Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 18:71 (Jul 1861)
Article: Was The Apostle Paul The Author Of The Epistle To The Hebrews?
Author: R. D. C. Robbins

BSac 18:71 (July 1861) p. 469

Was The Apostle Paul The Author Of The Epistle To The Hebrews?

Prof. R. D. C. Robbins

Introductory Remarks

The Epistle to the Hebrews has met the fate of all anonymous productions in every age. We cannot wonder that its authorship has been much questioned in modern times, when even Shakspeare’s Plays have been accused of illegitimacy, and the Iliad and Odyssey, instead of being allowed to claim the honor of descent from the blind old bard of Scio’s rocky isle, have been compelled to be content with an origin from wandering minstrels or cyclic poets. If Junius still wanders like “Japhet in search of a Father,” or, with less success than Electra in the play, is yet unable to discern a brother’s locks among all its contemporaries, we cannot wonder that an anonymous writing of the first century of the Christian era, whose real or supposed author is not mentioned for a hundred years at least after it first appeared, has given occasion to some discussion in these latter ages, in which, if

BSac 18:71 (July 1861) p. 470

a doubt should arise in reference to the foundation of the most costly structure, some hand would be found ruthless enough to undermine it in order to solve the doubt.

In tracing the history of the treatment of this Epistle in ages past, the greatest wonder is, that it should have been, with so little opposition, attributed to one author. The number who have fully denied its Pauline origin is certainly very few. And still fewer have been able to satisfy themselves who the author was, if not the apostle Paul. One has conjectured that Barnabas, another that the evangelist Luke, another that Apollos or Silvanus, wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews; but the arguments that have been adduced have been few and of little weight. The canonical authority of the Epistle does not necessarily depend upon the Pauline authorship, although the proof of both is, to a considerable extent, the same; hence some have doubtless felt that it was of comparatively little importance to determine who its author was. Still it cannot be denied that it lends additional interest to the book, if we can feel that it is the production of the great apostle; and especially do the arguments for the superiority of the Christian to the Jewish dispensation gain additional force in the words of him who was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and had been educated in all the strictness of the Jewish schools, and in the centre of Jewish influence.

It will not, we hope, be deemed inappropriate to ask the attention of the readers of the Bibliotheca once more to the arguments that may have a bearing upon the authorship of this epistle. Most of them have often been brought forward previously, and may be quite familiar to those who have paid spec...