175. Perhaps too much has been made, on the other side, of the manifest inferiority of Barnabas to Paul in eloquence, and of the fact that as the history goes on in the Acts, the order becomes reversed, and from "Barnabas and Saul" or "Paul" (ch. xi. 30, xii. 25, xiii. 2, 7) we have "Paul and Barnabas" (ch. xiii. 43, 46, 50, xv. 2 twice, 22, 35, with only occasional intermixture of the old order, ch. xiv. 14, xv. 12, 25) Barnabas gradually becoming eclipsed by the eminence of his far greater colleague. For 1) it is very possible that eloquence of the pen, such as that in our Epistle, might not have been wanting to one who was very inferior to St. Paul in eloquence of the tongue and 2) it was most natural, that in a history written by a companion of St. Paul, and devoted, in its latter portion at least, to the Acts of St. Paul, the name of the great Apostle should gradually assume that pre-eminence to which on other grounds it was unquestionably entitled.

176. It would appear then, that against the authorship by Barnabas there can only be urged in fairness the one objection arising from his residence at Jerusalem: which on the hypothesis of the Epistle being addressed to the church at Jerusalem, would be a circumstance in his favour with reference to such expressions as that I may be restored to you, ch. xiii. 19, and the acquaintance with the readers implied throughout the Epistle. On the whole, it must be confessed, that this view comes nearest to satisfying the conditions of authorship of any that have as yet been treated; and should only be set aside, if one approaching nearer still can be found.

177. It remains that we enquire into the claims of the two remaining apostolic persons on our list, AQUILA, and APOLLOS. The former of these, a Jew of Pontus by birth, was once, with his wife Priscilla, resident in Rome, but was found by St. Paul at Corinth on his first arrival there (Acts xviii. 2), having been compelled to quit the capital by a decree of Claudius. It is uncertain whether at that time he was a Christian; but if not, he soon after became one by the companionship of the Apostle, who took up his abode, and wrought at their common trade of tent-making, with Aquila and Priscilla. After this, Aquila became a zealous forwarder of the Gospel. We find him (Acts xviii. 18) accompanying St. Paul to Ephesus, and in his company there when he wrote 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. xvi. 19): again at Rome when the Epistle to the Romans was written (Rom. xvi. 3): at Ephesus again when 2 Tim. was written (2 Tim. iv. 19).

178. From these places it appears, that Aquila was a person of considerable importance among the brethren: that the church used to assemble in his house: that he and his wife Priscilla had exposed their lives for the Gospel's sake. And from Acts xviii. 26 we find, that they were also well able to carry on the work of teaching, even with such a pupil as Apollos, who was mighty in the Scriptures.

179. It must be owned that these circumstances would constitute a fair prima facie case for Aquila, were it not for certain indications that he himself was rather the ready and zealous patron, than the teacher; and that this latter work, or a great share in it, seems to have belonged to his wife, Prisca or Priscilla. She is ever named with him, even Acts xviii. 26, where the instruction of Apollos is described: and not unfrequently her name precedes his (Acts xviii. 18; Rom. xvi. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 19): an arrangement so contrary to the custom of antiquity that some very sufficient reason must have existed for it. At all events, the grounds on which an hypothesis of Aquila's authorship of our Epistle would rest, must be purely of a negative kind, as far as personal capacity is concerned. And it does not appear that any, either in ancient or modern times, have fixed on him as its probable writer.

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180. There is yet one name remaining, that of APOLLOS, in whom certainly more conditions meet than in any other man, both negative and positive, of the possible authorship of our Epistle. The language in which he is introduced in the Acts (xviii. 24) is very remarkable. He is there described as a certain Jew, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, being mighty in the Scriptures." Every word here. seems fitted to point him out as the person of whom we are in search. He is a Jew, born in Alexandria: here we have at once two great postulates fulfilled: here we at once might account for the Alexandrian language of the Epistle, and for the uniform use of the Septuagint version, mainly (if this be so) in its Alexandrian form. He is an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures. As we advance in the description, even minute coincidences seem to confirm our view that we are here at last on the right track. He is described as knowing only the baptism of John, but being more perfectly taught the way of the Lord by Aquila and Priscilla. No wonder then that a person so instituted should specify the doctrine of baptisms as one of the components in the foundation of the Christian life (Heb. vi. 2). It is described as his characteristic, that he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: is it wonderful then that he, of all New Test. writers, should exhort, Cast not away your boldness of speech or confidence (Heb. x. 35), and (using the same word) declare to his readers that they were the house of Christ if we hold fast our confidence (Heb. iii. 6)?

