tion (to say nothing of the varying mode of citing); the totally distinct mode of arguing; the rhetorical accumulation; the equilibrium, even in the midst of fervid declamation, of periods and clauses ; the use of different inferential and connecting particles. All of these great and undeniable variations may be easily indeed frittered down by an appearance of exceptions ranged in tables; but still are indelibly impressed on the mind of every intelligent student of the Epistle, and as has been observed, are unanswerable, just in proportion as the points of similarity are detailed and insisted on *.

118. It is again of course easy enough to meet such considerations in either of two ways; the former of which recommends itself to the mind which fears to enquire from motives of reverence, the latter to the superficial and indolent.

119. It may be said, that the Holy Spirit of God, by whose inspiration holy men have written these books of the New Testament, may bring it about, that the same person may write variously at different times, even be that variety out of the limits of human experience: that the same man, for instance, should have written the Epistle to the Romans and the First Epistle of St. John. In answer to which we may safely say, that what the Holy Spirit may or can do, is not for us to speculate upon: in this His proceeding of inspiration, He has given us abundant and undeniable examples of what He has done and by such examples are we to be guided, in all questions as to the analogy of His proceedings in more doubtful cases. As matter of fact, the style and diction of St. Paul differ as much from those of St. John as can well be conceived. When therefore we find in the sacred writings phænomena of difference apparently incompatible with personal identity in their authors, we are not to be precluded from reasoning from them to the non-identity of such authors, by any vague assertions of the omnipotence of the Almighty Spirit.

120. Again it may be strongly urged, that the same person, writing at different times, and to different persons, may employ very various modes of diction and argument. Nothing can be truer than this: but the application of it to the question of identity of authorship is matter of penetration and appreciation. Details of diversity, which may be convincing to one man, may be wholly inappreciable, from various reasons, by another. As regards the matter before us, it may suffice to say, that the incompatibility of styles was felt in the earliest days by Greeks themselves, as the preceding testimonies from Clement of Alexandria and Origen may serve to shew. Further than this we can say nothing, which will be allowed as of any weight by those who unfortunately fail to appreciate the difference. We can only repeat

* See this carried out further below, § v. parr. 9, 10.

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our assurance, that the more acumen and scholarship are brought to bear on the enquiry, aided by a fairly judging and unbiassed mind, the more such incompatibility will be felt and say, in the words of Origen cited above, par. 19, "That the character of the style has not the individual peculiarity of that of the Apostle, every one who knows how to judge of the difference of phrases will acknowledge."

121. I now proceed to consider the principal notices in the Epistle itself, which have been either justly or unjustly adduced, as making for or against the Pauline authorship.

122. In ch. xiii. 23, we read, "Know ye (or, ye know) that our brother Timotheus is set at liberty: with whom, if he come soon, I will see you." This notice has been cited with equal confidence on both sides. The natural inference from it, apart altogether from the controversy, would be, that the Writer of the Epistle was in some other place than Timotheus, who had been recently set free from an imprisonment (for this and no other is the meaning of the participle), and that he was awaiting Timotheus's arrival: on which, if it took place soon, he hoped to visit the Hebrews in his company.

123. It is manifest, that such a situation would fit very well some point of time after St. Paul's liberation from his first Roman imprisonment. Supposing that he was dismissed before Timotheus, and, having left Rome, expecting him to follow, had just received the news of his liberation, the words in the text would very well and naturally express this. It is true, we read of no such imprisonment of Timotheus: and this fact seems to remove the date of the occurrence out of the limits of the chronology of the Pauline Epistles. But if the command of the Apostle in 2 Tim. iv. 9 was obeyed, and Timotheus, on arriving, shared his imprisonment, the situation here alluded to may have occurred not long after.

124. On the other hand, the notice would equally well fit some companion of St. Paul, either St. Luke, or Silvanus, or Apollos, writing after the Apostle's death. All these would speak of Timotheus as our brother.

125. On the whole then, this passage carries no weight on either side. I own that the expression, "I will see you," has a tinge of authority about it, which hardly seems to fit either of the abovementioned persons. But this impression may be fallacious: and it is only one of those cases where, in a matter so doubtful as the authorship of this Epistle, we are swayed hither and thither by words and expressions, which perhaps after all have no right to be so seriously taken.

126. Similar remarks might be made on the notice of ch. xiii. 25, "They from Italy salute you," as carrying no weight either way. As regards its meaning, it is indeed surprising that Bleek should main

tain, that it excludes the supposition of the writer being in Italy, in the face of the classical and New Test. usage of the prepositions of origin. The preposition may doubtless be taken as used with reference to those who were to receive the salutation: it may be the salutation, not the persons, which the preposition brings away from Italy. It may be as if I were to write to a friend, "I have the best wishes for you from Canterbury:" which, although it would not be the most usual way of expressing my meaning, and might be said if I were elsewhere, yet would be far from excluding the supposition that I was myself writing from that city".

127. If the words then do not forbid the idea that the Writer was in Italy, I do not see how they can be used for or against the Pauline authorship. As observed before, the Apostle may have been somewhere in that country waiting for Timotheus, when liberated, to join him. And we may say the same with equal probability of any of St. Paul's companions to whom the Epistle has been ascribed. The only evidence which can be gathered from the words, as being exceedingly unlike any thing occurring in the manifold formulæ of salutation in St. Paul's Epistles, is of a slighter, but to my mind of a more decisive kind.

128. The evidence supposed to be derivable from ch. x. 34 in the received text, "for ye had compassion on my bonds," vanishes with the adoption of the reading ye had compassion on prisoners, in which almost all the critical editors concur.

