, ' ¦ ;.-

THE EPISTLE OF PRIESTHOOD

MAGISTRO • DESIDERATISSIMO
EDVARDO • HENRICO ' BRADBY

THE EPISTLE OF
PRIESTHOOD
STUDIES IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

ALEXANDER NAIRNE, B.D.
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON
EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF S. ALBANS
LATE FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

QUOD it ague Redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in
sacramenta transimt: et ut fides excellentior esset ac
firmior, visioni doctrina successit, cuius auctoritatem
supernis ittuminata radiis credentium corda sequerentur. S. LEO.

Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
i9J3

Printed by
Morrison & Gibb Limited,
for
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

PREFACE
I AM indebted to the family of the late Principal T. C.
Edwards for the loan of a manuscript commentary on the
Epistle. The translation " on the Godward side " (which
was the germ of what I have attempted to express con
cerning priesthood) I heard many years ago in a sermon
at Cambridge by Canon G. H. Whitaker. I thank Messrs.
G. M. Edwards, J. H. A. Hart, C. Jenkins, and W. R.
Matthews, for help and encouragement; Dr. Bethune-
Baker for corrections he kindly furnished ; and especially
Mr. S. Kirshbaum who has lavished time and thought
on my behalf. If in spite of his pains the argument is
still obscure, the summary on pp. 298, 299 may perhaps
prove serviceable as a clue. I would also acknowledge
with gratitude the friendly interest and singular for
bearance of my publishers, to whose experience I have
had continual recourse. A. NAIRNE.
King's College, London,
August 1913.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Date and Purpose of the Epistle . . i
II. The Sacramental Principle . . . .32
III. The Sacrament of the Incarnation : The Limita
tions of Manhood . . . . .60
IV. The Sacrament of the Incarnation : Perfection
through Limitation . . . -99
V. Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek :
The Priesthood . . . . -135
VI. Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek :
The Sacrifice . . . . .160
VII. The Coming of Christ, and the Doctrine of
Loyalty ...... 204
VIII. The Epistle and the Old Testament . . 248
Epilogue .... . . 290

An Exposition of the Epistle .... 297
Index of Persons and Subjects .... 434
References to Passages Quoted .... 442

THE
EPISTLE OF PRIESTHOOD
CHAPTER I
Date and Purpose of the Epistle
Criticism of the Epistle descends from Origen — But Rome's evidence excludes
Pauline authorship — Modern criticism dates it late and treats it as
sermon rather than letter — Yet inquiry may be reopened — It seems
to have been a real letter, written to a small group of Hellenistic Jews
who had become imperfect Christians and were proposing to abandon
the reformed faith and to make a fresh start in the Church of their
fathers — They were urged to do this by the outbreak of the Jewish war
with Rome — Objections to this hypothesis — The Epistle's high doctrine
of Christ — But the high doctrine now appears to have been the primitive
doctrine — The Epistle represents a developed expression of primitive
faith.
FROM the fifth century to the sixteenth S. Paul was
generally accepted as the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth the
Pauline authorship was questioned, and some other
name was sought from the Pauline circle in the New
Testament. That search is now given up, and most
readers are content to be ignorant of the author's
name, while they recognize even more clearly than
their predecessors the canonical value of the Epistle.
It is no longer looked upon as one of the witnesses
to S. Paul's theology, nor yet as representing a theology

2 The Epistle of Priesthood
derived from hhn. S. Paul is indeed behind it, but so
is the primitive Galilean tradition. It stands in its own
peculiar position between S. Paul and S. John in the
developement of apostolic theology ; not independent,
for none of the New Testament books is absolutely
independent of the others ; yet a particular and primary
document. These three stages of critical opinion were anticipated
by Origen (cent, iii.), and have been in a sense due to him.
Eusebius (cent, iii.-iv.) tells us in his Ecclesiastical History
(vi. 13, 14) how a tradition of S. Paul's authorship was
held in the Church of Alexandria, and how Clement
of Alexandria (cent, ii.-iii.) had criticized it. He then
shews (vi. 25) how Origen declared it impossible that
S. Paul could have been the writer in the strict sense
— any one who could discern style would admit that ;
yet the matter of the Epistle was apostolic, and there
could be no objection to calling it S. Paul's. The
thoughts might have come from him ; they might have
been worked up by a disciple of his ; Clement (of Rome)
or Luke (both names had been already suggested) might
have been that disciple, but it was impossible to decide
upon any one name — " who actually wrote the Epistle
God only knows."
This implies a more immediate connexion with
S. Paul than most readers would recognize now ; it
represents, in fact, the second of the stages of opinion
mentioned above. But Origen does not insist on his
suggestion. It provided a possible reconciliation of
tradition and scholarship, but it touched the minor point
only. The important thing was that " the thoughts
of the Epistle are wonderful and not secondary to the

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 3
acknowledged apostolic writings,"1 i.e. the Epistle was
worthy of its own place in the Canonical Scriptures.
The most determined opponent of the Pauline derivation
of the Epistle, though he find the strongest contrast
between its character and original Paulinism, still allows
that S. Paul's whole teaching lies behind it, and there
is little difference between such a view and that of
Origen. Perhaps we might consider that Origen would
agree for his own part with most of the arguments of the
modern critic, while the Alexandrian Church of his day
felt much the same about the matter as the Church at
large does in England, preferring a compromise to a
denial, and (being impatient of the subtleties of scholar
ship) smoothing away the compromise by degrees to an
assertion which would allow the Epistle to be quoted as
S. Paul's without cumbrous qualifications. That is what
did happen at Alexandria. Origen's refinements were
ignored, his permission was adopted. The easy habit
spread to the rest of the world, and the Pauline author
ship became the new tradition of the Church at large.
But it was a new tradition. While the Alexandrian
scholars were discussing the question, Tertullian (cent, ii.-
iii.) quoted the Epistle as " Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos,"
and claimed authority for it, but hardly canonical
authority ; Barnabas was a man of apostolic society
and discipline, and an Epistle bearing his name was
at any rate more nearly canonical than the Shepherd
of Hermas.2 No strong claim this, and no clear
1 Kai oi deirepa. t&v diroffroXtKuiv oiMokoyov^vwv ypapifj.6,T0iy. ' Atto(Tto\lkQv
might refer in a technical sense to S. Paul, but it need not. Westcott says,
"What [Clement and Origen] were concerned to affirm for the book was
Pauline, or, we may say more correctly, apostolic authority. "
2 De pudicitia, 20.

4 The Epistle of Priesthood
testimony to a long tradition. It might have been
the common account of the Epistle in Africa. It is
more likely that Tertullian had found the Epistle so de
scribed in a MS. that came from some Greek Church,1 and,
wherever that may have been, the ascription to Barnabas
looks as though it arose in the same way as the
Alexandrian references to Clement or Luke. They
were the guesses of a literary Church where style was
considered ; this was the guess of a simpler society
which only noticed the subject-matter, and argued that
the Levite of the New Testament was likely to be the
author of the Epistle which dealt with priesthood.
Thus at Alexandria we find traces of a tradition of
S. Paul's authorship. We find them, however, only in
a criticism which proves the tradition faulty while it
makes subtle distinctions and defends its indirect truth.
Out of this apology grew the later, general acceptance
of S. Paul as author. That acceptance has no other
recommendation. In Tertullian we catch a glimpse of another tradition
assigning the Epistle to Barnabas ; it is but a glimpse ;
we know not whence this tradition comes ; it has the
appearance of an inference from the subject of the
Epistle. At Rome we meet with more substantial evidence.
In the letter from Rome to Corinth, commonly called
the first Epistle of Clement, and almost certainly
written by or through Clement in about the year 96
A.D., Hebrews is quoted. The quotations are lengthy
and precise. The style and still more the thought of
Clement are so different as to make it plain that the
1 Cr. Zahn, Einleitung, viii, 45 (ed. 2).

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 5
Alexandrian guess of his authorship was mistaken, but it
is no less plain that he knew the Epistle ; the Roman
Church probably possessed a copy of it. He never
speaks of S. Paul as the author, nor do his quotations
suggest that he gave it anything like canonical authority.
That is little in itself, but is remarkable when associated
with other Roman evidence and ' Western evidence
dependent on Rome. Stephen Gobar (a late authority)
says that Irenaeus and Hippolytus held the Epistle " not
Paul's." Otherwise the claim of Pauline authorship is :
never mentioned in the West during the first three
centuries. Jerome and Augustine (cent, iv.-v.) recognize
the Epistle as canonical and allow it to be quoted as
S. Paul's, but are well aware of their Church's tradition
to the contrary. And that tradition has left its trace
even on the ecclesiastical literature of the seventh
century.1 All this must have sprung from Rome's
primitive certainty. The greeting, xiii. 24, from " those
of Italy '' connects Hebrews with Italy. As early as
96 A.D. Rome used the Epistle. It is the Pauline
Epistles which are traditionally connected with Rome
that are especially akin to it. And however that kin-
1 Isidore of Hispala witnesses to it unconsciously when he " makes the
number of churches to which the Apostle wrote seven, and enumerates them,
including Hebrews, not observing that he thus makes them eight " (Alford,
who cites the Latin passages from In Libros Veteris ac Novi Testamenti
Prohoemia, and Etymologiae : Liber vi., cf. Souter, Text and Canon of New
Testament, pp. 232, 233). And in another place he expressly mentions the
doubts that were or had been felt by ' ' plerisque Lalinis. "
The peculiar relationship of the Epistle to the rest of Codex Claromontanus
is also evidence of persistent Western tradition. Dr. Souter argues that this
MS. was written in Sardinia after the island had become part of the Byzantine
Empire in the sixth century (Journal of Theological Studies, Jan. 1905). If
so, it might seem that even so late the Latin canon in Sardinia was enlarged
in deference to Eastern prejudice. The peculiar character of the Vulgate
translation also waits to be explained.

