OF THE U N I VERS ITY Of ILLI NOI5 From the Library of the Diocese of Springfield Protestant Episcopal Church Presented 1917 1ookstack§ BIBLICAL COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO'THE HEBREWS, IN CONTINUATION OF THE WORK OF OLSHAUSEN. DR JOHN H. A. EBRARD, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY THE KEY. JOHN FULTON, A.M. SECOND EDITION. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON. MDCCCLXII. PRINTED BY SMITH AND COMPANY, 9 SOUTH ST ANDREW STREET, EDINBURGH. \ CLARK’S FOREIGN ✓ THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY VOLUME XXXII. . • V-:'v *CT^~- - TT . ~Vr 'Vt- ‘ .*•/ ,7;^ * /v. t -■ / lyfec- •" ►* •/”' • « •' * : «•*; - 7 %** ■ <£forarti on tty ©gtstle to tf)* EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET, LONDON : J. GLADDING ; WARD AND CO. ; AND JACKSON AND WALEORD. DUBLIN : JOHN ROBERTSON. MDCCCLXII. CONTENTS. Page Introduction, ......... \ The Exordium, ........ 9 PART FIRST. The Son and the Angels, . . . . . . .29 SECTION FIRST. The Son is in himself superior to the Angels, . 82 A practical intermediate Part, . . . . . .68 SECTION SECOND. In the Son Man is raised above the Angels, . . . . 70 PART SECOND. The Son and Moses, ..... • . 113 SECTION FIRST. The New Testament Messiah is in himself, as Son, superior to Moses, . . . . . 115 Intermediate Passage of a hortatory kind, . 130 SECTION SECOND. In the Son Israel has entered into its true rest, % • . 139 PART THIRD. k - Christ and the High Priest, . 173 SECTION FIRST. Christ and Aaron, ..... i • . 175 Intermediate Part of a hortatory kind, . 188 470493 VI CONTENTS. Page SECTION SECOND. The Messiah, as a High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, is a superior High Priest to Aaron, . . . . . .210 PART FOURTH. The Mosaic Tabernacle and the Heavenly Sanctuary, . . . 242 SECTION FIRST. The two Tabernacles correspond to the two Covenants, . . . 248 SECTION SECOND. The construction of the Mosaic Tabernacle, .... 257 SECTION THIRD. The Service of the Tabernacle. The Blood of the Bullocks and the Blood of Christ, . . . . . . .279 PART FIFTH. The laying hold on the New Testament Salvation, . . . 312 SECTION FIRST. Theme of the Exhortation, . . . . . . .313 SECTION SECOND. First Motive. Danger and consequences of falling away, . . 320 SECTION THIRD. Second Motive. Calling to mind their former Faith, . . . 323 SECTION FOURTH. Third Motive. The historically demonstrated power of Faith, . . 329 SECTION FIFTH. Fourth Motive. The blessing of Chastisement, .... 352 SECTION SIXTH. Fifth Motive. The choice between Grace and Law ; a choice between Salvation and Judgment, . . . . . 362 SECTION SEVENTH. Concluding Exhortations, ....... 367 CONTENTS. Vll. APPENDIX. ON THE DATE, DESTINATION, AND AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. The Circle of Readers, CHAPTER FIRST. Page . 379 Time of Composition, . CHAPTER SECOND. .383 CHAPTER THIRD. ‘$h Whether written originally in Greek, ..... 389 CHAPTER FOURTH. The Writer. A) External Testimonies, ..... .394 , \ CHAPTER FIFTH. Continuation. B) Internal Reasons, ..... 407 A) Particular Intimations, ....... 408 B) The Doctrinal Import, C) Words and Phrases, D) The Style, 409 . 415 . 417 CHAPTER SIXTH. Conclusion. The particular Hypothesis, ..... 420 Literature, ......... 430 INTRODUCTION. The Lord Jesus Christ has said: Search the Scriptures , for they are they which testify of me. The Holy Scriptures of the old covenant testify of Christ, and that not merely because particular prophecies pointing to Christ are to be found here and there in them: The entire history of the revelation of God in the old covenant is one great preintimation of the future Mes¬ siah ; and this /ac^-revelation and /acGprophecy formed the condition and the basis of the particular worcZ-prophecies which God gave in a supernatural manner by his special instruments. It is wrong to overlook this unity of basis ; but it is equally so to attempt to derive these particular word-revelations as develop¬ ments from that basis, and to overlook their properly supernatural character. In the garden of Eden immediately after the fall, God directs the hope of the human race to a son of the woman, who is to break the power of the serpent; Eve exults in her first joy as a mother—she has born a man child, and with him she has received Jehovah back again ; she regards her child as the promised one who is to win back for men the favour, nearness, and possession of Jehovah. She is mistaken. The human race must first go deep downwards in order to be able to rise upwards —yes, it must pursue an ever downward course, all human greatness must be brought low, until humanity is so humbled as to be capable of placing itself in a purely receptive relation towards the salvation provided; then, and not till then, will the womans seed be given to it; for it cannot produce that seed.— This is the fundamental law of all revelation and all prophecy in the Old Testament. A 2 INTRODUCTION. \ After that judicial visitation by which the degenerate race of man was buried and baptised (immersed, sunk) in the flood, Noah, who came forth from this baptism as the father of a new humanity, the second Adam of the old covenant, lays on Shem’s head the blessing that the Lord shall be his God ; Canaan shall serve Shem, Japhet shall live with Shem in peace and friendship. 1 And when the families of men, five generations after Noah, are separated from each other, the promise is made to the Shemite Abraham on account of his faith, that his posterity shall form the central point of a future reunion of mankind in the blessing. But not until after three generations of affliction will God put the seed of Abraham in possession of the inheritance promised to him (Gen. xv.) Here begins the operation of that wonderful principle of delay, according to which the last part of a promised epoch is extended anew to a period embracing several epochs, and the last of these is again distributed into several epochs, and so forth. The third generation after Abraham, that of Joseph, with wdiich the afflic¬ tion properly speaking first begins, lengthens itself out again to three generations, On the expiration of these comes the promised redemption of the seed of Abraham from affliction (Gen. xv.), but in such a manner as that the redemption then first begins, and this too only typically and preliminarily. Israel is redeemed from the Egyptian bondage ; as in Noah the human race, so under Moses the seed of Abraham passed through a baptism, and came forth from a baptism in the Bed Sea ; Israel was emanci¬ pated through Moses, but came not through Moses into its rest, into the possession of the promised land. JoShua con¬ ducted it into the land, but the land was not yet entirely possessed. Israel continued to be harassed and oppressed by the heathen, and the last forty years previous to the battle at Ebenezer were truly again years of bondage. Being again delivered by Samuel, the people obtained in Saul a king, but not after God’s heart, full of carnal timidity and carnal courage, insolent and faint-hearted. The king after God’s heart, David, must again himself reproduce the destinies of the whole seed of 1 To dwell in the tents of any one = to be hospitably received by any one. INTRODUCTION. o o Abraham in his own individual life, and, through much tribula¬ tion, enter into glory. But yet his reign was one of war and conflict, not of peace, and the triumphing prince of peace, Solo¬ mon, was after him. ) Doubtless there was given in David a fulfilment of the old promises of salvation, but one that was merely human, therefore lying under the curse of everything human, and liable to pass away. Hence there was opened up to David by means of the prophet Nathan (2 Sam. vii.) a second perspective view of the promised salvation, in the fulfilment of which, however, the same law of delay obtains as in the first. Not David , but his seed after him, shall build a house to the Lord; for him the Lord will build a house, and will be his father, and he shall reign with God for ever. David immediately perceives, and rightly (2 Sam. vii. 19 ; comp. chap, xxiii. 1), that this wonderful prophecy “points to the distant future,” and represents the form of “ a man who is God.” And, in like manner, Solomon, when he consecrates the temple of stone (1 Kings viii. 26-27) acknowledges that that prophecy of Nathan s is not yet fulfilled by this act. Therefore, when Solomon sought, by intercourse with the nations, by mar¬ riage and philosophy, to break through the limits of the Mosaic law, he wrongly anticipated a freedom which was to become possible only through the new covenant, plunged himself and his people into idolatry, and brought about a deep national decline ; and so his Proverbs and his Song of Songs are placed as monu¬ ments, not merely of his wisdom, but at the same time also of his folly among the Chethubim of the Old Testament canon. Solomon s temple of stone, then, was only a first, a provisional fulfilment of Nathans prophecy. Under him, and after him, the kingdom, power, and glory of Israel fell more and more into decay, and as ungodliness increased, the prophets, and Elias among the number, looked around for the judgments of God. But to him it was revealed that the Lord is not in storm and fire, but in the still small voice ; and Joel, too, uttered the same truth. The people deserve indeed even now judgment and destruction ; but with the judgment the Lord will grant forgive¬ ness ; He will first pour out His Spirit, and then come to judg¬ ment. Redeeming grace is to go before judicial severity. The eye of hope was now turned to redeeming grace ; the promised } 4 INTRODUCTION. descendant of David was more and more clearly revealed to the prophets. He is not to be born in palaces ; as the first, so the second David must be sought by the daughters of Zion in times of sore travail, of heavy afflictions, by the sheepfolds of Bethle¬ hem (Mic. v. 5). The daughter of the house of David, so haughty under Ahaz, must, by unheard of sufferings, be brought to conduct herself in a purely receptive manner as a maid (H£>Sy) i n order to bring forth the son, and she will then, no longer trusting in her own strength, call him “ God with us.” Israel, appointed as the servant of God to convert the heathen, but altogether unfit for this work (Is. xlviii.), and himself an idolater (Is. xliv.), is to be again brought into bondage by a force coming from the Euphrates (Assyrian, later, from Is. xxxviii. onwards, Babylonian) ; in the time of his subjugation the true servant of God will come, will first work out by his atoning sacrificial death the inward redemption, the forgiveness of sins (chap, liii.), then convert the heathen (chap, liv.), and finally convert and deliver the still hardened Israel (chap, lxiv.-lxvi., comp. Rom. xi.) But here again comes in a delay. Hot 70 years, as Jeremiah has prophesied, is the subjugation of Israel under the heathen to last; but as Daniel has revealed, 7 x 70 years, nay, as is immediately added by way of correction, still longer (inasmuch as from the building of Jerusalem under Nehemiah 7 x 62 years were to elapse.) After 70 years, indeed, Israel is to return to their land ; but the subjugation under the heathen is to continue over five centuries.—Accordingly, the rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel was again but a type of the building of the temple already promised by Nathan, which God himself was to undertake. And so Malaclii, the last of the prophets, directed the eye of the people to the messenger of the Lord , who was soon to come to his temple, to visit and to sift Israel, and to separate the wheat from the empty chaff (comp. Matth. iii. 12). This signification and course of prophecy must of itself have appeared to any one who gave attentive heed to the Old Testa¬ ment, and who in heart and mind belonged to that covenant; not, however, to the impenitent, not to the mass of the people of Israel. Now the two books of the New Testament in which is represented the insight of the spiritually-minded Israelites into INTRODUCTION. the Old Testament revelation after it was brought to full maturity by the Holy Spirit, are, the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews, to which, however, the address of Stephen (Acts vii.) is to be added, as a very important passage having the same character. Stephen adduces from the collective history of the Old Testament (in which he points throughout with special emphasis to the principle of delay already noticed 1 ) rather the negative proof—that the law and the temple, although divine, are not the highest and last form of the revelation and dwelling-place of God. Matthew adduces rather the positive proof—that Jesus is the promised son (seed) of Abraham and David, that in him, therefore, the first prospect disclosed to Abraham (Gen. xv.), as well as the second opened up to David through Hathan (2 Sam. vii.), have found their termination. Matthew, too, refers to the same law of delay, when, in chap. i. 2 ff., he shows, that in place of the three JITTH, Gen. xv., there came three great periods, that of typical elevation until the time of David, that of decline until Jeremiah, and that during which the house of David was in a condition of poverty and lowliness until Mary. In con¬ ducting this proof, however, the Evangelist does not of course take as the frame-work of his particular reasonings an exposition of the Old Testament prophecy, but a record of the Hew Testa¬ ment fulfilment. The Old Testament prophecy is by Matthew taken for granted as already known. The Epistle to the Hebrews, on the contrary, goes out from the Old Testament, formally develops the component parts of that dispensation in a treatise systematically arranged, and shows how, in all its parts, it points to Jesus. The history of Jesus is here taken for granted as known. This method is more remote, more indirect, and more philosophical than the other.—Stephen’s 'practical aim was to defend himself from the charge of speaking blasphemy against the law and the temple; that of Matthew was to furnish the Jewish Christians with a written substitute for the oral preaching of the twelve. What practical necessity occasioned the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews ? Ho book of the Hew Testament, and, in general, of the Holy Scriptures, owes its origin to a mere subjective literary choice, to 1 Comp, my Crit. of the Gospel History, 2 ed. p. C89. 6 INTRODUCTION. a mere love of writing on tlie part of the author. The Epistle to the Hebrews, accordingly, however systematic and almost scien¬ tific its contents are, was occasioned by a practical necessity. The investigations concerning its author we must refer from the introduction (to which they do not belong, and where they are not as yet even possible) to the close of the commentary; but, for the better understanding of the epistle itself, some preliminary observations respecting the occasion of it must needs be made. It is evident from Acts ii.—v., and Acts xv., and Gal. ii.. that the Jewish Christians, though not resting their justification before God on the Mosaic law, yet observed that law (Acts ii. 38, iii. 19, iv. 12.) And this too was quite natural. For that law was not only given by God, and not yet abrogated by him, nay, observed even by Christ himself (Gal. iv. 4 s.), but besides this, being national as well as religious, it had become so entirely a part of the Israelitish customs and manner of life, it was so wrought into the texture of the whole conduct and life of that people, that so long as they were a people, and so long as Jewish Christians were members of the Israelitish state, a renunciation of those national customs was purely inconceivable. It may, indeed, be doubted whether the Israelites who had become Christians con¬ tinued to fulfil those legal observances which bore a more optional character. It can scarcely be supposed, for example, that every one who fell into a sin would bring the guilt or the sin-offering into the temple. On the other hand, the manner of' preparing meats, the observance of the Sabbath, &c., remained the same. Indeed, until the destruction of Jerusalem, when God, by the overthrow of the Israelitish state, put an end to Israelitish nationality and customs, the hope of seeing Israel converted as a whole, although it had been ever lessening, was not entirely given up ; and this of itself was a reason for the Jewish Christians not separating themselves from the Israelitish community. Thus the Jewish Christians, or to speak more correctly, the Israelites who believed on the Messiah, were in the habit of frequenting the temple for daily prayer. But the hatred of the unbelieving Jews towards them grew more and more intense. Towards the end of tlie fiftieth year they no longer suffer the presence of the apostle Paul in the temple (Acts xxi. ss.), although they dare not INTRODUCTION. / yet openly cast him out as a Jewish Christian, but avail them¬ selves of the pretext that he has taken a Gentile Christian into the temple along with him. But that the time came when Christians as such, Jewish Christians also, were no longer suffered to appear in the temple, may be inferred from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The persecution of the Christians under Hero may have emboldened the Jews ; their courage rose when they saw the Christians sacrificed also by the Romans. This period of affliction for the church in Jerusalem may have begun in the sixtieth year. There were, however, weak ones in whose minds conscientious scruples might be awakened by this exclusion from the Theocracy of the old covenant. They were not yet able to walk without crutches. They were afraid lest with the privilege of access to the temple and of fellowship with the commonwealth of Israel, they should lose at the same time their claim to the common salvation of God. Such weak ones are not to be sought among the older members of the church who had already grown grey in Christianity, but rather among the neophytes and such as were on the point of conversion. Con¬ version to Christianity threatened to come to a stand. And yet it was the last hour ; and whoever was to be saved from the judg¬ ments impending over Israel must be saved now. In these circumstances the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, designed for a certain circle of neophytes and catechumens then existing ; useful for all in future times who should occupy an analogous position. The aim of this epistle is to prove from the nature and principal elements of the old covenant itself, that the revelation and redemption through the Messiah promised in the old cove¬ nant, is represented even in the old covenant as an absolute revelation, as sufficient in itself, by which the Old Testament types become superfluous. v . x \ V ‘ . ' . • ' ' - V- % ‘ ■ ■ ■ ■ * ' % •/ THE EXOKDIUM. % (Chap. i. 1—3.) While all the rest of the New Testament epistles begin by mentioning the name and office of their authors, as also the churches for which they are intended, this form of introduction which was usual in ancient times is wanting in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Some have sought to account for this circumstance by saying that the author intended to compensate for the effect of a formal superscription by the solemn and highly oratorical style of the introduction. This supposition, however, will not suffice fully to explain the case. The impression that would have been made on the readers and hearers by the name of an apostle or some other authoritative person, might indeed be compensated by the im¬ pression which the lofty utterance of the heart and mind of such a person could not fail to produce ; they could, so to speak, hear the man from the force of the words , and forthwith believe that they saw him before them. But the want of the superscription itself was not thereby compensated. We can scarcely conceive that any one would have addressed a letter to a church without mentioning his name at all. It only remains, therefore, to be supposed, that this writing, which we hold under the name of the Epistle to the Hebrews, was originally accompanied by a shorter epistle properly so called, and therefore that the epistle itself was not one in the proper sense of the term. And this supposition is confirmed by a number of considerations drawn from the sub¬ stance of the epistle, to which our attention will be directed at the proper time, and of which we will here specify some of the most striking. The hortatory passages are not, as in the most of the 10 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1-3. other epistles, closely engrafted on the didactic, so that the doctrinal parts pass naturally into the practical; but the former are wound up in a strictly scientific manner without any hortatory and practical side-glances, and the latter are abruptly placed between the doctrinal sections (chap. ii. 1—3, iii. 1—19, v. 11 —6, 12, &c.) The practical parts, too, show a systematic form, the result of reflection,—an intended transition to a new doctrinal section is introduced in the form of a short hortatory or personal remark (iii. 1, viii. 1.) The particular sections of the doctrinal parts are, however, marked by a peculiar species of formal super¬ scriptions ?, of which we shall soon have to speak, and the nature of which can be seen from the translation which we have annexed to the commentary. Moreover, the course of the investigation and the reasoning in the doctrinal parts is often so intricate, so many ideas are often compressed into few words, that we can hardly suppose the object of the epistle was fulfilled by a single reading before the assembled church (as we must suppose was the case even with the most didactic of Paul’s epistles, that to the Romans, which, however, might easily be understood on a first reading) ; but it rather appears that this Epistle to the Hebrews was designed, after having been read, to serve as a groundwork for a formal course of instruction, very probably of instruction for catechumens. This opinion is confirmed also by the passages, chap. v. 11 ss. ; vi. 1 ss., where the writer makes some systematic remarks on the method of instruction to be pur¬ sued in the Christian Church; with which may be compared also the passage viii. 1, where again in a systematic form a recapitulation is given of what has been said on to that place, as the foundation of what is farther to be brought forward. After all, then, we shall not be chargeable with undue boldness if we maintain, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was, in respect of its form , not an epistle , in the proper sense, but a treatise. That this assertion implies no denial of its having been written with a practical aim is evident from what has been said in the introduc¬ tion ; all that we think and say is, that in respect of its form , it goes beyond the nature of an epistle, of a direct effusion in which the writer transfers himself in spirit to his readers, and speaks to them although not without a plan (comp, the Epistle to the Romans), yet always without the consciousness of system and THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3 . 11 from the immediate impulse of the heart, and that it therefore thoroughly bears the character of a systematic treatise. Hence also we account for the absence of the address which is indispen¬ sable to every epistle. A mere verbal salutation by the person who conveyed the writing could not supply the place of this address, not even on the supposition of its being a treatise. It would be too strange to suppose, that the author who had written so much should not write a few additional lines with his own name. These accompanying lines, however, in the case before us, would be addressed not to the church, but rather to some individual teacher in it, and we can easily see from this how they might come to be lost. That the writing was intended for a certain limited circle of readers, not for a circle of churches, not even for one entire church, is very evident from chap. iii. f», v. 12. The persons there addressed form quite a definite circle of persons represented as undergoing a course of instruction. This, of course, (Joes not imply that the writing was not used for a similar object in all analogous cases beyond this circle, and that, in this way, at a very early period, it may not have obtained a circulation suited to its high importance. The three first verses, inasmuch as they develop the ground idea of the epistle, form a sort of introduction to the principal parts which follow from verse 4 onwards. The structure of the period in these verses has justly been noticed by all commen¬ tators as remarkable for its beauty. The period is as perspicuous and clear as it is long, rich, and complicated ; a fine succession of thought expressed in a form finished even to the minutest detail, gives it a claim to rank among the finest periods of the Greek authors. The first verse gives forth in a majestic style the ground-theme of the whole treatise. The revelation of Gocl in his Son is opposed to the revelations of God by the prophets , as the higher, as the one, undivided, absolute revelation. To con¬ firm this the person and ivork of the Son are developed in ver. 2—3. Ver. 1. The subject with the clauses in apposition to it forms a series of parallel antitheses to the verbal predicate with its qualifying clauses. “ God who has spoken to the fathers by the prophets.” AoJ.sTv is used in the sense of to denote the 12 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3 . revealing utterance of God, in which sense it frequently occurs in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 2, ix. 19, &c.), and elsewhere in the New Testament (Acts iii. 24; James v. 10; 2 Pet. i. 21.) By the varies here are meant, of course, not merely the patri¬ archs, but all those former generations of Israel that have preceded the those at present living; in a word: the forefathers. The idea implied in *%o gq/Aan Tr\g ^vvd/xscag uvtov. First of all, it is evident, that by gfoa cannot be meant, as the Socinians ex¬ plain it, the preaching of the gospel, but only the creative Omnipotent word which lies at the foundation of the world's existence; then, that in like manner as avravyuofia and ypouxTr^ is to be rendered not abstractly, but concretely (susti- nere, comp. Num. xi. 4; Is. ix. 6); finally, that avrov applies in a reflexive sense to the Son, and not to the Father. 2 The meaning then is, that the Son sustains the universe by the 1 This, of course, again is not to be viewed as if the Son of God had re¬ mained in heaven as a part or portion of Christ, and taken part in the world- governing omniscience and omnipotence, while the human nature as another part upon earth was without omnipotence and omniscience. This would land us in a more than Nestorian separation of the person of Christ into two persons. But the eternal Son of God, entering into the category of time, and the creature emptied himself, during the period of his humiliation, of the /t*A£

tycdKu(S{j\'7\g tv b-^TjXoTg. The genitive ruv d'j.apnojv, which we cannot well translate otherwise than “ purification from sins," is explained by this, that in the Greek it can also be said «/ a^agr/a/ xadag/^ovrai. K a&aglfyiv corres¬ ponds to the Hebrew "into, and finds an intelligible explanation in the significance which belonged to the Levitical purification in the Old Testament cultus. Those, therefore, would greatly err, who should understand xadugZptv of moral improvement, and so interpret xa6a§i vSos. The subject of whom it is affirmed that he is superior to the angels, is therefore not the Logos as pre-existent, hut still the incarnate Son of God , as the organ of the New Testament revelation ; this appears partly from the context and the train of thought, inasmuch as it was the business of the author to demonstrate the pre-eminence of the new dispensation over the old, partly, from the yevofisvog “become” (by no means = wv), partly, from the tukKiidovg- /JjTjXiV. The argument for the superior dignity of the organ of the New Testament revelation is derived from this—that God already under the old dispensation assigned to the future Messiah whom he there promised, a name which plainly enough declared, that this promised future Messiah should be at the same time the eternal Son of the same nature with the Father. In this light, and from this point of view, then, are to be understood also the EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 33 particular proofs adduced from the Old Testament ver. 5-14, and so understood they present no difficulty. They can only then appear difficult and obscure when it is supposed that the author meant them to prove, that a dignity superior to the angels was ascribed in the Old Testament either to the Logos as such , or to the historical individual Jesus as such. Nothing of this, however, is said even in the remotest degree. The author lays down the thesis that the Son, in his quality as organ of the New Testament revelation , is exalted above the angels, and in proof of this he appeals to the fact, that the Old Testament ascribes to the Messiah this dignity, namely, his being the Son of God in a manner which is not affirmed of the angels. As a middle member between that thesis and this proof, nothing farther needs to be supplied than the presupposition that the u/o?, ver. 1-3, is iden¬ tical with the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. But that the readers of the Epistle did presuppose this, that by the ver. 1-3, in whom God has revealed himself “at the end of this time'’ (consequently in the “Messianic time," see above), they understood Jesus Christ, and again, that they held Christ to be the Messiah, will surely not require to be proven here. Kgetrruv -—the author uses the same expression, in itself quite relative and indefinite, also in the analogous comparisons, chap, vii. 19 and 22, viii. 6, and ix. 23, x. 34, Ac. The Son is superior to the angels, because (in as far as) “he has obtained as an inhe¬ ritance a more distinguished name than they." On the idea of the inheritance, see the remarks on ver. 2. The act of the xXqgo- nfibiTv is one performed in time ; nothing is said of the Logos as eternally pre-existent. But neither is it anything that took place in the time of Jesus that is spoken of; the author does not refer to those events recorded in Matth. iii. 17, xvii. 5, in which the voice of the Father from heaven to Jesus said: This is my beloved Son. The author coidd not , in consistency with his plan, refer to these events; for his object was to prove his particular theses and doctrines from the records of the Old Testament itself, for the sake of his readers, who were afraid of doing what might involve a separation from the writings and the ordinances of the old holy covenant of God with the people of Israel. Accordingly, his object here is to show, that already in the Messianic prophecies the Messiah was represented not as a mere c 34 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4-14. man, but received a name such as was given to no angel, a name which indicates an altogether exclusive and essential relation of oneness with God. The perfect xsxXjjpovS/itjxsv points to the time of the Old Testament prophecy. O /« r rujv ocy'yiACnJv uni. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 37 affords the explanation of it in its subjective human aspect. For let it he ever so prophetic, it is still essentially not a not a miT DM, it does not begin with PimDK SO, hut is a psalm, an hymn , an effusion of religious poetry, which has beneath it a mm DM as the basis on which it moves, and to which pointed reference is made in the 6 th verse mm "pin. We are therefore justified in seeking a humano-historical occasion for the psalm. It cannot, then, have been written before the time of David, since the hill of Zion is spoken of as the royal seat; least of all in the time of Solomon (as Bleek would have it), since, according to 1 Kings v. 1, Chron. xxii. Solomon reigned in peace, and in his time there is not the slightest trace of such a violent insurrection of rebellious nations as is described Ps. ii. 1 ss. After the divi¬ sion of the kingdom, there was under Uzziah a subjugation of the neighbouring heathen nations, but only in a very partial degree, and the revolt of these heathen did become something so common, that it would scarcely have so powerfully moved the soul of a poet,—besides, in this case, we should have expected to find among the hoped-for blessings of the future some mention of the re-union with the northern kingdom. There remains, there¬ fore, no other time in which the Psalm can well have been written, but that of David. Against this ver. 6 has been adduced, as not properly applicable to the anointing of David, seeing that David was anointed as a boy at Bethlehem. But supposing that ver. 6 applies to the person of David (which would first require to be investigated), the object of the words ■Oil would certainly not be to give a dry, outward, prosaic determi¬ nation of locality—of the place of the anointing. The poet would rather denote the whole wmndrous series of divine acts bv %! which the shepherd was exalted from his anointing by Samuel onwards, guarded amid the many dangers to which his life was exposed, until at length he came to be acknowledged by all the twelve tribes, and was brought to the summit of his dominion in the residence which be took by conquest, and which he founded —I say the poet would comprehend this whole series of divine acts in a poetical unity, and as we would denote the same thing by the one symbolical expression: God has exalted him to the throne of Zion, so the poet denotes it by the symbolical expression entirely similar: “ God has anointed him to be King in Zion/' 38 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4-14. It is not said that Samuel anointed him, but that God anointed him. This interpretation would be all the more unobjectionable ? that there is nothing to hinder our translating by by “ over/’ and taking the words to denote the term, ad quern: God has anointed him (to be King) over Zion. Still, as already observed, we can by no means regard it as decided that ver. 6 speaks of the person of David. And thus every motive for placing the psalm in another time than that of David falls to the ground. Precisely in David’s life-time we find a state of things which remarkably corresponds with that described in the psalm. We read in 2 Sam. viii. that Pladadezer the King of Zobah rebelled against David, who subdued him, and that the Syrians of Da¬ mascus hastened to his assistance with a mighty host, of which David alone took 21,700 prisoners. Shortly before this, David had also put down rebellions on the part of the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Edmonites, and Amalekites, and so there was then a time when almost the whole heathen world known to the Israelites had risen up in hostility against Israel and Israels King (and consequently, according to the views of the ancient heathen, against Israel’s God—for it was believed that with the people their gods were vanquished.) After David’s victory, Thoi, King of Hamath, sent to him presents in token of homage, so that there is not wanting an occasion also for what is said in vers. 10-12.