Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Hebrews

NPNF (V1-14)St. Chrysostomallowance is to be made. Still, the investigation seems to me to afford a sufficient basis for someprobable conclusions. The Epistle contains both style-words and thought-words, characteristic alikeof St. Luke and St. Paul, sometimes of one, sometimes of the other, sometimes of both; and thesemust be taken into account in any theory of the authorship. But they are not more than might beexpected in any writer belonging among the companions of a leader of such magnetism and poweras St. Paul. I see nothing in them to prove, hardly even to suggest, actual authorship. On the otherhand, there are many words and groups of words expressing ideas very prominently in the mind ofthe author of this Epistle, which must have appeared also in the writings of St. Paul had the thoughtsof this Epistle been derived from him, but which are not found there. Of course, no man expressesall his ideas in any one epistle, nor the same ideas in every one he writes; but the difference hereis more radical. As one mind now is affected by one, and another by another of the various aspectsof Christian truth, so the differences here go to show that the mind of the author of Epistle to theHebrews was not affected in the same way as St. Paul; for Hebrews is scarcely more unlike theEpistles in which St. Paul addressed believing Jews than the speeches recorded in Acts xiii., xxii.,and xxviii ., in which he spoke to his still unbelieving countrymen. This leaves us free to acceptthe author’s own statement, that instead of being, like St. Paul, one who had received his apostleship“not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father” ( Gal. i. 1 ), he was of thatnumber who had received through the medium of others that Gospel “which at the first began tobe spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him” ( Heb. ii. 3 ).It thus appears that neither are the thoughts of this Epistle Pauline, nor is its language that ofSt. Luke. It may be well to say a few words in conclusion as to the person to whom such facts aswe have point as the probable author.It is plain from what has been said, as well as from the common consent of students, that theauthor must be looked for among those companions of St. Paul who, through prolonged intercourse,were likely to have their modes of expression somewhat affected by his language. The number ofthese is considerable, and after so many ages of uncertainty, beginning with the earliest discussionof the subject, it is not likely that the right one can ever be pointed out with certainty. Many moderncritics have selected Apollos as the most probable author, chiefly because of the facts recorded ofhim in Acts xviii. 24–28 , that he “was born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in theScriptures,” and that after receiving further instruction from Aquila and Priscilla, “he mightilyconvinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.” He wascertainly personally known to St. Paul ( 1 Cor. xvi. 12 ), although of the length of time they mayhave been together we have no information. His being an Alexandrian is thought to explain whatsome are pleased to consider an Alexandrian tone of thought in the Epistle, and also the fact thatits quotations are from the LXX, and accord rather with its Alexandrian than its Vatican recension.The force of the last point is not obvious. In the meagreness of our knowledge of the original LXX,it appears probable that the so-called Alexandrian recension was the one generally current in theLevant, and therefore that this indication, whatever it may be worth, simply points to an Orientalauthor. And so also whatever there may be of an Alexandrian caste of thought in the Epistle onlyindicates some one familiar with Jewish-Alexandrian literature, and this would include almost355519