h. It yet remams that we should look at the ea-ternal evidence bearing on this question. Passing by, as some- what imcertain, the alleged testimony of Peter, who is supposed (2 Pet. iii, 15, 16) to refer .to the Epistle to the Hebrews as the composition of Paid, and passuig by also the testimonies of the apostolic fathers, which, though very decisive as to the antiquity and canonical author- ity of this epistle (see Forster's Inquiry, sec. 13), yet say nothing to guide us to the author, we come to consider the testimony of the Eastern and Western churches upon this subject. As respects the former, there are two facts of much importance. The one is, that of the Greek fathers not one positively ascribes this epistle to any but I'aul ; the other is, that it does not appear that in any part of the Eastern Church the Pauline origin of this epistle ivas ever doubted or suspected (compare 01s- hausen, Opusc. Theolog. p. 95).
In the Western Church this epistle did not, as we have seen, meet with the same early and universal re- ception. I5ut of what value is the state of opinion in the early churches of the West m the question of evi- dence now before us? To judge of this, we must bear in mind that the sole amount of evidence arising from the testimony of the Latin churches is negative; all we can conclude from it, at the most, is that they had no sufficient evidence in favor of this epistle being Paid's; they do not seem to have had a shado\v of historical ev- idence against its being his. The claims of Barnabas, Clement, and Luke rest upon mere indi\idual conjec- ture, and have no historical su])port. t-'u];posing, then, that the rejection of this epistle by the Latins cannot be accounted for by circumstances peculiar to them, still this fact cannot (Uminish the weight of evidence accru- ing from the unanimity of the Greeks and Asiatics. Had the Latins been as imanimous in favor of Aj^oUos or Clement as the Eastern churches were in favor of Paul, the case would have been different. The value of Paul's claims would in that case have been equal to the difference between the value of the Eastern tradi- tion and the value of the Western. This woidd have furnished a somewhat puzzling problem ; though evec
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO 147 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO
in that case the superiority of the Eastern witnesses to nie Western would have materiaUy advanced the claims of the apostle. As tlie case stands, uU the positive ex- ternal evidence extant is in favor of the Pauline author- ship of this epistle ; and tlie only thing against it is that in the Latin churches there appears to lia\-e been no commonly received tradition on the subject. Under sucli circumstances, the claims of the apostle are entitled to be rcarded as fully substantiatetl by the external evidence.
The result of the previous inquiry may be thus stated. J. There is no substantial evidence, external or internal, ill favor of any claimant to the authorship of this epis- tle except Paul. ± There is nothing incompatible with the supposition that Paid was tlie author of it. 8. The preponderance of the internal, and all the direct exter- nal evidence goes to show that it was \vTitten by Paul. (See the BibUotheca Sacra, Oct. 18G7.) 4. The appar- ent coincidences with Luke's phraseology merely go to show, if they indeed be anything more than casual, that he exercised more than usual liberty as an amanuensis or reporter of Paul.
IIL Time and Place of Writing.— Xssnmmg the Paul- ine authorship of the epistle, it is not dilhcult to deter- mine when and ichere it was written. The allusions in xiii, 19, 21, point to the closing period of the apostle's two years' imi)risonment at Rome as the season during '•the serene hours" of which, as Hug describes them (fiifrod. p. G03), he composed this noblest production of his pen. Modern criticism has not destroyed, though it has weakened this conclusion, by substituting the reading rolg tJtirjuioif, "the prisoners," for rote ^£(r/io7c /(oy (A.V. " me in my bonds"), x, 34; by proposing to interpret dTroXtXv^isvov, xiii, 23, as " sent away" rather tlian •• set at liberty ;" and by urging that the condition of the writer, as portrayed in xiii, 18, 19, 23, is not nec- essarily that of a prisoner, and that there may possibly be no allusion to it in xiii, 3. In this date, however, almost all who receive the epistle as Paul's concur ; and even by those who do not so receive it nearly the same time is fixed upon, in consequence of the evidence fur- nished by the epistle itself of its having been \\Titton a gootl while after those to whom it is addressed had become Christians. The references to former teachers (xiii, 7) and earlier instruction (v, 12 and x, 32) might suit any time after the first years of the Church ; but tlio epistle was evidently ■i\Titten before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The whole argument, and es- jjccially the passages viii, 4 sq., ix, 6 sq. (where the liresent tenses of the Greek are unaccountably changed into past in the Englisli version), and xiii, 10 sq., imply that the Temple was standing, and that its usual course of divine service was carried on without interruption. A Christian reader, keenly watching in the doomed city for the fidtilment of his Lord's prediction, would at once understand the ominous references to " that which bear- eth thorns and briers, and is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned ;" " that which de- cayeth and waxeth old, and is ready to vanish away ;" and the coming of the expected '• Daj'," and the remov- ing of those things that are shaken (vi, 8 ; viii, 13 ; x, 2o, 37; xii, 27). Yet these forebodings seem less dis- tinct and circumstantial than they might have been if uttered immediatel// before the catastrophe. From the expression "they of (d-o) Italy" (xiii, 24), it has been inferred that the writer could not have been in Italy; but Winer (Grammatifc, § 66, 6) denies that the prepo- sition necessarily has that force. Alford {Comment, iv, Proleg. p. 68 sqO, after Holzmann {Stud. u. Krit. 1859, ii, 297 sq.), contends that it was addressed to the Judai- co-Christian Church at Rome; but in that case, how coiUd it have been needful to inform them of Timothy's release (as the author does in the same connection, xiii, 23) ?^