[1] See Bathgen, _Beitrage zur semit. Religionsgesch._ p. 11 (Edom);
and cf. Schrader, C.O.T. i. 137; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), p. 472 foll. See
also _Beitrage_, pp. 13-15; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), pp. 469-472.
[2] _Z.D.M.G._ (1886). It is impossible to discuss the other theories
of the origin of this name. See Driver, _Commentary on Genesis_,
excursus i. pp. 404-406.
[3] The Tell el-Amarna despatches are crowded with evidences of
Canaanite forms and idioms impressed on the Babylonian language of
these cuneiform documents. _Ilani_ here simply corresponds to the
Canaanite _Elohim_. See opening of the letters of Abimelech of Tyre,
Bezold's _Oriental Diplomacy_, Nos. 28, 29, 30.
[4] "Magic and Social Relations" in _Sociological Papers_, ii. 160.
[5] See Kautzsch, "Religion of Israel," in Hastings's _Dict. of the
Bible_, extra vol., p. 614.
[6] See Benzinger, _Hebraische Archaologie_, pp. 152, 297 foll. (1st
ed.).
[7] The theory was opposed by Noldeke, 1886 (_Z.D.M.G._ p. 157
foll.), as well as Wellhausen, and since then by Jacobs and Zapletal.
(_Der Totemismus u. die Religion Israels_). See Stanley A. Cook,
"Israel and Totemism," in _J.Q.R._ (April, 1902).
[8] These sacred arks were carried in procession accompanied by
symbolic figures. We note in this connexion the form of a sacred bark
represented in Meyer's _Hist. of Egypt_ (Oncken series), p. 257, viz.
the procession carrying the sacred ark and the bark of the god Amon
belonging to the reign of Rameses II. (Lepsius, _Denkmaler_, iii.
189b). See also Birch, _Egypt_ (S.P.C.K.), p. 151 (ark of Khonsu);
cf. Jeremias, _Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp.
436-441.
[9] Cf. Zimmern in _Z.D.M.G._ (1904), pp. 199 foll., 458 foll. This
view is based on Dr Pinches's discovered list in which _Sapatti_ is
called the 15th day (_Proc. of the Soc. of Biblical Arch._, p. 51
foll.). See A. Jeremias, _Das A. T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd
ed.), pp. 182-187. Marti, in his stimulating work _Religion des
A.T._, pp. 5, 72, advocates the exclusive reference of the word
Sabbath to the full moon until the time of Ezekiel on the basis of
Meinhold's arguments in _Sabbat u. Woche im A.T._ The latter regards
Ezekiel as the organizer of the Jewish community and the originator
of the sanctity of the Sabbath as a seventh day (Ezek. xlvi. 1; cf.
Ezek. xx. 12, 13, 16, 20, 24, xxii. 8, 26, xxiii. 38, in which the
reproaches for the profanation or neglect of the Sabbath in no way
sustain Meinhold's view). In opposition to Meinhold, see Lotz in
_P.R.E._ (3rd ed., art. "Sabbath," vol. xvii. pp. 286-289). To this
Meinhold replies in _Z.A.T.W._ (1909), p. 81 f. Cf. also Hehn,
_Siebenzahl und Sabbat_. While admitting that a special significance
may have been attached in pre-exilian times to the full-moon Sabbath,
and that the latter may have been specially intended in the
combination "new moon and Sabbath" in the 8th-century prophets (Hos.
ii. 13; Amos viii. 5; Isa. i. 13), we are not prepared to deny that
the institution of a seventh-day Sabbath was an ancient pre-exilian
tradition. The sacredness of the number seven is based on the seven
planetary deities to whom each day of the week was respectively
dedicated, i.e. was astral in origin. Cf. _C.O.T._ i. 18 foll., and
Winckler, _Religionsgeschichtlicher u. geschichtlicher Orient_, p.
39. See also _K.A.T._ (3rd ed.), pp. 620-626. In the Old Testament
the sanctity of the number seven is clearly fundamental (e.g. in the
Nif'al form _nisba'_, "to swear," in the derivative subst. for
"oath," in Beer-sheba', &c.). The seventh day of rest was parallel to
the seventh year of release and of the fallow field. It is,
therefore, impossible to detach Ex. xxiii. 12 from Ex. xxi. 2. xxiii.