—But in vers. 7 and 12 we find a statement which more than anything else confirms us in the view that the second psalm was written at that time (certainly after the victory was completed), and, moreover, that no one but David himself sung this hymn of thanksgiving and hope. The poet rests his firm hope upon this —that God has said to him: “ Thou art my Son.” A word to this effect had been spoken to David in the charge which he received from God by Hath an the prophet, shortly before the Syrian war. When he wished to build God a temple, Hathan disclosed to him that he should not build God a temple, but his 'posterity (JHT as a collective) ; yea, God will build it an house, and establish its throne for ever ; God will be its Father , and it will be his Son. How we know certainly (from 1 Kings viii. 17 ss.), that Solomon applied that prophecy to himself in such a way that he undertook the building of the temple, and we must even EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 39 say that in this he did perfectly right; for if the “ posterity of David” was to build a temple for God, there was no reason why the first member of that posterity should not immediately put his hand to the work. Only, it must not be forgotten, that Solomon himself by no means thought that the prophecy of Nathan as yet found its complete fulfilment in his erection of the temple. He says this most distinctly in 1 Kings viii. 26—27. He considers it as a benefit still to be prayed for, that those words of Nathan to David should be verified, for his temple is as yet not a house in which God may truly dwell. Not less clearly was David conscious of this, that Nathan s word would first obtain its full accomplishment “ in the distant future” (pirnD^), “ in a man who is the Lord, Jehovah himself” (2 Sam. vii. 19), 1 or, as it is explained in Chron. xvii. 17, “in a man who is exalted up to Jehovah.” On this promise so well understood, David builds the hope which he expresses in Ps. ii. We know now the time, the occasion, and the author of the second psalm. And it is only now that we have the necessary preparation for inquiring into its contents. One might feel tempted to refer the contents of the Psalm (as Bleek does) to the earthly historical king (to David according to our view, to Solomon according to Bleelds.) Thus David would compose the psalm some time during the insurrection of the Syrians. In ver. 1—3 he describes the raging of the heathen against Jehovah, and against himself, the anointed of Jehovah ; then, in ver. 4, he expresses the certain hope that God will laugh at his enemies and utterly destroy them ; and in ver. 6 he confirms this hope, by calling in mind the covenant- faithfulness of God, who has helped him hitherto, and has raised him to be King over Zion. But in ver. 7 there comes an obstacle by which this interpretation is entirely overturned. David appeals in ver. 7 to this—that God has said to him : “ Thou art my Son”—has said to him , He will give him the ends of the earth for a possession. When had ever such a promise been given to David f It is expressly said in 2 Sam. vii. 12, that David shall not build an house to the Lord, but shall sleep with his fathers ; not to him , but to his seed after him, will God establish the king- l If yh were not in apposition to DIN^rmPb but vocative, the latter expression could have no possible meaning. 40 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14 . dom for ever, and be their Father. It is quite clear, then, that David, in the second psalm, speaks in the name of his seed after him ; that he adoringly looks forward to the fulfilment of that glorious hope in the distant future, 2 Sam. vii. 19. It is clear that the insurrection of the Syrians forms merely the occasion , but not the object and import , of the second psalm. The second psalm presents to us not an historical but an ideal picture. After the general insurrection of the southern and northern nations bordering on Israel had been quelled, and David had begun to reflect on this event, and to compare it with jSTathan’s prophecy, there opened up before him a grand prospect stretching into the future ; what had befallen him appears as a type, as a typical instance of a great ideal law which would again and again repeat itself, until it found its perfect manifestation in the time of the “ seed after him,” his view of which seed had already in the prayer 2 Sam. vii. 19 concentrated itself into the concrete form of “a man who is to be exalted up to Jehovah.” For, apart from the fundamental law of all poetical intuition, according to which what is general (as in the case before us “ the posterity ”) individualizes itself in the eye of the poet, it could not remain hid even from that reflection which is divested of all poetry, that the fulness of the prophecies given in 2 Sam. vii. must find their final accomplishment in a concrete descendant. If, in opposition to David, “ who was to sleep with his fathers,” the royal dominion was to be established for ever in the house of David or the seed of David (2 Sam. vii. 16), this certainly could not be accomplished thus—that his descendants, one after the other, for ever, should also “ sleep with their fathers ;” but the one part of the fulfilment must consist in this, that God should show a fatherly forbearance towards the sins of the particular descendants (2 Sam. vii. 14), the other part certainly in this, that at length an individual would come, in whom the endlessness of the domi¬ nion, and the absoluteness of the relation, of son, should find adequate manifestation. JSTow, ive Tcnoiv, as has been already observed, from 2 Sam. vii. 19, and one Chron. xvii. 17 (the pass¬ age comes of course from the royal annals which form the basis of both books), that David really understood that prophecy in this and in no other sense ; and Ps. ii. 7 compels us to refer the psalm to an individual who was the seed z&yfiv promised to David. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14 . 41 As the heathen had assembled against him to throw off his yoke, so, transferring himself in spirit to future times, he sees how the nations of the earth (the representation is here pur¬ posely general, and nothing is said of the Syrians) would also rise up against the future perfect King, and that out of hatred to the living holy God who has anointed him. But, in like manner, he sees also already, how the living God will deride the folly of the children of men. God himself speaks in ma¬ jestic calmness the simple word: “I have anointed my King upon Zion/' (It is quite evident that this is not spoken of David, but of that seed after him.) Now David hears that future King himself speak words of holy confidence ; he hears him say, that he will often profess and freely proclaim that the Lord has declared him to be his Son, that the Lord has anointed him. (His real being he derives not by his carnal descent from David, but by the word of the promise of Nathan to David—he is begot¬ ten by the word of God. In the phrase, “ this day," it is evident that the royal singer sees in ideal vision his oivn time when he re¬ ceived the promise, blended with the future time , that of the perfect seed, and thus the “ this day" forms a direct antithesis with the times in which David was begetting, or had begotten, corporeal descendants.)—Further, David hears in verse 8 the seed remind¬ ing God of his promises (2 Sam. vii.) ; in verse 9 he hears God answering in accordance with these promises; and, finally, in vers. 10—12, David concludes in his own name with an admo¬ nition to the kings of the nations to be in subjection to that promised “ Son;" soon the time shall come when he shall execute judgment on the heathen. In the prophecy of Nathan, the prayer of David connected with it, and the second psalm, there lies before us the germ of the ivhole Messianic prophecy. In the second psalm, it appears still in the form of lyrical elevation, and it is more than probable that the meaning of that first grand presentment remained a mystery undisclosed to the majority of David's contemporaries, and the generations immediately following, just as, at a later period, the prophecies of the divinity of the Messiah (Mic. v. 1, and Is. xi. 6) were locked up from the great mass of the Jewish people. Still, the consciousness of the importance of Nathan's prophecy never vanished (1 Kings xv. 4; 2 Kings viii. 19, &c.) 42 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14 . But when, after the separation of the kingdoms, outward and inward decay increased more and more, and God by his pro¬ phets (first of all by Amos and Hosea) gave intimation of the coming exile, he then also again put into the mouth of the pro¬ phets the promise, that after the exile there should come a in, born in a low estate, brought like the first David from the . sheep-folds of Bethlehem, not from kings palaces (Mic. iv.—v.), a Branch, springing from the roots of the hewn stock of the house of David (Is. xi.), an Immanuel, born of the lowly maid of the house of David (Is. vii.) ;—and of the substantial identity of this branch with the “ Son,” Ps. ii., and the “ Seed,” 2 Sam. vii., on the one hand, and the Messiah on the other, there can no reasonable doubt be entertained. Our author—who, in connecting the passage 2 Sam. vii. 14 with the second psalm, makes it sufficiently evident that he had interpreted and understood the psalm in connection with the prophecy of Nathan—simply calls to mind the fact, that in the very first commencement of the Messianic prophecy 1 there is ascribed to the Messiah a relation of Sonship to God, such as is never applied, even approximately, to any one of the angels. A relation of such a kind, that the Messiah derives his real being , not from David , but from God. For this was, as we saw, the import of the words, To-day I have begotten thee. We shall therefore not have to inquire long in what sense the author of our epistle understood the chtuoov. In no other than the only natural sense. It denotes neither the eternal present, nor the time of the incarnation of Jesus, nor that of his resurrection, ascension, &c., but the time of that pro¬ mise which was given by Nathan, in opposition to the (later) time when David begat Solomon (2 Sam. xii. 24.) It all hinges upon this—that the hoc does not derive any real being from David. The second citation, 2 Sam. vii. 14, has received its explanation in what has been said above. 1 The idea of the Messianic prophecy we understand here, of course, in the narrower sense, as the prediction of a definite, royal, descendant of David. In the wider sense, Gen. iii. 15 ; and Deut. xviii. 15, are also Messianic prophecies. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14 . 43 Yer. 6. The proofs of the assertion that the Son has received a higher name than the angels are, in truth, closed with the two citations in ver. 5. In ver. 6 ss. there follow certain other arguments, in which also the superiority of the Son over the angels appears, although not precisely that which consists in the name. The sixth verse is unquestionably one of the most diffi¬ cult in the whole epistle. With regard to the construction, ■~uXiv seems, according to the position of the words, to belong to e/aaytfyfl ; still, there is no difficulty in deciding, and by the consent of the best interpreters (Peschito, Erasm., Luth., Cal. Beza, Capellus, Grot., Limb., Hammond, Bengel, Wolf, Carpz., Kuin., Bleek, and others), it has been substantially determined, that according to the sense it can belong only to Xsyst, parallel to the craX/v (g/Vs) ver. 5 ; consequently, that we have here an easily explicable hyperbaton. It cannot be “a second bringing in of the first-born into the world" that is here spoken of, as Olshausen rightly observes, seeing that nothing has been said of a first. And thus, from the outset, we are spared the fruitless trouble of deciding whether the “ two bringings in" are to be understood of the eternal generation and the incarnation, or of the incarna¬ tion and the resurrection, or finally of the resurrection and the second coming. What, however, is meant generally by the ska/uv dg r. chi. can only be determined by looking more particularly at the citation itself, and the meaning of it. The words xcd KPOffxwritfartoffav avrti rruvrig ayyzXoi Qicv are to be found verbatim in the LXX. cod. Yat. Deut. xxxii. 43. The cod. Alex, has irdvreg v/d rov 0=&D, and for this in a subsequent place ayysXoi where the cod. Yat. has dd• but the Yatican reading is here, as it almost always is, the older and the more genuine, and is confirmed by the citation before us. It has indeed been maintained (Pattr., Kuinoel, &c.) that this citation cannot be taken from Deut. xxxii., but is derived from Ps. xcvii. 7, where we find the words vrgo&xvvqffare ab-& Ka'jTzg d uyysXot Qzob. But those who have adopted this view have been driven to it by the circumstance, that in Deut. xxxii. the words in question are not to be found in the Masor. text of the Hebrew original. How could the author, it was thought, appeal to a passage which was a mere spurious addition by the 44 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4— II. 18. Alexandrine translators ? But as it is evident, notwithstanding, that he follows, in respect of form, the passage in the LXX. Deut. xxxii., and deviates from Ps. xcvii., it was found necessary to have recourse to the subsidiary hypotheses, a, that the author has had both passages in his memory; b, that he was conscious of the spuriousness of the passage in Deut. xxxii.; c, that he therefore intended to cite the other passage; d, but, notwithstanding, inten¬ tionally or unintentionally, borrowed the form of the words from Deut. xxxii. The artificial nature of the operation here presupposed, almost bordering upon the ludicrous, would of itself suffice for the refu¬ tation of this view. In addition to this, however, it enables us to escape from Scylla only to fall into Charybdis. For, if the words in Deut. owe their existence to a spurious addition, the words in Ps. xcvii. owe theirs to a manifestly false translation. The Hebrew original runs thus—D iV-rinn^n, and in the context, it is not the angels that are spoken of, but the false gods of the heathen, who will yet be constrained to bow before Jehovah. Xor is anything said there of a “bringing in of the first-born into the worldthe subject is simply and solely the sovereignty of Jehovah, before which the idols shall be destroyed. And, even in the (spurious)) superscription which the psalm bears in the LXX.: Tw Aavid, ors r] yr\ a'jrov staQitrrarat, not a word is to be found either about the ofoovfi&vfi or the bringing in of a son into it. While it is thus impossible to find in the verse before us a citation from Ps. xcvii. 7, all becomes right when we consider the citation as taken from Deut. xxxii. 43. For, with respect, first of all, to the absence of the words in the Masoretic text, we must with all our deference to this text as resting on ancient and strong tradition, never forget that we have in the LXX., parti¬ cularly in the Pentateuch, an equally ancient recension of the Hebrew text. That the Seventy did not fabricate these words but found them in their original, is also Bleek’s view. We have here, therefore, not a genuine text opposed to a spurious addition, but a reading opposed to a reading. And, moreover, in the 6th verse, according to the proper sense of the w^ords cited, all mainly depended upon this, that in accordance with the general religious consciousness and understood phraseology, the angels should be EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14 . 45 represented as having merely the position of worshipping spec¬ tators, when the setting up of the Messiah’s kingdom is spoken of. We will farther explain and justify this assertion. The determination of the time here referred to oWav d's t &c. : one might be tempted to explain from the circumstance, that when Moses sang that song, Israel who, in Hos. xi. 1, is called the first-born of God, was just about to enter as a people among the nations of the earth. This explanation would at least be incomparably better than that according to which it is the entrance of the Logos from eternity into time that is mentioned. There is no mention here of the xoo^os, but of the o/xou^sv?j, the sphere of the earth as inhabited by the nations. But as aurp must plainly be referred to the same person that is called crguroroxog, while au-a again refers in the passage cited, not to the then Mosaic nor to the post Mosaico-Messianic Israel, nor to the ideal Israel, but to Jehovah who will help his people , it follows, that the author also, in the word npuroroxog, cannot have had in his mind either the real or ideal Israel, or the Messiah as such, and we shall therefore have to look out for another explanation of the efodyw. W e must first, however, ascertain more particularly the meaning of the passage Deut. xxxii. 43. Moses in vers. 15—18 rebukes the sins of Israel at that period, those numerous manifestations of the obduracy of their hearts which the people gave, in spite of the mighty acts of God which they had witnessed. In vers. 19—35 he threatens them with terrible punitive judgments in the future, should they persist in these sins, in this obduracy. The punishment threatened is concentrated in this, that if the people should continue to be ungrateful for their redemption from the Egyptian bondage, God would at length take back from them the freedom which he had given them, and leave them to fall anew into a still more terrible bondage among a heathen people. We know that this was fulfilled, and how. We know how, from the time of Joshua to that of David, God conducted the people to the pinnacle of prosperity; how, from David to Zedekiah, he let them fall into all the depths of hapless degene¬ racy ; how, in spite of prosperity and adversity, the people of Israel sank deeper and deeper into corruption, until, at length. God caused to be fulfilled the threatening first uttered by Moses, 46 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4-14. and afterwards repeated by Amos, Hosea, Micah, &c., and let the people fall into bondage to the heathen nations, the Babylo¬ nians, Persians, Macedonians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Romans. But Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, &c., were not the first who predicted a re-deliverance from this affliction, for Moses had already foretold, Deut. xxxii. 36—42, that God would have compassion on those who were humbled and converted by those chastisements ; then should it be known that it is He alone who can help and save. Moses prophesies, then, in vers. 36—42 of the same re-deliverance which has been more specially described by the later prophets, as the deliverance through the Messiah, consequent¬ ly, as the Messianic salvation. How here, in ver. 42, it is said (according to the reading maintained in the LXX.), the angels shall worship the Lord, i.e. Jehovah the Saviour. This Jehovah the Saviour appears indeed in the mouth of Moses to be quite identical with Jehovah generally, with God; but the Christian readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews knew already and acknow¬ ledged, that the Jehovah who should arise and come forth in the Messianic time for the salvation of his people is God the Son , the Incarnate. Two things must not be forgotten if we would rightly apprehend the meaning and the argument of the verse before us—first, that the author simply testifies to the Godhead of Christ, ver. 2, 3, as a thing already known to his readers through the apostolic preaching, and acknowledged by them, without deeming it necessary to adduce proofs for this doctrine ; secondly, that for this very reason (as well as on account of the whole train of thought, ver. 4, ss.) the aim of ver. 6 is not to prove that the Messiah is the Son of God, but that the Messiah, who is known to be identical with the Son of God, is, even in the Old Testament dispensation, placed higher than the angels. For, it was on this point that the readers needed to be instructed. They had no doubts about the Messialiship of Jesus and the divinity of the Messiah ; but this whole Messianic revelation was still in their eyes but an appendix to the Mosaic revelation, given only on account of Moses and Israel, only a blossoming branch of the religion of Israel. They had yet to be brought to know, that the divinity of him who was the organ of the Xew Testa¬ ment revelation necessarily involves his infinite elevation above the organs of the Old Testament; that the old dispensation was EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4-14. 47 ended on account of the new ; and that this new dispensation was on account of all mankind, not on account of the old. This they had yet to be taught, and this is precisely what is designed to he proved on these verses, the proof being drawn from the divinity of Christ, already acknowledged by the readers. In ver. 5 the author has shown that the Messiah, even when he is prophesied of as David’s Son, is said to be the Son of God in a sense in which it is said of no angel. In ver. 6 he shows, that a place above the angels is assigned to the Messiah moreover , when he is represented as Jehovah the Saviour himself When the Messianic salvation is described, the angels receive only the place of worshipping spectators ; organs of this salvation they are not. The s/ffdystv rbv Kpuroroxov, &c., will now explain itself. The writer evidently means to express the idea, that these words are connected with a passage which speaks of the entrance of Jehovah the Saviour into the world , hence, of the entrance of the Son into the world. He says, designedly, not v'/6g, which would denote the incarnate, but flrgwroVoxos, which, like the f&ovoysvvjg of John, denotes the eternal Son of the Father, the ^uroroxog nd$), but that they are spoken of Christ , are applicable to him. That EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 -14. exalted dignity and rank was ascribed to Solomon because , and in so far as his sceptre was a sceptre of righteousness, because , and in so far as he loved righteousness and made the will of God his will. The Psalmist contemplates Solomon then as the ideal of a theocratic king, such as was conceived in 2 Sam vii. and farther delineated in hope, Psalm ii. In so far as Solomon in reality made the will of God his will, in so far might he be accounted the seed promised to David, in so far might the predicate be assigned to him. It is quite possible and comprehensible, that in the first years of his reign it was believed that the prophecy of Nathan, 2 Psalm vii., and the hope of David, Psalm ii., 2 Psalm vii., found their fulfilment in Solomon, while the words of David were forgotten that the Lord spake “ of the distant future/' (It was thought, too, in the time of Constantine, that the reign of the thousand years had commenced !) But it soon appeared how mistaken this belief was, how far Solomon departed from a faithful fulfilment of the will of God. Although, however, that psalm—as a hymn on Solomon—was shown to have proceeded from human error, it did not, therefore, and in the same degree, cease to be prophetical, but it then first became a prophecy. It became apparent that the ideals delineated in that psalm under the guidance of the Holy Spirit would first be realised in the future. The ideal of the righteous king who absolutely fulfils the will of God, and to whom, therefore, the predicate D'nW truly belongs, and whose dominion is to have an everlasting continuance, is only very-imperfectly fulfilled in Solomon, is first perfectly fulfilled in Christ. Thus those words cited from the psalm are spoken respecting the Son. In the sense of their human author they are neither a direct nor an indirect prophecy of Christ; but the object of which they treat, Solomon, was a real, a living prophecy of Christ, a type and pre¬ figuration, and, in as far as those words represent Solomon in his typico-ideal, not in his human-imperfect character, they are certainly in the sense of the Holy Spirit a prophecy pointing to our Saviour. Inquire we now finally, how far we have in that declaration of the Psalmist a proof of the superiority of the, Messiah over the angels. Three things are declared of the ideal of a theocratic king—consequently of the Messiah ; a, he is his authority EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 55 is tbe authority of God himself; b, his dominion is endless ; c, both are true, because he perfectly fulfils the will of God. The perfect theocratical king—therefore Christ (which required no proofs for the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews)—stands in this threefold relation above the angels. He is the absolute revelation of God, and therefore himself God ; the angels are only servants. He is King of an imperishable kingdom ; the angels execute only periodical commands ; he rules in a moral ivay as founder of a kingdom of righteousness, and his whole dignity as Messiah is founded directly on his moral and spiritual relation to man ; the angels are only mediators of outward appearances of nature, by which a rude, unsuscept ible people, are to be trained for higher things. Yer. 10—12. As ver. 8 s. is connected with ver. 7 by the words rbv uibv, so is ver. 10 still more closely connected with ver. 8 s. by a mere xat } and indeed we shall soon see, that the two members ver. 8—9 and ver. 10—12 taken together, form the antithetical member to ver. 7. Here also we will first consider the passage quoted (Ps. cii. 26—28) in its original meaning and connexion. The words in themselves have no difficulty;, the Sept, has rightly rendered them, and the author follows the Sept.; the meaning of the words too is clear. But the question again recurs, how far these words, evidently spoken of God, can afford any proof of the superiority of the Son over the angels. The supposition that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews by mistake, i.e. from complete ignorance of the context from which he took the passage, considered those words as an address directed to Christ, is too awkward to find any acceptance with us. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews can scarcely be conceived of as so senseless, that, without any occasion, he should use words which apply to God as if they applied to the incarnate Son of God. So coarse a mistake would certainly not have escaped detection ; for it is not to be forgotten that his readers were also in a certain sense his opponents, and would scarcely have allowed themselves to be drawn away from their deep-rooted prejudice in favour of the old covenant and the Old Testament Israel, by bad and untenable arguments. That supposition is all the more improbable when it is considered, that the author has evidently quoted ail these 56 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. passages not from memory, but has carefully copied tliem from the LXX., so that he could not possibly be ignorant of their original context. In general, however, it is a very superficial and shallow view that w’ould lead us all at once to consider the use of Old Testament passages in the Xew Testament as parallel with the exegetico-dogmatic method of argumentation pursued by the Babbins. The apostles and apostolical men have, indeed, exhibited in their epistles such a freedom from the spirit of Jewish tradition, such an originality and youthful vigour of new life, such a fineness and depth of psychological and historical intuition, and the whole system of Christianity in its freshness and originality stands in such contrast to the old insipid anti- Messianic Judaism, and appears so thoroughly a new structure from the foundation resting on the depths of Old Testament revelation, and not a mere enlargement of the Pharisaico-Babbi- nical pseudo-Judaism, that it were indeed wonderful, if the same apostolical men had in their interpretation of Old Testament passages held themselves dependent on the Jewish exegesis and hermeneutical method. In reality, however, the apostolical exegesis of the Old Testament stands in directest opposition to the Jewish-Babbinical, so that one can scarcely imagine a more complete and diametrical difference. In the Babbinical inter¬ pretation it is always single ivords —studiously separated from the context—from which inferences, arbitrary, of course, are drawn. The Babbins affirm, for example, that when a man lies three days in the grave, his entrails are torn from his body and cast in the face of the dead ; for it is written in Mai. ii. 3, “ I will also cast the filth of your festivals in your face.” (Sepher joreh chattaim, num. 66.) Xay, the later Babbinism, as a direct result of this arbitrary procedure, went the length of drawing inferences even from single letters. They taught, for example, the transmigration of the soul, and that the souls of men ever / continue to live in men ; thus the life of Cain passed into Jethro, his spirit into Koran, his soul into the Egyptians (Ex. ii. 12 ss.), for it is written Gen. iv. 24, ]’p Dp\ and p, and D are the first letters of Jethro, Korah and (Jalkut rubeni, num. 9.) This genuine pharisaical principle which forms the basis of all this, is, that the letter as such is what is most significant. The Xew Testament writers, on the contrary—as we have seen EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 57 in reference to Heb. i. 6—9, and as we shall see more and more as we proceed with the epistle—drew all their arguments from the spirit of the passages considered in their connection. Nothing at all is inferred from the mere letters of the passages quoted. In Ps. xlv. there is not a syllable about angels. When the author, notwithstanding, has adduced that passage as a proof that the Messiah is superior to the angels, he has, as we have seen, necessarily reckoned on a rational consideration of the \passage on the part of his readers , and a reflective logical com¬ parison of the passage with that in Ps. civ. 4, and the force of ' the argument proceeds only from such a judicious interpretation and attentive examination of the ideas and references objectively contained in both passages. The procedure which he uniformly follows is not that of collecting passages in which the ivords “Son” and “angel” occur, and arbitrarily interpreting them—thus the Rabbins would have done—but of adducing the weightiest passages in which the Messianic salvation is prophesied of (substantially, although not at all under the name “ Messianic”), and from these developing the idea of this salvation. Thus in vers. 7—12 the simple and fundamental idea which he wants to show is, that while the angels are- employed by G od as ministering in temporary appear¬ ances of nature, the Messianic salvation, on the contrary, is ever represented, a , as the lifting up of the man, the theocratical king, immediately to God; b, as the immediate saving act of God himself, i.e. in one word ; c, as an immediate relation of God to men without the intervention of mediation by angels. He finds this idea of the Messianic salvation in those expressions of the Psalms, but not dry outward statements respecting the person of Christ. In ver. 8, 9 the important truth was stated, that the true theocratical king, when his dignity is described, receives not the predicate “angel,” but the predicate He enters without the mediation of an angel, a into immediate unity with God himself. Have we then in ver. 8—10 a descrip¬ tion of the saving work of a man who is one with God, we are therefore entitled to expect that in ver. 10—12 a passage wall be adduced as a counterpart, in which the Messianic salvation is described as an immediate act of God to man, without the inter- 58 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. position of angels. For this is the difference between the Mosaic economy of the law and the Messianic economy of the gospel: a, in the economy of the law the man Moses is God’s servant , and enters as yet into no immediate contact with God himself, hut * only with a form of the divine manifestation in the in the Messianic economy, on the contrary, the theocratic king is himself in an immediate relation of oneness with God, while nothing is said of the mediation of angels ; b, in the Mosaic economy, God works upon men through angels ; in the Messianic, God works immediately and directly on men without the need of angels. This latter idea, as we have already said, we must expect to find proved by a quotation in vers. 10—12. Let us look now at the psalm. It is a song of complaint H yDfi, L T ; * 'jV? and, according to ver. 4, written during the exile ; and it is evident from ver. 14 (thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion), that the author bewails not the sorrows of an individual but the misfortune of his people, although he represents this in an individualised lyrical form as his own affliction. After having portrayed in vers. 2—12 his own wretched condition, i.e. the condition of the Israelite and Israelites, he appeals in ver. 13 to the immutability and eternity of God. It is self-evident that it is not the eternity as a metaphysical attribute of God, nor his unchangeableness as the immaterial Spirit that is spoken of, but the unchangeableness of Jehovah in his acts, in his relation to Israel, in a word the divine covenant-faithfulness. Upon this he grounds the inference, ver. 14, that God shall again have mercy upon Zion; then will the heathen and their kings fear him (ver. 15), and men will speak of the saving work of God to coming generations (ver. 19), that God, namely, has looked down from heaven and heard the cry of the prisoners (vers. 2—21.) It is, then, the deliverance from the captivity that is here spoken of, consequently the Messianic time. The prophets before the exile had represented the Messiah as the deliverer from the exile. Hot till towards the end of the exile was it revealed to Daniel that the Messiah should come not immediately after the seventy years of the exile foretold by Jeremiah in the strict sense , but after seventy years of weeks ; i.e. just that the state of being under the yoke of the heathen, which is substantially a state of exile. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 59 would, even after the local return to Canaan, stretch over a period of seventy years of weeks. The 102d Psalm does not yet discover the difference between a state of exile in the stricter, and in the wider sense ; the Psalmist simply prays for the speedy arrival of the promised time of the redemption and the salvation, that salvation which, when it actually appeared, Luke i. 68, was denoted literally in the same way in which it had been denoted in Ps. cii. 20 as “ Gods looking down upon his people.” At the conclusion of the psalm the prayer is again concisely expressed in the words, “ Take me not away in the midst of my days (ere I have witnessed the deliverance of the people), thy years are to' all generations.” Here too the prayer for deliverance is enforced by the thought of God's unchangeableness, which implies here, besides the idea of the covenant-faithfulness of God, also that of his greatness. Upon this follows the words : “ Thou hast in the beginning (Q* xar’ agx ag) laid the foundations of the earth, the heaven also is the work of thy hands. They shall perish, thou shalt remain,” &c. The fundamental idea there then is, that the hope of the promised Messianic deliverance rests upon God alone , and not on any kind of creature-help. Emphasis is expressly laid on the fact that the heavens also and celestial beings are subject to time and to change, and that upon them the hope of the Messianic salvation cannot rest. Thus do we find here, in reality, the precise idea expressed which we were led to expect. Yer. 8. s.: the Messianic salva¬ tion, in so far as it appears as the act of a man ) an anointed one, “ the seed of David,” is already, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, far superior to angel-revelations, is imme¬ diately divine, eternal, everlasting. Yers. 10—12 : the Messianic salvation, in so far as it appears as the act of God , is already, according to the expectation of the Old Testament, an immediate act of God alone , of which no creature, no celestial creature even, is capable. Thus the Son, as in vers. 8—9, so in like manner in vers. 10— 12, appears in a threefold opposition to the angels, ver. 7. a, The Messianic redemption is an act of the everlasting faithfulness of God himself not of a creature, h, It is everlasting , not mutable. GO EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—.14. c, It is founded on a moral relation of God to men, on the faithful¬ ness of God , not on a relation to nature. In conclusion then we see, that vers. 8, 9, and vers. 10—12, are the two members parallel to each other, which, taken together, form the complete antithesis to ver. 7. Ver. 13 forms the keystone of the whole argument. Let us look hack for a moment on the course of the reasoning. The New Testament revelation of God in the Son was opposed to that of the Old Testament as the absolute to the relative, ver. 4, and the absoluteness of the former derived, 1, from the name Son , which is assigned in the Old Testament to the promised Messiah, but to none among the angels, ver. 5; 2, from this, that where the (Messianic) saving work of God, i.e. of the xput6tgzo$ is pro¬ phesied of, merely the place of worshipping spectators belongs to the angels, vers. 6; 3, ver. 7—12, from the immediateness of the union of God with men in the Messianic salvation, from its everlasting duration and its spiritual nature , inasmuch as it rests on the reciprocal relation of human righteousness, ver. 8, 9, and divine faithfulness, vers. 10—12.—It has been shown in ver. 8, 9, as well as in vers. 10—12, that an immediate elevation of man to God, and an immediate act of grace on the part of God towards man, without the interposition of angels, were already laid down in the Old Testament as the fundamental character¬ istics of the Messianic salvation. This immediateness is now in . ver. 13 still farther confirmed by a crowning passage from the Old Testament, in which it is most clearly expressed. The Messias, it is said, shall sit upon God's throne, and take part in the divine dominion. Nowhere is this represented as belonging to an angel. The quotation is from Ps. cx. 1. Bleek cannot allow this psalm to he taken as prophetical of the Messiah, because the hope of a personal Messiah was foreign to the time of David. This objection needs no refutation after what has been said at ver, 5. Tholuck also (Iiebrasrbr. Beilage i. p. 10) has rightly directed attention to 2 Sam. xxiii. 1 ss.—that saying of David, in which he expresses so definite a hope of a definite posterity who should fulfil Nathan's prophecy, 2 Sam. vii. That we have, in Ps. cx., also an expression of that hope grounded on 2 Sam. vii. EriSTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4-14. 61 should no longer be doubted. We by no means need to appeal to the declaration of Christ, Matth. xxii. 42 ss. ; even if we were able, without doing violence to a sound understanding, to agree with those who regard that declaration, not as Christ’s real opinion, but as intended by him half in jest, merely to lead the Pharisees into an inextricable difficulty—even if we were at liberty to adopt such a view, the composition of the 110th Psalm by David, and its Messianic signification, would still stand fast of itself The remarkable representation of a sacerdotal king like to Melchisedek, which we find in this psalm, will not at all suit a time subsequent to that of David. The later kings stood partly in hostile relation to the priesthood, cultus, theocracy, and worship of Jehovah, partly, even when they stood in a peaceful and friendly relation to these, as in the case of Plczekiah and Josiali; they showed this precisely by not invading the rights and offices of the priests ; the attempt of the otherwise pious Uzziah to com¬ bine the priestly functions with the kingly was punished by God himself with the infliction of the disease of leprosy. In such a period, such a psalm, with the representation which it gives of a priest-king, could not have been composed. To unite the priestly with the kingly dignity was at that time as little to the ‘praise of a king, as it is now to the praise of the emperor Henry IY. as an emperor, that he invested bishops and popes. As this, on the contrary, was a commendation under Charles the Great, and even under Henry III., so also was that a ground of praise in the time of David, of David the protector of the high priesthood against Saul, the man after God’s heart, in opposition to whom the priests had no occasion for watching over and defending their rights, because they had no reason to dread any malicious invasion of these from the despotism of the king. We must therefore seek for the date of the psalm in the time of David.—With respect to its contents , modern critics have held the psalm to be a hymn upon David sung by one of his subjects. The first words correspond with this explanation : the Lord (God) said unto my Lord (the king.) But the words immediately following, in which God is represented as having spoken, will not apply to David. It is easy to comprehend how Solomon should receive the predicate as the theocratic ruler, especially when he is contemplated as the ideal seed of David, and fulfiller of 62 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 1 . 4—14. the will of God. But it cannot be comprehended how an Israelite should have spoken of David’s sitting upon God’s throne ; for the throne of God was, as we learn from Ps. xi. 4, xxxiii. 14, &c., in the heaven ; 1 a sitting upon God’s throne was not applicable to David even by the boldest hyperbole, still less would ver. 4 be suitable to David, in which Jehovah is represented as having sworn to the king—-the same who is spoken of in ver. 1—that he shall be a priest and king at the same time, and that for ever When had ever such a thing been promised to David ? t : Bleek thinks there is no trace of the psalm’s referring to the future; but do not ver. 1 (the Lord said ) and ver. 4 (the Lord hath sworn and wilt not repent), refer plainly enough to apropheey that had been given and was still unfulfilled (DflP fut.) ? It is possible, indeed, that a prophecy referring to David’s own future destinies might be meant; but it will be difficult to find any prophecy of such an import in reference to David. Nowhere else must we look for the mentioned in Ps. cx. than in \ ; that very prophecy of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii., with which we are now so familiar, and there it is said, twice in succes¬ sion, not of David, but in express contradistinction to him, of his seed: TTtiOni ver. 12, and : - : - -:-fl T -i ND3VIK TDJiDl, David shall indeed die, but his seed J ^ •• • * ; ** . shall reign for ever. There, too, we find the words of Ps. cx. 4. And we have already seen at ver. 5 of our chapter, that although Nathan had spoken of the seed collectively, David might yet expect, and did expect, the fulfilment of this promise in no other way than in a definite individual of his posterity. (With this the objection of Bleek falls of itself to the ground— that the idea of a personal Messiah was unknown in the time of David). What remains of Ps. cx. 4 finds its explanation also in 2 Sam. vii. Nathan had revealed to David that he was not appointed to build the Lord an house ; he was appointed merely to reign ; but his seed after him was to build an house to the Lord, and the Lord would build an house for it. If now the * The mercy -lid over the ark of the covenant which shut out the accusing testimony (the ten commandments) from the view of God, is indeed in Luther’s translation, but now here in the original, designated as a seat or throne of God. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1 — 4. 03 seed of David was to do in a higher and more excellent degree that which in a less degree the builders of the tabernacle had done, this might properly be considered as a uniting of priestly- ecclesiastical with civil functions, and might be represented in the language of lyrical poetry as a government “ after the order of Melchisedek.” But if the seed of David is to have an house built for him by the Lord himself, and is to reign for ever and ever, he is thereby exalted to God's own throne; God has built for him his house and his throne, he has built God's house ; the dominion of both is thus endless and unlimited, and becomes accordingly one and the same. But while it is impossible that David can be the object of the psalm, he can be, and is, its author. For, from what other individual of the time of David are we at liberty to expect such an unfolding of the Messianic hope, than from that king who gave utterance to the prayer with which we are already familiar in 2 Sam. vii. 18—29 and chap, xxiii. 1 ss ? This passage from the Psalms, then, is cited by our author. No angel, but a man, is chosen to an immediate unity of domi¬ nion with God, to absolute rule over all enemies, over the whole world. The angels, on the contrary, as the author says in ver. 14, by way of recapitulation, and looking back to ver. 7, are minis¬ tering spirits, as irovojytxa kvsv fiara ; they exist only on account of those who are appointed to be “ heirs of salvation." It is not the angels that are called into a relation of oneness with God , hut man. In this antithesis, the whole train of thought finds its conclusion. A PRACTICAL INTERMEDIATE PART. Chap. ii. 1—4. In ch. ii. 1—4 the author immediately adds a practical appli¬ cation of the foregoing. All the more carefully must we hold fast the New Testament doctrine. H s£/V.s T- “ Thy name, which has made thy case 74 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5-18. already, there is an evident antithesis between earth and heaven. The God, whose majesty is praised above in all heavens, disdains not to acquire for himself also on the poor small earth a glorious mighty name by the acts of his covenant-faithfulness (as the Lord, our Lord.) Ver. 2, “ Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou established a power for thee, because of thine adversaries, to subdue the enemy, the avenger/’ It is not easy to say what the poet had in his mind here. At first sight we might be tempted to imagine a reference to some special case, in which a hostile warrior had, by the weeping and lisping of a child, been moved to pity towards its parents. But a definite case of this kind which the readers of the psalm might have been able to call to mind without farther description, does not occur in all the Old Testament; nor is it the enemies of a man but the enemies of God that are spoken of; and, besides, the subsequent part of the psalm treats solely of the high position which God hath assigned to man as such. We must, therefore, find in ver. 2 a reference of a more universal kind. God has on account of his enemies, for their subjugation, provided a power, and that out of the mouth of weak sucklings ! By the enemies of God we must understand the whole power opposed to God on the earth, the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of the serpent; by the power which God hath provided we are to understand the whole of those prepara¬ tions which God hath made or promised to make for overcoming the darkness. What are the preparations of this kind with which we are made acquainted in the Old Testament ? Has God, perhaps, promised that he will at one time send hosts of angels who shall trample on the serpent’s head ? Ho ; when his object is to chastise sinful men, he places a cherub with a flaming sword before the closed gate of paradise ; but when the future redemp¬ tion from the bondage of the serpent, from death, is spoken of, then glory above the heaven.” This, however, is a very forced idea. The simplest way is to point the word thus p/)p ( as P ua l P^Pl 4ud. v. 11, xi. 40, \ T • which corresponds well enough with the Ixfefa of the LXX.), or, if it be thought preferable, to point pjp i n the sense habitare, from which fW/rj “ dwell- T T " ings ” is derived. But the latter root did not belong to the Hebrew till after the captivity, while p^P) celebrare is a primitive poetical expression. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 75 no mention is made of an angel, but the seed of the woman is to bring the salvation, hence, though erroneously and hastily, she fixes her hope on the boy that first comes from her womb, she has now a man child, and thinks that with the seed of the woman she has at the same time recovered the possession of the God whom she had lost (left behind in paradise.) And from this time forth, all hope of salvation was turned towards the birth of the heirs of the theocratic blessing, and on the preservation and protection of these first-born. The original promise of the seed of the woman separates itself into many branches; when a son is born to Lamech he calls him Noah, for he hopes that he will bring comfort to men in their trouble and labour upon the earth which God has cursed (Gen. v. 29). All the hope of Abraham is turned towards the birth of Isaac and the preservation of his life ; Isaac’s hope rests upon Jacob ; the whole prospect of future salvation always rests on such weak beings; upon the child which slumbers in a basket among the sedges of the Nile, rested the salvation of Israel; and, moreover, David’s entire faith rested on the seed, which was to be the Son of God, and was to reign for ever with God. Comp. Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erful- lung. part. i. p. 195.) This psalm then certainly suits no author better than David. The same royal t singer, who in Psalm ii. and cx. admired the divine majesty of the seed promised to him, is, in Psalm viii., lost in adoring wonder that God has selected a lowly son of man as the instrument of his divine conquests. Sucklings, weak children, are the threads on which the hope of Israel hangs. (How natural was it for the reflective reader already here to carry out the antithesis; God has not told his people to direct the eye of their hope to the appearances of angels, and to hosts of angels.) The 4th verse of the 8th Psalm contains nothing that might serve to confirm what is said in ver. 3; that the poet considers the heaven as the work of God, can be no reason or proof that God has chosen children to be the instruments of his power. We are therefore not entitled to give to ’D the argumentative signification “for,” but must render it as a syntactic particle by “ when,” so that ver. 4 forms an antecedent clause to ver. 5. * t “ When I look upon thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 76 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. moon and the stars which thou hast prepared; what (I must then exclaim) is man that thou are mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him ? " To translate the words “how excellent is man.” as Bohme and Kuinoel do Vs - . ’ is forbidden by the sense of which, as is well known, always designates man on the side of his weakness and frailty. The whole passage is evidently rather an exclamation of adoring wonder, that God, this mighty ruler of all heavens, should let himself down to poor weak man, the suckling, and should give him so high a rank. The words then, express the contrast between the weakness of man and his high destination, —not, however, the result of the latter. The antithesis vaguely and generally implied in ver. 2—that ITe who is enthroned in the heavens disdains not the earth as the scene of his majesty—is thus rendered more definite in ver. 3—5. But the promised glory is at first only 'promised; it lies still in the future; that it may soon be realised is the hope which the Psalmist expresses in the 6th verse of the Psalm: }PH DOTH DVft, “ thou hast made him to want a little of God/' “ion signifies “ to want/' in Piel, “ to cause to want/’ so in Eccles. iv. 8, “ I cause my soul to want good." The rendering ; “ Thou hast made him a little less than God " is therefore, to say the least, arbitrary; nor does it suit the context, in which all emphasis is rather laid upon this, that man, who is not “ a little" but infinitely inferior to God, is, notwithstanding, appointed to share with God in the dominion over the world. We are therefore to understand ]ft not in the comparative, but (as in Eccles. iv. 8) in the privative sense, and not as significant of degree, but of time. For a little ivhile must man be deprived of God—not God qua Jehovah, for it is purposely not "JVJft, but God qua Eloliiin, i.e. the contemplation and enjoyment of the visible nearness of God in his glory as the Creator ; but the time comes when he shall be crowned with glory and honour, and shall reign over all the creatures of God (ver. 6—9.) Thus does God make his name glorious on the earth (ver. 10.) The second difficulty in regard to 71 now disappears of itself. We see that ft Vft is to be taken in the sense of time. But EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 77 the first difficulty, too—namely, that ayysXovg is not found in the original Hebrew, is now easily removed. If we suppose this dyy'iXovg to be also not in the Greek text , the force of the argument drawn from the citation remains still quite the same. The psalm contains the idea, that God who rules over all heavens has made the salvation to rest precisely on weak sons of men , and has destined the sons of men to be the future lords of his kingdom. If also the antithesis be not expressly stated, that it is not angels who are the promised saviours and rulers, it is still clearly enough implied in the train of thought which is pursued. The LXX. have actually put this antithesis into the text, although not in the clearest manner ; the writer of our epistle, who always cites from the LXX., could do the same with all the more safety that the whole argumentative force of the passage depends not at all upon those words which owe their existence to an inaccurate rendering of the original. Hay, he might do this with all the more reason, seeing that the translation eras’ dyyi- Xovg, although inaccurate, is yet by no means without occasion. The LXX. were induced to adopt it because the Hebrew does not say: “ Thou (Jehovah) hast caused him to want Thee for a short time,” but “ Thou (Jehovah) hast caused him to want Eloliim ” They thought that D'hSk must denote a subject different from Jehovah (or a plurality of such.) And there is something true in this, if we are not justified in at once understanding D’m 7K of the angels. Without doubt, however, denotes God in a different point of view from HIPP. He is called Jehovah as the personal, living, free-willing, and hence, chiefly as the faithful covenant-God ; Elohim, on the other hand, as the adored, all-governing, Creator and Lord of the worlds, in his creative majesty. The Psalmist, therefore, would not, and could not, say: Jehovah, thou hast caused man to want Thee; since God qua Jehovah has never withdrawn himself from men. But he might truly say : Jehovah, thou hast made man to want the godhead—the contemplation of and intercourse with the world-governing godhead in its glory. The idea which the LXX. have substituted for this : “ Thou hast made him lower than the angels,” evidently agrees with it substantially ; for this is substantially wherein the superiority of the inhabitants of heaven consists, that as they serenely fulfil the will of God, so they enjoy 78 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. the undisturbed vision of God, and intercourse with him. The gist of the argument, however, rests, as we have said, not on ayyeXovs; on the contrary, there follows in ver. 8 still another inference such as does not presuppose any express mention of angels at all in vers. 6, 7. Ver. 8. The words and meaning are clear. When the author draws the inference from the fact of all things having been (in the way of promise) made subject to man, that nothing can be excepted—he thereby suggests to every thinking and attentive reader the special application, that the angels also will then be subject to man. Here this train of thought concludes. With the words wv hi, which must be regarded as belonging to ver. 9, an entirely new train of thought begins, the design of which is to show, in how far man has been already invested with the glory and elevation above the angels ascribed to him in Ps. viii., and in how far he has still to expect this. At present, indeed, man as such, i.e. humanity , has not yet attained to that elevation. Still, in the person of Jesus , who (although the Son of God, and already in himself higher than the angels according to chap. i. yet) by his incarnation has been made lower than the angels like to us, a first-fruits of humanity is raised above the angels. But he is raised only to draw all the rest after him; for it was necessary that he should suffer, just in order that as a captain he might make many sons partakers of his glory. How, then, was it possible, that such a commentator as Bleek should so entirely mistake and misunderstand a train of thought so clear throughout! He acknowledges (in p. 259) that “ it seems as if the person whom we are to understand as meant by that man, ver 6 s., were first designated in ver. 9,” and yet denies that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has used the in ver. 6 in the general collective sense ! But, in truth, the opportunity was too tempting of fastening upon our author, here again, a grossly Rabbinical misunderstanding of a psalm. True, the writer says not a single word of the Messiah in vers. 6, 7, but places in opposition to the species angels to whom the oix.. /JsXX. is not to be made subject, the species sons of man to whom (according to Ps. viii. and Heb. ii. 10) it is to be made subject, and “it seems” as if the relation of Jesus to this general EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. 79 prophecy were first spoken of in ver. 9—and yet, r the author must have taken the eighth Psalm, which is not Messianic, for a Messianic Psalm ! True, the expression cannot, as Bleek himself acknowledges, he understood with Kuinoel as pointing to the glory, hut only as pointing to the weakness and frailty of man, and as parallel with can only denote the “son of man” in his impotency—and yet the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot possibly have had under¬ standing enough to find out this simple sense; hut although “ it seems” that he first speaks of Christ in ver. 9, he must yet necessarily have meant the Messiah by the pregnant term u/og avfytimu —however different this expression is from 6 v/bg rov avOouvov. True, what is said in ver. 8—10, as we shall after¬ wards see, is altogether inconsistent with this supposition which has nothing to rest upon, and Bleek is there driven to an extremely forced interpretation of the sense ; hut yet, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews must bear the charge of a Babbinico-Messianic explanation of the Psalms, which owes its existence solely to modern mistrust of the writers of the Bible. What ground, then, can there be for departing from the simple interpretation of the words as they stand f Indeed, had the author said, “ Not to the angels has he made the future kingdom subject, hut to the Son; for one testifies,” &c.—then Bleek might be right. But the author has in chap. ii. entirely relinquished the comparison of the angels with the Son as such, and purposely shows, from ver. 5 to ver. 18, that not merely the Son , as first¬ born and Messiah, but that in him humanity as such, is exalted above the angels, aud that therefore it was necessary that the Son of God should become a member of humanity (vers. 16—-18.) —We remain therefore firm and unshaken in the view, that, in vers. 6—8, not merely in the sense of the Psalmist, but also in the sense of our author, it is man or humanity that is spoken of, and by no means the Messiah. In vers. 9, 10 there follows a new chain of thought, consisting of three links: a, Man as a whole is at present not yet exalted above the angels, h, The man Jesus is, however, already exalted, and he is exalted, c, as leader of the rest of humanity, for which he has secured by his sufferings the possibility of a like exalta¬ tion. 80 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. The first of these points needs no farther explanation either grammatically or otherwise. The second, on the contrary, already with respect to the construction, requires a more par¬ ticular consideration. Three constructions are possible. The first and most natural is to take as object, r/Xarrw- fiim as adjectival attribute of Ttjo'&Dv, and luyfi n, was evidently necessary, because the author would make it plain that he speaks here not of that glory and honour which Christ enjoyed before his incarnation, as the first-born (chap, i.), but of the honour which the incarnate , after having been humbled to the condition of men, made subject to misery and death, has received as the reward of his suffering unto death. Hence he designates Jesus expressly, as him who like us was for a time made lower than the angels. The words M ™ cra^/xa (as Olshausen also rightly observes) cannot with Beza and Jac. Capellus be made grammatically dependent on r t \arrufizm, but Only on Unipav^fisvov. The ques¬ tion, however, why eG7i rd ^dvra and the Grstpccvovv rbv ’iqtouv, of which there is not the slightest indica¬ tion in the words. 1 In the fourth place, we must expect to find as the conclusion, the assurance that to Jesus who is already 1 The idea which Bleek finds in this passage must have been expressed in Greek thus :—k«< aiiTov hmQxvco/x'ivov riXuumt. j tovv followed for the sake of the emphasis.) That the a orbs bi ov as subject of the verb rgXe/wtra/, is different from the d^yog as the object of this rg?.g/w, ver. 17, seems to denote not a fatalistic necessity, but a necessity lying in the nature of the thing, and therefore in Gods own wise, world-governing will. That the Father is here designated by fi/’ ou 7ct Trdvra, which is usually a term of designation for the Son (Rom. xi. 36 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6; sg ou is generally said of the Father) is explained partly by the paronomasia with oi ov } partly by this,—that the Father is here regarded not as the creator, but as the governor of the world, through, and under, whose guidance the work of salvation is accomplished. « In vers. 11—13, there follows a further train of thought which, however, does not stand along with the rest of the members in vers. 5—8, vers. 9, 10, vers. 14, 18, as co-ordinate with them, but as subordinate to the member in vers. 9, 10, containing, namely, a mere explanation of the idea in ver. 10 (that through the one Son, others also should become sons.) It is shown in vers. 11—13, that already in the Old Testament it is said, the Messiah shall receive his subjects into his own relation of son- ship with God. First of all in ver. 11, the proposition is theti- cally laid down that the dyia^j and the wyiaZfipmi stand in the relation of brethren coming from one head of a family. With respect now, firstly, to the meaning of the expression ay/ags/y, it denotes here not sanctification in the special sense, as an effect of faith in the atonement, and as such different from justification ; but, just as little does it denote justification as such, as was thought by many of the old Protestant commentators. The expression ayiaZttv denotes here, rather, the total change in their relation to God which takes place in the members of the new covenant, in 90 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18 . opposition to the relation of the natural man to God. This wide signification is explained by the sense and usage of the word clyiog. " Ay tog is, in the first place, used in a dogmatico-metaphysical sense of God. God is holy, because he is in himself the perfect one, and the fountain of all good,—also of all that is morally good as corresponding to his own nature. God is further holy, in relation to personal creatures, i.e., he is righteous ; here dyiog denotes the consistency of the divine dealings towards us with his nature. In the second place, however, uyiog is used in a historical sense of the creature, and forms in this sense the anti¬ thesis to all that which by sin has become estranged from God, separated from God, and morally bad or essentially profane. Those things are holy, which are withdrawn from the profane natural life, and devoted to the service of God. Those persons are holy, who are withdrawn from the sinfully-natural life, and are placed in a relation of grace and redemption to God. Hence in the Old Testament the Israelites, and in all the apostolical epistles, the Christians are called o} tiyioi^ although they are by no means already sinless. Only, in the third place, does ciytog come to denote (and in tins case osi/o/, the subjects of the Messiah’s kingdom, are called brethren,— i.e., who is he whose sons Christians become through the sanctifier f Hunnius and Carpzov thought it was Adam ; Bengel, Schmid, and Michaelis that it was Abraham. All these (as also Olshausen) found, accordingly, in ver. 11, the idea expressed that the Son of God EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18 . 91 as incarnate , lias entered into a relation of brother to men. Then is ver. 11 an answer to the question,— by what means has Christ made many to be sonsf Yer. 10 : Christ, as leader , draws many sons after him, ver. 11: for he has become man, and there¬ fore comes from the same common ancestor with those who are sanctified. —This interpretation is, meanwhile, decidedly wrong. Not until ver. 14 does the author pass on to show that Christ, in order to raise us to a participation in his sonship with God, must needs take part in our sonship with Adam. The citations also in ver. 12 prove, as we shall see, not that it was necessary for the Messiah to become man, but simply that the Messiah should stand in the spiritual relation of a brother to the subjects of his kingdom, that he should lift them up to his relation of oneness with God. Finally, the desig¬ nation of Christ here as the sanctifier , and the sons as the sanctified , also shows, that it is not th q physical relationship which we, the sons of Adam, have from our birth onwards with Christ as the son of Mary, of David, of Abraham, of Adam, that is here spoken of, but the spiritual relationship into which we enter with him through our being sanctified. Inver. IT, then, we are not told by what means Christ raises us to sonship with God (namely: that for this end it was necessary that he should become a son of man), but, rather, in this verse it is repeated by way of explanation that Christ makes us his brethren, and as the sanctified , raises us to sonship with God. Thus, with the ancient Greek commentators and Tholuck, we must explain the sis 1 of God , the spiritual father as of Christ so also of those who are descended from Christ. But it is, certainly, to this descent from Christ , not to the “ common origin from God” (Bleek) that the idea expressed in the Ivog is to be referred, as appears of itself from what has been just said. It still remains to be observed on these words, viewed gram¬ matically, that ndvTsg —along with «, zai -—forms a pleonasm. For which cause , dec. Because the Messiah is destined to enter into the relation of a brother with the members of his kingdom, not merely into that of a ruler over them— i.e. to exalt them to a participation in the sonship—therefore, he is not ashamed already 1 Calvin is for taking Ives as the neuter, and supplying yivovs. This is, grammatically, not possible. 92 EPISTLE TO TEE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18 . in tlie Old Testament to call his subjects brethren, i.e. therefore does an analogous relation appear also in the anointed one of the Old Testament.—It is in this elegant rhetorical manner that our author connects his proofs from the Old Testament vers. 12, 13, with the thesis, ver. 11. From what is said in ver. 11, it becomes intelligible how already, in the Old Testament, such passages as Ps. xxii. 22, could occur. There lies, therefore, of course, in these Old Testament passages at the same time, vice versa, a testimony to the truth of what is said in ver. 11. This is plainly the aim of the author, to prove by these citations that even in statements of the Old Testament this relation of brother to the members of his kingdom, this calling to exalt them to the place of children , is attributed to the expected Messiah. The great majority of commentators have not rightly appre¬ hended the bearing of the 11th verse, and hence have not known what rightly to make of the citations, vers. 12, 13. We say no¬ thing of the insipid view of those who, as soon as they come upon an Old Testament citation, ignorantly presuppose that the author s design was to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and who then imagine they have done something wonderful when they show that the passage cited contains “ no direct prophecy pointing to Christ.” It is nowhere the aim of the author throughout the entire epistle to prove that Jesus is the Messiah ; this he presup¬ poses, chap. i. 1—3, as an acknowledged fact on the part of his readers.—Those again may be said relatively to have best appre¬ hended these citations, who think their design is to prove, that even, according to the statements of the Old Testament, it ivas necessary that the Messiah should become man. We know, indeed, that according to the plain words of the author in ver. 11 this also cannot be right. Not that the Messiah, the Son of God, must of necessity become man , not that the incarnation was the means of exalting the rest of men to the place of children , is what would here be proven from the Old Testament,—this means is first spoken of at ver. 14,—but that, even in the Old Testa¬ ment, it was reckoned as a part of the calling of the Messiah, i.e . the Anointed, the theocratical king, that he should not merely rule over his subjects from above, but in brotherly ministerial love lift them up to the same close fdial fellowship with God in which he himself stood as the anointed of God. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18 . 