Cardinal Cajetan, the opponent of Luther, was the first to disturb the tradition of a thousand years, and to deny the authority of this epistle. Erasmus, Calvin, and Beza questioned only its authorship. The bolder spirit of Luther, unable to perceive its agreement with Paul's doctrine, pronoiuiccd it to be the work of some disciple of the apostle, Avho had built not only gold, sil- ver, and precious stones, but also wood, hay, and stubble upon his master's foimdation. And whereas the Greek Church in the 4th century gave it sometimes the tenth place, or at other times, as it now does, and as the Syr- ian, Roman, and English churches <lo, the fourteenth place among the epistles of Paul, Luther, when he print- ed his version of the Bible, separated this book from Paul's epistles, and placed it with the epistles of James and Jude, next before the Revelation; indicating by this change of order his opinion that the four relegated books are of less importance and less authority than the rest of the New Testament. His f)i5inion found some promoters, but it has not been adopted in any confession of the Lutheran Church.
The canonical authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews is, then, secure, so far as it can be established by the tratUtion of Christian churches. The doubts which af- fected it were admitted in remote places, or in the fail- ure of knowledge, or under the pressure of times of in- tellectual excitement; and they have disappeared before full information and calm judgment.
II. Authorship.— From the above testimonies it -will be perceived that the assertion of the canonicity of this book is mostly identified with the assertion of its Paid- ine authorship. The former of these positions does not, it is true, necessarily depend upon the latter, for a book may be canonical, yet not be the production of any indi- vidual whose name we know ; but, as the case stands, the external evidence for the canonicity of the book is so nearly commensurate with that for the Pauline au- thorship of the book that we cannot make use of the one unless we admit the other. This gives immenr.e importance to the question on which we now enter ; for if it could be shown that this epistle is not Paul's, the entire historical evidence for its canonicity must be lai',1 aside as incredible.
1. Ilistori) of Opinion on this Subject.— In this epistlfe the superscription, the ordinary source of information, is wanting. Its omission has been accounted for, since the days of Clement of Alexandria {apud Euseb. //. J:', vi, 14) and Chrysostom by supposing that Paid mth- held his name lest the sight of it shoidd repel any Jew- ish Christians who might still regard him rather as .in enemy of the law (Acts xxi, 21) than as a benefactor tO' their nation (Acts xxiv, 17). Pantajnus, or some other predecessor of Clement, adds that Paul would not write to the Jews as an apostle because he regarded the Lord himself as their apostle (see the remarkable expressionj Heb. iii, 1, twice quoted by Justin BlartjT, Apol. i, 12, 63).
It was the ciLstom of the earliest fathers to quote pas- sages of Scripture without naming the writer or the book which supplied them. But there is no reason to doubt that at first, everywhere, except in North Africa; Paid was regarded as the author. '-Among the Greek fathers," says Olshausen (Opuxcula, p. 95), " no one is named either in Egypt, or in Sjn^a, Palestine, Asia, or Greece, who is opposed to the opinion that this epistle proceeds from Paul." The Alexanchrian fathers, wheth- er guided by tradition or by critical discernment, are the earliest to note the discrepancy of style between this epistle and the other thirteen. They received it in the same sense that the speech in Acts xxii, 1-21 is re- ceived as Paid's. Clement ascribed to Luke the trans- lation of the epistle into Greek from a Hebrew original of Paid. Origen, embracing the opinion of those who, he says, preceded him, believed that the thoughts were Paid's, the language and composition Luke's or Clem- ent's of RomeT Tertullian, knowing nothing of any connection of Paul with the epistle, names Barnabas as
HEBRE^yS, EPISTLE TO 142 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO
the reputed author according to the North African tra- dition, which in the time of' Augiutine had taken the less definite shape of a denial by some that the epistle ^vas Paul's, and in the time of Isitfore of Seville appears as a Latin opinion (founded on the dissonance of style) that it was written by Barnabas or Clement. At Rome Clement was silent as to the author of this as of the other epistles which he quoted; and the ^Titers who follow him, down to the middle of the 4th centiin,-, only touch on the point to deny that the epistle is Paul's.
The view of the Alexantlrian fathers, a middle point between the Eastern and Western traditions, won its way in the Church. It was adopted as the most prob- able opinion by Eusebius (Blmit, On the right Use of the early Fathers', p. 439-444) ; and its gradual reception may liave led to the silent transfer, which was made about his time, of this epistle from the tenth place in the Greek Canon to the foiu-feenth, at the end of Paid's epistles, and before those of other apostles. This place it lield everpvhcre till the time of Luther ; as if to in- dicate the deliberate and final acquiescence of the mii- versal Church in the opinion that it is one of the works of Paid, but not in the same fidl sense as the other ten epistles, addressed to particidar churches.