6 The Epistle of Priesthood
ship may be explained, the early relationship with Rome
seems certain. We may be sure that Rome knew the
Epistle from the first, and knew that S. Paul had not
written it.1 To us, as to Origen, its language separates
it from him. To us, further differences in thought are
apparent which Origen perhaps hardly appreciated. But
Rome's witness is really plain enough to supersede all
such considerations.
Did Rome know more ? If so, she has not told us,
and we can but start from her negative. It would be
waste of time to register ancient and modern opinions
over again. They may be found in various Introduc
tions, and now, admirably arranged, in Dr. Moffatt's
Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament. It
may suffice to indicate the converging tendencies of
modern criticism. The title, "to the Hebrews," is
passed over as an early inference from the contents
of the Epistle, like the inference which made Barnabas
autjior. A while ago it began to be fashionable to see
Gentiles, not Hebrews, as the readers to whom it was
addressed. Now that is not pressed ; the Epistle is
generally dated late, just a few years before Clement
used it, and by that time the distinction between Jew
1 M. A. R. Tuker, in the Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1913, elaborating
Harnack's suggestion that Prisca, or Priscilla, wrote Hebrews, says,
"The Roman origin of the Epistle indeed is enshrined in the Roman
liturgy. In that liturgy, and in no other, the priesthood of Melchizedek
is invoiced, and the words are those of the Epistle to the Hebrews —
summus sacerdos Melchisedech. Moreover, they are recorded in the oldest
reference to the Roman Canon, and must take their place by the side of the
' Amen ' of Justin as root- words of the Liturgy."
It is perhaps of interest to notice in this connexion that a? has "summus
sacerdos " in v. 10 ; the Vulgate nowhere uses that phrase, but only ' ' sacerdos "
or "pontifex." Cf. Burkitt, JTS, Jan. 1908, on '" Chief Priests ' in the
Latin Gospels.''

Date and Purpose of the Epistle J
and Gentile in the Church had been forgotten ; these
" Hebrews " may have been either Jews or Gentiles, it
matters not. In the same way it was fashionable
a while ago to make Rome, or at least Italy, the destina
tion. But now the tendency is to leave that question
also unanswered. There is connexion with Rome, but
by the end of the first century most Hellenistic church
activity was connected with Rome. Whether this
connexion was more or less close matters little for the
interpretation of a treatise like Hebrews.
For that is the main result of modern investigations.
Hebrews is late, artificial, reflective ; a treatise rather
than a letter ; a sermon belonging to the age of sermons.
It smells of the study, not the open air of life where
history is being made. Not the Temple at Jerusalem,
but the Tabernacle in the Pentateuch is the background
of its scenery. Weariness of the Christian faith already
growing old, not the attraction of an ancestral cere
monial from which it is at last necessary to make a final
rupture, is the danger. Nor is it any longer desired to
choose an author from the too limited list of New
Testament names.
" This anonymous epistle, like the Melchizedek whom
it describes and allegorises, is ayevea\6yr)To<;, a lonely and
impressive phenomenon in the literature of the first
century, which bears even fewer traces of its aim than
of its author. . . . He left great prose to some little
clan of early Christians, but who he was and who they
were, it is not possible, with such materials as are at our
disposal, to determine. No conjecture rises above the
level of plausibility. We cannot say that if the autor
ad Hebraeos had never lived or written, the course of

8 The Epistle of Priesthood
early Christianity would have been materially altered.
He was not a personality of Paul's commanding genius.
He did not make history or mark any epoch. He did
not even, like the anonymous authors of Matthew's
gospel and the Fourth gospel, succeed in stamping his
writing on the mind of the early church at large. But
the later church was right in claiming a canonical position
for this unique specimen of Alexandrine thought playing
upon the primitive gospel, although the reasons upon
which the claim was based were generally erroneous "
{ILNT, pp. 442, 443).
Thus vividly Dr. Moffatt describes the Epistle from
the modern point of view. This judgement has been
reached by laborious investigation in which generations
of scholars have co-operated, testing and correcting
suggestions and setting details more and more clearly
in the light of New Testament learning as a whole.
It has the weight of accumulated reason, and it would
be silly to oppose it without serious deliberation. Yet
there is something to be said on the other side. There
are indications of the Epistle being earlier, intenser, more
influential than Dr. Moffatt thinks, of its belonging to
the creative class of New Testament writings rather than
to the merely reflective. It is true that an undertone of
" old age " runs through it. Its Gospel has begun " at
the end of these days " ; " that which is becoming old
and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away." Not
only the ancient Law and worship but the whole ancient
world seem worn out, and the author with his friends
turn away to seek the only satisfaction that remains,
" the city which is to come." And that undertone is
perhaps the most impressive note to an age like ours

Date and Purpose of the Epistle g
which is burdened with its scholarship, still more with
its consciousness of ignorance, and begins to be weary
of its civilization. To such an age the undertone of the
Epistle seems to answer to its own weakness ; it accepts
this author as sympathetic, " able to bear gently with
the ignorant and erring, for that he himself also is en
compassed with infirmity," and it turns to S. Paul to
be braced up. But in reality this undertone is but the
counterpart of a vigorous hope already setting out on
a new stage in the journey of life. Some things are
ageing, but the author's faith is youthful — it is no
stylist's trick that makes him choose the epithet veas
" young " instead of icaivr)? " new " for the Covenant in the
heavenly Jerusalem (xii. 24). All through there is a
sense of strain and crisis, of a new hope being at stake,
of a fresh and unexpected fulfilment of the promise of
the Coming of Christ. Of course we do use such
language also of these days of ours, but it is difficult to
make it sound quite real, and it may be that the Epistle
to the Hebrews would win a new importance in our eyes
if something happened to change the vague " dissatisfac
tion " which tempts us, as Dr. Moffatt says it tempted
the Christians of the second decade after the fall of
Jerusalem, " to abandon the worship and membership of
the church,, as if it were a philosophic school or a cult
whose capacities they had exhausted," into an imminent
resistance unto blood (xii. 4).
But if we venture to question the conclusions of
modern criticism taken as a whole, we shall not be so
unwise as to ignore them. They have simplified the
inquiry. They have cleared much lumber out of the
way. We need linger no more over the search for

10 The Epistle of Priesthood
the name of the author, for the exact place of writing or
of destination. We shall not seek for obscure hints of
the author's knowledge of the still existing Temple.
And there is one phrase in Dr. Moffatt's description
which suggests further help. The author " left," he says,
" great prose to some little clan of early Christians."
Many readers of Hebrews must have reflected that such
a letter, with its exquisite style and its Alexandrine terms
of philosophy, could hardly have been intended for a
large and mixed assembly. And if that be allowed, we
need not delay over Deissmann's opinion (in his Bible
Studies) that Hebrews is no real letter but a treatise.
Wrede in Das literarisch Rdtsel des Hebrderbriefs
recognized the characteristics of a letter, but said that
these characteristics are crowded together at the end, and
are the addition of some manipulator who wished to give
the original document the appearance of a genuine letter
of S. Paul. But there is no need for so complicated an
explanation. Let the first readers be " a little clan,"
and let that little clan be no church, not even the church
at so-and-so's house with its complement of members
from various classes, but understand it to be but a group
of scholarly men like the author. Then the whole
Epistle, last chapter and all, is accepted quite naturally
as an intimate letter, written at a particular time for a
particular purpose in the style which would be most
unaffected within that exclusive circle of Hellenistic
thinkers. They were exclusive, we remember. The
author rebukes them for not going to worship with their
comrades in the faith (x. 25), and bids them be dutiful
towards their ecclesiastical superiors (xiii. 17). An
exclusive circle, an artificial one, perhaps, though the

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 1 1
style of the Epistle is not so artificial as might at first
sight appear, and it is certainly written in deadly earnest.
Consider these phrases : " How shall we escape? " (ii. 3);
" In that he himself hath suffered in his trial, he is able
to help those who are in their stress of trial (ii. 1 8) ;
" If we hold fast the boldness and the boast of the hope "
(iii. 6) ; " Let us fear lest any one of you seem to have
fallen short "(iv. 1); ''For help in time of need" (iv. 16);
"For the discernment of the noble from the base" (v. 14);
" It is impossible to renew unto repentance those who have
fallen away, seeing that they are crucifying to themselves
the Son of God and putting him to open shame " (vi. 4 ff.);
" That ye become not sluggish " (vi. 12); " Until a
season of reformation " (ix. 10); " The blood of the
Christ shall cleanse our conscience from dead works to
serve the living God " (ix. 14); " Apart from shedding of
blood there is no remission" (ix. 22) ; "Not yet have ye
resisted unto blood" (xii. 4); "A certain fearful expecta
tion of judgement and a jealousy of fire about to devour
the adversaries"; " Of how much sorer punishment, think
ye, shall he be judged worthy who hath trodden under
foot the Son of God " (x. 27, 29) ; " It is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God " (x. 31); " Cast
not away your bold freedom — of endurance have ye need
— yet but a very little while and he that is coming
shall come and shall not tarry — we are not of the
shrinking back unto perdition but of faith for the
winning of life " (x. 3 5—39) ; "And there is a faith, for in
it the elders had witness borne to them " 1 (xi. 1 f.) — and
read here the whole of the following roll of heroes with
their faith, endurance, hope and honour, and then the
1 ifiaprvp-fi8i]o-av, almost "were enrolled among the martyrs."

1 2 The Epistle of Priesthood
encouragement to the contest at the beginning of ch. xii.,
with the example of the champion, Jesus : " There
fore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside all cumbrance and
the sin which doth so closely cling to us, and let us run
with endurance the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the captain and consummator of the faith,
who for the joy that was set before him despised the
shame and endured the cross . . . that ye wax not
weary, fainting in your souls." Add to these : " The
consecrated state outside of which no one shall see the
Lord " (xii. 14); " Ye are come unto Mount Sion . . .
signifieth the removal of those things that are shaken,
as of things manufactured, that those things which are
shaken not may remain . . . for our God is a consum
ing fire" (xii. 22-29); "Let us therefore go forth unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (xiii. 13),
and the final prayer (xiii. 20 f.) with its aorist infinitive,
concentrating the whole weight of the Epistle on the one
definite and hard duty at which the readers hesitated.
This is a long list of significant phrases. They gain
some force by being set in juxtaposition, but to an
attentive reader they are still more impressive in their
context ; indeed, they are so interwoven with the whole
purpose of the Epistle that it has been difficult to select
them, and their number might have been increased. Of
course some of them, taken by themselves, are less
striking than others. It is easy to tone them down if
we start from a prejudice about the Epistle's rhetoric, or
if we allow long repetition of some of the words to blunt
their edge. For instance, the references to " blood " are
apt to mean less than they should if we have indulged

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 13
ourselves in a pietistic use of such expressions, or have
coldly discussed the meaning of blood in Semitic sacrifice.
Archbishop Laud began his address to the people at his
execution with Heb. xii. 1,2; the emotion of such a
" temptation " would better serve the proper understand
ing of such words. So again the routine of discussion
of the difficult passage, vi. 4—6, is apt to dull our sense
of its extreme severity. Take it how we will, it is hardly
possible to accept such language as part of the canonical
message of forgiveness unless it is recognized as belong
ing to a moment of tremendous crisis.
Even so much difficulty remains. " It is impossible
to renew unto repentance those who have fallen away " —
it is only by pressing tenses and participles in a scarcely
natural degree that we can escape the conclusion that
the author meant to deny the possibility of repentance
to apostates. We may prefer to take it that he merely
denies the power of man to bring such persons to re
pentance. There is more force in the contention that
he lays down no general law, but simply asserts that
at that particular time, in the immediate stress, no
measures could be taken for the recovery of the lapsed ;
that would indeed be a strong piece of testimony to the
reality of the storm in which the letter was composed ;
it would take it very decidedly out of the region of
sermons. But nothing would quite justify the severity
unless Mt could be shewn that there was something in
the very nature of the contemplated case which made
it hopeless. Now if the " repentance " itself were the
error ; if the hope of repentance from dead works (i.e.
an unprofitable life) to serve the living God (i.e. the
God whom the Jews had always worshipped) were itself

