THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON.

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But there is another reason which, we say it with all reverence, was very probably in the mind of the Spirit, when He caused that this letter should be included in the Canon of Scripture. This letter, so full of sympathy and Christian love to a penitent member of the Mystical Body, so full of delicacy and urbanity to his Christian friend and fellow-labourer, is the letter of one who is described by the Spirit as "breathing out threatenings and slaughters against the disciples of the Lord," who described himself as "exceedingly mad" against the followers of Jesus. What a transformation! How has the ravenous beast become a lamb ? It is true that years had intervened, but years of heathenism would not have so transformed the persecutor. It was Divine Gracethe Spirit of Jesus. The considerations brought to bear upon Philemon are not natural, but spiritual-no rights of man, no natural equality of mankind, but the fact that "in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all and in all."

The Epistle to Philemon was in all probability written at the same time as that to the Colossians, as we learn from Coloss. iv. 7, 9. "All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord... with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you."

If he was the co-bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians he would naturally carry the letter of the Apostle to Philemon, a citizen of Colosse.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO

THE HEBREWS.

OF

TO WHOM WAS THE EPISTLE SENT?

F the many questions which the varied phenomena of the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests, the first is that of the persons to whom it was written.

There are three considerations which must be taken into account in attempting to answer this question.

(1.) The first, that it was written to a Church wholly, or almost entirely, composed of Jews. There is not the least hint of the intermixture of any Gentile element, and in this it stands in contrast with almost all the other Epistles. Every Epistle of St. Paul, as well as that of St. Peter I., recognizes that Jews and Gentiles were side by side in the Church.' It is true that in the Epistle General of St. James there is no recognition of the presence of Gentiles, but the two cannot be compared. The Epistle of St. James, in its precepts, is entirely general. If we had not the allusion to the "twelve tribes" in the first verse we should not know that it was written to Jews, whereas the Epistle to the Hebrews is upon Judaism, upon the meaning of its rites and the shortcomings of its priesthood, in comparison with the fulness of the Priesthood of the Eternal Son which superseded it.

It is scarcely possible, then, to suppose that, if there had been any Gentile element in the Church or Churches to which it was addressed, this element should have been altogether ignored. A great part of the trial of the Jewish Christians in any mixed Church was that they should cheerfully acknowledge the equality of all men in Christ-that in Christ Jesus there was neither Jew nor Greek, but Christ all and in all.

I grant that what I am now asserting is not an absolute cer

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

xiii tainty. For some wise and good reason the Holy Spirit may have led the writer to ignore altogether the presence of Gentiles in the Unity of the One Body; but it seems to me extremely unlikely, and that consequently, if the Epistle is addressed to some local church, as it seems to be, the place of this church must be in Jerusalem-or in some contiguous part of Palestine.

Among possibilities, it may have been addressed to some isolated colony of Jews, who were able to shut themselves up from all outward communication, even with believing Gentiles, but it is extremely improbable that if such a community existed, such a document would have been addressed to it.

2. Then the Epistle seems to have been written to Jews who yet continued under the ministrations of the Jewish Priesthood. They had hitherto participated in the services of the Jewish Temple; they were now to be deprived of this, either by the cessation of these ministrations by the destruction of the temple and altar, or by excommunication on the part of the Jewish ecclesiastical rulers.

Now the significance of this can be best brought out by comparing the teaching of this Epistle with that to the Galatians. In the Epistle to the Galatians the converts are warned of the danger of apostatizing from Christ through the machinations of Judaizers. But what Judaizers? Evidently those of the Synagogues, not of the temple. Throughout the Epistle to the Galatians there is no warning whatsoever against Jewish sacerdotal pretensions. Not a word is said respecting altar, tabernacle, or temple, or veil, or sprinkling of blood, and such things. The Judaism which was a snare to them was that of the synagogue, not of the Temple. It put forth the perpetual obligation of circumcision, of the keeping of Jewish days of observance ("ye observe days, and weeks, and months, and years"), and differences between meats, whereas the Epistle to the Hebrews says little of this, and is mainly occupied with the ministrations of the High Priest, and his entrance into the most holy place with blood of others, not his own. With this it contrasts the entrance of the Great High Priest of Christians into the heavenly Holy of Holies, and our entrance into the same by “the new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.' This seems as if the recipients of the Epistle were living in close proximity to the celebration of the most characteristic rites of Judaism, and that (though they

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INTRODUCTION TO

were believers) the old ritual, though it was all fulfilled in Jesus, exercised a strange fascination over them-they were all "zealous for the law," as it yet was observed in the temple ceremonial.