10 foll.; cf. Ex. xxxiv. 21. We therefore hold that the law of the
seventh-day Sabbath goes back to the Mosaic age. The general
coincidence of the Sabbath or seventh day with the easily recognized
first quarter and full moon established its sacred character as
_lunar_ as well as planetary.
[10] The tablet is neo-Babylonian and published by Dr Pinches in the
_Transactions of the Victoria Institute_, and is cited by Professor
Fried. Delitzsch in the notes appended to his first lecture _Babel u.
Bibel_ (5th German ed., p. 81 ad fin. and p. 82). On this subject of
Babylonian influence over Israel see Jeremias, _Monotheistische
Stromungen innerhalb der babylonischen Religion_, and E. Baentsch,
_Altorientalischer u. israelitischer Monotheismus_. The text and
rendering of the passage are doubtful in the cuneiform letter
discovered by Sellin in Ta'annek (biblical Ta'anach, near Megiddo)
addressed by Ahi-jawi (? Ahijah) to Ishtar-wasur, in which the
following remarkable phrases are read: "May the Lord of the gods
protect thy life.... Above thy head is one who is above the towns.
See now whether he will show thee good. When he reveals his face,
then will they be put to shame and the victory will be complete." The
letter appears to belong to about 1400 B.C. See A. Jeremias, _Das
A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp. 315, 316, 323.
Sellin, _Ertrag der Ausgrabungen im Orient_.
[11] The allusion in Amos ii. 7; Hos. iv. 13, 14 is sufficiently
explicit; cf. Jer. ii. 20-23, iii. 6-11, v. 7, 8. The practice is
prohibited in Deut. xxiii. 17.
[12] Column i. 15, 16, 42, 43, ii. 128, iii. 30, 31, iv. 47, 48, &c.
Probably we should regard them as differentiated _hypostases_.
[13] Hence the 'Ashtaroth or offspring of flocks in Deut. vii. 13,
xxviii. 18. A like function belonged to the Babylonian Ishtar. See
"Descent of Ishtar to Hades," Rev. lines 6-10, where universal
non-intercourse of sexes follows Ishtar's departure from earth to
Hades.
[14] _Proleg. Gesch. Israels_ (2nd ed.), p. 240 foll., cf. p. 258.
[15] _Internat. Crit. Commentary, Judges_, Introd. p. xxx., also p.
367 foll.
[16] [Hebrew: leva] "priest," [Hebrew: levat] "priestess"; see
Hommel, _Sud-arabische Chrestomathie_, p. 127; _Ancient Hebrew
Tradition_, p. 278 foll.
[17] Moore regards this verse as belonging to the J or older
document, _op. cit._ p. 367.
[18] Similarly in ancient Greece. See the instructive passage in
Aristotle, _Nic. Eth._ viii. 9 (4, 5), on the relation of Greek
sacrifices and festivals to [Greek: koinoniai] and politics: [Greek:
ai gar archaiai thusiai kai sunodoi phainontai gignesthai met a tas
ton karpon sugkomidas oion aparchai]; cf. Grote on Pan-Hellenic
festivals, _History of Greece_, vol. iii., ch. 28.
[19] Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_ (2nd ed.), p. 89.
[20] Though this be an interpolated gloss (Thenius, Budde), it states
a significant truth as Kautzsch clearly shows, _op. cit._ p. 672. In
Micah iii. 7 the _hozeh_ is mentioned in a sense analogous to the
_ro'eh_ or "seer," and coupled with the _qosem_ or "soothsayer," viz.
as spurious; cf. Deut. xviii. 10.
[21] No better derivation is forthcoming of the word _nabhi'_,
"prophet," than that it is a Katil form of the root _naba_ = Assyr.
_nabu_, "speak."
[22] In Isa. iii. 2 the soothsayer is placed on a level with the
judge, prophet and elder.
[23] Kautzsch, in his profoundly learned article on the "Religion of
Israel," to which frequent reference has been made, exhibits (pp.
