A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

PREFACE

Living on close terms with the Epistle to the Hebrews for a half-dozen years has immensely deepened my appreciation of the rich strength and compassion of the Christian gospel and increased my own personal grasp of the faith won for us and delivered to us by him who is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.

The author of Hebrews has a superb perspective on Christ’s transcendental supremacy, on the uniqueness of his priestly mediation, and on the total once-for-all efficacy of his sacrifice of himself for us sinners. His understanding of the logic of the incarnation as the means both to the Son’s self-identification with mankind and also to his self-offering, Man for man, in our place on the cross is penetrating. He perceives that the exaltation of the risen Savior means the exaltation also of our humanity, which he united to himself in order that he might redeem it, with the result that the way is now open for us into the heavenly sanctuary of the presence of God himself. He apprehends that the glorious destiny for which man was created, and which was lost through man’s disobedience, has been restored through the perfection of the faithfulness, obedience, and suffering of this one true Man. Without wavering he insists on the immutability of the word and the promises of God; consequently, he says, we are required to be constant in faith, hope, and perseverance as we run the Christian race, no matter how menacing the hostile forces that surround us may appear to be. Along with these insights, the author’s pastoral concern, earnest warnings, sympathetic encouragement for those tempted to compromise or even give up the struggle, and his appeal to them to take their stand with Christ outside the camp—all combine to make this writing indeed a tract for the times, and not only for the author’s times, but for all times.

The serious study of the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot fail to have a powerfully beneficial effect on the personal life of the individual Christian and on the corporate well-being of the church. It is my desire and prayer that this commentary, even with its deficiencies, may be of service to fellow pilgrims who wish to lay hold of the important instruction communicated in this writing by an author who must have been a truly remarkable person.

There are many to whom I would like to express my gratitude, but I must content myself by mentioning in particular my friends Mr. William B. Eerdmans, Jr., for the willingness with which he took on the publication of this volume and the care with which he and his staff have produced it; Mr. Arthur W. Kuschke, Jr., for his genial cooperation in placing the facilities of the library of Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) at my disposal; Professor C. Spicq, O.P., of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, whose own work on the Epistle to the Hebrews is a monument of dedicated piety and erudition, for his cordial encouragement in conversation and correspondence; and Mr. Dan G. McCartney for valued assistance in the preparation of the indices for this volume. My indebtedness to many others, past and present, is apparent in the pages that follow.

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

Rydal, Pennsylvania

PREFACE

ABBREVIATIONS

COMMENTARIES

INTRODUCTION

I. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO THE PROPHETS (1:1–3)

II. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS (1:4–2:18)

NOTE ON THE EXPRESSION IN THE BEGINNING (1:10)

NOTE ON THE VARIANT READING χωρὶς θεοῦ (APART FROM GOD) (2:9)

NOTE ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PARTICIPLE ἀγαγόντα (2:10)

III. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO MOSES (3:1–4:13)

EXCURSUS I: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MELCHIZEDEK

EXCURSUS II: THE MEANING OF THE TRUE TENT IN HEBREWS 8:2 and THE GREATER AND MORE PERFECT TENT IN HEBREWS 9:11

NOTE ON THE DEAD SEA SECT AND THE NEW COVENANT

EXCURSUS III: THE BLOOD OF JESUS AND HIS HEAVENLY PRIESTHOOD

NOTE ON THE PURPOSE OF THE REFERENCE TO THE ASHES OF A HEIFER IN HEBREWS 9:13

NOTE ON THE TERMINOLOGY OF HEBREWS 9:16 AND 17

V. CHRIST SUPERIOR AS THE NEW AND LIVING WAY (10:19–12:29)

NOTE ON THE MEANING OF ἐπισυναγωγή (10:25)

EXCURSUS IV: THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION IN HEBREWS 11:3

NOTE ON THE VARIETIES OF INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 12:22FF.

VI. CONCLUDING EXHORTATIONS, REQUESTS, AND GREETINGS (13:1–25)

ABBREVIATIONS

ASV     American Standard Version (1901).

Blass-Debrunner     A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by F. Blass and A. Debrunner, trans. and rev. by Robert W. Funk (1961).

Goodspeed     The New Testament: An American Translation by Edgar J. Goodspeed (1923).

JB     The Jerusalem Bible (1966).

JBL     Journal of Biblical Literature.

JTS     Journal of Theological Studies.

KJV     King James Version = Authorized Version (1611).

Kittel, TDNT     Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittel, trans. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (9 vols., 1964–1974).

Knox     The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, trans. by Ronald Knox (1945).

Liddell and Scott     A Greek-English Lexicon, comp. by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott (1883 edn.).

LXX     The Septuagint (Greek) version of the Old Testament.

Migne, PG     Patrologia Graeca, ed. by J. P. Migne (162 vols., 1857–1866).

Migne, PL     Patrologia Latina, ed. by J. P. Migne (217 vols., 1844–1855).

Moffatt     The New Testament: A New Translation by James Moffatt (1922).

Moulton and Milligan     The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament illustrated from the papyri and other non-literary sources by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan (1949).

NEB     The New English Bible (1961).

NTS     New Testament Studies.

NTTE     The New Testament in Today’s English Version (1966).

Phillips     The New Testament in Modern English, trans. by J. B. Phillips (1958).

RSV     The Revised Standard Version (1952).

RV     The Revised Version (1881).

Strack-Billerbeck     Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch by H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck (1922–1961).

Vg     The Vulgate (Latin) Version.

Weymouth     The New Testament in Modern Speech, trans. by Richard Francis Weymouth (1902).

ZNTW     Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft.

COMMENTARIES

The following is a select list of commentaries. A comprehensive bibliography of commentaries and other writings on the Epistle to the Hebrews is available in C. Spicq, L’Epître aux Hébreux (Etudes Bibliques), I, pp. 379ff., Hébreux (Epître aux), in Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, VII, col. 272ff., and Epître aux Hébreux (Sources Bibliques), pp. 44ff., covering the periods up to 1950, 1951 to 1961, and 1962 to 1976 respectively.

4th century:

Chrysostom (Migne, PG, 63; ET, London, 1893).

5th century:

Theodoret (Migne, PG, 82).

