The writer’s references in v. 12; vi. 9; x. 32; xii. 4; could only have been made to a definite group of Christians.!
This consideration is sufficient to prove that the title πρὸς Ἑβραίους without further designation is too indefinite to have been affixed to his letter by the author himself. Weizsacker, indeed, is extrava- gant when he brands the inscription as ‘‘ the unhappy conjecture of a later time,” but we may unhesitatingly adopt Robertson Smith’s language, and say that it is “hardly more than a reflection of the impression produced on an early copyist”. The suggestion of Prof. Nestle? that it may indicate that the Epistle was addressed to the συναγωγὴ Αἰβρέων or ᾿Εβρέων in Rome is interesting, but obviously if the writer of the Epistle had himself addressed it to a synagogue of Jewish Christians in Rome, he could not have written merely “to Hebrews,” but must have more definitely identified them by some further designation. In short, we cannot from this address derive any assistance in determining the Church to which the Epistle was addressed.
But that the inscription is right in so far as it declares that the letter was destined for Hebrew Christians has generally, though not universally, been acknowledged. The scope of the Epistle pre- supposes a profound attachment to the Mosaic dispensation. Not only is the Old Testament the common ground from which material can be drawn and on which the discussion can proceed, but the argument is one which can scarcely be conceived as addressed to Gentiles. It may almost be said with Dr. Bruce: “ If the readers were indeed Gentiles, they were Gentiles so completely disguised in Jewish ideas and wearing a mask with so pronounced Jewish features that the true nationality has been successfully hidden for nineteen centuries’. Or more summarily we may say with Reuss: ‘For this writer there are no Gentiles”. To Gentile ears some of the expressions used in the Epistle would be unintelligible, others would be offensive. To the former class belong such exhortations as, “ Let us go forth unto Him without the camp ”’ ; to the latter, “ Not of angels doth He take hold, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold”’.
In spite of this, however, many eminent critics in recent times have reached the persuasion that the letter was addressed not to Hebrew, but to Gentile Christians. Schiirer, Weizsacker, von Soden, Jtilicher, McGiffert are of this opinion. They are chiefly influenced by the consideration that the list of rudimentary doctrines
1See Burggaller’s criticism of Wrede’s ‘“‘ Das literarische Ratsel des Heb-
raerbriefes ” in Preuschen’s Zeitschrift for 1908. 2 Expository Times for June, 1899.