669-671) an excess of scepticism, in our opinion, towards the views
propounded by Gunkel in 1895 (_Schopfung und Chaos_) respecting the
intimate connexion between the early Hebrew cosmogonic ideas and
those of Babylonia. Stade indeed (_Z.A.T.W._, 1903, pp. 176-178)
maintained that the conception of Yahweh as creator of the world
could not have arisen till after the middle of the 8th century as the
result of prophetic teaching, and that it was not till the time of
Ezekiel that Babylonian conceptions entered the world of Hebrew
thought in any fulness. Such a theory appears to ignore the
remarkable results of archaeology since 1887. At that time Stade's
position might have appeared reasonable. It was the conclusion to
which Wellhausen's brilliant literary analysis, when not supplemented
by the discoveries at Tell el-Amarna and Tell el-Hesi, appeared to
many scholars (by no means all) inevitably to conduct us. But the
years 1887 to 1891 opened many eyes to the fact that the Hebrews
lived their life on the great highways of intercourse between Egypt
on the one hand, and Babylonia, Assyria and the N. Palestinian states
on the other, and that they could scarcely have escaped the
all-pervading Babylonian influences of 2000-1400 B.C. It is now
becoming clearer every day, especially since the discovery of the
laws of Khammurabi, that, if we are to think sanely about Hebrew
history _before_ as well as after the exile, we can only think of
Israel as part of the great complex of Semitic and especially
Canaanite humanity that lived its life in western Asia between 2000
and 600 B.C.; and that while the Hebrew race maintained by the aid of
prophetism its own individual and exalted place, it was not less
susceptible _then_, than it has been since, to the moulding
influences of great adjacent civilizations and ideas. Cf. C. H. W.
Johns in _Interpreter_, pp. 300-304 (in April 1906), on prophetism in
Babylonia.
[24] There is some danger in too strictly construing the language of
the prophets and also the psalmists. It is not to be supposed that
either Amos or Isaiah would have countenanced the total suppression
of all sacrificial observance. It was the existing ceremonial
observance _divorced from the ethical piety_ that they denounced. The
speech of prophecy is poetical and rhetorical, not strictly defined
and logical like that of a modern essayist. See Moore in _Encyc.
Bibl._, "Sacrifice," col. 4222.
[25] Viz. Budde in _Die so-genannten Ebed-Jahweh Lieder u. die
Bedeutung des Knechtes Jahwehs in Jes. xl.-lv._ (Giessen, 1900); Karl
Marti in his well-known commentary on Isaiah, and F. Giesebrecht,
_Der Knecht Jahwes des Deuterojesaja_. The special servant-songs
which Duhm asserts can be readily detached from the texture of the
Deutero-Isaiah without disturbance to its integrity are Isa. xlii.
1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12.
[26] We have here followed Dillmann's construction of a difficult
passage which Duhm attempts to simplify by omission of the
complicating clause without altering the general sense.
[27] Thus in comparison with the "book of the covenant," Deuteronomy
adds the stipulation in reference to the release of the slave; that
his master was to provide him liberally from his flocks, his corn and
his wine (Deut. xv. 13, 14). See Hastings's _D.B._, arts. "Servant,"
"Slave," p. 464, where other examples may be found. In war
fruit-trees are to be spared (Deut. xx. 19 foll.), whereas the old
universal practice is the barbarous custom Elisha commended (2 Kings
iii. 19) of ruthlessly destroying them.
[28] Driver, _Internat. Commentary on Deuteronomy_, Introd. p. xxx.
[29] It should be noted that in P (Code of Holiness) Lev. xvii. 15
foll. the resident alien (_ger_) is placed on an equality with the
Jew.
[30] We shall have to note the emergence of the doctrine of the
_resurrection of the righteous_ in later Judaism, which is obviously
a fresh contribution of permanent value to Hebrew doctrine. On the
other hand, the doctrine of _pre-existence_ is speculative rather
than religious, and applies to institutions rather than persons.
[31] The legislative portions are mainly comprised in Ex. xxxv.-end,
Leviticus entire and Num. i.-x.
[32] But this term (literally the _chief_ priest) was already in use
during the regal period to designate the head priest of an important
sanctuary such as Jerusalem (2 Kings xii. 11).
[33] Cf. the Phoenician parallel of "Face of Baal," worshipped as
Tanit, "queen of Heaven" (Bathgen, _Beitrage zur Semit.
Religionsgeschichte_, p. 55 foll.); also the place Penuel (face of
God).
[34] Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. Baal Zebub of the Philistine Ekron
became the Beelzebub who was equivalent to Satan.
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, one of the books of the New Testament. In the
oldest MSS. it bears no other title than "To Hebrews." This brief
heading embraces all that on which Christian tradition from the end of
the 2nd century was unanimous; and it says no more than that the readers
addressed were Christians of Jewish extraction. This would be no
sufficient address for an epistolary writing (xiii. 22) directed to a
definite circle of readers, to whose history repeated reference is made,
and with whom the author had personal relations (xiii. 19, 23).
