are acknowledged to exist between the aspects of truth disclosed to us in other biblical books. John, for example, presents Christianity to our view as spiritual and eternal life in light and love. In James it reveals itself as perfect obedience to perfect law. So we remark:

a. Paul presents Christianity distinctively, as justification before God through faith in the Crucified One. Hence the current terms in his epistles are δικαιοσύνη ἐκ πίστεως, οι διὰ πίστεως, δικαιοῦσθαι, δικαίωσις, ἔργα πίστεως and ἔργα νόμου, ὀργή and χάρις θεοῦ, ἀπολύτρωσις, καταλλαγή, πνεῦμα and σάρξ.

The fundamental view taken of Christianity in our Epistle is consummated Judaism. Accordingly its characteristic terms are τελειοῦν, καθαρίζειν, ἁγιάζειν, etc.

It results from this fundamental peculiarity of the Epistle that in it

(1) Faith is defined and illustrated (ch. xi.) in its generic, Jewish sense of trust in God's assurances. With Paul, on the other hand, it is generally specific-a sinner's trust in Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is antithetic to sight; in Paul antithetic (generally, yet cf. 2 Cor. v. 7) to works.

(2) The eternal high priesthood of Christ in heaven is presented as the consummation of the Messiah's career; whereas in Paul's epistles his triumphant resurrection is made prominent. That set the divine seal to his earthly work, and declared him to be the Son of God with power.

(3) The "people of God" (ii. 17; xiii. 12), the "seed of Abraham" (ii. 16, contrast Gal. iii. 28, 29) are faithful Jews; at least, little or nothing is said of the truth which Paul makes so prominent, that Gentiles are joint-heirs with Jews of the grace of life.

(4) The Old Test. is interpreted in a spiritualizing, symbolic way; a mode of interpretation indeed, of which traces. are here and there to be found in Paul's writings (e.g. Gal. iv. 21 sq.; 1 Cor. x. 1 sq.), but which is so marked in this Epistle as to give it a half-mystical and speculative cast (cf.

Westcott, History of the Canon, 1st ed., p. 51; Riehm, Lehrbegriff des Hebr.-br. p. 183 sq.).

Now it must be admitted, (a) that these peculiarities do not by any means constitute so wide a divergence from the Pauline type of doctrine as is to be found in other apostolic epistles; (3) that they relate rather to the development and proportion of doctrines than to their substance, consist of omissions rather than positive statements; and (7) that it is possible to explain them all as owing to what is peculiar in the theme, the aim of the writer, and the character and circumstances of the original readers. Taken by themselves, they can hardly be considered as evidence that Paul was not the author. They would still seem strange to us. It would strike us as remarkable that the apostle's characteristic opinions, which crop out in the other epistles even where neither the readers nor the theme seem to suggest them (e.g. Phil. iii.), should fail to find expression in this, although tempting opportunities present themselves on every page. In the language of Delitzsch (Com. p. 703), “It is, and must remain, surprising that as we dissect the Epistle we nowhere meet with those ideas which are, so to speak, the very arteries of Paul's spiritual system. The apostle to the Gentiles, who through the law became dead to the law, lives in the antagonism between righteousness of faith and of works; he whom the Lord had called to the apostleship, not in the days of his flesh, but from his life of heavenly glory, lives and moves in Christ's resurrection; he who was sent unto the Gentiles, and who was predestined to effect the separation of synagogue and church, lives and moves in the call of the Gentiles to fellowship in salvation. But of these three fundamental doctrines there is to be found only a passing allusion (xiii. 20) to the resurrection." Still it is not so much as independent arguments, but rather as corroboratory indications of authorship, that the doctrinal characteristics mentioned have much weight. These indications are strengthened, further, by the fact that

b. Our Epistle differs somewhat from Paul's in the grounds on which its presentation of truth is made in general to rest:

Paul speaks as the authoritative messenger of God. He often makes reference, indeed, to the Old Testament, but oftener still he quietly assumes plenary authority to declare what had not been revealed to holy men of old.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, on the other hand, rests his teaching upon biblical statements almost exclusively. It is from the ancient scriptures that he demonstrates the dignity of the Messiah; his superiority to angels, to Moses, to Aaron. It is by the Old Testament that he proves the typical and temporary nature of the former economy and the superiority and permanence of the new. In short, he speaks, "not so much as an inspired messenger, delivering himself of that with which God had entrusted him, but as an enlightened believer in Moses and the prophets, both learning and teaching by a diligent comparison of what the ancient servants of Jehovah had uttered under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit" (An amended Trans. of the Ep. to the Hebrews, b. p. vi., 1847, London: Bagster and Sons; cf. Stanley's Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age, 2d ed., p. 366 sq.).

