period or to select a sonorous expression. He constantly mingles two constructions; breaks off into personal allusions; does not hesitate to use the roughest terms; goes off at a word; and leaves sentences unfinished. He writes like a man who thought in Aramaic while he expressed himself in Greek. The style of this writer bears the stamp of a wholly different individuality. He writes like a man of genius who is thinking in Greek as well as writing in it. He builds up his paragraphs on a wholly different model. He delights in the most majestic amplifications, in the most effective collocation of words, in the musical euphony of compound terms (see in the original i. 3; viii. 1; xii. 2, &c.). He is never ungrammatical, never irregular, never personal; he never struggles for expression; he never loses himself in a parenthesis; he is never hurried into an unfinished clause. He has less of burning passion, and more of conscious literary self-control. As I have said elsewhere, the movement of this writer resembles that of an Oriental Sheykh with his robes of honour wrapped around him; the movement of St Paul is that of an athlete girded for the race. The eloquence of this writer, even when it is at its most majestic volume, resembles the flow of a river; the rhetoric of St Paul is like the rush of a mountain-torrent amid opposing rocks.

3. The writer quotes differently from St Paul. St Paul often reverts to the original Hebrew, and when he uses the LXX. his quotations agree, for the most part, with the Vatican Manuscript. This writer (as I have already observed) follows the LXX. even when it differs from the Hebrew, and his citations usually agree with the Alexandrian Manuscript. St Paul introduces his references to the Old Testament by some such formula as as it is written," or "the Scripture saith" (Rom. ix. 17; i. 17), whereas this writer adopts the Rabbinic and Alexandrian expressions, "He saith" (i. 5, 6; v. 6; vii. 13), "He hath said" (iv. 3); "Some one somewhere testifieth" (ii. 6); "as the Holy Spirit saith," or "He testifieth" (ii. 6; iii. 7; x. 15; vii. 17)-forms which are not used by St Paul.

4. Again, he constructs his sentences differently, and combines them by different connecting particles (see in the original

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ii. 16 to iii. 16, &c.); and has at least six special peculiarities of style not found, or found but rarely, in St Paul-such as the constant use of "all;" the verb "to sit" used intransitively (i. 3; viii. 1); the phrase even though" (éávπep); "whence" (80ev), used in the sense of "wherefore;" "to perpetuity" instead of "always;" and his mode of heightening the comparative by a following preposition.

5. Once more, St Paul usually speaks of the Saviour as 66 our Lord Jesus Christ," or "Christ Jesus our Lord"-forms which occur sixty-eight times in his Epistles; this writer, on the other hand, usually refers to Him as "Jesus," or the Lord," or "Christ," or "our Lord" (vii. 14), or "the Lord" (ii. 3), or, once only, as our Lord Jesus" (xiii. 20), whereas the distinctive Pauline combination, "Christ Jesus," does not occur once (see note on iii. 1). The explanation of this fact is that, as time went on, the title "Christ" became more and more a personal name, and the name "Jesus" (most frequently used in this Epistle, ii. 9; iii. 1; vi. 20; vii. 22; x. 19; xii. 2, 24; xiii. 12) became more and more connotative of such supreme reverence and exaltation as to need no further addition or description.

CHAPTER V.

THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE.

THE author of this Epistle, though he is writing exclusively to Jewish Christians, and though he shews himself eminently Judaic in his sympathies, is yet distinctly of the same school as the Apostle of the Gentiles.

Of the four great topics which occupy so large a place in St Paul's Epistles-the relation of Judaism to Christianity, the redemptive work of Christ, justification by faith, and the call of the Gentiles-the first forms the main topic of this Epistle; the second occupies one large section of it (v. 1—x. 18); and the third is involved in one entire chapter (xi.). The fourth is indeed conspicuously absent, but its absence is primarily due

to the concentration of the Epistle upon the needs of those readers to whom it was addressed. He says expressly that Christ died on behalf of every man (ii. 9), and no one has ever doubted respecting his full belief in the Universality of the Gospel. As the circumstances which occasioned the composition of the Epistle furnished no opportunity to dwell upon the subject, he leaves it on one side. It is probable that even in the most bigoted of the Jewish Christian communities the rights of the Gentiles to equal participation in the privileges of the Gospel without any obligation to obey the Levitic law had been fully established, partly by the decree of the Synod of Jerusalem (Acts xv. 1—29), and partly by the unanswerable demonstrations of St Paul.

It need hardly be said that the writer of this Epistle is at one with St Paul upon all great fundamental doctrines. Both of the sacred writers speak of the heavenly exaltation of Christ (Eph. iv. 10; Heb. ix. 24); of His prevailing intercession (Rom. viii. 34; Heb. vii. 25); of the elementary character of the ceremonial Law (Gal. iv. 3; Heb. vii. 19); of Christ as the end of the Law" (Rom. x. 4; Heb. x. 4-7); and of a multitude of other deep religious truths which were the common heritage of all Christians.

