Page images
PDF
EPUB

suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like.

Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series.

DEANERY, Peterborough.

INTRODUCTION.

THE old line,

"Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando?" Who? what? where? with what helps? why? how? when? has sometimes been quoted as summing up the topics which are most necessary by way of "introduction to the sacred books. The summary is not exhaustive nor exact, but we may be guided by it to some extent. We must, however, take the topics in a different order. Let us then begin with 'quid?' and 'cur?' What is the Epistle to the Hebrews? with what object was it written? for what readers was it designed? Of the 'ubi?' and 'quando?' we shall find that there is little to be said; but the answer to 'quomodo?' 'how?' will involve a brief notice of the style and theology of the Epistle, and we may then finally consider the question quis? who was the writer?

CHAPTER I.

CHARACTER, ANALYSIS, AND OBJECT OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS..

IT has been sometimes said that the Epistle to the Hebrews is rather a treatise than an Epistle. The author is silent as to his own name; he begins with no greeting; he sends no special messages or salutations to individuals. His aim is to furnish an elaborate argument in favour of one definite thesis; and he describes what he has written as a word of exhortation" (xiii. 22). Nevertheless it is clear that we must regard his work as

an Epistle. It was evidently intended for a definite circle of readers to whom the author was personally known. The messages and the appeals, though not addressed to single persons, are addressed to the members of a single community, and the tone of many hortatory passages, as well as the definiteness of the remarks in the last chapter, shew that we are not dealing with a cyclical document, but with one of the missives despatched by some honoured teacher to some special Church. It is probable that many such letters have perished. It was the custom of the scattered Jewish synagogues to keep up a friendly intercourse with each other by an occasional interchange of letters sent as opportunity might serve. This custom was naturally continued among the Christian Churches, of which so many had gathered round a nucleus of Gentile proselytes or Jewish converts. If the letter was of a weighty character, it was preserved among the archives of the Church to which it had been addressed. The fact that this and the other Christian Epistles which are included in the Canon have defied the ravages of time and the accidents of change, is due to their own surpassing importance, and to the overruling Providence of God.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of many letters which must have been addressed to the various Christian communities in the first century. Passing over for the present the question of the particular Church to whose members it was addressed, we see at once that the superscription "to the Hebrews"-whether it came from the hand of the writer or notcorrectly describes the class of Christians by whom the whole argument was specially needed. The word 'Hebrews,' like the word 'Greeks,' was used in different senses. In its wider sense it included all who were of the seed of Abraham (2 Cor. xi. 22), the whole Jewish race alike in Palestine and throughout the vast area of the Dispersion (Phil. iii. 5). But in its narrower sense it meant those Jews only who still used the vernacular Aramaic, which went by the name of 'Hebrew,' though the genuine Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written had for some time been a dead language. In a still narrower sense

« PreviousContinue »