steadily (διʼ ὑπομονῆς), 2 our eyes fixed upon Jesus as the pioneer and the perfection of faith—upon: Jesus who, in order to reach his own appointed joy, steadily endured (ὑπέμεινεν) the cross, thinking nothing of its shame, and is now “seated at the right hand” of the throne of God.

The writer now returns to the duty of ὑπομονή as the immediate exercise of πίστις (10:36f.), the supreme inspiration being the example of Jesus (12:1-3) as the great Believer, who shows us what true πίστις means, from beginning to end, in its heroic course (τὸν προκείμενον ἡμῖν ἀγῶνα).

The general phraseology and idea of life as a strenuous ἀγών, in the Hellenic sense (see on 5:14), may be seen in many passages, e.g. Eurip. Orest. 846 f.:

πρὸς δʼ Ἀργεῖον οἴχεται λεών,

ψυχῆς ἀγῶνα τὸν προκείμενον πέρι

δώσων, ἐν ᾧ ζῆν ἢ θανεῖν ὑμᾶς χρεών,

Herod. viii. 102 (πολλοὺς πολλάκις ἀγῶνας δραμέονται οἱ Ἕλληνες) and ix. 60 (ἀγῶνας μεγίστου προκειμένου ἐλευθέρην εἶναι ἢ δεδουλωμένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα), and especially in 4 Mac 14:5 πάντες (the seven martyrs), ὥσπερ ἐπʼ ἀθανασίας ὁδὸν τρέχοντες, ἐπὶ τὸν διὰ τῶν βασάνων θάνατον ἔσπευδον, and Philo’s de migrat. Abrah. 24, καὶ γὰρ Ἁβραὰμ πιστεύσας “ἐγγίζειν θεῷ” (Genesis 18:23, cp. Hebrews 11:6) λέγεται. ἐαν μέντοι πορευόμενος μήτε κάμῃ (cp. Hebrews 12:3) μήτε ῥᾳθυμήσῃ, ὡς παρʼ ἑκάτερα ἐκτραπόμενος (cp. Hebrews 12:13) πλανᾶσθαι τῆς μέσης καὶ εὐθυτενοῦς διαμαρτὼν ὀδοῦ, μιμησάμενος δὲ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς δρομεῖς τὸ στάδιον ἀπταίστως ἀνύσῃ τοῦ βίου, στεφάνων καὶ ἄθλων ἐπαξίων τεύξεται πρὸς τὸ τέλος ἐλθών. The figure is elaborately worked out in 4 Mac 17:11-14 (ἀληθῶς γὰρ ἦν ἀγὼν θεῖος ὁ διʼ αὐτῶν γεγενημένος. ἠθλοθέτει γὰρ τότε ἀρετὴ διʼ ὑπομονῆς δοκιμάζουσα· τὸ νῖκος ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ ἐν ζωῇ πολυχρονίῳ. Ἐλεαζὰρ δὲ προηγωνίζετο· ἡ δὲ μήτηρ τῶν ἑπτὰ παίδων ὲνήθλει· οἰ δὲ ἀδελφοὶ ἠγωνίζοντο· ὀ τύραννος ἀντηγωνίζετο· ὁ δὲ κόσμος καὶ ὁ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίος ἐθεώρει), where the Maccabean martyrs are athletes of the true Law; but the imagery is more rhetorical and detailed than in Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, where the author, with a passing touch of metaphor, suggests more simply and suggestively the same idea.

