LANGUAGE, called also absolutely Hebrew, is the language spoken by the Hebrews, and in which all the books of the Old Testament are written; whence it is also called the holy or sacred language. It is said to have been preserved in the midst of the confusion at Babel, in the family of Heber, or Eber, who, as it is alleged, was not concerned in the building of Babel, and, consequently, did not share in the punishment inflicted on the actual transgressors. The Jews, in general, have been of opinion, that the Hebrew was the language of Heber’s family, from whom Abraham sprung. On the other hand, it has been maintained that Heber’s family, in the fourth generation after the dispersion, lived in Chaldea, where Abraham was born, Gen. xi, 27, 28, and that there is no reason to think they used a different language from their neighbours around them. It appears, moreover, that the Chaldee, and not the Hebrew, was the language of Abraham’s country, and of his kindred, Gen. xxiv, 4; xxxi, 46, 47; and it is probable that Abraham’s native language was Chaldee, and that the Hebrew was the language of the Canaanites, which Abraham and his posterity learned by travelling among them. It is surprising that this adoption of the Phenician language by the patriarchs should have escaped the notice of several intelligent readers of the Bible. Jacob and Laban, it is clear, by the names they gave to the cairn, or memorial of stones, spoke two different dialects; and it is nearly equally evident, that the language of Laban was the dialect of Ur of the Chaldees, the original speech of the Hebrew race. As the patriarchs disused the true Hebrew dialect, it is manifest that they had conformed to the speech of Canaan; and that this conformity was complete, is proved by the identity between all the remains of Canaanitish names. At the same time, it must be remarked, that the Phenician and the Chaldean were merely different dialects of the same primitive language which had been spoken by the first ancestors of mankind.

There is no work in all antiquity written in pure Hebrew, beside the books of the Old Testament; and even some parts of those are in Chaldee. The Hebrew appears to be the most ancient of all the languages in the world; at least it is so with regard to us, who know of no older. Dr. Sharpe adopts the opinion, that the Hebrew was the original language; not indeed that the Hebrew is the unvaried language of our first parents, but that it was the general language of men at the dispersion; and, however it might have been improved and altered from the first speech of our first parents, it was the original of all the languages, or almost all the languages, rather dialects, that have since arisen in the world. Arguments have also been deduced from the nature and genius of the Hebrew language, in order to prove that it was the original language, neither improved nor debased by foreign idioms. The words of which it is composed are short, and admit of very little flexion. The names of places are descriptive of their nature, situation, accidental circumstances, &c. The compounds are few, and inartificially conjoined; and it is less burdened with those artificial affixes which distinguish other cognate dialects, such as the Chaldean, Syrian, Arabian, Phenician, &c. The period, from the age of Moses to that of David, has been considered the golden age of the Hebrew language, which declined in purity from that time to the reign of Hezekiah or Manasseh, having received several foreign words, particularly Aramean, from the commercial and political intercourse of the Jews and Israelites with the Assyrians and Babylonians. This period has been termed the silver age of the Hebrew language. In the interval between the reign of Hezekiah and the Babylonish captivity, the purity of the language was neglected, and so many foreign words were introduced into it, that this period has not inaptly been designated its iron age. During the seventy years’ captivity, though it does not appear that the Hebrews entirely lost their native tongue, yet it underwent so considerable a change from their adoption of the vernacular languages of the countries where they had resided, that afterward, on their return from exile, they spoke a dialect of Chaldee mixed with Hebrew words. On this account it was, that, when the Scriptures were read, it was found necessary to interpret them to the people in the Chaldean language; as, when Ezra the scribe brought the book of the law of Moses before the congregation, the Levites are said to have caused the people to understand the law, because “they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading,” Nehem. viii, 8. Some time after the return from the great captivity, Hebrew ceased to be spoken altogether; though it continued to be cultivated and studied by the priests and Levites, as a learned language, that they might be enabled to expound the law and the prophets to the people, who, it appears from the New Testament, were well acquainted with their general contents and tenor: this last mentioned period has been called the leaden age of the language. The present Hebrew characters, or letters, are twenty-two in number, and of a square form; but the antiquity of these letters is a point that has been most severely contested by many learned men. From a passage in Eusebius’s Chronicle, and another in St. Jerom, it was inferred by Joseph Scaliger, that Ezra, when he reformed the Jewish church, transcribed the ancient characters of the Hebrews into the square letters of the Chaldeans; and that this was done for the use of those Jews who, being born during the captivity, knew no other alphabet than that of the people among whom they had been educated. Consequently, the old character, which we call the Samaritan, fell into total disuse. This opinion Scaliger supported by passages from both the Talmuds, as well as from rabbinical writers, in which it is expressly affirmed that such characters were adopted by Ezra. But the most decisive confirmation of this point is to be found in the ancient Hebrew coins, which were struck before the captivity, and even previously to the revolt of the ten tribes. The characters engraven on all of them are manifestly the same with the modern Samaritan, though with some trifling variations in their forms, occasioned by the depredations of time.

The form 'ibrι is, in the language of Semitic grammarians, a relative noun, presupposing the word 'Eber as the name of the tribe, place, or common ancestor, from whom the Hebrews are designated. Accordingly we find Eber as a nation side by side with Assyria in the obscure poetical passage Num. xxiv. 24, and Eber as ancestor of the Hebrews in the genealogical lists of Gen. x., xi. Here we must apparently distinguish two records. According to Gen. xi. (and Gen. x. 24) Eber is the great-grandson of Shein through Arphaxad, and ancestor of Terah through Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor. These are not to be taken a3 the names of individual men. Several of them are designations of places or districts near the upper waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, and among other circumstances the place at the head of the series assigned to the district of Arrapachitis (Arphaxad), through which a migration from Ararat to the lands occupied by the Semites in historical times would first pass, suggests the probability that the genealogy is not even meant to exhibit a table of ethnological affinities, but rather presents a geographical sketch of the early movements of the Hebrews, who are personified under the name of Eber. If this is so we can hardly venture to assert (with some scholars) that the author of the list (the Levitical Elohist) extended the name of Hebrews to all descendants of Terah. The case is different with another and apparently older record of which a fragment seems to be preserved in Gen. x. 21, 25-30. Here there is no intermediate link between Shem and Eber. Sons of Shem and sons of Eber appear to be coextensive ideas, and to the latter are reckoned not only the descendants of Peleg (Aramaeans, Israelites, Ishmaelite Arabs, <fcc.), but the South Arabian tribes of Joktan. We possess no information which casts light on this wide conception of the sons of Eber, and in the ordinary language of the Old Testament Hebrew and Israelite are strictly synonymous.

