INTRODUCTION I. TEXT THE text of the Epistle to the Hebrews is preserved in practical completeness in three ancient uncial manuscripts: Sinaiticus of the fourth century, Alexandrinus of the fifth, and Claromontanus of the sixth. Three other early uncials contain considerable parts of it: Vaticanus of the fourth century, Ephraemi Rescriptus of the fifth, and the newly discovered Oxyrhynchus papyrus (657), which belongs to the early part of the fourth century, and takes rank with Vaticanus in the antiquity and excellence of its text. Vaticanus preserves the text of Hebrews 1: 1-9:14; the Oxyrhynchus papyrus contains Heb. 2: 14-5:5; 10:8-11:13; II: 28-12 17. The latter thus importantly supplements the ancient and excellent text of Vaticanus. To these must now be added the valuable, though fragmentary manuscript of the Pauline epistles and Hebrews brought to America in 1907 by Charles L. Freer, Esq. This is an uncial, belonging to the fifth or sixth century, and has Hebrews following second Thessalonians, after the manner of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The textual transmission of Hebrews is further instructive in that it was anciently copied as belonging with the epistles of Paul, standing after the nine longer epistles of Marcion's canon and before the Pastorals and Philemon; or in other words, between Second Thessalonians and First Timothy. The significance of this position given the epistle by its fourth-century copyist will demand consideration in another connection. Ancient and excellent as the manuscripts attesting the text of the epistle are, there remain in the text a few readings of great difficulty, which some commentators are disposed to interpret as primitive errors in transcription, and upon which we can only await further light. II. CANONICITY The acceptance of Hebrews as canonical scripture was nearly everywhere contingent upon the admission of its Pauline authorship. Churches which held it to be the work of Paul naturally included it with his letters among their sacred books. Yet without canvassing the problem of its authorship in detail, its gradual rise to a place in the canon of scripture may be outlined. The first man to undertake to shape a New Testament over against the Old, was the schismatic Marcion of Pontus, A.D. 144. His New Testament, meagre as it was, was yet structurally complete, containing a gospel, that of Luke, on the one hand, and on the other, a group of apostolic epistles, the first ten of the apostle Paul. When the church came, more than a generation later, to construct the New Testament, it did not abandon these fundamental lines, but rather developed them into fulness. Of this second stage in the development of the canon, the ancient Roman list, called after its discoverer the Muratorian, is, with all its obscurities, perhaps the clearest witness, representing the Roman canon of the last quarter of the second century. It enumerates thirteen letters of Paul, but has no mention of Hebrews, unless it be meant by the "forged epistle to the Alexandrians," which is named only to be repudiated. In the Old Latin version of the New Testament, supposed to have originated about this time, Hebrews seems to have been wanting. Irenæus' failure to use or mention Hebrews in his work against heresies has often been noted. Eusebius indeed says (H.E. 5: 26) that he used it in a work now lost, but does not state whether he deemed it canonical; while Photius quotes Stephen Gobar, of the sixth century, as saying that neither Irenæus nor Hippolytus accepted it as Paul's. Although Bishop of Lyons, Irenæus was in close touch with Rome, and his testimony is seen to accord in time, place, and substance with the Muratorian. At the end of the second century Hebrews was not accepted at Rome as canonical or as a work of Paul. Of its rating in Africa the silence of the Old Latin has given us an important hint, to which the explicit testimony of Tertullian must be added. Tertullian quotes Hebrews and assigns it confidently to Barnabas, expressly distinguishing it from works of apostolic authority, when it would have been very much to his purpose to include it among such. Africa as well as Rome thus omits Hebrews from its canon in the year 200. This attitude of the Roman and African churches seems to have undergone little alteration in the third century. Gaius of Rome and Cyprian of Carthage do not appear to have included Hebrews among Paul's epistles. Indeed, no Latin writer is known to have accepted Hebrews as Paul's, before Hilary (died 368 A.D.). This failure on the part of the western church to accept Hebrews as Paul's or as belonging to the canon, is important for two reasons: first, because the New Testament canon pretty certainly originated in the west, that is, at Rome; second, because Hebrews was probably written to Roman Christians, and was certainly known in Rome by 95 A.D., since Clement of Rome is strongly influenced by it. The Roman church thus knew the epistle from the earliest times, but steadily refused to accept it as Paul's, or to admit it into the apostolic canon. It would seem that the Roman church, if any, must have known who wrote the epistle, and the meaning of its attitude will demand explanation under a later topic. To the position of the Roman church, that of the Alexandrian presents the strongest contrast. Clement of Alexandria held Hebrews to be the work of Paul (H.E. 6:14), |