14 The Epistle of Priesthood
involved in " falling away " (i.e. in breaking allegiance
already rendered to Jesus as Christ) ; if, that is to say,
return to Judaism was contemplated by these readers
as the beginning of a simpler better life, then the whole
paragraph would run with inevitable logic.
Supposing these men to have been brought up in
Judaism, we shall readily add that their Judaism cannot
have been of the ordinary, legal type. They were
Hellenists, at least touched with philosophy. When a
further examination of the letter shews us, as it clearly
does, that their Christian faith was, so far, imperfect ;
that they had recognized the Lord Jesus as a Teacher,
a Prophet ; yet, though they had indeed accepted Him
as the Christ, they had never understood what that title
meant to S. Paul, or S. John, or the simple credulous
believer ; then we shall be prepared to suppose that
they had joined themselves to the Christian Church as
to a reformed Judaism, that they had found the simplicity
of its faith and worship, the crudity of its Messianic
expectation — so unlike Alexandrine piety — uncongenial,1
and that when this letter was written, things may
have happened which were inducing them to question
whether, after all, the reformation was worth while.
After all — we catch an echo of their words at the end
of ch. v. — after all, they say, we cannot settle these
1 Borrowing language from Baron von HUgel we might thus describe the
crisis. These men had reached in Judaism the speculative stage of religion ;
in Christianity they had come in contact with a higher religion, but one that
was still in the earlier external and sensible stage. What they should do is
to go forward to the volitional or mystical stage in Christianity ; what they
are inclined to do is to fall back to the most childish stage of all — merely
institutional Judaism. The author helps them by interpreting in a some
what unexpected way the institutional ground-plan of Christianity, treating it
with exacter science, and shewing how thus treated it does run up into
eternal life (The Mystical Element of Religion, i. p. 52 ff. ).

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 1 5
questions. We need a teacher as much as others ; we
need the milk of babes ; and in a simple following of
the faith of our fathers there is opportunity for choosing
and practising a noble life without meddling with ques
tions of reform and subtleties of dogma. To which their
friend answers that they cannot go back upon their years
like that ; having come so far they can never be children
again ; this choice between right and wrong, the noble
and the base, is not the simple task they imagine ; it
requires the discipline of manhood, and can never be ac
complished by men who shirk the responsibilities of manly
judgement. Besides — and here comes in the thought
which he never allows to slumber throughout the letter —
these friends of his have rendered allegiance to Jesus as
Christ ; whatever they think of the Christ that obligation
of honour — the icaXov he so continually refers to — re
mains ; it is impossible in the very nature of things
that they should make a fresh start in Judaism, renewing
themselves to repentance and beginning an innocent,
simple life anew, when the very act is a breaking of
vows and a dishonouring of the Master whom they have
once accepted.
It is significant that the points taken as representing
the foundation of penitence and faith are all consistent
with Judaism. " Doctrine of washings " — how unnatural
are the attempts to explain this plural as referring to
Christian Baptism ; " imposition of hands, resurrection
of dead, eternal judgement" — all this belonged to the
creed of a Pharisaic Jew who accepted the whole of
the Old Testament. The accusative SiSa^r/v, in B and
the Old Latin, is not necessary to this explanation of
the sentence, but it makes it sharper, and the genitive

1 6 The Epistle of Priesthood
SiSa^f}? has the air of a correction designed to bring the
passage into line with Christian feeling ; the accusative
makes return to Jewish doctrine the foundation of a
new life, the genitive points to " repentance," faith,
instruction, as all alike the sequel of that initial impulse
which draws the unbeliever to the Church. And so
far as there is anything in this grammatical point, the
genitive emphasizes the technical meaning of fierdvoia
" repentance." Absolute and abrupt repentance was the
starting-point of the Gospel : " Repent ye, for the
kingdom of God is at hand." Repentance, so absolute
and abrupt that its repetition might seem inconceivable,
was the regular mode of entrance into the Church.
That is the technical sense of the word, and it certainly
does not suit the explanation here offered. But why
confine the author to that technical sense ? His letter,
its purpose and its language, stand in a peculiar position
in the New Testament. Philo speaks of " repentance "
in a very different sense from this technical one, and,
whether studied by him or not, Philo represents the
Alexandrine piety in which both he and his readers
were at home. There seems no good reason to deny
a wider sense to the word in this context.
That the Jew Philo does so nearly represent their
piety is itself strong reason for considering author and
readers to have been Jews by descent and education.
If there is anything in the explanation just proposed
of ch. vi., they actually were such. There is another
phrase in the immediate context which points in the
same direction, top t^? a/J%^? tov Xpicnov \6yov, " the
account of the beginning of the Christ." That is not a
good expression for elementary Christian teaching, but

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 1 7
it is for the doctrine of Christhood as revealed in Judaism.
The recognition of this doctrine runs through the Epistle.
Enough for the moment to point out that at the be
ginning of chapter i., again in chapter iii., and again in
xi. 26, the author takes for granted that the name "Christ"
was given in Israel's history to the king or to the nation,
that our Lord received this name by inheritance from the
imperfect Christs of old, that, in a word, the doctrine of
the beginning of Christhood would naturally mean the
instruction of every Jewish child.
The same thing may be noticed about sacrifice.
Certain ideas about sacrifice underlie the Epistle, as for
instance the use and significance of the blood, which
were misunderstood almost as soon as it passed out of
the hands of its first readers. In exegesis, and even in
liturgical application, its sacrificial language has been
understood as a metaphorical expression of S. Paul's
phrase " bought with a price." But that idea is absent
from Hebrews, and in its place it employs a set of
sacrificial terms which bear their own proper sense, and,
so interpreted, fill the Epistle with deep intention. The
researches of Robertson Smith and his successors into the
history of Semitic religion have enabled us in these later
days to recover this lost interpretation. We still com
prehend these Semitic ideas but vaguely. We see that
Hebrews agrees with Leviticus, that in both books the
blood stands for life, not for destruction, and that cleansing
and approach to God are the benefits of which sacrifice
is the means. But those who allow the Epistle to have
arisen in a Jewish circle, feel that the author and his
friends enjoyed these ideas by the intuition of ancestral
training. They could, if we might question them, do

1 8 The Epistle of Priesthood
more to clear our minds about Semitic sacrifice than all
our researches, have accomplished yet. They had learned
the essential truths as an Englishman learns the mind of
the Church from the Catechism in his childhood.
The much discussed verses ix. 16, 17, point in the
same direction. Here it seems at first sight that the
author inserts into a context, where he has used the
Septuagint word hiaQr\K."q in its Old Testament sense
of "covenant," an illustration in which it bears the
meaning " will, testament." In Gal. iii. 1 5 it perhaps
does bear that meaning, and it must be confessed that
most commentators so understand it here. Yet there is
some a priori improbability in such an abrupt variation,
and on closer examination the Greek shews peculiarities
which suggest that the author is speaking of the theory
of covenants in general being ratified over sacrifice. The
death of the covenanter must be " represented " ; a
covenant is ratified " over dead bodies " ; since " the idea
is " that it does not bind when the covenanter is living.
These niceties of language have often been noticed, but
are not commonly accepted as important. They become
however more striking when it is noticed that the
author is not thinking only of a general theory, but is
illustrating the particular action of our Lord ; he has
the Lord's " renewing of the Covenant " in mind. How
could an allusion to our Lord's words and acts at the
Last Supper be better expressed than by ddvarov avdyicr]
<pepe<r6ai tov hiadefievov, " there needs must be a sacra
mental representation of death on the part of him who
transacts the covenant " ?
If this explanation of " Covenant " language be
allowed, we have here again a more subtle indication of

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 19
the author's training in Jewish principles of thought than
mere familiarity with the written Old Testament would
account for. When that becomes a presupposition the
Epistle seems full of indications of like character. Such
is the phrase in xii. 23, "the church of the first-born
who are enrolled in heaven." Not only does " first-born "
seem to mean Old Testament saints, but " church " is
a term reserved in this Epistle, as it is in the first section
of Acts, for the Jewish " ecclesia," and is never applied
specially to the Christian Church.1 The description of
priesthood at the beginning of ch. v. has a tender
ness in it which may of course be merely artistic,
but may, on the contrary, spring from the heart of one
who has known sympathetic priests of the old religion
— and that would be possible without visiting Jerusalem.
So with the yearning recollection of the golden splendour
of the Pentateuchal rites in chapter ix., and the confession
in chapter x. of the impossibility of taking away sin
through the blood of bulls and goats, while yet there
was a " remembering " of sin even in the formalities of
the worn-out worship. There is a tenderness to Judaism
to which even the modern reader cannot be deaf,

1 Acts i.-vii. In ii. 47 rj} txicXrio-lq. is a false reading; in v. 11 4iac\r]<rla
may mean " the assembly " without any technical sense.
In S. Matt. xvi. 18 iKKkr^ala seems to have a natural and impressive force
if it refers to no new Church, but to the one Church which has been and shall
still be ; " Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets ; I came
not to destroy but to fulfil." The same idea runs through the Odes of
Solomon; it even seems possible that the difficult Ode 19 might be better
understood of the birth of the Christ or of the Christian Church from the
Jewish Church than of the birth of our Lord at Bethlehem. Cf. Burkitt's note
on Mt. xviii. 17, Evangelion da-mepharreshe, ii. p. 275. He thinks that the
rendering of S requires us to "suppose that the translator understood our
Lord to mean by tKKXrjtxla. not Holy Church, but some less august assembly
appropriate to the social organization of the day (cf. Mt. v. 22)."