Compare, however, the interesting conjectures of Sprenger, Alte Geographie Arabiens (Bera, 1875), p. 294, who identifies Peleg with Falag in Central Arabia, and finds in the record a witness to the truth of the view that Arabia is the original centre of the Semitic dispersion, a view which is shared by other scholars, as Hitzig {Geschichte Israels, pp. 26, S9), and Schrader (Z. D. Μ. G., 1873, pp. 397-424). In this connexion it is perhaps worth while to note the Arabic Gentile name Obri, belonging to Obra, a minor division of the Joktanic tribe of the Azd {Lubb-il-l·ubdb, ed. Veth, p. 175).

When it is recognized that Eber in Genesis is not an actual personage but an ethnological or geographical abstraction, we are thrown back on etymological conjecture as to the origin of the name of Hebrews. 'Eber means the further bauk of a river, from a root meaning to cross. Hence in Gen. xiv. 13 the Septuagint renders Abram the Hebrew by ό τrepciπ∕ς, “the crosser.” Grammatically more accurate, while resting on the same etymology, is the rendering of Aquila, o πeρaιτη<s, “the man from the other side” of the Euphrates, which is the explanation of Jewish tradition {Brβshit Rabba, and Rashi) and still generally adopted. It is, however, far from satisfactory, and almost of necessity depends on the theory that the name was fixed upon the Hebrew immigrants by the earlier inhabitants of Canaan. A modified form of the etymology takes 'eber in the Arabic sense of a riverbank, and makes the Hebrews “dwellers in a land of rivers” (Steiner in the Bibel-Lex., ii. 613). This goes well with Peleg (watercourse), as in Arabia we have the district Falag, so named because it is furrowed by waters (Sprenger, Ceog. Arab., p. 234). The name “Hebrew Languages— By the Hebrew language we understand the ancient tongue of the Hebrews in Canaan —the language in which the Old Testament is composed, with the exception of the Aramaic passages (Jer. x. 11; Ezra iv. 8-vi. 18; vii. 12-26; Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28). But we do not find that this language was called Hebrew by those who spoke it. It is the lip, i.e., speech of Canaan, Isa. xix. 18, or, as spoken in Southern Palestine, ΓP∏*)∏* Jewish (2 Kings xviii. 26; Neh. xiii. 24). The later Jews call it the holy tongue in contrast to the profane Aramaic dialect (commonly though improperly enough called Syro-Chaldaic) which long before the time of Christ had superseded the old language as the vernacular of the Jews. This change had already taken place at the time when the expression “in Hebrew” (Ιβράίστί.) first occurs (Prologue to Sirach); and both in the Apocrypha and in the New Testament the ambiguous term, naming the language after those who used it, often denotes the contemporary vernacular, not the obsolete idiom of the Old Testament. But the other sense was admissible (e.g., Rev. ix. 11, and so frequently in Josephus), and naturally became the prevalent one among Christian writers who had little occasion to speak of anything but the Old Testament Hebrew. In modern usage it is incorrect to call the Jewish Aramaic Hebrew; though uneducated Jews apply the name even to the corrupt German and Spanish jargons which they are accustomed to write and print in Hebrew characters.

Character and Philological Relations of Hebrew.— Hebrew is a language of the group which since Eichhorn has generally been known as Semitic, and of which Arabic and Ethiopie (Southern Semitic), the various dialects of Aramaic, and the language of the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions are the other chief representatives. From its geographical position as the language of Palestine between the Aramaeans of the north and the Arabs of the south, Hebrew has been called AIiddle Semitic. Or Aramaic Assyrian and Hebrew may be grouped together as Northern Semitic in contrast to Arabic and Ethiopie. The affinities of the Semitic languages are so close that they may fairly be compared with a sub-group of the Indo-Germanic family—for example, with the Teutonic languages. The fundamental unity of the Semitic vocabulary is easily observed from the absence of compounds (except in proper names) and from the fact that almost all words are derived from their roots in definite patterns (measures') as regular as those of grammatical inflexion. The roots regularly consist of three consonants (seldom four or five), the accompanying vowels having no radical value, but shifting according to grammatical rules to express various embodiments of the root idea. The triliteral roots are substantially common to the whole Semitic group, subject to certain consonantal permutations, of which the most important are strikingly analogous to those laid down by Grimm for the Teutonic languages.

There are four sounds in Arabic unknown to Hebrew and Aramaic, and for which the former regularly has a sibilant, the latter a lingual—in one case a deep guttural. This guttural (JJ), and the palatal letters which in the following table are represented by d, s, t, z, are peculiar Semitic sounds. [table]

On the last equation see Lagarde, Semiticα, i. 22; Noldeke in Z. D. Μ. G., xxxii., 405; and on the permutation of consonants in general, Merx, Gram. Syr., § 24; Stade in Mοrgeηl. Forschungen (1875), p. 179 se<p Whether the Arabic or Aramaic forms are the older is disputed. No one maintains that the Hebrew forms are original.

Derivation from the roots and inflexion proceed partly by the reduplication of root letters and the addition of certain preformatives and afformatives (more rarely by the insertion of formative consonants in the body of the root), partly by modifications of the vowels with which the radicals are pronounced. Almost every root expresses in its origin something that can be grasped by the senses, and the mechanism by which words are formed from the root is adapted to present sensible notions in a variety of nuances and in all possible embodiments and connexions, so that there are regular forms to express in a single word the intensity, the repetition, the production of the root idea—the place, the instrument, the time of its occurrence, and so forth. Thus the expression of intellectual ideas is necessarily metaphorical, almost every word being capable of a material sense or at least conveying the distinct suggestion of some sensible notion. For example, the names of passione depict their physiological expression; “to confer honour” means also “to make heavy,” and so on. The same concrete character, the same inadequacy to convey purely abstract thoughts without a substratum appealing to the senses, appears in the grammatical structure of the Semitic tongues,—for example, in the absence of the neuter gender, in the extreme paucity of particles, in the scanty provision for the subordination of propositions, which deprives the Semitic style of all involved periods and reduces it to a succession of short sentences linked by the simple copula and. The fundamental element of these languages is the noun, and in the fundamental type of sentence the predicate is a noun set down without any copula and therefore without distinction of past, present, or future time. The finite verb is developed from nominal forms (participial or infinitive), and is equally without distinction of time. Instead of tenses we find two forms, the perfect and the imperfect, which are used according as the speaker contemplates the verbal action as a thing complete or as conditional, imperfect, or in process. It lies in the nature of this distinction that the imperfect alone has moods. In their later stages the languages seek to supply the lack of tenses by circumlocutions with a substantive verb and participles. Other notable features common to the Semitic tongues are the use of appended suffixes to denote the possessive pronouns with a substantive, or the accusative of a personal pronoun with a verb, and the expression of the genitive relation by what is called construction or annexation, the governing noun being placed immediately before the genitive, and if possible slightly shortened in pronunciation so that the two words may run together as one idea. A characteristic of the later stages of the languages is the resolution of this relation into a prepositional clause.

