BOOK VI.

THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE.

CHAPTER II.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

WE wish in this place to take some notice of the peculiar doctrinal character of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which we find the leading points of the Pauline doctrine under a peculiar form, as held by a man of independent mind, who differed from Paul in his constitutional qualities, in his mental training, and in the mode of his transition from Judaism to Christianity. As to the first point, the author of this epistle seems to stand to the apostle in the same relation as Melancthon to Luther; the one quiet and gentle, the other ardent and energetic. As to their education, Paul was brought up in the school of Pharisaism; in the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we recognise the training of an Alexandrian Jew. Hence arose the difference between the two, that Paul received a more dialectic education, by which his logical faculties were still further developed, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews a more rhetorical one; though Paul, like Luther, possessed in a very high degree the gift of natural eloquence. Lastly, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews appears to have made the transition from Judaism to Christianity, not, like Paul, by a sudden crisis, but by a more quiet gradual development, in which the higher spirit concealed under the forms of Judaism revealed itself to him. Accordingly, we must consider his twofold relation to the Alexandrian

Jewish, and to the Pauline theology. Several differences in the development of doctrine between these two great teachers of the church, may be explained from the peculiar design of this epistle, which was addressed to a community of Christians, who, though faith in Jesus as the Messiah had found ready acceptance with thein, were still enthralled in the forms of Judaism.1

This view we must maintain, notwithstanding the reasons alleged against it by Dr. Roth in his Latin Dissertation (Frankfort, 1836), in which he endeavours to show that this epistle was addressed to the church at Ephesus, consisting of Gentile Christians. As the epistle perfectly suits a church consisting of Jewish Christians, and the difficulties attached to this hypothesis are only superficial, so we cannot, on the other hand, conceive of a church of Gentile Christians to whom an epistle could be addressed in such a form and of such contents. And, on the latter supposition, it would not be easy to explain the manifestly close connexion of the didactic and parenetical elements from its commencement, since a church consisting of Gentile Christians might be forced by persecution to fall back into heathenism, but never from such a cause, to pass over to Judaism. The contents of this epistle, which tend to show the superiority of Christianity to Judaism, are therefore by no means adapted to the purpose of encouraging its readers to constancy under persecutions. Dr. Röth appeals to chap. iii. 12; but apostasy from the living God need not be exactly a relapse into idolatry; for as communion with God, according to the convictions of the writer, could only be through Christ, so an apostasy from Christ must in his esteem have been equivalent to apostasy from the living God. Still less can the passage in chap. x. 32 be adduced in evidence, for doubtless divine illumination appeared to the author as necessarily depending on the gospel; and a transition from any other religious stand-point, on which man could not be set free from the dominion of the principle of sin, was looked upon by him as a transition from darkness to light. The same remark applies to chap. vi. 4. Also, the enumeration of points of instruction for catechumens in chap. vi. 1, does not prove that they were only such as would be imparted to heathens; for by "repentance from dead works," the author no doubt understands conversion from all ungodliness, and by TíσTIs in this connexion, agreeably to the Pauline ideas, he meant faith in the peculiarly Christian sense; so that faith in Jesus as the Messiah is included in it, which in articles of instruction for heathens must also, we allow, have been rendered very prominent. Besides, for the instruction of Jews passing over to Christianity, it was requisite to define the nature of Christian baptism, in relation to that of John and other kinds of lustration; and the doctrine of the resurrection and of the judgment, though already acknowledged by the greater part of the Jews, must be promulged afresh with many peculiar modifications in connexion with the doctrine of Jesus as the Messiah. Thus the author enumerates those universal articles of primary religious instruction, which needed to be addressed to Jews as well as to Gentiles. From chap. xiii. 9, it does not follow that his readers had never before

man.

Paul and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews agree in this, that they both represent Judaism as inadequate for satisfying the religious wants of man. This is the purport of what is said in chap. vii. 19, that Judaism could "make nothing perfect;" its religious institutions were not fitted to realize the ideas presented by them to the conscience; the sacrifices and the priesthood were unable to satisfy that religious want, to which both owed their existence; namely, to accomplish the removal of the disunion between God and Those religious ideas were here represented in sensible images, which were first realized by Christianity. Both Paul and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, place the central point of religion in redemption from guilt and sin, the restoration of communion with God, whence proceeds the impartation of a divine life, the source of true holiness; and the inability of Judaism to attain this object formed, in the estimation of both, its essential defect. In this epistle (viii. 12; vi. 4; ix. 15) the forgiveness of sins, the communication of a new divine life, and divine power for sanctification, are described as the work of Christ-as the effect of Christianity; it is maintained, that by this new principle of life, the redeemed are able to render true spiritual worship, which comprehends the whole life, so that now the whole soul, animated by a new spirit, becomes a thank-offering for the grace of redemption bestowed upon it (xii. 28; ix. 14; xiii. 15); and in the same manner Paul contemplates the whole Christian life as an act of true spiritual worship.