129. The notice ch. xiii. 7, Remember them that have the rule over you, &c., will more properly come under consideration when we are treating of the probable readers, and of the date of the Epistle. I may say thus much in anticipation, that it can hardly be fairly interpreted consistently with the known traditions of the death of St. Paul, and at the same time with the hypothesis of his Authorship.

130. The well-known passage, ch. ii. 3, requires more consideration. It stands thus:

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by them that heard [Him]?

The difficulty, that St. Paul should thus include himself among those who had received the Gospel only at second hand, whereas in Gal. i. 12 he says of it," For I received it not from man, neither was taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ," has been felt both in ancient and modern times. Euthalius, Ecumenius, and Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, and all the moderns, have alleged it, either to press or to explain the difficulty.

5 That New Test. usage renders the other meaning more probable, does not belong to the argument here in the text, but is maintained below, in § ii. par. 28. 6 See below, § ii. par. 29, 30; § iii. par. 2.

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I must own that, in spite of all which has been so ingeniously said by way of explanation by the advocates of the Pauline authorship, the words appear to me quite irreconcileable with that hypothesis.

131. To pass by the ancient explanations, which will hardly be adopted in our own day',-the most prevalent modern one has been, that the Apostle here adopts the figure called condescension, by which a writer or speaker identifies himself with his readers or hearers, even though, as a matter of actual fact, that identification is not borne out strictly. Such "condescension" is most commonly found in hortatory passages, but is not confined to them. A writer may, for the purpose of his argument, and to carry persuasion, place himself on a level with his readers in respect of matters of history, just as well as of moral considerations. The real question for us is, whether this is a case in which such a figure would be likely to be employed.

132. And to this the answer must be, it seems to me, unhesitatingly in the negative. That an Apostle, who ever claimed to have received the Gospel not from men but from the Lord Himself,-who was careful to state that when he met the chief Apostles in council they added nothing to him, should at all, and especially in writing (as the hypothesis generally assumes) to the very church where the influence of those other Apostles was at its highest, place himself on a level with their disciples as to the reception of the Gospel from them,-is a supposition so wholly improbable, that I cannot explain its having been held by so many men of discernment, except on the supposition that their bias towards the Pauline authorship has blinded them to the wellknown character and habit of the Apostle.

133. And to reply to this, that he thus speaks of himself when his apostolical authority is called in question, as it was in the Galatian church, and partially also in the Corinthian, but does not so where no such slight had been put upon his office, is simply to advance that which is not the fact: for he does the same in an emphatic manner in Eph. iii. 2, 3, in which Epistle, to whomsoever addressed, there exist no traces of any rivalship to his own authority being in his view.

134. Certain other passages have been adduced as bearing out the idea of the figure of condescension here. But none of them, when fairly considered, really does so. For to take them one by one:

In Eph. ii. 3, Col. i. 12, 13, Tit. iii. 3, there is no such figure, but the Apostle is simply stating the matter of fact, and counts himself to have been one of those spoken of.

In 1 Cor. xi. 31, 32, he is asserting that which is true of all Christians equally; himself, as liable to fall into sin and thus to need chastisement, being included.

7 See them in the note on this par. in my Greek Test.

In 1 Thess. iv. 17,-where see note,-there is no such figure, for the Apostle is merely giving expression to the expectation that he himself should be among them who should be alive in the flesh at the coming of our Lord.

In Jude, ver. 17, there is no such figure. St. Jude, in writing thus, is giving us plain proof that he himself was not one of the Apostles.

135. Much stress has been laid, and duly, on the entire absence of personal notices of the Writer, as affecting the question of the Pauline authorship. This is so inconsistent with the otherwise invariable practice of St. Paul, that some very strong reason must be supposed, which should influence him in this case to depart from that practice. Such reason has been variously assigned. And first, with reference to the omission of any superscription or opening greeting. It has been supposed that he would not begin by designating himself as an Apostle, because the Lord Himself was the Apostle (ch. iii. 1) of the Jewish people (so Pantænus, above, par. 11). Or, because the Jewish Christians in Palestine were unwilling to recognize him as such, only as an Apostle to the Gentiles (so Theodoret, and others). But to this it might be answered, Why then not superscribe himself “a servant of Jesus Christ," or the like, as in Phil. i. 1, Philem. 1, or simply "Paul,” as in 1 and 2 Thess. ? But a further reply has been given, and very widely accepted: that being in disfavour generally among the Jews, he did not prefix his name, for fear of exciting a prejudice against his Epistle, and so perhaps preventing the reading of it altogether. (So Clement of Alexandria, above, par. 14. So also Chrysostom, iii. p. 371.) But this cannot have been the purpose of the Author throughout, as is sufficiently shewn by such notices as those of ch. xiii. 18, 19, 23, which would have been entirely without meaning, had the readers not been aware, who was writing to them. Yet, it is said, these notices do not occur till the end of the Epistle, when the important part of it has already been read through. Are we then to suppose that St. Paul seriously did in this case, that which he ironically puts as an hypothesis in 2 Cor. xii. 16, "being crafty I caught you with guile?" And if he did it, how imperfectly and clumsily! Could he not as easily have removed all traces of his own hand in the Epistle, as those at the beginning only? And how are we to suppose that the Epistle came to the church to which it was addressed? Did he put it in at a window, or over a wall? Must it not have come by the hand of some friend or companion? Must it not have been given into the hand of some that had the rule? How happened it that the question was never asked, From whom does this come? or if asked, how could it be answered but in one way? And when thus answered, how could it fail but the Epistle would thenceforth be known as that of St. Paul?

136. It may be said that these last enquiries would prove too much;