6. Tradition of Pauline Authorship
cessor of Clement tried to explain whytion
of Paul
here, contrary to his custom, did
Pauline not address his readers as an apostle;
Author- and Clement
himself in like manner,
ship. quoting it as
unquestionably Pauline,
attempted to explain the absence of the
name of Paul. When he speaks of Luke as the
translator and points to a similarity of style between
it and the Acts, he shows that considerations of
literary style had aroused doubts among the Alex
andrian scholars as to the Pauline authorship. Yet
their Church adhered to its tradition. The commentary of Origen, more apologetic than critical,
presupposes Pauline authorship-though he knows
that it is received as Pauline only in certain churches
while others reject it as not Pauline. His relations
with other parts of the Church, including Rome,
prevented him from adhering blindly to his home
tradition; his critical sense was awakened and he
was forced to admit that the style of Hebrews is
thoroughly different from that of Paul. So he
came to a compromise-that the ideas were originally Paul's, that they were given from memory, and
that their literary form was imparted by another.
The Alexandrian tradition spread first in the East,
though probably not before the time of Origen.
Both Irenaeus and his disciple Hippolytus seem to
have denied it, and this was the attitude of the
Roman Church, and of the West in general, until
the fourth century. The author of the Muratorian
fragment knows of only seven communities to whom
Paul wrote, and does not even mention Hebrews
among the pseudo-Pauline writings. Caius of Rome
gives only thirteen Pauline epistles; and in the days
of Eusebius the opponents of the canonicity of the
epistle argued from the fact that it was not received
in Rome as Paul's.
Ambrosiaster (q.v.) does not
treat it in his commentaries on the Pauline epistles.
The Africans, from Cyprian to Optatus, seem not
to have known it at all; it is not in their canon of
359. Only when the influence of the East upon
the West increased so largely after the middle of
the fourth century did the acknowledgment of the
epistle's canonicity and the Alexandrian tradition
as to its authorship become prevalent. The attitude
of the Western Church is all the more significant
because an epistle which was read in Rome at the
end of the first century, quoted by Tertullian, mentioned by Irenæus and Hippolytus, and translated
into Latin before Jerome, can never have been
wholly overlooked or lost sight of by Western
theologians. Their opinion must have been mainly
negative, for Eusebius and Photius would not have
failed to mention the fact, if Irenlleus, Caius, or
Hippolytus had named another author; nor would
these men have contented themselves with merely
denying the Pauline theory, if they had any other
credible tradition to oppose to it. Such a tradition
(not, as Jerome seems to think, a private opinion)
Tertullian gives (De pudicgia, xx.) when he speaks
of it as the epistle of Barnabas to the Hebrews.
But the African Church did not go with him. From
the way he himself employs it, and from the total
silence of the later African writers, it follows that
the epistle here, as in Rome, stood in no connection
with the New Testament, and was not widely known.
When, then, Tertullian speaks of churches in which
it is more considered than the Shepherd of Herman,
and known as Barnabas's, since Rome, Alexandria,
Lyons, and Carthage are excluded, his words must
apply to the churches of Asia Minor, with which
as a Montanist he was in relation. But this view
spread no further.
If choice was limited to the claims of Paul and of
Barnabas it would be easy to decide in favor of the
latter. Neither in style nor in
substance does
the epistle sound like Paul. Had it been his, its
exelusion from the list of his works and from the
New Testament in Rome, where he was early
known and read with reverence, and
y. Ascription
in the West generally, would have
to been inexplicable; and so would the
Barnabas disappearance of the right tradition
and in so wide regions, and
the rise of the
Apollos. Barnabas theory. On
the 'other
hand, it is easy to account for the
origin of the Pauline theory in Alexandria,
where,
if the epistle
came as a supplement to the
Pauline epistles and was read in church imme
diately after
them (its position from the first),
it would have been very natural to add " Epis
tle of Paul" to the existing title " to [the]
Hebrews," on the analogy of all the preceding
epistles from " to [the] Romans " to " to Philemon,"
especially as the reference to Timothy (xiii. 23)
would bring Paul to mind. It would be difficult,
because of paucity of knowledge concerning Bar
nabas, to bring a convincing disproof
of his author
ship upon the contents of the epistle; and the
"word of exhortation" (Heb. )iii. 22) might have
been written by the "son of consolation" [R.V.
" son of exhortation,,]
(
Acts iv. 36).
But the
history of the tradition is against this theory also.
If the decay of the right tradition in Alexandria
may be explained by the ease with which Paul's
name
could be appended to a work which bore that
of no author, and if the unwritten Barnabas tradition
would drop out there the more easily because
the Alexandrian Church knew another epistle of
Barnabas which was sometimes included in the
canon, both of these explanations fall to the ground
for the region represented by Irenæus, Hippolytus,
and the ancient Church of Rome. In the abstract,
where two mutually exclusive positive traditions
are opposed by a third which is purely negative,
the balance of probability is in favor of the third.
As the early writers guessed now at Paul, now at
Barnabas, and later at Clement and Luke, who were
first mentioned only as translators, the hypothesis
of Luther, who held Apollos to be the author, re
mains the most plausible. This Jewish convert,
"born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty
in the Scriptures"
(
Acts xviii. 24-28)
may well be
singled amt among, the prominent teachers of the
Apostolic Age as the author of this remarkable
work.
T. Zahn.
Bibliography:
The questions of date, authorship, genu
inenesa, etc., are discussed in the works on introduction,
e.g., S. Davidson, i. 177-239, London,
1882; E. Reum
(HidorY of
t1 We
Sacred
Scriptures of
the N. T.), i. 148
153, Boston, 1884; F. Bleek, ed. W. Mangold, 189-201,
Berlin, 1886; H. J. Holtamann, pp. 292-308,
Freiburg,
1892; A. Jilficher, pp. 97-111, Freiburg, 1894, Eng.
transl., pp. 148-174, New York, 1904; B. Weise, pp. 307
319, Berlin, 1897; G. Salmon, pp. 414-432 London, 1899;
T. Zahn, ii 111-158, LeiPBIC, 1900;
DB,
ii. 32738;
EB, ii.
1990-2001. The principal commentaries are:
Calvin (in his works); F. Bleek 3 vols., Berlin, 1828
1840; H. Glee Mainz, 1833 A. Tholuck, Hamburg, 1836,
Eag. transl., Edinburgh, 1842. C. Wieseler, Mel, 1861
C. SchweghSuser, Paris, 1862 (a
paraphrase); . De
litasch~ 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1868-70. J. H. Kurt; Mitau,
1869; J. B. McCaul London, 1871 (a paraphrase); J. C.
C. Hofmann Nördlingen, 1873; M. Stuart, Andover,
1876; M. Kghler Halle, 1880; F.
w.
Farrar, Cambridge,
1883; O. Holtaheuer, erlin, 1883; S. T. owrie, New
York, 1884: C. F. KW, Leipsic, 1885; F. Randall, Lpn.
don, 1888; F. B. Westoott, London, 1899 (of high value);
C. J. Vaughan, ib. 1890; T. C. Edwards, ib. 1890; A.
Schi
Treatises on special phases are: E. Riehm, Lehrbegriff
des Hebräerbriefs, Basel, 1859; G. Steward, The Argument
to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1872; E. Menegos, La Thiologie de 1'44p£tre aux Hgbreux, Paris, 1894;
H. H. B. Ayles, Destination, Date and Authorahi; of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1899; G. S. Hood, Foundation of Christian Faith as Shown in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, London, 1906; W. Wrede, Doe literarische RBtael des Hebräierbriefs, Göttingen, 1908.