Theβe and other peculiarities are sufficient to establish the original unity of the group, and entitle us to postulate an original language from which all the Semitic dialects have sprung. Of the relation of this language to other linguistic stems, especially to the Indo-Germanic on the east and the North-African languages on the west, we cannot yet speak with certainty; but it appears that the present system of triliteral roots has grown out of an earlier biliteral system which, so far as it can be reconstructed, must form the basis of scientific inquiry into the ultimate affinities of the Semitic group.

Before the rise of comparative philology it was a familiar opinion that Hebrew is the original speech of mankind. Taken from the Jews, and as already expressed in the Palestinian Targum on Gen. xi. 1, this opinion drew its main support from etymologies and other data in the earlier chapters of Genesis, which, however, were as plausibly turned by Syriac writers in favour of their own tongue. Till quite recently many excellent scholars (including Ewald) have claimed for Hebrew the greatest relative antiquity among Semitic tongues. But though Hebrew has by far the oldest literature, this does not prove that its structure comes nearest to the original Semitic language. And it is now generally recognized that in grammatical structure the Arabic, shut up within its native deserts till the epoch of Islam, preserved much more of the original Semitic forms than either Hebrew or Aramaic. In its richer vocalization, in the possession of distinct case-endings, in the use for feminine nouns of the affbrmative t, which in the northern dialect has passed through h (originally audible as in Egyptian Arabic) into a mere vowel, in the more extensive range of passive and modal forms, and in other refinements of inflexion, Arabic represents no later development, but the original wealth and primitive subtlety of Semitic speech, as appears not only from fragmentary survivals in the other dialects but from an examination of the process of decay which has brought the spoken Arabic of the present day into a grammatical condition closely parallel to the Old Testament Hebrew. But while Arabic is in many respects the elder brother, it is not the parent of Hebrew or Aramaic. Each member of the group had an independent development from a stage prior to any existing language, though it would seem that Hebrew did not branch off’ from Aramaic so soon as from Arabic, while in its later stages it came under direct Aramaic influence.

Among the points in which Hebrew differs both from Arabic and Aramaic may be mentioned the consonantal relations already spoken of, the system of tone long vowels, the use of Waw consecutive, the ∏ of the causative and reflexive stems and of the article, and the compensation for omitting the reduplication of gutturals and r by lengthening a preceding vowel. Again, Hebrew agrees with Arabic against Aramaic in possessing a prefixed article, in the use of the Nifal (Arab. vπ. ), and in other minor points. But in more notable features Hebrew and Aramaic agree against Arabic, as in the absence of broken plurals, the place of the accent, the aspiration of certain letters whenever they are preceded by a vowel sound, and the substitution of y for w as the first radical of roots. To give further details would carry us too far into comparative grammar. Speaking generally, it may be said that Hebreλv is less copious in vocabulary than Arabic (in which tongue, however, the abundance of synonyms is largely due to an artificial combination of several dialects), and less rich in subtle distinctions of grammatical form and refinements of syntax. On the other hand, Hebrew is much superior to Aramaic in flexibility of structure, in fulness of vowels, and in all the qualities which adapt a language for poetical expression.

Geographical Sphere and History of Hebrew as a Spoken Language.— The Hebrew spoken by the Israelites in Canaan was separated only by very minor differences (like those of our provincial dialects) from the speech of neighbouring tribes. We know this for the Moabite language from the stone of Mesha; and the indications furnished by proper names, as well as the acknowledged affinity of Israel with these tribes, make the same thing probable for Ammon and Edom. More remarkable is the fact that the Phoenicians and Canaanites, with whom the Israelites acknowledged no brotherhood, spoke a language which, at least as written, differs but little from Biblical Hebrew. This observation has been used in support of the very old idea that the Hebrews originally spoke Aramaic, and changed their language in Canaan. But an exacter study of the Phoenician inscriptions shows differences from Hebrew which suffice to constitute a distinct dialect, and combine with other indications to favour the view that the descendants of Abraham brought their Hebrew idiom with them from Haran. And in this connexion it is important to observe that the old Assyrian, which preceded Aramaic in regions with which the book of Genesis connects the origins of Abraham, is in many respects closely akin to Hebrew. As the origin of Hebrew is lost in the obscurity that hangs over the early movements of the Semitic tribes, so we know very little of the changes which the language underwent in Canaan. The existence of local differences of speech is proved by Judges xii. 6; but the attempt to make out in the Old Testament records a northern and a Judaean dialect, or even besides' these a third dialect for the Simeonites of the extreme south, has led to no certain results. In general it may be said that the Biblical text supplies inadequate data for studying the history of the language. Semitic writing, especially a purely consonantal text such as the Old Testament originally was, gives an imperfect picture of the very grammatical and phonetic details most likely to vary dialectically or in course of time. The later punctuation (including the notation of vowels), and even many things in the present consonantal text, represent the formal pronunciation of the Synagogue as it took shape after Hebrew became a dead language—for even the Septuagint has often a more primitive pronunciation of proper names. This modern system being applied to all parts of the Old Testament alike, many archaisms were obliterated or disguised, and the earlier and later writings present in the received text a grammatical uniformity which is certainly not original. It is true that occasional consonantal forms inconsistent with the accompanying vowels have survived—especially in the books least read by the Jews—and appear in the light of comparative grammar as indications of more primitive forms. These sporadic survivals show that the correction of obsolete forms was not carried through with perfect consistency; but we are never safe to argue as if we possessed the original form of the texts.

In the Pentateuch, for example, the form Kl∏ stands not only for ΝΙΠ (3d personal prom masc.) but for K'Π (the feminine). And hence a favourite argument was drawn for the superior antiquity of this part of the Old Testament. But the same thing is found elsewhere (Frensdorff, Mass. JVörterb., p. 233), especially in Babylonian codices of the prophets (Geiger, Urschrift, p. 236; Z. D. Μ. G., xxviii. 676). The feminine can never by any possibility have been pronounced hu, but the old orthography was probably J<∏ for hu and hi alike (Nöldeke in Bibel-Lexikon, id supra, after Levy).

