of Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem only tells in his favour if that be considered the destination of the Epistle. It is, of course, a mere accident that his designation, υἱὸς παρακλήσεως (Acts iv. 36) should correspond with the description of this Epistle as a λόγος παρακλήσεως (Heb. xiii. 22).
Harnack, who had previously! considered it probable that Barnabas was the author, has recently? in a forcible and brilliant manner urged the claims of Prisca and Aquila. In their favour are such points as these: that the letter proceeds from a highly cultured teacher, answering to the description given in Acts xviii. 26 of Aquila and Prisca; that it was written by one who belonged to the Pauline circle, as there is no doubt that this couple did (Rom. xvi. 3 συνεργοί) ; that the writer was associated with Timothy, as Aquila and Prisca were for eighteen months in Corinth as well as in Ephesus (cf. 2 Tim. iv. 19); that he belonged to one of the house-churches in Rome (to which presumably the Epistle was addressed) and that he had taught there—which corresponds with what we know of Aquila and Prisca (see Acts xviii. 2, Rom. xvi. 3); that behind the writer of the Epistle there is some one or more with whom he associates himself in a common “ we,” for in the letter there are not merely the literary ‘“‘we’’ and the ‘‘ we”’ which includes writer and readers, but a third use of the pronoun embracing some unnamed person or persons as uniting with the writer in what he says. ‘If on the ground of these arguments it be considered probable that the Epistle to the Hebrews is to be referred to this couple, it may then be asked whether Prisca or Aquila wrote it. And if the predominant position of the woman, witnessed by both Paul and Luke, be considered, as well as the in- contestable fact that she was foremost in winning Apollos, the balance must incline in favour of her authorship.”’ It is thus he accounts for the most paradoxical feature in the history of the Epistle, the loss of the author’s name. This disappearance is at once accounted for, if Prisca was even partly the author, for Paul’s prohibition of female teaching in the Church had taken deep root.
That there is in these arguments not merely ingenuity, but much that deserves consideration, will not be denied. Indeed, so careful and sound a scholar as Bleek almost convinced himself that Aquila was the author of the Epistle, and expresses surprise that his claims should not have been urged.2 But there are grave difficulties in the
1 Chronologie, p. 477-479.
*Preuschen’s Zeitschrift, vol, i., 16-41,
5 Hebrder-brief, i., 421, 422, Harnack’s claim to originality [niemand an sie gedacht hat] is valid only so far as Prisca is concerned,