ἐπὶ τούτῳ· οὐ γὰρ εἰκῆ οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ἄνδρες ὡς Παύλου αὐτὴν παραδεδώκασι τίς δὲ ὁ γράψας τὴν ἐπιστολήν, τὸ μὲν ἀληθὲς θεὸς οἶδεν· ἡ δὲ εἰς ἡμᾶς φθάσασα ἱστορία ὑπό τινων μὲν λεγόντων, ὅτι Κλήμης ὁ γενόμενος ἐπίσκοπος ̔Ρωμαίων ἔγραψε τὴν ἐπιστολήν, ὑπό τινων δέ, ὅτι Λουκᾶς ὁ γράψας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ τὰς πράξεις.) - Only subsequently to the time of Origen, accordingly, was the epistle universally regarded within the Alexandrian Church, as within the Egyptian Church in general, as a writing which proceeded immediately from the Apostle Paul. Declarations thereof are appealed to, as simply the words of Paul, by the Alexandrian bishops, Dionysius, about the middle of the third century (in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 41); Alexander, about 312 (in Theodoret, H. E. i. 3, Opp. ed. Schulze, tom. iii. p. 736, and in Socrat. H. E. i. 6, ed. Vales., Paris 1686, p. 11); Athanasius († 373), in his thirty-ninth epistola festalis, and elsewhere; Didymus, the president of the Alexandrian school of catechetes († 395), the Egyptian monks, Macarius the elder, and Marcus Ascetes (c. 400), and others.

In the ancient Syrian Church the epistle, it is true, was held very early in ecclesiastical repute. For it is already

1 That iypayas denotes the actual author, and not, as Olshausen ("De auctore ep. ad Hebr.," in his Opuscc. Theol., Berol. 1834, p. 100), Stenglein (Historische Zeugnisse der vier ersten Jahrhunderte über den Verf. des Br. an die Hebr., Bamb. 1835, p. 35), and Delitzsch (" Ueber Verf. und Leser des Hebräerbr.," in Rudelsbach u. Guericke's Zeitschr. f. die Luth. Theol. 1849, p. 259), assert, with the assent of Davidson (Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, vol. I., Lond. 1868, p. 228 f.), the mere "scriba" or "penman," is shown even by the analogy of the closing words: Λουκᾶς ὁ γράψας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ τὰς πράξεις. Wrongly does Delitzsch (in his Kommentar, p. xvii.) object that Origen, indeed, concedes to the apostle a part [in its composition], and that Luke also, in the Gospel and the Acts, was working up a material not of his own invention, but one ready to his hand. For the part which Origen assigns to Paul is not an active, but a passive one; that Paul exerted an immediate influence on the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews, or was directly occupied with the sameof this Origen says nothing; the dependence upon Paul is limited in his estimation to the fact that the epistle was composed by a disciple of Paul, and in the spirit of Paul. By the consideration, however, that Luke in his two works was using a material "ready to his hand," his authorship in reference to these works is not annulled; for the notion of authorship is not destroyed by the mode in which it is exercised. Besides, if Origen had wished to denote the particular way in which the writings of Luke arose, he would have put, not i ypá↓as, but ó ouvražáμsvo;, or something similar.

