by the american reviser.
In the following Homilies St. Chrysostom assumes throughout St. Paul’s authorship of the Epistle, and in his opening Homily deals with considerable ingenuity with several of the most obvious objections to the Pauline authorship.
The Epistle, however, is anonymous, and is not attributed to St. Paul by the most ancient historical testimony which has come down to us, nor is his authorship generally recognized by modern criticism. It is interesting, therefore, to enquire whether St. Chrysostom, in adopting the prevailing view of his time, did so on sufficient grounds.
The history of the matter is very curious. At the close of the second century Tertullian speaks positively and unhesitatingly of the Epistle to the Hebrews as written by Barnabas, the early and long-continued companion of St. Paul. But there happened to be current in the ancient Church another epistle ascribed to Barnabas, and then commonly received as his, though generally considered spurious. The two epistles were so entirely unlike that no one could well receive them both as from the same author. The result was different in different parts of the Church. In the West, although the Epistle to the Hebrews had been used very largely by Clement of Rome, it came to be discredited altogether, and did not secure general recognition until the fourth century; it was then gradually acknowledged and attributed, at first doubtfully, but afterwards by common consent, to St. Paul. In the East, on the other hand, the Epistle itself was firmly accepted from the first, but with no certain tradition and much questioning in regard to its author. The suggestion of its Pauline authorship seems to have been made by Pantænus, the teacher of Clement of Alexandria, and a contemporary of Tertullian. We have his opinion, however, only at third hand, in a quotation preserved by Eusebius from a lost work of Clement, and it is impossible to tell on what grounds he rested his opinion, or whether it was a mere personal speculation, like the reason he gives for the omission of the name of St. Paul in connection with the Epistle.
His disciple Clement adopted the suggestion not without hesitation. No one familiar with Greek, which was still the current language of the East, and especially of Alexandria, could fail to be struck by the extreme difference of style between this Epistle and those of St. Paul. Clement, therefore, conjectured that it might have been originally written by St. Paul in Hebrew and translated into Greek by St. Luke. This again is second-hand opinion preserved to us by Eusebius. Nevertheless, in other works, which are still extant, he frequently cites the Epistle as St. Paul’s.
Clement was succeeded in his catechetical office at Alexandria by Origen, a profound thinker and scholar. He was strongly impressed with the difference between the Greek of this and of the Pauline Epistles, and speaks of the matter in different parts of his voluminous works, sometimes suggesting the Clementine hypothesis, sometimes speaking of the variety of opinions and traditions on the subject, sometimes speaking of St. Luke or of Clement of Rome as the probable author, but summing up his perplexity (in language, quoted fully by Eusebius), by saying that who really was the author, God only knows.
Thus far the question of authorship was evidently an open one on which everyone was free to hold his own opinion, or uncertainty of opinion. Tertullian speaks of the authorship of Barnabas simply as a fact, without an allusion to any doubt on the matter. But as the time went on, the attention of the masters of thought in the Church became more and more engrossed with doctrinal questions, while those of exegesis and criticism more and more lost their interest, especially in the East. In the West there is no trace of any reference of the authorship of the Epistle to St. Paul until the middle of the fourth century; but after this the opinion spread rapidly, and under the influence of Augustine, in the year 393 somewhat hesitatingly, but in 419 positively, the provincial council of Carthage reckoned it among the Pauline Epistles. Augustine himself, however, sometimes expressed himself doubtfully, and although it had now become customary to quote the Epistle as St. Paul’s, yet scholars like Jerome, when distinctly treating of the question, express the old doubts and uncertainties of Origen. The assumption of the Pauline authorship was a convenience in maintaining the authority of the Epistle, and there being almost no one to call it in question, had come to be generally adopted in St. Chrysostom’s time, and remained almost unquestioned until the revival of learning at the period of the Reformation. Since then, while still remaining a popular impression, it has come to be rejected by the great majority of careful students.
In this variety of opinion from the earliest times, and in the absence of any consistent external evidence, we are plainly left free to form our own conclusions from internal evidence. Among the great number of authors suggested by different writers, the only names entitled to especial consideration are those of St. Paul (Chrysostom, Augustine, and later writers generally until modern times, but at present the only scholar of weight is Hofmann), St. Luke (besides the views of ancients given above, Calvin, Ebrard, Döllinger, and to a certain extent Delitzsch), Clement of Rome (Erasmus, Reithmaier, Bisping), Silas (Mynster, Böhme, Godet), Apollos (Luther, Semler, De Wette, Tholuck, Bunsen, Kurtz, Farrar, De Pressensé, Bleek, Hilgenfeld, Lünemann, Alford), and Barnabas (Ullmann, Wieseler, Ritschl, Grau, Thiersch, Weiss, Renan, Keil). Of the three first we have genuine writings with which to make a comparison; of the three last—assuming the spuriousness of the so-called Epistles of Barnabas—nothing remains.