6th century:

Ecumenius (Migne, PG, 119).

8th century:

Alcuin (Migne, PL, 100).¹

11th century:

Theophylact (Migne, PG, 125).

12th century:

Peter Lombard (Migne, PL, 192).

Herveus (Migne, PL, 181).

13th century:

Thomas Aquinas (Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos Lectura, Rome, 1953).

16th century:

Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples [Faber Stapulensis] (Commentariorum in Epistolas Beatissimi Pauli Apostoli Liber Quartusdecimus, Paris, 2nd edn. 1515).

Erasmus (Opera Omnia, Vol. VI, Adnotationes, Lyon, 1705).

Luther (Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews 1517–1518, in Luther: Early Theological Works, London, 1962).

Cajetan (Epistolae Pauli et aliorum Apostolorum, etc., Venice, 1531).

Calvin (Opera Omnia, Vol. VII, 1567, Amsterdam; ET by John Owen, Edinburgh, 1853).

Beza (Jesu Christi Domini nostri Novum Testamentum, Geneva, 1582).

17th century:

Cornelius à Lapide (Commentarii in Scripturam Sacram, Tom. IX, Paris, 1864).

Estius (In Epistolam Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Hebraeos Commentarius, Cologne, 1631).

H. Grotius (Annotationes in Acta Apostolorum et in Epistolas Catholicas, Paris, 1646).

W. Gouge (Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebriews, Edinburgh, 1866).

J. Owen (Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1855).

18th century:

J. A. Bengel (Gnomon Novi Testamenti, Stuttgart, 1860).

19th century:

F. Bleek (Der Brief an die Hebräer, Berlin, 1828–40).

H. Alford (The Greek Testament, Vol. IV, London, 1861).

J. Brown (An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1862).

W. Lindsay (Lectures on Hebrews, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1867).

F. Delitzsch (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1872).

A. B. Davidson (The Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1882).

C. Wordsworth (The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Vol. II, London, 1882, pp. 361–426).

C. F. Keil (Kommentar über den Brief an die Hebräer, Leipzig, 1885).

G. Lünemann (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, New York, 1885).

B. Weiss (Handbuch über den Brief an die Hebräer [Meyer Kommentar], Göttingen, 1888).

B. F. Westcott (The Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1889).

F. W. Farrar (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, Cambridge, 1891).

20th century:

A. Schlatter (Der Brief an die Hebräer, in Erläuterungen zum Neuen Testament, Vol. III, Stuttgart, 1910).

E. C. Wickham (The Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1910).

A. Nairne (The Epistle of Priesthood: Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1913).

E. Riggenbach (Der Brief an die Hebräer, Leipzig, 1913).

A. Nairne (The Epistle to the Hebrews, Cambridge, 1921).

J. Moffatt (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1924).

H. Windisch (Der Hebräerbrief, Tübingen, 1931).

O. Michel (Der Brief an die Hebräer, Göttingen, 1936, rev. 1949).

J. Bonsirven (Epître aux Hébreux, Paris, 1943).

R. C. H. Lenski (The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Columbus, Ohio, 1946).

C. Spicq (L’Epître aux Hébreux, 2 vols., Paris, 1952/53).

P. Teodorico da Castel S. Pietro (L’Epistola agli Ebrei, Rome, 1952).

J. Héring (L’Epître aux Hébreux, Paris and Neuchâtel, 1954).

F. W. Grosheide (De Brief aan de Hebreën en de Brief van Jakobus, Kampen, 1955).

T. Hewitt (The Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1960).

F. F. Bruce (The Epistle to the Hebrews, London and Grand Rapids, 1964).

H. Montefiore (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, New York and Evanston, 1964).

G. W. Buchanan (To the Hebrews, New York, 1972).

When authors are cited in this volume by name only, without the titles and page numbers of their works, the references are to commentaries in the list above, at the place dealing with the verse(s) under discussion.

INTRODUCTION

If there is a widespread unfamiliarity with the Epistle to the Hebrews and its teaching, it is because so many adherents of the church have settled for an undemanding and superficial association with the Christian faith. Yet it was to arouse just such persons from the lethargic state of compromise and complacency into which they had sunk, and to incite them to persevere wholeheartedly in the Christian conflict, that this letter was originally written. It is a tonic for the spiritually debilitated. The study of this epistle leads us beneath the surface of things to the profound depths of our evangelical faith, and enriches and establishes our understanding of the grace of God manifested on our behalf in the incarnation, self-offering, and exaltation of him who is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. There is, indeed, no book in Holy Scripture, says Calvin in the foreword to his commentary on Hebrews, which speaks so clearly of the priesthood of Christ, so splendidly extols the power and worth of that unique sacrifice which he offered by his death, deals more adequately with the use and also the abrogation of ceremonies, and, in short, explains more fully that Christ is the end of the Law. We neglect such a book to our own impoverishment.

It is true that the Epistle to the Hebrews has been the battleground of discordant opinion and conjecture: its author is unknown, its occasion unstated, and its destination disputed. But these are matters at the periphery, not the heart of the book’s importance. All are agreed on the intrinsic nobility of its doctrine. The writer’s mastery of Greek is unmatched elsewhere in the New Testament and his powerfully argued development of fundamental theological themes indicates the exceptional quality of his intellect. His language, in Westcott’s judgment, is both in vocabulary and style purer and more vigorous than that of any other book of the New Testament;¹ and Moffatt writes admiringly: He has a sense of literary nicety, which enters into his earnest religious argument without rendering it artificial or over-elaborate. He has an art of words, which is more than an unconscious sense of rhythm. He has the style of a trained speaker; it is style, yet style at the command of a devout genius.² Stylishness is indeed far from being synonymous with artificiality in the case of our author. Like all the other parts of the New Testament, the Epistle to the Hebrews is a writing with a purpose. Seriousness is the tone by which it is dignified throughout, and the language is as free from superficiality as is the subject matter. Addressed as it is with the utmost earnestness to a specific situation which calls for compassion and correction, it is no mere literary essay or theoretical treatise. The doctrines, warnings, and appeals of the letter are compelling, not primarily because they are presented with linguistic artistry, but because their concern is with matters of eternal consequence. Moffatt rightly counsels against the unreality of explaining away the most striking passages as rhetorical abstractions or treating the epistolary form as a piece of literary fiction.³ The spirit of zeal and urgency which pervades the letter from beginning to end is eloquent evidence of the deep concern by which the writer is motivated.