20 The Epistle of Priesthood
and the whole argument of priesthood in the Epistle
turns upon the belief that there had been a true priest
hood all through Israel's history, surviving through and
beyond the mechanical priesthood of the sons of Aaron.
Each separate point may be explained by literary art,
but taken together they are not so easily explained in
that way, especially when it is perceived that the
sincere practical purpose of the letter is more conspicuous
than its art.
So we conclude that the author had been brought up
in Judaism ; that he wrote to a little company of friends
who had been brought up in Judaism ; that the title " To
Hebrews " may be accepted as a fair description of
these men if we take it in its later general sense instead
of confining it to Jews of Jerusalem, or at any rate
Hebrew speaking Jews. If it were as old as the letter
itself perhaps it ought to mean that, but it may be a
true title and yet a comparatively later one. And of
course we cannot say these men were Hebrew-speaking
Jews of Jerusalem. They might have lived at Jerusalem,
for those passages which refuse to fit the Church of
Jerusalem (ii. 3, vi. 10) might be applied to these or
those of the brethren dwelling there. But the broad
clear view we get is of Hellenistic Jews, now imperfect
Christians, who are exposed to some particular tempta
tion to give up their new faith and make common cause
with their own nation. The letter is written to prevent
this, and yet not so much to prevent it in a negative
way as to induce them to make a choice at a crisis,
to do some special hard duty which will settle their
allegiance and carry them forward into a more perfect
faith in their Lord.

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 2 1
This choice will evidently be a bold one, involving
danger, even risk of life. Yet it is difficult to escape the
conviction that this is not the real bitterness of the trial.
There is something more subtle, a e{nrepl,(naTo<i afiaprla,
whether that means a sin that clings like a garment, or a
specious sin, one that carries a certain e"clat with it ; un
doubtedly it is one that involves a "deception'' (iii. 13),
one that may result from an undisciplined distinguishing
of what is noble from what is base (v. 1 4). The right
choice will bring shame even more than dangers (xii. 2,
xiii. 13, cf. x. 33, xi. 26, ii. 11, xi. 1 6), and it will separate
from the old association of Israel : " let us go forth to
him outside the camp bearing his shame " (xiii. 1 3). In
this last quotation the language seems remarkably plain.
To make it general and metaphorical is to rob it of its
natural force. And this is the less justifiable when it is
observed that the author, as he nears the conclusion,
concentrates attention on the Christian body, its sep
arated family life, and the one Master to whom it owes
allegiance. The prayer in xiii. 20, 2 1 (which has indeed
lost its sharp significance in the later text) stands out clear
in its definite appeal only when led up to by the series
of precepts in the earlier paragraphs of the chapter.
Hellenistic liberal Jews, who have become imperfect „
Christians ; who are now being pressed to return to
Judaism, and feel bound by a kind of honour to do so ,
who are urged in this letter to make a hard choice which
involves a definite break with Judaism, and will carry
them forward to a true faith in the divine Christ — when
did these men face such a trial? Is it possible to
define the events which produced this letter ? Hort in
Judaistic Christianity repeated an old answer to this

22 The Epistle of Priesthood
question. Is it only the felicity of his phrase that makes
us return to it so often after wandering in the maze of
criticism, oris it because he really saw the field of history
vividly ?
" The day of the Lord which the writer to the
Hebrews saw drawing nigh had already begun to break
in blood and fire when St. John sent his Apocalypse to
the Gentile Churches of Asia."
The Jewish war with Rome was beginning. Appeal
was being made to all Jews to band together in defence
of Jerusalem and the ancient creed. That involved a
Messianism which was contrary to the tradition of the
Christian Church, and Christian Jews could not consent to
it. These " philosophic liberals " who had never tho
roughly embraced the Christian tradition were moved by
the appeal. It was a call to active sacrifice for faith
which would cut to the heart of such cloistered men.
They had joined the " reformed branch " of their Church,
and now they doubted whether there were anything in
that reformation which made so very much difference
after all. Perhaps there were some things in the "new
synagogue " (x. 25) which they positively disliked. At
any rate they were inclined to give it all up and make
common cause with the patriots. As we try to read
between the lines of the letter we almost fancy that
this seemed to them the natural thing to do ; this was
staying where they were. The letter is a call to them
to make a decisive movement to come out. So deeply
were their roots planted in Judaism, so imperfect was
their Christianity, so strongly did association pull them
backward. Their compatriots bade them choose as
Electra bade Chrysothemis :

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 23
#7rei0 i\ov ye Bdrep' fj tppoveiv ko/cus
ij tu>v <pl\wv (ppovoma. /U7) /x^ij/iiji/ ?x6'"
" choose then, one way or the other — it has come to
that ; either to be imprudent zealots, or keeping
prudence to lose the very memory of friends." And
they feared that stigma of cold pious prudence more
than threats. One however who was their friend in
their new life as well as in their old, who could
sympathize with their affection, but was stronger, more
independent of opinion, and far more deeply-settled in
the peace of the new hope, wrote this letter to them.
In the conflict of honour he appealed to the simplest
honour — " You have sworn allegiance to Jesus as Christ ;
whatever other claim is made you cannot break that
promise." In the wavering doubt as to whether the new
faith was worth the breaking of the unity of the ancient
Church, he called them to grasp that faith more whole
heartedly, and learn at last what it really was. " Our
Lord Jesus Christ is more, and has achieved more
than you have thought possible. Think of Him as a
priest, and I will make you understand." And in the
ruining time that seemed like the threatened end of
the world, he called them to take a bold step, to break
with the past, and so to find a new, young, vigorous life
beginning. That is a background for this Epistle which may at
least be tested once more as a hypothesis to work on.
It needs no elaborate assurance about details. The
author may write from Italy, but if not it makes no
difference to the meaning of his letter. His friends may
be in Palestine, but it is enough for our purpose to
suppose them summoned to Palestine. The sight of the

24 The Epistle of Priesthood
Temple or the recollection of Levitical ceremonies may
have added interest to some passages, but there is no
proof of this, nor is the letter more or less weighty for
its being so or otherwise; it is the Synagogue from
which the break is really to be made. The points in
the hypothesis of real importance are the earnest and
particular appeal of the letter; the Jewish descent of
author and recipients ; the connexion with the Roman
war ; the consequently early date and character of the
letter.1 The paragraph from fudaistic Christianity was
quoted above for its terse and lively suggestion. An
obvious objection to pressing it is the admission, which
must be made, that Hort and the school of his day have
failed to prove the early date of the Apocalypse. They
have however shewn how much there is in the Apoc
alypse which suits the early date,2 and it begins to be
seen that the Apocalypse, and other parts of the New
Testament also, may have existed in more than one
state or stage ; an earlier Apocalypse may have been
republished with additions and alterations in a later
period. But however that may be, the passage was
1 These points are important for the hypothesis, and in these studies the
hypothesis will be adopted, since it would be tedious to make reservations and
offer alternatives at each turn. I find it too, after other experiments,
impossible to explain all the vividness of the Epistle in any other manner.
Yet the hypothesis is after all but a critical conjecture, and for the actual
drawing out of the theology of the Epistle little more is required than the
recognition that it was written in some particular season of stress to urge
some particular friends of the author to do a hard duty from which they
shrank, and that this particularity shapes and limits its expression. I should
perhaps add that if a much later date were assigned to it I should be puzzled
by the stage of doctrinal developement which I think may be discerned in it.
s See the fragment of a Commentary with Introduction by Hort, published
in 1908. Dr. Sanday, who wrote a preface to this, had in an article in
JTS, July 1907, agreed with Dr. Swete that the date under Domitian was

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 25
quoted as illustration rather than argument. Hebrews
has certain affinities with the Apocalypse, but its date
does not depend upon the date of the Apocalypse.
What really weighs with the advocates of the late
date is the general character of the Epistle, the
church life in its background, its developed faith. Of
the background of church life we notice the definite
indication in iii. 3 that the author and his friends stand
twice removed from Gospel days ; they are hearers
of hearers. But this need not put them far down
the stream of time, and we need not be more impressed
by it than Origen was. Again the strife between Jew
and Gentile does not make itself felt. It is a witness
to the greatness of S. Paul that we should be so
surprised at this ; because this strife filled so much of
S. Paul's mind did it fill everyone else's ? And besides
did not S. Paul's vigour achieve something, and even
a little while after his death may not the effects of his
championship of the Gentiles have begun to issue in
general peace? As a matter of fact the references in
the letters to church life and institutions are very few.
The Epistle of priesthood pays hardly any attention to
the special ministry of sacraments, or even the formal
creed of the Christian Church. Such references are as

probable. In this preface he says, "The old impression, of which I have
never been able entirely to rid myself, resumes its force. . . . Can we not
conceive the Apocalypse rising out of the whirling chaos of the years 68-69
a.d., when the solid fabric of the empire may well have seemed to be really
breaking up, more easily than at any other period ? And would not the
supposition that it did so rise simplify the whole historical situation of the
last five-and-thirty years of the first century as nothing else could simplify
it?" It must be remembered, as the Dean of Wells insisted in his review of
Hort's book, JTS, Oct. 1908, that the date of the Apocalypse does not
depend on its relation to the author of the Fourth Gospel.

26 The Epistle of Priesthood
rare as its definite echoes of phrases in earlier apostolic
writings. It is its later ecclesiastical use which has
confused our minds about this. Its phraseology has
been co-ordinated with S. Paul's, and passages have
been (justifiably) applied in the developement of liturgical
use which originally had another significance, e.g. the
doctrine of baptism or washings, of laying on of hands
(vi. 2), and the " altar " of xiii. 1 o. It seems as strange
that a modern reader should place the Epistle in the
times of Clement of Rome, as that the Alexandrians
should have thought Clement wrote it. Surely in
passing to Clement's Epistle we pass into another
world. Could this author have said " our apostles knew
through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife
over the name of the ' episcopate ' " (Clem, xliv.), or,
" take up the letter of blessed Paul the Apostle "
(xlvii.) ? Could he have used the Phoenix as proof
of the Resurrection? And such isolated examples
are trifles compared with the whole manner of Clement,
his derived, dependent theology. " He is a harmonizer
. . . he is essentially 'the Doctor'." Lightfoot shewed
the same insight when he wrote that of Clement, as
Origen did when he wrote of our Epistle, that its spirit
is wonderful, and as primary as the acknowledged
apostolical writings.
But besides all this, the developed faith of the
Epistle, its high doctrine of Christ, has affected critical
minds strongly. The principle of liberal theology has
long been this, that the Church's earliest attitude to
her Lord was the faith of the disciple in his Teacher,
that to this earliest faith the Jewish idea of the Messiah
was afterwards added, that contact with the Greek world

