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CAMBRIDGE GREEK TESTAMENr 
 
 FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 
 General Editor : R. ST JOHN PARRY, D.D., 
 
 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE 
 
 HEBREWS 
 
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 C. F. CLAY, Manager 
 
 LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C.4 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 
 
 BOMBAY \ 
 
 CALCUTTA [ MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
 
 MADRAS ) 
 
 TORONTO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF 
 
 CANADA, Ltd. 
 TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE 
 
 HEBREWS 
 
 Edited by 
 A. NAIRNE, D.D. 
 
 Fellow and Dean of Jesus College, Cambridge 
 
 fVITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 
 Cambridge 
 at the University Press 
 
 1022 
 

 ■j^£. , _., .- BATHER 
 
 first Edition 1917 
 Reprinttd 1923 
 
PREFACE 
 BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. 
 
 npHE General Editor does not hold himself respon- 
 sible, except in the most general sense, for the 
 statements, opinions, and interpretations contained in 
 the several volumes of this Series. He believes that 
 the value of the Introduction and the Commentary 
 in each case is largely dependent on the Editor being 
 free as to his treatment of the questions which arise, 
 provided that that treatment is in harmony with the 
 character and scope of the Series. He has therefore 
 contented himself with offering criticisms, urging the 
 consideration of alternative interpretations, and the 
 like; and as a rule he has left the adoption of these 
 suggestions to the discretion of the Editor. 
 
 The Greek Text adopted in this Series is that of 
 Dr Westcott and Dr Hort with the omission of the 
 marginal readings. For permission to use this Text 
 the thanks of the Syndics of the Cambridge University 
 Press and of the General Editor are due to Messrs 
 Macmillan & Co. 
 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 July, 1917. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TT THANK the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for 
 -*- kind permission to use and quote from Dr Souter s 
 edition of the Revisers' Text of the Greek Testament, 
 and Dr Souter himself for concurring in this permission 
 and for other generous aid : Messrs T. and .T. Clark, 
 publishers of The Epistle of Priesthood, for allowing me 
 with their wonted courtesy to extract the " Rhetorical 
 Paraphrase'' which had been already printed in that 
 book : the Master of Selwyn College and the Editor of 
 the Church Quarterly Review for free use of an article 
 in that Review : the Fathers of the Society of S. John 
 the Evangelist for placing certain numbers of the 
 Cowley Evangelist at my disposal : Mr G. M. Edwards 
 for criticism and advice especially in questions of 
 Greek scholarship : and Dr St John Parry, the Editor 
 of the series in which this commentary appears, to 
 whose patience judgement and learning I am deeply 
 indebted. Nor is it impertinent, I hope, to express 
 gratitude to all who have been concerned with the 
 printing of this book : under the difficult conditions of 
 a troubled time they have persisted in the endeavour to 
 shape it according to their scholarly tradition. 
 
 A. N. 
 July, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 
 
 ix 
 
 I. 
 
 Plan and analysis of the epistle 
 
 ix 
 
 II. 
 
 History of the reception, criticism and inter- 
 
 
 
 pretation of the epistle 
 
 xix 
 
 III. 
 
 The theology of the epistle 
 
 Ixxi 
 
 IV. 
 
 The text of the epistle 
 
 cxxxviii 
 
 V. 
 
 The style of the epistle 
 
 cxlv 
 
 The Greek Text 
 
 1 
 
 Notes 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 Index 
 
 OF Contents 
 
 135 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 PLAN AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 The aim of this division of the Introduction is to set forth as 
 plainly as possible the argument and intention of the epistle. 
 For this purpose three summaries are given : (1) an outline 
 sketch of the plan, (2) an enlargement of this in detailed 
 analysis, (3) a very brief rhetorical paraphrase. All three are 
 coloured by the view adopted in this commentary of the circum- 
 stances out of which the epistle arose. Their proper place 
 would be at the end of the critical and theological enquiries 
 which recommend that view. But it may make fol- clearness 
 if the results are shortly stated first. 
 
 Prelude 
 
 The epistle is a \6yos TrapaKXrja-fcos (xiii. 22): to what does 
 it exhort ? To right conduct in an approaching crisis in which 
 the readers must choose whether or no they will be faithful to 
 their Lord. Such faithfulness must rest on a right conception 
 of the Person and work of Christ. Hence Doctrine is inter- 
 woven with Exhortation. But i. — x. 18 is mainly doctrinal, 
 X. 19 — xiii. mainly practical ; though xi. is intermediate, since 
 faith partakes of both doctrine and practice, and is the affection 
 which makes argument convincing. The author would hardly 
 claim to have absolutely proved his doctrine by logical process, 
 but he knows that the proof will be completed for his friends 
 if they will trust their Lord and follow Him where He is leading 
 them now. 
 
 The crisis will include persecution, abandonment of ancient 
 forms of ritual, of ties of friendship, even of what seem to be the 
 
 62 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 claims of honour, and if the right choice is made will result in 
 actual entrance upon the complete Christian state, i.e. entrance 
 into the very presence of God. 
 
 Hence it must be shewn that Christ has passed through 
 suffering and death, and, according to the analogy of the ancient 
 ritual, has opened the way to the presence of God, i.e. that He 
 is the one true Priest who through death has offered the eternal 
 sacrifice of life ; and withal His Person must be displayed in 
 such a light as to win affection and be a proper object of devoted 
 faith. 
 
 All this is summed up in the concluding Collect, xiii. 20, 21. 
 
 [If we may suppose the epistle written from a Jewish 
 Christian in Italy to his friends (a family rather than a church) 
 in Palestine, just before the breaking out of the Jewish war 
 with Rome, its significance would seem to be particularly clear. 
 But even though this must be considered unproven, still it will 
 be necessary to recognise as its background an approaching crisis 
 of a very severe character in which the readers will be obliged 
 to make a brave and painful choice.] 
 
 Analysis is rendered difficult by the compression of the 
 writer's thought — the style is severe rather than rhetorical ; 
 by our want of familiarity with the pre-supposed habits of his 
 readers' minds, which compels a certain amount of filling in ; 
 and by his method of interweaving the divisions of his subject, 
 allowing no visible articulations. The larger divisions are: 
 i. — iv. Preparatory ; v. — x. 18, Priesthood, subdivided into 
 V. — vii. the High Priest, viii. — x. 18, the Sacrifice; x. 19 — xiii. 
 Exhortation, subdivided into two parts by xi., on Faith, which 
 clinches the preceding argument and introduces the final Ex- 
 hortation. 
 
 All through the idea rules that Jesus is the Forerunner. 
 He has entered the presence of God, the heavenly sanctuary ; 
 the readers of the epistle have not j^et followed Him thither — 
 the crisis, their choice, must first be passed : but they are in an 
 increasingly close relationship to Him as they follow the argu- 
 ment of the epistle. This is made vivid by three illustrations : 
 the ship, vi. 19, 20 ; the race-course, xii. 1,2; the sacrifice outside 
 the camp, xiii. 10 — 16. 
 
 The ancient Hebrew idea of sacrifice must be kept in mind, 
 
PLAN AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE xi 
 
 i.e. that the blood sprinkled was a symbol, not of death, but of 
 life set free by death and thus presented to God. 
 
 The quotations from the Old Testament are not made arbi- 
 trarily, but according to the principle that those who were balled 
 Christs {xpidTos, anointed) in the Old Testament, whether kings, 
 prophets, priests, or even the people of Israel as a whole, were 
 really Christs, or in The Christ ; they represented God to man 
 and man to God. The eternal Son, whom the faithful call The 
 Christ or Christ (as a proper name), took as His inheritance 
 and fulfilled all that was adumbrated in them. 
 
 SKETCH 
 
 I— IV.— Preparatory to the main theme. 
 
 i. — ii. 4. The Son's inheritance as declared in Old 
 Testament references to Israel's king and 
 people and to the world's Creator, 
 ii. 5 — 18. and as displayed in the glorified humiliation 
 of the earthly life of Jesus, 
 iii. — iv. The unity of man with God through the Christ, 
 whose office Jesus the Son of God has in- 
 herited, fulfilling its inherent high-priestly 
 efficacy by His ascension after suffering. 
 V— X 18.— Doctrinal theme: the Eternal High Priest. 
 V— VII, The Priest : VIII— X 18, His Sacrifice, 
 
 V. 1 — 10. The Christ-priest satisfies the conditions of 
 priesthood by His sympathy in suffering 
 and by His appointment according to the 
 order of Melchizedek. 
 V. 11 — vi. 20. Argument broken by warning and encourage- 
 ment, but brought in again by reference in 
 vi. 20 to this order of Melchizedek, 
 vii. which signifies the Priesthood of eternal life, 
 viii. Its sacrifice belongs to the promised New 
 Covenant : 
 ix. is offered once for all in the heavenly sanctuary, 
 and by a true outpouring of blood has been 
 effectual for remission of sins : 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 X. 1 — 18. effectual indeed for absolute perfecting of wor- 
 shippers, since it is the personal offering of 
 that free will which is the meeting-point of 
 * spiritual -beings. 
 
 X 19— XIII.— Exhortation to use the Entrance, thus 
 inaugurated by the High Priest, in the one way- 
 like His own — which is at this very time appointed. 
 X. 19 — 39. Therefore enter the sanctuary after Jesus, not 
 shrinking from His own painful way. You 
 will not, for yours is the life of faith : 
 xi. the reality of which is proved by history, 
 xii. Endure therefore, even though heaven as well 
 as earth is to be shaken : 
 xiii. 1 — 17. actually overtaking the Forerunner in what 
 seems on earth to be His ignominious posi- 
 tion outside the camp. 
 18 — 25. That you may do just this, the writer (who 
 has done it) prays. 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 I— IV. 
 
 i. 1 — 4. God has spoken in one who is a Son, heir of 
 all : who being eternal and divine has 
 become man, offered sacrifice for sins, and 
 ascended to the right hand of God, taking 
 His inheritance : 
 5 — 14. which is Manhood joined to Godhead ; not 
 the state of the angels, for He has inherited 
 all that was said in the Old Testament of 
 anointed men and of God in manifestation. 
 ii. 1 — 4. Parenthetic exhortation, in which the author 
 shews that he speaks of Him whom the 
 faithful call The Lord. 
 5 — 9. The Manhood — its glory in humiliation — is 
 displayed by comparison of the promise of 
 glory for man and the actual life of Jesus 
 on earth. 
 
PLAN AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE xiii 
 
 10 — 18. This was the fitting way for their Brother (Old 
 Testament name inherited) to set men free 
 from fear of death, and so by triumph over 
 death and by sympathy to become their 
 High Priest, 
 iii. 1 — 5. This manhood, however, is not merely that of 
 one man among many, as even Moses was, 
 but corresponds to and fulfils the manhood 
 of the anointed representatives of the ancient 
 people (who were called sons by God) ; as 
 Christ He is head of the whole house and 
 one with its Founder : 
 6. which house consists of the faithful, 
 iii. 7 — iv. 14, Exhortation to such faithfulness, which ex- 
 hortation leads through the quotation from 
 Ps. xcv. to the explanation of three prin- 
 ciples in understanding the Old Testament : 
 (a) iii. 7 — iv. 2. much is there said which has never been 
 
 satisfied till these later days ; 
 O) iv. 3 — 10. the description of heavenly things such 
 as the Rest of God gives the reality 
 , which earthly things suggest ; 
 
 (y) iv. 11 — 13. sincerity of conscience is necessary for 
 the right reading of God's Word, 
 iv. 14—16. Into this Rest of God Jesus of the Old Testa- 
 ment did not lead the people, but Jesus the 
 Son of God has passed into it, and stands 
 therefore confessed the true High Priest: 
 since the function of the high priest is to 
 provide access to God for the people whom 
 he represents, and Jesus has already been 
 shewn to be the true representative of man. 
 The section ends with exhortation : " Let us 
 draw nearJ^ 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 V— X 18. 
 V-VII 
 
 V. 1 — 4. As every high priest must be sympathetic 
 and duly appointed ; 
 6_6. so the Christ : for the Christ of the Old Tes- 
 tament, the King of Israel, was divinely 
 addressed not only as Son, but also as Priest 
 for ever after the order of Melchizedek : 
 
 7 — 10. and the Son of God, who inherited these Old 
 Testament appellations, sufficiently mani- 
 fested His sympathy by the process of His 
 suffering. 
 
 V. 11— vi. 3. Rebuke ; vi. 4—8, Warning ; 9—12, En- 
 couragement, followed by 
 
 vi. 13 — 20. declaration of the assurance afforded by God's 
 promise, and of the earnest of its fulfilment 
 in Jesus' entrance within the veil. 
 pHustration : ship outside harbour; anchor touching 
 ground ; Captain already ashore.] 
 
 vii. 1 — 3. Melchizedek a representation (as sketched in 
 
 the Old Testament) of the eternal High 
 
 Priest, the Son of God: 
 4 — 10. a greater priest than Aaron : 
 
 such as our Lord has exactly shewn Himself 
 
 to be, 
 11 — 14. inasmuch as, being sprung from another tribe 
 
 than Aaron's, namely the royal tribe of 
 
 Judah, 
 15 — 19. having filled up the ancient sketch by the 
 
 power of an indissoluble life, 
 20 — 22. and having been appointed by the oath of God, 
 23 — 25. He ever liveth to make priestly intercession. 
 26 — 28. This conclusion is confirmed by our sense of 
 
 fitness : just such a High Priest were we 
 
 needing. 
 
PLAN AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE xv 
 
 VIII— X 18. 
 
 viii. 1 — 13. After repeating the chief point of the preceding 
 argument — that we have a High Priest who 
 has entered heaven itself and God's actual 
 presence (1, 2), the author goes on to con- 
 sider that He must oftier a true heavenly 
 sacrifice (3 — 6), and points out that a new 
 and real Covenant had been promised, the 
 Covenant in fact of which the true High 
 Priest is Mediator (7 — 12), and that this 
 implies the disappearance of the Old in the 
 New (13). 
 ix. 1 — 5. Description of the old ritual, which 
 t) — 10. provided no real access to God's presence, 
 and was to last only till a time of refor- 
 mation. 
 
 11 — 14. Description of the new ritual of the true 
 Sanctuary, Victim, and Priest, in which 
 eternal redemption and cleansing of con- 
 science has been provided. 
 
 15 — 17. And as the old ritual, according to the ancient 
 idea of a Covenant, 
 
 18 — 22. involved death by representation : 
 
 23 — 28. so does the new ritual involve suffering, 
 but through suffering the manifestation of 
 abiding life. 
 
 X. 1 — 4. The old rule of ritual has a shadow of hope, 
 and repeats a memorial of sins : 
 5 — 10. but Jesus Christ, the sacrificing Priest who 
 has passed through earthly life to heavenly, 
 has made a real offering, in which we have 
 been really consecrated, for it is the offering 
 of Himself made of His own free will, 
 
 11 — 14. and needing no repetition, for it is complete ; 
 
 16 — 18. and hence the prophetic promise has been 
 fulfilled ; remission of sins has taken place ; 
 the only barrier is removed. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 X 19— XIII. 
 
 X. 19 — 26. Enter then by the way, fresh -slain yet living, 
 the painful way of the flesh of Jesus Christ, 
 into the true sanctuary, not forsaking the 
 appointed methods of worship ; the con- 
 solations of worship and fellowship are real 
 to those who recognise the unseen power 
 which is carrying on the succession of events 
 to the appointed Day. 
 26 — 31. For so it is indeed ; we know the truth of 
 things, and there is no other religion to take 
 the place of ours ; we dare not despise it. 
 32 — 34. Nor will you : your former constancy must be 
 
 renewed. 
 35 — 39. The Day is at hand : He comes, as the ancient 
 warning says; surely the ancient Faith is 
 ours. 
 xi. 1 — 2. And that there is such a power as Faith is 
 proved 
 3. by our own intelligent observation of the course 
 of history, 
 4 — 39. and by the witness borne to our forefathers, 
 who ever looked into the unseen and chose 
 the braver course, 
 40. and now wait for us to realise with them the 
 promise they trusted, 
 xii. 1 — 3. And they, witnesses themselves to faith's 
 reality and power, are watching us as we 
 strip for our contest. 
 [Illustration : a race-course ; the readers of the epistle 
 are stripping to run ; at the end of the course they 
 can see Jesus who has run the race before them, 
 and whom, as they run, they will approach.] 
 4 — 13. Endure chastisement as being yourselves sons : 
 
 shrink not even from extreme suffering. 
 14 — 17. Live at peace with all if you can ; but do not, for 
 the sake of peace, impair your consecration, as 
 Esau, for the sake of ease, sold his birthright. 
 
PLAN AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE xvii 
 
 18 — 29. For the coming crisis is supreme : at Sinai 
 Israel could not endure God's voice ; but 
 then matters were transacted in the shadowy 
 sphere of earth, now for good or ill you 
 touch the heavenly city : even what seem 
 heavenly realities are to be shaken now, 
 but in the very endurance of this terror we 
 are receiving a Kingdom which cannot be 
 shaken : for this let us with grateful hearts 
 do our priestly service to God who purifies 
 by fire, 
 xiii. 1 — 3. Exhortation to love of the brethren: 4, honour 
 of marriage ; 5 — 6, contentment : 
 7 — 16. holding fast to the traditional order of the 
 society of the faithful by remembering their 
 deceased rulers (7) ; celebrating the un- 
 changing sacrifice of Jesus Christ, to whom 
 they can actually draw near [here the illus- 
 tration from the old sacrificial ritual passes 
 from illustration into fact"] by going out of 
 the ancient camp and joining in that real, 
 heavenly sacrifice, which from the view of 
 it presented now on earth appears less as 
 a sacrifice than as the offscouring of a 
 sacrifice ; 
 17. and by obeying their present rulers. 
 18 — 19. Exhortation to prayer for the writer, followed 
 
 by 
 
 20 — 21. his prayer for them : that they may be 
 enabled by God who creates peace in the 
 midst of tumult to make the right choice 
 in the approaching crisis, — even as the 
 writer himself has already made his choice, 
 and henceforth acquiesces in the divine 
 purpose — through Jesus the exalted Christ, 
 who passed in an exercise of His will, which 
 is our pattern, through death to the glory 
 of His High Priesthood. 
 
 22 — 25. Farewell and greetings. 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 RHETORICAL PARAPHRASE 
 
 Son of God, Christ : who is He whom we thus name and who 
 has inherited such great titles from Israel's heroes ? 
 
 One who seems far lowlier than they. But His glory 
 was revealed in humiliation, and His humiliation w^s the 
 means of His high-priestly sympathy with men. • 
 
 For He shared their trials that, priest-like, He might 
 bring them to God. 
 
 Think of Him as High Priest and you will never give Him up. 
 Hold fast to Him in your approaching trial and you will 
 know what His priestly salvation really is. 
 
 As High Priest: but not in the mechanical line of 
 Aaron. That shadowy ordinance is fading ineffectually 
 away before our eyes. Rather as High Priest in that 
 eternal line of world-wide ancestry and living growth which 
 the Psalmist symbolically named "after the order of Mel- 
 chizedek." 
 
 Jesus, our Lord, standing on the Godward side of all 
 men, and sacrificing His life for love of men, is the evident 
 fulfiller of all that line of loving priestly life which has 
 been throughout all history the visible sacrament of God- 
 head on earth. 
 
 Believe then that He as High Priest has opened the way for you 
 to the presence of God. 
 
 The visible shame of Calvary was the sacrament of His 
 entrance into the sanctuary of God's presence on our behalf. 
 It remains for us to make the sacrament our own and to 
 follow Him. 
 
 Remember your courage in former trials. Imitate the 
 courageous faith of your forefathers. Follow Jesus your 
 acknowledged Lord in the course He has run before you — 
 do that hard duty which is now specially set before you. 
 
 Break old ties. Go forth to Him outside the camp. 
 Enter the city of God. 
 
 Following Jesus you shall be united with the Christ. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 II 
 
 HISTORY OF THE RECEPTION, CRITICISM AND 
 INTERPRETATION OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 § 1. At A lexandria a tradition ofPaidine authorship was criticised 
 by scholars in the second century^ hut hy the fourth century 
 it prevailed and spread over the East : Clement, Origen, 
 Athanasius. 
 
 Eusebius in the sixth book of his Ecclesiastical History de- 
 scribes the attitude of the early Church in Alexandria towards 
 the epistle to the Hebrews. It seems to have been accepted as 
 S. Paul's ; but the acceptance was criticised. Eusebius quotes 
 from the Hypotyposeis of Clement of Alexandria (c. 200) as 
 follows : ^'8rj be, ©y 6 jiaKapios eXeyf Trpea-^vTepos, eirel 6 Kvpios 
 aTTOOToXoy atv rov TravTOKparopos aTrecTTaXi] npos 'EjSpaiovy, dia 
 fjLerpiorrjTa 6 JlavXos o)? av els ra Wvr) aTrfOTaX/ieVoff, ovk €yypd(f)€i 
 iavTov 'E^paicav aTroaroXov did t€ ttjv npos top Kvpiov Tip.r]v, Bid 
 T€ TO €K irepLovaias koi toIs ^E^paiois eViorre'XXetv, iQvoiv KrfpvKa ovra 
 Ka\ diroaToXov — " Paul, as the blessed presbyter used to say, did 
 not put his name, as apostle, to this letter, since the Lord, 
 the apostle of Almighty God, had been sent as apostle to the 
 Hebrews. It was a matter of reverence, and because this letter 
 lay outside his commission as apostle to the Gentiles " (//. E. 
 VI. 14). From H. E. v. 11, vi. 13, it is reasonable to suppose 
 that "the blessed presbyter" was Pantaenus, Clement's pre- 
 decessor in the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He used to 
 explain in this way the difficulty presented by the abrupt 
 opening of the epistle, and the absence of the author's name 
 and title throughout. The explanation was repeated by later 
 writers in cruder language. Pantaenus put it in a careful, 
 scholarly fashion, combining and interpreting iii. 1 {KaTavor)- 
 (Tore Tov diToo-ToXov Ka\ apxi^p^d ttjs oftoXoyias i)pcov ^Irja-oiiv) with 
 ii. 3 f. and (which is important) those many other allusions in 
 the epistle to the same idea. As Pantaenus put it, in harmony 
 with his interpretation of the whole letter, the explanation 
 was by no means trivial ; it deepened the significance of many 
 passages. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 But there were other difficulties to be faced ; and one, the 
 peculiar style, was felt by Clencient. Eusebius in the same 
 chapter and still referring to the Hypotyposeis writes : Km rriv 
 TTpos ^E^palovs fie €7ri(rTo\r}v UavXov [i€v eivai (fujcrl, y€ypd(l)Oai be 
 'E^paiois ^E^paiK^ ^<^vfi, Kovkolv be <j)CkoTLpa>s avrrjv pLcBepp-r^vev- 
 aavra cK^ovvai rois '^'EWrjaLv. 66fv tov avrov xP^t<^ evpicTKcadai 
 Kara rrjv ipprjveiav ravTrjs re rrjs eTricrroXrjs koi tcov Trpd^eatv. 
 fir) 'Trpoy€ypa.(^6ai be to IlavXos aTTocroXo?, etKorcoy 'E^paiois yap 
 (f)i](nv eVtore'XXo)!/ TrpoXrj'^iv el\r)(f)6<Ti kot avrnv Koi viroirrevovaLv 
 avToVy (Twerc^s ndw ovk ev dpxfl aTrearrpe'^ev avTovs to ovop,a 
 6(U. We cannot be sure whether Eusebius' cjyria-i, "he says," 
 means that these are Clement's very words or only the general 
 sense of them. Nor is it clear whether Clement is giving his 
 own private judgement or the common opinion of his school. 
 There is not much significance in his habit of quoting from the 
 Greek epistle as Paul's ; that would be convenient, and if he 
 held that it was so closely related to Paul he need have had no 
 scruple about doing so. It should be noticed how daringly 
 Pantaenus' explanation of the suppressed name and title is 
 altered. Aftef saying that Paul wrote in Hebrew and Luke 
 translated, whence comes the likeness in style to Acts, Clement 
 goes on to explain that Paul kept back his name because the 
 Hebrews were prejudiced against him, and so "very cleverly he 
 did not repel them at first start by putting his name." The 
 ev dpxf}, " at first start," makes us think of a converse piece of 
 modern criticism in Wrede's Das literarisch Rdtsel des Hehrder- 
 hriefs, who, denying Pauline authorship, thinks the conclusion a 
 later addition by some one who wished to pass the epistle off as 
 a letter of Paul's. Did Clement mean that the readers would 
 perceive who was writing to them when they reached those 
 intimate and affectionate messages? Probably not. Clement 
 does not appear to have gone beneath the surface in his criticism 
 and perhaps never felt how near he came to impugning the good 
 faith of S. Paul. 
 
 Pantaenus criticised simply, yet profoundly ; Clement slightly. ' 
 His successor Origen has the sure touch, far sight, and caution 
 of a real scholar, but is characteristically himself in the way 
 he uses his scholarship ; like Pantaenus, he is carried by 
 his reverence near to the heart of the problem. Eusebius has 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxi 
 
 preserved two fragments from his Homilies on the Epistle {H. E. 
 VI. 25) : iT€p\ rrjs TTpbs ^Y^^paiovs inicrToKrjs iv rais els avTrjv 
 OfiiXlais ravra dLaXafi^dvei' on 6 ■)(^apaKTr)p rijs Xe^ecos rrjs irpbs 
 'E^paiovs €7riy€ypaiJLfJL€VTjs eVto-roX^? ovk ex^i to ev Xoyoa IbicnTLKov 
 Tov aTTocTToKoVy ofjLoXoyrjo-avTos iavTov ldia>Tr]v elvai red \6yai^ 
 Tovria-TL rfj (j)pd(TUy dXKa itrrXv rj emarToXr} (TVv6e(T€L rfjs Xe^cms 
 'EWr]VLK(OT€pa, it as 6 eVio-ra/ici/o? Kpiveiv ^pdafcov dia<popas 6p.o\o- 
 yrjam av. iraXiv re av on to. vorjixara t^s eirKrToXrjs 6avfid(rid 
 i(TTL, Koi ov h€VT€pa Tcjv dnodTokiKOiv ofioXoyovnevcov ypa/xfjidTcoVy 
 Koi TovTO ^v (Tvp.^r](Tai elvai dXrjdes Tras 6 tt po(Ti)((t>v ttj dvayvii(T€i 
 rfj dTTocTToXiKij. rovTOLs fieO* erepa iiri^ipci Xeycov • cyo) Be 
 
 d'no(^aLv6pievos elTroip. av on to. fiev vorjfjLara tov drroo'ToXov ecTTiVj 
 fj Be ^pd(TLS KCLL Tj (Tvv6e(Ti.s d7rofivrjfjLovev(TavT6s tlvos to. aTroa-TO- 
 XtKa, fcai aanepel (TxoXioypa<pr](TavTos to. elprjfieva vtto tov 8i- 
 daoTKoXov. €1 TLS ovv eKicXriaia €)(ei TavTi)v ttjv eTrta-ToXrjv cos 
 UavXovy avTT} evBoKnielTOD jcai eVl rovro)* ov yap elKji ol dp^aioi 
 avbpes o)? IlavXov avTrjv 7rapadeda)Ka(rt, tIs be 6 ypdyjras Trjv 
 eiTiaToXrjv, to fJi€V dXrjOes 6e6s oldev rj he els rjfxas (l}6d(Taa-a 
 laTopia VTTO nv(ov jiev XeyovTCDV otl KXrjp-rjs 6 yevojievos eTrla-Konos 
 *Pa)/xaiQ)i/ eypayfre ttjv e7ri(rToXr)Vy viro Tivoav de on AovKcis 6 
 ypdyj/as to evayyeXtov Ka\ Tas irpd^eis. The precise meaning of 
 some phrases here is disputed, but the general sense may be 
 shewn in a paraphrasing translation. " In his sermons on the 
 epistle to the Hebrews Origen thus discusses its authorship and 
 authority. He says that every one capable of distinguishing styles 
 would acknowledge Hebrews to be quite different from the style 
 of S. Paul. S. Paul was as he told the Corinthians (2 Cor. xi. 6) 
 *rude in speech/ and Hebrews is what may be called good 
 Greek. On the other hand, anyone who read S. Paul's epistles 
 diligently would agree that the theology of this truly wonderful 
 epistle is on the same high canonical level as S. Paul's.'' He 
 adds that "if I were to declare my own opinion I should say 
 that the theology is S. Paul's, but the actual composition of 
 the letter has been entrusted to some one who took notes, like a 
 pupil at his master's lectures, of S. Paul's ideas and then wrote 
 them out in his own way. So then if a church like ours at 
 Alexandria holds the epistle to be S. Paul's, let it not be blamed, 
 even though it connects the document more closely with the 
 apostle than I do : for it really was (as I have just shewn) 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 with reason that an elder generation has handed down the letter 
 as simply 'Paul's.' But to speak accuratel}^, S. Paul did not 
 write the letter himself: who did, God only knows, though 
 critical enquiry, so far as it has gone as yet, has suggested 
 Clement, the friend of S. Paul who afterwards became bishop of 
 Rome, or Luke the writer of the Gospel and the Acts, as in some 
 sense the writer of Hebrews." 
 
 Origen repeats 6 ypdyjrasy eypayjrev, 6 ypdyp-as^ in different 
 senses because he is not sure that his predecessors did not mean 
 more than he did by the w^ord. He witnesses to a tradition 
 of Pauline authorship in the Alexandrian Church without 
 denying or affirming that it may be found in some other 
 churches. He lecognises a moderate antiquity for this tra- 
 dition. He is sure himself that the letter was not composed 
 by S. Paul, but he is also sure that it is worthy to be ranked 
 with S. Paul's writings as a primary source of Christian 
 theology. That being so he is not much interested in the 
 question of authorship ; a church may harmlessly quote the 
 letter as Paul's, and he himself used to do so, as we learn from 
 his other writings. In all this he is near to modern criticism. 
 The difference is that he seems to recognise a closer connexion 
 with S. Paul than most modern critics would allow. Yet even 
 this is not absolutely clear. The word vorjfiaTa is vague ; the 
 illustration, wo'Trfpel (Txo\ioypa(f>T](ravTos...V7r6 rov 5i§a(r/caXoi», 
 seems to be drawn from the lecture room rather than from 
 the letter-writing clerk ; and if so it is at least possible to 
 understand a general dependence on the apostle's theology, 
 rather than a close following of his directions for this particular 
 letter. It is a sad loss that we cannot read his sermons on the 
 epistle in full ; but, from their influence, which we dimly trace 
 in Catenae and later commentators, we may imagine that he 
 resembled his successors in this respect also, viz. that he thought 
 more of the broad doctrine of the epistle than of special 
 circumstances which called it forth and gave it a special 
 character of its own. 
 
 Alexandria then witnesses to a firm conviction of the 
 canonicity of Hebrews and of its great value ; and to a vague 
 tradition of its Pauline authorship, which we only hear of 
 because the competent judges at Alexandria criticised it. On 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxiii 
 
 the other hand, Alexandria accounted for the later general 
 acceptance of the Pauline authorship ; Origen's acquiescence 
 in the habit of quoting the epistle loosely as S. PauPs en- 
 couraged its continuance, and it spread abroad. And yet 
 perhaps that encouragement was hardly needed. It was the 
 Alexandrian recognition of canonicity that influenced the future, 
 Origen was great enough to distinguish inspiration from re- 
 verence for an apostle's name. Others were less bold. And 
 when the epistle stood firmly established in the Canon of the 
 Eastern Church Pauline authorship became a necessary in- 
 ference. 
 
 § 2. There is no primitive evidence for such a tradition in the 
 East generally: IrenaeuSy Eusebius, Versions, 
 
 But this came later. Even in the Eastern Church there is 
 no evidence, outside Alexandria, for any early belief that the 
 epistle was written by S. Paul. Irenaeus was bishop of Lyons 
 in Gaul, but he was by birth a Greek of Asia Minor, and may 
 be considered a witness to the Eastern tradition of the second 
 century. If indeed the fragment published by Pfaffi were 
 genuine, we might suspect that Irenaeus did bring a tradition 
 of Pauline authorship with him from Asia Minor, though he 
 afterwards gave this up in deference to the authority of the West. 
 He is represented in this fragment as quoting Heb. xiii. 15, 
 "let us offer up a sacrifice of praise, that is the fruit of the 
 lips," together with Rom. xii. 1, as being both exhortations of 
 S. Paul. It is generally supposed that the fragment is not 
 genuine. But if it were the inference would be uncertain. The 
 Greek runs as follows: /cat 6 IlavXoy jrapaKoXel rjiias TrapaaTrja-ai 
 TO, (ra>iiaTa fjixcov Svcriav ^axravj dyiavj evapecrrov rw ^fo), ttiv 
 XoyiKrjv Xarpeiav rjfiS>v. Koi TrdXiv ' dva(f)€p(i>fj.€v Ovaiav alv€(T€<i>s 
 TovT€(rTi KopTTov \€i\€(ii)v (see Blcek, § 28). The /cat TraXtv, 
 "and again," a loose conjunctive phrase tacking on a condensed 
 quotation illustrative of the quotation from Romans, need not 
 imply that the 6 JJavXos napaKaXel governs both clauses. Far 
 
 1 Irenaei fragmenta anecdota, ed. Ch. M. Piaff: Hag. Comit. 
 1716. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 less is it a distinct assertion that S. Paul wrote the epistle to 
 the Hebrews ; that kind of popular quotation is allowed to 
 themselves by many of the ancient church writers, who speak 
 differently when they are to give a careful critical opinion. 
 If Irenaeus wrote the words and was understood to refer them 
 definitely to S. Paul, that would contradict what Photius cites 
 from Stephen Gobar, "a tritheist of the sixth century," on 
 iTTTToXvroff Kai Eiprnfoios ttjv irpos 'E^paiovs imaToX^v ILavXov 
 ovK €K€ivov civ at (fyaaiv, unless indeed we fall back on the ex- 
 planation that Irenaeus had learned this denial, so displeasing 
 to Gobar as well as to Photius, in Gaul or Rome ; an unlikely 
 . explanation, since Photius tells us in another place that Hippo- 
 lytus learned this from Irenaeus. But we shall return to 
 Hippolytus presently when we come to the witness of Rome. 
 
 Eusebius (H. E. v. 26) uses language of Irenaeus which 
 points in the same direction. He speaks of a book of his 
 " in which he mentions the epistle to the Hebrews and the 
 so-called Wisdom of Solomon, making quotations from them." 
 This is not very conclusive by itself, but it fits in with the rest 
 of the evidence which seems to prove with sufficient clearness 
 that neither in the East nor in the West did Irenaeus hold 
 the epistle to be S. Paul's. Eusebius himself seems to accept 
 the new custom of reckoning it with the Pauline epistles. He 
 does so in the chapter in which he expressly declares what the 
 Canon of Scripture is, H. E. iii. 25 ; for he enters therein, after 
 the Gospels and Acts, "the epistles of Paul," without con- 
 sidering it necessary to say how many there are, and he does 
 not name Hebrews, or any other epistle attributed to S. Paul, 
 among the disputed books which he presently catalogues. But 
 in H. E. VI. 13 he does use this very terra " disputed," di/riXe- 
 yofx€va>Vy of Hebrews together with the Wisdom of Solomon, 
 Sirach, Barnabas, Clement, and Jude, and he was of course 
 aware of the ancient objections. Moreover in JI. E. iii. 37, 
 when he is writing about the epistle of Clement and his mind 
 is thereby brought to consider frankly the problem of author- 
 ship, he adopts as his own the Alexandrian mediating explana- 
 tion : Clement's use of the epistle shews that it was not a new 
 work in his day ; hence it has been decided that it should be 
 included in the Pauline list ; no doubt Paul communicated 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxv 
 
 with the Hebrews in his native language, Luke or Clement 
 (whose epistle resembles Hebrews in style) interpreted his 
 writing. 
 
 Such was the reputable opinion of an ecclesiastical scholar 
 just before the Council of Nicaea. At that Council Hebrews 
 was quoted as written by S. Paul, but no discussion of the Canon 
 of Scripture was held (Westcott, Canon, p. 430). It is however 
 from this period that Hebrews does definitely take its place 
 among the Pauline epistles. Athanasius, in his Festal Letter for 
 the year 367, may be held to have declared the settled opinion 
 of the Eastern Church. In this letter he gives a list of the 
 canonical Scriptures, in which, after Acts and the seven Catholic 
 epistles, he enumerates the fourteen epistles of S. Paul, placing 
 Hebrews between the two to the Thessalonians and the Pas- 
 torals ; these are followed by Philemon, which concludes the 
 list. Possibly the form of expression *'that" — not "one" — "to 
 the Hebrews" was intended to stand as a memorial of super- 
 seded doubt. 
 
 The order is interesting. It is familiar to us to day because 
 Westcott and Hort have adopted it in their Greek Testament 
 from the great uncials X B and also A. The last. Codex Alex- 
 andrinus, was probably written in Alexandria. The home of 
 X and B is still disputed. Hort thought they came from Eome ; 
 Kenyon inclines to Egypt, but admits "fair evidence of a con- 
 nexion with the textual school of Caesarea, which does not 
 exclude an actual origin in Egypt, from which the school of 
 Caesarea took its rise^" Kirsopp Lake^ says, " It is hard to 
 realize at first that there seems to be no evidence for this order, 
 with which we are so familiar, before the fourth century. 
 Probably it was part of the textual and critical revision which 
 the New Testament underwent, chiefly, but not exclusively, at 
 the hand of Alexandrian scholars, in the fourth century." He 
 is writing of the arrangement of the Pauline epistles, properly 
 so called. What we, with our eyes fixed upon Hebrews, notice 
 is, that this epistle is thus removed from the position which 
 it elsewhere held among the early epistles 3, and is placed after 
 
 1 Textual Criticism of N.T., p. 84 f. 
 
 2 The earlier Epistles of St Paid, p. 358. 
 - See Moffatt, Historical N. T. , p. 110. 
 
 /»9 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 all those addressed to churches. Here caution appears. If 
 popular Alexandrian usage was the source of the tradition of 
 Pauline authorship, Alexandria was also the place where that 
 tradition was restrained by scholarship. From Alexandria a 
 modified judgement about authorship, and a modified position 
 in the Pauline list, were promulgated to the Eastern Church. 
 The order of our English version, Hebrews last of all, comes to 
 us from the Vulgate. It is found in DEKL, and perhaps in the 
 mass of Greek cursives, but it is really Western, and reflects the 
 never quite forgotten objection to Pauline authorship in the 
 Latin Church. 
 
 The Syriac versions may be appealed to for the liturgical 
 practice of the Eastern Church of the Euphrates valley, of which 
 the metropolis was Edessa. But it is not easy to decide with 
 certainty whether this church read Hebrews in its earliest 
 worship. The Peshitta includes Hebrews among the Pauline 
 epistles. But for the gospels we know that the Peshitta is not 
 the primitive form of the version. For the rest of the New 
 Testament we have now no " Old Syriac " to check the Peshitta. 
 Since the Armenian version was made from the " Old Syriac," 
 but revised from the Greek in the fifth century^, it too fails 
 to supply clear evidence about the early use of Hebrews in 
 Armenia. This however may be considered. The Armenian 
 version does include Hebrews now. If Hebrews preserves 
 vestiges of an Old Syriac base as the rest of the Pauline epistles 
 do in this version, we do get thereby satisfactory proof that the 
 " Old Syriac " contained this epistle. 
 
 What it certainly did not contain, any more than the 
 Egyptian versions did, was the Apocalypse. S. Jerome wrote 
 to Dardanus that whereas the use of the Latins (in his day) was 
 to exclude Hebrews, while the churches of the Greeks excluded 
 the Apocalypse, he followed the authority of the ancient writers 
 and accepted both as canonical. We will consider presently 
 what this testimony precisely signifies. Meanwhile it is enough 
 to note that he somewhat misunderstood the authority of the 
 ancient writers. Speakiiig roughly we might say that the earlier 
 
 1 Burkitt, quoting J. A. Robinson, Enc. Bibl, Text and Versions, 
 § 36. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxvii 
 
 evidence shows Hebrews received in the East and not in the 
 West, Apocalypse in the West not in the East ; that is, each 
 was suspected in that region where it was probably composed. 
 But for Hebrews, at any rate, even this partial acceptance must 
 be qualified. Only at Alexandria in quite early times does 
 anything like a tradition of Pauline authorship appear, and at 
 Alexandria we only know it because it was criticised. Nor does 
 criticism cease in the East even when the "use" becomes fixed. 
 Euthalius (c. 460) still has to defend his "use" against the old 
 obstinate questionings, and it is interesting to find that one of 
 the arguments in his defence is drawn from the false reading in 
 X. 34, Tois dea-fiols fiov, " my bonds." Satisfaction with the Pauline 
 claim grows up side by side with the textual and exegetical 
 blurring of the individual character of the epistle. 
 
 § 3. In Africa TertulUan quotes the epistle as Barnabas', and 
 approves it as exchiding second repentance. 
 
 In the West meanwhile there is no hint of any one reading 
 Hebrews as S. Paul's. Tertullian at the beginning of the third 
 century writes in the tract de Pudicitia, c. 20 : ^' Disciplina 
 igitur apostolorum proprie quidem instruit ac determinat prin- 
 cipaliter sanctitatis omnis erga templum dei antistitem, et 
 ubique de ecclesia eradicantem omne sacrilegium pudicitiae, 
 sine ulla restitutionis mentione. Volo autem ex redundantia 
 alicuius etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superinducere, 
 idoneum confirmandi de proximo iure disciplinam magistrorum. 
 Extat enim et Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos, adeo satis auctori- 
 tatis viri, ut quem Paulus iuxta se constituent in abstinentiae 
 tenore : * aut ego solus et Barnabas non habemus hoc operandi 
 potestatem ? ' Et utique receptior apud ecclesias epistola Barnabae 
 illo apocrypho Pastore moechorum. Monens itaque discipulos, • 
 omissis omnibus initiis, ad perfectionem magis tendere, nee 
 rursus fundamenta poenitentiae iacere ab operibus mortuorum : 
 *impossibile est enim,' inquit, *eos, qui semel illuminati sunt 
 et donum caeleste gustaverunt et participarunt spiritum sanctum 
 et verbum dei dulce gustaverunt, occidente iam aevo, cum 
 exciderint, rursus revocari in poenitentiam, refigentes cruci in 
 semet ipsos filium dei et dedecorantes ; terra enim, quae bibit 
 
xxviii I NT ROD UCTION 
 
 saepius devenientem Id se humorem, et peperit herbam aptam 
 his propter quos et colitur, benedictionem dei consequitur ; 
 proferens autem spinas reproba et maledictionis proxima cuius 
 finis in exustionem.' Hoc qui ab apostolis didicit et cum apos- 
 tolis docuit, numquam moecho et fornicatori secundam poeni- 
 tentiam promissam ab apostolis norat." 
 
 Here Tertullian names Barnabas as author. He seems to 
 have no doubt about this, but it is not therefore certain that he 
 witnesses to the African tradition. Zahn^ supposes him to have 
 found the epistle so described in a MS. that came from some 
 Greek Church, and this is the more likely in that the rendering 
 he gives is very different from any form of the Old Latin known 
 to us, and appears to be his own. There is just one piece of 
 evidence for a real tradition behind TertuUian's assertion: in 
 the list of New Testament writings preserved in Codex Claro- 
 montanus "Barnabae epist." seems to have meant Hebrews. 
 This would be more significant if, as Tischendorf thought, that 
 MS. had an African origin, but Souter now gives reasons for 
 tracing it to Sardinia 2. On the whole it seems probable that 
 there is no more value in the reference preserved by Tertullian 
 to Barnabas than in those of Alexandria to Clement or Luke. 
 Those were the guesses of a literary Church where style was 
 considered ; this was the guess of a simpler society which only 
 noticed the subject-matter and argued that the Levite of the 
 New Testament was likely to be the author of the epistle which 
 dealt with priesthood. 
 
 What Tertullian does prove is that he had no idea of the 
 epistle being S. Paul's, and that he rather wishes than asserts 
 its canonical authority. He valued it highly, but only because 
 it is faithful to what he believed to have been the primitive 
 apostolic discipline of penitence. He read it and the rest of the 
 New Testament in what till lately would have been thought his 
 own masterful way : but, as will presently appear, one of the 
 latest editors of Hebrews agrees with him that *' no second 
 repentance " is the actual doctrine of the epistle. The newest 
 rule of interpretation is the same as that of the African master 
 in the second century. 
 
 ^ Einleitung in das N.T. viir. 45. 
 
 2 Journal of Theological Studies^ Jan. 1905. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxix 
 
 § 4. At Rome Clement quotes Hebrews in first century^ hut says 
 nothing about authorship. Close connexion of his epistle 
 with Hebrews throughout^ and possible dependence of both 
 on Roman liturgical use, Clement generalises doctrine of 
 Hebrews. 
 
 But not the same as that of the earliest reader known to 
 us, Clement of Rome, the first " doctor " of the Church, whose 
 motto was t/crcvj)? €7ri€iK€ia, " intense moderation.*' He puts no 
 straiter limits to repentance than our Lord does in the Gospels, 
 nor does it seem to occur to him that such limits are prescribed 
 in this epistle or in any other part of the New Testament. 
 
 For the present however our first business is with Clement 
 as witness to Rome's early knowledge of the epistle, and in 
 particular Rome's knowledge that S. Paul was not the author 
 of it. 
 
 The letter sent from the Roman Church to the Corinthian 
 Church, where quarrels had arisen concerning the ministry, 
 bears no writer's name. Early tradition tells us that it was 
 written by Clement, the third bishop of Rome after the 
 apostles, the successor, that is, of Linus and Cletus or Anen- 
 cletus, and that it was written at the end of the reign of 
 Domitian, about 95 a.d. This fits well with the indications of 
 date afforded by the document itself, which refers to an earlier 
 persecution (i.e. Nero's) and to one which was raging or had but 
 just ceased when it was written. This date corresponds with 
 Clement's position in the episcopal succession, and we may 
 safely accept both name and date, in spite of the critics — some 
 of them acute — who have placed the document either earlier 
 (in the reign of Nero) or later (in the reign of Trajan or of 
 Hadrian). 
 
 Clement, then, writing to Corinth about 95 a.d., shews, 
 among other things in his *'very adequate letter," much 
 familiarity with the Septuagint ; names S. Paul as having 
 written to the Corinthians ; "while expressions scattered up 
 and down his own letter recall the language of several of 
 S. Paul's epistles belonging to different epochs and representing 
 different types in his literary career.... The influence of S. Peter's 
 First Epistle may be traced in more than one passage.... Again 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 the writer shews himself conversant with the type of doctrine 
 and modes of expression characteristic of the Epistle of 
 S. James. Just as he co-ordinates the authority of S. Peter 
 and S. Paul, as leaders of the Church, so in like manner he 
 combines the teaching of S. Paul and S. James on the great 
 doctrines of salvation." But also, " It is so largely interspersed 
 with thoughts and expressions from the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 that many ancient writers attributed this Canonical epistle to 
 Clement!." 
 
 In ch. 36 something more than interspersion of thoughts and 
 expressions is found. The whole passage must be quoted : 
 
 KxiTT} T) (>Soff, dyaTrrjTOL, iv ^ €vpOfX€v to crcoTrjpiov Tjfiav *lr](TOVV 
 XpioTov Tov dpx^upea rav 7rpoa(f>opQ)v f)fxci>Vf rov Trpoa-TaTrju Koi 
 ^orjObv T^s dcrOcveias r]p.aiv. bia tovtov aTcviVcD/ici/ els ra v-^r] tS>v 
 ovpavav • 8ia tovtov cvonTpiCofXfda tyjv aiiaixov koi VTrepTaTrjv oyfriv 
 avTov' bia TOVTOV r]V€a>\6r)(Tav rjfimv ol o^^aX/xol ttJs Kapbias- 8ia 
 TOVTOV rj d(Tvv€T05 KOI iaKOTcofiivi] SLavoia -qjicdv dvaOdWei els to 
 BavfiaoTov avTOv ^wf 8ia tovtov rjOeXrja-ev 6 beaTroTrjs ti]s dOavaTov 
 yva>a-€(os f)p,ds yevaacrOai' 6c coN ATTAyr^CMA THC MepA- 
 AcocyNHC AYTOY tocoytcj) mcizcon cctIn ArreAcoN OCtf) 
 
 Al<\<J)OpCOT6pON ONOMA K6KAhPOn6mHK6N. yeypaiTTai yap 
 
 ovTCDS' '0 noicI)N Toyc ArreAoyc aytoy nNCYMATA Kd<) 
 TOYC AeiTOYPrOYC AYTOY HYPOC (t)Ao'rA- 'EttI de T<a vim avTov 
 ovTCDS elirev 6 dea-iroTTjs • Yidc MOY €? CY, GfCd CI^MepON 
 refGNNHKA Ce- AfjHCAl HAp* eMOY, KAI A6k)CC0 COI eGNH 
 TI^N kAhPONOMI<\N coy, KA) thin KATACXeCIN COY TA HepATA 
 THC r*^C. Koi irdXiv Xeyet. npos avTov KaGoy GK AellCON MOY, 
 
 ecoc AN Geo TOYC exGpoYC coy yttohoAion tcon hoAcon coy. 
 Tives ovv ol ixBpol; ol <f)avkoi Koi dvTiTaaaoiievoi rw BeXrjfiaTi 
 avTov. 
 
 Here we seem to recognise definite quotations from Heb. i., 
 as the uncial type shews. The latter part of these quotations, 
 being ultimately from LXX, is introduced as scripture with 
 yeypaTTTai, and Ps. ii. 7 is continued with the next verse. But 
 the verse from Ps. civ. ends, as in Hebrews, with nvpbs (f)\6ya 
 instead of nvp cj^Xeyov. Lightfoot notices that LXXa has Trvpos 
 
 ! Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers ^ Part i., /S. Clement of Borne, 
 vol. I. p. 95 1 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxxi 
 
 (lAeyd, "which shows the reading in a transition state," and 
 if the verse stood by itself in Clement it might be possible that 
 he merely used the same LXX text as the author of our epistle. 
 In the context that can hardly be, and the compression of os av 
 K.T.X.j with the variation in order, ovojia K€K\r]pov6fjLTjK€Vy makes 
 any explanation of the coincidence except actual quotation most 
 unlikely. 
 
 But there is more to be noticed than definite quotation. 
 The quotations are introduced by reminiscences. With avrrj 
 Tj 686sy cf. Heb. x. 20 ^v eKaivKrcv tj/juv obov k.t.X. ^AyanrjTol 
 agrees with Heb. vi. 9. 'Apx^^pea is the key word in Hebrews, 
 and 7rpo(T(f>opa>v is explained by Heb. v. 1, while Heb. v. 2 
 taken with Heb. iv. 15 f. explains t6v irpoa-raTrjv kuX ^orjBbv 
 rrjs dordeveias rjpmv. From Heb. iv. 14 we get the idea of to. 
 vyfrr} tS)v ovpavcov, and from Heb. xii. 2 {d(j>opS>vT€5 €ls,».€v be^ia 
 T€ Tov 6p6vov Tov Bcov K€Kd0iK€v) WQ gct thls again combined 
 with the idea of drevio-cDfiev, With afiaypov cf. Heb. ix. 14, and 
 with the idea of apoapov koI vircpTor-qv cf. Heb. vii. 26 (oaios, 
 aKaKos...v'^T]\6T€pos Ta>v ovpavmv y€v6p€vos). Etf to davpaarov 
 avTov </)wff corresponds with 1 Pet. ii. 9, but when we find this 
 immediately followed by r^s- dOavdrov yvaxrecos fjpds ycvaaadai, 
 we cannot but recall Heb. vi. 4 f., tovs dna^ cfyaricrBevTas yevaa- 
 pivovs T€ rrjs 8(op€ds rrjs iirovpavlov kclI pcroxovs yevrjdevras 
 TTVfvparos aylov koI koKov yevarapevovs deov prjpa bvvdpfis T€ 
 piXkovTos alcdvos. 
 
 This kind of reminiscence or coincidence pervades Clement^s 
 epistle. Here are some examples : Moses flying from Egypt, 
 iv.=Heb. xi. 27 ; we are in the same arena (a-KappaTi), 
 vii. = Heb. xii. 1 ; and this is followed by "wherefore let us 
 forsake idle and vain thoughts," "let us fix our eyes on the 
 blood of Christ," which is a generalising paraphrase of Heb. xii. 
 2; Moses called "faithful in all [God's] house," xvii. = Heb. iii. 2, 
 and Oepdncov xliii., liii. = Heb. iii. 6 ; dvepcov araOpoX Kara tov 
 ibiov Kaipov TTjv XcLTovpyiav avroov dTrpocrKoira)^ cTTiTeXovo'iVj XX., 
 is perhaps independently natural in its context, but cf. Heb. i. 
 7, 14 ; €V€py€Toi)v...T]pds rovs 7rpoor7r€(j)€vy6Tas rols oiKTippols avrov 
 did, TOV Kvpiov Tjpoov 'lr]a-ov XpLarov, xx., cf Heb. vi. 18 ff". ; the 
 dnoaToXov of Heb. iii. 1, is, as it were, commented upon in xlii., 
 oi aTToo-roXoi r)p7v fvrjyyfXia-Orja-av dno tov Kvpiov *Ii]aov XpiaTov, 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 ^Irjcrovs 6 Xpicrros otto tov deov e^eTre/x^^?;, cf. also Heb. ii. 3 f. ; 
 the sacrifice of Isaac is dwelt upon in x., and many of the heroes 
 of faith enrolled in Heb. xi. are also celebrated by Clement. In 
 xvii., again, he speaks of those oItivcs ev depfiaa^iv alyciois koI 
 firjXcoTais irepiendTrjaav Krjpixra-ovTes ttjv cXcvo-lv tov xpia-rov' 
 \€yop.€v de *HXiai/ koi ^E\iaai€ en de koX 'icfe/ciiJX, rovs 7rpo(f>r]Tas * 
 irpos TOVTOis Koi Toifs fi€fxapTvpr}ii4vovS' efiapTvprjOi] fieyaXoDS 
 *Aj3paa/x Koi (l)iKos Trpoa-rjyopevOrj tov Beov /c.r.X., a passage which 
 has unmistakable points of contact with Heb. xi. ; in xliii. we 
 find the rod of Aaron that budded = Heb. ix. 4 ; in Ivi. is a 
 compound quotation from Psalter and Proverbs which coincides 
 with Heb. xii. 6 in the words ov yap dya7ra.,.'n'apa8€X€Tai. 
 
 More fleeting recollections may perhaps be recognised in the 
 juxtaposition of TrpoSrjXov^ eTcpoKXivels and the (fiiKo^evlav koX 
 €v(T€fi€iav of Lot (xi.), cf. Heb. vii. 14, x. 23, xiii. 2. The phrase 
 a-vyKpa(Ti£ tls iariv iv Traa-iv, in xxxvii., which seems to be 
 borrowed from Euripides, may have some connexion with firf 
 (rvvK€K€pa(rfj,€vos, Heb. iv. 2 ; in each place the thought is of 
 union in one body, and it is worth noticing that in Hebrews ovk 
 <S(f)4\T]cr€v precedes, in Clement koI iv tovtols xprjcris immediately 
 follows. Is the interesting paradox in xx., ol ovpavo\...(ra\€v6- 
 fievoL iv elpTjvrjy at all connected with the application of Haggai's 
 prophecy in Heb. xii. 26 ? The language of Hebrews is certainly 
 in favour of the reading Lightfoot adopts in ii., els to o-tofeo-^at 
 fiCTCi diovs Koi (TWCLdrjaeois tov dpiOfiov tcov efcXe/crcov avTov* 
 of. Heb. xii. 28, fi€Ta eyXalBcLas koX diovs (though diovs, which 
 occurs nowhere else in N.T., has disappeared in the later text), 
 and for a-wcLbrja-ecos cf. Heb. ix. 9, 14, x. 2, 22, xiii. 18. 
 
 But in this last example, if there is verbal resemblance, there 
 is also difference. In Hebrews aweldrja-is is not used in quite 
 this absolute manner. In like manner p,apTvpovpaL is common 
 to Hebrews and to Clement as almost a favourite word ; but 
 while Clement approaches the idea of Hebrews, "canonised in 
 Scripture," he has nothing of the development towards the idea 
 of "martyrdom" which we observe in Hebrews. So again he 
 uses dpxvy^^^i ^^^ does not restrain it to Christ as in Hebrews : 
 he also uses rjyovfievoL, fiaaiXeia, but extends these terms to 
 secular powers. More important is his reference to the "elect" 
 in the passage just quoted, a Pauline thought common in 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxxiii 
 
 Clement, but almost if not quite absent from Hebrews. Still 
 more remarkable is his not infrequent reference, and in contexts 
 where there is reminiscence of Hebrews, to the Blood of Christ. 
 The sacrificial thought of Hebrews is not Clement's ; he thinks 
 of the " precious blood," the " price " ; see vii., already referred 
 to, " Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand 
 how precious it is unto His Father, because being shed for our 
 salvation it won for the whole world the grace of repentance." 
 Already in this very earliest, almost contemporary use of 
 Hebrews, we find the process beginning which so quickly and 
 thoroughly developed : the particular presentation of doctrine 
 through the figures of priesthood and sacrifice was blurred, and 
 Hebrews was interpreted in general terms of N.T. theology ; its 
 peculiar language was treated as mere language, a metaphorical 
 way of repeating S. Paul. It is obvious that this would make 
 the acceptance of Pauline authorship more and more facile. 
 Not that this process is carried far by Clement. It was no part 
 of his design to interpret Hebrews ; he simply avails himself of 
 its phrases and adapts its thoughts as he finds it convenient 
 so to do. Thus his own theme — the ecclesiastical ministry at 
 Corinth — leads him to touch, as Hebrews does, on the Levitical 
 ministry. In Hebrews that ministry affords an analogy, a 
 starting point, from which the author rises to the conception 
 of the true priesthood which is consummated in Christ ; the 
 Levitical order he sets aside as a shadow. In later times the 
 Church's ministry was compared with and, so to say, justified by 
 the Levitical priesthood as its type. Clement attaches himself 
 neither to the one view nor the other. Like Hebrews he refers 
 to the Levitical orders ; speaks, like Hebrews, of them as pictured 
 in the Scriptures, rather than as actually operating in Jerusalem ; 
 and so, he too, though their functions had certainly been inter- 
 rupted when he wrote, speaks of them in the present tense 
 (xxxii., xL). But all he is really concerned with is the Levitical 
 ministration as an example, among others, of good order kept. 
 
 The other point, the " sacrificial " Blood, is more important, 
 and must here be returned to. Clement says nothing about this 
 great subject. But he does refer more than once to the priests, 
 i.e. bishops and presbyters, of the Church and to our Lord the 
 High Priest, as offering sacrifice. But this sacrifice^ or these 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 sacrifices, are the same as in Heb. xiii. 15 fF. ; they are not the same 
 as the one sacrifice mysteriously adumbrated in Heb. xiii. 10 — 13, 
 and distinctly named in Heb. x. 14 ; perhaps the S«pa re Ka\ 
 Ova-las of Heb. v. 1 may be taken as a middle term, borrowed 
 from the Old Testament, which connects the two. A like 
 connexion may be perceived in the ancient, especially the Greek, 
 liturgies. For there too special mention is made of the gifts 
 and offerings of the people, which seem to include their alms 
 as well as the bread and wine (originally contributed in large 
 quantity for the social feast, the Agape) ; but, on the other hand, 
 these gifts and offerings are hallowed by association with the 
 supreme offering of Christ — Himself the offerer and the offering — 
 of which the whole liturgy is a dramatic re-presentation. 
 
 Of this idea there is in Clement no clear sign of consciousness. 
 It seems as though Clement's language was partly moulded on 
 the very simple liturgy in which he was accustomed to worship, 
 while the profounder worship of later times was influenced by 
 that great thought of the epistle to the Hebrews which Clement, 
 in spite of his appreciation of the epistle, missed. 
 
 That Clement does owe much to the liturgical thought and 
 language of Rome must be considered certain. "When the 
 closing chapters, which had disappeared with the loss of a leaf in 
 the Alexandrian manuscript, were again brought to light by the 
 discovery of fresh documents, we could not fail to be struck by 
 the liturgical character of this newly recovered portion. The 
 whole epistle may be said to lead up to the long prayer or litany, 
 if we may so call it, which forms a fit close to its lessons of 
 forbearance and love." So Lightfoot writes, Clem. Rom. i. p. 382. 
 And he thus explains the fact : " There was at this time no 
 authoritative written liturgy in use in the Church of Rome, but 
 the prayers were modified at the discretion of the officiating 
 minister. Under the dictation of habit and experience however 
 these prayers were gradually assuming a fixed form. A more or 
 less definite order in the petitions, a greater or less constancy in 
 the individual expressions, are already perceptible. As the chief 
 pastor of the Roman Church would be the main instrument in 
 thus moulding the liturgy, the prayers, without actually being 
 written down, would assume in his mind a fixity as time went on. 
 When therefore at the close of his epistle he asks his readers to 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxxv 
 
 fall down on their knees and lay down their jealousies and 
 disputes at the footstool of peace, his language naturally runs 
 into those antithetical forms and measured cadences which his 
 ministrations in the Church had rendered habitual with him 
 when dealing with such a subject." 
 
 But Lightfoot continues that it is not only in the concluding 
 prayer that the liturgical character of Clement's language asserts 
 itself. This had been noticed even before the discovery of the 
 lost ending ; and Lightfoot himself fills five pages with parallels 
 between Clement's language and thought on the one hand, and 
 on the other such phrases and ideas in the Greek liturgies 
 known to us as are so deeply interfused into their characteristic 
 structure that those phrases and ideas may fairly be considered 
 primitive^. 
 
 It is remarkable that a large proportion of those examples 
 can be more or less closely paralleled from Hebrews. With 
 TTpoaeXdcofiev ovv avTa> iv octlottjtl ^v;(^ff, dyvas koi dfxidvTovs 
 X^lpas atpovT€S irpos avTov (xxix.) cf. 7rpoa€p)((6fjL€da /xeTo. dXrjOivrjs 
 Kapdias iv irXtjpocfiopLa r^s iria-TCQiSy pepavTLO-jJLevoL ras Kap^las diro 
 (rvv€idr](T€(i)s Trovrjpds kol XeXovaficvoi to (rajMa vdari Kadapco, 
 Heb. x. 22 : with 'Ayiov ovv jxcpls V7rdp)(ovT€S 7roLr}(T0i)ix€v to. tov 
 dyiaa-jxov (xxx.) cf. StooKerf ...rov dyiaa-iiov, ov ;(a)pis' ovBels o^frai 
 TOV KvpLovj Heb. xii. 14, and for the thought of ficpls cf. ii. 11, 
 iii. 1, 14 : with KoWrjOaJfifv ttj evXoyia avTov (xxxi.) cf. /x^ 
 avvKeKepaa-jjiivovs Trj TrtWet toIs dKovcraa-LVj Heb. iv. 2 : with 
 KaTavor](Ta)p.€v to rrdv nXrjdos tcov dyyeXcov avTOv (xxxiv.) cf. 
 rrpO(T€Xr}Xv6aTc...pvpLd(TLv dyyiXa>v Travqyvpei, Heb. xii. 22, where 
 the context in each case, besides affording other points of verbal 
 contact, has very decided liturgical affinities. On this passage 
 Lightfoot continues thus : " He follows up this eucharistic 
 reference by a direct practical precept bearing on congregational 
 worship : ' Let us then ' — not less than the angels — * gathered 
 together (arwaxdivTes) in concord with a lively conscience (eV 
 crvv€Ldj]o-€L) cry unto Him fervently {cKTcvas) as with one mouth, 
 that we may be found partakers of His great and glorious 
 promises,' where almost every individual expression recalls the 
 liturgical forms — the avva^is as the recognised designation of the 
 
 1 See Clem. Rom. i. pp. 386—391. 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 congregation gathered together for this purpose, the a-wcL^rja-Ls 
 which plays so prominent a part in the attitude of the worshipper, 
 the €KT€va>s which describes the intensity of the prayers offered." 
 With avvaxOivTcs cf. /lit) eyKaraXeiTrovrfS Trjv €7r Lorvvayoayrjv eavravy 
 Heb. X. 25 ; and note the five times repeated a-wcidrjo-is in 
 Heb. ix. 9, 14, x. 2, 22, xiii. 18. In each of these five places 
 a-vvciBrja-is is distinctly connected with ritual or prayer, and this 
 perhaps may tend to explain the subtle difierence which readers 
 cannot but feel between the meaning of the word in this 
 epistle and in S. Paul. With €KT€va>s there is indeed no verbal 
 parallel in Hebrews, but it is of a piece with the greater depth 
 continually shown by its author as compared with Clement that 
 we do find the idea of €KT€va)s emphatically expressed in the 
 description of the prayer of the Christ, Heb. v. 7 — 10. 
 
 We will not dwell on dvaia alveaetos (xxxv.) and its parallel 
 in Heb. xiii. 15, nor on Clement's equivalents to the evirouas koL 
 KOLV(ovias in the same context ; nor on the light which avrr) rj 
 686s (xxxvi.), with Lightfoot's comment, may be found to throw 
 on ^v €V€Kaivia-€v r^fxiv 6h6v...bLa tov KaTaireraa-yiaTos kt\ 
 Heb. X. 20 — a passage which has been influential in the Greek 
 liturgies. We will rather return to the consideration of the 
 fuller depth which the author of Hebrews reaches in his 
 quasi-liturgical ideas. In one sentence indeed Clement rather 
 surprises us by an unusually philosophical phrase : 2v r^v 
 aivaov tov k6(t^ov crv(TTa(riv 8ia rcdv ivepyovfievcdv €(f)av€po7roLr]cras. 
 This is in his concluding prayer which has so striking a likeness 
 to the rehearsal of the act of creation in the anaphora of the 
 Greek liturgies ; but it is noteworthy that just here he also 
 approaches the opening thought of the memorial of the heroes 
 of faith in Heb. xi. Perhaps it is just worth while to point to 
 a somewhat similar coincidence in 2 Clem. xiv. as compared with 
 Heb. xii. 23 {€K<Xrj(ria npatTOTOKCdv) — "Qare, d8€\(j)0Ly TroLOvvres to 
 OiXrjfia TOV naTpos rjfxSiV Oeov €(T6p.€6a €k tjjs €K<\r)(rLas ttjs rrpaTTjs, 
 TrJ9 nvevpaTiKTjSj ttjs npo rjXiov koX aeXrjvrjs eKTicrfievrj?. " If the 
 First Epistle of Clement is the earliest foreshadowing of a 
 Christian liturgy, the so-called Second Epistle is the first 
 example of a Christian homily," of the early second century, 
 delivered either at Rome (Harnack) or at Corinth (Lightfoot). In 
 each of these passages we find the author thinking more deeply 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxxvii 
 
 than usual ; in each the language is linked with the exercise of 
 worship ; and in each there is coincidence with Hebrews. 
 
 However, returning to Clement's true letter, ch. xxxvi., we do 
 find likeness and difference as compared with Hebrews upon 
 which we must dwell a little longer. If the reader will look back 
 to the quotation of this chapter on p. xxx, he will notice that it 
 begins by speaking of Jesus Christ as "the High Priest who 
 presents our offerings." The significance of this for Clement is 
 tlius summed up by Lightfoot : " Thus all human life, as truly 
 conceived, and as interpreted by the Church of Christ, is a great 
 eucharistic service. It is not diflScult to see how this one idea 
 pervades all Clement's thoughts. Indeed the proper under- 
 standing of the structure of the epistle is lost, if this key be 
 mislaid. Our true relation to God is a constant interchange — 
 God's magnificent gifts realized by us, our reciprocal offerings, 
 however unworthy, presented to and accepted by Him. The 
 eucharistic service of the Church is the outward embodiment 
 and expression of this all-pervading lesson. The eucharistic 
 elements, the bread and wine — and, still more comprehensively, 
 the tithes and first fruits and other offerings in kind, which in 
 the early Church had a definite place amidst the eucharistic 
 offerings — are only a part of the great sacramental system. All 
 things spiritual and material, all things above and below, the 
 kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, fall within its 
 scope. Heaven and earth alike are full of God's glory; and 
 shall they not be full of human thanksgiving also? This idea 
 underlies the earliest liturgical forms ; it underlies, or rather it 
 absorbs, Clement's conception. There is no narrow ritual and 
 no cramping dogma here. The conception is wide and compre- 
 hensive, as earth and sea and sky are wide and comprehensive. 
 It inspires, explains, justifies, vivifies, the sacramental principle." 
 
 Any one who is familiar with Clement's epistle will recognise 
 the precision of this language ; the illustrations and similes are 
 not ornamental, they are in Clement's own vein. But any one 
 who is familiar with the epistle to the Hebrews will feel that, 
 beautiful as this presentation is of the sacramental principle, 
 that in Hebrews is grander. It is concentrated and profound ; 
 it shews Calvary as the outward and visible sign of the sacrifice 
 offered in the real sanctuarv of heaven. Ata rovrov ivoiTTpi^oyieda 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 rr}v afKOfiov Kai virepTaTrjv o\jnv avTov, wrote Clement. The idea 
 in ivoTTTpL^ofxcda fits Hebrews well ; but it means more in 
 Hebrews. And this idea, as Hebrews deepens it, appears in 
 one prayer which is common to all the liturgies. It runs thus 
 in the Roman Mass : " Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus : 
 iube haec perferri per manus sancti angeli tui in sublime altare 
 tuum in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae : ut quotquot ex hac 
 altaris participatione sacrosanctum filii tui corpus et sanguinem 
 sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur." 
 There is a reason for choosing the Roman form for quotation. 
 The words which immediately precede this part of the prayer 
 contain a reference to Melchizedek as high -priest : " Supra quae 
 propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris : et accepta habere, 
 sicuti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti abel, 
 et sacrificium patriarchae nostri abrahae : et quod tibi obtulit 
 summus sacerdos tuus melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, im- 
 maculatam hostiam." The liturgy of the Coptic Church refers 
 to the sacrifice of Melchizedek in connexion with the " offering " 
 of the incense after the lection from S. Paul, but the mention of 
 Melchizedek at this point and with this application seems to 
 belong to Rome alone, or to Rome and liturgies connected with 
 Rome 1. 
 
 A writer in the Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1913 (M. A. R. Tuker), 
 elaborating Harnack's suggestion that Prisca or Priscilla wrote 
 Hebrews, draws this conclusion : " The Roman origin of the 
 epistle indeed is enshrined in the Roman liturgy. In that 
 liturgy, and in no other, the priesthood of Melchizedek is in- 
 voked, and the words are those of the Epistle to the Hebrews — 
 summus sacerdos Melchisedech. Moreover, they are recorded in 
 the oldest reference to the Roman Canon, and must take their 
 place by the side of the * Amen ' of Justin as root-words of the 
 Liturgy." Their antiquity is confirmed by their agreement with 
 the old Latin ; for summus sacerdos is not found in the Vulgate 
 of Hebrews, but it does occur at v. 10 in d. 
 
 But what if the phrase of the Canon should go back to a 
 use which, however oral and unfixed, is older than the epistle? 
 
 ^ For Mozarabic or Gothic parallels, cf. Church Quarterly Review, 
 Jan. 1907, also Ap. 1906 for Melchizedek's sacrifice in mosaics at 
 Ravenua. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xxxix 
 
 What if the author of Hebrews as well as Clement has been 
 influenced by the liturgical service at Rome in which they had 
 both worshipped 1 One almost wonders that, among the various 
 conjectures about the authorship, nothing has ever been said for 
 Clement's predecessors Linus or Cletus. That of course would 
 be as fanciful as to find with Mr Field a close and continuous 
 relationship between the epistle and the later form of the Greek 
 liturgies 1. Nothing indeed rises above the merest conjecture in 
 these observations. However, there is a certain liturgical flavour 
 in Hebrews which perhaps ought not to be wholly explained as 
 due to the influence of the Levitical analogy, and which makes 
 itself more distinctly felt when the liturgical character of Clement's 
 theology is brought to bear in comparison. If but little more 
 than a fancy, it is perhaps worth considering whether further 
 examination might not raise the fancy at least to a possibility ; 
 that both these authors wrote from Rome ; both draw consciously 
 or unconsciously some thoughts from the eucharistic service they 
 knew ; and their coincidences and differences tend to remind us 
 how one aspect of a mystery is visible to one mind, another 
 to another — so perhaps with the Christ of S. John and the 
 Synoptists. 
 
 However the fancy is not to be pressed; especially with 
 regard to Clement's witness to Hebrews. Even if some of his 
 resemblances in word or thought might be due to a common 
 liturgical influence, enough would still remain to satisfy us that 
 he had read the epistle. Is it then clear that he knew it was 
 not S. Paul's ? Taking Clement by himself we cannot say so. 
 It is not his way to name the authors he uses. He introduces 
 quotations from the Old Testament with "It is written," or, 
 more often (in the style of Hebrews), '' God saith," " the scripture 
 saith," " He saith somewhere " : no writer of the New Testament 
 is canonical for him in the same degree as the Old. He once 
 refers to "the" letter of the blessed Paul the apostle (xlvii.), 
 but that means the epistle Paul wrote to the Corinthians whom 
 Clement himself is addressing ; there was a special reason for 
 naming him in that one place. And in ch. v. Paul is named, and 
 
 ^ The Apostolic Liturgy and the Epistle to tJie Hebrews^ by John 
 Edward Field, Rivingtons, 1882. 
 
 HEBKEWS d 
 
xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 from what immediately follows we might infer that Clement 
 knew 2 Corinthians and possibly 2 Timothy, as his. But his 
 silence about the author of the passages he quotes from Hebrews 
 can prove but little more than his silence about S. Peter or 
 S. James when he makes use of the teaching which comes to us 
 under their names. 
 
 § 5. Clemenfs witness is continued by the Western denial of 
 Pauline authorship. Till fourth century Rome and the 
 West do not waver: Hippolytus^ Muratorian Canon^ Old 
 Latin Version. Then Jerome, Augustine, Hilary begin to 
 adopt Eastern acceptance of Paul as author; yet still witness 
 to contrary tradition of West, which was never wholly for- 
 gotten even in the Middle Ages: Dante; Erasmus, Estius. 
 
 But there is another consideration, in the light of which that 
 silence does appear more significant. Clement's witness cannot 
 be separated from the general witness of the Church in the West, 
 which flows on from him as the starting point. That witness is 
 against the Pauline authorship ; so obstinately against it that 
 we can hardly escape the conclusion that Rome knew S. Paul 
 had not written the epistle. Till the fourth century Tertullian 
 and Gregory of Elvira alone in the West make any reference 
 to it, and both of them attribute it to Barnabas. See Souter, 
 Text and Canon of the N.T., p. 177, where the allusion is to 
 the pseudo-Origen Tractatus, once attributed to Novatian. 
 Prof. Souter would now read "Gregory of Elvira" in place of 
 '* Novatian." Indeed the silence of Novatian is eloquent. If in 
 the middle of the third century, when he was pressing the 
 sterner discipline at Rome, there had been any idea of the 
 Pauline authorship in the Roman Church, he would surely have 
 appealed to Heb. vi. 4 — 6. But there is no reference to Hebrews 
 in either of Novatian's extant books, nor is he anywhere said 
 to have made such reference. 
 
 And, going back to the end of the second century, we find 
 the Pauline authorship distinctly denied at Rome. Eusebius, 
 H.E. VI. 20, writes: 
 
 rfkOe be els rjfias koi Tatov XoyLOirdrov dvBpos BiaXoyos fVt 
 *Fa)firjs Kara Zecfivp^vov Trpos UpoKXov rrjs Kara <^pvyas (^Ipea-ec^,^ 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xli 
 
 VTrepfJiaxovJ'Ta K€Kivr]fjL€VOSj ev (o rcov Sl' evavrlas ri]v irepl ro avvTar- 
 T€LV Kaivas ypa(j)as TvpOTrireuiv re koX ToXjxav imo-TOfii^cov tmv rov 
 Icpov aTToarToXov deKarpLcov fjLovcov eirniToXcdv fxvrjpoviveL, Tr)v rrpos 
 *^^paiovs fJLTj avvapLdjxrjaas rais Xolttols' eVei kol eh devpo izapa 
 *Pa)/>taiooi/ tl(t\v ov vojJLi^eTaL rov aTrocrroXov rvyxaveiv. 
 
 Here we have a learned Roman, writing against the Mon- 
 tanists in the time of Zephyrinus, and denying that the epistle 
 to the Hebrews is one of S. Paul's epistles. He is checking the 
 licence of opponents in adducing new Scriptures, and seems to 
 illustrate his argument from this parallel novelty of attributing 
 Hebrews to the apostle. And Eusebius adds that this was 
 natural since even down to his own time there are some in the 
 Roman Church who do not allow this epistle to be Paul's ; that is, 
 Eusebius recognises that this "very learned man/' was supported 
 by the tradition of his church in his plain denial. 
 
 But who is this " very learned man " ? Eusebius calls him 
 Gains, and it is possible that there was a Gains who was a 
 Roman presbyter at that time ; but it is certain no Gains wrote 
 the dialogue of which Eusebius here speaks. He has however 
 mentioned immediately before Hippolytus " bishop of some see." 
 Hippolytus did write that very dialogue and named the orthodox 
 interlocutor Gains. It was Hippolytus the "presbyter" or 
 " venerable " bishop of the foreigners at the port of Rome who 
 denied Hebrews to S. Paul, as Stephen Gobar and Photius 
 distinctly say in later centuries. 
 
 The story of this remarkable person may be read in the 
 second volume of Lightfoot's S. Clement of Rome^ set off with 
 all the riches of scholarship and all the charm of romance. Two 
 points only need be touched here. "He linked together the 
 learning and traditions of the East, the original home of 
 Christianity, with the marvellous practical energy of the West, 
 the scene of his own life's labours " : and he was probably the 
 author of the Muratorian Canon. 
 
 As to the first point. Hippolytus does not appear to have 
 ever been in the East himself, but Photius tells us he was a 
 pupil of Irenaeus, and his own frequent references to Irenaeus 
 prove that true. "Not only was he by far the most learned 
 man in the Western Church, but his spiritual and intellectual 
 ancestry was quite exceptional. Though he lived till within a 
 
 d2 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 few years of the middle of the third century [c. 155 — 236 a.d.], 
 he could trace his pedigree back by only three steps, literary 
 as well as ministerial, to the life and teaching of the Saviour 
 Himself. Irenaeus, Polycarp, S. John — this was his direct 
 ancestry. No wonder if these facts secured to him exceptional 
 honour in his own generation." And still, for our present 
 purpose, these facts are weighty. His testimony against the 
 Pauline authorship of Hebrews is more than ordinary. In the 
 face of the impression left upon us by Clement's style of 
 quotation and the continuous evidence for a real tradition at 
 Rome, it would be perversely sceptical to conjecture that Hip- 
 poly t us first started that tradition^ receiving it from Irenaeus. 
 But his learning and his connexion with Irenaeus do imply that 
 he had good reason for confirming the Roman tradition, and that 
 the earliest tradition of the East was in agreement with it. 
 Hippolytus is further connected with the Eastern Church in 
 another direction. Origen was a hearer of his at Rome. That 
 was not needed to start Origen on his criticism of the Alexandrian 
 tradition, for Clement of Alexandria had already led the way. 
 But it may well be that Origen did learn something from 
 Hippolytus which might corroborate his own inferences from 
 the style. He might add "external" to "internal" evidence; 
 and whatever he might once have meant by that ambiguous 
 phrase, t'ls de 6 ypd\lras Tr]v eTTLcrroXriVy to fxev dXrjBes deos oldevy 
 it would be possible to give it the absolute significance which 
 jwould satisfy Hippolytus and Rome. 
 
 The Muratorian Canon is a document which contains a 
 mutilated list of the books of the New Testament. It was 
 "discovered and published by Muratori in 1740 from a ms. in 
 the Ambrosian Library at Milan... Muratori himself attributed 
 it to Gains, the contemporary of Hippolytus, who flourished 
 under Zephyrinus....It is generally allowed that this catalogue 
 emanated from Rome, as indeed the mention of 'the city' im- 
 plies... The general opinion also is that the document was written 
 in Greek and that we possess only a not very skilful, though 
 literal, translation." The whole of Lightfoot's § 6, pp. 405 — 413, 
 should be read to appreciate his proof that Hippolytus wrote the 
 Canon in Greek iambics, and that it is in fact the work included 
 in the list of the saint's writings which is engraved on the chair 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xiiii 
 
 of his third century statue, and is there called wSat els Trao-as ras 
 ypa(t)ds> The Latin of the Canon may be found in its full and 
 very corrupt form in Westcott's Canon of the New Testament^ 
 App. C.^ The part that bears upon our enquiry shall however 
 be quoted here from the emended text which Westcott adds : 
 
 Epistulae autem Pauli, quae, a quo loco, vel qua ex causa 
 directae sint, uolentibus intellegere ipsae declarant. Primum om- 
 nium Corinthiis schisma haeresis interdicens, deinceps Galatis 
 circumcisionem, Romanis autem ordine scripturarum, sed et 
 principium earum esse Christum intimans, prolixius scripsit, de 
 quibus singulis necesse est a nobis disputari ; cum ipse beatus 
 apostolus Paulus, sequens predecessoris sui lohannis ordinem, 
 non nisi nominatim septem ecclesiis scribat ordine tali: ad 
 Corinthios prima, ad Ephesios secunda, ad Philippenses tertia, 
 ad Colossenses quarta, ad Galatas quinta, ad Thessalonicenses 
 sexta, ad Romanos septima. Uerum Corinthiis et Thessaloni- 
 censibus licet pro correptione iteretur, una tamen per omnem 
 orbem terrae ecclesia diffusa esse dinoscitur ; et lohannes enim 
 in Apocalypsi, licet septem ecclesiis scribat, tamen omnibus 
 dicit. Uerum ad Philemonem unam et ad Titum unam, et ad 
 Timotheum duas pro affectu et dilectione; in honore tamen 
 ecclesiae catholicae in ordinatione ecclesiasticae disciplinae sanc- 
 tificatae sunt. Fertur etiam ad Laodicenses, alia ad Alexandrinos, 
 Pauli nomine finctae ad haeresim Marcionis, et alia plura quae 
 in catholicam ecclesiam recipi non potest : fel enim cum melle 
 misceri non congruit. 
 
 As must necessarily be the case if Hippolytus is the writer, 
 the testimony is clear to thirteen and only thirteen epistles of 
 Paul. Hebrews does not appear by name, and as the title " to 
 Hebrews" was known to Tertullian, and as Jerome says of 
 Hippolytus " quartam decimam, quae fertur ad Hebraeos, dicit 
 non eius esse," de Vir. III. 59, in which statement he seems to 
 be following what Eusebius had applied to Gains, it is difficult 
 to suppose that "alia ad Alexandrinos" could mean Hebrews; 
 there is besides the possibility that Hebrews was mentioned by 
 its usual title in the lost conclusion of the MS. Yet the language 
 
 ' And Souter, Text and Canon, pp. 208—211, gives it in a cor- 
 rected form with textual notes. 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 of Eusebius and Jerome is not decisive ; to them this epistle had 
 long been simply " to Hebrews." In the list of books interpolated 
 between Philemon and Hebrews in Codex Claromontanua it 
 seems to be this epistle which is entitled " Barnabas " without 
 note of destination. And " ad Alexandrinos " does fit curiously 
 the Alexandrine style and thought of the epistle. Nor does " ad 
 haeresim Marcionis " = Trpo? Tr]v mpfo-iv, hearing upon etc., seem 
 an impossible description of a letter which appeals so much 
 to Old Testament testimonies and treats so deeply the real 
 manhood of the Lord. If the identification could be upheld it 
 would witness to a most remarkable attempt in early times to 
 appreciate the individual and original character of the epistle. 
 The readers who thus appreciated it would perhaps hardly be 
 the same as those who thought it " Pauli nomine fincta.'' 
 
 However that may be, the mention of Marcion's name serves 
 to remind us here that the earliest list we have of S. Paul's 
 epistles comes from Marcion, and Hebrews is not included 
 therein. As Marcion also omits the Pastorals, it may be best 
 to refer to this merely in passing. At the same time it must 
 be remarked that both omissions may be evidence of great 
 importance. It is becoming more and more clear that some of 
 Marcion's " readings " are not, as those who wrote against him 
 supposed, wilful alterations of the text, but valuable evidence 
 for at least an early text. His list of the Pauline epistles is 
 conclusive evidence for the substantial truth of the Church's 
 tradition of S. Paul's work and writings. And his omission of 
 Hebrews and the Pastorals may indicate that in 150 a.d. these 
 two elements of the final New Testament Canon were still — 
 though it may be for very different reasons, and in different 
 degrees — excluded. 
 
 The document called the Mommsen Canon agrees with the 
 Muratorian in omitting Hebrews and limiting the Pauline epistles 
 to thirteen. This document was found by Theodor Mommsen 
 in the Phillipps Library at Cheltenham in 1885, and another 
 copy has been found since then at S. Gall. The Canon is 
 considered to be African, of date about 360 a. d. The Latin of 
 the New Testament part may be read in Souter, p. 212. It 
 adds, with a faint hint of doubt, 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter to 
 the New Testament of Cyprian the third century bishop of 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xlv 
 
 Carthage ; otherwise it agrees with him. This makes it almost 
 certain that in the earliest state of the Old Latin version Hebrews 
 was not included ; for that version arose in Africa where " Latin 
 was the official language and the language of civilisation " while 
 at Kome " society from top to bottom was bilingual " and from 
 Paul to Hippolytus (56 — 230 a. D.) Christian literature was in 
 Greek. 
 
 Yet we possess an Old Latin translation of Hebrews. That 
 is true, but there is reason to suppose that it is either a late 
 made one, or at least one that was "picked up" at a com- 
 paratively late period and added to the other books. Westcott 
 says {Canon^ p. 266) "The Claromontane text of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews represents I believe more completely than any 
 other manuscript the simplest form of the Vetus Latina ; but 
 from the very fact that the text of this Epistle exhibits more 
 marked peculiarities than are found in any of the Pauline Epistles, 
 it follows that it occupies a peculiar position. '^ And this becomes 
 even more evident when we find interpolated in the MS. between 
 the other Pauline epistles and Hebrews a list of New Testament 
 books with the number of lines filled by each — a " stichometry " — 
 in which the epistles of S. Paul are enumerated without Hebrews. 
 At the end of the list Hermas, Acts of Paul, Apocalypse of Peter 
 are added ; and between the Catholic epistles and the Apocalypse 
 (of John) comes "Barnabas," which seems to mean what we call 
 " Hebrews,'' the correspondence in stichometry pointing to that 
 identification. It seems clear that Codex Claromontanus was 
 mainly copied from an earlier MS. which did not include Hebrews, 
 but when this copy was made it was desired that Hebrews should 
 be included. Dr Souter thinks that it was written in Sardinia 
 after the island had become part of the Byzantine empire in the 
 sixth century i. If so, it might seem that even so late the Latin 
 Canon in Sardinia was enlarged in deference to Eastern custom. 
 The peculiar character of the Vulgate translation may be mainly 
 due to its being a revision of the Old Latin which already differed 
 so much from the Old Latin of the other epistles. 
 
