Part 27

[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.).