93 On the erroneous supposition that ver. 2 is intended to prove the necessity of the incarnation, of the Messiah’s becoming a child of Adam, the three citations have been interpreted in the follow¬ ing manner. In Ps. xxii. 22 David the king is not ashamed to remember that his subjects are at the same time his brethren, by virtue of their physical descent from Adam or Abraham. Now, as the first David was a type of the second David, there must also exist in the case of the latter a basis of physical brotherhood with men. (See also Olshausen.) But, in the first place, David wrote that psalm not as the king, but as a fugitive from Saul (see infra) ; and, secondly, from the fact that David mentions a phy¬ sical relation as subsisting between him and his subjects, it cannot be inferred that this relation belonged essentially to his character as anointed of the Lord, and must therefore repeat itself in the second David. With equal justice might it be said, that because David in the 51st Psalm laments that he was con¬ ceived in sin, the second David must needs also have been conceived in sin.—The second passage is supposed to be taken from Is. viii. 17. Isaiah in his character as a prophet says, that he puts his trust in God, and therefore retains his consciousness, that although he is a messenger of God to the people of Israel, he is still at the same time a member of this people, and has to exercise faith in his own prophecy. Consequently, Christ also, the absolute prophet, must be a member of humanity to which he was sent. But it is the manner of all prophets to speak at the same time as men, and one might perceive in this a trace of their relative and imperfect character, and be led to an inference precisely the reverse, namely, that the absolute prophet must needs have been a prophet in the pure sense of the word, and not at the same time one of those to whom he was sent. If, therefore, these citations are to be understood in this sense, the force of argument which they contain appears feeble indeed. (On the third citation, which, indeed, has been the best under¬ stood, see below.) We now come to look at these citations from a quite different point of view. If our explanation of ver. 11 is right, then the author intends to prove by the citations in ver. 12 s., not that the Messiah must needs have taken part in our relation of son- ship to Adam, but that it belongs to the calling of the Messiah to 94 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18 . raise the subjects of his kingdom to his own Messianic relation of sonship to God , to tliat close union and fellowship of grace with God in which he stands as the anointed of God. Let us now see whether the citations in reality prove this. The first is the passage in Psalm xxii. 22. It is well known that this psalm was ascribed by tradition to David, and was regarded as typical by the early Christian Church. From the place which it occupies in the first book of the Psalms of David, it appears, according to Delitzsclis excellent investigations (Symboke ad Psalmos illustrandos), that this psalm was included in the collection appointed by David himself (comp. 2 Chron. xxiii. 18, with Psalm lxxii. 20.) The situation, too, which is described in Ps. xxii., under the figure of a circle com¬ posed of destructive wild beasts and wicked men, applies more fitly to no one than to David when Saul persecuted him, hunted him from cave to cave, and from one hiding place to another, and surrounded on every side the mountain which he frequented. It is, however, not a mere individual trust in God which David expresses in the psalm ; he was through Samuel anointed of God to be king ; he had the promise of the throne, and on his faith in this promise did that confidence rest. When, now, the apostles find in those sufferings of David and his deliverance 1 out of them, a type of the sufferings and the resurrection of the second David, this is not mere caprice on their part, but a thing for which they have ample warrant. The conflict of Jesus with his enemies was, throughout, in the closest manner, parallel to David's conflict with Saul. There, as here, we see, on the one hand, the man after Gods heart, the anointed of God, who knows that lie, although chosen to attain to glory and to establish his king¬ dom, will, despised and alone, receive the exaltation from the hand of God; there, as here, stands, on the other hand, the possessor of worldly power, who fears with groundless suspicion lest the anointed of God should seek to cast him down from his power with the weapons of rebellion. But to this was to be added, that this relation was first developed in Jesus in that absolute purity and perfection which it as yet wanted in David. David, although he shrunk from laying his hand on Saul, had yet gathered around him a band of fighting men, Jesus had only humble fishermen and publicans. Thus the conflict which is EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. 95 portrayed in Psalm xxii. had reached only a typical, inadequate development in David; what David sings in that psalm first found its full truth in the second David. And when, moreover, our Lord himself in his anguish on the cross actually acknow¬ ledged the opening words of the 22d Psalm as containing the most perfect expression of his situation, how can critics, shutting their eyes against the light of day, still deny that the psalm expresses a relation which in itself was a prophecy in act pointing to Christ P The suffering Messiah of the Old Testament then, in that psalm, expresses the resolution, in the midst of his affliction, that if God should save and exalt him—in other words place him on the promised throne and make him king —he will declare to his brethren the faithfulness of the Lord, and will also raise them up to such a knowledge of God, and such an assurance of their gracious relation to him, as that they too should praise the Lord with him. He calls his future subjects brethren, not from regard to their being descended from Abraham in common with him, which would be two jejune a meaning, but it is the feeling of royal love that teaches him to regard his future subjects as brethren, and plants so deep in his heart the care for their salva¬ tion, for their growth in the knowledge of God. Herein, evidently, lies the significance of the declaration that David regards his future royal vocation as a ministerial one, that he counts it as belonging to his future duties as king, not merely to rule over his subjects outwardly as a caliph, but as one truly anointed of God to leacl them into that relation of nearness to God in which he h imself stands , and on account of which he, the man after God’s heart, has been anointed to be the Messiah of Israel. If, now, the first, the imperfect David, held it as an essential part of his Messianic calling to love his subjects as brethren in God, to care for the salvation of their souls, and to lift them up to his ow T n relation of sonship to God—how could the second, the perfect David, be inferior to him in this ? Ho! the inference was certainly altogether logical and warranted:—if, already, the anointed of the Old Testament was not ashamed to regard his subjects in such a sense as brethren, so much the more wall it be the part of the Hew Testament Messiah, to raise the subjects of the Messianic kingdom of the Hew Testament Israel to that 96 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. relation of sonsliip with God in which he stands, and to make them sons. The second citation is generally supposed to be taken from Isaiah viii. 17; the third is the passage in Isaiah viii. 18, conse¬ quently, the immediate continuation of ver. 17. If, however, the second citation was really from Isaiah viii. 17, it must with reason appear strange, that our author should, by a xcii tf&Xiv, separate from each other these two verses which, although con¬ taining two different elements of thought, would still have formed but one citation (just as in chap. i. 8, 9.) This xal here has its antithesis, not in the unbelievers, but in Jehovah; the anointed of God in these words enters into a close union with God; he expresses the feeling of the purest sonship to God ; it is God who has anointed him, in whom he has trusted in the extremity of need, who as a faithful father has extricated him, in whom he will henceforth also rest all his hope.—The subject of Ps. xxii. was David’s relation to his subjects, that of 2 Sam. xxii. is David’s relation to God. We thus see how these two citations are connected together, supplement each other, and only when taken together form the entire proof, just as in the first chapter vers. 8, 9, and vers. 10—13 formed the two connected members of one argu¬ ment. Let it be remembered, that in chap. i. 8, 9, it was shown that the Messianic salvation must needs come through a human ruler and not through an angel, and in vers. 10—13 that the Messianic salvation was to be brought about and accomplished immediately by God and not through angels. Here also, in like manner, we find two propositions similarly related to each other: a, the anointed of God must raise his subjects to his own position of faith and grace, must educate them so that they shall stand in the same relation to God as he does, and h, the anointed of God stands in the relation of closest unity with God. Or, more shortly and precisely: the Messiah makes his subjects to be his brethren (his fellows in as far as respects the relation to God); he himself, however, is the child of God. The Ergo is easily supplied: he makes his subjects to be children of God, v/of .— Here, again, it is not words but ideas on which the force of the reasoning rests.— As in chap. i. 6, in addition to the passages cited to prove that the Son lias received a more excellent name than the angels, other passages are at the same time brought forward which say nothing more of this name , but in which the description of the Messianic salvation is continued, so, here also, in the course of the 13th verse, to the two citations in which it is shown that the Messiah raises his subjects to the place of brethren and partners 08 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. with him in his sonship, 1 a third is added in which nothing further is said specially on this point, hut in which a new inde¬ pendent proof is adduced of the principal proposition in ver. 10, that the Messiah makes his people to he children. —The third citation is taken from Is. viii. 18. Just as it was natural for the author to pass from the 22d Psalm to the corresponding prayer of thanksgiving in 2 Sam. xxii., so naturally must the passage 2 Sam. xxii. 3 have brought to his mind the parallel passage in Is. viii. 17, and thus led him to Is. viii. 18. We must again carefully consider this passage in its connexion, in order rightly to understand it. Ahaz, immediately after his accession to the throne, being threatened by Ephraim and Syria, despises the offered help of the Lord (vii. 11 s.), and relies on the help of the Assyrians. The rebuke is addressed to him ver. 13 ss.: 0 house of David, why dost thou offend God? Behold, 0 maid (0 woman), thou shalt have yet to conceive (the well-known symbol of an affliction which is necessary in order to a salvation), and shalt come through suffering to bear a son whom thou shalt call “ God with us ” (the promised second David.) God, then, will bring the self-trusting house of David by means of afflictions to this—that it will feel as a woman, as a maid; then first is it capable of bearing the pro¬ mised one, when in humility it places itself in a receptive relation to God. 2 For, before the time arrives when the promised one can, as a grown up man, bring the Messianic salvation, Judea shall be laid waste (ver. 15 comp. ver. 22.) An unprecedented cala¬ mity shall first befall both kingdoms , Ephraim and Judah (ver. 17), before the promised period of glory, and that from the same Assyrian power on which the foolish Ahaz relied for help (vers. 18 and 20).—After this revelation had been made to Ahaz, Isaiah receives the command from God to write upon a roll the symbolical name “ Haste to the Spoil, speed to the prey.” He does this taking two men as witnesses. After this, he begets a child, when the child is born it is a boy, and he receives 1 Nothing, of course, is said here of the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ. To a participation in that eternal Sonship none of the sanctified are exalted; they are, however, exalted to a participation in that Sonship spoken of in ver. 10, — i.e. the Sonship commonly so called. 2 We see, then, the house of David, purified by affliction, matured in the person of the Virgin Mary to a purely womanly receptivity for the pro¬ mised salvation. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. / 99 the command to give to tliis boy the name “ Haste to the spoil, Speed to the prey; ” the boy was to be a living witness and pledge, that the prophecy given to Isaiah nine months before would in its first part (that Samaria and Damascus should be laid waste by the Assyrians) be soon fulfilled (ver. 4); with like certainty, also, would the other part be fulfilled, that Judah should be oppressed by the Euphratean power (which must here still be regarded as the “ Assyrian,” as it was first under Hezekiah revealed to the prophet that Babylon should take the place of Assyria.) That the prophet, immediately after having written on the roll, goes in to the prophetess, leaves us to conclude that he did this according to divine direction. Thus we have here a series of signs, of which one always points to the other. His writing on the roll is a sign that a boy should be born to him, to whom he is to assign that name written on the roll. That the boy is in reality born, and receives that name, is a sign that Samaria and Damascus are to be laid waste by the Assyrians; the overthrow of Samaria is a sign that the after part of the threatening also, chap. vii. 17, that concerning Judah, shall be fulfilled, and with this the coming of the promised Son of David rendered possible. The “ Haste to the spoil, Speed to the prey” was, however, not the first son of Isaiah who bore a symbolical prophetical name. In chap. vii. 3 it is purposely mentioned that already an older boy existed with such a name, the “ Shearjaschub.” The younger son was a living prophecy of the judgments which were to come upon Juda, the elder, a living prophecy of the future salvation, of the conversion in which these judgments were to issue (comp. Is. x. 21.) But it is not merely on the existence of these sons who were prophetic in their names that Isaiah, in his address viii. 18, rests that trust which bears him up amid all the agitations of the people, for he goes on to say, “ Behold I and the children whom thou hast given me.” In like manner as his trust rests upon his sons does it rest also upon himself. His sons give him faith and hope by the names which they bear; in himself, also, it must be the name which he has received from his parents, and which appears to him—in connection with the names of his sons—to be significant and consolatory. He is called “Jehovah’s salvation,” and, as 100 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. David in liis character as the anointed king was a type of the New Testament king, so is Isaiah, as the anointed prophet and servant of God, a type of the New Testament Messiah, the Saviour; Isaiah is the Saviour of the Old Testament as David was the Messiah of the Old Testament. That not he alone, how¬ ever, but that he, together with his sons, forms the type of Christ — this is important to our author. The sons of Isaiah were certainly not merely living pledges that the “ salvation of Jehovah" would at one time come after “calamity" and “conversion;" but the future salvation was also typified in this father, together with his sons. Certainly, however, there must be added to this the other element,—that the children of Isaiah in their character as pledges (personal living prophecies) were with him received into the pro¬ phetical calling of their father , into the dignity of the prophetical office; in other word's, that they were not merely children of a prophet (of a man who was besides a prophet), but prophetical children, or that their relation to their father as children ivas itself a prophetical relation. And the Isaiah of the New Testament, the Saviour, the Joshua (iTytP’* and are synonymous), t : - : “ s must not be inferior to him in this: was the one not merely a prophet in word, neither must the other be so; did the one beget children which like their father were prophets, then must the other also beget children who, like him, stand in a Messianic union of grace with God. Thus the three citations do in reality prove exactly what they ought to prove. It belongs to the calling of the Messiah to raise others to a participation in his sonship. Ver. 14—18. Our author now passes to a new application of the idea, closely connected, however, with the third of the citations which we have just been considering. He had, a, laid down in ver. 5 the thesis, that the place of ruler in the future kingdom of God is assigned not to the angels (but to man); he had, b, shown in vers. 6—8, that even in the Old Testament this place is promised to the family of man; he had, c, observed in vers. 9, 10, that as yet indeed Jesus alone had been exalted to the glory, but it is only as the first-fruits and as leader to bring many so7is after him ; and here, by way of appendix, he had in ver. 11—13 called to mind how, already, the Old Testament con¬ siders it as a part of the Messiah’s office, to lift up the members EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. 101 of his kingdom to the same relation of grace and unity in which he stands to God. Now, however, inver. 14 he begins to show, that as means to this end—the exaltation of man to the rank of sons of God and this glory—it was necessary that the Son of God should come down to be a son of man, a son of Adam. As in ver. 9, 10, he affirmed, that the (already present, as it were already per¬ fected) Messiah must needs suffer in order to make others to be sons] so in vers. 14—18 he shows that it was necessary the Son of God should become man in order to become the Messiah. The proof of this which he adduces connects itself so naturally with the third of the preceding citations, that ver. 14 just presents the same idea as is contained in that citation, only in another point of view. In ver. 13 the principal thing was to show, that to the office of the Old Testament belonged not merely the uttering of words but also the begetting of children; in ver. 14 he lays stress on this—that those children must also be actually born, in order to be living prophecies; in ver. 13 he shows, that the children of Isaiah had 'part in the prophetical spiritual calling of their father; in ver. 14, that that participation was rendered possible by the actual birth of those children. And that this new application of the passage is warranted, appears already from the interpretation we have given of it above. The mere uttering or writing down of the words “ Schearjashub, Mahershalal-liashbaz ” was as yet no sign, no testimony, no prophetical ratification of the deliverance; the gracious sign imparted to the prophet, and through him to the people, was only then given when God actually sent these children to him, when they actually came into the world , when they partook of flesh and blood (for these words contain the antithesis to the mere giving of the names.) It must not, however, be thought that our author avails himself of this view of the case as containing properly a proof, that it w r as necessary the Son of God should be born as man. He could not mean this, for that case contains no such proof. For, it is not with the children of Isaiah, but with the father Isaiah himself, that Jesus is represented as parallel. He had, however, no such argument in his mind. Even the ice/ does not express properly a causal relation, but serves only to introduce that parallel which the author himself by adding the word Ka°a-\?}(n'ct)s “in a similar way”—has denoted as one 102 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. which does not hold fully and in every point of view. Indeed, he makes use of the citation in ver. 13, not as a proof of the idea con¬ tained in vers. 14—18 (he never applies one and the same citation to prove two different trains of thought), but merely by way of transition. According to that passage, it was necessary that the children should he actually horn, and we perceive a relation in some measure analogous to this in Jesus; he also has assumed flesh and blood , he, in order to make us partakers in his sonship to God, has first taken part in our sonship to Adam. This new thesis is laid down, and it is not proven from Is. viii. 18, hut that citation only served as a transition to it introduced in the elegant manner peculiar to the author. The proof follows in the sentence beginning with ha, and then in ver. 16. yai aTfia — designates the human nature in opposition to the incorporeal uncreated God (comp. Matt. xvi. 17; Gal. i. 16) not the body in opposition to the soul, nor the mortal body in opposition to the glorified (Grotius, Tholuck)—an antithesis which could not he urged in this context. That through death , &c. The author now proceeds to specify the internal ground upon which the thesis rests. That which stands in the way of our becoming sons of God, and which must first be removed, is death , or—as the author here more specially describes it—the being subject to the kingdom of darkness and the prince of this kingdom, who has the power of death. This bondage of death could he removed only by our guilt being atoned for through the sacrificial death of Christ. In order to this, however, it was necessary that he should become a member of that humanity which took its rise from the first Adam. So much in reference to the train of thought in general. To come to particulars, xa ruoytTv is an expression frequently used by Paul, but occurring in the New Testament only in Luke xiii. 7, and in our passage (but also in profane writers.) It is equivalent to aegybv cro/s/V, to render ineffective, to deprive of efficacy. The author certainly might have expressed his meaning thus : ha <$/«. roD Ouvdrov rbv Otxmrov xccrapyfor]. Blit he has, with good reason, avoided doing so. For Jesus by his death has not freed us from death, absolutely, and in every respect; the death of the body still remains, but its sting has been taken away; it is no longer a judgment before which EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. 103 conscience trembles, and which keeps men in incessant fear; to the Christian the death of the body is rather only a deliverance from the “ body of this death” (Rom. vii. 24), a final putting off of the last remnant of the old Adam with which we have still to contend ; in other words, the completion of sanctification, for, as the Heidelberg catechism so admirably expresses it in the 42d question : “ Our death is not a payment for our sin, but only a dying to sin, and an entrance on life eternal.” Therefore the author speaks not of a taking away of death absolutely, but only of a cessation of the power of death. In the words x»a rog rou Quvdrov the genitive is not the gen. objecti (“ power to kill”), for xgdros never denotes a mere facultas; it is the gen. subjecti. It is the power which death exercises over us, the violence which it offers to us. The best explanation of this is to be found in ver. 15, the consideration of which we shall here anticipate. Christ has delivered those who through fear of death were, i.e. showed themselves, to be all their lifetime subject to bondage. The man who, however well he might ward off repentance and the knowledge of sin, and by this pretended self-righteousness keep his conscience at rest, yet, when the thought of death comes home to him, cannot divest his mind of anxiety, testifies by this very anxiety—these irrepressible stirrings of conscience in the prospect of death—that he is guilty , and that as yet he can lay no claim to freedom from the power of death. But the author is not satisfied with saying merely that Christ has rendered ineffectual the power of death ; he goes a step farther back and says : Christ has rendered ineffective him who had this power of death over us—the devil—who held this power as an instrument in his own hands, and made use of it as a means to vanquish us. The time is now happily gone by when it was customary to explain away the Satan of whom we read in the Bible, by changing him into an “ evil principle.” An “ evil principle” implies in itself nothing less than an absurdity. The very essence of evil consists in the absence of principle, in a con¬ tradiction to principle. If the idea of an “ evil principle” were conceivable, then might it also be conceived that God was evil! But evil is only conceivable as a perverted selfish quality of the will of the personal creature, to be accounted for by the formal freedom of this creature ; evil as such has no existence (nullam 104 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. habet substantiam), but we give the name of evil to the quality of that creature-will which, in opposition to God's will, and to man's own inner nature, refuses to stand in a receptive relation towards God, and will be its own independent lord, its own God. (Hence, also, evil is not a mere negation of good, but its direct, positive opposite.) How, we learn from the Scriptures that this evil quality of the will is to be found not merely in the human race, but also in the sphere of that other class of personal crea¬ tures, the angels, only with this difference, that because, in the angels, sin cannot be divided into sins of pride, and sins of the flesh, which strive against each other, and because it cannot be driven out of the centre of the soul into a circumference, the —the fallen angels are sunk irrecoverably into corruption. The sinful man is in his corruption half beast and half devil, the fallen angel is all devil. Farther, it is evident, that as the sinful man devotes his spiritual and corporeal powers and capacities to the service of sin, so the fallen angels, subject to the permission of God, spend the energies with which, as creatures, they are en¬ dowed, and employ their greater freedom from the restraints of body and space, in the service of sin. Experience fully corresponds to what we learn on this subject from revelation. It is manifest in the history of the kingdom of God, that that kingdom has to contend not merely with indivi¬ dual weakness, or with the wickedness of individual men, but with great anti-Christian powers (Eph vi. 12), to which the men who are engaged in their service are for the most part related merely as blind instruments. The workman, who lets himself be persuaded to join in a rebellion through the false representations of insurrectionary communists, commits knoivingly only the sin of covetousness and of disobedience to the law ; the citizen, wdio allows himself to be drawn by the prevailing spirit of the time into unlawful transactions, commits only the unconscious sin of folly, neither the one nor the other has discovered the great plot against the kingdom of God which they are helping to advance, nay, they are often surprised when they see the fruits which' ripen on the field that has been wrought by them. The blinded man often aims at the very opposite of that which the prince of darkness, whose instrument he is, strives and manages to accom¬ plish by him ; in the hands of that prince of this world, parties EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. 105 professedly opposed to him often unwillingly help forward the same cause, and bring about the same victory. In short, there is actu¬ ally a 'providence of evil, only relative, it is true, and in the end always subject to the absolute providence of God, which, how¬ ever, stretches far beyond the conscious aims of its human in¬ struments. Now, the man who has not attained to freedom in Christ, or has fallen back from this freedom into the bondage of sin and death, is not merely a slave of his individual sins and sinful infirmities, but becomes, at the same time, a slave and tool of the prince of darkness ; he has a price at which he is saleable, and for which the wicked one gets possession of him. He becomes a slave of that power which is at once a seducing, a conscience- accusing, and a corrupting power (corrupting the body as well as the soul, destroying all happiness, recompensing with poison and death.) It is the prince of darkness who holds in his hands the power which death exercises over us ; who employs the power of spiritual death, of sin, to make man his tool; who employs the power of bodily death to spread death and murder and destruc¬ tion ; who employs the power of guilt to accuse us before God, and, above all , before ourselves , to rob us of rest, to quench in us the hope of the possibility of grace ; who insultingly rejoices to see us condemned before the judgment seat of God. He has, indeed, (as Anselm of Canterbury has already shown in opposition to a false theory of his time) no legitimate claim as the seducer to the possession of the seduced; but he exercises a real objective power over those who, through their own sin, have surrendered them¬ selves to his power. From him must the Messiah redeem men, —and he showed that he acknowledged the debt in the manner in which he removed it. Men seek to redeem themselves, either by not at all acknowledging the guilt and the necessity of a real atonement for the sins but by trifling away and disowning this last remnant of truth in the sinner—the deposition of an evil conscience—and thus putting a self-invented idol in the place of the holy God ; or, they seek to do this by acknowledging the necessity of an atonement, but setting themselves at the same time to effect this atonement by external works which they regard as meritorious, but which have no foundation to rest on. Christ, by giving himself up to death, has acknowledged the guilt and 106 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5—18. truly atoned for it; he has, in one act, atoned for the sinner and judged the sin. The 15th verse has already been explained above. Something only remains to be said on the words rovrovg , oVo/. T ovrovg does not point backward (as if it were intended to express an antithesis to d/ufioXog : Christ has taken the power from the devil , but these —scil. men—he has set free); it evidently points forward to and is almost equivalent to “those who/’ "o could be expressed neither by vgopqrqg nor by S/dxovog. A third class sought to explain the idea expressed in dvUrdXog by that of the 6 t u,oXoy!a, or (as Olshausen) by that of the g; a fourth, to which Bleek belongs, thought that Jesus is called dirotroXog on account of his analogous relation to Moses, &c. &c. Even the significa¬ tion “high priest" was contended for by some, because, in a passage of the Talmud, the high priest is on a single occasion called H D’l Tt'bw ! * • •• * • The genitive r5j g ofioXoylag iif&uv has for its object, simply to 118 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1—6. distinguish Jesus as the New Testament messenger of God and high priest, from the Old Testament "|K^D and *ron. He is the acr. and of our confession. This does not require that with Thom. Aquinas, Luther, Calov., Storr, Ac., we should grammatically resolve the genitive into the clause h 1 /j.oXo- yovjiev. The same sense is obtained without this procedure, if we take the genitive simply as expressing the idea of “ belonging to.” The messenger of God belonging to our confession is there-, by also the object of our confession.—The rendering of bpoXoyta by “ covenant,” which some have proposed, is contrary to the grammatical usage. Let us proceed now to the appositional sentence ver. 2, in which is specified the new quality and office to which the attentive consideration of the readers is to be directed, xurrbv hra y Ac. UonTv here, as in Acts ii. 36, Mar. iii. 14, is used to express not the calling into existence , but the appointing to an office , here the office of Messiah, which is represented under the figure of the establishment and government of a household. In this his office Jesus was faithful to him who had called him to this office. The words sv 6'Xw rp o/xw avrov are referred by Chrysostom, Theoph., Bohme, Kuinoel, and He Wette to the words wg xal M u : Jffr l c } so that no comma is placed after MwuVJfc, and the sense is as follows : “ Jesus was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.” The genitive avrov can, in this case, be referred either to Moses or to Jesus, or (as the majority are of opinion) to God. But this construction ap¬ pears unnatural, especially when we compare it with vers. 5, 6, where the idea is more fully brought out, that as Moses in his (Moses) house was faithful as a servant, so, in like manner, was Jesus faithful in his (Jesus’) house as a son. We, therefore, with Calvin, Seb. Schmidt, Paulus, Bleek, and others, place a comma after and refer the words ev oXu } Ac. to imrrbv hr a. “ Who is faithful in his house to him who appointed him, in like manner as Moses was.” Logically , the sentence would of course have to be extended thus : ’Irrfovg rr/ffrog ionv rep rtoifoavri avrov k oX(jj rp o/V.w avrov, ug zal Mojvcyjg mGrog tjv \v oXoj rp o/xw avrov .—The genitive Lvrov is already, on account of the parallel accusative avrov } not to be referred to God, but to be taken in the reflexive f EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1— G. 119 sense. Christ was faithful in his (Christ’s) house, as Moses in his (Moses) house. Only, the difference between the two houses is not yet urged here. All that is meant to be said is, that each was faithful in the sphere of office assigned to him. Hence also the genitive is not a gen. possess., according to which the house of Christ would be represented as Christ’s property , and the house of Moses as th q property of Moses — this would, indeed, be in con¬ tradiction to ver. 5, where it is plainly said that Moses was not lord but only servant in his‘house—but the genitive auroD is (just as in the words h oXu rp dixy avrov, ver. 5) merely a genitive of appertainment or locality. “ His house” signifies “ the house to which he belonged, in which he was placed.” What house, or what two houses, are here meant will more particularly appear in ver. 5, s. In the meantime, the simple answer will suffice with reference both to Moses and Christ, that the author had in his mind the Ver. 3. As the author in chap. i. 4 introduced the principal theme of the first part in the form of an appendix, an apposition, so here, he introduces the principal theme of the second part in like manner, in the form of an appendix, namely, an explana¬ tion. Tdo is not argumentative; for the statement that Christ excelled Moses in glory , contains no argument for the statement that he was like him in faithfulness, r du is explicative ; it is not, however, the idea in ver. 2 that is explained, but a new motive is adduced for the exhortation in ver. 1. So much the more must the relation of Jesus to Moses be considered and laid to heart, as Jesus excelled Moses in honour (whom he resembled in faithfulness, ver. 2.) ’h %/urai. The subject here is, no more than in chap. i., the Son of God qua pre-existent logos, but here, as there, the Son of God manifest, incarnate. The author does not set out from the eternity of Christ, and come down to his incarnation, but sets out from his historical appearance upon earth, and ascends from this to his eternal being with the Father (ver. 4.) Here, first of all, it is predicated of the human historical person of the Hew Testament Messiah, Jesus, that he has been counted worthy by the Father of higher honour than Moses. Wherein this higher honour consisted , it was not necessary for the author to bring to 120 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1—6. the remembrance of his readers. This had already been done implicitly in chap. ii. 9, 10. Moses has not risen again, Moses has not ascended to heaven, Moses has not been crowned as leader , and first-fruits in the kingdom of exalted and glorified humanity; Moses, in the transfiguration of Christ, rather took a subordinate place next to Christ. All this was so familiar and so clear, that the author could feel satisfied in laying down the proposition, that Christ has been counted worthy of higher honour than Moses, as one which would be unquestioned by all his readers. (And what an argument hafe we in this silence for the historic truth of the evangelical history!)