Probably, then, the original and limited address, or rather salutation,
was never copied when this treatise in letter form, like the epistle to
the Romans, passed into the wider circulation which its contents
merited. In any case the Roman Church, where the first traces of the
epistle occur, about A.D. 96 (1 Clement), had nothing to contribute to
the question of authorship except the negative opinion that it was not
by Paul (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ iii. 3): yet this central church was in
constant connexion with provincial churches.
The earliest positive traditions belong to Alexandria and N. Africa. The
Alexandrine tradition can be traced back as far as a teacher of Clement,
presumably Pantaenus (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ vi. 14), who sought to
explain why Paul did not name himself as usual at the head of the
epistle. Clement himself, taking it for granted that an epistle to
Hebrews must have been written in Hebrew, supposes that Luke translated
it for the Greeks. Origen implies that "the men of old" regarded it as
Paul's, and that some churches at least in his own day shared this
opinion. But he feels that the language is un-Pauline, though the
"admirable" thoughts are not second to those of Paul's unquestioned
writings. Thus he is led to the view that the ideas were orally set
forth by Paul, but that the language and composition were due to some
one giving from memory a sort of free interpretation of his teacher's
mind. According to some this disciple was Clement of Rome; others name
Luke; but the truth, says Origen, is known to God alone (Euseb. vi. 25,
cf. iii. 38). Still from the time of Origen the opinion that Paul wrote
the epistle became prevalent in the East. The earliest African
tradition, on the other hand, preserved by Tertullian[1] (_De
pudicitia_, c. 20), but certainly not invented by him, ascribed the
epistle to Barnabas. Yet it was perhaps, like those named by Origen,
only an inference from the epistle itself, as if a "word of exhortation"
(xiii. 22) by the Son of Exhortation (Acts iv. 36; see BARNABAS). On the
whole, then, the earliest traditions in East and West alike agree in
effect, viz. that our epistle was not by Paul, but by one of his
associates.
This is also the twofold result reached by modern scholarship with
growing clearness. The vacillation of tradition and the dissimilarity of
the epistle from those of Paul were brought out with great force by
Erasmus. Luther (who suggests Apollos) and Calvin (who thinks of Luke or
Clement) followed with the decisive argument that Paul, who lays such
stress on the fact that his gospel was not taught him by man (Gal. i.),
could not have written Heb. ii. 3. Yet the wave of reaction which soon
overwhelmed the freer tendencies of the first reformers, brought back
the old view until the revival of biblical criticism more than a century
ago. Since then the current of opinion has set irrevocably against any
form of Pauline authorship. Its type of thought is quite unique. The
Jewish Law is viewed not as a code of ethics or "works of
righteousness," as by Paul, but as a system of religious rites (vii. 11)
shadowing forth the way of access to God in worship, of which the Gospel
reveals the archetypal realities (ix. 1, 11, 15, 23 f., x. 1 ff., 19
ff.). The Old and the New Covenants are related to one another as
imperfect (earthly) and perfect (heavenly) forms of the same method of
salvation, each with its own type of sacrifice and priesthood. Thus the
conception of Christ as High Priest emerges, for the first time, as a
central point in the author's conception of Christianity. The Old
Testament is cited after the Alexandrian version more exclusively than
by Paul, even where the Hebrew is divergent. Nor is this accidental.
There is every appearance that the author was a Hellenist who lacked
knowledge of the Hebrew text, and derived his metaphysic and his
allegorical method from the Alexandrian rather than the Palestinian
schools. Yet the epistle has manifest Pauline affinities, and can hardly
have originated beyond the Pauline circle, to which it is referred not
only by the author's friendship with Timothy (xiii. 23), but by many
echoes of the Pauline theology and even, it seems, of passages in Paul's
epistles (see Holtzmann, _Einleitung in das N. T._, 1892, p. 298). These
features early suggested Paul as the author of a book which stood in
MSS. immediately after the epistles of that apostle, and contained
nothing in its title to distinguish it from the preceding books with
like headings, "To the Romans," "To the Corinthians," and the like. A
similar history attaches to the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (see
CLEMENTINE LITERATURE).