THEME AND STRUCTURE

The comprehensive theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that of the absolute supremacy of Christ—a supremacy which allows no challenge, whether from human or angelic beings. As this is not an essay in academic speculation, it is apparent that those whom the writer is addressing, attracted by the teachings of some contemporary movement, are being tempted to assign to certain personages a prominence which would detract from the unique authority of Christ and thus have the effect of subverting the gospel of their salvation. It is of vital importance, for their eternal destiny is at stake, that they should not lose hold of this salvation which they have professed to receive, and to this end they must see clearly that Christ is without rival or equal. The unchallengeable supremacy of Christ is established by the demonstrations, through the logic of Scripture, of his superiority to the great leaders and instructors of God’s people in the past, namely, prophets and patriarchs in general and Moses and Aaron in particular, and also to spiritual angelic creatures. The superiority of Christ, moreover, is identical with the superiority of the new covenant, of which he is both the fulfilment and the mediator, to the old covenant, which was conveyed by the agency of angels and administered by prophets, priests, and rulers of former times, and which by its very nature was imperfect and temporary. In Christ the new order, which is perfect and eternal and by which therefore the old is done away, has been inaugurated.

The analysis which follows will help to show the structure of the epistle’s content.

Theme: THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST

I. Christ superior to the prophets: his absolute uniqueness as Divine Son, Incarnate Redeemer, and Exalted Lord (1:1–3).

II. Christ superior to the angels (1:4–2:18)

Proved from the Old Testament: 1:4–13.

First warning: the peril of neglecting such a great salvation: 2:1–4.

Christ the true Man exalted above the angels: 2:5–9.

The purpose and consequence of the Incarnation: 2:10–18.

III. Christ superior to Moses (3:1–4:13).

Moses and Christ compared: 3:1–6a.

Second warning: the peril of copying the example of the Israelites in the wilderness: 3:6b–4:2.

Necessity of faith and obedience for entry into God’s rest: 4:3–11.

The sharp and penetrating discernment of God’s word: 4:12–13.

IV. Christ superior to Aaron (4:14–10:18).

Our compassionate High Priest: 4:14–16 (resuming the subject already introduced in 2:17–3:1).

High priesthood: general qualifications: 5:1–4.

Christ’s qualifications: 5:5–10.

Third warning: the peril of stagnation and apostasy: 5:11–6:8.

Encouragement to persevere: 6:9–20.

The order of Melchizedek: 6:20b–7:28 (already mentioned in 5:6, 10; cf. 2:17; 4:14f.).

Significance of Melchizedek: 7:1–10.

Imperfection of the levitical priesthood contrasted with the perfection of Christ’s priesthood: 7:11–28.

The shadows of the old covenant superseded by the realities of the new covenant: 8:1–9:10.

The redemption procured by Christ’s sacrifice all-sufficient and eternal: 9:11–10:18.

V. Christ superior as the new and living way (10:19–12:29).

Encouragement to enter boldly into the true sanctuary: 10:19–25 (cf. 4:14–16).

Fourth warning: the peril of despising the gospel: 10:26–31.

Encouragement to endure: 10:32–39.

The triumph of faith and perseverance illustrated by the example of the believers of the former age: 11:1–39.

The supreme example of Christ: 12:1–4.

The significance and value of discipline: 12:5–11.

Encouragement to resume the struggle: 12:12–14.

Fifth warning: the peril of following the example of Esau: 12:15–17.

Mount Sinai and Mount Zion compared: 12:18–24.

Sixth warning: the peril of refusing him who speaks from heaven: 12:25–29.

VI. Concluding exhortations, requests, and greetings (13:1–25).

SYNOPSIS

The superiority of Christ to the prophets of old is suggested in the opening verses of the epistle by the declaration that God’s final word has been spoken in the person of him who is a Son. This final word fulfils and transcends all previous words spoken by God through the prophets, so that there is no place for venerating the ancient prophets in a manner that would challenge the supremacy of him who himself is uniquely the Word, consubstantial with the Father, the agent of creation, the sustainer of the universe, the heir of all things, and the exalted Redeemer of the world (1:1–3).

As Son, moreover, Christ is superior to the angels, as quotations adduced from the Old Testament scriptures show. There can be no question of a parity, let alone a superiority, of the angels to the sovereign Son. Angels are but creatures, ministering spirits in the service of the Creator, sent forth to serve for the sake of those who, thanks to the Son, are to inherit salvation (1:4–14).

This leads to the first warning. To assign to angels a position of undue prominence can only mean that the recipients of the epistle are drifting away from the evangelical truth in which they have rejoiced. It is true that the message declared through angels when the law was given at Sinai was important and carried condign penalties for those who transgressed its commandments; but much more important is the message declared through the Lord himself, for it is the message of God’s great salvation—for us law-breakers!—in and through the Son: much less can those who spurn such incomparable grace expect to escape divine judgment (2:1–4).

Nowhere do the Scriptures suggest that the world to come is to be subjected to the authority of angels—a belief which the readers are being enticed to accept. On the contrary, it is under the feet of man that everything is to be placed in subjection, as Psalm 8 teaches—not, of course, sinful and fallen man who has perverted the order of creation, but again the Son, who through his incarnation fulfils the perfection of manhood, who by his redeeming death, Man for man, deals with the radical problem of sin and restores the harmony between man and God and between man and creation, and who in his exaltation raises our redeemed humanity united to him by faith to a destiny higher than that of the angels. For the Son, who to procure our salvation made himself for a little while lower than the angels, is even now crowned with glory and honor, far above all angels (2:5–9).

It is Jesus, therefore, the incarnate Son, our true brother, and not an unincarnate angelic creature incapable of self-identification with man and his plight, who is the pioneer and prince of our salvation. It is he who has broken the power of that hostile angel the devil and has brought us from death and bondage to life and freedom. And his incarnation means the assumption of the nature not of angels but of the covenant seed of Abraham. The covenant made by God with Abraham, which is the root of the new covenant, finds its fulfilment in him whose work as a merciful and faithful high priest making propitiation for the sins of mankind depends on his identification with us. Such a high priest—God indeed, but also by reason of the incarnation our compassionate fellow man who knows and understands our temptations—is uniquely qualified to help us in our trials in a way that no angel or any other creature possibly can (2:10–18).