Ἔχοντες … ἀποθέμενοι … ἀφορῶντες, three participles with the verb after the second, as in Judges 1:20, Judges 1:21; but here the first, not the second, denotes the motive. Τοσοῦτον1 (thrown forward, for emphasis) ἔχοντες περικείμενον ἡμῖν νέφος μαρτύρων. Μαρτύρες here, in the light of 11:2, 4, 5, 39, denotes those who have borne personal testimony to the faith. Heaven is now crowded with these (12:23), and the record of their evidence and its reward enters into our experience. Such πνεύματα δικαίων τετελειωμένων speak to us (11:4) still; we are, or ought to be, conscious of their record, which is an encouragement to us (καὶ ἡμεῖς) ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων (1:2). It is what we see in them, not what they see in us, that is the writer’s main point; περικείμενον suggests that the idea of them as witnesses of our struggle (see the quot. from 4 Mac, above) is not to be excluded, but this is merely suggested, not developed. Μάρτυς is already, as in Revelation 2:13 etc., beginning to shade off into the red sense of “martyr” (cp. Kattenbusch in Zeitsch. für neutest. Wissenschaft, 1903, pp. 111 f.; G. Krüger, ibid., 1916, pp. 264 f.; Reitzenstein in Hermes, 1917, pp. 442 f., and H. Delehaye in Analecta Bollandiana, 1921, pp. 20 f.), though the writer uses the word with a special application here, not as usually of the Christian apostles nor of the prophets, but of the heroes and heroines of the People in pre-Christian ages. He does not even call Jesus Christ μάρτυς (as does the author of the Johannine apocalypse).

The meaning of “witnesses of our ordeal” (i.e. spectators) is supported by passages like Epict. iv. 4. 31, οὐδεὶς ἀγὼν1 δίχα θορύβου γίνεται· πολλοὺς δεῖ προγυμναστὰς εἶναι, πολλοὺς [τοὺς] ἐπικραυγάζοντας, πολλοὺς έπιστάτας, πολλοὺς θεατάς, and particularly Longinus, de sublim. xiv. 2, who, in arguing that many people catch their inspiration from others, notes: τῷ γὰρ ὄντι μέγα τὸ ἀγώνισμα, τοιοῦτον ὑποτίθεσθαι τῶν ἰδίων λόγων δικαστήριον καὶ θέατρον, καὶ ἐν τηλικούτοις ἥρωσι κριταῖς τε καὶ μάρτυσιν ὑπέχειν τῶν γραφομένων εὐθύνας πεπαῖχθαι. In Educational Aims and Methods (p. 28), Sir Joshua Fitch writes: “There is a remarkable chapter in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which the writer unfolds to his countrymen what is in fact a National Portrait Gallery, as he enumerates, one by one, the heroes and saints of the Jewish history, and adds to his catalogue these inspiring words … [Hebrews 11:32-34]. And, finally, he draws this conclusion from his long retrospect … [Hebrews 12:1]. How much of the philosophy of history is condensed into that single sentence ! It is suggestive to us of the ethical purpose which should dominate all our historical teaching. To what end do we live in a country whose annals are enriched by the story of great talents, high endeavours and noble sacrifices, if we do not become more conscious of the possibilities of our own life, and more anxious to live worthily of the inheritance which has come down to us?”

