14.

'Eßgaíois Eßgaix Own, and interpreted by others; in Euseb. H. Ecc. VI. In the same way Eusebius declares, that it was addressed,' Eßgaíos dia Tйs TаTgiοU YλÚTτns, to the Hebrews in their native tongue, Hist. Ecc. III. 28; and again, Matthew, having first preached 'Eßgators-delivered to them his gospel argiw yλútry,” III. 24; and Jerome says, that Paul wrote ut Hebræus Hebræis Hebraice, i. e. as a Hebrew to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew language; Catal. Scriptt. verb. Paulus.

Now how could these fathers reason thus, unless they had understood the word Hebrews as necessarily meaning, according to the usus loquendi of that age, those who spoke the Hebrew language ?

Bertholdt declares boldly, that not a single example can be found, in early times, of Jewish Christians out of Palestine being called Hebrews, Einleit. p. 2875. I would express my own conviction in a more guarded manner, and say I have not been able to find any instance where this is the case.

Yet Eichhorn has ventured to assert, that the name Hebrew never has any reference to language, but always to religion or origin. His proof is, first a passage from Eusebius' Hist. Ecc. III. 4, in which the historian asserts, that Peter addressed his epistle πρὸς τοὺς ἐξ ̔Εβραίων ὄντας ἐν διασπορά Πόντου. But this implies simply that those whom Peter addressed were descended from the Hebrews, or belonged to those of the circumcision. Another passage to which he appeals, is in Philo (de Abrahamo, p. 388 D. edit. Par.), where he says, that Sarah advised Abraham to take as a concubine, [Hagar], who was by descent an Egyptian, Ty Te #goaignoiv Eßgała,, but by choice a Hebrew; which he construes as meaning, who had embraced the religion of the Hebrews. But the antithesis here does not admit of this sense. By descent she was of the Egyptian nation, but by choice she attached herself to the Hebrew nation, is plainly the meaning of the passage; so that it fails altogether of affording ground for the conclusion which Eichhorn adduces from it.

Carpzoff, to whom Eichhorn is indebted for this quotation, has adduced several others, to show that the word Hebrew is used to characterize the religion of the Jews, rather than their language or nation, Exercitt. in Heb. Prolog. c. 1. But so far are they from affording satisfaction to my mind, that I do not think them worthy the labour of an examination in this place.

The result of this inquiry is, then, that 'Eßgaio, in the inscription to our epistle, means, and according to the usus loquendi of the age must mean, the Hebrews of Palestine, i. e. Hebrews in a country where the Hebrew language was vernacular. But even if examples may be found, in which the word Hebrew designates merely an Israelite, still, it is clear that such cannot be the meaning of the word in the title to our epistle; for how can this epistle be supposed to be addressed to all the Israelites of every country?

If I have offered sufficient evidence to establish this, then does the title to our epistle go far towards showing what the original destination of the epistle was. If an ancient epistle has no direction within itself, and contains no unequivocal passages, indicative of locality, in what way can we ascertain the original direction of it better than by tradition? Do we not appeal in all similar cases to tradition, in order to show when and where authors were born, lived, and wrote ? Where and when books were written? And seldom, indeed, can we trace back tradition, in a manner so satisfactory and definite, as in the case just considered.

Thus much for the external testimony, in regard to the opinion that Palestine was the place to which our epistle was directed; the voice of antiquity,

and the title of the letter, constituting strong presumptive evidence that such was the case. But does the internal condition of the epistle itself agree with this? And does this furnish no objections which will overbalance the weight of tradition? Something must be said relative to these questions before we can make our ultimate conclusion. I proceed then,

2 To examine whether the internal condition of the epistle agrees with and confirms the supposition, which I am now endeavouring to defend.

The most superficial reader cannot help being impressed, on a slight reading of this epistle, with the idea that it is addressed to Jewish converts. In respect to this, indeed, all critics, ancient and modern, are of one opinion. But a close examination discloses a peculiarity of appeal in this epistle, to the Mosaic ritual, which can be found no where else in the New Testament.

