Hebrews. St. Luke. St. Paul. All Others.
lambano.. 196.... 80.... 61 157
e pi - 34.... 19...... 4.... 4
para - 139...... 1.... 20.. 25
hu po - --...... 6.... --.. --
---- ---- ---- ----
Total........... 369........... 106........... 85........... 186
The verbs employed for request or prayer are numerous, and their employment by the different writers varies much. The following list of their relative frequency shows the principal facts:--
Hebrews. St. Luke. St. Paul. All Others.
aiteo. 11..... 330......... 7..... 46
a p -....... --......... 3....... --..... --
e x -....... --......... 2....... --..... --
e p -....... --......... 3....... --..... --
par -..... 35......... 6......... 7..... --
pros -.... --......... 1....... --....... 2
deomai. --......... 8......... 9....... 1
e pithumeo. 11....... 23....... 11....... 5
e rotao....... --....... 31......... 7..... 37
euchomai --......... 3......... 6....... 2
---- ---- ---- ----
Total........... 57........... 410........... 47........... 93
While St. Matthew habitually designates heavenly things by the plural (gen. or dat.) of ouranos, and is somewhat followed by the other writers, the author of Hebrews and St. Paul employ these forms very little and are almost alone in availing themselves of the compound adjective e pouranios for the same purpose. St. Luke uses this word only once; Hebrews, six times; St. Paul, twelve times; all others, twice. On the other hand, the simple ouranios is not used at all in Hebrews and St. Paul, but occurs twice in St. Luke, and four times elsewhere.
The words lalein and legein are both common enough, and the distinction between them is well recognized. The point to be noticed is the frequency of their use relatively to each other. Hebrews uses them in the proportion of 1:2; St. Paul the same; St. Luke, 1:3½; all others, 1:7 nearly. St. Luke here varies considerably from Hebrews and St. Paul, but far less than the others.
The Hebraistic prosopon, so frequent in the LXX, is found but once in Hebrews, and then in an allusion to the LXX; but curiously occurs 27 times in St. Luke, as many in St. Paul, and in all others 22. So also rh e ma is a common enough word; but in its Hebraistic sense, corresponding to dabar, a thing, the subject-matter of speech or command, its use is confined to St. Luke, and it does not occur either in Hebrews or elsewhere. Both hu parcho and hu postrepho are favorite words with St. Luke. The former occurs in his writings 34 times, is not found at all in Hebrews; is used by St. Paul 11 times, and only four times elsewhere; the latter is used by St. Luke 31 times, and elsewhere only once each in Hebrews, St. Paul, and St. Mark. Katergazomai is a Pauline word (21 times), never used in Hebrews, and but three times elsewhere (Jas. 2, Pet. 1). On the other hand, the use of the comparatives kreisson and pleion, with the superlative pleistos, is far more common in Hebrews. The comparative numbers are: for kreisson, Hebrews, 150; St. Luke, ; St. Paul, 7 (he also used the adverb kreisson once); all others, 2. For pleion pleistos, Heb., 46; St. Luke, 42; St. Paul, 19; all others, 17.
I do not recall any other words of this kind, the usage of which affects our enquiry. Such inferences as may be drawn from this examination are somewhat contradictory. They certainly do not point to the author of this Epistle as either St. Paul or St. Luke, as they might be expected to do if such were the fact. There are some striking similarities of diction; but the differences are, at least, quite as important.
It is time now to turn to those adverbs, particles and prepositions, which bring out the grammatical form in which a writer is accustomed to clothe his ideas. But before speaking of these, mention must be made of one grammatical form peculiarly characteristic of the nicety and subtlety of thought of the classic Greek writers--the optative mood. This subject has been investigated by Dr. Harman with great care. He finds that this mode is used in the whole New Testament 66 times, 32 of them in the Pauline Epistles, 28 in the writings of St. Luke, once in Hebrews, and five times in all other writers. "In nearly all the cases in which the optative occurs in the New Testament it is used to express a wish or prayer, except in the writings of Luke." "In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find one instance of the optative, katartisai, May God make you perfect' ( xiii. 21 ). This is presumptive proof that an Alexandrian did not write this Epistle, as it is not likely that the use of this mode in but one instance would have satisfied his fine Greek taste." [2657]
The usage of the particles, adverbs and prepositions, require so much detail that only a summary can here be given with a reference to the paper on the "Language of the Epistles to the Hebrews," already mentioned.
The particles men and de would naturally be more common in narrative; but as between Hebrews, St. Paul, and the other Epistles, they are relatively most frequent in Hebrews. The same is true of the conjunction te, which is more common in St. Luke and St. Paul than in other New Testament writers. The adversative a lla is common enough everywhere, not even the shortest epistle being without more than one instance of its use. St. Luke and Hebrews employ it very much more seldom; but again, St. Luke uses it far less than Hebrews. The three writers, St. Luke, St. Paul, and the author of Hebrews, are distinguished from the other writers by the (comparatively) sparing use of a n and e a n , but of the three, St. Luke employs it most, and St. Paul least. Hebrews alone uses e a nper, but never e a n me, which is employed in St. Luke with moderate freedom, by St. Paul twice as often, and still more frequently by the other writers. In the case of dio, St. Paul uses it relatively only half as often as Hebrews, but three times as often as St. Luke, and the last more than twice as often as the other writers. In the use of dioti, a much less common word, there is a less difference, but still a marked one and in the same order.