Νέφος (never in this sense in LXX) has its usual Greek meaning of “host” (Latin nimbus or nubes), as, e.g., in Herod. viii. 109, νέφος τοσοῦτο ἀνθρώπων. In ὄγκον ἀποθέμενοι πάντα καὶ τὴν εὐπερίστατον ἁμαρτίαν, ὄγκον is thrown first for the sake of emphasis: “any encumbrance that handicaps us.” The conjecture ὄκνον (P. Junius) is relevant, but superfluous; sloth is a hindrance, but the general sense of ὄγκος in this connexion is quite suitable. Compare Apul. Apologia, 19 (“etenim in omnibus ad vitae munia utendis quicquid aptam moderationem supergreditur, oneri potius quam usui exuberat”), and the evening prayer of the Therapeutae (Philo, vit. Contempl. 3) to have their souls lightened from τοῦ τῶν αἰσθήσεων καὶ αἰσθητῶν ὄγκου. Ὄγκος had acquired in Greek literature the sense of pride, both bad and good, and it has been taken here (so sah = “having forsaken all pride”) as an equivalent for pride in the sense of conceit (fastus), as, e.g., by Bengel and Seeberg. But what the readers seem to have been in danger of was not arrogance so much as a tendency to grow disheartened. The metaphor is not “reducing our weight,” though ὄγκος had sometimes this association with fleshiness; it refers to the weight of superfluous things, like clothes, which would hinder and handicap the runner. Let us strip for the race, says the writer. Put unmetaphorically, the thought is that no high end like πίστις is possible apart from a steady, unflinching resolve to do without certain things. What these encumbrances are the writer does not say (cp. 11:15, 25, 26); he implies that if people will set themselves to the course of faith in this difficult world, they will soon discover what hampers them. In καὶ τὴν εὐπερίστατον ἁμαρτίαν, the article does not imply any specific sin like that of apostasy (v. 25); it is ἁμαρτία in general, any sin that might lead to apostasy (e.g. v. 16). The sense of εὐπερίστατος can only be inferred from the context and from the analogy of similar compounds, for it appears to have been a verbal adjective coined by the writer; at any rate no instance of its use in earlier writers or in the papyri has been as yet discovered. As the phrase goes with ἀποθέμενοι, the introductory καί linking τὴν … ἁμαρτίαν with ὄγκον, εὐπερίστατος probably denotes something like “circumstans nos” (vg), from περιϊστάναι ( = cingere). The εὐ is in any case intensive. Theophylact suggested “endangering” (διʼ ἣν εὐκόλως τις εἰς περιστάσεις ἐμπίπτει· οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτω κινδυνῶδες ὡς ἁμαρτία), as though it were formed from περίστασις (distress or misery). Taken passively, it might mean (a) “popular,” or (b) “easily avoided,” or (c) “easily contracted.” (a) περίστατος may mean what people gather round (περιστατέω) to admire, as, e.g., in Isokrates, de Permut. 135 E, θαυματοπιΐαις ταῖς … ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνοήτων περιστάτοις γενομέναις, and εὐπερίστατον would then = “right popular.” This is at any rate more relevant and pointed than (b), from περιΐσταμαι, which Chrysostom once suggested (τὴν εὐκόλως περιισταμένην ἡμᾶς ἢ τὴν εὐκόλως περίστασιν δυναμένην παθεῖν: μᾶλλον δὲ τοῦτο, ῥᾴδιον γὰρ εἂν θέλωμεν περιγενέσθαι τῆς ἁμαρτίας), though περίστατος does mean “admired,” and ἀπερίστατος is sometimes, by way of contrast, “unsupported.” On the other hand, ἀπερίστατος may mean “unencumbered,” as in the contrast drawn by Maximus of Tyre (Diss. xx.) between the simple life (ἁπλοῦν βίον καὶ ἀπερίστατον καὶ ἐλευθερίας ἐπήβολον) and a life τῷ οὐχ ἁπλῷ ἀλλʼ ἀναγκαίῳ καὶ περιστάσεων γέμοντι. The former life he declares was that of the golden age, before men worried themselves with the encumbrances of civilization. In the light of this, εὐπερίστατος might mean “which sorely hinders” (i.e. active), a sense not very different from (vg) “circumstans nos,” or “which at all times is prepared for us” (syr). (c) is suggested by Theodoret, who rightly takes ἡ ἁμαρτία as generic, and defines εὐπερίστατον as εὐκόλως συνισταμένην τε καὶ γινομένην. καὶ γὰρ ὀφθαλμὸς δελεάζεται, ἀκοὴ καταθέλγεται, ἁφὴ γαργαρίζεται, καὶ γλῶσσα ῥᾷστα διολισθαίνει, καὶ ὁ λογισμὸς περὶ τὸ χεῖρον ὀξύρῥοπος. But “easily caught” is hardly tense enough for the context. Wetstein, harking back to περίστατος and περίστασις, connects the adjective with the idea of the heroic onlookers. “Peccatum uestrum seu defectio a doctrina Christi non in occulto potest committi et latere; non magis quam lapsus cursoris, sed conspicietur ab omnibus. Cogitate iterum, spectatores adesse omnes illos heroas, quorum constantiam laudaui, quo animo uidebunt lapsum uestrum? qua fronte ante oculos ipsorum audebitis tale facinus committere?” But “open” or “conspicuous” is, again, too slight and light a sense. If any conjecture had to be accepted, εὐπερίσταλτον would be the best. Cp. the schol. on Iliad, ii. 183 (ἀπὸ δὲ χλαῖναν βάλε), χλαῖνα τετράγωνος χλαμὺς ἡ εἰς ὀξὺ λήγουσα· ἀπέβαλε δὲ αὐτὴν διὰ τό εὐπερίσταλτον. Hence Bentley’s note: “Lego τὴν ὑπὲρ ἱκανὸν ἀπαρτίαν … immo potius εὐπερίσταλτον ἁπαρτίαν.” In Soph. Ajax, 821, the hero says of the sword on which he is about to fall, “I have fixed it in the ground, εὖ περιστείλας, right carefully.” The verbal adjective would therefore mean, in this connexion, “close-clinging,” while ἀπαρτίαν ( = burden) would be practically a synonym for ὄγκον.