In the Acts of the Apostles, and in the acknowledged epistles of Paul, we find, indeed, numerous traces of dispute and difficulty with Jews, who lived in countries remote from Palestine. But the disputed questions turn upon points of circumcision, of meats clean and unclean, points which respected the sabbaths, and the holidays that the Jews had been accustomed to observe. Concerning the priesthood, the temple, and the ritual of sacrifices, we find no questions of difficulty agitated.

The obvious reason of this seems to be, that but very few of the foreign Jews, regularly, or even at all attended the services of the temple. The great body of those who lived in the countries more distant from Palestine, plainly could not attend the feast at Jerusalem three times in each year, according to the prescription of Moses. The time and expenses necessary to do this,

could not be spared.

This is not a matter of mere conjecture. We know that the most numerous colony of Jews any where to be found at that period, as well as the most learned and rich, was that at Alexandria in Egypt. Hither they had been transplanted, about 284 years A. C. by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had overrun Palestine with his army. They were allowed great privileges under the reign of this prince; so that many were allured to Egypt in this time, and the number of Jews in that country became quite large. Under Ptolemy Philometer, not far from 175 A. C., Onias, son of the high priest Onias at Jerusalem, who had fled to Egypt for safety, asked leave of Ptolemy and his queen Cleopatra, to build a temple at Leontopolis in that country, which was a town in the Nome or Prefecturate of Heliopolis.* This leave he obtained; and there he built a temple, and constituted priests and Levites as ministers for its service. In his petition for obtaining this liberty, he states, that while on his military expeditions in the service of the king, he had seen temples used by the Jews for their religious services in Colosyria, Phenicia, Leontopolis, and other places, Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xiii. 6. edit. Colon. Allowing this statement to be true, it would appear, that at least many of these foreign * Such was the situation of Leontopolis, if the statement of Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 6, is to be trusted; and he repeats the same in Bell. Jud. vii. 30, edit. Colon. But suspicion has arisen of error in his statement, inasmuch as no Latin or Greek writer mentions a Leontopolis in the Nome of Heliopolis, i. e. east of the Delta. The Leontopolis of the Greeks and Romans was within the Delta, between the Mendesian and Phatnitic branches of the Nile, and not far from Busiris. Cellarius, p. 782, places it below, i. e. north of Busiris. inasmuch as Josephus expressly states the distance from Memphis to be over 180 stadia (22 Roman miles), which, if Leontopolis were near Heliopolis, would correspond well with fact; and inasmuch as Leontopolis (Onion) was so well known among the Jews in the time of Josephus, because of the temple there, his testimony cannot well be rejected. We must admit, therefore, that there were once two places of this name in Egypt; the one of which, after the building of the temple by Onias, took the name of Onion occasionally, and finally, was known altogether by this name.

But

Jews had then already lost their zeal for attendance on the temple worship at Jerusalem. That the Jews in Egypt did not, in general, attend the feasts at Jerusalem, is well known. They only sent an occasional deputy there, by way of testifying their respect and fraternal sympathy.

If the Jews in Egypt did thus, we may well suppose that the Jews at a greater distance from Palestine, imitated them in their remissness with respect to attendance on the temple worship at Jerusalem. The nature of the case shows, that as a body they could not have been habitually present at the holy feasts; and that most of them, indeed, never frequented Jerusalem at all. In fact, this city could not have accommodated the one fourth part of the worshippers from abroad, had all the foreign Jews gone up to the feasts held there.

