without being greatly impressed. The supposition which has
repeatedly been accepted and urged, that this composition was
first written in Hebrew, and afterwards translated into Greek by
another person, is absurd, in view of the masterly skill and
eloquence, critical niceties, and felicities in the use of
language, displayed in it. We could easily fill a paragraph with
the names of those eminent in the Church such as Tertullian,
Hippolytus, Erasmus, Luther, Le Clerc, and Neander who have
concluded that, whoever the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
was, he was not Paul. The list of those names would reach from the
Egyptian Origen, whose candor and erudition were without parallel
in his age, to the German Bleek, whose masterly and exhaustive
work is a monument of united talent and toil, leaving little to be
desired. It is not within our present aim to argue this point: we
will therefore simply refer the reader to the thorough and
unanswerable discussion and settlement of it by Norton.1

The general object of the composition is, by showing the
superiority of the Christian system to the Hebrew, to arm the
converts from Judaism to whom it is addressed against the
temptations to desert the fulfilling faith of Christ and to return
to the emblematic faith of their fathers. This aim gives a
pervading cast and color to the entire treatment to the reasoning
and especially to the chosen imagery of the epistle. Omitting, for
the most part, whatever is not essentially interwoven with the
subject of death, the resurrection, and future existence, and with
the mission of Christ in relation to those subjects, we advance to
the consideration of the views which the epistle presents or
implies concerning those points. It is to be premised that we are
forced to construct from fragments and hints the theological
fabric that stood in the mind of the writer. The suggestion also
is quite obvious that, since the letter is addressed solely to the
Hebrews and describes Christianity as the completion of

1 Christian Examiner, vols. for 1827 29.

Judaism, an acquaintance with the characteristic Hebrew opinions
and hopes at that time may be indispensable for a full
comprehension of its contents.

The view of the intrinsic nature and rank of Christ on which the
epistle rests seems very plainly to be that great Logos doctrine
which floated in the philosophy of the apostolic age and is so
fully developed in the Gospel of John: "The Logos of G