Certainly, under the old order Moses and Aaron were prominent as apostle and high priest respectively; but in the new and eternal order the two offices of apostleship and high priesthood are combined in the one person of Jesus Christ. To attempt to put the clock back by a return to the Mosaic pattern and the disciplines of the wilderness experience of the Israelites betrays a serious misconception of the Christian situation. Moses, it is true, was commended for his faithfulness, and in this he prefigured Christ and his faithfulness; but there is this important difference, that Moses was faithful in God’s house as a servant, whereas Christ was faithful as a son who is over God’s house: the superiority of a son to a servant needs no demonstration (3:1–6).

The period of forty years in the wilderness, moreover, was far from being a glorious chapter in the history of Israel. Indeed, centuries later the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Psalmist (Ps. 95), held up the hard-heartedness of that generation, whose rebellious disobedience precluded them from entering into the rest of the promised land, as an example to be avoided. A return to the wilderness régime, even with the intention of scrupulously observing the conditions of the Mosaic covenant, must involve the imitation of the disobedience of that generation, only to a more serious degree, since those to whom this epistle is addressed are contemplating an action which would render them disobedient to him who is God’s final word to man (cf. 1:1f.) and in whom the old order has been replaced by the new (3:7–19).

A failure of faith will mean, too, a failure to reach the promised rest, not now, however, a transient earthly respite, but the abiding rest of God’s eternity. In any case, the entry into Palestine under Joshua was not the attainment of the true rest, for otherwise there would have been no point in speaking, as God did through David so long afterwards, of a day of opportunity for avoiding the judgment which overtook the wilderness generation. Accordingly, the readers are exhorted, in view of the penetrating and infallible judgment of God’s word, to concentrate every energy on entering into that true rest which still remains for the people of God (4:1–13).

The author now proposes to demonstrate that Christ is superior, not only to angels and Moses, but also to Aaron. Christ has become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him—which cannot be said of angels or Moses or Aaron! The main premise of his argument is that Christ’s priesthood is of a different order from that of Aaron, a priesthood, namely, as announced in Psalm 110, of the order of Melchizedek, who is designated a priest forever. Having broached the subject, however, he interrupts his theme in order to issue a further solemn warning to his readers. Their progress as Christians has been arrested to such a degree that they are scarcely competent to receive the careful teaching he wishes to give them; indeed, there is even a danger of their lapsing into a state of apostasy from which it would be impossible for them to recover. Yet he is confident that a true work of God has taken place in their midst and that he will be able to stir them up to renewed zeal and perseverance in the Christian contest (4:14–6:12).

They must appreciate that their spiritual roots go back not to Moses but to Abraham; for the word of God’s covenant promise to Abraham was confirmed with an oath—something, again, which cannot be said of the intermediate covenant given through Moses. Moreover, the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant have come to fulfilment in Christ and have been made available to us by virtue of the redemptive work of him who is our high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, and who has led the way as our forerunner into the heavenly sanctuary (6:13–20).

Now at length the theme of the nature and purpose of Christ’s high priesthood receives full development. The significance of Melchizedek as prefiguring Christ is drawn from the two places in the Old Testament where he is mentioned, that is, Genesis 14:18ff. and Psalm 110:4, and his superiority to Abraham and thence Levi is argued—and thus the superiority of his priesthood to that of the levitical order. There would, furthermore, have been no point in the mention by the Psalmist, in the midstream of Jewish history, of another order of priesthood if under the order of Aaron then in operation perfection had been attainable: the mere reference to a different order implies the imperfection and inadequacy of the existing order. It was only to be expected, then, that Christ, our high priest after the order of Melchizedek, should not have belonged to the priestly line of Aaron. His descent, in fact, on the human side, was from Judah, not Levi. Here, too, the adding of a divine oath (The Lord has sworn …, Ps. 110:4) indicates the superiority of the priesthood of Christ to that of the Levites, who were appointed to office without the swearing of an oath (7:1–22).

There are other considerations which confirm the superiority of the order of Melchizedek. The Aaronic order had many priests in a long succession because each in turn was carried away by death, whereas the order of Melchizedek has but one priest whose priesthood is permanent because he continues forever. The former priests were sinful as well as mortal men and therefore had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they offered sacrifices for the sins of the people, whereas the sole priest of the latter order was entirely without sin and therefore had no need to make an offering on his own behalf. The fact that in the former system there was a multiplicity not only of priests but also of sacrifices, day after day and year after year, is eloquent of the imperfection and ineffectiveness of that system to bring about a radical reconciliation between man and God, whereas the fact that our High Priest of the order of Melchizedek offered only one sacrifice forever indicates the absolute perfection and efficacy of that one all-availing offering. The unblemished sacrifice offered by the incarnate Son provided, indeed, the perfect substitution, Man for man, because it was the willing sacrifice of himself, unlike the sacrifices of irrational and uncomprehending brute beasts offered by the levitical priesthood (7:23–28).

It would be vain to imagine that advantage could result from any kind of restoration of the wilderness tabernacle and its ceremonies, for these were no more than a copy and shadow of the true heavenly sanctuary and its ministry. Bound up as the earthly sanctuary was with the former, Mosaic, covenant, there would have been no point in speaking, as the prophet Jeremiah does (31:31ff.), of God’s intention to establish a new covenant if the former covenant had been without fault (the argument is parallel to that already used in connection with the mention of a different order of priesthood in Ps. 110, at 7:11ff.). The mere announcement of a new covenant implies both the faultiness and the obsolescence of the covenant in existence when Jeremiah uttered his prophecy (8:1–13).