The chief historical changes in the Hebrew language which we can still trace are due to Aramaic influence. The Northern Israelites were in immediate contact with Aramaean populations and some Aramaic loan-words were used, at least in Northern Israel, from a very early date. At the time of Hezekiah Aramaic seems to have been the usual language of diplomacy spoken by the statesmen of Judah and Assyria alike (2 Kings xviii. 26). After the fall of Samaria the Hebrew population of Northern Israel was partly deported, their place being taken by new colonists most of whom probably had Aramaic as their mothertongue. It is not therefore surprising that even in the language of Judea increasing signs of Aramaic influence appear before the Exile. The fall of the Jewish kingdom accelerated the decay of Hebrew as a spoken language. Not indeed that the captives forgot their own tongue in Babylon, as older scholars supposed on the basis of Jewish tradition. The Exilic and post-Exile prophets do not write in a lifeless tongue, and Hebrew was still the language of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah (ch. xiii.) in the middle of the 5th century b.c. But after the Exile the petty people of the Jews were in daily intercourse with a surrounding Aramaean population, aud the Aramaic tongue, which was the official language of the western provinces of the Persian empire, began to take rank as the recognized medium of polite intercourse and letters...

That the received view called for revision could not indeed be questioned when men began to look at the facts of the case. The vacillation of tradition and the dissimilarity of the epistle from the style and thoughts of Paul were brought out with great force by Erasmus in his concluding annotation on the book, where he ventures the conjecture based on a passage of his favourite Jerome, that Clement of Rome was the real author. Luther (who suggests Apollos) and Calvin (who thinks of Luke or Clement) followed with the decisive argument that Paul, who lays such stress on the fact that his gospel was not taught to him by man but by direct revelation (Gal. i.), could not have written Heb. ii. 3, 4, where the author classes him3elf among those who received the message of salvation from the personal disciples of the Lord on the evidence of the miracles with which God confirmed their word. The force of tradition seemed already broken, but the wave of reaction which so soon overwhelmed the freer tendencies of the first reformers brought back the old view. Protestant orthodoxy again accepted Paul as the author, and dissentient voices were seldom heard till the revival of free Biblical criticism in last century. As criticism strengthened its arguments, theologians began to learn that the denial of tradition involves no danger to faith, and at the present moment, in spite of the ingenious special pleading of Hofmann (Z)∕'e Heilige Schrift N. Ts., vol. v., Nordlingen, 18/ 3), scarcely any sound scholar will be found to accept Paul as the direct author of the epistle, though such a modified view as was suggested by Origen still claims adherents among the lovers of compromise with tradition.

The arguments against the Alexandrian tradition are in fact conclusive. It is probably unfair to hamper that tradition with Clement’s notion that the book is a translation from the Hebrew, a monstrous hypothesis which has received its reductio ad absurdum in the recent attempt of J. H. R. Biesenthal to reconstruct the Hebrew text (Das Trost schreiben des Apostels Paulus an die Hebräer, kritisch, wiederher g e stellt, <fcc., Leipsic, 1878). But just as little can the Greek be from Paul’s pen. The un-Fauline character of the style, alike in the words used and in the structure of the sentences, strikes every scholar as it struck Origen and Erasmus. The type of thought is quite unique. The theological ideas are cast in a different mould; and the leading conception of the high priesthood of Christ, which is no mere occasional thought but a central point in the author’s conception of Christianity, finds its nearest analogy not in the Pauline epistles but in John xvii. 19. The Old Testament is cited after the Alexandrian translation more exactly and exclusively than is the custom of Paul, and that even where the Hebrew original is divergent. Nor is this an accidental circumstance. There is every appearance that the author was a Hellenist whose learning did not embrace a knowledge of the Hebrew text, and who derived his metaphysic and allegorical method from the Alexandrian rather than the Palestinian schools.

The force of these arguments can be brought out only by the accumulation of a multitude of details too tedious for this place, but the evidence from the few personal indications contained in the epistle is easily grasped and not less powerful. The argument from ii. 3, 4, which appeared decisive to Luther and Calvin, has already been referred to. Again, we read in xiii. 19 that the writer is absent from the church which he addresses, but hopes to be speedily restored to them. This expression is not to be understood as im. plying that the epistle was written in prison, for xiii. 23 shows that the author is master of his own movements. The plain sense is that his home is with them, but that he is at present absent, and begs their prayers for a speedy return. But Paul, if he could say that he had a home at all, had it not in a community of Jewish Christians. The external authority of the Alexandrian tradition can have no weight against such difficulties. If that tradition was original and continuous, the long ignorance of the Roman Church and the opposite tradition of Africa are inexplicable. But no tradition was more likely to arise in circles where the epistle was valued and its origin forgotten. In spite of its divergencies from the standard of Pauline authorship,, the book has manifest Pauline affinities, and can hardly have originated beyond the Pauline circle, to which it is referred, not only by the author’s friendship with Timothy (xiii. 23), but by many unquestionable echoes of the Pauline theology, and even by distinct allusions to passages in Paul’s epistles.

In an uncritical age these features might easily suggest Paul as the author of a book which was read in MSS.

immediately after the recognized epistles of that apostle, and which contained nothing in its title to distinguish it from the preceding books with similar headings, “To the Romans,” “To the Corinthians,” and the like. 1 A similar history, as Zahn has pointed out, attaches to the so-called second epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.

When we see that the tradition which names Paul as author does not possess an authentic historical basis, we are necessarily carried on to deny historical authority to the subsidiary conjectures or traditions which speak of Luke and Clement of Rome. The history of the Alexandrian tradition shows that these names were brought in merely to lessen the difficulties attaching to the view that Paul wrote the book exactly as we have it. The name of Luke seems to be a conjecture of the Alexandrian Clement, for it has no place in the tradition received from his master. And Origen attaches no importance to either name. Some hal mentioned one, and some the other, but God alone knows the truth. We have no reason to think more highly of these suggestions than Origen did. Indeed, no Protestant scholar now proposes the name of Clement, whose extant epistle to the Corinthians shows his familiarity with the epistle to the Hebrews, and at the same time excludes the idea thιt he composed it. The name of Luke has still partisans—most notably Delitzsch, who has carefully collected linguistic parallels between our epistle and the Lucan writings (Commentar zum Hebräerbrief Leipsic, 1857; English translation, Edinburgh, 1868-70). The arguments of Delitzsch are generally met with the objection that our author must have been a born Jew, which from his standpoint and culture is in the highest degree probable, though not perhaps absolutely certain. In any case we cannot suppose that Luke wrote the epistle on Paul’s commission, or that the work is substantially the apostle’s; for such a theory takes no account of the strongly-marked individuality of the book in thought and method as well as expression. And the theory that Luke was the independent author of the epistle (Grotius and others) has no right to appeal to antiquity, and must stand entirely on the very inadequate grounds of internal probability afforded by language and style.

