double, predominantly feminine authorship advocated by Harnack. A single authorship is unquestionably demanded by certain expres- sions in the Epistle, as τί ἔτι λέγω, xi. 32; ἵνα τάχιον ἀποκατασταθῶ ὑμῖν, xiii, 19; and the singulars in xiii. 22,23. It is not possible to construe these singulars as referring to more than one writer: but it is quite possible to construe the plurals of the Epistle as referring to the single writer or to the writer uniting himself with his readers. And that this one writer should have been Prisca is certainly improb- able, both on account of Paul’s prohibition which so good a friend as Prisca would observe, and because the writer seems to have been one of the ἡγούμενοι, which Prisca could not have been. The im- pression made by the Epistle is that it proceeds from a masculine mind; and if the Epistle is due to either we should suppose Aquila was more likely to undertake such a task. The familiarity which existed between this couple and Apollos might be supposed to ac- count for the Alexandrian colouring of the Epistle.
The name of Apollos was suggested by Luther’ who apparently had either heard or read that this authorship had been advocated by others. It has received the suffrages of scholars so competent as Bleek, Tholuck, Hilgenfeld, Liinemann, Reuss, Pfleiderer, Alford, Farrar and Plumptre. In Acts xviii. 24 Apollos is described as an Alexandrian Jew, a learned man, mighty in the Scriptures, who had been instructed in the way of the Lord and who spoke and taught with accuracy the things concerning Jesus. Passing from Ephesus, where he first appears in Christian history, to Achaia “ he helped them much who had believed through grace, and powerfully con- futed the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ”. Paul also testifies to his influence as a teacher and probably indicates that his special function was that of carrying to maturity those who had already received the truth. The words “ Paul planted, Apollos watered”’ bear this interpretation, and agree with what is said in Acts of his peculiar work. Certainly all this remarkably corresponds with the characteristics of the writer to the Hebrews, who certainly was a Jew of the Alexandrian school, a man of marked ability and culture, whose special training fitted him to build up in the faith and to find in the Scriptures
το Autor Epistolae ad Hebraeos, quisquis est, sive Paulus, sive, ut ego arbitror, Apollo” (Com. on Gen.); and in his sermon on 1 Cor iii. 4 ‘‘the Ep. Heb. is certainly his” [Apollos’]. In another sermon he says “ Some suppose the Epistle to be Luke’s, some refer it to Apollos ” [“etliche meinen, sie sei S. Lucas, etliche S. Apollo”]. The most thorough presentation of the claim of Apollos is that by Plumptre in the first vol. of the Expositor.
200. ο INTRODUCTION
proof that Jesus was the Christ. This, plainly, does not prove that Apollos was the author, but it lends plausibility to the hypo- thesis. ν
Destination. Here, again, however, we find the authorship im- plicated with the destination of the Epistle. The only places with which we know Apollos to have been connected are Ephesus, Corinth and Crete. The first named city was swarming with Jews and was also impregnated with Alexandrianism. Corinth resembled it in the former and possibly also in the latter characteristic, for the preach- ing of Apollos had certainly found in that city a very responsive hear- ing; and it is the only place in which we have any positive reason to believe that he resided for any length of time. But evidently he was a man who moved about (Tit. iii. 13); and it is not improbable that he may have visited Rome. Evidently, however, if we are to come any nearer to a determination of the authorship, we must first of all try to ascertain the destination of the letter.