 In the fourth century we do indeed find Western doctors, such 
 as Hilary and Ambrose, quoting the epistle freely as S. Paul's. 
 
 1 JTS, Jan. 1905. 
 
xlvi INTMODUCTION 
 
 Alford accounts for this very reasonably : " About the middle of 
 the fourth century, we find the practice beginning in the Latin 
 Church, of quoting the Epistle as St Paul's : but at first only 
 here and there, and not as if the opinion were the prevailing one. 
 Bleek traces the adoption of this view by the Latins to their 
 closer intercourse with the Greeks about this time owing to the 
 Arian controversy, which occasioned several of the Western 
 theologians to spend some time in the East, where the Epistle 
 was cited, at first by both parties, and always by the Catholics, 
 as undoubtedly St Paul's. Add to this the study of the Greek 
 exegetical writers, and especially of Origen, and we shall have 
 adduced enough reasons to account for the gradual spread of the 
 idea of the Pauline authorship over the West." Perhaps the 
 process was even simpler. There is a considerable amount of 
 evidence for the epistle being widely known, whatever was 
 thought about its authorship, from the earliest times ^ Good- 
 hearted students would come of their own accord to Origen's 
 opinion that the theology of Hebrews was wonderful and by no 
 means inferior to the received canonical writings ; then, as with 
 Origen himself, the step to quoting it as " the apostle's " would 
 be easy. 
 
 But that being so the noteworthy point is the reluctance 
 of the Latin Church to go further. This may be illustrated at 
 two stages: first in what the two great scholars, Jerome and 
 Augustine, write when they deliberately consider the question ; 
 secondly in the scruples against breaking with the tradition 
 against Pauline authorship which persist to a late period. 
 
 Full and fair quotation for the mind of Jerome and Augustine 
 may be found in that treasury of learning which all subsequent 
 commentators have drawn upon, Bleek's edition^, or in the 
 excellent adaptation of Bleek's prolegomena which Alford has 
 made in the fourth volume of his Greek Testament. S. Jerome's 
 "usual practice is, to cite the words of the epistle, and ascribe 
 them to St Paul." His residence in the East made this the 
 
 ^ See The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, by a Committee 
 of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology ^ Clarendon Press, 1905, 
 and consider Cyprian's language about the High-priesthood of Christ. 
 
 2 Der Brief an die Hebrder erldutert durch Einleitung, Ueber- 
 setzungundfortlaufendenCommentar. Berlin, 1828 — 1840. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xlvii 
 
 more natural. But it would not mean much in any one, and in 
 him it certainly did not mean that he would assert the Pauline 
 authorship when he gave a critical decision, such as the following : 
 "illud nostris dicendum est, hanc epistolam quae inscribitur 
 ad Hebraeos, non solum ab ecclesiis Orientis, sed ab omnibus 
 retro ecclesiasticis Graeci sermonis scriptoribus quasi Pauli 
 apostoli suscipi, licet plerique eam vel Barnabae vel Clementis 
 arbitrentur: et nihil interesse cuius sit, cum ecclesiastici viri 
 sit, et quotidie ecclesiarum lectione celebretur " {ad Dardanum^ 
 § 3). By "plerique" Jerome probably meant "many" not 
 " most." But in any case the general sense is clear ; he had 
 learned to connect the epistle with S. Paul just so far as Origen 
 had done. When however he goes on to contrast "nos," i.e. 
 himself and those like-minded, with " Latinorum consuetude," 
 he confesses that all this is the " new learning." The liturgical 
 use of the Latin Church was against him. The practice of the 
 Greek churches was in accord with ancient writers whom he 
 (and other well-read persons) considered more important than 
 contemporary popular custom. The use of the Latins, he says, 
 receives not Hebrews, and the churches of the Greeks reject the 
 Apocalypse; each indulging unwarrantable licence, "eadem 
 libertate." So that what Jerome really witnesses to is an 
 indomitable Church tradition in the West against the Pauline 
 authorship and even the canonical authority of Hebrews: and 
 what he asserts is that this tradition is of late growth ; the 
 voice of antiquity is for the canonical authority, and scholars 
 know that this, as well as the usurping tradition, can be ex- 
 plained by recognising that the epistle is derived, but not 
 directly, from S. Paul. In other words he has a fairly large 
 critical apparatus; reads its evidence with a partial misunder- 
 standing ; and leaves to later generations an unmistakable proof 
 that even in his day the unsophisticated Western churchmen 
 held fast to the tradition of their fathers that this epistle did 
 not come from S. Paul. 
 
 S. Augustine's feeling may be illustrated by one short quo- 
 tation from De civitate Dei, xvi. 22 : " De quo in epistola, quae 
 inscribitur ad Hebraeos, quam plures apostoli Pauli esse dicunt, 
 quidam vero negant, multa et magna conscripta sunt." He was 
 less particular as a scholar than Jerome, more philosophical as 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 a churchman, and the mere question of authorship troubled 
 him shghtly. Moreover there is evidence that in Africa in 
 his time such scruples were falling, perhaps more entirely than 
 elsewhere, into the background. Whereas in the third council 
 of Carthage, a.d. 398, Hebrews was distinguished from or among 
 the Pauline epistles — "Pauli epistolae tredecim; eiusdem ad 
 Hebraeos una," in the fifth council of Carthage, a.d. 419, this 
 carefulness had ceased — "epistolarum Pauli apostoli numero 
 quatuordecim^" And from this period onward in West as in 
 East the fourteen epistles of S. Paul are regularly recognised. 
 
 The distinction between the question of authorship and 
 canonical authority is important ; it may well account for the 
 considerable number of Western writers who cite Hebrews as 
 Paid's from the middle of the fourth century onwards. Canonical 
 authority admitted, only scholars when directly dealing with the 
 question of authorship would separate this from the " corpus " of 
 Pauline epistles : many would use Paul's name without scruple. 
 Others, like Hilary of Poitiers {^ 366), w^ould cite the epistle, 
 but would take care not to name Paul in connexion with it. 
 That is the way most theologians treat it to day ; but Souter 
 thinks "Hilary's attitude is that of compromise. He was 
 deeply imbued with Eastern learning, and to him Hebrews was 
 a canonical book, but he knew the attitude of his Western 
 countrymen with regard to it." 
 
 And that attitude altered very gradually. The ancient 
 Roman tradition was too deeply rooted to die out. Even Dante 
 in the De Monarchia (ii. 8) distinguishes " Paul " or " the 
 apostle" from the author of this epistle, introducing his one 
 citation from it anonymously — "Scriptum est enim ad Hebraeos : 
 Impossibile est sine fide placere Deo." And when in the 
 sixteenth century the new learning gave fresh substance to the 
 old doubts, we find writers within the Roman Church frankly 
 reconsidering opinions which by that time had almost the pre- 
 scription of authority. Thus Estius writes in the opening 
 section of his Commentary that in former times catholic writers, 
 especially among the Latins, did not recognise this epistle as 
 canonical ; that Eusebius classes it among those scriptures 
 
 1 For S. Augustine's own progress in this respect, see Souter, 
 Text and Canon, p. 191. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE xlix 
 
 which were controverted by many ; and " finally in our own day 
 Caietan at the beginning of his commentary throws doubt upon 
 its authority, and says that a point of faith cannot be deter- 
 mined from it alone. Then Luther simply rejects it, because, 
 he says, it annuls repentance. That is pretty nearly the 
 judgement of the Lutherans and the other sectaries of our time, 
 with the exception of Calvin and his followers, who are pleased 
 to receive it into the number of the Holy Scriptures, not so 
 much on the authority of the Church, as because they consider 
 that out of the doctrine of the epistle concerning the one 
 sacrifice of Christ, they can overthrow the sacrifice of the Mass 
 which the Catholic Church observes throughout the world." 
 Estius himself holds, with others, who are indeed the old 
 Alexandrians, that the subject and its treatment were supplied 
 by S. Paul, but the composition was entrusted to another, 
 Clement of Rome perhaps, more likely the apostle's companion 
 Luke. He refuses to allow that it is heresy to doubt that 
 S. Paul was the author. The decision of the Council of Trent, 
 by which the Epistle to the Hebrews is numbered among the 
 fourteen epistles of S. Paul, seems only to have settled the 
 question of its canonicity for him. Erasmus seems to promise 
 more absolute deference to authority : Si ecclesia certo definit 
 esse Pauli, captivo libens intellectum meum in obsequium fidei : 
 quod ad sensum meum attinet, non videtur illius esse ob causas 
 quas hie reticuisse praestiterit. Et si certo scirem non esse 
 Pauli, res indigna est digladiatione." That was before the 
 council had spoken, and the fairest way of interpreting both 
 Erasmus and Estius is to suppose that on such a question the 
 decision of a council was never intended to be an absolute bar 
 to the exercise of criticism, however it might restrain promiscuous 
 publication of results or tentative results. 
 
 § 6. And was revived at the Renascence; when also the special 
 doctrine of Hebrews^ so long generalised, began to be re- 
 covered: Limborch and sacrifice, the Arminians. 
 
 With Erasmus a new era began in the study of the New 
 Testament. As these lines are being written it is just four hun- 
 dred years since Erasmus, publishing his Greek Testament, 
 
1 INTRODUCTION 
 
 opened the Gospels and the apostolic records in their ori- 
 ginal language to the world. That gave impulse to a move- 
 ment already begun. The joy of the secular renascence had 
 already been to recover the actual life and thought of Rome and 
 Hellas. A desiderium for the real meaning of antiquity was 
 in men's hearts, and it was in the hearts of Churchmen as well 
 as other scholars. Ad antiquitatem immo ad ultimam antiqui- 
 tatem was Lancelot Andrewes' appeal in the seventeenth century. 
 And we recognise in the commentators of that time quite a 
 novel effort to discover what was the immediate and particular 
 sense of each of the apostolic writers. 
 
 Little of this had been attempted before. There is just 
 a trace of it in the New Testament. At the end of 2 Peter 
 some characteristics of the Pauline epistles are noticed. This 
 is worth mentioning here because it has been sometimes 
 thought that Hebrews is particularly alluded to, which seems 
 a strange fancy. But from apostolic times till the renascence 
 there was hardly any recognition of the individual character of 
 epistles. Men^goz has a chapter^ on the theological influence 
 of the epistle in the history of dogma. He confines his 
 attention to the main doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ, and 
 shows that though the peculiar language of the epistle was 
 repeated, its peculiar idea was never grasped. 
 
 In the period of the Fathers the epistle of Barnabas comes 
 nearest to it : the Jewish sacrifices are treated as types of the 
 sacrifice of Christ ; Christ Himself is not represented as the 
 High Priest ; yet there are striking affinities with the doctrine 
 of Hebrews. Clement, in spite of his frequent quotation, and 
 though he gives Christ the name of High Priest in the sense 
 of head of the Church, never compares His death with the 
 Levitical sacrifices, but considers it rather as an expiation by 
 substitution. The same idea is admirably expressed in the 
 Epistle to Diognetus. S. Ignatius once, in Eph. i., speaks of 
 Christ offering Himself to God as an oblation and sacrifice for 
 us : " but he does not develop that thought, his preoccupations 
 were elsewhere." For during the whole of this period theological 
 interest was in the Person of Christ. The Incarnation included 
 
 ^ La theologie de VepUre aux Hebreux (Paris, 1894), ch. vii. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE li 
 
 the whole of Christ's work of salvation. And so far as His 
 death was considered separately as the means by which man 
 was rescued, it was thought of as a ransom — an idea natural 
 to those days of brigandage ; generally as a ransom paid to the 
 devil, sometimes as paid to God. And though the Fathers 
 ("apostolic" and later) adopt the term "sacrifice" from Hebrews, 
 they use it merely as a metaphor for " ransom '' : " c'est le 
 triomphe de I'image au detriment de I'idee." 
 
 Anselm disengaged the notion of Redemption from Incar- 
 nation ; with him " soteriology " began. This, Menegoz con- 
 siders, was a return to biblical thought. But though Anselm's 
 doctrine of " redemption by death " was biblical, his explanation 
 was not. He drew it from Teutonic law, medieval chivalry, 
 and the catholic system of penitence. "Satisfaction" instead 
 of "ransom" became the idea round which thought moved. 
 And this was continued by Aquinas, who however put Roman 
 law, with " satisfaction by punishment " — hence the emphasis 
 on "substitution" — in place of Teutonic law, with its "satis- 
 faction by payment." And still, as before, the terms of " sacri- 
 fice" were adopted from Hebrews, and still they were used as 
 metaphors ; only now, throughout the middle ages, as metaphors 
 for " satisfaction." 
 
 The reformers accepted this doctrine from the middle ages, 
 laying still more stress on "substitution," but still applying 
 the sacrificial language of Hebrews in a merely metaphorical 
 way. Calvin however took up what Eusebius, Cyril of Jeru- 
 salem, Augustine, and Aquinas had said about the threefold 
 ofiice of Christ as Prophet, Priest and King, and for two 
 centuries the munus triplex Ghristi figured as an essential 
 heading in protestant theology. 
 
 Menegoz notices the unusual position taken by Abelard in 
 the middle ages. He taught, and the doctrine is scriptural, that 
 man was to be reconciled to God rather than God to man. And 
 he developed this in his own way by declaring that the recon- 
 cilement is effected by the love that was revealed in the Saviour's 
 death upon the cross ; there is the moving power. Perhaps, 
 though M^n^goz does not, we may connect the line of thought 
 thus opened with what he says of the Arminians : 
 
 "However the theology of the epistle was to find in pro- 
 
Hi INTRODUCTION 
 
 testantism a little corner where it might fructify. The 
 Arminians, repelled alike by the orthodox theory of expiation 
 and by the superficial rationali>sm of the Socinians, sought an 
 interpretation of the death of Christ which might better re- 
 spond to their religious feeling.... Curcellaeus laid stress upon 
 the intercession of Christ in the presence of the Father, and 
 scarcely considered His death but as a condition of His resur- 
 rection and ascension. The Socinians too had already brought 
 that side of the redemptive activity of the Christ into pro- 
 minence, thus approaching the views of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. But it is Limborch, the great dogmatist of the 
 Arminians, who entered most resolutely into this order of ideas. 
 ...In Limborch the notion of sacrifice obliges Christ to have 
 died for us, but not to have suftered our punishment. His 
 death is thus not a substitutive expiation but a sacrificial 
 ofiering, graciously accepted by God. And as Christ has not 
 only been the victim but is also the high priest for all eternity, 
 He continues to intercede in God's presence for the sinners who 
 have recourse to His ministry. His sacrifice has thus a per- 
 manent value." 
 
 Once or twice Limborch drops into the more conventional 
 mode as when he writes " poenam peccatis nostris commeritam 
 quasi in se transtulit.^ But Men^goz (who notices that sentence) 
 has given a fair description of a commentary which deserves 
 rather special attention ^ Limborch seriously attempts to 
 realise the individual character of the epistle, as indeed (what 
 Mdnegoz hardly appreciates enough) commentators were all 
 doing now both in the Roman and the reformed churches ; 
 hence the curiosity about authorship, Luther's conjecture that 
 Apollos was the author and so on. Limborch thought it was 
 written by one of the companions of S. Paul, who knew S. Paul's 
 mind {et quidem conscio Pauli) and drew upon his doctrine. 
 The author wrote in order to fortify Hebrew Christians in the 
 faith towards which, through fear of persecution, they were 
 growing disaffected. He meets the excuses they might ground 
 on the venerable prestige of the ancient Law. And he ends 
 his Prolegomena with this insistence on the distinctive value 
 
 1 Philippi a Limborch Commentarius in Acta Apostolorum et in 
 Epistolas ad Romanos et ad Hehraeos, Koterodami, 1711. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE liii 
 
 of Hebrews : "Adeo ut merito nobis summo in pretio habenda 
 sit, sine qua multa quae ad distinctam sacerdotii Christi 
 cognitionem spectant, ignoraremus." It is always the contrast 
 rather than the hkeness between the sacrifice of Christ and the 
 Levitical sacrifices that he draws out, thus avoiding a style of 
 interpretation which even in much later times has hindered the 
 right use of the epistle. And he approaches the idea of the 
 living power of the Blood of Christ which was not to be clearly 
 presented till Westcott wrote. 
 
 His preface is significant, in which he lays down with no 
 little force the principles of historical interpretation as the 
 indispensable basis of all study, and in particular of the appli- 
 cation of prophecy. The same kind of thing may be found in 
 Calvin and in nearly all writers since Erasmus. In Calvin it 
 is expressed with the beautiful lucidity of a Frenchman who 
 is thoroughly master of a good Latin style. But in practice 
 Calvin too often allows his scholarly principles to be wrested 
 by party feeling. In Limborch we enjoy another atmosphere, 
 not so brilliant but larger, more free. And this is perhaps 
 what is chiefly to be remarked in the Arminian commentators 
 generally. The title "Arminian" seems to be applied to a 
 variety of theologians whose pedigree cannot always be traced 
 very obviously from Arminius. Grotius, Bull, Jeremy Taylor, 
 Hales, Chillingworth, Cudworth, Whichcote, and the rest of the 
 Cambridge Platonists, are classed with Arminians by Hallam, 
 and the bond of connexion can hardly be the original principles 
 of Arminius. Three characteristics however belong to them 
 all. They are remonstrants against a particular form of 
 Augustinian doctrine : F. D. Maurice might have said that they 
 appealed from Augustine against the Donatists to Augustine 
 against the Manichaeans. They stood for ante-Nicene Greek 
 theology. They were at home in learned churches where the 
 Humanities were cared for. In all these respects they have 
 a natural kinship with the epistle to the Hebrews, and 
 especially in the last. The Alexandrine Platonism of the 
 epistle, its good Greek style, its tender sympathy with the 
 very shadows of the old Law which it shews to be vanishing 
 away ; all this is in the broad sense of the term *' Arminian." 
 
liv INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 7. The real manhood of Christ: already recognised 
 by Nestorius as characteristic of Hebrews. 
 
 So again is its interest in the whole of our Lord's earthly 
 life, the frankness with which it recognises the limitations of 
 His manhood during " the days of His flesh." And here we 
 must go back to the fifth century, and notice a writer of that 
 period who did remarkably appreciate this characteristic of 
 Hebrews. He was Nestorius. Dr Bethune Baker ^ shews 
 reason for believing that Nestorius was no " Nestorian " ; the 
 doctrine for which he was condemned was not his real doc- 
 trine. That conclusion needs to be checked by the criticism 
 of Dr Loofs^. But the orthodoxy of the sermon on the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, of which Dr Bethune Baker gives a summary, 
 will hardly be disputed since, until 1905, it was attributed to 
 S. Chrysostora. Nestorius here interprets Hebrews in accord- 
 ance with the tradition of the school of Antioch; Antioch 
 "which early in the second century had had as its bishop the 
 Ignatius who had insisted with such passionate earnestness on 
 the reality of the human nature and experiences of Jesus, 
 who had made his appeal above all else to the actual facts 
 of the Gospel history — at Antioch the historical tradition 
 had never been allowed to fade.... The theologians of Antioch 
 started from the manhood... laid stress on all the passages in 
 Scripture which seemed to emphasize the human consciousness 
 of the Lord... insisted on the recognition in His Person of a 
 genuine human element in virtue of which a genuine human 
 experience was possible. They did not for a moment call in 
 question, or fail to recognize, the equally genuine Divine 
 element, in virtue of which Divine experience and power was 
 His. They did not doubt that the historical Jesus Christ was 
 both God and man. They took their stand on history, on the 
 primitive record, on apostolic testimony and interpretation'* 
 (Bethune Baker, pp. 3f.). 
 
 ^ Nestorius and his teaching. Cambridge, 1908. 
 2 ^^estorius and his place in the history of Cluistian Doctrine. 
 Cambridge, 1914, 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Iv 
 
 § 8. Hellenistic philosophical colour : Carpzov's illustrations 
 from Philo. 
 
 Thus did Nestorius in the fifth century reassert one of the 
 characteristics of this epistle, its insistence on the true man- 
 hood of our Lord. And thus, at the revival of learning, did 
 the Arminians attempt to recover its particular doctrine of 
 sacrifice. A third peculiarity, its affinity with the philosophical 
 Judaism of Philo, was brought out in the eighteenth century by 
 J. B. Carpzov, who collected parallels from Philo for almost 
 every verse of the epistle i. Much has been done since his day 
 for the text of Philo, the better understanding of Philo's philo- 
 sophy, and the true relationship of Hebrews to it, but Carpzov's 
 book is still a storehouse of material. And it marks an epoch 
 in the exegesis of Hebrews. No one had treated the subject 
 with anything like this elaboration before. Henceforth it was 
 impossible to ignore the Hellenistic idiosyncrasy of author and 
 readers. They might be " Hebrews," but they were not 
 "Hebrews" in the narrower sense of Hebrew-speaking Jews. 
 They belonged at least to the liberal Judaism of S. Stephen, 
 probably to the philosophic Judaism of ApoUos. 
 
 § 9. Interest in special character of Hebrews provoJces search for 
 suitable author: Luther'' s conjecture of Apollos, etc. Tradi- 
 tion only supports Barnabas {besides Paul) and the search 
 is vain. 
 
 That no doubt had already struck Luther when he conjec- 
 tured Apollos as the author. Possibly Luther, and the moderns 
 who have accepted his conjecture, read more into the few lines 
 in which Apollos is described (Acts xviii. 24 f.) than is really to 
 be found there. The conjecture is not supported by tradition. 
 Harnack's idea that Prisciila was the authoress is a development 
 from Luther's inference. Blass in the short preface to his 
 rythmical text^ pays no attention to the philosophical colouring, 
 
 1 Sacrae exercitationes in S. Paulli epistolam ad Hebraeos ex 
 Philone Alexandrine. Helmstadii, 1750. 
 
 '^ Brief an die Hebicicr, Text mit Angabe der Rhythmen. Halle, 
 1903. 
 
 HEBREWS g 
 
Ivl INTRODUCTION 
 
 and accepts the Barnabas tradition, because Barnabas as a 
 Levite would have been familiar with the cadences of the 
 Greek Psalter. Barnabas is the only name which can be con- 
 nected with anything like a real tradition. Scholarship is more 
 respectful to tradition of late. It is felt that there are few 
 fresh starts in thought ; tradition generally lies behind, and 
 what seems to be tradition is at least to be respectfully examined. 
 That is the spirit of a book which has not yet been so carefully 
 criticised as it deserves ^ Mr Edmundson thinks Hebrews was 
 written to Judaeo-Christians in Rome by Barnabas in 66 a.d. 
 S. Paul was still living ; had been released from his captivity ; 
 and at the close of the same year was himself in Rome, again in 
 prison and soon to die. 1 Peter had been already written and is 
 quoted in Hebrews. The Apocalypse was written three years 
 later, at the beginning of a.d. 70. Early in the same year, 
 A.D. 70, Clement, a younger brother of M. Arrecinus Clemens 
 and the same Clement as is named in Phil, iv., gave literary 
 expression to the message from the Church in Rome to the 
 Church in Corinth ; he was not yet the official head of the 
 Roman Church. That is a consistent view of our epistle and 
 the other epistles that are related to it. Without necessarily 
 adopting the whole of it, we may at least welcome the support 
 Mr Edmundson gives to the early date of Hebrews. That 
 judgement is hardly fashionable at present, but, as will presently 
 be shown, it does fit many important characteristics of the 
 epistle. 
 
 As for the authoi*'s name, that search may as well be given 
 up. The Barnabas tradition only emerges for a moment or 
 two and is lost in darkness on either side. The other names 
 proposed, Luke, Clement, ApoUos, Silas, Philip the deacon, 
 Aristion — one writer has even suggested S. Peter — are mere 
 conjectures ; some of which are surely impossible. That there 
 should be one letter in the New Testament which was not 
 written by any person who happens to be mentioned in the 
 other books, is quite in accordance with the analogies of literary 
 history. It may be added, though not as an argument, that 
 
 ^ The Church in Rome in the first Century y by George Edmundson. 
 Longmans, 1914. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ivii 
 
 our interest in the apostolic Church and our reverence for 
 its rich inspiration would be increased hereby. The character, 
 education and to a large extent the circumstances of the author 
 may be gathered from the letter itself. The mere precision of a 
 name would not illuminate the background very much. 
 
 § 10. Destination more important^ hut precision difficult; not 
 Jerusalem. Rome proposed^ and {improbably) Gentile 
 readers. 
 
 It is otherwise with the question of the destination. If we 
 could suppose that the epistle was addressed to the Church at 
 Jerusalem some time between the outbreak of the war with 
 Rome and the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, our interpretation of 
 the whole argument and of many difficult passages would be 
 confined to something like certainty. But it would be a con- 
 fining. Other passages would take on new difficulties. Much 
 is said about the tabernacle in Hebrews : there is not a line 
 which implies that either writer or recipients had ever seen 
 the temple. There may well have been Hellenistic Jews at 
 Jerusalem who read Greek and were accustomed to Alexandrine 
 terms of philosophy. But it is not at Jerusalem that we should 
 readily look for these, and it is certain that the epistle would 
 have been quite unsuited to the Church of Jerusalem as a whole. 
 J. J. Wetstein, in the edition of the Greek Testament which he 
 published at Amsterdam, 1751-2, was the first to argue for 
 Rome as the destination. Others, e.g. von Soden^, have com- 
 bined this view of the destination with the assertion that there 
 is nothing in the epistle to confirm the accuracy of the ancient 
 title n/>6£ 'Ej3/)aiouff, and that there is much to prove it addressed 
 to Gentile Christians. This is, paradoxical though the state- 
 ment may sound, more agreeable to a superficial reading than 
 to a patient study of the epistle. The Judaic roots are there, 
 but they are not to be discovered in the mere obvious allusions 
 to Jewish ritual. 
 
 ^ Hand'Commentar, Freiburg, 1899i 
 
 e2 
 
Iviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 11. Modern criticism would supersede these enquiries hy re- 
 garding Hebrews as a late treatise or sermon. So Mofatt, 
 whose view of doctrinal development may however he modified 
 hy recognition of the ''^ apocalyptic^^ origin of the Gospel: 
 Schioeitzer ; 
 
 However all such disputes may seem to have been superseded 
 of late. Neither author nor destination matters much. Nor do 
 the Jewish or Gentile antecedents of the readers. The epistle 
 was written at a time when the Pauline controversy about the 
 Law was forgotten. There is no sharply cut background. It 
 is a doctrinal treatise, sermon-like ; very interesting as a witness 
 to the comparatively early development of Christian dogma, but 
 scarcely in touch with the vigorous life of those primitive com- 
 munities who had lately been making Christian history. This 
 is how MofFatt describes it ^ : 
 
 "The author is to us a voice and no more. He left great 
 prose to some little clan of early Christians, but who he was, 
 and who they were, it is not possible with such materials as are 
 at our disposal to determine. No conjecture rises above the 
 level of plausibility. We cannot say that if the autor ad 
 Hehraeos had never lived or written, the course of early 
 Christianity would have been materially altered. He was not 
 a personality of Paul's commanding genius. He did not make 
 history or mark any epoch. He did not even, like the anonymous 
 authors of Matthew's Gospel and the Fourth Gospel, succeed in 
 stamping his writing on the mind of the early church at large. 
 But the later church was right in claiming a canonical position 
 for this unique specimen of Alexandrine thought playing upon 
 the primitive gospel, although the reasons upon which the claim 
 was based were generally erroneous." 
 
 This might be almost styled great prose. It is, what 
 Dr Moffatt would rather care for, great scholarship; a deliberate 
 judgement based upon long thought and wide learning. Yet we 
 would set against it two passages from his earlier book I The 
 first is a quotation from James Smetham's Letters : 
 
 " Is there a Christ 1 Is He the Heir of all things ? Was 
 He made flesh? Did He offer the all-perfect sacrifice? Did 
 
 1 Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament. T. & T. 
 Clark, 1911. 
 
 2 The Historical New Testament. T. & T. Clark, 2nd ed. 1901. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE lix 
 
 He supersede the old order of priests ? Is He the Mediator 
 of a new and better Covenant? What are the terms of that 
 Covenant ? There are no questions like these.... I am astonished 
 at the imperative tone of this Epistle, and the element of holy 
 scorn against those who refuse to go into these great questions 
 carefully." 
 
 That points to one supreme characteristic of this epistle, 
 its intensity. Here are some lines from Dr Moff'att's own pen 
 which reveal a certain bias determining the final direction of 
 other arguments ; and it is possibly doubtful whether that 
 bias ought to be allowed so much weight as used to be generally 
 supposed : 
 
 '* The alternative date [to a.d. 80 or later] is between 60 
 and 70 a.d. This largely supported view takes the epistle as 
 implying the contemporary existence of the Jewish temple and 
 ritual, and as written in view of the religious dissolution which 
 (8^3) culminated in a.d. 70. The arguments in favour of this 
 date have been in part already met by implication, and in part 
 they depend upon a view of the development of early Christianity, 
 which would require many pages to exhibit." 
 
 It is true that there is nothing in the epistle which neces- 
 sarily implies the contemporary existence of temple and ritual. 
 If the author contemplates the fall of Jerusalem as imminent, 
 this does not mean that he mainly connects the dissolution of 
 the Jewish religion with that catastrophe. His interest in the 
 war is of another kind, and the signs of his interest in that, 
 or possibly some other crisis of trial, run all through his 
 letter. But the point to be noticed is this. The view of the 
 development of early Christianity, in which Hebrews might 
 bear an early date, has been re-adjusted by that "apocalyptic" 
 reading of the primitive Gospel which was revived by Albert 
 Schweitzer 1. 
 
 So far as affects the question before us here, the matter may 
 be summed up as follows. The idea of what may be called liberal 
 theologians had long been that from an early Galilean faith in 
 
 1 In his Von Beimarus zu Wrede^ Tubingen, 1906. An English 
 translation with the title The Quest of the Historical Jesus was 
 published in 1910, and the best introduction to the subject is Dr 
 Burkitt's little book, The earliest sources for the life of Jesus ^ Constable, 
 1910. 
 
Ix INTRODUCTION 
 
 Jesus as the Master, a Pauline, Johannine, and finally "catholic" 
 faith was gradually developed in the eternal and divine Son. 
 In such development Hebrews would come comparatively late. 
 There is nothing unworthy in such a view. Development of 
 the faith is the counterpart to revelation through the Holy 
 Spirit. But the difficulty was to find a link between Galilee and 
 S. Paul. To the apocalyptic view the link is plain. The back- 
 ground of the synoptic gospels is formed by those late Jewish 
 apocalypses of which Daniel and the Enoch literature are the 
 type. Our Lord entered upon His ministry in Galilee when a 
 world of thoughts about the coming Kingdom of God was every- 
 where astir. These thoughts were vague ; spiritual hopes were 
 mingled with political ; yet a great exalted spirit breathed every- 
 where. The kingdom would not be of this world; the Christ- 
 king might be in some sense divine. Our Lord accepted the 
 popular expectations. How far He acquiesced in their outward 
 form ; in what way He corrected and purified the idea ; how He 
 came to the determination that by His own death the kingdom 
 must be brought in — these are the problems of the critical 
 historian. But criticism tends to this broad result. The 
 synoptic gospels, especially S. Mark, are good historical docu- 
 ments as they stand ; simple souls may rightly account for the 
 whole course of our Lord's action by His implicit faith in the 
 Father's guidance ; the disciples believed that He was the des- 
 tined Christ who would one day come in divine glory with the 
 kingdom; that belief was interrupted by the crucifixion, but 
 was confirmed and deepened by the resurrection ; and S. Paul's 
 faith in Christ Jesus, the exalted Son of God, hidden for a while 
 in heaven. His original and eternal home, whence in the great 
 day He would come to gather quick and dead, was simply his 
 ancient Jewish faith completed by^his conviction that Jesus was 
 the Christ. 
 
 Nor was this profound theology revealed only to S. Paul. 
 It was the faith of the Church he entered after his conversion. 
 He directed it, perhaps restrained it within the lines of reason- 
 able truth. The tremendous spiritual impulse, which was the 
 main source of his inspiration, enabled him to bring what was 
 weak or uncertain to new and deeper expression. But though a 
 high Christology may develop its expression, it will always be 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixi 
 
 a return to primitive faith, and will never involve of necessity 
 long distance from memories of the past. There is development 
 of that kind in Hebrews. The first readers of this epistle 
 evidently had what we call an imperfect conception of the 
 Person of Christ. Their friend appeals to the primitive belief 
 in Christ as truly divine. He uses for his task of persuasion all 
 that has been thought, said or done before his days, by the 
 household at Jerusalem immediately after the crucifixion, by 
 S. Paul, by Hellenists like S. Stephen and Apollos. And now 
 he turns the ancient symbol of the Kingdom into new language 
 for his Alexandrine friends, just as Dr DuBose in his exposition 
 of this epistle. High Priesthood and Sacrifice^ tries to turn its 
 phraseology "into current coin." And he had two important 
 aids. The crisis of the times — perhaps it really was the storm 
 gathering over Jerusalem — was a sign that then was to be the 
 promised Day; in that shaking the Kingdom and the Christ 
 were coming. And the education of author and readers in 
 philosophy provided a set of terms in which this translation 
 of the primitive symbol might be shaped with peculiar fitness ; 
 for the pressing difficulty lay in " the scandal of the cross," the 
 humiliation which characterised the Christian course, and which 
 could be shewn to run out into eternal glory by the philosophical 
 principle of sacramental significance in the realities of life. 
 
 § 12. and hy the now more generally recognised earliness of 
 ^*' catholic" thought and practice: Baur^ Lake^ Bousset ; 
 Graeco-Roman influence on development, 
 
 Schweitzer's two books — for he presently wrote another in 
 which he showed S. Paul to be thoroughly imbued with apoca- 
 lyptic Judaism — have, it seems, influenced English thought far 
 more than German. In Germany the old "liberal" theology 
 held on its way. The details of Baur's criticism have long 
 been discredited. It is right that much of his principle should 
 still be recognised as true. His Church History ^ is a stimulating 
 book that should still be read by all who really care to meditate 
 on the origins of creed and church. Very briefly his doctrine is 
 
 1 The Church History of the first three Centuries^ Tubingen, 1853, 
 English Translation, Williams and Norgate, 1878, 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTION 
 
 that "the fightings without and fears within" which S. Paul, 
 and doubtless many another of the early leaders, met patiently 
 and faithfully, vanished in a gradual reconciliation of half views. 
 Then, as the fit time came, the more complete idea of Christ's 
 Person, of the Church, the Ministry, the Sacraments, descended, 
 explained all, and took possession. " Descended " is the right 
 word. The process came, as we should say, from God. The 
 suspicion with which Baur is regarded, arises from his refusal 
 to say just that. However, there is no need to speculate here as 
 to what Baur's own opinions were about the Christian dogmas. 
 So far as it goes the doctrine here sketched can only encourage 
 us to more thoughtful reverence. But it begins in these days to 
 be clear that a simpler thread of popular faith was drawn out 
 continuously from the first, and that this popular faith was in 
 essentials far more like the fully-developed faith of the Church's 
 worship than used to be supposed. On this point much in- 
 struction may be gained from Professor Kirsopp Lake's book, 
 The earlier Epistles of St Paul. And again and again as we 
 pursue the enquiry we find that, while there is much truth in 
 Baur's idea of Hebrews and other epistles belonging to a period of 
 "reconciliation," there is no good reason for reserving that period 
 to a late date. 
 
 The most important of what we may venture to call the 
 successors of Baur is Dr Wilhelm Bousset, who argues^ that it 
 was in worship that development of faith most largely took 
 place. This influence of ritual and of the emotion of common 
 worship was mainly due to the Church's assimilation of Asiatic 
 Greek ideas. In Hebrews an almost extreme example of this 
 ritual spirit is displayed. To reach such a pitch of interest 
 time was needed, and Hebrews is therefore separated by a 
 considerable interval from S. Paul. Again it is evident, even 
 from this passing reference, how much Bousset stimulates 
 thought. Worship is still deepening — not of course without 
 some risk of perverting — faith. This recognition of the in- 
 fluence of worship implies a strong united Church feeling, 
 resting on continuous tradition, as the living soil in which new 
 
 1 Kyrios Christos : Geschichte des Christusglmihens von den An- 
 fdngen des Christenthuvis bis Irenaeus. Gottingen, 1913. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixiii 
 
 thoughts and enthusiasms grow into flower. The old crude idea 
 of a Paul or an auctor ad Hehraeos starting a fresh line of faith 
 is unnatural. But, with Bousset again, sober reflection on all 
 we know about these early days puts things in a different 
 proportion. There is more anxiety in our author's mind about 
 his friends' loyalty to Christ in some terrible crisis, than interest 
 in ritual. And the reasons for placing the epistle at a late date 
 are far weaker than those for recognising in it a new stage in the 
 expression of ancient truth. 
 
 §13. Transformation of this early ^^ Catholicism^^ in Windisch^s 
 representation of the ultra-dogmatic character of Hebrews. 
 
 But, distinct from these descendants of Baur, another school 
 of theologians has lately arisen in Germany. They might be called 
 — with perhaps an unfair touch of caricature — the Literalists. 
 Some of them have come to sacred literature from a previous 
 training in classical languages. They are abundantly, if not 
 broadly, erudite. They care little for the delicacies of language, 
 but press the plain meaning of passages. To this class belongs 
 Dr Windisch, author of a short book^ full of matter, with freshly- 
 gathered quotations from Philo and from the literature of the 
 Graeco-Roman world. In fact, this handbook by itself supplies 
 pretty well all the material a reader might desire for inference 
 and discussion. The author of the epistle is left unnamed. He 
 was a Hellenistic Jew, with the same Greek background of 
 education as Philo, but less Greek in character, more apoca- 
 lyptic. He still expects the future manifestation, therein 
 resembling with a difference S. John. The readers were a 
 community, mainly non-Jewish, which might be anywhere 
 except Jerusalem. The date 80 a.d. or rather later. The 
 author had nothing to do with the temple, but mediated Old 
 Testament ritual for Christians. He was nearer S. Paul than 
 any other New Testament writer, yet with many notable di- 
 vergences. He has something in common with the Synoptists, 
 whom AVindisch (like Bousset) considers to represent, not quite 
 the historical Jesus of Nazareth, but the theological belief of 
 
 ^ Der Hehraerhrief erkldrt von Lie. Dr Hans Windisch^ Privat- 
 dozent an der Universitdt Leipzig. Tubingen, 1913. 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 the early Christian family concerning Him. Only this writer is 
 more infected with Hellenistic ideas, more influenced by the 
 Septuagint, than the Synoptists were. The main value of 
 his epistolary sermon is in its doctrine of the exalted Christ, 
 and especially in the particular aid which the author's figurative 
 language about His high -priesthood produced (1) for the further 
 expression of the Church's doctrine of redemption, (2) for the 
 Church's adoption of the sacred, and especially the legal, books 
 of the Old Testament. 
 
 But Windisch would hardly approve of the word "figurative." 
 Though to us the language is figurative, he would take it as far 
 more literally meant by the author himself. Windisch's exegesis 
 is terse, crisp and full-learned. But it is as " hard " as a piece 
 of modern carving. He writes in that most recent style of 
 modern criticism which Reitzenstein and Norden use ; to which 
 Kirsopp Lake is somewhat inclined; and which Bousset has 
 enriched with spiritual sympathy. This school is (against 
 Schweitzer) zealous for Graeco-Roman influence. But beside 
 that, it represents primitive Christianity as being from the first 
 what the Germans call "catholic," i.e. advanced in cult and in 
 the doctrine of the Person of Christ, but advanced in a crude 
 and somewhat superstitious way. 
 
 A history of New Testament interpretation might be arranged 
 on a scheme adapted from Mr Reginald Blomfield's words, " The 
 Renaissance — one of the recurring outbreaks of humanity against 
 the tyranny of another world ^." Here we find this "tyranny" again 
 coming in. So was it at the beginning with Docetism, soon met by 
 the Church's protest. Then, according to Bousset, the "Kyrios 
 cult," and the reaction witnessed to by Clement of Rome. So again 
 in the eighteenth century began the "outbreak of humanity" 
 in which critics recovered the ancient doctrine of the real man- 
 hood of Christ, but at the same time read their modern notions 
 into that manhood. In England this culminated in the large 
 Johannine theology of F. D. Maurice. Then Schweitzer and the 
 eschatological school drew this out farther in their insistence on 
 the actually Jewish, Galilean manhood. And so the "humanity" 
 itself led on to another inrush of "the other world" with the 
 
 1 Short History of Renaissance Architecture^ p. 18, 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixv 
 
 strange and stormy figure of the apocalyptic Christ. And now, 
 from another point of view, Windisch and this school find a 
 crude, ultra -scrupulous reverence in apostolic days. To Windisch 
 Hebrews has hardly any real sense of the days of the Lord's 
 flesh, but centres on "The Heavenly Being, mythically con- 
 ceived." This literalism appears in an extravagant form in a 
 note to V. 7 — the flesh was laid aside in the ascension ; our 
 Lord took with Him only the blood. And again, on x. 28 " the 
 Christian eschatology still knows the pitiless God of the Old 
 Testament and of Judaism." The strong, learned excursus 
 will be dealt with later (ii. § 20) in which he almost compels 
 assent to his thesis that " no second repentance " was the 
 primitive, essential dogma, weakened in later days. 
 
 In the proper sense of the terms, of course, both tempers 
 of the faith, "humanitas" and " other-worldliness," belong to 
 Christianity. But the terms may be transferred to tempers 
 which are not genuinely Christian. The severely historical 
 critic will probably find that the mass of devout but unlearned 
 Christians in every age have tended, at least in language, to 
 insist on the "tyranny of the other world." But he will also find 
 that the Church as a whole and in the long run, i.e. the Church 
 guided by the Spirit, has refused to be thus enslaved. And is 
 it not the mistake of commentators like Windisch that they 
 interpret the apostolic writers by the ruder language of the 
 people ? The Church, in her true catholicity, has really had 
 the canonical writers on her side, and behind them our Lord 
 Himself. 
 
 Yet Windisch's is a valuable commentary. If only for the 
 illustrative material, so skilfully selected from sources hardly 
 touched by earlier commentators, but recognised to day as highly 
 important for the elucidation of at least a large part of the New 
 Testament, it will be for years to come all but indispensable. 
 And the terse, business-like expression is admirable. What 
 Bengel's Gnomon is for unction, Dr Windisch is in his dry com- 
 pression. His book has always been on the table at which these 
 pages were written. 
 
Ixvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 14. Some earlier German booh: Bengel and text, Rielim and 
 doctrine, Biesenthal and affinities with rabbinic type of 
 Judaism. 
 
 All students of the New Testament delight in Bengel's holy 
 epigrams^. Here is one example from Heb. xi. 40: ^^irpo- 
 ^Xfyjrafievovj providente) Exquisitum verbum. Quae nondum 
 videt fides, Devs providet, Gen. 22, 8, 14, Joh. 6, 6. Ex hac 
 provisions fluxit tota oeconomia temporum, et testimonium 
 Dei ad veteres." But the Gnomon has a further interest in that 
 it is founded upon a comparatively pure text. Bengel had 
 already made an epoch in textual criticism by his edition of the 
 Greek Testament. He was the first to attempt classification 
 of authorities. 
 
 Bleek's great commentary has already been mentioned. From 
 Riehm's Lehrbegriff'^ later generations have drawn. They have 
 improved upon its conclusions. But it remains the most com- 
 plete and systematic exposition of the epistle in its relation to 
 Biblical theology. 
 
 And yet one other German book must be named 3. It is 
 incredible that S. Paul should really be the author of Hebrews, 
 and Dr Biesenthal's " retranslation " into Hebrew is not 
 re translation but a clever exercise of his own scholarship. 
 Nevertheless his book is worth attention. He shews how much 
 in the epistle has parallels in Judaism on the rabbinic side. 
 Thus he warns us against too ready trust in inferences drawn 
 from the Graeco-Roman or Graeco-Asiatic literature which is 
 so much relied upon of late for the interpretation of the New 
 Testament. Even Hellenistic Judaism was Judaic, and a merely 
 Gentile origin for this epistle is all but impossible. 
 
 ^ D. Joh. Alberti Bengelii Gnomon Novi Testamenti, in quo ex 
 nativa verborum vi simplicitas, profunditaSf concinnitas, salubritas 
 sensuum coelestium indicatur. It was first published in 1742. 
 
 2 Der Lehrbegriff des Hebrderbriefs^ dargestellt und mit ver- 
 wandten Lehrbegriffen verglicheuy von Lie. Eduard Karl Aug. Biehviy 
 Privatdocent in Heidelberg. Ludwigsburg, 1858-9. 
 
 ^ Dafi Trostschreiben des Apostels Paulus an die Hebrder, kritisch 
 iviederhergestellt und sprdchlich archdologisch und biblisch-theologisch 
 erlduterty von Joh. H. B. Biesenthal, Dr Philos, et Theol., Leipzig, 
 1878. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixvii 
 
 §15. Modern English commeyitators. Their fine scholarship: 
 Rendall. Their broad, practical elucidation of the theology 
 of the epistle: Davidson and Maurice distinguish type from 
 shadow ; Bruce discovers the imperfection of the readers^ faith, 
 and the author's conception of '''■glory in humiliation^^ ; that 
 sacramental idea elaborated by DuBose, who also shows how 
 Christ re-enacts His sacrifice in men. Westcotfs explanation 
 of the Blood as indicating life enriched through death. 
 
 Of late however more help for the understanding of this 
 epistle has come from England and from America. English 
 theologians have generally been strong in that broad advantage 
 of a classical education which combines "humanity'' with 
 grammar. For such a book as Hebrews that is a specially 
 desirable qualification in a commentator. Hence we have a 
 series of editions which are recommended by fine scholarship — 
 C. J. Vaughan, Macmillan 1891 ; Farrar, the very interesting pre- 
 decessor of this present book in the Cambridge Greek Testament 
 series ; Wickham in Methuen's Westminster commentaries 1910, 
 a work of finished beauty ; and, philologically perhaps the best 
 of all, F. Rendall, Macmillan 1883. 
 
 Dr A. B. Davidson contributed a small edition of Hebrews 
 to Messrs T. and T. Clark's Handbooks for Bible Classes, which 
 like all, even his most unpretending work, is firm, simple and 
 philosophical. His treatment of the theme *' Priesthood after 
 the order of Melchizedek " is particularly valuable. He, perhaps 
 for the first time, puts the Aaronic priesthood and the Levitical 
 sacrifices into their true proportionate place, as merely "shadow" ; 
 the author is not concerned with the comparative worth of the 
 old ritual, but with the absolute difference in kind of the eternal 
 priesthood which our Lord fulfilled. F. D. Maurice in his War- 
 burton Lectures for 1845-6, had wrestled with this problem, 
 recognising that Israelites had certainly enjoyed a real com- 
 munion with God ; that nevertheless their institutions, so far 
 forth as these were institutions, lacked reality ; and that though 
 in Christ who is " a Son " reality has come, there must still be 
 some kind of institutions in the Christian Church if this reality 
 is not to fade away again into a vague cloudland. He solves the 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 problem in the last lecture by distinguishing the "figurative" 
 from the *' sacramental." But he does not present his solution 
 quite clearly. As in so much of his published work, the deep 
 significance of these lectures comes home most effectually to 
 those who have also learned to understand him from his letters 
 and conversations. Two sayings of his throw much light on 
 certain seeming inconsistencies in the epistle itself: "To me 
 it is the pleasantest thing possible to have intercourse with men. 
 But for shadows I have no respect at all," and "My paradox 
 about form being more spiritual than spirit," Life, ii. p. 299, 
 I. p. 311. 
 
 In 1891 Dr William Milligan gave in his Baird Lecture ^ an 
 eloquent defence and exposition of the truth, so insisted upon 
 in Hebrews, that the doctrine of the living and exalted Christ 
 is the indispensable complement of faith in His atoning death. 
 A good companion to this book, as a real aid to a hearty 
 appreciation of the epistle, would be the lately published 
 Letters of Richard Meux Benson (Mowbray), which are indeed 
 this Epistle of the Ascension translated into modern life. 
 Dr William Milligan's son, Dr George Milligan, published in 
 1899 The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with a critical 
 introduction (T. and T. Clark), a very useful book. Dr Moffatt's 
 chapter on Hebrews in The Literature of the New Testament has 
 been already mentioned. The commentary which he is to 
 contribute to Messrs T. and T. Clark's International Critical 
 Commentaries is eagerly expected. Meanwhile the small edition by 
 Professor A. S. Peake in The Century Bible holds a distinguished 
 place among recent commentaries. His brief introduction is 
 commendably sober in conjecture as to author, date and des- 
 tination. Yet he leans towards an early date, and is convinced 
 that "in the argument as a whole we find decisive proof that 
 the readers were Jewish Christians in peril of falling back into 
 Judaism." 
 
 In a notable book^ Dr Bruce brings the point out clearly, 
 that the readers of the epistle had not attained to more than 
 
 ^ The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord. Macmillan. 
 2 The Epistle to the Hebrews^ the first apology for Christianity ; 
 an exegetical study, T. & T. Clark, 1899. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixix 
 
 an imperfect apprehension of the faith of the Church, and that 
 this ** first apology for Christianity " was designed to set the full 
 and generally accepted faith before them. More important still 
 is his insistence on the teaching of the epistle about our Lord's 
 true manhood with all its limitations, especially in what he says 
 in his fourth chapter about our Lord's glory being in, rather than 
 after. His humiliation ; the exaltation was latent in the humilia- 
 tion. This opens the way to recognition of that sacramental 
 principle which, sketched in Hebrews, was afterwards elaborated 
 in the Fourth Gospel, and which perhaps alone conserves the 
 reality, without confusion, of both the Godhead and the Manhood 
 of the Redeemer. 
 
 What is meant by the sacramental principle of the Manhood 
 is even more clearly brought out by Dr William Porcher DuBose 
 in High Priesthood and Sacrifice; an exposition of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews'^, This is the third part of the tetralogy in which 
 he interprets the four main varieties of New Testament teaching ; 
 the others are The Gospel in the Gospels^ The Gospel according 
 to Saint Paul^ and The Reason of Life (S. John). Few books 
 prove more conclusively than these that loyalty to the complete 
 catholic faith is no hindrance to frank originality but the most 
 wholesome stimulus. A few quotations will best shew the line 
 of argument : 
 
 '' According to the Epistle to the Hebrews the place and part 
 of Jesus Christ in the world is an eternal and universal one.... 
 He is at once God in creation and creation in God ; equally God 
 in man and man in God.... That with which Christianity identifies 
 Jesus Christ eternally and essentially and inseparably is not only 
 God but creation and ourselves." 
 
 "It is, however, only one part of this universal process 
 that is traced for us by this Epistle.... The cosmical bearing or 
 significance of the Incarnation is dropped, and attention is con- 
 centrated upon the act or process by which God and man become 
 one in Jesus Christ.... Not how our Lord was Son as God, but 
 how He became Son as man, is the subject of this whole Epistle 
 to the Hebrews." 
 
 " There is nothing said or implied of an act performed or of 
 a becoming accomplished, apart from or instead of us. He is 
 the expression to us of what we have to accomplish and become, 
 and of the divine power and way of our accomplishing it.... He 
 
 ^ Longmans, 1908, 
 
Ixx INTRODUCTION 
 
 does not save from having to do it all ; He helps and enables to 
 do it all. It was bound to be so, it could not be otherwise, 
 because in the divine intention and meaning and nature of the 
 thing, the accomplishing holiness and achieving or attaining life 
 is just that which makes and constitutes us personal spirits, or 
 spiritual persons." 
 
 This is theological rather than historical treatment. Dr 
 DuBose is not concerned with the environment of the author 
 and his first readers, or with the influence of Philonic philosophy 
 on the author's mode of expression, and so on. He deals with 
 the great truths' themselves which mattered to the author and 
 to the other writers of the New Testament and still matter to 
 all readers of the New Testament at all times. It may be that 
 he misses in consequence some of the peculiar characteristics of 
 Hebrews. If so the deficiency may be made good from other 
 books. The compensating advantage of the treatment he has 
 chosen is this. He, perhaps better than any other commentator, 
 has reached through the figures of the author's language to the 
 realities which the figures are too apt to conceal from modern 
 eyes. The following passage may suffice to indicate a principle 
 which governs the whole exposition : 
 
 " And let us remember that our Author's method, while it is 
 both, is yet more a definition of all past expressions of high 
 priesthood by its antitype and fulfilment in Christ, than a 
 definition of this latter by the inadequate types of it that had 
 preceded. The method, in a word, is based upon the principle 
 that beginnings are better explained by ends than ends by 
 beginnings. The divine truth of Jesus Christ and His work 
 in humanity too far transcends any or all visible human pre- 
 intimations or prophecies of itself to be expressed within the 
 finite limits of their meaning. But the precedent high priesthood, 
 seen now in the light of its divine fulfilment, is seen to go along 
 with it in accord so far as it can.'^ 
 
 But the greatest of modern commentaries is Westcott's^ 
 The Greek text itself is the best that has ever been printed of 
 this epistle separately. The select apparatus criticus is easy to 
 use, and the Introduction contains an admirable section on mss. 
 and versions. Then the skilfully chosen quotations from the 
 
 ^ The Epistle to the HehrewSy the Greek text witJi notes and essays. 
 Macmillan, 1st ed. 1889. 
 
HISTORY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxi 
 
 Fathers are most instructive. Each tells, coming in appropriately. 
 And the continuity of exegetical tradition is thus displayed, a 
 tradition which justifies the belief that the author's meaning is 
 always likely to be deeper than our own quick judgement would 
 suppose. At the end of the Preface there are valuable remarks 
 on the chief patristic commentaries, with terse indications of 
 their several characteristics. Here, as often in this pregnant 
 work, the student is pointed to a line of enquiry which may 
 attract his diligence or ambition, as in this note on Origen: 
 " Of his xviii Homilies and Books (rd/iioi) on the Epistle only 
 meagre fragments remain ; but it is not unlikely that many of 
 his thoughts have been incorporated by other writers. An 
 investigation into the sources of the Latin Commentaries is 
 greatly to be desired." Of Westcott's own interpretations this 
 may perhaps be said without impertinence. The longer they 
 are dwelt upon the more right they are apt to prove themselves. 
 What may seem at first too subtle turns out to be sympathetic 
 with the author's habit of thought, and when the reader disagrees 
 with some passage he is likely to find on further meditation 
 that his own idea has been included and transcended in West- 
 cott's more complete perception. The eminent service however 
 which Dr Westcott has rendered to the study of Hebrews is 
 this. He has carried out what (as we saw above) the Arminians 
 attempted, viz. the true explanation of the sacrificial language ; 
 sacrifice is offering, not loss, and " blood " in the phraseology of 
 sacrifice means life not death, though in supreme sacrifice it 
 does mean life enriched by death. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 § 1. Hebrews v)as addressed to a little group of Hellenistic-Jeioisk 
 friends: is a real letter; calling upon them to do a hard duty 
 in a dangerous time, viz. to he loyal to Jesus Christ whom they 
 worship^ hut as yet imperfectly^ and to hreaJc with Judaism. 
 
 The particular form which theology takes in any treatise is 
 determined by the purpose of the writer. That purpose depends 
 
 HEBREWS / 
 
Ixxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 upon the occasion of writing. Hence it is necessary to make up 
 our minds, as far as possible, about the date, circumstances and 
 destination of Hebrews, before attempting to study the charac- 
 teristics of its theology. We have seen how the tendency of the 
 latest criticism is to give up the search for the author's name, 
 and the name of the place to which he sent his epistle. There 
 has also been a reaction against the ancient tradition that the 
 readers had come from Judaism to Christianity. But that 
 reaction has passed into anotj^er phase ; the question. Were the 
 readers Jewish or Gentile ? is no longer considered important, 
 since the epistle belongs to so late a time that this distinction 
 had already become almost obsolete in the Church. For Hebrews 
 is generally considered a late treatise, more like a sermon than 
 a letter. Some trouble of the day had indeed in part called it 
 forth. But that impulse is a secondary matter ; the dogmatic 
 interest is the main thing. Yet on the whole Eome is preferred 
 as destination. And in this connexion it is worth while perhaps 
 to mention an inscription which has been discovered there. 
 A certain Salome is described on her tombstone as the daughter 
 of Gadia who was irarrip o-vi/aytoy^ff At/Spe'ov. Zahn who draws 
 attention to this^ shews that it has little real bearing on the 
 criticism of Hebrews, but he does press the significance of 
 eiTLa-vvaycoyrj (Heb. X. 25), and decides from that and various 
 other indications that the letter was addressed to a household 
 community, a part of the larger church in Rome. Whether in 
 Rome or not may be doubtful. But this idea of the small com- 
 munity is winning acceptance and is probably right. Mofifatt's 
 vaguer phrase " a little clan " is best. It is hardly likely that a 
 letter so polished, so full of technical philosophic language, and 
 so coloured with actual philosophic thought, should have been 
 written to any mixed assembly, however small. We had better 
 conclude that the author wrote to a group of friends who, like 
 himself, had received an Alexandrine education. 
 
 And if so, it must surely have been a Jewish -Alexandrine 
 education. The title "To Hebrews" may have been but an 
 early inference from the contents. That inference may have 
 been drawn from the same misunderstanding as has long 
 
 1 Einleitung in das Neue Testament^ i. p. 48, of. ii. pp. X13, 110 f., 
 154, 1st ed. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxiii 
 
 prevailed, and of late has prejudiced the enquiry in a contrary 
 direction. For, strictly taken, " Hebrews " means Hebrew-speak- 
 ing Jews, and that — we can all see now — is just what the readers 
 of this epistle were not. But they may have been Hellenists, 
 may have never seen the temple, and yet the case may be 
 strong for considering them to have been by birth and training 
 Hellenistic Jews. And the case is strong. The argument of the 
 epistle as a whole would have much meaning for Christians who 
 had been Jews, little for others. Much of its difficulty for us 
 Westerns to day arises from its taking for granted Jewish 
 principles of sacrifice which Gentiles even then would not be 
 familiar with. And there is a personal note. The Jewish ritual 
 and priesthood are indeed spoken of as a mere shadow ; they are 
 not to the author the "types" which Christ "fulfilled." But 
 Jewish " Christship " is such a real type. And even the ritual 
 is given up with a pang ; and if the ancient priesthood was but 
 a shadow, the good priests whom author and friends had known 
 were very far from shadowy. Start from ch. v. and see if this 
 be not true ; then read through the whole letter and see whether 
 the impression be not confirmed. 
 
 For surely it is a letter, not a sermon. Though like 1 John 
 it begins without a salutation, there is no need to suppose that 
 no definite address was prefixed. Indeed, when once the view 
 here proposed is accepted, it becomes tempting to fancy that 
 TTpos 'E^paiovs was originally at the head of the roll, a playful 
 subtlety, like v. 12, xiii. 22, meaning " To you whom after all 
 I will call Hebrews indeed." And it is a letter called forth by 
 some very urgent occasion. The exhortations and warnings with 
 which it is punctuated have echoes in almost every verse. The 
 writer is throughout urging his friends to face some particular 
 and hard duty, and in his final blessing, xiii. 20, 21, he prays 
 that they may be enabled to make the right choice and do the 
 duty. The ancient text with its antithesis of " you " and " us " 
 makes this clear. The later text, conventionalised for church 
 reading, obscures this ; one of several instances which explain 
 the tendency, so often recurring, to allow the remarkable interest 
 of the epistle's intellectual theology to obscure the practical 
 appeal to the will which was the supreme interest of the 
 author. 
 
 /2 
 
Ixxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 For his theology is developed as reinforcement to his appeal. 
 Once Jews of the broader Hellenistic party, his friends had 
 become Christians but Christians of a most imperfect kind. 
 They had joined the Christian Church because it offered that 
 "reformation" of Judaism for which they had been looking, 
 but they had not apprehended the deepest significance of this 
 reformation. Jesus of Nazareth was indeed to them the Christ, 
 but they had not understood all that the Church believed to be 
 involved in that recognition. They had not properly appreciated 
 the mystery of His Person, or of the salvation which had been 
 wrought through His death, or of His "indissoluble life" and 
 His exalted state and continued authority and power to aid. 
 And now some great trial was at hand which would test their 
 allegiance. And in face of this they were in doubt. Was it, 
 they were asking, worth while to hold to this reformed religion 
 when there was very strong reason for returning to the simpler 
 faith of their fathers ? See especially v. 11 — vi. 8. 
 
 The strong reason was above all bound up with honour. 
 Holding fast to Jesus as Christ might very likely bring loss 
 of property, imprisonment, even death ; see x. 32 — 39, xii. 4. 
 But that was not the great difficulty. The "sin" which their 
 friend fears they may commit is a specious one ; there is an 
 aTrarr) about it, something that may confuse the real issue ; as 
 yet they have not done the wrong, but it is already an influence 
 working all about them subtle in associations, clinging to them 
 like a garment ; one strong effort of will is needed to break free, 
 and if that effort is not made the catastrophe will be irreparable. 
 See ii. 13, vi. 4 — 6, x. 10, 23, 26 — 31, xii. 1. But these references 
 are inadequate by themselves. There is hardly a paragraph in 
 the letter but illustrates the situation we are imagining, and it 
 is the letter as a whole, read with this idea in mind, which 
 justifies our imagination. So read, it culminates at last in the 
 appeal of xiii. 13 to go forth to Jesus outside the ancient "camp" 
 of Israel, bearing His shame. The meaning must surely be 
 that the hour has come when the followers of Jesus the true 
 Christ must break with traditional Judaism. The earliest 
 apostolic community had not done so. The apostles had fre- 
 quented the temple, observing the Jewish hours of prayer (Acts 
 iii. 1), and S. Paul's marked reverence for the mother Church at 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxv 
 
 Jerusalem had been of a piece with his claim that in standing 
 for Jesus the living Christ he was faithful to the hope of the 
 fathers (Acts xxvi. 6 — 7). But now that old alliance must be 
 interrupted. 
 
 § 2. The occasion may he the outbreak of the war 
 with Rome: 
 
 To take that bold step, and to take it just at a time when 
 it would be shameful, as it seemed, to take it, was the hard duty 
 to which this letter urges the little band of thoughtful Jewish 
 Christians, its readers. What then was the occasion? Why 
 was this to be done, and what made the doing so particularly 
 diflBcult? All becomes plain if the letter was written about 
 A.D. 65 or 66 when the zeal of a party had become a national 
 spirit of self-sacrifice, and the enthusiasm of the zealots 
 had involved a whole people in war against Rome. **It was 
 Florus," writes Josephus, " who compelled us to undertake war 
 with Rome, seeing as we did that it would be better to perish 
 as a nation than by partial and repeated persecution. The 
 beginning of the war was in the second year of the pro- 
 curatorship of Florus, the twelfth of Nero's reign," i.e. a.d. 
 66 {Antiq. xx. 11). 
 
 How moving the appeal would be to all Jews, in Palestine 
 especially, but in all places too whence it was possible for Jews 
 to travel to Palestine, and rally round the national standard, 
 and fight for hearth and home, laying aside all party differences 
 and uniting in the ancient, hallowed battle-cry, " The Lord our 
 God, the Lord, one ! " (cf. Deut. vi. 4, Heb. xiii. 8). And to none 
 would it come with more force than to these "philosophic 
 liberals," who had toyed with speculative hopes of a reformed 
 creed, and were now summoned to play the man, and throw 
 themselves into the stream of life in its intensity and simplicity. 
 They were fairly well to do (vi. 10, x. 34, xiii. 5), and wherever 
 situated, could make the journey to Palestine. They seem to 
 have never been quite at home in the community of Christians 
 they had joined (x. 25, xiii. 17) ; no doubt early apocalyptic 
 Christianity was a rude environment for these intellectual 
 people. They are inclined to weary themselves no more with 
 
Ixxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 niceties of creed ; they will return to the simplicity of the faith 
 of their childhood, which is at least enough for men of honour. 
 See V. 11 — 14, and notice the emphasis throughout the epistle on 
 such words as koKov, Kpelrrov. 
 
 § 3. when the patriotic appeal^ so attractive to these imperfect 
 disciples, was contrary to the faith of Christ. 
 
 They were however making a double mistake. The Jewish 
 rising was not the pure patriotism they imagined, and the 
 Christian faith was more than a reformed Judaism. 
 
 The Jewish rising was not pure patriotism. These Christian 
 Jews were confronted with the very choice which had been 
 offered to our Lord when He called for the tribute money and 
 gave His decision, *' Bender unto Caesar." That was no clever 
 shelving of the question ; it was a decision which cost Him life. 
 It was a. practical summing up of all He taught about the 
 kingdom of God. That kingdom was not to be the political 
 triumph of Judaism, but the universal victory of that true 
 religion which had been especially entrusted to the Jews ; 
 " Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'' The 
 quotation in Heb. x. 30, "Vengeance is mine," may have been 
 suggested by Bom. xii. 19, but it has a more concentrated 
 purpose in Hebrews. When this epistle was written, the problem 
 was set for the first time which has so often been forced upon 
 the Church again, how to apply the peaceful doctrine of the 
 Sermon on the Mount to national politics. The solution was 
 perhaps more simple then than it has been on some later 
 occasions, but it was not absolutely simple. The case for the 
 patriots must have seemed very strong. Looking back now, we 
 can see that the author was right every way. Josephus' history 
 of the war shews the evil passions that tainted the spirit of the 
 heroically fighting Jews. The issue of the struggle might appear 
 but one more of the frequent examples of might triumphing 
 and yet not being right ; but the subsequent development of 
 Babbinism goes near to prove that the fight was not for the 
 truth, but for a narrow sectarian religion. And yet even now 
 we may confuse cause and eftect, and then these things were 
 hidden from the passionate actors in the tragedy. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxvii 
 
 The author of the epistle saw the right way clearly. This — 
 for those who accept the view here proposed of its occasion — is 
 one proof of his inspiration. But true inspiration bears analysis, 
 and we may further explain his insight by adding that he saw 
 the way because he had a real apprehension of the life, work and 
 Person of the Lord. He understood the supreme and final worth 
 of the salvation wrought through Him, and knew that even 
 the purest claims of patriotism could not outweigh devotion to 
 the new faith ; no such conflicting duty could be real duty ; 
 to merge the perfect work of Christ in Judaism could not be 
 right, and on no other terms might Jewish patriotism be satis- 
 fied. To his friends he could put this in an elementary manner : 
 You have given allegiance to the Lord Jesus as the Christ; no 
 other plea of honour can set you free from that allegiance. That 
 plain preliminary appeal runs through the epistle. 
 
 § 4. Therefore the author would deepen their faith hy using 
 the analogy of priesthood to explain the Person and the 
 work of Christ, 
 
 He also knew that, if he could lift the faith of these friends 
 of his to the level of his own, they would find in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ such strength as would enable them to make the 
 hard choice. Hence his letter consists of an intellectual argu- 
 ment mingling with an emotional appeal. And the argument 
 takes this form : Think of Him as a priest and I can make you 
 understand. If it be asked why he threw his reasoning into that 
 form, no certain answer can be given. No doubt the letter, like 
 most letters, is the continuation of earlier conversations ; the 
 subject had been discussed before and this illustration had been 
 used. Philo had used it in his theologising about the Word of 
 God. It may be that Philo himself had not been read by these 
 people. But, if not Philo, the masters of Philo had been theirs, 
 and the divine High-priest was a conception that might very 
 naturally have arisen from their Alexandrine education. But it 
 may be there is no need to search so curiously. Christ the 
 High -priest is an idea so frequent in the earliest Christian 
 literature that it can hardly have been derived from this, long 
 disputed, epistle. The germs of the idea are already to be found 
 
Ixxviii INT ROD UGTION 
 
 in two books of the New Testament which in other respects 
 have affinities with Hebrews, viz. 1 Peter and the Apocalypse, 
 but which, again, can hardly have drawn upon Hebrews. The 
 instinct, inference, or possibly tradition of the Church may well 
 be right, not in making the Levitical Law the main interest of 
 the epistle, but at least in recognising in that Law a natural 
 analogy for the instruction of Christians who had been brought 
 up under it. That the analogy is not evidently used in any 
 other book of the New Testament, and that the two books, just 
 mentioned, which do approach such use are specially connected 
 with Jewish Christianity (cf. 1 Pet. i. 1), shows that it is not 
 quite reasonable to say that all Christians, Jewish and Gentile 
 alike, knew the Old Testament well, and might as easily have 
 welcomed the same analogy. 
 
 § 5. He does this on the lines of atonement, mediation, approach 
 to God. The Jewish ritual affords a starting point for the 
 discovery of a truer type. 
 
 But this need not be laboured. Let us pass on to consider 
 how the analogy of priesthood is applied. The whole work of 
 priesthood may be summed up in four phrases from the epistle, 
 iKd(TK€(T6aiy ej av6pa>TTaiv, ra irpos tov <9eov, obos. The priest 
 "makes atonement" for sins. He does this because he is a 
 mediator, a man "taken from among men," yet standing "on 
 the God ward side" of men. Thus he opens a "way" by which 
 men cleansed from sin may enter the presence of God. See 
 ii. 17 f., v. 1 f., X. 19 — 22. This is all part of a series of pictorial 
 terms derived from the Levitical ritual, which forms the starting 
 point for the analogy. But, before we go further, it is necessary 
 to state plainly that nothing more than this is derived from the 
 Levitical ritual. After all the Levitical priest actually eflfected 
 none of these things. Nor could they ever be effected by the 
 institutional means he used however far developed. If the work 
 of Christ is conceived as a development or fulfilling of some- 
 thing thus begun, the argument of the epistle becomes un- 
 satisfactory. It could never convince any one who had not 
 already accepted the reality of the salvation brought by Him ; 
 and even to such believers it would only be an illustration, 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxix 
 
 helping them to formulate their belief in a special manner. 
 But the epistle reiterates the author's repudiation of that 
 purpose. He says these ancient rites were merely "shadow," 
 and the contrast drawn between the " shadow " and " the actual 
 type or symbol," avTr]v rrjv cIkovu, x. 1, shews that in choosing 
 the term " shadow " he did not mean to lay stress on its close 
 connexion with the *' reality" that cast its shadow before 
 itself, but on the quite unsubstantial fleeting nature of these 
 mechanical {TrcjroirjfjLevcdVy xii. 27), temporary phases of ritual. 
 The Levitical Law, like the Philonic philosophy, gave the 
 author a vocabulary, and started him with an analogy. But 
 he soon passes from analogy to a much more serious kind of 
 reasoning. When he uses an image from the old ritual he 
 never elaborates it fully, nor cares to get the correspondence 
 exact. Forgetting this, we soon meet with difficulties ; first 
 with slight ones, as when the author is thought to be detected 
 in some antiquarian inaccuracy ; then with great ones, when 
 we force our Lord's spiritual state into a material mould, and 
 dispute as to when His priesthood began, or the precise relation 
 of His intercession to His sacrifice, or enquire what the altar 
 (xiii. 10) or the sanctuary stands for. 
 
 § 6. But first he shews our Lord to be the heir of 
 Christship and SonsMp: 
 
 The epistle opens with a poet's vision of all which is after- 
 wards to be discovered to the readers. The author stands as it 
 were by the throne of God, and sees the light streaming from 
 His invisible glory ; impressing itself as with a seal on certain 
 eminences in Israel's history ; then taking definite human form 
 in One who inherits the name of Christ and Son from those 
 Christ-kings ; then this divine Person makes purification of 
 sins, and returns with His achieved inheritance to the exalted 
 throne from which He proceeded, and which He now shares as 
 King and Priest. The readers will have little doubt from the 
 first who is meant. In ii. 3 a passing reference to " the Lord " 
 would remove any doubt they might have felt. The rest of 
 chapter ii. gives another view of the work of salvation, this time 
 from earth, as it was wrought by Jesus in His humiliation ; 
 
Ixxx INTRODUCTION 
 
 and in iii. 1 — ^6 the two lines are brought together, and Jesus is 
 declared to be the Christ who as Christ is Son of God, and as 
 the fulfiller of all the imperfect Christship of the past, is Son of 
 God in the supreme sense. 
 
 So far, more has been said about our Lord's Christship than 
 His priesthood, and this idea is never dropped throughout the 
 epistle. But already the priesthood has been implied in KaQa- 
 pLOfjLov 7roiT)(Tdfi€vosj i. 3, and expressly mentioned in ii. 17. 
 Herein we perceive the novelty and the conservatism of the 
 writer's design. He would interpret the old tradition, of "Jesus 
 is the Christ," in new terms, " Jesus is our High-priest." The 
 tradition was quite primitive. It was first expressed as the 
 Christian creed by S. Peter when he said, in the region of 
 Caesarea, " Thou art the Christ." It was re-affirmed, after the 
 shock of the crucifixion, by S. Paul with the development which 
 that trial to the faith rendered necessary. Thus in Rom. i. 2 ff. 
 he wrote : " The gospel of God, which he promised afore by his 
 prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who was 
 born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was 
 declared " — or " defined " — " to be the Son of God with power 
 according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the 
 dead." 
 
 § 7. yet inheriting through the humiliation of real 
 manhood. 
 
 This great confession or profession — SfioXoyta — as our author 
 would call it, is fully adopted by him. But he retouches it, 
 deepening some lines, the witness of the Old Testament, and 
 (as S. Paul himself did in Colossians) the pre-existence of the 
 divine Son ; and modifying one line, since he thinks of the 
 Lord's "raising" rather as "ascension" than "resurrection." 
 But in particular he develops the " born of the seed of David 
 according to the flesh." That is an assertion of the hereditary 
 honour of our Lord's manhood. It is asserted in Hebrews also, 
 once in plain terms, vii. 14, and throughout the epistle wherever 
 the Christship is treated of. But for the most part our author 
 lays the stress on another aspect of our Lord's manhood, that 
 which S. Paul spoke about to the Philippians, ii. 5 — 11, His 
 humiliation. We can see the reason for this. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxxi 
 
 The readers of the epistle, with their imperfect apprehension 
 of the Lord's Godhead, were especially interested in His earthly 
 ministry, " the days of his flesh," v. 7. If S. Paul's epistles were 
 the first fruits of the Church's literature, the synoptic Gospels 
 followed them, and we may infer that at about the time when 
 Hebrews was written the thoughts of the brethren were being 
 widely turned to the memories of Jesus of Nazareth. With us 
 too a like revival of interest in the gospel story has taken place, 
 and we know what one of the results has been ; the limitations 
 of the Lord's manhood have for a while almost daunted faith. 
 This is a recurring illustration of what S. Paul says the Jews 
 especially felt in his day, "the scandal of the cross," 1 Cor. i. 
 23. And it is evident that the friends of this author felt it 
 painfully. 
 
 And herein is one of the causes of his choosing the analogy 
 of priesthood. In his first mention of the priesthood he insists 
 on real manhood being an indispensable qualification : " Where- 
 fore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his 
 brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest 
 in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins 
 of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being 
 tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted," ii. 17 f. 
 He goes on to meet the difficulty full and square. He insists 
 with all his power that our Lord is really " a man " — not merely 
 the representative of man. When speaking of His earthly 
 ministry, he reiterates the human name " Jesus." In speaking 
 of His exalted state, he adds "Christ," or in some other way 
 marks the difference. But he allows no infringement even thus 
 on the very manhood. Even on earth the Lord was Christ, 
 V. 5 ff'., and in (or beyond) the heavens He is stiU " Jesus," 
 iv. 14, xii. 23 ; " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to day, yea, 
 and for ever ! " is his cry, xiii. 8. And he insists on the 
 limitations of His manhood in uncompromising language. 
 " Though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things 
 which he suffered " ; He was ' ' made perfect " only at the last, 
 and only after He was made perfect did He " become the author 
 of eternal salvation," v. 8 f. He was indeed " without sin," but 
 as His making perfect was quite parallel to the making perfect 
 of other "just men," xii. 23, so His liability to sin was in all 
 
Ixxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 reality like theirs ; " For we have not a high priest that cannot 
 be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but one that hath 
 been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," 
 iv. 15. And in vii. 27 the natural meaning is that our Lord did 
 once for all and effectually just that which the Levitical priests 
 did often and ineffectually, i.e. offered sacrifice " first for his own 
 sins, and then for the sins of the people." This would indeed 
 be what S. Paul also meant in 2 Cor. v. 21, " Him who knew no 
 sin God made to be sin on our behalf ; that we might become 
 the righteousness of God in him." But the phrasing in Hebrews 
 is very bold ; if it is rather careless than studied, such careless- 
 ness is none the less significant. 
 
 In no way will the author suffer the real manhood, and 
 therefore the real humiliation, of the Lord to be explained 
 away. From chapter ii. it might appear that the Arian 
 'tendency had already shown itself. Some were inclined to look 
 upon our Lord as neither quite God nor quite man, but an 
 angelic Being. He rejects that by shewing that such Beings 
 are on an entirely different line. According to a quotation 
 he makes from Ps. civ. (Heb. i. 7) the angels are not persons in 
 the sense that God and man are persons. They are what we 
 should call " elemental forces." This was an idea which found 
 favour in later Judaism, and has been adopted by Origen and 
 by later theologians of undoubted orthodoxy. Something like 
 it appears in the Apocalypse, and it is evident from Heb. xii. 22 
 that it is not irreverent. The irreverence lies in a mean estimate 
 of nature. Seen from the throne of God the lightning and the 
 wind would be, as the Old Testament habitually describes them, 
 angels. 
 
 But the epistle merely glances at all that speculation. The 
 author is only concerned with the truth pertinent to his 
 purpose, that the problem of our Lord's Person cannot be 
 solved, or shelved, by fancying Him a mingled creature, neither 
 God nor man. He is both ; and only in frank recognition of 
 His manhood will His Godhead be apprehended. Accordingly 
 at ii. 5, after a final dismissal of the angelic theory, the argu- 
 ment proceeds to a vivid picture of the man Jesus fulfilling the 
 destiny of manhood, as it was described in the eighth Psalm. 
 The general sense of that psalm is that man for all his feebleness 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxxiii 
 
 has been exalted by God to high dominion, and the author of 
 Hebrews says that though as yet this exaltation has not been 
 seen in the case of other men, we do see Jesus thus glorified. 
 But he chooses for the picture of this " crowning with honour 
 and glory " so unexpected a moment that many commentators 
 prefer to do violence to his Greek rather than admit what 
 nevertheless he plainly states, viz. that the supreme moment 
 of humiliation before the Lord died was the supreme moment 
 of His glory on earth. If as is possible he had the passage in 
 Phihppians, ii. 5 — 11, in mind, he has deliberately substituted 
 " glory in humiliation " for S. Paul's " glory after humiliation." 
 In like manner the ''joy set before him," xii. 2, is parallel to 
 "the contest set before us" in the preceding verse, and means 
 the joy that the Lord experienced in His endurance of shameful 
 death. Glory in humiliation. Godhead discovered in manhood, 
 death on the cross the entry as High-priest into the very 
 presence of God with eternal salvation found for men ; this 
 is the series of inward and outward, eternal and visible, per- 
 fection through limitation, that runs through the epistle : see 
 especially x. 19 f., where the flesh of the Lord Jesus is the way 
 He inaugurated into the sanctuary, and xiii. 12, where the 
 crucifixion which to outward appearance was like the off- 
 scouring of a sacrifice — the execution as it seemed of a criminal 
 — was the priestly entrance of the Saviour of men into the 
 presence of the Father. 
 
 § 8. In this reality of the Lords manhood the sacramental 
 principle appears which governs the whole epistle. The wide 
 meaning of Sacrament in early theology : a sign partaking 
 of the reality symbolised. So in Christ true Godhead is 
 involved in true manhood ; a doctrine opportune for these 
 Alexandrine readers. 
 
 This is the sacramental principle. The word Sacrament has 
 been used in a very sacred but somewhat narrowed sense of late. 
 In the early Church it was applied to all visible symbols of the 
 eternal which were not mere signs, but partook of the reality 
 which they symbolised. If it be objected that this is a perverse 
 usage of the word in modern times, appeal may be made to the 
 fine essay on "Sacraments" in Lux Mundi by Francis Paget, 
 
Ixxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 late Bishop of Oxford, who shews how the two ritual sacraments 
 of Baptism and Holy Communion, ordained by our Lord, were 
 fitted for His purpose because they were not to be arbitrary 
 observances, but a particular application of that unity and 
 interfusion of the visible and the eternal with which God has 
 ennobled the whole of His creation. The author of this epistle 
 would agree with that. There can be little doubt that in his 
 day the two sacraments were closely bound up with the whole 
 church life. In vi. 4, x. 32 ((/xortor^eVres), and not improbably 
 in X. 22, he refers to Baptism, and it may be that the epistle 
 is coloured throughout by the phraseology and thought of the 
 eucharistic service. Yet he gives no direct teaching on these 
 rites, whereas the larger sacramental idea pervades his letter. 
 Thus he accepts and transfigures the scandal of the cross. Thus 
 he restates the mystery of Christ's Person, shewing how the 
 limitations of His environment, and — a favourite phrase — His 
 "suffering" were the most fitting means for the interpenetration 
 of His Godhead into earthly life. And thus, as we shall see, 
 the doctrine of His High-priesthood becomes, in the really 
 close reasoning of the epistle, far more than an analogy ; it 
 is an application of the sacramental principle of the unity of 
 all hfe. 
 
 But before we consider that three remarks must be made. 
 
 First, sacraments are not fancies which merely stimulate 
 thought, as when we say, " This clear sky makes me think of 
 heaven." They are moral realities, as when an officer's courage 
 evokes a like courage in his men ; for there the appeal is from 
 a visible act to the eternal divine quality of self-sacrifice which 
 has been implanted in manhood. And it is more than an 
 appeal ; it is the setting free of an invisible spiritual power — we 
 call it by an appropriate metaphor, "influence" — which over- 
 leaps the boundaries of matter, and joins the very souls of men 
 in one ; and moreover lifts them into a higher sphere of energy 
 where physical death is made of no account. So in hi§ doctrine 
 of Christ's Person and saving work, our author concentrates 
 attention on His perfect goodness — His earthly life was a 
 manifestation in this quality above all of eternal life ; and on 
 His offering being of His own blood, His very self, consciously 
 and willingly offered, while in chapter x. (the heart of the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxxv 
 
 epistle) he all but lays aside the sacrificial figures and founds 
 the whole in ^'will." 
 
 Secondly, this may be thought to prove too much. For if 
 all this be true, where is the difference between our Lord and 
 other men ? The whole creation is sacramental ; all men's lives 
 may be effective symbols of the eternal ; how then is He 
 unique 1 It may be answered that " unique " is not a happily 
 chosen term to describe our Lord's position. Not only in this 
 epistle, but throughout the New Testament the Godhead of 
 Christ is represented as uniting Him with men and so carrying 
 men with Him into God. In the end, says S. Paul, God shall 
 be all in all, 1 Cor. xv. 28. In 2 Pet. i. 4 the promise is that 
 men may become partakers of the divine nature. " As he is so 
 are we also in this world," says S. John, and, "We know that, 
 if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall see 
 him even as he is," 1 John iv. 17, iii. 2. And in Heb. i. 2 the 
 whole significance of the phrase would be spoilt if the article 
 were added to iv vi^ : all men are sons of God, not Christ alone. 
 
 And yet that eV vico, " one who is a Son," does not put Him 
 on a level with other sons. In Him, and in Him alone, the 
 divine Sonship was always apparent. There is a Christian ideal 
 which we keep in view but never consistently attain. Because 
 His disciples perceived that He did always live at the level of 
 tha,t ideal, they recognised in Him the light and source of all 
 life that is life indeed. Hence the primitive confession of His 
 Christhood, and the later definition of His Godhead. And yet 
 again that later definition was the discovery, or recovery, of 
 some still deeper truth which again and again has proved itself 
 a necessary truth for those who recognise the wonder and mystery 
 of life — of all mortal life running up into eternities. There are 
 these mysteries about and within us, and, as churchmen think, 
 nothing can give them sense and consistency except the centering 
 them in that supreme mystery of Christ's Person which is ex- 
 pressed in the sublime language of the Creed, "Light of light, 
 very God of very God... who for us men and for our salvation 
 came down from heaven " — all this manifested to us in One who 
 lived as a man among men on earth. This does not separate 
 Him from us. It brings Him closer than ever, for though there is 
 something here which passes our understanding, it is nevertheless 
 
Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 the indispensable presupposition to all our understanding of 
 ourselves and our surroundings. And accordingly the author 
 of Hebrews begins his epistle by setting forth this truth more 
 expressly than any writer had done before. He sets it forth ; 
 then leaves it. The rest of the epistle treats of the Lord Jesus 
 in the days of His flesh, and of the exalted state which followed. 
 The mode of treatment makes it seem at times that Jesus wins 
 through suffering to Godhead. But that is the view as seen 
 from earth ; that is the sacramental figure. The actual truth of 
 this " perfection " is more recondite, more univiBrsally of moment. 
 And the declaration of the Chiu-ch's tradition in the introductory 
 verses guards and gives reason to the whole complexity of the 
 freely handled idea. 
 
 And thirdly, this sacramental principle was one which the 
 readers could readily accept. For it is a principle which the 
 Alexandrine philosophy had learned from Plato. S. Paul, always 
 quick to take up words and thoughts which he could put to 
 effective use in his teaching, every now and then adopts the 
 sacramental phraseology, but it was not congenial to him. 
 Philologically considered, " sacramental " and " mystical " are the 
 same word, and in our English Prayer Book "mystical" does 
 mean just "sacramental." But "mystical" has of late taken 
 a more particular signification which is almost antithetical to 
 that of " sacramental," implying the inward union of the mind 
 with eternity, a union not mediated by outward things. And in 
 that sense S. Paul is mystical by nature, not sacramental. It is 
 a remarkable coincidence — but see John xiv. 26, xvi. 13 — that 
 this Alexandrine thinker, with his vivid style of picture-language, 
 should be writing to Alexandrine Platonists, who needed in- 
 struction concerning the Person of Christ, at a time when the 
 interest in our Lord's earthly life was being newly roused. The 
 coincidence produced this first sketch of the application of the 
 sacramental principle to the elucidation of the gospel story. 
 Later, the evangelist of the fourth Gospel would use the same 
 principle with childlike simplicity and still more profound 
 though tfulness in that narrative of the life of Jesus Christ which 
 displays, more splendidly yet quietly than any other writing. 
 Godhead interpenetrating manhood in His Person, and from 
 Him as from a source transfiguring the life of men everywhere. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxxvii 
 
 § 9. Christ the High-priest is mediator " on the Godward side^^ 
 consummating the eternal priesthood which runs through 
 nature and history. 
 