The supposition of the authorship of St. Paul, although so long carelessly held, seems almost forbidden by an expression in the Epistle itself. St. Paul was always most strenuous in asserting that he had received his apostleship and his knowledge of the truth “not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father” ( Gal. i. 1 ), while the author of this Epistle ranks himself among those who had received through the medium of others that Gospel “which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him” ( ii. 3 ). All attempts to weaken the force of this evidence by considering the passage as merely an instance of the rhetorical figure koinosis, in which the writer identifies himself with his readers, and thus attributes to himself what properly belongs only to them, have been unsuccessful. Delitzsch considers that if the Epistle were the joint work of St. Paul and St. Luke, in which the former only supplied the general course of thought, leaving its expression entirely to the latter, even this expression, so singularly like Luke i. 1, 2 , might have been used; but this can only be by a practical surrender of the Pauline authorship. St. Paul everywhere lays such emphasis on the fact that his presentation of Christian truth was in no way whatever derived from man, but was from express divine instruction given to himself personally, that this passage must form a presumption against the Pauline authorship so strong as to be set aside only by clear and positive evidence. It has already appeared that there is no such external evidence; the internal will be examined below.
The authorship of Clement of Rome may also be set aside on two grounds: (1) That he quotes largely from this Epistle with the whole air of one citing from a higher authority to confirm his own teachings; and (2) that his own manner and style, as well as intellectual power, is so unlike as to make the supposition of a common authorship scarcely conceivable.
The early suggestion that the Epistle may have been written in Hebrew by St. Paul, more or less fully, and translated by St. Luke or St. Clement, or some other of his companions more or less paraphrastically, can find no favor with the modern scholar. If such a supposition is meant to leave the work essentially a translation, it encounters all the difficulties already mentioned against the Pauline authorship, and besides is opposed to abundant evidence that the work was originally written in Greek. “It abounds in compound words which are essentially Greek, which have no analogues in Aramaic or in Hebrew,” and it contains paronomasia, entering into the thought, which could only be possible in Greek. If, on the other hand, it is meant to express merely some connection of St. Paul with the thought and line of argument of the Epistle, it really gives up the Pauline authorship, and even this thread of connection may be found in the sequel difficult to retain.
In favor of the authorship of St. Paul so far as the ideas and essential argument of the Epistle are concerned, Origen urges the beauty of the thoughts, and there must be some force in this argument, or the Epistle could hardly have been so long and so widely attributed to him. Perhaps it may be summed up in the words of an eminent and now departed divine, “If the Epistle were not written by St. Paul, then we have the remarkable phenomenon that there were two men among the Christians of that age who were capable of writing it.” The theory has also a certain primâ facie probability, and offers a convenient way of reconciling the conflict of the external evidence. But of course it cannot be accepted merely on these grounds.
At the outset, on a general view of the Epistle, every one must be struck with the marked difference in its construction from any of St. Paul’s Epistles. The omission of his name at the beginning has been more or less satisfactorily accounted for from ancient times, but the reasons for this do not apply to the absence of any sort of salutation, “any heading or introductory thanksgiving,” by which St. Paul always takes pains to conciliate his readers, and of which there was especial need if he were writing to Hebrews disposed to prejudice against him. On the contrary, after the manner of St. Mark in his Gospel, the writer strikes directly into his subject, without any sort of preface. Another striking feature of difference is, that St. Paul always keeps close to his argument until it is complete, and then adds practical exhortations founded upon it, while in our Epistle each short division of the argument is separated from that which follows by its appropriate practical application. This indicates quite a different habit of mind, and it is difficult to fancy such a severely logical reasoner as St. Paul thus pausing in the flow of his argument. The style of the Epistle is so markedly different from that of St. Paul that attention has been drawn to this point from the time of Origen down. The “rounded oratorical periods” of the Hebrews are very unlike the “unstudied, broken, abrupt phraseology” of St. Paul. This difference might, in part at least, be accounted for as the work of the translator; only in that case, the translator could have been neither St. Luke, whose style is clear and smooth enough, but not at all oratorical, nor Clement, whose style is very unlike.