Far from needing restoration, the observances belonging to the tabernacle of the Israelites were of a superficial and temporary character, until the time of reformation, for they were incapable of cleansing and making perfect the conscience of the worshipper. This is symbolized by the consideration that under the former system the people were actually excluded from entry into the inner sanctuary (the holy of holies) of God’s presence, which the high priest alone was permitted to enter, and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement. But Christ by shedding his own blood—human blood, not the blood of goats and bulls—has secured an eternal redemption for us, and by his entry into heaven itself has opened the way for us all into the true sanctuary of God’s presence; for the radical effect of his blood-shedding has been the cleansing of our conscience from dead works so that we may serve the living God, and the sanctuary he has entered is no copy or shadow but that sanctuary which is authentic and eternal. In view of these great truths, there is and can be no repetition of his one perfect and final sacrifice (9:1–28).

Had the levitical sacrifices made perfect those on whose behalf they were offered, they would have ceased to be offered; but, continually repeated as they were, they served only to remind the people of their sinfulness and to point to the need for a sacrifice that would once and for all take away sin. In the nature of the case, this is something the blood of bulls and goats could not do. What the former system lacked, however, the Son has provided by coming into the world to fulfil the divine will for the world’s redemption by the offering of himself. The levitical priests stand daily in the performance of their never completed sacerdotal work, offering sacrifices that can never take away sins; but Christ, after offering a single sacrifice for sins, sat down at God’s right hand: there is no more standing for him as a sacrificing priest because by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. In fulfilment of Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant God has in this way removed the sins of his people; and where there is forgiveness of sins, that is to say, a truly radical justification of the sinner, there is no longer any offering for sin (10:1–18).

Through Christ’s blood-shedding the way into the presence of God himself, hitherto closed to the people, has been laid open. Christ himself, and none other, is this new and living way. On the basis, then, of the Son’s perfect high-priestly offering the readers are urged to draw near with confidence and boldness, to hold fast their confession without wavering, and to encourage one another in their trials and struggles as the day of the Lord’s return comes ever closer. This exhortation is followed by another solemn warning of the extreme peril of sinning against the light: those who violated the law of Moses were duly and severely punished; much more severe will be the judgment that overtakes those who trample underfoot the sacred blood of the covenant of grace. They are entreated, however, to recall the days when they first responded to the message of the gospel, and especially the joyful manner in which they had then endured suffering and shame and the plundering of their property, and the mutual love and compassion which had bound them together. They are begged not to throw away their confidence, but to persevere in the conflict, remembering that the people of God are to live by faith and that God has no pleasure in those who shrink back (10:19–39).

Faith which overcomes every obstacle and triumphs in the darkest situations and even in the hour of death has always been the glory of all true men and women of God. To illustrate this there follows an encomium of the dauntless faith and unquenchable hope of believers who lived and died in the time of promise but not yet of fulfilment, from Abel to the heroes of the Maccabean resistance, patriarchs and prophets, pilgrims and martyrs, persons both well known and little known, of whom the world was not worthy, and whose gaze was fixed not on earthly shadows but on the heavenly reality. They with us, and we with them, are made perfect in Christ. This is the noble company we join in running the race of faith. The readers are encouraged, therefore, to run the Christian race with dedication, concentrating their attention, not on their fellow contestants, past or present, but on Jesus, who alone is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who in his single-minded endurance of the cross endured infinitely more than any follower of his will ever endure, and whose patient suffering has been crowned with glory. How can they lose heart with his supreme example before them (11:1–12:4)!

Have they forgotten the wise admonition that the Lord disciplines him whom he loves? Affliction endured for Christ’s sake is a mark of that discipline which God, like any loving father, uses for the benefit of his children. Undisciplined children are not genuine sons. Such discipline, accordingly, should assure us of our sonship, and its beneficial purpose is that we may partake of the divine holiness. Painful though chastisement is for the time being, it produces an eternal and joyful harvest. Thus the readers are incited to brace themselves for the hardships of the struggle, being warned at the same time by the evil example of Esau, who for the ease of the moment bartered and irretrievably lost his birthright (12:5–17).

They must abandon all hankering after the Mosaic era, for the terrors of the law and the exclusion of the people from the glory of God’s presence are, in Christ, things of the past. In coming to Christ it is not to Mount Sinai that they have come, but to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the realm of the new covenant in which all rejoice together in the gracious presence of God. A final warning is given, that to reject God when he speaks from heaven (in the person of his Son, cf. 1:2) is to invite judgment more dreadful even than that which came upon those Israelites who rejected him when he spoke on earth in Moses’ day (12:18–29).

In the concluding section there is yet one more appeal to the readers to turn their backs decisively on the old Mosaic/Aaronic order of things, with its impermanent city and sanctuary, and to concentrate on that true and lasting city which is to come, by going forth to Jesus outside the camp and taking their stand with him on the ground hallowed by his suffering, that is to say, by willingly bearing abuse for his sake (13:1–15).

It is evident, therefore, that the whole practical thrust of the epistle is to persuade those to whom it is addressed to resist the strong temptation to seek an easing of the hardships attendant on their Christian confession by accommodating it to the régime of the former covenant, which they had professed to leave behind when they were baptized in the name of him who is the Mediator of the new covenant, and which in any case has been rendered obsolete by the advent of Christ and the inauguration of the new and eternal order of priesthood. This practical purpose is pursued by demonstrating that the former system was inherently imperfect and therefore impermanent and that the period of forty years in the wilderness under Moses was no golden age to be recovered or emulated, and by insisting on the absolute supremacy of Christ and the sole and complete sufficiency of the redemption that is ours through him. To compromise this unique gospel is to lose it; and losing this is to lose everything.

OCCASION

What was the occasion that called forth this document? Because of the silence of the epistle itself and the absence of any external information or tradition which might provide a solution to this question, the only alternative to an incurious agnosticism is to attempt to construct a conjectural answer that takes account both of the internal implications of the epistle and of the contemporary circumstances of its composition. Leaving aside for the moment inquiries concerning the identity and locality of those who are being addressed, it is apparent that a situation has arisen in which a particular community of Christians is contemplating a compromise of disastrous consequences since it would mean in effect the abandonment of the gospel. On the one hand, faced with daily indignities and the prospect of persecution of a more severe nature, they are sorely tempted to withdraw from the good fight of faith; on the other, enticed by teachings which threaten the uniqueness of Christ, they are in danger of squandering their birthright in order to purchase temporary relief. More specifically, they are showing a disposition to assign to angels a dignity above that of Christ, and to treat the Mosaic system with its levitical priesthood as an institution of abiding value and efficacy.

