SEOT, 1, 2.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 67
when he supposed none left in Israel that worshipped God aright but himself, 1 Kings xix. 14,18. It was, then, as we said, the word of prophecy that gave the writers of it the reputation and authority of prophets; and their being prophets gave not authority to the word they declared, or wrote asa word of prophecy. Hence an anxious in- quiry after the penman of any part of the Scripture is not necessary.
But whereas there want not evidences sufficient to discover who was the writer of this Epistle, whereby also the exceptions made unto its divine original may be finally obviated, they also shall be taken into consideration. A subject this is wherein many learned men, of old and of late, have exercised themselves, until this single argument is grown up into entire and large treatises;* and I shall only take care that the truth, which hath been already strenuously asserted and vindicated, may not again, by this review, be rendered dubious and questionable.
2. St Paul it is by whom we affirm this Epistle to be written. It is acknowledged that this was so highly questioned of old, that Origen, after the examination of it, concludes, Ts wiv &And:s Ozdg ofde,—* What is the very truth in this matter God only knows.”” However, he ac- knowledgeth that of dpyatu, “the ancients,” owned it to be written by Paul, and that, he says, not without good reason; whereas the ascription of it unto any other he assigns unto a bare report. It may not, then, be expected that now, after so long a season, the truth of our assertion should be so manifestly evinced as to give absolute satisfaction unto all (which is a vain thing for any man to aim at in a subject wherein men suppose that they have a liberty of thinking what they please); yet I doubt not, but that it will appear not only highly probable, but so full of evidence, in comparison of any other opinion that is or hath been promoted in competition with it, as that some kind of blamable pertinaciousness may be made to ap- pear in its refusal, Now, the whole of what I shall offer in the proof of it may be reduced unto these six heads:—(1.) The manifest failure of all them who have endeavoured to assign it unto any other penman; (2.) The insufficiency of the arguments insisted on to disprove our assertion; (3.) Testimony given unto it in other serip-
_ tures; (4.) Considerations taken from the writing itself, compared with other acknowledged writings of the same author; (5.) The general suffrage of antiquity, or ecclesiastical tradition; (6.) Reasons taken from sundry circwmstances relating unto the Epistle itself. Now, as all these evidences are not of the same nature, nor of equal force, so some of them will be found very cogent, and all of them together very sufficient to free our assertion from just question or exception.
1 Clemens, Origenes, Eusebius, Hieronymus, Theodoretus, Chrysostomus, Cajetanus, Erasmus, Camero, Grotius, et omnes fere commentatores; Freder. Span, Fil. de Auth. Epist. ad Heb. 2 Kuseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. xxv.
68 AUTHOR OF THE [EXERC. II.
8. First, The wncertainty of them who question whether Paul were the writer of this Epistle, and their want of probable grounds in assigning it unto any other, hath some inducement in it to leave it unto him whose of old it was esteemed to be; for when once men began to take to themselves a liberty of conjecture in this matter, they could neither make an end themselves, nor fix any bounds unto the imagination of others. Having once lost its true author, no other could be asserted with any such evidence, or indeed probability, but that instantly twenty more, with as good grounds and reasons, might be entitled unto it. Accordingly, sundry persons have been named, all upon the same account,—that some thought good to name them; and why should not one man’s authority, in this matter, be as good as another’s?
4, Origen, in Eusebius,’ affirms that some supposed LUKE to have been the author of this Epistle; but neither doth he approve their opinion, nor mention what reasons they pretend for it. He adds also, that some esteemed it to be written by Clemens of Rome.” Clemens of Alexandria allows St Paul to be the author of it; but supposeth it might be translated by Luke, because, as he saith, the style of it is not unlike that of his in the Acts of the Apostles. Grotius of late contends for Luke to be the author of it on the same account ;* but the instances which he gives rather argue a coincidence of some words and phrases than a svmzlitude of style, which things are very different. Jerome also tells us that “juxta quosdam videtur esse Luce evangeliste,’—“by some it was thought to be written by Luke the evangelist ;”* which he took from Clemens, Origen, and Eusebius; only he mentions nothing of the similitude of style with that of St Luke, but afterwards informs us that, in his judgment, there is a great conformity in style between this Epistle and that of Clemens Romanus. None of them acquaint us who were the authors or ap- provers of this conjecture, nor do they give any credit themselves unto it; neither is there any reason of this opinion reported by them, but only that intimated by Clemens,’ of the agreement of the style with that of the Acts of the Apostles (which yet is not allowed by Jerome); whereon he doth not ascribe the writing, but only the translation of it, unto Luke. Grotius alone contends for him to be the author of it, and that with this only argument, that sundry words are used in the same sense by St Luke and the writer of this Epistle; but that this observation is of no moment shall afterwards be de- clared.