These two considerations seem to prove almost beyond doubt that the Hebrew Christians who received this Epistle formed part of a Church entirely Hebrew in its membership, and living under the shadow of the Temple, or, which is practically the same, were living at such a distance from Jerusalem, that they could easily attend the yearly festivals.

There is another fact also which points in the same direction. The teaching of the Epistle is founded entirely on that of the Old Testament. It is the old covenant, the old law, the old figures, the old examples, the old prophecies regenerated. There is absolutely nothing new. Even the New Covenant is in one of the old prophets. There seems to be no special revelation, as there is in that to the Ephesians. It is the interpretation of the old, shedding on it a new light, quickening it with a new life, applying it afresh to altered circumstances, but the substratum is the Old Testament. Of course this is true in a sense of all Christianity— all its truths are everlasting, because all are in the eternal counsels of God. Now when we turn to the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians or Thessalonians, we perceive a great difference. There is the constantly recurring new phrase "in Christ Jesus." There is the new Headship of the Church, the new Body, the new ministry, the new oneness or bond of union. All this points to the fact that this Epistle is written to a Church still retaining as a Church its traditions, even to a certain extent its separation, and doing this at that time lawfully, but still the word might come, if it has not already come, "Let us go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." A Christian Jew in Corinth, or Ephesus, or Rome had not to " go out" as a Jew in Jerusalem had. From the stand-point of his countrymen, in Judea at least, he was already more than half without, and the step seems to be small, and the courage required for it insignificant, compared to what it was at Jerusalem.

AUTHORSHIP.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is quoted as Scripture by the first Christian Father in point of time whose work has come down to

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

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us, viz., Clement of Rome, who wrote, as most agree, not later than A.D. 96.

"By Him the Lord has willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge, who being the brightness of His majesty, is by so much greater than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For it is there written, 'Who maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.' But concerning His Son the Lord thus spake, 'Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee.' There are at least thirteen references in Clement's Epistle. He quotes three or four times the text, "Moses was faithful in all his house." He quotes so remarkable a place as Heb. xi. 37, "Let us be imitators also of those who in goatskins and sheepskins went about proclaiming the coming of Christ" (xvii.).

Ignatius quotes the Hebrews in his Epistle to the Trallians: "Be ye subject to the Bishop as to the Lord, for he watches over your souls as one that shall give account to God" (ch. ii.); and again in the same Epistle, “Sat down at his right hand, expecting till His enemies are put under His feet; " and to the Smyrneans he quotes the phrase of "how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy?" &c. (ch. ix.).

In Justin Martyr, Dial. cvi., there seems a clear reference to Heb. ii. 11, 12, "And that he stood in the midst of his brethren the Apostles... and when living with them sang praises to God, as is made evident in the memoirs of the Apostle. The words are ," &c. the following, 'I will declare thy name unto my brethren,' And again, the only place where our Lord is called the Apostle of the Father is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Justin, in Apology I., ch. xii., calls Him "the Apostle of God the Father." Again, "But your ears are shut up and your hearts are made dull. For by this statement, 'The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever,' with an oath God has shown Him on account of your unbelief to be the high priest after the order of Melchisedec" (Dial., ch. xxxiii., referring to the Hebrews vii. 17-22). Again, Heb. ix. 13, 14, " And who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and sheep, or by the ashes of an heifer." Again, Dial. lxvii., "Likewise I said, did not the Scripture predict that God promised to dispense a new covenant besides that which was dispensed on the Mount Horeb? This, too, he replied had been predicted. Then I said again, was not the old covenant laid on your fathers with fear and trembling, so that they could not give ear to God?

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