The natural consequence of not being familiar with the temple rites and priesthood, was a diminution of zeal in the foreign Jews with respect to things of this nature; until, in the end, they became to them matters of minor importance, or even of comparative indifference. Hence Paul had no disputes with the foreign Jews about these things. At least, no marks of such disputes appear in the history of this apostle by Luke, nor in the letters of Paul himself. But here is a point, respecting which the epistle to the Hebrews differs widely from all the other epistles of the New Testament. It is not with the question whether circumcision is to be retained or rejected, not with the dispute about meats offered to idols, not with prescriptions about new moons and sabbaths, that the writer is concerned. The whole epistle turns on different subjects. It is the favourite idea of pre-eminence, so tenaciously attached by zealous Jews to all parts of the Mosaic ritual, which the writer discusses. The dignity or rank of those, through whose mediation the law was given: the temple-apartments, furniture, rites, and sacrifices; the order and honour of the priesthood; 'in a word, the whole apparatus of the Levitical service, both daily and annual, are the subjects of which he treats; and the things which he compares with the corresponding parts of the Christian dispensation, in order to show the superiority of the latter. Were angels employed in order to introduce the law? Christ, who has obtained a name and place far more exalted than they, himself introduced the new dispensation. Was Moses, the beloved and honoured leader of God's chosen people, placed at the head of the Jewish dispensation? He was placed there as a servant; but Christ, at the head of the new dispensation, as a Son. Was the high priest of the Jews a mediator between God and the people, who offered up their annual propitiatory sacrifice, and went into the holy of holies, into the immediate presence of the Divinity, on their account? The office of this high priest, from its very nature, and from the brevity of human life, was short and limited; but Christ is high priest for ever, he has entered the holy of holies in the highest heavens, and has once for all offered a propitiatory sacrifice of everlasting efficacy. Was the temple a magnificent structure, the sacred character of which inspired awe? Magnificent and sacred as it was, it was merely a copy of the temple in which Jesus officiates, reared by God himself, and eternal in the heavens. Was the blood of goats and bullocks annually presented before the shrine of Jehovah, by the Jewish high priest, on the great day of atonement? Jesus, by his own blood, entered the sanctuary of the eternal temple, and made an atonement which needs not to be repeated. In a word, were all the implements of temple-service, all which pertained to the order and persons of the priesthood, venerable and holy? All these things were merely similitudes of the more perfect temple and priesthood of him, who is the great high priest of the Christian dispensation.

Who now entertained the particular views in respect to the Mosaic ritual, which the writer thus brings into comparison? To whom could the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, as he constantly does, appeal, as being familiarly acquainted with every thing that pertained even to the minutest parts of the Jewish ritual, and priesthood, and sacred places, and utensils, and the very location of these utensils? To whom, I ask, but to the Palestine Jews? It must be to those who from childhood were familiar with all these objects, and who had been inspired by education with the most profound reverence for them, and with zeal to maintain their importance.

Why are not these subjects brought into view, in Paul's letters to other churches? Disputes he had with the Jews; as the epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, in a word, as all his epistles testify. But not about the temple-ritual, and priesthood, and holy places, and utensils. The disputes concerned other rites of Judaism, which could be generally practised by Hebrews living in foreign countries; and not those in which only a few devotees would feel a particular interest.

I cannot resist the impression, when I read the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews, that the appeal is made to those, who have an intimate knowledge of, and strong jealousy for, the honour of the whole Mosaic ritual there brought to view. I am fully aware, that pilgrims, so to speak, annually resorted from all parts of the world where the Jews were settled, to Jerusalem. So they do still. But how few must these have been, from countries more remote. The supposition that the great body of the church, or the whole church, addressed in the epistle to the Hebrews, if these Hebrews belonged to foreign countries, possessed the intimate personal knowledge of the Jewish ritual, holy places, and utensils, which the writer evidently supposes those to possess whom he addresses, does, in itself considered, seem to be very improbable.

It is rendered still more so, by some additional facts which ought to be here stated. In the latter part of Paul's ministry, his disputes abroad about Judaism appear to have generally subsided, and he was every where received by the foreign churches with great cordiality and affection. It was only at the first planting of the churches abroad, at the period when the transition was to be made from Judaism to Christianity, which was indeed a great transition in respect to externals, that disputes arose, and passions were awakened, which occasioned much trouble and anxiety to the apostle. More light and a better understanding of the nature of Christianity appeased these disputes, wherever Judaism had not the strong grasp which the constant practice of the ritual gave it.