If Alexandria fails us, can we suppose that Africa preserved the original tradition? This is a difficult question. The intrinsic objections to authorship by Barnabas are not important. The so-called Epistle to Barnabas was not written by our author, but then it is admittedly not by Barnabas. The superior elegance of the style of our epistle a3 compared with that of Paul is not inconsistent with Acts xiv. 12; nor is there, as we shall see presently, any real force in the once favourite objection that the ordinances of the temple are described with less accuracy than might be looked for in Barnabas, a Levite and one who had resided in Jerusalem. On the other hand it is hard to believe that the correct account of the authorship of our book was preserved only in Africa, and in a tradition so isolated that Tertullian seems to be its only independent witness. How could Africa know this thing and Rome be ignorant? Zahn, who is the latest exponent of the Barnabas hypo thesis, argues that in the West, where the so-called epistle of Barnabas was long unknown, there was nothing to suggest the i lea of Barnabas as an author; that the true tradition might perish the more readily in other parts of the church after the name of Barnabas had been falsely attached to another epistle dealing with the typology of the ceremonial law; and finally, that the false epistle of

Barnabas, which was first so named in Alexandria, may there have carried off the true title of the epistle to the Hebrews after the latter was ascribed to Paul. That is not plausible, and it is more likely that an epistle which calls itself λόγος 7rα∕3ακλτ)σ∙∈ως (Heb. xiii. 22) w as ascribed to the υioς 7rαpακλτ)σeως (Acts iv. 36) in the same way as Ps. cxxvii. was ascribed to Solomon, “the beloved of the Lord” (2 Sam. xii. 24, 25), from the allusion cxxvii. 2, than that this coincidence of expression affords a confirmation of the Barnabas hypothesis. In short, the whole tradition as to the epistle is too uncertain to offer much support to any theory of authorship, and if the name of Barnabas is accepted it must stand mainly on internal evidence.

Being thus thrown back on w hat the epistle itself can tell us, we must look at the first readers, with whom, as we have already seen, the author stood in very close relations. It is generally agreed that the church addressed was composed of Hebrew's or Christians of Jewish birth. We are not entitled to take this simply on the authority of the title, which is hardly more than a reflexion of the impression produced on an early copyist. But it is plain that the writer is at one with his readers in approaching all Christian truth through the Old Testament. He and they alike are accustomed to regard Christianity as a continuous development of Judaism, in which the benefits of Christ’s death belong to the ancient people of God and supply the shortcomings of the old dispensation (iv. 9; ix. 15; xiii. 12). With all the weight that is laid on the superiority of Christianity, the religion of finality, over Mosaism, the dispensation which brought nothing to its goal, the sphere of the two dispensations is throughout treated as identical, without any allusion, such as could hardly have been avoided in addressing a Gentile church, to the way in which strangers and foreigners (Eph. ii. 19) had been incorporated with the people of God. Schürer indeed (Stud. u. Krit., 1876, p. 776) has sought such an allusion in vi. 1, 2, where faith in God and belief in the resurrection and the judgment, points common to Judaism and Christianity, are reckoned to the elementary doctrine of Christ; and he concludes that the readers addressed were Gentile converts of a Judaizing type. But taken with the context these verses imply only that the Hebrews required to be warned against losing hold even of these first principles of revealed truth which lie in the Old Testament (v. 12). From all this we are not perhaps entitled to conclude that the church addressed contained no Gentile members, but it is plain that they were not sufficiently numerous and independent in their way of thought to affect the general type of Christianity in the community. To some writers the emphatic “all” in xiii. 24, the admonitions x. 25, xiii. 17, have suggested the possibility that the Hebrews addressed were but part, and a somewhat discontented part, of a larger community in which Gentile elements has a considerable place. . But this appears a strained conclusion (Phil, iv. 21; 1 Th. v. 26) distinctly contrary to the general tone of the epistle, which moves altogether outside of the antithesis between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. We must think not of a party but of a church, and such a church can be sought only in Palestine or in one of the great centres of the Jewish dispersion. That the epistle was addressed to Palestine, or more specifically to Jerusalem, has been a prevalent opinion from the time of Clement of Alexandria, mainly because it was assumed that the word Hebrews must naturally mean Jews, whose mother-tongue was Aramaic. But the term has this restricted sense only when put in contrast to Hellenists. In itself, according to ordinary usage, it simply denotes Jews by race, and in Christian writings especially Jewish Christians. And there are several things in the epistle that seem to exclude Palestine, and above all Jerusalem. The Hellenistic cul-

1 The place of the epistle in MSS. varies. The order of our Bible is that of the Latin Church, the oldest Greek codices placing it before the pastoral epistles. But the Latin order, which expresses the original uncertainty of the Pauline tradition, was formerly current even in the East.

ture of the writer and the language in which he writes furnish one argument. Then the most marked proof of Christian love and zeal in the church addressed was that they had ever been assiduous in ministering to the saints (vi. 10). This expression may conceivably have a general sense (1 Cor. xvi. 151), but it is far more likely that it haβ the specific meaning which it generally bears in the New Testament, viz., the collection of alms for the church in Jerusalem. At any rate it was clearly understood in the first age of Christianity that the Judaean Church took alms and did not give them, receiving in temporal things an acknowledgment for the spiritual things they had imparted (Rom. XV. 27). In fact the great weight laid in the epistles of Paul on this—the only manifestation of the catholicity of the church then possible (Gal. ii. 10)—alone explains the emphasis with which our author cites this one proof of Christian feeling. Again, the expressions in ii. 3 already referred to imply that the readers did not include in their number direct disciples of Jesus, but had been brought to Christ by the words and miracles of apostolic missionaries now dead (xiii. 7). This conversion, as it appears from x. 32, was a thing of precise date immediately followed by persecution (note the aorists φωτcσBivτeς—υπεμ,εivarε); so that we cannot think of a second generation in the Palestinian Church, but are referred to some part of the Diaspora. Against these difficulties, which have led some of the latest defenders of the Palestinian address, as Grimm (who, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1870, proposes Jamnia) and Moulton {Hew Testament Commentary for English Readers, vol. iii., 1879), to give up Jerusalem altogether, while others, as Riehm, suppose that the Hellenists of Jerusalem (Acts vi. 1) are primarily addressed, it is commonly urged that the readers are exposed to peculiar danger from the persecutions and solicitations of unbelieving Jews, that they are in danger of relapsing into participation in the Jewish sacrifices, or even...