181. Nor, if we proceed to examine the further notices of him, does this first impression become weakened. In 1 Cor. i.-iv., we find him described by inference as most active and able, and only second to St. Paul himself in the church at Corinth. It would be difficult to select words which should more happily and exactly hit the relation of the Epistle to the Hebrews to the writings of St. Paul, than those of 1 Cor. iii. 6, "I planted, Apollos watered." And the eloquence and rhetorical richness of the style of Apollos seems to have been exactly that, wherein

his teaching differed from that of the Apostle. It is impossible to help feeling that the frequent renunciations, on St. Paul's part, of words of excellency or human wisdom, have reference, partly, it may be, to some exaggeration of Apollos' manner of teaching by his disciples, but also to some infirmity, in this direction, of that teacher himself. Compare especially 2 Cor. xi. 3.

182. It is just this difference in style and rhetorical character, which, in this case elevated and chastened by the informing and pervading Spirit, distinguishes the present Epistle to the Hebrews from those of the great Apostle himself. And, just as it was not easy to imagine either St. Luke, or Clement, or Barnabas, to have written such an Epistle, so now we feel, from all the characteristics given us of Apollos in the sacred narrative, that if he wrote at all, it would be an Epistle precisely of this kind, both in contents, and in style.

183. For as to the former of these, the contents and argument of the Epistle, we have a weighty indication furnished by the passage in the Acts: "For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." What words could more accurately describe, if not the very teaching itself, yet the opening of a course of argument likely, when the occasion offered, to lead to the teaching of our Epistle?

184. Again, we seem to have found in Apollos just that degree of dependence on St. Paul which we require, combined with that degree of independence which the writer of our Epistle must have had. Instructed originally in the elements of the Christian faith by Aquila and Priscilla, he naturally received it in that form in which the great Apostle of the Gentiles especially loved to put it forth. His career however of Christian teaching began and was carried on at Corinth, without the personal superintendence of St. Paul: his line of arguing with and convincing the Jews did not, as St. Paul's, proceed on the covenant of justification by faith made by God with Abrahamı, but took a different direction, that namely of the eternal High-priesthood of Jesus, and the all-sufficiency of His one Sacrifice. Faith indeed with him occupies a place fully as important as that assigned to it by St. Paul: he does not however dwell on it mainly as the instrument of our justification before God, but as the necessary condition of approach to Him, and of persistence in our place as partakers of the heavenly calling'.

The

The "to justify," which occurs twenty-eight times in the Epistles of St. Paul, is not once found in the Epistle to the Hebrews: and the citation from Hab. ii. 4, “the (or, any) just man shall live by faith," though it forms the common starting-point for St. Paul, Rom. i. 17, and the Writer of our epistle, ch. x. 38, leads them in totally different directions: St. Paul, to unfold the doctrine of righteousness by faith; our Writer, to celebrate the triumphs of the life of faith.

teaching of this Epistle is not indeed in any particular inconsistent with, but neither is it dependent on, the teaching of St. Paul's Epistles.