The strong temptation to effect a compromise with idealistic Judaism points to the conclusion that the opposition being encountered by the recipients of the epistle was Jewish rather than Gentile. Accommodation to judaistic beliefs and practices was the price that would purchase ease and acceptance. It is clear from Luke’s account of the fortunes of the early church that the first fierce opposition to the gospel came from the Jews, and that this hostility was intense because the original Christians were their compatriots whom they regarded as traitors to their ancestral religion. Peter and John, for example, were summoned before the Sanhedrin to be reprimanded and threatened (Acts 3 and 4); the apostles were imprisoned by the high-priestly party (Acts 5:17ff.); Stephen, the first of the martyrs, was stoned to death by the Jews (Acts 7:54ff.); the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus led the savage and systematic persecution of the apostolic church in Jerusalem and beyond (Acts 8:3; 9:1f.); and subsequently he himself, as Paul the apostle, met with violence from Jewish opponents of the gospel as he traveled from city to city (Acts 13:45ff.; 14:2, 19ff.; 17:5ff.; 21:30ff.; 22:22ff.; 23:12ff.). Congeneric antipathy must have been largely responsible also for the chronic poverty of the mother-church in Jerusalem (cf. Acts 11:29f.; 24:17; 1 Cor. 16:1ff.; 2 Cor. 8:1ff.; Gal. 2:10).

This consideration, together with the frequent indications that the temple priesthood was still in operation (see below, pp. 30ff.), would tell in favor of locating the recipients of Hebrews in Jerusalem or, more generally, on Palestinian soil. The earliest tradition of which we have knowledge, that recorded by Chrysostom in the introduction to his homilies on Hebrews, places the readers in Jerusalem and Palestine; and a Palestinian destination has become all the more probable since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls—a discovery which raised afresh the question of the relationship of Christianity to Essenism in the first century.

In 1955 Oscar Cullmann called attention to the remarkable fact that in the New Testament there is no mention of the Essenes,⁴ though Philo and Josephus speak of them as one of the three main religious groups in the Judaism of their day; whereas the other two sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, are repeatedly mentioned, especially the former, against whose sophistry and traditionalism the severest denunciations of Jesus were directed. Since it is scarcely conceivable that Jesus and his followers had no contact with the Essenes, the suggestion has been made that the silence of the New Testament indicates that there was no conflict between them. F. M. Braun, also writing in 1955,⁵ accepted Spicq’s hypothesis⁶ that the Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to a group of converted Jewish priests (cf. Acts 6:7) who in the persecution following the martyrdom of Stephen had fled from Jerusalem, but he envisaged an additional and contributory dispersion of Jews, including priests, belonging to the Qumran community when this was disrupted by the upheavals leading up to A.D. 70, who supposedly carried with them into Asia the rule of their community.

Spicq himself extended his original perspective to include the influence of Qumranian beliefs as an important factor lying behind the writing of Hebrews.⁷ Like others before him, he sees close affinities between this epistle and the thrust of Stephen’s defense in Acts 7, and regards Stephen as the main cause of the conversion to the Christian faith of the great number of priests mentioned in Acts 6:7—though this connection is not indicated in Luke’s account. At the same time Spicq remarks that the Qumran sect originated from a secession of priests from the temple of Jerusalem. He points out, among other things, that it is difficult not to see a firm, almost aggressive, rejoinder to Qumranian speculations in the assertion of Hebrews 7:13f.: "The one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe [than that of Levi], from which no one has ever served at the altar; for it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. Spicq observes that the announcement of the new covenant by Jeremiah (31:31ff.), which the author of Hebrews cites (8:8ff.) as evidence of the obsolescence of the Mosaic covenant, held a place of primary importance in the speculations of the Qumran community, who of course interpreted the new covenant in terms of a recovery of the Mosaic/Aaronic ideal; and that the moral predilections and preoccupations of Hebrews offer striking analogies with those of Qumran. Altogether the best explanation, he concludes, is that the epistle was addressed to Esseno-Christians, to certain Jewish priests—among whom a number of ex-Qumranians could be found—whose doctrinal and biblical training, spiritual presuppositions, and religious ‘prejudices’ he knew."

Jean Daniélou is another scholar who favors the opinion that the recipients of the Epistle to the Hebrews were a company of converted priests. He takes the silence of John the Baptist regarding the Essenes as an indication that he himself was deeply influenced by Essenism. The information that John the Baptist had been in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel (Lk. 1:80) is regarded as significant by Daniélou, who suggests also that John named only those sects to which he was opposed.⁸ The fact that members of the Zadokite-Essene sect were exiled to Damascus about 60 B.C. is reason to suppose that they maintained their identity in that city in the succeeding decades. The startling similarities, which Cullmann pointed out, between the speech of Stephen and the Essenian MS known as the Damascus Document lead Daniélou to suppose that the Hellenists of the early Jerusalem church were in fact converted Essenes, and that when they were driven from Jerusalem by persecution (Acts 8:1ff.), those who found their way to Damascus encountered the Zadokite remnant there and won some converts among them. Daniélou even entertains the possibility that Paul, whose first days as a Christian were spent in Damascus, may have been instructed there by these converted Essenes.⁹ In this and much else Daniélou displays his penchant for building hypothesis on hypothesis. More substantial is the connection he proposes between the extraordinary cult of angels fostered by the Zadokites and the insistence in the opening section of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the superiority of Christ to angels, and between the Zadokite expectation of two messianic personages, one Aaronic and priestly and the other Davidic and kingly,¹⁰ and the teaching of Hebrews that in the person of the incarnate Son the priestly, but Melchizedekian, and kingly offices are combined.¹¹