Everything turns, then, on internal criticism of the epistle, working on
the distinctive features already noticed, together with such personal
allusions as it affords. As to its first readers, with whom the author
stood in close relations (xiii. 19, 23, cf. vi. 10, x. 32-34), it used
generally to be agreed that they were "Hebrews" or Christians of Jewish
birth. But, for a generation or so, it has been denied that this can be
inferred simply from the fact that the epistle approaches all Christian
truth through Old Testament forms. This, it is said, was the common
method of proof, since the Jewish scriptures were the Word of God to all
Christians alike. Still it remains true that the exclusive use of the
argument from Mosaism, as itself implying the Gospel of Jesus the Christ
as final cause ([Greek: telos]), does favour the view that the readers
were of Jewish origin. Further there is no allusion to the incorporation
of "strangers and foreigners" (Eph. ii. 19) with the people of God. Yet
the readers are not to be sought in Jerusalem (see e.g. ii. 3), nor
anywhere in Judaea proper. The whole Hellenistic culture of the epistle
(let alone its language), and the personal references in it, notably
that to Timothy in xiii. 23, are against any such view: while the doubly
emphatic "all" in xiii. 24 suggests that those addressed were but part
of a community composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Caesarea, indeed, as
a city of mixed population and lying just outside Judaea proper--a
place, moreover, where Timothy might have become known during Paul's two
years' detention there--would satisfy many conditions of the problem.
Yet these very conditions are no more than might exist among intensely
Jewish members of the Dispersion, like "the Jews of Asia" (cf. Sir W. M.
Ramsay, _The Letters to the Seven Churches_, 155 f.), whose zeal for the
Temple and the Mosaic ritual customs led to Paul's arrest in Jerusalem
(Acts xix. 27 f., cf. 20 f.), in keeping both with his former
experiences at their hands and with his forebodings resulting therefrom
(xx. 19, 22-24). Our "Hebrews" had obviously high regard for the
ordinances of Temple worship. But this was the case with the dispersed
Jews generally, who kept in touch with the Temple, and its intercessory
worship for all Israel, in every possible way; in token of this they
sent with great care their annual contribution to its services, the
Temple tribute. This bond was doubtless preserved by Christian
Hellenists, and must have tended to continue their reliance on the
Temple services for the forgiveness of their recurring "sins of
ignorance"--subsequent to the great initial Messianic forgiveness coming
with faith in Jesus. Accordingly many of them, while placing their hope
for the future upon Messiah and His eagerly expected return in power,
might seek assurance of present forgiveness of daily offences and
cleansing of conscience in the old mediatorial system. In particular the
annual Day of Atonement would be relied on, and that in proportion as
the expected Parousia tarried, and the first enthusiasm of a faith that
was largely eschatological died away, while ever-present temptation
pressed the harder as disappointment and perplexity increased.
Such was the general situation of the readers of this epistle, men who
rested partly on the Gospel and partly on Judaism. For lack of a true
theory as to the relation between the two, they were now drifting away
(ii. 1) from effective faith in the Gospel, as being mainly future in
its application, while Judaism was a very present, concrete, and
impressive system of religious aids--to which also their sacred
scriptures gave constant witness. The points at which it chiefly touched
them may be inferred from the author's counter-argument, with its
emphasis in the spiritual ineffectiveness of the whole Temple-system,
its high-priesthood and its supreme sacrifice on the Day of Atonement.
With passionate earnestness he sets over against these his constructive
theory as to the efficacy, the heavenly yet unseen reality, of the
definitive "purification of sins" (i. 3) and perfected access to God's
inmost presence, secured for Christians as such by Jesus the Son of God
(x. 9-22), and traces their moral feebleness and slackened zeal to want
of progressive insight into the essential nature of the Gospel as a
"new covenant," moving on a totally different plane of religious reality
from the now antiquated covenant given by Moses (viii. 13).
The following plan of the epistle may help to make apparent the writer's
theory of Christianity as distinct from Judaism, which is related to it
as "shadow" to reality:
_Thesis_: The finality of the form of religion mediated in God's Son,
i. 1-4.
i. The supreme excellence of the Son's Person (i. 5-iii. 6), as
compared with (a) angels, (b) Moses.
Practical exhortation, iii. 7-iv. 13, leading up to:
ii. The corresponding efficacy of the Son's High-priesthood (iv.
14-ix.).
(1) The Son has the qualifications of all priesthood, especially
sympathy.
