RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hebrews, Epistle to the
their Church adhered to its tradition. The commentary of Origen, more apologetic than critical, presupposes Pauline authorship — though he knows that it is received as Pauline only in certain churches while others reject it as not Pauline. His relations with other parts of the Church, including Rome, prevented him from adhering blindly to his home tradition; his critical sense was awakened and he was forced to admit that the style of Hebrews is thoroughly different from that of Paul. So he came to a compromise — that the ideas were originally Paul's, that they were given from memory, and that their literary form was imparted by another. The Alexandrian tradition spread first in the East, though probably not before the time of Origen. Both Irenseus and his disciple Hippolytus seem to have denied it, and this was the attitude of the Roman Church, and of the West in general, until the fourth century. The author of the Muratorian fragment knows of only seven communities to whom Paul wrote, and does not even mention Hebrews among the pseudo-Pauline writings. Caius of Rome gives only thirteen Pauline epistles; and in the days ef Eusebius the opponents of the canonicity of the epistle argued from the fact that it was not received in Rome as Paul's. Ambrosiaster (q.v.) does not treat it in his commentaries on the Pauline epistles. The Africans, from Cyprian to Optatus, seem not to have known it at all; it is not in their canon of 359. Only when the influence of the East upon the West increased so largely after the middle of the fourth century did the acknowledgment of the epistle's canonicity and the Alexandrian tradition as to its authorship become prevalent. The attitude of the Western Church is all the more significant because an epistle which was read in Rome at the end of the first century, quoted by Tertullian, mentioned by Irenseus and Hippolytus, and translated into Latin before Jerome, can never have been wholly overlooked or lost sight of by Western theologians. Their opinion must have been mainly negative, for Eusebius and Photius would not have failed to mention the fact, if Irenseus, Caius, or Hippolytus had named another author; nor would these men have contented themselves with merely denying the Pauline theory, if they had any other credible tradition to oppose to it. Such a tradition (not, as Jerome seems to think, a private opinion) Tertullian gives (De pudicitia, xx.) when he speaks of it as the epistle of Barnabas to the Hebrews. But the African Church did not go with him. From the way he himself employs it, and from the total silence of the later African writers, it follows that the epistle here, as in Rome, stood in no connection with the New Testament, and was not widely known. When, then, Tertullian speaks of churches in which it is more considered than the Shepherd of Hermas, and known as Barnabas's, since Rome, Alexandria, Lyons, and Carthage are excluded, his words must apply to the churches of Asia Minor, with which as a Montanist he was in relation. But this view spread no further.
If choice was limited to the claims of Paul and of Barnabas, it would be easy to decide in favor of the latter. Neither in style nor in substance does the epistle sound like Paul. Had it been his, its ex-
clusion from the list of his works and from the
New Testament in Rome, where he was early
known and read with reverence, and
7. Ascrip- in the West generally, would have tion to been inexplicable; and so would the
Barnabas disappearance of the right tradition and in so wide regions, and the rise of the Apollos. Barnabas theory. On the other hand, it is easy to account for the origin of the Pauline theory in Alexandria, where, if the epistle came as a supplement to the Pauline epistles and was read in church immediately after them (its position from the first), it would have been very natural to add " Epistle of Paul " to the existing title " to [the] Hebrews," on the analogy of all the preceding epistles from " to [the] Romans " to " to Philemon," especially as the reference to Timothy (xiii. 23) would bring Paul to mind. It would be difficult, because of paucity of knowledge concerning Barnabas, to bring a convincing disproof of his authorship upon the contents of the epistle; and the " word of exhortation " (Heb. xiii. 22) might have been written by the " son of consolation " [R.V. " son of exhortation "] (Acts iv. 36). But the history of the tradition is against this theory also. If the decay of the right tradition in Alexandria may be explained by the ease with which Paul's name could be appended to a work which bore that of no author, and if the unwritten Barnabas tradition would drop out there the more easily because the Alexandrian Church knew another epistle of Barnabas which was sometimes included in the canon, both of these explanations fall to the ground for the region represented by Irenasus, Hippolytus, and the ancient Church of Rome. In the abstract, where two mutually exclusive positive traditions are opposed by a third which is purely negative, the balance of probability is in favor of the third. As the early writers guessed now at Paul, now at Barnabas, and later at Clement and Luke, who were first mentioned only as translators, the hypothesis of Luther, who held Apollos to be the author, remains the most plausible. This Jewish convert, " born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures " (Acts xviii. 24-28) may well be singled out among the prominent teachers of the Apostolic Age as the author of this remarkable work. (T. Zahn.)
Bibliography: The questions of date, authorship, genuineness, etc., are discussed in the works on Introduction, e.g., S. Davidson, i. 177-239, London, 1882; E. Reuss (History of the Sacred Scriptures of the 2V. T.), i. 148- 153, Boston, 1884; F. Bleek, ed. W. Mangold, 189-201, Berlin, 1886; H. J. Holtzmann, pp. 292-308, Freiburg, 1892; A. Jiilicher, pp. 97-111, Freiburg, 1894, Eng. transl., pp. 148-174, New York, 1904; B. Weiss, pp. 307- 319, Berlin, 1897; G. Salmon, pp. 414-432, London, 1899; T. Zahn, ii. Ill-i58, Leipsic, 1900; DB, ii. 327-338; EB, ii. 1990-2001. The principal commentaries are: Calvin (in his works); F. Bleek, 3 vols., Berlin, 1828- 1840; H. Klee, Mainz, 1833; A. Tholuck, Hamburg, 1836, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1842; C. Wieseler, Kiel, 1861; C. Schweghauser, Paris, 1862 (a paraphrase); F. Delitzsch, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1868-70; J. H. Kurtz, Mitau, 1869; J. B. McCaul, London, 1871 (a paraphrase); J. C. C. Hofmann, Nordlingen, 1873; M. Stuart, Andover, 1876; M. Kahler, Halle, 1880; F. W. Farrar, Cambridge, 1883; O. Holtzheuer, Berlin, 1883; S. T. Lowrie, New York, 1884; C. F. Keil, Leipsic, 1885; F. Rendall, Lon-
Hebrews, Gospel According to Hedio