—But upon ivhat this elevation to higher honour ivas founded , the author proceeds to mention in the words otfov crXs/oi'a ti/JjYiv ’iyf. / rvo o’Uov 6 xa ra uvc/. to ffhue’ov xaXs/ra/). Even the Psalmist evidently does not indicate any particular day in the calendar on which the people should not be obdurate; still he might presuppose that on the same day on which he composed the psalm they would hear it; with him also —more manifestly even than in the Greek translation—the DVH OK has the more general sense: “the day, when” = “what day;” OK DVH is = DVO, Gen. ii. 17, iii. 5. The sense is, that if any one receives an admonition from God, he should comply with it without aelay , and not put off the required obedience till the morrow. Ver. 12. It is somewhat inconsistent with the spirit of the Greek diction, that (SXs^srs here is not connected with ver. 11 by an oh or &, and the more surprising in our author, as he generally studies elegance of style. The difficulty is not helped by supposing, with Tholuck, that the words of the citation from fffosgov, ver. 7, on to zardvccvav pov, ver. 11, are dependent on the words xaQ&g Xsys/ to cruu/xa to dyiov^ and thus making the protasis to which an apodosis is to be supplied: m ffxXjjeuMjrg. (“ Therefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, be not obdurate,” &c .—so be not obdurate.) For a new period begins again with Pm-sti without any connecting particle, and, more¬ over, the supplement which is proposed is very forced and- tautological. Much more preferable is the explanation proposed by Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, Carpzov, Ernesti, and others, to which Bleek also inclines. These join the whole citation also with xateg, so as to form one member which thev regard as the 'protasis , and do not supply an apodosis , but consider this as given in ver. 12, “ Therefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, be not obdurate, &c.—so take heed.” Meanwhile, it may reasonably be asked, whether so long a citation attached to the protasis, which cannot be read in one breath, not to speak of a 132 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7 — 19. raised breath (as the nature of the protasis requires)—whether such be not a greater offence against good style than the want of an oh or os in a newly-begun sentence. The latter may rather be explained satisfactorily enough by supposing, that the author here purposely leaves the smoothly flowing train of thought, and with intentional liveliness and directness, interrupting himself, as it were, breaks in on the flow of the address by exclaiming: “ Take heed, brethren/' &C . 1 I hold it, therefore, more natural, with Sclilichting, Capellus, Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Klee, &c., to understand the citation as dependent, not on Xsyg/ but on 8i6 t and to explain the words xuQug .... dyiov , not as a protasis, but as a parenthesis—“ therefore (as the Holy Ghost saith), harden not your hearts," &c.—and then to begin a new period with ver. 12. BXevstv, in the sense of prosjpicere, occurs also in Mark viii. 15, xiii. 9. Of what are they to take heed ? Of this, that none amongst them have an evil heart of unbelief. The genitive ria $ serves to determine the manner in which, and in how far, the heart is evil; the words h rw avotrrrjvai express the manner in which this unbelief manifests itself. In departing, namely, from the way of conversion to Christ once entered upon. In ver. 13 a positive admonition is added by way of learning , the admonition, namely, that they should daily exercise the vaf- x\7icig. This word denotes both the practical application of the law in admonitory discipline, and that of the gospel in quickening, refreshing comfort. The author, especially at this part of his exhortation, avails himself of the word aq/iepou in the passage from the Psalms (the sense of which is given above on ver. 7). He directs attention to the importance of the daily , ceaseless , practical application of the Christian doctrine to the heart and mind. And what avails all speaking and studying, where this powerful, living purification of the heart through the law and gospel of God is neglected ? I vet M /asv ovv, chap. iv. 1. But in this case we should expect to find a particle, a #, or some such, at b tZ XeyscQai, although no great weight can be laid upon this, as at yer. 12, also, the transition particle is wanting. A stronger objection is, that according to that interpretation, a particle (namely, the at chap. iv. 1, would be too much. (For it cannot be explained as a resumptive oZv } as it could only be so in the case of the words b rZ xiysffOai being again taken up at chap. iv. 1 , thus: sv rZ XzyetfOcti cZv roZ-o (pofir.Qufizv.) But the strongest objection of all to this mode of construction is, that it would entirely destroy the train of thought, seeing that in chap. iv. 1 the author, as we shall soon find, passes from the intermediate hortatory part to an entirely new didactic section, so that chap. iv. 1 cannot be joined into one period with chap. iii. 16. Others, as Flacius, Capellus, Carpzov, Kuincel, have been of opinion that only the half of the words cited in ver. 15 are dependent on a lyigQcu, and that the other half, from iA (fxXtjgvvijrs onwards—which clearly forms a part of the citation—is the principal clause on which the b must be made to depend ! (When it is said: “To day, if ye will hear his voice: " then harden not your hearts.)—Sender, Morus, Storr, de Wette, Bleek, Olshausen, &c.” supply Xsyw before ver. 16. (Seeing that it is said: “To-day/' &c., I ask, who then has hardened himself ?) This rendering, also, and the connection of thought which results from it, no one will affirm to be natural, besides that in this case, if the author in ver. 15, s., passes to a new turn of thought, the de at ver. 15 could not be dispensed with. Bengel, Michaslis, Zacharia, and others, ex¬ plained ver. 14 as a parenthesis, and construed b rz xlyscdai with Kaoazu).v~z, as if the author meant to prescribe the forms of words with which they were to admonish one another daily : “ To-day, harden not/' &c. Not much better is the connection with naTuJ- ysffdai as dependent on the ivliole of the 14:th verse, i.e. as grammatically dependent on fiiroyot yzyova[isv, and to render “ as it is said/' We are partakers of Christ if we keep the faith, in¬ asmuch as it is said , &c. Ver. 15, therefore, does not (as accord¬ ing to the interpretation of Luther, Calvin, &c.) lay down the manner in which we must act in order to keep the faith, but simply a reason or proof that we must keep the faith , in order to be partakers of Christ. This proof is now developed in vers. 16—18, and then in ver. 19 the same thesis as we have in ver. 14, only in a negative form (that the Israelites on account of their unbelief came not into the rest), is repeated as a quod erat demonstrandum. The carrying out of the proof connects itself with the word rraoa^i- xpatr/Mc, on to which the author had quoted the passage from the Psalms at ver. 15. Still, only the first link in the chain of proof is connected with this word. It forms only the point from which the writer sets out. Afterwards he deals in like manner with the other ideas and words of the passage in the Psalms, chiefly specifying the forty years murmuring from rrpoGoyJi'j) from byjiu, indignari, this again from by0?j, a cliff, a place of breakers, hence byh/v, to surge against, to he vehement against any one), and the words s/ tfaeXsvtovrcu ug try xaranavaiv (Js 0\Jm The following are the successive stejDS in the proof. At Marah ; (Ex. xv. 23), and at Massah and Meribah (Ex. xvii. 7), certain sins were committed; the people had murmured on account of the want of water; it was not, however, these sins, but sins committed at a later period at Kadesh (Num. xiv.) that brought upon the people the punishment of the forty years' wandering in the 138 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7-19. wilderness, which the Psalmist poetically connects with those sins at Marah and Meribah; nor was it at these places, but at Kadesh, where it is expressly recorded that the entire people, with the sole exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, murmured and sinned. Therefore our author finds himself necessitated to form a bridge, so to speak, from those particular sins mentioned in the passage in the Psalms, to the general sin of unbelief. He asks, therefore, first: “ Who 1 were they who did provoke God? (Was it those only who had sinnned at Meribah ?) Did not all do this who came out of Egypt by Moses ?” Thus he remembers that that special act of sin, taken by itself, does not find its fit and proper designation in the word provocation , but the disposition as a whole, which all Israel eve ywliere manifested. Hence, secondly, it is evident, that the Psalmist was justified in connecting the punishment of the forty years’ wandering with the sin of the ££ provocation.” ££ But with whom was he angry forty years? 2 Was it not with them that had sinned ?” Prom this it was to be inferred that all must have sinned. Finally, in the third place, he must notice the chief and fundamental sin, that dis¬ obedience which refuses to be led in the gracious ways pointed out by God, that disobedience which is therefore substantially one and the same thing with unbelief; for in Kadesh nothing was said of a disobedience against the law, but of the disobe¬ dience which—as was well known to all the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews—had its source in the unbelief described in Hum. xiv., which led the people to think that, in spite of Gods help, it would not be possible for them to conquer the land. Thus the author, in ver. 18, adds the third member of the proof, and returns again in ver. 19 to the thesis which was to be proved. 1 It is evident, even from ihe train of thought, that the true reading is Tins, t <07, and not (with Oecum., Theoph., Yulg., Luther, Calvin, Grotius, &c.) r'ms 7teri ( i: only some”). (Comp. Bleek on this passage, p. 471, ss.) The v author could infer only from the universality of sin in the time of Moses that the Israelites entered not into their rest, and therefore that the promise still awaited its fulfilment; he could not have inferred this from the fact, that “ only some’' had sinned at that time and had been punished. 2 Here he shows, by the way, that he was well acquainted with the original text of the passage. He here connects with 01 pK; J us ^ as * s done i n the original. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 139 Iii speaking, however, of the entrance into GocTs rest , the author has introduced to his readers a new element of which he further avails himself as the theme of the following didactic sec¬ tion. It was to be ascribed—he shows in chap. iv.—not merely to the subjective unbelief of the Israelites, but also to the objective imperfection of the Old Testament revelation, that Israel could not enter into the true rest. He then shows, how the highest fulfilment of the promise of rest still lies in the future, and is offered through Christ, and that we have therefore now to be doubly on our guard against unbelief, as this is now doubly inex¬ cusable. SECTION SECOND. (Chap, iv.) IN THE SON ISRAEL HAS ENTERED INTO ITS TRUE REST. This section ’ belongs to those of which, as Tholuck justly remarks “few commentators have succeeded in clearly tracing out the connection of the ideas. v The fault of this, however, belongs not to the passage, but to the commentators, who have brought too much their own ideas with them, and have not had the self-denial simply to surrender themselves to the words of the writer. For example, it has been taken for granted at the very outset, vers. 1—3, that the author here proceeds to warn against the subjective sin of unbelief. It is all one whether the words can bear this sense or not,—-this must be their meaning; nor does it alter the case, although what follows in ver. 4, ss. should in no way be suitable to such a sense. Yer. 1. In the sentence &c., it is self-evident that rig is the subject, loxfi the predicate, vor&^zsvai the object to dozff } as also, that the words dasXfc?v dg rrjv za-u'-uvav a-orou are dependent on IncLjyiWag. Further, it appears pretty clear, on a comparison of chap. ii. 11 with 18, that avrov here is not to be understood in the reflexive sense, but as pointing back to God, who was the subject at chap. ii. 17—18. The only thing about 140 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IY. which there can he any question is, upon what the genitive- nura- Xs/cto/x.svjjs sKccyys/Jag depends. The great majority of commentators understand this genitive, without more ado, either (so Cramer and Ernesti) as a genitive of relation dependent on the verb uffrsgqxsm/ (“that no one among you appear to remain behind the promise which is still left,” i.e. appear as one who neglects the promise which is still left, i.e. the fulfilment of it)—a construction which is impossible owing to the position of the words, and the absence of the article at sxayyeXtus —or, they take the words JtaraXs/ro/xh?j; sKotyyt'hias as a gen. abs., but still regard this genitive abs. as dependent on uffregjjxgi/a/, while umgjjxsva/ is considered as the principal idea, and doxfi, which is taken in the sense of videri, as a pleonastic accessory idea (so Bleek, Olshausen, and the greater number). The sense then is: “Let us take heed, that no one amongst you show himself as one who comes too late , seeing that a promise is still with us,” i.e. that no one amongst you appear, in reference to the promise still existing (still to be fulfilled), as one who comes too late. 1 In support of the purely pleonastic use of doy.irj which is here supposed, the only authority that can be adduced is a passage of the bombastic Josephus (Ant. ii. 6, 10). The signification putare, opinari, which doKeTv usually has (for ex¬ ample, chap. x. 29 ; Acts xxvii. 13), we are assured will not suit the context here; as the author evidently intends to warn his readers not against the thought of being too late, but against the actual coming short itself. Meanwhile, this is not so clear and manifest as for example Bleek himself thinks. First of all, apart from the purely pleonastic use of doxji in that interpretation, the use of the verb bffnotTv already strikes us as strange. If it is the aim of the author to warn against trifling away the fulfilment of the promise still left, i.e. the subjective participation in this fulfilment, why does he select a word for this purpose which in nowise contains the idea of a subjective trifling away, but of a purely objective being too 1 Still more unsuitably, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Gerhard, de Wette explain I vayy by contemta promissione=promissionem contemnens. K a.TK\ttru v might indeed have this meaning (Acts vi. 2), but in this case, the article could not be omitted before seoig/x6g is not at all decisive in favour of the first interpretation ; what is spoken of is a separation as well of the soul as of the spirit, as well of the joints as of the marrow, but not a separation of the soul from the spirit, of the joints from the marrow. This very rs zed is rather in favour of the second interpretation. But a certain solution of the question must be obtained, first of all, from a closer consideration of the two pairs of things themselves. Could the author have had before his mind a separation of the soul from the spirit in general ? In support of this, reference is made to the biblical trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit which meets in 1 Thess. v. 23. There is undoubt¬ edly a trichotomy in that passage ; but whether by this is to be understood any such mechanical construction of man out of three parts or subtances; whether it involves the possibility that the soul and the spirit can be cut asunder from each other, so that each may stand by itself, is indeed very much to be questioned. The Holy Scripture certainly distinguishes the soul from the body, and the spirit from the body, and the soul from the spirit. But nowhere does it represent the body as outiuardhy separable from the soul. The present body is a ene- trates not merely into the members, but (through the bones) into the marrow/’ This chain of ideas the author puts into a more concise form, thus: “ The word of God is sharper than every two- edged sword, inasmuch as it penetrates to the dividing asunder as well of spirit as of soul” (thus resembling a sword which pierces even to the separation of the parts), “ as well of the marrow as of the joints.” Keinzcg evQvpjjffuav xai svvoiuv zaooiac —in these words lie the explanation of what was meant by the cutting asunder of soul and spirit. ’EvOumgsic are the natural desires and passions (not the evil only) which involuntarily and undisturbed find play in the natural man. The word of the gospel falls into these like a leavening, a \6yog xg/r/xog, i.e. not as a xg/rfo, a judge, but as having a critical or separating effect upon them. It causes a movement, a fermentation, an unavoidable disquiet among the more unconscious and slumbering impulses and pas¬ sions ; the man feels himself no longer happy, no longer inno- EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 163 cent in the indulgence of inclinations to which he yielded before with undisturbed pleasure; he feels himself no longer satisfied with enjoyments and delights, which before were the ideal after which he strove. The word of God, however, exercises this sifting, rebuking, awakening, and comforting power, not merely on the bOv/ufais, but also on the smiai (1 Pet. i. 12), the opinions, the maxims, and principles which have been formed on the basis of the natural man, as the result of the conscious and free exer¬ cise of the mind. This power it has, because, as the word of that grace in the highest manifestation of which the holiness of God remained altogether unscathed, in both forgives and judges the same sin in the heart of man, at one and the same time, and by one and the same act. On the cross of Christ the guilt has been atoned for, and the sin which brought Christ to the cross at the same time condemned, and held up as an object of abhorrence to all who love the propitiator. Thus has this word of wonder, the wonder of all words, the power to comfort without seducing into levity, to shake without plunging into despair. It draws while it rebukes ; it sifts while it draws: the man cannot set himself free from it who has once heard it; its gentleness will not allow him to cast it from him, and as he holds it fast he escapes not also from its sifting severity. It has, in one word—a barb. The law of Moses rebukes the deed done ; the word of the gospel works upon the source whence actions proceed— the mind, the heart; it judges before the deed is done, not after: it is living ; its judging consists in maldng better, in sanctifying the inner man of the heart, and thus extending its efficacy to the outward life. Yer. 13. In these words, in which a power of vision is ascribed to the word of God (“ nothing is hid from its eyes"), we have an instance of that familiar tropical application of this faculty, which is wont to be made to any illuminating body , and are by no means under the necessity of recurring to that unsuitable inter¬ pretation which explains the word of God of a person. We can say with perfect propriety: “ the sun looks on us, before the sun everything lies open, nothing is hid from it; the stars look into the night"—we can say this without representing the sun and the stars as personal beings. So here ; all things lie open before the word of the gospel, simply because this word throws its light 164 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IY. upon and illuminates all tilings, even the most secret motions of the heart. to bend the neck, is said, according to the view of the later critics (since Perizonius), to have received the signifi¬ cation “to put in the pillory" (because those who were putin the pillory had their neck bent downwards), and from this came the signification, to lay open. There is no necessity, however, for such an explanation. The explanation given by old Greek scholiasts is the true one: rga to bend any one's neck backwards , and thereby to lay bare the throat; hence in general, to lay bare. AuroO refers, of course, back to Xoyog, not to hod, by which the thought would be entirely destroyed. With as little reason can it be regarded as pointing forwards to ^fog ov (in the sense of hsivov), so that we should have to translate the words thus: “ all things are open to the eyes of that with which we have to do," and as if this were to be distinguished from the Xoyog rod hod, ver. 12, as something different. It is self-evident that both genitives ub-od point backwards to 6 Xoyog rot hod. The relative clause vohg ov yhjav 6 Xoyog is therefore dependent on an avrod already svfiiciently definite in itself \ and does not serve the purpose of giving a definiteness to avrod, but contains a new and additional idea. That Xoyog does not here again denote the word of God, but has a different signification from what it has in ver. 12, is likewise evident. Luther, Schulz, Yater, and others take it in the signification “speech, address," and ^og in the signification “in reference to," and the whole clause is analo¬ gous to the words in chap. v. 11, crs*/ ov (coXik) j fiTv 6 Xoyog. They rendered it, accordingly, thus: “ before the eyes of the word of icliich ive speak.” But this additional clause would be altogether insipid, superfluous, and useless. Others, therefore, sought to find a weightier meaning in the words. Following the Peschito Chrys., Theophyl., Theodoret, Schmid, Michaelis assigned to the word Xoyog the signification, “ reckoning," winch it has in the phrase Xoyov unod/dovui (for example xiii. 17), and rendered, “of which we have to give account." This sense is not even suitable to the right explanation of o Xoyog r. 0., nor is it consistent with the right explanation of ver. 12, in which, as we have seen, it is not EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 165 the judicial threatenings of Gods word that are spoken of. Moreover, this sense will not admit of being justified on gram¬ matical grounds, as \6yoe alone can stand for Xoyog avo- do-sog 26 tI. With much more reason Calvin, Kuinoel, and De Wette take Xoyog in the general signification, res , negotium , and render, “ with which we have to do.” This explanation is doubly recommended if we were justified in finding in ver. 12 a material antithesis to ver. 2—the antithesis, namely, between the hoy og rr,g uzotjg which was spoken to the contemporaries of Moses , and could not profit them, and the hoyog rou (k oD, ver. 12, which is living and powerful, and by which, according to the context , is to be understood the New Testament word of God in Christ. We have just observed in ver. 12, that this antithesis is in no way expressed in the words hoyog too 0so5 (inasmuch as the genitive must be referred to a totally different anti¬ thesis). We see now, however, that the author has by no means left that antithesis without marked and definite expression. With intentional emphasis, he places quite at the end (and this very position gives it a peculiar force) the relative clause 6V ^u/V 6 Xoyog , “ with which ice have to do,” in which the emphasis must be laid on the (In the German translation the aurou must be rendered not by “ desjenigen,” but only by the possess, pron. On this, however, no relative can, according to the rules ot the German language, be dependent, so that this relative clause, even in order rightly to express the emphasis which rests upon it, must be connected with the subject of the clause in ver. 12.) Ver. 14—16. In the last verses the striking comparison^ between the dead , outward , legal word of Moses, which could not take away the disobedience of the Israelites, nor lead them to the true rest, and the living , penetrating word of the new covenant , was brought to a close. From this now flows as a direct conse¬ quence, that we have therefore (ov>) in Christ not merely a second Moses, that we have in him more than a lawgiver, that we have in him who has gone for us and before us into the eternal Sabbath rest of the heavenly sanctuary, a High Priest. This conclusion of the second section of the second part is, as we have already observed, on chap. ii. 17, completely parallel with the conclusion of the second section of the first part. In the first part it was shown that the Son is superior to the angels; 1GG EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. a, in his person , because in him the eternal ^uroroxog became man; b, in his work , because in him as the first-fruits man is raised to the dominion over the universe, and over all heavens ; and, c, this is effected, because Christ, as the messenger of God (a --oGroXog) in things pertaining to men, united with this the office of high priestly representative of men in things pertaining to Giod. In the second part, it has now been shown that the Son is superior to Moses ; a, in his person , as the Son in the perfect house to the servant in the typical house; b , in his work , because he first opened up the way for man to the true ►Sabbatical rest into which he himself entered before ; and from this it follows, c, that he joined to the office of a second Moses— a divinely-commissioned leader out of captivity —the office of a high priest. The author having thus been led from these two different starting-points to the idea of the a^/sosug, now pro¬ ceeds to place upon the two first parts, which may he viewed as the pillars of the arch, the third part, which forms the keystone, chap. v.—vii. It will appear from what has been said that the particle ov v t ver. 14, is to be taken in its usual signification, as marking an inference to he drawn from the foregoing, and as closely connecting ver. 14—1G with ver. 10—13. Those err furthest from the right understanding of the passage, who think (as Tholuck and Bleek) that the author left his proper theme at chap, iii. 1, lost himself, so to speak, in a digression which had no proper connection with the subject , and that he now takes a sudden leap hack to the path he had left, so that oh here is to he taken in a resumptive signification, and as referring to the end of chap, ii. (“ Seeing then that we have, as has before been said, an high priest/' &c.) With more reason it was already perceived by Calvin, that the author has compared Christ first with the angels, then (according to his plan) with Moses, and that he now intends to pass to a third point; only he failed to perceive that the idea with which the 14th verse begins, really follows as an inference} from ver. 10—13, and thought therefore that oh must be taken in the signification atqui; “ now further," which the word never has, and of which, as has been already said, there is no need. Now it is not, of course, to be thought that all the epithets EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 167 which are assigned to Christ in ver. 14—16, are enumerated with the view of exhibiting the dissimilarity between Christ and the Old Testament high priests, and the inferiority of the latter ; for a comparison of this kind between Christ and the Old Testa¬ ment high priest first begins at the third principal part, which immediately follows, and is there (chap. v. 1, ss.) expressly in¬ troduced by the general enumeration of the necessary requisites for the high priesthood {for every high priest, &c.). Here, on the other hand, we have simply the inference drawn from ver. 10—13, that to Christ belongs in general the high priestly calling (together with that of a second Moses). All the epithets that are here assigned to him have rather the object, therefore, of showing the similarity between Christ and a high priest, or, in other words, to vindicate the subsumption of Jesus under the idea of high priest. Ver. 14—16 do not at all belong to the third part, but quite as much to the second as chap. ii. 17, 18 to the first part; and Hugo von St Cher showed a much truer and deeper insight into the meaning and aim of the passage than the majority of later critics, when he commenced a new chapter with the words h^/epevg. ' avisos a fey av; aoyjvevg signifies by itself “high priest;’ fyag does not therefore serve to complete the idea of high priest (as is the case when it stands along with a mere h§sug } when 0 hgsvg 6 feyag = Svun irron is to be rendered by “ the high priest,” as for example, chap. x. 21), but fyag has here the independent force of an attribute. It follows, however, from what has before been said, that Christ is not here by the adjective fyus, as by a diff. specif., placed in opposition to the Old Testament high priest / as the great high priest to the small, but that ftyag here simply takes the place of an epitheton naturale (just as in chap. xiii. 20, in the words rov xoifev a run Koofiurwv rbv fsyav'). In like manner, the words die’kyi’kvOorcc rovg ohavovg, which point back immediately to ver. 11 (comp, however also chap vii. 26, ix. 11), serve simply to indicate an act of Christ wherein he appears analogous to the high priest; which . also justifies the author in calling him an These words 8ie\riXv06ru, &c., contain therefore a supplementary explanation of the vis conclusionis indicated by oh. Because Christ has gone before as the first-fruits of humanity through the heavens into i 168 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IY. the eternal substantial rest, there to prepare a habitation for us, therefore, and in so far , was his act analogous not to what was done by Moses, but rather to the business of those high priests who in like manner entered into the earthly holy of holies. (That the entrance was again also different from that of the Old Testament high priests is indeed implied in these words, although it is not here urged. It is rather the difference between Christ and Moses that is here urged; all that is here urged is that Christ, in virtue of his being at the same time also a high priest, is superior to Moses.) On the oi 'joavoi comp, our remarks on chap. i. 3. IThe ovwvot in the plural , through which Jesus has passed to the right hand of God, are here the different spheres of the creature, the atmos¬ pheric, the planetary heavens, the heavens of the fixed stars and the angels. He is gone into the dwelling-place in space of the absolute, finished, absolutely undisturbed revelation of the Father. Jesus the Son of God , a brief repetition of the idea unfolded in chap. ii., that in the person of the incarnate ^utotozoc } who as incarnate is called the Son of God , man is exalted to the right hand of God. Because, therefore, we have in the person of this Jesus an high priest, and not a mere Moses redivivus, because he is, in virtue of this, so much superior to Moses, we must “ hold fast '' the Hew Testament confession, and are not at liberty to give this an inferior and subordinate place to that of the Old Testament. K gartfi, not “ seize," but “ holdfast," the opposite of ii. 1^ KUPaKiTTruv, vi. 6. In ver. 15 there follows not an argument or motive for the exhortation zparu/xiv • for this has already its motive in the words having an high priest ; besides, the circumstance that Christ sympathises with our weakness, and was tempted like us, contains no motive for that exhortation ; for this being tempted is not a peculiar characteristic of the Hew Testa¬ ment high priest, not a prerogative of the new covenant, but a quality which belongs to him in common with the Old Testa¬ ment high priests. In ver. 15 we have rather an explana¬ tion of the clause, We have an high priest. The author shows that Christ was not wanting in the chief requisite necessary to an high priest in general. (In ver. 15, therefore, there is no EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IY. 169 such thing as a comparison between Christ and Aaron. The Old Testament high priests were in like manner able to sympa¬ thise. Comp. chap. vi. 1. “ Every high priest enters into office as one taken from among men, for the benefit of men in their relation to God/') ■ But to what extent Christ was able to sympathise with our infirmities, and what is to be understood by these infirmities, appears most clearly from the words which follow : Having been tempted in alt things like as ive are, without sin. (At ojuoiornra the ri'Uuiv, which of course is to be understood, is omitted, as in Eplies. iii. 18.) We must here, first of all, endeavour to obtain a clear idea of what is meant by being tempted. Being tempted is, on the one hand, something different from being seduced; on the other hand, however, it is something different from mere physical suffering. He who is seduced stands not in a purely passive relation, but with his own will acquiesces in the will of the seducer; he who is tempted is as such, purely passive. This, however, is no merely physical passivity ; headache as such is no eg leaapog. In order rightly and fully to apprehend the idea involved in eg igatr/Eg, we must keep in view the opposition between nature and spirit, between involuntary physical life and freely conscious life, natural dispositions and culture, original temperament and passions and personal character, a given situ¬ ation and the manner of conduct. Christ as true man had a truly human physical life, experienced the affections of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and aversion, of hope and fear and anxiety, just as we do. He was capable of enjoying the innocent and tranquil pleasures of life, and he felt a truly human shrinking from suf¬ fering and death ; in short, he was in the sphere of the involuntary life of the sold passively susceptible as we are. But there is a moral obligation lying upon every man, not to let himself be mastered by his natural affections, ivhich in themselves are alto¬ gether sinless, but rather to acquire the mastery over them. This will be most evident in reference to temperaments. That one man is naturally of a sanguine temperament is no sin; but if he should allow himself to be hurried into rage by his temperament, instead of laying a check upon it, this is sin. To be of a phleg¬ matic temperament is no sin ; but to fall into habits of sloth, by giving place to this temperament, is sin. Thus every tempera- 170 EPISTLE TO THE HEBPvEWS IV. inent involves peculiar temptations. The case is similar with reference to the affections. That I feel joy in an innocent and quiet life is no sin ; but were I placed in a position in which such happiness of life could be acquired or maintained only by the neglect of a duty, then it is my duty to suppress that feeling which is sinless in itself—that innocent sensation— and to sacrifice my pleasure to duty. And in as far as I shall still be susceptible of that natural affection of pleasure which I have sacrificed, in so far will it he to me in my peculiar position a temptation. That a poor man loves his children, and cannot bear that they should perish of hunger, is in itself a natural sin¬ less affection ; but let him be so placed as that without danger of discovery he could steal a piece of money, then that natural affec¬ tion becomes to him a temptation. Now, it is quite clear that a man may, in this way, find him¬ self in the situation of being tempted , without its being necessary to suppose that there is therefore in him any evil inclination. The poor man may be a truly honest Christian man; the objec¬ tive temptation is there; the thought is present to his mind in all the force of the natural affection: “ If I were at liberty to take this gold, how I might appease the hunger'of my children ; ” but at the same time he has an immediate and lively conscious¬ ness of his duty, and not a breath of desire moves within him to take the gold; he knows that he dare not do this; it is a settled thing with him that he is no thief.