Exhortation, raising the reader's thought to the height of the topic
reached (v. 11-vi. 20).
(2) The Son as absolute high priest, in an order transcending the
Aaronic (vii.) and relative to a Tabernacle of ministry and a Covenant
higher than the Mosaic in point of reality and finality (viii., ix.).
(3) His Sacrifice, then, is definitive in its effects ([Greek:
teteleioke]), and supersedes all others (x. 1-18).
iii. Appropriation of the benefits of the Son's high-priesthood, by
steadfast faith, the paramount duty (x. 19-xii.). More personal
epilogue (xiii.).
As lack of insight lay at the root of their troubles, it was not enough
simply to enjoin the moral fidelity to conviction which is three parts
of faith to the writer, who has but little sense of the mystical side of
faith, so marked in Paul. There was need of a positive theory based on
real insight, in order to inspire faith for more strenuous conflict with
the influences tending to produce the apostasy from Christ, and so from
"the living God," which already threatened some of them (iii. 12). Such
"apostasy" was not a formal abjuring of Jesus as Messiah, but the
subtler lapse involved in ceasing to rely on relation to Him for daily
moral and religious needs, summed up in purity of conscience and peace
before God (x. 19-23, xiii. 20 f.). This "falling aside" (vi. 5, cf.
xii. 12 f.), rather than conscious "turning back," is what is implied in
the repeated exhortations which show the intensely practical spirit of
the whole argument. These exhortations are directed chiefly against the
dullness of spirit which hinders progressive moral insight into the
genius of the New Covenant (v. 11-vi. 8), and which, in its blindness to
the full work of Jesus, amounts to counting His blood as devoid of
divine efficacy to consecrate the life (x. 26, 29), and so to a personal
"crucifying anew" of the Son of God (vi. 6). The antidote to such
"profane" negligence (ii. 1, 3, xii. 12 f., 15-17) is an earnestness
animated by a fully-assured hope, and sustained by a "faith" marked by
patient waiting ([Greek: makrothymia]) for the inheritance guaranteed by
divine promise (x. ii f.). The outward expression of such a spirit is
"bold confession," a glorying in that Hope, and mutual encouragement
therein (iii. 6, 12 f.); while the sign of its decay is neglect to
assemble together for mutual stimulus, as if it were not worth the odium
and opposition from fellow Jews called forth by a marked Christian
confession (x. 23-25, xii. 3)--a very different estimate of the new bond
from that shown by readiness in days gone by to suffer for it (x. 32
ff.). Their special danger, then, the sin which deceived (iii. 13) the
more easily that it represented the line of least resistance (perhaps
the best paraphrase of [Greek: euperistatos hamartia] in xii. i), was
the exact opposite of "faith" as the author uses it, especially in the
chapter devoted to its illustration by Old Testament examples. His
readers needed most the moral heroism of fidelity to the Unseen, which
made men "despise shame" due to aught that sinners in their unbelief
might do to them (xii. 2-11, xiii. 5 f.)--and of which Jesus Himself was
at once the example and the inspiration. To quicken this by awakening
deeper insight into the real objects of "faith," as these bore on their
actual life, he develops his high argument on the lines already
indicated.
Their situation was so dangerous just because it combined inward
debility and outward pressure, both tending to the same result, viz.
practical disuse of the distinctively Christian means of grace, as
compared with those recognized by Judaism, and such conformity to the
latter as would make the reproach of the Cross to cease (xiii. 13, cf.
xi. 26). This might, indeed, relieve the external strain of the contest
([Greek: agon] xii. 1), which had become well-nigh intolerable to them.
But the practical surrender of what was distinctive in their new faith
meant a theoretic surrender of the value once placed on that element,
when it was matter of a living religious experience far in advance of
what Judaism had given them (vi. 4 [ff]., x. 26-29). This twofold
infidelity, in thought and deed, God, the "living" God of progress from
the "shadow" to the substance, would require at their hands (x. 30 f.,
xii. 22-29). For it meant turning away from an appeal that had been
known as "heavenly," for something inferior and earthly (xii. 25); from
a call sanctioned by the incomparable authority of Him in whom it had
reached men, a greater than Moses and all media of the Old Covenant,
even the Son of God. Thus the key of the whole exhortation is struck in
the opening words, which contrast the piecemeal revelation "to the
fathers" in the past, with the complete and final revelation to
themselves in the last stage of the existing order of the world's
history, in a Son of transcendent dignity (i. 1 ff., cf. ii. 1 ff., x.