3. Facts, and allusions of a personal nature, inconsistent, apparently, with the supposition that the Epistle is Paul's:

a. There is a presumption against Paul's being the author in the circumstance that the Epistle addresses itself to Jewish Christians. If Paul wrote it, he departed in doing so from his ordinary province of labor (the Gentiles, and where Christ had not been preached, Gal. ii. 9; Rom. xv. 20).

b. If Paul had written to Jewish converts, particularly those at Jerusalem, he could hardly have abstained from justifying his apostolic course, which had brought down upon him their displeasure at his very last visit among them (Acts xxi. 17 sq.). It is difficult to understand, too, how Paul could have given utterance to language implying affectionate intimacy (e.g. xiii. 19).

Should it be conjectured that he adopted this course for the purpose of propitiating his readers, how shall we reconcile with such a supposition the plain terms in which (e.g. v. 11 sq.) he reproaches them with dullness and ignorance?

c. If Paul had written the Epistle to Christians at Jerusalem, he could hardly have alluded in cool historic style, as he does, to the early persecutions and martyrs of that church: "Remember those who have been your leaders, who spoke to you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their manner of life" (Heb. xiii. 7); "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (xii. 4).

Paul had been forward in inflicting these very persecutions. At the death of the proto-martyr, the witnesses laid off their clothes at the feet of Saul, who "was consenting unto his death" (Acts vii. 58; viii. 1, cf 3; ix. 1). How Paul was accustomed to allude to these things, even in writing to third parties, we see in 1 Cor. xv. 9, "I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God"; and in 1 Tim. i. 12 sq., "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord..... for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecuter and injurious," etc.

d. Inconsistent with the supposition that Paul is the author, is the passage (ii. 3): "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard," etc. In this passage the author classes himself and his hearers together, and distinguishes them from those who had received the gospel immediately from Christ. This is in marked opposition to Paul's uniform style of speech on this subject. He constantly insists that he did not receive the gospel through any human channel, but by direct revelation from Christ, and accordingly claims to rank as the co-equal of the other apostles. See Gal. i. 1, 11, 12, 15, 16; ii. 6; 1 Cor. ix. 1; xi. 23; Eph. iii. 2, 3; 2 Cor. xi. 5. This is Paul's style of speech on the subject upon all (other) occasions.

But it is objected, the plural pronoun here may be used "communicatively," i.e. by that rhetorical usage according to which a person employs the term "we," although, strictly speaking, he does not mean to include himself.

We reply, This communicative use of the pronoun is allow

able in two cases (cf. Christian Examiner for 1829, p. 335), (1) When employed in a collective sense, i.e. when the writer views himself as belonging to a community, and asserts something of the community as a whole, although it may not be true of him considered as an individual. Here belongs the instance quoted from Cicero: " nos perdimus rempublicam."

(2) When used out of courtesy, i.e. when a writer in order to avoid immodesty, or to diminish the unpleasantness of the truth he is uttering, speaks as though he referred, in part at least, to himself, although really he has reference solely to others. This use is illustrated by every skilful preacher in almost every sermon.

Now in both these cases, notice, the writer merely keeps a distinction out of view. But in the present passage the distinction is clearly expressed, and the writer (on the interpretation proposed) assumes a false position in reference to it. He designates three separate classes of persons, viz. "the Lord," "them that heard him," and "we"; and in the face of this explicit distinction he puts himself in with the third class. The laws of rhetoric sometimes allow a writer to conceal truth, never to contradict it.

The improbability of Paul's making this false classification of himself in the present case is heightened, by the circumstance that the very weight of the writer's argument here rests upon the pre-eminently direct and trustworthy way in which his readers had come by the gospel. Hence the reference to the "Lord himself." Undeniably his argument would have been strengthened had he been able to appeal to a revelation of truth made to himself direct from heaven. As Paul could have made such an appeal, it is hardly possible to believe that he would not have made it. This passage, then, as Calvin (Com., Tholuck's ed., p. 393; see also the Arg. p. 380) and others have said, is proof that the Epistle was not written by Paul.

It may be added that there seem to be indications that the Epistle was composed after the death of the apostle. Chief among them is the mention (xiii. 23) of Timothy's