Paul's original for his manner of writing Greek is totally different, whether we regard the choice of fingle words, the mode of connecting them, or the conftruction and rotundity of the periods. Origen, whom every one will admit to be a competent judge on this fubject, fays, This Epiftle has not that peculiarity, which belongs to the Apostle, and which immediately difcovers his writing, but in the conftruction of the language is better Greek (συνθέσει της λέξεως Ελληνικώτερα). This every one will admit, who is able to diftinguish the difference of ftyles. Other critics in the time of Jerom perceived likewife the fame difference: for this learned father, in his Catalogue of Ecclefiaftical Writers, fays: Epiftola, que fertur ad Hebræos, non ejus crcditur propter ftyli fermonifque diffonantiam.' Whenever I read therefore this Epiftle, I cannot avoid feeling an aftonishment, that fo many modern writers on this fubject, fome of whom undoubtedly are judges of the Greek language, fhould miftake the Greek of the Epistle to the Hebrews for the Greek of St. Paul. This miftake arifes perhaps, partly from the early imbibed prejudice, that all the canonical books of the New Teftament were written in Greek, and partly from the circumftance, that we read the Greek Teftament at school, at a time when we are unable to judge of the difference of ftyle, and thus become fo accuf tomed to it, that we are rendered unable at a later age to distinguish between the modes of compofition, which are visible in the feveral parts of it. Carpzov, one of the most learned advocates for the opinion, that the Greek Epiftle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, has made the following conceffion, in his Exercitationes in Epiftolam ad Hebræos, p. 91. Si quis orationem Pauli adcurate notavit, ftilum in hac ad Hebræos diffimilem aliquanto cognofcet effe illius, quo Apoftolus in reliquis epiftolis ufus eft. Nam caftitas Græcæ Eufeb. Hift. Ecclef. Lib. VI. cap. 25. linguæ, linguæ, pauciores Hebraifmi, phrafefque Cilicum aut Tarfenfium, particularum ufus elegantior, pofitus verborum valde venuftus, flores hinc inde infperfi, aliæ virtutes bene multæ, epiftolæ huic vel eo nomine præ cæteris Paulinis prærogativam videntur concedere.' Yet this learned writer, notwithstanding all these differences, ftill contends, p. 81. that the Greek Epiftle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, and that its fuperiority to St. Paul's other Epiftles arofe from the circumstance, that the Apostle had refolved to exhibit a fpecimen of fine writing, and to fhew how well he was able to write Greek, whenever he chose it. Now, that St. Paul ever wrote an Epiftle, as a kind of fchool exercise in the Greek language, and that the Epifle, which he chofe for this purpose, was an Epiftle, not to Greeks, but to Hebrews, appears, I think, highly improbable. Still more improbable is the opinion of Cramer, who afcribes the difference in queftion to St. Paul's intercourse with the Greeks, and a confequent improvement in the Apostle's Greek style. Strange, that a native of Tarfus, where Greek and good Greek was spoken, whom we find almoft conftantly in Greek cities, in the accounts, which are given of him from Acts xi. to xx. fhould, after the four years and an half imprisonment, which he spent out of Greece, namely two years at Cæfarea in Palestine, where he was under a Roman guard, half a year at fea, and in the ifland of Malta, and two years at Rome, make such a proficiency in the Greek language, as to be able to write in it much better than before. That there are fome, though very few Hebraifms, in this Epistle, to which Cramer appeals, will not invalidate the argument derived from its ftyle: and he seems to have mistaken Origen and Jerom, who do not fay, that it is written in perfectly pure Greek, but only, that it is written in better Greek than that, which was used by St. Paul. And if the Hebraifms were still more Pag. 37. of the Introduction prefixed to his Differtation on the Epiftle to the Hebrews. more numerous, than they really are, they would no more prove, that St. Paul was the author of the Epistle, than the Hebraifins, which are visible in Cramer's own Odes and Pfalms, would prove thefe to be the work of the Apostle. It must be expected, not only that every Jewish, but every Greek writer, who was daily accustomed to the Septuagint, would occafionally introduce Hebraifms, unlefs, like Jofephus, who wrote, not for Jews, but for Greeks and Romans, he made pure and claffic Greek his particular ftudy. Carpzov has collected in his Prolegomena to this Epiftle, 76-78. expreffions, which, in his opinion, betray the ftyle of St. Paul: but whoever examines them, will find, that instead of proving the point, for which they are quoted, they rather thew the weaknefs of the caufe, which this learned advocate undertook to fupport. For inftance, he compares Heb. ix. 14. απο νεκρων έργων, εις το λατρεύειν Θεω ζωντι, with i Theff. i. 9. απο των ειδώλων, δελεύειν Θεω ζωντι και αληθινῳ. But in this example the ufe of δελεύειν in the latter inftance, and of λargeven, which is finer Greek, in the former, muft rather lead to the conclufion, that the paffages proceeded from different writers. It is true, that they agree in the words e CT; but the living God' is a phrafe fo common among the Jewith writers, that no inference whatfoever can be drawn from it; and fince it likewife occurs in Matth. xvi. 16. John vi, 69. Acts xvi. 15. 