—So was it in reference to Christ's temptation ; he was tempted “ in every respect," in joy and sorrow, in fear and hope, in the most various situations, but ivithout sin ; the being tempted was to him purely passive, purely objective ; throughout the whole period of his life he renounced the pleasures of life for ivliich he had a natural susceptibility , be¬ cause he could retain these only by compliance with the carnal hopes of the Messiah entertained by the multitude, and he main¬ tained this course of conduct in spite of the prospect which became ever more and more sure, that his faithfulness and persecution would lead him to suffering and death, of which he felt a natural fear. That susceptibility of pleasure and this fear were what tempted him—not sinful inclinations but pure, innocent, natural affections, belonging essentially to human nature. 1 1 Hence the error of the Irvingites in thinking that it is impossible to hold EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 171 It is evident, that a distinction is to be drawn between this being tempted icithout sin and that temptation in which the sinful, fallen man “ is drawn away of his own lust and enticed” ( i.e. the subjective operation of a sinful desire , in an objective situation which demands the suppression of a natural affection in itself good). That this species of temptation found any place in the sinless one is denied in the words, without sin. Christ, as Olshausen well observes, possessed in his state of humiliation not indeed the non posse peccare, hut certainly like Adam the posse non peccare. Yer. 16 brings the second section of the second part, and, therewith, this part itself, to a full and formal conclusion. We have here, however, not merely the old admonition of merely general import: not to lose the benefits of the new covenant from a false attachment to the forms of the old covenant; the admo¬ nition is given here in a special form, namely, to hold fast the grace of God, and to come with joyfulness to the throne of grace. In speaking of this throne of grace, the author had certainly not in his mind the lYlDD (which indeed is called “ mercy-seat” only in Luthers translation, but not in the original, nor in the Sept,, and which was in reality a simple “ cover” or “ lid”); the author in an exhortation to hold fast the specifically Christian element in the atonement of Christ, would assuredly not have expressed himself in a form peculiar to the Jewish cultus. The throne of grace is simply the throne of God, but of God as a reconciled father in Christ: They are to draw near to God, not as a judge but as a gracious father, for Christ’s sake. 'Ivcc XafiU'Uzv sXsov x.ui z'ixcuQov ( 3 orj(jtiav , that we may receive mercy and find grace to a seasonable help (as season¬ able help). E ! jxcc/gog } opportunus , not “ in time of need,” but simply the opposite of an attains (3o^sia, a help which comes too late. E/f cannot, grammatically considered, introduce the time of the receiving and finding , but only the end and residt thereof. (“ That we may receive mercy, &c., to a seasonable help ” = that the mercy which we receive may take the form of a help coming still at the right time ; i.e. to give the sense in the real temptation of Christ without the supposition of an inward evil in¬ clination. 172 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. other words: that we, so long as it is yet time, and we have something still to help ns, may receive mercy and find grace.) This concluding exhortation to have recourse to grace , forms also at the same time the transition to the following part. “ Let us come to the throne of grace,” the author has just said. Forth¬ with he himself follows his own admonition, and goes with his readers before the throne of grace, and begins the consideration of the high priestly calling of Christ. i ( 173 ) PART THIRD. (Chap. v.—vii.) CHRIST AND THE HIGH PRIEST. Hugo von St Cher has, here again, shown a happy tact in making a new chapter begin with the words vag ya^ On the first superficial view, one might be tempted to connect chap. v. 1—10 with chap. iv. 14—16, because in both passages we find a comparison between Christ and the Old Testament high priest (a comparison, too, which has respect to the points of similarity). But, to say nothing of the formal conclusion in iv. 16, a closer view of the contents will show us that a new part begins with v. 1, which (as before at ii. 17, s.) was merely inti¬ mated, and for which the way was prepared in iv. 14, ss. In chap. iv. 14 the writer had already come to speak of the highest and last point in the high-priestly work of Christ; the compari¬ son with Moses and Joshua had led him to the high-priestly entrance of Christ into the Sabbatical rest of the heavenly sanctuary. In chap. v. 1, on the contrary, he begins again, so to speak, at the lowest point and goes upwards, specifying one by one the requisites for the office of High Priest, and proving whether these requisites are found in Christ. (Every high priest must, in the first place, be taken from among men, ver. 1—3; secondly, however, must be called of God to his office, ver, 4. Christ was truly called of God, ver. 5, 6, but at the same time he was true man, ver. 7—9.) These points of similarity, 1iow t - ever, lead him of themselves to the points of difference between Christ and Aaron, to the Melchisedec-nature of the priesthood 174 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y.—VII. of Christ, which new theme he intimates in ver. 10, and, after a somewhat lengthy digression of a hortatory character, treats it in detail in chap. vii. In chap. vii. he then takes up the threads of argument laid down in chap. ii. and chap, iv., and is at length led back to the idea, which was already only briefly intimated in chap. iv. 14 (the entrance of Christ into the heavenly , the true holy of holies), as the highest point at which he aims. The entire part, therefore, chap. v. 1—chap. vii. 28, forms the exposition of the theme that was merely intimated in chap. ii. 17, and chap. iv. 14. And thus we are convinced that chap. iv. 14—16 forms in reality the conclusion of the second principal part, in like manner as chap. ii. 17, 18, that of the first part, and that the true and proper commencement of the third part is to be placed at chap. v. 1. AVe infer also from what has just been said, that the third part is, as a whole, parallel in its arrangement with the two first parts. It, too, falls into two sections (1, chap. v. 1—10, similarity between Christ and Aaron; 2, dissimilarity between Christ and Aaron, similarity with Melcliisedec) and here also ; these two sections are markedly separated from each other by an admonitory piece inserted between them (chap. v. 11—vi. 20). That this hortatory piece in the third part is longer and fuller than in the two first parts can create no surprise. Already was that of the second part (extending from the 7th to the 19th verse of chap. 3) longer than that of the first part (chap. ii. 1—4); in this third part it extends to twenty-four verses, and thus shows itself even outwardly as the last part of an admonition, which from its commencement onwards, gradually becomes more urgent and more full. But in its internal character also, as we shall see, it stands in very close connection with the chapter which follows. And a longer resting-place was necessary before this seventh chapter, not merely on account of the greater difficulty of its contents, but chiefly also because chap. vii. does not connect immediately with chap. v. 10, but at once points back to the train of thought in chap. i.—ii., iii.—iv., and weaves into an ingenious web all the threads formerly laid down. Chap. vii. is not merely the second section of the third part, but forms at once the keystone of the first and second parts, and the basis of the fourth part (the argument that the sanctuary into which Christ EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1—10. 175 entered is the true sanctuary, of which the Old Testament temple and worship were only a type). Nay, the seventh chapter may thus be said to form properly the kernel and central point of the whole epistle. SECTION FIRST. \ (Chap. v. 1—10.) CHRIST AND AARON. Yer. 1. is not argumentative, but explicative, and intro¬ duces the exposition of the theme intimated in iv. 14—16, to the closer consideration and laying to heart of which a charge was implicity given in ver. 16.—Other interpreters have understood ydo as argumentative, and entirely misapprehending the clear structure of thought in these ten verses, have taken ver. 1 as helping to prove what is said in iv. 15. “ Christ must have sympathy with our infirmities, for even human high priests have sympathy with sins.” Thus the high priests taken from among men would here be opposed to Christ as one not taken from among men, and an inference drawn a minori ad majus. But if this interpretation is to be received, we miss here, first of all, a xai or xa/Vsg before the words /.a/xfiavo^vog ; then the words vkIo avfyuiruv %oM ^ Udictoii Aoyov' —this, of course, signifies (as appears already from v. 12) not “ the doctrine of the beginning of Christ/' but “ the beginning or elementary doctrine of Christ." Ttjg cLoyfg is an adjectival genitive, and to be closely connected with Xoyoc, so that toZ Xticrov is dependent not on agyyg, but on xbyov. The great majority of interpreters do not take as the in- sinuative first person plural, and the whole passage as hortatory , but understand the first person plural as communicative , and the whole as an intimation on the part of the author that he now intends to pass to the consideration of the strong meat. But that which, first of all, is opposed to the common interpretation, is the particle b 16 . How, from the fact that the readers, according to chap. v. 12—14, could as yet bear no strong meat, but needed the milk of the elements, could the author with any appearance of reason draw the inference: “ Therefore, let us lay aside these ele¬ ments, and proceed to the more difficult doctrines ? ” Secondly, that interpretation leads itself ad absurdum, for, according to it, EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11— VI. 20. 195 nXsior'/is must be taken in a completely different sense from rWuog, chap. y. 14. In cliap. v. 14 rzXsiog denoted the subjec¬ tive state of those who are already exercised in the word of righteousness , and in the discerning between good and evil , in order to be able to understand what is more difficult; in chap, vi. 1 Ti’kaorqg is suddenly made to denote the objective difficult doctrinal statements respecting the similarity between the priest¬ hood of Melchisedec and Christ! Hence Chrysostom, Theo- doret, Photius, Gennadius, Theophylact, Faber Stapul., Calvin, Schulz, Bohme, and Bleek, have with reason understood the first person plural as insinuatory, and the whole as an admoni¬ tion to the readers ; they are to strive to get at length beyond the elements (in the partic. dfzvreg there lies then, at all events, a prolepsis : strive after the reXeiorrig, so that you may then be able to lay aside the ao/os), and to arrive at that rsXsiorrjg described in chap. v. 14. If, however, this explanation is right, then by consequence must the words m Ac., be understood differ¬ ently from what they have been by all commentators hitherto (Calvin, Bleek, Ac., not excepted). All take xara/SaXX^a/ in the sense “ to lay a foundation,” a sense in which this verb also actually occurs. (Dion. Halic. iii. 69, T aonvmg rovg n fc'iiXioug xurzfidXsro ; see other passages in Bleek, ii. p. 149.) How this sense would certainly suit well that false interpreta¬ tion of the preceding words (“ I design, laying aside the funda¬ mental elements, to hasten to what is more difficult, and not again to lay the foundation of repentance,” Ac.) But, on the other hand, this sense of xarafidX\z(>i)ui does not suit the true and only possible explanation of If the readers were still deficient in the elements , in the apprehension of the doctrine of justification, the true means of attaining to the nXsio-rig did not assuredly consist in their neglecting to gain anew the foundation which they had lost, but, on the contrary, in their using the most strenuous endeavours to secure again that foundation of all knowledge which they had lost. We are therefore reduced to the necessity of taking in another sense, in the signification which is the original one and the most common, namely, “ to throw down, demolish, destroy,” which the word has in all the Greek classical writers, and which it cannot sur- 196 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11 —YI. 20. prise us to find in our author, who writes elegant Greek. “ Strive after perfection, while you do not again demolish the foundation of repentance and faith, and the doctrine of baptism, the laying on of hands, the resurrection, and the judgment.” The genitives ^avoiag nlGrzug are also suitable to this expla¬ nation. The author does not speak of a foundation of the doctrine of repentance and faith— oiduyj] is first introduced in connection with the third member—but of the foundation of repentance and faith themselves. The apostle would assuredly not have dissuaded from laying again the foundation, in the case of its having been destroyed ! According to the right explana¬ tion, he rather advises them not to destroy whatever of it may still remain. udXiv means, of course, not iterum, “ a second time,” but is used here in the privative or contradictory sense, as at Gal. iv. 9 ; Acts xviii. 21. That the article is wanting at Qs/mXiqv cannot cause surprise ; it is in like manner wanting in chap. v. 13 at hoyov d/zcc/offuvqg; chap. vi. 5, at feov &c. The word is sufficiently determined by its genitives. . Now, the foundation which the readers are to preserve from destruction, in order to attain to perfection, consists of three parts . The first is the ^srdvoia^ the subjective turning of the vovg, the mind, the conversion from selfishness to the love of Christ, from self-righteousness to the consciousness of guilt, from contempt of the will of God to the accusation of self. And this ^srdvo/a is here called a [urdvoiu uko v&xfjv sgyav, because that state of the natural man had, in the persons addressed, taken the special form of a Jewish pliarisaism which led them to believe that, as regards their relation to God, they might rest satisfied with certain works which were severed from the root of a heart right towards God, and were therefore “ dead.” (It is, moreover, not to be forgotten, that not merely the Jew, but every one has the tendency to stamp certain actions, outwardly praiseworthy, as meritorious works, and with this dead coin to discharge the demands of his conscience, and to still the accuser in his breast.) The positive and supplementary part to this psrdvoia is the Kieng In i fsov. That faith is here denoted not in the historico- dogmatic form of faith in Christ, the Messiah, but in the philo- sophico-religious form of faith in God, is not undesigned, but belongs to the fineness and delicacy of the thought. That the EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 —VI. 20. 197 author means the Christian faith, was already self-evident, and needed not to he expressed by circumstantial description; on the other hand, this he would and must say, that the Christian, as by the fisravoia he renounces dead works, so by the vlang he enters into a living relation to the living God. The third member is the £&, not here, of course, the act of instruction, but the object gained by instruction, the know¬ ledge of doctrine thereby acquired. On hihayfg are dependent the four genitives /3acrr/a rog ?) The right construction has been given by Calvin, Beza, Schlichting, Storr, Bohme, Paulus, and Bleek. They supply dida^g at eftiQzfcug, avacrdcsug, and Tog re¬ spectively. The writer therefore specifies four principal objects of the baptism and laying on of hands, which belong to the beginning of the Christian life, and with which are connected the forgiveness of sins and bestowal of gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection, together with the judgment, in which the life of the Christian Church finds its consummation, and which form the object of the Christian hope. 198 EPISTLE TO THE HEBPvEWS Y. 11 — VI. 20 . Ver. 3. Those who understand potipedu, ver. 1, as an inti¬ mation of the author s intended plan of teaching, must, as a matter of consequence, understand voifoofiiv, ver. 4,. also in the same way, and refer the rovro to the intimated transition to more difficult subjects, so that the author would here say, he designs, “ if God will,” now in fact to pass to what is more diffi¬ cult. But it will be difficult to see how what he says in ver. 4 —6, namely, that whosoever has fallen away from the faith can¬ not be again renewed, is subservient to this design either as argument or illustration. We who have understood fts()a, ver. 1 , as insinuative , i.e., as an exhortation, understand, of course, nodtofuv also in the same way, and refer roZro to the whole of what precedes, as well to the “ striving after perfec¬ tion” as to the not destroying the foundation of the furdvaa, Kiffns, and dioayj.” We thus obtain a sentiment with which ver. 4 connects in the closest and finest manner. The author seriously considers it as still a problematical thing whether the conversion to faith and the attainment of perfection be as yet possible for his readers. For, he says, he who has once fallen from the state of grace, can no more be renewed. Still, he adds, ver. 9, the hope that with his readers it has not yet come to an entire falling away. He therefore sets before them in ver. 4—8 the greatness of the danger, but gives them encourage¬ ment again in ver. 9, ss. Both taken together—the danger as well as the still existing possibility (but only the possibility) of returning—form the exegesis of the saws*. The thing rests upon the edge, but it is still upon the edge. Ver. 4—6. The impossibility of being renewed is declared of those who, a , were enlightened, who had tasted the heavenly gift, had become partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the gospel together with the powers of the future world, and then, h , have again fallen away. The first four particulars describe the various steps from the beginning of conversion, on to the perfect state of faith and grace. The beginning is described in the words an ag (punffdevrsc, the general designation for the knowledge of the truth. Conversion begins with this, that the man who tvas blind as regards himself blind in respect to his relation to God, his obligations to God, his undone state, his need of salvation, and therefore all the more blind in respect to the offered salvation EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11— VI. 20. 199 which he knew not and wished not to know, is now enlightened as to his own condition and the truth of the salvation in Christ; that he begins to perceive and to feel, that there is something more than deception and superstition in what is declared to him of the Hazarene. Has this knowledge been once gained; then it must he progressive—or the man must be lost; for this light, arises upon any one only once .—The second step is, that the man, taking hold of the salvation now, has the actual experience in and for himself, that in Christ a heavenly gift—grace, forgiveness, and strength—is offered to him.—If he accepts these gifts in humility and faith, he receives, thirdly, the gift of the Holy Ghost; his Saviour begins by his Spirit to be a living principle within him; and this has as its consequence a twofold fruit. He learns and experiences in himself the xaXbv Osov p h ua (== Josh. xxi. 43, xxiii. 14; Jer. xxix. 10, &c.)—God’s word of promise, i.e. of course the fulfilment of this word, consequently the whole riches of the inheritance of grace promised to the Messianic Israel—peace, joy, inclination to what is good, a new heart, &c.; and then, as a second fruit, he experiences in himself the powers of the ivorld to come. To these powers belong not merely those extraordinary miraculous gifts of the apostolic age (which may certainly be viewed also as anticipations of the final victory of the spirit over the flesh) , but all those gifts of sanctification and glorification which, even here below, give to the Christian the victory over the old Adam, and death.—This passage repels the slander of the young Hegelians and their associates who hold, that the Christianity of the Bible is a reli¬ gion of the future world and not of the present. Ho ! because it is a religion of the future state, it has power to elevate the present and to free it from the evils of sin which is the ruin of mankind. But the young Hegelians and their associates, because they have no future world, cannot do otherwise than corrupt and destroy the present. How, of him who has already passed over those stages in the Christian course and then falls away, it is here said that “it is impossible again to renew him,” i.e. the state of grace out of which he has fallen (the {izruvoiu conversion) 1 cannot be again 1 Others foolishly think that the state of Adam before the fall is here meant. 200 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11-VI. 20. restored in him; he is and remains lost. We must not shrink from these words or attempt to explain them away. The author assuredly does not mean (as some of the more ancient commen¬ tators thought) that such a one is not to he again baptised , although he may notwithstanding be saved ; just as little does he mean that only men cannot save him, but God notwithstanding may. He lays it down quite absolutely, “ it is impossible to renew him again to conversion.” This is one of those passages which speak of the so-called sin against the Holy Ghost , or more correctly of a fall that leads into irrecoverable perdition. It is well known, that on this subject there was a difference between the predestinarian Calvinists and the Lutherans, a difference extending even to the exegesis itself. The Calvinists founded their view on the passage in Matt. xii. 31, s., in which Christ warns the unbelieving Jews against com¬ mitting the sin against the Holy Ghost which can never be forgiven; further, on the passage 1 John ii. 19, where John says of certain individuals who had fallen away from Christianity to Gnosticism: “ They are gone out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us they would have continued with us.” Both passages were used by the Calvinists as a proof of the theorem that, a, one who is really born again cannot fall away, b, consequently he who falls away cannot have been really born again—a theorem which, we may observe, is not necessarily a consequence of the absolute doctrine of predestination, but is also conceivable independent of it. But how now is this to be reconciled with our passage Heb. vi. 4—6 ? with this passage in which we are taught, that there may be a falling away from a state of faith in the fullest and most proper sense of the term. Calvin laid emphasis on the word yivs&ii&ot ; individuals are here spoken of who had but tasted a little of the gifts of grace, and had received only “some sparks of light.” But whoever is not blinded by dogmatical prejudices must perceive, that the aim of our author is evidently and assuredly not to say: the less one has tasted of the gifts of grace the more easily may he be irrecoverably lost, but precisely the reverse : the more one has already penetrated into the sanctuary of the state of grace, by so much the more irrecoverably is he lost in case he should fall away. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11 —VI. 20. 201 Our passage, therefore, unmistakably declares the possibility that a regenerate person may fall away. But does it not herein contradict what is said in 1 John ii. 19 ? Not in the least! If in our own day a Christian preacher should write or say of people who had been corrupt members of the Church, and had become the prey of Ronge and other lying apostles: “ They have fallen away from us because they never belonged to us,” &c., who would infer from this, that that pastor virtually denies the possibility that those who are really regenerated may also fall away ? So it is with John. Of him who could become the prey of such manifest babblers and lying prophets as the Gnostics were, it must be inferred, that he had not pene¬ trated far into the substance of Christianity. From this, how¬ ever, it does not at all follow, that one also who has really attained to a state of grace in the fullest and most proper sense, may not, by becoming indolent in the struggle with the old Adam, and allowing a bosom sin to get the mastery over him, suffer shipwreck of faith. In oi3position to Calvin, then, we must lay down the following as the doctrine of the Holy Scripture on the sin against the Holy Ghost. There are three different ways specified in Scripture in which a man may be eternally lost. 1. The sin against the Holy Ghost properly so-called, Matth. xii. 31, s. when a man obstinately resists the call of grace, and repels all the first motions of theJHoly Spirit in his heart and conscience ; 2. 1 John ii. 19, when one embraces Christianity outwardly and superficially, without being truly born again, and then becomes a prey to the seducing talk of some vagabond babbler; and, 3. Heb. vi. 4—6, when one has been truly born again, but gives place to the evil principle in his heart, and being worsted in the struggle, suffers himself to be taken captive by some more refined temptation of Satan, some more refined lie (as here by a seemingly pious attachment to the insti¬ tutions of the old covenant). Why such a one is irrecoverably lost, we learn from the words in apposition to those we have considered: uwGravooZvrag, &c. Such a one commits, in a more aggravated degree, the sin which the unbelieving Jews committed against Christ. The Israelites crucified in their madness a pseudo-Messiah, or at the worst a 202 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11— VI. 20. prophet. But he who has known and experienced Jesus as his Saviour and Redeemer, and yet after all falls away from Chris¬ tianity, actually declares him whom he has known as the Son of God to be a pseudo-Messiah, and contemns him. If now by duvdfws are meant the gifts communicated by the laying on of hands, then (as the laying on of hands took place after baptism) the readers must have been baptised , and only taken again under instruction afterwards. Still dwd.usig may mean also the powers of sanctification in the wider sense. The former is however the more probable. Ver. 7, 8. The apostle here remembers Christ’s parable of the different kinds of ground. In this parable, however, we find the best refutation of the Calvinistic exegesis of ver. 4—6. The fruitful as well as the unfruitful soil received the same rain and blessing ; it is the fault of the soil if the seed is choked by thorns or evil lusts. The cause of the falling away lies not in the want of an abstract donum perseverantice withheld by God, but in a shortcoming in the struggle with the old man. In the words xara- eag iyyvg the author cannot intend to say that the curse is still uncertain (this is forbidden by the words that follow), they simply mean “it goes towards the curse,” “the curse is impending over it.” (Comp. chap. viii. 13 .)—’e }g xavw for the nominative y.avtng is a Hebraism = with the substantiae, comp. LXX. Is. xl. 16 ; xliv. 15. The meaning of the author is, of course, not that the thorns and thistles merelv, but that the whole land itself, shall be burned up with fire and brimstone (comp. Deut. xxix. 22). This is, then, a type of the eternal destruction of the individual who was compared with an unfruitful field. Yer. 9—12. The author now turns to the other side of the subject, to the comforting hope that in the case of his readers it has not yet come to a falling away. “ If we thus speak to you (in this style of earnest warning) we are yet persuaded of better things concerning you, of things that pertain to salvation.” (’e yj>- [wu (turyfag, a classical amplification of the adjectival idea = haud insalutaria. "E^s^a/ nvog } pertinere ad aliquid, to be con¬ nected with anything, to have part in anything. The expression is purposely left indefinite, and it is wrong to attempt to find in it one or another precise sense. ’E^o'v-gva (rwr^/a? forms only the general antithesis to xurugug lyyug, The change here from EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11- VI. 20. 203 severity to gentleness reminds us of the pauline passages Gal. iv. 12 and 19 ; 2 Cor. x., xi. Ver. 10. The more that the new life has already shown itself to he efficacious in a Christian, the more that the fruits of holiness have already been visible in him, so much the more safely may it be concluded that his has been a true central, fundamental, and deep conversion. The more that his Christianity consisted only of theory and head orthodoxy, so much the more reason is there to fear that the whole man has not been converted, so much the greater danger is there of a seeming conversion and a subsequent falling away. What the man has gained by mere dialects may again be entirely lost by mere dialects, amid the temptations of the flesh and the trials of suffering. The only sure mark of con¬ version is the presence of sanctification ; the only sure mark of continuance in the state of grace is progress in sanctification. Upon this truth the sentiment of ver. 10 is founded. Because the readers have already evinced, and do still evince, the visible fruits of faith in works of love and of service, the author cherishes the persuasion that God will not let them fall, will not withdraw his Spirit and the help of his grace from them. It is striking, however, that he here appeals to the justice of God. The Roman Catholic theologians have made use of this passage by way of confirming their theory of the meritum condigni. The natural man can indeed perform no good and meritorious works ; but the converted man can, by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, perform works perfectly good, and therefore meritorious, which God rewards by the communication of new gifts of grace. The evan¬ gelical theologians have justly opposed to this theory the truth, that the best works of the regenerate are still stained with sin and imperfect, and, in fact, that nothing is said in our passage of reivarding 'particular ivories. But the evangelical theologians have, in general, been able to find no other way of explaining this passage than by supposing, that the good works of the regenerate, although imperfect , yet received a reward of grace from God. This, however, is a contradictio in acljecto; what God gives out of grace in spite of our imperfection wants precisely for that reason the quality of a reward. —The truth is, there is another righteousness besides that which recompenses or rewards. The righteousness of God spoken of in our passage is that which 204 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11- VI. 20. leads, guides, and governs, every man according to the particular stage of development which he occupies. It is here affirmed of God that he does not give up to perdition a man who can still in any way be savedl, in whom the new life is not yet entirely ex¬ tinct, and who has not yet entirely fallen away; but that he seeks to draw every one as long as they will allow themselves to be drawn. This is not a judicial or recompensing righteousness towards man (for man has no right to demand the assisting grace of God as a thing deserved), but it is the righteousness of the Father towards the Son who has bought men with his blood, and to whom ice poor sinners still belong until ice have fallen away from him . Not towards us but toward Christ would the Father be ubi7.cc, were he to withdraw his gracious assistance from a man ere he has ceased to belong to the peculium of Christ. Yer. 11. The writer now expresses his earnest wish that his readers may advance in the Christian life with renewed zeal; that “ each one of them may now manifest, even to perfection, the same zeal in striving after the full assurance of hope/' as they had hitherto shown in the dyucrr,. The full assurance of hope is opposed to the wavering and uncertainty which they had hitherto shown, as to whether they might rely entirely and undividedly on the salvation and promise of Christ, or whether they required, together with this, the temple service, and Levitical priesthood. Yer. 12. The result of that zeal which the readers are to show is, that they may be no longer t wOw (as they have been hitherto, chap. v. 12), but may be equal to other Christians, not only in the uyu~'/\ biuvjmu blit also in the crtGrig and [j.u7ocbu;j/iu. M u7oc- 0 -j'mu, however, by no means denotes merely passive patience, the passive endurance of suffering, but as at Rom. ii. 7 even bieofian serves to denote active constancy, this is still more denoted here by [JjU7co0v;m j . Yer. 13—15. Here commences a somewhat more difficult train of thought which, by means of the particle yd?, is connected with the foregoing as an explanation. The question presents itself: What is said in ver. 13—15, and what is intended to be proven by it or to be inferred from it as an explanation of ver. 12 ? What is said, and said in words grammatically quite clear, is: God has sworn to Abraham (comp. Gen. xxii. 16, ss. with chap, xvii. 1, ss.) that he will bless him and multiply him. And from EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11 —VI. 20. 