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 27
brought further reflexion, and a more astonishing
theology which may be seen developing in the letters
of S. Paul, and then still further in the Johannine
doctrine of the Word made flesh. Putting it roughly,
we may say that the starting-point is the Sermon on
the Mount, and the goal in the New Testament is the
prologue to the Fourth Gospel. The difficulties have
been to reconcile those other parts of the Synoptic
Gospels, which tell of miracles, and strange authority,
with the simple rdle of Teacher in the Sermon on the
Mount, and again to find time in the apostolic age
for the change from the Gospel doctrine of the Lord
as Teacher to the doctrine of the eternal, divine Son
or Word in Ephesians, Colossians, and S. John. These
difficulties have been met by separating parts of the
Gospels as the colouring of a later age, and by a
tendency to place late not only the Johannine writings
but also a certain number of the Pauline Epistles. Of
course there have always been some who protested
against this, but in spite of their arguments the feeling
has been widespread that, on the whole, this critical
principle was right. It might not be necessary to
carry the process so far down in point of time ; devel
opement might have gone far even in the lifetime of
S. Paul, and developement of faith is not objectionable in
itself; it is indeed the counterpart to revelation through
the Holy Spirit. In fact, while a few attempted logical
definition, and made chronological tables, the multitude
accepted vaguely the principle of developement, and
laboured under the misgiving that the chances were
always against an early date for a New Testament book.
Hence it is but natural that a late date for such an

28 The Epistle of Priesthood
epistle as Hebrews should be widely accepted. The
first chapter has long served the Church as her Epistle
for the feast of the Nativity, and every one felt that
there was no passage in the whole New Testament
which could be better associated with the prologue to
S. John's Gospel as the expression of her complete faith
in the Incarnation.
And yet another instinctive feeling still 'existed.
However long an interval were granted, would it
account for this Teacher of the primitive Gospel being
advanced to the divine state of the Incarnate Word ?
Was there not here something different from develope
ment, a passage " into another kind ? " And again,
could the Sermon on the Mount explain the power of
the Cross ; was there not something in the Christian
faith, whether greater or less, at any rate different from
all that teaching or example could lead up to? We
understand better now than we did what that obstinate
questioning meant. The priority of S. Mark's Gospel,
the strange, greater than " reasonable " portrait of
Christ therein, the opening of the Jewish apocalypses
and the flashes of light thrown by them on this portrait,
and now the arguments and suggestions of the apocalyptic
school of Gospel critics — all this is changing our mind
again about the origin of the Christian faith. And
as in the last generation it was not necessary to be
a thorough-going liberal in order to be affected by the
liberal principles, so now it is possible to suspend much
judgement about the apocalyptic school, and yet be
convinced of some important things through it ; as,
for instance, that the very earliest apostolic faith was
faith in the Lord Jesus as the apocalyptic divine Christ,

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 29
who came from God and was with God, and was
himself divine, and would come as the Christ manifest
to judge the world.
" It was in the sudden agitation of those few days,
in Galilee, and apparently under the lead of Simon Peter,
that the decisive step was taken. Without that step the
whole would have become but the happy dream of a
few months, now ended by a rude awakening to the
light of day. But the momentous step once taken,
Jesus the Messiah once believed on as Lord in heaven,
and the Church could not stop. What followed was
not the gradual elevation of Jesus from humanity to
deity; it was the gradual analysis of the problem set
once for all at the outset, the slow definition of what was
involved in this indefinite exaltation of the Messiah. . . .
The battle was fought in the controversies of the fourth
century — but the problem was fully set by the fishermen
apostles when they turned their faces again towards
Jerusalem." Thus, in 1 906, wrote Mr. Ropes in The Apostolic Age
in the Light of Modern Criticism. He expressed the
obstinate instinctive feeling spoken of above. What he
asserted most people were sure was true, but they could
not shew that it was true. What the apocalyptists have
achieved is this — whether or no they have done more,
this at least ; they have allowed us once more to read the
Gospels as a whole, and give full weight to their natural
meaning. Then from that natural meaning springs with
like propriety this astonishing faith of the earliest
Church. From Gospels to Epistles there is no passage
" into another kind." The idea may be abandoned that
a high doctrine of Christ implies long enough lapse of

30 The Epistle of Priesthood
time for the early tradition to have become so dim that
it could suffer a sea-change. The high doctrine is the
primitive doctrine. Hebrews is no setting forth of
new faith but an appeal to imperfect Churchmen to
embrace the ancient faith of the Church in its primitive
completeness. Hence the high doctrine does not in itself carry with
it a late date. Yet there is a certain developement.
These imperfect Churchmen need a new and special
instruction. This Epistle provides it. " Think of our
Lord as priest, and I will make you understand," says
the author in effect. He will use a new method, a new
analogy. And he sets this analogy out in language
which would have been new to most of the believers,
though it was familiar to him and his friends. Between
him and them, educated as they were, it was possible
for the old truths to be presented in a more expressive
way. And they had yet one further chance of
" developement." Maran atha, " the Lord cometh,"
" come, Lord," was the ancient watchword, but already,
when S. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, difficulties had
arisen about the interpretation of that watchword. Is
it possible to read the Epistle to the Hebrews without
feeling that in some special manner the author expects
an immediate coming, yet a coming which shall be no
" end of the world " in the old cruder sense ? It is no
slight reason for dating the Epistle at the time of the
Roman war, that the crisis explains this language. Like
the Gospel of S. Luke this Epistle found in those fearful
days an interpretation of the "coming." But whereas
the Gospel of S. Luke uses certain definite expressions
which make it hard to doubt that the evangelist com-

Date and Purpose of the Epistle 3 1
posed his history so many years later than the documents
on which he drew, that he could look back on the siege
of Jerusalem as a past event,1 the Epistle has no such
phrases. The crisis it deals with still loomed vaguely
in the future when the author took up his pen. The
developement of doctrine in this Epistle is distinctive,
but it implies no late date. It belongs quite naturally
to a circle of men who have had a Hellenistic education,
who need a fresh introduction to the primitive faith, and
who receive it, partly through their familiarity with
Alexandrine terminology and the system of analogy,
partly through their participation in a political storm
which was destined to be an interpretation of a hard
dogma in the primitive faith.
1 Fresh reasons have lately been advanced for dating S. Luke's Gospel
earlier. But whatever be the true history of its composition, or revisions, it
seems almost impossible that ch. xxi. should have taken its final form
before the siege of Jerusalem.

CHAPTER II
The Sacramental Principle
The readers' imperfect conception of the Person of Christ, which the author
proposes to correct by the analogy of priesthood — That analogy is part
of the sacramental principle which runs through the Epistle ; i.e. the
revelation^oTThe eternal throu£h_the_visible — The sacramental and the
philosophical mind represented by Hebrews and S. Paul — Sacramental
language in Hebrews culminates in the shewing of the death of the Lord
as the sacrament of His redemption — The true sacrament involves
emotion and will. It is not a translation of reality in terms of intellect,
nor does it (like allegory) modify the visible facts from which it starts —
The sacramentalist recognizes the limits of the sacramental method,
though he commonly expresses even that recognition in picture-language.
The recipients of this letter were in peril of losing their
Christian faith, partly because of pressure from without,
partly, however, because the faith they had was so
imperfect that it held them by a feeble tie. This
appears in such a passage as vi. i— 8, where they are
plainly rebuked for their backwardness, and if this
passage does imply that they failed to recognize any
distinction worth fighting for between Judaism and
Christianity, that makes their imperfection the more
definite. A confusion of that kind would also explain
the still more impressive evidence of the Epistle as a
whole. It is throughout planned to persuade men to a
fuller creed who have accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the
Christ, but have not understood nearly all that was
contained in that title. A Prophet He might be to

The Sacramental Principle 33
them like one of the prophets (i. 1 f.), and a sinless man —
for the author seems to take for granted that they
reverence His sinlessness (iv. 15, vii. 26), but not Son of
God in the full sense (i. 2 ff.), heir of all life, one with the
Christ who manifested himself, however obscurely in
ancient days (i. 5 ff, iii. 6, vi. 1, xi. 26), Saviour of all
men by His death (ii. 9, v. 9), though dying saved out
of death (v. 7), seated now at the right hand of God
(i. 13, x. 12, xii. 2), and endued with life indissoluble in
which He continually intercedes for men (vii. 25),
expected to be seen at last in the manifest power of
victorious salvation (ix. 28, xii. 14). This, the rich
creed of the Epistle, stands in contrast to the modest
axioms from which the argument starts, as truth
which must be proved with difficulty in the face
of prejudice ; " bear with the word of exhortation,"
xiii. 22.
Such a creed should not indeed have offended Jews
of the first centuries B.C. and A.D. If they accepted
any man who had appeared on earth as the Christ that
was to be, the apocalyptic religion which surrounded
them might have prepared them to expect no less
wonderful qualities than these in his Christhood. And
it does, in fact, appear that the earliest creed of the
Church did arise thus naturally out of apocalyptic
Judaism ; it did recognize in its Lord such astonishing
pre-existence, eternity and power; and the recognition
was mingled in the popular mind with just those grosser
elements which might be looked for in the circumstances.
It was not the supernatural claims of the faith which
offended the generality of men.
But other tempers also were characteristic of the
3

34 The Epistle of Priesthood
period. Among these was one which Mr. Hart
describes in his book The Hope of Catholick fudaism ;
a sober temper, a kind of "religion of sensible men,"
which continued through Judaism into the Christian
Church, and perhaps formed the solid, staying power
of each, though by itself it could hardly light the
fire of heroism either in theology or in action. Mr.
Hart calls this " Catholick Judaism," and finds much of
it in .£hflo. It may be discerned in the Alexandrine
Hellenism of the men to whom this letter was written,
and as S. Paul towards the nascent Greek spirit in his
converts, or S. John towards the ecclesiastical emphasis
on the institutional sacraments, so the author sympathizes
with this tendency while he checks and directs it. This
is the kind of liberal spirit which makes men good
citizens, careful of the bodily needs of the poor, anxious to
define salvation so generously as to shut none out, and
sometimes apt to be satisfied for this purpose with a
vague phrase — cf. I Tim. ii. 4, for part of the difficulty
in the criticism of the Pastoral Epistles is the pre
dominance of this temper side by side with an almost
crude apocalyptic phraseology. It tends to " liberalism ''
instead of difficult freedom ; eKTei^s iirieiiceia and
vyialvovo-a St,$ao-icaXia, " insistent moderation," rather
than itvp naravaXiaicov " consuming fire " ; afraid of the
miraculous and unconventional ; apt to explain all hope
in terms of present life — cf. 2 Tim. ii. 18.1 Such is
this phase of the Hellenistic mind. It is akin to the
apostolic ; without its leavening the New Testament
would not be " apostolic " ; yet the full apostolic
1 Cf. Sainte Beuve's phrase : " Cette moyenne erudition francaise, saine,
sensee, et pas trop curieuse " (Elude sur Virgile).