The pronouns of the first and second person are used, as might be expected, most abundantly by St. Paul; but Hebrews is singularly shy of them. This fact has been noticed and an explanation offered on the ground that the work has more the character of a treatise than of a personal epistle; but this explains too much, since these personal pronouns, though relatively infrequent, are still very common in our epistle. The author was not disposed to bring forward the personality of either himself or his hearers. St. Paul, on the contrary, used these pronouns more than twice as often as our author, and indeed far more frequently than any other New Testament writer.
The case of the third person of the pronoun is peculiar, since its frequent redundant use is one of the marked characteristics of the New Testament diction; yet St. Paul uses it less than half as often as Hebrews. The same is true of the demonstrative e keinos ; but in the use of the reflective he autos, St. Paul is largely in excess. The difference in the use of these pronouns between Hebrews and St. Luke is not very great; but, in regard to the two first particularly, the difference from the other writers is marked, and St. Paul's usage of all of them is very different. On the other hand, in the use of houtos, Hebrews is strongly separated from St. Luke and less so from St. Paul.
The words a llelon, a llos, he teros, tis (interrog.), and tis (indef.) have marked peculiarities in their frequency of employment by the different writers, but it is enough to instance here a llos, employed oftener by St. Paul than by St. Luke and Hebrews put together, and yet by the other writers collectively twice as often as by him; and he teros used with exactly the same frequency by St. Luke and St. Paul, less than one quarter as often by other writers, but far oftener in Hebrews than in any of them. So also with he kastos, toioutos, and tosoutos : they are all used with exactly the same frequency in Hebrews; but while the first is used by St. Paul much oftener, the last is used only one-fourteenth as often. The usage of St. Luke is markedly different from that of either.
Further and more detailed examination of words of this class would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that such an examination shows a marked individuality in the usage of the several writers; and it is to be remembered that Hebrews, Acts, and the latter Epistles of St. Paul must have been written with no great interval of time between them.
The same things are true in whatever way we test the forms of expression of these writers. If we take the particle ei with its various combinations ei kai, ei me, eige, ei de me, ei me te, ei per, ei pos, ei te, ei tis, we shall find that only the first two of these combinations occur in Hebrews at all, and those only once each, while all of them are found in the Pauline Epistles, and all but three of them in the writings of St. Luke. The whole group together is used more than twice as often by St. Paul as by any other writer.
Adverbs of space are very sparingly used by St. Paul, with an approach to equality between Hebrews and St. Luke, but twice as often by other writers. In the various particles and adverbs of negation, there do not seem to be, on the whole, very noticeable peculiarities, although uedeis and mede occur but once each in Hebrews, while the former is everywhere else common, and the latter also in St. Paul and other writers, though less frequent in St. Luke. But the word choris is frequent enough in Hebrews to be considered characteristic, is used far less by St. Paul, only once by St. Luke, and comparatively seldom by other writers. Palin is quite rare in St. Luke, equally common in Hebrews and St. Paul, and a little less so in the other writers. The use of e is very rare in Hebrews whether as a disjunctive conjunction, or as a term of comparison. In the latter sense it occurs but once, and in the former only four times, two of which are in quotations from the LXX, and a third in a more than doubtful reading. In all the other New Testament writers it is very common, but most of all in St. Paul. In the use of mallon, however, though St. Paul still exceeds, Hebrews most nearly approaches his usage. The causal e pei is five times as frequent in Hebrews as in St. Paul, and yet four times more frequent in his writings than in the others, and is still less common in St. Luke than in them. The word pos is used but once in Hebrews (interrogatively), while it is common enough everywhere else. Both hi na and ho ti are used very often by St. Paul and the other writers, and much more sparingly in Hebrews; but St. Luke uses hi na much less than half as often as Hebrews, while he employs ho ti much more than half as often again. The un-Attic particle kathos, the adverbs houtos, ho sei, ho sper, and the conjunction ho ste, are all appropriate to trains of reasoning, but their usage in the different writers, particularly in the three we are especially considering, is very various. The same may be said of the prepositions, among which sun is never used in Hebrews (except in composition), while it is employed much oftener by St. Luke than by St. Paul or any other writer.
It may be thought that all this examination--still tedious, though much condensed--is not worth the trouble. It goes to show, what has always been noticed by every reader, that the style of this Epistle is unlike that of St. Paul; but if it show, as it seems to do quite as clearly, that it is unlike that of St. Luke as well, something has been gained. It makes it at least improbable that St. Luke wrote the Epistle to give expression to the ideas of St. Paul.
It remains to examine some words of another class. There are many words and groups of words so peculiarly appropriated to certain ideas or shades of thought, that the use or non-use of them becomes a fair index of the habitual tone of thought of the writer. If he use them frequently, the phase of truth which they represent must have been prominent in his mind; or if he seldom employ them, then that aspect of truth was not the predominant one from his point of view. Such words or groups of words may be of different degrees of importance; but even those of inferior significance help to complete the picture of the writer's mental habits, and it is therefore well to examine all that are at all characteristic. As the force of the evidence from these words can only be brought out by a more careful examination of them, I venture to copy some pages of the paper referred to above.