When we come to details, there are two passages which have been thought to favor a Pauline authorship. There is a quotation in Heb. x. 30 , which, it is alleged, agrees precisely with the same quotation in Rom. xii. 19 , but differs from either the Hebrew or the Greek of Deut. xxxii. 35. The A.V. makes a slight variation in language between Romans and Hebrews, but the Textus Receptus of the original is the same: “Vengeance is mine; I will recompense, saith the Lord.” Now the LXX reads, “In the day of vengeance I will recompense”; the Hebrew, “mine [are] vengeance and recompense.” If, however, we examine any critical text, we shall find that the clause “saith the Lord,” is rejected as a gloss in this Epistle, while undisputed in Romans, thus constituting a difference between them. It is still true, however, that they both differ in the same way from the Hebrew and the LXX. This might be a difficulty were it not that the quotation as it is in this Epistle is found exactly in the Targum, and from that had probably passed into familiar use. Everywhere else the author of Hebrews quotes very closely from the LXX, and from that in what is known as its Alexandrine form, while St. Paul uses the Vatican text, quotes far more loosely, and often follows the Hebrew rather than the Greek.
The other passage really gives no clear indication at all, and as far as it goes, is rather at variance with Pauline authorship. In xii. 23 the writer says, “Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, (if he come shortly,) I will see you.” It is of course possible that Timothy may have been imprisoned, at Rome or elsewhere, when St. Paul was with him; but as far as we know the history of the two, it seems unlikely. The passage might quite as well have been written by almost any of the companions of St. Paul who were also associated with Timothy.
When now, enquiry is made as to the indications to be found in the choice of words and construction of sentences, there is certainly room for some difference of opinion. Delitzsch has endeavored throughout his commentary on this Epistle to show that there is such a striking similarity between it and the writings of St. Luke as to favor decidedly the view that it was written by him; Lünemann, on the other hand, in the introduction to his commentary, has collected the instances of Delitzsch and remarks upon them, “So soon as we separate therefrom that which is not exclusively peculiar to Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews; so soon as we also put out of the account that which Luke has only taken up out of the sources employed by him, and cease to lay any weight upon isolated expressions and turns of discourse which were the common property either of the Greek language in general, or of the later Greek in particular, and are only accidentally present in Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews,—there is nothing whatever left of an actual affinity, such as must of necessity admit of being traced out between the works of the same author.” The fact seems to be that there is between these two writers as compared with the other New Testament writers a certain similarity, not so much of particular words and constructions, as of the general cast, both of the phraseology and the structure of the sentences; but that this similarity arises, not from the identity of the writers, but from the fact that both wrote in somewhat better Greek than is found in the rest of the New Testament. The grammars of the New Testament Greek continually refer to the fact, that certain classical constructions are found only, or at least more frequently, in these writers than elsewhere. But this does not prove more than that the author of this Epistle, as might easily have been the case with several of the companions of St. Paul, like St. Luke, was more accustomed to classical Greek usage than most of the earliest Christian writers.
An examination of the vocabulary of this Epistle in comparison with that of St. Paul, St. Luke, and the other New Testament writers will throw some light upon the question. In another place I have made such an examination with some care, and will here give a summary of its results. It is to be borne in mind that this Epistle is much shorter than the collective writings of St. Paul, or St. Luke, or of the other New Testament writers taken together. By a careful estimate of the actual length of these four groups it is found that, taking the longest as the standard, in order to determine the relative use of any word in them, it is necessary to multiply the number of its occurrences in St. Luke by 1.57, in St. Paul by 1.86, in Hebrews by 11.56. The results may in many instances prove fallacious. Any writer may use a word several times, even in a short passage, which he would not have used again had his writing been greatly extended; or he may not use a particular word once in twenty pages, when he will employ it several times in the twenty-first. Such facts must be borne in mind, but the above process seems to be the only means of making a comparative statement in figures; and when it is applied to a large number of words, and especially to whole groups of words which correspond to certain classes of ideas, the general result must have a decided bearing upon the question of authorship.