The Sacramental Principle 35
character transcends it, as the mind of the writer to the
Hebrews transcends his correspondents'. Such people
would be shocked by the heroism of our Lord's life and
passion, which was so unconventional that they could
only see its apparent commonness. They might easily
grow weary of the " gathering together " of their ruder
brethren, and the authority of the orthodox " leaders "
might irk them, though they would admire the nobility
of their courageous faith when a master like their friend
pointed it out. They would rest in a low view of the
Person of Christ. It would be a reasonable view, and
their sympathy would be delicate, and their admiration
quick, and from this there would certainly spring a
wondering awe, an undefined expectation of something
beyond, something not after all understood. It is the
temper which is common in these modern days, reverent
but tired of all metaphysic in religion ; dreaming of
universal happiness, and impatient of the limits of defined
dogma and of a disciplined society; sentimental, yet,
on the other hand, noble and full of yearning, ready for
the guidance of a master whose ^nind is made up and
who sees clearly. Such a master must have firm grasp
of the traditional faith, must have learnt the traditional
discipline which subordinates individual aims and
difficulties to the life of the whole body, and must
nevertheless be sympathetic enough and learned enough
to distinguish between the essential and the accidental,
and to interpret the essential itself according to the ideas
of a new age. The Epistle is the letter of just such a
master. He appeals to the full primitive faith. He
distinguishes from it much which has seemed important,
and much which has been especially dear to himself and

2,6 The Epistle of Priesthood
his friends. He holds firmly to what we may roughly
term the supra-natural 1 in the Church's creed, but it is
remarkable how silent he is on what we may (again
roughly) term the miraculous. He interprets all in
terms of the Old Testament, and uses Alexandrine
methods in that interpretation, but modifies them freely.
And he has a clear view of the relationship of natural
and spiritual, visible and eternal. This view descends
from Plato, but it is clear, because he has seen it for
himself. His idea was afterwards elaborated by S. John,
but it is he who offers it as an original contribution to
apostolical theology, and it has had lasting effect upon
the mind of the Church, [it may be described as the
sacramental principle, and our business now is to gather
from the Epistle as plain an account as we can of his use
of that principle. ,'
He says in effect to his friends : " The Person and
work of our Lord Jesus Christ is a far larger thing than
you suppose ; think of Him as priest, and I will make
you understand what I mean." . He shows that this
priesthood of the Lord is the consummation of a priest
hood which runs through all visible life, and because it
is a function of real life has its final effect in the eternal
sphere. He bids them contemplate this, and thus he
appeals to their intellect ; he bids them share this priest
hood by doing that hard duty which was before them,
and thus he clinches his argument by appealing to their
wil]. He presses upon them, in fact, all through his letter
1 Perhaps no better explanation of this word can be suggested than Dr.
Burkitt's epigram : " It is not as a philosopher, but as Prometheus, that we
worship Christ, — the Man who came down from heaven to give men the
Divine fire" (Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 198).

The Sacramental Principle 37
the necessity of the sacramental process, of reaching the
eternal — eternal truth in thinking, eternal peace in
acting — through the frank acceptance of the actual
conditions of this life. He begins indeed by offering
a mere analogy, by borrowing terms from priestly service
as commonly seen, spoken of, understood. But he does
not rest long in the mere comparison, and as often as
he returns to it he shews that he is but employing a
convenient language for the exposition of a far wider
and more real life than that language is generally
applied to.
Analogy was like enough to the Philonic method to
be welcome to Alexandrines. But analogy thus in
tensified is in reality very different from Philonism.
Philo made fanciful allegories in which reality was first
subtracted, and then history thus modified became a
starting-point for alien speculation. Here the method is
to take human history and relationships, to see them
steadily as they actually are in their visible environment,
and to use them first as simple illustrations of greater
things, and then as having so real a connexion with
those greater things as to be effective means for compre
hending them, and that in action rather than in bare
thought. Philo deals with allegories, the Epistle with symbols.
Dr. Du Bose indicates the difference in The Reason of
Life, pp. 1 6 1-4, where he distinguishes between Jesus
Christ as truly historical and truly a symbol, from Jesus
Christ divorced from history, and made " the mere symbol
of our own ideal of truth, beauty, and goodness, or God,
incarnate in us. . . . By mere symbol I mean just' that
which is actually meant by those who contend for it : a

38 The Epistle of Priesthood
sign that is not the thing, that represents only, and is
not what it represents." The writer to the Hebrews calls
the true symbol eltccov, " very image," the mere symbol
aicid, " shadow," and he held that " shadows " pass away.
To the same effect Dr. Inge quotes Goethe : " That is
true symbolism when the more particular represents the
more general, not as a dream or shade, but as a vivid,
instantaneous revelation of the inscrutable." Somewhat
in the same sense M. Bergson uses " signe," and, borrow
ing a mode of expression from him, we might describe
sacraments as being always part of the movement of life.
And E. Caird, in The Evolution of Theology in the Greek
Philosophers, i. p. 162, wrote of Plato in words which
might be applied to this Epistle. " The next step is
taken by means of an analogy, which is really more than
an analogy, since the object used as an image is declared
to be the ' offspring ' or product of that which it is taken
to illustrate. In other words, the material world from
which the image is drawn is not for Plato an arbitrary
symbol of the ideal reality ; it is its manifestation or
phenomenal expression; and, therefore, the principle of
unity in the one is essentially akin to the principle of
unity in the other."
On this principle, then, the author works in his
Epistle. He " suggests the secrets by stating the
evident facts." And first he states them as simple illus
trations ; they form a language of picture. Such lan
guage seems poetic to some, old-fashioned to others. It
has always been the early generations in the world's
recurring ages who have spoken vigorously, picturesquely,
audaciously of divine truths. Thus it was in the early
prophetic period in Israel. This becomes inadequate or

The Sacramental Principle 39
gives offence. Thus in the Deuteronomic period the old
freedom in talking of God was checked. He was no
longer to be described as visibly moving among men, as
smelling the sacrifices. And yet picture language can
never be quite dispensed with. He still speaks out of
the fire, though no form is seen, and though to the ten
commandments He added no more, still " underneath
are the everlasting arms." The final stage is hardly to
be illustrated from the Old Testament itself, but some
times from our inferences from it ; when, to adopt Plato's
words, "we think that which is like something is not
like, but is the thing to which it is like." A develope
ment of this kind has taken place in our own day. Not
long ago people were content to think of the day of
the Lord as an assize, of the material fire of hell if not
of the material joys of heaven. The resurrection of our
Lord was described as though the sacred body could
have been seen leaving the sepulchre. The miracles of
the Gospel and the promises of the creed were vividly
pictured in the colours of everyday life. But to some
this picturing had already begun to be inadequate.
Others were forgetting that it was picturing, and were
first insisting for themselves and then for others on the
literal sufficiency of the terms. The consequence is that
in these last days of ours some thoughtful but perhaps
" provincial " minds are condescending to blank denial.
Others would reject the whole language of picture, and
would reinterpret all in terms of more or less pure
thought ; nor are they altogether unwilling to substitute
new tyranny for old, and impose their intellectual system
on all the brethren.
The Epistle to the Hebrews forbids that imposition.

40 The Epistle of Priesthood
In it the language of picture is applied freely; it is a
character impressed upon the whole letter, one of the
characters which distinguish it from the writings of
S. Paul. Indeed S. Paul and its author represent in
this respect a broad distinction in the minds of men at
large, a distinction which might be suggested by the
labels " philosopher " and " sacramentalist." Some men
are philosophical, and deal with everything as far as
possible in terms of pure thought. A symbol or
sacrament — the words bore once the same significance *
— appeals little to them and is seldom used by them,
except as a mere illustration by means of which they
may adapt their reasoning to the vulgar. So S. Paul
with his wild olive, and so (thought Henry Sidgwick2)
1 Cf. Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 253, ed. I. "The two great
sacraments are typical symbols, if we use the word in the sense which
I give to it, as something which, in being what it is, is a sign and
vehicle of something higher and better. This is what the early Church
meant when it called the sacraments symbols. A ' symbol ' at that period
implied a mystery, and a. 'mystery' implied a revelation. ... So Justin
Martyr uses <ru/i/3oXiK<3s clireiv and elveiv iv nmTriplip as interchangeable
terms ; and Tertullian says that the name of Joshua was nominis futuri
sacramentum." 2 See his Journal in Henry Sidgwick, a Memoir, p. 407. Moberly, in
Atonement and Personality, p. 178 f (ed. 1), has a fine passage in which he
shows that the abstract line of thought, rightly directed, does work out in
the end to a firmer grasp on personal relationship. He says that it is well
sometimes in our thought of, or communion with God, to substitute the
abstract for the personal phrase. "We may do it with such scientific ab
stractions as Force or Law. Much more do we help ourselves by doing it
with the religious abstractions, Omnipotence, Wisdom, Righteousness, Per-
fectness, Love. ... It is through accustoming ourselves to them, and to
thought in terms of them, that the mind would gradually realize that every
one of these — Law, Power, Cause, ultimate Being, Reason, Wisdom, Holiness,
Love. . . of necessity is in its ultimate climax of meaning Personal : and,
moreover, that as they are all severally Personal, so are they ultimately all the
same one, identical, Personal : and that this is what we mean by the Personal
God ; not a limited alternative to unlimited abstracts : but the transcendent
and inclusive completeness of them all."

The Sacramental Principle ' 41
Plato in his myths. In theology the limit of purely
philosophical thought is soon reached. Faith leaps the
boundary, and these thinkers become mystics who know
a thing they cannot express. Yet in their effort to
express it they break out into strangely illuminative
language — language more like a fire than a picture ; such
is S. Paul's, " I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in
me."1 Contrast that with the picture in this Epistle;
" Run the race, looking unto Jesus, who hath sat down
at the right hand of God." This language comes home
to the mass of men who are rather sacramentalists than
philosophers. They do not break away from things
touched and seen, and in their deepest meditations they
1 S. Paul's language has its parallels in the phraseology of contem
porary paganism. But this was to S. Paul merely what the technical
terms of Philonism were to our author. For each an alphabet was pro
vided in which they could write their own thoughts. So, according to
Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, the
old Semitic mythology gave an "alphabet" to the authors of the Old
Testament. The recognition of this language in S. Paul does not, of
course, imply that the "mystery-religion" formed his theology. His
mystical spirit was far removed from those mysteries. So far as a tend
ency in that direction was working in his time, he was more concerned
to check its aberrations than to help it ; see Kirsopp Lake, The Earlier
Epistles of S. Paul, pp. 40-47, and Schweitzer (Geschichte der Paulinischen
Forschung, vii. p. 177).
The philosophical, mystical character of S. Paul is not inconsistent with
the apocalyptic base which Schweitzer finds in him. The mystical and the
apocalyptic are in closest kin. This may perhaps explain not only a good
deal in S. Paul's Epistles, but something too of that universality in our
Lord's teaching which sometimes appears to complicate the apocalyptic view
of the Gospel. But indeed all such analyses of the synoptic spirit are
partial. The remarkable thing in it is the balance of such opposing
qualities. Cf. Von Hiigel, The Mystical Element in Religion, ii.
pp. 1 16-120, "it is the pre-Pauline parts which give us the most
immediately and literally faithful, and especially the most complete and
many-sided, picture of Our Lord's precise words and actions .... it is
the synoptic, the pre-Pauline tradition which contains the fuller arsenal
of the spiritual forces which have transfigured and which still inspire the
world of souls."

