(d) It cannot be shown that the temple at Leontopolis exer- cised the same power over the Alexandrian Jews as the temple at Jerusalem did over the Palestinian Jews. Even in Egypt the Jerusalem temple was recognised as the true centre of worship. Moreover, the Christian church at Alexandria was a mixed church. (e) The furniture of the temple at Jeru-. salem was more like that of the tabernacle described in Hebrews than that of the Egyptian temple.
A widely-accepted view is that the epistle was addressed to Jewish Christians in Palestine and Jerusalem. Unmixed Jewish-Christian churches were to be found nowhere else ; and only there would there be likely to exist that attachment to the old worship which is assumed in the epistle, while it treats only incidentally of those rites to which, in the Dispersion, the greatest importance was naturally assigned —ablutions, etc. The claim that the epistle was addressed to Rome involves a mixed church. The Roman church became more Gentile after Paul’s residence in Rome. On the assumption that Jewish Christians were addressed, it is difficult to account for the Roman destination, unless the letter was intended for a distinct circle of Jewish Christians in Rome, which is not impossible. That the epistle was used by Clement proves nothing. The phrase aomdlovra: buds ot aso Ths ’Irartas they from Italy salute you might seem to point to Rome as the resi- dence of the parties saluted ; but that is by no means certain. The meaning of the expression must first be settled. It may mean “those in Italy send greeting from Italy,” or, “those who are from Italy (whose home is there, but who are now with me) send greeting to you (whoever may be addressed).” The latter meaning is the more probable; but on that suppo- sition the words afford no reliable indication of the residence of those addressed. ‘They mean merely that certain Italians in the writer’s company greet the writer’s correspondents, who may have been in Palestine, Asia, or Egypt.*
* An able defence of the Roman hypothesis may be found in Réville, Les Origines de V Episcopat. While these sheets are going through the press, I have received the first number of Preuschen’s Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristenthums, containing Harnack’s