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History OF THE Epistie. The early history of this Epistle has already been so fully narrated in various accessible volumes, that a bare outline may here suffice. Its chief interest is the illustration it gives of the difficulties which an anonymous book had to overcome before it won for itself a place in the Canon. The significance of the story of its fortunes may be gathered from the statement of Eusebius:! “ Paul’s fourteen Epistles are well known and undisputed. It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the Church of Rome on the ground that it was not written by Paul.” The Church, that is to say, looked with suspicion, or at any rate hesita- tion, on any candidate for canonical honours which had not the authentication of apostolic authorship. And although the Epistle to the Hebrews really won for itself a place in the Canon by its intrinsic merit, by its cardinal importance as the final adjustment of the Jewish and Christian dispensations, as well as by its marked ability and felicitous style, yet it had to steal into its place under the cloak of an apostle, and it is doubtful whether it would have won universal acceptance had it not been attached, loosely enough it is true, to the collection of Paul’s Epistles. Even though there was no certainty regarding its authorship in any part of the church, and in some parts a distinct and expressed conviction that it was not from the hand of Paul, yet obviously it was too rich a treasure to lose; and because it was not unworthy of the great apostle nor wholly alien from his way of thinking, it was allowed to attach itself to his Epistles, and so, happily, found a place in the Canon.
The difficulty to which Eusebius alludes, as experienced by the Western or Latin, Church, was of ancient date. For although the earliest traces of the use of the Epistle are found in Clement of Rome (ο. 96 Α.Ρ.) who betrays familiarity with it, yet no Western writer of the second century acknowledges it as canonical. It was not included in the collection of Pauline Epistles which Marcion