the moral interest as the consistent aim of all doctrine and instruc- tion ; the appeal for conduct corresponding to the new teaching is the regular conclusion of all doctrinal exposition ”’ ;! but the Apostles, as the same writer truly observes, always start from “ the new reve- lation of the nature of man’s dependence on God and God’s work in man, which was contained in the Life, the Death, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” ? and this is just what is left aside—or perhaps, more correctly, taken for granted—in our Epistle; but in an Apos- tolic writing we legitimately look for the foundation-truths to be at least as prominent as the ethical standard which is based upon them. The argument based on this fact speaks for a late date. Next, a subject already dealt with, namely, the ¥udaic tone of the Epistle, is sometimes put forward in favour of an early date; but this charac- teristic could be used in support of any date from 200 B.c.-200 a.p., to give the narrowest margin ; the argument, therefore, is wholly inconclusive. More to the point is that based upon the mention of the Diaspora. For the “twelve tribes of the Dispersion” to be addressed presupposes a widely-spread Christianity, such as would require many years to permit it to have developed itself, so that the use of the phrase in reference to Jewish-Christians almost compels one to postulate a late date for the bulk of the Epistle. The only reply forthcoming to refute this contention is to restrict the meaning of the term “ Dispersion”; but, as already pointed out above, the Epistle gives us no authority for this, and what the Jews meant by the twelve tribes of the Dispersion is so well known that this reply ought scarcely to be considered. Then, on the other hand, the absence of all reference to the Temple and its worship has been used as an argu- ment that the Temple no more existed, and that therefore the Epistle must at any rate be later than the year 70 a.p. This argument, how- ever, seems quite inconclusive, for, unless for some specific purpose, why should it be mentioned in an Epistle to Jewish-Christians ? Finally, it is worth inquiring whether the silence of the Epistle concerning the two great distinctive marks of Judaism—viz., Circum- cision and the Sabbath—throws any light upon the question of date. The opinion had been directly expressed by St. James that circum- cision was unnecessary for Gentile-Christians (Acts xv. 19, cf. xv. 5); on the other hand, Jewish-Christians would, of course, have been circumcised, in the first generation ; but there must have arisen at an early stage the question as to whether the children of Jewish- Christians should be circumcised or not; it can hardly be doubted
1 Parry, A Discussion of the General Epistle of St. $ames, p. 93. 2 Thid.