ightfoot). The picture,
too, which it gives of the danger lest the Christianity of its readers
should be unduly Judaic in feeling and practice, suits well the experiences
of a writer living in Alexandria, where Judaism was immensely strong.
Further, he shows an "astonishing familiarity with the Jewish rites," in
the opinion of a modern Jew (Kohler in the _Jewish Encycl._); so much so,
that the latter agrees with another Jewish scholar in saying that "the
writer seems to have been a converted Jew, whose fanatic zeal rendered him
a bitter opponent of Judaism within the Christian Church." These opinions
must overrule the view of some Christian scholars that the writer often
blunders in Jewish matters, the fact being that his knowledge is derived
from the Judaism of Alexandria[1] rather than Palestine. But we need not
therefore regard the author as of Jewish birth. It is enough, and more in
keeping with the thought as a whole, to regard him as having been in close
contact with Judaism, possibly as a proselyte. He now uses his knowledge to
warn his readers, with intense passion, against all compromise between
Judaism and the Gospel. In this he goes so far as to deny any historical
connexion between the two, maintaining with all the devices of an
extravagant allegorism, including the Rabbinic _Gematria_ based on the
numerical values of letters (ix. 7 f.), that the Law and Prophecy, as meant
by God, had never been given to Israel as a people. The Divine oracles had
ever pointed to the Christian Covenant, and had been so understood by the
men of God in Israel, whereas the apostate people had turned aside to keep
the ceremonial letter of the Law at the instigation of an evil angel (ix.
4). In this way he takes in succession the typical Jewish
institutions--Circumcision, Foods, Ablutions, Covenant, Sabbath,
Temple--showing their spiritual counterpart in the New People and its
ordinances, and that the Cross was prefigured from the first. Such insight
(_gnosis_) into the reality of the case he regards as the natural issue of
Christian faith; and it is his main object to help his readers to attain
such spirituality--the more so that, by similar insight applied to the
signs of the times, he knows and can show that the end of the present age
is imminent (i. 5, 7-iv.). The burden of his epistle, then, is, "Let us
become [v.03 p.0409] spiritual, a perfect temple unto God" (iv. 11); and
that not only by theoretic insight, but also by practi