4. Date

hand, the mention of Timothy, and the indisputable use made of the epistle by Clement of Rome prevent us from placing the date of its composition as late as the closing years of the first century. About 80 is the most probable date.

The grounds adduced for a date earlier than 70 are mainly the game as are used to prove a continuance of the temple worship at that time, and fall with them. From the allegorical employment of Ps. xcv. in iii. 7 sqq. it may be assumed that forty years had elapsed since the earthly ministry of Jesus, and that the threatened judgment had fallen on the impenitent part of the Jewish race,.

5. Authorship. Definite Data

Even less agreement seems to have been reached as to the identity of the author than as to the recipients of the letter. It may be hoped that the notion of Schwegler (in Das nachdpostolische Zeitalter, ii. 304 Definite 305, Tübingen, 1846), already amply Data. disproved by Köstlin (in Theolooche Jahrbücher, 1853, pp. 410-428, 1854, pp. 366-446, 463-483), that the writer wished to be taken for Paul without being Paul, will not again be brought forward. This is deprived of all plausibility by the lack of any initial salutation or self-designation, by the lack of emphasis on the allusions to the writer's personality, and by the evidently earnest purpose of guarding a circle of readers whose internal and external circumstances are clearly marked from the danger of apostasy. Equally untenable is Overbeck's theory that the epistle received its present form in Alexandria about 160-170, the initial salutation with the real writer's name having been dropped and the last four verses added, for the purpose of passing it off as an epistle of Paul, and thus getting it included in the canon (Zur Geschichte des Kanons, pp. 1-70, Chemnitz, 1880). The bold forger whom this theory supposes would certainly not have stopped short of adding a salutation containing Paul's name, which alone could have made success certain; and it would be im possible to explain on this hypothesis the fact that those parts of the Church (entirely independent of Alexandria) in which the epistle was not thought canonical should also have lost the original salutation, and should have either considered the author ship an unsolved problem or contented themselves with the decision that it was not Pauline. If the epistle originally stood in its present form it seems to follow that the author was a Christian of Hebrew birth, like the recipients; that he owed his conver sion to the immediate disciples of Jesus (ii. 3); that he was in relation with Timothy (xiii. 23); that he was not a member of the community addressed, but had spent some time among them (xiii. 14), and could speak to them with the authority of a re spected teacher.