received into the Peshito, belonging to the end of the second century. But that it was so soon as this held to be a work of Paul, does not follow from this reception. On the contrary, the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews has been placed in the Peshito not already after the letters of Paul addressed to churches, but only after those of his letters addressed to private persons, might rather be interpreted as a sign that this letter, only on account of its similar character, had been attached, as it were, by way of appendix to the Pauline Epistles, while not assigned to Paul himself. Yet the later church of North-Eastern Syria seems to have ascribed this writing to the Apostle Paul. For while Jacob, bishop of Nisibis (c. 325), cites declarations of the Epistle to the Hebrews only in general as utterances of an apostle (Galland. Bibl. Patr. v. pp. xvi. lxii. al.), and this indefinite mode of citation is also the prevalent one with Jacob's disciple. Ephraem Syrus († 378); yet the latter, at any rate, seems not to have doubted the composition by Paul, since (Opp. Graec. tom. ii., Rom. 1743, fol. p. 203) he joins together the passages Rom. ii. 16, Eph. v. 15, Heb. x. 31, by the common introductory formula: Περὶ ταύτης τῆς ἡμέρας βολ καὶ Παῦλος ὁ ἀπόστολος, and then abruptly separates from further citations by the words: Boᾷ δὲ καὶ ὁ μακάριος Пéтpos. In like manner in Western (Grecian) Syria, after the middle of the third century, the epistle was probably assigned to the Apostle Paul; since, in the letter issued by the Antiochian Synod (c. 264) to Paul of Samosata, Heb. xi. 26 and sentences out of the two Epistles to the Corinthians are connected together as sayings of the same apostle (comp. Mansi, Collect. Concil. t. i. p. 1038).

Elsewhere, too, in the Eastern Church, the opinion that Paul was the author became in subsequent times more and more general. Nevertheless, doubts as yet by no means. ceased to be heard. Thus Eusebius of Caesarea (in the first half of the fourth century) often, indeed, quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews as the work of Paul, and without doubt reckons it, since he expressly accepts fourteen Pauline Epistles (Hist. Eccles. iii. 3), in the chief passage on the New Testament canon (Hist. Eccles. iii. 25),-as a constituent part of the

epistles of Paul, which are mentioned only in general,-to belong to the Homologumena. But yet he regards the epistle only as a version from a Hebrew original of Paul (Hist. Eccles. iii. 38), and can tell of Greeks who, in reliance upon the adverse judgment of the Roman Church, denied the Pauline origin of the epistle in any sense (Hist. Eccles. iii. 3). Nay, in another place (Hist. Eccles. vi. 13), himself even reckons the epistle among the ἀντιλεγόμεναι γραφαί;1 inasmuch as he places it in one line with the Wisdom of Solomon, that of Jesus Sirach, and the epistles of Barnabas, Clemens Romanus, and Jude! On the other hand, the epistle is acknowledged as directly the work of Paul, in the sixtieth canon of the Council at Laodicea after the middle of the fourth century, by Titus of Bostra († c. 371), by Basil the Great († 379), and his brother Gregory of Nyssa; by Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem († 386); by Gregory of Nazianzus († 389), in the Jambi ad Seleucum, where, nevertheless, the remark has been inserted: τινὲς δέ φασι τὴν πρὸς ̔Εβραίους vólov; by Epiphanius († 402), Chrysostom († 407), Theodore of Mopsuestia († c. 428), and others. Yet Theodoret in his Prooemium to the epistle (comp. also Epiphanius, Huer. 69. 37) is still engaged in polemics against those of Arian sentiments, who rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews as vólos, denying its Pauline authorship.

While thus the testimonies of the East in general are favourable indeed to a Pauline origin of the epistle, an immediate composition thereof by Paul, however, was for the most part asserted only in later times, whereas in the earlier period more generally only a mediate authorship was maintained; the West, on the other hand, during the first centuries, does not acknowledge an authorship of Paul in any sense.A voucher for this statement is Tertullian, belonging to the North African Church, at the end of the second century and the beginning of the third. Only on a single occasion does

1 According to Delitzsch, indeed (Komment. p. xvii. f.), this supposition rests upon a misunderstanding of the words of Eusebius. But Eusebius' words are surely clear enough. They are as follows: κέχρηται δ ̓ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀντιλεγομένων γραφῶν μαρτυρίαις, τῆς τε λεγομένης Σαλομῶντος σοφίας καὶ τῆς Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Σιράχ καὶ τῆς πρὸς Ἑβραίους ἐπιστολῆς, τῆς τε Βαρνάβα καὶ Κλήμεντος καὶ Ἰούδα.