205 this it is inferred in ver. 15, that that ancestor of the covenant- people was thus also made a partaker of the promise through fiaxpoOufita. This idea of the fiaxgotfofitTv is evidently the con¬ necting link between ver. 12 and ver. 13—15. On the other hand, the words, God hath sworn by himself\ ver. 13, are at first only cited as an accessary circumstance which is after¬ wards brought into prominence in ver. 16, and made use of as a new and independent idea. (The words xard r^v rd%iv Mety/rtSix, chap. v. 6, are found to be cited quite in a similar way, and then, afterwards in chap vii., made to form properly a new theme. Similarly also the citation chap. iii. 7 —12 compared with ver. 15, ss. and chap. iv. 3 and 7.) The principal question then in the explanation of the three verses under consideration is, how far does the fact that God has sworn to Abraham that he will bless him and multiply him involve the inference, that Abraham attained to the (fulfilment of the) promise by f Bleek is certainly wrong w T hen, in spite of the xai ©Ur«, he will still not allow^ ver. 5 to be an inference from ver. 13,14, but finds in it a statement to the effect that Abraham deserved that promise of the blessing and multi¬ plying, by his constancy (in the faith) evinced at another time , namely, in the offering up of his son Isaac according to the command of God. The writer, indeed, does not in a single word point to the strength of faith shown in complying with the command to offer up Isaac ; but from the circumstance that God swore to Abraham to bless him and to midtiply him, he infers that Abraham obtained the promise (namely, the fulfilment of it) through the constancy of his faith. Now, whoever ascribes to our author a rabbinical method of exegesis which cleaves to words and to the letter must, here again, find himself greatly embar¬ rassed ; for here, as always, the vis argumentationis lies not in the letter, but in the thought. There are two particulars on which the force of the proof rests. First, God promised to Abraham with an oath ; this already implied that the fulfilment of the promise was to be looked for at some future time, for there can be no need of confirming with an oath the promise of a gift which is forthwith and immediately bestowed; an oath is then only necessary, when the fulfilment is so remote as to make it possible that doubts might spring up in the mind of the receiver of the promise from 206 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11— VI. 20. the long delay. Secondly, the subject-matter of the promise, the promised object itself. ’ was such as from the nature of the case could only be realised after the death of Abraham. He was to be blessed, and that by an immense multiplication of his seed; this could, from the nature of the case, be fulfilled only many generations after Abraham. Thus Abraham throughout his whole life saw nothing of the fulfilment of the promise which had been made to him (comp. chap. xi. 39); he was directed to continue until death in the constancy of the hope of that which he saio not. So also are the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews admonished not to rely on the earthly, visible, Jewish theocracy and its institutions, but with the constancy of Abraham’s faith to build their hope of salvation on the crucified Jesus who has gone into the heavens, whose followers still form a scattered flock, and who have nothing on earth but the hope of what is promised for the future. Yer. 16—19. The author now brings into prominence the accessary idea indicated in ver. 13: that God can swear by none greater than he is himself, and makes use of it for a new turn of the thought, namely, for the inference that, just because God is in himself unchangeable, a promise which he has not only given, but has, moreover, sworn by himself in confirmation of it, is absolutely sure and settled. In this certainty of the promises of God there lies a second motive for the readers to continue steadfast in the hope of the glory promised to the Messianic Israel (already in Abraham’s time). And from tins the author, having inwardly prepared his readers and opened their hearts , dexterously retraces his steps to his theme respecting the similarity between the Hew Testament Messianic priesthood and that of Melcliisedec. Yer. 16. tc Men swear by one who is greater (than themselves), and the oath is for certainty beyond all strife ” (for indisputable certainty.) This idea is in itself plain. Men swear by a being who is greater than they, who possesses omniscience enabling him to know the perjured person, and power and justice to punish him. The oath consists in this, that the person who swears calls the higher being to witness at once the promise and its fulfilment or non-fulfilment, and to be the eventual avenger of the latter. (Hence with the purified Christian every word is a tacit oath, inasmuch as it is spoken in the consciousness of the testimony of EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11— VI. 20. 207 the all-present and all-knowing God. And hence Christ forbids swearing by inanimate things (Matth. v. 34), and puts that state of mind in which every yea is a yea— i.e. in which every word, whether God be expressly called to witness or not, is spoken in the consciousness that God is witness—in the place of that swearing which was alike superstitious and false. Christ therefore does not forbid the oath, but he wills that the Christian should speak only oaths , and that in this way the difference between swearing and not swearing should find an end.) Yer. 16. Now in God , the possibility of wavering, or the want of veracity, and thus the necessity of a higher guarantee, falls absolutely to the ground. He is true, not on account of another or from fear of any other, but by his own nature. Therefore he can swear only by himself \ he can produce only himself and his own nature as the witness and guarantee of his veracity. It is true that for this very reason God's swearing by himself is an anthropopatliism, or more correctly a condescension to human infirmity. On his own account he needs not to swear; on his own account the form of swearing, the form of a promiser and a witness, might be dispensed with. But so long as to man the knowledge of the unchangeableness of God was still hidden or imperfect, God condescended to swear. With wonderful wisdom he stooped to the human presupposition of the possibility of change in God, therefore he sware ; but inasmuch as he sware by himself, he in the same act lifted man upwards to the knowledge that he has that in his own nature which hinders him from change. This idea, which was already briefly indicated in ver. 13, is further developed in ver. 17. ’Ev w, literally “ in which circumstances," = in these circum¬ stances, qua3 cum ita sint. Hence it may be rendered by “therefore" (Theopliylact,Erasmus,Schlichting, Grotius,Kuinoel, Glshausen, He Wette, Tholuck, Bleek, &c.) ’Ev w does not, however, belong to BovXo/xsvog. Rambach and others have ex¬ plained thus: as now by this (by conforming to the practice among men of swearing) God would show, &c.; the swearing of God is evidently, however, not placed parallel with the swearing of men, but in opposition to it, as already appears from the words dvOocaKoi ,usv ycto. ’Ev w belongs rather to g/4scvVsvcsv. 208 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Y. 11 —YI. 20. “ Therefore (because men swear by one superior to themselves) God , when he would show to the heirs of the promise the immu¬ tability of his will in a superabundantly sure way, placed himself in the middle” (between himself qua the promiser, and men). —M etirsva, se interponere, to place one's-self as mediator between two parties. Then specially in promises in the form of an oath, to place one’s-self as warranter, as fidejussor or security between the promiser and the receiver of the promise, in order to under¬ take the security for the fulfilment of the promise. God does this when a man swears by him ; he then lets himself be called by both men as a witness and guarantee. When, however, God swears by himself, he then as it were comes in between himself and men. In other words, he is his oivn witness. Ver. 18. “ Therefore we have firm consolation by two inde¬ structible things, in both of which it is impossible for God to lie —we who flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope at the future goal.” As God is in himself unchangeable and true, and needs not to swear, so his promise is in itself alone already sure and indestructible. But when, moreover, he appears not merely as promiser, but (inasmuch as he swears) also as [itGinvuv, as his own witness and security, then must the fulfilment be doubly sure, or, more precisely, a double testimony is given to the divine immutability. In the words which stand in apposition to the subject oi xara- , model ,; pattern , but the proper signification of cop>y, so that it was not the Mosaic tabernacle that was the nuoabuyfia (the original from which the copy was taken), but the heavenly things. The same idea lies in but in a still stronger form. The shadow of a body represents not even a proper image of it, but only the colourless contour. Now, that the Mosaic tabernacle was not an original but the copy of a heavenly original , the author proves from Ex. xxv. 40. In Ex. xxv. 40 Moses is told to build the tabernacle according to the mnn, that is, plan (not model, comp. Is. xliv. 13, where, ver. 13, the draught is first sketched, and then, ver. 14, the wood is sought for completing it; also 2 Kings xvi. 10; 1 Chron. xxviii. 11, where the signification “ plan, sketch,” is perfectly suitable, better certainly than the signification “model”)— according to the plan which Grod showed to him in the mount. These words already lead (as never denotes an indepen¬ dent original building , but always only a plan on a small sccde by * EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 249 which one is to be guided in the construction—and, even according to the common false explanation of the term, only a model in miniature) —these words, I say, already lead, not to the conception that there had been shown to Moses on Mount Sinai a large real tabernacle; still less, can the author s opinion of Ex. xxv. 40 be, that the original of the tabernacle stands permanently on Mount Sinai (as later Rabbins fabled), and least of all, that Moses looked forth into the heaven from the top of Sinai, and saw there in heaven the original structure. Either the words in Ex. xxv. 40 are to be taken as a figurative expression (so that the description in words , Ex. xxvi. ss., was called figuratively a plan which had been shown to Moses), or, there was really shown to Moses in a prophetic vision the draught of a building (comp. Ex. xxvi. 30) ; but still a draught or plan which, beyond his vision, had no existence.—The question now presents itself, whether our author understood the passage in this, the right way, or whether he misunderstood it after the manner of the later Rabbins. Now, it is first of all to be observed, that there are throughout no positive intimations that might necessitate our adopting this latter supposition. The whole reasoning retains its full force on the supposition, that he rightly understood the passage in ques¬ tion. The heavenly things themselves (the New Testament facts of salvation which were delineated in the tabernacle) were, indeed, not shown to Moses, but only a plan according to which he was to build that hypodeigmatic tabernacle, and be had as yet no consciousness of the prophetical signification of this build¬ ing. But, indeed, the force of the author s reasoning depends in nowise on whether Moses understood the typical signification of the tabernacle or not. Enough, that Moses himself did not make or invent the plan of the tabernacle , enough, that God gave him the plan —God, who knew well the symbolical signification of this plan. That the plan for the tabernacle was given by God —in this circumstance lies the nerve of the argument; for this reason is the Mosaic tabernacle a reflection of heavenly thoughts, ideas, relations. 1 1 Faber Stapulensis, Rivet, Schlichting, Storr, and Bleek, go still farther, and suppose even, that our author did not at all understand the word ruxos in the sense of ground-plan or model, but in the sense of copy , and that his object was expressly to say, that the model which was shown to Moses was 250 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. But further , there are even distinct reasons at hand for reject¬ ing the supposition, that the author conceived of an original tabernacle standing permanently in heaven, or on Mount Sinai. If he had conceived of this as in heaven, then he must either have said more plainly, Moses was permitted to look forth into the heaven from Mount Sinai, or he must have said more plainly (comp, the remarks above) : that which Moses saw on Sinai was itself again only a copy of the heavenly original. If, however, he conceived of this as standing on Mount Sinai, then this tabernacle would not have been Irrovodvia, but svl rfg be necessary to inquire here, first, whether the pot of manna, together with Aaron’s rod, really stood in the ark of the covenant, and then, why these two objects, which had no significance in respect to the cultus of the taber¬ nacle, are here mentioned. With regard to the first of these questions, the passages Ex. xvi. 33; Numb. xvii. 25; and 1 Kings viii. 9, have been strangely referred to in support of the view that those two things had their place not in, hut before, or beside the ark of the covenant. The two first of these passages, it is said, expressly affirm that they were placed before the ark; the third as ex¬ pressly denies that they were placed in the ark. But the very opposite of this is true. In Ex. xvi. 33, it is said, quite gene¬ rally, that Jehovah commanded Moses to lay up a T I •• • • pot full of manna for a memorial. Kow, so much, certainly, is true, that this expression does not positively affirm that the pot of manna was to he laid precisely in the ark of the covenant, for mrr-’js 1 ? is often used of any one who enters into the holy of holies, nay, even into the tabernacle and its fore-court; and so, when it is said of Moses, he came mrV“’3£)S, it is assuredly not meant that he went into the ark of the covenant. But neither does that expression forbid our associating it with the holy of holies, and the ark of the covenant. And, if the pot of manna was kept at all in the holy of holies, it must have been kept in the ark of the covenant; for, placed on the ground, it would soon have been spoiled (it is not to be forgotten that the tabernacle was daily moved from place to place), and there was no niche in the wall, as the walls consisted of hangings. Kow, as the ark w T as the only vessel in the holy of holies, it is reasonable to sup¬ pose that the pot of manna would have its place nowhere else than in it. If we are led to this conclusion already, a priori from Ex. xvi. 33, it is expressly confirmed, with respect to the pot of manna, by ver. 34, and, with respect to Aaron’s rod, by Kum. xvii. 25. For it is said there, of both these objects, that they were laid •• : . rnyn “ before the testimony.” Expositors have yet to produce V T a passage in which the ark was designated by my. The ark is called ]i1Kn or m^n-fm ; on the other hand, 270 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 - 10. rny is always, and everywhere, used to designate the decalogue or the tables of the laio , which, as is well known, lay in the ark. If now, for example, I have a microscope standing in a press, and I were to say, I have laid some article before the microscope, no rational man would understand me to say that I had laid it upon the ground, before the press in which the microscope stands, but every one would understand that I have laid it in the press, and before the microscope there. Just so is it with the pot of manna and Aaron s rod. If they were laid before the tables of the law, then must they have been placed on the same level with these, therefore on the bottom of the ark, not on the ground be¬ fore the ark. Bleek himself admits it to be possible (ii. p. 458) that Ex. xxx. 6 may have the meaning, that the altar of incense, because it was , stood in the holy of holies, notwith¬ standing of its being expressly said shortly before that it stood “ before the vail/' and yet, he all at once* repudiates the very natural interpretation of Ex. xvi. 34, that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod because rnyn OdS, had their place in the ark. •* •• t •• • • We have still to look at the passage in 1 Kings viii. 9. It is here said, certainly, that “ there was nothing in the ark except the two tables," but what time is it that is here spoken of? The time of Solomon ! Now, that in the time of Solomon the golden pot of manna and Aaron's rod should have been lost will not seriously surprise any one. Had not die ark been long in the hands of the Philistines, and carried about from place to place ? Might not the Philistines have thrown aside the seemingly worthless rod of Aaron, and taken away the more valuable pot of manna ? Let us now, however, inquire finally, why then in general the circumstance is mentioned in 1 Kings viii. 9, that in Solomon’s time, when the ark was brought into the temple, “ nothing was in it save the two tables." Certainly not for the purpose of obviating any idea that there might, perhaps, be in the ark, besides these, some bowls, plates, caps, &c. &c. It is quite evident that the statement has then only a meaning when it is supposed, that there was something else besides the tables belonging properly to the ark , which one might justly and reason¬ ably expect to find in it. Now, let any one search through the whole of the Old Testament, and he will be able to discover no EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10 . 271 other objects that could be expected in the ark besides the tables, except the pot of manna and Aaron s rod mentioned in Ex. xvi. and Num. xvii. Thus, then, the passage 1 Kings viii. 9 speaks not of what belonged to the ark in Moses’ time, but of what was found in it in the time of Solomon. With an emphasis expressive of surprise, it is observed, that “ the tables only were found in it,” i.e. that the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod had been lost. This very passage, therefore, contains a decided testimony, that both of these objects, so long as they yet existed, had their place in the ark of the covenant.—The second question is, why the author in general , mentions these objects which, in reference to the cultus, had no special significance ? In ver 5 he says expressly, that, in so far as his object was concerned, he might pass over the more particular description of the cherubim ; surely then, he must have had a special reason for not passing over the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod ? This reason consisted, on the one hand, perhaps in this, that he wished to show how, in the innermost sanctuary, there were not merely the tables of the law but also memorials of divine miracles of mercy; 1 on the other hand, however, and chiefly, in this, that the manna which fell from heaven, and the miraculously budding almond-branch of Aaron formed a contrast with the ordinary earthly products of the land which were daily and weekly brought to the holy place. The cherubic forms mentioned in ver. 5, which (two in number) were brought to the mercy-lid, have no independ¬ ent symbolical signification. They served only the sestheti- cal purpose of mediating between the accusing testimony which lay beneath them, and the cloud that hovered above them, in which God at times manifested himself. Thus, below, they formed, as it were, the guardians who kept watch over the records of the law, and, above, with their wings they formed, as it were, the throne upon which the cloud of revelation moved when it appeared. Hence, as Tholuck rightly observes, God is spoken of in the Psalms now, as “he who sitteth on the cherubim;” again, “a throne of the glory of the Lord ” is spoken of, i.e. a throne of 1 Olshausen finds in the pot of manna a symbol of the heavenly spiritual bread of life, in Aaron’s rod (less happily) a symbol of regeneration. Comp, on this our remarks on the words nXuorl^us trxw'f.s, infra ver. 11. 272 EPISTLE TO THE HEBKEWS IX. 1 — 10 . that cloud,—from which it is evident that the cloud, when it appeared, appeared over the cherubim. (The rabbinical doc¬ trine of the “Shekinah” is fabulous only in so far as they considered this cloud to hover permanently over the cherubim. In opposition to this comp. 1 Kings viii. 10, but on the other side also Ex. xxv. 22; Num. vii. 89 ; 1 Sam. iv. 4, and 22; 2 Sam. vi. 2). The genitive dogqs is, therefore, also (with Ham¬ mond, Deyling, Braun, Schottgen, Michaelis, Bohme, Tholuck, Bleek, &c.) to be explained of the cloud, which, indeed, is in the Old Testament frequently called TH3H. They are called t “ “ cherubim of glory,” because they bore “ the glory of the Lord.” Beza, Kuinoel, Olshausen, and others, have taken ^ng as the gen. expressive of quality (“ glorious cherubim”), but to what purpose would be such a predicate here, as in its vague generality would not even be parallel with the descriptive epithets golden , overlaid with gold , ver. 4 ? Yer. 6, 7. The author, having thus noticed the construction of the tabernacle, proceeds to consider the significance and desti¬ nation of its two compartments. And in ver. 6, 7, be simply notices the acts of worship which were performed in each. e H irgtirq axrivri, as at ver. 2 the holy place. Aia-avrog is explained by the antithesis acrag rou Iviavrov , and signifies, therefore, not continually, absolutely without interruption, but without such interruptions as, according to ver. 7, characterised the worship in the holy of holies, which was performed only once in the year. The acts of worship in the holy place were performed, in part, daily, and, in part, weekly. Daily the high priest presented the offering of incense on the altar of incense, daily was the candle¬ stick supplied with the oil; while the show-bread was laid out weekly. The pres. (comp. ver. 9, xaifog Ivscrug, n£o(>$i!ov7ai) can be explained only the supposition, that when the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Old Testament temple worship was still in existence, consequently, that this epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. In the description of the construction of the sanctuary, the author, for a very intelligible reason, has not had in view the Herodian temple, but has adhered to the description given in the Penta¬ teuch of the original sanctuary, the tabernacle; here, however, when he speaks of the acts of worship, he describes them, with EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1—10. 273 w equal reason, as still continuing ; for the acts had remained the same, and also the distinction between the holy place and the holy of holies, changed only in its outward form, had been main¬ tained unaltered in the temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod. 1 The high priest went once every year into the holy of holies. It is needlessly asked, whether the high priest, on the great day of atonement, did not enter twice in succession into the holy of holies. He certainly did this, as we learn, not merely from Philo, but also from Lev. xvi. 12—14, and ver. 15 ; 2 but this is not in contradiction to our passage. Our author himself indicates in the words, for his oivn sins and the sins of the people, that this act, which was done once in the year, consisted of two parts.—On dyvorjf&druv comp, what is said at chap. v. 2. Yer. 8—10. From the fact that the worship of the taber¬ nacle consisted of two parts, as described in ver. 6 — 7, the author infers , in ver. 8, that the division of the tabernacle into two parts, as described in ver. 1—5, implied an imperfection. This infer¬ ence, however, finds its link of connection and its explanation in the relative sentence ver. 9,10. The connection of the thought as a whole is very subtle, and can be apparent and intelligible only to those who have understood all that lies in ver. 6 , 7. For ver. 6 , 7 has a twofold reference. In it, first of all (as is quite evident), the section v. 1—10 on the construction of the taber¬ nacle is brought to a close, and an inference drawn backwards from the service of the tabernacle to its construction and des¬ tination. But in this verse, also, the way is prepared, at the same time, for the idea which follows, that the Old Testament sanctuary as a whole was merely of a relative character. In ver. 6 , 7, then, first of all, notice is taken of the difference between the (relatively) holy place and (absolutely) holy of holies , and 1 Bleek infers, on the contrary, from the connection of the pres, with the words 7ovtuv 2s ourcos, &c., that the author must have believed that all the things which he names were still to be found in the temple! Why does Bleek not go just a step farther, and charge the author with believing that there was as yet no temple, but that the old tabernacle was still standing ? 2 The statement of the later Maimonides, that the high priest entered into the holy of holies four times on that day, is of no value against the testimony of Philo. S 274 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10 . then it is at the same time also indicated, that, jnst on account of this distinction, the tabernacle as a ivhole was of a merely relative character in comparison with the New Testament ful¬ filment. First, notice is taken of the distinction between the (relatively) holy place and the (absolutely) holy of holies. In the one place there was a daily service; this service is not more particularly described here, but its general character appears from the antithetical expression in ver. 7, not ivithout blood. The service in the holy place was without blood; the priest brought oil and bread, never an offering of blood. No atoning act was ever performed in the holy place, but always only a representation of the occasional relative holiness or conformity to the law. But what follows from this distinction P That the people were relatively holy, but regarded from an absolute point of view, were unholy , and remained so in spite of the atonement which was repeated every year. (Comp, the preceding general observations on ver. 2.) It followed therefore, in other words, from the continued existence of a holy place (a symbol of rela¬ tive holiness) side by side with the holy of holies, the place of atonement, that the atonement itself was as yet merely relative , that the true place of atonement had not yet been opened, or that “ the place of atonement had not yet been truly opened/ 7 What is subjoined to this by means of the gen. absolute (“inasmuch as the Holy Ghost thereby showed 77 is easy and intelligible. That Holy Ghost, according to whose eternal plan (comp. chap. viii. 5) the tabernacle was built, intended to indicate by the separation between the holy place and the holy of holies, a second , a further truth (besides the distinction of relative holiness and absolute atonement), namely, that here , in the tabernacle , the absolute also ivas as yet relative. This is the idea in ver. 8. "Ay/a (comp. ver. 3), the holy of holies; the genitive is the genitive of direction (as in Matt. x. 5 ; LXX 2 Sam. xviii. 23). The way into the holiest of all was not opened (literally, not yet shown, revealed 1 ), the holiest 1 The author seems here to allude to the event, recorded in Matt, xxvii. 51. Otherwise, he would have said simply : rb eu/xa- 70 * forms the simple antithesis to d/a ^s^a/ never signifies existere , as Schulz and Bohme would have it; it certainly signi¬ fies ver sari , for example, h rzra^yiLkmg does not signify precisely “substance” (Luther, Peschito), much less does it denote the “ mere image” in opposition to the “ thing” (Oecumenius, Gregory of Nazianzum, Calvin, Tholuck), as if it were meant to be said that the law is the shadow of the gospel, the gospel itself again, however, only an image of the good things to come; dix&v denotes here simply the form in oppo¬ sition to the mere shadow. The genitive ruv vgaytidrw is genitive of the substance. The form of the things themselves = the form, namely, the things themselves. The whole of this apposition is designed to show, how far it was possible and allow¬ able to speak unfavourably of the Old Testament, and that this was done not from contempt of the Old Testament, but because, according to its divine destination, it was to be, and must be, imperfect. Comp, the remarks on chap. iv. 2, and especially the passages chap. vii. 18 ; viii. 7, ss. What now is affirmed of this vopog f It was not able, year by year, with the same sacrifices which were continually offered, to make the comers thereunto perfect. Kaf iv/avrov belongs of course to the verb. Year by year (the author here in the word Qudaig has evidently in his mind chiefly the yearly sacrifice of atonement) the law remained incapable of making the comers thereunto perfect by its sacrifices, how uninter¬ ruptedly soever these also were offered. (Lachmann and Paulus join %)g ro htrinxkg with rsXeiutui ; but then the remain¬ ing part of the relative clause becomes meaningless. Besides, the author says in ver. 3 also, not merely that those sacrifices were not able permanently to make perfect, but that they effected no atonement whatever , that they rather only pointed to the need of such an atonement.) Instead of dvmrai A, C, many ver¬ sions and the Peschito (here, however, giving generally a free translation) read dvvavrcci. Then : is, however, already externally better attested (by A, C, D, E, Copt., Arab., Ital. Also a reading M xav is explicable only from the matrix EiiEiorKAN). It is, besides, easy to see how transcribers might come to omit the ovx. The whole sentence (with oux) has meaning only when taken as a question (“ would they not then have ceased to be offered ? as the worshippers once purged would have had no more consciousness of sin”). But if a transcriber overlooked this, and read the sentence as a thetical proposition, he must then, certainly, have held it necessary to cancel the ovx .—The idea is easily understood. The Old Testa¬ ment sacrifices did not take away the consciousness of sin , but only brought to remembrance (ver. 3) year by year the presence of sin and guilt, and, therewith; the (continual, still unsatisfied) need of a real propitiation. That the Old Testament sacrifices could not really atone for sin is, in ver. 2, inferred from the fact of their repetition ; it would have been a meaningless ordinance if God had enjoined the repetition of a sacrifice winch had already, the first time it was offered, really taken away the guilt of sin from man or from Israel. In ver. 4 the same thing, namely, the inefficacy of the Old Testament sacrifices to make real atonement is inferred from the very nature of these sacrifices. The blood of irrational animals cannot possibly take away moral guilt. (Comp. chap, ix. 14.) There is wanting in these, the two things which are necessary to a true substitution. A sacrifice which shall truly take upon itself the punishment of another’s guilt must, firstly, be able to bear the same sufferings as ought to have been borne by the guilty person, therefore, not a merely bodily pain or death, but an inward suffering of the man endowed with a rational soul. A true sacrifice must, secondly, after having as a substitute endured the suffering, be able to remove again the element of substitution, i.e., to place itself* in a relation of internal oneness with the party represented ; it is thus that the merit of Christ’s suffering is appropriated by us, inasmuch as, although we stood beside him as other and different persons when he suffered (so 304 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 —X. 18. that he did all that was necessary for us without our assistance and co-operation), we now no longer continue to stand hesicle him, but, by his spirit on his part, and by faith on ours, become members of him, to whom all now really belongs that belongs to him. For we become righteous, not as individuals , the descend¬ ants of the first Adam, but as those who by faith have given up themselves, who have given themselves to the death, and are now willing to have any merit before God only in so far as these belong to Christ and he belongs to them. Both these conditions were impossible in the animal sacrifices. Yer. 5—10. The writer in these verses shows, that cdreacly also in the Old Testament itself \ there are intimations of the necessity of another, a better sacrifice than that of animals. In the citation from Ps. xl. 7—9 the author follows the Sept. As the Sept., however, deviates from the original, the question arises whether it has at least rendered substantially the sense of the passage.—After enumerating the wonderful and gracious acts of God, the Psalmist says: “ Sacrifice and offering thou hast not desired; DHD ; burnt-offering and sin-offerings thou . t . t • - : lias not required.” He evidently in these words “ D\3TK intends to place in opposition to the external sacrifices one of an internal and better kind, and some sacrifice or other of this kind must at least implicitly be designated by those words, “ mine ears hast thou digged out.” The older commentators, as also Olshausen, referred this digging of the ears in general to that boring through the lap of the ear of which we read in Ex. xxi. 6. When, namely, a servant had it in his power to become free, but pre¬ ferred of his own accord to continue for the rest of his life in the sendee of the master with whom he had hitherto been, he was, in token of this, to let (yy*1) his ear (the lap of the ear) be bored through by his master. The majority of the more recent com¬ mentators (Hengstenberg, Stier, Hitzig, Tlioluck, Bleek), on the other hand, take n*”0 in the sense of r6:. To say that God has “ digged out the ears ” of a man, is equivalent to saying that he has given him ears, made ears for him.” The creation or formation of an ear in the head is figuratively denoted as the digging out of an ear. And, indeed, the verb JT“D (used gene¬ rally of the digging of a well, a pit, and the like) would suit this representation. The meaning then would be: “ Thou wiliest EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11— X. 18. 805 not sacrifice, but thou hast given me an ear, a capacity to hear thy commands, and thus has pointed out what sacrifices are acceptable to thee.” Meanwhile, I am doubtful after all whether the author has not had in his mind that command in Ex. xxi. 6 ; the boring through the lap of the ear might poetically be denoted as a digging through it, and then the sentiment: “ I have let my ear be bored through by thee, i.e. I have freely given myself to be thy servant for the whole of my life,” forms, certainly, a finer and fuller antithesis to the words, “ burnt-offering, &c., thou wiliest not,” than that somewhat vague idea, “ thou hast made ears for me.” But, be this as it may, one tiring evidently lies in the words—the Psalmist places obedience , as the true sacrifice, in opposition to the animal sacrifices. The reading in the Sept., according to Bleek’s opinion, was originally wra or wr/a ; cup a is said to have first slipped in as a different reading, because the expression wr« ds xar^r/Mr\) ; “ in the roll of the hook it is written of me ; to do thy will, my God, is my delight!" That the author omits the verb l(3ovXii97jv ) so that now rou votnaat is dependent on vixen and the words ^ zs?) = I know jto requite/ I have the will and the power to do so ; so that t|he emphasis lies not on spot but on the word extixws, and our EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 32— XI. 1. 