 Now we come to the main thought of the epistle, the High- 
 priesthood of Christ. The idea itself, and the language in which 
 it is elaborated, is derived from the high-priesthood of Aaron 
 as described in the books of the Law. The Book, not .the 
 contemporary usage at Jerusalem, is the source ; the Tabernacle, 
 not the Temple, is the illustration. And the ritual of the Day 
 of Atonement is especially employed. That was a service in 
 which the high priest took the great part, not the other priests. 
 When the epistle was written the distinction in Greek between 
 apx^-^P^vs i^nd Upevs was not carefully observed, and we must not 
 too hastily read subtle significances into the author's application 
 of this title to our Lord ; His " priesthood " in the wide sense is 
 the great point, and in Ps. ex., from which the phrase "priest 
 after the order of Melchizedek" is taken, the word is simply 
 Up€vs. Nevertheless the author's habit is to make the most of 
 what is peculiar and striking in words, and it is reasonable to 
 suppose that when he styled our Lord " High Priest," he did 
 mean to emphasize His eminence in a priesthood which all men 
 shared. It is a title which expresses, symbolically, what we 
 have just now been considering, viz. that our Lord, though He 
 lived on earth as a man among other men, was the first to attain 
 "perfection" of manhood, and so became the representative of 
 all men in the presence of God. 
 
 For that, according to the epistle, is the essence of priesthood. 
 It is TO. TTpbs Tov deov, ii. 17, v. 1. In Ex. iv. 16 the Lord 
 promises Moses that Aaron shall be his spokesman ; av de avrco 
 €(rrj TO. TTpos TOV ^eoj/, " and thou shalt be to him on the Godward 
 side.'' That is the excellent translation which has been proposed 
 for these words in Hebrews. " On the Godward side " : George 
 Herbert wrote " Man is the world's High priest," and again 
 
 "To this life things of sense 
 Make their pretence: 
 
 In the other Angels have a right by birth; 
 Man ties them both alone, 
 And makes them one, 
 With the one hand touching heaven, with the other earth." 
 
Ixxx viii INT ROD UCTION 
 
 The whole of that poem, " Man's medley," might be quoted 
 in illustration of some of the deepest thoughts of this epistle. 
 This verse has obvious affinities with chapter ii. The idea 
 recurs in other applications. Thus the Messianic quotations in 
 chapter i. point to the Christ-kings of Israel standing on the 
 Godward side of the nation, and the nation on the Godward side 
 of the world. The heirship of the Son to all that has been 
 created through Him, i. 2, and the phrase bC ov to. navra koI 
 8i ov ra irdvTay ii. 10, indicate that growth of nature up to God 
 which we term evolution, and in the quotation from Ps. cii., in 
 i. 10 — 12, there is a hint of the same God ward-drawing vitality 
 in changing and perishing things which persists throughout 
 their mutability. So again in xi. 3 the ideal is of the successive 
 ages of history being linked together by an influence, not 
 material, which ever works on the Godward side, and in spite of 
 much appearance to the contrary, still leads mankind upward 
 and onward in steady coiu-se. The heroes of faith, who are 
 celebrated one after the other in the rest of that chapter, stand 
 in just this Godward relation to their several generations. The 
 divine movement of history goes on, till at last (verses S9 f.) the 
 priestly, Godward-drawing responsibility is found to rest upon 
 the readers of the epistle, whose duty done or failed in will 
 aflfect the perfecting of all their predecessors. We can of course 
 see the same thing going on still, a father standing on the 
 Godward side of his family, one who sacrifices life for a cause 
 standing on the Godward side of his contemporaries, a parish 
 priest standing on the Godward side of his parish, and so indeed 
 each person who does his duty in that state to which it pleases 
 God to call him. We might term all this " natural priesthood." 
 The writer of Hebrews would prefer " eternal priesthood," for it 
 is in work like this that "the other world," 17 oiKovfievrj r) /xt'X- 
 Xovaa (ii. 5), breaks in ; in this the sacramental quahty of life 
 is perceptible. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE Ixxxix 
 
 § 10. The author names the eternal and really typical priesthood 
 after Melchizedeh^ as the artificial shadowy priesthood had 
 been named after Aaron. 
 
 He does however distinguish this priesthood by another term, 
 which no doubt seemed appropriate enough to his Alexandrine 
 friends, but which obscures his meaning to us. He calls it priest- 
 hood " after the order of Melchizedek." We see from Philo how 
 the Jewish philosophers of Alexandria had used the mysterious 
 story of Melchizedek to illustrate their doctrine of the Word of 
 God, a doctrine which is often near akin to the idea sketched in 
 the last paragraph. We who have not been brought up in the 
 Alexandrine schools have to make an effort in taking their point 
 of view. And our author has not made that effort easier by his 
 too scholastic treatment of the subject in chapter vii. This is 
 the most Philonic in form of all his writing. And yet the dry, 
 half logical, half fanciful, argument is punctuated by a few great 
 phrases which outweigh much tediousness, and upon which if 
 we fix our attention, we shall not miss his real meaning. What 
 he says is in effect this. The Levitical priesthood is but a ritual 
 institution. All such wear out and pass away. There is no seed 
 in them which grows to perfection. And to day we see this 
 institution proving ineffectual {aaOcvh koI dvoxpeXes, vii. 18). 
 Is it to make way for another ordinance of like kind ? 
 
 No, a better hope (vii. 19) has arisen. In the life and death 
 and victory over death, in the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we 
 hope that the Godward-drawing influence which the Levitical 
 institution represented by ecclesiastical symbolism {Kara vofiov 
 evToXrjs aapKivrjs), but which has always been a real working 
 power in the whole world, has reached its destined perfection. 
 This influence has been due to a divine life, always in the world, 
 indissoluble amid all changes and chances ; and in Jesus Christ, 
 who died for men and yet lives, we believe that we recognise the 
 source and the complete manifestation of that life (/cara dvvafiiv 
 ((oris aKarakvTov, vii. 16). He has fulfilled the typical priesthood, 
 and His priesthood, by which we really come to God (St' rjs 
 €yy i(ofi€v Tco Oea, vii. 19), shall never pass away as institutional 
 ordinances do {dTrapd^arov ex^i ttjv iepoiavvrjv, vii. 24). " He is 
 
 ^2 
 
xc INTRODUCTION 
 
 able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God 
 through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them," vii. 25. 
 
 The institutional priesthood, which merely stimulated thought 
 and emotion (cf. x. 3), is named after a person in the sacred record 
 of Israel's history. The high priest of this artificial order is 
 Aaron. The High Priest of the other, real and living order is 
 Jesus Christ. But cannot a name be found in the same sacred 
 story which may stand as a type of Him, representing all the 
 imperfect efforts of true priesthood which He inspired and has 
 now carried out to their inherent perfection {d(f>a)iJLoia>fjLivos rw 
 vis Tov Ocov, vii. 3) ? Will not " Melchizedek " serve this purpose ? 
 That personage in the dawn of history appears exercising a 
 priest-king's function, outside the limits of the chosen people, 
 dominating our great ancestor Abraham, and described in 
 mysterious language which suggests eternity of life, vii. 2 f. 
 Here surely is the world-wide, unending priesthood we are 
 seeking. The choice of this name might seem unimportant, but 
 it gains importance when we find a psalmist taking up the name 
 and the idea long afterwards in a psalm which not only testifies 
 to the inextinguishable aspiration of God's people towards the 
 consummation of this effectual priesthood, but also pictures so 
 remarkably the glory of our ascended Lord. " Thou art a priest 
 for ever after the order of Melchizedek," he says ; and " Sit thou 
 on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool," 
 vii. 15, 21, viii. 1, cf. i. 13, v. 6, xii. 2. 
 
 § 11. But another element in true priesthood is atonement, ivhich 
 in Hebrews is oftener represented as cleansing. 
 
 In some such terms as these our author might translate his 
 Alexandrine reasoning were he confronted with his modern 
 readers. But he would have to confess that his phrase "after 
 the order of Melchizedek " does not cover all he has to say about 
 the priesthood that was consummated by Jesus Christ. There 
 is nothing about "propitiation," "atonement," in the story of 
 Melchizedek. How did our High Priest win that forgiveness of 
 sins which was needed by sinful men if they were really to enter 
 the holy presence of God ? This question is answered in the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE xci 
 
 three following chapters, viii. — x. In these we have the ex- 
 position of that other key-word, IXda-Kca-Oaiy ii. 17. 
 
 That verb is found elsewhere in the New Testament only 
 once, and there in the sincere, but as yet imperfect prayer of 
 a beginner in the faith, Luke xviii. 13. The reason for this 
 infrequency is not hard to guess. In pagan religion, and in 
 popular misunderstandings of Judaism and Christianity before 
 and since, men have conceived of " propitiation " as the changing 
 of God's mind from hostility to favour. No such idea is 
 admitted in the New Testament. Man is reconciled to God, 
 Rom. V. 10, 2 Cor. v. 18 ff. ; only in a sense which requires 
 explanation can we say in the language of the second " Article 
 of Religion" that Christ died "to* reconcile His Father to us''^; 
 even of the Old Testament the consistent teaching is, " I have 
 loved thee with an everlasting love," Jer. xxxi. 3, "I will heal 
 their backsliding, I will love them freely," Hos. xiv. 4. The 
 "wrath" of God, in either Testament, is not contrary to His 
 love, but His love itself burning its way against opposition. 
 The same feeling about IXda-Kca-BaL appears in S. Paul in the one 
 place where he uses the kindred term Ikaa-Trjpiov, Rom. iii. 25. 
 He guards the true idea by adding Bia rrjs nio-Tecos. Another 
 kindred word is IXaa-fxos, twice used by S. John, 1 John ii. 2, 
 iv. 10, and not elsewhere in the New Testament. And this is 
 noticeable. For it is one of the connecting links between 
 Hebrews and the Johaunine writings, which stand in the same 
 line as Ezekiel and the priestly writings of the Old Testament. 
 In all these books healing is provided for those who feel the 
 stain rather than the chain of sin. So Ezekiel, for all his 
 insistence upon sacrifices, shows what he recognised as the 
 permanent underlying significance of sacrifices, in such a passage 
 as xxxvi. 25 f. : " And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and 
 ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your 
 idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and 
 a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the 
 stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of 
 flesh." Compare with that Heb. ix. 13 f., "For if the blood of 
 
 1 See note on **The idea of Reconciliation or Atonement" in 
 Sanday and Headlam's Romans^ pp. 129 f. 
 
xcii INTRODUCTION 
 
 goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that 
 have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh : how 
 much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal 
 Spirit ofifered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your 
 conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" And 
 here we meet with that other word, Kadapi^civ, which the author 
 prefers to iXda-Kca-dai. His habit is to translate " propitiation '* 
 in terms of "cleansing." 
 
 § 12. This cleansing is through the Bloody which is life given hy 
 Ood to re-create life. Leviticus: the suffering Servant of the 
 Lord. • 
 
 Bath terms however are priestly. And this is especially 
 evident when we observe how the cleansing is effected. It is 
 by " blood." Here is a form of speech which would seem very 
 strange to us if we were not so accustomed to read of the Blood 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament that we have 
 become somewhat dulled in our apprehension of the startling 
 figure — voiBpoX yeyopafxev rals aKoais (Heb. V. 11). Indeed we 
 hardly recognise anything of the nature of figure here. Our 
 Lord's death involved bloodshed ; that violent bloodshedding 
 was the price of our salvation. But that idea, though glanced 
 at elsewhere in the New Testament, never enters this epistle. 
 The bloodshedding in Hebrews, aifiareKxva-ia, ix. 22, is the blood- 
 sprinkling of a sacrifice, and to understand — what to a Christian 
 educated in Judaism would have been as familiar as the doctrine 
 of sacraments is to those bi-ought up in the church Catechism — 
 we must turn to Lev. xvii. lOf. : 
 
 "And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of 
 the strangers that sojourn among them, that eateth any manner 
 of blood ; I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, 
 and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the 
 flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar 
 to make atonement for your lives : for it is the blood that maketh 
 atonement by reason of the life." 
 
 In the Hebrew, as R.V. margin shews, one and the same 
 word stands throughout for "soul" or "life." The sense is 
 obscured by varying the translation. The main point is that 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE xciii 
 
 life atones for life. Indeed we might say "life cleanses life." 
 For the Hebrew ritual term, although in other connexions it 
 means " cover," is very likely akin in this connexion to a similar 
 word in Babylonian ritual which does mean "cleansed" And 
 in any case the essential idea is deeper than any ritual metaphor. 
 It is that in sacrifice a life offered to God renews man's spoiled 
 and broken life, re-unites it with the life of God, carries it to its 
 destined perfection in God. 
 
 This is true even of the Levitical theology. For the theology 
 of this passage is a conscious, an inspired transformation of an 
 older, crude religion. The older base is a mere taboo against 
 eating blood. That taboo is taken into the Mosaic law to stay 
 there for a while till it passes away with the rest of the " shadow." 
 But it is also developed into a truth about God which is to last 
 as long as time. " Atonement " is God's grace ; cf. ii. 9 : He 
 himself, so far from having to " be propitiated," provides means 
 for reconciling His alienated children to himself. And He finds 
 these means in the mystery of life, and through life brings new 
 life to the dead. Life is appointed by Him to re-create life. 
 Contrast this *' life-blood... given upon the altar" for renewal 
 of life with what Aeschylus says of life-blood spilt upon the 
 ground: dvBpos 5* eirciBav alfi avaairdcrrj kovis drra^ Oavovros 
 oxjTis tar di/aorao-tf, Eum. 647 f.; cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 33 f., 2 Sam. 
 xiv. 14. 
 
 How far, even in the Levitical conception, is this mere figure ? 
 So far as it was expressed by the use of the blood of victims it 
 was of course mere figure. The life of bulls and goats could 
 never be anything but external to the offerer. Unless atonement 
 or salvation could be wrought for men entirely by an act outside 
 themselves, these sacrifices were merely fictions. And such they 
 were ; the Levitical ritual was a shadow. But whenever the 
 principle was transferred from the ritual sacrifices to deeds in 
 which men willingly offered themselves to God's will — to be used 
 by Him in life or death just as He called them to be used — then 
 it did become possible for one man's life to re-create the life 
 of others. And even in Old Testament history we find this 
 happening. Very imperfectly some of the kings of Judah did 
 
 1 See Encyclopaedia Bihlica, art. "Bitual," § 8. 
 
xciv INTRODUCTION 
 
 this. More perfectly the great prophets did it, especially 
 Jeremiah. Above all that person, celebrated in Is. liii. as the 
 Servant of the Lord, by whose suffering and death the peoples 
 were converted and saved, did this. He may have been a 
 historical personage, or he may have been a lyric type, the 
 expression of an inspired prophetic poet's imagination. At any 
 rate his f©^ aKarakyros was a supreme illustration of the Levitical 
 theology " life re-creating life," and from apostolic times onward 
 he stands as the forerunner of our Lord, the real "type^' which 
 could be really fulfilled in Him. We in the twentieth century 
 can hardly avoid the presumptuous fancy that the epistle to the 
 Hebrews would be easier for us to understand if the author had 
 called our Lord's High-priesthood " priesthood after the order of 
 the suffering Servant " instead of " after the order of Melchizedek." 
 
 § 13. The Blood of Christ is His life enriched hy death^ 
 through which He appeared before God on our behalf. 
 
 For as we read on and enter upon the profounder chapters 
 viii. — X., it becomes clear that our Lord's *' priesthood " reaches 
 its essence in His "sacrifice," and His sacrifice is through His 
 death. It is not His death, simply. The sacrifice is what He 
 offered, and that was His life. But He could only offer it by 
 dying. Yet again it was not through death, simply. The series 
 of words concerning " suffering " are as frequent as those which 
 concern death. The phrase in the Litany, "By thy cross and 
 passion," is in strict accord with the theology of Hebrews. A 
 sacrifice, an offering, is, from the very nature of such words, 
 made at one definite time, once for all. But this is a matter that 
 overpasses the lexicographical precision of single words. This 
 most real offering was a moral action, a personal action with 
 influence from persons to persons, Christ, God, men. And 
 therefore it was bound up with the development of character — 
 *' Christ learned obedience by the things which he suffered ; and 
 having been made perfect, he became etc.," v. 8. There was a 
 moment when the sacrifice was offered, and there was a moment 
 when Christ was hailed as High Priest, v. 10. But to press this 
 very far is to make our interpretation servile to the figurative 
 letter. The "becoming," first of Christ then of "those that 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE xcv 
 
 obey " Him, is as important in the argument of the epistle as is 
 that other point — which nevertheless is exceedingly important — 
 that in Christ's action, as in man's, and especially as it was 
 in that of the first readers, there came one supreme moment, 
 up to which all the past led, and upon which all the future 
 turned. 
 
 And that was the moment of His death. If, instructed by 
 the Levitical theology, we were to substitute " life " for " blood " 
 in all those passages of the epistle where the blood of Christ is 
 named, much vivid truth would be recovered for ears blunted by 
 convention. But something too would be lost. In Levitical 
 ritual the death of the victim was not the sacrifice, but the 
 indispensable preliminary ; for except by the victim's death, its 
 blood (which was its life) could not be set free for sacrificial 
 " pouring " or " sprinkling." And, taught here by the ritual as 
 before by the Levitical theology, we amend our substitution, and 
 by the "blood of Christ" understand His "life set free and 
 enriched by death." We should probably come near the practical 
 sense of the epistle if we said this life enriched by death was 
 what Christ ofiered. But the epistle does not quite say that. 
 Following the analogy of the Levitical ritual, the author speaks 
 of His entering the true sanctuary 'through his own blood," 
 bici Tov Idiov alfjiaTos, ix. 12, and sanctifying the people "through 
 his own blood," xiii. 12, and of God bringing Him from the dead 
 " in the blood of the eternal covenant," eV ai/xart 8La6r}Kr)5 alcovlovy 
 xiii. 20, and of our entering the true sanctuary " in the blood of 
 Jesus," €v rw aiftari 'It/o-oi}, x. 19. As Aaron entered the sanctuary 
 eV cLL^aTL aXXorpio), the sacrificial blood being but the instrument 
 by which, or the sphere in which, the offering — itself a mystery 
 not defined — was made, so also Christ. But His offering is 
 defined. The simplest word possible is employed. He offered 
 eavTov^ "himself," ix. 14. Comparison with x. 34, xii. 3, shews 
 how high a value the author set on this colourless word. It is 
 as though he checked his picturesque style when he tried to 
 touch the very heart of things. So in the same clause, ix. 14, 
 he abandons even the sacred imagery of the blood, and substitutes 
 the sublime phrase bia Trvev^aros alcovlov, which might be feebly- 
 paraphrased " through the spiritual virtue of the divine holiness 
 of life." And in ix. 24 Christ enters the true sanctuary simply 
 
xcvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 to " appear before the presence of God on our behalf '* : even the 
 offering of " himself" is left unmentioned : in profoundest, naked, 
 truth there is no gift of any kind which God requires. 
 
 § 14. The significance of death for Christ and for all 
 men: it is the perfecting of life. 
 
 But all this is but an example of the translation of symbolic 
 into "real" language which, from the very constitution of all 
 language, it is impossible to carrj'^ out successfully ; yet which 
 must be attempted by those who would grapple closely with the 
 mind of this most symbolising writer, and which from time to 
 time he essays himself. Omitting further details of this kind, 
 let us pass on to consider why he should assign so effective a 
 value to the suffering of death. Alexander Ewing, Bishop of 
 Argyll and the Isles, wrote to Erskine of Linlathen, "The 
 outward sufferings of Christ were, so to speak, the accidents of 
 His mission.... But I do not know that the d7/ing of Christ affects 
 me more than the fact does, that ' He ' was acquainted with grief ; 
 for in this fact, Christ being what He is, we have expressed to us 
 the Divine sympathy with our sorrows in a way which leaves 
 nothing to be wished for^." There is much harmony with the 
 epistle in this, but not complete harmony. The author would 
 hardly agree that the sufferings were but accidents of Christ's 
 mission ; he would say that we have to deal with sin as well as 
 with sorrow ; and he would insist that Christ's actual death was 
 all important. And in that insistence he would be in agreement 
 with S. Paul and S. Peter and with our Lord himself ; for though 
 it is by no means plain that our Lord started upon His ministry 
 with a plan of salvation which included sufferings and death — 
 in that sense these might be described as "accidents of His 
 mission" — it is plain that when S. Peter confessed Him to be 
 the Christ, He did receive or had received, by what we may 
 perhaps call the inspiration of His incarnation, assurance of the 
 Father's will that by His death He should bring the promised 
 kingdom of Heaven. Is there here some mystery, hidden in 
 that complete and universal nature of things which none but 
 
 1 Memoir, p. 371. Isbister, 1887. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE xcvii 
 
 God can gather into view ? It may be that such confession of 
 our limits is the necessary prelude to all discussion of this 
 matter. "We drop our plummet into the depth, but the line 
 attached to it is too short, and it does not touch the bottom. 
 The awful processes of the Divine Mind we cannot fathom^." 
 Yet we can go some way towards gaining light from the nature 
 of things even as we behold them. In what follows here 
 Dr DuBose's chapter on "Human Destiny through Death" in 
 his High Priesthood and Sacrifice has given much help. 
 
 Death may be considered as an evil, but also as a good. 
 S. Paul generally speaks of physical death as an evil of the same 
 kind as disease seems to be considered in the Gospels. In 
 1 Cor. XV. 24 — 27 he says death is " the last enemy that shall be 
 abolished." But in Heb. ii. 14 f., a passage which looks as though 
 it were in a manner based upon the passage in Corinthians, it is 
 not death but "the fear of death," and the "bondage" due to 
 that fear, which is represented as the evil. If it be objected 
 that the devil is here said to be the lord of death, answer may be 
 made in a fine sentence from Dr DuBose, which lovers of the Old 
 Testament will be quick to understand ; " The devil himself is 
 the supreme evil only as he overcomes us ; overcome by us, he 
 is the supreme means of grace." What the author of Hebrews 
 here lays stress upon is our Lord's use of death as the means of 
 His victory. And that fits well with the heroic view in ii. 9 of 
 Jesus crowned with glory and honour for the suffering of death. 
 The general idea of deisith in this epistle is not as an evil disease 
 of mortal men, but as the great means of fulfilling their destiny. 
 
 And that is what our Lord thought. "Whosoever would 
 save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life for 
 my sake and the gospel's shall save it," Mark viii. 35 and parallels. 
 No doubt He meant to include in this losing of life that " death 
 to sin," or to the old self, of which S. Paul so often speaks. But 
 when we remember what He said about the travail pangs of the 
 Kingdom, Mat. xxiv. 8, Mar. xiii. 8, it is certain that He was also 
 thinking of the death of the body. And indeed it is hardly 
 possible that there can be any thorough dying to the old self 
 
 ^ Sanday and Headlam, Romam, p. 94, Note on '♦ The Death of 
 Christ considered as a Sacrifice." 
 
xcviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 unless it includes willingness to face physical death if God so call 
 a man. That was indeed S. Paul's mind too, and for himself 
 he did not always think of death as an evil, whatever he may 
 have said in some turns of his theological arguments ; see 
 Phil. i. 21—26, and cf. Acts xx. 24. 
 
 The paradox, if it be a paradox, is indeed dissolved in the 
 light of ordinary life. In quiet times death may appear as the 
 unfortunate cutting short of pleasure or usefulness, the disease 
 of mortal nature, the penalty of man's sinful condition. But 
 at other times death for a man's country, for a cause, for " Christ's 
 sake and the gospel " can well be looked upon as divinely destined 
 completion, reXeiaja-t?, of a man's life, soul, self, his TrepLTroirja-Ls 
 ylrvxvs. It was in a time of severe trial that it was said of the 
 righteous man : " Being made perfect in a little while he fulfilled 
 long years " Wisdom iv. 13. ** Trial," " temptation," ireipaa-fxos, 
 generally bears this intense signification in the New Testament. 
 Probably it does in the Lord's Prayer, and "Lead us not into 
 temptation" ought to be interpreted by the standard of the 
 cross ** where," — so sang Dr Watts in the same spirit as the 
 Book of Wisdom — " where the young Prince of Glory died." If 
 we are not quite wrong in the setting we have decided upon for 
 Hebrews, ireipaa-fjios bears the intense meaning there, and readers 
 who might soon be *' resisting unto blood " themselves would be 
 the more apt to appreciate the pregnant issues of a heroic death. 
 
 Now transpose the key. Still remembering how great and 
 hopeful a crown of life is a heroic death, think not of heroism 
 but of the perfecting of all the "goodness" of our Lord Jesus 
 in His death. Then these words of Dr DuBose will seem 
 grounded in reverent reason : " The death of Jesus Christ was 
 no mere incident or accident of His human career. It was the 
 essential thing in it, as what it means for us all is the essential 
 thing in human life and destiny," for " the mystery of man is 
 the mystery of death, and the mystery of death is the mystery 
 of man ; each is interpretative and explanatory of the other." 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE ETISTLE xcix 
 
 § 15. Third element in Chris fs priesthood^ approach to God. 
 B^ the way He went and is men too must go : He re-enacts 
 achievement in them. 
 
 " What it means for us all " is the forgiveness of sin, that 
 is the cleansing and cleansing away of sin, and in consequence 
 our unimpeded access to the presence of God. " Having there- 
 fore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the 
 blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new 
 and living way through the veil, that is to say, the way of his 
 flesh ; and having a great priest over the house of God ; let us 
 draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our 
 hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed 
 with pure water," x. 19 — 22. Here is our fourth key- word, 6b6s. 
 And, according to the translation here adopted and justified 
 in the note on the passage, this way is the way of our Lord's 
 flesh, i.e. we men must in our own lives re-enact, or have re- 
 enacted in us, that " perfecting " which our Lord went through 
 in His earthly life. 
 
 Now it may be that again in this connexion we ought to bear 
 in mind the limits of our faculty for reasoning things out. It 
 may be that there are phrases in the epistle which hint at 
 depths beyond the reach of our plummet. And of course all 
 the thoughts of the epistle are, as Origen recognised, " wonder- 
 ful," outrunning our thought. Still it is evident that on the 
 whole the author does mean us to believe that our sin is 
 forgiven and the entrance is opened for us by an act of God in 
 Christ which He enables us to make our own. The salvation is 
 not worked upon us from outside as by a ritual ordinance. It is 
 worked by inward moral connexion, as by a person influencing 
 persons. The divine "way" is not a higher thing than influence. 
 If it were it would be indeed beyond our understanding, but 
 it would be also, as far as we can in any manner conceive, 
 incapable of producing any effect upon us worthy of a personal, 
 or, as the epistle puts it, of the living God. Christ enables men 
 to be " perfected " when they pass along the way He made His 
 own in His flesh. Only the perfection, the Godhead which, 
 from the point of view taken in the epistle after the opening 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 verses have removed the possibility of misconstruction, He 
 attained, has raised His "influence" to such a pitch that this 
 way may be represented not as "His own" but as "Himself": 
 " for we are become partakers of the Christ, if we hold fast the 
 beginning of our confidence firm unto the end," iii. 14. And 
 with regard to that preliminary of perfection, the forgiveness of 
 sin, a like process may be recognised. Sin is forgiven in being 
 cleansed away. " Cleansed away " is part of the ritual imagery, 
 and the author applies that imagery very boldly in vii. 27 ; see 
 p. Ixxxii above. Changing the metaphor — all language is but 
 more or less metaphorical — and ignoring the details of ritual cor- 
 respondence, we may suppose him to mean, not merely that our 
 Lord bore our sins, but that He, as much as we, had to " over- 
 come " sin, being as He was " tempted in all points like as we 
 are." The result of that overcoming and its effect for His 
 " brethren " has been set forth so well by Dr DuBose that it 
 would only be darkening counsel to seek for other words : 
 
 "I do not know how better to express the truth of the 
 matter than to say, in what seems to me to be the explicit 
 teaching of our Epistle, and of the New Testament generally, 
 that our Lord^s whole relation to sin in our behalf was identical 
 with our own up to the point of His unique and exceptional 
 personal action with reference to it. Left to our nature and 
 ourselves it overcomes and slays all us ; through God in Him He 
 overcame and slew it. He did it not by His own will and power 
 as man, but as man through an absolute dependence upon God. 
 And He made both the omnipotent grace of God upon which 
 He depended, and His own absolute dependence upon it, His 
 perfect faith, available for us in our salvation. He re-enacts 
 in us the victory over sin and death which was first enacted in 
 Himself." 
 
 That is what the epistle would seem to mean by the phrase 
 in ix. 12, alcDPiav Xtirpaxriv evpdfievos^ " Christ through his own 
 blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained 
 eternal redemption." 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE ci 
 
 § 16. This interaction of men with God is illustrated hy the 
 doctrine of the Covenant which the author developes from 
 Jeremiah. His affinity with Jeremiah in respect of forgive- 
 ness, national crisis, freedom from religious bondage. 
 
 That this interaction of man with God through Christ in 
 the work of salvation is according to the mind of the epistle 
 appears in its treatment of the Covenant in chapter viii., and 
 of the Will in chapter x. The Covenajit forms the transition 
 from "priesthood" to the "priestly sacrifice" (ix.), and the 
 passage about God's Will sums up the whole of the previous 
 argument, and leads on to the appeal (x. ]9ff.) with which the 
 final, practical section of the epistle begins. 
 
 The word by which the LXX translates the Hebrew Bertth, 
 biadrjKrj, means in Greek generally, though not always, a testa- 
 mentary disposition rather than a covenant ; and it is possible 
 that this meaning has to some extent shaped the author's 
 phraseology in ix. 15 — 17. It is not however necessary to 
 resort to that explanation of the passage, since the sacrifices 
 with which God's covenants with His people were inaugurated, 
 from Sinai to the Last Supper, sufficiently account for all that 
 is there said. Some are of opinion that the choice of diaOrjKrj 
 instead of a-wdrjKr) in the LXX was meant to vindicate the 
 peculiar character of the divine covenant, as originating from 
 God and not as a merely mutual agreement between equals. 
 That character of course it has, in accordance with the prin- 
 ciple which underlies not this epistle only, but the whole 
 New Testament and Old Testament also ; the principle so 
 forcibly enunciated by S. Paul in Rom. viii. 12, "So then, 
 brethren, we are debtors," but quite as plainly in Ex. xx. 2 f., 
 " I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land 
 of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none 
 other gods before me." Njevertheless though not " merely " 
 mutual, the divine covenant is a covenant, and mutual relations 
 are its essence. In the quotation made by our author from 
 Jer. xxxi. 31 — 34 this mutuality is emphasised by his use of 
 the Greek instead of the Hebrew Bible. Where the Hebrew 
 said "Which my covenant they brake, although I was an 
 
cii INTRODUCTION 
 
 husband to them, saith the Lord," his quotation from the 
 LXX has " For they continued not in my covenant, and I re- 
 garded them not." No one who interprets the details of Holy 
 Scripture by the whole will suppose this to mean that God 
 changed from love to indifference, but it does illustrate the 
 principle we have been examining, viz. that salvation is an act 
 of God on man as well as for him, and that the very nature of 
 God and man makes it impossible for God's forgiveness, though 
 God unceasingly forgives, to operate except when men answer 
 personally to His personal influence. 
 
 And it is clear that our author meant to bring the "Cove- 
 nant" to bear on his doctrine of forgiveness especially. That 
 was one reason why he chose to quote from Jeremiah rather 
 than from any other part of the Old Testament. For Jeremiah's 
 oracle ends emphatically with forgiveness (Heb. viii. 12), and it 
 is just those words in the quotation which are repeated in x. 17, 
 at the end of the paragraph on "the Will." But there were 
 other reasons also for the choice. One was, we may suppose, 
 that the occasion of Jeremiah's utterance was so like the 
 occasion of this letter. Jeremiah spoke when Jerusalem was 
 about to fall before Nebuchadnezzar ; this letter was probably 
 written when the war with Rome was breaking out which was 
 to end in the calamity of a.d. 70. Then again Jeremiah spoke 
 of a "new" covenant, and it was the renewal of the ancient 
 covenant which our Lord inaugurated in His Blood at the Last 
 Supper ; see especially Luke xxii. 20. One chief reason against 
 laying stress on the coincidences of Heb. ix. 15 — 17 with the 
 language of testamentary law is that the governing thought 
 which miderlies the whole is not Roman law, but Christ's 
 fulfilling of Israel's covenant hope on the night in which He 
 was betrayed and the day on which He died. 
 
 But above all, because it is the idea which pervades and 
 vivifies all the rest, Jeremiah's words are chosen as expressing 
 that ascent from shadow to reaUty. which is the doctrinal theme 
 of this epistle, as it was the special revelation committed to 
 Jeremiah. Both authors wrote at a crisis when the institu- 
 tional form of religion was being broken up. To those whom 
 they addressed this might well seem the end of religion itself. 
 In the narrower sense of the word religion — scrupulous reverence 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE ciii 
 
 —it was almost an end. But with the loss of outward bonds 
 to God, Jeremiah saw the vision of a real union of the heart 
 between Israel and God. And to some extent his vision was 
 realised ; as in the Psalter of the post-exilic Jewish Church. 
 Yet on another side the increasing domination of the Law made 
 the later Jewish Church more institutionally scrupulous than 
 before. And when Hebrews was written not only did the war 
 with Rome threaten an abolition of these institutional bonds, 
 but the larger spirit of Judaism itself was fretting to be free 
 from them. The author, being a real churchman, would assure 
 his friends, who as yet are so imperfect churchmen, that in 
 Jesus Christ the whole difficulty is more than overcome. Quite 
 freed from all the hamper of artificial religion, which is worn 
 out and passing away, they may enjoy real forgiveness and enter 
 really into the presence of God. The New Covenant of the 
 heart is now being realised. Only it is a covenant. There 
 must be an answer to the movement of God. And for these 
 friends of his the answer must be given in the courageous 
 acceptance of a dangerous duty, a painful dissociation from 
 venerable traditions and ancestral friendships. 
 
 That practical appeal continually breaks in. It lends an 
 ominous undertone to many phrases which have primarily a 
 theological purpose. Thus ix. 22, "And apart from shedding 
 of blood there is no remission," must be interpreted not only 
 in the light of the doctrine of sacrifice generally, or of Christ's 
 sacrifice eminently, but also of that sacrifice which was then 
 being demanded from the readers, and is darkly foreshadowed 
 in xii. 4, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood." These men 
 could not refuse to join the revolutionary standard without 
 incurring the murderous resentment of their compatriots. All 
 the more honourable was their willingness to listen to so 
 academically reasoned a persuasion as their master sends them. 
 If in his time of trial Jeremiah lifted some Judaeans from 
 religion to heart-religion, this letter lifts its readers from religion 
 to theology. " ' Theology,' " wrote Forbes Robinson, " is the 
 thing and * Religion ' is not, I think, nearly such a fine word. 
 Theology is the Learning, Knowing, Studying God^." Hebrews, 
 
 ^ Letters to his Friends, by Forbes Robinson, p. 67. 
 
 HEBREWS h 
 
civ INTRODUCTION 
 
 a letter to men who may soon be martyrs, testifies more than 
 any other book of the New Testament to the moral force of 
 good theology. 
 
 § 17. This thought of interaction is carried further 
 in the doctrine of the Will: 
 
 The mutual, personal significance of the Covenant is de- 
 veloped in X. 1 — 18 into the still intenser theology of the Will. 
 A short passage concerning the old sacrifices introduces this. 
 The obvious purpose is to contrast the fictional value of a 
 brute's blood with the real value of a person's willing act. But 
 what has just been said about '' undertones " applies here too. 
 After all there was something not altogether unreal in these 
 fictional sacrifices. They "called to mind"; they moved the 
 heart. By the mere " doing " of these sacrifices nothing would 
 ever be produced like m kmd to the sacrifice of Christ. Yet the 
 offerers wanted to become like Christ ; good priests led priestly 
 lives and helped Israelites to become like Christ ; they, as well 
 as the writer of this epistle, could deduce Christlike teaching 
 from their sacrificial system. Another quotation from Mr 
 Forbes Robinson well expresses this quasi-typical relationship 
 ' of the Jewish sacrificial law. " It dimly hints (as sacrificial law 
 in other nations does) at the fact that the ground of the universe 
 is self-sacrifice — that the ground of all human, whether family 
 or national, life is a filial sacrifice.'* 
 
 The Psalms however touch the reality which the Law "dimly 
 hints." And from a psalm the author takes words which he 
 could place quite appropriately into the mouth of our Lord as 
 He entered upon His ministry, a ministry which overpassed the 
 artificial bounds of Judaism and was to transform the whole 
 world (x. 5). " I come," He said, " to do thy will, God." The 
 ritual imagery is for a moment dropped. The argument winds 
 inward to the soul of truth. Christ did God's will. There was 
 His sacrifice. That sacrifice becomes real for us when we make 
 it our own by doing God's will as He did. Yet the two efforts. 
 His and ours, even before they coincide, are not separate. For 
 here is the secret power of influence again. Once He had 
 perfectly done God's will, it became more possible for us to 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cv 
 
 attempt the same, at last possible for us to succeed. That 
 secret power is deep in the constitution of the ordered universe, 
 the '^cosmos." For in the cosmos there is but one real will, 
 namely God's. Self will, or feeble will, in men is but their 
 refusal of absolutely free will. For absolute freedom is security 
 in God from all the obligations of shifting slaveries (cf. ii. 15). 
 If, leaving what we fancy to be our private wills, we enter God's 
 will, we are borne irresistibly on therein, "consecrated'* to 
 perfect activity ; and this entry into God's w^ill has been opened 
 for us by the sacrifice of Christ. He having learned obedience 
 by suffering, at last, at the moment of His final obedience, lost 
 and found His will perfectly in God's. That uniquely perfect 
 consecration of a man's will to God, one perfected Son's to 
 the Father of all, has had supreme influence ; it has, so to 
 say, righted the tottering destiny of man. From that moment 
 the ideal of perfect consecration has been brought again 
 within the range of men's practical aim. Yet, since that aim 
 is practical, they must submit to the discipline of gradually 
 w^orking it out. 
 
 § 18. which in this epistle is concentrated upon the one act of 
 wUl, first wrought hy Christ in dying^ now to he made 
 their own in the particular duty of the readers. 
 
 Thus perhaps we may paraphrase the carefully distinguished 
 tenses, rjyiao-^ivoi eV/x€v (with the supplement dta ttjs it pocr^opas 
 ...€(f>d7ra^, cf. vii. 27, ix. 12, 26, 28), T€T€\€L(ok€V tovs dyia^ofxevovs. 
 With the idea, here suggested, of that last present participle 
 compare 7roLa>v in the final blessing, xiii. 20 f. That may be 
 taken to imply that, whereas the writer prays for his friends 
 that they may do their one hard duty and so enter the will of 
 Qod, he himself has already made that entry, and would have God 
 carry on his gradual sanctification. A like thought of gradual 
 sanctification may be involved in the two participles of ii. 11, 
 6 T€ dyLd((ov Kcil ol dyLa(6p.€voi, and again in the present tense 
 of ela-epxoixeda els Tr)v Kardiravaiv of iv. 3 as contrasted with the 
 immediately following aorist ol Tria-TcvaavTes, " we who made 
 the initial entry into God's will when we embraced the faith 
 of the Church are continually pressing deeper into the peace of 
 
 h2 
 
cvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 that will.'* For the two chapters on the Rest of God contam 
 a preliminary sketch of the doctrine of God's will ; cf. ii., iii. 
 with X., and (as illustrative parallel) Dante's '^ E la sua volontate 
 e nostra pace " with S. Augustine's " Quia fecisti nos ad te, et 
 inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te." 
 
 Yet it musb remain doubtful whether this thought of gradual 
 sanctification is in harmony with the mind of this epistle ; 
 whether these present tenses are not more properly interpreted, 
 in this epistle, of the one great conversion of will, repeated in 
 all those who from time to time are brought into the allegiance 
 of Christ. For, true though the other thought is generally, in 
 this epistle the stress is almost entirely on the one decisive act 
 The one moment of Christ's offering His sacrifice, the one sin 
 which may prove irreparable, the one brave act of duty which 
 the readers are called to perform : these are the eminent ideas, 
 and the last of them explains why. This epistle was written 
 with one special purpose, to induce certain waverers to become 
 by one decisive act whole-hearted followers of Christ, and this 
 purpose moulds the whole shape of its theology. 
 
 Thus S. Paul's doctrine of the faithful being " in Christ " is 
 known to our author, but is not much dwelt upon in the epistle. 
 It would naturally be known to him, for S. Paul, who made it 
 so vital and profound, did not discover it, but with the whole 
 of the primitive Church inherited it from Judaism. "The 
 Christ of the Lord" had been to early Israel the king who 
 represented the nation. Sometimes it was used as a title for 
 the nation itself. So this author uses it, of course with a 
 widening of the original application, in his quotation from 
 Ps. Ixxxix. 50 f. in xi. 26. In the later Jewish Church "The 
 Christ" was recognised as a person, the King of the expected 
 kingdom of Heaven, but the idea of inclusive representation 
 was preserved. There was no Christ apart from his people, 
 and, as in Dan. vii., he could be considered as almost em- 
 bodying in himself "the saints of the Most High" who were 
 to "possess the kingdom for ever." This conception of the 
 Christ including all the faithful, "the Christ that is to be," 
 was grandly developed by S. Paul in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians^ In Hebrews it appears more nearly in its Jewish 
 ^ See the Commentary and the Exposition by the Dean of Wells. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cvii 
 
 simplicity, as in iii. 14, " For we are becoine partakers of the 
 Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto 
 the end." Here we have the "in Christ" doctrine, but it is 
 coupled with an "if," and that "if" is just what prevents the 
 writer from developing it further. He had to concentrate all 
 his might on the preliminary task of urging his friends to make 
 the doctrine their own by loyalty to Jesus Christ, — a particular 
 act of loyalty to the definitely envisaged person of the Lord. 
 S. Paul, even in our author's place, might have preferred to 
 say, "Believe that you are in Christ and you will be able to 
 do this hard duty." Our author found it better to say, " Follow 
 Christ loyally, do this duty, and you will know what it is to 
 share with Him the peace of God." 
 
 His way may seem a lower way than S. Paul's. But it 
 ought not to be so understood. His trust in the all-embracing 
 will of God, and in the already perfected sacrifice of Christ, 
 allows him to lay this emphasis on duty. Though he urges his 
 friends to make their effort, he is aware of all that is being 
 divinely done for them ; their effort will not be the initial 
 impulse in the whole complex purpose of God for their salva- 
 tion. And he knew his friends, and knew what arguments would 
 best prevail with them. They were men of fine and romantic 
 honour and the appeal to loyalty would come home to them. 
 Their conception of the mystery of Christ's Person was im- 
 perfect, and they could not understand properly what "in 
 Christ" implied. Their interest in His earthly life, and the 
 imaginative form which, if the epistle was congenial to them, 
 thought seems to have generally taken in their minds, all this 
 was good reason for pressing the romantic, imaginative, sacra- 
 mental idea of following Christ, rather than the mystical idea 
 of union in Christ. 
 
 § 19. And such concentration was natural in the crisis lohich 
 the author recognised as a ''^ coming ^^ of Christ. 
 
 And there was yet another peculiarity in their circum- 
 stances which made them apt to be "followers" of Christ as 
 " captain " (cf. ii. 10, xii. 2). In the troubles of these times He 
 was "coming," and He was coming to call His soldiers after 
 
cviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Him. That is a picture which is repeatedly presented in the 
 Apocalypse. If the Apocalypse and Hebrews be not both 
 connected with the revolt against Rome, it is at least evident 
 that they are both connected with some crisis of like character. 
 In the eschatological discourse of our Lord which precedes the 
 Passion in each of the synoptic Gospels, it is difficult to avoid 
 recognising a premonition of the fall of Jerusalem mingling 
 with the prophecy of the final " coming " of the Son of man. 
 Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that our Lord and other 
 observers of the signs of the times foresaw such a conclusion to 
 the increasing zeal of the patriots. In S. Luke's version of the 
 discourse it seems plain that a prediction of the fall of Jerusalem 
 is followed and completed by a prediction of the great Advent. 
 That advent filled the horizon of the early Church. Had one 
 of its members been asked. What is the Christian hope? he 
 would have answered without hesitation, The coming of our 
 Lord as Christ. And that is the hope which fills this epistle. 
 But it is no longer a hope for the quite near future ; as it was 
 when S. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, but not when he wrote 
 to the Ephesians. In Hebrews, as in Ephesians, a vista opens 
 into a long future for the Church. Writer and readers are 
 breaking with a past which is dear to them, but regret is 
 transformed into a vigorous outlook upon a new world (cf. Tr}v 
 oLKovyL€vr)v Trjv fieWovaav, ii. 5). When once the neipacrfios is 
 over, youth will be renewed under the banner of Jesus Christ 
 (cf. xii. 24, 8iadrjKT}s vias ficaiTT}). And to the writer, as to 
 S. Luke, the revelation has occurred, that "the advent" is a 
 mystery with many senses. Whatever the great final "coming" 
 may be, Christ can come at another time and in another way ; 
 and in the then imminent crisis he believed that Christ was 
 really coming. That seems the evident meaning of x. 25, 
 "...exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see 
 the day drawing nigh." In the atmosphere of this thought 
 we catch undertones— such as we have already observed to be 
 natural to our author— in i. 6, " when he again bringeth in the 
 firstborn into the world," or even ix. 28, "so Christ also, having 
 been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a 
 second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto 
 salvation." 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cix 
 
 § 20. This crisis explains the three passages in which 
 repentance seems to he limited. 
 
 A crisis was at hand. In that crisis Christ was coming ; 
 it was, so to say, the first stage in the realisation of all that the 
 traditional hope of His advent meant. The crisis would bring 
 the readers of the epistle face to face with a definite choice 
 between loyalty to Him and apostasy. The choice was of 
 infinite importance ; its effects would reach into the sphere of 
 eternal realities ; if they made the wrong choice it was more 
 than uncertain whether they would ever find opportunity for 
 correcting it. Take no thought for doubtful morrows but do 
 your duty to day, is the burden of the letter. And this con- 
 centrated anxiety of the writer for his friends explains those 
 three remarkable passages, vi. 4 — 8, x. 26 — 31, xii. 16 f., in 
 which he might seem to be denying the possibility of repeated 
 repentance. If the letter were a general treatise of theology, 
 laying down general rules for all Christians of all times, it 
 would be natural to interpret his words in that manner. The 
 special occasion of this, not treatise but letter, makes all the 
 difference. 
 
 Nevertheless "no second repentance" has been understood 
 at different times to be his teaching (cf. Intr. II. §§ 3, 13 
 pp. xxvii f., Ixiii fF.). Tertullian so understood him. So does 
 his latest commentator Dr Windisch, whose detached note on 
 "The denial of the second repentance" is a valuable summary of 
 material for forming a judgement on the question. He argues 
 that the rigour of Hebrews was a logical development of the 
 original principle of the Church. This principle was inherited 
 from the Old Testament. The Law had allowed no forgiveness 
 for any but sins "of ignorance"; see e.g. Num. xv. 28 — 31. 
 Ezekiel implies the same in his chapter, xviii., on the wicked 
 man turning away from his wickedness and finding life. This 
 inherited principle had been intensified by the eschatology from 
 which the gospel started ; when the Kingdom, into which the 
 Christian was called, was immediately expected, there was no 
 "place for repentance " after the one absolute repentance which 
 constituted his entry into the Kingdom. S. Paul implicitly. 
 
ex INTRODUCTION 
 
 and without perhaps conscious reflexion on the problem, held 
 the same doctrine. That is evident from 2 Cor. vii. 10, " For 
 godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation not to be re- 
 pented of — ficrdvoiav els (raTrjpiav dfxeTafieXrjTov — but the sorrow 
 of the world worketh death." And though it cannot be said 
 that this austere rule was universal in the primitive Church, we 
 do find it again in 1 John v. 16 f., " If any man see his brother 
 sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him 
 life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto 
 death : not concerning this do I say that he should make 
 request. All unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin not 
 unto death." This precept is probably connected with the 
 passages in Hebrews, and with our Lord's word about the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost. In fact the proclamation of forgive- 
 ness for all the world through the death of Christ involved 
 constancy as an inherent condition. A second repentance for 
 those who fell away from the new life thus given was impossible, 
 except by some special command from God Himself. Such 
 special command, for a certain limited period, was declared in 
 the Apocalypse (ii. 5, 16, 21 f., iii. 3, 15 — 19 ; cf. xiv. 6f.), and 
 ten years later in the Shepherd of Hermas. Yet even this was 
 but a particular indulgence, a second repentance, not a re- 
 pentance that might be repeated yet again. On the other hand 
 the epistle of Clement of Rome witnesses to a milder doctrine 
 which was accepted in a large part of the early Church, and 
 which became presently the general rule. The Fathers explain 
 away the rigour of Hebrews by interpreting its language as 
 denying second baptism but not repeated repentance. 
 
 It would not be fair to decide for or against Dr Wiiidisch 
 from this free sketch of his argument. Yet what we have 
 described as his hard literalism (cf. p. Ixiv f.) is evident. In the 
 notes on Heb. vi. 4 flf. reasons will be found for supposing 
 that the question of " second repentance " is not raised by this 
 passage at all. The readers had been wondering whether they 
 had not better go back to the simplicity of their ancestral 
 Jewish faith and find a good practical '* repentance " in so doing. 
 Their friend tells them that this would be in the nature of 
 things impossible, since to do this would be to dishonour the 
 allegiance they have already given to Jesus as Christ. Plain 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxi 
 
 honour demands faithfulness to Him. No comphcated doubts 
 about other claims of honour can annul that claim. How is 
 it conceivable then that a new and better life can be attained in 
 a continued state of base apostasy ? A quotation Dr Windisch 
 makes from Philo — different though his application of Philo's 
 thought is — ^may be used to describe the situation : 6 yap 
 dfivTjaTLav ecj)* ols rjixaprev alTovjxevos ovx ovTCds fcrr) KaKobaifKoVy 
 &(TT iv <tt XP^^V rrcikaicov ddiKrjfxdTcov alTclraL Xvaiv €T€pa Kaivo- 
 TOfxelv, de spec. leg. I. 193, p. 240. 
 
 This explanation of Heb. vi. 4 ff. will hardly win assent 
 from those who recognise no connexion between the epistle 
 and the Jewish revolt. But if any other severe crisis be taken 
 as the occasion of writing, it will be easy to understand all the 
 three passages on repentance in a different sense from Dr 
 Windisch. The author is not enunciating a rule of church 
 discipline. He is impressing the extreme peril of the situation 
 upon his own friends. Nothing, he urges, can be compared 
 with the gravity of this choice before you. The wrong choice 
 will be a grievous sin. It is the one sin in all the world for you, 
 and this choice is your one great chance. The time is perilous. 
 In the coming disturbances you may die, or you may be in- 
 volved in an inextricable tangle of evil. You will certainly not 
 have another chance of Christian nobility like this ; it may well 
 prove that, this neglected, you may never find the opportunity 
 again of salvation through Christ whom you now dishonour ^ 
 
 ^ As these lines are being written a parallel is offered in the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon in Westminster Abbey, Sunday 
 Oct. 1, 1916 — the opening message of the National Mission of 
 Hepentance and Hope: *'It seems to me almost certain that if this 
 opportunity goes by unused, it can never, never come again. Wait 
 till six months after the war is over, and the new start, possible now, 
 will be unattainable. At present all is tense and keen ; the spirit of 
 sacrifice, the spirit of readiness to offer ourselves and what we love, 
 is ' in the air.' " Times, Oct. 2, 1916. 
 
cxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 21. Repentance is based upon the sacrifice offered once for 
 all, which nevertheless must he repeated in each disciple. 
 
 In the prayer, xiii. 20 f., with which the author concludes, 
 the sacramental correspondence is recapitulated between the 
 trial and the one decisive victory of the Lord Jesus in His 
 earthly life, and the trial through which the readers are going 
 and the one decisive duty they have to do. And the sacrificial 
 aspect of the victory is presented in the phrase eV olyiaTi 
 8La6r]Kr]s alcDvlov. This preoccupation with the need of one 
 decisive act of will on the part of his friends may have been 
 part of the impulse which led the writer to select the analogy 
 of priesthood for his fresh exposition of the traditional doctrine 
 of Christ's Person and work. For a sacrifice is an offering. 
 The essential, generous work of a priest is to offer gifts, v. 1. 
 It is involved in the very idea of a gift, an offering, a sacrifice, 
 that it should be given " once for all." If it could be repeated 
 that would mean that something had been kept back in the first 
 giving. So far then as the analogy goes there could be but one 
 sacrifice of Christ, offered once for all. And there is more than 
 the truth of analogy in this. There is the emotional truth that 
 this sacrifice, being what it was, the dreadful crucifixion, cannot 
 be thought of as repeated, ix. 26, and even the prolongation of 
 it, as it were (dvaa-ravpovvTasy vi. 6), by men's continued or 
 repeated unfaithfulness would be a horrible thing. And there 
 is the satisfaction of our need for full assurance of full free 
 pardon ; the sacrifice is "full, perfect and sufficient," x. 14, 
 ix. 14. Hence the greatest stress is laid in the epistle on this 
 offering once for all. There is no repetition ; nor can the 
 sacrifice be styled "eternal," since such an epithet might, by 
 confusion between its temporal and moral senses, lead to mis- 
 understanding. In ix. 14 5ta irvevyiaTos alcoviov could not be 
 changed into els t6v alcova without ambiguity, nor into els t6 
 dirjveKes without inaccuracy. 
 
 Nevertheless something is implied in dm irvevfiaros ala>viov 
 which obliges us to consider rather more carefully what we 
 mean when we assert that the sacrifice of Christ is neither 
 repeated nor continuous. The argument from the nature of a 
 gift or offering becomes fallacious as soon as the offering is 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EFISTLE cxiii 
 
 pictured in the mind materially and the material picture 
 allowed to direct our moral apprehension of the truth. If we 
 think of Christ's sacrifice as it was sacramentally worked out 
 on earth, it culminates in the moment of His death. If we 
 insist on the ritual imagery, that moment is alone the moment 
 of sacrifice. But if we let the ritual imagery go and think of 
 what Christ did for our salvation in His earthly course, it seems 
 highly artificial to separate His teaching, obedience, faith and 
 suffering from His death, as though the ministry were merely 
 moral, the death alone effectual. For what is " merely moral " 1 
 And how does " moral" differ from " spiritual " 1 And how can 
 a single act be cut away from the whole process of character ? 
 In like manner we may imagine Christ's heavenly work be- 
 ginning at the moment of His death, now pictured as His 
 entrance into the presence of God. At that moment He 
 "offers," and the offering is completed. But just as to S. Paul 
 He who was once crucified abides for evermore the crucified one 
 (ea-TavpMfiepos), SO we may think of the High Priest abiding for 
 ever in the state of " one who has offered." That is to say in 
 modern phrase, "He pleads the sacrifice" ; in the words of the 
 epistle, " He ever liveth to make intercession for us." But how 
 difficult it is to explain what we mean by the intercession or the 
 pleading as distinct from the offering. We try to do so, and 
 fail. The suspicion will occur to us that we are trying to do an 
 impossible thing, viz. to express what is spiritually real as a 
 whole, in the analytic language of " appearance." So it is when 
 we ask. Was there a beginning of time ? Is there a boundary 
 to space ? and (must we not add ?) " When did our Lord become 
 High Priest?" In ii. 3 7 the present tense of ikda-KecrdaL is 
 much to be noticed. There, at any rate, though a ritual term 
 is employed and Christ's work is conceived as " propitiation " 
 rather than "salvation," it is not contemplated as an instan- 
 taneous process. 
 
 Of that word however Dr DuBose writes thus : " The use of 
 the present tense, instead of the aorist, expresses the fact that 
 Christ's single, and once for all completed, act of (on the part 
 of humanity) self-reconciliation or at-one-ment with God, is 
 continuously being re-enacted in and by us, as we by His en- 
 abling grace and aid are enduring temptation and attaining 
 
cxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 victory, are dying His death and rising into His life.'^ That 
 may appear too subtle an exegesis of the isolated word. But 
 the more the epistle is studied as a whole, the more reasonable, 
 after all, will it prove. As S. Paul, using the figure of birth, 
 writes to the Galatians as though Christ should be born again 
 in them. Gal. iv. 19, so this author, using the figure of priest- 
 hood, writes to his friends as though they were in their own 
 persons to offer the sacrifice of Christ again ; notice especially 
 xiii. 12 f. The parallel is the closer because the Galatians, like 
 these readers, were already Christians but needed to make a 
 fresh definite choice of action if they were to be fully Christian. 
 " My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ 
 be formed in you," is exactly like " Since Jesus suffered sacri- 
 ficially without the gate, let us go forth unto him without the 
 camp, bearing his reproach." How far the author of Hebrews 
 was influenced in the conduct of his analogy from priesthood by 
 the eucharistic service of the Church is a doubtful, if it is even 
 a proper question. But in the eucharistic service of the Church 
 in England there is a striking illustration of this idea of the 
 repeating of the one completed sacrifice in the persons of the 
 worshippers. In the prayer of consecration memorial and 
 dramatic representation is made of the "full, perfect, and 
 sufficient sacrifice,'^ as it was first prefigured by the Saviour 
 himself at the Last Supper ; in the following prayer that 
 sacrifice is re-enacted in the words "And here we offer and 
 present unto thee, Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies to 
 be a reasonable holy and lively sacrifice unto thee." In this 
 prayer it is made clear, as in the epistle, that the re-enacting 
 depends on the preceding completion. It might be suspected 
 that the separation of the second prayer from the first, with 
 which it was originally combined, is an instance of that bondage 
 to the analogy and that inopportunely logical analysis which 
 has unnecessarily multiplied the theological problems of the 
 epistle. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxv 
 
 § 22. And though^ after that initial re-enacting of the one sacri- 
 fice^ S. Paul, S. John and Hebrews uphold the ideal of 
 sinlessness, they acknowledge means for the renewal of the 
 faithful if they do sin. 
 
 The truth might be put in this way. Though, on the one 
 hand, the epistle represents Christ's priesthood as culminating 
 in the one sacrifice, and concentrates its exhortation on the one 
 duty of the readers, yet on the other hand, Christ's priesthood 
 as a whole is its theme, and it was recognised as a canonical 
 scripture in vii-tue of its universal appeal. So regarded, the 
 narrower view of its doctrine of repentance appears impossible. 
 How can that view be thought consistent with vii. 24 f. ? " But 
 he, because he abideth for ever, hath his priesthood unchange- 
 able. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them 
 that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to 
 make intercession for them.'^ The words are as wide as those 
 of our Lord, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest... and him that cometh to me 
 I will in no wise cast out," Matt. xi. 28, John vi. 37. Neither in 
 this epistle, nor elsewhere in the New Testament, is the rule 
 of ecclesiastical discipline provided. All still moves in the 
 region of ideals. And the difficulty is not in the stern denial 
 of repentance but in the unattainable (as it seems to us) hope of 
 perfection. 
 
 S. Paul takes for granted that Christians have really risen 
 to a new life in Christ and are really free from sin. His 
 converts did sin, and he deals with their sins as he is inspired 
 to deal with them severally, cf. 1 Cor. v. 4 f. with 1 Cor. vii. 6, 25. 
 He goes so far as to deliver an unrepentant member of the 
 Church '*unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the 
 spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," 1 Cor. v. 5. 
 And as soon as an obstinate sinner does repent he rejoices in 
 his restoration, 2 Cor. ii. 5 S. In this case extreme measures 
 appear to have been taken which were not generally necessary. 
 The main point is that in S. Paul's epistles we see Christians 
 guilty of sins, and yet the apostle abates nothing of his ideal of 
 perfect holiness. He is not laying down a rule, but undauntedly 
 
cxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 insisting on the true life with its immense hox)efalness. In the 
 first epistle of S. John the same ideal is insisted upon. By 
 this time the ardour of first conversion is no longer universal in 
 the Church and a twofold difficulty is arising. Commonplace 
 sins are frequent, and since these are inconsistent with the 
 ideal, some are inclined to maintain that such faults are not 
 actual sins. S. John answers that they are, and that whenever 
 a man commits them he falls out of the new life into which he 
 has been born : yet through the blood of Jesus he may recover 
 the perfect holiness. And there is no need for Christians to 
 sin ; his letter is written that they may not sin. If they will 
 but be true to the power of the new birth they will not 
 sin: 1 John i. 7—10, ii. 1, iii. 4—6, v. 18. But, secondly, 
 Christians are sometimes guilty of such sin that it is plain 
 they intend to persist in it, so plain that there would be in- 
 sincerity in praying for them. To this S. John does not answer 
 " You must not pray for them," but very guardedly, " There is 
 a sin unto death : not concerning this do I say that one should 
 make request." He recognises the real difficulty, and insists 
 upon sincerity in intercession. Whether there would be any 
 limit to his own intercession he does not say. 
 
 Hebrews stands in a manner outside this line of develop- 
 ment because of the very special circumstances which called it 
 forth. But in the important matter of the ideal the author 
 is entirely at one with S. Paul and S. John. There is no 
 faltering in his hope. Christ's redemption (ix. 12), salvation 
 (i. 14), kingdom (xii. 28), sacrifice, all mean that Christians like 
 Christ are to be perfect. If we ask in astonishment whether 
 it is really to be supposed possible that a man should go through 
 his whole earthly life without any sin, we are indeed involved in 
 a difficulty, for our Lord did nothing less than that. But it is 
 not the interesting practical question. Our Lord did indeed no 
 less than that, but He did so much more. His progress ending 
 in perfection ; His being ;^(opi9 d^aprias and learning obedience 
 till at last He was Kcxcopio-fievos otto tS>v dyi.apT(oKa>v (iv. 15, 
 vii. 26 ; cf. ix. 28) ; this is the great pattern. There is the same 
 paradox ; He is one with men yet supreme among them, in this' 
 matter of sinlessness as in the whole mystery of His Person. 
 Yet that does not make the union unreal. The unreality comes 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxvii 
 
 in from our reasoning by negatives. It is transmuted when we 
 act upon the bold hope. One who strove manfully for right and 
 conquered sins one by one in himself, would obviously be nearer 
 to the perfect goodness of Christ, than one who committed no 
 "sin" and lived a useless ignoble life. 
 
 § 23. Is this re-enacting of Chrisfs sacrifice accomplished in the 
 death of self-will, or is bodily death the ultimate necessity '( 
 In the apostolic age this question would not seem im- 
 portant. 
 
 Or we may put it thus : our perfection is the ideal which 
 we go through life to realise ; but the Lord Jesus, as man, 
 achieved that ideal : ii. 8 f., x. 9 f., 14. Does the epistle promise 
 that we may in this life realise the ideal 'I In 1 John iii. 2 f. the 
 realisation seems to wait till the great Advent. " Beloved, now 
 are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we 
 shall be. We know that if he shall be manifested, we shall be 
 like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And every one that 
 hath this hope set on him purifieth himself even as he is pure." 
 S. John substitutes "manifestation," or the showing of One 
 already present but invisible, for " advent," Trapovcria, as of One 
 coming from another place ; but no doubt he has the great final 
 manifestation in view^ With this we may compare Heb. ix. 28. 
 But in xii. 23 another thought appears. In the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem there are already " the spirits of just men made perfect." 
 Mr F. Field wi'ote of this^ : " To avoid ambiguity a slight 
 change is necessary ; namely Ho the spirits of just men who 
 have been made perfect.' It is the jicst men, not the spirits, that 
 are made perfect, and that not in the future state, but here 
 on earth, where alone they can be subject to those trials and 
 conflicts, by the patient endurance of which they are pre- 
 pared for a higher state of being." He quotes examples of 
 
 1 See Dr Brooke's note on the passage in the International 
 Critical Commentary, and especially p. xxi of his Introduction. 
 
 2 Otium Norvicense {Pars tertia. Notes on selected passages of N.T., 
 1881 ; second edition published by Cambridge University Press in 
 1899 with title Notes on Translation of the New Testament). , 
 
cxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 misunderstanding of the English version. One from Archbishop 
 Sumner's Exposition on Ephesians will here suffice : " The in- 
 heritance of the purchased possession when ' the spirits of just 
 men' will be *made perfect,' no longer clouded by the pains 
 and anxieties which attend a fallen state." Sumner is cer- 
 tainly wrong and Field right. Yet there was possibly some- 
 thing in the author's mind which he has missed. There is 
 in the epistle, combined with the idea of progressive disci- 
 pline and progressive, salvation, that other line of thought 
 in which stress is laid on the decisive, culminating moment. 
 It would seem that death, as the crowning act of life, is con- 
 sidered to be the moment of a man's perfecting. At death, or 
 through death, the ideal is realised. This is well put by a 
 writer in the Cowley Evangelist^ April 1895 (reprinted July 
 1914) : 
 
 "Our Lord is leading all who are following the movements 
 of His Holy Spirit to the true balance of their being. Some He 
 deals with more strenuously and rapidly by giving them early 
 opportunities of embracing His will, when to do so means to 
 embrace what is hard for flesh and blood ; but sooner or later, 
 if life is here at all prolonged, there must come the occasion 
 when the will either surrenders itself afresh to Him in some 
 time of great trial, or sinks back upon itself, only too soon to 
 energize in movements of rebellion against the Divine will. It 
 is by such ways that He reveals to men that they cannot * live 
 by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God.' They are led a step nearer to the perception 
 of what it is to be nourished by God's very life in the abeyance 
 of all else. And all are being led to this attitude who rightly 
 are preparing for the end, for this abeyance is a marked 
 characteristic of death, and will be, to such as are prepared 
 to receive it, the blessing which accompanies death's chastening 
 discipline." 
 
 Almost every sentence in this quotation illustrates some 
 point in the practical or the doctrinal exhortations of the 
 epistle. And it indicates a right answer to a question which 
 will have already occurred to any one who reads these notes, 
 viz. Is the sacrifice in which we re-enact the sacrifice of Christ 
 effected by bodily death only or also by the death of our self- 
 will ? S. Paul would surely say that it is certainly by the death 
 of om* self-will ; " I have been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxix 
 
 and yet no longer I but Christ liveth in me : and that hfe which 
 I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the 
 Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me," Gal. ii. 20. 
 The same answer, implied by the whole of this epistle, becomes 
 explicit in xi. 17, where the change from the aorist of LXX to 
 the perfect Trpoaevrjvoxfv of the quotation seems designed to 
 show the reality, and the abiding reality, of the sacrifice of 
 Isaac. Isaac was not slain, but he was truly sacrificed, and that 
 sacrifice has become the type of the consecrated life of the Israel 
 of God, and of every losing and finding of man's will in the will 
 of God which shall have been consummated since. 
 
 Indeed the question would have been less insistent to the 
 New Testament writers than it is to us. To them the great 
 day for each believer was "the day" of Christ's advent or 
 manifestation, not the day of death. And to them the life that 
 is hid with Christ in God was so absolutely the only real life, 
 that death was quite naturally contemplated as one act, 
 however decisive, in the unbroken life, already being lived, 
 of eternity. Whether that decisive act came through the 
 "chastening discipline" of physical death, or of some earlier 
 hour of supreme renunciation, was hardly a distinction to be 
 dwelt upon. Perhaps in quiet times it would seem the one, 
 in times of persecution and martyrdom the other. And, if our 
 hypothesis be accepted, Hebrews was written at a time when 
 martyrdom threatened. Hence in Hebrews the solemn thought 
 of— what we should call — literal death is never far from the 
 surface. That kind of death is chiefly glorified in this epistle ; 
 it is the longed-for " perfecting." Cf. § 14, p. xcvii f. 
 
 Yet it should also be noticed that in xi. 39 f. the Old 
 Testament saints, celebrated in the whole preceding chapter, 
 are said either to have waited for their perfecting till the times 
 of Christ ; or to be still waiting, in at least partial dependence 
 on the faithfulness of the then " militant " generation, as con- 
 tributing to their perfection. With the former explanation it 
 might seem apposite to compare 1 Pet. iii. 18 ff". Yet that 
 is an imperfect parallel, since the heroes of Hebrews are very 
 different from the spirits, once disobedient, in prison. And 
 the picture which immediately follows in Heb. xii. 1 ff., of the 
 contest to be endured by Christ's followers on earth and 
 
cxx INTRODUCTION 
 
 witnessed to by these heroes in their state of waiting, lends 
 probability to the latter. The inconsistency vanishes if, as the 
 arrangement of clauses in xii. 22 ff. also indicates, " the spirits 
 of just men made perfect " are the deceased members, the 
 pausantes of the Christian Church. 
 
 § 24. In Hebrews, as in Apocalypse, special interest in the 
 blessed dead is shewn. The general doctrine of N.T. on 
 this subject. 
 
 Or perhaps Christian martyrs in particular. Among other 
 points of contact between Hebrews and the Apocalypse is their 
 common interest in the blessed dead. Between the writing of 
 1 Cor. XV. and of these two books something has happened 
 which has multiplied, or is multiplying, the number of deceased 
 Christians. And there are four passages in the Apocalypse 
 which throw light on the language of Hebrews : 
 
 " (1) vi. 9 — 12, the vision of ' the souls ' under the altar, the 
 martyred prophets of the Old Covenant, who were 
 to wait till the complement of the martyrs of the 
 New had come in. For as Heb. xi. 40 says, *they 
 apart from us' cannot *be made perfect.' These are 
 clothed in white raiment and are, I imagine, merged 
 in those who keep coming out of the great tribu- 
 lation, also arrayed in white robes in vii. 13 fF., to 
 be shepherded by the Lamb. 
 
 " (2) Look next at xiv. 13. ^ Blessed are the dead that die 
 in the Lord from this time forth. Yea, saith the 
 Spirit, may they rest from their toiling, for their 
 works follow^ with them.' This rest is not in- 
 activity. Their powers trained by their earthly 
 activities are from henceforth to find full scope 
 without friction. 
 
 **(3) When we pass on to xix. 14, we are given a vision of 
 the armies that are in heaven riding on white 
 horses, clothed in the vesture of the Bride of the 
 Lamb, going out to fight under their Captain 
 Christ. 
 
 "(4) Then in xx. 4 we come back once more to the 
 Christian martyrs, who have been faithful in their 
 witness, and who live and reign with Christ during 
 the mystic Millennium of the chaining of Satan. 
 This we are told is 'the first Resurrection.'" 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxi 
 
 These paragraphs are quoted from an article in the Church 
 Quarterly Review, April 1916, by Dr J. 0. F. Murray, on "The 
 Empty Tomb, the Resurrection Body and the Intermediate 
 State." From this article, with the author's permission, some 
 further extracts shall be made^. 
 
 " The Eesurrection of Christ is the manifestation of a force 
 in the Universe, which, because it has been seen in operation in 
 one instance, may be trusted to work universally.... But the 
 working of the Resurrection power, which had been manifested 
 in the raising of Christ as the first-fruits, was not to be seen in 
 operation again until ^ the Appearing,' and then only in the case 
 of Christians.... An intermediate state is implied, not only in 
 the doctrine of the descent into Hades, but also in the dating 
 of the Resurrection on the third day." 
 
 " The fact seems to be that * Resurrection,' like * Death ' and 
 * Life,' is a term of manifold significance, and admits of many 
 stages and degrees.... The questions of practical importance for 
 us are two...(l) Where do we stand with regard to the * Ap- 
 pearing ' which St. Paul expected in his own generation 1 And 
 (2) to what extent are we here and now contributing to the 
 evolution of our spiritual bodies, building up Hhe habitation, 
 the building from God, made without hands, eternal in the 
 heavens,' which we are to inhabit hereafter ? " 
 
 Here, with regard to the first point, Dr Murray calls atten- 
 tion to the four passages in the Apocalypse to which we referred 
 above. He proceeds thus : 
 
 **The sequence of events implied [in those four passages] •* 
 seems to me remarkably parallel in general outline to the 
 scheme laid down by St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. And I am prepared 
 to take as my working hypothesis the view that we are living 
 now in this * Millennium ' : that we are or may be, in proportion 
 to our faith, here and now citizens of the New Jerusalem, and 
 that, again in proportion to our faith, it is true for us that 
 ' there is no more death ' ; that in fact our Lord's promises are 
 strictly true : * Whosoever loseth his life for my sake finds it,' 
 not after an indefinite period, but immediately [and so S. John 
 viii. 51, xi. 26]. Such believers have part in the first Resurrection. 
 What further fulness of life may lie before them at the second 
 Resurrection when the whole race reaches its consummation 
 
 ^ Cf. also " The Ascension and Whitsunday," by Father R. M. 
 Benson, reprinted from *' The Life beyond the grave," in The Cowley 
 Evangelist^ May 1915, especially pp. 108 — 112. 
 
 t2 
 
cxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and each member of it is uplifted by the energy of the whole 
 who can say ?... Mean while they are in life not in death, and 
 their life is not 'disembodied.' The souls are clothed, not naked. 
 For them Christ has come again." 
 
 With regard to the second point : "What conception can we 
 form of the nature of our spiritual bodies ? To what extent are 
 we here and now contributing to their evolution ?," Dr Murray 
 finds 
 
 "that, in 1 Cor. xv. 42, St. Paul must mean 'this life in 
 corruptible flesh in the body of our humiliation is the sowing 
 time, the harvest will come under the transformed conditions 
 of the body of our glory.' Certainly according to the best 
 text he calls us expressly to begin at once to wear (xv. 49) 
 'the image of the heavenly,' an expression that corresponds 
 closely to his injunction to us in Col, iii. 5 'to mortify our 
 members that are upon earth... stripping off the old man with 
 his ways of action, and clothing ourselves with the new after 
 the image of Him that created Him,' further defined as ' com- 
 passion, kindness, humility, meekness,' and so forth. In other 
 words, personal character is the most practical form under 
 which we can conceive of our spiritual body." 
 
 "And we may conceive of the condition of the rest of the 
 dead, ' who lived not ' and have no part in the first Resurrection, 
 not as 'disembodied,' but as in various stages of imperfect, 
 arrested or perverted, spiritual development, without as yet the 
 organs by which they can enter into relation with the life that 
 is life indeed. Such a view would, I think, be in harmony with 
 ^ such indications as the New Testament gives us. There does 
 not seem to be anything in the New Testament to justify the 
 view, which has no doubt coloured all our Christian thinking 
 for centuries, that 'soul and body meet again' at the Resur- 
 rection." 
 
 Dr Murray, though referring oftenest to S. Paul, attempts 
 here to form a view that shall be harmonious with the New 
 Testament as a whole. And according to this view Hebrews 
 appears consistent in itself and with the other apostolic writings. 
 If in ix. 27 judgement seems to follow immediately upon death, 
 that judgement is Kptais, a distinguishing, such as Dr Murray 
 recognises between those who have and those who have not part 
 in the first Resurrection. The Kpifiaros alcoviov of vi. 2 might 
 be thought to stand in contrast with this as "final judgement," 
 and if so the juxtaposition of dvaaTdo-eas vcKpav might seem 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxiii 
 
 after all to imply that, for that final judgement, "soul and body 
 meet again." But the reference here is probably to Jewish 
 rather than to Christian doctrine ; avaaTaacoas is at any rate 
 used in no more confined a sense here than in Kpelrrovos dvaa-Ta- 
 o-€cds, xi. 35; and two considerations make it improbable that 
 the author thought of the blessed dead as obliged to wait till 
 a *4ast day" for the receiving of the spiritual body. One is 
 the phrase in xii. 23, TrvcvfiatTi biKaicov rereXeKOfxevcov : the other 
 is his silence concerning our Lord's resurrection **on the third 
 day." 
 
 § 25. Application of general doctrine to Hebrews : " spii^its " 
 are not ^' disembodied.^' 
 
 As for the first of these, the phrase in xii. 23 expresses 
 "perfection." If there is anything in the epistle which corre- 
 sponds to the partaking in the first resurrection it must be 
 recognised here. But the word Trv^vfiaa-i might seem to con- 
 tradict this. Surely not ; it is our presupposition, disproved by 
 Dr Murray's careful analysis of the evidence, that in the New 
 Testament " intermediate " means " disembodied," which makes 
 us fancy this. This use of " spirit " for all that is essential in 
 man is found in the Old Testament. In Dan. iii. 86 (LXX) 
 "spirits and souls of the righteous," Sirach xxxi. 14, and other 
 places, it is joined with a following genitive ; but in Sirach xxxix. 
 28, 2 Mace. iii. 24 (according to Codex A) it stands absolutely. 
 It is a natural development of the expression " living soul " for 
 a creature endowed with animal life, and S. Paul has given it 
 the utmost dignity by his antithesis in 1 Cor. xv. 45, " The first 
 man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a 
 life-giving spirit." Since yp-vxrj represents the unseen natural 
 life, in distinction from its vehicle the visible body, and since 
 again Trvevfia represents the more inward, more essential divine 
 life in man, as distinguished from its mortal vehicle, Trvevfia is 
 especially used of men in their "freedom from the burden of 
 the flesh." So S. Paul in 1 Cor. v. 5 would deliver the guilty 
 man unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit 
 may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus ; cf. 1 Pet. iv. 6. 
 In 1 Thess. v. 23 he writes more precisely : " The God of peace 
 
cxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 sanctify you wholly ; and may your spirit and soul and body be 
 preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." That is more characteristic, for S. Paul is distinguished 
 among New Testament writers by his almost scientific interest 
 in psychological analysis. Our author is more concerned with 
 essence than with entirety, and prefers to sum man up as a 
 spirit, or as " truly himself," x. 34. Nor does he, like S. Paul, 
 oppose '* flesh " to " body " as base to noble ; our Lord's 
 earthly ministry is, in this epistle, "the days of his flesh"; 
 and, in almost the same sense, the readers are bidden remem- 
 ber them that are evil entreated as being themselves also "in 
 the body." 
 
 § 26. The author^s silence about our LorcPs rising on the third 
 day is not inconsistent with the tradition of the Church, 
 
 In like manner we read in x. 10 of "the offering of the body 
 of Jesus Christ" and in x. 19 of "the way of his flesh." Both 
 phrases describe His earthly, visible passion. Neither would 
 be natural to this author when speaking of Christ ascended. 
 Nor is there a word in the epistle about His resurrection in the 
 body, on the third day. All is foreshortened, so to speak. At 
 the moment of dying on the cross the Lord enters as High 
 Priest into the heavenly sanctuary. 
 
 He enters as being then, and not till then, "made perfect." 
 Helped as we have been by Dr Murray to clear the mind from 
 servility to figures of speech, we shall not suspect that the 
 author imagined the ascended Lord as lacking any of that 
 complete manhood which is guarded by the doctrine of the 
 resurrection of His body. And therefore, as we said above, 
 this peculiar presentation of the Lord's victory over death 
 guarantees a no less complete significance for the " spirits " 
 of just men made perfect. 
 
 Whatever may be thought about the date of the three 
 synoptic Gospels, S. Paul shews that the resurrection on the 
 third day was included in the earliest tradition of the Church. 
 Our epistle is the only book of the New Testament which could 
 be quoted to suggest that this tradition was not held by the 
 whole Church. And it is far more natural to suppose that the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxv 
 
 silence of our author is due to the special direction he wished 
 to give to his argument. His analogy of the high priesthood 
 leads him to lay stress on the "indissoluble life," and on our 
 Lord's entering the sanctuary of the presence of God at the 
 moment of His death. According to his sacramental view of 
 things, the inward and outward offering of sacrifice are neces- 
 sarily simultaneous. They are in fact' one ; for the sacramental 
 idea is not an idea of succession in two worlds, but of time and 
 eternity, heaven and earth, being '* inveterately convolved." 
 
 And he was quite at liberty to lay the stress thus. For 
 there is no contradiction of the general tradition. The "as- 
 cension " was but the last of our Lord's appearances after His 
 death ; S. Paul, who claimed to have seen Him also, would deny 
 that it was the last. The resting of His body in the tomb till 
 the third day may imply that, for our Lord Himself, there 
 were, as Dr Murray puts it, " stages " of resurrection. But the 
 immediate " bringing again of the great shepherd from the 
 dead" (xiii. 20) was itself avdaraais \ our substitution of ** re- 
 surrection," "rising again," for avdaTaaLS^ "rising up," has 
 produced an unconscious prejudice in our mind. And yet we 
 may perhaps find in this author*s liberty some encouragement 
 to hope that those who, like him, nourish faith more readily by 
 meditation on the invisible indissoluble life than by appeal to 
 the visible historical evidences for the resurrection, are not 
 condemned by the apostolic discipline. Only it must also be 
 remembered that these perhaps more philosophic thinkers have 
 to a great extent been secured in their liberty by the trouble- 
 some controversial labour of the historians, as our author and 
 his friends were secured by the simpler faith of the Church 
 around them. 
 
 § 27. The communion of saints is presupposed in this epistle: 
 hut the reader's are not yet in full enjoyment of that com- 
 munion. 
 
 One further question must be answered before leaving this 
 part of the subject : what does this epistle teach about the 
 communion of saints, the intercourse between those who are 
 still in their earthly pilgrimage aqd those who have entered 
 
cxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 into rest ? That most comfortable doctrine is established more 
 firmly by S. Paul with his assurance that all the faithful live 
 one united life *' in Christ " ; and by S. John in all that per- 
 vading faith of his in the life eternal which is summed up in 
 the words he records of the Lord to Martha (John xi. 23 ff.), 
 to whom, when she had expressed belief in resurrection "at the 
 last day," He answered, " I am the resurrection and the life." 
 In Heb . xii. 22, " Ye are come unto mount Zion, etc.," falls 
 a little short of that. And, as in other places, the reason is 
 that, until the readers make their venture of faith, they have 
 but come near, they have not entered by the living way, x. 19 ff. 
 And in xii. 1 the "encompassing cloud" is a cloud of "wit- 
 nesses," not of fellow saints in full communion. Yet it is 
 implied in xi. 40 that these witnesses are waiting in eager 
 expectation of that full communion. It might be said that 
 the epistle takes throughout for granted that belief in and 
 enjoyment of the communion of saints which was already part 
 of the fuller faith of Judaism, cf. Isa. liii. 10, 2 Mace. xv. 14, 
 and that it holds out to its readers, as part of the great peace 
 now to be grasped by them, the perfect enjoyment of such 
 communion as was the acknowledged heritage of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 § 28. Hebrews and the Old Testament: quotations are 
 reasonably developed from the original sense. 
 
 This tliought however brings us to the last division of our 
 enquiry. What is the relation of this epistle to the Old 
 Testament in general, and to that Alexandrian complement of 
 the Palestinian canon in particular which touches on so many 
 sides the Alexandrine or Philonic philosophy ? 
 
 Few characteristics of the apostolic writers are more striking 
 than the respect they had for the authority of the Jewish Bible. 
 They appeal to it continually. They quote it continually, almost 
 learnedly ; yet not quite with the fashionable learning of their 
 day. They appreciate the deeper meaning of its words, its in- 
 spiration in fact. But they take a reverent view" of inspiration 
 and abstain far more than was usual with their contempoi-aries 
 in Judaism, and their successors in the Christian Church, from 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxvii 
 
 forced interpretations, and unnatural Messianic applications. 
 No doubt this was due to our Lord's influence who appears at 
 the beginning of S. Luke's Gospel as a studious, but still more 
 as a thoughtful boy, and who always reached so surely to the 
 heart of all the Old Testament passages He dealt with in His 
 ministry. Yet there are exceptions to this sobriety in the New 
 Testament, as in Gal. iii. 16 where S. Paul argues rabbinically 
 from the singular number of "seed." And, as might be expected 
 in an author of finer education, the writer to the Hebrews is 
 distinguished by his peculiarly reasonable use of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 This has been denied. It was once asserted by some one 
 that, having opened his epistle with a magnificent assertion of 
 our Lord's divinity, the author goes on to prove it by applying 
 a number of passages from the Old Testament to Him, none of 
 which were meant of Him at all. But that is just what he does 
 not do. He does not attempt to prove our Lord's divinity in 
 this place ; he leaves proof to spring by degrees from the analogy 
 which fills the epistle. What he uses the Old Testament for 
 here is to show that He who came forth from God inherited the 
 name of *'Son" from those who of old, in the actual history of 
 Israel, were entitled "Christ" or the "anointed of the Loixi." 
 And a like reference for the original significance of the ancient 
 words in their historical environment runs through the epistle. 
 The quotation from Ps. viii. in Heb. ii. would have no point if the 
 original reference to "mankind" were not recognised. The "to 
 day" in the quotation from Ps. xcv. in Heb. iii., iv. gains its force 
 from having been a summons in "David's" time to enter into 
 the rest of God which was a repetition of an earlier opportunity. 
 And throughout the epistle the real history of Israel is the main 
 type, or the vehicle of the prophetic Spirit which revealed the 
 ever-growing manifestation of the Christ through the Christ- 
 bearing nation 1. 
 
 1 See Hort's note on 1 Pet. i. 11 in his Commentary, The First 
 Epistle of St Peter i. 1 — ii. 17, the Greek Text icith Introductory 
 Lecture, Commentaiy, and Additional Notes, Macmillan, 1898. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 29. In Hebrews the Holy Spirit is chiefly thought of as 
 the inspirer of Scripture : 
 
 This prophetic Spirit is noticeable. The Spirit of God, as a 
 mighty all but personal influence, is prominent in the Old 
 Testament. It becomes, as revelation proceeds, the Spirit of 
 Messiah. And on this line of developing faith "the Spirit of 
 Jesus" (Acts xvi. 7), and "the Holy Spirit" as one of a Trinity 
 of divine Persons (2 Cor. xiii. 13), attracted the reverence of the 
 early Church. In Hebrews that line is not followed out. The 
 Spirit as the giver of the new life is not distinctly endowed with 
 a personality in this epistle. In that connexion the article is 
 never prefixed : see ii. 4, vi. 4, and x. 29 where the exception is 
 merely grammatical and depends upon the following genitive 
 with article. This impersonal manner of expression enables the 
 author to fill his phrase in ix. 14, bia nvevfiaros alcovlov, with a 
 pregnancy of thought which may perhaps be better appreciated 
 in this present day than at any period since the epistle was 
 written. But in the three places where the Holy Spirit is repre- 
 sented as inspiring the sacred books of Israel the article is added, 
 iii. 7, ix. 8, x. 15. To this book-student the most distinctly 
 personal manifestation of the Spirit of God was as the inspirer 
 of the prophetic word^ And here again the affinity, with no less 
 marked difierences, of Hebrews with the Apocalypse (xix. 10), 
 and with that other book which falls into the same group, 1 Peter 
 (i. 11), may be observed. 
 
 § 30. with whom, as it were, the author converses. 
 
 This manifestation is indeed "personal" in the most popular 
 sense of the term. In one word it might be said that this 
 writer reads the sacred books as though he were "conversing" 
 with their ultimate author, the Holy Spirit of God. That is 
 what he defends in the paragraph, iv. 12 f., in which he says 
 the word of God is living and penetrates the conscience. The 
 "word of God" here is doubtless wider than the written word. 
 