42 The Epistle of Priesthood
still think in pictures. It is not an inferior mode of
thinking, but it is a different mode. In these ranks
artists and poets as well as plain men are found. Both
kinds of mind may lag within the limits of material
things, for there is no royal road for avoiding the chasm
between the reasonable and the eternal. Yet the chasm
may be transcended, and what the philosopher turned
mystic finds at last in the silent ground of the heart the
picture-thinker touches by a vision which is always akin
to the effect of poetry ; sacramentalism is never very
different from art. S. Paul in the phrase quoted comes
nearer to the reality of which he is thinking than our
author in his picture, but it is difficult to say how.
" Coming nearer " is itself picture-language, and alien to
S. Paul's process. The image in Hebrews does not
"come near" at all, but it links daily life with larger
life. S. Paul fuses two lives in one ; Hebrews suggests
two aspects of what is all the time one life. Hebrews
affords a point of contact through which the more
ordinary mind grasps the eternal. " The more ordinary,"
for observation shows that it is so ; ten read the De
Imitatione for one who reads S. Augustine's Confessions.
Yet not necessarily the simpler or less instructed ; on the
contrary, S. Paul is often better understood by rustic
minds than by scholars, and a rather elaborately educated
mind is needed to appreciate as a whole the Alexandrine,
sacramental Epistle to the Hebrews.
For there can be no doubt to which class its author
belongs. He is no philosopher though he borrows the
terms of the schools. He is an artist and a poet. From
beginning to end of the Epistle we move among visions
which recall things, places, events, to the mind. Phrases

The Sacramental Principle 43
or even single words are so manipulated that they affect
us as through the sense of remembered vision ; and
the minor charm of the book comes from the skill,
like that of a painter's touch, with which this is
done. The introduction1 (i. 1-4) is a poet's vision. It sets
the reader by the throne of God in heaven, and shews
him the light proceeding from the invisible glory, the
image on the seal expressing the hidden essence of the
Godhead, going forth, striking and impressing eminences
in Israel's history with its form ; then taking definite
shape in man on earth and revealing the Person whose
mind and will have so far been dimly figured ; then
making purification for sins, and returning, full circle
rounded, to His heavenly home, but enriched now with
manhood and priesthood. It is a poet's guess, already
real to the author, for the vision has been given him and
contains for him " the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen " — pure artists' language
that ; but a guess that shall be tested in the rest of the
Epistle by argument, emotion, experience. The rest
of the Epistle is full of like art. This does not refer
to general skill in rhetoric, but only to the picture-
language which is continually used; the triumphant
return of the first-born Son from obscurity into the
society of nations with the chorus of worshipping angels
to usher him (i. 6) ; the continual stream of ministering
spirits as they go and come in the movement of the
eternal liturgy (i. 1 4) ; the vivid spectacle of Jesus
standing crowned in readiness for the suffering of death
(ii. 9) ; the devil as the potentate of the realm of
death (ii. 1 4) ; the sabbath festival of the people of

44 The Epistle of Priesthood
God (iv. 9) ; and the myriads of angels in festal
assembly. How concrete and impressive to the senses
is the whole of that description of the heavenly Jerusalem
(xii. 22—24), nor 'ess so the picture in the same chapter
of Sinai and the giving of the Law.
There is again the picture of the Word of God as
a two-edged knife, and the grim suggestion of a battle
field, or surgeon's table, or the butcher work of sacrifice,
the more arresting for the vagueness which makes it
difficult to fix the precise image intended (iv. 1 2 f.).
And the approach to the "throne of grace" (iv. 16) to
which there are so many parallels in the rest of the
Epistle (cf. especially ix. 24, x. 19 ff). This verse is
quoted with admirable fitness at the end of the Invitatory
to Confession in the English Prayer Book ; it expresses
the liturgical spirit of the whole Epistle, for if S. Paul
insists on the idea that the faithful always are in heaven,
the thought of this author is that they go there when
they pray. The figure of our Lord as Highpriest is
pictured in many impressive fashions ; as hailed High-
priest by God at the moment of completed salvation
(v. 10), as entering within the veil (vi. 20, cf. x. 20), and
very impressively, as destined to come forth again "a
second time " from the eternal sanctuary, to be seen not
by all but by those who are still expecting His salvation
(ix. 28, cf. xii. 14), as the people waited for the tarrying
Zacharias (S. Lk. i. 21). The author seems to take
pleasure in renewing the old Israelitish simplicity in
speaking of God and His operations ; hence the elaborate
emphasis upon His mediation by His oath (vi. 1 7) ; the
vigour of the exhortation to reverence in holy things,
to Xarpeia, " divine service," rather than rStSo^at -n-oiKikai

The Sacramental Principle 45
Kal %kpai, " new theologies," " for our God is consuming
fire" (xii. 29); and the gentle correction of Philonic
abstractions when (xi. 16) he says of the patriarchs
that God was not ashamed of their simplicity but allowed
them to call Him " their own God " as by a surname.
In the same way the phrase " living God " (iii. 1 2, ix.
14, x. 31, xii. 22) may be explained. It is far more
likely to be chosen as a familiar precious title to Jewish
ears than as a novelty for the instruction of Gentiles,
But besides that, this attribute of life is characteristic of
the whole Epistle ; it belongs to the vividness of the
author's conception of things as well as persons. He
seems to strike out picturesque sketches almost in
voluntarily, as when he writes of the officers of the
Church, and bids his friends recontemplate continually
the exit from affairs of those who are at rest (xiii. 7),
or the wakeful nights of those still on watch (xiii. 1 7).
Single words or phrases are expressive in the same way,
as ta 7T/30? top Oeop, " on the Godward side" (ii. 17, v. 1),
pr) avKeicepao-fiipovs tjj irLo-rei, of men " not mingled with
or kneaded into the faith " (iv. 2, cf. ii. 11, e£ ei>o?, which
may perhaps mean " of one lump "), fia^s aKaraKinov,
" indissoluble life " (vii. 1 6), to iraXaiov/iepov Kal lytjpdaKop,
of all the wearing out and ageing material of the world
(viii. 1 3, cf. i. 1 1 f., and xii. 27). Even his quotations from
the Old Testament seem to be selected (no doubt un
consciously) in accordance with this taste for the visible
and picturesque : " Behold, I and the children whom
God gave me" (ii. 13). "Yet a little while and he
that cometh shall come and shall not linger" (x. 37),
" like the stars of heaven and as the sand on the sea
shore, numberless " (xi. 12). Just after this comes the

46 The Epistle of Priesthood
"strangers and pilgrims" of xi. 13, which is expanded
in a remarkable picture ; these pilgrims saw the promises
from afar and greeted them, as pilgrims in the desert see
the minarets of the distant city at the end of some day's
march ; they greet them, but pitch their tents for the
night, still forced to put off the entry they are seeking.
Of course most of these are merely examples of a habit
of language. They might roughly be explained by
saying that the author employs a metaphorical style.
But style reveals a writer's mind, and though these
phrases may not be severally raised to the rank of
sacramental things, they do in their mass illustrate the
sacramental tendency of his thought. Visible things
mean so much to him ; he has, as Baron von Hiigel
says of Leibniz, " his admirably continuous sense of
the inside of everything that fully exists."
And his pleasure in such things is natural and spon
taneous. Similes, by which rhetorical writers consciously
explain what they have to say, are rare in this Epistle.
Even in such a similitude as that of the good and bad
soil (vi. 7 f.) there is no formula of introduction. The
comparison at the end of this chapter is rather different
It belongs to a series of three pictures with which the
argument of the Epistle is punctuated, and which may
be described as sacramental in a more special sense. In
this (vi. 18-20), the first of the three, the Christian hope
is figured as an anchor, and the figure grows into a
picture of the readers of the Epistle on board a ship
which has finished her voyage; the anchor has been
dropped, and passing out of sight into the mysterious
deep, it already holds the land. Jesus, as the captain
of the ship, has gone ashore ; the crew wait His summons

The Sacramental Principle 47
to bring the ship into harbour and follow Him.1 The
second is at the beginning of ch. xii. Here the roll
of " martyrs " in ch. xi., who have had witness borne
to them, or (as we might say) have displayed their
courageous faith, leads on to a picture of a racecourse or
arena, where the readers of the Epistle have to display
their faith before witnesses. They are about to run their
course. It is a course that Jesus has himself run before
them, and at the end of it He is now seated in glory.
In the former picture He was out of sight ; in this He is
in sight. In the former they simply waited ; now they
are bidden to keep their eyes fixed on Him, and so to
run with patience.
These two passages might be read and hastily
dismissed as merely elaborated figures. But they are
marked by a peculiar intensity. They show the Christian
faith, life, strength, as it specially affects these readers
in their present circumstances. In ch. vi. they have
"fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before" them
in those stormy days. In ch. xii. the definite article
concentrates attention on the particular sin which was
their immediate peril, and though the precise meaning
of the epithet translated in the English versions, " which
doth so easily beset us," is disputed, it may be reasonably
1 A fine adaptation of this is the sailor's epitaph :
" Blow, Boreas, blow ; let Neptune's billows roar ;
Here lies a sailor safe landed on the shore ;
Though Neptune's waves have toss'd him to and fro,
By God's decree he harbours here below.
He now at anchor rides amidst the fleet
Waiting orders Admiral Christ to meet."
This is in S. Andrew's churchyard, Hertford. Another version at Lelant,
Cornwall, has less of the communion of saints, but gains significance by its
position on the sea coast,

