given in chap. vi. are such as would rather be taught to Gentile catechumens than to Jewish converts. No doubt the doctrines there mentioned would be taught to Gentiles, but surely the contrast between faith in God and faith in dead works is peculiarly appropriate to Jews; and it was also the Jew rather than the Gentile who re- quired explanation regarding the relation of Christian baptism to other lustrations. Besides, it must not be overlooked that the doctrines here enumerated are the ‘‘ rudiments of Christ,’’ and there- fore nothing specifically Jewish could be mentioned. They are that common ground or “ foundation” which underlay the specially Chris- tian teaching.
Difficulty has also been found in the phrase ἀποστῆναι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ζῶντος (iii. 12). This expression, it is felt, is more appropriate to a relapse to idolatry than to Judaism. But the very point of the whole Epistle is that an abandonment of Christianity is an abandonment of God; that in it God has finally spoken and that to neglect this revelation is to neglect God. In using this particular phrase the writer has not in view the end to which unbelief may lead them, but the fact that unbelief is apostasy from the living God, whether the unbeliever be Jew or Gentile.
These difficulties then are not insuperable, although they are pos- sibly too cavalierly treated by Westcott, who pronounces that “ the argument of von Soden, who endeavours to show that the Epistle was written to Gentiles, cannot be regarded as more than an ingenious paradox by any one who regards the general teaching of the Epistle in connection with the forms of thought in the Apostolic age”.
Where, then, were these Jewish Christians resident ? The places most generally approved are Jerusalem, Antioch, Czsarea, Rome. In favour of the Jewish metropolis there is not much to be urged. To no Church on earth would it be so inappropriate to say that they had received the Gospel at second-hand (ii. 8). Many of its members must have been in direct communication with the Lord. Neither could it with any truth be said of the Church of Jerusalem that. she had not been instrumental in teaching others (v. 12). This Church was also a poor community which itself required rather than afforded aid: whereas the society addressed in the Epistle had been con- spicuous for charity (vi. 10; x. 34). It also seems most unlikely that if the Church at Jerusalem was addressed, no allusion should be made to the Temple. Neither is it probable that any one, himself a member of the Church at Jerusalem, should prefer Greek to Aramaic as his medium of communication.
As Antioch was the scene of a considerable part of the labours of