 1 See on this subject Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testit,- 
 ment. Macmillan. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxix 
 
 But it is wider because even the written word is wider than 
 itself. There is for him no such thing as a merely written word. 
 The word has been written. It was written at various times, 
 by several men, whose circumstances contributed to the pro- 
 ducing of their particular expressions of the mind of God. He 
 is too good a Platonist, or sacramentalist, to slight these limi- 
 tations which are the means of access to the inner life. But the 
 inner life, the living One who speaks by these means, is the 
 object of his affection; and since He still speaks in the new 
 events of history and later movement of men's hearts and intel- 
 lects, all these must be included in "the word" which still 
 interprets itself to the believer in its ever-deepening and pene- 
 trating life. Hence the author's bold selection, as of Ps. civ. 4 
 to show the angels are wind and fire, though in other places they 
 are otherwise figured in the Old Testament ; or correction, as in 
 xi. 27, where he denies that Moses "feared," in harmony with 
 Moses' character as described by the whole story, but in con- 
 tradiction to the particular verse referred to. Hence above all, 
 that deepening and refining of "the lesson of the beginning of 
 the Christ" (vi. 1) which does discover wonderful germs of the 
 Gospel consummation in the Messianic origins of the oracles 
 of God (v. 12), notably in the Old Testament treatment of the 
 mystery of Melchizedek. 
 
 § 31. This treatment of 0. T. has likeness to Philo^ hut 
 is really different from his ^^ allegoriesJ^ 
 
 But in this last instance it may be said we have overshot 
 the mark. If S. Paul was rabbinic in some of his old-fashioned 
 arguments, this author is Philonic in his subtleties about Mel- 
 chizedek. This objection has been noticed above in § 10, and 
 need not be more closely examined here. It may however be 
 remarked that nothing would better serve to illustrate the 
 likeness and unlikeness of our author to Philo than a perusal 
 of the whole passage about Melchizedek in Philo, Legum Alle- 
 goriarum iii. 79 ff., pp. 102 ff". The likeness is not altogether 
 superficial, for Philo had a beautiful mind, and to the author of 
 Hebrews the Philonic philosophy was a real preparation for 
 the Gospel. But Philo is diffuse and fanciful. The very title 
 
cxxx INTRODUCTION 
 
 of his commentary on the Law — "Allegories"— indicates the 
 gulf between him and the epistle. Philo wanders far and 
 wide in allegory ; he employs facts as arbitrary symbols to 
 illustrate his own ideas. The author of this epistle is led 
 sacramentally through the historical facts of Israel's past and 
 the earthly life of Jesus Christ to firm eternal truths which can 
 be tested by faith (Heb. xi. 1)^ 
 
 Philo was born about B.C. 20, studied and taught at Alex- 
 andria, w^as versed in Greek literature, and spent a great part of 
 his life in harmonising Greek philosophy, as he understood it, 
 with the Jewish faith. The fruits of this effort are preserved in 
 his chief work, the long allegorising commentary on the Law of 
 Moses. The date of his death is not known. 
 
 Following Dr Caird, we may briefly say that the three main 
 points in Philo's philosophy are these : 
 
 (1) God is absolute being and as such cannot be known 
 or reached ; He can only be described by negatives. Philo 
 " carries back the finite to the infinite, but cannot think of the 
 infinite as manifested in the finite." 
 
 (2) Yet in some way God must reach man and man God. 
 Hence there must be mediation. Philo finds mediation in the 
 Word of God; which in the Old Testament meant God's 
 uttered command. His direct action, but had already been taken 
 by the Stoics to express "the rational principle immanent in 
 man and in the universe." And to describe this mediating Word 
 Philo employs a wealth of analogies and figures. His Word seems 
 
 ^ For Philo's life and works the reader may be referred to the 
 article "Philo" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Volume^ 
 by James Drummond, to Dr Bigg's Bampton Lectures, The Christian 
 Platonists of Alexandria, new edition, Clarendon Press, 1915, to the 
 two lectures on "The transition from Stoicism to Neo-platonism " 
 and "The philosophy and theology of Philo," in Dr E. Caird's 
 Gifford Lectures, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philoso- 
 phers, Maclehose, 1904, and to Br^hier, Les idees philosophiques et 
 religieuses de Philon d'Alexaiidrie, Paris, 1908. The first critical 
 edition of Philo's works was by Thomas Mangey, Canon of Durham, 
 London, 1742. Later editions preserve his pagination in the margin, 
 and references to these page-numbers are generally given in quota- 
 tion. The best modern text is Cohn's (Ed. minor, Berlin 1886 — ). 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxxi 
 
 at times to be almost a person. It is really the principle of 
 all the activities that are involved in the connexion of man 
 with God. 
 
 (3) Man is a soul defiled by a body. He is indeed dwelt 
 in by the Word and can return to God. But to do so he must 
 escape from all that is himself. He must escape by losing his 
 will in the divine will ; not realise true manhood by losing and 
 finding his will in the divine will. 
 
 It is evident that there is a certain amount of correspond- 
 ence in these ideas with the thoughts of our epistle, though the 
 epistle would seem to correct Philo at least as much as it takes 
 from him. In language there is the same kind of cautious or 
 doubtful correspondence. From many pages of Philo a few 
 characteristic words used in Hebrews may be gleaned, and these 
 mount up to a considerable sum as the process is continued. 
 It is in Philo's abundant imagery of the Word that coincidences, 
 culled and brought together, are most striking. The Logos, 
 writes Dr Bigg, is the Impress of the mind of God, His Son, the 
 Archetypal Seal, the Great Pattern according to which all is 
 made. He is the Divider, in so far as he differentiates, and 
 makes each thing what it is. He is the Heavenly Man, the 
 Prophet of the Most High. *'For his atoning function Philo 
 found a fitting symbol ready to hand in the High Priest. . . . 
 The true High Priest is sinless; if he needs to make an 
 offering and utter prayer for himself, it is only because he 
 participates in the guilt of the people whom he represents.... He 
 is Melchisedech, priest of the Most High God, King of Salem, 
 that is of peace, who met Abraham returning from his victory 
 over the four kings, and refreshed him with the mystic Bread 
 and Wine." 
 
 Again however we notice that the coincidences are not 
 always agreements. The main point in the representation of 
 Melchizedek is not the same in Hebrews as in Philo. The fol- 
 lowing words which Philo puts into the mouth of the Logos 
 would be utterly repudiated by the author of the epistle, as 
 false if applied to our Lord, and meaningless in any other 
 connexion : " I stand between the Lord and you, I who am 
 neither uncreated like God nor created like you, but a mean 
 between the two extremes, a hostage to either side." And 
 
cxxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Dr Bigg rightly observes that in much of his discourse Philo 
 is but translating the hymn of the praise of wisdom, in the 
 Alexandrine Book of Wisdom, into scientific terminology — of 
 that wisdom which is "the brightness of the everlasting light, 
 the unspotted mirror of the Power of God, the image of His 
 Goodness"; see Wisd. vii. 22 ff. 
 
 § 32. Hebi'ews is broadly Alexandrine rather than Philonic, 
 sacramental rather than philosophic. 
 
 Here there is a really close parallel with Heb. i. 3, and while 
 it is doubtful whether our author had read Philo, we may be 
 pretty certain he had read the Book of Wisdom. It was part of 
 that larger Greek Bible which was used by the Alexandrian 
 Jews, and which included most of what we call the Apocrypha. 
 The "Canon" was still somewhat vague even in Palestine. In 
 Alexandria it was no doubt vaguer, and we need not curiously 
 enquire what degree of authority was recognised in these addi- 
 tional books. It suffices to remember that this author knew 
 them and that one of them was a favourite of his. That one 
 was 2 Maccabees, largely drawn upon in Heb. xi. and continually 
 suggesting turns of language in the epistle. 
 
 But 2 Maccabees is not a book of philosophy. There is a 
 tinge of Alexandrine philosophy in it. So there is indeed in 
 very many parts of the LXX version ; see for instance Gen. i. 2 
 jj Se yj) ^v doparos kol dKaraa-Kcvaa-Tos^ and notice the influence of 
 this phrase in Heb. xi. 1 ff"., and frequently in Philo. A thought- 
 ful man who had received an Alexandrine education would not 
 necessarily be a philosopher, but he would have looked through 
 the window of philosophy and have become aware of that view 
 of things which is ignored by the so-called "plain" man, or 
 the man of '* common sense," or the "materialist." He would 
 also have acquired a number of more or less philosophical terms 
 with which to express his deeper thoughts more readily. 
 
 That was the kind of scholarship possessed by the author of 
 Hebrews. He was indeed more of an artist than a philosopher. 
 So far from aiming strenuously at "pure thought" he frankly 
 delighted himself with the expression of thought in visual 
 images. That is part of what we have termed his "sacramental" 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxxiii 
 
 temperament. And the sacramental temper is in many respects 
 the antithesis of the philosophical. Yet in one important point 
 it coincides with right philosophy. It abhors "dualism." It 
 would extend the scientific fact that all physical life is one, 
 into the reasonable assurance of faith that all life is one, that 
 the natural is also divine. Professor Burnet ^ speaks of "the 
 fateful doctrine of two worlds," and shews that Plato never 
 made that separation. 
 
 But it was that "fateful doctrine" which gave Philo so much 
 trouble. He tried to overcome it by his mediatory Powers. He 
 was hampered by his heritage of language. Much of what he writes 
 about the " intelligible world" etc. is too conventional. He employs 
 terms which the ancient Greeks had invented for their search 
 after "reality," in his different search after the answer to the 
 question, How can God act as a person ? But the writer to the 
 Hebrews troubles little about either of those problems. He 
 takes for granted that God does act as a person, and asks (in his 
 picturesque manner). How can we enter into the presence of God ? 
 And he accepts the answer of the whole Christian Church : 
 We can do so through our Lord Jesus Christ, who, obedient to 
 God's love for men, died to effect this. But he wrote his epistle 
 because some friends needed further explanation of this answer. 
 The Church in its earliest days had been content with the very 
 simple explanation that our Lord would shortly come as Christ 
 with the Kingdom of God, and then His people would go to God 
 with Him. S. Paul said. Yes, and even here and now our life is hid 
 with Him in God through the Spirit. Our author says, Christ 
 is coming now in the crisis of these troubled times. That was 
 a practical not a speculative assurance. He, with the rest of the 
 Church, still expects the "final" coming. But that was for a 
 "morrow" of which there was no need to "take thought" then, 
 "while the summons was going forth. To day." What mattered 
 then was the faithful following of the "Captain" who was being 
 "brought again into the world." 
 
 Nevertheless, as a thoughtful man writing to thoughtful 
 men, he attempts to discover a general principle which will 
 
 ^ Greek Philosophy ^ Thales to Plato, pp. 90, 345. Macmillan, 
 1914. 
 
cxxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 bring harmony into such ideas of extended, successive "comings" 
 and their results. Our Lord, S, Luke records, had already said 
 '*The kingdom of God is within you," or "in your midst" 
 (xvii. 21). And, according to the record of S. John, He had 
 taught much about His continual presence with His disciples. 
 This author says, The kingdom, or the new world, or the coming 
 age, or the promised good things of God, or the inner sanctuary 
 of His presence — call the mystery what you will — has been 
 brought within reach of all when Christ died. These realities 
 are here and now. They, invisible and eternal, are not sepa- 
 rated from the visible things of this practical and responsible 
 life of ours on earth. It is through these practical trials, duties, 
 and affections that we deepen and intensify life till it is recog- 
 nised as what it really is, the life that is life indeed. Thus we 
 go to heaven when we pray, iv. 16. And you now, my friends, 
 will find Jesus, and enter the sabbath rest of God, and know the 
 vital significance of the Church's dogma concerning the Person 
 of Christ and His strength being yours, if you will recognise 
 "the way of His flesh" in the trial before you, and do your hard 
 duty, and pass onward and inw^ard with Him to God. 
 
 It is a "new world" not "another world" that Platonists 
 seek, and Christians believe is their own to use. Only — at least 
 so our author would put it — we have it but as nve use it, and 
 while the various persons who make up the Church linger, 
 hesitate, or press on, a seeming inconsistency remains. We see 
 Jesus crowned with glory and honour for the suffering of death, 
 but we do not yet see all His disciples so ready to die (ii. 8 f.). 
 We know Him to be exalted and apart from sin (vii. 26, ix. 28), 
 but only one by one, as each makes the one sacrifice in his own 
 sphere of love, do we attain to His security and propagate it in 
 the visible world. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxxv 
 
 § 33. Thus ^^faith^^ in this epistle is trust intensified hy hope 
 and love. The author expresses the idea with some Platonic 
 sympathy, hut mainly rests upon the ChurcKs doctnne of 
 Christ, 
 
 To take that bold step man needs an impulse. That im- 
 pulse is, according to our author, faith. Lightfoot has given 
 in his commentary on Galatians'^ a complete analysis of the 
 meaning of "faith" in the Old Testament, the various New 
 Testament writers, the Alexandrine and rabbinic schools : see 
 his notes on "The words denoting * Faith'" and "The faith 
 of Abraham." On that aspect of the subject it must here 
 suffice to say : that in the Old Testament faith is mainly trust 
 in God ; that this primary notion persists in all the New Testa- 
 ment writers, but is rendered deeper and more complex by 
 being involved with the leading passion of their particular 
 theology ; thus S. Paul's faith is bound up with the " love " of 
 Christ which sprang from his conversion ; S. John's with that 
 "knowledge" of God and of His Son^ which is reinforced by 
 intellectual meditation, but is mainly (as in Hosea) personal 
 and intuitional. 
 
 In Hebrews faith is coloured by an atmosphere of " hope," 
 and appears as a spiritual force impelling men to endure and 
 persevere and strive towards a holiness, a peace and a know- 
 ledge not yet realised. Whether it is innate in all men, it did 
 not form part of the author's plan to discuss. He certainly 
 regards it as having been implanted by God in all the men 
 with whom his epistle directly deals, viz. the children of Israel 
 and the Christian Church. He might, if he had chosen to adopt 
 Platonic language, have said that faith was a form of the in- 
 dwelling Word. But he prefers to put it in the opposite way, 
 as though faith were an embracing potency in the sphere of 
 which men live (x. 39). So faith is a bond of union between 
 the ancient Church of Israel and Israel's heir the Christian 
 community (iv. 2). Thus, from the beginning, faith was con- 
 nected with hope ; for the Church of Israel lived on *' promises," 
 iv. 1, vi. 12, 15, 17, vii. 6, viii. 6, ix. 15, x. 36, xi. 9, 13, 17, 33, 39. 
 
 1 Macmillan, original edition, 1865. 
 
cxxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 And so, when the great chapter xi. on faith is reached, the 
 author introduces it by one of his terse proverbial sayings, in 
 which he indicates the relation of faith to hope. It is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the test of things not seen. This 
 certainly implies that the things which may rightly be hoped for 
 are already in being, but the stress is on " time " rather than 
 "reality" ; faith presses onwards, to the "not yet." Cf. Kom. viii. 
 24 (a passage which may have helped to shape this verse), rfj 
 yap ekiribi ecroidijixev eXnis de ^XcTrojxivTj ovk cariu eXTris, o yap 
 (iXeirei tis eXni^ei; 
 
 A practical application of the verse will perhaps help to the 
 understanding of our author's mind. Suppose a nation at war. 
 If aU points more and more certainly to victory the period of 
 hope is drawing to a close. Hope has to do with things not yet 
 seen, and flourishes in dark days. But it will flourish in dark 
 days, if faith is there to give it substance, to " uphold " it. Such 
 faith must obviously be faith in God who alone upholds things 
 worthy to be hoped for. And so faith is a test of these as yet 
 unseen but hoped for things. What then may this nation 
 rightly hope for ? Victory ? No, that is on the knees of God, 
 who designs that which is truly best for each party in the strife. 
 Peace ? Yes, but not necessarily outward peace, only the peace 
 of God which makes for His righteousness among men. Apply 
 the test of faith and one by one all temporal greed and private 
 judgements about what is best for the world are stripped away. 
 The patriotic will is not annihilated, but it is transformed into 
 perfect union with the will of God. The test is severe, but the 
 gold from which it purges away the dross is an inalienable 
 possession. A nation which rejoiced in such a purified hope 
 would conquer the world with God, though it lost what seemed 
 its all. And it would enjoy peace in the midst of violence, and 
 fight indomitably while convinced God bade it fight, for it would 
 be free from all fear and all anxiety ; "qui fortis est idem est 
 fidens," Cicero, l^usc. iii. 14 (quoted by Lightfoot). 
 
 There is plainly a good deal of the Pauline *'love" in this 
 author's faith also. It was lack of loving loyalty which caused 
 Israel's tragic failure of faith, iii. 16 ff". And the personal note 
 is distinctly heard throughout chapter xi. ; Moses endured as 
 seeing " Him," not " it," which was invisible, xi. 27. It is this 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE cxxxvii 
 
 personal note which forbids our exaggerating the debt of this 
 epistle to the Alexandrine philosophy. That philosophy en- 
 larged the vocabulary of the author. It also served the intel- 
 lectual interest which was strong in him, and which enabled 
 him to intervene very weightily in the perplexed trial his 
 friends had to face. But that trial was too real to allow him 
 in any intellectual trifling. Alexandria had been refurbishing 
 old-fashioned instruments of speculation. Philo followed the 
 fashion. His earnestness made him break away again and 
 again from the method he had imposed upon himself. But the 
 method hampered him. There is much tediousness, much con- 
 fusion in his writings. His main achievement was that "he 
 first gave utterance to both of the two great requirements of the 
 religious consciousness, the need for rising from the finite and 
 relative to the Absolute, and the need of seeing the Absolute as 
 manifested in the finite and relative ; although he could find 
 no other reconciliation of these two needs except externally to 
 subordinate the latter to the former" (Caird). The writer to 
 the Hebrews knew something of this "great problem of his 
 time," and of the manner in which educated men were ap- 
 proaching it. This gives his letter a peculiar sympathy which 
 may well have won its first readers and is still appreciated by 
 its more academic readers in these days. But his main interest 
 was in the sufi&cing truth which he had found enshrined in the 
 Christian Church, and in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 loyalty to whom was the tradition of the Church. That made 
 him simple, independent, original. So far as he did touch 
 philosophy he went back, unconsciously, from Alexandrine 
 Platonism to Plato himself. But he only touched that kind 
 of philosophy so far as it suited his more concentrated purpose. 
 He was convinced that in Jesus Christ the riddle of the universe 
 was solved as far as needs be. Much more was he convinced 
 that in Him the difficulty of living a noble and beautiful life 
 was overcome. And out of that conviction he sent this 
 "treatise of encouragement" to some much-loved and sorely- 
 tried friends. 
 
 k2 
 
cxxxviii INTRODTJCTION 
 
 IV 
 
 THE TEXT OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 § 1. The number of mss. available for textual criticism has 
 increased so much of late that the notation in Gregory's eighth 
 edition of Tischendorf s Greek Testament is no longer satis- 
 factory. Two new classifications have been proposed ; an 
 ingenious but difficult system by von Soden, and a simple 
 modification of Gregory's lists. Gregory's new notation is used 
 in Dr Souter's Greek Testament {Novum Testamentum Graece. 
 Textui a Retractatorihus Anglis adhihito hrevem adnotationem 
 criticam subiecit Alexander Souter. Clarendon Press, 1910), and 
 will be adopted in this commentary. 
 
 Dr Souter's edition, small in bulk and in cost, is invaluable. 
 Nowhere else is the lately discovered material so conveniently 
 brought together and digested. The critical notes give but a 
 selection of various readings and of authorities. Such a selection, 
 wisely made, is just what is wanted by ordinary students. The 
 following lists, and the critical notes, in this commentary are 
 founded upon Dr Souter's work. Only those mss.. Versions and 
 Fathers that are quoted in the notes are included, but three 
 early fragments of the epistle may be here mentioned as in- 
 teresting. 
 
 pi2 is a single verse, Heb. i. 1, written in the margin of a 
 letter from a Koman Christian. It was published by Grenfell 
 and Hunt, Amherst papyri^ part I (1900) no. 3 b. (c. iii. or iv.). 
 
 pi8 Heb. ix. 12 — 19 is part of a leaf from a papyrus book 
 (c. iv.) ; published by Hunt, Oxyrhynchus papyri, part viii(1911) 
 no. 1078. 
 
 A fragmentary MS. of the Pauline epistles was brought to 
 America in 1907 by Mr Charles L. Freer. It is an uncial of 
 the sixth century, and has, like fc< and B, Hebrews following 
 2 Thessalonians : see H. A. Saunders in The American Journal 
 of Archaeology, March 1908, and The Biblical World (Chicago), 
 Febr. 1908, and E. J. Goodspeed^ Introduction to The Epistle to 
 the Hebrews {The Bible for Home and School), New York, 1908. 
 The text of this MS. is not yet published. 
 
THE TEXT OF THE EPISTLE cxxxix 
 
 The New Testament used to be divided into four parts ; 
 Evangelium^ Actus (with Catholic epistles), Paulus, Revelatio, 
 The initials e a p r shew how many of these parts are included in 
 a papyrus, vellum or paper codex, or version. 
 
 Papyrus 
 pi3 (cent, iv.) Heb. ii. 14— v. 5 ; x. 8— xi. 13, 28 — xii. 17 (London). 
 
 Uncials 
 
 fc< (c. iv.) e a p r : Sinai ticus (Petrograd, Leipzig). 
 
 X* = the first writing, where the first or a later scribe has 
 afterwards corrected it : so also in A B C D H etc. 
 
 N^ N^ etc. = correctors of the codex. 
 A (c. V.) e a p r (wanting in parts) : Alexandrinus (London). 
 
 A** A2 A<^"* = correctors. 
 B (c. iv.) e a p (Heb. ix. 14— xiii. 25, 1, 2 Tim., Tit., Philem. 
 
 wanting) : Vaticanus (Rome). 
 
 W W — correctors. 
 C (c. V.) e a p r (fragments) : (Paris). 
 
 C** C2 etc. = correctors. 
 D (c. vi.) p (some lines wanting) : Claromontanus, a Graeco- 
 
 Latin ms. (Paris). 
 
 Db DC D2 Dcorr = correctors. 
 H (c. vi.) p (mutilated) : (Athos, Kiev, Moscow, Petrograd, Paris, 
 
 Turin). 
 
 H is a copy of the edition of epp. Paul, which Euthalius 
 put forth : vid. infra. 
 K (c. ix.) a p (Acts and part of Paul are wanting) : (Moscow). 
 L (c. ix.) a p (Acts i. 1 — viii. 9 are wanting) : (Rome). 
 M (c. ix.) p (fragments) : (London, Hamburg). 
 P (c. ix.) a p r (mutilated) : (Petrograd), md. Euthal. infra. 
 
 Minuscules 
 
 The following minuscule mss., dating from the ninth (33) to 
 the fourteenth centuries, are quoted in the notes • 
 
 5, 6, 33, 104, 241, 263, 326, 424, 436, 442, 456, 1908, 1912. 
 CO = codices plerique. 
 
cxl INTRODUCTION 
 
 Ancient Versions 
 
 % — consensus of 3L (vt) and it (vg). 
 
 H (vt) (c. ii. (?)— iii.— iv.). The Old Latin (e a p r) = consensus 
 of all or most of the codices which appear to represent this 
 version or versions. 
 il (vtd) = the Latin of D. 
 H (vf) = fragments (c. vi.) (Munich). 
 
 ^ (vg) (c. iv.) = Jerome's " vulgate," recension of the Old Latin : 
 e a p r. 
 
 ^ (vg) (c. V.) = the Peshitta Syriac : e a p. 
 
 ^ (hi) (c. vii.) = the Harklean Syriac, a version made by Thomas 
 of Harkel, strangely " Western " in text, and having addi- 
 tional readings of like character entered in margin, ^ (hl™^), 
 5>hl(™8 8'): eapr. 
 
 lb (pal) (c. vi.) = fragments of a Palestinian Syriac version : 
 eapr. 
 
 \f& (sah) (c. iii. — iv.) = the Sahidic version of Upper Egypt, 
 sometimes called Thebaic : eapr: only fragments of this 
 version are known for Hebrews.] 
 
 ^ (boh) = the Bohairic version of Lower Egypt, sometimes called 
 Memphitic: e a p (r). The original version was probably 
 without the Apocalypse. Its date is disputed. Most critics 
 used to assign it to c. iii. — iv., some now prefer c. vi. — vii. 
 
 a (c. V. ?) = the Armenian version : eapr. 
 
 ^\\ (c. V. — vii.) = the Aethiopic version : eapr. 
 
 Fathers 
 
 The following Fathers are quoted in the critical notes. In 
 the other notes Clem, or Clement = Clemens Romanus bishop of 
 Rome (c. i.). 
 
 The full names of the Latin writers are printed in italics. 
 Amb. =Ambrosucs bishop of Milan (c. iv.). 
 Ambst. = ' Ambrosiasier^' a writer once confounded with Ambrose 
 
 whose name may have been Isaac (c. iv.). 
 Aphr. =Aphraates, wrote in Syriac (c. iv.). 
 
THE TEXT OF THE EPISTLE cxli 
 
 Chr. = Johannes Chrysostomus patriarch of Constantinople 
 
 (c. iv.— v.). 
 Clem. = Clemens Alexandrinus (c. ii. — iii.). 
 Cosm. =Cosmas Indicopleustes of Alexandria (c. vi.). 
 Cyr. Hier. = Cyrillus bishop of Jerusalem (c. iv.). 
 Did. =Didymus of Alexandria (c. iv.). 
 
 Eus. =Eusebius bishop of Caesarea in Palestine (c. iii. — iv.). 
 
 Euthal. ==Euthalius (6 aiViy/xarobSj;?) editor of epp. Paul., vid. 
 
 supra H (c. iv. — v.?). 
 Euthal.<^o*^=P {vid. supra) to which codex notes from Euthalius 
 
 are added by a hand of the fourteenth century. 
 Fulg. = Fulgentius African bishop (c. v. — vi.). 
 Greg.-Nyss. = Gregorius bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia (c. iv.). 
 Isid.-Pel. = Isidorus of Pelusium in Egypt (c. v.). 
 Lucif. = Lucifer bishop of Calaris (Cagliari) (c. iv.). 
 Orig. =Origenes of Alexandria (c. iii.). 
 Ps.-Serap. =a writer whose work was wrongly attributed to 
 
 Serapion an Egyptian bishop of the fourth century. 
 Tert. = Tertullianus of Carthage (c. ii. — iii.). 
 
 § 2. The text used in the Ca7nhridge Greeic Testament for 
 Schools is Westcott and Hort's. No one can properly appreciate 
 the value of this text without reading the Introduction (by 
 Dr Hort) which followed, as a second volume, the publication of 
 their New Testament in Greek in 1881. But if not the full 
 Introduction, at least the simplified summary must be studied, 
 which is printed at the end of the Greek text both in the larger 
 and smaller editions. It is impossible to cut the shortened 
 argument still shorter, and all that will be attempted here is to 
 indicate the conclusions in such brief fashion as may promote 
 intelligent analysis of the critical notes in this commentary. 
 
 Westcott and Hort aimed at establishing a securer method 
 than that of private judgement or rules of thumb. To say. This 
 reading gives the harder, but the better sense, is an example of 
 private judgement. To count authorities on either side, or to 
 prefer the older mss., or to choose the shorter readiug, are rules 
 of thumb. What is wanted is to discover the genealogy of mss., 
 so that a dull person may recognise as certainly as a clever one 
 that such and such a combination indicates the true line of 
 
cxlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 transmission ; such and such another combination indicates one 
 of the corrupted lines. 
 
 Genealogical discovery does start indeed from private judge- 
 ment. The character of a ms. is tentatively settled by the 
 preponderance of readings on the character of which we form 
 an opinion from what we know of the authoi^'s mind and the 
 habits of scribes. But this preliminary judgement is superseded 
 by degrees, as the relations of ms. to MS. begin to emerge. At 
 last the Mss. fall into groups which represent lines of transmission. 
 And it is no longer private judgement when, contemplated on a 
 wide area, these groups prove their real affinity by the well 
 marked character of the texts they reveal. 
 
 Thus the so-called " Textus receptus," derived from Erasmus, 
 commonly printed in England till Westcott and Hort's edition 
 appeared, and followed in our A.V., is supported by the mass of 
 authorities from the fourth century onwards. It is a smooth, 
 full, commonplace text, and arose from a deliberate " recension " 
 and amalgamation of earlier diverse texts. 
 
 Neglecting then the mass of mss. etc. which conspire to 
 perpetuate this comparatively late form of text, we find two 
 other forms which were already current at least as early as the 
 third century, but which had already diverged from the true line 
 of descent. 
 
 One of these is called the " Western " text. It represents the 
 bold, free manner in which people in general might quote from 
 books of which the sacred precision of each several word is not 
 yet recognised. The primary documents for this text in Hebrews 
 are D it (vt), the Old Latin Fathers, and the Greek Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers, those of Alexandria partially excepted. With 
 these will often be ranged 104, either N or B (not both together), 
 the Syriac, Armenian, Aethiopic versions. 
 
 The other is more attractive at first sight. But close observa- 
 tion shows its character to be scholarly, thoughtful correction of 
 errors or seeming errors. This is called the "Alexandrian," 
 and in Hebrews is found in X A C P, 5, 33, 1908, 05 (boh), 
 Alexandrian Fathers, and sometimes ^ or H (vg). 
 
 But where is the true line of transmission ? Clearly in those 
 readings which, being of the ancient class, are neither " Western " 
 nor *' Alexandrian " in their attestation. If any group of author- 
 
THE TEXT OF THE EPISTLE cxliii 
 
 ities habitually stand for a third set of readings, that group has 
 the genuine ancestry. Such a group in Hebrews is K B A C P 
 33, 424** With these will often be ranged <^ (boh) and 
 J^(pal). 
 
 It will be noticed that these groups overlap. It must be so, 
 since the genealogy of mss. is extremely complicated. They are 
 not simply copied one from another. In copying from one MS. 
 readings are brought in from another. These may have been 
 already written in the margin of the MS. to be copied, or they 
 may lurk in the scribe's memory, and so on. This is the 
 complication called " mixture." It can only be met by recogni- 
 tion of the overlapping of groups, while yet the core of each 
 group remains perceptible. 
 
 And if the student will be at the pains to master Hort's 
 close-knit argument ; or if, shirking that, he will be content to 
 trust Hort, he may hold fast to a simple clue through these 
 perplexities, and prove its worth for himself by experience. 
 Hort does not say that ^< and B, especially B, are to be always 
 trusted because their readings on the whole are good. But he 
 does show how the agreement of X and B assures us of the right 
 genealogical line. Each of them from time to time sides with 
 large aberrant groups. But B, standing nearly by itself, is 
 always worthy of at least respectful attention. 
 
 Unfortunately it is in epp. Paul, that B oftenest gets into 
 bad company : in this division of the New Testament it has a 
 considerable *' Western " admixture. And in Hebrews B fails us 
 at ix. 14. From the middle of the word KaOapul it is mutilated 
 to the end of the epistle. The loss is however made up in some 
 degree by the fragmentary )}^^. That papyrus gives a text very 
 like B. Or is it rather " Alexandrian '' ? A definite answer to 
 that quaere will be welcome. For in one or two places p^^ offers 
 a reading so attractive as to rouse suspicion that it is too clever ; 
 see iv. 4, v. 4, xi. 2. 
 
 § 3. The text published by Westcott and Hort is generally 
 accepted as the working basis for all study of the New Testament. 
 But its details are sometimes questioned. Our R.V. for instance 
 represents the ancient text as against the "Textus receptus," 
 but it differs in many places from Westcott and Hort. The 
 serious questions are these. Have Westcott and Hort really 
 
cxliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 succeeded in superseding private judgement by proved genealogy ? 
 Is not the " Western " text more true, as it certainly is more 
 wide-spread, and probably more ancient than they knew ? And 
 is not their ** neutral " text merely a variety of the " Alexandrian " 1 
 
 These are the burning questions in textual criticism, and 
 these must be borne in mind while the student considers and 
 reconsiders the groups in Hebrews. The peculiar delicacy of 
 language in this epistle renders the last question specially in- 
 teresting. On the other hand it must be remembered that the 
 Old Latin version, elsewhere so important a witness for the 
 "Western" text, is represented in Hebrews almost solely by 
 the Latin column of D, and this differs rudely from the rest of 
 the Latin in this codex. It agrees with the quotations of Lucifer 
 of Cagliari yet is perhaps no real " Old Latin," as a whole, but a 
 translation picked up at the end of the fourth century. 
 
 These problems are fairly and lucidly discussed in Kenyon's 
 Handbook^ an excellent guide to the whole subject, complete, 
 scholarly, urbane. The same author's Palaeography of Greek 
 Papyri (Clarendon Press, 1899) is a very delightful book. 
 Souter's Text and Canon of the New Testament (Duckworth, 
 1913) is popular and simple, but full of rare learning which no 
 one but its author could impart. Gregory's Canon and Text of 
 the New Testament (T. and T. Clark, 1907) is the outcome of 
 vast experience and is written in a very entertaining manner. 
 Kirsopp Lake's Text of the New Testament (Rivingtons, 1911) is 
 a small and excellent book. Burkitt's article on " Text and 
 Versions" in Encyclopaedia Bihlica vol. I v. is of great importance. 
 The section on the Text in Westcott's Introduction to his 
 commentary on Hebrews should be carefully studied. The 
 second volume of von Soden's Greek Testament, containing the 
 text of the whole with elaborate textual notes, was published at 
 Gottingen in 1913. The text with short apparatus and a brief 
 explanatory preface was also published, a moderate sized volume, 
 in the same year. Kenyon discusses von Soden's principles of 
 criticism in the last chapter of his Handbook. Westcott and 
 Hort's text is impugned at length and with some violence by 
 Mr H. C. Hoskier in Codex B and its allies^ a Study and an 
 Indictment^ 2 vols., Quaritch, 1914. Those who would learn 
 more about the Fathers should read Swete's Patristic Study ^ 
 
THE TEXT OF THE EPISTLE cxlv 
 
 Longmans, 1902. Familiarity with S. Jerome's Vulgate is an 
 inestimable advantage to the student of the Greek Testament. 
 A good text of the Vulgate has been put within reach of the 
 slenderest purse by Dr H. J. White in his (complete) Editio 
 Minor of Wordsworth and White's Novum Testamentvm Latine^ 
 Clarendon Press, 1911. Dr White wrote the masterly article 
 on the Vulgate in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible vol. iv., 
 an article which fills the same place for this generation as 
 Westcott's in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible did for a former 
 generation. 
 
 THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE 
 
 § 1. Character of N, T. Greek 
 
 Origen said that anyone who knew Greek must see that 
 S. Paul did not write this epistle. The difference of style and 
 language is indeed conspicuous. S. Paul, probably bilingual from 
 early years, used Greek fluently but roughly ; it is impossible, 
 for instance, to press the delicate distinctions of classical Greek 
 into his prepositions. He dictated his letters and they are 
 conversational, by no means bookish. Notice in Ephesians 
 how he thrice begins a prayer, but twice runs off into further 
 development of his subject before completing the prayer in 
 iii. 14 — 21 ; and contrast Heb. xiii. 20 f. Of late, the study of 
 inscriptions, papyri etc. has enabled us to understand more 
 precisely what this Greek of S. Paul is. It is the "common 
 Greek" in which, since the conquests of Alexander, men of 
 various nations could talk or write to one another throughout the 
 civilised world. Yet this common Greek was also adapted, with 
 more or less art, to literary purposes, and in N. T. generally we 
 find a particular adaptation which, with variety within itself, 
 still stands apart from the other Greek writings of the period. 
 It is more simple; the sentences are short; it has a pleasing 
 air of sincerity. One reason for this marked character is the 
 influence of the LXX. 
 
cxlvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 These writers were affected by the somewhat rude but 
 vigorous and really noble effort of the translators of the Greek 
 Bible to express holy thoughts worthily, yet in the language 
 of the people. They repeated the effort ; having new and still 
 greater truths to tell. Thus a fresh development in vernacular 
 literature arose which might be compared with Bunyan's English 
 in the PilgrMs Progress — the language of everyday life broken 
 in to the grammatical terseness of book-form by the unconscious 
 art of men inspired with an unworldly message. 
 
 Yet this N. T. Greek shews variety. The Apocalypse comes 
 nearest to the rude ungrammatical Greek of some papyri ; it is 
 written by a foreigner who has not really mastered the idiom. 
 In S. John's Gosj^el and Epistles we perhaps recognise a foreigner 
 again who has learned to meet his difficulties by a style of 
 extreme simplicity. S. Matthew and S. Mark are Hellenistic 
 Bible Christians writing as they had heard the story told, 
 yet pruning their words. S. Luke is different ; a trained writer 
 whose natural style appears in the latter part of Acts. In the 
 first twelve chapters and in the Gospel he passes sympatheti- 
 cally into the more rustic style of his authorities, and in the 
 four opening verses of the Gospel he shews that he can match 
 the dignity of the rhetorical schools. In 2 Peter and Jude a 
 like attempt is made but less admirably. With S. Luke how- 
 ever 1 Peter and James may be classed as examples of more or 
 less literary Greek ; and, supreme in this kind, stands Hebrews. 
 
 § 2. The Greek of Hebrews, classical hut not artificial : 
 use of LXX. 
 
 This is but a rough classification, nor are we concerned here 
 with critical questions about authorship ; the names quoted may 
 be taken for symbols rather than persons if any prefer to do so. 
 As a first test of what has been said the student may refer to 
 the lists of words at the end of Grimm and Thayer's Lexicon 
 of the N. T But it is not enough to count the mere number 
 of words peculiar to each writer. The kind of words is the 
 important point. In Hebrews we are at once struck by what 
 may be termed the distinguished character of the vocabulary. 
 Then by its classical purity; of 157 words peculiar to this epistle, 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE cxlvii 
 
 115 are current in early Greek. On the other hand when we 
 turn from Usts to the epistle itself we see that there is no 
 affectation about this ; later words or LXX words are employed 
 where suitable. Yet there is a certain fastidiousness, as in the 
 substitution of avaaravpooi for the incorrect o-raupoo) vi. 6. So in 
 vii. after using Uparlav in a reference to 0. T. the author passes 
 to his own more secular phraseology with Upaxrvvr) ; and in ix. 2 
 he writes rj TrpoOca-is Ta>v aproav, avoiding the Hebraic ol aproi 
 rrjs iTpo6i(T€(os. Yet he does not despise that Hebraic genitive 
 when it contributes to a desired emphasis, as in ix. 5 X.€pov^€\v 
 h6^-qs\ he even imitates it (as indeed Greek quite allows) in 
 such a phrase as KapTTov €lprjvLKov..,8iKmo<TvvTjs xii. 11. That is 
 but one instance of a frequent exercise of skill in his use of LXX. 
 Not only does he interweave quotations, modifying them, to 
 bring out fuller meaning, as in x. 37 ert yap yuKpov 6aov oaov, 
 6 epx6iJi€vos r)^€i K.r.X.y cf. ii. 9, iv. 7, x. 10, xii. 26 ; but he will 
 adopt a rude Hebraic use of the prep, iv, and by careful context 
 fill it with significance, as in i. 1 f. eV r. iTpo(^r]raLs...iv viai, 
 X. 10 iv a BcX-qfiari, xiii. 20 f. where notice how iv alfxari and 
 iv rjfuv explain one another. To make the most of prepositions 
 was a delight to him, see ix. 26 a7r6...e7rt...€ty...Sta, ix. 28, xii. 7 
 €ls iraidelav vTrofiiveTe, and the ambiguous or rather pregnant 
 €K QavcLTov V. 7. Other examples of masterly conveyance from 
 LXX are iirikap.^dveTai ii. 16, TO. TTpos rov Oeov ii. 17, v. 1 — 
 a compendium of the sacerdotal theology of the epistle, and 
 the allusive, associative use of the title* "Christ" which is 
 continually developed — see e.g. iii. 6, v. 5, xi. 26, xiii. 21. 
 
 § 3. Tenses. 
 
 In other books of N.T. it is dangerous to press the signifi- 
 cance of tenses; in Hebrews it is hard to do so too much. 
 Notice the aor. inf. xiii. 20 followed by the pres. part. ; the 
 combination in ii. 18 iv co yap Treirovdev avTos TreLpaaSeis, dvvarai 
 TOLs neipaCofjiivois ^orjOrja-aLy with which cf. the presents in vii. 25, 
 and the r}yLa(Tp.€voi...ayLa(ofi€vovs x. 10, 14; the pres. part, in 
 xi. 17 7retpafd/aei/os= "being sorely tried all the time," and the 
 perf. IT poarcvrjvox^J^ (modification of LXX) = "he hath ofiered 
 and the sacrifice still stands." Perfects abound, never without 
 
cxlviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 proper meaning. Thus the repeatedly quoted cKadiaev becomes 
 at xii. 2 K€Kd6iK€v. In xi. 28 TreiroirjKev TO irdaxp. interrupts the 
 series of aorists because the Passover is an institution still 
 observed. Sometimes a perfect and often a present is due to 
 the author's habit of referring to what stands written in books 
 or pictured in history, ii. 9 r6v...^Xarra)/xeVoi/ ^Xiirofiev ^Irjo-oiiv... 
 €(TT€(f)av(oiJL€vov, VU. 3 dcfxcixoKOfJievos TO) via Tov Oeov, and so 
 probably ix. 6 — 10 TovTa>v...KaT€(rK€vacr^€VQiv...8id rravros cla-iaorLv 
 ol Upels K.r.X., where the ritual of the tabernacle rather than 
 contemporary worship seems to be described, cf. viii. 4f. 
 It may be remarked that the emphatic use of perfects is another 
 example of judicious adaptation from LXX language ; see ii. 13 
 for quotation of a LXX compound perf. eaojiai irciroLdoos, and 
 cf. e.g. Is. Ix. 15 did TO yeycvrjaOai ae eyKaTaXeXcififievrjv kol 
 H€^iL(rr)fi€VT)v, For a very precise use of perf. inf. see xi. 3 els to 
 fi7j...y€yov€vat,. 
 
 That is also an example of the inf. with article and prepo- 
 sition, common in later Greek, and handled by this author with 
 freedom, e.g. in ii. 15 did iravTos tov (f]v. His use of iv in such 
 phrases, ii. 8, iii. 12 iv t^ diroo-Tfjvaij shews how far he is from 
 affecting classicism : for this construction, in which the inf. 
 seems to admit a temporal sense, is hardly true to the genius of 
 the older language. Another laudable concession to contempo- 
 rary usage is the Latinising 6 irpoa-eveyKTjy viii. 3. 
 
 § 4. Participles. 
 
 Participles are used with nicety, terseness, and sometimes 
 bold freedom. Notice the interwoven series in i. 3 f., v. 7 — 10, 
 vi. 4 — 6, the terseness of fiaKpoOvfirja-as itriTvx^v vi. 15, dna^ 
 K€Ka6apLarfi,€vovs X. 2, yevvrjdels eKpv^r) xi. 23, and the extension 
 of formal grammar in vi. 10 €V€8€i^a(rd€...8iaKovr)a-avT€s kol Sia- 
 KovovvTfs, and the practical elegance of noun-phrase varied by 
 part, in xiii. 17 tva p,€Td x^po-s tovto ttolmo-lv kol p.r} orTevd^ovTcs. 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE cxlix 
 
 g 5. Article. 
 
 The article is added or omitted so as to get the utmost from 
 the words; i. 2 iv via, ix. 14 bia TrvevfjLaros alcoviovj vi. 7 yrj 
 yap T) TTLoixra, vi. 18 (though here the text is perhaps uncertain) 
 €v ols dbvvaTov yjrevcracrBaL deovj xii. 7 ws viols vjxiv TrpoacpeperaL 
 6 dcos' TLS yap vlos ov ov iraihevet Trarrjp; see also xi. 16, and 
 the scarce translatable debs fcoi^. Its omission in passages of 
 poetical elevation is effective, and reminds us of the tragedians, 
 xi. 33 ff., xii. 22 — 24. The construction with a neuter adj. or 
 part, to represent an abstract or collective is well introduced in 
 vi. 17 TO dpcTaOerov rrjs ^ovXrjs airoO, vii. 18 5ia to avr^s dcrBeves 
 Kal avox^eXeff, xii. 13 liva jxr] to ;(;q>X6v iKTpairtj. The rules for 
 omitting art. in compound phrases are observed; 6s cSv dirav- 
 yaa-pa ttjs do^rjs is predicative i. 3, els diroXvTpaxTiv tS)v eVi r^ 
 7rp(OT7j dLaSjJKT] irapa^da-€(ov, ix. 15, has a preposition. We are there- 
 fore inclined to suspect some deliberate purpose in the technical 
 irregularity of dnaTr} Trjs dfiapTias iii. 13 ; it is probably meant to 
 throw emphasis on the particular sin which the readers were in 
 danger of committing, cf. xii. 1 ttjv evTrepiaTaTov dfiapTiav, 
 
 § 6. Order of words. 
 
 In ix. 1 there is a double predicate, the second expressed as 
 usual by the position of the article, the first merely by the order 
 elx^ p^v ovv Km rj rrpcDTr] diKaioapaTa XaTpeias to tc dyiov KoapiKov : 
 SO in vi. 5 Ka\6v yeva-apevovs Oeov prjpa dwdpcLS re piWovTos 
 alS}vos, cf. ix. 17, 24, xi. 26, and the compound predicate in 
 X. 34 yivoicTKOVTCs €)(€LV iavTOVs Kpclaaova virap^iv Kal pivovcrav. 
 Again and again the sense is brought out by the order of the 
 words, e.g. the emphatic ^Ir^aovv dividing the clauses in ii. 9, 
 cf. vi. 20, xiii. 20. Sometimes an emphatic word is postponed 
 to the end of the clause, as in vii. 4 w SeKaTtjv ^A^paap edonKcv 
 CK Tcov aKpoOivloiv 6 7raTpLdpx>]S, ix. 28 €k devTepov ;^a)piff dpapTias 
 6(^6r](r€TaL toIs avTov dTrcKdexopcvois ch (TcoTrjpiav with which cf. 
 the final ttjv dacjydXeLav Luke i. 4. This is especially to be noticed 
 with genitives, as in x. 20, tovt caTiv Trjs aapKos avTov (where 
 see note), ix. 15, xii. 11. In xi. 1 eVrtv stands emphatically at 
 the beginning of the sentence. Words connected in syntax are 
 
cl INTRODUCTION 
 
 elegantly separated, as in Plato, iv. 8 oIk av jrcpl aXXrjs iXaXci 
 fiera ravra rjfjiipas, ii. 17, iv. 11, X. 2. In ix. 11, rav ycvofievcdv 
 aya6a>v Siti..., the idiomatic nicety has been misunderstood by 
 copyists and translatoi*s, as too has the rhetorical rives in iiL 16. 
 
 § 7. Elaboration and simplicity: no vain rhetoric. 
 
 Long, skilfully woven periods are not uncommon, e.g. i. 1 — 4, 
 vi. 1 — 6 ; yet compared with Philo or Josephus these are plain, 
 with the indifference to shew that a great subject breeds. The 
 antitheses too with which the epistle abounds are of such a kind 
 that they illustrate a certain mystery of all good language, viz. 
 that the understanding seems to require precisely the same 
 artistic form as will satisfy the e^r. Thus in xi. 1, ekiri^oiiivaiv 
 VTroaraais irpayixaroDV eXcyxos ov /SXfTro/xeVooj/, neither of the 
 balanced clauses could be dispensed with. A difference in this 
 respect may be observed between the parallelisms of the author 
 and the more formal parallelisms of the O.T. poetry which he 
 quotes. The same happy coincidence of sound and sense may 
 be observed in many of the long, swiftly-scanned perfect forms 
 which fit so well into their place in the sentence ; e.g. kckXtjpopo- 
 p,r)K€V ovofia i. 4, TrepiKeKaXvfJLfievrjv rravroOev ^pvcrtco ix. 4 — notice 
 the metrical assonance with vTrcpdvcD be avrrjs Xcpov^cXv in the 
 next verse. A like good taste restrains the use of resonant com- 
 pounds, /uto-^aTroSoo-ta, eyKaTaXcLTTOVTcs, ;!^et/307rotr;ra, 6pK(op.o(TLa etc. 
 These are characteristic of the epistle ; yet they are sparingly 
 admitted. Contrast the profusion in 2 Peter and Jude, or even 
 in so pleasing a writer as Clement of E-ome. And quite as 
 characteristic is the effect produced by very simple words — /cat, 
 exw, ©1^, ovTcdVy XaXco), fi€va> etc. — and quiet phrases like vi. 3, Koi. 
 TOVTO TTOLrjcrofiev idvircp €7nTp€7rT) 6 deos. 
 
 Such simplicity is particularly effective when it comes by 
 way of contrast, as fxiveiv after 7rapap,€V€iv vii. 23 f. This kind 
 of distinction between similar words may also be illustrated by 
 7rp68r)\ov, KaTdhrjkov in the same chapter (14 f.). It is one of the 
 author's habits to press the philological value of words in this 
 way; so (rightly or wrongly) Trpocrt^aroi/ x. 20, and generally 
 reXeioft) and its cognates; so again €K<l>o^os...€VTpop-os xii. 21. 
 This naturally lends itself to his love of antithesis, but finer 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE di 
 
 examples of that figure are to be seen in sentences like xi. 38, 
 hv ovK rjv a^tos 6 Kocr/xos eVi eprjfxlaLS TrXavcdfjievoL k.t.X., or in 
 gnomic utterances like efiadcv a<^* cov ciradev rrjv viraKor^v V. 8, 
 or o re yap ayLa^o^v kol ol dyia^ofiivoL i^ evos ttuvtcs ii. 11. 
 
 At vii. 4 there is a sudden touch of conversational audacity — 
 TrrjXUos. This might be recondite art, as might the meiosis in 
 xiii. 17 dXvcrtreXeff yap vyuv tovto, or the ironic use of tls at x. 25, 
 Kadois €009 Tta-lv, cf. ii. 6, iii. 4, 12 f., iv. 11, xii. 15 f., xiii. 2; and 
 indeed this kind of thing is frequent in Philo. But Philonic 
 mannerisms were natural to the author, and (we may suppose) 
 to his readers, and it is more respectful to take it as easy, 
 intimate writing. Deissmann will not allow the epistle to be 
 a letter in the true sense of the word, and Wrede considered 
 ch. xiii. a letter-like addition to an original treatise,, intended 
 to make people think that S. Paul was the author. But ch. xiii. 
 must surely seem to a sympathetic reader a most natural con- 
 clusion. The author himself allows that the earlier chapters 
 are rather like a treatise (see xiii. 22 note), yet even in them 
 intimacy sometimes intrudes; see especially the all but play- 
 fulness of V. 11 — 13, the reminiscences in vi. 10, x. 32 ff., and 
 the touching sympathy of rrjv awcidrjo-Lv rifxcov ix. 14, where the 
 v.l. vfiav (though fairly attested) only shews how soon and how 
 generally such personal notes fell on deaf ears. It may be that 
 the irregular grammar of vii. 1, x. 1, is epistolary carelessness; 
 so too the ambiguity of expression in i. 6, iv. 7, 13 (6 \6yos 
 repeated), v. 12 {nva or rlva), vi. 2, xii. 17, xii. 22 fivpida-tv 
 dyycXiov [,] navrjyvpei ; though the last instance should warn us 
 against supposing that what is ambiguous to us was therefore 
 ambiguous to native and contemporary readers. However that 
 m^y be, it is certain that careful study of this epistle corrects 
 the first impression of artificial rhetoric. Notice the truly Greek 
 naturalness of the return to the accusative in dyayovra ii. 10; 
 and the wakefulness against growing tedious in chs. iv. and v., 
 where the too argumentative page is enlightened suddenly by 
 apa aTroXeiircTat (ra^^aTKTp.os k.t.\. iv. 9 ; the vivid personal dva- 
 T€Ta\K€v 6 KvpLos r}p,a)v vii. 14, and the great arresting phrases at 
 vii. 16, 25. 
 
clii INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 8. Particles and Conjunctions, 
 
 He uses particles and conjunctions more freely and skilfully 
 than any other New Testament writer. For illustration take 
 these references : ov yap drj ttov ii. 16, Kal...fi€v...d€ iii. 5 f., 
 X. 11 f., Kai...di ix. 21, axpis ov iii. 13, Kaiirep with part. v. 8, 
 vii. 5, xii. 17, Kairoi with part, or perhaps rather introducing 
 new sentence iv. 3 (see note), kol yap xii. 29, xiii. 22 (see note), 
 apa iv. 9, dio vi. 1, X. 5, €t p.€v ovv vii. 11, viii. 4, cf. ix. 1, 
 €LTa xii. 9, (oarre introducing clause xiii. 6, tolwv xiii. 13. Con- 
 nexion by relatives, os, ncpl ov, otrivcs, oOcv, orrov, is frequent. 
 The parenthetic, ovtcd cjio^cpov §v to (j)avTa^6p.€vov xii. 21, is 
 a good device for heightening the imaginative efifect of the 
 passage. Variety is gained by expressing comparisons by 
 napd, antithetic balance by Kad* oa-ov, TO(TovTCd...o(T(o^ i. 4, 
 ix. 27, X. 25. In x. 33 tovto fi€v...TovTo Se is used in good 
 Greek sense ; so is cos eiros elnclv (limiting the bold statement) 
 in vii. 9. One of the simplicities of the author's diction is his 
 frequent introduction of sentences by a plain Kai — ^to be dis- 
 tinguished from the emphatic Kal which qualifies the opening 
 word of a sentence introduced by some other particle : contrast 
 ix. 21 with ix. 22, also the remarkable xi. 17. Perhaps it would 
 be fanciful to recognise the onward pressing hopefulness of the 
 epistle in this habit, as a sanguine temperament is sometimes 
 discovered by an upward tending script. Yet see how a Ka\ 
 of this kind appends xi. 39 f. to the roll of by-gone heroisms, 
 and notice the restless desiderium of the thi:ee last verses as 
 contrasted with the resting places in the history which were 
 marked by the firm words irokiv xi. 16, and elprjvrjs xi. 31. 
 Sometimes attention is called by an abrupt start, without 
 connecting particle ; thus ovnco p^xpis alparos xii. 4, cf. iii. f 2, 
 viii. 13, X. 8, 23, 28 f., 31, the repeated TriVrei in xi., xii. 14, and 
 often in xiii. Sometimes the author binds together a chain of 
 nouns and phrases with Kal and re, vi. 4 f ; but again, as though 
 weary of such precision, he pours forth additional ones rapidly 
 and disconnected, xi. 37 f. At xiii. 8 ^Iija-ovs exOes /cat a-ljpepov 
 K.r.X. (see note) is a battle cry, not a statement, in accordance 
 with the purpose of the epistle, which is to '' witness " for the 
 faith, not to develop it. 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE cliii 
 
 The author has been wrongfully accused of mistreating ottcds 
 in ii. 9 (see note). Another case of doubtful Greek may be worth 
 a few remarks. No New Testament writer keeps the classical 
 rule about ov and /xj) with participles ; their rough and ready rule 
 is, " with participle always /xi^." However they do use ov some- 
 times (see Blass, § 75, 5) ; as this author does, evidently with 
 intention, in xi. 35. But, besides that, he preserves something 
 of the older feeling for /xij. Notice first his idiomatic eVel /x^ 
 t6t€ l(Txi>€L ix. 17 (where see note) ; then the /ir) with part, in 
 iv. 2, 15, vii. 3, 6, ix. 9, xi. 8, 13, 27. In most instances there 
 is reason for /x^ in the syntax of the sentence, or we can dis- 
 cern at least a partial appropriateness in the ^r) : sometimes it 
 might be translated ** though... not," or *'not that." Contrast 
 xi. 1, 'irpayfidTa>v eXeyxos ov ^Xeirofievcov^ where firj would greatly 
 weaken the thought, with xi. 27, fxr) (po^rjOels rbv Bv/jlov tov 
 /3a(riXea)9="not that, do not say that he feared"; cf. 1 Pet i. 8, 
 ov ovk Ibovres ayoTrare, els tv apn firj 6pci)VT€S iricTTcvovres Sc ayaX- 
 \taT€y " where," however, Blass holds, " it is artificial to wish to 
 draw a distinction between the two negatives." 
 
 § 9. Picturesqueness. 
 
 Of the author's picturesque manner of thinking something 
 has been said in another section. These characteristics may 
 be noted here. Personification in xii. 4 and again in 5, also in 
 24. Yet in each case what is characteristic is the delicacy of 
 the figure; the phrase just falls short of personification, cf. x. 23 
 the '* confession " wavering ; it is the unconscious liveliness of 
 an ever picturing mind. And in the two instances from ch. xii., 
 of voices in Scripture and in the mystery symbolised by "blood," 
 there is something akin to the idea which runs through the 
 epistle of the Spirit of God speaking in books, history and ritual. 
 Pictures are again and again presented to the mind's eye ; see 
 the opening verses i. 1 — 4, xi. 13 — 16 the " pilgrim fathers." 
 Sometimes these pictures are, not indistinct, but hard to 
 interpret. They take form, dissolve, and form themselves 
 afresh, as we ponder on their meaning ; so iv. 12 f. and xiii. 7 
 the release of departed " leaders " from the coil of business, or 
 itheir martyrdom. Mystery of a deeper kind is suggested in 
 
 12 
 
cliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 such passages as xii. 18 with its undefined participles yjrrjXacfxo- 
 fxev(o Kol KiKavjxivco rrvpi ; mark the cfyavTa^ofxevov immediately 
 afterwards, which comes in as a curious and peculiar word 
 that lets you into the spirit of the whole design. The converse 
 of this appears in sentences where difficult thought is condensed 
 into luminous phrases and made " clear " by being carried into 
 a higher region of imagination. Instances are ii. 14 t6v to 
 Kparos €)(0VTa tov davdrov, vi. 5 BwajxeLS re fieWovTos atwros, 
 vii. 16 ov Kara vopov evroXrjs (rapKivr}s...dWa Kara dvvafiiv ^(orjs 
 djcaraXurov, and vii. 25 TrdvroTC ^a>v €ls to €VTvy)(^dv€iv vrrep avTa>Vf 
 where the peculiar quality of this epistle may be discerned by 
 comparison with the less tangible phrase of Rom. viii. 27, Kara 
 deov €VTvyxdv€i. [to nvevjia] vnep dyicov. Cf. also ix. 14, xi. 1, 3, 
 27, xii. 27. There is something of the same nature, though here 
 imagination more nearly approaches metaphor, in x. 20 ; worth 
 si)ecial reference however on account of the tovt ea-Tiv, which, 
 perhaps always, in this epistle introduces a more profound 
 second thought. 
 
 Then there is the imagination of sympathy, as in the pic- 
 tures of the divine humiliation ii. 8 f., v. 7 fil ; of the unhappy 
 "sinners against their own selves" xii. 3, cf. x^Rf^^ olKTipfioiv 
 X. 28; the silly, halting "multitude" xii. 13; the wakeful 
 leaders xiii. 17 ; and the recollection in v. 1 ffi of good priests 
 the author and his friends have known. In xi. 21 koI npoa-c- 
 Kvvrjaev errt to ciKpov ttjs pd^dov avTov, which we are apt to feel 
 an otiose addition, is probably a pathetic detail in the description 
 of the aged patriarch. It is generally safe to let the picturesque 
 emerge from our author's language. Consider how the visual 
 image simplifies discussion of vTroo-rao-ts, reXfioo), a-vveldrjaLSy and 
 in their context, KaTo. ttlo-tiv xi. 13, fxea-LTrj xii. 24 ; and how it 
 adds to the value of such rememberable phrases as the "cloud of 
 witnesses," " land of promise," " city that hath the foundations." 
 
 § 10. Artistic arrangement. 
 
 The late Dean of Lincoln, Dr Wickham, says in his edition : 
 " It is, in a sense beyond any other epistle in the New Testa- 
 ment, an artistic whole. It is a letter, but at the same time 
 it is an impassioned treatise or piece of oratory, having a single 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE civ 
 
 purpose, ardently felt, clearly conceived, never lost to sight. 
 The whole argument is in view from the beginning, whether in 
 the purely argumentative passages, or in those which are in 
 form hortatory ; we are constantly meeting phrases which are 
 to be taken up again, and to have their full meaning given to 
 them later on. The plan itself develops. While the figures 
 to some extent change and take fresh colour, there is growing 
 through all, in trait on trait, the picture which the writer 
 designs to leave before his readers' minds." This is admirably 
 put, and we shall also listen respectfully to von Soden^, who 
 finds in the arrangement an exact observance of the rules of 
 the masters of rhetoric ; i. 1 — iv. 13 is the npooifMiov rrpos €v- 
 voiav with establishment of the irpodecns, iv. 14 — vi. 20 dirjyrja-LS 
 Trpos TTiOavoT-qra^ vii. 1 — x. 18 aTroSet^t? Trpoff Trei^o), X. 19 — xiii. 
 21 cirlXoyos, with the practical challenge that all has been 
 leading to. 
 
 Undoubtedly there is art, much art, in the composition. 
 If the divisions marked by von Soden do not appear at once 
 clear cut before us, that only shews good art concealing art. 
 In all his transitions the author hides the juncture ; notice for 
 instance how "angels" is repeated, ii. 5, as a catch -word to link 
 the new subject of ii. 5 — 18 to the former. But notice also how 
 delicately this is done ; the thought of the angels itself over- 
 laps into the new subject, and is just touched once more near 
 the end, ii. 16 ; yet it is no master thought in this section, the 
 angels, as it were, slowly fade ; except for the smooth advance 
 of the argument they need not really have been mentioned again 
 after i. 14. To us this artistic manner is apt to cause a kind 
 of suspicion ; it seems " artificial " ; we think of the author's 
 own depreciation of the things that are transitory because they 
 are " made up," w? TreiroirjfjLivcovj xii. 27. And indeed his style 
 and manner are, as with many another earnest advocate of 
 eternal truth, transitory. They belong, like the technical 
 vocabulary of Alexandrine philosophy which he employs, to 
 the time and to the little circle of himself and his friends. 
 But that means that they were natural to him and them. He 
 has a purpose ardently felt, nothing less than to prepare some 
 
 ^ Hand-Gommentar, p. 11. Freiburg, 1899. 
 
clvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 dear friends for possible or probable martyrdom. They, like 
 himself, live in a world of books. That explains his choice of 
 language, and makes his purpose the more courageous. Com- 
 pare the eloquent defence of S. Stephen, another "man of 
 words" who passed from words to martyrdom with no sense 
 of incongruity, though probably with especial difficulty ; and see 
 how sympathetically S. Luke, himself like-minded, describes 
 both his educated oratory and his masculine resolution. It 
 need hardly be added that both S. Luke and our author look 
 beyond these things — dcpopavres xii. 1 — to the vision of the 
 martyr's captain and upholder, enthroned — or standing— at the 
 right hand of God. 
 
 §11. A.V. and R.V. 
 
 Translations into modern English, such as Weymouth's or 
 The Twentieth Century New Testament^ are less acceptable for 
 Hebrews than for other parts of N.T. MofFatt's earlier trans- 
 lation in his HiUorical New Testament (T. and T. Clark) does 
 preserve something of the peculiar flavour of this epistle. Yet 
 how thin is his rendering of xi. 1 : " Now faith is to be confident 
 of what we hope for, to be convinced of what we do not see." 
 Hardly indeed may A.V. be surpassed in that verse : " Now 
 faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen." The half philosophical, half picturesque phraseology 
 of the original is just caught there, and the marginal note on 
 " substance " — " Or, ground, or confidence " — goes as far as it 
 ought to go in concession to the weaker brethren. The KV., 
 it must be confessed, attenuates the sense : " Now faith is the 
 assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen," 
 and in the margin for " the assurance " " Or, the giving substance 
 to^^ for " proving " " Or, test.^^ Other, but slight, misrenderings 
 in R.V. are vii. 9 "so to say" for w? eiros cIttcIv, x. 33 '* partly... 
 partly" for rovro fji€v...TovTo 5e, xiii. 8 where the insertion of 
 "is" weakens the proclamation, which in A.V. sounds forth 
 bravely. 
 
 In Hebrews A.V. is particularly good, not merely as a piece 
 of English, but as an equivalent of the uncommon Greek style. 
 The advantage of reading in R.V. is not so immediately obvious 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE clvii 
 
 as in S. Paul's epistles, perhaps even less so when the proper 
 test of reading aloud is applied. Yet to the theologian, however 
 simple, who does not read to delight his ear but to assure his 
 anxious heart, the satisfaction of E.V". is presently discovered. 
 There is first the inestimable advantage of the pure text. At 
 the outset R.V. strikes the note of hope with "at the end of 
 these days" instead of "in these last days''; then of breadth 
 with " when he had made purification of sins " instead of " when 
 he had by himself purged our sins." It does matter whether 
 Christ came as a high priest of good things to come, or, E.V, 
 margin, of good things that have with His death already come, 
 ix. 11 ; whether we ought to "consider him that endured such 
 contradiction of sinners against himself," or rather "him that 
 hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against themselves," 
 xii. 3. 
 
 Nor is the scrupulous attention of R.V. to this perf. part., 
 vTTo/tejLiei/T^/cora, pedantry. As in ii. 18 and many another place 
 the author encourages us here by the belief that our Saviour's 
 pains on earth are still in Him a ground of sympathy with us. 
 If all the many corrections of tenses in R.V. are not so evidently 
 practical in their bearing, more and more are found to be so by 
 the student who broods over his book. Or take the article. 
 Is there no theological beauty in "the city which hath the 
 foundations" xi. 10, "the city which is to come" xiii. 14, or in 
 the answer of xi. 14 to xi. 9, "a sojourner in the land of promise, 
 as in a land not his own.... For they that say such things make 
 it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own " ? 
 In xii. 2 "endured the cross, despising shame," is perhaps 
 wrong; the Greek has the art. with neither noun, and A.V. 
 reproduces the aphorism more forcibly by adding it to both. 
 But in xii. 14 "Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctifi- 
 cation without which no man shall see the Lord," R.V. has 
 faithfully preferred an obscurity, which at least startles the 
 conscience, to the smooth inaccuracy, which so easily passes 
 through the mind as a truism, of A.V. 
 
 In that verse "no man" is a right translation. But in iii. 3, 
 X. 12 A.V. speaks of our Lord as "this man" without justifi- 
 cation in the Greek. This confuses the important doctrine of 
 the real manhood which the epistle illustrates continually, but 
 
clviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 never in such crude fashion. It dwells too on His "compassion" 
 or "sympathy," but ix€rpiona&€Lv, v. 2, is different, in some ways 
 more than that, and E.V. "bear gently with" is admirable. 
 A.V. however has "can reasonably bear with" in its margin, and 
 the margin deserves attention in both versions — in R.V. it is as 
 valuable as the text; it is very wrong to print either without 
 their marginal notes. If the theology of Hebrews does add 
 anything to the theology of the rest of the N.T., it is more 
 than worth while to render its peculiar theological phraseology 
 with particularity. That is attempted far more thoroughly in 
 R.V. than in A.V. In i. 14 "ministering spirits sent forth to 
 minister" misses the conversion of ritual idealism into practi- 
 cal service which R.V. expresses by "to do service." "To make 
 reconciliation," ii. 17, is Pauline; "to make propitiation " = tXa- 
 (TKcaQai. "Consecrated,'' vii. 28, confuses reXeioo) with ayid^oi ; the 
 margin has "Gr. 'perfected^'' but R.V. rightly puts this into the 
 text. In X. 23 "faith" for "hope" is a sheer mistake, possibly 
 a printer's error. In xi. 2, 39 "obtained a good report" is quite 
 misleading. R.V. "had witness borne to them" sounds less 
 plain English but indicates the connexion with the other pas- 
 sages where fiapTvpelarOaL or cognates are used with more or less 
 approach to the idea of "martyrdom." In xii. 2 the dominant 
 note of reXetoo) is again echoed in tcX^lcottiv. A.V. "Author and 
 finisher" has the influence of custom upon us. But the echo is 
 important, and "finisher" may even suggest an untrue thought if 
 we connect it with the popular interpretation of 1 Cor. xiii. 13. 
 R.V. "Author and perfecter," with the marginal alternative 
 "captain "for "author," carries us far deeper into the writer's mind. 
 In xi. 33 A.V. has "These all died in faith, not having received 
 the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded 
 of them, and embraced them," a false reading and a wrong 
 translation. How beautiful is R.V. "having seen them and 
 greeted them from afar." This is an example of that vivid 
 picturesqueness which really belongs to the epistle and which, 
 reverently preserved, may impress the writer's earnest purpose 
 upon more generations of readers than the sweetest compen- 
 sations in another .idiom. So in x. 27 "fierceness of fire" R.V. is 
 better than "fiery indignation." It might seem wanton to alter 
 " Now that which decajeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE clix 
 
 away," viii. 13, into "But that which is becoming old and waxeth 
 aged is nigh unto vanishing away." But the transposition of 
 "old" knits, as in the Greek 7r€7raXaLcoK€v...Tb de iTaKaLovjxevov^ 
 this verse to the preceding. The compound phrase "is becoming 
 old" shows that this is no mere proverbial appendage (which 
 might well be introduced by "Now"), but the observation of 
 a particular and startling process already going on before the 
 eyes of the writer and his friends. And the "nigh unto" is one 
 of the solemn notes characteristic of the epistle; of. vi. 8 
 adoKifios KOL Kordpas eyyvs, X. 25 eyyi^ovorav rrjv i^fxipav, and — an 
 answeiing phrase in the harmony — eTreia-aycoyrj kp€lttovo^ iXiribos 
 bi rjs eyyi^ofiev rw dea, vii. 19. If this epistle really is a challenge, 
 sounding out of an actual crisis when some great perilous change 
 was "nigh," all this correction was worth making. It is how- 
 ever a pity that those who worked so carefully here should have 
 obscured their purpose by rendering reXcvrav, xi. 22, into "when 
 his end was nigh." 
 
 § 12. Rythm. 
 
 It would be out of place in these notes to consider the 
 objection commonly made against R.V., viz. that its rythm is 
 inferior, if this consideration did not help us to a more precise 
 appreciation of the Greek rythm of the epistle. But it does. 
 Whereas A.V. preserves the more formal Latin tradition in its 
 grand but slightly varied cadences, R.V. approaches more nearly 
 the freedom of the Greek. No doubt the main care of the 
 Revisers was for exact translation and sometimes for restoring 
 the author's meaning by attention to the order of his words. 
 But the result unconsciously attained is, fairly often, a nearer 
 agreement with the principle laid down by Aristotle, Rhet iii. 8, 
 that in prose there should be rythm but no metre, and that 
 the rythm should not be too precise. 
 
 Hebrews certainly has rythm. Blass published an edition in 
 which he shewed a metrical correspondence of clauses through- 
 out, the beginning or ending of one answering to another near 
 it, and not a single one failing to come into the system. He 
 actually makes out these correspondences, but is obliged to intro- 
 duce a certain number of impossible readings for the purpose. 
 It would appear that the careful Greek rhetoricians really did 
 
clx INTRODUCTION 
 
 compose in this manner. But we may suspect that the author of 
 Hebrews was'after all not one of them. Indeed his tendency to 
 let words run into fragments of verse forbids our recognising him 
 as either a very careful or a quite first-rate master of rythm. 
 His variety is great. To classify his cadences is a baffling task. 
 Finely measured yet changetful sound pervades whole sentences. 
 Nevertheless his variety is infected by a certain monotony of 
 "the metrical," here and there. 
 
 Yet the verse-metre to which he is inclined is the iambic. 
 Isocrates had like inclination and Aristotle says of that metre, 
 that in the speech of everyday life people are apt to drop into it ; 
 which seems to provide some excuse for both writers. 
 
 Aristotle gives another hint for our guidance when he recom- 
 mends the paeon as a measure to be used in prose. The paeon 
 is a long syllable followed by three short ones, or three short 
 syllables followed by a long. So in the opening verse, Trokv^iepas 
 Koi TToXurpoTTO)? ; and, if we extend its use by breaking the long 
 into two shorts, the next phrase continues in the same measure, 
 iraXai 6 Beos^ for of course m is short before the following vowel. 
 But if this phrase be taken, not by itself,- but in its context with 
 the whole sentence, the last syllable of Oeos is lengthened by 
 "position" : thus monotony is avoided, and we already have 
 a suggestion of the many ways in which the author will adapt 
 this favourite element of rythm. 
 
 But another metrical equivalent of the paeon is the cretic 
 (-^-), and this is in Demosthenes "his favourite foot throughout 
 the sentence." And in the epistle cretics will be found to play 
 an important part. The student may count the cretics in the 
 four opening verses; then take less rhetorical passages and 
 notice how the cretics diminish in number; then observe cretics 
 giving the "Ciceronian" character to the close of sentences, 
 i.e. a cretic followed by a trochaic series ; yet not with Ciceronian 
 regularity — the modification - - - - is for instance common. He 
 will also notice how often the offending iambic combinations may 
 be better read as measures governed by a cretic, e.g. xii. 18, koi 
 K€Kav^€vco TTupl, Is uotably iambic only when isolated; in its con- 
 text it breaks agreeably what would otherwise have been too long 
 a series of cretics, ylrrfXacpcofievco koi K€Kavfi€vcp rrvpl kol yvo^o) kol 
 Co(f><o Ka\ OveXkrj. 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE clxi 
 
 However, in spite of Aristotle and the other ancient critics, 
 this analysis into feet is rather misleading. Walter Headlam 
 once wrote, "I never could understand lyric metres cut up into 
 feet : the key to understanding them is to regard them as built 
 up from phrases, or as you would say in music 'figures.'" That 
 is very applicable to prose ; and another point to be observed is 
 the manner in which these "figures" are linked together. In 
 lyric metres Headlam shewed^ that one rhythm or "figure" does 
 not simply succeed another, but is linked with it, the last notes 
 of the one forming at the same time the first notes of the new 
 tune (as it were). Something of this kind may be observed in 
 the passage just quoted, xii. 18 ; and continually. There indeed 
 is a dift'erence. Lyrics, as Headlam read them, are subtle and 
 flexible in metre, but they have their conventionally repeated 
 measures ; the transitions occur only at certain points. In good 
 prose there should be no convention like rhyme or metre ; the 
 transition should be continuous, like the living curve of a bough. 
 As time went on artificiality gained on prose, and even of 
 Isocrates Plutarch could say that he went on fitting and com- 
 pacting antithetic and parallel phrases and answering cadences, 
 smoothing away his periods almost with chisels, till he waxed 
 aged {(yrjpacrey. In this respect, as in its language generally, 
 Hebrews is a return towards the earlier simplicity ; the precision 
 of the schools has in the fellowship of the Church been reinforced 
 by the racy idiom of daily life. 
 
 But this is all rather technical. Ordinary readers will be 
 content to dwell upon the indisputable beauty of the opening 
 verses, or such haunting cadences as iv. 16 tva \dj3a)fi€v eXeos 
 KOL X^P^^ evpcofxcv €is evKaipov ^orjdciav, viii. 13 iv rc5 \iyciv 
 Kaivrjv Tr€7raXaL(0K€v rrjv irpoiTrjv^ to Se TraXaiovfievov kcll yqpacrKov 
 iyyvs a(f)avL(TyLov. And notice again how sound combines with 
 sense. This epistle often if not always illustrates Lander's 
 aphorism : " Natural sequences and right subordination of 
 thoughts, and that just proportion of numbers in the sentences 
 
 ^ Greek Lyric Metre, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxii. pp. 
 209—227. 
 
 2 de gloria Athen. ch. 8, quoted by A. C. Clark, Fontes prosae 
 numerosaey p. 8. 
 
clxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 which follows a strong conception, are the constituents of true 
 harmony." The " numbers," it will be found, depend on quantity 
 not stress of syllables. Notice at ix. 11, after the pause ...fjLexpt 
 Kmpov diopOoaa-ccos eTTLKcifieva^ the rush of short syllables with 
 which the new hope is introduced — Xpia-ros de irapayevoficvos 
 apxi-fp^vs T(ov y€vop.€va)v dyadcop Sta..., and, on the other hand, 
 the stately entrance of the finale at xii. 1 — roiyapovv kol tjfjiels... 
 where the brief trochaic opening is quite appropriate. 
 
 It is trochaic because koI is short before the initial vowel of 
 17/xftff. This collocation is not seldom admitted, and with good 
 effect; cf. St* ov koL iiroirjaev rovs alavaSj i. 2. Except for such 
 effects, hiatus is avoided. 
 
 In the last quotation the final v of cTroLijcrev may be observed. 
 This final r, which before consonants is in this epistle as usual 
 as in the rest of N.T., is so managed as to contribute to good 
 rythm ; see the variety in i. 2 iXaXrja-ev r]fXLv...Wr)K€v KXijpovofiov... 
 €7roiT)(T€v Tovs alwvas, or the additional emphasis given to the 
 initial (o-tiv xi. 1, while the omission in irvcvfiacn bLKalcav rere- 
 Xtioojxivcdv xii. 23 seems in turn to satisfy the ear. 
 
 § 13. Aids to study of language. 
 
 The style is so important a feature of this epistle that very 
 much more than one section of a brief introduction would be 
 required for anything like complete treatment of the subject. 
 The philosophical vocabulary would allow long and careful 
 examination. Then it would run out into consideration of the 
 author's obligations to many other kinds of literature, especially 
 what we now call the Classics. Enough has perhaps been said 
 to start the student on enquiries of his own. A few books may 
 be named from which he may find help. 
 
 The literature of the papyri and other documents of vulgar 
 Greek, so necessary for the study of other parts of N.T.,.is not 
 much needed here. Milligan^, or Witkowski^, or Deissmann^ 
 will shew however that the author's literary taste has by no 
 
 ^ Selections from the Greek Papyri, Camb. Univ. Press. 
 
 2 Epistulae Privatae GraecaCy Teubner. 
 
 3 Light from the Ancient East (tr. L. K. M. Strachan), Hodder 
 and Stoughton. 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE clxiii 
 
 means prevented his using in due measure the ordinary language 
 of his day. Here is a list of words and phrases from Milligan 
 which illustrate the epistle : 
 
 eVtSet^aro) p. 3, cf. vi. 17 ; cv yap "lctOl p. 6, cf. xii. 17 
 7rapay€vecrBaL p. 7, cf. ix. 11; XcLTOvpyrjcraL p. 13; KCKOixicfiivai. 
 8ia\v6fjL€voL p. 14 ; 8l' oXicov (sic) p. 14, cf. xiii. 22 ; elXd^ecav p. 15 
 Kparelv p. 18, cf. ii. 14 ; fiiavda)aiv p. 18 ; dnoXcXvfievov p. 23, 
 of. xiii. 23; v7re/9-— with regard to, p. 24; /carao-Kevafo) p. 30 
 Karaprl^a) p. 31 ; rmv diro p. 52, of. xiii. 24; diroKareardS-q p. 53 
 (r(OTrjpa p. 54 ; p^pTy/iarto-oi/ p. 69, ;^p7;juartfo/iat p. 112 ; x€Lp07TOLr)Tovs 
 p. 70 ; TO irapov p. 74, cf. xii. 11 ; evyvdrai, eyyvoL p. 87, cf. vii. 22 ; 
 Tjyovfi€Vois UpicDV p. 88, 108, 6 rjyovficvos tov (rrparriyov p. 35, 
 cf. xiii. 7, 17 ; TrepLmpeBrjvai p. 89, cf. xii. 1 ; 6tl p.€ inaideva-as 
 KoXas p. 91, cf. xii. 5 ff. ; irapanevco, eavrovs p. 96 ; cvcre^cia p. 99, 
 cvare^ijs p. 116 ; ov p.rj p. 103 ; vcodpeverai p. 106, cf. v. 11 ; alcovicov 
 p. 110; eiriKoXov p. Ill, cf. xi. 16; eycvadfirjv with gen. p. 116; 
 dyanr^Tcd d8€\<f)S iv KvpL(o p. 117; Tria-Tevoficv, plural of one 
 person, p. 125, cf. xiii. 18, 21; rmv djiapTimv Kaddpcrccos p. 126; 
 TrfkiKavTTjv p. 129; 6 Oebs 6 ayios 6 dkijdivos p. 131; €vxo.pi(rTo!) = 
 pray, p. 132. 
 
 On the other hand the ordinary tools of everyday Greek 
 scholarship, Liddell and Scott and (if within reach) Stephanus' 
 Thesaurus, and Goodwin's Moods and Tenses, will prove more 
 necessary than might at first seem likely. And with these 
 should be mentioned Rutherford's little First Greek Syntax, 
 Macmillan, 1891. Few books reveal so vividly — what is parti- 
 cularly important in studying a late, classicising, though not 
 always Atticising, but always a natural writer — the essential 
 genius of the language. The preface to the same great mastei-'s 
 Romans translated, Macmillan, 1900, is worth reading as an 
 introduction to the really profitable lines of enquiry into the 
 difference between S. Paul's Greek and this epistle. 
 
 There is a new edition, or revision, of Blass' Grammar by 
 Debrunner^, of which Dr Moulton writes " On first sight I should 
 say that the new editor is a better qualified guide than his 
 master for the purpose of this book. Blass was a supremely 
 great classical scholar who could help the student of the Koivq 
 
 ^ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, Gottingen, 1913. 
 
clxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 with all manner of valuable hints from antiquity ; but he almost 
 inevitably kept to the last something of the foreigner's air of 
 superiority on Hellenistic soil." That delightful portrait aftbrds 
 excuse for the frequent reference to the old edition in this com- 
 mentary; for Hebrews the idiosyncrasy of Blass, the classical 
 scholar, is still inspiring. Moreover German books are not easily 
 got just now, and we have the advantage of Mr Thackeray's 
 excellent translation of the second edition of the original book^. 
 A very big book in English by Dr A. T. Robertson ^ may also be 
 mentioned. 
 
 Another book by Blass ^ is extremely interesting, and to some 
 extent certainly true. Moulton's own Grammar of N. T. Oreeh, 
 vol. I, T. and T. Clark, 1906, — still unfortunately a fragment — 
 must always be used. Herwerden's Lexicon Oraecum supple- 
 torium et dialecticum is sometimes required for the later words. 
 And there is a wealth of entertaining and instructive material in 
 Jannaris*. 
 
 The Septuagint should be read in the smaller Cambridge 
 edition ^ This edition represents the text of the ancient MSS. 
 faithfully. Their varieties of reading need to be observed by 
 any one who really wishes to understand the influence of the 
 LXX on the epistle. And, as in Westcott and Hort, it is a 
 great thing to enjoy the original spelling : the appendix added to 
 each vol. — " Iva firj tl dTroXiyrat" — will serve those well who care to 
 pursue that line of study further. So will H. St J. Thackeray's 
 Grammar^ — ^another fragment, but rich in present gratification 
 
 ^ Grammar of N.T. Greek, Macmillan, ed. 2, 1905. 
 
 2 Grammar of the Greek N.T., in the light of historical research. 
 New York, 1914. 
 
 3 Brief an die Hebrder, Text mit Angabe der Rhythmen, Halle,. 
 1903. 
 
 ^ Historical Greek Grammar chiefly of the Attic Dialect as written 
 and spoken from classical antiquity down to the present time. Mac- 
 millan, 1897. 
 
 5 The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, edited- 
 for the Syndics of the University Press by Henry Barclay Swete, 
 3 vols. 
 
 6 A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek, vol. i, IntroductioUp 
 Orthography and Accidence. Cambridge, 1909. 
 
THE STYLE OF THE EPISTLE clxv 
 
 as well as promise. And Swete's Introdvxition to the Old Testament 
 in Greeks Camb. 1900, of which there is a new edition now revised 
 and enlarged by Mr Ottley, should be read again and again. 
 No one has done more than Dr Swete to help students of N.T. 
 to regain the point of view of the first readers of the Greek 
 Testament. He writes (p. 435), "Mediaeval Europe knew the 
 Old Testament almost exclusively through Jerome's Latin, as 
 the Ancient Church had known it through the LXX. When at 
 length the long reign of the Vulgate in Western Europe was 
 broken by the forces of the Renaissance and the Reformation, 
 the attention of scholars was once more drawn to that which 
 purported to be the original text of the Old Testament" — jjrt? 
 napa^oXr) els rov Kaipbv rbv evecTTTjKora. The Concordance to 
 the Septuagint and other Greek Versions of the Old Testament 
 by Hatch and Redpath, Oxford, is all but indispensable. If 
 however access to this is difficult, sufficient aid for everyday 
 study may be found in Thayer's Lexicon^. When Dr Sanday 
 reviewed this Lexicon on its publication in 1886, he called it 
 a Liddell and Scott for the New Testament, and the comparison 
 is as apt now as it was then. Grimm and Thayer like Liddell 
 and Scott are no longer on the top of the tide ; but, like L. and S., 
 they are wise and practical guides to plain men who do not 
 greatly feel, and to instructed men who know whence to supply, 
 the deficiencies due to later discovery. It is hardly necessary to 
 mention Bruder's Concordance. Little work of any kind can be 
 done in N.T. without it. The new Concordance of Geden and 
 Moulton is founded on the revised and better text of N.T., but 
 Bruder's old-fashioned text is easily controlled, and the spacious 
 arrangement of the page is a real advantage. 
 
 1 A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, being Grimm's 
 Wilkes^ Clavis Novi Testamenti translated revised and enlarged, by 
 Joseph Henry Thayer, T. and T. Clark. 
 
