But the greatest service which the Epistle to the Hebrews has rendered to the Church is its inter- pretation of the Death of Christ in terms of Priest- hood and Sacrifice. The ideas so familiar to us were new when the Epistle was written. The writer was 'not repeating but creating theology' (Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 10). He offers no formal theory of the Atonement, but he reveals principles on which it rests, and states them in a way which appeals to the common instincts of mankind. Salvation of others can be wrought only through sacrifice of self. The priest must be also the victim. He must give his life to others as well as for others, and his life becomes available for others only through death — the death of self. The priest who offers the perfect sacrifice must himself be perfect — perfectly one with humanityin nature and in all human experiences ; else the sacrifice would be impossible. He must be personally sin- less; otherwise the offering would be incomplete and of partial efficacy. If his act of self-sacrifice is to be eternally valid, he must himself be eternal. Christ has fulfilled these conditions, and He will never change : 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ' (13*). The principles here set fortirieave some things unexplained, but they are sufficient to strengthen faith to lay hold on what must always remain deeply mysterious — the in- expressible Divine love which made the Eternal Son lay down His life as man. To enkindle faith was the sole object of the writer. In one sense he may be called a visionary, but it is a practical vision that he sees — the vision of a few weak, halt- ing Christians brought safely through an earthly crisis by the outstretched hand of the eternal High Priest who is enthroned in the heavenly sanctuary.
' Every student of the Epistle to the Hebrews must feel that It deals in a peculiar degree with the thoughts and trials of our own time. . . . The difficulties which tome to us through physical facts and theories, through criticism, througli wider riews of human history, correspond with those which came to
Jewish Christians at the close of the Apostolic age, and they will find their solution also in fuller views of the Person and Work of Christ' (Westcott, op. eit. Pref. p. v).
LrrERATURE. — I. CoMMESTARiES : F. Blcek (1828-40); F. Delitzsch (Eng. tr., lSCS-70) ; A. B. Davidson (1882); F. Rendall (1SS3); C. J. Vaughan (1890); H. von Soden(lS92); B. F. Westcott (^1903) ; E. C. Wickham (1910).
II. Articles : ' Hebrews, Epistle to,' by A. B. Bruce in HDB ii. (1899) ; ' Hebrews (Epistle),' by W. Robertson Smith and H. von Soden in EBi ii. (19U1).
III. NT iNTROPiCTiONs: G. Salmon (71894); A. Jiilicher (Ena. tr., 1904) ; T. Zahn (Eng. tr., 1909) ; A. S. Peake (19U9) ; J. Moffatt (1911).
IV. Special Studies : E. K. A. Riehm, Der Lehrhegriff des Hebraerbriefes, 1867 ; E. M6negoz, La ThMogie de Vipttre aux Hibreux, lS9i ; A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, 1897 ; G. Miiligan, The Theolofiy of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1899 ; A. B. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews: the First Apology for Christianity, lb'.)9 ; G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT, 1899; W. P. DuBose, High Priesthood and Sacrifice, 1908; A. Nairne, The Epistle oj Priesthood, 1913. E. S. MaRSH.
HEIFER (dd/ia\is = m5, 'a cow') — The writer of Hebrews finds a parallel between ' the water (for the removal) of impurity ' (CSwp pavTio(xixoO = n-^i -s, 'water of exclusion') and the blood of Christ (He gisf.)^ The former element was a mixture of run- ning (living) water with the ashes of a spotless heifer slain and burnt according to the ritual pre- scribed in Nu 19. As contact with a dead body, a bone, or a grave involved defilement, and en- trance into the sanctuary in a state of uncleanness made the offender liable to excommunication, the use of this holy water was prescribed as a means of purification. Every detail in the ceremonial leads the student of origins back to the childhood of the Semites. 'Primarily, purification means the application to the person of some medium which removes a taboo, and enables the person purified to mingle freely in the ordinary life of his fellows ' ( W. RrSmith, liS'^, 1894, p. 425). In those days there was probably a cult of the sacred cow, while juniper, cypress, and aromatic plants were supposed to have power to expel the evil spirits which brought death into the home. It is certain, however, that, when Israel began to put away childish things, the ancient consuetudinary laws in regard to defilement came to be viewed by the more enlightened minds as mere ' symbols of spiritual truths.' To the awakened conscience ' sin was death, and had wrought death, and the dead body as well as the spiritually dead soul were the evidence of its sway ' ; while cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet may ultimately have been regarded — though this is more doubtful— as 'the symbols of imperishable existence, freedom from corruption, and fulness of life' (A. Edersheim, The Temple, 1909, p. 305 f.). Discarding all magical ideas, the worshipper of Jahweh thus endeavoured to change the antique ritual into an object-lesson or sacramental means of grace. The Avriter to the Hebrews uses it as a stepping-stone to Christian truth. Rejecting the Philonic distinction between Levitical washings as directed to the purification of the body and sacrifices as intended to effect a purgation of the soul, he views the whole ritual of lustration and sin-offering alike as an opus operatum which can at the best purify only the body. Accepting this idea on the bare authority of Scripture, he makes it the premiss of an argu- ment a minori ad majus. If (a particle which posits a fact, and scarcely insinuates a doubt) the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer cleanse the ffesh, defiled by contact with deatli, much more does the life-blood of the Messiah cleanse the conscience from dead works.