In an important essay on The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Epistle to the Hebrews,¹² which was published in 1958 but the theme of which had previously been presented in lectures in different cities, the Jewish scholar Yigael Yadin, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, reminds us that "the fact that up to very recently we did not possess sufficient data concerning the practices and beliefs of sectarian Judaism with which to compare the arguments of Hebrews, led some scholars to admit frankly their despair of ascertaining the identity of the ‘addressees’, or to remark subsequently in a rather axiomatic manner that this remarkable piece of primitive Christian thought ‘had nothing to do with any movement in contemporary Judaism’ (Moffatt); and he offers the thesis that the epistle is specifically directed against the beliefs of the Qumran community, holding that the ‘addressees’ themselves must have been a group of Jews originally belonging to the DSS Sect who were converted to Christianity, carrying with them some of their previous beliefs." Yadin explains that the members of the Dead Sea Sect were awaiting the advent of two messianic figures, of whom the kingly would be subordinate to the priestly, but both of whom would be subordinate to the supreme figure of the archangel Michael, thus subjecting the world to come to angelic authority (cf. 2:5). They expected, also, the appearance of a prophet who would be another leading personage, in fact a second Moses in fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy 18:18, and the resumption, under an authentic (Zadokite) high priesthood, of the whole sacrificial system prescribed in the Mosaic law. With this consummation in view, they patterned their manner of life closely on the idealized model of the children of Israel under Moses in the wilderness during the forty years prior to their entry into the promised land. Their withdrawal from the corrupt ministry of the temple to the wilderness near the Dead Sea was for the purpose of preparing themselves for re-entry into Jerusalem when in due course the hour for the overthrow of the false leaders and the vindication of God’s true covenant people arrived. A situation in which members of a Christian group were finding such beliefs attractive would fully explain the necessity for sending a letter insisting on the absolute and unique supremacy of Christ, and therefore his superiority to all others, with particular reference to prophets and angels, Moses and Aaron.

This is undoubtedly the best theory yet advanced to explain the occasion and purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is a key which seems quite remarkably to fit the lock and open a door that has for so long remained closed. I have used it as a working hypothesis in the course of the commentary on the text of the epistle, but with a broader view of the situation than is taken by Yadin. It is unnecessary to postulate, as Yadin does, that the recipients of Hebrews had themselves originally been members of the Qumran community. This, of course, is a possibility, but it is equally possible that the Hebrew Christians to whom the letter is addressed had in one way or another encountered and felt the attraction of the teachings of this sect. Indeed, it is not even necessary to limit the scope of reference to this particular settlement near the Dead Sea. This was not a very large group and it seems preferable to regard it as but one representative (by no means unimportant) of the much larger and more widely spread movement of Essenism. Qumran, no doubt, was an example of the movement in its most dedicated aspect, and as such may have enjoyed a reputation as proof of the practicability of the ideal. Pliny the Elder apparently had this settlement in mind when he wrote of the solitary tribe of the Essenes located on the west side of the Dead Sea;¹³ but his Jewish contemporary Philo says that the Essenes lived in many cities of Judea and in many villages as well as in separate communities.¹⁴

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given us much information, hitherto unavailable, concerning the precise doctrines and eschatological expectations of a particular group whose beliefs may be taken as representative in the main of Essenism in general, which, as we have noticed, was one of the three chief sects in first-century Judaism. Now quite unexpectedly we have knowledge of an important movement in Palestine contemporary with the composition of the Epistle to the Hebrews and showing close correspondences to the religious outlook which this epistle was designed to counteract. Indeed, the papyrus fragments found more recently in Cave 11 at Qumran provide evidence that Melchizedek, so significant a figure in the eyes of the author, was assigned a prominent role in the eschatological perspective of the Dead Sea Sect. Thus another link is forged, and we can now better understand the necessity for the careful instruction that is given these Hebrew Christians regarding the proper place and relevance of Melchizedek. The hypothesis we have been considering at least rests on definite evidence concerning beliefs and practices that were being advocated in contemporary Palestine and that have a close resemblance to the situation reflected in the Epistle to the Hebrews, unlike other hypotheses which have almost inevitably been imaginative and often fanciful attempts at reconstruction in the absence of materials for first laying a reasonably solid foundation. Unless further knowledge comes to light it is unlikely to find itself challenged by another hypothesis of comparable worth. A hypothesis it remains, however, and as such it cannot be allowed to determine questions of exegesis, though at many points it may seem to throw a suggestive and helpful light on the text.

PLACE OF ORIGIN AND DESTINATION

Speculations concerning the places from which and to which the Epistle to the Hebrews was written have been no less varied and inventive. The only possible indication in the epistle itself is the salutation at the end: Those who are from Italy send you greetings (13:24). Unfortunately, however, the designation those who are from Italy¹⁵ is ambiguous. If it means Italian Christians who were away from Italy, that is, in some country other than Italy, this would exclude Italy as the place of the epistle’s origin. But if it means those who are from or of Italy, in the sense that Italy was their homeland and implying that these were Italian as distinct from non-Italian Christians in Italy—a distinction to be expected in a cosmopolitan city like Rome—, the letter would then have been written from some place in the Italian peninsula. In favor of the latter interpretation is the only strand of external tradition known to us, namely, the subscription found in some manuscripts to the effect that Hebrews was written from Rome or from Italy.¹⁶ This subscription is not original but is a later scribal or editorial addition, and as such it carries no authority; but it does indicate the existence of a tradition or belief that Rome or, more generally, Italy, was the place of the epistle’s origin. It is impossible to determine the strength of this tradition. The probability is that it rests on no more than a scribal gloss on the phrase those who are from Italy. There is no firm evidence that the letter was written from Rome.

The theory that the letter’s recipients were located in or near Rome has gained wide acceptance in recent times. Its advocates, understandably, take the designation those who are from Italy as a reference to certain Italian believers in the author’s company who were sending salutations back to friends in their homeland which, for one reason or another, they had left. To meet the objection that, if the recipients had been through the Neronian persecution, the author could hardly have written, in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood (12:4), it becomes necessary to argue, either that they were not actually located in Rome, where this persecution was concentrated, and so escaped the emperor’s fury, or that the letter was written prior to A.D. 64. In the latter event, the suggestion is offered that their hard struggle with sufferings, involving public abuse, the plundering of their property, and imprisonment for some of their number (10:32ff.), may have been connected with the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in A.D. 49, on the assumption that Christians were at that time regarded as a Jewish sect and were a major cause of unrest in the Jewish community of the capital.¹⁷ If, however, the letter is dated after A.D. 64, a defense of the Roman destination has been based on the consideration that ordinarily Judaism was one of the religions approved in the Roman empire, which leads to the supposition that those to whom Hebrews was addressed were disinclined, situated as they were, ex hypothesi, at the heart of the empire, to make a clean break from the relative protection enjoyed by Judaism and invite opposition as adherents of a new and officially unrecognized religion. The suggestion is, accordingly, that these particular Christians in Rome had avoided martyrdom in the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64 by associating themselves closely with the Jews and their synagogue worship. But a reconstruction along these lines begs the question whether at this stage, more than thirty years after Pentecost, there would have been a welcome and a refuge for any group of Christians among Jews who would have been strongly antipathetic to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Moreover, as William Manson has observed, it is inconceivable that such dissembling under the colour of the Jewish religion should not have been plainly denounced by the writer of Hebrews: we should have expected the infamy to resound through every page of his letter.¹⁸

