book less likely to represent translation from a Hebrew original than Hebrews.

The statement of Tertullian connecting the epistle with Barnabas has little ancient support indeed, but cannot at once be decisively set aside. We have no genuine writings of Joseph called Barnabas with which to compare it, although a so-called Epistle of Barnabas and a Gospel of Barnabas are extant, the former an Alexandrian monument of the second century, the latter a mediæval (13th century) or modern (16th century) work of Mohammedan color. An ancient Gospel of Barnabas, now lost, is named in the "Decree of Gelasius" and in the Sixty Canonical Books (Codex Baroccianus). Mention may be made, further, of the Acts of Barnabas, by Mark, a work of the fourth or fifth century. A small but fairly complete cycle of literature gospel, acts, epistle — thus gathered early about the name of Barnabas, but unfortunately all of it that has come down to us is clearly spurious, and thus supplies no valid criterion by which to test his claim to the authorship of Hebrews.

We can therefore bring against the ascription of Hebrews to Barnabas no such definite arguments from style, theology, and method, as are abundantly supplied in the case of Paul by a comparison of Hebrews with his acknowledged works, but the narrative of Acts and the letters of Paul contain statements as to Barnabas which afford some basis of comparison with the internal evidence of the epistle.

These references form a picture of an eloquent Jewish Christian evangelist of Levitical ancestry, a man of means and probably education, the first friend and co-worker of Paul. The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions contain frequent references to Barnabas as in Rome and Alexandria, and more than one consideration points to the west as the probable field of his missionary labor after his separation from Paul, with whom he evidently had an understanding as to the direction in which each should

work. There are thus no general considerations of weight to be set against the statement of Tertullian and Novatian.

If we seek to test that statement further by the internal evidence of the epistle, certain objections to it at once appear. A. The author is not one of those who heard the Lord speak, but of those to whom the word had been confirmed by those who had (2:3). But Barnabas is said by Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, 2: 20) to have been one of the Seventy, and in this he is followed by Eusebius (H.E. I: 12:1, probably following Clement, Hypotyposes, 7; cf. H.E. 21:4). Clement's inaccuracy in these matters is well recognized, however, as in his identification of James the Lord's brother with James the son of Alphæus (Clement, Hypoty poses, 7, quoted in H.E. 2: 1:4), and his statement is by no means decisive. Still it must be reckoned with, and may be noted as one of the specific notices making against the Barnabas authorship.

B. The writer is too ignorant of the temple arrangements to have been a Levite long resident at Jerusalem, for he represents the high-priest as daily offering sacrifice for his own sins and those of the people (7: 27), and places the incense-altar in the Most Holy Place, 9:4, contrary to Exodus 30: 1, 3, 6, and Josephus, Antiquities, 3:6:8 (cf. Luke 1:11), which locate it definitely in the Holy Place, outside the veil.

It may be answered that the writer is not at all concerned with the temple in Jerusalem, but with the tabernacle in the wilderness. His sources of information as to it were the books of the Pentateuch, notably Exodus. Residence in Jerusalem and familiarity with the temple-precincts have at best but a secondary bearing upon the matter. Philo's words, "The most fragrant of all incenses are offered up twice every day in the fire, being burnt within the veil, both when the sun rises and sets, before the morning and after the evening sacrifice," 1 might be understood to locate the incense-altar in the Most Holy Place, and

Philo, On Animals fit for Sacrifice, ch. 2.

the command to put of the incense "before the testimony in the tent of meeting, where I will meet with thee" (Ex. 30:36), may have contributed to this confusion. As to the high-priest's service, there is even less difficulty, for the writer expresses himself definitely and accurately about the matter in 9:7, where he says that into the second tabernacle the high-priest alone goes, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. This language shows that the writer is under no misconception as to the frequency of the highpriest's service, and it is artificial to ignore this passage and insist, upon the basis of 7: 27, that the writer did not know things which as a matter of fact he specifically and unequivocally asserts in 9:7. These points have no bearing upon the residence of the writer of Hebrews in Jerusalem or upon his Levitical descent.