EPISTLE TO THE. Though the genuineness of this epistle has been disputed both in ancient and modern times, its antiquity has never been questioned. It is generally allowed that there are references to it, although the author is not mentioned, in the remaining works of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr; and that it contains, as was first noticed by Chrysostom and Theodoret, internal evidence of having been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, Heb. viii, 4; ix, 25; x, 11, 37; xiii, 10. The earliest writer now extant who quotes this epistle as the work of St. Paul is Clement of Alexandria, toward the end of the second century; but, as he ascribes it to St. Paul repeatedly and without hesitation, we may conclude that in his time no doubt had been entertained upon the subject, or, at least, that the common tradition of the church attributed it to St. Paul. Clement is followed by Origen, by Dionysius and Alexander, both bishops of Alexandria, by Ambrose, Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerom, Chrysostom, and Cyril, all of whom consider this epistle as written by St. Paul; and it is also ascribed to him in the ancient Syriac version, supposed to have been made at the end of the first century. Eusebius says, “Of St. Paul there are fourteen epistles manifest and well known; but yet there are some who reject that to the Hebrews, urging for their opinion that it is contradicted by the church of the Romans, as not being St. Paul’s.” In Dr. Lardner we find the following remark: “It is evident that this epistle was generally received in ancient times by those Christians who used the Greek language, and lived in the eastern parts of the Roman empire.” And in another place he says, “It was received as an epistle of St. Paul by many Latin writers in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries.” The earlier Latin writers take no notice of this epistle, except Tertullian, who ascribes it to Barnabas. It appears, indeed, from the following expression of Jerom, that this epistle was not generally received as canonical Scripture by the Latin church in his time: “_Licet eam Latina consuetudo inter canonicas Scripturas non recipiat_.” [Although the usage of the Latin church does not receive it among the canonical Scriptures.] The same thing is mentioned in other parts of his works. But many individuals of the Latin church acknowledged it to be written by St. Paul, as Jerom himself, Ambrose, Hilary, and Philaster; and the persons who doubted its genuineness were those the least likely to have been acquainted with the epistle at an early period, from the nature of its contents not being so interesting to the Latin churches, which consisted almost entirely of Gentile Christians, ignorant, probably, of the Mosaic law, and holding but little intercourse with Jews.

The moderns, who, upon grounds of internal evidence, contend against the genuineness of this epistle, rest principally upon the two following arguments, the omission of the writer’s name, and the superior elegance of the style in which it is written. It is indeed certain that all the acknowledged epistles of St. Paul begin with a salutation in his own name, and that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, there is nothing of that kind; but this omission can scarcely be considered as conclusive against positive testimony. St. Paul might have reasons for departing, upon this occasion, from his usual mode of salutation, which we at this distant period cannot discover. Some have imagined that he omitted his name, because he knew that it would not have much weight with the Hebrew Christians, to whom he was in general obnoxious, on account of his zeal in converting the Gentiles, and in maintaining that the observance of the Mosaic law was not essential to salvation: it is, however, clear, that the persons to whom this epistle was addressed knew from whom it came, as the writer refers to some acts of kindness which he had received from them, and also expresses a hope of seeing them soon, Hebrews x, 34; xiii, 18, 19, 23. As to the other argument, it must be owned that there does not appear to be such superiority in the style of this epistle, as should lead to the conclusion that it was not written by St. Paul. Those who have thought differently have mentioned Barnabas, St. Luke, and Clement, as authors or translators of this epistle. The opinion of Jerom was, that the sentiments are the Apostle’s, but the language and composition that of some one else, who committed to writing the Apostle’s sense, and, as it were, reduced into commentaries the things spoken by his master. Dr. Lardner says, “My conjecture is, that St. Paul dictated the epistle in Hebrew, and another, who was a great master of the Greek language, immediately wrote down the Apostle’s sentiments in his own elegant Greek; but who this assistant of the Apostle was, is altogether unknown.” But surely the writings of St. Paul, like those of other authors, may not all have the same precise degree of merit; and if, upon a careful perusal and comparison, it should be thought that the Epistle to the Hebrews is written with greater elegance than the acknowledged compositions of this Apostle; it should also be remembered that the apparent design and contents of this epistle suggest the idea of more studied composition, and yet, that there is nothing in it which amounts to a marked difference of style: on the other hand, there is the same concise, abrupt, and elliptical mode of expression, and it contains many phrases and sentiments which are found in no part of Scripture, except in St. Paul’s Epistles. We may farther observe, that the manner in which Timothy is mentioned in this epistle makes it probable that it was written by St. Paul. Compare Heb. xiii, 23, with 2 Cor. i, 1, and Col. i, 1. It was certainly written by a person who had suffered imprisonment in the cause of Christianity; and this is known to have been the case of St. Paul, but of no other person to whom this epistle has been attributed. Upon the whole, both the external and internal evidence appear to preponderate so greatly in favour of St. Paul’s being the author of this epistle, that it cannot but be considered as written by that Apostle.

“They of Italy salute you,” is the only expression in the epistle which can assist us in determining from whence it was written. The Greek words are, οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰταλίας which should have been translated, “Those from Italy salute you;” and the only inference to be drawn from them seems to be, that St. Paul, when he wrote this epistle, was at a place where some Italian converts were. This inference is not incompatible with the common opinion, that this epistle was written from Rome, and therefore we consider it as written from that city. It is supposed to have been written toward the end of St. Paul’s first imprisonment at Rome, or immediately after it, because the Apostle expresses an intention of visiting the Hebrews shortly: we therefore place the date of this epistle in the year 63.

Clement, of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Jerom, thought that this epistle was originally written in the Hebrew language; but all the other ancient fathers who have mentioned this subject speak of the Greek as the original work; and as no one pretends to have seen this epistle in Hebrew, as there are no internal marks of the Greek being a translation, and as we know that the Greek language was at this time very generally understood at Jerusalem, we may accede to the more common opinion, both among the ancients and moderns, and consider the present Greek as the original text. It is no small satisfaction to reflect, that those who have denied either the genuineness or the originality of this epistle have always supposed it to have been written or translated by some fellow labourer or assistant of St. Paul, and that almost every one admits that it carries with it the sanction and authority of the inspired Apostle.

There has been some little doubt concerning the persons to whom this epistle was addressed; but by far the most general and most probable opinion is, that it was written to those Christians of Judea who had been converted to the Gospel from Judaism. That it was written, notwithstanding its general title, to the Christians of one certain place or country, is evident from the following passages: “I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner,” Heb. xiii, 19. “Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you,” Heb. xiii, 23. And it appears from the following passage in the Acts, “When the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews,” Acts vi, 1, that certain persons were at this time known at Jerusalem by the name of Hebrews. They seem to have been native Jews, inhabitants of Judea, the language of which country was Hebrew, and therefore they were called Hebrews, in contradistinction to those Jews who, residing commonly in other countries, although they occasionally came to Jerusalem, used the Greek language, and were therefore called Grecians.