observed the Jewish laws relating to food, and therefore were not Jews, but only, that according to the supposition of the writer of the epistle, they no longer as Christians placed their dependence on such outward things. At all events, by "the divers and strange doctrines," some peculiar opinions must be understood which were placed by the false teachers in connexion with the Jewish laws on food. The passage in chap. xi. 40, can only be intended to mark a later generation (in this case no matter whether of Jewish or Gentile descent), which had not yet come into existence, and therefore would not have attained to a parti cipation of the Messianic kingdom-if this kingdom had commenced earlier, and thus the development of the human race had been earlier closed. According to the other interpretation also, it would have been necessary for the author to have addressed his readers in the second person, for the rhetorical figure Anakoinosis, on the supposition of the author being of Jewish descent, whoever he might be, would here be as little employed as in chap. ii. 3, even supposing that the epistle had been written by Paul himself.

But these two writers differ in their manner of carrying out the fundamental ideas which they hold in common. Paul, in opposition to the merit of works on the legal stand-point, and especially against the tenet that an observance of the law was absolutely necessary for the Gentiles in order to salvation-develops his doctrine of justification by faith alone, independently of the works of the law. This doctrine, that no one could become righteous before God by the observance of the law, but only through faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Redeemer, lies also at the basis of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But since the author of this epistle directs his argumentation especially against those who were still captivated by the pomp of the Temple worship, the priesthood and the sacrifices, and were in danger of being entirely seduced from Christianity by the impression these objects made upon them, this gave a peculiar direction to his reasoning, and it aimed at showing that by all this ritual their religious wants could not be satisfied, but that its only use was to direct them to the sole true means of satisfaction. As Paul declared that the law could not bestow the justification which man required, but that it only awakened that feeling of want, which nothing but faith in Jesus as the Redeemer could satisfy, so in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is shown, that the mediation required by man's relation to God and heaven, could not be effected by the Jewish priesthood, but that it only availed to call forth a longing for such a mediation, and thus led to Him who alone could bestow it.

But in one respect an opposition may seem to exist between the Pauline views and the doctrinal scheme of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Paul contemplates the stand-point of Judaism: as abolished. Everything in religion is represented as proceeding from faith in Christ alone; in receiving the gospel a man is in effect dead to his former religious stand-point; whatever was before the ground of his confidence, now appears to him as an absolute nullity. On the contrary, according to the views presented in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the whole Jewish cultus is, it is true, only a shadowy image of something superior; but the writer considers it as still continuing to exist till everything earthly, and consequently this form of earthly worship, shall come to an end, when the Messianic kingdom being consummated,

a higher order of things shall succeed. Thus we may here meet with a view, which was originally entertained by converts from Judaism, that the communion with the sanctuary of heaven bestowed by Christianity, would be carried on in this world in combination with the forms of a cultus which typified heavenly things; that a new higher spirit would continue to operate in the ancient forms of religion. But still this is only an apparent contradiction between the two great teachers; for it is evident from the train of thought in this epistle, that the writer looked on the Jewish cultus as entirely superfluous, since it could contribute nothing towards effecting communion with heaven and reconciliation with God, on which everything depended. But since Christianity effected all this, since it bestowed everything demanded by the religious wants of man, of what use was another cultus ?

If, in connexion with such views, the Jewish cultus could still find a place, the only point of junction could be, the representation that the conscientious observance of all that belonged to the Mosaic cultus, would be a preparatory purifying and sanctifying process, to qualify for the participation of divine things through the medium of Christianity. This was the stand-point from which Philo, in his work De Migratione Abrahami, combats a religious idealism which would have explained away the whole of outward Judaism as superfluous. But in this epistle we can find no trace of attributing such a continued preparatory utility to Judaism; according to its fundamental ideas, connexion with Christ as the true high-priest renders superfluous all other methods of purification and sanctification. If the author of this epistle had some notion that these outward forms of Judaism, whose design was only preparative and typical, would linger in existence till the whole terrestrial economy would be terminated by the second advent of Christ at no very distant period, it by no means follows that he considered these forms as of essential importance. We must only bear in mind in what light the author viewed the relation of the present to the future. This relation was the same in his To Christians the future is by faith They ascend with the confidence

conceptions as in Paul's. already become a present.

of faith into the holiest of holies in heaven, which Christ has rendered accessible to them; x. 22. They already belong to