On the other hand, there are points in which Barnabas admirably satisfies the conditions of the problem. He was a Jewish Christian, a man of substance and so probably of education, the broadest Christian in the church at the time of Paul's conversion, and a man of such zeal and eloquence as to be called by the apostles the Son of Exhortation. No other figure in early Christian history more naturally combines liability to Alexandrian influence with wide-ranging evangelism. An associate of Paul, and thus conversant and sympathetic with his thought, he was yet not a disciple of Paul, but a Christian teacher of independent views. Paul's influence he had felt, and with some at least of his letters he must have been familiar. Timothy he would have known in early days at Derbe and Lystra, and perhaps also in later times at Rome, if, as seems probable, Barnabas found his way thither with Mark. The writer's interest in Levi and the Levitical sits well on Barnabas the Levite. The only individual mention of the patriarch Levi in the New Testament is found in Hebrews,1 and the word Levitical occurs in no Heb. 7:5, 9; cf. Rev. 7:7.

other New Testament book. indeed is distinctly Levitic.1

The writer's point of view

The existence in the early church of a cycle of works bearing the name of Barnabas (gospel, acts, epistle), strongly suggests that he did write something, the tradition of which occasioned the ascription of other writings to him, precisely as happened in the case of Peter, Clement, and others. More particularly, the spurious Epistle of Barnabas first appears under that name at Alexandria, the very place where Hebrews is first ascribed to Paul, facts which at once demand to be related. They suggest that when Hebrews was given to Paul by the Alexandrians, in the obvious desire to make it apostolic, the tradition lingered that Barnabas had written an epistle, and this tradition came at length to be connected with the anonymous work since known as the Epistle of Barnabas. On the whole, in spite of the dogmatic negation of some critics, there is more to be said for Barnabas than for any one else,1 and the only serious ancient testimony on the matter, that of Tertullian and Novatian, is surely not to be swept aside without substantial reason. Such a reason may exist in the apparent lateness of the epistle, but no other valid consideration of weight has been adduced.

The silence of the epistle as to its author has been thought by some significant, even intentional, but this can hardly be true, since the writer's allusions to his intended visit to them and to his prospective meeting with Timothy, show clearly that the epistle was not originally anonymous. It is altogether more probable that the salutation was early lost from the beginning of the epistle, either through chance mutilation common in ancient documents, or through the quite intelligible feeling that the epistle began more loftily and worthily without the commonplace names and greetings, which might seem even to disfigure the majestic introduction. The loss of the salutatory title (e.g. Barnabas to the Romans, etc.) might be the easier, if, on the one hand,

McGiffert.

the church already possessed an apostolic letter to the Romans, and, on the other, the fame of Barnabas suffered as time went on and the Acts and the letters of Paul gained in influence. These, it will be recalled, leave him under what have seemed to many serious imputations of vacillation (Gal. 2:13), and defection from Paul (Acts 15:39). As such a view of Barnabas came to prevail, his connection with an epistle like Hebrews might very naturally be suffered to fall into oblivion.

The silence of Rome as to the writer of the epistle is satisfied by the same consideration, quite as naturally as by the view of Harnack that Prisca was the author, but was quietly lost sight of, as the church disliked to own a woman among its greatest teachers.

We cannot indeed establish the authorship of Hebrews by Barnabas, nor is the view free from grave difficulties, especially since the epistle falls so late in the first century, when Barnabas must have been a very old man. Yet there is, as McGiffert puts it, more to be said for Barnabas than for any other claimant to the authorship.

IV. THE PERSONS ADDRESSED IN THE EPISTLE

Since the time of Pantænus and Irenæus, i.e. the latter part of the second century, the designation To Hebrews seems to have been generally attached to the epistle. In this title fathers and manuscripts unanimously agree. The epistle itself says nothing directly about its recipients, the apparent loss of its title having deprived us of the express statement of its destination which presumably accompanied its opening salutation. Yet there are not a few indirect touches in the epistle which throw light upon the circle for which it was written.

The intended readers are clearly Christian believers of long standing and genuine worth. They are firmly attached to the Old Testament, which they probably know in the Septuagint version, since it is to that that the writer