28 f., xii. 18 ff.). This goes to the root of their difficulty,
ambiguity as to the relation of the old and the new elements in
Judaeo-Christian piety, so that there was constant danger of the old
overshadowing the new, since national Judaism remained hostile. At a
stroke the author separates the new from the old, as belonging to a new
"covenant" or order of God's revealed will. It is a confusion, resulting
in loss, not in gain, as regards spiritual power, to try to combine the
two types of piety, as his readers were more and more apt to do. There
is _no use_, religiously, in falling back upon the old forms, in order
to avoid the social penalties of a sectarian position within Judaism,
when the secret of religious "perfection" or maturity (vi. 1, cf. the
frequent use of the kindred verb) lies elsewhere. Hence the moral of his
whole argument as to the two covenants, though it is formulated only
incidentally amid final detailed counsels (xiii. 13 f.) is to leave
Judaism, and adopt a frankly Christian standing, on the same footing
with their non-Jewish brethren in the local church. For this the time
was now ripe; and in it lay the true path of safety--eternal safety as
before God, whatever man might say or do (xiii. 5 f.).
The obscure section, xiii. 9 f., is to be taken as "only a symptom of
the general retrogression of religious energy" (Julicher), and not as
bearing directly on the main danger of these "Hebrews." The "foods" in
question probably refer neither to temple sacrifices nor to the
Levitical laws of clean and unclean foods, nor yet to ascetic scruples
(as in Rom. xiv., Col. ii. 20 ff.), but rather to some form of the idea,
found also among the Essenes, that food might so be partaken of as to
have the value of a sacrifice (see verse 15 foll.) and thus ensure
divine favour. Over against this view, which might well grow up among
the Jews of the Dispersion as a sort of substitute for the possibility
of offering sacrifices in the Temple--but which would be a lame addition
to the Christianity of their own former leaders (xiii. 7 f.)--the author
first points his readers to its refutation from experience, and then to
the fact that the Christian's "altar" or sacrifice (i.e. the supreme
sin-offering) is of the kind which the Law itself forbids to be
associated with "eating." If Christians wish to offer any special
sacrifice to God, let it be that of grateful praise or deeds of
beneficence (15 f.).
In trying further to define the readers addressed in the epistle, one
must note the stress laid on suffering as part of the divinely appointed
discipline of sonship (ii. 10, v. 8, xii. 7 f.), and the way in which
the analogy in this respect between Jesus, as Messianic Son, and those
united to Him by faith, is set in relief. He is not only the inspiring
example for heroic faith in the face of opposition due to unbelievers
(xii. 3 ff.), but also the mediator qualified by his very experience of
suffering to sympathize with His tried followers, and so to afford them
moral aid (ii. 17 f., v. 8 f., cf. iv. 15). This means that suffering
for Christianity, at least in respect of possessions (xiii. 5 f., cf. x.
34) and social standing, was imminent for those addressed: and it seems
as if they were mostly men of wealth and position (xiii. 1-6, vi. 10
f., x. 34), who would feel this sort of trial acutely (cf. Jas. i. 10).
Such men would also possess a superior mental culture (cf. v. 11 f.),
capable of appreciating the form of an epistle "far too learned for the
average Christian" (Julicher), yet for which its author apologizes to
them as inadequate (xiii. 22). It was now long since they themselves had
suffered seriously for their faith (x. 32 f.); but others had recently
been harassed even to the point of imprisonment (xiii. 3); and the
writer's very impatience to hurry to their side implies that the crisis
was both sudden and urgent. The finished form of the epistle's argument
is sometimes urged to prove that it was not originally an epistle at
all, written more or less on the spur of the moment, but a literary
composition, half treatise and half homily, to which its author--as an
afterthought--gave the suggestion of being a Pauline epistle by adding
the personal matter in ch. xiii. (so W. Wrede, _Das literarische Ratsel
des Hebraerbriefs_, 1906, pp. 70-73). The latter part of this theory
fails to explain why the Pauline origin was not made more obvious, e.g.
in an opening address. But even the first part of it overlooks the
probability that our author was here only fusing into a fresh form
materials often used before in his oral ministry of Christian
instruction.