TJP02 EBPAI0Y2 
 
 1 inOATMEPfiS KAI nOATTPOnnS irdXac 
 o ^€09 \a\'i]aa^ tol^ irarpdacv iv toI(; 7rpof\>riTaL<i ^iir 
 ia")(^dTOV Twv rjfiepwv tovt(ov eKaXrfo-ev rjiuv iv u/«, ov 
 eOrjKev KXrjpovofiov irdvTcov, hi ov kol eiroirjaev tov<; 
 al&va^' ^09 o^v dirav^a(T\ia Trj<; S6^r}<; koI ')(^apaKT7}p 
 T^9 vTroa-rdaeax; aifTov, (l>6p(ov re ra irdvra rS prjiiari 
 T^9 SvvdfJLecof; avTov, fcaOapcafibv twv dfiapTcayv iroirj' 
 a-dfjL€vo<; 6KA0ic6n €N hel\<\ t^9 /i€ya\(oa-vv7j<; iv v'\lr7j\oc<;j 
 ^ToaovTO) KpcLTTcov yev6fievo<; tcov dyyiXcov oaco Bca<f>o- 
 pcorepov irap avTov^ K€Kkrjpov6ix'qKev ovofia, ^Tivt, 
 
 yap elirev ttotc tcov dyyiXcov 
 
 Yioc Moy €? cy, epco CHMepoN pereNNHKA ce, 
 
 Kol TTokiV 
 
 'Era> ecoMAi aytco qc n<\TepA, kai aytoc cctai moi eic 
 
 Yion; 
 ^orav Se irdXiv elaaydyrj tov TrpcororoKov et9 t^v 
 OLKovfjLivTjVf Xiyec 
 
 K<\i npocKYNHCAToocAN AYTol) HANxec AfreAoi OcoY. 
 '^Kol 7rpo9 p^ev TOi'9 dyyeXov^ Xeyei 
 
 *0 noiooN TOYC AfreAoYC ay'toy nNeyMATA, 
 KAI TOYC AeiToyproYC AYTOY nypoc (t)AdrA' 
 7r/oo9 Se TOV vlov 
 
 HEBREWS A 
 
2 nPOI EBPAIOYZ [1 8 
 
 '0 GpoNOC COY 6 Geoc eic ton AioiNA [toy aiconoc], 
 Kol ri pABAoc T?}9 €y6ythtoc p<\BAoc thc B^ciAeiAC 
 
 avTov, 
 
 ^HfAnHCAC AlKAIOCYNHN KAI eMICHCAC ANOMIAN* 
 
 AiA TOYTO expiC€N C6 6 Gedc, 6 Gedc coy, eA<\iON 
 
 ArAAAlACeCOC HApA TOfc MCTOXOYC COY* 
 
 Zy kat Apx^c, KYpie, tkIn thn e0eM€Aiooc<\c, 
 
 Ka) IprA TOON X^ipC^N COY eiCIN 01 OYpANOI' 
 
 ^^AY*TOi AnoAoYNTAi, CY Ae AiAMeNeic 
 
 KAI HANTeC cbc IMATION rT<\A<MCO0HCONTAI, 
 
 ^^KAi (bcel nepiBdAAiON eAiIeic aytoyc, 
 
 ©9 ifldnOV KAI AAAAfHCONTAr 
 
 CY Ae d AYTdc el, kai ta €th coy oyk eKAei'vpoYciN. 
 ^^7r/309 T^ra Se twj/ ayyiXoov elprjKev irore 
 
 KaGoy eK AeliooN moy 
 
 ecac AN Geo Tofc exGpoVc coy Y^ondAiON toc)n noAa)N 
 
 coy; 
 ^^ov')(i irdvre^ elaXv XecrovpycKa irvevfiara eh hiaicoviav 
 diroa-TeWo/JLeva Beet rou? fiiWovra'^ KKrjpovoixelv awTrj- 
 pLav; 2 ^^la TOVTO hel irepLaaorepw^ TTpoare'xeiv 
 
 rjfxa^ Tol^ cLKova-OelaLVf fit] irore jrapapvcofiev. ^el yap 
 6 Sc dyyiXeov XaXrjdeU X0709 eyevero ^e^aio^s, koI 
 irdaa 7rapdfiaaL<; KaX irapaKoi] eXa/Bep evhcKov fxiad' 
 airoBoa-caVy ^7rw9 r)fi€h eK^ev^ofxeOa TTJXiKavTri^ dp,eXrj- 
 aavre^ awTrjpia'^y rjTL^;^ dpxv^ Xa^ovcra XaXelaOac Sid 
 Tov Kvplov, VTTO Twv dKOvadvTwv eh r]fxd<; i/Se^acdoOr), 
 ^avveTTifjiapTVpovvTO^ tov Oeov arjfjbeioL^; re koX ripaatv 
 KOL TTOiKiXaL^ hvvdfie<TLV KOL TTvevfiaTo^ dyiov fiepiap^oh 
 tcard rrjv avrov OiXija-iv ; 
 
 ^Ov yap dyyeXoL^ vTrera^ev rrjv olKovfievr)v rrjv 
 
2 i6] nPOI EBPAIOYZ 3 
 
 IxeKKovaav, irepi ff^ \a\ovfiev ^ScefiapTvparo 8e irov 
 
 Ti' ecTiN ANepconoc on mimnhckh aytoy, 
 
 H yWc <\N0poc)noY OTi eniCKeniH ayton ; 
 ^hAattcocac ayton Bp^XY ti HAp* ArreAoYC, 
 
 Ao'IH KAI TIMH eCTe(t)ANCjOCAC AYTON, 
 [kAI KATeCTHCAC AYTON em T<\ IprA TOON X^ipOON COY,] 
 ^HANTA YnCTAlAC YTTOKATCO TOON HOAOON AYTOY* 
 
 iv Tft) yap yttotaIai [airo)] ra hanta ovSev d^rJKev 
 avT& avviroraKTOV, vvv he ovttco opcbfjuev avrS ra 
 nANTA YnoT€TArMeNA' ^Tov Sb BpAXY TI nAp ArreAoYC 
 hAattcomcnon ^Xiirofiev ^Irjaovv Bca to TrdOrjfjia tov 
 davdrov AoIh kai timh 6CTe(t)ANCOMeN0N, oTrcof; 'x^dpin 
 Oeov virep iravro^ yevaTjrai davdrov. ^^"FiTrpCTrev yap 
 avTO), Sl ov Tct Trdvra xal Sc ov ra Trdvra, ttoWov^ 
 vloif^ eh ho^av dyayovra tov dp^V^ov T7]<; a-corrjpia^ 
 avTcov Bta TraOrjfjidToov TeXecaxrac. ^^o re yap dyid^cov 
 /cal ol dyca^ofievot i^ ivo(; irdvre^* St fjv amav ov/c 
 eiraia-'xyveTai AAeA^OYC avTov<; /caXecv, ^^Xeycov 
 
 'AnArreAo) TO onoma coy toTc aA6A(J)oTc moy, 
 
 6N Meccp 6KkAhci'ac ymnhcco ce* 
 ^^Kal irdXtv 
 
 'Era ecoMAi nenoiGcac en ay'tco* 
 Kal irdXcv 
 
 'Iaoy epob KAi TA nAiAiA A Moi Iacokcn 6 Geoc. 
 
 ^*€7r€l oiv TA HAlAlA K€K0CV(i)V7)K€V aLfjLaTO<; fCal (TapKO^, 
 
 Kal avTo^; TrapairXriaL(o<; fieriax^v tcov avrcov, Lva Bed 
 TOV OavdTov KaTapyrjarj tov to Kpdro^; exovra tov 
 OavdTov, TovT eaTC tov Scd^oXov, ^^/cal diraXKd^r) 
 t6vtov<;j 6<tol <f>6^(p Oavdrov Sid TravTo^ tov ^fjv evoxpi 
 rjaav BovX€La<;, ^^ov yap 8^ irov dyyiXcov iwcXafi/Sd' 
 
 A2 
 
4 nPOS EBPAIOYS [2 i6 
 
 verac, aXKa cnepMATOC 'ABp<\<\M eniAAMBANeiAi. ^'^odev 
 w(j>etX€v Kara irdvra toic AAeA(t)oTc o/jLOCcodrjvac, iva 
 ekerjiJLWv yivrjrac koX irtaro^ dp')(^i€pev^ rd tt/oo? top 
 Oeov, €t9 TO i\d(rfC€(T0ac Td<; d/jLapriaf; rov \aov* ^^iv 
 
 05 yap irkirovOev avro^ iretpaadeif;, Bvparac toI<; ireipa- 
 ^o/iipoL<; ^orjOrjaaL, 
 
 3 ^"OdeVy dhek^ol dycoL, /cXryceo)? iirovpavlov fiiro- 
 ')(pij KaravorjaaTe rov dTroaroXov koX dp')(^L6pea TTJq 
 6/jLo\oyLa<; 'q/xcov ^IrjaovVy ^niCTON ovra tu> iroLrjcravn 
 avTov ft)9 KoX MooYCHC eN [oAcp] TO) ofKO) AYToy. ^TrXet- 
 01/09 yap ovTO<; So^t;? nrapd ^wvarjv rj^iwrai fcaO' oaov 
 TrXeiova tl/jlt^v ex^c tov olkov 6 /caraaKevdaaf; avTov 
 *7ra9 yap 9CKo<i Karaa-Kevd^erac vtto rtvo^y o he irdvTa 
 KaraaKevdcra^ ^€09. ^Ka\ McjoycHC (juev niCTOC en oAco 
 TO) orKO) AYTOY ft)9 0€pAncjON €t9 fiapTvpiov Tcov XaXrjOr}- 
 aofiepcovy ^Xp^o-T09 Se ©9 vl6<; iirl ton oikon aytoy* ov 
 oIko^ ia/JL€v 77/x€fc9, idv T7)v irapprjo-iav fcal rb Kav^V/^^^ 
 Try9 iXirvSof; [fi^xpt T6Xov<; Pe^aiav\ Kardaxcofiep, 
 ^A^o, Ka0a>^ Xiyec to irvevfia to wycov 
 
 ZhMepON eAN THC (t)CaNHC AYTOY AKOYCHTe; 
 ^MH CKAHpYNHTe TAC KApAlAC YMcioN cbc EN TO) HApA- 
 
 niKpACMCp; 
 KATA TH'n HMepAN TOY neipACMOY eN TH epHMCi), 
 
 ®0Y enei'pACAN 01 n^Tepec ymoon cn Aokimacia 
 
 KAI elSoN TA IpfA MOY TGCCepAKONTA eTH* 
 
 ^^Sto npocoaxO'CA th reNeA tayth 
 
 Ka\ elnON 'Aei nAANoiiNTAI th KApAlA* 
 
 AYTOI Ae OYK IrNOOCAN TAC OAOYC MOY* 
 ^^COC COMOCA eN TH OpfH MOY 
 
 Ei eiceAeYcoNTAi eic thn katahaycin moy* 
 ^^/SXcTrere, dSeXc^ot, fit] irore earai ev tcvc vfjLcop fcapSta 
 
4 7] TTPOI EBPAIOYS S 
 
 TTovqpa aTricTta? iv tw aTToaTrjvat, aTro deov ^(ovTO^y 
 ^^aXKa irapaKaXetTe eavTov<i Ka6* eKciaTTjv rjfxepaVy 
 dxpt'^ ov TO ZhMepoN KoXeiTaiy Xva fir) cKAHpyNeH ti<; 
 i^ vfi(bv airdrr} t^9 d/jLapTia^' ^^/niro^ot yap rov 
 'X^piarov yeyovafieVy edvirep rr^v dp'xrjv Trj<i UTTOo-racrect)? 
 fie'x^pL reXou? jSe^aiav Karda'^wfiev, ^^ev ro) XeyeaOai 
 
 ^HMepON €<\N THC ^CjONHC AY'tOY AK0YCHT6; 
 Mh CKAHpYNHTe TAG KApAlAC YMOON cbc In TO) HApA- 
 
 niKpACMcf). 
 
 ^^TLV€<; yap aKovaavre^; nApeniKpANAN; aW' ov irdvTe^ 
 ol i^eXOovre^ ef AlyvTrrov Bid M.a)vae(o<; ; ^^riaiv Be 
 npoccbxSiceN reccepAKONTA Ith; ou^t to?? d/jLaprrjaaaiv, 
 
 £v TA KOaAA 6neC€N 6N TH IpHMCp; ^^TiatV Be OaMOCeN MH 
 
 eiceAeVceceAi eic thn katahaycin aytoy el fjuf) toU direL- 
 Orjaaaiv ; ^^fcal ^Xeiro/jLev on ov/c i^BwrjOrjaav e\ce\Qe\f4 
 Bl dirLariav, 4 ^^o^r)6co/jbev ovv /ht] ttotc Kara- 
 Xeiirofievr)^ iTrayyeXia^; eic6A06?N eic thn KATAnAYCiN 
 AYTOY BoKTJ Tt9 €^ vfjLcov vaT€p7]K6vaf ^ Kol ydp eajjuev 
 evrjyyeXt<r/jLevoL KaOdirep KaKelvoi^ dXX oifc dxpiXrja-ev 
 6 Xoyo^ T?}? d/corjf; i/ceivov^, fif) (7VVK€K€pa<Tfievov<; rfj 
 TTLCTTei T0Z9 d/cov(Ta<TLV, ^EicepxoMeBA ydp eic [thn] 
 KATAHAYCiN ol iTLaTevaavTe^y Kadw ecprjKev 
 *Qc caSmoca en th oprH moy 
 El eiceAeVcoNTAi eic thn katahaycin moy, 
 Kairot ToaN eprooN diro Kara0oXr]<; fcocrfjiov yevrjOePToyv, 
 ^eXprjKev ydp ivov irepl t^9 €/3B6firj<; ovrco^; Ka) katc- 
 HAYceN 6 Geoc eN th HMepA th cBAomh And hantoon tcon 
 eprcoN aytoy, ^Kal iv rovrw irdXiv Ei eiceAcYCONTAi eic 
 thn katahayc/n moy. ^eirel ovv dnroXeLTreraL rivd^ eiceA- 
 OcTn eic avTrjVi koI oi irporepov eifayyeXtaOevref; ovk 
 eicHA80N Bl aTreiOeLav, '^irdXtv rivd opi^eo rjjjbepav, 
 
6 nPOI EBPAIOYZ [4 7 
 
 ZhMepoN, ip AavelB Xiycov fiera roaovrov Xpovov^ 
 KaOobf; TrpoeipTjTaCy 
 
 iHMepON eAN THC (t)OONHC Ay'tOY AK0YCHT6, 
 MH CKAHPYNHT€ TAC KApAlAC YMOC)N' 
 
 ^el yap avTOv<; 'I^croO? KaTeiravaeVy ovk avirepl SXKt]^ 
 iXakei fjL€Td ravra r]p,epa^, ^dpa dTroXeiTrerac aa^pa- 
 Ti(Tfio<; Tft) Xao) Tov ueov ^"0 yap eiceAOcoN eic thn 
 KATAnAYCiN AYTOY ical avTo^ KATenAYceN aho toon eprooN 
 AYTOY oocnrep aho tcon ihl(ov 6 6edc. ^^^TrovSaaco/jLev 
 ovv eiceAGelN eic eKeivriv thn katahaycin, Xva purj iv tm 
 avrS TC<; vTroSeLyfiart Trear) Tr)^ direLOela^, ^^Tttav yap 
 6 X0709 TOV 0€ov fcal iv€pyrf<; Kal TOfjudorepo^; virep 
 irdaav fid'^aLpav hlo'TOfiov Kal Slikvov/jl€vo^ ^XP^ fiepca- 
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6 3] TTPOZ EBPAIOYS 7 
 
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lo nPOI EBPAIOYI [7 12 
 
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 pcorac, ^^ Kol Ka6^ ocov diroiceLTai roh dvOpcoTroc^; aira^ 
 dTToOaveiVf fierd Se rovro KpiaL^^ ^ovtq)(; koI 6 ^ptorTo?, 
 aira^ Trpoa-eve'xPeh eh to hoAAcon ANeNepKeTN AMApriAC, 
 €K SevTepov %a)/3i9 dfiapTiaf; 6(}>6^a-eTaL Toh avTov 
 dTreKhe')(OfievoLf; eh a-fOTrjpiav, 
 
 10 ^^Kidv rydp €')((i)V 6 VOflO^ TMV fieWoVTCOV 
 
 dya6(ov, ovk avTrjv rffv eUova tcov irpayfJiaTcov, KaT 
 ivcavTov Tah avTah Ova-iai^ a? irpoa^epovaiv eh to 
 BirjveKe^ ovBeiroTe hvvavraL tov^ 7rpo<r€p')(^o/jL6vov<; re- 
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 alfJLa Tavpcov kol Tpdycov d(l)atp€LV dixapTia^, ^Cico 
 eiaep'xpp^evo^ eh tov Koapuov Xiyei 
 
 ©YCi'aN KAI npOC(t)OpAN OyK HGeAHCAC, COOMA Ae KATHp- 
 
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 ^OAOKAYTOOMATA KAI nepi AMApjIAC OyK eyAOKHCAC. 
 
 ^TOTe elnoN 'lAoy hkco, eN Ke(t)AAi'Ai BiBAi'oy re- 
 
 rpAHTAi nepi cMoy, 
 
10 23] nPOZ EBPAIOYI 15 
 
 TOY noiHCAi, d eedc, to OeAHMA coy. 
 ^dvcorepov \iya)v on OyciAC kai npoc(|)opAc Koi oAo- 
 KAYToaMATA KAi Hepl AMApTiAC ofK HGeAHCAC oyAc cyAokhcac, 
 aXrive^; Kara vojjlov irpoatpipovrac, ^t6t€ eiprjKev 'Iaoy 
 HKCO TOY noiHCAi TO GeAHMA COY* avaipel to irpcorov 
 Lva TO hevrepov aTijarj, ^^eV w 06Ahmati rj^iaafievoL 
 iapuev Sea t7}9 npoc(t)opAC tov coomatoc ^Irjaov ^ptarTov 
 i(j)d7ra^, ^^JLal 7ra<i jxev iepev^ e(TTr)Kev Ka6* rjfxepav 
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 St7jv€/ce<; Toi/^ d^ia^ofievov^, ^^MapTvpel Se rjpZv fcal 
 
 TO TTvevfia TO aycov, fjuerd yap to eipr^Kevat 
 
 ^^AyTH H AIA0HKH HN AiaGhcomai 7rp09 aVTOV^ 
 
 MeTA TAC HMepAC eKeiNAC, Aerei KVpioc, 
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 KAI em THN AlANOIAN AYTcioN enirpA^^ AYTOfc, 
 
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 TTpoo-^opd irepl djJLapTia^, 
 
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i6 nPOZ EBPAIOYI [10 23 
 
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11 12] nPOI EBPAIOYS 17 
 
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 Trpayfjbdrcov eXey^o? ov ffXeTTOfievcov ^iv ravrrj yap 
 efiapTvprj6r}aav ol irpecr^vTepoi. ^Hia-Tei voovfiev 
 
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 ^acvofievcov to ^Xeiroiievov yeyovevai, ^WlarTei irXei- 
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 ?79 ifjLapTvp7]07} elvai St/ca^o?, fxapTvpovvTo^ enl toTc 
 Acopoic AYTOY TOY OeoY, ical hi avrrj<; airoOavcov €Ti, 
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 '^UiareL 'x^pr/fiaTiaOeX^; Nwe irepl tcov fir)Be7r(0 /BXeTTO- 
 fievcov evXa^rjOeh KaTeaKevaaev ki^cotov eh acoTrjpiav 
 
 TOV OLKOV aVTOV, hC fj^ fCaT€fCplVeV TOV KOa/JLOV, Kal 
 
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 uevov ^^Sio Kal d<f> ev6<; iyevvrjOriaaVy Kal TavTa 
 
 HEBREWS B 
 
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 veveKp(OfievoVy KAeobc ta AcrpA toy oypANOY tw ifKrjOeL 
 
 KAI (be H AMMOC H HApA TO X^TAOC THC BaAACCHC H <\N<\- 
 
 pi'0MHTOC. -^^Kara mrlaTLV aireOavov ovroi Trai^re?, 
 
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 ihovre^ kol acTraadiMevoLy koL ofioXoyrjcravre'i otl leNOi 
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 neipAzoMeNOC, koI jdn MONoreNH 7rpo<T€<l>€p€v 6 t^9 iiray- 
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 TpiMHNON vTTo TOOP TTarepcop avTov, Scon eTaon ACTeToN 
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 dire^Xeirep yap eh ttjp fitadairoSoaiap, ^'^UiaTec 
 
12 I] nPOZ EBPAIOYZ 19 
 
 KareKnrev AtyvirToVy fifj <j>o0rj6€U rov 6vfibv rov ^aai- 
 Xeo)?, Tov yap doparov 0)9 opcov €KapT€prj(T€v. ^^Uiarei 
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 179 irecpav XajSovre^ ol AlyvTrrioi KareiTodrjaav. ^^Ilto-- 
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 12 ^Toiyapovv fcal rjiiel^;, Toaovrov exovre^ Trepv- 
 
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20 nPOI EBPAIOYI [12 I 
 
 Kelfxevov rjfilv ve(\>o^ fiaprvpoDv, oytcov diroOifievot iravra 
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12 29] nPOZ EBPAIOYZ 21 
 
 Kol TOP dycacfiov, ov X^P^^ ovSet? 6'\jreTaL top Kvpiov^ 
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 iavTOV, ^'^care yap otl koI fjueTeTrena Oekwp fcXijpopo- 
 firjaat Trjp evKoyiap direBofcifida-Orjj fierapoia^ yap 
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 TToXif fidXXop rjiiel<i ol top air ovpapoop diroaTpe^o- 
 fi€POL' ^^ov 97 (fxopTj T7JP yrjp iadXevaep t6t€, pvp Se 
 iirtjyyeXTaL Xiyoop "Eti <\n<\l efco cei'cco ov fiopop thn 
 fHN dXXd Kal TON oypANON. ^^To Si "Eti diTJdl SrjXoc 
 [Tr)p] TWP aaXevofiepcop fxeTdOeacp 0)9 Treirocrjfiepcop, ipa 
 jieiprj TCb fif) aaXevofjLepa, ^^ Aco ^aatXelap dadXevTOP 
 7rapaXafi^dpopT6<i e%a)/x6i/ %«p^i^, Sc* 179 XaTp€vco/jLep 
 €vapiaTco^ Ta> ^eoS fjueTcu evXa^ela^ Kal Biov^, ^^Kal yap 
 
 6 eeOC TffJL&P HYp K<\TAN<\Al'cKON. 
 
22 nPOZ EBPAIOYZ [13 i 
 
 13 ^'H <f)i\aSe\(l)la fieveTO). ^t^9 ^iXo^evia^ firj 
 eirCKavddveaOe, Bia TavTr)<; yap eXaOov rti/e? ^eviaavre^ 
 ayye\ov<;, ^ixtfjuvrjaKeade iSyv heaixmv w? avvBeSefiipoi, 
 T&p KaKOVXpv^evwv (w? koX avrol ovt€<; ip aco/m^aTL 
 *Tt/it09 o rydfjLO^ iv 7rd<riv Koi rf kolttj dfiiavTO<;, iropvov^ 
 yhp KaX fioi'xpif^ Kptvei 6 0e6<;. ^^ A<f>CKdp<yvpo^ 6 rpo- 
 iro^* dpKov/jL€voc T049 irapovaiv avTo<; yap €cpr}K€v 
 Oy mh C6 ano) oyA' oy mh ce erKATAAinco* ^ware Oappovv- 
 ra^ rjixd<; Xeyeiv 
 
 Ky'pioc eMOi BohGoc, oy ct)0BH9HC0MAr 
 
 Ti noiHcei MOi ANGpconoc; 
 
 ''Mv7)/jLopev€T€ T&p r)yovfiep(op v/xojp, ovTipe^ iXd- 
 Xrjaap v/jlIp top \6yop tov 6eov, wp dpaOeoopovpTe^ 
 TTjp €K/3aa-LP T^9 dpaaTpo(f>7]^ fitfietaOe Tr)p irvaTiP, 
 ®'Iiy<ro09 Xp6o-T09 €^0€9 fcal a^fiepop 6 avTo^, koi el^ 
 T0U9 alcopa^, ®St8a;^at9 TroLKcXai^; koL ^epav^ fir) irapa- 
 ^epeaOe' koKop yap ^dpi'TL ^e^aiovaOai ttjp /capBiap, 
 ov l3p(Ofia(riPf ip oh ovk a)(f)6\T]0r}<Tap ol TrepiTra- 
 TovPTe<i. ^^€X0P'€P 0v<na(TTrjpLOP ef ov (payelp ovk 
 exovaip [i^ovcrlap'\ oi Tjj aKTjpfj \aTp€V0PT€^, ^^wp 
 yhp €ic(})ep6T<\i ^(i(»)p TO aTma nepl AMApTiAC eic ta aha Bth 
 TOV dp'^t'^piox;, tovtcop to, awfiaTa katakai'6Tai elcjo thc 
 HApeMBoAHC* ^^Bio Kal ^lijcroijf;, Lpa dytdari Sia tov ISiov 
 aifiuTO^ TOP XaoPy e^o) t?}9 TrvXrjq eiraOep. ^^tolpvp 
 i^€p')(d>iJLe6a 7rpo<; avTOP lloo thc HApeMBoAfic, top opet- 
 Siafiop avTOv <f>€popTe<i, ^^ov yap e^pfiep &Be fiepovaap 
 TTokvPy dXKa Tr)p fieWovaap iTrt^TjTOVfiep* ^^Sl* avTov 
 ANA(t)6pcoMeN GyciAN AiNececoc hia iraPTo^ to Geo), tout' 
 €aTLP KApnoN x^iAewN o/JLoXoyovpTcop tw opo/iaTC avTov, 
 ^®t^9 8e evTToda^ Kal KOLP(Opia<; /if) iirLXapBdveaOey 
 TotavTai^ yap 0vaLac<; evapeaTelTai 6 0e6<i. ^^Ilet- 
 
 0€a0e TOC(; ^yovfiepoi<; v/icop Kal v7r€LK€T€, avTol yap 
 
13 25] nPOZ EBPAIOYZ 23 
 
 dypvirpovaiv virep tcjp '>^v')(S}v vfi&v 0)9 \6yov airohd)-- 
 (rovT€<;, Xva fierd %a/oa9 tovto TroicoaLv zeal fir) arevd- 
 ^ovre^y oKvaLTeke^ yap vfilv tovto, 
 
 ^^n/oo<7€U%e(7^€ irepl rjix(0Vy ireiOoixeOa ycLp otl koKtjv 
 avveiSrjacv e^ofMev, iv irdatv Ka\a><s OekovTe^ dvacTTpe- 
 (f>6<r0aL, ^^ 7r€piaaoT€pa)<; Be Trapa/caXcS tovto Trocijaac 
 iva Td^eiov diTOKaTaaTaBS vfilv. ^®'0 Se 0€o^ 
 
 T^9 €lp7]V7J^, 6 ANAfArCON ifC V€Kp(Sv TON nOIMeNA TCON 
 
 npoBATCON Tov fieyav €n aFmati AiaOhkhc AicaNioy, tov 
 KvpLov '^fioov iTjaovv, ^^KaTapTiaaL vfjia<; ev iravTi 
 dyaffw eh to 'jrotrjcrai to deXrjfia avTov, ttokSp iv rjfuv 
 TO evdpeaTov evwiriov avTOV Sid ^Irjaov ^ptaTOv, (o rj 
 So^a 669 Toi;9 alwva^ tcSv alcovcov dfirjv. ^Ilapa- 
 
 KoXco Se vfJLa<:, dS€X<f)OL, dve')(eade tov Xoyov tt)^ 
 7rapaK\r]ae(o<;, /cal ydp Bid ppa')(e(ov eireaTeLka vfuv, 
 ^Fcvcoa-KeTe tov dBe\<f>6v rjfiwv TifioOeov dTToXeXvfievov, 
 p,e0* ov edv ra^etoi/ ep'xrjTat oylrofiat vfid^, 
 
 ^^^ AairdaaaOe TrdvTa<; tou9 i^yovfievov<; vfitov koX 
 irdvTa^ T0U9 dyiov<;, *A<r7rd^ovTaL vfid<i oi aTro t^9 
 'lTa\ta9. 
 
 2^'H xdpL^ /jueTa TrdvTCOP v/jlojv. 
 
NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I. 1—4. "rHE Son Eternal. 
 
 1 Gradually and variously, abundantly yet still imperfectly, in the 
 ancient days God revealed His mind to our spiritual ancestors, the 
 Hebrew Fathers of the faith. He entered into the hearts of His 
 
 2 prophets and each of them uttered the word He gave. Now at the 
 end of this period to which we belong the same God has spoken to 
 us in One whose eternal unity with Him we are taught to recognise in 
 the name '* Son " : One whom He appointed from eternity to be the 
 heir of the whole universe of life, through whom also He created those 
 successive ages of time in which life goes on, ascending ever back to 
 
 3 Him through whom it first sprang forth from God : One who, like 
 the effulgence of a hidden glory or the engraven form that perfectly 
 expresses an artist's idea, has never ceased to shed the divine light 
 and impress the divine seal upon creation : One too who in the 
 passage through humiliation which He undertook as well as in the 
 new exaltation thus achieved, bore and still bears onward all things 
 to their destined goal, as He was authorised to do by the command- 
 ment issuing from the effectual power of God. For this eternal Son 
 entered into the life of men, and like a priest made purification of 
 those sins which had become the characteristic stain of humanity; 
 and so, triumphant, He sat down on the right hand of majesty divine 
 in sublime state. Thus in bold concrete terms borrowed from holy 
 writ we figure His heavenly reign, while by adding abstract terms of 
 reverence we confess how little language can describe or mind con- 
 
 4 ceive the co-equality of Godhead. Thus then He reigns, having 
 become in the mysterious progress of that earthly career by so much 
 greater than the angels — those spiritual beings whose glory and 
 beauty it might be imagined He would resemble in His journey 
 through creation — as that name of *' Son," so homely sounding, 
 which He, the heir of all, inherited by human fashion of in- 
 
I 1] NOTES 25 
 
 iieritance, is more distinguished in real worth than any that 
 belongs to them. 
 
 1. iro\vfJL€pus Kal iroXvTpoirws. A famous opening in the con- 
 temporary style of rhetoric. Maximus Tyrius (fl. 150 a.d.) uses the 
 corresponding adjectives in like conjunction: TroXvfiep^s is an epithet 
 of irvevfjt.a in Wisd. vii. 22, and iroXtJTpoiros is a favourite word in 
 4 Mace. The spirited rendering of the Old Latin, Multifarie 
 multUque modis ante deus locutui patribus in prophetis, remains, a 
 little polished in Vg,, Multifariam et multis modis olim deus loquens^ 
 etc. The phrase has come into prominence in another way since 
 criticism has directed attention to the gradual development of 
 theology in the Old Testament. **In divers portions and in divers 
 manners" well expresses the progressive revelation given through 
 the prophets to Israel, e.g. the judgement of God in Amos, His love 
 in Hosea, His holiness in Isaiah, the new covenant in Jeremiah, 
 law and sacrifice in Ezekiel. 
 
 It might be questioned whether the prep, iv does not point to 
 the disproportionate stress which the Alexandrines had laid on the 
 passive disposition of the prophet ; God spoke in him as though he 
 were merely the instrument of revelation. The author of this ep. 
 however is apt to give the deepest meaning to his phraseology, 
 whencesoever borrowed ; and when he says God spoke in the prophets 
 he is not likely to have intended less than the f uUest inspiration of 
 most reasonable heralds. See Intr. rn. 29, 30. Indeed this appeal 
 to prophecy at the opening of the ep. sets the key of the whole. 
 Not mechanical law but the inspiration of men is the line along 
 which God's purpose will be found to reach fulfilment in Christ. 
 This is in harmony with the whole N.T. The Christian Church was 
 at one with the more liberal Judaism of the day in its peculiar 
 reverence for the prophetic augmentation of the original Torah. In 
 this our Lord had set the example. Canon Box says : 
 
 *'Nor must it be forgotten that our Lord's attitude towards the 
 old religion of Israel was that of the prophet rather than the priest. 
 The fulfilment of the Law of which He spoke was essentially prophetic 
 in character. He breathed into it fresh life, deepened and extended 
 its moral significance and claim. And above all He took up a position 
 towards it of sovereign freedom. It is in the prophetic Scriptures 
 that He finds the most adequate expression of His own Messianic 
 consciousness, especially in Isaiah liii. The people instinctively 
 recognised in the new teacher the voice of a prophet. And in fact 
 the whole character of the Christian movement depicted in the 
 New Testament is prophetic. The Day of Pentecost marked the 
 
26 HEBREWS [1 1— 
 
 outpouring of the prophetic spirit and gifts. * The testimony of 
 Jesus is the spirit of prophecy i.' " 
 
 2. kir Icrxarov t«v i^}i€p(ov tovtwv. This is the ancient text; 
 *• at the end of these days '* not ♦' in these last days." It is opposed 
 to irdXac like " modern " to " old time." At the end of the modem 
 period to which the author belonged the Son entered upon His 
 ministry. The addition of tovtu)v makes the phrase different from 
 anything else in N.T. (of. 1 Pet. i. 20, 2 Pet. iii. 3, Jude 18), and it 
 indicates the peculiar attitude of the author to the Messianic ideas 
 of the Church. Intr. in. 19. 
 
 €XdXT)o-€v. Does this refer specially to our Lord's teaching, or 
 more generally to His whole life and work in which God spoke to 
 men? See the last pages of Milman's Latin Christianity for an 
 eloquent appeal to the words of Christ as "the primal, indefeasible 
 truths of Christianity," which, however our understanding of them 
 be deepened, "shall not pass away." There is little more in this 
 ep. about His words; the theme is His act of sacrifice. But His 
 words form here a just antithesis to the ancient prophecy, and 
 ii. 3 agrees with that interpretation. Only, the reference there is less 
 to continuous teaching than to the proclamation of o-tarijpia. Such 
 a proclamation is the beginning of the gospel in Mark i. 15. 
 
 €v vt«. "His Son," A.V. and E.V., spoils the grandeur of the 
 thought. The author sets us for the moment in the sphere of 
 heavenly pre-existence where logical ideas of personality are out of 
 place ; these will come presently as part of the fruitful limitations 
 of " the days of His flesh." Yet R.V. mg., " Gr. a 5cm," is hardly 
 correct. The Greeks, with their frequent omission of the article 
 in the large tragic style, could express just what is wanted here, 
 but there is no equivalent in English. In many of those tragedy lines 
 the idea of class and character is thus presented, as in the fragment 
 from Euripides, Oeibv dk Ovtitovs KSafiov o^ irpiirei tp^peip. Hence 
 Westcott's paraphrase (which he does not offer as adequate) "One 
 who is Son." He carries us further by his remark that we 'should 
 lose as much by omitting the article before Trpo^ijrais as by inserting 
 it here. 
 
 kXt^povo^ov irdvTwv. The noun is rich in associations from O.T., 
 Philo, and the gospel tradition. In O.T. the "inheritance" of 
 Abraham and his descendants in Canaan, and hence in spiritual 
 privileges, is a common theme : Israel too is the kXrjpovofxia of the 
 Lord. The subject of one of Philo's treatises is Tis 6 rdv ddwv iarip 
 
 i " How should we teach the Old Testament ? " Guardian, July 13, 1916. 
 
13] NOTES 27 
 
 k\r}pov6fios ; In the gospel tradition our Lord was remembered as 
 having described Himself as the heir of the vineyard, slain by the 
 husbandmen, and thereby opening the vineyard to other husband- 
 men : Matt. xxi. 33 ff., Mark xii. 1 £f., Luke xx. 9 ff. The particular 
 noun K\ijpov6fios is rare in LXX. In N.T. it is used by S. Paul, 
 elsewhere only in Jas. ii. 5 and those three passages of the gospels, 
 and this ep. But in this ep. the three words K\7}povofJLicoy K\r)povofxla, 
 K\7]pov6fjLost are characteristic : see i. 4, 14, vi. 12, 17, ix. 15, xi. 7, 8, 
 xii. 17. From Noah onwards the chosen people are represented as 
 heirs of God's blessing in the future. The Christian people have 
 inherited their hope and are entering, heirs in their own turn, upon 
 its fulfilment. All this heirship springs from Christ's universal and 
 eternal heirship. Through Him all nature was created and to Him 
 it all reverts in holiness historically perfected by the ascending strain 
 of life towards its Lord. The commencement of His visible act of 
 heirship is indicated in vv. 5 ff. : He takes by right of inheritance the 
 ancient names of Christ and Son. 
 
 Kal liroCTio-ev tovs atuvas. alCdv in LXX represents *olamj *• age." 
 In late Hebrew 'oZawihad the meaning '* world," Kda-fio^j but perhaps 
 not when this ep. was written 1. "Ages" is a fuller sense and 
 therefore likely to be our author's. It corresponds with '* these 
 days," i.e. this period or age, just above; and a like full meaning 
 suits best in xi. 3. The ancient text has the order of words as 
 quoted. The later text puts r. alQvas before iiroirjaevt a false 
 emphasis, and perhaps inferior rythm though Blass thought other- 
 wise. In the true order kuI simply connects iirot7]<r€v with ^0r]K€v as 
 contemporaneous or immediately successive. 
 
 3. dirav-ya(r|ia ttjs So^t^s, splendor gloriae (latt.). Whatever may 
 have been the original meaning of the Hebrew chdbod the context 
 often shows that it expressed the idea of glorious light in O.T., and 
 so its LXX rendering b6^a\ e.g. Isa. Ix. 1, ipurij^ov (purli^ov, ^lepov- 
 aaXi^fji., iJK€L yap <tov rb (pCos, Kal ij 86^a Kvplov iwi ae dpariToKKev. 
 This was consonant with the Hebrew mind. *' The sky had cleared 
 after some days of south-westerly weather, and morning broke in that 
 rare splendour which persuaded the Hebrew poets, that perfect bliss 
 will be perfect light 2." ' ATavyaafxa might mean *• reflection" but 
 is more properly *' effulgence," and that suits this context; the Son 
 is the stream of light from the innermost glory. 
 
 XapaKTi^p TTJs woo-Tcxo-cws, jigura (vg.), imago (d), suhstantiae. 
 Qo xo-paKTTjp, which might be the impression, is here used in the 
 
 1 Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 153. 
 
 * Hogarth, Accidents of an Antiquary's Life, ch. v. 
 
28 HEBREWS [1 3-« 
 
 more primary sense of the engraved seal itself which expresses the 
 idea in the artist's mind : cf. Liturgy of Serapion, 6 debs..,. 6 rbv 
 XapaiCTTJpa rbv ^(avra Kal dXtidivbv yevvqffast and Cic. Or, 8, 9, ...sed 
 ipsius in mente insidehat species pulcritudinis eximia quaedam^ quam 
 intuens in eaque dejixus^ ad illius similitudinem artem et manum dirige- 
 hat, Cicero had just written quasi imago exprimatuTt so that the ren- 
 dering of d, Erasmus' expressa iviagoj and A.V. *• express image," may 
 be approved. But A.V. "person " for vrroardaeojs is an anachronism : 
 {>ir6ffTaais yr&s not used for *• person" till the fourth century. See 
 three articles by Dr Strong, Dean of Christ Church i, for full treat- 
 ment of this and kindred words. A.V. here follows the Geneva 
 version, and may be compared with Wisd. ii. 23, 6 debs ^KTiffev rbv 
 dtfdpuTTov iir* d<l>0apal<f, Kal eUbva rijs I8las ISibTrjTOS iTrolrjarev airbv. 
 But that is not the idea in our author's mind. He treats inrbaTaaLS 
 throughout the ep. more as a philologist than a philosopher. It 
 means that which, in the deepest sense, appropriate to the context, 
 underlies, supports, or as here originates expression, and it is always 
 associated with a genitive ; cf. iii. 14, xi. 1, and contrast 2 Cor. ix. 4. 
 Cf. also Coleridge 2, ** Quod stat suhtus^ that which stands beneath, 
 and (as it were) supports the appearance." Milton, who conveys so 
 much from this ep., says in Paradise Lostt x. 63 £F. : 
 
 *' So spake the Father, and unfoulding bright 
 Toward the right hand his Glorie, on the Son 
 Blaz'd forth unclouded Deitie ; he full 
 Besplendent all his Father manifest 
 Express'd, and thus divinely answered milde." 
 
 <Sv...<|>^po>v Tc *' being and bearing." The mode of conjunction 
 emphasises the difficult assertion that throughout the days of His 
 flesh the Son was still revealing Godhead and bearing the universe 
 to its goal. But this is the assertion which the author justifies by 
 his sacramental view of glory in humiliation; cf. Intr. ii. 15, iii. 7. 
 In B and ps.-Sarap. tpavepGiv is read for (ft^ptav. That suits the 
 immediate context but would impoverish the general theology of 
 the ep. It is an instance of B losing weight by association with one 
 other and inferior authority. For the pres. part, cf . xi. 17, and hirdp- 
 Xiav in Phil. ii. 6, where however the compound ** being originally'* 
 is less absolute than the simple wv, 
 
 T« pi^iiari TTJs 8uvajjL€«s avrov "by the commanding word (of. xi. 3) 
 of His power." Virtutis suae^ latt. ; and so the ancient commentators 
 
 1 " The history of the theological term 'Substance,'" JT^f. Jan., Oct., 1901 
 Oct. 1902. 
 
 ^ Aids to Ejection, Intr. Aphorisms xii u. 
 
14] NOTES 29 
 
 But the second a^roO, especially in a balanced piece of rhetoric like 
 this, would surely have the same reference as the first. And this fits 
 the context; the Son reveals or mediates God's power as He does His 
 glory and inmost being. This avTov is omitted by M 424** Orig. 
 Perhaps the ancient commentators and translators were unconsciously 
 influenced by their general view of the passage as a declaration of the 
 essential unity of the Son with the Father. But it is more than that. 
 It starts from the prophets, and joins the high doctrine of the con- 
 temporary Church concerning the Godhead of the Son with the old 
 prophetic idea of the Christ, the Lord's Anointed, representing God 
 in His people. The theme is not so much the uniqueness of the 
 Son's relation to the Father, as His uniting men with God. This 
 becomes plainer as the ep. proceeds ; so far it is partly obscured by 
 the technical terms which are borrowed from Alexandrine Judaism, 
 e.g. dirai!>yaa'fJLa Wisd. vii. 25 f. and Philo, x'^P^'^^^P ^J^d <f>4p(av 
 (to. irdvTa) Philo. 
 
 Ka0apio*)i6v tmv d|xapTicov troiT^o-aiJicvos* So, without di^ iavrov or 
 i]fiu>i/ in the ancient text. The middle, iroLriffdfjLevosj is in accordance 
 with the rule that a verb in Greek may be resolved into the corre- 
 sponding noun with the middle iroLeTadai. 
 
 lKdOio-€v Iv Scji^. First allusion to Ps. ex. which will supply the 
 guiding thought of the ep., viz. the royal High Priest after the order 
 of Melchizedek. Cf. Mark xiv. 62, which is reminiscent of this psalm 
 and of Dan. vii. 13. 
 
 jA€7ttXft)(ruvT]s. Used in the doxologies of Jude (25) and Clem. 
 Rom. XX. 12. In viii. 1 it is joined with iv rots oiipavois; in this 
 rhetorically finished passage the author substitutes v\l/7}\ois in a 
 peculiar sense partly for the alliterative music, partly to give dis- 
 tinction and variety to the style ; so dia(pop(bTepov and Trap' a^roi)? in 
 next verse. 
 
 4. K€KXt]pov6)jit]K€v. This long word with its running metre is 
 also chosen partly for its combination with ovofia into a musical 
 cadence ; cf. vii. 28, xii. 2. But there are no idle graces in the author's 
 style, and the perfect is needed here. The Son has inherited that 
 name and still keeps it. In d the translator justifiably renders by 
 a present tense, thus also getting a good Latin cadence of his own, 
 possldet nom^n. Intr. v. 12. This verb is also a stylistic echo of 
 K\7]pov6fjLOP in V. 2; yet more than stylistic. Hitherto we have been 
 mainly concerned with the pre-existent state of One who received in 
 time the name of Son, also of Christ, and the dignity of Lord, King 
 and High Priest. But the rest of the ep. is chiefly taken up with 
 tracing His inheritance and achievement of these names and dignities 
 
30 HEBREWS [1 4— 
 
 on earth. "Most of what is said of the Son in His pre-existing state 
 is contained in i. 2, 3, though some of the things said there are 
 repeated in other passages. The pre-existing state is alluded to very 
 little, and chiefly because it explains the present condition of exalta- 
 tion, which was not possible except to a being essentially Son of 
 God... Beyond the assumption of the pre-existence of the Son, the 
 epistle seems nowhere to desert the region of history" (Davidson, 
 pp. 40 and 74). Davidson thinks the appointment as heir in v. 2 
 refers to the historical exaltation after the death on the cross. 
 Westcott, surely better, says *' There is nothing to determine the 
 * time* of this divine appointment. It belongs to the eternal order.'* 
 It is in fact the whole of which our modern notion * 'evolution' ' is a part. 
 But with KeKXripovofMrfKep ovo/xa we pass to another special part or line 
 of this whole in history. The next section looks back upon the 
 Christs of Israel's history who have, in O.T., received the name of 
 Son, and regards this as the process of inheritance, by which One, 
 who will later in the ep. be styled Lord and King and High Priest 
 and Christ, inherited His name of Son. 
 
 I. 5—14. The Son's Inheritance. Christ-sons in 
 History. 
 
 5 The angels I say; for angels have nothing to do with such a 
 name as "Son." God, who speaks in the writers and personages 
 of our sacred books, did not say, "My son art thou; this day have I 
 begotten thee," to any angel. He said that to one of those kings of 
 Israel who were also called the Christs of the Lord, and who, being 
 themselves faint reflections of the divine effulgence and copies from 
 the divine seal, made history prophetic of the perfect Christ. It was 
 again to the best and greatest of those Christ-kings that God said 
 through Nathan the prophet, **I will be to him a father, and he shall 
 
 6 be to me a son." And whenever God brings back again the people 
 whom He had called His firstborn son into the family of nations 
 after one of those repeated humiliations which make the paradox of 
 their spiritual history and are prophetic of a far more transcendent 
 glory through humiliation still to come. He says, '*And let all the 
 angels of God worship him." The quotation is apt for our argument, 
 since this nation, itself too, bore the title "Christ " : through all this 
 varied line of Christship our Christ, who crowns the line, inherits 
 His name of "Son." 
 
 7 And on the other hand while God, speaking in a psalmist about 
 Himself, utters words concerning angels which indicate their dignity 
 
1 5] NOTES 31 
 
 in the sacramental order of nature — "Who maketh His angels winds, 
 and His ministers a flame of fire," concerning the Son God indi- 8 
 cates His place in a more mysterious line along which manhood and 
 Godhead, history and its fulfilment in the eternal sphere, are inex- 
 plicably brought together — *' Thy throne is God (or does He even say, 
 God?) for ever and ever, and the sceptre of righteousness is the 
 sceptre of God's kingdom. Thou lovedst righteousness and didst hate 9 
 iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the 
 oil of gladness above thy fellows." And, going deeper still, bringing 10 
 seen and unseen, time and eternity, into still closer union. He uses 
 the person of a psalmist to address Himself by His own ineffable 
 name; yet utters words which certainly have reference to the Son 
 through whom He made all things, and to whom, the abiding heir of 
 all things, they return through all their change and perishing as His 
 inheritance — "Thou in the beginning. Lord, didst found the earth, 
 and works of Thy hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but Thou 11 
 still remainest. And they all as a garment shall grow old, and as a 12 
 vesture shalt Thou roll them up ; as a garment shall they be utterly 
 changed. And Thou art the same, yea Thy years shall not fail." 
 
 And finally, concerning the Son and not concerning any angel, God 13 
 signifies in a mysterious oracle which a psalmist was inspired to 
 express in human words, that One (whom we well recognise to day) 
 is to reign with Himself in co-equal majesty till the victory over evil 
 is wholly won — *'Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine 
 enemies the footstool of thy feet." Such an awful summons was 14 
 never given to an angel. The angels serve, they do not reign. In the 
 universal temple of creation they are the priestly winds, the holy 
 spirits, ceaselessly sent forth to do God's service for the sake of those 
 who are to inherit salvation in that divine victorious act which lay 
 quite in the future when the doctrine of angels was first made known 
 to man, and still we await its full completion. 
 
 5. T»v dyyeXwv. This takes up KpdrTOjv twv d. in the last verse, 
 and introduces a formal proof of the Son's superiority to the angels. 
 We are reminded of Col. ii. 18 and i. 16, and wonder whether the 
 author is correcting a tendency of his day to angel worship. But 
 there is no further hint of this in the ep. unless the further parallel 
 with Col. in xiii. 8 f., be thought to support the conjecture. And th e 
 positive argument of the section, that the Son has received His name 
 by inheritance through the line of the Christ-nation and its kings, is 
 far more essential to the ep. than the negative argument, that the 
 inheritance has not come through the line of the angels. The main 
 
32 HEBREWS [1 5— 
 
 point comes out at last in ii. 16 ; the Son is trnly man and therefore 
 truly mediator between man and God. 
 
 vios |*.ov €t o-v, K.T.X. From Ps. ii., which is addressed to a king 
 of Israel. Apart from the more transcendent Messianic significance 
 which this Psalm would probably have in the Jewish church of the 
 later centuries b.c, it is justly quoted by the author in its context 
 here for this reason. In O.T. kings of Israel are styled " the Lobd's 
 Messiah. ' * In the English Bible * ' Messiah ' ' is rendered ' * Anointed, ' ' 
 but in the LXX, which was the Bible of the author, the rendering 
 is b xpto'7'6s. Hence he quite fairly thinks of our Lord as "inheriting" 
 this title through the Christs of the past. He also thinks of these 
 Christs of the past as being themselves, in their degree, revelations of 
 the one divine Christ (cf. xi. 26). And he is confirmed in this bold 
 idea by finding that even these Christs of the past were called " sons" 
 of God. Intr. m. 6. 
 
 l7« (fo-ofxat avT$, k.t.X. This appears in a striking manner in 
 Nathan's oracle to David, 2 Sam. vii., from which this quotation is 
 taken. The deep solemnity of that passage was felt of old as much as 
 by this author. That is proved by the allusion to it in Ps. Ixxxix. 26 ff. 
 
 6. Srav 8i irdXiv cUra^d-yn. k.t.X. The meaning of this appears 
 from the quotation which follows, koX Trpoa-KvvTjcrdTbJiTav aifrQ, k.t.X. 
 This nearly corresponds to the LXX of Ps. xcvii. (xcvi.) 7, and 
 exactly to the B text of a LXX addition to Deut. xxxii. 43. Each 
 poem celebrates the restoration of the people of Israel, who are in 
 Ps. Ixxxix. 61 associated with David in the office of Messiah. It 
 is, therefore, when God brings His people, after their humiliation 
 (of exile, etc.), into the fellowship of the nations (rrjv oIkov/jl^vitju) again, 
 that He bids all the angels worship this people who are His firstborn 
 son (Jer. xxxi. 9, Hos. xi. 1). In Ps. xcvii. (xcvi.) AyyeXoi of LXX 
 represents the Hebrew *elohim. This indicates the answer to an 
 objection that might be raised, viz. that angels are called "sons of 
 God" in Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7. In the author's Bible, the LXX, 
 &yy eXoL is the rendering of bne ^elohim in each place. Nor is this 
 a false rendering. ^Elohim is used in the O.T. in various senses, of 
 false gods 1 Kings xix. 2, of judges etc. Ps. Ixxxii. 6, of spiritual 
 beings or angels. This last is the use in the passages of Job, and 
 hne ^elohim is the regular Hebrew phrase for the class or company 
 of *elohim, as bne nehHim is for the class or professional guild of 
 prophets; sonship in the sense of "descent from" is not implied. 
 
 A question still remains about the force of the temporal clause 
 6Tap elaaydyr}. Being completed by the present X^yei in the apodosie 
 it should mean "whenever he brings again." And this would suit 
 
1 8] NOTES 33 
 
 the repeated humiliations of Israel very well: "The exile of Israel 
 in its deepest sense has lasted from Nebuchadnezzar's burning of 
 Jerusalem to the present dayi." But the imperative irpoaKwrjad- 
 Tcoaav might be considered the real apodosis ; of. Apoc. iv. 9 f . Then 
 the reference would be to an event in the future, and it is very possible 
 that the author had also in mind that "second" advent of his Lord 
 (ix. 28) of which he treats in a somewhat unusual manner in this 
 epistle ; cf . Intr. iii. 19. irdXip might be taken as in preceding verse, 
 but whenever it is followed by a verb in this ep. it is construed with 
 the verb; iv. 7, v. 12, vi. 6. 
 
 7. Kal irp^s K-^V, k.tA. Not "to" but "with regard to." No 
 address to angels foUows, but a description of angels from Ps. civ. 4. 
 It matters little whether the Hebrew makes "winds" (Tn'ciJ/iara) and 
 " fire " predicate as the Greek does, or the other way. The meaning 
 will be really the same. Other pictures of angels might be collected 
 from O.T., but this accords with the ancient and deepest idea of 
 the Hebrews. To them the thunderstorm was in very truth the 
 manifestation of the Lord their God. The thunder was His voice, 
 the winds and lightnings His angels. So in N.T. the law, given in 
 the thunder of Sinai, is spoken of as ordained by angels, and the 
 coming of the Son of man is expected sometimes with angels, some- 
 times with clouds ; cf. also John xii. 29. That this implies no 
 derogation from the angels' glory is shewn by the author's language 
 in xii. 23, and the symbolic exaltation of nature and "forces of 
 nature" in the Apocalypse^. All this however is but hinted here. 
 The main thing is that angels are shewn to stand in another line 
 of life from that along which the Son lifts man to God. 
 
 8. irpos S\ Tov viov. Trpos must have the same meaning as 
 before. Yet the quotation, from Ps. xlv., is in the form of an 
 address. This might be explained by the consideration that it 
 would be more in accordance with N.T. usage to speak of the 
 vocative, 6 ^e6s, as applicable to the Son, than to use it as a direct 
 address to the Son : even S. Thomas' words in John xx. 28 are 
 different from the absolute "0 God." But, besides that, there is 
 some doubt whether 6 Beds here is intended to be taken as a vocative. 
 In fc<B, that very strong combination of textual authority, rijs fia- 
 oriKelas aiJroD, not aov, is read. With airov, the natural (though not 
 quite inevitable) translation of the sentence would be **Thy throne 
 is God... and the sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre o| His 
 
 1 Cheyne, Jewish Beligious Life after the Exile, p. 159. 
 
 2 See further Sanday, The Life of Christ in recent research^ on "The Sym- 
 bolism of the Bible," and " A Sermon on Angels." 
 
34 HEBREWS [1 8— 
 
 kingdom." It is a further argument for following the strong ms. 
 authority that the author has made another adjustment of his 
 LXX text by writing Kal ij pd^dos ttjs ei)^i5r7;Tos pd^dos rrjs jSactXefas 
 instead of pd^dos evO&nriTo^ ij pd^Sos ttjs ^aaiXeiaSf shifting the pre- 
 dicate as though to imply that wherever righteous rule is found it 
 will be God's rule. One who could make such a thoughtful cor- 
 rection as that might make the other to avoid what he felt to be 
 somewhat crude theology. It would be possible to construe the 
 original Hebrew in this way, and it would make the immediately 
 following "God, even thy God" easier. Most O.T. commentators 
 however think this unnatural, and all ancient exegesis is against it 
 in the quoted Greek. The extraordinary arrangement in d perhaps 
 shows how remarkable that translator found the passage. He 
 translates koX irpbs fi^v tovs dyy^Xovs ai>Tou X^yei (so in D) by Et angelus 
 ipsius dicit and then arranges aU that follows down to the end of v. 12 
 as one utterance or oracle. 
 
 That of course is merely curious. But the solution of the problem 
 in V. 8 does depend in part upon the interpretation of vv. 10 — 12. 
 These are quoted from Ps. cii. 25 ff. As generally in LXX KiJpte 
 represents the ineffable name. Hort writes in his Commentary on 
 1 Pet. ii. 3 '* It would be rash to conclude that he meant to identify 
 Jehovah with Christ. No such identification can be clearly made out 
 in the N.T." It would seem right therefore to say that here again, 
 as in the last quotation, O.T. language is applied to the Son to 
 describe His divine character ; He is not Himself addressed as 
 ** God " or "Lord." But if so, the whole series of quotations 
 might seem to be in an ascending scale. First, His inheritance of 
 the name Son is illustrated from passages in which that name is 
 given to the anointed kings or to the people of Israel. Then, after 
 a verse in which the " nature-glory " of angels is indicated, a second 
 application of O.T. language is made, assigniug to the Son the 
 attributes of a king who is addressed as "God," and finally even 
 the attributes of Him who is the Lord God of Israel are associated 
 with Him. 
 
 On the other hand it must be noticed that not all those attributes 
 are presented. These verses from Ps. cii. seem to correspond to the 
 "nature" character of the angels in v. 7 and to the Son's work 
 of creation in v. 2. The mark of His divinity is here mainly recog- 
 nised in this, viz. that while created nature changes and passes, 
 He as x^P^'^'f'VP '''V^ vTroffrdaews abides unchangeable: cf. xii. 27 f., 
 xiii. 8. 
 
 See a paper printed by Hort in 1876 On Hebrews i. 8. Westcott 
 
1 14] NOTES 35 
 
 agrees with him both in reading a^roO, and in translating " God is 
 Thy Throne." 
 
 13. KoLOov €K 8€|i(ov, K.T.X. From Ps. ex., which dominates in 
 the ep. ; of. i. 3, v. 6, 10, vi. 20, vii. 11, 15, 17, 21, 24, 28, viii. 1, 
 X. 12 f., xii. 2. 'Eac be^iQv is LXX ; in mere allusions the author 
 writes ev he^iq.. In the last two quotations the name "Son" was 
 not expressed. In this verse that thought is quite superseded by 
 the culminating glory of exaltation to co-equality in kingly rule; 
 cf. Mark xii. 37, 1 Cor. xv. 28. This quotation brings us to the 
 personal history of our Lord on earth, the humiliation in which 
 this glory was achieved ; that subject will be taken up at ii. 5. 
 
 14. irveviiaTa. Here we must translate "spirits" in spite of 
 V. 7. But the Greek reader, certainly the Jewish Greek reader, 
 would feel no difficulty in that. He had not learned, nor found in 
 his Bible, the separation between symbol and reality which confuses 
 us. Thus in Gen. i. 2 the wind on the dark water actually was to 
 him the Spirit of God ; cf. Ps. xxxi. 5, Eccl. xii. 7, Luke xxiii. 46, 
 John iii. 8, xx. 22. 
 
 XeiTOvp'yiKd. This adj., like XeiTovpyeiv Xeirovfyyia, is used of the 
 Levitical service in LXX (not in Leviticus) ; cf. Rom. xv. 16. The 
 angels minister in the "temple" of God, which is the universe, as 
 often in the Psalter. See especially Ps. xxix. 9 and cf. John xiv. 2, 
 Luke ii. 49. ** Ministering angels " are spoken of in Philo and the 
 Talmud. 
 
 diro(rT€XXd|i€VO.. Pres. part, of continual activity. A part, is 
 similarly used in the Hebrew of the seraphim in Isa. vi. So Milton, 
 "Thousands at his bidding speed And post o*re Land and Ocean 
 without rest"; cf. Lucr. v. 297 ff., ardore ministro...tremere ignibus 
 instanty Instant^ nee loca litx inter quasi rupta relinquit. 
 
 8id rovs jx^XXovras kXt]povo|1€iv crarripiav. The periphrasis with 
 fx^Wca indicates "imminence in past time" (Blass 62, 4). S. Paul's 
 doctrine of election does not enter into this ep., not even in iv. 3 ; 
 it is the salvation that is predestined not the number of the saved. 
 All that is read in O.T. of angels is here represented as having 
 reference to the salvation to be fulfilled in the latter days ; cf . ix. 28, 
 xi. 40. 
 
 Hence o-uyrrjpia is to be interpreted from O.T. usage not, as 
 perhaps in some parts of N.T., from the contemporary Greek worlds 
 Hort has fine notes on the word in his comm. on 1 Pet., pp. 38 f., 
 
 * See Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 83 f.. Light from the Ancient Hasty 
 index, s.W. (rwr^p, o-wttjp tov ic6<rju,ou, (rdirrjpCa. 
 
 C2 
 
36 HEBREWS [1 14 
 
 48, 103 ; see also Sanday and Headlam on Eom. i. 16. The domi- 
 nant idea is that of victorious rescue, as in Ps. xxxv. (xxxiv.) 3, 
 Isa. lix. 16 — 20, of. Ejph. vi. 17. But " salvation in the fullest sense 
 is but the completion of God's work upon men, the successful end of 
 their probation and education " (Hort) ; so in this ep. it is associated 
 with "progress" and "perfection," ii. 10, v. 9, vi. 9. Swr^p, 
 frequent in Pastorals and 2 Pet., cf. also Phil. iii. 20, does not occur 
 in this ep. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IL 1 — 4. The tradition of salvation: give 
 
 HEED TO it. 
 
 Such being the mysterious origin, office and achievement of Him 1 
 to whom our allegiance has been rendered, we are bound more ex- 
 ceedingly to give heed to the tradition of life and doctrine on which 
 we (unlike the earlier disciples) mainly depend. More exceedingly : 2 
 for we are in a time of trial, and we must be vigilant lest by however 
 unexpected a chance the tide of trouble sweep us away from our 
 loyalty. More exceedingly again: for we run a risk like that of 
 ancient Israel, but of deeper consequence. Their Law was a word 
 spoken through the angels of the storm at Sinai ; and in due course 
 it was firmly established, and every refusal to walk in its path or 
 to listen to its meaning, though it delayed complete establishment, 
 received just and due payment of the wage it merited. So costly 
 was the establishment of the Law : and how shall we escape away 3 
 if by our neglect we hinder— no mere word spoken through angels 
 but —salvation itself ? And such a great salvation ! A proclamation 
 of victorious mercy, which received its impulse in the speech of Him 
 we adore as Lord, has been handed on unimpaired so far as to us by 
 those who heard the very accents of His voice. So far in its course 4 
 it has been firmly established : God as well as the disciples witnessing 
 to its truth all the way with signs and wonders as of old ; with 
 exquisitely varied acts of power; with breathings of a holy Spirit 
 such as inspired creation and our national history, each duly appor- 
 tioned according to His ever active will. 
 
 1. Set. This verse (omitted in M Orig.) introduces the first of 
 those exhortations which are so closely interwoven with the argument 
 of the ep. that the author justly styles it a " word of exhortation " 
 in xiii. 22. So, in an ancient prologue to the Pauline epp., Hebrews 
 is described simply thus — Ad Ehreos quos hortatur ad similitudinem 
 thesalonicensium ut in mandatis Dei persecutiones prumptissime 
 patiantur^. 
 
 ^ Gwynn, Liber Ardmaclianus, p. 209. 
 
38 HEBREWS [2 1^ 
 
 Tots dKov<r6€i<riv» The tradition of the Church on which the 
 whole ep. rests. Like the ancient prophets, the author disclaims 
 innovation ; cf . xiii. 8 f. 
 
 irapapvw|j,€v. Cf. Isai. xliv. 4, irapappiov Vdwp. The passive here 
 (2 aor. subj.) implies being carried away by the tide of temptation ; 
 "lest we drift," ne casu lebemur (sic) d, ne forte effiuamus vg. 
 
 2. 6 8t* dYYiXttv XaXtjOcls Xo-yos. The Law at Sinai, diarayeh 
 di a.yyi\(av h xetpi fxea-irov as S. Paul says, Gal. iii. 19 ; see note on 
 i. 7 above. 
 
 l'y€V€To Pe'Patos. From xii. 19, 25 we see how the author (so 
 imaginatively reading his Bible) felt that a risk was run at Sinai; 
 Israel's fear made the acceptance of God's commandments uncertain. 
 Moses the "mediator" saved them from the peril then, but the 
 " word " did not become really firm till the whole troubled course of 
 the nation's political ambition was ended by the exile. This verse 
 like i. 1 is a curious anticipation of modern O.T. criticism. 
 
 3. dfuXijcravTCs. "If we should have," not "since we have 
 neglected." A like risk was before the author's friends, but he had 
 good hope of them ; cf . vi. 1 — 12. 
 
 dpx^iv Xapovo-a. Cf. xi. 29, 36. The phrase has almost a 
 personal ring, like "receiving impulse from." Thus it gives to 
 i^€^anb07j something of the idea of confirmation by "development." 
 
 XaXei(r9av. Probably refers to actual " speaking," i.e. to our 
 Lord's proclamation " The kingdom of God is at hand," or to the 
 whole of His teaching during His ministry; xi. 4, xii, 24 are not 
 parallels. That teaching would include such pregnant sayings as 
 Mark viii. 35, x. 45, which are the germ of the apostolic doctrine 
 of salvation by the cross. In this ep. the high-priestly entrance 
 into the heavenly sanctuary is contemplated timelessly or as simul- 
 taneous with the act of dying; therefore no reference to the forty 
 days of Acts i, 3 is likely. 
 
 Toii KvpCov. Here first the author names his Master plainly. The 
 readers would have recognised to whom he was pointing throughout 
 ch. i., but there he set them, as it were, by the throne of God in 
 heaven, and opened a vision of eternal things. That would have 
 lost its mystery if he had introduced a defining title which rose out 
 of the earthly limitations of " the days of" the Saviour's "flesh." 
 
 It rose out of those days, yet perhaps not immediately. The 
 title Kjjpios is not often found in the synoptic gospels in the full 
 sense which it has in the rest of N.T. In many places S. Luke's 
 iwiffTdrris, "Master," might be substituted for it without apparent 
 loss. In Luke xxiv. 3 rod Kvplov ^Irjcrov is quite unusual. But all 
 
2 4] NOTES 39 
 
 three words are omitted by authorities which have peculiar weight in 
 these last chapters of Luke, and the closest parallel to them is in 
 Mark xvi. 19 f., which according to the most ancient evidence are no 
 part of the original book. Bousset in his study of early Christian 
 doctrine, Kyrios Christos^ shew§ that this title, KiJptos, was cha- 
 racteristic of certain religious fellowships in the Graeco-Eoman world 
 which may have influenced the Christian Church in the development 
 of faith through worship — lex orandi^ lex credendi. Such influence 
 would not be alien to the followers of Him who is Himself the truth 
 wherever found (John xiv. 6). But there are passages in the gospels 
 (though hardly in Mark) which at least raise the question whether the 
 impulse had not been given earlier and elsewhere ; e.g. Matt. vii. 21 f., 
 XX. 31. And the influence of the LXX with its K6pios (see above 
 on i. 10) must also be taken into account. 
 
 viro T(5v dKovo-dvTwv, k.t.X. S. Paul, who claims immediate 
 revelation so earnestly (see Gal. i. 1, 11 f., 16), would hardly have 
 written this. But, taken by itself, it does not put the author and his 
 friends farther from the ••beginning" than S. Paul. They had not 
 listened to the teaching of our Lord himself; that is all that is 
 necessarily implied ; cf . Acts i. 21 f . , and Hdt. ix, 98 koI rdSe tarta 
 Kal 6 fXT] i-rraKo^ixas vfx^wv wpbs rod 4iraKov(ravTOS. 
 
 4. oTijieCois T€ Kal T^pacriv. So often in Acts and thrice in Paul ; 
 cf . also John iv. 48. A frequent collocation in LXX of Deuteronomy, 
 which was rather a favourite book with our author. The idea has some 
 resemblance to the concluding verses of Mark which may have been 
 written by the presbyter Ariston; see Swete's Commentary, pp. ciii. — 
 cv. ; there are also other coincidences in language. Closer attention 
 shews that the resemblance is probably superficial. In particular, 
 Ariston makes much of the outward signs ; our author passes from 
 his almost conventionally quoted O.T. words to the deeper things of 
 spiritual life. 
 
 •rrv€v|iaTos ayiov. Without article, as always in this ep. unless 
 the Spirit is connected with O.T. inspiration. The exception in 
 X. 29 is a grammatical necessity. Intr. m. 29. 
 
 6€XT](ruv. This abstract noun (only here in N.T.) suits the 
 *' movement" of the passage; contrast x. 36, xiii. 21, 
 
40 HEBREWS [2 5 
 
 II. 5—18. Jesus the man: glory in humiliation: 
 
 PRIESTHOOD THROUGH DEATH- 
 
 6 The Lord speaking, God witnessing, Holy Spirit operating ! Yes, 
 for it was not to mere angels that God subjected the spiritual world of 
 which we are speaking, our home long destined and now within our 
 
 6 reach. To whom then is it subject? Why, to man. Does not some 
 one somewhere call God to witness to this paradox? "What is a 
 man," he says, "that Thou art mindful of him; mortal man, that 
 
 7 Thou visitest him? Thou didst humble him indeed, but only a little 
 below angels ; with a wreath of glory and honour didst Thou deck him. 
 
 8 All things didst Thou put in subjection under his feet." Glory in 
 humiliation! Strange but true, for there it stands written, "all 
 things in subjection"; there is no exception at all. Well, as yet at 
 any rate we do not see those "all things" in subjection to man. 
 
 9 But we do behold One, who stands visible to memory and faith, a 
 little below angels, humbled — he is Jesus, the man ; and but a little 
 below angels indeed — it is for the suffering of death that He wears a 
 wreath of veritable glory and honour, so that He may, — thus God of 
 His free favour granted— on behalf of every one of us taste death. 
 
 10 Manhood, suffering, death! Yes, for.it was befitting Him, for 
 whose good pleasure "all things" came into being, and through 
 whose direction "all things" hold their course, after bringing many 
 sons "to glory" in the psalmist's dream, to carry Him who was to 
 lead the way in realising that glorious victory of theirs, through 
 
 11 sufferings to His purposed goal. For suffering is the faculty of 
 mortal man, and in suffering we find the pledge of real communion; 
 not only the sanctifier but those too whom He sanctifies are seen 
 thereby to have the same divine origin. And that is why He is not 
 ashamed to call them brothers. Who so well as He can give full 
 meaning to those often-repeated words of Israel's martyr and Israel's 
 
 12 prophet? "I will declare Thy name to my brothers, in the midst of 
 
 13 the church of our people I will praise Thee." And again, "It is I 
 who will be a man of faith in Him." And again, "Behold I and the 
 children whom God gave me." Now there we hear the accents of 
 
 14 a common piety and kindred. And since kindred as regards these 
 "children" implies physical relationship. He too partook of that just 
 as they do; for the sake of that great purpose already named, viz. 
 through death to bring to nought the potentate of the realm of death, 
 
 15 the awful Adversary ; and so to, give quittance to all the multitude of 
 those who by fear of death throughout the course of natural life were 
 
2 5] NOTES 41 
 
 liable to slavery. For I hardly fancy you will say that such physical 16 
 relationship, such ♦* taking hold of," is likely with regard to angels. 
 No, it is Abraham's human seed He takes hold of. And therefore He 
 was bound in all respects to be made like to these "brothers " of His. 
 For this is the sum of all that purpose indicated by manhood, suffer- 17 
 ing, human piety and death, namely that He may become, in regular 
 process, pitiful and faithful as a High Priest on the God ward side, 
 to the end that He may continually do priestly work in taking away 
 the sins of the people of God. For, having gone through the tribu- is 
 lation of trial. He has in Himself the lasting experience of suffering, 
 and in that quality is able to come to the rescue of those who, as 
 their turn comes round, enter into trial. 
 
 6. ov 7dp d^Y^Xois, k.t.X. The LXX of Deut. xxxii. 8 says that 
 **when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance he set 
 the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of 
 God" (Heb. *'of the children of Israel"). This might imply that 
 when the world became an olKovfiivrj, a society of men, it was put 
 under the control of the angels. Thus ttjv olKovfx^vT]v ttjv fi^Wovaav 
 might mean "the social world which lay in the future at the time of 
 creation." If so the author denies the inference (cf. xi. 27). But it 
 is more likely that he is giving a varied expression of the thought 
 which recurs in vi. 5, duva/xets fiiWovros aloouost xii. 28 ^acnXeiav 
 dadXevTov, xiii. 14 irdXiv ttjv fx^Wovaay, cf. also iii. 5, iv. 9, viii. 13, 
 ix. 10, X. 1, 20, xi. 10, 16. The world or city or good things to come, 
 the kingdom that cannot be shaken, the opened way to God, are the 
 "kingdom of God," promised in O.T., proclaimed at hand by our 
 Lord, brought in some sense by His death, still to be consummated at 
 His "coming" (ix. 28). That passage, ix. 28, shews that the author 
 holds the ancient faith of the Galilean disciples (Acts iii. 21) con- 
 cerning the final advent. But it is enlarged and deepened in his 
 epistle. A "coming" in the trial of his own day is recognised, 
 X. 25, 37, Intr. in. 19 ; and the seeming confusion of past, present and 
 future is removed by his Platonic conception of eternity as reality not 
 length of time, cf . ix. 11 f . To him there was no antithesis between 
 this world and "the world to come," a favourite formula in Judaism, 
 but only in late Judaism, see Dalman, p. 147 ff. If, as the coinci- 
 dence in quoting Ps. viii. suggests, he knew Eph. i. 21 f., he would 
 feel that he could not quite adopt the phrase used there. His 
 "world to come" is more akin to S. Paul's doctrine of the Spirit, 
 and nearer still to S. John's sacramental thought. It is "the higher 
 hidden life which lies at the roots of the visible life," Gardner, The 
 Ephesian Gospel^ p. 194. 
 
42 HEBREWS [2 6— 
 
 6. 8i€|iapTvpaT0 hi irov rts. A favourite verb in Acts : " to call 
 (God) to witness to the truth of what some one says^" Thus the 
 Alexandrine formula iro{> rts is used here with precision. In the 
 quotations of this chapter it is no longer God who speaks in the person 
 of the O.T. writer; here it is a man concerning mankind, in 121 
 the man Jesus concerning His relation towards men. Throughout 
 this chapter the point of view is from earthly history. 
 
 rL ^o-Tiv dvOpcoiros, k.t.X. From Ps. viii. The Psalmist con- 
 templates the grandeur of creation and feels the littleness of man. 
 But, remembering Gen. i. 26 ff., he appeals to the Lokd to confirm his 
 faith in man's high destiny. In the Hebrew he says, "thou hast 
 made him little lower than God." That becomes in LXX "than the 
 angels." The rendering might be justified from the ambiguity of 
 ^elohim (cf. note on i. 8). But it is not necessary to press this. The 
 real subject of interest in this chapter is not the angels but the 
 humiliation of Jesus as the means of His glory. The omission of 
 Kal KaT^<TTT}(ras...x€Lpu}v crov in the next verse (so BD^) helps to bring 
 out the simplicity of the argument. 
 
 vi6s dvOpcpirov. So far as there is real antithesis in the original 
 Hebrew, this second term for "man" means "ordinary man," "man- 
 kind." It may be that the lowly idea of this psalm and of Ezekiel 
 (ii. 1 and passim) was combined with the grand idea in Dan. vii. 13 
 by our Lord when He called Himself " The Son of Man." There is 
 no direct reference to that title in this epistle. 
 
 8. €v T^ 7dp viroTdJat avrw rd iravra. Is there reminiscence of 
 1 Cor. XV. 25 — 28 in the language here? That passage shews at any 
 rate how naturally association of ideas would lead the author from 
 Ps. ex. (i. 13) to Ps. viii. B, still simplifying, omits a(/T<^, 
 
 The inf. with art., an interesting feature of N.T. Greek, is handled 
 with skill in this ep. (cf . ii. 15, Intr. v. 3). Its tenses signify state not 
 time; Goodwin, § 96. But with iv T(f the use is not classical, and in 
 this use the tense of the inf. perhaps can indicate time. Blass 71. 7. 
 
 9. Tov 8^ Ppaxv Ti, K.T.X. Throughout i;. 8 ai)r<J means "man" 
 in general, in whom the psalmist's faith is not yet seen fulfilled. 
 In the one man, Jesus — note the name of His manhood, here first 
 introduced, so frequent in the rest of the epistle — we do behold it. 
 As He passes to His death, we behold Him glorified in humiliation: 
 see John xiii. 31. 
 
 ppaxv Tt in the Ps. appears to mean "only a little," Here "at 
 least a little," or possibly "for a little while." The distinction is 
 
 *■ Cf. W. Wallace, Lectures and Ussays, p. 205, Man ** has claimed God for 
 his everlasting ally, and been content with nothing less than immortality." 
 
2 9] NOTES 43 
 
 not important, nor is the comparison with angels. The stress is on 
 ij\aTT(joixivov. The author keeps to the main idea of his quotation, 
 "glory in humiliation," but gives a deft turn to this particular phrase. 
 
 €(rT€^avcD)j.4vov under same article as rjkaTTUjfjihov. The picture is 
 of one who stands ever before our view (note pres. indie, and perf . 
 part.) as both humiliated and glorified. This compound phrase is 
 divided into two parts by the emphatic ^Xi-rrofiev 'Irjaovv, and M rb 
 Trd$7iiJ,a...iaT€<pay(a/jL4vov go together. The prep, has its "forward" 
 sense, "crowned for the purpose of," not "in recompense for" death. 
 Thus 67r(as...yaj(rriTai, **that he may taste " (vivid subj. in due sequence 
 to pres. and perf.) follows intelligibly. There is no other way of 
 construing grammatically^. Blass recognises this so clearly in his 
 rythmical edition that without any authority he alters yetjffrjrat into 
 iyeiL/iraTo, He does that, because, with so many others, he sees a 
 reference to the ascension, as in Phil. ii. 5 — 11. But in this ep. our 
 Lord becomes king by enthronement not by crowning, and that is in 
 general accordance with ancient custom. Properly indeed (TTi<t>avos 
 is not a kingly crown at all but an athlete's wreath, cf. 2 Tim. ii. 6, 
 iv. 8. But the usage of LXX perhaps forbids our pressing that. 
 The title "Christ" which belongs to His exalted perfection is not 
 added to the name of His manhood in this place ; it first appears at 
 iii. 6; cf. the antithesis in xiii. 20 f. Throughout this chapter the 
 work of the Lord on earth is in view. Only in the perf. partt. here 
 and in V. 18 are glimpses of that completed glory which will be the 
 theme of later chapters. Intr. n. 15, in. 7. 
 
 XapiTt 0€ov. M424** have x^pis deov and this reading was known 
 to Origen and other Fathers. Textual authority may be considered 
 decisive against it, and it might seem to have arisen from theological 
 reflexion, orthodox or docetic ; Godhead could not taste death. Com- 
 parison with V. 7 f . makes one wonder whether it was not due to 
 recollection of the cry Eloi^ Eloi^ lama sahachthani, by which the 
 evangelists mark the supreme moment of glory in humiliation. 
 There is a curious allusion to this passage in conjunction with xii. 2 
 in Ap, Const, vni. 1: o-iryx^p^o'et Oeov CTavpov virifietvep alcrx^vrjs 
 KaTa<ppovr}<Tas 6 Oebs \6yos, which in the Constitutions of Hippolytus 
 runs olKciq, <Tvyx<^P'fi<Tei koX ^ovXy crTavpbv...6e6s iav \6yos. Behind both 
 forms actual words of Hippolytus probably lie 2. Is it possible that 
 
 1 Dr J. O. P. Murray however writes in a letter : ** I have in times past taken 
 oiTft)s...yev<rrjTai davdrov as referring not to the Cross but to a present activity of 
 the ascended Lord, taking the bitterness out of the cup of death for everyone— 
 as He did in the case of S. Stephen, Acts vii, 55. S. Paul suggests that He is 
 present at every death bed (1 Th. iv. 14) lulling to sleep, KOLti-qdeuTas 5id tov 
 Iijo-ov. This would prepare the way for ii. 15. and xii. 4** 
 a See Frere, JT£l, Ap. 1915. 
 
44 HEBREWS [29— 
 
 Hippolytus found o-iryxwpijo-et in Hebrews, and should this good 
 Platonic word be added to the classical vocabulary of the author? 
 Stephanus quotes from Chrysostom : ottou yap xdpLs (rvyxtoprjais • oirov 
 d^ (Tiryx^pT/o'is ovBe/Jiia KdXajis. 
 
 10. ^irpcircv of Christ befitting us vii. 26, cf. Matt. iii. 15. 
 Philo uses the word boldly, as here, of God the Father. Cf. wcpaXev, 
 V, 17. 
 
 8i 0V...81* o5. Cf. Eom. xi. 36, 1 Cor. viii. 6. 
 
 iroXXovs viovs, not merely the Christ-sons of O.T. as in ch. i., but 
 all men as in Ps. viii. That follows from the obvious reference in 
 dyaydvra. Rutherford, § 220, says: *' The use of the aorist participle 
 to denote an action anterior to that of the principal verb is a sense 
 acquired by it, and cannot be explained as other than a convention 
 sanctioned by its utility. Still there are no exceptions of any sort to 
 this convention, such exceptions as are commonly recorded being no 
 exceptions.'* Here at any rate there is no need to dispute that 
 dictum; els 8. dy. refers back to dd^v k, t. i(TT€(pdv(a(7as, "having 
 brought to glory as we have just heard.'* The breaking of the appo- 
 sition by the ace. dyaybvra is according to the genius of Greek which 
 exchanges stiff accuracy readily for the ease or emphasis of the 
 sentence; cf. Plato, Ion 540c, dW 67rota dpxovri KdfivovTos Trpiirei 
 elireiv 6 pa\f/(^dbs ypibaerai KaWiov rj 6 larpbs; 
 
 ap\i\y6v. Cf. xii. 2, Acts iii. 15; in the earlier classical Greek 
 of a prince ; in LXX and later Greek of a leader or author. Aristotle 
 calls Thales dpx* ToiavTrjs <pi\o(ro(f)las ; often joined with afrios, cf. v. 9. 
 The rendering of d is ducem here, pnncipalem xii. 2 ; vg. auctorem in 
 both places. 
 
 TcXciMO-ai. The phrase reXeLoOv tcls x^^pas is used of appointing a 
 priest in Ex., Lev., Num., e.g. Lev. iv. 5, 6 lepeds 6 xpt-o'Tbs 6 TereXeKa- 
 fdvos rds x^^P^^' ^^^ ritual association may have suggested its use 
 in N.T. where it is characteristic of John as well as of Hebrews. 
 In Hebrews reXet6T9;s, reXeiwais and TeXenbrrjs are also found. But the 
 author's habit of pressing the root-significance of words best explains 
 the varied force he gives it. In each context '* bringing to the destined 
 perfection" is the idea. So in Jas. i. 25 vd/JLov riXeiov is "a law that 
 involves its own end," the converse of what this ep. says of the 
 Levitical law. Cf. Philo, migr, Abr. i. 457, reXenadeis 6 vovs diroddxreL 
 rd T^Xos T(fi TeX€(r(f)6p(i3 OeQ. 
 
 11. o T€ d-yidtcov. Another Levitical word. The refrain of the 
 "Law of Holiness" (Lev. xvii. — xxvi.), ayiOL ^aeaOe 6ti dytos iyu 
 K{>pLos Otos vfidv — with variations, in one of which, xxi. 8, Ktjpios 
 6 dyidj^wv avToiJS, is the cadence— shews how deeply moral feeling 
 
2 14] NOTES ^ 45 
 
 entered into Israel's ritual. Jesus, whose forerunners speak in the 
 next series of quotations, is 6 ayia^tav. ol ayia^ofxevoi are the woWovs 
 vloh, i.e. mankind, of. John i. 9. The tense of the partt. serves this 
 large faith; contrast x. 10, xii. 14, and note the emphatic wdvTes: 
 Intr. III. 18. 
 
 cj Ivos completes 5i' 6j/...5i' o5, cf. Luke iii. 38. But Bruce, 
 borrowing the phrase though not the judgement of Davidson, sug- 
 gests **of one piece, one whole." But cf. also the Greek gnome, 
 ip dvSpwu iv deCou yhosy Pind. Nem, vi. and Adam's development of 
 the thoughts Add Acts xvii. 28, 2 Pet. i. 4. 
 
 ovK €irai(rxvv€Tai, of God in xi. 16. Here the condescension, or 
 cheerful humility, of Jesus the Son is declared by putting into His 
 mouth three verses of O.T. in which representative personages call 
 those whom they save by suffering (Ps. xxii. 22), or train as disciples 
 (Isa. viii. 17 " ), "brothers" and "children," and confess themselves 
 to be like them dependent upon God. 
 
 13. ^(TOfxai irciroiOtis. An emphatic periphrasis as in class. Gk., 
 Goodwin § 45, Moulton, p. 226 f . 
 
 iSov €7«, K.T.X. Cf. Odes of Solomon xxxi., *'He lifted up His 
 voice to the Most High, and offered to Him the sons that were with 
 Him2." 
 
 14. a^fjiaros Kal capKos. The physical constitution of man, as 
 in Matt. xvi. 17, 1 Cor. xv. 50, Gal. i. 16, Eph. vi. 12, John i. 13. 
 So in Philo and Sirach xiv. 18. Not however in the Hebrew Bible 
 where "blood," as in all other places in this ep., signifies "life"; 
 see Lev. xvii. 11 and Intr. in. 12, 13. 
 
 t6v to KpoiTos ^xovra rov Qavdrov. The English versions might 
 remind us of Luke xii. 5, but the e^outrta there is God's; here the devil 
 has TO Kpdros (imperium d and vg.) of death. There is something Vague 
 and shadowy about the phrase. The author, who nowhere else men- 
 tions the devil or evil spirits, would be in sympathy with Dr Swete's 
 view of "the personal or quasi-personal ' Satan,' " ^ and with Jas. iv. 7 
 "Kesist the devil, and he will flee from you." Our Lord died, he 
 says, to "do away with" this lord of death; death itself, says 
 S. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 26 (that passage seems to be still in the author's 
 mind). He holds firm to our Lord's victory over the realm of evil, 
 but does not define the persons of its agents. Nor does our Lord in 
 the synoptic gospels ; He condescends to the popular language of the 
 
 * "The doctrine of the divine origin of the soul from Pindar to Plato," 
 Cambridge Praelections. 
 
 * Rendel Harris, 2'he Odes and Psalms of Solomon, p. 129. 
 
 * Th Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 370. 
 
46 , HEBREWS [2 14— 
 
 time, but with a quiet correction of its grossness, which impresses 
 the mind of the reader more and more. In those gospels the devil 
 or Satan is mentioned comparatively seldom, with reticent and per- 
 haps symbolical solemnity i; it is the many evil spirits that are 
 oftener spoken of. In the Pauline epp. of the captivity these spirits 
 take on a certain grandeur, so that it is not always easy to decide 
 whether powers of good or evil are meant; see Eph. ii. 2, iii. 10, 
 vi. 12; Col. i. 13, 16, ii. 10, 15. In S. John's Gospel and 1 Ep. they 
 almost disappear, but "the devil" is freely and frankly introduced. 
 
 In LXX dtdpoXos is the rendering of "satan" = adversary, and is 
 used of a human adversary Ps. cix. (cviii.) 6, and of that angel whose 
 ofi&ce it is to try the servants of God, Job i. and ii. ; Zech. iii. 1 ff . 
 Except possibly in 1 Chr. xxi. 1 this angel is not a rebel or an 
 evil one; and in 1 Chr. xxi. 1 the LXX translator, prefixing no 
 article, seems to have understood a human adversary to be meant. 
 Wisd. ii. 24 gives the first hint of the later explanation of the 
 serpent in Gen. iii. as being the devil. Kabbinical Judaism was 
 inclined to the ancient simplicity. " Satan and the evil impulse and 
 the angel of death are one," said Simon ben Laqish (c. 260 a.d.)^. 
 
 15. diraXXdlxi oiily Luke xii. 58, Acts xix. 12 elsewhere in 
 N.T., nor there in this sense or construction. With the thought of 
 this clause cf. Kom. viii. 20 f. But airaWdcraw, ** give quittance," is 
 a less noble word than iXevdepSw which S. Paul uses there. Neither 
 that word nor the Pauline /caraXXdo-o-o;, KaraWayrii "reconcilement of 
 man with God," come into this epistle. 
 
 ooroi...8ovX€Cas. Such a state is well illustrated by the hymn of 
 Hezekiah in Isa. xxxviii., and by all that pagan doctrine of Sheol 
 which long hindered true religion in Israel. But the author shows 
 abundantly in ch. xi. that he does not consider that to have been the 
 real faith of O.T. saints. True faith, though still expectant not 
 fulfilled, could always rise above the imperfections of its environment: 
 see below on v. 1 f . That holds good of the ancient pagan world as 
 well as of Israel, but this ep. is mainly concerned with Israel. 
 