Τρέχωμεν … ἀφορῶντες, for the motive-power in life comes from inward convictions. What inspires Christians to hold out and to endure is their vision of the unseen (cp. Herodian, v. 6, 7, ὁ δʼ Ἀντωνῖνος ἔθεε … ἔς τε τὸν θεὸν ἀποβλέπων καὶ τοὺς χαλινοὺς ἀντέχων τῶν ἵππων· πᾶσάν τε τὴν ὁδὸν ἤνυε τρέχων ἔμπαλιν ἑαυτοῦ ἀφορῶν τε εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν τοῦ θεοῦ), as the writer has already shown (11:1f.). Τὸν προκείμενον ἡμῖν ἀγῶνα is built on the regular (p. 193) phrase for a course being set or assigned; e.g. Lucian in de Mercede Conduct. 11, σοὶ δὲ ὁ ὑπὲρ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀγὼν καὶ ὑπὲρ ἅπαντος τοῦ βίου τοτε προκεῖσθαι δοκεῖ: Plato’s Laches, 182a, οὗ γὰρ ἀγῶνος ἀθληταί ἐσμεν καὶ ἐν οἷς ἡμῖν ὁ ἀγὼν πρόκειται κτλ., and Josephus, Ant. viii. 12, 3, οἳ προκειμένων αὐτοῖς ἄθλων, ἐπὰν περί τι σπουδάσωσιν, οὐ διαλείπουσι περὶ τούτʼ ἐνεργοῦντες. For ἀφορῶντες εἰς (v. 2), see Epictetus, ii. 19, where the philosopher says he wishes to make his disciples free and happy, εἰς τὸν θεὸν ἀφορῶντας ἐν παντὶ καὶ μικρῷ καὶ μεγάλῳ. An almost exact parallel occurs in the epitaph proposed by the author of 4 Mac (17:10) for the Maccabean martyrs, οἳ καὶ ἐξεδίκησαν τὸ ἔθνος εἰς θεὸν ἀφορῶντες καὶ μέχρι θανάτου τὰς βασάνους ὑπομείναντες. Ἀφορᾶν implies the same concentrated1 attention as ἀποβλέπειν (see on 11:26): “with no eyes for any one or anything except Jesus.” Ἰησοῦν comes at the end of the phrase, as in 2:9, and especially 3:1; the terms τὸν τῆς πίστεως ἀρχηγὸν καὶ τελειωτήν describe him as the perfect exemplar of πίστις in his earthly life (cp. 2:13), as the supreme pioneer (ἀρχηγός as in 2:10, though here as the pioneer of personal faith, not as the author of our faith) and the perfect embodiment of faith (τελειωτής, a term apparently coined by the writer). He has realized faith to the full, from start to finish. Τελειωτής does not refer to τελειωθῶσιν in 11:40; it does not imply that Jesus “perfects” our faith by fulfilling the divine promises.

In ὃς ἀντὶ τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς, the χαρά is the unselfish joy implied in 2:8, 9, “that fruit of his self-sacrifice which must be presupposed in order that the self-sacrifice should be a reasonable transaction. Self-sacrificing love does not sacrifice itself but for an end of gain to its object; otherwise it would be folly. Does its esteeming as a reward that gain to those for whom it suffers, destroy its claim to being self-sacrifice? Nay, that which seals its character as self-sacrificing love is, that this to it is a satisfying reward” (M’Leod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement, p. 23). As Epictetus bluntly put it, εἂν μὴ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ᾖ τὸ εὐσεβὲς καὶ συμφέρον, οὐ δύναται σωθῆναι τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἔν τινι (i. 27, 14). So, in the Odes of Solomon 31:8-12, Christ says:

“They condemned me when I stood up …

But I endured and held my peace,

that I might not be moved by them.

But I stood unshaken like a firm rock,

that is beaten by the waves and endures.

And I bore their bitterness for humility’s sak