323 author has applied the passage quite correctly. The other passage, Ps. cxxxv. 14, needs no explanation, and as little does the exclamation, ver. 31, which closes the section. SECTION THIRD. (Chap. x. 32—xi. 1.) SECOND MOTIVE. CALLING TO MIND THEIR FORMER FAITH. Yer. 32, 33. The transition is similar to that at chap. vi. 10. The readers have already at an earlier period endured manifold trials for their faith; in this lies a double motive for them not to fall away from their faith now; first, because thereby all their former sufferings would be rendered vain; and, secondly, that suffering itself was an experimental testimony to the power of faith.— &wr/gOevrec, denotes here, as at chap. vi. 4, the first step in conversion (see the remarks there made). ”AOXycig a later Greek word for the classic aOXog. The struggles they had passed through were twofold; partly, they had already them¬ selves become to the mass of unbelievers and enemies a spectacle (of malicious pleasure, of contempt, of delight in cruelty), inas¬ much as they had endured shame and ignominy of all kinds (oi/g/^/o'/xo/), nay, even actual afflictions (OXifug ); partly, they had become companions of those who were so circumstanced (uvut- rp'stpeaQai, not pass, but mid. se gerere, ver sari. By this is gener¬ ally understood, that the readers must have seen many individuals of their acquaintance enduring contempt and affliction ; but the expression tco/i/wvo/ yzvriQwreg (not yivo/Aevoi) rather indicates, that they in the act of their conversion had , once for all, become members of the society , of which they knew that such things happen and are wont to happen to it. Yer. 34. Instead of ha^ioig (A.D., Peschito, Philoxen., Armen., Yulgate, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius) many versions and the lectio recepta read ds^oTg The latter reading, how¬ ever, has less of external testimony in its favour, and, besides, 324 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 32—XI. 1. might more easily take its rise out of ha^ktg (from regard to conformity with 2 Tim. i. 16, and its being taken for granted that Paul was the author) than wee versa. Moreover, ds j, in which, however, this xvruv would be by far too vague. EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2—XII. 3. 341 round the walls of Jericho (ver. 30) with the blowing of trumpets instead of laying siege to it (Josh. vi.). And Baliab, too, -was saved by her faith, she who trembled before the mighty God,— “ who is a God both above in heaven, and beneath on the earth,” —and saved the messengers of his people, and was therefore pre¬ served from the destruction of the city (in the power of this faith, however, also changed her conduct, comp. Matth. i. 5). Yer. 32—34. The author by means of the rhetorical formula of transition, now breaks off from adducing particular examples in detail, and passes to a summary enumeration of names (ver. 32) and actions (ver. 33, 34). The opinion of Bengel and others, that the particular acts correspond to those particular names (so that xarriyuvitjavro f3affiXs/ag refers to Gideon, g/gyatfat/ro oizuiocr-jvyiv to Barak, aroiMzrcL Xzovruv to Samson), is fanciful, and, in reference to ver. 35, not capable of being carried out. The relation of ver. 32 to ver. 33, 34 is rather to be understood thus: The author, first of all , passes from the detailed description of particular examples of faith to a (con¬ secutive) enumeration of heroes of faith, then, however, as a longer continuation of the mere catalogue of names would have been dry, he breaks off from this also, and now (ver. 33, ss.) he groups together mere general classes of acts resulting from faith. Of course, the particular examples of these genera may be pointed out in the Old Testament history, but not so as that only one example always corresponds to each genus. Thus, the subduing of kingdoms was an act of which there were frequent examples. Certainly Gideon, also, subdued the power of a kingdom, that of Midian, and he did so by that faith in which, trusting more to God’s promise than to horses and chariots, he dismissed the d eatest part of his army (Jud. vi. 7). But Jonathan, too, when i lone with his armour-bearer, he climbed up the rock Seneh, and drove the enemies' host to flight, in the strength of the faith that it is easy for the Lord to help by many or by few (1 Sam. xiv. 6, ss.),—and David, when in the power of faith, he slew the giant (1 Sam. xvii. 25),—and Samson, and many others, might here be adduced as examples. Wrought righteousness in their official station :—this did all the judges, chiefly Samuel, in like manner the pious kings ; and, in their private relations, all the righteous persons of the Old Testament; still the author must 342 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2— XII. 3. have had the first especially in view. This administration of justice was also not possible without that state of mind which, apart from all regard to earthly advantage, has respect only to the will of God, nor is it possible yet, in our own day, without this “ faith,” hence, neither in the private nor the public adminis¬ tration of justice can a people be happy, if in the one case, as in the other, it be not administered by God-fearing persons. Ob¬ tained promises :—chiefly of David was this true (2 Sam. vii.), then, of course, also of the entire series of the prophets briefly mentioned in ver. 32. (’E nayyiX'iQi denotes here not, as at ver. 13 and 39, the promised thing, i.e., the fulfilment, but the prophecies themselves. The proof lies precisely in ver. 39.) Stopped the mouths of lions :—Daniel did this (Dan. vi. 17, comp, ver. 23); less direct is the reference to Samson (Jud. xiv. 6) and David (2 Sam. xvii. 34, ss.). Quenched the violence of fire :— this did the friends of Daniel (Dan. iii.); they, like Daniel himself, steadfastly maintained the profession of the invisible true God, and held his almighty power to be greater than the might of the Babylonian and Median kings (Dan. iii. 17; vi. 10 and 20). Escaped the sivord: —David did so (1 Sam. xviii. 11; xix. 10, ss. &c.), Elias (1 Kings xix. 1 and 10), and Elisha (2 Kings vi. 14, ss. and 31, ss.), but only in the case of Elisha was the escape a positive act of faith, brought about by faith, hence the reference may be properly limited to him (namely, the incident recorded in 2 Kings vi. 14, ss., where he is represented as seeing the invisible hosts of God). Out of weakness were made strong :— such was Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 3 and 5), and that in conse¬ quence of a believing prayer. Others, with less propriety, refer this to Samson (Jud. xv., xvi.), whose strength returned to him unconsciously, and without an act of faith on his part. Waxed valiant in fight ,—almost all the J udges were heroes in battle, then Jonathan, David, &c. K Xtvziv Mr\g, “ the travellers by land, the travellers by sea,” so 378 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII. Polyb. 5, 86,10, o] avo rtjg' AXegavdpe/as (3a/^ov), a mere mistake, so much, at all events, may be inferred from the nature of the accusation, as also chiefly from ver. 24, that at that time Jewish Christians , as circumcised and as native Israelites, were not prohibited from going into the temple. The Epistle to the Hebrews must therefore have been written after the year 58, but it cannot have been written very soon after the event recorded in Acts xxi. There must have been an interval during which the hatred of the Jews against Christianity rose to a degree considerably higher. As the extreme terminus ad quern , the year 66 offers itself, which was the first year of the Jewish war. That the Epistle to the Hebrews was written before the destruction of Jerusalem appears not only from those particular passages in which the Levitical ritual is spoken of as still subsisting (chap. ix. 8, x. 1), but, even if we had not those passages, might be inferred, with undoubted certainty, from the import and the practical aim of the epistle. We must evidently come down a series of years from that extreme terminus ad quern; it is not probable that the epistle was written immediately before the beginning of the war, when the external fermentation and decomposition of the Israel- itish national life had already come to a height. The circum¬ stances presupposed in the epistle resemble much more the first beginning of that fermentation than its completion. Certain nyovpsvot had already, we know, suffered martyrdom (chap. xiii. 7) ; the readers themselves, also, had already suffered loss in their earthly possessions (chap. x. 34), and many of their fellow-believers had been imprisoned; they themselves, however, had not yet needed to strive even unto blood (chap. xii. 4, comp, our remarks on the passage). On the other hand, it is taken APPENDIX. 385 for granted everywhere in the hortatory portions, that severer persecutions may come, nay, will come ; the readers are systemati¬ cally prepared for these, and exhorted to submit to the sufferings that were before them as a discipline from God (xii. 5, ss.), not to become faint-hearted (x. 38, s.), to persevere in patience (x. 36), to imitate the faith of the martyrs (xiii. 7), and, like Christ and all the Old Testament saints, to keep fixedly and alone before their eye the future goal, the entrance into the holiest of all (chap. xi. and chap. xii. 1—3). Do we find, now, traces of the condition of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem growing worse after the year 58 P First of all, the persecution under Nero in July 64 may be mentioned, which, although it did not extend over the orbis terrarum, must yet have reacted also on Palestine. Were the Jews already full of bitterness against the Christians, and was their fury restrained from arbitrary out¬ breaks only by the power of the Romans, then the Neronic persecution would certainly be a signal for them which would not require to be given a second time. To persecute these Christians who were now held to be criminals against Ceesar, was no longer wrong, and would bring with it no danger. These Christians, whose leaders, Peter and Paul, had been murdered so shortly after each other as criminals and rebels, had no claim to, and no hope of, protection on the part of the Romans. Cer¬ tainly, then, there began in the summer or harvest of the year 64 a season of aggravated persecution for the Christians of Jeru¬ salem. But this aggravation was not the first since the year 58. Already, under the procuratorship of Porcius Festus (60—62), according to the accounts of that period which Josephus has left behind him, the unbridled spirit of the Jews rose to a height hitherto unknown. Already in the year 57 (comp. Wieseler's Cliron. d. Apgsch., p. 79) a first attempt at insurrection on a large scale was made, that of the Sicarii, but was put down (Acts xxi. 38; Jos. Antiq., xx. 8, 5, s.; Bell. jud. ii. 13, 3, s.); under Festus, again, arose the multitude of Goetes and false Messiahs; the fever of false Maccabeism raged widely, and ate into the vitals of a people become inwardly corrupt and morally dissolute. The Roman scourge came down ever more heavily on the subdued rebels (Jos. Antiq. xxiv. 5 ; xxv. 8). We can 2 B 386 APPENDIX. easily see now, how the Christians as “ adherents of a Messiah” must have been exposed to the suspicion of the Gentile magis¬ trates, who it can hardly be supposed would investigate with any great care into the nature and character of each particular Messiah, but in whose eyes all hope of a Messiah and all speak¬ ing of a Messiah must soon have been stamped as unlawful, and scouted as a Jewish association for treasonable purposes, after some dozen of Messiahs had, one after another, put themselves forth as agitators and rebels. How easy, in these circumstances, must it have become for the Jews to blacken the Christians in the eyes of the Romans, or to obtain a bill of indemnity for any arbitrary persecutions of the Jews ! It is certain, then, that the year 60 or 61 formed an epoch of increased trouble to the Christians, and Josephus expressly relates (Antiq. .xx., ix. 1) that after the departure of Festus, and before the arrival of his successor Albinus, the Apostle James, the son of Alphseus, was stoned at the instigation of the high priest, Annas the younger. This murder was certainly the signal for something further. Accordingly in the year 62, the difficulties of the Christians in Jerusalem began to increase, and in the harvest of 64 there was a second and still greater aggravation of them. We can suppose, therefore, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written either late in the summer of 64—in which case the passage chap, xiii. 7 will refer to the death of the Apostles Peter and Paul, which, as we have seen, is not absolutely impossible—or it might have been written in the year 62 or 63, after the death of James the son of Alphaeus—in which case the passage chap. xiii. 7 would have to be referred chiefly to James the son of Alphseus, whose mere name must of itself, however, have reminded the readers of the earlier death of James the son of Zebedee. We may, in the mean time, choose either of these two dates, although the passage chap. xiii. 7 is certainly capable of a simpler explana¬ tion according to the latter supposition, for then the author would allude to the martyrdom of men who had actually suffered death before the eyes of the readers, and were therefore 'patterns to them of faith in the proper sense of the term, and who also in the strictest sense had been jjyofytsvo/ in the church at Jerusalem. (The readers might thus have witnessed the death even of James the son of Zebedee, although they were still at that time Jews. APPENDIX. 387 And he, too, might be reckoned among the nyovumt be¬ cause he had laboured in the church with which the readers had since become connected, and as one of the Apostles whose divine calling they acknowledged since then conversion.) Let us see, now, whether the passage chap. xiii. 23 gives any more definite information as to the time when the Epistle to the Hebrews was written. Timothy had been in prison, and had just recovered his freedom when the epistle was written, or at least when it was sent off. At the same time we have gathered from the passage chap. xiii. 23, 24, that the person who wrote or worked out the epistle was free, was in Italy, in a different place, however, from Timothy (if Timothy, who has just been set free, comes to him soon he will set out with him to the east), that on the other hand, the proper author of the epistle from whom the material (but not the diction, comp. chap. xiii. 22) emanates, and in whose name the epistle on to chap. xiii. 21 is written, was by no means so independent as to be able to set out as soon as he might please to Jerusalem, but was so restrained by the circumstances of some kind or other in which he was involuntarily placed, that he exhorted his readers (chap. xiii. 19) to pray God that he might be again restored to them. Now, ivhen could Timothy have been in prison in Italy t —Dur¬ ing the imprisonment of the Apostle Paul at Rome, several of his helpers were involved in the judicial procedure against him and detained for a while in custody; so Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10) and Epapliras (Philem. 23). It is not impossible that Timothy, also, might have been kept in confinement at that time. When the Apostle Paul wrote the epistles to the Colossians and Philip- pians, Timothy was actually with him (Col. i. 1 ; Phil. i. 1 ; ii. 19). True, the Apostle does not precisely designate him as his fellow-prisoner, and makes no precise mention of an imprisonment of Timothy ; but even the circumstance that the Epistle to the Philippians was written precisely in the name of Paul and Timothy (i. 1), and that Timothy, thereby, joins in the thanks¬ giving for the gift which was sent dg —this circumstance almost warrants the reference, that Timothy was imprisoned together with Paul. - Just because the apostle throughout the whole epistle speaks in his oiun person, addresses his exhortations in his own name, speaks chap. iii. 4, ss., of his own—exclusively 388 APPENDIX. of his own—former circumstances, because, in a word, Timothy has no part in the contents of the writing,—that superscription. Paul and Timothy , servants of Jesus Christ , would properly have had no meaning if it did not point to this, that the occasion of the epistle—the gift which had been received—equally concerned Timothy and Paul, 1 and this, indeed, is only conceivable on the supposition that Timothy shared in the fate of Paul as a prisoner. The analogous passage Col. i. 1 would then have a similar explar- nation. This supposition is confirmed, however, by the passage Phil. ii. 19. Paul hopes that he will be able soon to send Timothy into the East. Why is this an object of hope to him ? If Timothy was free, then he might simply have determined to send him thither. He hopes to send him, so soon as he knows how it may go with his own case (ver. 23), and, in the same way, he hopes or “trusts” (ver. 24) that the Lord will soon procure free¬ dom for himself “ also.” These words, that I also myself shall come shortly , are so parallel with the words I hope to send Timothy shortly unto you , that it is not too bold to suppose, that Timothy also, who “ as a son with the father hath served with me ” (ver. 22), and who alone of all has not sought his own (ver. 20, 21), was involved in the procedure against Paul and imprisoned. If Timothy had been free, why did not Paul send him at once with Epaphroditus, or rather why did he not send him instead: of Epaph- roditus, who (ver. 27) had just recovered from a deadly disease P It is not to be supposed that we adduce these passages as affording a conclusive proof that Timothy was at that time in prison with Paul, but we think we have only shown from them the possibility that he may have been at that time in prison. The Epistle to the Philippians was written in the year 62, at all events before the third year of Pauls imprisonment at Rome, where his situation became worse. How, if the setting at liberty of Timothy recorded in Heb. xiii. 23 is identical with that which Paul hopes for in Phil. ii. 19, then the Epistle to the Hebrews was written somewhere towards the end of the year 62, therefore, just after the death of James the son of Alphmus. i The circumstance that Timothy may, perhaps, have written the Epistle to the Philippians as ra^vy^aipes does not suffice to explain the superscription Phil, i, 1. The tachygraphist never wrote his name in the superscription along with that of Paul. APPENDIX. 389 If this were the only time when an imprisonment of Timothy in Italy is conceivable, then would the choice which was left open above, between the year 62 and the year 64, be thereby already determined. But Timothy, after having been actually sent by Paul into the East, was urgently entreated by Paul (2 Tim. iv. 21), whose case in the meanwhile (during the first half of the year 63) had taken a very serious turn, to come back to him before the harvest of 63. We may be sure that he complied with this request of his “father.” Then, however, it is possible that he himself was involved in the procedure against Paul,— possible also, that after Paul’s death he was taken prisoner in the persecution under Hero (July 64). In short , an imprisonment of Timothy in Italy may likewise be conceived of as possible in the year 64; only, that his being again set at liberty is less pro¬ bable on this occasion than in the year 62. We have therefore not yet got beyond the alternative between the harvest of 62 and late in the summer of 64. The Epistle to the Hebrews might have been written at either of these two points of time. The inquiry as to the author will, perhaps, be the first thing to throw a clearer light on the question. CHAPTER THIRD. WHETHER WRITTEN ORIGINALLY IN GREEK. Before we can proceed to the inquiry respecting the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews there is still a preliminary question which must be settled, namely, whether this epistle was really written originally in Greek , or whether it is not merely a transla¬ tion or a reproduction of an Aramaic original. There is nothing in the epistle itself that could lead to the raising of such a ques¬ tion ; but a series of Church Fathers speak of an original Aramaic writing, and therefore we are not at liberty entirely to evade the question. The most ancient of these Fathers is Clemens of Alexandria, of whom Eusebius relates (vi. 14), that in his Hypotyposes he APPENDIX. 390 lias undertaken s^/rsr/xri/jLsmg dirr/faug (investigations) respect¬ ing all the books of the Holy Scripture, and in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews has come to the conclusion : UauXou /xb slvui, ysyedtpOui £g*E (3ga/oig ’JZ [3ea/xfi A ouzdv S's (piXori^^g avrr, sxdovmi roTg "EXAtjc'/v oQsv rov avrov ysgura evoiffx, 2 ffl)ai Zara TYjv v ravrrjg rs rr\g s^iffroXTig xai rcbv KPatyuv. Blit the last words of this citation show clearly enough how Clement arrived at this view. It is not a tradition which he follows, but a scientific conjecture which he raises. The dissimilarity in style between this epistle and the epistles of Paul, and its simi¬ larity to the writings of Luke, struck him (justly); he perceived that the epistle cannot have come from Paul in this form ; but as the general tradition of the East (as we shall see in the follow¬ ing chapter) named Paul as the author, Clement was led to ask: May not the epistle in its present form in reality, perhaps, have proceeded from another—from Luke ? Wherefore not, he thought; how very possible is it that Paul wrote 1 to those Aramaic speak¬ ing Jewish Christians in their own language, and that a dis¬ ciple of Paul (for example Luke himself, whose style so much resembles that of the Epistle to the Hebrews) afterwards worked out the epistle for a wider circle of readers.—But that Clement here in reality gives only a subjective conjecture, and not an ecclesiastical tradition, appears most clearly from this, that his disciple Origen departs from the supposition of an originally Aramaic writing, although he retains the substance of Clement's view. He, too, notices (in Euseb. vi. 25) the difference in style between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pauline epistles; he, too, does not venture to carry back that epistle in its present form directly to Paul; but he can explain this phenomenon by a simpler (and indeed a far more probable) conjecture, namely, by the supposition that Paul did not ver¬ bally dictate this epistle , but only delivered in free oral discourse the thoughts and the development of the thoughts, the com¬ position and elaboration of which he left over to one of his dis¬ ciples (t« /xb voj^am roZ axoGroXov stiriv r\ dl (pgaGtg x,at 7] cvvkGig dirdiJjVYiiJjOViZcavTog Tivog ra acrocro/./xa %at dtSKiou ff^oXioy^a^ijffavrog 1 Qwr/i denotes here of course not the ancient Hebrew, which indeed was intelligible only to the learned Jews, but the Aramaic. Comp. Acts APPENDIX. 391 ru ziPTi'Miva \)govv o} dbsX(poi m xai rr\v d^rrayr\v rdv urea g%bvrc>jv, bfxoiug ixzivoig clg xai UauXog z/xaprvgqffz, ,azrd X a ^ g crpoffzbi^avro, comp. Heb. X. 34). In like manner, Alexander of Alexandria (in Socr. i. 3, Theodoret. h. e. i. 4). Methodius of Lycia (a.d. 290) conviv. decern virginum, oratio 10, pag. 96 and 116, cites the passages Heb. x. 1 and xii. 1 with the words zard rov drebtroXov and zard rbv bibdffxaXov UauXov. A synod held in Antioch about the year 264 against Paul of Samosata, cites in its Synodal writing (in Mansi coll. cone. tom. i. pag. 1036) the passage Heb. xi. 26 as the words of Paul. That Clement of Alexandria held Paul to be at least the original author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, nay, that it was just the tradition respecting the Pauline authorship that induced him to devise that conjecture about an originally Aramaic writing in order to explain the dif¬ ference in style, we have seen from the passage already adduced (in Euseb. vi. 14), in which, indeed, he appeals also to Pantav nus in support of its having been written by Paul. In another passage, also (Strom, vi. p. 645), he cites the Epistle to the Hebrews as Pauline (’E rrzi xai TlavXog iv raig erntiroXaTg ou 7]Gavrog rd s/oyj/ieva Zno roZ diduGzdXov. E/ ng oZv izzXijG/a eyzt ravrrjv rrjv sniGroXfv dg UavXov, avrrj sZdox/jCLS/rco xal ini rojr or oZ ydo e/zyj o/ doycuoi avdgeg dg UavXov aZrfv naoabzhdxaGi. All the following Greek Church Fathers name the epistle as Paul’s: Eusebius places it in his canon among the Pauline epistles (Euseb. iii. 25, see farther on this below) ; in like manner Antonius, Athanasius, Didymus, Theophilus of Alexandria, the two Gregories, Basilius, Epiphanius, James of Nisibis (in Gal- land. bibl. patr. tom. 5, p. 16 and 53), Ephraim of Syria, the two Cyrils, Chrysostom, &c. Nevertheless, some have ventured to call in question the antiquity and unanimity of this Oriental tradition. Bleek (i. p. 108) thinks that by the dg-yaKt dvdps to whom Origen refers might also be meant merely, Pantsenus and Clement of Alexan¬ dria ; not only, however, is it improbable that Origen should have designated these his immediate predecessors and teachers by so vague an expression, but the usus linguae is directly against this. (For example, Eusebius ii. 1, where he narrates the death of the Apostles , says: xai raZra (lzv dg sg dgya/uv /Groglag ihijGOoj ; in ih. 24, he says, the Gospel of John has had the fourth place assigned to it rightly by the doyaToi.) Chiefly, however, is the context conclusive against that interpretation. For Clement of Alexandria had not unconditionally held that Paul was the immediate author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; how then can this Clement be brought forward among those to whom those churches might appeal which held the epistle to be directly Pauline f The sense of the passage is plainly this: The Alexandrians cannot, indeed, believe that this epistle, with this style, was thus composed by Paul himself; but whosoever will yet hold Paul to be the immediate and proper author (therefore in 398 APPENDIX. opposition to Clement!) we can do nothing against him, since even the ancients have handed down the epistle to us as one of Paul's. And, accordingly, a second objection also is herewith refuted (Bleek p. 107). In the words s7 Tig ovv sTcxX^eia zyj- 1 vaunjv tyi v s- 7 riffToXriv ojg navXov there evidently lies the presupposition, that only a few churches at that time held the Epistle to the Hebrews to be a work of Paul. But the question treated of in the context of this passage is, not at all, whether the epistle was written by Paul or came into existence ivitliout Paul having any¬ thing to do with it. That the ancient tradition imputed it to Paul was a settled point, and only the certainty of this tradition could induce Clement and Origen to form those two conjectures, by which the un-Pauline style at variance with the tradition might be explained. 1 —The question with Origen is rather, whether the epistle, precisely as ive have it in Greek , can have come directly from Paul. The old tradition called it Pauline ; the un-Pauline style had, however, justly struck the Alexandrians ; it had become the settled opinion among them that the epistle in its present form could not be directly from Paul; either it is a translation of an Aramaic original (as Clement wrongly supposed), or, ac¬ cording to the preferable conjecture of Origen, Paul did not dictate the words of it but gave only the vorj^ara for it. These views, under the influence of the catechist school in Alexandria and the neighbourhood, may have been generally spread; hence Origen carelessly mentions them; but then it may have struck him, that this hypothesis might give offence, that there might possibly be churches which would zealously maintain the imme¬ diately Pauline origin; against these, he says, we cannot take any steps as the ancient tradition names the epistle simply as one of Pauls. That the words ?yii uvtyiv ug TiavXov, according to the context, form the antithesis, only to the view of Origen, and not to an opinion according to which the authorship of Paul would be absolutely denied, is indeed clear as the sun. 1 How altogether untenable is the opinion of Bertholdt (Einleit. iv. 2914, ss.), that the Alexandrines—those who observed and always so strongly urged the un-Pauline character of the style—were the first who raised the conjecture of a Pauline authorship and that “ on exegetical grounds!” APPENDIX. 399 Origen, certainly, also presupposes an absolute denial of the Pauline authorship as possible, but only as possible , when (in Matth. xxiii. 27) he says: Sedpowe, aliquem abclicare epistolamad Hebra 30 S, quasi non Pauli . . . sed quid faciat in sermones Stephani, &c. ? The learned Father may have heard something of the Western views concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews ; at all events, he would not have spoken thus {pone, aliquem ) if (as Bleek will have it) there had been around him entire churches and countries which held the Epistle to the Hebrews to be un- Pauline ! He there also as well as in ad Afric. chap, ix., distinctly takes it for granted that some might feel themselves compelled to doubt the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews on internal grounds , namely, on account of the passage Heb. xi. 37 (where prophets are spoken of who were sawn asunder , while no such case is recorded in the canonical books of the Old Testament). Again, reference has been made to the fact that Eusebius reckons the Epistle to the Hebrews among the antilegomena, inasmuch as he relates of Clement of Alexandria that in his Strom, he made use of proofs also uPo ruv uvriXzyo/j/svuv ygacpoov, namely, from the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, the Epistle to the Hebrews , and the epistle of Clemens Rom., Barnabas and Judas. But that the epistle to the Hebrews is here reckoned among the* antileg omena is very simply explained from this, that Eusebius himself (vi. 25) knew and mentions that some held Luke, others Clement of Rome, to be the proper and immediate author of it, and that (Euseb. iii. 3 ; vi. 20) the whole Western church entirely denied it to be Paul's. In this sense he might call it an avrtXiyoii.sm. But how firmly settled that tradition of the Pauline authorship in general was in the East is evident from this, that Eusebius in his principal passage on the canon (iii. 25) does not adduce the Epistle to the Hebrews among the antilego- mena, and was therefore conscious of having already included it among the “ smarokcug UavXov ; ” accordingly, the same Euse¬ bius cites it as Pauline in not less than twenty-seven passages. (Comp. Bleek, p. 149, 150, Anm. 173.) Finally, the learned and extensively read Jerome, who made use of the Library of Csesarea, and therewith of the entire Christian literature of the first centuries, says, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was ascribed to the Apostle Paul non solum ab 400 APPENDIX. ecclesiis orientis, sed ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticisgrceci sermonis scriptoribus (ep. ad Dard. p. 608). Thus, then, the thesis is fully confirmed— that the primitive and general tradition of the East is in favour of the Pauline authorship. It is also confirmed by the remarkable circum¬ stance, that the Epistle to the Hebrews, as is still evident from the numbering of the Kephalaia in the cod. B, originally stood between the Epistle to the Halations and that to the Ephesians, and was not till a later period, in the fourth century placed after the Epistle to the Thessalonians (as in cod. A and C), and still later, after the Pastoral Epistles. It was altogether different in the West. That bishop of Lyons, Irenasus, who was among the first to follow the prac¬ tice of citing the Hew Testament writings by their titles and authors, has, as is commonly supposed, not at all cited tire Epistle to the Hebrews, at least not by its title and author; nay, there is a notice, certainly a very late one, to the effect that Irenaeus held the Epistle to the Hebrews to be un-Pauline. Meanwhile, these points would need a special examination. Only the second —viz., that Irenasus never names the Apostle Paul as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews—is beyond all question true. There are serious doubts, on the other hand, against the first , that Irenasus was not at all acquainted with the epistle, and did not make use of it. Eusebius (v. 26) notices a writing (now lost) of that Church Father with the express remark, that in it Irenasus “ mentions also the Epistle to the Hebrews/’ ’AXXa [ydo vfog ro7g dnoboQti'dtv E/gqvu/ov (>vyyca[j,lJ,UGi xal ruTg s ryjg noog 'E (Sgaiovg s^wroXyjg xai rr t g Xsyo/jOBV'/ig tiotplag 2oAo,aa>yro£ (JjVykaovbvbi, fard nvoc sg avrojv ‘TraguGs/jjSvog. These words may have a twofold sense. Either the apposition wagaQ&svos serves to state more precisely hoiv and in how far he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews (“ he mentions it by adducing passages from it”)— and then Irenasus may not, perhaps, have so much as named the title “ s-TricrroXri vrodg 'E/S^/oug/’but only have cited particular passages of the epistle—or era pa,&fLsvog serves to specify the occasion on which he has really “mentioned” the Epistle to the Hebrews as such , i.e., has named it (“ he mentions it on the occasions on which he APPENDIX. 401 adduces passages from it ”)—and in this case Irengeus must in those citations have actually called the epistle by its name “ Epistle to the Hebrews.” In favour of the latter interpretation is the circumstance, that a mere making use of fara from the Epistle to the Hebrews, ivitliout naming this epistle, occurs also in the writing adv. tiger., and could not he adduced as an exclusive peculiarity of the writing “ diaXs^eig ; ” meanwhile, those mere allusions are so few in number, and, besides, so doubtful, that they may easily have escaped the notice of Eusebius. However this may be, little, on the whole, depends on which of those two interpretations is held to be the correct one. Ac¬ cording to each of the two , Irenceus at least knew the Epistle to the Hebrews ; but from neither can it be inferred that he must have held it to be Pauline. That he knew the epistle, is certainly confirmed in some measure by those allusions in the writing •adv. hsereses. True, indeed, when he describes God as faciens omnia, et visibilia et invisibilia, et sensibilia et insensata, et coelestia et terrena, per verbum virtutis suce , there might be in this latter designation (certainly a very unusual one) an acci¬ dental coincidence with the a. rvjg dvv&fleug avrov, Heb. i. 3. As little can it be with any certainty inferred from the words, octou ys ’Ei 164% ivaoz