 16. €iriXafiipdv€Tai. O.L. adsumpsit or suscepit represents the 
 interpretation of the Fathers ' ' who understand the phrase of the fact 
 of the Incarnation" — "when He took upon Him man"; Westcott 
 prefers the unclassical meaning "help," understanding it "of the 
 purpose of the Incarnation" — "to deliver man." Isa. xli. 8 f. seems 
 to have been in the author's mind. But he substituted iinXaiii^dveTai 
 for the LXX dvTeXa^dfirjv ^ which does mean "helped " ; cf. Luke 1. 54. 
 
 1 See Sanday, The Life of Christ in' recent research, pp. 28flf. 
 
 2 See Box, Ezra- Apocalypse ^ p. xli. 
 
2 18] NOTES 47 
 
 The picturesque expression is quite in his manner; it is faithfully 
 translated by vg. apprehendit; it has a broader significance than 
 either of the other translations allow ; and the ironical d-q irov (a lite- 
 rary nicety not found elsewhere in the Greek Bible) serves partly as 
 an apology for its rather rude vigour. "The seed of Abraham'* 
 instead of "men" was suggested by the passage of Isaiah, but is in 
 harmony with the whole ep. , cf . Matt. i. 2. 
 
 17. €X€TJjji<«)v...xi(rT6s. Epithets separated, like the partt. in v. 9, 
 to distribute the emphasis. 
 
 dpxL€p€v$. The figurative title, derived from Ps. ex., which rules 
 throughout the ep. Here first pronounced, it has been prepared for, 
 more or less subtly, in i. 3, 13, 14, ii. 9 — 11 ; indeed almost every 
 word of this chapter has been pregnant with an expectation which is 
 now explained. The psalm has lepetjs. This author often, not always, 
 prefers the full-sounding apxi-ep^^s. In the Greek of his time the 
 words were used indifferently. 
 
 TO, irpos Tov Bcov. This has been well translated *'on the God- 
 ward side." In Ex. iv. 16 the Lord tells Moses that Aaron shall be 
 a mouth to him : o-i) de a^ry ^crri rdb irpbs tov Oebv. Intr. in. 5, 9. 
 
 iXao-KcorOai. Elsewhere in N.T. only Luke xviii. 13 {l\dffd7}Ti), 
 It is connected with iXem viii. 12, IXaar'/ipiov ix. 5 (and, in another 
 sense, Kom. iii. 25), IXao-fjLds 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10. In LXX i^iXda-- 
 KeaduL is more frequent, and often represents Hebrew Kipper, e.g. 
 Lev. xvii. 11. Both Heb. and Gk. verb can take ace. of person in 
 sense of conciliate, e.g. Gen. xxxii. 20 (Jacob and Esau). But in the 
 Hebrew scriptures this construction is never applied to God; God 
 reconciles man to himself, man does not appease or propitiate God in 
 the true theology of Israel. Intr. m. 11. 
 
 TOV Xaov. The doctrine of priesthood in this.ep. starts from the 
 analogy of the Levitical priesthood though its reality is found in 
 another line. This is one of the terms of the analogy ; 6 Xa6s is the 
 regular word for the people of Israel, see antithesis in Luke ii. 32. 
 
 18. •ir€ipaor9€ls...Tots ir€tpa^o|iivois. In N.T. ireipaafibs has an 
 intense meaning which springs from tb.e great trial that shall precede 
 the coming of the kingdom of God, ci. Ap. iii. 10. In the Lord's 
 Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation '" is tinged with that thought, 
 cf. Luke xxii. 40, 46. The first read.ers of this ep. were entering 
 upon a trial of just that nature. The) Lord was "coming"; loyalty 
 involved a hard choice, which might mean martyrdom ; Intr. in. 19. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 III. 1-6. Jesus is Christ, the Son. 
 
 1 That is what the humiliation of the Lord Jesus really means. 
 Wherefore, ye brothers in a consecrated life, partakers like Him in 
 a summons to heavenly exaltation through the trials of earth, pene- 
 trate into the heart of Him whom God sent on such a mission and 
 made High Priest of the creed which you are destined to confess 
 
 2 courageously. We name Him Jesus, man among men, faithful with 
 manly faithfulness to God who appointed Him His task. So, Scripture 
 
 3 says, was Moses faithful in God's family. But His faithfulness has 
 richer consequences. For He stands before us endued with a glory 
 more abundant than Moses had, the glory of kinship with the founder 
 
 4 of the family Himself. I mean God, and I mean a larger family than 
 Moses knew as God's; Israel was God's family indeed, but God's true 
 
 5 family is everywhere. And further, if it was in that universal family 
 that Moses served, still he was but the servant ; when God called 
 him faithful, that was but a guarantee that he would faithfully make 
 
 6 known to the people what God purposed to tell him ; while God's 
 Christ (even the Christ-kings of Israel's monarchy) was to be styled 
 "Son," and the son, as founder's kin, is in authority over the family. 
 That family, ruled by the supreme Christ, are we, if we resolve to 
 hold fast the boldness and the boast of the hope with which such 
 a divine pedigree invests us. 
 
 1. d8eX<(>ol a'ytot...jUToxoi take up thoughts already thrown out 
 in i. 9, ii. 11 f., 17. So too Karavoria-aTe answers to ^Xiirofiev ii. 9. 
 It is still Jesus, the man, on whom attention is fixed; not till v. 5 
 are the two lines of ch. i.. (the divine Son) and ch. ii. (the fellow- 
 man) brought together in the title Christ. The reading Xp. ^Itjo-ovv 
 here has no place in any type of ancient text. 
 
 Tov diroo-ToXov Kal dp\ii(tia: as effluence of the divine glory, as 
 proclaimer and leader of salvation He was "sent." Cf. Gal. iv. 4, 
 but more especially John xvii. 3. The idea is characteristic of John, 
 Gospel and 1 Ep. In 1 John iv. 10, airiaTeikev rbv vlov aifrov l\a(rfi6v, 
 it is combined, as here, with tt^ sacerdotal analogy. In Paul the 
 
3 6] NOTES 49 
 
 word d7r6<rroXos has generally a more technical ring. Here it has a 
 larger sense as in John xiii. 16 : so also in that place in the synoptic 
 gospels where it is used for the first time, Mark iii. 14 (^^B), Luke 
 vi. 13 ; contrast Matt. x. 2. Cf. Clem, xlii., ol airdarokoL rjfuv eirjyye- 
 XLaOrjaav airb rod Kvptov 'Irjaov XpLO-Tov, ^Itjctovs 6 xpt^^^s diro tov deoO 
 
 TTJs on-oXo-yCas ii(i.«v twice again in the ep. iv. 14, x. 23 ; in a more 
 general sense 2 Cor. ix. 13; in 1 Tim. vi. 12 f. of the brave confession 
 of faith which, after the example of Christ, a churchman ready for 
 martyrdom makes. That passage helps us to understand both o/jlo- 
 \oyias and /cX-^cews here. 
 
 2. The reference in this and the following verses is to Num. xii. 
 where Moses is vindicated by God against the complaint of Miriam and 
 Aaron. Moses is no mere prophet to whom God makes himself known 
 in vision and dream ; (rrofia Kara. (TTOfia Xak'qcrta a^ry : the f ut. \a\rj(r(a 
 explains XaXrjdrja-ofi^vcov below. But Oepdirojv gets an emphasis in LXX 
 by repetition; Moses is intimate with God, yet still a servant. Cf. 
 Philo, Leg, All. iii. 128 : iria-rbs dk fjt.6vos 6 ^e6s, Kal et rt$ <pL\os tfcy, 
 Kaddirep Mwva-ijs X^yerat iriiTTbs iv iravrl rf otK(i) yeyevijadat. In 
 Wisd. X. 16 Moses is called depdirwv Kvpiovj and Lightfoot says 
 (on Clem, iv.) that in ecclesiastical literature "6 Oepdvuv tov deov was 
 a recognised title of Moses, as 6 <pLXos tov deov was of Abraham.** 
 
 T<J iroiiicravTi avTov, i.e. "made Him apostle and high priest." 
 This is obvious and natural; *' created," absolutely, would — apart 
 from the question of orthodoxy — bring a superfluous thought into the 
 context. 
 
 oX« om.p^^B (jj^j Cyr. Amb. : a strong combination; the omission 
 here would add force to the inclusion in u. 6. But does that con- 
 sideration point to an "Alexandrian" touch? Intr. iv. 2, 3. 
 
 4. 6 8^ iravra KaracrKevdo-as 6e6s. Cf . i. 2, God made all things 
 through the Son. This is not a declaration of the divinity of Jesus 
 as creator, but a step in the argument for His divinity as Son. 
 
 6. Xpio-Tos 8^ «s vios. Another step in the same argument. 
 "Christ" in N.T., but especially in this ep., links the history of 
 Israel with the Gospel, the adoption of the people of God with the 
 incarnation of the Son. Here as in v. 5 the title looks backwards 
 and forwards ; Moses was not one of those Christs who were of old 
 called " sons, " Jesus is the Christ in whom that Sonship is perfected. 
 
 o« (6s D*M 6 424**il Lucif. Amb. al.) otK6s 4o-|i€v iipets. The 
 
 house throughout this passage is a house of persons, a family. Cf. 
 
 Abbott^. "These things reveal the object of Jesus as being, from 
 
 1 The fourfold Gospel, section ill. The Proclamation, pref. 
 
 HEBREWS D 
 
50 HEBREWS [3 6— 
 
 the first, not the establishment of what men would commonly call a 
 Kingdom, but the diffusion of what we should rather call the atmo- 
 sphere of a Family, a spiritual emanation spreading like a widening 
 circle from a source within Himself as a centre, and passing into the 
 hearts of all that were fitted to receive it, so as to give them some- 
 thing of His own power or * authority ' — a term defined in the 
 Prologue of the Fourth Gospel as being ' authority to become children 
 of God.'" This quotation helps us also to appreciate the paradox 
 (a favourite one in S. Paul) of Christian boasting (to kwuxw^^ t^ 
 iXiridos), 
 
 \U\pi T^ovs P^PaCav om. p^^B (i^tl^ Lucif. Amb. The phrase is 
 imnecessary here and (after rb kuuxvi^o-) grammatically awkward. In 
 V. 14 it is otherwise, and it would gain force there by coming freshly. 
 But cf. V. 3 supra, 
 
 III. 7 — IV. 2. Therefore listen to the call. 
 
 7 Loyalty and hope is the tradition in God's family. Therefore, 
 as the Holy Spirit saith in Scripture, '* To day if ye should hear 
 
 8 His voice harden not your hearts as in the Provocation after the 
 *9 manner of the day of the Temptation in the wilderness; in which 
 
 wilderness your fathers became God-tempters in the time of His 
 assay, "when," saith God, "they saw my works full forty years." 
 
 10 Wherefore He continueth, "I was wroth with that generation and 
 said, * Ever do they wander in heart, they are the people that know 
 
 11 not my ways. As I sware in my anger; certainly they shall not 
 
 12 enter into my rest.' " Look to it, brothers, that there be not in any 
 one of you an evil heart of mistrust, manifesting itself in apostasy 
 
 13 from God who lives ; but encourage one another from day to day 
 while still the call "To day" is sounding; that no one of you be 
 hardened by the speciousness of that sin which fills our thought 
 
 14 at this time. There is ground for encouragement, for partakers in 
 the fellowship of the Christ-nation we long have been, and still shall 
 be, if we will but hold fast the principle of its foundation firmly to 
 
 15 the end; the while it is still said, "To day, if ye shall hear His voice 
 
 16 harden not your hearts as in the Provocation." For who were they 
 that heard and provoked? Why, were they not all those who came 
 
 17 out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses? And with whom was 
 He wroth full forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose 
 
 18 limbs, saith Scripture, fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware 
 He that they should not enter into His rest, but to those who refused 
 
 19 to trust Him? Indeed we plainly see that the reason they could not 
 
3 13] NOTES 51 
 
 enter was just that — mistrust. Let us therefore fear, lest while the iv. 1 
 promise of entering into His rest survives though they perished, any 
 one of your number shall be found (a thing scarce credible) to have 
 deserted your post. Your post, I say, for we too have now heard 2 
 that same good tidings of rest which they did, though the sense of 
 what they heard was no use to them — those unhappy men whom we 
 still remember as lost from the company of the true hearers who have 
 been welded into one body by faith. 
 
 7. KttOws X^*Y€i TO irv€V}xa to a-yiov. So x. 15, cf. ix. 8; Intr. 
 III. 29. The quotation is from Ps. xcv. in which the psalmist's 
 invitation to worship passes into warning; then, at ov eweipaa-avj the 
 voice of God himself breaks in. The author follows LXX, though 
 not agreeing exactly with any one known ms., and perhaps adapting 
 at his own will. Thus 5l6 is probably his own addition. He divides 
 the sentence where the "first person'* begins, and so lays emphasis 
 upon the conclusion. This brings the "forty years" into connexion 
 with the "tempting" or "trying," and comparison with Deut. viii. 2f. 
 suggests that SoKifxaa-ia means the proof to which God put the Israelites 
 during the whole period of their wandering; for the metaphor cf. 
 Sir. vi. 21; IPet. i. 7. 
 
 11. cl €lo-€X6vo-ovTai. A strong negative, as often in LXX 
 (cf. Mark viii. 12). It represents a Hebrew idiom, an aposiopesia 
 frequent in oaths. 
 
 12. KapSCa irovtipa airio-TCas. Moulton, p. 74, compares Soph. 
 O.T. 533, rdaovde T6\/j.r]s irpdacoTrop, But in classical Greek KapdLa wa3 
 not thus used except in poetry, proverbs etc. ^. The force of dwiffHa 
 here may be felt by comparing 2 Tim. ii. 13, e^ dwLaTovixev iKcipos 
 TTKTTbs fxhei. But irlaTLSi with its cognates, gradually reveals its definite 
 significance in this ep. as the argument develops. 
 
 €V T^ diroo-TTivai diro 6€ov ^wvtos. Cf . 1 Tim. iv. 1 for the verb, 
 and contrast it for the noun. The phrase ^eos ^Qv, frequent in N.T. 
 and nearly always (in the true text) without article, is used with 
 special emphasis in this ep., cf. ix. 14, x. 31, xii. 22. To readers 
 brought up in Judaism it would imply the essential energy of Godhead, 
 cf. Matt. xvi. 16, xxvi. 63. To Grecized ears the epithet dXrjdLvbs 
 might mean more, cf. 1 Thess. i. 9, 1 John v. 20. In ix. 14 a later 
 text betrays itself by adding Kal d\r]0Luf. 
 
 13. dirdT-Q TTJs ajxapTCas. Cf. 2 Thess. ii. 10, iu irdari dirdry 
 ddidas. The phrase in 2 Thess. is good classical Greek, even if 
 
 1 G. M. Edwards' English- Greek Lexicon, App. A, "Notes on Greek words 
 for Mind, Heart, etc." 
 
 D2 
 
52 HEBREWS [3 13—16 
 
 r^s be inserted with the later text. But here the single article is 
 irregular since the governing substantive does not depend upon a 
 preposition (Rutherford § 18) ; and since the author does not elsewhere 
 offend in that way, it may be supposed that he intended to mark thus 
 unusually the definite character of the sin. He means some par- 
 ticular sin to which his friends were immediately liable, cf. xii. 1, 4. 
 
 14. jjL€Toxot Tov xpi-o^ov. In 1. 9 (=Ps. xlv.) fi^Toxot had the 
 same meaning as in Luke v. 7. Here it is used as in iii. 1, vi. 4, xii. 8, 
 participes Christi, Lat. Nor is there any difficulty in this if the O.T. 
 idea of "the inclusive Christ" be remembered: Intr. iii. 18. 
 
 T-qv apxiiv TTJs vTrocTTCto-ccos. vTrSaraais may mean "firmness" of 
 character or resolution. It is so used in 2 Cor. ix. 4, xi. 17, and it 
 is a natural extension of the word into metaphor. But the author's 
 habit is to press the literal sense, and if the idea expressed in the last 
 note be just we may suppose him here to be referring, in quasi- 
 philosophical phrase, to the principle of Christship founded upon 
 which his readers had started upon their spiritual course, cf. vi. 1. 
 The vg. with its initium substantiae eius (so A vir. a-uTov) might seem 
 to support this explanation. Westcott quotes Primasius : "Initium 
 substantiae dicit fidem Christi, per quam subsistimusetrenatisumus, 
 quia ipse est fundamentum omnium virtutum. Et bene substantiam 
 eam vocat, quia sicut corpus anima subsistit et vivificatur, ita anima 
 fide subsistit in Deo et vivit hac fide. Substantia autem Christi 
 appellatur fides vel quia ab illo datur, vel certe quia ipse per eam 
 habitat in cordibus fidelium." He had xi. 1 in mind, and it may 
 be noticed that one ms. (424**) gives irlaT^m here instead of 
 VTTOcrrdo-ews. 
 
 16. ^v Tw X4'y€(r6ai....irapa'n-iKpa(r)Ji^. Either a complete sentence 
 in itself with apodosis at /a^ vkK. (A.V., W.H.); or a continuation 
 of the last sentence (R.V.) ; or it might be printed with a dash after 
 TrapairiKpa<Tfji<fi the form of the warning being rhetorically altered at 
 TtVes ydp. 
 
 16. t£v€S yap. A.V, "Eor some" (tlp^s) was no doubt influenced 
 by vg. quidam enim. It is not impossible for the (properly) enclitic 
 Tives to stand at the beginning of the sentence (cf. Luke xi. 15; 
 John xiii. 29; Acts xvii. 18, 34, xix. 31, xxiv. 19; 1 Cor. xv. 6; 
 Phil. i. 15 ; Wisd. xvi. 18 f .), but here the position would be too emphatic 
 and the series of rhetorical questions would be broken. The idiomatic 
 dXXa (L. and S. suh voc. ii. 1) misled the old Latin translators from 
 whom quidam of vg. is derived; see however Blass 77. 13. For 
 the historical fact see Num. xiv. 28 — 35 (to which there is verbal 
 allusion in next verse), xxvi. 64, Deut. ii. 14. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 1. kiray^tXCas. This word, which in Acts xxiii. 21 bears the 
 more classical sense of "announcement," is often used by Paul of 
 the promises made to Israel. In LXX it is used of God's promise or 
 announcement in Ps. Iv. (Ivi.) 9, Amos ix. 6, which latter (half) 
 verse might almost serve as a motto to this ep. : 6 olKodoficov els rhv 
 ovpavhv av6.^a<Tiv a&rov Kal ttjv iirayyeKlav ai^roO irri ttjs yrjs defxeXiCov. 
 
 8oK{i...vorT€pT]K^vai. A convenient form for expressing the future- 
 perf. (cf.xi. 3), which also allows the author to mitigate the harshness 
 of his warning (cf. vi. 9). 
 
 2. €iT]7-Y€XMr(i.4vot. By the time the heading to Mark was written 
 rb ei^ayyiXiop had come to mean "The Gospel of Jesus Christ.** 
 But when our Lord proclaimed "the gospel of the kingdom,'* or 
 spoke of "losing life for my sake and the gospel," He was, like the 
 author of this ep., carrying on the idea of the "good tidings" already 
 declared to Israel. The use of the verb in Isa. xl. — Ixvi. especially 
 prepared the way for N.T. See Isa. xl. 9, Hi. 7 and Kom. x. 15, Ix. 6, 
 Ixi. 1 and Luke iv. 18 f. 
 
 6 Xo-yos TTJs aKOTJs. Gf. 1 Thess. ii. 13, Kom. x. 16 f., Gal. iii. 2, 5. 
 The phrase almost looks like an improvement upon Paul's vague 
 "Hebraism" \6yos clkotjs. It is not "the word heard" but "the 
 sense of what was heard"; cf. Ez. xii. 23, 7}yyiKa(nv al ijfi^paL /cat 
 \6yos Trdarjs opdcrews. 
 
 2. [xtJ <rvvK€K€pa<rji4vovs...Tois dKov(ra<riv. So W.H., E.V., A.V. 
 mg., von S. One minuscule has, what seems to have been a con- 
 jectural emendation of Theodore of Mopsuestia, to2s dKovo-dcLcnjf: 
 cf . IL vg. non admixtis Jidei ex his quae audierunt. D* 104 H (vt**) 
 ^ (hi. mg.) have tCjv aKova&vTwv. But toIs dKo^aaaip of all other 
 Mss. may be accepted as certain, and the only variant which need be 
 considered is o-vvKeKepaajuL^vos: so W.H. mg., Tisch., Westcott Comm., 
 and (with correction to the more classical avyKeKpaixhos) Steph. 
 followed by A.V. text. The chief authorities for this are X H (vt) 
 S> (vg.): for ffvvKGKepaatJiivovs p^^ABCD and most Greek mss., Hvg. 
 (though Sixtine and Clementine editions print admistus)^ & hi. <B (boh). 
 
54 HEBREWS [4 2— 
 
 a (Ptl^. The testimony of the Fathers is divided, and perhaps only 
 shews, what mss. and versions have already shewn, that both readings 
 were widely and early current. Since W.H. the accession of p^^ 
 to the larger group may ahnost turn the scale, especially if it can 
 be demonstrated that <TvpK€K€pa<TfjL4vovs best fits the context. It surely 
 does. The author's mind is intensely set upon the peril to his 
 readers' loyalty. He looks back for illustrative warning to Israel's 
 history. He sees the disobedient Israelites standing as it were 
 pictured before him; hence the perfect which well describes those 
 persons but would ill fit the abstract \6yos aKorjs (cf. ii. 9, vii. 3, 
 xii. 2, 23). But some (spite of dXX' oi irdvTes;) did listen to that 
 *' gospel." Caleb did then (see reff. to Num. and Deut. already 
 given), and the Lord's disciples did afterwards (cf. ii. 3). With that 
 company of faithful listeners the " generation" whom Moses led out 
 of Israel are not (not **were not") "very members incorporated in 
 the mystical body." For the metaphor in (tvvk. see reff. to Hdt. in 
 L. and S. sub voc. 3, and cf . Aesch. Ag. 321 fE. There is a note on 
 this passage in W.H. Intr. in which Westcott is inclined to accept a 
 modem emendation dKo^<Tfia<nv and to combine it with awKeKepaa/xk- 
 vovs; Hort suspects "primitive error." Intr. iv. 2. 
 
 IV. 3—10. Rest is offered you. 
 
 3 For there is a rest into which we are entering even now, we who 
 have made the venture of faith, according to that He hath said, " As 
 I sware in my wrath, certainly they shall not enter into my rest."... 
 
 4 And yet... after the six days' work of creation was finished. He hath 
 said somewhere I think concerning the seventh day words like these, 
 
 5 "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works. "...And 
 then in this Psalm again, " Certainly they shall not enter into my 
 rest. "...What do these deep hints and disappointing contradictions 
 
 6 mean ? Why surely this : since the fulfilment of the promise 
 demands that certain persons should enter, and since those who 
 heard the good tidings in former days did not enter because of their 
 
 7 stubbornness. He now again defines a particular day, saying " To day'* 
 in the person of David after all this long time ; it is with prophetic 
 significance that the proclamation comes to us, "To day if ye shall 
 
 8 hear His voice, harden not your hearts." It comes to us ; for if it 
 had been "rest" that their Jesus gave to them when he led the 
 second generation of the wanderers into Canaan, the Holy Spirit 
 would not be speaking in the later period of the psalmist about 
 
 9 another fateful day. There remaineth therefore a divine rest for the 
 
4 7] NOTES 55 
 
 people of God. For whoso hath entered into that rest which God 10 
 offers is witness to a bold analogy. Such a one needs no more to 
 choose and see. He has found rest from the anxieties of effort, even 
 as God, after what we can only imagine as the six days' effort of 
 creation, returned into the tranquil energy of Godhead. 
 
 3. 7ap. pi^BDcoU 5) (hi) ^tfj Chr. Cyr. Lucif. al : odv XACM 
 1908 al pauc (l[B (boh). If r. uKoijffaffiv refers (as is supposed in the 
 last note) to the Christian Church, ydp gives much the best sense. 
 Without p^3 the authorities would be too strong on either side to 
 allow that consideration to be decisive. The accession of p^^ to the 
 first group turns the scale. So again with the omission of ttjv before 
 KaTOLTravaiv in pi^BD*. The small but strong group assures us that 
 we may recognise a certain subtlety in our author's language; this 
 is not ''the rest" of the psalm in its primary sense, but **a rest" 
 which new experience reads into the old words. Intr. iv. 2. 
 
 01 irto-Tcvo-avTcs. Is this technical, "those who have become 
 Christians," cf. Eom. xiii. 11? or quite general, the antithesis to 
 8l dTLariav, iii. 19? Or may we compare xiii. 21 and understand 
 that deep conversion which is peace indeed, already enjoyed by the 
 author, who, because he desires it for his friends, writes them this 
 earnest letter ? 
 
 Ka^Toi, with part, classical: but Kaiirep is more regular and is 
 always used elsewhere in this ep., v. 8, vii. 5, xii. 17; Blass 74. 2. 
 Here this construction yields a rather dim sense. W.H. print a 
 comma after as well as before the clause ; but if, with p^^ only, we 
 might omit yap after etprjKev, all would run plainly. Thus KaL toi 
 (rather than /catroi, cf. xiii. 22) would mean "and further"; as 
 e.g. in Hdt. v. 31, 2i) cov <rrpaTr)\dT€€...Kai Toi...i<TTL ^roifia Trap ifiol 
 Xp'niJ'O'Ta, K.T.X., and possibly Acts xiv. 17. Cf. the old Latin ren- 
 dering, et cum opera ab origine mundi facta sunt dixit tamen. 
 
 7. €vAa-u€C8. MorelikeeVr. 7rpo077rats,i. 1, thanKom. ix. 25, xi.2. 
 But the stress is on the Holy Spirit who speaks (iii. 7) not on the 
 tradition of human authorship. Ji-fjfiepov may be second accusative 
 after bpl^ei. Then X^ywv would introduce the repeated quotation, and 
 Kadios TrpoeipyjTaij sicut supra dictum est, vg. would refer back to iii. 7, 
 15. That is a legitimate rendering of TrpoeipTjraL, though it is not 
 certain (in spite of E.V.) that the verb is so used elsewhere in N.T. 
 Here it may be noticed that B (^ (boh) Orig. read TrpoeiprjKev and that 
 the old Latin rendering of opli^ei is praejinivit. Reading and rendering 
 seem to point to a deeper significance in this return upon the already 
 repeated quotation. The psalm is now recognised as prophetic of 
 a further future which is pressing to fulfilment while this letter is 
 
56 HEBREWS [4 7— 
 
 being written: "again He defines beforehand... saying To day... even 
 as He has foretold." 
 
 8. cl -ydp avTOvs *lT]<rovs...ovK av. Cf. xi. 15 f. This name 
 "Jesus," as sometimes "Christ" in this ep., sounds confusing to 
 ears accustomed to the English Bible. To readers of LXX there 
 would be no doubt about the reference to " Jesus the son of Naue" 
 who brought Israel into Canaan ; to converts from Judaism that 
 Jesus would be the old familiar name. But the coincidence enriches 
 old and new with interchange of associations ; the emphatic position 
 of auTOj>s helps to keep the distinction clear ; presently, in v. 14, it 
 will be strikingly asserted. 
 
 9. (rapPaTio-)j.6s, a noun (found also in Plutarch, not in LXX) 
 formed from the Hebrew sdbat^ which is translated Kar^iravaev in 
 LXX of Gen. ii. 2 quoted above. Wetstein quotes passages from 
 rabbinical writings in which the sabbath is a type of "the age to 
 come which is all sabbath and rest unto life eternal " ; cf. Abelard's 
 hymn, "0 quanta qualia sunt ilia sabbata Quae semper celebrat 
 supema curia." But our author knows a sabbath rest which may 
 be enjoyed here and now ; the aorists in v. 10 are neither "gnomic " 
 nor "post futurum " ; they spring from experience, cf. xiii. 21. 
 
 IV. 11—13. Be zealous and sincere. 
 
 11 Zealous therefore let us be to enter into that rest, in order that no 
 one of us may chance to fall, involved in that same ruin which is the 
 
 12 type of all resistance to God's purpose. For the Word of God, where- 
 ever heard, is His reason and is alive. Practical it is, and cuts both 
 ways, for comfort and for judgment, more sharply than any two-edged 
 sword ; and penetrates to that inmost centre of our being where the 
 immaterial and material elements combine to form a person; and 
 analyses the prudent calculations and the quick intuitions of the 
 
 13 heart. No corner of our nature is obscure to Him, but all is naked 
 and exposed before His eyes, to whom the reasonable conscience He 
 Himself has planted in us must give answer. 
 
 11. ivo. (i.ii...air€i9€Cas. Notice the emphatic final genitive, as 
 in V. 8 supra and x. 20 ; the separation of t^j ai^r^J from its noun ; and, 
 possibly, the variation iv...'iri(T'g for ifnriarj. In such a vigorously 
 composed clause it would be rash to deny that the strange expression 
 " fall into a type or example " is possible. But lit would be strange, 
 and ir^c-'Q is weightier if taken absolutely; cf. irapaireabvTas vi. 6. 
 'TirddeLyfia is " a sign suggestive of anything" (viii. 5, ix. 23), 
 
4 13] NOTES 57 
 
 and so may signify a crime or horror which is a world's wonder, 
 of. 2 Pet. ii. 6. 
 
 12. X<av 7dp 6 X670S, K.T.X. This explains the fresh interpreta- 
 tion which has just been put upon the written word of the psalm. 
 But so much in the following paragraph resembles what Philo says 
 of the "logos" in a wider sense, that it is necessary to recognise 
 something of the larger sense here also\ The predicate "living" 
 makes this possible. The written word is no mere fixed letter; it 
 is the means of conversation — a "reasonable service" — with the 
 living and still speaking God. Intr. ni. 30. 
 
 lv€p7i(]S. B has ipapyrj^f * ' flashing," or perhaps ' ' perspicuous," see 
 Cic. Acad. n. 17. Cf . i. 3, where B has (pavepCjv for (pipo)p. In Philem. 
 6 the Latin evidens seems to be a translation of the same variant. 
 
 (xdxaipav. Cf. Luke ii. 35, " Yea and a sword shall pierce 
 through thine own soul ; that thoughts out of many hearts may be 
 revealed " ; a saying which really illustrates this passage, with its 
 keen analysis of conscience, more vividly than the more intellec- 
 tual parallels in Philo: see Intr. in. 32. But in Luke "sword" 
 is pofKpaia a "great sword," elsewhere in N.T. only in Ap. Here 
 fjidxatpa may have its general N.T. meaning "sword," as in xi. 34, 37, 
 or its more proper meaning "knife," and the grim realism of the 
 whole simile may be drawn from fighting, or from the butcher-work 
 of sacrifice, or possibly from surgery. Cf. note on vi. 19. 
 
 13. TCTpaxtiXioriJi^va. The choice between these alternatives might 
 be decided if we could recover the primary meaning of this word, but 
 that is not easy. Philo speaks {de praem, p. 413) of an athlete iKTpaxv- 
 Xi^djuLevos by superior strength, Theodoret says the metaphor is from 
 victims in sacrifice. Hesychius, the (late) Alexandrian lexicographer, 
 says rerpaxv^t'O'fJi^va' we^avepcafiha ; so the Latin and Syriac versions, 
 aperta, made manifest. The general idea may be illustrated by a 
 passage in Dr H. F. Hamilton's book, The People of God, vol. i. : 
 *'What causes Isaiah's apprehension is the very vividness of his 
 consciousness, the nakedness with which he sees his soul contrasted 
 against another Personality. If death is sometimes apprehended 
 because consciousness is felt to be dying out, in this case death is 
 apprehended because consciousness is passing the bounds of life in 
 the opposite direction. It is becoming so acute and so intense,... 
 
 1 In The origin of the prologue to St John's Gospel (Camb. 1917) Dr Rendel 
 Harris compares this ep. with John i. 1—18, Col. i. 15—20, and all three with 
 Prov. i., viii.. Sir. xxiv., Wisd. vi., vii.. and Cyprian's Testimonia, etc. Hence 
 he concludes that the doctrine of Christ as the Word grew out of an earlier 
 doctrine of Christ as the Wisdom of God, and that it depends on the Jewish 
 Sapiential tradition rather than on the Philonic. 
 
58 HEBREWS [4 13— 
 
 that the prophet feels that soul and body are on the point of being 
 torn asunder." 
 
 irpos 8v iifiiv 6 X6'yos. Windisch translates " of whom we 
 speak," comparing irepl oS vvv 6 \6yos in Philo and irpbs vfias oi \6yoL 
 fiov in Wisd. vi. 9. Westcott, " to whom we have to give account," 
 which agrees with the Syriac and the Latin of d, ante quam nobis 
 ratio est. Having no equivalent in English to this Greek word with 
 its complex associations we can hardly express the effect, which 
 nevertheless we feel, of its emphatic position at the beginning and end 
 of the sentence. 
 
 IV. 14 — 16. The compassionate High Priest. 
 
 14 Having then a High Priest who is supreme above all others, and 
 has passed right onward beyond all our imaginations of heaven, 
 Jesus, the Son of God, let us be loyal in our allegiance to One who 
 
 15 is so great yet so kind. For we have not such a High Priest as 
 cannot be touched with the passionate trouble of our infirmities. 
 He has gone through every kind of temptation that men are subject 
 to ; He has been as liable to fall as other men ; but through all He 
 
 16 has kept innocence. Trusting therefore in His real victory over sin, 
 let us draw near with boldness to the throne of God's grace, that 
 we may receive the royal boon of God's pity, and find His Fatherly 
 countenance turned graciously upon us, for rescue in each time of 
 need. 
 
 14. ?x°*^^5 ^^^' ^^^ ™*y ^ean "therefore," marking logical 
 consequence as in v. 16; or "then," indicating resumption of argu- 
 ment after digression as in x. 19. 
 
 apxitpia [kiyav. Philo twice has 6 fiiyas d. In 1 Mace. xiii. 42 
 the phrase marks a turning-point in Jewish history: cf. x. 21, xiii. 20. 
 Here the argument begins to rise from mere analogy to the doctrine 
 of real priesthood. 
 
 8i€\T|Xv66Ta Tovs ovpavovs. Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2, apiray^vTa ^ws 
 rpLrov ovpavov. But the compound part, is the emphatic word. All 
 that we call "heaven" has been passed through and left behind. 
 The real presence of God is reached. The plural certainly need not 
 be an allusion to the rabbinic idea of successive heavens. The 
 Hebrew word is a dual form. Yet the sing., oiipavos, is the regular 
 rendering in LXX. The plural is common in Psalms and is 
 found in passages which have a grand ring — poetry, prayer, etc. 
 In this ep. the sing, is only used in ix. 24, xi. 12, xii. 26. The 
 distinction is illustrated in the Lord's Prayer. The opening is 
 
4 16] NOTES 59 
 
 solemn, Ilarep rjixCov 6 iv tois oupavoTs ; the antithesis is simple, cus 
 iv ovpav<^ Kai iiri yrjs. 
 
 15. on>vira0TJ<rai, used of God in 4 Mace. v. 25 ; in N.T. only 
 here and x. 34; avfnradTjs in 1 Pet. iii. 8. Both verb and adj. possess 
 an intensity which "compassion" and "sympathy" have lost in 
 English; cf. Luke xxiv. 26, Acts xxvi. 23, Intr. in. 14. 
 
 •ir€'ir€ipa<rjj.€vov — \(op\s ajxaprCas, see quotation from DuBose, 
 Intr. in. 15. It may be asked whether our Lord was tempted or 
 tried in all points like all men, if, as the silence of the gospels 
 perhaps implies and ecclesiastical tradition almost asserts. He never 
 suffered sickness ; and if that be so, whether He overcame disease in 
 and for man in the same way as He overcame sin^ It is certainly 
 the will of God that the evil of sickness should be overcome as much 
 as the evil of slavery or ignorance. And perhaps the true succession 
 of the miracles of healing is the advance of science. It seems 
 reasonable as well as reverent to recognise a discipline of sickness ; 
 we cannot think of a discipline of sin. This ep. would seem to 
 promise real freedom for man from sin, not from suffering. 
 
 16. irpoo-epxcSixcOa. A sacerdotal word. Lev. xxi. 17 — 23, cf. Ez. 
 xliv. 9 — 16 ; it is used in 1 Pet. ii. 4, never in Paul except, somewhat 
 strangely, 1 Tim. vi. 3. And "the throne of grace" makes one think 
 of the mercy seat (LXX iXaa-TrjpLop) where the Lord promised to 
 commune with Moses, Ex. xxv. 20 ff. Thus the new and living 
 way of X. 20 is here anticipated, and here as there irapp-qaia has a 
 special force. Philo has tov i\4ov ^wfidu (cf. Statins, Theh. xii. 
 481 ff,), but the fine phrase of the ep. is probably formed on O.T. 
 models ; see especially Isa. Ixvi. 1. For x^^P^s see Hort on 1 Pet. i. 2, 
 "It combines the force of two Hebrew words chen and chesed... 
 cheUj a comprehensive word, gathering up all that may be supposed 
 to be expressed in the smile of a heavenly King looking down upon 
 His people (Num. vi. 25)... chesed^ the coming down of the Most High 
 with help to the helpless (Ps. Ixxxv. 7)." Cf. Culverwell on Ps. iv. 6, 
 " The words are plainly put up in the form of a petition to Heaven, 
 for some smiles of love, for some propitious and favourable glances, 
 for God's gracious presence and acceptance^." Both x'^P'-^ and 
 Aeos are found in LXX as renderings of both chen and chesed, and 
 their combination, as in this verse, is natural; cf. Wisd. iii. 9, iv. 15, 
 1 Tim. i. 2, 2 Tim. i. 2. 
 
 els €VKaipov poij0€iav. Ps. ix. 10, Kai iyivero KvpLos KaTa<pvyT] 
 Tip TT^vrjTL, ^07)06$ €v evKaipLuLS ev BXtxpeL, cf. Ps. ix. 22 (x. 1). 
 
 1 See a paper by the Rev. F. M. Downton in The Cowley Evangelist, July, 
 1914; and cf. note on xii. 2. 
 
 '^ Camnaenac. Cambridge Platonists. i). 263. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 V. 1 — 10. The priesthood of our High Priest fulfils the 
 
 UNIVERSAL RULE ; CONSUMMATION THROUGH INFIRMITY. 
 
 1 Yes, infirmity is characteristic of priesthood. For every high 
 priest of whatever religion is taken from among men, and on men's 
 behalf is established on the God ward side in order that he may, Uke 
 any ordinary worshipper, bring gifts and sacrifices before God for 
 
 2 relief from sins. He is himself one of the people, no austere saint 
 in whom the passions of humanity are quenched, but one who is 
 able to bear gently with the ignorant and wandering just because he, 
 
 3 like them, is compassed about with infirmity, and owes the debt of 
 moral weakness, and while he offers for the people must himself 
 
 4 also make offering for sins. He has indeed a distinctive office. And 
 yet that is no prize of successful effort ; he is priest simply because 
 God calls him. 
 
 5 So it was with Aaron. So also with the Lord's Anointed whose 
 priesthood is celebrated in the Psalm. He did not glorify himself 
 in order to be made High Priest. God called him ; God who in one 
 
 6 psalm spoke of his sonship, in another assigned him priesthood ; 
 
 7 "Thou art priest," He said, ''after the order of Melchizedek.'* And 
 when this anointed Son manifested Himself wholly, as Jesus Christ, 
 the same rule held. He, in the days of His earthly sojourning, made 
 offering of prayers and supplications, with a great cry and with tears, 
 to Him who was able to lead Him in salvation out of the valley of 
 
 8 death. In awful reverence He cried and at once was heard. Then, 
 Son though He was, He learned by the sufferings appointed Him the 
 
 9 obedience that might be achieved no other way. At last, perfected 
 by the death through which God conducted Him, He became to all 
 men who, obeying Him, share His obedience, author of salvation that 
 
 10 is eternal ; being hailed by God in the eternal sphere '* High Priest," 
 after the order of Melchizedek. 
 
 1. I'va 'irpoor<|)€pT). Trpoaipipeiv, 7rpoa<popd, ava<f>ip€iv^ and (rarely) 
 dpa<popdt are sacrificial words in LXX. The first three are frequent 
 
5 5] NOTES 6 1 
 
 in Hebrews, and dva(p4p€ip seems to be distinguished from the more 
 general irpoff^epeiv as it is in some passages of LXX where ^^irpoa- 
 (pipeiu is used of the offerer bringing the victim to present before the 
 altar, dvacpipcLif of the Priest offering up the selected portion upon the 
 altar. Lev. ii. 14, 16, iii. 1,5. In the Canons of Councils irpo<r<popd 
 and 7rpoa<p4p€Lv are used absolutely for * offering the Holy Sacrifice,' 
 and * the offering ' itself i." 'Ava<^opd, which does not occur in N.T., 
 became important in later liturgical language — it comes in rubrics of 
 the Barberini S. Basil and S. Chrysostom^ — as the title of the more 
 solemn part of the service which begins with "Lift up your hearts." 
 The common verbs in the liturgies themselves are irpoacpepeiv of the 
 •'elements" or the "sacrifice," dvairifxireiv of the prayers. The 
 nouns are d(bpa, dvala, dvaiai, Xarpela, iiridva-ia, 'jrpoa<popd, 
 
 virip oL^pTuov. trepl d/mprlas is the usual phrase in LXX. It is 
 often used as a noun in itself, even without article, = " sin-offering." 
 So in Ps. xl. quoted in ch. x. In LXX vir^p d. is rare ; in N.T. only 
 in Hebrews, but cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3, Gal. i. 4. The collocation in ix. 7 
 suggests the feeling of the phrase. 
 
 2. ncTpiOTraOciv 8vvap.€vos, mensurate pati potens ^ Arias Montanus, 
 ** can reasonably bear with," A.V. mg. Windisch quotes from Philo 
 {Leg. All. ni. p. 113), of^s irQs 6 rAeios rekeiau dirddeiav aiel fieXer^. 
 d\X 8 ye irpoKbirTwv deirepos wv ^Aapwv ixeTpLoirddeiav dcKcT, ^KTcnelv yap 
 ^Ti TO ffTTJOos Kal rbv dvjxbv ddware?. 
 
 Tots ayvoovo-i. In the Greek liturgies the priest prays that he 
 may offer **for his own sins and the ignorances of the people": 
 cf. ix. 7. 
 
 4. KaO(6(nr€p Kal *Aap»v is omitted by p^^. The paragraph is 
 about high priests in general ; Kadibawep (altered to KaOdirep in the 
 later text) is a strange word ; another ms. omits otJrws kuI 6 xpf-^^Tos, 
 which might hint at some early disturbance in the text. Is the 
 reading of p^^ primitive, or a thoughtful "Alexandrian" correction? 
 Intr. IV. 2. 
 
 6. 6 xpifl^os : significantly printed without capital by W.H. The 
 psalms about to be quoted referred primarily to " Christs " of O.T. ; 
 not till V. 7 is attention concentrated upon the consummator of their 
 Christhood. 
 
 ovx lavTov ISoJao-cv 7€VTi0TJvai, not * ' imagined that he had been 
 made"; 5o|a^a> (only here in Heb.) always =" glorify " in LXX and 
 N.T. 
 
 1 Hammond, Liturgies Eastern and Western, pp. 876, 389. 
 * Swainson, Greek Liturgies^ pp. 79, 89. 
 
62 HEBREWS [5 7— 
 
 7. rats -nfilpais rfjs capKos avTov. Cf . 2 Cor. v. 16, 1 Cor. xv. 50, 
 and X. 20 below. 
 
 irp6s Tov 8vvdji€V0V. Cf. Mark xiv. 35 f., el dvvardv i(TTLv...7rdvra 
 dvpard <tol. The whole passage seems to allude to Gethsemane; 
 hardly to the narrative as it stands in any of our gospels. The 
 clause which is doubtfully attested in Luke xxii. 43 f. perhaps 
 indicates considerable variety in the tradition behind those gospels. 
 The language has many affinities with the Maccabean books, 2 Mace, 
 xi. 6, 3 Mace. i. 11, 16, vi. 13 f. 
 
 o-(6^€iv €K Oavd-Tov. Syr. *'to quicken him from death"; vii. 16 
 and the whole idea of this ep. justify such a paraphrase, though the 
 everyday meaning of the three Greek words would be "to save from 
 dying." 
 
 clo-aKOvo-Oels diro ttjs cvXapeCas. John Smith, the Cambridge 
 Platonist, said, "ife was delivered from what he feared; for so the 
 words being nothing else but an Hebraism are to be rendered^," 
 but there are no such Hebraisms in this ep. Pro sua reverentia is 
 the good translation of vg., well explained by Primasius, •' Reverence 
 sometimes stands for love, sometimes for fear ; here for the supreme 
 charity and supreme obedience of the Son of God." 
 
 8. ^fxaOcv d<|>* cSv liraBcv, proverbial in Greek from Hdt. to Philo, 
 but the ace. r. viraKoi^v gives the phrase distinction here. 
 
 In Ignatius naOdv has almost the same sense as in the creed, 
 * ' suffered and died." That sense is approached in ix. 26, xiii. 12, Luke 
 xxii. 15, Acts i. 3, xvii. 3. In 1 Pet. the verb is very frequent, and 
 generally illustrative of the idea that Christ's disciples are made one 
 with Him by suffering. The theology of 1 Pet. iv. 1 (cf. Eom. vi. 7) 
 is near akin to that of our author, but less carefully expressed: 
 Xpio-ToG ovv fraddvTos aapKl koX vfie^s tt]v avrrju 'ivvoiav oTrXiaaa-de, on 6 
 vaddiv capKl TriiravTai a/JLapriaiS. 
 
 9. atrtos (r<oTt]pCas. A phrase twice found in Philo. ** While 
 ahia generally means an accusation or charge, a crimen ^ it is some- 
 times used by Plato for a cause or source (alrla dyadoO). Thus in 
 Pindar, Nem. vii. 11, a pi€\i(f>pov^ airlav poaiai fiovadv means * a 
 pleasing subject (motif) for the flow of song ' : and afnos, though 
 usually ' the culprit ' or ' accused, ' is also the author or originator : 
 so Plato, Rep. 379, tcHv fiev dyadQv ovd^va dWov a^riareov^." 
 
 10. irpo<ra7op€v0€Cs. Cf. 1 Mace. xiv. 40, and Clem, xvii., a ch. 
 which has other coincidences with the ep. The parts. reXetw^ets 
 
 * Campagnac, p. 156. 
 
 • Wallace, Lectures and Essay s^ pp. 302 f. 
 
5 10] NOTES 63 
 
 (catching here that shade of meaning which it has in Wisd. iv. 13, 
 ** perfected by death") and irpoaay. are grammatically synchronous, 
 both marking a moment just anterior to i'^h^ro. But the emphatic 
 epithet aiwviov complicates the symmetry. It might be said that 
 iyhero depends on reX. grammatically, philosophically on irpoaay. 
 For a'ubvios in this ep. is quasi-philosophical: cf. vi. 2, ix. 12, 14 f., 
 xiii. 20. It mingles in conversational freedom ideas from O.T. and 
 from the Alexandrine schools. In LXX aiuv = Hebrew ^olam, ' ' age, ' * 
 and aidjvLos represents the same noun modified by dependent words ; 
 it means in general "everlasting." In Philo xP^^os is distinguished 
 from alibv as the measurable system of days, years, etc. which is but 
 an image of the archetypal alJiv ; for alcov is the life of the " in- 
 telligible" world and must be sought among the immaterial things of 
 the pure intellect {Quis rerum div. p. 496, De mut. nom. p. 619). This is 
 like Plato in Timaeus, 37 d, e ; time with its parts is an eternal image 
 of the eternity which has no parts or tenses. Only in calling the 
 image also ** eternal" Plato shews the difference between his true 
 idealism and the vulgar fancy of "two worlds" which most of his 
 successors indulged in (Intr. in. 32) ; moreover Plato is not speaking 
 here with philosophic strictness. He is dealing with the "eternal," 
 not with the *' intelligible," and only gives a poetic hint, in 
 picturesque terms, of "time untimed." Our author is nearer Plato 
 than Philo in this respect. He has not thought out the problem so 
 far as perhaps S. John did. But in his free artistic deepening of 
 O.T. phrases he does so use aldbvios that at each of its occurrences the 
 reader must pause, as though before the opening of a spiritual vista 
 which outshines the current thought. ' * Divine ' ' would be no render- 
 ing, but a suggestive substitution. After all the usage of O.T., to 
 a sympathetic reader, will seem different in degree, not kind : see esp. 
 Psalms, and Eccl. iii. 11 K.V. mg. 
 
 V. 11. — VI. 8. It is impossible to sink the difference 
 BETWEEN Judaism and Christianity: return to the 
 
 SIMPLICITY OP childhood WOULD BE UNMANLY BETRAYAL 
 
 OF OUR Lord. 
 
 Of Melchizedek our discourse might be much, and it would be n 
 dif&cult to explain in sufficient argument what we mean by putting 
 his priesthood in the same line as our Lord's, since of late you have 
 grown so lazy-eared. For just when you ought to be commencing 12 
 
64 HEBREWS [5 11— 
 
 teachers, now that you have been so long in our Christian school, 
 you say that you yourselves have need of a repetition of the old pre- 
 Christian teaching as to what the very elements of the earliest lessons 
 in the oracles of God may mean. You have come round again to 
 this; you have need (such is your iterated plaint) of the milk of 
 simple religion, not of the strong food of the controversy between the 
 Churches. I play upon your words as you do upon our master, 
 
 13 Paul's. But I am anxious. For any who casts in his lot with that 
 kind of simplicity, avoids the discipline which produces a reasoned 
 
 14 morality ; he is in fact a babe. And full-grown men do require the 
 strong food; the kind of men, I mean, who by reason of habitual 
 exercise have their faculties in good training, so that they can discern 
 in a crisis between the noble course and the base. 
 
 i. 1 Wherefore let us leave behind the simple theme of the mere 
 origins of Messianic doctrine, and let us be borne onward by the 
 tide of duty to the consummation of that doctrine in thought and 
 action. Let us not be laying over again a foundation for the con- 
 ventional religious life of renouncing the works of the devil and of 
 
 2 faith towards God ; the foundation which consists of teaching about 
 ceremonial washings, and imposition of hands, about the resurrection 
 
 3 of the dead, and judgement at the eternal assize. And indeed we are 
 to go forward, if, as I surely believe, God will presently commission 
 us for a time of trial 
 
 4 It is a critical hour. For as to your plan of shirking responsi- 
 bility by retiring into the Church of your fathers, that is in the 
 very nature of things impossible. Your eyes have been opened once 
 for all to the truth; you know the taste of the gracious gift that 
 comes from heaven : you have become members of the body which 
 
 6 the Holy Spirit vivifies ; you have tasted the excellence of God's 
 promise ; you have anticipated its fulfilment in the age that is to come 
 when our Lord comes as Christ triumphant, for you already experience 
 the spiritual powers that issue therefrom. That is Christianity; 
 not an academic problem, but a profound spiritual experience, a 
 
 6 gift received, a loyalty to be rendered. If you fall away from this, 
 it is impossible to start you again fair and fresh in the recovered 
 simplicity of childhood's mind, while by the very act of this fresh 
 start you are crucifying the Son of God — not being " crucified with 
 Christ," but crucifying Him for your pleasure and putting Him to 
 open shame by the, renunciation of allegiance which your new life 
 will daily proclaim. 
 
 7 Take a parable from Genesis to enforce my warning. The ground 
 that (in the time of man's iimocency) drinks the rain which comes 
 
5 12] NOTES 65 
 
 often upon it and brings forth herb meet for those for whose sake 
 it is also, by God's ordinance, tilled, partakes of the blessing of the 
 whole creation. But when (after the mortal change) it produces 8 
 thorns and thistles, it is reprobate and nigh the fulfilment of the 
 curse which God pronounced, and its destiny is to be cleansed of its 
 weeds by fire. 
 
 11. trcpl o5, K.T.X., de quo grandis nobis sermo et ininterpretabilis 
 addicendum, vg. Cf. Dion. Hal. de Comp. viii., Trepl wj/ nal ttoXvs 6 \6yos 
 Kal ^adeia ij decjpia. These four verses are more than usually tinged 
 with the literary flavour of the period, but beneath the surface they 
 are "biblical." S. Paul had written about orotxeta, Gal.iv. 3 (where see 
 Lightfoot's note), and 9, Col. ii. 8, 20, and about "feeding babes 
 with milk," 1 Cor. iii. 1 f., cf. 1 Pet. ii. 2. The author gives a half 
 playful turn to words which he and his friends knew well (cf. xiii. 25). 
 Theij in the next "paragraph this fj^endly intimacy passes into the 
 severity of anxious love. 
 
 12. Tiva, so W.H. , E.V., Blass. But most ancient authority is 
 for riva. Greek ears could perhaps catch the rythm better than ours, 
 the bare, active inf. is untranslatable but idiomatic, riva rd. aroix^la 
 has a touch of lively irony, rtvct, *' some one," is a mannerism already 
 repeated to satiety, and on the whole it seems better to read the 
 interrogative with A.V., von Soden, and probably Euthalius. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 1. Tov TTjs clpxTis Tov xpioTTov X670V. Cf. 111. 14, but there is a 
 touch of depreciation here as in v. 12. 
 
 KaTaPaX\o|jL€voi diruentes |t vt, but Josephus and other late 
 writers use the word in the sense required here, 'lay foundation.' 
 
 vcKpwv ^p-ytov. Elsewhere in N.T. veKpos only of persons, except 
 Eom. vil. 8, viii. 10, and Jas. ii. 17 — 26, where it is predicate to dfxaprlat 
 aCoixa^ Triaris. Tertulllan felt the personal sense of v. so strongly that 
 he translated here operibus mortiiorum. The metaphor is bold, "deeds 
 which belong to that realm of death" spoken of in 11. 15. There is 
 probably no thought of Paul's "works of merit." 
 
 2. SiSaxiiv. So B it vt and d (though the Greek of D is 5i5ax^s). 
 The attestation though limited is important ; and the ace. , which makes 
 a certain ecclesiastical system the foundation of repentance and faith, 
 suits one interpretation of the passage very well. With the genitive, 
 the ^e/xAioi' is not defined ; "laying foundation" is but an ornamental 
 phrase for starting upon repentance, faith, doctrine of washings, etc. 
 
 It will be noticed that all the elements of this foundation belong 
 to Judaism as much as to the Christian faith. They are the aTOLxela. 
 TTJs dpxv^ rCov XoyLoov tov deov as held by a Pharisee like S. Paul or a 
 Hellenistic Jew like S. Stephen before their conversion to Christianity » 
 The plural ^airTLo-fxoh occurs again at Ix. 10 of Jewish "washings"; 
 cf. Mark vil. 4, 8, Lev. xlv. 7f., xvl. 4, 24, 26, 28 etc.i For iirL. 
 64<T€(as X' cf. Acts vi. 6, viii. 17, ix. 17, xill. 3, xix. 6, xxvill. 8, 
 1 Tim. Iv. 14, 2 Tim. 1. 6, also Lev. 1. 4 etc., xvl. 21, Num. xxvii. 18. 
 For dva<7Tdff€(i)s...KpijjLaTos aioopiov, Acts xxlil. 6, xxlv. 15, 25, Dan. 
 xll. 2 f., 2 Mace. vil. and the teaching of our Lord in the gospels. 
 Of course the last three doctrines were inherited by the Christian 
 Church. That can hardly be said of the (plural) "washings," and 
 this phrase seems to make it plain that ' ' the foundation of repent- 
 ance and faith" which the readers of the ep. propose to lay again 
 would be, should they carry out their proposal, a return to the Jewish 
 Church. This they think an abandonment of useless controversy, 
 
 1 For the " baptism " of proselytes, etc., see Box and Oesterley, The BeUgion^ 
 and Worship of the Synagogue, eh. xiii. 
 
6 6] NOTES 67 
 
 a simple and sufficient basis of noble life and true faith in God. 
 Their friend answers that their purpose is an "impossible " (v. 4) one. 
 They would be abandoning not useless theological controversy, but 
 their Lord himself to whom (whatever they think of the doctrine of 
 His Person) they have given allegiance. Ti.eir new start in the 
 simple faith of their fathers would be an act of gross dishonour ; 
 it would not be a new start at all, but a base desertion. The idea is 
 in the very nature of things impossible. Intr. iii. 1 — 3, 20, 22. 
 
 3. 6cCvir€p€iriTp€Tr'j|, perhaps "commission "rather than** permit.'* 
 The nature of the commission may be inferred from x. 25, xii. 4, xiii. 3. 
 
 4. ^a)Ti<r0€VTas. In eccl. writers ^wrt^w, (fxaTiaixos, mean the 
 illumination of baptism. This passage and x. 32 perhaps lead up 
 to that technical usage. For the tense cf. Eom. xiii. 11. The fol- 
 lowing phrases carry on the description of the manifold character 
 of "the new life." They are tersely suggestive and lose their 
 pregnancy by detailed explanation. A few parallels will shew how 
 church tradition lies behind the whole passage: r. dtopeds 2 Cor. 
 ix. 15, 2 Pet. i. 3, 4; koXov 7. deov prj/jLa 1 Pet. i. 24 f.; 8vv, fjL^Wovros 
 aiu)vos Luke i. 17, v. 17, 1 Cor. v. 4, Gal. iii. 5. For fierdxovs ttv. 
 ayiov it is unnecessary to quote. It is taken for granted throughout 
 Acts and Epistles that the Christian life is new life springing from 
 the Holy Spirit, the life-giver. But the form of the phrase, /xerdxovs 
 yevTjdiuTas, indicates rather strikingly one characteristic of this thought 
 as N.T. holds it. In F. D. Maurice's words, " The Spirit dwells in 
 the Body, and in each of its members as suchj and not in individuals. 
 The Spirit in an individual is a fearful contradiction," Life, i. p. 209. 
 For absence of art. see Intr. in. 29, v. 5 but here the style of the 
 context would be sufficient explanation; KoXdv is only marked as 
 predicate by position : Intr. v. 6. 
 
 6. 8vvdjJi€ts T€ jteXXovTos alwvos- In Tertullian's copy what 
 might be a full line in a papyrus roll, AMEICTEMEAA, had 
 dropped out, and he translated with dark grandeur occidente iam aevo. 
 Intr. II. 3. 
 
 6. dvaKatv^tfiiv, dvacrravpovvTas. Neither verb carries the mean- 
 ing "again" in itself; dvaaravpovv is good Greek for "crucify,'* 
 " impale," whereas (rravpovv, which is always used elsewhere in N.T., 
 meant in the classical period "make a palisade" : Intr. v. 2. What 
 is implied here by this part, may be seen by comparing Gal. ii. 19, 
 iv. 19 ; when one entered the Christian family he shared the cruci- 
 fixion of his Lord and so found the Lord's life his own. If these 
 disciples desert Christ they are enacting the crucifixion in another 
 manner, declaring their fellowship with the crucifiers instead of with 
 
 E2 
 
68 HEBREWS [6 6- 
 
 the Crucified. For Trapadeiyfi. cf. iv. 11 with Gal. iii. 1, Matt. 
 X. 33, Mark ix. 39, Luke xii. 9, 1 Cor. xii. 3, and Matt. i. 19. 
 
 7f. An analogy in confirmation of what has been said, drawn 
 from Scripture; cf. Gen. i. 11 f., iii. 17 f. 
 
 VI. 9 — 12. You ARE DILIGENT IN CHARITY ; BE ZEALOUS 
 ALSO IN THEOLOGY. 
 
 9 But we have really no doubt about you, my very dear friends ; you 
 are certainly destined for those grander efforts which lay fast hold of 
 
 10 salvation, even though we do speak thus. For God is not a task- 
 master, too austere to care for equity. He does not forget your work 
 and the love of which you gave proof in the service you devoted 
 to the honour of His name. You ministered in former days to His 
 covenanted saints, in whom the ancient communion in His name is 
 continued and renewed. You are still ministering to them. And God 
 whose memory is effective love will not let you break away from our 
 
 11 loving fellowship. But we set our heart on your doing something 
 further. We would have each one of you continue to prove the same 
 zeal in another line of service; i.e. in expanding, deepening and 
 assuring our common hope till at last, matured, it passes into fulfil- 
 
 12 ment. That is the impulse we desire to save you from treating with 
 lazy indifference, and so to make you imitators of your companions 
 in the faith who through loyal trust in God and a steady enduring 
 spirit are entering upon the inheritance of the ancient promises in all 
 their modem complexity. 
 
 9. Ixoficva o-a>Ti]pCas. Hdt. often uses this construction as peri- 
 phrasis, e.g. tA tu>v dveipdrwv ^xoVeJ^a = " ^ream-matter. " But the 
 gen. auT-nplas rather recalls such personal usage as in Eur. Ino, 
 iX-n-idos Kedvrjs ^x^^'- cf. xii. 5. 
 
 10. aSiKos. Cf. God's diKaioavvT) in O.T., e.g. Ps. ciii. 17. 
 
 •His dYctinjs. Most mss., but hardly one of weight, prefix rod 
 Koirov (from 1 Thess. i. 3). It mars the force of ivedel^aaOe. 
 
 8taKoviio-avT€S...8iaKovot)vT€s. The tenses are in logical relation 
 to the present position of the readers. Pedantic grammar might have 
 given (bs 8LaKOP7]advT(ov...dLaKovo6vT(av. Intr. v. 4. 
 
 Tots d*Y(ois="the Christians," but in this ep. only so here and 
 xiii. 24 (cf. iii. 1). This is the regular use in Paul. Lightfoot, on 
 Phil. i. 1, explains it as "a term transferred from the old dispensation 
 to the new " ; Israel had been chosen by God as His Xabs ayios ; the 
 Israelites were called in LXX oi ay lol ; now the Christian Church 
 takes over the title; the main idea is "consecration." Perhaps it 
 
6 12] NOTES 69 
 
 may be added that in his two earliest epp., to the Thessalonians, 
 Paul uses oi ayioL in a rather different sense of the "holy ones" who 
 shall accompany the Christ at His advent, 1 Thess. iii. 13, 2 Thess. 
 i. 10. Is it possible that this apocalyptic colour always affects his 
 application of the term? Cf. below, x. 25, xii. 14, and 1 Cor. vi. 1 f. 
 
 11. ^Kao-Tov. Cf. TL^, iii. 12 f., iv. 1, 11. It is correlative to the 
 affectionate dyairTjToi, frequent in Paul ; the writer is very anxious for 
 his friends and "calleth them all by their names." 
 
 irX'r]po(|>opCav. Cf. x. 22, 1 Thess. i. 5, Luke i. 1, Col. ii. 2 
 where Lightfoot says that "full assurance " seems to be the meaning 
 of this substantive wherever it occurs in N.T. Elsewhere only in 
 ecclesiastical writers, e.g. Clem. xlii. yuera ir. irpeiJixaTos aylov. In 
 this ep. d has confirmatio in both places, vg. expletio here, plenitudo 
 in X. 22. 
 
 12. KXT]povo)j.ovvTa)v, as in i. 14. Abraham "found" the promise 
 (15) ; he did not " carry home the harvest " (x. 36, xi. 39). That re- 
 mained for those who " in the end of these days" are entering into the 
 various labours of their predecessors (John iv. 37). The word was 
 suggested to the author by the quotation he is about to make (14) from 
 Gen. xxii. 17, where the sentence continues, Kal KXrjpopofi'qaei t6 
 (nripfxa <rov. 
 
 VI. 13—20. The oath of God, and the anchor of hope. 
 
 The promises are ancient, and they are a real ground for hope. 13 
 For it was to Abraham that God made promise. And since He had 
 no greater person to swear by. He sware (we read) by Himself, saying 14 
 *' Surely, with great blessing will I bless thee, and with great 
 abundance will I multiply thee." And that was how Abraham, 15 
 after spirited endurance, met with his promise. An encouragement 
 to us as well as to him. For when mere men swear, they swear by 16 
 some one who is greater than themselves, and however hot their 
 dispute, it is brought to a close and the agreement is decisively fixed 
 by an oath. And so it was by oath that God, deliberately purposing 17 
 to demonstrate with excessive clearness to the future heirs of the 
 promise made to Abraham the unalterable firmness of His plan, 
 took the position of an umpire between himself and Abraham. He 18 
 bound Himself by an oath sworn by His own person, in order that, 
 through two unalterable sanctions — the oath He sware and His own 
 Divinity that He sware by — we may have strong encouragement. 
 We were the final cause, we who have now fled for refuge from the 
 
70 HEBREWS [6 13— 
 
 storm of this troubled world to seize the hope thus long ago held 
 
 19 forth to us. That hope we are attached to as an anchor to which we 
 may entrust the keeping of more than physical life; an anchor 
 soundly forged and firm in its hold. Such an anchor as it drops 
 into the mysterious deep and bites the ground is a symbol of the 
 high priest's entry into the presence of God behind the sanctuary 
 
 20 veil. And indeed One has entered into that presence as a fore- 
 runner of our own entry to do priestly service there for us, namely 
 Jesus. He entered at the moment of His death, having in that 
 moment become "High Priest," "after the order of Melchizedek," 
 "eternally." 
 
 13. 6'Trayy€tXc£|j.£vos. Cf. Kutherford quoted on ii. 10, and see 
 Moulton, p. 130 f . for the sense in which it is legitimate to call this 
 an **aorist part, of coincident action." 
 
 (o|xo(r€v Ka6* cavrov. Philo (Legg. all. in. p. 127) presses the 
 argument from Kar i/xavTov wjnoaa of LXX in the same manner. 
 
 14. €l ji-qv. The classical ^ fxrjv was often spelt e^ fi7)v in Hellenistic 
 Greek. Moulton (p. 46) seems to object to the spelling e^ in W.H., 
 Tisch., V. Sod. But the variant e^ /atJ, both here and in LXX, 
 suggests that "connexion with el, if,^* was long ago, though wrongly, 
 supposed. This oath-formula is not unfrequent in LXX ; in N.T. the 
 quotation here is the only instance. 
 
 cvXc^wv euXo-yijo-ft). A common mode of representing an emphatic 
 Hebrew idiom which throws the stress on the root idea of the verb ; 
 so A.V. and E.V. in Luke xxii. 15, where A.V. mg. is less good. 
 Moulton calls it "possible, but unidiomatic Greek," p. 76. 
 
 16. liriTv\€v. The part, attached here, and the context in xi. 33, 
 shew that this word implies boldness in accepting a promise of which 
 the fulfilment is hidden in the future. It means properly to fall in 
 with on the way; cf. Thomas Aquinas' prayer, "Concede mihi 
 dilectum filium tuum, quem nunc velatum in via suscipere pro- 
 pono, revelata tandem facie perpetuo contemplari. " A Christian 
 gem in Brit. Mus. has a fish and anchor with the legend EIII- 
 TTNXANOTi. 
 
 17. €iri8€i|ai. There seems to be a contrast with ivdeUwffdai 
 above (11), and it is tempting to fancy that the author wished thus 
 to imply " additional proof " ; cf . vii. 14 f. 
 
 18. €V ols eiSvvttTov. Num. xxiii. 19, 1 Sam. xv. 29. fc<*AC 
 have rbv 0e6v, BD deov, v. Sod. like W.H. allows the alternative; rbv 
 
 I Westcott, Religious Thought in the West, p. 307. 
 
6 19] NOTES 71 
 
 dtov corresponds to our "God" without article, an emphatic name at 
 the end of the clause; cf. xiii. 16. Cf. Clem, xxvii. ovdkv yap ddijvaToif 
 irapa rf deui el /jltj to xj/e^ffaadai. 
 
 19. TTJs +vxTis. In iv. 12 ^uxT? seems to signify one of the physical 
 elements in man's constitution, his living power as distinguished 
 from (what is intimately connected therewith) his Trvevfxa or breath. 
 Yet even there the physical analysis is an illustration of the keener 
 analysis of conscience by God's Word. Here ^puxv evidently has a 
 higher meaning in itself. The following extract from Coleridge 1 
 explains this meaning : "Life is the one universal soul, which, by 
 virtue of the enlivening Breath and the informing Word, all organised 
 bodies have in common, each after its kind. This, therefore, all 
 animals possess, and man as an animal. But, in addition to this, 
 God transfused into man a higher gift, and specially inbreathed : — 
 even a living (that is, self -subsisting) soul, a soul having its life in 
 itself. And man became a living soul. He did not merely possess it, 
 he became it. It was his proper being, his truest self, the man in the 
 man." Coleridge perhaps refines too subtly upon the Hebrew idiom 
 of Gen. ii. 7. But he has caught the main feeling of the O.T., viz. 
 that the natural and spiritual are one : and natural life has moral 
 and so eternal life folded up within it. One writer of O.T. questioned 
 the sharp division between the "soul" of man and the "life" of 
 brutes, Eccl. iii. 21 R.V. Perhaps that writer's real thought went 
 deeper than his cynical expression of it. And perhaps there is just a 
 hint in our author of sympathy with his question. In x. 34, xii. 3, 
 he seems to recognise that a man's "very self" is a deeper reality 
 than even his " soul." Hort's notes on \l/vxn in 1 Pet. i. 9, 22, ii. 11, 
 should be read 2. 
 
 €lo-€pxop.€VTjv, i.e. the anchor, to which the hope, according to a 
 common metaphor of Greek writers of every period, is compared. 
 To break the metaphor at this point and apply elaepx. merely to 
 the hope is tame. And the harshness is lessened when eiaepx-.-Kara- 
 TreTOLO-fJiaTos is recognised as all but a quotation from the well-known 
 account of the day of atonement in Lev. xvi. This quotation is 
 introduced in order to bring the argument back to Melchizedek and 
 priesthood. The general picture is one of three noticeable ones with 
 which the ep. is punctuated, cf. xii. 1 f., xiii. 11 f. The faithful are 
 
 1 Aida to Reflection, Iiitrod. Aphorisms, ix. 
 
 2 Cf. also Wallace, Lectures and Essays, pp. 131 f., 204. App. A of Edwards' 
 English-Greek Lexicon gives briefly the classical usage. And very instructive 
 is Bui net's Socrates and the Soul (Milford for the British Academy, 1916), in 
 which the high Platonic idea of v//ux^, as that true life which a man ought most 
 to care for, is proved to have been originated by Socrates. 
 
72 HEBREWS [6 19 
 
 likened to the crew of the ship which has run to port from the storm. 
 The anchor, dropped into the mysterious deep, already holds the 
 ground. The captain has gone ashore, and the crew await orders to 
 foUow him. The imagery is only touched in with a stroke or two. 
 But the point is that the submerged bottom which the anchor holds 
 is continuous with the shore. So in ix. 4 the altar of incense 
 *' belongs to" the Holy of Holies, in xii. 22 the readers have 
 »'come to" the heavenly Sion; all this is ixofJiem (ruTrjpias, vi. 9. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 VII. 1—3. Melchizedek the type. 
 
 Melchizedek; for now I am going to talk about him after all. 1 
 See him, as he appears in that mysterious chapter of Genesis ; King 
 of Salem, Priest of God most High ; who met Abraham as he was 
 returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him ; to whom 2 
 also Abraham gave as portion a full tithe of all the spoil : — he being 
 first by the interpretation of his name King of Eighteousness, and 
 then also being entitled King of Salem, which is King of Peace ; one 3 . 
 to whom no father, mother or descent is assigned; one who has 
 neither beginning of days nor end of life in the history ; — we behold 
 in short a picture drawn after the likeness of that Son of God whom 
 antiquity faintly discerned, and whose true features we have learned 
 to day from those who saw the Lord and by our own communion 
 with Him: — this Melchizedek abides a priest continuously. 
 
 For the meaning of *' priesthood after the order of Melchizedek" 
 see Intr. in. 10. 
 
 1. 6 (rvvavTifj<ra$, 8s fc^ABC^DKSS. This attestation is so strong 
 that we must suppose either that it represents a very early scribe's 
 error which has only been corrected in comparatively late times ; or 
 that it was a carelessness of the author himself, who began a relative 
 sentence which he never finished. Cf. x. 1, xi. 35; also Acts xix. 40, 
 xxiv. 5 — 8, but in each of these passages Luke seems to be purposely 
 representing the embarrassment of the speakers. It may be noticed 
 that there are other confusions of text in D and it vt in vv. 1 and 2 ; 
 these perhaps indicate some interruption in the transmission which 
 we cannot fully trace. 
 
 KOTTTJs. Cf. Aesch. Ag. 1276 : 
 
 ^(afJLoO Trarpipov 5' dvr^ iTri^yjpov fx^pei 
 depfibv KoirlvTos <pOLviip irpoatpdyfiaTi. 
 See W. Headlam ad loc. 
 
 3. d7€V€aX6-Yt|Tos. Gen. says nothing about Melchizedek's father, 
 mother or descent; none could declare his ** generation," cf. Isa. liii. 
 8 (LXX). 
 
74 HEBRE WS [7 3— 
 
 d<|><i>fjioia)|i.^vos. Used of statues or pictures that ' ' resemble ' ' their 
 original. Melchizedek is like our Lord, not our Lord like him. 
 
 €ls TO Si-qvcKcs, X. 1, 12, 14. The author uses this phrase in- 
 stead of eis rbv alQpa when he wishes to express the simple idea of 
 time ; so irdvTore v. 25. Cf . note on v. 9. The phrase is frequent in 
 Greek inscriptions. 
 
 VII. 4 — 10. A GREATER PRIEST THAN LeVI. 
 
 4 Look at him. What a large figure he stands there ; one to whom 
 Abraham gave tithe of the choicest spoils, Abraham the first father 
 
 5 of our holy race. It is true that those who, being of the sons of 
 Levi, receive the legal office of the priesthood, are authorised to tithe 
 the people of God according to the Mosaic Law, that is their own 
 brothers ; the family of Abraham is quite accustomed to being tithed 
 
 6 by their own kin. But here is one who does not count his ancestry 
 from the sons of Levi, and he has exacted tithe from Abraham, and 
 upon the holder of the divine promises himself he has pronounced 
 
 7 blessing. Now there is no dispute at all about the principle. Less 
 
 8 receives blessing from greater. And while in our nation mere men, 
 dying one after the other in the course of nature, take tithes, in 
 that ancient mystery it is a far greater Person who takes them. One 
 
 9 who, according to the witness of Scripture, absolutely lives. Indeed 
 we may almost venture to reduce it all to the matter-of-fact assertion 
 
 10 that through Abraham Levi also the tithe-taker has been tithed, for 
 as Levi had not yet been bom, he was still part of Abraham his 
 ancestor when that meeting with Melchizedek took place. 
 
 4. tttjXCkos = " how large" cf. Gal. vi. 11, or "how old." There 
 seems no parallel in Greek literature for the meaning " how great in 
 character." And decopelre (only here in this ep., contrast KaroLvo-qaaTe 
 iii. 1) is probably used as in Luke and Acts of literal "seeing," not 
 as in John. This is one of the author's bold, vivid phrases = '♦ what 
 a big one." The " apodeictic " ovtos adds to the effect. 
 
 ^. So BD* fi (vt, vg.'^^^d) ^(vg.) 05 (boh.) Ambst. : ^ Kal t^ACD^co 
 H (vg.-o^'i) ^ (hi) a Chr. Cyr. al. 
 
 The opposed groups in vv. 23 and 26 should be compared. In 
 V. 23 no doubt is possible. Here and in ?;. 26 the authority on either 
 side is weighty enough to make W.H. give a marginal alternative. 
 But few who have observed the groupings throughout the ep. will 
 hesitate to prefer their text. And in all three cases this interpretation 
 of documentary authority supports the reading which minute study 
 
7 9] NOTES 75 
 
 of the context approves. In this verse koI does not connect an 
 additional relative clause as in v. 2. And it would throw the 
 emphasis where emphasis is not required. 
 
 6 TraTpidpXTls. Here is the true emphasis of the sentence, cf. xi. 
 17. For iraTpcdpx'ns cf. Acts ii. 29, vii. 8, and 4 Mace. vii. 19, 
 xvi. 25, an Alexandrine work which "approaches nearer than any 
 other book of the Greek Bible to the models of Hellenic philosophy 
 and rhetoric" (Swete). 
 
 8. |xapTvpov|A€vos. The grandeur of this undefined part, is more 
 easily expressed in the Latin versions {ibi autem contestatus quia 
 vivit) than in English; E.V. "one," suggests "one man" in the 
 context, and hardly improves upon A.V. 
 
 9. «s ^iros clireiv. Here again B.V. is not satisfactory. Not "as 
 it were " but " one might almost say " is the meaning of this Greek 
 idiom. 
 
 Acvcls. So best mss. This nom. form is found in LXX also; 
 above, v. 5, Aevel is the gen.^ 
 
 VII. 11 — 25. The moral necessity for the Levitical 
 
 PRIESTHOOD TO PASS AWAY. 
 
 So then Levi is demonstrated less than Melchizedek. And now 
 let us come somewhat nearer to reality in considering why our Lord 
 should be priest after the order of Melchizedek, not of Levi. 
 
 The real reason is the failure of the Levitical priesthood to achieve 11 
 what priesthood is meant to achieve. For if the Levitical priesthood 
 had achieved that, what need would there still have been for a 
 psalmist to prophesy that after the order of Melchizedek a quite 
 different priest should arise, and so be reckoned not after the order 
 of Aaron ? We see from the book of Leviticus that the whole law 12 
 for Israel rests upon the institution of Aaronic priesthood. The 
 psalmist's word is therefore a bold one. It is the sacred law of 
 Moses that he is daring to repeal, for the law goes with the priest- 
 hood. He speaks boldly and therefore with as deep a significance 
 as may be conceived. And so I do not scruple to believe that he 13 
 spoke prophetically of our Lord Jesus Christ, and contemplated an 
 astonishing break with ancestral faith and custom in these days of 
 ours. For He towards whom this oracle is directed is a member 
 of a different tribe from Levi, and of His tribe no one has ever paid 
 
 1 Thackeray, Grammar of O.T, in Greek, § 11. G (3), W.H., Intr, to N.T. in 
 Greek, p. 155. 
 
76 HEBREWS [7 11— 
 
 14 any attention to the service of the altar. That is plain, for every 
 one knows that it is from Judah that our Lord is sprung, and 
 Moses never said a woi:d about priests with reference to the tribe 
 of Judah. 
 
 15 And to come back from contemporary fact to scriptural inference, 
 the setting aside of the merely instituted priesthood of Aaron is even 
 more plainly commended, if the oracle be true, and if after a real, 
 moral likeness to Melchizedek there is to arise a priest of so different 
 
 16 a character that he has entered upon his office, not according to law, 
 which (for all its divine sanction) is nothing but a material system 
 of authority, but according to the ever freshly operating power of 
 
 17 life which passes indissolubly through death. For that is what the 
 witness of Genesis as completed by the psalmist means — " Thou art 
 
 18 a priest eternally after the order of Melchizedek." It means first 
 indeed that an ordinance we have received from the church of our 
 fathers is being set aside to day, because it has proved weak and 
 
 19 useless ; for the Law has really accomplished nothing of that priestly 
 mediation for which it was designed. But more important is this ; 
 a stronger kind of hope is being brought forward in its place, through 
 the transforming power of which we are in these days of change and 
 trial actually entering into the presence of God. 
 
 20 And there is also that matter of the oath. Whatever divine 
 sanction there may have been for the Levitical priesthood, the sons 
 of Aaron have become priests without an oath from God to establish 
 
 21 them, but this Priest received his priesthood with the giving of an 
 oath by God through the psalmist who brought God's word to him — 
 "The Lord sware, and will not repent; Thou art priest eternally." 
 
 22 This oath implies covenant, and makes a great difference. Our 
 Priest has become surety for a covenant, and a greater covenant than 
 even Abraham knew. And what this suretyship means we remember 
 when we call Him Jesus, the man who suffered for us. 
 
 23 And yet another point. Those priests have been appointed one 
 after the other in considerable numbers. They had to be, for they 
 were always prevented by death from lasting out the office which 
 
 24 itself survived them. But our Priest '* abides" "eternally"; and 
 so the priesthood which He holds can never be passed on to another, 
 
 25 Hence He is able to save, and that ail-completely, those who from 
 generation to generation draw near through His priestly aid to God ; 
 seeing that at all times He is living to do in the reality of the eternal 
 sphere all that the analogy of priesthood indicates for a priest to do 
 after he has offered his sacrifice. This He does uninterruptedly on 
 their behalf. 
 
7 22] NOTES 77 
 
 11. T€X€Ca)<ris. Cf. vii. 28, ix. 12, x. 19—22, xii. 28 f., xiii. 13 f. 
 Windisch quotes Testament of Levi xviii. 1 f., /cat ^uerd to yev^odai 
 TTjv iKdiKYjatv avTwv irapa Kvpiov eKXeixpei i] lepioaijprfj Kai t6t€ iyepei 
 KiLfpios L€p4a Kaivdvj (} irdvTes ol \6yoL Kvpiov dTroKa\v<pOr}(TovTaL, and 
 yiii. 14, /SatrtXei^s e/c rod 'Ioi^5a dva(TTr)<T€Tai Kal iroLiqceL ieparelav veav. 
 He thinks this clause (viii. 14) a Christian interpolation; Charles 
 thinks it proves a Maccabean date, 'lepareia (leparia v. 5 supra) is a 
 LXX translation word, lepwaijvr) (11, 24) is found in Sirach and the 
 Greek books of LXX ; it belongs to the more literary Greek. 
 
 ov, not /JL-^, because "it is not the inf. but only the idea /caret t. 
 rd^iv 'A. which is negatived," Blass 75. 4. 
 
 13. irpoo-c'crxTiKcv tw 6u<rta<rTi]p{a). A.V. and R.V., "give attend- 
 ance at," seem to follow the Latin versions [praesto fuit ad aram — 
 altario) with a kind of allusion to the common, and regular LXX, 
 meaning of the verb "pay attention to." Note the assonances in 
 these verses, /Aer(a)- thrice, -eaxm^v twice; cf. i. 1, v. 25 below. 
 
 14. 6 Kvpios -niJLwv. Cf. ii. 3. The familiar title goes naturally 
 with wpddTjXovj "obvious, as a historical fact"; contrast KarddrjXov 
 in next verse. 
 
 16. dKaraXuTov. Cf. 4 Mace. x. 11 d. ^aadvovs, but the idea 
 here is far deeper. It is part of the whole conception of death 
 revealed by the cross as a mysterious act of one indissoluble life, 
 which conception is characteristic of this ep. Like ^pvxi^, i'wij is a 
 physical term with sacramental extension : John i. 4. 
 
 18. a0^TT|cris...'Trpoa7ov<rT]S cvtoXtJs. How bold this declaration 
 is, may be seen from Lev. xxix. 9, Kai ^arai avroh leparla fioi els top 
 aiwva. 
 
 TO avrris do-06v^s Kal ava)<|)€X€s. See Blass 48. 8n. who says 
 this use of avrrjs without emphasis would hardly be tolerable with 
 a substantive — tt^v avrris dadeveiav. 
 
 21. Kard r. rd^iv M. was added to this line from v. 17 at an 
 early stage, but the authorities against it are decisive. 
 
 22. KpeCxTovos 8ia0iiKT|s. "Covenant," diadrjKTf in LXX, berith 
 Hebrew, is an idea which fills O.T. What has already been said 
 about Abraham and the Law (12) implies it, cf. Gen. xv. 18, 
 Ex. xxiv. 7. The word itself is introduced here to prepare for fuller 
 treatment in the next two chapters. That here, at any rate, it is 
 used in the O.T. sense, is proved by the addition of ^77^05, for 
 neither a "testament" nor an "agreement" in Greek law required 
 a surety. "E77UOS is an ordinary Greek word, fieairrjs (only once in 
 LXX, Job ix. 33, though the thought is found in Deut. v. 5) is found 
 in Philo and late Greek as well as in N.T. In this ep. it is used only 
 
78 HEBREWS [7 22— 
 
 of Christ, viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24; elsewhere 1 Tim. ii. 5 of Christ, 
 Gal. iii. 19 f. of Moses. Here it might have caused confusion, 
 coming so soon after vi. 17, and ^77^05 has a more affectionate ring, 
 cf. Sir. xxix. 15, x^P'-'^°'^ iyyvov ixi) iTnXddr), edojKev yap ttjv ^pvxhv 
 avTov vTrip cov. It gives a hint of the reason for KpeirrovoSf which 
 will be shewn in full presently. 
 
 23. 7ryov6T€S i€p€ts fc^Bcoil (vf, vg.) ^ (vg. hi. pal.) C (boh.) 
 ^ <!FtlJ Chr. al : lepeis yeyovores ACD33 it (vt) Cyr. : iepeis solum Cosm. 
 The reading of XB is confirmed by the rest of the group. The order is 
 varied from that in v. 20 in order to mark the parallel with airapd- 
 ^arov ^x^L T. lepuffvvTjv in the next verse ; irXeioves is emphatic and 
 lepeU is not part of the predicate. 
 
 25. els TO kvTvy\dv€iVi perhaps suggested by Kom. viii. 26f . , where 
 however it is the Spirit who intercedes, yet cf. v. S4. In Romans vg. 
 h&s postulat, here the celebrated phrase semper vivens ad interpellan- 
 dum pro eis. 
 
 VII. 26—28. Our High Priest, eternal, Son of God. 
 
 26 A long argument, but now you have the heart of it. For such a 
 High Priest as my last words describe is the High Priest for whom 
 we were always waiting. He is God's loving saint, doing no ill, 
 pure from the least stain, now quite removed from the hindrance 
 that sinful men could cause to His perfect work, and lifted high 
 
 27 above the highest symbols that we know. He is One who hath no 
 need (as the high priests on earth have) to multiply sacrifices day 
 after day, first for His own sins and then for those of the people. 
 Nothing less than that effective two-fold offering did He make once 
 for all when He offered up Himself, visibly on the cross, eternally in 
 
 28 heaven. Once for all ; for there is the difference. The law of Moses, 
 literal and fixed, appoints mortal men to be priests, with an inherent 
 weakness, that repeatedly saps their priesthood. The living reason 
 with which God swears His oath of appointment after the discipline 
 of law has failed, exalts a Son, "eternally," for the consummation of 
 His filial work. 
 
 26. [Kal] ^irpc-ircv. ABDS (vg. hi.) Eus. add Kai. The group 
 looks "Western " but the reading is attractive. Yet Kal weakens the 
 sense. It is indeed a startling assertion that such a High Priest 
 "became" us, cf. ii. 10, Ps. Ixi^. (Ixv.) 1 ; but the sublime description 
 of this High Priest, and the paradox of His priestly offering, are what 
 the author would chiefly desire to be noticed. 
 
 oo-ioS) often in Psalms for chasid, in English versions "saint." 
 
7 28] NOTES 79 
 
 The chasidim were the little band who stood with Judas Maccabeus as 
 martyrs for the faith. This ep. is an encouragement, xii. 4 f ., xiii. 22, 
 to just that kind of martyrdom, and a like spirit breathes through 
 the Psalter. But the word had a tender and beautiful sense of its own 
 before it received that associated splendour. Cheyne translates, " the 
 man of love," God's *' duteous loving ones" ; for chasid is connected 
 with chesed ' * lovingkindness, " the special attribute of God in Hosea^. 
 The epithets that follow may be illustrated from Philo's allegorisings 
 of high priesthood, but the terse language of the ep. touches the 
 heart as Philo does not. The author is thinking of one who had 
 really lived on earth as man. In Kext^ptcrfJievos dirb tCov afjLaprcoXQv 
 he does indeed pass to the exalted state of this High Priest, cf. ix. 28, 
 xii. 2, but it is still the manhood that is exalted, and carries our 
 affection with it. Intr. in. 7. 
 
