constantly, regularly, and unmistakably appeals. This evident acceptance of the Old Testament at once suggests Jewish Christian readers. Yet it by no means establishes the fact that the epistle was written to such persons, since Gentile Christians were from the first little if at all behind Jewish believers in loyalty to scripture, and to Gentile readers the peculiar use of the Old Testament made by our writer would have been admirably suited. So zealously, indeed, did the Gentile believers appropriate the Septuagint Old Testament that the Jews conceived a distaste for their own book, and in the second century practically resigned it to their antagonists and had recourse to a new translation. Nor is evidence wanting that in the first century Gentile believers were familiar with the Old Testament and amenable to its authority. Clement of Rome in writing to the Corinthians, soon after the writing of Hebrews, a Gentile Christian writing to Gentile Christians, makes even larger use of the Greek Old Testament than does the writer of the epistle.

The readers of the epistle, like the writer, are not of those who heard the Lord speak, but have received the word from others who had (2:3; 4:2). This implies remoteness of time or place, or both, from the personal activity of Jesus in Palestine. That a considerable time has elapsed is further evident from the allusions to the death of former leaders of the congregation, and to the length of the Christian experience which lies behind the readers. Their church has been long established.

:

The readers are nevertheless taxed with dulness and immaturity (5 11 ff.). They ought to be teachers, but are themselves in need of instruction, and that of the simpler sort. Yet they are not without commendable traits, for in its infancy their church heroically withstood persecution (10: 32-35), and they have never been backward in ministering to the saints, and sharing their burdens (6: 9-12). A new persecution is now threatening (10: 36, 39; 12:4), if not actually afflicting them, against which the writer is in

part seeking to fortify them. The danger of apostasy and the admonition to be steadfast color the whole epistle.

If persecution is attacking the congregation on the one hand, apathy and indifference are threatening it on the other. Nor is it easy to recognize in this peril a tendency to lapse into the Judaism of temple and ceremonial, or even of scribe and synagogue. It is rather the disposition of men whose hopes have long been deferred, to turn from the living God, and sink back into their former heathenism (312). To such men the writer would show the grandeur and worth of Christian faith, the meaning of the life and death of Christ, the significance of the discipline of suffering, and the necessity of laying firm hold on that unseen world which alone has abiding reality.

The personal references in the epistle are few but significant. The writer has been among the readers, and purposes to return to them at the earliest opportunity (13: 19). They know Timothy (13: 23), and seem to have an interest in him, as only Gentile or even Pauline congregations are likely to have had. They of Italy, or rather from Italy, send greetings to them (13:24), which seems most naturally to mean that Italian Christians, for some reason out of Italy at the time, wish to be remembered to a congregation in Italy.

If we now undertake to combine these touches into the likeness of some Christian community of the first century, we must acknowledge that the Jerusalem church is certainly not the one addressed. The commendations and the condemnations of the epistle alike fail to accord with what we know of the Jerusalem church in any period of its brief existence. Nor is it essentially easier to connect the epistle with some other Palestinian congregation, such as that at Pella or Jamnia. Indeed, contemporary ceremonial Judaism, with its temple and priests, is utterly absent from the mind of the writer, whose Judaism is not personal or legalistic, but academic and philosophical. The failure to take account of this is probably responsible

for that ancient opinion as to the epistle which gave it its present title, as well as for not a few modern efforts to connect it with Palestinian or other Jewish congregations.

For the Alexandrian church more may perhaps be said, since the community that had produced the Septuagint might with propriety be addressed in the most finished Greek, and hear the Old Testament quoted in the Alexandrian version. Here, too, the title To Hebrews appears most at home, if we are to judge by the analogy of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and here the title very probably originated. The Alexandrianism of the epistle, too, is readily understood in an epistle addressed by one Alexandrian Christian to others. Yet the clear references to persecution, and the inexorable allusions to Italy and Timothy, condemn this identification like the others, and recall us to Italy and to the church at Rome.

