TEBOLOOY. — Destinatiott, Date, and Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
By H. H. B. Ayles, B.D. (C. J. Clay and Sons. Ss.)—Mr. Ayles holds that the Epistle was written to a par. ticular Church, not addressed, as were the letters of SS. Peter and James, to Hebrew Christians, wherever they might happen to be ; that the date was some time before the destruction of Jerusalem, the weight of the passages which imply the con. tinuance of the Temple service outbalancing that of the one which seems to speak of this service as past (" The first covenant had also ordinances of divine services," he., ix. 1) ; and that the author was one of the Pauline circle. The argument on this last point is drawn out with no little subtlety and skill. There are analogies between the Hebrews and St. Paul's Epistles, and there are differences which are not less strongly marked. A theory of authorship which admits of being reconciled with both is not easily constructed. Mr. Ayles finds it in St. Barnabas, and supports it with much force and ingenuity. The comparison of this document with Galatians is pecu- liarly interesting. The writer to the Hebrews was mani- festly more tolerant of the Jtelaisers than was St. Paul. His argument is, indeed, addressed largely to them, whereas St. Paul considered them to be beyond the reach of argument. There is nothing in the Hebrews, for instance, like the fierce $ feXov sal aworafiporTat of Gal. v. 12. The external evidence as to the authorship is complicated by many difficulties, the first being that the Western Church did not receive it as canonical. On the whole, the Barnabas theory seems to suit the facts as well, to say the least, as any. It is superior to the Apollos theory on the positive side. We know so very little about Apollos that there is little to be said either for or against his authorship.
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