 27. dv€V€7Kas. fc^A 33, 436, 442, Cyr. have -n-poaev^yKas. If the 
 distinction noticed on v. 1 be true, this would seem to refer to 
 the death on the Cross, wherein our Lord, before becoming High 
 Priest, gave Himself to be the victim, whereas dj'a(pip€Lv, just before, 
 refers to His function as High Priest in heaven. But textual authority 
 is not in favour of the verbal distinction, and the idea itself cannot 
 be analysed with so mechanical a logic. The sacrifice on the cross 
 is sacramental: earth and heaven, now and after, are not twain and 
 separated; they stand to one another as outward visible sign to 
 inward spiritual reality. Intr. in. 8, 32. 
 
 More important it is to notice that toOto implies all that follows 
 dvdyKTjp, The sacrifice needs no repetition, but when the Lord 
 offered it. He offered vw^p tCov ISicov dfxapTLQv as well as for the people's. 
 In what sense that should be understood may be gathered from ix. 28, 
 1 Pet. ii. 21 — 24 (a passage which also explains d/ca/cos, dfiiavros) 
 Gal. iii. 13. The N.T. doctrine is deeper than "vicarious suffering." 
 Intr. ni. 15. 
 
 28. 6 X670S TT]s 6pK«fjLocr(as, rather "the divine reason with 
 which God sware" than "His commanding utterance" or "our 
 argument about the oath-giving." This vigorous conclusion brings 
 us face to face at last with the practical earnestness of the author. 
 Philo and Leviticus, whose fashion and speech he has partly followed 
 in the preceding paragraphs, only reach the threshold of his house of 
 thought. 
 
 • The Book of Psalms, or the praises of Israel, pp. 9, 29, 141. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VIII. 1—13. The New Covenant. 
 
 1 Here is the climax of the argument: our High Priest's work is 
 real, it is not limited by the terms of the analogy. Such a High 
 Priest as has been described we certainly have. When He was en- 
 throned in essential unity with the Godhead in heaven, He entered 
 
 2 on a priestly service which is no less essentially divine. It belongs 
 to the sanctuary and tabernacle of truth not of appearance; the 
 tabernacle or tent, says Scripture, which the Lord pitched, not man. 
 
 3 For Scripture hallows this picture-language of analogy, and as every 
 high priest is appointed for the offering of gifts and sacrifices, we say 
 of our High Priest too that it was necessary for Him to have a 
 
 4 "sacrifice'* to "offer." Now if He had remained on earth to exer- 
 cise His priesthood, He would not have been a priest at all. There 
 was no room among the regular priests with their traditional cere- 
 
 5 monial for His quite different action to be counted a sacrifice. (I do 
 not mean that those priests have nothing to do with heavenly things, 
 but it is only in a shadowy imitation of the spiritual realities that 
 they perform their unreal ritual. Imitation; that is the gist of the 
 oracle announced to Moses when he was to inaugurate the ceremonial 
 of the tabernacle. See, says the divine voice, that thou do everything 
 
 6 in imitation of the pattern shewn to thee in the mount.) But our 
 High Priest has succeeded to an ofi&ce different in kind from theirs. 
 Indeed the analogy as applied to Him gets its peculiar distinction. 
 by reason of the covenant which it implies. The covenant which 
 our High Priest establishes between God and man is a better one 
 than that which Moses mediated. It is a covenant that has, on 
 the basis of larger promises, become the gospel law. Scripture 
 
 7 justifies our calling it "better." For if no fault could have been 
 found with the Mosaic covenant, there would be no looking for 
 
 8 a second to take its place. But we see just such a searching of faith 
 in one who was — in a time of trial like the present — carried beyond 
 the external guarantees of religion. For there is a divine oracle in 
 the book of Jeremiah which does find fault with people, and says, 
 
8 3] NOTES 8 1 
 
 Behold days are coming, saith the Lord, when I will bring my 
 sacred relationship towards the separated houses of Israel and Judah 
 to completion in a new covenant. It shall go deeper than the cove- 9 
 nant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by 
 the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For, according to 
 the divine sanction of that covenant, as they did not abide by my 
 good purpose toward them, so I ceased to be careful on their behalf. 
 For this is the covenant which I will grant to the house of united 10 
 Israel, now that those days have passed away ; again establishing it 
 with my ''thus saith the Lord." I will give them an affectionate 
 understanding of my laws, and upon their hearts will I write them. 
 So, with mutual trust, I renew the essential bond between us: 
 *'I will be to them God, they shall be to me my people." Brothers 11 
 and fellow-citizens as they shall now be, they will not have to teach 
 one another, saying. Know the Lord. For they shall all know me 
 in their own consciences, young and old, the great men and the simple 
 alike. For with mercy will I now meet the ingratitude of their 12 
 offences, and their sins will I never remember any more. 
 
 A new covenant ! The first He declares outworn. That which is 13 
 wearing out and growing old is nigh unto vanishing away. 
 
 1. K€4>dXaiov. Capitulum ft = the capital point; if an argument 
 is well knit its capital point is also the "sum" of it. Here the capital 
 point is that the High Priest of the Christian faith has entered the 
 real presence of God ; His work is a spiritual reality. The author 
 still expresses this by visible imagery, taken from scripture, and as it 
 were etherealised by a few touches ; cf . Ps. ex. as in i. 3, Ex. xxix. 30, 
 and Nam. xxiv. 6. For dXrjdLuds, the antithesis of x^'-poT'oirjToSf cf. 
 ix. 24. 
 
 2. TTJs o-KT]viis TTJs dXT]0tvTJs, K.T.X. Thcro is a verbal reference 
 here to Num. xxiv. 6, but the underlying thought is of Ex. xxiv. 18 — 
 XXV. 40. And by the epithet d\7}0Lvq^ the author colours the simplicity 
 of the Hebrew story of the pattern on the mount with a philo- 
 sophic tinge. As in ix. 24 we seem to catch a glimpse of Plato's 
 "intelligible" world. The epithet applies also to tCov ayioov. The 
 great High Priest exercises His function in a reality which transcends 
 our images of thought. For Xeirovpyds cf. i. 7, Eom. xiii. 6, xv. 16, 
 Phil. ii. 25. The word is used both of civil and of sacred officers ; to 
 ancient thought the service of the state was aU sacred and God ward. 
 In Kom. XV. 16 Paul associates the word with priestly phraseology, in 
 Phil. ii. 25 with civil. 
 
 3. S irpoo-Tiv^-yKTi : unclassical subj. cf. xii. 28. See Blass 65. 8, 
 and for ri...S 50. 1. 
 
 HEBREWS V 
 
82 HEBREWS [8 4-- 
 
 4. ovv: so the good mss., though the mass of mss. have yap. 
 Ovv is used here in the ''looser way to resume or continue," Blass 
 78. 5. Mh corresponds to 5e in v. 6. 
 
 To what point of time is the reference in apayKaLov...€i riv...ovb' 
 hv Tjv ? Are we to translate, " it is necessary... if He were... He would 
 not be" (so IL mcesse sit, est), or, "it was necessary... if He had been 
 ...He would not have been" ? The first might perhaps be defended by 
 vii. 25, and the tense of IXdaKeadai ii. 17, as an allusion to continual 
 intercession. But that would involve a strange use of irpo(r<f>^p€iv, and if 
 we ask what the author meant by the "somewhat to offer," it is 
 difficult to answer otherwise than in the words of ix. 14. The second 
 translation must therefore be accepted, at least for avay koXov. The 
 conditional clause is less definite ; but its point is that, but for His 
 passing through death to the eternal sphere, the spiritual priesthood 
 of the Lord would have been impossible. So here too the thought is 
 carried back to the crucifixion. Thus the question whether 6vt(*)v 
 tCov Trpoa(p€p6vTiov proves the ep. to have been written before the fall 
 of Jerusalem becomes superfluous. Westcott says indeed that ** the 
 tense of the principal verb {XaTpevoviriv) fixes the translation of the 
 participle to the present." But is X. the principal verb? It stands 
 in a relative clause introduced by the generalizing oirives. 
 
 6. o-Ki^. Cf. Ps. cii. (ci.) 12, cix. (cviii.) 23, cxliv. (cxliii.) 4, 
 Eccl. vi. 12 (vii. 1), Wisd. ii. 5, v. 9, in all of which LXX expresses 
 the idea of a vain thing passing away. So Col. ii. 17, and in this ep. 
 (cf. X. 1) (TKia indicates the arbitrary, allegorical symbol, as opposed 
 to the " image itself," or real symbol which partakes of the reality it 
 symbolises. Intr. in. 8. 
 
 Tuirov, from LXX of Ex. xxv. 40. Philo (vit. Mos, ii. p. 146) in his 
 comment on the same passage makes tOttov something like the 
 Platonic " idea." Our author glances at that fancy (see note on 
 V. 2, supra), but after all lets the word rest in the simple sense of 
 "pattern," which was all the translator intended. He changes the 
 tense of LXX dedeiy/jiivov because perfects, frequent as they are in 
 the ep., are never employed without a particular reason ; cf. xi. 17, 
 xii. 2, Intr. v. 3. 
 
 6. X€iTovp-yCas...8ia9TiK'«is...4'»rayY€XCais V€vo^o0^TT]Tai: a striking 
 sequence, leading swiftly to the doctrine of the new covenant which 
 will be introduced at v. 8 by the quotation from Jeremiah. 'Nevo/xo- 
 O^TTjrat is almost paradoxical like ^repov v6fiov...T(^ voixi^ rod voos /xov, 
 Kom. vii. 23, since in vii. 16 supra we have been carried beyond 
 "law." Such paradoxes may be reduced to order by reference to 
 Jas. i. 25. 
 
8 8] NOTES 83 
 
 8. avTovs. Textual authority is almost evenly divided between 
 avTovs and avrois. Both are legitimate with /j.€fi<p6fx€Pos, but avroU 
 was perhaps intended to go with XeyeL. This phrase of introduction 
 is made as vague as possible. The subject is best understood from 
 iii. 7, iv. 7, but the tense of \^y€L is the noticeable point. The 
 inauguration of the promised new covenant now, "at the end of 
 these days," is in the author's mind; the original occasion of the 
 prophecy is of secondary importance to him. 
 
 Yet it is of some importance. He has chosen his quotation care- 
 fully. It is from Jer. xxxi. (xxxviii.) 31 — 34. Whether those critics 
 are possibly right who think the passage does not come from Jeremiah 
 himself, hardly matters ; inspiration, not authorship, is what the 
 writer of Hebrews cares about. And indeed it seems more charac- 
 teristic of Jeremiah than the prophecies of restoration which 
 immediately precede it. The material symbolism of those prophecies 
 is not what Jeremiah specially stands for in O.T. ; the daring "heart- 
 religion " of this place is. We are inclined to connect it rather with 
 the chapter that follows it, and to think of Jeremiah imprisoned as a 
 traitor, suspected as a free-thinker in religion, certain of the speedy 
 ruin of Jerusalem, and the abolition of all the ancient institutions 
 of the faith. In these straits he is lifted to such a pure conception of 
 spiritual and therefore "indissoluble" communion with God, as 
 might be considered the culmination of O.T. prophecy. He calls 
 this a "new covenant." But the terms of the covenant are the 
 same as they always have been and will be, "I will be their God, and 
 they shall be my people." It is new because it shall now be written 
 on the heart, instead of in law, priesthood, monarchy, temple, sacri- 
 fice. Moreover, thus inwardly and spiritually written, it shall at last 
 be effectual; it shall bring "knowledge of God" to "perfection," 
 and supersede " merit " by "grace " ; cf. John i. 17. 
 
 The idea of this new covenant inspired the author of the 
 " Comfort ye" prophecy (Isa. xl. ff.). The very phrase is recorded 
 by S. Paul and in one version of the gospel narrative as having been 
 uttered by our Lord at the last supper, 1 Cor. xi. 25, Luke xxii. 20. 
 In Mark (xiv. 24 f.) the two words are spoken, but the "new" has 
 rather a different significance: "This is my blood of the covenant, 
 which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will no more 
 drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in 
 the kingdom of God." 
 
 The author of Hebrews probably knew 1 Corinthians. He knew 
 the tradition of the Lord's words which lies behind the gospels. He 
 saw the covenant developing in one unbroken line from Abraham, 
 
 F2 
 
84 HEBREWS [8 8—13 
 
 through Moses and Jeremiah, to the last supper. At the last 
 supper the new covenant, promised by Jeremiah, received a fresh 
 sanction in the Saviour's blood (cf. ix. 15 — 17) and a final promise of 
 fulfilment when the Lord Jesus came as Christ with the Kingdom. 
 In the trial of his own days he believed that, in some real sense, that 
 coming was to be. Hence he quotes Jeremiah here as a prophecy 
 for the immediate present. The new covenant was " in a very 
 little while " to reach perfection. Even now the obsolete ceremonial, 
 which Jeremiah had long ago recognised as no necessity for faith, was 
 dropping away. Intr. in. 16. 
 
 <rvvT€X4cro> seems to be the author's own substitution for diadifi- 
 aofiai of LXX. Like iiriTeXeiv in v. 5, ix. 6, it has perhaps a ritual 
 colour, cf. iKTcXe'iif TeXeTT^v, iiriTeXelp XeiTovpyiav in Greek liturgies. 
 
 9. KOL-yw tjjJL^XTjo-a. The Hebrew ha'alti either means "although 
 I was an husband to them," cf. Jer. iii. 14, or perhaps "and I was a 
 master to them," which would be explained by Hosea ii. 16, " thou 
 shalt call me Ishi, my husband, and shalt call me no more Baah, 
 my master." The mistranslation of LXX may itself be taken in a 
 sense not unlike Hosea's. In Ex. xix. 5 the covenant is made con- 
 ditional on Israel's obedience, cf. Lev. xxvi. 14 ff., especially 40 f. 
 The new covenant, being written on the heart, needs no such con- 
 dition ; it will continually be renewed by forgiveness, cf . Lev. xxvi. 
 44 f. This is the main teaching in Deuteronomy (see especially 
 X. 12 — xi. 1), though in some places the more rigorous doctrine of 
 retribution is enforced, cf. iv. 24 quoted in this ep. xii. 29. The 
 repeated X^et KiJpios {vv. 9, 10) represents the divine sanction, first 
 for the old promise, with conditions, then for the new promise of 
 grace. 
 
 10. Suxvoiav, cf. John xv. 15. 
 
 11. iroXtTTjv. For this there is in LXX as in ep. a v.l. TrXyjaioy ; 
 a scriptural commonplace instead of the idiomatic but free rendering 
 of the translator. 
 
 7v«0t...€l8Tio-ov<riv. Thus Jeremiah anticipates a richer fulfil- 
 ment of Hosea's desire, Hos. vi. 3. To both these prophets, as to 
 S. John, to know God is eternal life. 
 
 13. TTCiraXaCwKcv : perf. corresponding to pres. X^yet in v. 8. It 
 also frames the picture which is carried vividly through the "im- 
 perfect ' ' participles to the sudden close in d^avLajuLoG (frequent in 
 LXX of Jeremiah for sudden violent removal) — "A certain moment 
 calls the glory from the grey." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IX. 1 — 10. The parable of the tabernacle. 
 
 Now the ordinances of the first covenant were ritualistic and its 1 
 holiness was materially conceived. A tabernacle was constructed after 2 
 the fashion of a double tent. In the first tent are placed the candlestick 
 and the table and on the table the rite of setting forth the loaves 
 before the Lord is celebrated. This tent is called "Holy Place." 
 Then beyond the inner veil is a second tent which is called "Holy of 3 
 Holies,'* the ritual of which is mainly connected with the altar of 
 incense and the ark of the covenant ; the altar is golden and the ark 4 
 all covered with gold. In this tent the pot, also golden, containing 
 the manna is kept; also the rod of Aaron which budded, and the 
 tablets on which the "words" of the covenant at Sinai were written. 
 Above the ark are the cherubim, the angels of the Lord's presence, 5 
 overshadowing the mercy-seat with their wings. Everywhere pomp 
 and glory of which it is not possible to speak now in detail. 
 
 That is the tabernacle and its furniture as we see it in the sacred 6 
 books. And this is the divine service of the tabernacle. The outer 
 tent is entered continually by the priests as they perform their various 
 ministries. But the great ceremony takes place within the inner 7 
 shrine. Once and once only in the year, by himself alone, the high 
 priest enters there. He carries blood. Blood is life, and on this 
 great occasion no less significant a sacrificial act is admissible. He 
 offers the blood, bringing it to the Lord at the mercy-seat where He 
 has promised to be ptesent ; a living soul for the renewal of his own 
 soul and for cleansing the Lord's people from those sins of popular 
 ignorance for which their priest is so largely responsible. Yet why 8 
 should they be shut out? The Holy Spirit, through whom the 
 written record of this institution comes to us, makes it particularly 
 clear that the way to the inner mysteries has not yet been revealed 
 to the common gaze ; the outer tent still stands to hide it. But we 9 
 are meant to recognise in this outer tent a kind of premeditation of 
 the change in these days of ours. The gifts and sacrifices of the old 
 order are offered duly though they cannot bring the worshipper to 
 
S6 HEBREWS [9 1— 
 
 10 real communion with God. They are but part of an external system 
 of rules about eating and drinking and various ceremonial washings. 
 As ordinances of worship they are confined within the limits of 
 earthly ideas. But their significance springs from their transitory 
 claim. They have been appointed in expectation of a reformation 
 which inaugurates a new epoch. 
 
 1. jjiiv ovv might be taken together =** so then." But the strong 
 contrast Xpiffrbs dk..,mv. 12 requires fih to correspond to that long- 
 delayed dL If so, Kal is rather superfluous : the emphasis is on the 
 predicative Xarpetas, KoafxiKdvj for which latter adj. cf. Tit. ii. 12. 
 Kat is omitted by B al. pauc. ^ (vg) C (boh) Orig. 
 
 tj irpwTTi. The mass of mss. add ffKrjvf}, But the simple t) wpibTrj 
 of all the good authorities shews that "the first covenant" (as in 
 viii. 13) is meant. 
 
 TO T€ aYiov. This or, less often, t& a7ta = the outer tent, the 
 "Holy Place" in LXX. But in this ep. the plural is always used in 
 that sense. Is not this to ayiov a neuter abstract = " its holiness" 
 (Intr. V. 5)? Cf. the confused rendering in d, hahuit autem et quidem 
 prior eius iustitia constitutionis cultura sanctum saecularem. 
 
 2. "A^ta. Not ayia, as the following ij Xey. "Kyta 'Ayiup shews. 
 B has ra dyia, and in next verse (with considerable support) ra a7ta 
 Twp ayiwv. But B also inserts Kal rb xp. dvfMiaTrjpiov after dpnoifj 
 omitting xp' ^X^vaa 6. in v. 4. All these variations seem to arise 
 from a desire to harmonise ep. with LXX. 
 
 For the construction and furniture of the tabernacle, see Ex. xxv. — 
 xxvii., XXX. 1 — 10, xxxvi. — xl. But some details in the ep. are taken 
 from other places in O.T. ; cf. especially Lev. xvi. 
 
 r\ 'irp606o-is T. apTwv. Substituted, as better Greek, for the more 
 usual ol a. rrjs irpodiaeuys. 
 
 TO 8€UT€pov KaraireTao-fia. See Ex. xxvii. 16. 
 
 4. 6v|jitaTTJpiov. So Aquila, Symmachus, Philo, Josephus, for 
 Ovffiaarripcop (dv/jLid/naros) of LXX. This was outside the veil. But 
 when Aaron entered the Holy of Holies the clftud of incense pene- 
 trated to the Mercy-seat. Hence in Lev. xvi. 12 f. it is "before the 
 Lord," and is here said to " belong to " the Holy of Holies. 
 
 o-Td|xvos, K.T.X. Ex. xvi. 33 ; rj pd^bos' AapCov k.t.X., Num. xvii. 10 ; 
 at irXdKes K.r.X., Ex. xxv. 16, Deut. xxxi. 26, 1 Kings viii. 9. The 
 manna and the rod are not mentioned in 1 Kings viii. Josephus, 
 Bell. V. 5. 5, says ^kclto 5e o{>8^v 5\ws ev aur^j, d^arop 8^ Kal ^xpa/'rov 
 Kal ddiarov -qp irdaiPj dyiov S^ aytop iKaXetro. Cf. Tac. H. V. 9, vacuam 
 sedem et inania arcana. But the ep. refers to the tabernacle in the 
 wilderness, not to the temple and the later state of things. 
 
9 9] NOTES 87 
 
 5. Xepov^clv 8o$T]$. A phrase formed by the author after the 
 fashion of those Hebrew compounds in which the second noun 
 concentrates attention upon the characteristic feature of the first, 
 cf. Moulton, pp. 73 f. So Gen. i. 21 "bird of wing " (cf . Ps. Ixviii. 13, 
 where we should say '*as a dove" in English). Here the glory is 
 the presence of the Lord, Ex. xxv. 22, Num. vii. 89, Ez. xi. 22 f., 
 xliii. 1 — 4. In tabernacle and builded temple the Lord "speaketh 
 from between the cherubim," and " above Him stand the seraphim," 
 Isa. vi. 2. In the temple of the universe (cf. Ps. xxix. 9), a more 
 ancient conception. He dwells in the "thick darkness" of the storm, 
 1 Kings viii. 12; rides upon the cherubim, the angels of the wind; 
 the seraphim, angels of fire and lightning, go before Him, Ps. xviii. 
 6 — 14, cf. supr. i. 7; the thunder is His voice, Ps. xviii. 13, Ex. xix. 19, 
 Deut. iv. 12, cf . infr. xii. 19. For a beautiful refinement upon the ritual 
 conception see Ps. xxii. 3. 
 
 irepl (ov...KaToL ^^pos. No doubt this simply means "I have no 
 time or space to dwell on further details." Yet this earnest haste of 
 the author does itself distinguish him from the allegorical school in 
 which he had received some instruction, and with which (as he 
 seems to acknowledge in v. 11) he had a certain sympathy. He 
 refuses aKpi^eveo-Oai irepl rrjs ffojrijpias which in the allegorical Ep. 
 Barn. (ii. 10) is considered necessary. " The writer of the Epistle... 
 mentions the cherubim and the mercy-seat. Of these, he says, we 
 cannot now speak particularly. Could any allegorist have resisted 
 the temptation to speak most particularly on these subjects ? ' ' Maurice. 
 
 6 f. For the entrance of the priests, the sons of Aaron, see 
 Ex. xxviii. 1, Num. xvi. 40, xviii. 3 — 7. For the yearly entrance of 
 Aaron (the "high-priest" is hardly mentioned in the "Law") see 
 Lev. xvi. and Ex. xxx. 10. 
 
 7. ov xo>p\s at|xaTos. Cf . Lev. xvi. 14 ff., 18 f . , with Lev. xvii. 11 ; 
 Intr. m. 12, 13. 
 
 d.YVO'qiJLdTCDv, cf. Ez. xlv. 20, Lev. iv. 2, 22, 27, and especially 
 LXX of 13 dyvori(rr) oLKovaicjs. Perhaps accidental uncleannesses rather 
 than what we should call sins are primarily meant by this word. 
 But V. 2 shows that our author has a deeper thought, and Lev. xvi. 16 
 justifies it. 
 
 8. Here, and in ix. 25, x. 19, xiii. 11, ra dy. seems = " Holy of 
 Holies." It is more likely that this reflects the usage of Lev. xvi. 
 There after the full phrase, eis t6 dyiov ijioT^pco tov AcaraTreracr/xaros 
 ets TrpdaujTrov tov VKaaT-qpiov 6 icTLU iirl rrjs ki^cotov tov fiaprvpioVt the 
 brief t6 dyiov is used inclusively of the whole tabernacle. 
 
 9. 'n-po(r<)>^povTai, like the perfect ire^avepdjcrdai is in accord 
 
88 HEBREWS [9 9- 
 
 with the author's habit of beholding pictures in the sacred records, 
 standing as present things before his eyes: Intr. v. 3. Thus, again 
 (cf. viii. 4), no inference can be drawn from this passage as to the 
 date of the ep. 
 
 10. PairTi(rp.ois. Cf. vi. 2 ; o-apK^s, cf. ii. 14, v. 7 and contrast 
 vi. 1 veKpCjv ^pycov which does not refer to ritual. 
 
 SiKawojiara fc^ABP 33 §. (vg) C (boh) ^ Cyr. EuthaL^o** is the 
 well attested reading, not ^iKalwixa nor 8LKanbiJ,acriv. Though B agrees 
 with the mass of Greek mss. in prefixing /cat, the authorities for its 
 omission, K*AD*P 33 H (vt) ^ (vg) C iBtfj Orig. Cyr. Euthal.''"^, seem 
 sufficient. Both the insertion of Kal and the alteration to diKaiw- 
 /xaffiv were meant to make the grammatical construction easier. 
 But diKaitbfiaTaj in apposition to 8u)pa, dvaiaij gives a sense more 
 agreeable to the context. The author is concerned about the abolition 
 of the sacrifices rather than the petty rites and rules. 
 
 8iop0(6<r€a>s. A medical word, used by Aristotle and later writers 
 in moral sense as here. Cf. Acts iii. 21. The next verse shews that 
 in one sense this "reformation" has already come. The primitive 
 and popular faith of the Church would look for it in the * * day of the 
 Lord" (cf. X. 25, Apoc. 1. 10), the great Advent still expected. 
 In this ep. a "critical moment^" is expected *'to day," in which 
 *' reformation," "new covenant," entrance into heaven (x. 19ff.)> 
 receiving of the kingdom (xii. 28), peace in union with the will 
 of God (x. 10, xiii. 21) may be realised by the readers for whose 
 encouragement in stress of trial their friend is writing. 
 
 IX. 11—14. The reality op life laid down to cleanse. 
 
 Such is the tabernacle of the Old Covenant and its ritual, splendid, 
 making no mean appeal to religious emotion, but unfit to fulfil that 
 new life for which conscience yearns. 
 
 11 But when, Levi fading, Christ came, as High Priest of the loving 
 mercies of God the only good, which found expression through the 
 tabernacle that has nought to do with ritual splendour or precision, 
 the tabernacle not made with hands, not of this ordinary earthly 
 
 12 building ; then He cared no more about the figurative blood of beasts 
 than about the pomp of worship, but entered by the sacramental 
 virtue of His own blood, once for all, into the sanctuary: having 
 found, when all seemed lost upon the cross, such deliverance for 
 men as can be measured by no temporal standard, nor rendered 
 
 13 ineffectual by any limitations of material circumstance. It is a moral 
 
 ^ For Kttipds see Trench, New Testament Synonyms, § lvii. 
 
9 11] NOTES 89 
 
 deliverance. Let it be acknowledged that the ritual observances do 
 effect such cleansing as the use and wont of mere humanity demands. 
 Here there is more than that; the "other world" breaks in. Our 14 
 Lord Jesus completes the long line of the Christs of history with all 
 their filial yearnings towards the Father. He died willingly, lovingly, 
 and His life thus consecrated really became what the Levitical 
 theology defined "blood " to be, viz. life set free for the renewing of 
 lives. As Aaron approached the mercy-seat enveloped in the cloud of 
 incense, so the dear memory of our dying Lord is interfused with 
 the mystery of the all-embracing Spirit who makes all life by His 
 inspiration eternal and divine. So, an immaculate victim. He offered 
 Himself to God. Such goodness is more intelligible than any analogy. 
 It is our consciousness of God, who is above and through and in us 
 all, that He died to restore, cleansing away the evil which is death to 
 hide; so that, sharing in what He has made priestly service mean, 
 we too may serve God who lives indeed. 
 
 11. -^i^vo^voiv. This, the reading of BD* U (vt) ^ (vg. hi. pal.) 
 Orig. Chr. (Aphr.), must be accepted, though Tisch., v. Sod., R.V. text 
 prefer fieXUvToov with i<AD<^u) ft (vg.) ^ (hl"^g) ^ (boh) ^ ^tj Eus. 
 Cyr-Hier. Chr^'o'^'* Cosm. | al. Doubtless the second group is strong. 
 But the first may reasonably be interpreted as a consensus of all 
 three ancient lines of transmission. And this is one of the few 
 passages in which intrinsic probability is important in itself. As 
 Kendall has pointed out, the construction is tCou y^vofxlv(av...dLa ttjs 
 fiei^ovos K.T.X. But even Westcott, who keeps yevofxhwv but translates 
 " good things realised," has missed this piece of rather distinguished 
 idiom. The correction to fieWovrujp would therefore be obvious : 
 cf. ii. 5, vi. 5, X. 1, xiii. 14. Nor did the difiiculty arise entirely 
 from the construction. Even with the right construing, the "good 
 things" are said to have come already into being, and such sayings 
 in N.T. have always proved hard : cf . Acts xv. 11, dXXa dia rijs x^-p^ros 
 Tov Kvpiov 'Itjjov TTLaTevofxev (TOjdrjvaL Kad^ 6v Tpbirov KCLKeiPOL, where 
 A.V. and R.V. "we believe that we shall be saved" is possible 
 grammatically but improbable in the context. Here is in fact a test 
 passage of the credibility of B joined with the great "Western" 
 authorities and Origen. 
 
 dyaOwv. Only here and x. 1 in true text of this ep., in which 
 KoKos and KpeirTtav are so frequent with their ideas of "nobility" and 
 "superiority." From such passages as Mark x. 18, Luke xxiii. 50, 
 Acts xi. 24, Rom. v. 7, 1 Pet. ii. 20, dyadbs would seem to imply 
 goodness in the divine degree, which is goodness touched with 
 affection. 
 
90 HEBREWS [911 — 
 
 KT^o-eois. H creationis, so K.V., but " there is no occasion to take 
 ktL(tis in any other sense than that in which ktI^clv is commonly 
 applied to a city (3 Esdr. iv. 53) or to the tabernacle itself (Lev. xvi. 
 16) ^'* A.V. *♦ building" does very well. 
 
 12. ai<avCav XvTp«<riv €vpa(X€V0S' For alcaviav, "in the eternal 
 sphere," see note on v. 9. This is the only place in the ep. where 
 XvTpujcris or any of its simple cognates occur. In ix. 15, xi. 35 we 
 find the Pauline dTroXi^rpoxTts, but hardly in Pauline sense. These 
 words are an inheritance from O.T. through LXX, especially from 
 the latter part of Isaiah, where they are mostly renderings of some 
 form of the Hebrew (jfoeZ = " avenger," and then more generally 
 ** rescuing with might." So Isa. Ixiii. 4 If . : iifi^pa yap dvTaTroddaecjs 
 rjXdev avTotSy Kal eviavrbs Xvrpibffeus irapeariv. Kal iiri^Xeypa, Kal o^k 
 riv por)66s ' Kai vpoaevoTjaay Kal ovdels cLVTeXa/JL^apero ' Kal ipp^aaro 
 avTovs 6 ^pax^(t)p fiov, Kal 6 dufids fiov ^irio-TTj. In Mark x. 45 = Matt. xx. 
 28 our Lord says that the Son of man came to be a servant and to 
 give His life Xrjrpov dvrl iroXXQv, which may shew that to Jewish 
 ears these words implied "ransom" or "price 2." Yet that saying 
 too is part of the Isaianic language of deliverance: "I have given 
 Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee... I have loved thee; 
 therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life," Isa. xliii. 
 3 f. The mystery seems deeper when coordinated with John xv. 13, 
 than when explained in terms of law or commerce. On the whole we 
 may consider that the main idea in our author's mind is " deliver- 
 ance ' ' raised to sublimity by divine self-sacrifice. And this deliverance 
 the Saviour "found." In the divine wiU it already was; not to be 
 bought with a price, but an "ideal" which has now been realised 
 in obedience, cf. v. 8. The aor. part, might be described as "of 
 coincident action" (Moulton, p. 130 ff.), but it might also be said 
 to represent the moment before elffrjXBev just as TeXeicodeis, irpo<yayo- 
 pevdeLs in v. 9 represent the moment after. 
 
 14. aitovCov. dyiov is read by S^D*P al |lf» (pal) 05 (boh.) Did.^ 
 Chr.^ al. The attestation of alwviov is sufficient, and it suits the 
 context. The thrice-repeated "eternal" (cf. vv. 12, 15) is set over 
 against- the "gold and glory" of the tabernacle. For the vast 
 theological idea see Intr. in. 13, 29. " The Christ" offered Himself 
 through the medium of that divine, essential life in which the whole 
 spiritual movement issues from and returns to God—" When that 
 which drew from out the boundless deep, Turns again home." 
 
 ^ Field, Otium Norvicense. 
 
 2 Of. Sanday and Headlam, Commentary on Romans, p. 86. 
 
9 14] NOTES 91 
 
 TO at^a ToO yjpia-rov. Intr. in. 12, 13. 
 
 KaOapici. Of. ii. 17. In the middle of this word Codex B is 
 mutilated, and fails us for the rest of the ep. 
 
 o-vveCS-qo-iv. A Pauline word; five times in this ep., cf. ix. 9, x. 2, 
 22, xiii. 18. Eom. ii. 15 shews conscience in its troubled, 1 Pet. ii. 
 19 in its cleansed and truly natural state, viz. the enjoyment of the 
 presence of God. This state is perhaps less often remembered than 
 the other. Hence a later reading in 1 Pet. ii. 19, a. ay aO^^v for a, 
 0€ovy and K.V. as well as A.V. renders *' conscience toward God," 
 relegating ''of God " to mg: the meaning rather is that because of 
 his "consciousness of God," in communion with whom he is sup- 
 ported and at peace, a man can well bear injuries and injustice. The 
 word, with its commoner equivalent in secular writers, to avveiddSf 
 has passed from this ep. into the Greek liturgies, wherein, as here, it 
 lifts the mind to reality, and determines the true moral sense of such 
 ritual terms as dfiofios. The whole passage, culminating in ^ey 
 ^QvTL, is artistically ordered to that end. 
 
 i]^(ov. W. H. give v/Muv as mg. alternative, the attestation being 
 strong on either side. In xiii. 21 a like variation is important ; here 
 the sense is hardly affected, but see Intr. v. 7. 
 
 vcKpuv ^p-ywv. Cf. vi. 1 and Sirach xviii. 29 (cod. 248, see Hart, 
 Ecclesiasticus in Greek, pp. 24, 146) Kpelaaujv irapprjo-la iv deairdTTj 
 fidvifi* ijirep veKpq. KapUq. veKpdv dvrix^adai.. 
 
 IX. 15 — 22. To LIFE THAT KENEWS LIFE DEATH IS 
 THE ONLY WAY. 
 
 And this life-renewing life can only be through death. That is 15 
 why in the new covenant Christ is a mediator between God who 
 makes the covenant and men with whom God makes it. God dies 
 not ; but in Christ the mystery of life through death has been 
 enacted. So the divine purpose is achieved. From the transgres- 
 sions, by which (as we are told in Jeremiah) the first covenant was 
 marred, deliverance has been and is still effected. So those who 
 have heard the call of God to day may recognise in their clean 
 conscience the fulfilment of the promise ; the inheritance long 
 waited for is theirs to take ; the eternal inheritance of spiritual 
 freedom. 
 
 The analogy of ancient custom points to the same truth. Where 16 
 there is a covenant, the death of him who makes it has to be re- 
 presented. For the ritual of a covenant is that it must be confirmed 
 
92 HEBREWS [9 15— 
 
 17 over slain victims ; since the idea is that it avails not so long as he 
 who made the agreement lives. 
 
 18 Hence the first covenant too is recorded to have been inaugurated 
 
 19 not without blood. For when each commandment had been spoken, 
 in its proper place in the law which God gave at Sinai, by Moses to 
 the people, Moses took the blood of the calves and the goats with 
 water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book of 
 
 20 the covenant and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the 
 covenant which God ordained to establish his relationship with you. 
 
 21 And, to speak generally, it is in the touch of blood that all things 
 
 22 are cleansed according to that law, and without bloodshedding there 
 is no remission of legal offences. 
 
 16. 8ta8iiKt]s. Cf. vii. 22, viii. 8. For the question whether 
 the author passes here from the meaning "covenant" to the 
 meaning *' testament" see Intr. in. 16. The point may be left 
 doubtful. It is the sacrificial analogy that is affected by the alter- 
 native, not the deeper sense, viz. that our Lord laid down His life 
 for His friends, and that in no other way might the great salvation 
 be perfected. 
 
 16. Tov SiaOcfi^vov. Cf. Luke xxii. 29, Acts iii. 25, Jer. xxxi. 
 (xxxviii.) 31, and Aristophanes, Av. 439 ; ijv fiij Siddcovrai y oUe 
 dLa0'/iK7]p ifioij where the terms of the agreement follow, on oath. 
 
 17. circl jiij t6t€. So ^*T>* Isid-Pelus. The other mss. have 
 irore. Blass says that in either case the sentence must be inter- 
 rogative; "never" would be firid^irore or ovdiiroret 75. 3, App. 
 p. 332. But the /ut? might come under Goodwin's *' cautious asser- 
 tion " § 269 = "I am of the opinion that," or perhaps " the idea is." 
 
 19. See Ex. xxiv. 6 — 8, to which details are here added from 
 Lev. xiv. 4 — 7, Num. xix. 6, 17 f. So in v. 21 the sprinkling of 
 *' all the vessels bf the ministry" comes from the "law of Moses" 
 not from the particular narrative of the inauguration of the covenant. 
 
 The phrase ^piov kSkklvop, which occurs nowhere in LXX, is found 
 in a curious compound quotation or reminiscence in Ep. Bam. vii. 
 about the scapegoat : kuI e/ATrriycrare Trdt'Tes /cat KOLTaKevriiaaTe Kal 
 irepWere rh ipiov to k6kklvop irepl t7]v K€<f>a\riv airov Kal ovtcos el^ ^prjfiov 
 pX-rjOifiTca. 
 
 22. ai|iaT€Kxv<rCas. Not found in LXX or profane authors. 
 It is a general word which includes the " shedding " as the necessary 
 and terrible preliminary to the "sprinkling"; cf. Matt. xxvi. 28, 
 Mark xiv. 24, Luke xxii. 20. This would suggest the thought of 
 the "precious blood," 1 Pet. i. 19; cf. Ps. cxv. (cxvi.) 6. 
 
9 23] NOTES 93 
 
 IX. 23 — 28. Christ in heaven, our refuge and 
 
 OUR HOPE. 
 
 It is therefore necessary that if the imitations of things heavenly 23 
 be cleansed by these means, the ultimate realities themselves should 
 be cleansed by mightier than legal sacrifices. That necessity con- 
 ducted Christ. For He entered no manufactured sanctuary, an echo 24 
 of the true, but penetrated that very heart of goodness which 
 *' heaven " symbolises, to be manifested now, before the face of 
 God, in His compassionate divinity which is the refuge of us men. 
 Nor did He purpose either to repeat that solemn act. He was not 25 
 going to offer Himself many times. The very idea of such repetition 
 is paradoxical. There is no analogy here with the Aaronic high 
 priest's entering the sanctuary year after year in the fiction of a 
 blood-life not his own. If that were a true symbol, Christ must have 26 
 suffered many times in the long repetition of such rites ; for ritual 
 sacrifice is as old as the world. No ; it is now and only now. At 
 this moment which sums up and sweeps into desuetude the series 
 of the ages, for the annulling of the sin which till now has obstinately 
 held its ground, through the sacrifice of Himself, He has been 
 seen of men and passed to God. And in as much as it is the spiritual 27 
 destiny of men once to die, and after death the discernment and 
 separation of judgement ; so also He, who as the Christ shares our 28 
 manhood and shall at last complete our hope, having once been taken 
 to God that He might (like the prophetic servant of the Lord) take 
 upon Himself the sins of many, shall in the sequel, separated from 
 that burden of sin, be seen by those who are longingly expecting Him. 
 And that vision shall be rescue from all ill. 
 
 23. KpeCTToo-t Ovo-tais. For the pi. of. xiii. 16, but the reference 
 can hardly be the same. The pi. here is merely the antithesis, 
 in a general statement, to to<>tols ; in the particular application which 
 immediately follows, the sacrifice by which the realities of heaven 
 are cleansed is shown to be one and only one. 
 
 The cleansing of the heavenly realities might also be explained 
 as a mere extension of the Levitical analogy. But from xii. 26 f . 
 more would seem to be meant. Even the things of heaven shall be 
 shaken. Even the saints at rest watch anxiously the issue of God's 
 will on earth, cf. xii. 1 with xii. 23, also Ap. v. 11 f. with vii. 16 f. 
 In heaven itself the intercession of the High Priest is still required, 
 vii. 25, cf. ii. 18. As yet there is no place, however near to God, 
 where His will is not working against opposition. Only within that 
 
94 HEBREWS [9 23— 
 
 will itself is peace x. 10, xiii. 21. The same idea is expressed in the 
 Lord's Prayer, at least in the Greek form in which it has come 
 to us; yevrjdrjTCj to d^Xrjfjid (Tov, ws ^v o^papi^ kuI iirl 777s. 
 
 24. 4|j.(t>avi,(r9TJvai. In LXX of manifestation of God Ex. xxxiii. 13, 
 18, cf. ifxtpaprjei Ps. Ixxix. (Ixxx.) 2, Zeph. ii. 11. 
 
 26. iraOciv. See note on v. 8. Two cursives have awodaveiv here. 
 wvi does not respond to lireC =' • * now as things are," for the 
 
 intensive form is not used in that sense. Both wvl and vvv in v. 24 
 refer to that act which to men is still visible in memory (Tre^aj/^/owrat, 
 cf. Gal. iii. 1) as the crucifixion, while in eternity beyond the veil 
 it was the manifestation of the consummated work of redemption 
 (cf. V. 12). The vvv, v. 24, is not quite logically appropriate. But 
 *'To day" rings too insistently in the author's ear for him to heed 
 that. Moreover there is a sense in which loyal following of Christ 
 brings the completed sacrifice "again" into present time, cf. xiii. 13, 
 Intr. III. 21. 
 
 <rvvTeX€C(;f,. Five times in Matthew (not elsewhere in N.T.) with 
 sing. alCjvos: where, as in Dan. ix. 27, xii. 4, 13, it looks forward to 
 the Messianic "end." Here it is rather different; the final age, in 
 the successive periods of history, had been reached when the Lord 
 died. Cf. i. 2, xi. 3. 
 
 27. |JL€Td 8^ TouTo KpC<ris. Cf. Box, The Ezra-apocalypse, pp. xlvf. 
 "While the theology of S (that part of 2 Esdras which Mr Box calls 
 the 'Salathiel-apocalypse') recognises the Day of Judgement and an 
 intermediate state for the soul between death and Judgement, it knows 
 of no resurrection of the body. In the description of the state of the 
 soul after death it is made clear that the soul enters at once into a 
 state of blessedness or the reverse.... These conditions — though they 
 will be intensified — are not to be essentially altered on the Day of 
 Judgement itself. This practically means that judgement sets in 
 immediately after death, and that a man's fate is virtually deter- 
 mined by the present life — which is the doctrine of Wisdom and 
 of Hellenistic Judaism." Cf. xi. 40, xii. 23, but also vi. 2, xi. 35. 
 Intr. m. 24, 25. 
 
 28. iroXXwv dvcvt-yKctv d^aprCas. From Isa. liii. 12, cf. 1 Pet. 
 ii. 24, also John i. 29. Elsewhere in this ep. dva^^pu is only used in 
 sacrificial sense, but Eom. viii. 3, 2 Cor. v. 21, shew how the two 
 meanings might run into one another. 
 
 €K ScvWpov. Cf. Collects for I Advent, VI Epiphany "come 
 again," "appear again." But that is not the usual N.T. conception, 
 cf. Mark xiv. 61 f.. Acts i. 11 (where a few mss. add ttoKlv); Ik 
 devT^pov 6<pd. simply answers to aTra^ irpoaevex^^is. 
 
9 28] NOTES 95 
 
 yjmpXs d^aprias. Cf. vii. 26. 
 
 Tots avTov dir6K8€xo|Ji€vois. Cf. Luke i. 21; but in Paul air^Kb. 
 is a strongly Messianic word, Rom. viii. 19, 23, 25, 1 Cor. i. 7, 
 Gal. V. 5, Phil. iii. 20. 
 
 els cra)TT]p£av. Cf . ii. 3. a-coTrjma is the whole of which redemption, 
 cleansing, sacrifice, etc. are parts. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 X. 1—18. The will op man united to the will of God 
 
 THROUGH THE WILLING SACRIFICE OF ChRIST. 
 
 1 The Levitical Law carries with it an imaginary shadow of the 
 good things which God purposed for man, not the consubstantial 
 symbol which is a vehicle of the realities it symbolises. So year by 
 year the sacrifices go on in monotonous succession. Men are ever 
 approaching God, but are unable to reach by such merely ritual 
 
 2 means His very presence. If it were otherwise these sacrifices would 
 have ceased, since they would have already brought about the desired 
 result; the ritual cleansing of the worshippers would have passed 
 once for all into spiritual cleansing, and they would no longer be let 
 
 3 and hindered by the consciousness of sins. But it is not so. There 
 is some good in the ritual, especially of the Day of Atonement. It 
 
 4 awakes the sense of sins year after year. But it never passes into the 
 eternal order, for bulls' and goats' blood cannot take sins away. 
 
 6 Wherefore, on His entrance into the created world. One whom we 
 know saith : ' ' Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not— a body didst 
 
 6 Thou prepare for me. In burnt-offerings and sin-offerings Thou 
 
 7 didst not take pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I am come— as in a 
 written book my commission is recorded— to do, God, Thy will." 
 
 8 In the first part of this quotation (which is so prophetically applicable 
 to the Person and work of our Lord) the legal sacrifices are spoken of 
 
 9 as quite apart from the inmost mind of God. Then follows an answer 
 to God's appeal which has abiding validity. The consent of Christ is 
 in real correspondence with the will of God. Kemove sacrifices: 
 then God's will is established as the source and goal of salvation. 
 
 10 And God's will envelopes us with complete and permanent conse- 
 cration, since Jesus, a man like us in the body, used these human 
 limitations to realise His representative, inclusive Christship, and to 
 make an offering to God through which, once for all, we are brought 
 into God's very presence, i.e. into union with His good will. 
 
 11 This union of men's wills with God's will is the reality of which 
 sacrifice is the figure. Priesthood in general is merely figurative. 
 
10 1] NOTES 97 
 
 We see priest after priest standing up in history and offering sacri- 
 fices, all of the same fictional, ineffective kind. The sacrifices are 
 offered, and still sins bar the entrance. But this Priest of ours 12 
 offered one sacrifice for the continuous taking of sins out of the 
 way. That was the real sacrifice of a will lost and found in God's will. 
 And so it ensued that having offered it, He was enthroned in high 13 
 collateral glory at God's right hand; whence, as from the centre of 
 life. He henceforth directs the process which shall at last be com- 
 pleted by the utter defeat of the powers of evil. That end is certain ; 14 
 the one true sacrifice assures it, for that sacrifice has already brought 
 perfection. And He has made those partakers of His own perfected 
 holiness who in continual succession are called to realise their con- 
 secration in the school of life. 
 
 These reflections on the life and death of our Lord, as interpreted 15 
 by the experience of our hearts, are confirmed by the witness of the 
 Holy Spirit in Scripture. For in the promise of the New Covenant 16 
 already quoted from Jeremiah, forgiveness of sins is the concluding 
 assurance — "of their sins and of their iniquities I will have no more 17 
 remembrance at all." The peace of the Christian conscience answers 
 to the promise of prophecy; and where such remission is effectual 18 
 there is no place for any further offering for sin, 
 
 1. o-Kictv — c'lKova. Cf. viii. 5: cIkusv here, as in Col. i. 15, 
 iii. 10 = Gen. i. 27, indicates a true type, symbol or sacrament, in 
 which the visible actually partakes of the eternal reality signified. 
 What the ep. implies throughout is here plainly said, that the 
 Levitical rites, however they may furnish an analogy, are no "type" 
 of the sacrifice of Christ ; Intr. in. 5. 
 
 There is some uncertainty about the text of this verse, as will 
 appear from the following conspectus of readings: 
 
 dvalais'] add, airCiv ^V (H (vg.)) (5s SCDcoChr. al, : ats D* 
 
 HL 5 263 442 456 patres : om. A 33 1908 ^ (vg. hi.) ^ diTjveKes] add, 
 at A'^ 104 (S, (hi.) a) dwavrai fc^ACD^P 33 424** 436 442 1908 al. ^ 
 (vg. hi.) ^ Chr. al. : dvvaraL DHKL5 S2Q al.pauc. % (vt.^'vg.) i^ (boh.) 
 Grig. Chr. 
 
 The v.l. bijparai makes a complete, but not so neat a sentence as 
 we might desire, and textual authority points to its being an ancient 
 attempt at emendation. We might be content to suppose that the 
 author left the sentence unfinished with unconscious, or perhaps 
 with deliberately rhetorical carelessness. But the other variations 
 suggest further disorder. Hort proposed as the original text, Kad^ rjv 
 Kar' iviavTOv rds ai^rds Ovaias Trpo<T<p4povcriv at els rb 8L7}V€Kks oiBiirore 
 hvvavrai to^s irpoaepxojj'ivovs TeXetujcraL — , after which double relative 
 
 HEBREWS G 
 
98 HEBREWS [10 1— 
 
 the author will have broken off and begun a new sentence. The usage 
 of the ep. is against connecting els to dirjvcK^s with a following verb, 
 but its peculiarly emphatic position in the clause thus fashioned might 
 meet that objection. On the other hand the accumulation, /car' iviav- 
 rbv Tois a^rats 6v<TiaLS...€ls rb Sii/jveK^s^ is perhaps not so pointless as 
 Hort felt; the printed text of W.H. is faithful to the actual evidence; 
 the author may have written vigorously rather than beautifully here ; 
 and, if the ep. be regarded as a real letter, such a touch of roughness 
 is acceptable. 
 
 TcXciwa-ai. D has Kadapiaait the part for the whole; cf. next verse. 
 
 2. ovK. A few authorities omit this, as though the sentence 
 were not interrogative, thereby bringing Slv into an awkward position. 
 
 3. dvd|ivi]ori$. [Cow] memoratio, Latt. But the Greek implies an 
 awakening of mind rather than an external making of remembrance; 
 cf. Clem, liii., i'jri<TTa(T0€...€ls dvd/xvT)aiv ovv ravra ypdtpofiev. Here 
 and elsewhere the author recognises a sympathetic influence in the 
 old ceremonies which, as mere ceremonies, were shadows. 
 
 5. €io-€pxoK'*vos els Tov Ko<r}j.ov. It is not of course meant that 
 our Lord uttered these words at His birth or when He began His 
 ministry. Nor need we suppose that our author thought the psalm 
 was composed as a direct prediction of our Lord in the days of His 
 flesh. But he did consider it a prophetic psalm, which expressed, 
 by more than mere coincidence, the very mind of his Lord. He 
 writes rbv Kdajxov, "the universe of natural law," not rV olkov- 
 fUvrjv, "the society of men"; there are no limitations in nature 
 which are not transformed to instruments of the true freedom when 
 a will in harmony with God's will operates. 
 
 X^-yei. The unexpressed subject harmonises with the idea of the 
 eternal, variously manifested Christ which pervades the ep. There 
 is more in the quotation than a dramatic application of ancient words 
 to the Lord's earthly circumstances ; cf. 1 Pet. i. 11. 
 
 The quotation is from Ps. xl. (xxxix.). It follows LXX, with 
 €vd6K7]aas for yrriaas and rb 0. aov after instead of before 6 debs. That 
 transposition gives the key, and removes the suspicion of unfaithful- 
 ness which might be aroused by the adoption of the LXX "body'* 
 for th« Hebrew "ears." ^(hl™8) gives "ears," like Aquila and 
 Symmachus. But though the author alludes to the word awfia in 
 V. 10, the doctrine of that allusion permeates the ep., and does not 
 depend on this quotation. And this particular word has nothing tO' 
 do with the purpose for which he quotes the psalm. That purpose 
 is to introduce the main subject of this section, Christ's union with 
 the will of God and our union through Him in that same will. 
 
10 13] NOTES 99 
 
 6. ircpl djiapT^as. A compound noun representing the Hebrew 
 word for " sin-offering" : cf. v. 1. 
 
 7. K€(|>aXC8i. Properly the umbilicus or horn of the rod round 
 which the writing was rolled. But here and elsewhere in the LXX it 
 is used for the roll itself. So we might say, " between the covers of a 
 book." It is possible that the psalmist had no definite book in view, 
 but meant simply, "my duty is as plain as if it were written down," 
 cf . perhaps Ps. cxlix. 9. But Cheyne says, ' ' To the psalmist, there was 
 a Bible within the Bible, and the books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah 
 formed principal elements in its composition. 'The law within 
 my heart ' reminds us at once of Deut. vi. 6 and Jer. xv. 16, 
 xxxi. 33." 
 
 9. TOT€ iX^t\Kfv. t6t€ 18 part of the quotation : the perf . etpTjKcv 
 sums up the argument emphatically, as in i. 13. What the psalmist 
 has said of old stands confirmed by the obedience of Christ : union in 
 the will of God is consecration and perfection. 
 
 10. ii7ia<rfi^voi : the perfect corresponds to ^^ctTra^. Whatever 
 their subsequent failures, those who have entered upon the Christian 
 allegiance are sanctified ; nothing but renunciation of their d7ta<r/*6s 
 (cf. xii. 14) cancels that. In those early perilous times, entrance 
 upon such allegiance could seldom be anything but a sincere act of 
 will. But the thought here is deeper than that. The security is 
 guaranteed by the greater will of God: cf. 1 John iii. 20. 
 
 11. Upevs* This is to be read with p^^ ^d^ not dpxi'epeijs with AC. 
 That, after ix. 7, might seem inconsistent with Kad' rj/jiipav. Indeed, 
 the view hepre may extend beyond the bounds of Judaism to all the 
 ritual priesthood of the wide world : cf . v. 5. The history of religion 
 — the satisfying of man's heart-restlessness for God— is here pre- 
 sented as a consistent whole. The cross is the focus. Thither all 
 past yearning tends ; thence all new confidence proceeds. There a 
 devotion of will is apparent which goes beyond all that even the analogy 
 of sacrifice can picture. Yet the analogy is necessary, else language 
 would be cold and loveless. Moreover sacrificial language brings the 
 mystery home to the only men who will recognise the cogency of the 
 argument of these verses, in which, considered as logic, too much is 
 taken for granted. For in no other language can the relief of forgive- 
 ness be so movingly expressed. 
 
 ircpicXciv : cf. ireplKeLTai, v. 2, and edirepicrTaTov, xii. 1. The word 
 is precisely appropriate to the context so charged with yearning for 
 freedom. Yet the author's instinct for rythm must have helped 
 him to find it. Contrast &<f)aLpelv, v. 4, in both tense and prefix. 
 
 13. As in ch. i. the whole circle of the Incarnation and Kedemption 
 
 G2 
 
loo HEBREWS [10 13— 
 
 is contemplated in this paragraph about the Will. And, as there, 
 all closes on the oracle from Ps. ex., which tells of exaltation to the 
 throne in heaven, and then looks on to the great Advent ; cf . 1 Cor. 
 XV. 25. 
 
 14. TeT€X€CcrtK€v...d7iato|JL^vovs. As in Acts ii. 47 (roi>s <rwfo- 
 /i^vous), the thought of progress in the Christian life is not ex- 
 cluded. But the argument of the ep. as a whole would lead us to 
 recognise the succession of those who one after another in perpetuity 
 (ets rb dnjveKh) are called : Introd. iii. 18, 21. As there is one divine 
 will and all wills freed in it, so there is one achieved perfection and 
 each successive perfecting of men is by partaking in that one. 
 
 X. 19 — 25. The venture of faith. 
 
 19 So then, brothers, argument ended, let us clinch it by action. 
 We are emboldened to venture upon the way into the sanctuary, 
 
 20 spiritually united and vivified in the life-blood of Jesus. It is the way 
 which He inaugurated for us, a way fresh-slain yet living, the way that 
 leads through the veil into the inner shrine. But such figurative 
 language obscures the heart-touching reality— it is the way of His 
 flesh, the mystery of His union with us in the affections of suffering 
 
 21 manhood. And He who is the way is also the priest, the great priest 
 prophetically descried, who mediates as elder brother over the family 
 
 22 of God. Let us then draw near with genuine affection in the full 
 assurance which faith gives of spiritual truth. Our ritual is com- 
 plete ; and it is a ritual in which the eternal pervades and overflows 
 the visible. We are sprinkled, and at the touch of the blood of life 
 each heart has been purged of the consciousness of its own evil. The 
 body too has been bathed for its sojourn here with water of sacra- 
 
 23 mental purity. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope, so that 
 what we professed at baptism may not swerve in trial ; nor shall it, 
 for faithful is the Master to whose promise our confession answered. 
 
 24 And let us study one another for the provocation of mutual love and 
 
 25 emulation in noble deeds ; not neglecting the closer fellowship which 
 comes from common worship — nay, sirs, such manners are not good 
 — but rather contributing encouragement, and so much the more as 
 ye behold the Day drawing nearer, that Day of the Lord, on which the 
 hope of our confession was concentrated. 
 
 19. a8€X<|>oC. As in iii. 1 exhortation is deepened by the sense of 
 intimacy (cf. xiii. 22) and fellowship. So 4v atfxart instead of 8ik 
 (ix. 12), and the encouragement of united worship in v. 25. 
 
10 22] NOTES loi 
 
 20. TovT (ia-Tw TTJs (rapKos a-iihirol). *Th6 Greek liturgies and 
 almost all readers of the ep. iinderLtand^Jiliid to' rii^fer Itc /* the 
 
 veU": • >-• > •■^^^ V,:;^', ':/^\ \ '--, , 
 
 * ' Onely this veyle which thou hast broke 
 And must be broken yet in me, 
 This veyle I say is all the cloke 
 And cloud which shadows me from thee." 
 
 H. Vaughan, Cockcrowing. 
 
 But Westcott, after considering all the legitimate senses which 
 such an expression might bear, says, '* it remains surprising that 
 *the flesh' of Christ should be treated in any way as a veil, an 
 obstacle, to the vision of God in a place where stress is laid on His 
 humanity (iv ry aifxari ^Irjaov).** He therefore prefers, with Tyndale, 
 Coverdale, the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible, to take ttjs a-apKds 
 aifToO as gen. after dddv : *' By the new and living way which he hath 
 prepared for us through the veil, that is to say by his flesh." Such 
 emphatic final genitives are not uncommon ; see e.g. xii. 11, Acts iv. 
 33, James ii. 1, and Luke ii. 14, where Origen considered that evdodas 
 might be construed with elpi^ur}. Moreover the repetition etaodov... 
 odov, and the epithet Tp6<r4}aTov (which may have been supposed by 
 the author to mean properly "fresh -slain") in antithesis to fwo-ai/, 
 combine to keep the idea of "way" prominent throughout the 
 sentence. The "common-sense" of readers is against this, and it 
 is possible that Westcott, with the more exact expressions of S. John 
 in his mind, has been needlessly offended by a verbal inconsistency in 
 this author, who strikes out a first sketch of the sacramental language 
 elaborated by S. John. That is possible but improbable ; the subtle 
 nicety of the author's phraseology and the sanity of Westcott's 
 judgement grow upon the patient reader : Intr. in. 15. 
 
 21. i€p4a...Tov 6€ov. A reference, as in iii. 1, to Num. xii., 
 but combined by lep4a jxiyav with the deep theology of Zeeh. vi, 
 
 11 ff. 
 
 22. airo (rvv€i8Tf(r€a)s ir. The prep, is recognised as natural 
 when it is remembered that avveldrjaLs has not yet taken the 
 definite modern sense: it is still a state rather than a part of 
 mind. 
 
 XcXovo-pilvoi. Washing the body is a natural symbol of inner wash- 
 ing, as has probably been always felt; cf. Aesch. fr. 32, koXoio-l Xodrpois 
 iKXeXov/j-ivos d^/j,as \ els vxf/iKprjfjLvop^lfi^pap dtpLKdfirjv. But no doubt there 
 is an allusion here to baptism, which throughout Acts and Epistles 
 fills so much of the background : cf. Joh. xiii. 10. In the whole sentence 
 ^Ye have an example of what Bengel rather loosely calls "chiasmus," 
 
I02 HEBF.EWS [10 22— 
 
 and says i^ the chaTpa6teristio' figure of the epistle. Ilpoo-epxuj/ie^a, 
 pepavT'tr/jL^voi^ rb' (roj/ji,a,*^^&aTi, are tKe more metaphorical or visual 
 termb.- ; Kapdias, ' (rw^cSTft/ewj, ^4Ko^icih6vol, Kadapcp touch the spirit 
 more directly. The antithetical weaving of the sentence draws the 
 attention inward and onward to the unseen : * ' Let us draw near, but 
 to the unseen shrine of faith ; let us use ritual, but the simplest, the 
 most cleansing; let us rejoice in our baptism, but remembering that 
 baptism is the appeal of conscience to God," cf. 1 Pet. iii. 21, 1 John 
 iii. 19 f. We might say that the washing is general symbolism, 
 but the associated thought of baptism gives further point as in 
 Shakespeare, H.Vyi.2, " That what you speak is in your conscience 
 wash'd As pure as sin with baptism." It is possible to imagine 
 another connexion between these two clauses, viz. that while \e\ov- 
 ajxivoL points to baptism, j^epavTiafx^vot poijits to the chalice of the Blood 
 of Christ. The reader must consider whether or no such interpre- 
 tation fits the whole context of the epistle ; Intr. ii. 4, in. 21. For the 
 ritual and moral significance of ^epavTLo-fji^voL see Hort's thorough and 
 profound examination into the nse of poMTiafibv aijULaros I. X., 1 Pet. 
 i. 2. He shows that " The sprinkling of blood on the altar is repre- 
 sented by the sacrifice of the Cross. . .the virtue of which proceeded from 
 nothing cognisable by the outward senses, but from the inner yielding 
 up of the very life for the sake of men at the Father's will ' ' ; that 
 '* Obedience was the form of moral good which the preparatory dis- 
 pensation of law could best teach. Under the higher dispensation 
 of grace it lost none of its necessity : the sprinkled blood enlarged its 
 scope, while it filled it with a new spirit and sustained it with a 
 new power"; and that to S. Peter and the seer of the Apocalypse 
 *' The blood of martyrdom was in some sense comprehended in 'the 
 blood of the Lamb,' of Him who is called ' the faithful Witness,' or 
 Martyr." 
 
 The punctuation might be made after wovqpas. But apart from 
 the considerations touched upon above, the abrupt commencement 
 Kar^X^/^^^t /f.T.X. is quite in the manner of our author: Intr. v. 8. 
 
 23. eXirCSos. "Faith " of A.V. was not found in earlier versions 
 and is without authority. The mistake has affected A.V. heading. 
 The slip was easy : in cod. armach. of vg. Jldei was written and 
 afterwards corrected to spei in vi. 11. 
 
 24. irapolvo-iidv d'yd'infjs. Such paradoxes are not unfrequent in 
 N.T. ; cf. Mark iii. 5, 1 Thess. iv. 11 ; also Clem. E. Iviii and Ixii, 
 iKT€V7}s iineiKeLa. So in 2 Cor. iii. 17 the Bishop of Ely would read, 
 o5 5e t6 TTPevfia Kvpieijei, iXevdepia, JTS, Oct. 1915. 
 
 26. fTria-vva.y(ayr\v. In 2 Thess. ii. 1 of joining Christ in the 
 
10 26] NOTES 103 
 
 day of coming. And here, as in Didache xvi, gathering for worship 
 is connected with that hope. The common worship is preparation 
 for, even a sacrament of, the gathering together of all in Christ. 
 And this the more evidently because here Christ's immediate coming 
 in the crisis of the time is especially in view. 
 
 X. 26 — 31. In gospel truth no subterfuge for sin. 
 
 Away with fastidious hesitation ; the coming trial is of tremendous 26 
 import. Eor there is no more question of sins of inadvertence as in 
 the old Law ; nay the whole of that old Law with its technical sin- 
 offerings is gone by. If we now persist in wilful sin after receiving 
 the knowledge which discerns real instead of conventional truth, 
 nought remains but an expectation of judgement, the more fearful for 27 
 our incapacity of defining it in terms of human imagination — it is 
 what the prophet meant when he told how God had predestined 
 '*a fierce jealousy of fire to eat up His adversaries." Do not be 
 adversaries of God. When a man has set Moses' Law at nought, he 28 
 is out of reach of all human pity ; * ' on the evidence of two or three 
 witnesses," we read, "he dies." How much worse, think ye, shall 29 
 be the estimate of his penalty who shall have trampled on the Son 
 of God, and accounted as a vile thing the Blood of the Covenant in 
 which he received his consecration to our Lord's service, and shall 
 have insolently used the Spirit who breathes God's grace? Argument 30 
 is needless; we know without telling Him who said, "Judgement is 
 mine, I will repay" : and again, " The Lord will vindicate his own 
 people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, the 31 
 living One. 
 
 26. 6irC7v&)criv = knowledge ; not in the abstract, but directed 
 towards a particular object. See Eobinson, Ephesians, pp. 248 — 254 ; 
 and cf. John i. 17. 
 
 ovK€Ti...6v<rCa. Like vi. 4ff., xii. 17, this almost appears to 
 contradict the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. Yet closer exami- 
 nation shews that "sacrifice for sins" is an O.T. term, and that 
 the latter half of the verse is but a repetition of v. 18. What 
 does "remain" is indeed fearful. Here, as elsewhere, the ruin 
 involved in a base choice at the crisis with which the readers are 
 confronted is emphatically stated. Yet such ruin is too mysterious 
 to be humanly defined: hence the ns. As in 2 Tim. iv. 14, O.T. 
 language is quoted (Isa. xxvi. 11, LXX) to adumbrate what the 
 author presumes not to explain. And in all such fears or threats 
 S. Paul's principle (1 Cor. v. 5) is presupposed: Intr. iii. 20. 
 
I04 HEBREWS [10 28— 
 
 28. eirl 8vorlv...a'iroOviicrK€i. From Deut. xvii. 6. The curious 
 addition in DJt (vt."**"'") ^ (hi.*) /cat daKp^jcop after olKTtpfiwp, may be 
 a modified reminiscence of a phrase in the same section of Deut., 
 xiii. 8. 
 
 29. TO aljia t. 8ia6TfKTis. From Ex. xxiv, as in ix. 20, but here 
 raised to a higher power by the preceding " Son of God." 
 
 t6 irv€v|jia TTJs x*P'''''os- "^^^ following reff. will shew how 
 difficult it is for us, accustomed to the developed language of Trini- 
 tarian doctrine, to appreciate the delicate shades of meaning that 
 attach to combinations of irv. with other words in N.T., Kom. viii. 15 
 of. 1 John iv. 6, 1 Cor. ii. 12, 2 Cor. iv. 13, Eph. i. 13, 2 Thess. ii. 8. 
 But it must be remembered that a heritage of Jewish thought made 
 the personal conception of Spirit more natural than any vague idea of 
 influence : Intr. iii. 29. 
 
 *'The grace" is the gift of new life which Christians received, 
 not merely in general, but with special intensity for meeting their 
 several trials. The Spirit of this grace is, from one point of view, 
 the " breath " of God who brings the grace (cf. John xx. 22 f.) : from 
 another, the breath of new life within springing from this grace. 
 
 30. i|JLol 4K8£KT)oris...Kpivei Kvpios. Quoted from Deut. xxxii. 
 35 f . The second sentence agrees with LXX, the former does not. 
 But it corresponds exactly with a quotation of the same four words in 
 Rom. xii. 19, and it represents the Hebrew fairly. Since it agrees with 
 the Targum of Onkelos still more closely, we cannot certainly infer 
 that the author remembered S. Paul's words when he wrote this 
 verse, as is likely however, since the Pauline faith-text follows 
 almost immediately in v. 37 ; cf. xi. 33, where there seems to be 
 a reminiscence, not of the LXX of Daniel, but of some version 
 which re-appears in Theodotion. More interesting is S. Paul's 
 purpose in quoting. He gives the words the meaning they bear in 
 the original context : God's people may be secure, for He will judge 
 between them and their enemies. Our author seems to give them 
 a precisely opposite meaning. Yet if the choice before his readers 
 was between a false patriotism and "in quietness and confidence 
 shall be your strength," the original intention of the sentence would 
 presently recur to them. 
 
10 34] NOTES 105 
 
 X. 32—39. First love an education for the supreme 
 
 VENTURE OF FAITH. 
 
 And call to mind the early days when, freshly enlightened by the 32 
 Day spring of the Gospel, you faced like stout athletes much trial 
 of sufferings. On the one hand you were then a spectacle to the 33 
 populace by the insults and afflictions you endured; on the other 
 hand this gave you the assurance that you had really been made 
 comrades of the men whose chosen lot was a life like that. Your 34 
 comradeship you shewed by compassion towards our brothers in 
 prison ; your own hardship you transformed by accepting the seizure 
 of your property with joy, recognising in your new knowledge that 
 so long as you were masters of yourselves you had a better possession 
 than material wealth, and a possession that abides. Do not then 35 
 cast off that daring mood which so became you then and is now 
 designed to reap a plenteous harvest. For brave endurance is what 36 
 the times now call for, in order that you may do the duty which 
 God wills and then carry home what the prophets have proclaimed. ' 
 For there is yet but ** a very little while." He (thus we may render 37 
 the dim early oraclfe precise to day). He who "cometh shall come 
 and shall not delay. And to my righteous servant life shall spring 33 
 from faith." Yet there is another verse on another note: "If he 
 shrink back my soul hath no pleasure in him." Well, as for us, we 39 
 have nothing to do with shrinking back to ruin ; our calling is the 
 faith that ventures all for a life in harmony with God's over-ruling of 
 the adverse world. 
 
 32. <|><i)Ttcre4vT€S, cf. vi. 4. The reading of K*, &fiapTias v/jlQu for 
 7}/jiipaSi looks like a "western" audacity prompted by the idea of 
 baptism; cf. Eom. v. 8. 
 
 33. d6X'n(ri.v...0eaTpit6|j.€voi. These metaphors are so like what 
 Clement (vi) says of the martyrdoms under Nero at Rome that they 
 seem to point to Roman Christians as the recipients of the letter. 
 But they are bookish metaphors (cf. xii. 1 f.), and the author may 
 possibly have S. Paul's phrase, 1 Cor. iv. 9, in mind. In D* di^ei- 
 dL^SfieJfoi stands instead of ^., which shews that the Neronian allusion 
 was not obvious in early days. 
 
 34. Tots 8€o-jjlCois. Here the v. 11. ^4 Seafxlois p" AD*H 33 
 424** 442 1908 al. U (vg.) ^ (vg. hi.) e (boh) ^ Chr. al.: 
 Tois dea-fjLois ixov 5<D«6otl (vt.) <25t]^ Clem., Orig.coc?. : roh dea/uLois 
 Orig.cod* : uinculorum tormenta U (vt."*) suggest that tois dea^xoh 
 fjLov arose from an earlier mistake deafxois for Seo-yuiots. Once ad- 
 
io6 HEBREWS [10 ad- 
 
 mitted, Tois heaixoh fiov became an argument for Pauline authorship; 
 cf. PhU. i. 7, 13 f., 17, Col. iv. 18, Philem. 10, 2 Tim. ii. 9; Intr. ii. 2. 
 The parallel to the true reading is xiii. 3 infra. 
 
 lavTovs. eavTods p^^ J^AH al.pauc. iL<!5 (boh.) Clem. (Orig.) Cosm. | 
 Euthal.cod. al. : iavrois D al. Chr. al. : iv eavTois minusc, pauc. 
 dirap^Lv sine additam. pi3 &<*AD*H* 33 He (boh.) O^tt Clem. Orig. : 
 add. iv oupavots N"D^H**co^ (vg. hi.) ^ Chr. Euthal.cod. Cosm. |aZ. 
 Here again early corruption has marred the freshness of the thought, 
 with which cf. Luke xxi. 19. Once the private will has been lost and 
 found in God's will (x. 10), the self or soul is infinite riches. The 
 addition of iv ovpavois imports an idea of future recompense which 
 is quite alien to the context. 
 
 For a theological comment on the value of " self " see 2 Cor. xiii. 
 5, 1j ovK iTnyivdiaK€T€ eavrods oTL'lrjaovs XpLaros iv v/juv ; and Maurice's 
 pathetic explanation of this to his troubled mother (Li/e, i. ch. xi) 
 " ...The truth is that every man is in Christ; the condemnation of 
 every man is that he will not own the truth ; he will not act as if this 
 were true, he will not believe that which is the truth, that, except he 
 were joined to Christ, he could not think, breathe, live a single 
 hour.... Separate from Christ, I can bear no fruit, to God. Separate 
 from Christ, I am separate from every one of my brethren...." 
 
 And cf . the language of Themistocles after Salamis : eOprj/jia yhp 
 evpi^KUfxev Tj/uiias re aifro^s Kal t^v 'EXXctSa, vi^os roaovrov dvOpwiruv 
 dv<»)adfievoi...Tdd€ yap ovk rjfieh KaTcpyaaafieda, dXXa deoL re Kali]po}€S, 
 Hdt. viii. 109. 
 
 35. jitj diropdXT]r€. Field writes: "A.V. 'Cast not away....' 
 The rendering of the Vulgate is Nolite amittere, which is the more 
 common meaning of the word, ' Lose not, let not go,' the opposite of 
 which is Kara<TX€iv t7]v rr. (ch. iii. 6)." He gives quotations which 
 are highly illustrative of this ep. : didoiKu firj riXews diro^aXrjre Tr)v 
 irapprjcrlav, Dio Chrys. Or. xxxiv. p. 425 ; vuv de rod irXeiovos dpeySfxevoL, 
 Kal TT]v T7JS irporipas vlktjs dd^av dire^aXov, Dion. Hal. Ant. viii. 86. 
 
 37. ?Tt ydp. pi3 omits yap, thus producing a vigorous abruptness 
 as in V. 23. 
 
 The quotation is from Hab. ii. 3 f., introduced by a phrase from 
 Is. xxvi. 20, another "advent" passage. The clause, idv viroarei- 
 Xrirai x.r.X., precedes 6 di diKaios k.t.X. in Hab. Here it is postponed 
 to V. 38, and further emphasised by the prefixed KaL. As here, so in 
 LXX, there is some uncertainty about the insertion and position of 
 fiov. But what is important is the author's bold addition of 6 to 
 ipxo/iievot, by which he adapts O.T. language to the Church's expec- 
 tation of the coming of Christ. In LXX ipx* v^ei represents the 
 
10 39] NOTES 107 
 
 emphatic Hebrew "shall indeed come"; who shall come, is left 
 mysteriously vague. In the Hebrew it is "the vision" that comes. 
 Thus Hebrew, LXX, and ep. represent three stages in Messianic 
 thought, corresponding to the three periods to which they belong. 
 39. ircpnToCTjo-iv. Cf. 1 Thess. v. 9, 2 Thess. ii. 14, both "advent" 
 contexts. The noun seems a late formation from irepLiroUwy cf. 1 Pet. 
 ii. 9 with LXX of Isa. xliii. 21, Mai. iii. 17; also Plat. Def. 415, (rcoTrjpia 
 IT. djSXajST??, and Haggai ii. 9, elpi^vrjv ^vxv^ eZs TrepnroLrjaLJf. It is 
 difficult to avoid recognising a reference to the saying of our Lord 
 which in Luke xvii. 33 takes the form, 6$ iciv tv^rjari t7]v ^vxhv adrov 
 'TrepLTToii^cracrdaL diroX^aet avTT^v, 6s 5' av diro\4(T€L ^woyovqiTeL aiiT'qu, 
 (Cf. Acts XX. 28, the only other place in N.T. except 1 Tim. iii. 13 
 where this verb is used.) In Luke too the context is an "advent" 
 prophecy ; but the verb seems to have been difficult to coarser under- 
 standings and in the later text became aCoo-ai. Nor does the noun 
 occur in N.T. except in the passages already referred to, and Eph. 
 i. 14, els dwoX^Tpwo-Lv T^s irepnroLi^ffewSi a difficult phrase which the 
 Dean of Wells explains (as in 1 Pet. ii. 9) from the concrete idea of 
 LXX; "that ultimate emancipation by which God shall claim us 
 finally as His * peculiar treasure.' " Westcott^ however sees a larger 
 promise in t^s tt. — "all that which God has made His own in earth 
 and heaven, not men only who had fallen from Him, and earth which 
 had shared the consequences of man's fall, but all created things, 
 gathered together in the last crisis of their history.., God in His infinite 
 patience and love wins His creatures to Himself... The thought is 
 of the complete fulfilment of God's purpose." This appears to suit 
 the general character of Ephesians and the absolute use of tt. in that 
 verse. In our passage there is a difference ; tt. has changed position, 
 and gaining the grammatical government of the phrase has lost its 
 principality in the idea. Here the emphasis is on ^ux^^j a^^d the 
 interest is in that process or crisis of life by which the "soul" 
 reaches freedom. "A living being has a body; the soul takes 
 possession of it and without intermediary has objectified itself in it. 
 The human soul has much to do, before it makes its corporeal nature 
 into a means. Man must, as it were, take possession of his body, so 
 that it may be an instrument of his soul 2." The author desires that 
 his friends may so truly get possession of their souls that they 
 may become masters of the circumstances which endanger them. 
 They are to "come to themselves"; to realise the true harmony 
 between the ideal of the Christian calling, and the difficulties pre- 
 
 * St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, Macmillaii, 1906. 
 2 The Logic of Hegel, transl. W. Wallace, § 208, cf. § 216. 
 
io8 HEBREWS [10 39 
 
 sented by the seeming, external necessity of taking a lower choice. 
 When this friction shall be serenely accepted as the divinely fit 
 means of destined advance (cf. (pepu/jLcda, vi. 1) they will have 
 entered upon ''possession of soul," which is the happy state of 
 faith, consequent upon the venture of faith. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 XI. 1 — 3. Faith and the eternal order. 
 
 And, let men say what they will, there is such a power as faith. 1 
 It is the heart of hope ; it sifts fancy from reality when we reach into 
 the unseen. Faith is ; for in the impulse and strength of faith alone 2 
 did the men of old time win their place in the roll of scripture heroes. 
 It is by faith that we get intelligence to comprehend how the ages 3 
 have been adjusted and re-adjusted by God's decree, so that we may 
 not think that the course of history has come about from the surface 
 play of passions and accidents. 
 
 For this description of faith see Intr. iii. 33, v. 11. Add these 
 quotations from Windisch : 
 
 7j TritTTLS Toivvv icTTLv drf/LS tQ)v dd-qXojVj <p7}<Ti, Kal els T7]v ai)rriv rots 
 opta/uL^voLS ^ipei trXrjpotpoplap to. /at; 6p(biJL€va...4Tr€idT] yap rA iv Att^Si 
 dwirdaTara eTvaL 8ok€i, 97 irlarTis virbcrTaaiv avroh x^ip^ieTaf /jloLXXov 
 5k ov xctptferat, d\\' avTo iariv ovaia avTwVj Chrysostom, t. xiii. 
 p. 197»'^ 
 
 did Kal TTtcreucrat X^yerai r<^ 0€(p irpCoTOS (sc. ^A^paafx), iTreidri Kal 
 TTpCjTos clkXivt) Kal ^e^alav ^ax^v virqXijxI/iv, tos iariv ^v atriov rd avta- 
 TOLTta Kal wpopoeT tov re koj/jlov Kal tQv iv avT(^, Philo, de virt. 216, 
 p. 442. 
 
 fjLovov ovv dxl/€v5ks Kal pi^aLov dyadov i) irpos Bebv wL<TTts...'rr\rjpu}fia 
 XP'^<^tG)v e\Tri8(t)v...^vxT]S iv airaffL ^€\tIo3<tls eirepyjpeLafxivqs Kal €(pLdpv- 
 fiivTjS T(} irdvTtav alriip Kal bvvajxivip fih iravra, ^ov\ofj,iv(p dk ra 
 apio-ra, Philo, de Abr. 268, p. 39. 
 
 Add also Coleridge, Aids, Moral andKelig. Aph. xii., " in all finite 
 quantity there is an infinite, in all measure of time an eternal ; and 
 the latter are the basis, the substance, the true and abiding reality of 
 the former." 
 
 And Pindar, 01. i. 28 ff., glancing half cynically, yet with an 
 artist's reservation, at the uncertainty of faith, has coincidences 
 with the language of the epistle : 
 
 ^ davfiard iroXXd, Kai iroij ti Kal ^poruv (pdriv virkp rbv &\ad^ 
 \6yov 
 
no HEBREWS [11 1— 
 
 dedaLSdXjJihoi xpevSeaL ttolkLXols i^airaTiavTi fivOoi. 
 Xapts 5', airep airavTa rei^xc' ^o, jneiXixa. dvarot^, 
 iirKp^poKTa TLjxav /cat dniaTov ifi'qffaro TTiarbv 
 
 ^fl/Xevat TO TTOWOLKIS' 
 
 CLfi^pat 5* iTriXoitroi 
 fmpTvpes (TO(f>{i)TaTOi. 
 
 1. ^(TTtv, emphatic; the reality of faith rather than its definition 
 is insisted upon. Hence the following yap. 
 
 irpaYjJLaTwv, the order in p^^, irpa.yp.aTwv diroaTaais (sic) shews that 
 this word was read sometimes in the first clause. The rythm of the 
 true text seems better. So does the sense, for unless irp. be taken in 
 the vaguest sense, it scarcely fits iXiri^op-hcav. Faith gives subsistence 
 to any hope, existence to invisible fact. 
 
 For viroo-rao-is see notes on i. 3, iii. 14. *'EX€'yx<>s is the *' test " 
 or "trial" which shews a thing as it really is. Windisch quotes 
 from Epictetus, Dissert, iii. 10, 11, evddS' 6 ^Xe7xos rod irpdypLaros, rj 
 doKifxaala rod (piXoao^ovvTos. There it means the "account" which is 
 given in answer to this trial : so Socrates in his Apologia (39 c) said 
 that the Athenians would find, when he was gone, others to try or 
 expose their true characters with less sympathy than he had shewn 
 (ol i\4yxovT€s)t and that they vainly expected to escape "giving 
 account " (tov didovai ^Xeyxov rod ^iov). A.V. "evidence" is almost 
 a confusion of the two senses. " Test " seems to suit the context 
 here. 
 
 2. TavTQ. avry p^^ and two cursives ; the same variation is found 
 at xii. 15 where p^^ seems again to be in group that gives a{fTijs. Is 
 this the quietude of an Alexandrian corrector (Intr. ly. 2) ? Or did the 
 author himself throw the stress on the verb, ifiapTvpTfjdrjcraVf rather 
 than the pronoun? This verb is a striking one, and with its cognate 
 noun gathers deeper meaning as the argument proceeds; cf. xi. 39, 
 note. 
 
 3. alaJvas : cf. i. 2. The ref. is primarily to the creation, Gen. i. 
 But with this word the author takes a wider sweep. The idea of time 
 in aluipas — "ages" not "worlds" — is extended into faith in the 
 growing process of God's already perfect will, cf. x. 10. Thus moral 
 purpose enters creation. To the first readers of the ep. their own 
 troubled days appeared disorderly. Their friend's faith, seeing life 
 steadily and whole, perceived the divine continuity of history. 
 
 <|>aivop.4vci)v : our borrowed word phenomena just expresses the 
 meaning. Blass, 75. 7, says yu^ iK here = €k fxii, according to a 
 usage of good Greek, early and late. But it is more forcible to 
 construe /t^ with yeyovivat^ a perf. inf. which attracts the weight of 
 
113] NOTES III 
 
 the sentence to itself; Goodwin, § 109. The result of intelligent faith 
 is the conviction that * ' nullity and transitoriness constitute only the 
 superficial features and not the essence of the world ^." Blass 
 quotes the parallel in 2 Mace. vii. 28, 6tl oifK i^ dvrcav iiroirjaev aira 
 6 deos. Keaders of Philo will notice how often this chapter seems 
 to be connected with his writings. But the coincidences with the 
 Maccabean books are quite as remarkable. With Philo a general 
 community of thought and language is all that can be asserted. 
 Intr. III. 32, 33. 
 
 XI. 4 — 16. Faith and the patriarchs. 
 
 ** Still far beyond the range of actual touch, historical sympathy 
 sets the individual amid a kindred of great names.*' Wallace. 
 
 By faith Abel offered to God a more abundant sacrifice than Cain, 4 
 and through that sacrifice he received witness of his righteousness, 
 God himself witnessing to the rightness of his gifts ; and through the 
 sequel of the sacrifice he died and yet still speaketh. 
 
 By faith Enoch was taken away so as not to see death ; he was 5 
 not found, says the Scripture, for God took him. God took him 
 because He had pleasure in him, for before he was taken the witness 
 is recorded that "he hath pleased God." Apart from faith it is im- 6 
 possible to please ; for he who cometh to God's presence must by an 
 act of faith decide that God is, and that to those who diligently seek 
 Him He proves a good paymaster in affection. 
 
 By faith Noah received oracular warning of events not yet in 7 
 sight; he reverently heeded it, and prepared an ark for salvation, his 
 family's salvation. Thus he openly condemned the opinion of the 
 vulgar world, and became heir of the righteousness which developes 
 along the line of faith. 
 
 By faith Abraham obeyed the call, while it was yet in his ears, to 8 
 go forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance ; 
 and he went not knowing whither. By faith he entered like a 9 
 sojourner into a foreign land ; but it was indeed the home-land 
 where the divine promise would realise itself. He came as a sojourner 
 vowed to the life of tents, with Isaac and Jacob who were associated 
 with him in the succession of the same promise ; a sojourner in tents, 
 for he looked away from earth to the city that hath firm foundations, 10 
 whose designer and creator is God. 
 
 By faith too Sarah herself (doubter though she seemed) was 11 
 invigorated for the seed -sowing even when past the seasonable age, 
 
 1 Hegel, Logic, Wallace, p. 234, cf . supr. i. 10 flf. 
 
112 HEBREWS [114— 
 
 12 since she did account Him faithful that promised. And so, from 
 one man, from a man as good as dead, were born children like 
 the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand on the sea-shore 
 which is innumerable. 
 
 13 On the journey of faith these patriarchs all died; they did not 
 come home with the promises, but they saw them on the far horizon 
 and greeted them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on 
 
 14 earth. "On earth"; for those who use that form of creed make 
 
 15 manifest their search after a native land beyond. And if they had 
 been merely re-awakening the memory of that land from which 
 they came forth, they would have had opportunity to retrace their 
 
 16 steps. But now, you see, they are yearning for the better land, 
 that is the high heavenly one. And therefore infinite God is not 
 ashamed to answer to the homely title of ** their God"; for He 
 prepared, for them, a city. 
 