he make express mention of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in order to cite from it the words vi. 4-8, and it is here evidently his endeavour to rate as highly as possible the authority of the writing cited by him. Of a composition thereof by the Apostle Paul, however, he knows nothing; instead of Paul he names Barnabas as its author, and that not in the form of a conjecture, but simply and without qualification, in such wise that he manifestly proceeds upon a supposition universally current in the churches of his native land. (Comp. de Pudicitia, c. 20: Volo tamen ex redundantia alicujus etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superducere, idoneum confirmandi de proximo jure disciplinam magistrorum. Exstat enim et Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos, a Deo satis auctoritati viri,1 ut quem Paulus juxta se constituerit in abstinentiae tenore: "aut ego solus et Barnabas non habemus hoc operandi potestatem?" Et utique receptior apud ecclesias epistola Barnabae illo apocrypho Pastore moechorum. . Hoc qui ab apostolis didicit et cum apostolis docuit, nunquam moecho et fornicatori secundam poenitentiam promissam ab apostolis norat.) Also, in the time immediately following, the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot in Proconsular Africa. have been regarded as a writing of the Apostle Paul. This is proved on the authority of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage († 258), who, with the single exception of the short Epistle to Philemon, makes citations from all the letters of Paul, and yet nowhere quotes passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, but asserts, on the other hand, that Paul wrote only to seven churches (comp. Testim. adv. Jud. i. 20; De Exhortat. Martyrii, c. 11).

But as the early Church of North Africa, so also the early Roman Church knew nothing of an appertaining of the Epistle to the Hebrews to the Pauline collection of letters. This is the more noteworthy, inasmuch as within the Roman Church the earliest trace is met with of the existence of the Epistle to the Hebrews. For a series of characteristic expressions of the latter is taken up by Clemens Romanus (towards the end of the first century) in his Epistle to the

1 Thus we have to read, with Oehler (Tertull. Opp. tom. i., Lips. 1853, p. 839), in place of adeo satis auctoritatis viri.

Corinthians (comp. specially cap. 36 with Heb. vi. 4, i. 3, 4, 5, 7, 13; cap. 17 with Heb. xi. 37; and in general, Lardner, Credibility of the Gospel History, Part ii. vol. i., Lond. 1748, p. 62 ff.; Böhme, p. lxxv. sq.). These derived expressions, however, are not introduced as citations, but are blended with his own discourse. They prove, therefore, only that Clement was acquainted with the Epistle to the Hebrews, and highly prized it, but afford no information on the question as to whom he regarded as the author. That, however, Clement believed the Apostle Paul to be the author is rendered extremely improbable by the position which the Roman Church of the subsequent period assumed towards this epistle. In the fragment on the canon of the Roman Church, discovered by Muratori, belonging to the close of the second century, it is stated that Paul wrote to seven churches; upon which follows an enumeration of our present thirteen Pauline Epistles. Besides these two, other letters are then named, which have been forged as coming from Paul; but of the Epistle to the Hebrews not even mention is made. It cannot thus in the Roman Church of that time have been invested with any canonical authority, much less have been looked upon as a writing of the Apostle Paul. — In like manner Caius, presbyter at Rome at the end of the second century and beginning of the third, recognised, in express opposition to the περὶ τὸ συντάττειν καινὰς γραφὰς προπέτειά τε καὶ τόλμα, only thirteen epistles as the work of the Apostle Paul, to the exclusion of the Epistle to the Hebrews (comp. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vi. 20). Even as late as about the middle of the third century the Epistle to the Hebrews was not in the Roman Church esteemed to be a work of Paul, nor indeed regarded as a canonical writing. This is evident from the fact that Novatian, in his dissertations, De Trinitate and De Cibis Judaicis (in Gallandi, Biblioth. Patr. t. iii. p. 287 sqq.), although these abound in Biblical citations, and although their subject might naturally suggest the employment of the Epistle to the Hebrews, nowhere so much as makes mention of the same; an omission which, supposing its recognition as a canonical writing, and one proceeding from Paul, would be the more inexplicable,

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