1 Pet. i. 23. Rev. ii. 2. we might with the fame reafon afcribe likewife these books to St. Paul. Again, he compares Heb. iv. 16. προσερχώμεθα εν μετα παρρησίας τῷ χρόνῳ της χάριτος, with Ephet. iii. 12. εν ώ έχομεν την παρρησίαν και την προσαγωγήν εν πεποιθησει. Here the whole fimilarity confits in the word wagenoia, a word which frequently occurs in other books of the New Teftament, and is ufed not lefs than four times in this very fenfe in the firft Epiftle of St. John". And even if the word waggnoia were peculiar Ch. ii. 28. iii. 21. iv. 17. v. 14: peculiar to St. Paul, it would not prove, that the Epiftle to the Hebrews was written originally in Greek: for he might have used this word in a Hebrew Epiftle, fince it had been adopted by the Jews, and written XD. On the contrary, this very example, like the preceding, affords an argument, and that too a very strong one, in favour of the opinion, that the Greek Epistle to the Hebrews was not 'written by St. Paul. For in the paffage quoted from Ephef. iii. 12. is used the word goraywyn, a word peculiar to St. Paul, which not only does not occur in the parallel paffage, which Carpzov has quoted from the Epiftle to the Hebrews, but not in a fingle inftance in the whole Epiftle. Nor do the other words peculiar to St. Paul, of which I have taken notice in the first volume of this Introduction, occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, except καταργειν, which we find in one inftance, naïnely, ch. ii. 14. This example, which Carpzov overlooked, affords a ftronger proof, than all the examples, which he has collected: but the use of a single favorite word of St. Paul, and that too only in one inftance, is hardly fufficient to warrant the conclufion, that St. Paul wrote the Greek Epistle to the Hebrews, fince a Greek tranflator may have derived it from his intercourse with St. Paul, in the fame manner as St. Luke has done. Laftly, that long parenthefes occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as in the Epiftles of St. Paul, is no proof, that the Greek is St. Paul's original, for parentheses are commonly retained in a tranflation. We are reduced therefore to the following dilemma. If the Epiftle to the Hebrews was written originally in Greek, it was not written by St. Paul, in which cafe we have no ground for pronouncing it canonical. On the other hand, if St. Paul was the author, the Greek can be only a tranflation, and the original must have been • See Buxtorf Lex. Talm. p. 1804, Ch. iv. Sect. 8. been Hebrew. It will be objected perhaps, that this is mere hypothetical reafoning. I grant it: but the hypothefis, which is laid down in the first position, I think hardly admits a doubt. Nor has it been called in queftion, except by thofe, who afcribe the Epistle to St. Paul: but whoever afcribes the Epiftle to St. Paul, will not be able to confute the fecond pofition. But, in addition to these arguments, the frequent ftudy of this Epiftle has fuggefted to me another of a different kind, which applies with equal force, whether St. Paul was the author, or not, and whether the Epiftle was fent to the Hebrews of Palestine, or to the Hebrews of any other country. In this argument, which fhall be the fubject of the following fection, nothing more is taken for granted, than that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was a fenfible and intelligent writer, which I think he was in a very great degree. SECT. XI. A new argument, to prove, that the Epifle to the Hebrews was written in Hebrew, derived from the quotations, which are made in it from the Old Teftament. TH HE quotations from the Old Teftament in the Epiftle to the Hebrews are taken, as they are in general and with a very few exceptions in other books of the New Teftament, from the Septuagint. Now this might have happened not only in an Epiftle written originally in Greek, but likewife in a Greek tranflation of an Epiftle written originally in Hebrew, in the fame manner as a German tranflator of a theological work written in a foreign language would give the quotations from the Bible in the words ufed in Luther's verfion. And |