IV. To whom addressed. — That the parties to whom this epistle was addressed were converted Jews the epis- tle itself plainly shows. Ancient tradition points out
the church at Jerusalem, or the Christians in Palestine generally, as the recipients. Stuart contends for the church at Ciesarea, not without some show of reason ; but tlie preponderance of evidence is in favor of the ancient traiUtion. Two things make this clear, says Lange: the one is, that only the Christians in Jerusa- lem, or those in Palestine generally, formed a great Jewish-Christian Church in the proper sense ; the other is, that for the loosening of these from their religious sense ot the Temple-worship there was an immediate and pressing necessity {Apostol. Zeitulter, i, 176). We know of no purely Jewish-Christian communitj', such as tliat addressed in this epistle, out of Palestine, while the whole tone of the epistle indicates that those for whom it was intended were in the vicinity of the Tem- ple. Tlie inscription of the epistle, irpoc 'Eji(iaiovQ, wliich is of great antiquity, favors the same conclusion (Roberts, Discussions on the Gospels, p. 215 sq.). Ebrard limits the primary circle of readers even to a section of the Church at Jerusalem. Considering such passages as v, 12 ; vi, 10 ; x, 32, as probably inapplicable to the whole of that church, he conjectures that Paid wrote to some neophytes whose conversion, though not mention- ed in the Acts, may have been partly due to the apos- tle's influence in the time of his last recorded sojourn in Jerusalem (Acts xxi, 22). This, however, is umieces- sary.
V. Tn what Language was it vjritten? — Like IMat- thew's Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews has afforded ground for much unimportant controversy respecting the language in which it was originally written. The earlieststatement is that of Clement of Alexandria (pre- served in Euseb. //. £. vi, 14), to the effect that it was ^^Titten by Paul in Hebrew, and translated by Luke into Greek ; and hence, as Clement observes, arises the identity of the style of the epistle and that of the Acts. This statement is repeated, after a long interval, by Eu- sebias, Theodoret, Jerome, and several later fathers ; but it is not noticed b}^ the majority. Nothing is said to lead us to regard it as a tradition, rather than a conjec- tiu-e suggested by the style of the epistle. No person is said to have used or seen a Hebrew original. The Ar- amaic copy, included in the Peshito, lias never been re- garded otherwise than as a translation. Among the few modern supporters of an Aramaic original, the most distinguished are Joseph Hallet, an English writer in 1727 (whose able essay is most easily accessible in a Latin translation in Wolf's Curce Philologicee, iv, 806- 837). The same opinion has found in :Michaelis a stren- uous defender {Introd. iv, 221). The arguments he ad- duces, however, are more sjiecious than sound; and it has been abundantly shown liy Lardncr, Hug, Eichhorn, and others, that this opinion is untenable. Bleek (i.6- 23) argues in support of a Greek original on the grounds of (1) the purity and easy flow of the Greek ; (2) the use of Greek words, which could not be adequately ex- pressed in Hebrew without long periphrase ; (3) the use of paronomasia — under which head he disallows the in- ference against an Aramaic original which has been drawn from the double sense given to haQnKT] (ix, 15) ; and (4) the use of the Sept. in quotations and references which do not correspond with the Hebrew text. Why Paul should have written in Greek to persons residing in Judiea is best answered by the reasons which Hug {Introd. p. 326 sq.) and Diodati {De Christo Greece lo- qnente exercitatio, etc., edited by O. T. Dobbin, LL.B., London, 1843, and republished in the Biblical P<positor;/ for Jan. 1844) have adduced to show that Greek was at that time well known to the mass of the Jews (compare Tholuck. i. 78).
VI. Some have doubted whether this competition be justly termed an epistle, and have proposed to regard it rather as a treatise. The salutations, however, at the close seem rather to favor the common opinion, though it is of little moment which view we espouse.
VII. Comlition of the Hebrews and Scope of the Ejns- <fe.— The numerous ChrLstiau churches scattered through-
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out Judaea (Acts ix, 31 ; Gal. i, 22) were continually ex- posed to persecution from the Jews (1 Thess. ii, 14), which would become more searching and extensive as churches multipUed, and as the grooving turbidence of the nation ripened into the insiu'rection of A.D. 66. Personal violence, spoliation of property, exclusion from the sjaiagogue, and domestic strife were the miiversal forms" of persecution. But in Jerusalem there was one additional weapon in the hands of the predominant op- pressors of the Christians'. Their magnificent national Temple, hallowed to every Jew by ancient historical and by gentler personal recollections, with its irresisti- ble attractions, its soothing strains, and mysterious cer- emonies, might be shut against the Hebrew Christian. And even if, amid the fierce factions and frequent oscil- lations of authority in Jerusalem, this affliction were not often laid upon him, yet there was a secret burden which every Hebrew Christian bore within him — the knowl- edge that the end of all the beauty and awfulness of Zion was rapidly approaching. Paralyzed, perhaps, by this consciousness, and enfeebled by tlair attachment to a lower form of Christianity, they became stationary in knowledge, weak m faith, void of energy, and even in danger of apostasy from Christ. For, as afflictions mul- tiplied round them, and made them feel more keenly their dependence on God, and their need of near, and frequent, and associated approach to him, they seemed, in consequence of their Cliristianity, to be receding from the God of their fathers, and losing that means of com- munion with him which they used to enjoy. Angels, Moses, and the high-priest — their intercessors in heav- en, in the grave, and on earth — became of less impor- tance in the creed of the Jewish Christian ; their glory waned as he grew in Christian experience. Already he felt that the Lord's day was superseding the Sabbath, the New Covenant the Old. What could take the place of the Temple, and that which was behind the veil, and the Levitical sacrifices, and the holy city, when they should cease to exist ? What compensation could Chris- tianity offer him for the loss which was pressing the Hebrew Christian more and more ?