The theory of a Roman destination goes back at least as far as Wettstein in the middle of the eighteenth century. Among its later advocates mention may be made of Alford, Milligan, Zahn, Windisch, Lenski, William Manson, and Neil.¹⁹ It is tendentious to assert, as Neil does, that the epistle was known and quoted in Rome earlier than anywhere else, for this conclusion is forced from the solitary fact that Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthians, was demonstrably familiar with the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was written some thirty years earlier. It is hardly wise to make so sweeping an assertion on the basis of such a meager piece of evidence. But in any case the arguments in favor of a Roman destination are far from solid, and in view of the great increase of our knowledge and understanding of the contemporary scene in first-century Palestine which has resulted from the study of the documents discovered at Qumran Spicq has good reason for declaring that the Roman destination of Hebrews is becoming more and more improbable.²⁰

Many others have presented a case for Rome as the place from which the Epistle to the Hebrews was dispatched. W. F. Howard, for example, argued in a manner more fanciful than firm that it was addressed from Rome to Ephesus.²¹ A. Ehrhardt adopted the view of Overbeek²² that Hebrews was a message of consolation from the Church at Rome to Christians in the Holy Land after the fall of Jerusalem.²³ A great many other places, virtually covering the Mediterranean world from Spain to Galatia, have been proposed both for the epistle’s origin and for its destination. The earliest available tradition, as we have seen, locates the recipients in Palestine, or, more particularly, in Jerusalem. Certainly, if Rome had been the epistle’s place of origin or destination, it is difficult to understand why it should for so long have been refused acknowledgment there; or if Alexandria (favored by many), where it did find acceptance, it is strange that the Christians there should not have told the world that they had a special association with it.

There is general agreement that those to whom the epistle was addressed, wherever they were located, did not constitute the worshipping community there in its entirety. This is suggested particularly by the request that they should convey the writer’s greetings to all their leaders and to all the saints (13:24), implying, it seems, that there were leaders other than their own and saints other than themselves in that neighborhood.²⁴ Zahn and others have supposed that the recipients belonged to a house-church, similar perhaps to the congregation which used to assemble in the home of Aquila and Priscilla when they lived in Rome (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19). Be that as it may, theirs was a group which was seriously considering the advisability of devising a concordat or reconciliation with the Mosaic covenant and its levitical priesthood. Spicq’s suggestion that the group was composed of former priests converted to the Christian faith, who would have been more susceptible than others to such a temptation, is not unattractive. The temptation to effect a compromise with an idealistic form of Judaism, however, would have been felt by Hebrew Christians, whether formerly priests or not, living in a Jewish environment, who thought that by this means they would be able to obviate the hardship and hatred which awaited those who professed Jesus as Christ and Lord. We may be sure that it was their Hebrewness, possibly some specific background that as Hebrews they had in common, that bound them together into a distinct community and that made it necessary for the writer of the epistle to instruct them so carefully on the transient imperfection of the old order compared with the unique and abiding perfection of the redemption achieved by him who is our great High Priest. Where this group of Hebrew Christians was living we do not know, though the probabilities increasingly favor a location somewhere in Palestine. The obscurity surrounding the place from which the epistle was sent continues to be impenetrable.

AUTHORSHIP

The absence both of solid testimony, internal or external, and of any firm traditions means that, as things are, the riddle of the authorship of Hebrews is incapable of solution. Nonetheless many solutions have been proposed with varying degrees of dogmatism. Failing the discovery of fresh and positive evidence, however, we must be content with our ignorance. To say this is not to imply that the offering of conjectures is out of place; indeed, the history of the speculations concerning the identity of the epistle’s author is of considerable interest and merits some attention.

In the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, written before the close of the first century, echoes and imitations of the Epistle to the Hebrews are clearly discernible. Evidently, therefore, Hebrews was in his time known and received as an authoritative Christian writing in the church at Rome. This consideration makes it surprising that in the two following centuries it was neither used nor acknowledged in the Western Church. Clement gives no clue to the author’s identity; but as he does mention Paul by name as the author of a letter the Corinthians had received—plainly, as the context shows, a reference to our canonical 1 Corinthians—his silence regarding the writer of Hebrews may at least indicate that he did not consider Paul its author. Certain affinities between Clement’s letter and Hebrews have, as a matter of fact, induced some to suppose that the author was Clement. This, however, can scarcely be so, since there is an interval of some thirty years between the two compositions, and in any case it does not require an expert to see that as a stylist and theologian Clement is not to be compared with the writer of Hebrews.

The period of eclipse which Hebrews suffered in the West is attributable, as far as we can judge, to doubts concerning its apostolic origin and to the manner in which passages like 6:4–6 and 10:26–31 were used to bolster a rigorist doctrine of church discipline, expressed particularly in the denial of any possibility of repentance to those who sinned after baptism. The signs of a developing polemic are discernible as early as the first half of the second century in Hermas, who contends, in opposition to teachers who maintain that there is no other repentance than that which takes place when we descend into the water and receive remission of our former sins, that the person who sins after baptism has one further opportunity of repentance.²⁵ Subsequently, the misappropriation of such passages by severely ascetic sects, such as those named after Montanus and Novatian, gave rise to unjustifiable prejudices against this epistle; and even in the fourth century, when Hebrews won general acceptance, the interpretation of orthodox commentators was influenced by the fear of seeming in any way to condone the rigorist exegesis, with the result that they too failed to comprehend the proper significance of the passages in question.²⁶ The fact that, for example, in the writings of Cyprian there is no reference to and