Many attempts have been made to identify the home of the Hellenistic
Christians addressed in this epistle. For Alexandria little can be urged
save a certain strain of "Alexandrine" idealism and allegorism, mingling
with the more Palestinian realism which marks the references to Christ's
sufferings, as well as the eschatology, and recalling many a passage in
Philo. But Alexandrinism was a mode of thought diffused throughout the
Eastern Mediterranean, and the divergences from Philo's spirit are as
notable as the affinities (cf. Milligan, _ut infra_, 203 ff.). For Rome
there is more to be said, in view of the references to Timothy and to
"them of Italy" (xiii. 23 f.); and the theory has found many supporters.
It usually contemplates a special Jewish-Christian house-church (so
Zahn), like those which Paul salutes at the end of Romans, e.g. that
meeting in the house of Prisca and Aquila (xvi. 5); and Harnack has gone
so far as to suggest that they, and especially Prisca, actually wrote
our epistle. There is, however, really little that points to Rome in
particular, and a good deal that points away from it. The words in xii.
4, "Not yet unto blood have ye resisted," would ill suit Rome after the
Neronian "bath of blood" in A.D. 64 (as is usually held), save at a date
too late to suit the reference to Timothy. Nor does early currency in
Rome prove that the epistle was written to Rome, any more than do the
words "they of Italy salute you." This clause must in fact be read in
the light of the reference to Timothy, which suggests that he had been
in prison in Rome and was about to return, possibly in the writer's
company, to the region which was apparently the headquarters of both.
Now this in Timothy's case, as far as we can trace his steps, was
Ephesus; and it is natural to ask whether it will not suit all the
conditions of the problem. It suits those of the readers,[2] as analysed
above; and it has the merit of suggesting to us as author the very
person of all those described in the New Testament who seems most
capable of the task, Apollos, the learned Alexandrian (Acts xviii. 24
ff.), connected with Ephesus and with Paul and his circle (cf. 1 Cor.
xvi. 12), yet having his own distinctive manner of presenting the Gospel
(1 Cor. iv. 6). That Apollos visited Italy at any rate once during
Paul's imprisonment in Rome is a reasonable inference from Titus iii. 13
(see Paul); and if so, it is quite natural that he should be there again
about the time of Paul's martyrdom. With that event it is again natural
to connect Timothy's imprisonment, his release from which our author
records in closing; while the news of Jewish success in Paul's case
would enhance any tendency among Asian Jewish Christians to shirk
"boldness" of confession (x. 23, 35, 38 f.), in fear of further
aggression from their compatriots. On the chronology adopted in the
article Paul, this would yield as probable date for the epistle A.D.
61-62. The place of writing would be some spot in Italy ("they of Italy
salute you") outside Rome, probably a port of embarkation for Asia, such
as Brundisium.
Be this as it may, the epistle is of great historical importance, as
reflecting a crisis inevitable in the development of the
Jewish-Christian consciousness, when a definite choice between the old
and the new form of Israel's religion had to be made, both for internal
and external reasons. It seems to follow directly on the situation
implied by the appeal of James to Israel in dispersion, in view of
Messiah's winnowing-fan in their midst (i. 1-4, ii. 1-7, v. 1-6, and
especially v. 7-11). It may well be the immediate antecedent of that
revealed in 1 Peter, an epistle which perhaps shows traces of its
influence (e.g. in i. 2, "sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," cf.
Heb. ix. 13 f., x. 22, xii. 24). It is also of high interest
theologically, as exhibiting, along with affinities to several types of
New Testament teaching (see Stephen), a type all its own, and one which
has had much influence on later Christian thought (cf. Milligan, _ut
infra_, ch. ix.). Indeed, it shares with Romans the right to be styled
"the first treatise of Christian theology."
_Literature._--The older literature may be seen in the great work of
F. Bleek, _Der Brief an die Hebraer_ (1828-1840), still a valuable
storehouse of material, while Bleek's later views are to be found in a
posthumous work (Elberfeld, 1868); also in Franz Delitzsch's
_Commentary_ (Edinburgh, 1868). The more recent literature is given in
G. Milligan, _The Theology of the Epistle of the Hebrews_ (1899), a
useful summary of all bearing on the epistle, and in the large New
Testament Introductions and Biblical Theologies. See also Hastings's
_Dict. of the Bible_, the _Encycl. Biblica_ and T. Zahn's article in
Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_. (J. V. B.)