Not so in Palestine. The very last visit which the apostle made there, before he was sent a prisoner to Rome, occasioned a tumult among the zealots for the law; who even joined in persecuting him. "Thou seest,

brother," said the other apostles to him, "how many thousand Jews are become believers, and they are all (nλwral тov vóμov," zealots for the observance of the law, Acts xxi. 20; the correctness of which sentiment was abundantly confirmed by the sequel. That zealots for the law here means particularly the Jews of Palestine, is evident from v. 21 which follows.

That the Palestine Christians adhered with far greater tenacity to the Jewish ritual than the Jews abroad, is clearly shown moreover by the fact, that while the foreign Jews soon abandoned altogether the rites of Judaism, the zealots for the Mosaic ritual in Palestine even separated, at last, from the community of other Christians, rejected all the epistles of Paul from the

canon of the New Testament, and retained in all their strictness the ceremonies of the law. I refer to the sect of the Ebionites (I might add, at least in many respects, the Nazarenes), the first party that rent asunder the church of Christ; and which would not bear at all with the catholic spirit of Paul's preaching and epistles.

All these circumstances united have strongly impressed me with the idea, that the whole texture and manner of the epistle to the Hebrews almost of necessity imply, that those to whom it was originally addressed were in general habitual attendants on the services of the temple, and intimately and personally acquainted with all its rites and ceremonies. Of course I must regard them

as belonging to Palestine, or to its near neighbourhood.

In addition to these considerations, which apply generally to the epistle in question, there appear to be some particular references made to circumstances, which would seem to presuppose a personal and familiar knowledge, on the part of those addressed, with objects in and about Jerusalem and the temple; e. g. when the writer says, xiii. 12, "Wherefore Jesus, that he might purify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate," viz. the gate through which criminals were led to execution; this implies that the readers were supposed to be acquainted with the locality of Jerusalem. And in ix. 5, after recounting the apartments and various sacred utensils of the temple, the writer says: Concerning which things it is not necessary (ovx šOTI) to speak particularly; by which an appeal is tacitly made to the knowledge of his readers, that would seem to imply a local and personal acquaintance with the circle of objects to which he alludes; although I acknowledge this interpretation is not a necessary one.

I freely grant that these circumstances are not so peculiar and exclusive, that it is impossible to apply them to Jews, who resided abroad and habitually visited Jerusalem. But where was the community abroad, who as a body did this? And then, probability and not demonstration is what we seek for in an argument of this nature. If demonstration, or what is equivalent to it, had been found in the epistle itself, there had not been such endless dispute about it.

It is a striking fact, also, that Jews only are addressed throughout the epistle. Where were the churches abroad that consisted only of Jews? I am aware that this argument may be met by asking the question, Could not the writer address the Jewish part of a church abroad, and not the Gentile? The possibility of this cannot be denied. The probability that it was so, does not, in this case, seem to be very great. For is it not natural to suppose, that the Gentile part of the church would have been more or less infected with the feelings of the Jewish part; and that some of them, at least, would have also been in danger of apostasy? Could the writer, who shows such deep solicitude to prevent this awful catastrophe, fail to have warned his Gentile brethren against their danger; and to have exhorted and encouraged them to persevere ? If this be possible, we must still grant, when we consider the characteristics of the writer, that it is at least highly improbable.

Nor can it be alleged, as an adequate reply to this, that the epistles to the Ephesians and Galatians are exclusively addressed to Gentile converts. For in regard to the first, no such urgent and fundamental question as that treated of in the epistle to the Hebrews, comes under discussion. It is probable, moreover, that by far the greater part of this church were Gentiles. And with respect to the epistle to the Galatians, although Storr has assumed