Horwitz has also published an excellent J/<b. Grammar i ed the epistle) ; Gaudentius, Jerome, and Augustine,
(Lond. 1835). We especially notice the iiliilosophical method pursued by Nordheimer {lleb. Grammar, N. Y. ]K!H-^I2, 2 vols. 8vo). The latest Jewish production in English is Kalisch's Hebrew G'ramtn. (Lond. 1863, 8vo).
See generally Wolf, Biblioth. Ilebr. (1715-53) ; Lri- scher, he faiisis Ling. Ehr. (1706); Hezel, Gesch. der Jlebr. Spr. vnd Litter. (1776) ; Gesenius, Gesch. d. Hebr. Spr. (1815) ; Delitzsch, .Teshin-un, Isagoge in Gramm. et Lexicogr. liiigiiw Ilebr. (1838); Vnrat, Biblioth. ./lalaica. passim; also his appendix on Jewish Lexic()grai)hy to his Lex. Hebr. ; Slcinschiuider, Jen-ish Literature, per. ii. !? 16; jier. iii. tj 27; Jiihlingraph. Handbuchjilr Hebr. Sjirachk. (Lpz. 1859. 8vo). See Siikmitic Languagks.
Hebrews, Tiik EPISTLE TO tiik, the last of the I'liidinc Epistles, according to the arrangement of the Received Text of the New Testament.
I. //.< Camitiicitg. — The universal Clnirch. l)y allowing it a place among the holy Scriptures, aiknowledges that there is nothing in its contents inconsistent with the rest <if the I?il)le. But the peculiar jjosition which is .assigned to it among the epistles shows a trace of doubts as to its authorship or canonical authority, two points which were blended together in primitive times. Has
the latter half and the end of the centurj', attest its can- onicity, and generally its Paidine origin. . In the Eastern churches it was much more generally, and from an earlier date, received. It is doubtful wheth- er any citation from it is made by Justin Mart\-r, though in one or two passages of his writings he seems to have had it in his eye. (.'lement of Alexandria held it to be Paul's, originally written by him in Hebrew, and trans- lated by Luke (Eusebius, //. E. vi, 14). Origen wrote homilies on this epistle ; he frequently refers to it as ca- nonical, and as the work of Paul, and he tells us he had intended to write a treatise to prove this (Lardner, ii, 472 S().). Origen further attests that the ancients hand- ed it down as I'aul's (Eusel). //. /;. vi, 25), by which, though he cannot be understood as intending to sa\- that it had never been questioned liy any of those who had lived before him, we must understand him at least to affirm that in the Church of ^Vlexandria it had from the earliest period been received. Dionysius of Alexandria acknowledged it as part of sacred Scripture, and as written by Paul. By Basil, the Gregories, Theodore of ISIopsuestia, Clirj-sostom, and all the (ireeks, as Jerome attests, it was received. Eusebius, though he ranks it
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO 141 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO
in one place among the avriKiyofiiva, in deference to tlie doubts entertained respecting it in the Roman Church, nevertheless asserts its apostolic authority, and includes it among the books generally received by the churches. In public documents of the Eastern Church also, such as the Epistle of the Synod at Antioch, the Apostolical Constitutions, the Catalogue of tlie Council, its claims are recognised. In the Syrian churches it was received ; it is found in the Peshito version ; it is quoted by Ephrem as Paul's ; and it is included among tlie canonical Scriptures in the catalogue of Ebedjesu (Lartlucr, iv, 430, 440). To this uniform testimony there is notliing to oppose, unless we accept the somewhat du- bious assertion of Jerome that it was rejected by the lieretical teacher Basilides {Proem, in Ep, ud Tit. ; but compare Lardner, ix, 305).
At the end of the 4th centiu-y, Jerome, the most learned and critical of the Latin fathers, reviewed the contlictiug opinions as to the authority of this epistle. lie c:)usidered that the prevailing, though not univer- sal view of the Latin churches -was of less weight than the view not only of ancient -wTiters, but also of all the Greek and all the Eastern churches, where the epistle was received as canonical and read dailj' ; and he pro- nounced a decided opinion in favor of its authority. Tlie great contemporary light of North Africa, St. x\u- gustinc, held a similar opinion. And after the declara- tion of these two eminent men, the Latin churches united with the East in receiving the c])istle. The third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, and a decretal of pope Innocent, A.D. 416, gave a final confirmation to their decision.
Such was the course and the end of the only consid- erable opposition wliich has been made to the canonical authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Its origin has not been ascertained. Some critics have conjectured that the Montanist or the Novatian controversy insti- gated, and that the Arian controversy dissipated so much ojiposition as proceeded from orthodox Chris- tians. The references to Paul in the Clementine Hom- ilies have led other critics to the startling theoiy that orthndox Christians at Rome, in the midtUe of the 2d century, commonly regarded and described Paid as an enemy of the faith — a theory which, if it were estab- lished, woidd be a much stranger fact than the rejec- tion of the least accredited of the epistles tliat bear the apostle's name. But perhaps it is more probable that that jealous care with which the Church everjnvhere, in the 2d century, had learned to scrutinize all books claiming canonical authority, misled, in this instance, the churches of North Africa and Rome. For to them this epistle was an anonj-mous writing, imlike an epis- tle in its opening, mdike a treatise in its end, differing in its style from every apostolic epistle, aboimding in arguments and appealing to sentiments which were al- ^v■ays foreign to the GentOe, and growing less familiar to tlie Jewish mind. So they went a step beyond the church of Alexandria, which, while doubting the au- thorship of this epistle, always acknowledged its author- ity. Tlie church of Jerusalem, as the original receiver of the epistle, was the depository of that oral testimony on which both its authorship and canonical authority rested, and was the fountain head of information which satisfied the Eastern and Greek churches. But the church of Jerusalem was early hidden in exile and ob- scurity. And Palestine, after the destruction of Jeru- salem, became unknown ground to that class of " dwell- ers in Libya about CjTene, and strangers of Rome," who once maintained close religious intercourse with it. All these considerations may help to account for the fact tliat the Latin churches hesitated to receive an epistle, the credentials of which, from peculiar circumstances, were originally imperfect, and had become inaccessible to them when their version of Scripture was in process of formation, until religious intercoiu-se between East anil West again grew frequent and intimate in the 4th centurv.