In the last three centuries every word and phrase m the epistle have been scrutmized with the most exact care for historical and grammatical evidence as to the authorship. The conclusions of incUvidual inquirers are very diverse, but the result has not been any considera- i)le disturbance of the ancient tradition. No new land of dirticulty has been discovered; no hj-pothesis open to fewer objections than the tradition has been debased. The laborious work of the Rev. C. Forster {The Apostol- ical Aiithorifi/ of the Epistle to the Ffehreics), which is a sti>rehouse of grammatical evidence, a:lvocates the opin- ion that Paul was the author of the language as well as the thoughts of the epistle. Professor Stuart, in the Introduction to his Cnminentary on the Epistle to the He- brews, diicusses the internal evidence at great length, and agrees in opinion with Mr. Forster. Dr. CWords- worth {On the Canon of the Scriptures, Lect. ix) leans to the same conclusion. Dr. S. Davidson, in his Introduc- tion to the Xew Testament, gives a very careful and mi- nute summary of the arguments of all the principal modem critics who reason upon the internal evidence, and concludes, in substantial agreement with the Alex- andrian tradition, that Paid was the author of the epis- tle, and that, as regards its phraseology and style, Luke co-operated with him in making it what it now appears. The tendency of opinion in Germany has been to as- cribe the ei)istle to some other author than Paul. Lu- tiicr's conjecture that ApoUos was the author has been widely ado|yted by Le Clerc, Bleck, De Wette, Tholuck. I?iniscn, Alford, and others. Barnabas has been named liy ^\■il•s('k■r, Thiersch, and others. Luke by Grotius. ."■ilas by others. Neandcr attributes it to "some apos- tolic man" of the PauUne school, whose training and methoil of stating doctrinal truth diflFered from Paul's. Tlie distinguished name of H. Ewald has been given recently to the hypothesis (partly anticijiated by "\Vet- stcin) that it was written neither by Paul nor to the Hebrews, but by some Jewish teacher residing at Jeru- salein to a church in some important Italian town, which is sii]>)iosed to have sent a deputation to Palestine.
2. .1 rf/iimints for and ar/ainst the dij'cn'nt A iithors proposed, other than the Apostle J'aiil.—Moikt of these guesses arc quite destitute of historical evidence, and re- tiuire the sup|>ort of imaginary facts to place them on a seeming equality with tlie traditionary- accoinit. Tlicv cannot be said to rise out of the region of possil)ility into that of ]irobability, but they are such as any man of kisiire and leaniing miglit multiply till they include (■v<ry name in the limited list that we possess of Paul's contemporaries.
( 1.) Silas — The claims of this companion of Paul to the authorship of one epistle find no support from the testimony of antiquity. The suggestion of them is en-
tirely modem, having been first advanced by Bohme in the introduction to his commentary on this epistle (Lips, 1825), and by IMjnister in the Studien und Kritiken, ii, 344 ; but they have adduced nothing in support of these claims which might not with equal plausibility have been urged on behalf of any other of the apostle's com- panions.
(2.) Clement of i?07ne.— Origen teUs us that the tra- dition which had reached him was that some held this epistle to have been written by Clement, bishop of Rome, while others said it was A\Titten by Luke the evangelist (ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi, 25). Erasmus es- poused the claims of Clement, and Calvin inclined to the same view. Some evidence in favor of this hj-poth- esis has been thought to be supplied by the resemblance of some passages in Clement's first epistle to the Corin- thians to passages in one epistle ; but these have much more the appearance of quotations from the former, or reminiscences of it on the part of the author of the lat- ter, than such similarities of thought and expression as woidd indicate a community of authorship for the two. A close comparison of the one with the other leaves the impression very strongly that they are the pnxluctions of different minds ; neither in style nor in the general cast of thought is there any prevailing affinity between them. Clement also was in all probability a convert from heathenism, whereas the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was undoubtedly by birth and education a Jew. Perhaps what Origen records means nothing more than that Clement or Luke acted as the party who reduced the epistle to writing, leaving the question of the authorsliip, property so called, untouched. His whole statement is — "not heedlessly {ovk t'lKy) had the ancients handed it down as Paul's ; but who wrote the epistle (iod truly knows. But the story which has come down to us from some is, that Clement, who was bishop of Rome, wrote the epistle ; from others, that it was Luke who wrote the Gospel and the Acts." Je- rome also, in referring to the tradition, explains it thus — "quem [Clementem] aiiuit ipsi adjunctum sententias Paul! proprio ordinasse et omasse sermone" {De Viris illust. c. 5).
(3.) Lnke. — The claims of Luke apparently rise a de- gree higher from the circimistance that, besides being named by Origen and Jerome as dividing with Clement the honors which, as these writers testifj^, were in cer- tain quarters assigned to the latter, there is a character of similarity with respect to language and style between this epistle and the acknowledged productions of the evangelist. This has led several eminent scholars to adopt the h^-pothesis that, while the thoughts may be I Paul's, the composition is Luke's. But against this con- i elusion the following considerations may be urged, 1. ' Where there is no other evidence, or at least none of any weight, in favor of identity of authorship, mere general similarity of st\-le cannot be allowed to possess much force. Luke, however, is known to have been in such a connection with Paul as to justify in some sort the assumption of his having -written on the apostle's behalf, 2, Assuming tlie epistle to be the production of Paul, it is easy to account for the resemblance of its style to that of Luke, from the fact that Luke was for so many years the companion and disciple of Paul ; for it is well known that when persons for a long time as- I sociate closely with each other, and especially when one i of the parties is an individual of powerful intellect whose forms of thought and modes of speech imperceptibly im- ]iress tliemselves on those with Avhom he associates, they fall insensibly into a similarity of tone and style both of speaking and writing (so Chn-sostom, Horn, iv in Matt., (pioted by Forster, Apostolical Aiithoiity of the Epistle to the Hebrm-s, p. 648), The resemblances, how^ever, in I this case (see them pointed out by Alford, vol, iii, pas- sim) are too striking and minute to be fully explained in I this general manner. 3. It is not in the "Epistle to the I Hebrews alone that a rescmldance to the style of Luke 1 may be detected : the same feature pervades all Paul's