185. We may advance yet further in our estimate of the probability of Apollos having written as we find the Author of this Epistle writing. The whole spirit of the First Epistle to the Corinthians shews us, that there had sprung up in the Corinthian church a rivalry between the two modes of teaching; unaccompanied by, as it assuredly was not caused by, any rivalry between the teachers themselves, except in so far as was of necessity the case from the very variety of the manner of teaching. And while the one fact, of the rivalry between the teachings and their disciples, is undeniable, the other fact, that of absence of rivalry between the Teachers, is shewn in a very interesting manner. On the side of St. Paul, by his constant and honourable mention of Apollos as his second and helper: by Apollos, in the circumstance mentioned 1 Cor. xvi. 12, that St. Paul had exhorted him to accompany to Corinth the bearers of that Epistle, but that he could not prevail on him to go at that time: he only promised a future visit at some favourable opportunity. Here, if I mistake not, we see the generous confidence of the Apostle, wishing Apollos to go to Corinth and prove, in spite of what had there taken place, the unity of the two apostolic men in the faith: here too, which is important to our present subject, we have the self-denying modesty of Apollas, unwilling to incur even the chance of being set at the head of a party against the Apostle, or in any way to obtrude himself personally, where St. Paul had sown the seed, now that there had grown up, on the part of some in that Church, a spirit of invidious personal comparison between the two.

186. If we have interpreted aright this hint of the feeling of Apollos as regarded St. Paul; if, as we may well suppose in one "fervent in spirit," such a feeling was deeply implanted and continued to actuate him, what more likely to have given rise to the semi-anonymous character of our present Epistle? He has no reason for strict concealment of himself, but he has a strong reason for not putting himself prominently forward. He does not open with announcing his name, or sending a blessing in his own person: but neither does he write throughout as one who means to be unknown: and among the personal notices at the end, he makes no secret of circumstances and connexions, which would be unintelligible, unless the readers were going along with a writer personally known to them. And thus the two-sided phænomena of our Epistle, utterly inexplicable as they have ever been on the hypothesis of Pauline authorship or superintendence, would receive a satisfactory explanation.

187. It will be plainly out of place to object, that this explanation would only hold, on the hypothesis that our Epistle was addressed to the Jews at Corinth. The same spirit of modest self-abnegation would

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hardly, after such an indication of it, be wanting in Apollos, to whatever church he was writing. But I reserve it for the next section to enquire how far this view is confirmed or impugned by our conclusion as to the church to which the Epistle was, in all probability, originally addressed".

188. The history of the hypothesis that Apollos was the author of our Epistle, has been given by implication, from the time of Luther, its apparent originator, above in parr. 98-108. It may be convenient to give here, in one conspectus, the principal names in its favour: Luther, Osiander, Le Clerc, Heumann (1711), Lorenz Müller (1717), Semler, Ziegler, Dindorf, Bleek, Tholuck, Credner, Reuss, the R.-Catholics Feilmoser and Lutterbeck (the latter with this modification, that he believes St. Paul to have written the 9 last verses, and the rest to have been composed by Apollos in union with St. Luke, Clement, and other companions of the Apostle),-De Wette, Lünemann.

189. The objection which is commonly set against these probabilities is, that we have no ecclesiastical tradition pointing to Apollos: that it is unreasonable to suppose that the church to which the Epistle was sent should altogether have lost all trace of the name of an author who must have been personally known to them. This has been strongly urged, and by some, e. g. Mr. Forster, regarded as a ground for attempting to laugh to scorn the hypothesis, as altogether unworthy of serious consideration'.

190. But if any student has carefully followed the earlier paragraphs of this section, he will be fully prepared to meet such an objection, and will not be deterred from the humble search after truth by such scorn. He will remember how we shewed the failure of every attempt to establish a satisfactory footing for any view of the authorship as being the tradition of the church: and proved that, with regard to any research into the subject, we of this day approach it as those of old did in their day, with full liberty to judge from the data furnished by the Epistle itself.

191. And he will also bear in mind, that the day is happily passing away with Biblical writers and students, when the strong language of those, who were safe in the shelter of a long-prescribed and approved opinion, could deter any from humble and faithful research into the various phænomena of God's word itself: when the confession of having found insoluble difficulties was supposed to indicate unsoundness of faith, and the recognition of discrepancies was regarded as affecting the belief of divine inspiration. We have at last in this country begun to learn, that Holy Scripture shrinks not from any tests,

6 See below, § ii. par. 36.

7 Apostolical authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, preface, pp. ix, x.