It has often been noticed that the number of words peculiar to any New Testament writer is an index of the number freely at his command. Peculiar words, it is true, are often required by peculiarity of subject, and may sometimes be what is called accidental. Still, when the number of them in any writer is unusually large, the fact has its value, and such words do abound in the writings of St. Luke and in the Epistle to the Hebrews above all others. No great importance perhaps should be attached to this point; yet as it is often brought forward, the exact facts should be ascertained. Excluding words occurring only in quotations from the LXX (which can have no bearing upon the characteristics of the writer), and also excluding words which depend on doubtful readings, the number of words found in the New Testament only in the Gospel of St. Luke is 249, in the Acts 414, in both taken together 724; the similar number in the much shorter Epistle to the Hebrews is 147, while even the Apocalypse, with all its peculiar subjects and imagery, has but 116, and none of the other books (except Matthew 114) reach as high as 100. This suggests that the writer of this Epistle was like St. Luke in having at his command a peculiarly rich vocabulary. But if the facts be looked at in another way, and the comparative length of the various books taken into consideration, a different result is reached. St. Luke’s Gospel has one peculiar word to every 9.76 lines; Acts, one to every 5.77; Hebrews, one to 4.45; but 1 Timothy has one to every three lines; 2 Timothy, one to 3.22; Titus, one to 2.97; James, one to 3.5; and so on with several of the shorter epistles. The result of such statistics appears to depend much upon how they are manipulated. Nevertheless, in no book of nearly equal, or of greater length, is the proportion so large as in this Epistle, except in the Acts. If the writings of various authors be taken collectively,—
St. Luke has 724 peculiar words = 1 to every 6.66 lines.
St. Paul has 777 peculiar words = 1 to every 5.25 lines.
Hebrews has 147 peculiar words = 1 to every 4.45 lines.
St. John has 244 peculiar words = 1 to every 13.46 lines.
All others taken together have 378 peculiar words = 1 to every 11.38 lines.
On the whole, then, the first impression of every reader is confirmed: St. Paul, St. Luke, and the author of Hebrews are alike distinguished from the other New Testament writers by the comparative richness of their vocabulary; yet, in view of the peculiar subjects treated in this Epistle, this fact has less significance than it might be entitled to under other circumstances.
Another question may be asked of the same kind. May not some indication of authorship be found in the number and character of the words common only to the Hebrews with St. Paul, with St. Luke, and with the other writers respectively? There are 34 words common to St. Luke and Hebrews, and found nowhere else; to St. Paul and Hebrews, 46; to all others and Hebrews, 28. Or, proportioning these numbers to the length of the several books, common to Luke and Hebrews, 53.5; to St. Paul and Hebrews, 85.56; to other writers and Hebrews, 28; or nearly twice as many common to Hebrews with St. Luke, and more than three times as many common to Hebrews with St. Paul, as there are common to Hebrews with other writers. This examination tends like the other, but much more strongly, to connect this Epistle both with St. Luke and St. Paul, but especially with the latter. It falls in with the vacillating opinion of Origen, already given, and with his report of the current traditions of his time.
But much more important than the mere numerical statement, is the character of some of these words, used in common by these writers and by no others. Most of them, indeed, have nothing characteristic, and many are used but once by each of the writers, and that apparently without any special design. There are several, however, worthy of more consideration. The noun καταπαύσις and the verb καταπαύω , which might be expected to be common enough, are used only in Luke and Hebrews, the noun once in Luke, eight times in Hebrews; the verb 11 times in Luke, three times in Hebrews; or together, 12 times and 11 times. The noun μέτοχος is used once in Luke, five times in Hebrews, and nowhere else, while the verb μετέχω is used five times by St. Paul, three times in Hebrews, and by no other writer. Διατίθεμαι occurs three times in Luke, twice in Hebrews, and nowhere else. Συναντάω is used four times in Luke, twice in Hebrews, and not elsewhere. The word for star in Greek has either form, ἄ στρον or ἀ στήρ, and both are common in the LXX; but the former is used exclusively by St. Luke (three times) and also in Hebrews, where, however, it occurs but once; but ἀ στήρ is used exclusively by all the other New Testament writers, by St. Paul three times, by others 21 times. On the other hand, ἐ νδείκνυμι occurs twice