The general design of this epistle was to confirm the Jewish Christians in the faith and practice of the Gospel, which they might be in danger of deserting, either through the persuasion or persecution of the unbelieving Jews, who were very numerous and powerful in Judea. We may naturally suppose, that the zealous adherents to the law would insist upon the majesty and glory which attended its first promulgation, upon the distinguished character of their legislator, Moses, and upon the divine authority of the ancient Scriptures; and they might likewise urge the humiliation and death of Christ as an argument against the truth of his religion. To obviate the impression which any reasoning of this sort might make upon the converts to Christianity, the writer of this epistle begins with declaring to the Hebrews, that the same God who had formerly, upon a variety of occasions, spoken to their fathers by means of his prophets, had now sent his only Son for the purpose of revealing his will; he then describes, in most sublime language, the dignity of the person of Christ, Heb. i; and thence infers the duty of obeying his commands, the divine authority of which was established by the performance of miracles, and by the gifts of the Holy Ghost; he points out the necessity of Christ’s incarnation and passion, Heb. ii; he shows the superiority of Christ to Moses, and warns the Hebrews against the sin of unbelief, Heb. iii; he exhorts to steadfastness in the profession of the Gospel, and gives an animated description of Christ as our high priest, Heb. iv-vii; he shows that the Levitical priesthood and the old covenant were abolished by the priesthood of Christ, and by the new covenant, Heb. viii; he points out the efficacy of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the law, and the sufficiency of the atonement made by the sacrifice of Christ, Heb. ix, x; he fully explains the nature, merit, and effects of faith, Heb. xi; and in the last two chapters he gives a variety of exhortations and admonitions, all calculated to encourage the Hebrews to bear with patience and constancy any trials to which they might be exposed. He concludes with the valedictory benediction usual in St. Paul’s Epistles: “Grace be with you all. Amen.” The most important articles of our faith are explained, and the most material objections to the Gospel are answered with great force, in this celebrated epistle. The arguments used in it, as being addressed to persons who had been educated in the Jewish religion, are principally taken from the ancient Scriptures; and the connection between former revelations and the Gospel of Christ, is pointed out in the most perspicuous and satisfactory manner.

