roblems raised by the criticism of the New Testament. It
does not in the least involve any charge of forgery, such as is
involved in a consideration of St. John's Gospel or of St. Paul's
Epistle to the Ephesians. Nor does it involve the fact of an author
absorbing the work of a previous writer, such as we find in the case of
St. Luke. The work is one complete and original composition of great
finish and perfection, and yet this perfect work contains hardly a hint
as to its author. The title which is placed above it in our Bibles
deserves serious consideration, as it represents an opinion which was
held in many parts of Christendom in the 4th century, and in some parts
of Christendom even in the 2nd century. But it by no means represents
the universal judgment of the Church, and is contradicted by good
evidence, both external and internal. A remarkable divergence of
opinion on the subject existed between the Churches of the east and
those of the west.

Alexandria appears to have been the first centre of the belief that
this Epistle was written by St. Paul. We find that about A.D. 170,
Pantaenus, the head of the catechetical school at Alexandria,
attributed it to St. Paul. His successor Clement agrees with this, but
states that it was written in Hebrew and translated by St. Luke into
Greek--a statement which implies that scholars were conscious that the
style of Hebrews is not {209} the style ordinarily used by St. Paul.
In A.D. 240, Origen, the successor of Clement, defends the Pauline
authorship--a defence which shows that the authorship was disputed. In
A.D. 245 Origen had learnt to doubt the validity of his former defence,
and states that the writer was a disciple of Paul, but "who wrote the
Epistle God only knows." In A.D. 269 the famous heretic Paul of
Samosata quoted Hebrews as the work of St. Paul in a letter read at the
Synod of Antioch which deposed him from his bishopric. Early in the
next century Eusebius quotes the Epistle as by St. Paul, but he shows
the same perplexity as Clement of Alexandria, for he thinks that it was
translated from the Hebrew, possibly by Clement of Rome. After the
time of Eusebius the Greek Fathers all ascribe it to St. Paul. We can
therefore sum up the evidence of the Greek Churches by saying that
though it mostly favours one theory, it is not so cogent as to remove
all our suspicions.

Moreover, the complete absence of references to this Epistle in the
extant writings