in Hebrews, nine times in St. Paul, and in no other writer. The verb εὐαρεστέω (occurring three times) is peculiar to Hebrews, as is also the adverb εὐαρέστεως, while the adjective εὐάρεστος occurs once in Hebrews, and seven times in St. Paul, being found nowhere else in the New Testament. The striking adverb ἐ φάπαξ, not found in any other New Testament writer, occurs three times in Hebrews and twice in St. Paul. The verb λειτουγέω with the nouns λειτουγία and λειτουργός and the adjective λειτουργικός, though common enough in the LXX, and apparently sufficiently often called for, are used in the New Testament only by St. Luke, St. Paul, and in Hebrews. The verb occurs once in each of them; λειτουργία is used once by St. Luke, three times by St. Paul, twice in Hebrews; λειτουργός three times by St. Paul, twice in Hebrews; while the adjective occurs only once in the last; i.e. taking the whole group together, it is employed twice by St. Luke, seven times by St. Paul, and six times in Hebrews, and never elsewhere. The much more important word μεσίτης is used only in St. Paul and Hebrews, three times in each. The same is true of ὁ μολογία, a word which might have been expected more frequently. There seems to be nothing peculiar about ὀ νειδίσμος which yet happens to be found only in St. Paul (three times) and in Hebrews (twice). The words παιδεία and παιδευτής also occur only in these writers, the former four times, the latter once in St. Paul; the former twice, the latter once in Hebrews; or together, five times and three times. We are surprised to find such a word as πληροφορία only in these writers, in each of them twice. The remarkable word ὑ πόστασις, afterwards in another sense of so much importance theologically, is found only in these writers, in St. Paul three times, in Hebrews twice.
The results of this comparison have a positive value, unless they can be, at least in some good degree, paralleled by words common to Hebrews and the other New Testament writers. I do not find this to be the case. There seem to be but two words common only to Hebrews and to any of them occurring more than once in each. One of these is the purely accidental word ἕ βδομος, used twice in Hebrews, and seven times elsewhere (five times in Revelation); and the other is the more important word βαπτισμός (always in the plural = purifying ablutions) used twice each in Mark and Hebrews. Whatever value, therefore, there may be in this examination of common words, it is much increased by the almost entire absence of any such relation between this Epistle and the other writings of the New Testament. It certainly points, as far as it goes, to some sort of relation between the three writers, St. Luke, St. Paul, and the author of Hebrews, and especially between the two last.
We now turn to common words of wider range which yet have something in their usage tending to show the style of the writer. The verb ἔ ρχομαι with its compounds ἀ π̓ -, ἐ π̓ -, ἐ ξ -, εἰσ -, κατ -, παρ -, and προσ -, is naturally more common in narrative. Making allowance for this, we are surprised at its relative frequency in Hebrews and infrequency in the Pauline Epistles, while the word is in such common use as to make this difference significant. The proportionate numbers are: Hebrews, 519; St. Luke, 656; St. Paul, 169; all others, 708. For the particular compound εἰσέρχομαι, the same numbers are: Hebrews, 196; St. Luke, 133; St. Paul, 7; all others, 91. While it is relatively much the most frequent in Hebrews, it is yet common in St. Luke, but almost entirely avoided by St. Paul.
Λαμβάνω with its compounds ἐ πι -, παρα -, and ὑ πο -, have a similar variable usage. They are all relatively much more frequent in Hebrews than elsewhere, less common in St. Luke, and still less so in St. Paul; taking the simple verb and its compounds separately, St. Luke alone uses that with ὑ πό (four times actually, or relatively, six times), and almost entirely avoids that with παρά, and St. Paul, like the other writers, that with ἐ πί ; while Hebrews uses them all (except ὑ πό) with peculiar frequency. The proportionate numbers are:—
Hebrews. St. Luke. St. Paul. All Others.
λαμβάνω.. 196.... 80.... 61 157
ἐ πι - 34.... 19...... 4.... 4
παρα - 139...... 1.... 20.. 25
ὑ πο - —...... 6.... —.. —
Total........... 369........... 106........... 85........... 186
The verbs employed for request or prayer are numerous, and their employment by the different writers varies much. The following list of their relative frequency shows the principal facts:—
Hebrews. St. Luke. St. Paul. All Others.
αἰτέω. 11..... 330......... 7..... 46
ἀ π -....... —......... 3....... —..... —
ἐ ξ -....... —......... 2....... —..... —
ἐ π -....... —......... 3....... —..... —
παρ -..... 35......... 6......... 7..... —
προσ -.... —......... 1....... —....... 2
δεόμαι. —......... 8......... 9....... 1
ἐ πιθυμέω. 11....... 23....... 11....... 5