 4. irXeCova. A picturesque epithet which lent itself to the author's 
 weakness for alliteration. 
 
 Hort's judgment on the readings of the clause fAaprvpovvros ..rod 
 BeoO — avTov rov deov t<«D«a)IL (vt.*" vg.) ^ (vg. hi.) i^B (boh.) ^ Orig. 
 Chr. al.: avry rov Oeou p^^ Clem.: airov r<^ deip fc<* AD* 33? 
 ^tj) Euthal.*****- * — was that "the reading of the best mss. {airov 
 Tov 0€ov) is apparently a primitive error, due to mechanical permu- 
 tation, the true reading being that which Clem, alone has pre- 
 served." That reading is now supported by p^^. Yet Gen. iv. 4 might 
 perhaps have justified the emphasis laid by avrov on God's "own" 
 witness. 
 
 XaXci: so p^^^^ g^c . XaXetrat DcoH (vt.^) CKtl^ is the textus 
 receptus. Perhaps the influence of the Vulgate saved our A.V. from 
 such a jejune sentiment. "Immortality! Not here in human re- 
 membrance"; cf. Phil. Quod det pot., p. 200, 6 "A/SeX, t6 irapa- 
 do^drarov, dvyp-qrai re Kal ^. The pass, is rare ; in this sense of a 
 person being spoken about, perhaps unparalleled; of the mid. there 
 seems to be no example. 
 
 5. ji€T€t46t]. L. translatus est. Gen. v. 24 has Kai €{n]p4(TTrj<r€P 
 »Ef d)x T(^ Oedp' Kal o^x evplaKero 6tl fier^BrjKev avrbv 6 Oeos, which might 
 describe a calm and holy death. Wisd. iv. 10 is as reticent, unless 
 the part, be restricted in connexion to the verb, Kcd ^Qv fieTo^ii afiap- 
 T(a\G)v fx. Nor is Sirach xliv. 16 different, but in xlix. 14 something 
 miraculous is implied, o{)bk eh iKriadr} oXo$ 'Ej/wx tolovtos iirl rijs yijs, 
 Kai yap a^urbs dveX'^fitpdr) drro rijs yrjs. Our author, full of the one 
 great wonder of the Person of Christ, prefers mystery to miracle, and 
 restrains himself from speculation. 
 
11 13] NOTES 113 
 
 6. jjLio-OairoSoTTis. This does not imply mercenary religicA, but 
 trust which is really personaL respondet curis aequatque amorem. 
 Notice the full-sounding compounds; but p^^ has ^rjTovaiv. 
 
 7. cvXapTjOcls. Cf . V. 7, xii. 28 ; L. metuens is inadequate. 
 KaT€Kpiv€v. Cf. Luke xi. 31 f. This verb is rare compared with 
 
 Kplvo) in N.T., where only in Mark xvi. 16 and perhaps 2 Pet. ii. 6 is 
 God's "condemnation" of man asserted. 
 
 TTJs Kard irCo-Tiv 8iKaio<rvvT]S. S. Paul thinks rather of righteous- 
 ness springing "out of" faith; Rom. ix. 30, x. 6; cf. Rom. iii. 22, 
 iv. 11, 13, Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 8. For Abraham's " call " see Gen. xii. 1 ; from the human point 
 of view, Gen. xi. 30 f. For his "sojourning," Gen. xxiii. 4. That 
 thought is taken up again in v. 13. The stages of its spiritual 
 development are to be observed in 1 Chr. xxix. 15 and Ps. xxxix. 
 (xxxviii.) 12. It is the core of that "other-worldly" idealism which 
 has always been characteristic of the Jew, appeared in utmost purity 
 in the Galilean Gospel, and is interpreted for a rising generation in 
 the rest of N.T. In this ep. the doctrine of faith is mainly an appeal 
 for the revival of that enthusiasm. 
 
 9. ^tjv TTJs Ixa-y-yeXCas. For this gen. of essential character cf. 
 ix. 5. In ^* r^s is omitted before the final ai)r^s of this verse. 
 A slip, no doubt ; yet the promise which the land owned (cf . xii. 4) 
 would be a pleasant thought. 
 
 11. KarapoX-qv is the proper word for "generation" rather than 
 "conception," cf. Rom. ix. 10. Hence W.H. propose avrj ^ppq. as 
 alternative spelling ; the early addition, [-^J arelpa o5(ra, would of 
 course be incompatible with that. Perhaps the active verbal noun is 
 not alien to the Greek language in which "we cannot say xaXeirdi/ 
 eifpia-Keadai, but only xctXeTrii' evpiaKeiVj^* Rutherford, §339. 
 
 Iircl irio-Tov ijyrjo-aTo, as in v, 27, the author goes against the 
 letter of O.T. (Gen. xviii. 12 ff.) to reach the general and pro- 
 founder truth. For S. Paul's application of the incident cf. Rom. 
 iv. 18 ff. 
 
 12. KaOttS rd otrrpa, k.t.X., from Gen. xxii. 17. 
 
 13. Kara irCoTiv dircGavov. Cf. v. 7 = " inthe way of faith." In 
 accordance with the metaphor that follows the author pictures faith 
 in terms of space, whereas S. Paul hardly varies from terms of 
 energy. 
 
 'Tropp(i)9€V...d,a"Trao*d(j.€voi. Like pilgrims who see the minarets of 
 the city on the horizon, and still must camp for one more night in the 
 desert. T.R. inserts kuI ireto-dipTes after Idovres with a curious paucity 
 of authority or sense. 
 
 HEBREWS H 
 
114 HEBREWS ^ [11 16— 
 
 16*. vOv...op^YovTai, pres., because the author, as usual, realises 
 written history as a vivid picture. Perhaps also because these pilgrim 
 fathers were still living and still waiting, cf. v. 40. But vdv must 
 be a particle of logic ; else koX vvv would have been required. 
 
 lirawrxvvcTat avrovs. The concordance seems to suggest that to 
 the N.T. writers iiraLO-x^vofiai sounded more natural than alax^- 
 vo/xat when an ace. follows : yet cf. ii. 11 and the author's general 
 tendency to use compounds. The meaning is rather "is not abashed 
 before them " — a boldly imaginative figure — than "ashamed of their 
 conduct." Cf. Plat. Symp. 216 b, ir^irovda irpbs tovtov ixovov av- 
 0p<jl)TrujVy 6 ovK &v Tis oioLTO iv ifioi ivelvai, to atVxi^^'eo'^ai ovtlvovv 
 iyi) bk TOVTOV fjibvov aiax^f^ofiai. Note the emphasis, ai/roi/s — a^Twv — 
 avTois, 
 
 ^TTiKaXcurOai, almost "to be surnamed," cf. Ex. iii. 15. The 
 author dissents from Philo's philosophic reverence, and follows the 
 early historians of Israel in dwelling on this homely, "human" 
 condescension in God. 
 
 XI. 17 — 31. Faith : the consecration and redemption 
 OF Israel. 
 
 17 By faith hath Abraham fulfilled the sacrifice of Isaac, though the 
 trial was hard: yea, the only begotten son was he in the act of 
 
 18 offering who had accepted the promises, unto whom it was said, 
 
 19 In Isa,ac shall a seed be called for thee. For he had made up his mind 
 that God, even from the dead, can raise to life. And from the dead 
 indeed, by a restoration that is a symbol for later faith, he did 
 recover him. 
 
 20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, and his blessing reached 
 into the purposes of God. 
 
 21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, distinguished the two sons of 
 Joseph as he blessed them ; and with the reverent insight of infirm 
 old age he worshipped leaning on the top of his staff. 
 
 22 By faith Joseph, as his end drew near, bade his brethren remember 
 that the children of Israel should go forth from Egypt, and gave 
 commandment concerning the removal of his own bones. 
 
 23 By faith Moses was hidden immediately after birth for three 
 months by his parents, because they saw how goodly the child was, 
 and they feared not the decree of the king. 
 
 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown a man, refused to be called 
 
 25 the son of Pharaoh's daughter, having made his choice rather to 
 suffer abiding affliction with the people of God than to have enjoy- 
 
11 20J NOTES IIS 
 
 ment of sin for a season. Greater riches in his reckoning than the 26 
 treasures of Egypt was the scorned estate of the Christ-bearing 
 nation; for he looked to the eternal service in which God pays the 
 wages. 
 
 By faith he left Egypt, but not because he feared the wrath 27 
 of the king; for he strengthened his resolution, as seeing Him who 
 is invisible. 
 
 By faith he celebrated the Passover (as Israel still does) and the 28 
 ritual of blood, that the destroyer of the first-born should not touch 
 them. 
 
 By faith they crossed the Ked Sea as by dry land. But the 29 
 Egyptians had enough of sea and were swallowed up. 
 
 By faith the walls of Jericho fell after the procession had gone 30 
 round them seven times in seven days. 
 
 By faith Eahab the harlot perished not with the infidels, because 31 
 she had received the spies with the hospitality of peace. 
 
 17. Trpo(r€VTivox€V, k.t.X., from Gen. xxii., but the perf . is in marked 
 contrast to the aorists of that narrative. "Sacrifice" is a metaphor 
 from ancient worship ; the reality such language points to lies in the 
 union of man's will with God, cf. x. 10. Thus Abraham is ever to 
 be regarded as having in fact sacrificed Isaac, though the slaying of 
 the boy was stayed. To our author the main argument of Gen. xxii. 
 is the eternal consecration of the nation, through Isaac, to the Lord. 
 Cf. the somewhat narrower application of the same thought in Ep. 
 Bam. vii. 3, iirel koI avrbs virep rCbv rj/JLer^ptav a/xapTiuiv ^/xeWev to 
 (TKCvos Tov irve^ffiaros irpoacpipeiv dvaiav^ tva kol 6 r^iros 6 yevdfxevos 
 iiri 'laaaK tov TrpoaepexO^Tos iwl to dvaia(XT'/)piov TeXeady. In Clem, 
 xxxi. Isaac himself is spoken of as a willing sacrifice, 'lo-aa/c /xera 
 ireiroLdTijarew^ yLvdjcTKUjv rb fjiiWop iidiui rrpoffiiyeTO Bvaia. 
 
 19. Kalcv irapaPoXTJ. Cf. ix. 9; but Camerarius, in the sixteenth 
 century, proposed to take eV 7r. = 7ra/oa/86Xws, as though "in the very 
 crisis of the hazard"; another of the bold paradoxes of the ep., 
 but hardly possible though a scholium on Thuc. i. 131 lends vague 
 support to it. 
 
 20 f. See Gen. xxvii., xlviii. The last words of v. 21 are quoted 
 from Gen. xlvii. 31, where IfXX pd^dov represents a different pointing 
 of the consonants which signify "bed" in the traditional Hebrew 
 text. Latt. render adoravit fastigium virgae eius. But cod. D of the 
 vulgate inserts super, and our English paraphrase, "leaning upon," is 
 legitimate. Our author certainly, and the LXX probably, had no 
 idea of Jacob's worshipping an image carved on his staff; cf. however 
 Gen. xxxi. 19, 1 Sam. xv. 23, xix. 13, Hos. iv. 12. 
 
 112 
 
ii6 HEBREWS [11 23-- 
 
 28 flf. See Ex. ii., of which these verses are verbally reminiscent, 
 as V. 28 is of Ex. xii. 21 ff . yeui/rjdels might possibly be construed 
 with iriffTei as referring to Ex. ii. 1 ; his parents were careful of his 
 pure Levitical descent. 
 
 26. Tov dv€i8i<rjxov tov xp^ttov. A reminiscence of Ps. Ixxxix. 
 (Ixxxviii.) 50 f., where "thine anointed," or "thy Christ," means the 
 people of Israel; Intr. ni. 6, 28, and i. 5, v. 5, notes. 
 
 27. J11] (|>oPt)6€Cs. This might refer to the exodus, and the 
 addition of a clause about killing the Egyptian, in D*3i (vt. yg.^^odd'j^ 
 to V. 23, was no doubt meant to commend that explanation. But "as 
 seeing the invisible" seems to point forward to fche burning bush, and 
 here as in S. Stephen's speech the spiritual education of Moses in the 
 wilderness is the proper sequel to his secular education in Pharaoh's 
 court, and the preparation for his redemptive work. The author 
 deliberately corrects the letter of Ex. ii. 14 by the deeper truth of 
 Moses' real courage, which he gathers from the whole context. 
 
 28. irpo<rxv<rtv : cf. ix. 21 f. The verb irpoaxelv is frequent in 
 the ritual chapters of the Pentateuch for the dashing of the sacrificial 
 blood against the altar, etc. 
 
 29. Tqv *Epv9pdv 0. So LXX for Hebrew * ' sea of reeds. " 
 ir€tpav XaPovTCs : cf. v. 36. Eield would translate, "had ex- 
 perience of," adducing many parallels. And in v, 37 he suggests 
 that iireipda-drja-av (which from the variety of readings might seem to 
 have come in as a gloss) was originally iTreipddrjaav and was intended 
 to explain tt. ^Xa^ov there. 
 
 XI. 32—38. Faith : from the Judges to the 
 Maccabees. 
 
 32 And what more am I to say ? For time shall fail me if I tell the 
 tale of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David too and Samuel 
 
 33 and the prophets : — who by faith overcame kingdoms, wrought 
 
 34 righteousness, won promises, stopped lions' mouths, quenched fire's 
 power, escaped the sword's edge, were made powerful when they 
 were weak, and strong in war ; they turned back armies of invaders ; 
 
 35 women received their dead by resurrection ; others were broken on 
 the wheel, having refused the deliverance that was offered them so 
 
 36 that they might attain the better resurrection ; others again had 
 bitter experience of mockings and scourgings, of bonds too and of 
 
 37 prison ; they were stoned, tortured, sawn asunder, died the death 
 of the sword, went about in sheepskins, in goatskins ; need, affliction, 
 
 38 evil estate was theirs continually ; men of whom the whole world 
 
11 37] NOTES T17 
 
 was unworthy wandered about deserts, were fugitives in mountains 
 and caves and holes in the ground. 
 
 32. 2a|iovi^\ Kal t«v irpo^j-qTcSv. Samuel, whose * ' ear the Lord 
 uncovered" (1 Sam. ix. 15), inaugurated or restored the line of "in- 
 spired" prophets; cf. 1 Sam. iii. 20 f., Amos iii. 7, Deut. xxxiv. 10, 
 and contrast 1 Sam. x. 10—13, xix. 23 f., 1 Kings xxii. 6 ff. 
 
 34. jjLaxaCpTjs. So p^^ &5AD* rightly ; fiaxaipas co : see Hort, 
 Intr. p. 156. 
 
 €8vva|ji(o6T](rav airb do-OcveCas. Eendel Harris^ sees a reference 
 to Judith in this verse. Cf. Clem. Iv. with Lightfoot's note. 
 
 irapcjxPoXds. In the quotation, xiii. 11, this word has the 
 meaning "camp," frequent in late Greek. Here it means "army 
 in line of battle," as often in Polybius and LXX. This is however 
 especially frequent in 1 Mace. And at this point the author seems 
 to turn his mind almost entirely to the Maccabean heroisms, 
 especially to the famous narrative of the Maccabean martyrs in 
 2 Mace. vi. and vii. — irpb fiaprtjpwv fxiyiaroi uLdprvpes, as the Prayer 
 Book of the Greek Church styles them. Thus "stopped the mouths 
 of the lions" looks like a verbal reminiscence of Dan. vi. 22. But 
 that particular Greek phrase is not in LXX of Daniel, we only know 
 it from Theodotion's version, and the general reference might be to 
 1 Maco. ii. GO. The women who received their dead may be those 
 mentioned in 1 Kings xvii. 17 ff., 2 Kings iv. 17 ff. But the thought 
 of "resurrection", is greatly deepened if the mother of the seven 
 martyrs is particularly included. See her noble words in 2 Mace. vii. 
 29. The " better resurrection" will then be a climax not a contrast, 
 and the reality of her receiving will be like the saving of our Lord 
 "out of death" in v. 7 f. 
 
 35. ■yvvaiKcs- So of course the mass of mss. But the consensus 
 of i5*AD*, especially if as is probable 53^^ must be added to the group, 
 shows that yvvalKas is the reading which the most ancient line of 
 transmission has preserved. Is it a " primitive error," or a faithful 
 record of the author's own slip of the pen ? 
 
 lrv\L'KavCarQ't\a-av J distenti sunt vg. ; a late word for a late form 
 of torture, which however can too well be translated into English 
 " broken upon the wheel." Cf. 2 Mace. vi. 28 ff. 
 
 37. eircipdo-Biicrav. See note on v. 29 supra. 
 
 l-irpCo-B-qo-av. Isaiah is said in an apocryphal book to have been 
 sawn asunder, but it would be strange to hark back here to an 
 
 ^ Side lights on N.T. research, pp. 170 f. 
 
ii8 HEBREWS [11 37—40 
 
 early prophet. Yet see Clem, xvii., who says that by those who went 
 about ** in goatskins and sheepskins preaching the advent of Christ," 
 he understands Elijah, Elisha and Ezekiel. Intr. ii. 4. 
 
 38. The punctuation of W.H. gives better rythm and more 
 vigorous sense than is got by putting <av..,b Kbafios in parenthesis. 
 The position of irXavibfxevot makes its slightly improper conjunction 
 with "caves and holes" quite tolerable. 
 
 XI. 39 — 40. Deferred fruition. 
 
 39 And yet all these, though canonised through faith in the witness 
 
 40 of scripture, lacked fruition of the promise ; inasmuch as God, with 
 us to day in view, had provided a better fulfilment than they could 
 conceive, that the completion of their blessedness might not be 
 achieved without our co-operation. 
 
 39. jiapTvp-qO^VTCS. This passage takes up the ifxapTvp-ndrjaav of 
 V. 2. In xii. 1 (fiaprOpiav) "being witnessed to" passes into "wit- 
 nessing": at each stage in the salutary sufferings of the Christ the 
 partakers of those sufferings become in their turn witnesses, and the 
 earthly scene is filled with invisible as well as visible spectators. 
 Indeed in xii. 1 we are not far from the idea of "martyrdom," cf. note 
 on xi. 2 supra, also cf. 1 Cor. iv. 9, 1 Pet. i. 11 f. (where notice* the 
 aflBnity with our author's doctrine of angels), v. 1, 9, 1 Tim. vi. 13, 
 and the testimony of the nations in Isa. lii. 13 — liii. 
 
 40. \i.r\ yjiapi^ i^fjiwv. In spite of xii. 23, it seems as though the 
 author presses this argument here -upon the little group of friends 
 whom he is urging to their imminent duty — the perfect satisfaction 
 of these O.T. saints waits for their hastening or hindering it. 
 Intr. m. 23. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 XII. 1 — 3. The martyrs' trial. 
 
 Now we in our turn are on trial. Those whose faithfulness was 1 
 attested in the past are now to attest ours. They are spread round 
 us like a cloud of spiritual spectators as we stand in the arena. 
 Therefore, though hesitation to do our appointed duty clings to us 
 like the wrap which the anxious athlete shrinks from casting off, let 
 not hesitation become the sin of refusal. Let us cast it off and run 
 with steady resolution the race that stretches before us, looking past 2 
 the fears of sense to Him who leads us into the mysteries of faith and 
 will lead us to their consummation ; even Jesus, who in the trial set 
 before His manhood balanced pain with heroic joy, and with a noble 
 scorn of shame resolutely faced the cross. So hath He been en- 
 throned on God's right hand. Mark Him well, for our contest is all 3 
 one with His ; what Korah-like gainsaying hath He so resolutely 
 endured from men who sinned against themselves in opposing Him. 
 Still men gainsay, and still His firmness gives us power, so that your 
 faint-heartedness need not end in failure. 
 
 1. v^<|>os. A common metaphor ; here particularly appropriate to 
 the gathering of "spirits,'* xii. 23. 
 
 cvTr€pC<rTaTov : not elsewhere except in passages dependent on this. 
 Vg. circumstans makes it active in sense like the preceding TrepiKeifievov. 
 The strange fragilem (sic) in d seems to point to the passive sense 
 which is preferred by some. Isocrates' TreplaTaros viro iraurcov sug- 
 gests " admired," the " specious" sin (cf. iii. 13), in which, if they 
 yield, their honour will stand rooted in dishonour. No vague 
 besetting sin is meant, but failure in the particular duty which the 
 ep. is written to urge. The picture here presented (cf. vi. 19 f.) is of 
 a race-course ; the O.T. heroes are watching to bear witness how the 
 readers of the ep. will acquit themselves : they, having Jesus now in 
 sight, who has run the same course and now sits visible on His 
 throne at the goal — note perf. KeKadtKev^ which at last marks a new 
 
I20 HEBREWS [121— 
 
 stage in the argument of the ep. — they are preparing to run the race. 
 This picture suggests an active sense for evtr. The sin which presses 
 on all sides upon the readers is like the wrap which the athlete, in the 
 anxious moments before the start, shrinks from laying aside— dTro- 
 bvriov ape. roifs iroWoifs tj/jlup xtTcDi/as, Porphyry, de ahstinentia. Cf. 
 Clem. vii. iv y^p t<^ avrcp ia-fih (TKafifiari, Kal 6 aiurbs ijfuv dyiov 4wL- 
 Keirai. dib diroXelTTOo/jLev rds Kevas Kui fiaraias (ppovTidas..,dTevi(r(afi€v elt 
 TO alfia Tov xp^<^Tov. 
 
 Tp^X^H-^v niight be used figuratively of any contest, but the foot- 
 race makes the best picture here. 
 
 TOV trpoK€C}i€vov. The Sixtine and Clementine vg. have ad pro- 
 positum certamen. Hence A.V. in its original text **unto the race." 
 Notice in the Prayer-Book how this passage helped Cosin to bring 
 the 1549 version of the collect for IV Advent into its fine present 
 form. 
 
 2. apx^^ov Kal tcXcwott v : cf. ii. 10. This has been well 
 rendered, "He who trod the path before us and trod it perfectly 
 to the end^." Yet the idea of a captain in arms is included. In 
 reXeiuT^v the author, who never labours his imagery, is passing from 
 the romantic picture to the realism ot vv. 3 f. 
 
 avrl rfjs irpoKCijJL^vqs avr^ x^-P^s* trpoKeLixhTjs corresponds to 
 irpoKelfxevov in last verse. Not the future reward but the immediate 
 •* joy of battle " is meant. Cf. Father R. M. Benson, Letters, p. 201, 
 •* The joy which comes after peace is a spurious joy, an earthly one, 
 if it is a joy because there is peace in our days " : Intr. iir. 7. 
 
 {iir^|j.€iv€V takes up vTrofiovrjs from preceding verse (cf. x. 32, 36), 
 and is echoed in vv. 3 and 7. The thought is characteristic of this 
 ep. of the divine manhood. " The message of the cross to sufferers 
 is this, that the highest and greatest victory that has ever been won 
 in human nature was won by the perseverance of faith, hope and 
 charity — in a word, by patience, — under the pressure of sufferings 
 that were neither removed nor mitigated, but endured; and that, 
 provided we can, by the grace of God, meet trouble in a spirit which 
 is essentially the same, however much weaker in degree, we may win 
 the same kind of victory in our measure 2." Cf. note on iv. 15, and 
 Intr. II. 15, in. 15. 
 
 3. T«v d|Ji. els lavTOvs. iav.Tovs ^5*D* (a^roi>s p^^ i<<' 33 Orig.) 
 it^ (vg.) <!5 (boh.) : iavrbt^ APH (vg.<''>'^<i)^ (hi.) : a^r^^/DccoOrig. (?) 
 Chr. The v. 11. shew the progress of error to aiirdv. Probably 
 a^ojJs, in nearly the same sense as eavroijs, was the original word; 
 
 1 Foundations, p. 192. 
 
 * F. M. Downton, in The Cowley Evangelist, June, 1914. 
 
12 5] NOTES • 121 
 
 see Blass, 48. 2, 7, and cf. xii. 16 where most mss. have atrov for 
 ioLVTov of i<*ACD^ ^^ ". The phrase is a reminiscence of Num. xvi. 37 
 (xvii. 2). Its bitterness is turned by the complementary utterance of 
 our Lord, Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
 XIL 4—13. Chastisement the revelation of the 
 Father's love. 
 
 In your wrestle with the threatening sin of these critical days you 4 
 have not yet had to face death, and you have forgotten the consola- 5 
 tion which comes to you like a father's voice pleading with his sons : 
 *' My son despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor yet faint when 
 thou art reproved by Him ; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, 6 
 and scourgeth every son whom He receive th." Wait manfully for 7 
 His chastisement. As with sons He dealeth with you, He who is 
 God. For is there ever a son whom a true father does not chasten ? 8 
 If you stay outside the discipline of the divine family into which the 
 whole suffering world of men have been initiated, you must be 
 bastards and not sons. And further : if we accepted the fathers who 9 
 begat us as disciplinarians and so learned to respect them, shall we 
 not much more readily submit to *'the Father of spirits" and so 
 rise to life? To the life, I mean, which is life indeed; for if they, 10 
 according to their poor judgement which looked forward but for a few 
 days, used to exercise discipline. He knows what is really for His 
 children's good and means them to share the holiness of His own 
 life. All chastening indeed seems at the moment to be a matter of 11 
 pain, not of joy; yet afterwards it yields fruit of peace to those who 
 have been trained thereby — the peace of righteousness. Wherefore 12 
 "the slackened hands and the palsied knees do ye set firm and 
 straight," and "straight paths be ye making for your feet," that 13 
 the lame folk be not led astray but rather be healed. 
 
 4. Ty\v djiaprfav. The article is significant: cf. note on iii. 13 
 and Intr. v. 5. The sin of failing in the one hard duty set before the 
 readers of the ep. at that very time is meant. 
 
 5. fJTts . . . SiaXc-yerai. As though discipline were a person, cf. 
 xi. 9, xii. 24. To our author the discipline of love raises natural 
 relationship into spiritual. Cf. Leonian Sacra mentarjr: BS qui 
 diligendo castigas et castigando nos refoves. 
 
 The quotation is from Pro v. iii. 11 f. It follows LXX with 
 the addition of /lcoi;, which is omitted in D* and a few other 
 
122 * HEBREWS [12 5— 
 
 authorities. Philo cites the verse with koI /jltj for fxridi^ and so p^^ 
 here. 
 
 7. els iraiSeCav. As often in the ep. some trial seems indicated 
 which is nigh but not yet come, cf . 1 Pet. iv. 12. But in textus receptus 
 the characteristic prep, has become c^, the foreboding is dulled, and the 
 cheerful faith in God's fatherhood is made dependent on His creatures' 
 resignation. 
 
 9. T<p IT. T«v irv€V|jLaTa)v. Cf. Num. xvi. 22, Apoc. xxii. 6, and 
 V. 23 in/r. Some printed edd. of ^ (vg.) give "fathers of spirits" 
 (i.e. "spiritual fathers " ?) here. That is a misprint or misreading of 
 the Mss. But the Armenian translation of Ephraem's commentaries 
 seems to shew that he actually had this reading in the older version 
 which he knew. 
 
 11. irdo-a [Uv. Another of our author's abrupt beginnings. The 
 v.l. 5^ shews that it offended early scholarship. 
 
 12. Tcis irap€t|A4vas...ttVop0«<raT6, from Isa. xxxv. 3 ; a close 
 rendering of Heb. ; yet there seems to be a reminiscence of LXX 
 also. 
 
 13. TO xo)X6v, prob. concrete '* lame persons," cf. ol ttoXXoi, 
 r. 15 ; Intr. v. 5. But, giving a later sense to the verb, we might 
 translate, "that your lameness grow not worse"; cf. Thuc. to 
 avei^Uvov ttjs yvibfirjs. 
 
 An adaptation of Prov. iv. 26, LXX. Most mss. have Troti^tT-are, 
 (pi3) ^♦p 33 TTotctre. Is TTOLelre an Alexandrine correction of the un- 
 suitable hexameter rythm ? Intr. iv. 2, v. 12. 
 
 XII. 14 — 17. Charity with loyalty. 
 
 14 Peace: Yes, '* pursue peace" with all men. But do not, for the 
 dream of peace, desert the consecrated fellowship outside of which no 
 
 15 one shall see the Lord at His coming. Keep that unviolated, continually 
 interesting yourselves in the brethren lest there should be any one in 
 lack of the common treasure of God's grace ; lest any root of bitter- 
 ness spring up into a noxious plant, and thereby the simple multitude 
 
 16 be defiled ; lest any one be corrupted with lewd heresy or worldly 
 ambition, as Esau was, who for one dish of food sold his proper birth- 
 
 17 right. For you know that when he did afterwards wish to claim his 
 inherited blessing he lost his plea— no *♦ place for afterthought" 
 was allowed in that court — though with tears he had sought diligently 
 to recover it. 
 
 14. €lpTivT|v 8iwK€TC. Cf. Ps. xxxiv. (xxxiii.) 14, Rom. xii. 18. 
 Tov a,-yia<rp.6v. A Pauline word, but here used in the more special 
 
12 17] NOTES 123 
 
 sense of LXX, the consecration which marks the people of God. So 
 2 Mace. ii. 17 : b bk debs b crwaas top woLvra \abv avToO^ Kai dirodods Trjp 
 K\7jp0P0filav a^Tov vdaiP Kai to ^aaiXeiop Kai r6 lepdTevjuLa Kai top 
 ayiao-fibp. It introduces a warning like those in vi. 4 ff., x. 26 f. ; 
 such a warning as was hardened later into extra ecclesiam nulla salus. 
 This warning is in iambic metre and has almost a proverbial ring ; 
 but it is followed by a second iambic line which is too plainly due to 
 the author's carelessness. 
 
 16 f. |XTJ Tts: for ellipse of verb see Blass, 81. 2. The clause /at? 
 TLs...ipoxXv is from Deut. xxix. 18, where the corrected text of B 
 (adopted by Swete) has /nj Hs ijTiv iv v/jup pl^a dpu) <pvovja ip x^^V ^^^^ 
 iriKpig.. B* has cnoxAh which makes no sense preceded by io-Tip, and 
 (like the addition of iriKplas after pi^a in AF) shews how N.T. affected 
 the text of LXX. 'F^pox^S is probably due to our author's adapting 
 memory. Blass, 35. 5 note, thinks it was in his text of LXX. For 
 the sequence of thought cf. this coincidence or reminiscence in 
 Leighton quoted by Coleridge*: *'The boasted peaceableness about 
 questions of faith too often proceeds from a superficial temper, and 
 not seldom from a supercilious disdain of whatever has no marketable 
 use or value, and from indifference to religion itself. Toleration is a 
 herb of spontaneous growth in the soil of indifference ; but the weed 
 has none of the virtues of the medicinal plant, reared by humility in 
 the garden of zeal." 
 
 17. iKtriTiJo-as avrrfv. For Esau's profaneness and tears see 
 Gen. XXV. 33 f., xxvii. 30—40. The avT7)p might refer to '* the bless- 
 ing," and Gen. xxvii. 34 supports that explanation, which is adopted 
 by W.H. in their punctuation. The sense is much the same, whether 
 ** blessing" or "repentance" be referred to. Esau's hopeless loss 
 (which however is not represented in Gen. as eternal rejection from 
 God) is a warning to the readers of the ep. whose hesitation involves 
 a fearful risk of ruin. We find the phrase ** place of repentance " in 
 the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch Ixxxv., and the Latin 2 Esdr. ix. 12. 
 In these books, which were consolations to the Jews after the fall ol 
 Jerusalem in a.d. 70, the doctrine is that in the day of judgement 
 repentance will be no longer possible. In Wisd. xii. 10, 20, the same 
 phrase occurs in praise of " the God of the fathers and Lord of 
 his own mercy" who gives so many opportunities of repentance. 
 Westcott quotes from Pliny's letter (x. 97) to Trajan on the Christians: 
 ex quo facile est opinari quae turba hominum emendari possit, si sit 
 locus poenitentiae ; and from Ulpian, as though it were a term of 
 
 1 Aids, Moral and Rel. Aph. xx /i. 
 
124 HEBREWS [12 17— 
 
 Boman law, in the third century at least. The phrase had wide 
 applications and need not have conveyed to the first readers the 
 theological hopelessness it suggests here to us ; Intr. in. 20. 
 
 XII. 18—27. The tremendous hazard in eternal 
 
 THINGS. 
 
 18 This is a stem warning, for in eternal things the issue of our 
 
 19 choice is tremendous. In this crisis you have come near to no 
 material fire of kindled stuff, to darkness and gloom and storm and 
 trumpet-clang and sound of words, of the which sound those who 
 
 20 heard it begged that they might have no further explanation. For 
 they had been moved beyond endurance by that awfully distinct 
 command, "If so much as a beast touch the mountain it shall be 
 
 21 stoned." And so fearful was the apparition, Moses said, " I am 
 
 22 beside myself with fear and all a-tremble." No, you stand on the 
 frontier of eternity, near to Sion the mount and city of the living 
 God, Jerusalem in heaven above ; and myriads of angels in festal 
 
 23 assembly ; and to the church of the firstborn, the patriarchal saints 
 whose names are enrolled in heaven; and to God the judge of all; 
 and to the spirits of those later saints whose righteousness has been 
 divinely perfected ; and to the mediator of the covenant which now 
 
 24 renews its youth, even to Jesus ; and to the Blood of that unearthly 
 ritual, tragic, personal, brotherly, which speaks, as Abel speaks, 
 unceasingly but with a meaning all divine. 
 
 25 See that you refuse Him not who is thus speaking. For if the 
 Israelites escaped not from God's purpose when in the limited and 
 earthly revelation at Sinai they had refused their human interpreter, 
 how much less we who are all but turning our back on our Lord who 
 
 26 speaks from heaven. That other voice at Sinai, the voice which 
 shook the earth, was His. And now too it is He whom we hear 
 proclaiming in the words of the ancient prophecy, '*Yet once more 
 
 27 will I myself shake " not only "earth" but also "heaven." That 
 "once more" signifies the removal of the things that are shaken, 
 I mean the whole fabric of institutions human and divine, in order 
 that the realities which are never shaken may come and abide. 
 
 18 — 21. These verses are full of reminiscences of Ex. xix. 11 — 13, 
 Deut. iv. 11 f., cf. also Deut. v. 22, ix. 19. But \l/7iKa(p(aixivi^ is the 
 author's own. Dco^ (hi.) ^ Ath. al. add opet, but the authority for 
 omission fc^AC 33 1908 lijb (vg.) C ^i\) Orig.^a*- Chr. al, is decisive. 
 To "understand" opet from v, 22 seems weak. It is possible to take 
 
12 23] NOTES 125 
 
 the partt. as neuters, expressing vague horror: •'Something tangible 
 and seared with j&re." But vg. has ad tractahilem et accensibilem 
 ignem. Dr E. C. Selwyn^ emends conjecturally ■jre(t>e\pa\u}^i^vtp to be 
 construed with opei, and says that k. irvpi could only mean "a fire 
 burnt out." If so, ** a tangible fire and presently burnt out" would 
 stand in good antithesis with 6 debs tjjxCov irup KaTava\L<rKov, at the 
 conclusion of this passage. But it is easier to explain the perfect 
 from the primary meaning of Kaiuy as "having been kindled." The 
 author's addition \l/7iXa(pwfiiv(p governs the clause. Exodus and 
 Deuteronomy express the terribleness of Sinai; he thinks of the 
 material quality of its terror in contrast with the invisible, personal, 
 spiritual richness of the mount and city of the living God, vv. 22 ff. 
 It is that inherent quality which he tries to suggest by this perf. 
 part. 
 
 19. irapT|Tij<ravTo, in all mss. except ^5*P and two cursives /xr; is 
 added. This is probably a correction of scrupulous grammarians; 
 for though irapaiTov/jiai. with ace, as in v, 2$ and Acts xxv. 11 (01) tt. 
 aTTodaveiv), or with direct inf., as Joseph, de vita sua 29 (davetu oi5 tt.), 
 means **beg to be excused from," with ace. and inf. it would as a 
 rule mean simply " beg." 
 
 21. TO <|>avTat6^€vov. A nicely selected word ; it gives to the whole 
 description what Victor Hugo in .his funeral oration on Balzac ex- 
 pressed as '* je ne sais quoi d'effar^ et de terrible mel6 au r6el." 
 
 ^VTpofxos. The agreement of X*D has persuaded W.H. to preserve 
 in mg. the otherwise unknown word ^KTpofMos. 
 
 22 f. For the heavenly Jerusalem cf . Apoc. iii. 12, xxi. 2, Gal. 
 iv. 26 f. with Lightfoot's note on S. Paul's use of *'an expression 
 familiar to rabbinical teachers." In O.T. too Sion and Jerusalem 
 have sacramental significance, see esp. Ps. Ixxxvii. Whether 'lep. iir. 
 be joined with iroXei 0. ^. or taken in apposition to the whole pre- 
 ceding clause, may be left to the reader's taste. Whether iravrjyijpei 
 be separated or not from dyy^Xuv is a more interesting question. 
 Tradition, including versions and punctuated mss., is on the whole 
 for taking these words together ; so vg. multorum milium angelorum 
 frequentiae. The author's penchant for iambic cadences makes for 
 this. For the liturgical tone of this passage see Intr. n. 4. 
 
 23. €KKXT](rig:. In the first division of Acts which tells of the 
 apostolic community in Jerusalem, e/c/cX. is reserved, in technical 
 sense— V. 11 is different— for the ancient Jewish Church. So pro- 
 ' in this ep. Hence the *' first-born" are O.T. saints, who are 
 
 1 JTS, Oct. 1910. 
 
126 HEBREWS [12 23-- 
 
 enrolled in heaven, even though xi. 40 should imply that the realisa- 
 tion of their birth-right is delayed. The daughter Church, the 
 disciples of Jesus, will then come in at kolI irvevfxacnv. The universal 
 KpLT^ 6€(p irdvTiav — looking back as judge and forward to His "all in 
 all" — (1 Cor. XV. 28)— connects the two. 
 
 irpwT. diroY€7pa|i|i^vo)V. Cf. Ex. xxxii. 32, Ps. Ixxxvii. 6, Is. iv. 3, 
 Dan. vii. 10, xii. 1: R. M. Benson, Letters^ p. 220, "As the circle of 
 affectionate memories becomes enlarged in the heavenly record, we 
 learn increasingly the blessedness of the eternal bond which unites 
 us in the company of all saints." 
 
 irv€V|iao-i 8i,KaC(i>v tctcXciwiji^vcav. See Intr. iii. 23, 24, 25. D* 
 has irv€ij/j.aTi 5. rede/xeXnafiivojv spm iustorum funditorum : and Hilary 
 explains, spirituum in domino fundatorum, 
 
 24. SiaOi^KTis v4as. Kaipds, "new," has here become vios, 
 "young." Cf. Arist. Eth. i. 3, Sta^^pet 5' oi^Sh vios rrjv TjXidav ij 
 TO rjOos P€ap6s. Since v4ot can of course be used more generally, the 
 quasi-personification (cf. xii. 6) is not bizarre ; indeed it seems 
 natural in this picture of exultant life. In Gilbert's reredos at 
 S. Alban's Abbey the crown of thorns on the head of the Lord 
 rising from the tomb is just breaking into leaf. When the High Priest 
 entered the true sanctuary there was a renascence of the world. So 
 in 1 Pet. i. 3, "Who according to his great mercy begat us again (dm- 
 yew/jaas) unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
 the dead." Cf. Philo, sacr, Abel et Cain^ p. 178, irapa toO dynpo) Kai 
 viov 6eou rd via Kal kulvol dyadd fxerd irdcrris d^dovlas Xafi^dvovres e'/cSt- 
 ddffKiOPTai firjdep ijyeTadai irap avT(f iraXaibp 17 ffvp6\(as irapeXyjXvdSSf 
 dXXd yLpbtiepbv re dxpbpws Kai vtpearrfKds, 
 
 Ixeo-iT-Q, here with imaginative propriety; the mediator is not 
 merely the internuntius of God and man, He links the ancient church 
 with the new heirs. 
 
 25. Tov dir* ovpavwv. fc^ with limited but considerable support 
 has ovpapov : cf . note on iv. 14. 
 
 26. The shaking of heaven and earth is quoted with added 
 emphasis from Haggai (ii. 6), who prophesied when an older ritual 
 had passed away and a new worship was beginning with little outward 
 promise. 
 
 XII. 28—29. The Kingdom of God. 
 
 28 Those realities are what our fathers called The Kingdom of God ; 
 and that Kingdom which shall not pass away we are receiving in this 
 final issue of the ages. Wherefore let us shew gratitude, and in the 
 kingdom do loyal service well pleasing to God with reverence and 
 
12 29] NOTES 127 
 
 awe, for our God is, as He was of old, "Fire" — not material but 29 
 ** consuming." 
 
 28. pao-iXeCav. The ''kingdom" or "reign" of God was the 
 symbol by which salvation was preached and wrought in the Galilean 
 gospel. After the synoptists and Acts it falls into the background of 
 N.T, till the Apocalypse. But the primitive language now and then 
 reasserts itself as here : Intr. n. 11, ni. 32. For aadXevrov cf. Dan. 
 vii. 14. 
 
 iX<ay.iv xapi-v. ''^x^iv x^P'-^i habere gratiam, pro eo quod est gratias 
 agere, non est styli Apostolici : utuntur enim Apostoli passim verbo 
 evxapLo-reiVj^^ Estius. But this is one of our author's classical 
 niceties. He does not mean "give thanks," but "shew gratitude." 
 
 K here joins an inferior group in reading (x^f^^^- That spoils the 
 construction of the sentence, for \arpeixjiixev is a parallel independent 
 subj., not as in the latinism of viii. 3, dependent on the relative. 
 
 cvXa^cCas Kal 84ovs. 5^ous only here in N.T., and even here it has 
 disappeared in the late text, albov% kul eifXa^eias. The true reading in 
 Clem, ii., /xera deovs Kal <rvv€idri<r€(as, is an almost contemporary witness 
 to the originality of 5^ous in this passage. 
 
 29. irvp KaravaXCcTKOv, from Deut. iv. 24; cf. vv. 18 ff. supr. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 Ch. XIII. 1—6. Precepts of good churchmanship. 
 
 1 Let the brotherly love which has always bound together the family 
 
 2 of Christ continue to do so. Love is also due to those without, do not 
 forget it ; for through that wider love some have entertained angels 
 
 3 unawares. Be mindful of people in prison — in these perilous times 
 you are as good as prisoners yourselves ; and of those in misery or 
 want — the weakness of our mortal nature is the blessed source of 
 
 4 sympathy. Marriage? Everywhere honourable, and the marriage 
 bed always pure. I speak not of fornicators and adulterers; God 
 
 5 will judge them. A fine carelessness of money : eveiyone content 
 with daily bread. For it is the very Ipse dixit of God: "Be sure 
 
 6 I will not overlook thee ; most certainly I will not forsake thee." So 
 we Christians must be of good courage and repeat : * ' The Lokd is 
 my help, I will not fear. What shaU man do to me ? " 
 
 2. Cf . Eom. xii. 13, Gen. xviii. 3, xix. 2 ; for ^ev. in another 
 sense 1 Pet. iv. 4. 
 
 3. «s...€v 0-wp.ttTi. Cf. 2 Cor. v. 6 rather than Kom. xii. 5: 
 it rightly paraphrases, tamquam et ipsi in corpore mor antes, and 
 Virgil would have understood — mentem mortalia tangunt. 
 
 5. dpKov|A€voi. For this loose apposition see Blass 79. 10, but 
 cf . note on v. 8. The quot. is adapted from Deut. xxxi. 6, 8, Jos. i. 5 : 
 that in the next verse is from Ps. cxviii. (cxvii.) 6. 
 
 avTos, emphatic: cf. Clem. xvi. of "Christ Himself, in whose 
 person the Psalmist is speaking." 
 
 6. »<rT6 OappovvTtts, with this martyr-courage cf. the amorem 
 intellectualem Dei of Plato : oi>Kovp el del ij dXiJ^eta ijfjuu tQp 6vto)v 
 iarlv ip ttj ypvxQ dOdvaTos dv 7} ^vxr) €L7}, uxrre dappovvra xp^ ^ M-V 
 TU7X<i^ft5 iiriaTdfievos vvv, tovto 5' iffrlv 6 fX7] fie/xpyjfx^pos, eiCLX'^Lpe'lp 
 ^7)TeXp Kul dpafiLjUiP'^aKeadaL. Meno 86 b. 
 
 t£ iroitjorgt. This might be made dependent on ^o^yjdrjffofiai, 
 according to the ' ' Alexandrian and dialectical use of the interrogative 
 
13 7] NOTES 129 
 
 tIs instead of the relative ocrris,^^ cf. Mark xiv. 36, ov ri iyu) ^Aw, 
 ctXXA tL aijy Blass 50. 5. But, apart from the original context in LXX, 
 the more spirited interrogative form which W.H. prefer is far more 
 in keeping with the aphoristic style of this passage. 
 
 XIII. 7. Memorial of departed leaders. 
 
 Cherish the memory of your leaders, men who spoke to you the 7 
 word God gave them. And contemplating with ever fresh wonder the 
 supreme event of their career, be imitators of their faith. 
 
 7. T»v TJ70V|j,6va)v. Clement uses this word and also irporiyo^' 
 fievoL (i., xxi.) of the officers of the Church in a general sense : cf. 
 Luke xxii. 26. But Clement also uses it of civil or military rulers 
 (xxxvii.), and it is often applied to the leaders of the Jews in 1 and 
 2 Mace. This passage seems to imply teaching as a function of the 
 leadership, and to hint at martyrdom — for it has a militant ring. 
 But it is impossible to guess whether they were bishops, elders, 
 presidents at the eucharistic service, or founders of the community 
 to which the readers belonged. 
 
 XIII. 8 — 16. The sacrament of Calvary. 
 
 Jesus Christ, yesterday and to day the same ; yea, and while the 8 
 ages run. Elaborate precepts are rife which are as novel to Judaism 9 
 as to us. Do not swerve because of them from the onward course. 
 For it is a noble thing to have the heart founded deeper and deeper 
 by simple grace. But rules of food are mean — a trivial, disappointing 
 round. "We are beyond such cares ; the ministers of the tabernacle 10 
 partake of the sacrificial food ; our altar is of a different order. 
 Indeed it is in outward appearance more analogous to the place out- 11 
 side the camp where the refuse of the high priest's sacrifice was (as 
 we read) burned. It was on Calvary, outside Jerusalem, that Jesus, 12 
 in order to sanctify the people of God, suffered as a criminal. There- 13 
 fore let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing the burden 
 which associates us with His shame. With His shame; but also 
 with the inward spiritual reality of His sacrifice, for the city which 14 
 we must now leave was never our abiding home; but, beyond the 
 shows of sense, we seek the city God has destined for us. By the 15 
 priestly mediation of our Lord Jesus let us offer up a sacrifice which 
 prophets and psalmists loved, a sacrifice of praise which ascends to 
 God unhindered by all the changes and chances of ritual ; I mean 
 the "fruit of lips," the sweet mystery of language by which we 
 
 HEBREWS I 
 
I30 HEBREWS [13 8— 
 
 16 interpret our heartfelt devotion to His essential perfection. And do 
 not forget to be kind to one another and to share your earthly 
 goods ; for such acts are also sacrifices with which God is well 
 pleased. 
 
 8. No verb is required. As in the original Hebrew of the 
 Shema^ (Deut. vi. 4) this is a battle cry rather than a creed. Cf. 
 Maran atha = '^ Lord come ! " in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, and vv. 4 f. above. 
 
 9. •irapa<|)ep€<r0€. T.E. has perpetuated the trepKp^pecrde of a few 
 ancient authorities ; with that cf. Eph. iv. 14. But in this ep. the 
 danger is not of vague misbelief but of taking the wrong turn at 
 a particular choice ; cf. ii. 1, xii. 13. This might seem to recommend 
 the reading of most mss., oi irepLwaTr^ffavTes^ "those who have taken 
 to that walk," i.e. who have already made the wrong choice. But 
 the consensus of t<*AD*ii is almost decisive for oi TrepiiraTovvTeSf 
 and such a rendering of the aorist would not really suit the ep., in 
 which the trial is always envisaged as being imminent yet still future ; 
 cf. vi. 4—9, xii. 5—7. 
 
 XapiTt : cf . note on iv. 16. Here, as in ii. 9, the main idea seems 
 to be of the absolute bounty of God which can neither be disputed 
 nor measured. Yet something further makes itself felt. How far 
 does xa/>« in N.T. imply beauty of form or character — "the grace of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ"? There is certainly much feeling in N.T. 
 for that kind of x^P*-^ » o^^ Lord and the lilies ; S. Paul in Phil. iv. 8; 
 the frequent KoXbs in this epistle ; the dyyeXwp iravrjyipeL ; the love of 
 language, often so delicate in pathos ; the desiderium for the golden 
 splendour of the tabernacle, and (more exquisitely) for the tragic 
 simplicity of "the days of His flesh." 
 
 ppwp.acrtv. Cf. Kom. xiv., 1 Tim. iv. 3, Col. ii. 21 ff. The 
 reference is not to the rules of Leviticus, but to novel "unfitness 
 and irrelevance of teaching... barren and mischievous trivialities 
 usurping the office of religion^." 
 
 10 flF. Another picture, completing vi. 19 f., xii. 1 f. Here 
 Jesus, who in vi. is out of sight, in xii. in sight but distant, is to 
 be joined (13). And this imminent reality compels the author to 
 dissolve his picture almost while he draws it. The imagery is 
 thoroughly sacramental. When the Lord died on the cross, that 
 scene of "shame" (xii. 2), what could be seen was like the ofif- 
 scouring of a sacrifice (11 ; cf . Lev. xvi. 27). But what really took 
 place in the eternal sphere was the entrance of the divine High 
 Priest with His own sacrificial Blood into the presence of the Father. 
 
 * Hort« Judaistic Christianity , p. 134. 
 
13 17] NOTES 131 
 
 And the sacrament is complete, for we, says the author, are to 
 appropriate its efficacy by doing as He did in visible shame and 
 spiritual glory (13 f.; cf. ii. 9, vi. 20, xii. 4, xiii. 7, 20). The imagery 
 is borrowed from Levitical ritual, but no care is taken to make all 
 the details correspond ; that ritual is not obeyed as a type, it is merely 
 suggestive. Intr. ni. 5 and 7. 
 
 15. Cf. Ps. 1. (xlix.) 14, Lev. vii. 12 (2), 2 Chr. xxix. 31, Isa. Ivii. 
 19 (Heb.), Hos. xiv. 2. 
 
 The •* sacrifices " of these verses are not the same as that which 
 informs the whole theology of the ep. Christ's one sacrifice could not 
 be declined into the plural number. Here the idea is rather that even 
 in the ritual of Christian worship there is a more than adequate 
 substitute for the many sacrifices of Judaism. Nor was this doctrine 
 altogether strange to Jews. Philo and other, especially Hellenistic, 
 teachers had already recognised that it was enshrined in the Old 
 Testament for the deepening of religion. Intr. 11. 4, in. 13. 
 
 16. talihus enim hostiis promeretur Deus^ vg. ; "promeretur 
 passive dixit interpres, etsi parum latine," Estius: it is a survival 
 from the Old Latin. 
 
 XIII. 17. Loyalty to those on whom the burdens of 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY LIE HEAVILY. 
 
 Be pliant to your leaders' advice and commands. They bear the 17 
 weight of responsibility, and are watching through dark hours over 
 you, the living souls entrusted to them; they know the account that 
 must be rendered of such a charge. See to it that they may do their 
 duty with happy cheer and no occasion for groaning — that would 
 scarcely be to your profit. 
 
 17. d7pvirvov<riv. Can this be a reminiscence of the type of 
 leadership, S. Paul? See 2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 27. Or is it rather a 
 grim touch of reality in this document of the warfare that occupied 
 the comer of the apostolic Church to which this letter was written ? 
 There at any rate the command of the Lord was already approving 
 itself as necessary; Lvaypr}yop^...yp'r)yop€iTe odv...6 dk ifuv X^7a;, vaffLv 
 X^7w, yp-qyopeire^ Mark xiii. 35 f . 
 
 XIII. 18 — 21. Communion in prayer. 
 
 Think of us in your prayers ; for we would fain believe that our 18 
 inmost mind is known to God, and we desire nothing else than to be 
 true to His honour in all our dealings. And more than ever do 19 
 
 12 
 
132 HEBREWS [1318— 
 
 I beseech you to do this, in order that I may be the sooner restored 
 to you. 
 
 20 And may God who makes peace in troubled times, who brought 
 up from the dead the Shepherd of the sheep in the Blood of the 
 Eternal Covenant, that great shepherd of prophecy, the transmuter 
 of the ancient symbol of Life through Death into reality by His 
 
 21 obedience to God's will, even our Lord Jesus — may God confirm 
 your shrinking resolution with all or any driving force of goodness 
 for the doing of that duty which His will demands ; while He 
 continues to do with us (whose peace is already in His will) just that 
 which is well-pleasing in His sight ; may God do all this for you and 
 us through Jesus, now exalted as Christ, to whom be glory for 
 ever and ever: Amen, even so may God's will be done. 
 
 18. ii|Ji«v. The author says little about himself, and we cannot 
 tell precisely what he means by this plural. In v. 21, as well as here, 
 it implies community in conscience at least as much as in circum- 
 stances (cf. iv. 3). It might even be a modest way of saying "me"; 
 notice the modesty of assertion in Treiddfieea, and contrast Phil, 
 i. 25, ireTToidcds olSa, with Lightfoot's note. It is perhaps worth 
 remarking that a similar request for remembrance in prayer is 
 introduced in Eph. vi. 18 f. by dypvirvovpres (cf. v. 17 supra^ 
 dypvirvovaiv). 
 
 20. This blessing sums up the doctrine and purpose of the 
 epistle. It may be compared with the liturgical conclusion of 
 Clement's epistle, but the form is different. Clement's prayer re- 
 sembles the Greek liturgies ; this is like a western collect, terse 
 with close-knit movement, asking for a particular gift of grace: 
 Intr. n. 4. 
 
 In V. 20 there is the solemn invocation : in v. 21 the main petition 
 for the author's friends that they may be enabled to do their par- 
 ticular pressing duty (note the aor. iroLijaaL), continued into the 
 secondary petition for the author, and perhaps his fellow prisoners 
 or fellow sojourners, that God's will may still be theirs. And all 
 ends with the mediation of Jesus Christ, and a doxology which in the 
 context seems to be addressed to Him in glory. 
 
 The passage from "our Lord Jesus" who did His duty in the 
 days of His flesh, to "Jesus Christ" who has thus been perfected 
 in His glorious office, is parallel to the passage from the author's 
 petition for his friends to his petition for himself — their will is not 
 yet lost and found in God's will, his own is. "Through Jesus 
 Christ" is more than "through Him I offer prayer," It corre- 
 
13 22] NOTES 135 
 
 spends to the faith of the whole ep., that loyalty to Jesus the 
 Lord is possible through His assumption of manhood into God. 
 
 But all this antithesis and particularity is lost in the later text 
 which gives iravri ^pyip dyadi} for the ir. dya0(^ of b^D*|t(i|B (boh.) 
 Greg.-Nyss. Eutha^'*'* Fulg., and vfuv for the ijiuuv of XDM33 1908 
 5> (vg.) (B (boh.) ^. Another addition, which did not get into textus 
 receptus, is XpLo-rbv after 'Irjaovv ; so D* and some mss. of vg. ; and 
 so Andrewes has it in his Preces Privatae. All these are modifi- 
 cations which (like eireffK^if/aro for einaKixpeTai^ Luke i. 78) fitted 
 the special prayer of the author to the general conditions of church 
 worship. So too, perhaps, the ** Amen" at the end of the ep. which 
 K*33il(vg.<'«'^)aomit. 
 
 The ai)r(J iroiGiv which W.H. place in mg. of v. 21 on account of 
 its very strong attestation (b^*AC*33*<i^ (boh.?) Greg.-Nyss.) is thought 
 by them to be a "primitive error" for avrb^ ir. The correction 
 actually appears in 1912 ft (vt.**)» and it would invigorate the "par- 
 ticularity ' ' of the original prayer. 
 
 For the prophetic phraseology of v. 20 see Isa. Ixiii. 11, Zech. ix. 
 11, Isa. Iv. 3, Ez. xxxvii. 26. 
 
 **Amen" is explained by 2 Cor. 1. 20, Apoc. xxii. 20. 
 
 'Ev IT. dyad(} might be illustrated from the iraPTi rpdinp etre vpo- 
 ipdaei etre aXyjOelq. of Phil. 1. 18, or at any rate from 1 Cor. ix. 22, roii 
 TrdcTLV yiyova irdvTa 'iva irdvTcas tipols (Tiacta. If ' ' the living principle, the 
 law within" them be not clear enough, then let any good motive be 
 supplied that may drive them to the venture. 
 
 XIII. 22—25. Final words. 
 
 And, brothers, if this be too stern a treatise of exhortation, bear 22 
 with it. I exhort you now in quite another tone. For here you see 
 I am sending you also a real letter. 
 
 You know — or let me tell you, that our brother Timothy is at 23 
 liberty. Accompanied by him, if he comes here reasonably soon, 
 I will see you. 
 
 Greeting to all your leaders and to all the members of our holy 24 
 Church. The brothers of Italy send greeting to you. 
 
 And now, in the words of one we all know and shall ever love, 25 
 *• Grace be with you all." 
 
 22. dv^x^<r9€ : more intimate and affectionate than the inf. of 
 W.H. mg. The "exhortation" of the author has been long and 
 sometimes stern. Like S. Paul at the end of Galatians, he " softens 
 
134 HEBREWS [1322 
 
 the severity" by "Brothers." He adds a further courtesy; koX and 
 yap may be taken separately, and the clause thus introduced will 
 refer to the kindly conclusion of a "letter" which had in its earlier 
 pages grown into a treatise: so apparently A.V. Nor would the 
 gentle play upon 7rapaK^aXc3...7rapa/cXr;<recos be scorned. According to 
 this interpretation iir^aTeiXa is epistolary aor., "I write" or 
 "have just written." Clement, in his conclusion, uses iireffTCL- 
 XcLfirfp differently, of the main directions he has given in the body 
 of his epistle. 
 
 We do not know where Timothy, or where the author was. In 
 the next verse aa-rra^ovTai vfids oi dirb ttjs 'IraXlas is a little more likely 
 to mean, "Your friends in Italy send you greetings from thence " than 
 "Your Italian friends send you greetings thither," because the former 
 is idiomatic Greek in which this writer would take pleasure. But 
 either rendering is perfectly justifiable. For the rest, the impression 
 left on unsophisticated minds by the whole conclusion, with its 
 reminiscences of Pauline phrases, and this mention of one Pauline 
 name, might be that a glimpse is given of a little company of apostolic 
 churchmen to whom S. Paul was a loved master, lately removed 
 by death. The writer has been near the apostle in his peril, and is 
 hastening to share a new peril which now threatens his friends. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron xiv, xxxii, Ixvii, Ixxxvii, 
 
 xc, xcv, 61, 76, 87 
 Abbott 49 f. 
 Abelard li, 56 
 Abraham xxxii, xc, 47, 49, 69 f., 
 
 74, 83, 111 f., 114 f. 
 Adam, J. 45 
 Advent cvii f ., cxvii, cxix, 33, 41, 
 
 69,88, 94, 103, 106 f. 
 Aeschylus xciii, 73, 101 
 Africa xxviii, xlv 
 Alban's S. abbey 126 
 Alexandria xixff., xxvff., cxxvi 
 Alexandrine philosophy liii, Iv, 
 
 Ivii, Ixxii, Ixxvii, Ixxxvi, Ixxxix, 
 
 cxxxii, cxxxvii, clv, 63; bible 
 
 cxxvi, cxxxii, 62, 75, 111 
 Alford xlvi 
 Ambrose, S. xlv f. 
 Amos 25, 53 
 
 Analogy Ixxviii f., 58, 97, 99 
 Andrewes, Lancelot 1, 133 
 Angels xii, Ixxxii, 30 ff., 41, 87 
 Antioch liv 
 Apocalypse xxvi f., xlvii, Ixxviii, 
 
 Ixxxii, cviii, ex, cxx, cxxviii, 
 
 cxlvi, 33, 102 
 Apocalyptic Christianity lix f., 
 
 Ixxv 
 Apollos Ivf., Ixi 
 Apostle xixf., xlvi, 48 f. 
 Approach to God Ixxviii, Ixxxix, 
 
 xcvi, xcixf., 58 f., 88 
 Aquila 86, 98 
 Aquinas li, 70 
 Arianism Ixxxii 
 Arias Montanus 61 
 Aristion or Ariston Ivi, 39 
 Aristophanes 92 
 
 Aristotle clixff., 44 
 
 Arminians li ff., Ixxi 
 
 Article cxlix, 26, 39, 42, 51 f., 
 
 121 
 Articles of religion xci 
 Ascension Ix, Ixv, Ixxx 
 Athanasius, S. xxv 
 Atonement Ixxviii, xc ff., cxiii ; 
 
 day of Ixxxiii, 71, 96 f. 
 Augustine, S. xlvii f., li, cvi 
 Ai^piwv crvvayoyyi^ Ixxii 
 aifiaT€Kxv(ria xcii, 92 
 aiibvios 63, 90 
 aioov. diadTfjKTj cxii ; Kpi/jLa cxxii ; 
 
 Xijrpujcns c, 90; xvevfia xcv, 
 
 cxiif., cxxviii, 90 
 oLvdaraaLS cxxii f., cxxv 
 ApXvy^^ xxxii, 44, 120 
 apxtepeijs xxxi, Ixxxvii, 47, 58, 
 
 99 
 
 Baptism Ixxxiv, ex, 66 f., 100 ff., 
 
 cf. 88 
 Barnabas (ep.) xxiv, xxvii f., xlv, 
 
 xlvii, 1, Ivi, 87, 92, 115 
 Baruch apocalypse 123 
 Baur Ixi f. 
 Bengellxvf., 101 
 Benson, R. M. Ixviii, cxxi, 120, 
 
 126 
 Bethune Baker liv 
 Biesenthal Ixvi 
 Bigg cxxx f. 
 
 Blass Ivf., clix, clxiiif., 43 
 Bleek xlvi, Ixvi 
 Blomfield, R. Ixiv 
 Blood xi, xxxiii f., liii, Ixxi, 
 
 Ixxxiv, xcii ff., ciii, 45, 85, 
 
 88 f., 102 
 
136 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bousset Ixii f. , 39 
 Box 25, 46, 66, 94 
 Br^hier cxxx 
 Brooke cxvii 
 Bruce Ixviii f., 45 
 Bruder clxv 
 Burkitt xxvi, lix, cxliv 
 Burnet cxxxiii, 71 
 
 Caesarea xxv 
 
 Caird cxxx, cxxxvii 
 
 Calvin xlix, li, liii 
 
 Cambridge platonists liii, 59, 62 
 
 Camerarius 115 
 
 Canterbury, arcbbishop of cxi 
 
 Captain cvii, cxx, cxxxiii, clvi, 
 72, 120 
 
 Carpzov Iv 
 
 Catholicity Ixiv f. 
 
 Charles 77 
 
 Cheyne 33, 79, 99 
 
 Chiasmus 101 
 
 Christ xiii, xviii, Ixxiv, Ixxvii ; 
 in Old Testament xif., xviii, 
 Ixxiii, Ixxix, Ixxxviii, cvi, cxxvii, 
 30 ff., 44, 49, 61, 116 ; inclusive 
 Ixxxv, cvi, 52, 96 ; prophet, 
 priest and king li, Ixxix; the 
 eternal Son xif., xviii, Ixxix f., 
 Ixxxv, cxxvii, 24 £f. 
 
 Chrysostom, S. liv, 44, 109 
 
 Church, apostolic Ixii, Ixxii, Ixxiv, 
 55, 67, 126, 131; Jewish ciii, 
 cvi, cxxvi, cxxxv, 32, 64 ff., 125 
 
 Church Quarterly Review cxx ff. 
 
 Cicero cxxxvi, clx, 28 
 
 City of God xviii, 111, 124 
 
 Clark, A. C. clxi 
 
 Cleansing xciif., c, 93 
 
 Clement of Alexandria xix; of 
 Rome xxii, xxiv, xxixff., xlvii, 
 xlix, Ivi, ex, cl, 98, 105, 127, 
 129, 132 
 
 2 Clement xxxvi 
 
 Cletus xxxix 
 
 Codex i< xxv, cxxxix, cxliii, 113, 
 127 ; B xxv, cxxxix, cxliii, 28, 
 86, 89, 91 ; D xxviii, xliv f., 
 cxxxix, cxliv, 34, 86, 104 f.; 
 Armachauus 37, 102 
 
 Cohn cxxx 
 
 Coleridge 28, 71, 109, 123 
 Collects 120, 132 
 Communion of Saints cxxv f. 
 Conscience 91, 101 
 Consecration cv, cxix, 99, 115, 
 
 122 f. 
 Corinth xxix, xxxvi 
 Cosin 120 
 Covenant xv, ciff., 77 f., 80 ff., 
 
 88, 91 f. 
 Cowley Evangelist cxviii, cxxi, 
 
 59, 120 
 Crucifixion Ix, Jxxx, Ixxxiii, 67, 
 
 94, 129 ff. 
 Cyprian, S. xliv f., 57 
 Cyril of Jerusalem li 
 
 Dalman 27, 41 
 
 Daniel Ix, cvi, cxxiii, 94, 117 
 
 Dante xlviii, cvi 
 
 Davidson Ixvii, 30, 45 
 
 Day of the Lord xvi, Ixi, cviii, 
 
 cxxiii, 100 
 Death xi, Ixxi, Ixxiv, xcvi ff., 
 
 cxiii, cxviii f., 91 f. 
 Debrunner clxiii 
 Deissmann cli, clxii, 35 
 Demosthenes clx 
 Deuteronomy Ixxv, 32, 39, 41, 84, 
 
 99, 104, 123, 127 f., 130 
 Didache 103 
 Dio Chrysostom 106 
 Diognetus, ep. to 1 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 65, 
 
 106 
 Domitian xxix 
 Downton 59, 120 
 Drummond cxxx 
 DuBose Ixi, Ixix f., xcvii f., c, 59 
 dios xxxii, 127 
 8iad'/iK7} ci, 77, 92, 126 
 
 Ecclesiastes 71 
 Edmundson Ivi 
 Edwards 51, 71 
 Egypt xxv 
 Ely, bishop of 102 
 Enclitics 52, 65 
 Enoch Ix, 112 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^37 
 
 Enthronement 43 
 Ephraem Syrus 122 
 Epictetus 110 
 Erasmus xlix f., liii, 28 
 Esau xvi, 122 f. 
 Estiusxlviiif., 127, 131 
 Eucharist x, xxviiff., Ixxxiv, cxiv, 
 
 129 
 Euripides xxxii, 26, 68 
 Eusebius xixff., xxiv, xlf., xUv 
 Euthalius xxvii, 65 
 Evolution Ixxxviii, 30 
 Ewing xcvi 
 
 Ezekiel xci, cix, 25, 42, 53, 118, 133 
 Ezra apocalypse 46, 94, 123 
 dK(iiv Ixxix, 97 
 i^ avdpdjirwv Ixxviii, Ixxx 
 iiri(rvvay(ayq xxxvi, Ixxii, 102 f. 
 7]yo^jjL€POL xxxii, 129 
 
 Faith xvi, cxxxvf., clvi, 100, 102, 
 
 105 ff., 109 ff. 
 Farrar Ixvii 
 Fathers li, Ixxi, ex, cxl, cxlv ; 
 
 N.T. in the apostolic xlvi 
 Field, F. cxvii f., 90, 106, 116 
 Field, J. E. xxxix 
 Flesh cxxiii f., 45 ; days of Ixxxi, 
 
 Ixxxvi, cxxiv ; way of xii, xvi, 
 
 cxxiv, cxxxiv, 101 
 FJorus Ixxv 
 Forerunner x, 70 
 Forgiveness xv, xc, c, cii, 96f.,99, 
 
 103 
 Freer cxxxviii 
 Frere 43 
 <p(aTiff$ipT€s Ixxxiv, 67, 105 
 
 Gains xli 
 
 Gardner 41 
 
 Gaul xxiii f. 
 
 Geden and Moulton clxv 
 
 Gethsemane 62 
 
 Glory in humiliation xii, Ixix, 
 
 Ixxxff., 40, 43 
 Gobar xxiv, xli 
 Goodness 89 
 Goodspeed cxxxviii 
 Goodwin clxiii 
 Gospel Ixxx, 53, 83 ; synoptic 
 
 xxxix, Ix, Ixiii, Ixxxi, cxxiv, 
 45, 62 ; fourth xxxix, Ixiii, 
 Ixxxvi, cxlvi, 50, 57 
 
 Grace 40, 43, 104, 130 
 
 Graeco-roman world Ixiff., Ixvi, 
 39 
 
 Greek, Alexandrine civ f., 42, 128f . ; 
 classical cxlvi f., 44, 67, 86, 92, 
 127 ; " common " cxlv, 81 
 
 Gregory, C. B. cxxxviii, cxliv 
 
 Gregory of Elvira xl 
 
 Grimm and Thayer clxv 
 
 HabakkuklOOf. 
 
 Haggai xxxii, 107, 126 
 
 Hamilton 57 
 
 Hammond 61 
 
 Harnack xxxvi, xxxviii, Iv 
 
 Harris, Kendel 45, 57, 117 
 
 Hart 91 
 
 Hatch and Redpath clxv 
 
 Headlam, A. C. see Sanday and 
 Headlam 
 
 Headlam, W. clxi, 73 • 
 
 Heaven 58, 93 
 
 Hebrew idiom cxlvii, 45, 47, 51, 
 53, 70, 87, 90, 106 f. 
 
 Hebrews, epistle to : author 
 xxxviii, lii, Iv f. , 106 ; date x, 
 Iviiiff., Ixxv; destination x, Ivii, 
 Ixxii ff. ; final blessing x, xvii, 
 Ixxiii, cxlv, cv, 132 f. ; intensity 
 lix, Ixxiii, cvi; occasion ixf., 
 Ixxii ff. ; place of writing 134 ; 
 position in New Testament 
 XXV f . ; style x, xxi, cxlvi ff. ; 
 title xliii f., Ivii, Ixxii f . ; use of 
 Old Testament cxxvif., 32,57, 
 113, 116 
 
 Hegel 107, 111 
 
 Hellenistic Judaism Iv, Ixiii, Ixvi, 
 Ixxiii f., 94, 131 
 
 Herbert, George Ixxxvii 
 
 Hermas, Shepherd of ex 
 
 Herodotus 55, 68, 106 
 
 Herwerden clxiv 
 
 Hesychius 57 
 
 Hilary of Poitiers xlvff., 126 
 
 Hippolytus xxiv, xliff., 43 
 
 Hogarth 27 
 
138 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hope cviii, cxxxvf., 109 f. 
 
 Hort XXV, cxxvii, 34 ff., 54, 59, 
 
 71, 97 f., 102, 112, 130 
 Hosea cxxxv, 25, 79, 84, 131 
 Hoskier cxliv 
 Humanitas Ixv, Ixvii 
 
 Ignatius, S. 1, 62 
 
 Influence Ixxxiv, xciv, xcixf., cii, 
 
 civ 
 Inheritance IxxixfE., 26 f., 30 
 Intercession xc, cxiii, 76, 78 
 Intermediate state cxix ff., 94 
 Irenaeus, S. xxiii, xli 
 Isaiah 25, 45 f., 53, 57 f., 90, 103, 
 
 106, 117 f., 122,133 
 Isocrates clx, 119 
 iXdo-zcecr ^at Ixxviii, xci, cxiii, 47 
 
 James, S. xxx, xl, cxlvi 
 Jannaris clxiv 
 
 Jeremiah cijff., 25, 80 ff., 97, 99 
 Jerome, S. xxvi, xUiif., xlvif. 
 Jerusalem* Ivii, hx, Ixiii, Ixxv, cii, 
 
 cviii, 123 ff. 
 Jesus, the name of our Lord as 
 
 man, xif., xviii, Ix, Ixxiv, Ixxix, 
 
 Ixxxi, cxvii, 40, 42, 48, 56, 96, 
 
 101, 119 f., 132 
 Jesus = Joshua 54, 56 
 John, S. xxxix, xlii, Ix, Ixiii, ex, 
 
 cxvi f. , cxxvi, cxxxv, cxlvi, 41, 
 
 84, 101 
 Josephus Ixxv f., cl, 86, 125 
 Judgement 64, 66, 93 f. 
 
 Kenyon xxv, cxliv 
 
 Kingdom of God xvii, Ix, Ixxvi, 
 
 xcvii, cvi, cix, cxxxiii, 38, 41, 
 
 84, 88, 126 f. 
 Kadapi^eiv xcii 
 KOff/xoi cv, 27, 98 
 Kpi<ris cxxii, 94 
 Kvpios 31, 34, 37 ff. 
 
 Lake, K. xxv, Ixii, Ixiv, cxliv 
 
 Last supper ci f., cxiv, 84 
 
 Law xvii, liii, Iviii, Ixxxvii, ciii f., 
 
 cix, 33, 37 f ., 78, 87, 96 
 Leightou 123 
 
 Leonian sacramentary 121 
 Levi, testament of 77 
 Leviticus xciif., 44, 79, 87 
 Liddell and Scott clxiii, clxv 
 Life enriched by death xciv ff., 
 
 91 f. 
 Lightfoot xxx, xxxii, xxxiv ff., 
 
 xliff., cxxxv, 49, 68, 125, 132 
 Limborch lii f . 
 Linus xxxix 
 Literalism Ixiii ff. 
 Liturgy : English Ixxxvi, cxiv, 94, 
 
 120 ; Greek xxxiv, xxxix, 61, 
 
 84, 91, 132 ; Mozarabic xxxviii ; 
 
 Koman xxxiii ff., xxxviii ; of 
 
 Serapion 28 
 Loofs liv 
 
 Lord's prayer 47, 58 f., 94 
 Lucretius 35 
 Luke, S. xx,xlix, Ivi, cviii, cxxxiv, 
 
 cxlvi, clvi, 39, 73 
 Luther xlix, Iv 
 X67osix, 38, 53, 57 f., 66, 79 
 
 Maccabees cxxxii, 62, 75, 111, 
 
 116ff., 129 
 Mangey cxxx 
 Manhood and godhead xiif., liv, 
 
 Ixiv, Ixxxff., 34, 101 
 Manifestation cxvii 
 Marcion xliv 
 Martyrdom cxixf., clviii, 40, 47, 
 
 102, 105, 117 ff., 129 
 Maurice, F. D. liii, Ixiv, Ixvii f., 
 
 67, 87, 106 
 Maximus Tyrius 25 
 Mediation Ixxviii, lxxxviif.,cxxxi, 
 
 38, 77 f., 126 
 Melchizedek xiv, xxxviii, Ixxxix ff., 
 
 cxxix, cxxxi, 63 f., 73 ff. 
 M^n^goz 1 ff. 
 Messianic doctrine Ixxxviii, cxxix, 
 
 29, 32, 64, 95, 106 
 Millennium cxxi 
 Milligan, G. Ixviii, clxii f. 
 Milligan, W. Ixviii 
 Milman 26 
 Milton 28, 35 
 Moffatt xxv, Iviii f., Ixviii, Ixxii, 
 
 clvi 
 
INDEX 
 
 139 
 
 Mommsen canon xliv f. 
 
 Montanists xli 
 
 Moses xiii, xxxi, Ixxxvii, cxxix, 
 
 cxxxvi, 38, 48 f., 84, 114 ff. 
 Moulton clxiii ff. 
 Muratorian canon xlii f. 
 Murray cxxiff., 43 
 ' Mystical principle Ixxxvi, cvii 
 fiaprvpeiadai xxxii, 118 
 
 Nero xxix, Ixxv, 105 
 Nestorius liv 
 
 Nicaea, council of xxv, liii 
 Novatian xl 
 
 Odes of Solomon 45 
 
 Order of words cxlix, 27, 56, 58, 
 
 75, 82, 84, 101, 110, 118, 125 
 Origen xx ff., xlii, xlvi, Ixxi, 
 
 xcix, cxlv, 43, 101 
 odds xxxi, Ixxviii, xcix, 101 
 oIkov/jl^vtj Ixxxviii, cviii, 32, 41, 
 
 98 
 ofioXoyla Ixxx, 49 
 
 Paget, F. Ixxxiii 
 
 Pantaenus xix 
 
 Papyri cxxxviiif., cxliv, clxii 
 
 Participles cxlviii, 35, 44, 62 f., 
 68, 70, 75, 90, 124 f. 
 
 Particles and conjunctions clii f., 
 28, 42, 55, 58, 61, 86, 92, 94, 
 110, 114 
 
 Patience 120 
 
 Patriotism Ixxvii, ciii, cxxxvi 
 
 Paul, S. xix ff., xxiii ff., xxviii, 
 xxxix, Ivi, Ix, Ixiii, Ixxx, xcvii f., 
 cvi f., cixf., cxv, cxviiif., cxxi, 
 cxxiv, cxxxiii, cxxxv, cxlv, 41, 
 66, 104, 113, 131, 133 f. 
 
 Peake Ixviii 
 
 Perfection Ixxxi, Ixxxvi, xcviii, 
 cxvii ff., cxxiv, 44, 100 
 
 Peter, S. xxix, xl, Ivi, Ixxx, xcvi, 
 102 
 
 1 Peter xxix, Ixxviii, cxix f., cxlvi, 
 
 62, 71, 91, 102, 126 
 
 2 Peter cxlvi, cl 
 Pfafif xxiii 
 
 Philip the deacon Ivi 
 
 Philo Iv, Ixiii, Ixxvii, Ixxxix, 
 cxi, cxxvi, cxxix ff., cxxxvii, 
 cl, 26, 44, 49, 57, 59, 61, 63, 
 79,82, 109, lllf., 114, 126 
 
 Photius xxiv, xli 
 
 Picturesque language xiv, xvi f., 
 Ixxviii, Ixxxvi, cxiii, cliii f., 
 71 f., 74, 84, 113, 119 f., 130 
 
 Pindar 45, 62, 109 f. 
 
 Plato lxxxvi,cxxix,cxxxiii,cxxxvii, 
 44, 62f., 81f., 114, 128 
 
 Pliny 123 
 
 Plutarch clxi 
 
 Porphyry 120 
 
 Prepositions cxlvii, 25, 33, 61, 
 113, 122, 134 
 
 Presbyters xxxiii, 129 
 
 Priesthood Ixxvii f., 60 f., 97, 99 ; 
 Levitical xxxiii, Ixxiii, Ixxviii f., 
 Ixxxix ff., 47, 61, 85 f. ; of Christ 
 x f., xiii ff., xviii, liii, Ixx, 
 Ixxxiii ff., Ixxxix ff., 41, 58 ff., 
 78 f., 81 f.; after the order of 
 Melchizedek xi, xviii, Ixxxix ff., 
 xciv, 73ff. 
 
 Primasius 52 
 
 Priscilla xxxviii, Iv 
 
 Prophecy 25 f., 55, 98, 117 
 
 Proverbs 121 f . 
 
 Psalm II XXX, cxxvii, 32 ; VIII 
 Ixxxii, 42 ; XXII 45, 87 ; XL 
 96,98; XLV33; LXXXIX 32, 
 116; XCV cxxvii, 51; XCVII 
 32; CII34; CIV Ixxxii, 33 ; CX 
 xc, 29, 100, 119 
 
 weipaafids xcviii, cviii, 47 
 
 7r€pLiroi7)(ris xcviii, 107 f . 
 
 \pvxn xcviii, cxxiii, 71, 107 f. 
 
 Kabbinic Judaism Ixvi, Ixxvi, 46, 
 
 58 
 Kansom li, 90, cf. xxxiii, 92 
 Reconciliation li, xci, 46 
 Reformation Ixxivf., 88 
 Rendall Ixvii, 89 
 Repentance xxviii, cix ff ., cxv, 66, 
 
 123 
 Rest of God xiii, 54 ff. 
 Resurrection Ix, Ixxx, cxx ff., 
 
 cxxiv f., 66, 117, 132 
 
I40 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Kiebm Ixvi 
 
 Robertson clxiv 
 
 Robinson, F. ciii f. 
 
 Robinson, J. A. xxvi, cvi, 103, 
 
 107 
 Rome X, xxix, xxxiv, Ivii, Ixxii, 
 
 Ixxv, cii, cviii 
 Rutherford clxiii, 44, 113 
 Rythm clixff., 29, 99, 110, 118, 
 
 122 f., 125 
 pavTiaixbi 102 
 
 Sacramental principle xviii, 
 
 xxxvii, Ixix f., Ixxxiii ff., cvii, 
 
 cxxv, cxxix, cxxxiif., 41, 77, 
 
 79, 102, 129 f. 
 Sacrifice x f. , xv, Ixxi, xciii, civ, 
 
 115 ; in Old Testament x f., 
 
 XV, 1, Ixxiii, Ixxviii, civ, 85 f.; 
 
 of Christ XV ff., xxxiii f., 
 
 xxxvii f., 1, Ixxxiii, 85, 88 ff . ; 
 
 re-enacted in the faithful cxii f . , 
 
 cxxxiv, 131 f. 
 Sacrifices xxxiv, xxxvii f., 131 
 Saints cxix, 68 f., 78 f., 118, 125 f. 
 Salome, daughter of Gadia Ixxii 
 Salvation Ixxiv, 35 ff., 95 
 Sanctification cv f. 
 Sanday clxv, 33, 46 
 Sanday and Headlam xci, xcvii, 
 
 36 
 Sardinia xxviii, xlv 
 Satan cxxiii, 45 f . 
 Saunders cxxxviii 
 Schweitzer lixff., Ixiy 
 Self xcv, 106 
 Selwyn 125 
 Septuagint xxx f ., ci, cxlv ff., clxv, 
 
 32,42, 51, 98, 106 f., 115 
 Sermon on the mount Ixxvi 
 Servant of the Lord xciv, 94 
 Shadow and type liii, Ixviii, Ixx, 
 
 Ixxix, xciii, 82, 97 
 Sheol 46 
 Sickness 59 
 Silas Ivi 
 Sin, sinlessness Ixxiv, Ixxxif., 
 
 xcvi, c, cxvf., 52, 119,121, 124 f. 
 Sinai xvii, 33, 37 f., 124 f. 
 Sirach xxiv, cxxiii, 57, 78, 91, 112 
 
 Smetham Iviii 
 
 Socinians lii 
 
 Socrates 71, 110 
 
 Soden, von Ivii, cxxxviii, cxliv, civ 
 
 Sophocles 51 
 
 Soul xcii, 71, 107 f. 
 
 Souter xxviii, xl, xliii ff., xlviii, 
 
 cxxxviii, cxliv 
 Spirit Ixviii, cxxviii, cxxxiii, cliii, 
 
 35, 37, 39 ff., 51, 55,64,67, 85, 
 
 89 f., 104 
 Spirits cxvii ff., cxxiii f., 35, 119, 
 
 122 
 Srawley clxv 
 Statins 59 
 Stephanus clxiii, 44 
 Stephen, S. Iv, Ixi, clvi, 66, 116 
 Strong 28 
 Suffering Ixxxiv, xcvi, 40, 59, 62, 
 
 94, 120 
 Swainson 61 
 
 Swete cxlv, clxiv f., 39, 45, 75 
 Symmachus 86, 98 
 Synagogue Ixxii 
 (Tvyxiiiprjcris 43 f. 
 
 <rvv€idr)ais xxxii, xxxvf., 91, 101 
 (TxoXioypaipT^aaPTos xxii 
 acoTTjpia 35 f., 95 
 
 Tabernacle Ivii, Ixxxvii, 80 f., 
 85 ff., 88 
 
 Tacitus 86 
 
 Targum of Onkelos 104 
 
 Temple Ivii, Ixxiii f., Ixxxvii, 35, 
 87 
 
 Tenses cvf. , cxiii f., cxix, cxlviif., 
 29, 32f., 35, 43 f., 53f., 56, 62f., 
 68, 70, 81 f., 84, 87 f., 89 f., 
 991, 110 f., 114 f., 132 
 
 Tertullian xxviif., xl, xliii, cix, 
 66 f. 
 
 Text 26 f., 33 f., 43 f., 53 f., 55, 
 57, 66, 70 f., 73 ff., 78 f., 89, 
 97 f., 105f.,110, 112,117, 120f., 
 133; Alexandrian cxliiff., 49, 
 61, 110, 122; neutral cxliif., 
 89; received cxliif., 112 f., 122; 
 western xxvi, cxliiff., 89, 105; 
 Westcott and Hort's cxliff. 
 
 Thackeray clxiv, 75 
 
INDEX 
 
 141 
 
 Theodotion 104, 117 
 
 Theology and religion ciii, cf.- 68 
 
 Tischendorf cxxxviii 
 
 Tradition xlvii, Ivi, cxxivf., 26, 
 
 37 f., 50, 67, 83 
 Trench 88 
 
 Trent, council of xlix 
 Tuker xxxviii 
 
 rk irpbs t6v deov Ixxviii, Ixxxvii, 47 
 reXcfwo-ts xcviii, 44, 77 
 Tots deff/uLoTs fiov xxvii, 105 f. 
 Oepdiroov xxxi, 49 
 
 XJlpian 123 
 
 Vaughan, C. J. Ixvii 
 
 Vaughan, H. 101 
 
 Versions cxl ff . ; Aethiopic cxlii ; 
 Armenian xxvi, cxlii; A. V. 
 clvi ff. ; earlier English 101 ; 
 Egyptian xxvi, cxlii f. ; modern 
 English clvi ; Old Latin xxxviii, 
 xlv, cxlii, cxliv, 25, 27, 46; 
 E. V.clvi ff. ; Syriacxxvi, cxlii, 
 122; Vulgate xxvi, xlv, cxlv, 
 26,27,47,65,78, 120, 125,131 
 
 Virgil 113, 128 
 
 Wallace 42, 62, 111 
 
 Westcott XXV, xliii, xlv, Ixxf., 
 
 cxlv, 26, 54, 70, 82, 89, 101, 
 
 107 
 Wetstein Ivii, 56 
 White cxlv 
 Wickham Ixvii, cliv f. 
 Will xii, Ixxxv, xciii, civf., 88, 
 
 93 f., 96 ff., 106, 115 
 Windisch Ixiiiff., cixff., 77, 109 
 Wisdom xxiv, cxxxii, 46, 57 f., 
 
 94, 112, 123 
 Witkowski clxii 
 Word Ixxxix, cxxxff., 28, 56 ff. 
 World ('* other," *' to come") 
 
 Ixxxviii, cviii, cxxxiiif., 27, 41, 
 
 89, 110, 113 
 Wrede xx, lix, cli 
 
 Zahn xxviii, Ixxii 
 
 Zealots Ixxv 
 
 Zechariah 101, 133 
 
 ^(t)^ dfcardXvTOS Ixxxix, xciv, 76 f . 
 
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