In addition, it may be observed, that Mr. Stuart, an American critic, has published an ample investigation of several of the points referred to in the above remarks, and the following are the _results_:-- (1.) As to the place in which the persons lived to whom the epistle is addressed, I have now examined all the objections against the opinion, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was directed to Palestine, which I have met with, and which seem to be of sufficient magnitude to deserve attention. I am unable to perceive that they are very weighty; and surely they come quite short of being conclusive. On the other hand, the positive proof, I acknowledge, is only of a circumstantial nature, and falls short of the weight which direct and unequivocal testimony in the epistle itself would possess. But uniting the whole of it together; considering the intimate knowledge of Jewish rites, the strong attachment to their ritual, and the special danger of defection from Christianity in consequence of it, which the whole texture of the epistle necessarily supposes, and combining these things with the other circumstances above discussed, I cannot resist the impression, that the universal opinion of the ancient church respecting the persons to whom this epistle was addressed, was well founded, being built upon early tradition and the contents of the epistle; and that the doubts and difficulties thrown in the way by modern and recent critics, are not of sufficient importance to justify us in relinquishing the belief that Palestine Christians were addressed by the epistle to the Hebrews. Thousands of facts, pertaining to criticism and to history, are believed and treated as realities, which have less support than the opinion that has now been examined. (2.) As to the author, we now come to the result of this investigation. In the Egyptian and eastern churches, there were, it is probable, at a pretty early period, some who had doubts whether St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews; but no considerable person or party is definitely known to us, who entertained these doubts; and it is manifest, from Origen and Eusebius, that there was not, in that quarter, any important opposition to the general and constant tradition of the church, that Paul did write it. Not a single witness of any considerable respectability is named, who has given his voice, in this part of the church, for the negative of the question which we are considering. What Jerom avers, appears to be strictly true, namely, _Ab ecclesiis orientis et ab omnibus retrò ecclesiasticis Græci sermonis scriptoribus, quasi Apostoli Pauli suscipi_. In the western churches a diversity of opinion prevailed; although the actual quantity of negative testimony, that can be adduced, is not great. Yet the concessions of Jerom and Augustine leave no room to doubt the fact, that the predominant opinion of the western churches, in their times, was in the negative. In early times, we have seen that the case was different, when Clement of Rome wrote his epistle, and when the old Latin version was brought into circulation. What produced a change of opinion in the west, we are left to conjecture. The scanty critical and literary records of those times afford us no means for tracing the history of it. But this is far from being a singular case. Many other changes in the opinions of the churches have taken place, which we are, for a similar reason, as little able to trace with any certainty or satisfaction. Storr has endeavoured to show, that Marcion occasioned this revolution, when he came from the east to Rome, and brought with him a collection of the sacred books, in which the Epistle to the Hebrews was omitted. But it is very improbable, that an extravagant man, excommunicated by the Roman church itself, should have produced such a revolution there in sentiment. Others have with more probability, attributed it to the zealous disputes at Rome against the Montanist party, whom the Epistle to the Hebrews was supposed particularly to favour. The Montanists strenuously opposed the reception again into the bosom of the church of those persons who had so lapsed as to make defection from the Christian faith. The passages in Heb. vi, 4–8, and x, 26–31, at least seem strongly to favour the views which they maintained. The church at Rome carried the dispute against the Montanists very high; and Ernesti and many other critics have been led to believe, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was ultimately rejected by them, because the Montanists relied on it as their main support. As a matter of fact, this cannot be established by direct historical evidence. But, in the absence of all testimony in respect to this subject, it must be allowed as not improbable, that the Epistle to the Hebrews may have, in this way, become obnoxious to the Roman church. Many such instances might be produced from the history of the church. The Ebionites, the Manicheans, the Alogi, and many ancient and modern sects, have rejected some part of the canon of Scripture, because it stood opposed to their party views. The Apocalypse was rejected by many of the oriental churches, on account of their opposition to the Chiliasts, who made so much use of it. And who does not know, that Luther himself rejected the Epistle of James, because he viewed it as thwarting his favourite notions of justification; yea, that he went so far as to give it the appellation of _epistola straminea_? [an epistle of straw.] It cannot be at all strange, then, that the Romish church, exceedingly imbittered by the dispute with the Montanists, should have gradually come to call in question the apostolic origin of the epistle; because it was to their adversaries a favourite source of appeal, and because, unlike St. Paul’s other epistles, it was anonymous. That all, even of the Montanists, however, admitted the apostolic origin of our epistle, does not seem to be true. Tertullian, who took a very active part in favour of this sect, had, as we have already seen, doubts of such an origin, or rather, he ascribed it to Barnabas. But whatever might have been the cause that the epistle in question was pretty generally rejected by the churches of the west, the fact that it was so cannot be reasonably disputed. A majority of these churches, from the latter half of the second century to the latter half of the fourth, seem to have been generally opposed to receiving this epistle as St. Paul’s; although there were some among them who did receive it. It remains, then, to balance the testimony thus collected together and compared. The early testimony is, of course, immeasurably the most important. And there seems to me sufficient evidence, that this was as general and as uniform for the first century after the apostolic age as in respect to many other books of the New Testament; and more so, than in respect to several. I cannot hesitate to believe, that the weight of evidence from tradition is altogether preponderant in favour of the opinion, that St. Paul was the author of our epistle. (3.) As to the language in which the epistle was originally written, there has been a difference of opinion among critics, both in ancient and modern times. Clement of Alexandria says that St. Paul wrote to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language, and that St. Luke carefully translated it into Greek. Eusebius in the same manner says, that Paul wrote to the Hebrews in his vernacular language, and that, according to report, either Luke or Clement translated it. So Jerom, also, _scripserat ut Hebræus Hebræis Hebraicè_; [as a Hebrew he had written to the Hebrews in Hebrew;] and then he adds that this epistle was translated into Greek, so that the colouring of the style was made diverse, in this way, from that of St. Paul’s. Of the same opinion, in respect to this, was Clement, of Alexandria; and Origen, as we have seen above, supposes that the thoughts contained in the epistle were St. Paul’s, while the diction or costume of it must be attributed to the person who wrote down the sentiments of the Apostle. By the Hebrew language, no one can reasonably doubt, that these fathers meant the Jerusalem dialect, which was spoken in the days of the Apostles, and not the ancient Hebrew, which had long ceased to be a vernacular language. It is quite plain also, that these fathers were led to the conclusion, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was originally written in the dialect of Palestine, from their belief, so universal in ancient times, of its having been addressed to some church, or to the churches, in that country. It was very natural to draw such a conclusion; for would not an epistle addressed to Hebrews in all probability be more acceptable, if written in their own vernacular language? Moreover, St. Paul was well acquainted with that language, for he was brought up at Jerusalem, and “at the feet of Gamaliel;” and when he had visited that city, he had addressed the Jewish multitude, who were excited against him, in their native tongue, Acts xxii, 1, 2. Why should it not be supposed, that if, as is probable, this epistle was originally directed to Palestine, it was written in the dialect of that country? So the fathers above quoted evidently thought and reasoned; although other fathers have said nothing on this point, and do not appear to have coincided in opinion with those to whom I have just referred. Among the moderns, also, several critics have undertaken to defend the same opinion; and particularly Michaëlis, who has discussed the subject quite at length, in his introduction to this epistle. I do not think it necessary minutely to examine his arguments. To my own mind they appear altogether unsatisfactory. Some of them are built on an exegesis most palpably erroneous, and which, if admitted, would deduce a very strange meaning from the words of the epistle. Yet, assuming such a meaning, he thence concludes, that the original writer must have expressed a different idea, and that the translator mistook his meaning. He then undertakes to conjecture what the original Hebrew must have been. In other cases, he deduces his arguments from considerations wholly _à priori_; as if these were admissible in a question of mere fact. He has not adduced a single instance of what he calls _wrong translation_, which wears the appearance of any considerable probability. On the other hand, Bolton, a sharp-sighted critic, and well acquainted with the Aramean language, who has gone through with the New Testament, and found almost every where marks, as he thinks, of translation from Aramean documents, confesses, that, in respect to this epistle, he finds not a single vestige of incorrect translation from an Aramean original, and no marks that there ever was such an original. This testimony is of considerable importance in respect to the question before us, as it comes from a critic who spent many years on the study of that which is most intimately connected with the very subject under consideration, namely, the detection of the Aramean originals of the various parts of the New Testament. (4.) The principal arguments in favour of a Hebrew original are deduced from two sources: That Hebrews are addressed in our epistle, to whom the Hebrew language would have been more acceptable and intelligible, and many of whom, indeed, could not understand Greek, certainly could not read it: That the diversity of style in the Epistle to the Hebrews is so great, when compared with that of St. Paul’s epistles, that, unless we suppose the Greek costume did in fact come from another hand, we must be led to the conclusion that St. Paul did not write it. Both of these topics have been already discussed. I merely add here, therefore, that in case the writer of the epistle designed it should have a wide circulation among the Jews, to write in Greek was altogether the most feasible method of accomplishing this. Beside, if St. Paul did address it to the church at Cæsarea, it is altogether probable that he wrote in Greek, as Greek was the principal language of that city. Even if he did not, it was not necessary that he should write in Hebrew; for in every considerable place in Palestine, there were more or less who understood the Greek language. Whoever wishes to see this last position established beyond any reasonable doubt, may read Hug’s “Introduction to the New Testament,” vol. ii, pp. 32–50. When St. Paul wrote to the Romans, he did not write in Latin; yet there was no difficulty in making his epistle understood, for the knowledge of Greek was very common in Rome. If St. Paul understood the Latin language, which is no where affirmed, and he had not resided when he wrote this epistle, in any of the countries where it was commonly used, still he understood Greek so much better that he would of course prefer writing in it. For a similar reason, if no other could be given, one may regard it as more probable, that he would write the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Greek language. At the time of writing it, he had been abroad twenty-five years at least, in Greek countries, and had been in Palestine, during all that period, only a few days. The Jews abroad, whom he every where saw, spoke Greek, not Hebrew. In Greek he preached and conversed. Is it any wonder, then, that, after twenty-five years’ incessant labour or preaching, conversing, and writing, in this language, he should have preferred writing in it? Indeed, can it be probable, that, under circumstances like these, he still possessed an equal facility of writing in his native dialect of Palestine? I cannot think it strange, therefore, that although the Epistle to the Hebrews was in all probability directed to some part of Palestine, yet it was written by St. Paul in Greek, and not in Hebrew. But, whatever may be the estimation put upon arguments of this nature, there are internal marks of its having been originally composed in Greek, which cannot well be overlooked.