The Italian destination of the epistle has of late been widely accepted, but it has assumed many forms. It has been held that the epistle is addressed to all the Christian congregations of Italy, as a sort of circular letter (Von Soden). Again, it is maintained that so far from being addressed to all the churches of Italy, it is not written even to one of them, but to a part of it, — a little house-congregation within the Roman church (Harnack, Zahn). For neither of these positions does there seem to be adequate evidence. All the hints of the epistle, however, seem to converge upon the Roman church as that to which it was addressed. The references to persecution long past (Nero) and now present (Domitian), to hospitality and liberality to the saints, to former heroic leaders, to evangelization by those who had heard the Lord, to Italy and Timothy, fall in with the Roman destination of the epistle in a way that leaves little to be desired. The earliest trace of the epistle in literature is in I Clement. That letter, written from Rome during Domitian's persecution, and thus probably soon after Hebrews, is full of the influence of

Hebrews, and thus contributes strongly to confirm the Roman destination of the epistle.

We cannot indeed establish the Roman destination of Hebrews, but we may say with confidence that as far as our knowledge goes, the indirect testimony of the epistle as to its intended readers fits better upon the Roman church than upon any other ancient church of which we have knowledge.

V. OCCASION AND PURPOSE

The writer's repeated injunctions to his readers to hold fast throws light upon the purpose of the epistle and indirectly upon the occasion which prompted it. They are to hold fast their boldness (3:6), and the glorying of their hope, firm unto the end; their first confidence (3:14), firm unto the end; their confession (4:14); the confession of their hope, that it waver not (10: 23). They are warned against falling short of the promised "rest" of God (4:1), and urged to give diligence to enter into that rest (4:11). They are to run with endurance the race set before them (12: 1), and not to grow weary and faint in their souls -(123). They must not refuse him who speaks (12:25), for there is no escape for those who reject the heavenly warning. They are to beware of falling away from the living God (3:12).

The readers of the epistle are evidently in danger of giving up their Christian faith, which some of them have held for a long time. Indeed, there are already about them lapsed persons, who have thus fallen away (6:6), who cannot be renewed again unto repentance. The writer is persuaded better things of his readers. For the apostates, however, he reserves his most terrible indictment. There remains for them only a certain fearful expectation of judgment (10:27), for they have trodden under foot the Son of God, and done despite to the spirit of grace (1029). The terrible and feeling denunciation of these persons in chapters 6 and 10 makes it clear that

this is no imaginary class, but a real and present element of the immediate situation, the existence and possible growth of which the writer counts a most serious peril to the church. The writer would hardly present to them with such vividness, and twice in the epistle, the awful consequences of apostasy, unless there were danger that some of them should fall into the same deadly sin. The atmosphere of impending persecution, already detected, is here evident, and with it an important element in the situation that evoked the epistle.

The peril of apostasy under the stress of persecution is not all that threatens the congregation. Some of its members are Christians of some years' standing, old enough to be teachers, but actually immature (5: 12). These persons need to be aroused to press on unto perfection (6 : 1). The readers have indeed shown Christian graces in practical ways, ministering to the saints and the like; it would seem to be in other matters that their failure lies (6: 10). The fact seems to be that the writer is apprehensive that his readers, or some of them, will fall into indifference as to Christian faith, not because of stress of persecution, but through the lapse of time, and the wearing out of their first enthusiasm. A sense of disappointment at the failure of the promises to reach fulfilment, too, is reflected in the writer's picture of the old worthies, who died in faith, without having received the promises (11: 1, 13, 39). The peril of indifference would grow more and more serious as time went on and the last individuals of Jesus' own generation disappeared, without his coming again in the glorious manner so keenly anticipated through the first years of the life of the church. For these and other reasons, sluggishness and indifference were creeping into the church, and a stirring declaration of the folly and the peril of such decline was urgently demanded.

The purpose of Hebrews was thus above all things a practical purpose. The cold and indifferent among those to whom this Christian leader writes, must be shamed and startled out of their torpor and neglect, and roused to a