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But while he deals with the same great topics as the Apostle of the Gentiles, he handles them in a very distinct manner, and with considerable variation of theological terminology.

a. In his mode of dealing with the Old and New Covenants we have already seen that he starts from a different point of view. He does not mention the subject of circumcision, so prominent throughout the Epistle to the Galatians; and while his proof that Christ is superior to Moses only occupies a few verses (iii. 1—6), he devotes a large and most important part of his letter to the proof that Christ's Priesthood is superior to that of Aaron, and that it is a Priesthood after the order of Melchisedek-whom St Paul does not so much as name. Indeed, while in this Epistle the titles Priest and High Priest occur no less than 32 times, in accordance with their extreme prominence in the theological conceptions of the writer, it is remarkable 3

HEBREWS

that neither word occurs so much as once in all the 13 Epistles of St Paul.

B. In speaking of the Redemptive work of Christ he is evidently at one with St Paul (ix. 15, 22), but does not enter so fully upon the mysterious aspect of Christ's death as an expiatory sacrifice. As though he could assume all which St Paul had written on that subject, he leaves (as it were) "a gap between the means and the end," asserting only again and again, but without explanation and comment, the simple fact that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice, and that man was thereby sanctified and purified (ii. 11; ix. 13, 14; x. 2, 10, 14, 22). In his favourite conception of 'perfectionment' (teleiōsis) he seems to include justification, sanctification, and glorification. His conception of Christ is less that of a Crucified and Risen Redeemer, than that of a sympathising and glorified High Priest. And the result of His work is described not as leading to a mystic oneness with Him, but as securing us a free access to Him, and through Him into the Inmost Sanctuary of God.

7. Again, there is a difference between the writer and St Paul in their use of the terms Justification and Faith. In St Paul the term 'Justification by Faith' succinctly describes the method by which the righteousness of God can become the justification of man-the word for 'righteousness' and 'justification' being the same (dikaiosunē). But in this Epistle the word 'righteousness' is used in its simple and original sense of moral rectitude. The result of Christ's redemptive work, which St Paul describes by his use of dikaiosunē in the sense of 'justification,' this writer indicates by other words, such as 'sanctification,' 'purification,' and 'bringing to perfection.' He does not allude to the notion of "imputed" righteousness as a condition freely bestowed by God upon man, but describes 'righteousness' as faith manifested by obedience and so earning the testimony of God (xi. 4, 5). It is regarded not as the Divine gift which man receives, but as the human condition which faith produces. The phrase "to justify,” which occurs 28 times in St Paul, is not once found in this Epistle. The writer, like St Paul,

quotes the famous verse of Habakkuk, “The just shall live by faith" (perhaps in the slightly different form, “My just man shall live by faith 1") but the sense in which he quotes it is not the distinctive sense which it bears in St Paul-where it implies that 'the man who has been justified by that trust in Christ which ends in perfect union with Him shall enjoy eternal life,'— but rather in its simpler and more original sense that 'the upright man shall be saved by his faithfulness.' For 'faith' when used by St Paul in the sense peculiar to his writings, means the life in Christ, the absolute personal communion with His death and resurrection. But the central conception, "in Christ". Christ not only for me but in me--is scarcely alluded to by the author of this Epistle. He uses the word 'faith' in its more common sense of 'trust in the Unseen.' He regards it less as the instrument of justification than as the condition of access (iii. 14; iv. 2, 16; vi. 1; vii. 25; x. 1, 22; xi. 1, 6).

d. Again, one of the characteristics of this Epistle is the recurrence of passages which breathe a spirit peculiarly severe (ii. 1—3; iv. 1; vi. 4–8; x. 26—31; xii. 15—17), such as does indeed resemble a few passages of Philo, but finds no exact parallel even in the sternest passages of St Paul. Luther speaks of one of these passages as 'a hard knot which seems in its obvious import to run counter to all the Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul." Both Tertullian and Luther missed the real significance of these passages, but the very interpretation which made the Epistle dear to the Montanistic hardness of Tertullian made it displeasing to the larger heart of the great Reformer.

e. But the most marked feature of the Epistle to the Hebrews is its Alexandrian character, and the resemblances which it contains to the writings of Philo, the chief Jewish philosopher of the Alexandrian school of thought:

1. Thus, it is Alexandrian in its quotations, which are (1) from the Septuagint version, and (2) agree mainly with the Alexan

1 The "my" is found in the LXX. sometimes after "just," sometimes after "faith;" and is read after "just" in N, A, N, and after "faith" in D. See note on Heb. x. 38.