48 The Epistle of Priesthood
held to point to that moment of nervous discomfort when
the timid athlete strips off his coat — unwilling — to be
ready for the signal. Pharisaic Jews did not attend
races. Hellenists may not have been so scrupulous. If
they had not seen an arena, the readers had probably
been on board ship. But this need not be pressed. The
concordance suggests that the vividness of the appeal is
as much due to literary reminiscence as to outdoor
experience. It is the character of this Epistle to look at
things through books ; that is perhaps one reason why it
has been so often criticised as a sermon — it seems de
tached from life. But that is merely seeming. The one
direct aim that runs all through it is to prepare a set of
bookish men for possible martyrdom. To such readers
the letter was no common sermon, and if its sacramental
images were somewhat bookishly expressed, that would
not detract for such men from the vivid reality of their
visible side.
That reality in the visible symbol is one necessary
part of a sacramental figure. But of course that would
be nothing if the inward reality were trifling. In these
instances both realities are intense, but their intensity is
not fully perceived till they are recognized as leading up
to the last of the series, the picture in ch. xiii. There
is a continually deepening intensity. In each picture the
readers and their Lord are introduced. In the first they
are passive, and He is out of sight. In the second they
prepare for a contest, and He sits in view. Now in the
third the union between Him and them is to be accom
plished. And here the picture has but a superficial
picturesqueness, but a quite unambiguous reality; the
symbol trembles into unison with the eternal truth of

The Sacramental Principle 49
which it is the symbol ; a plain sacrament is presented.
Our Lord upon the Cross is shewn as a sacrifice, or
rather as the off-scouring of a sacrifice, which is burned
without the camp. There is the realism with which the
Crucifixion and all the humiliation of the Lord's life is
imagined in this Epistle. To see the fact simply as it
took place, that is the first process in the sacramental
interpretation of events. Then the context with its
sacrificial references, already prepared for by the earlier
sacrificial teaching of the Epistle, carries the mind from
the outward to the inward, from the Cross to the eternal
sanctuary. At the moment of the Lord's dying on
Calvary He entered the Father's presence. What men
could see was the execution of a criminal, with all the
horror of such an execution. What the faithful believe
to have been the inward reality thus symbolized was the
entry of the eternal Highpriest, with the blood of His
perfected life, to make atonement for His people.
Nor is that all. Even that might be criticized as
mere fanciful analogy if it stood by itself, but the author
in this passage also bids his readers to go forth to the
Lord outside the camp bearing His shame. They are to
do what He did, to be as He was, and so to join Him.
This is their partaking of the sacrifice. There is a
certain verbal correspondence here between the act of
salvation and the Jewish ceremonies. " Of sin-offerings
the priests do not partake, nor do they of our sacrifice,
but there is a partaking which is ours, i.e. this joining of
the Lord outside the camp in a deed of renunciation."
But the correspondence is merely verbal, and the author
has taken no pains to make it neat and clear. There is
no use of Jewish sacrifices here as types of Christ's
4

50 The Epistle of Priesthood
sacrifice ¦ — the Jewish sacrifices were not types, only
shadows; there was nothing sacramental about them.
What is presented is the death of Christ on Calvary as
a sacrament of His eternal act of salvation, and the
devotion of His followers as part of the same sacra
mental action, the outward sign and means of their
union with Him. And this extension of the analogy,
this interweaving of present, and therefore possibly
repeated interest in the primary action, is part of the
essence of the sacrament, which is just what the two
former illustrative pictures have prepared the readers to
comprehend. The late Dean of Lincoln, Dr. Wickham, in the
Introduction to his edition, remarks on the artistic plan
of this Epistle : " It is, in a sense, beyond any other
Epistles in the New Testament, an artistic whole. It is
a letter, but at the same time it is an impassioned treatise
or piece of oratory, having a single purpose, ardently
felt, clearly conceived, never lost to sight. The whole
argument is in view from the beginning, whether in the
purely argumentative passages, or in those which are in
form hortatory ; we are constantly meeting phrases which
are to be taken up again, and to have their full meaning
given to them later on. The plan itself develops.
While the figures to some extent change and take fresh
colour, there is growing through all, in trait on trait, the
picture which the writer designs to leave before his
readers' minds."
This applies to the point before us. The sacra
mental idea is an important part of the author's plan.
His language throughout is, half-unconsciously, sacra
mental, and he passes imperceptibly from a large general

The Sacramental Principle 51
feeling of the significance of visible things to a particular
suggestion of the meaning of certain selected events and
actions. These are arranged in a series where they take
hold of one another and deepen one another's seriousness,
concentrating attention more and more on a special
need, duty, and hope, of the readers' own lives, and
binding this hope closer and closer with the triumph of
their Lord. Then finally, the Cross is shewn to be in
a pre-eminent sense sacramental, revealing through its
visible heroism the secret of the Saviour's Person and
work, and affording to His servants a means of par
taking in His effort and His strength.
When we turn back from ch. xiii., and read the
whole Epistle with this thought in our minds, we perceive
that this sacrament of the Cross is itself but part of a
larger sacrament, the Incarnation. The author's chief
contribution to theology proper is in fact this ; he gives
a first sketch of that sacramental interpretation of the
Incarnation which S. John has elaborated in a whole
Gospel.1 That interpretation shall presently be con
sidered. At this point let us linger for a while on the
general idea of sacrament ; only so far anticipating as to
start from the thought of the Incarnation as the one
primary sacrament. It would indeed be proper to say
that, strictly speaking, it is the only sacrament, and that
a second is inconceivable. As dependent on it, however,
1 This treatise does not include a study of the Johannine writings, and it
is for the sake of brevity and custom that I speak here and elsewhere of S.
John as author of the Fourth Gospel. The tradition of the Church, as I
understand it, makes him "author," not writer, and it seems to me not im
probable that such a tradition may become more and more acceptable as it is
more thoroughly examined. But I subscribe heartily to Mr. Streeter's words :
' ' Only those who have merely trifled with the problems [that Gospel] suggests
are likely to speak dogmatically upon the subject " (Foundations, p. 82).

5 2 The Epistle of Priesthood
as part of it, all visible things, so far as they are real,
are sacraments. In the English Catechism two sacra
ments are distinguished as being alone "ordained by
Christ himself." Here the word " ordained " warns us
that " sacrament " is used in a special sense of institutional,
ceremonial, ecclesiastical sacraments. There may be
more than two of them, but there are only two which
were ordained by Christ himself. When S. Jerome
wrote " Apocalypsis Johannis tot habet sacramenta quot
verba " he used the word in another sense, much as we
have been using it of the general language of this Epistle.
But he is at the same time passing from the thought of
such literary sacraments to the greater thought of the
sacraments of nature, sacraments which were not ordained
by the Lord Jesus in the days of His flesh, but have been
created by the Christ the Son of God. In all these
sacraments one and the same kinship appears with the
one sacrament of the Incarnation which is the perfection
and the origin of all ; the same revelation through what
is visible of the eternal and invisible ; and the same
expansion into the whole breadth and depth of men's
lives, where by means of the sacrament union with God
through Christ is effected.
A sacrament) is a point in space and time through
which as it were x — there must always be an " as it were "
in dealing with sacraments — man's will, mind, affection,
come into touch with eternal truth and power. And in
every effectual sacrament there is a margin round the
momentary point, in which margin preparation and
1 Coleridge's definition of the principle of Gothic architecture might be
applied to the sacramental principle in general — " Infinity made imaginable."
But this is too purely intellectual. There is nothing truly sacramental with
out connexion with the will (Table Talk, June 29, 1833).

The Sacramental Principle 53
application go on. Thus in Baptism the sacramental
moment is the visible washing with water and rehearsal
of the solemn words of ritual, but in the sacramental
margin come the instruction of the catechumen, or the
after-instruction of the infant ; the prayers, resolves,
affections of parents and god-parents ; the gradual dis
cipline of life in which the given grace is tested and
applied. Emotion, intelligence, the bracing of the will,
all this counts in the sacramental effect, as S. Paul very
clearly demonstrates in the passage on Baptism in
Rom. vi., and in his rebuke of the Corinthians for their
levity in using Holy Communion (1 Cor. xi. 17 ff.).1
The ritual moment is itself solemn, but its solemnity
depends in part on the preparation which has been made
for it, and in the application on which the partaker
is resolved, and which is known, in the common experi
ence of the Church, to be made after it. The margin
is not separated from the point ; the sacramental is
all one with the daily life of the believer. The two
are "of one'' (Heb. ii. 11) — "of one piece," but also
"of one source," for a sacrament would be a fantasy if
the eternal and spiritual were not the reality which gave
it value. And yet to a thorough sacramentalist this statement
would not be quite satisfactory. It suggests a division
between the natural and the spiritual which he would be
1 Schweitzer, Ceschichte der Paulinischen Forschung, vii., argues that S.
Paul connected his doctrine of redemption practically, not logically, with the
sacraments. That, if correct, would not be inconsistent with the inference
here drawn from the Epistles. He adds" that the fourth evangelist, like
Ignatius, knows no other salvation than that which is bound up with the
sacraments. Would it not be more accurate to say that the Fourth Gospel
guards the moral significance of sacraments at a period, or in a community,
in which there was a tendency to a mechanical use of them ?

54 The Epistle of Priesthood
loth to admit. • To distinguish is not to separate,1 and
the sacramentalist thoroughly approves the saying, " what
is spiritual is natural, and what is most natural is most
spiritual." The very essence of his creed is to accept
the natural side of things frankly without disguise or
toning down. Christ is for him very God and very man,
not an angel. That is what Dr. Hort insisted upon so
much in all thinking. Thus in The Way, the Truth,
and the Life (p. 163), he wrote : " The only peace which
can close this discord is the peace of the Son of God,
His redemption of the world which came into being
through Him, and of which He is the Life the Truth
and the Way. All our primary knowledge of God is
through Him, the true Son of the true Father. All our
primary knowledge of Him, the Son, is through His
revelation in human flesh and blood under the conditions
of earthly life, and through the testimony of those who
had conversed with Him by their bodily senses. All
our thoughts of heavenly things are therefore shaped out
of earthly images. All service rendered to God is the
service of His Son's kingdom, and it is rendered in and
through and to the work which He is ever carrying on
in the world. All elements of our being within, all
objects and forces over which we can put forth any
influence without, are made for His service, and attain
their own special perfection only when they are turned
towards Him. For while all things in their Divine order
lead up to Him, each separate thing in its own form,
1 Cf. Coleridge. "It is a dull and obtuse mind that must divide in order
to distinguish ; but it is a still worse that distinguishes in order to divide.
In the former we may contemplate the source of superstition and idolatry ;
in the latter of schism, heresy, and a seditious and sectarian spirit " (Aids to
Reflection, Introd. Aphorisms, xxvi.).

The Sacramental Principle 55
function and life is contemplated by Him, and His
delight and glory is in all."
The last sentence of this quotation is noticeable.
It points to the distinction between the sacramental and
the merely analogical. A sacrament is a process of life,
not a stimulus to thought. There is, as we shall see
presently, a priesthood in created life which is a sacra
ment of the divine work of salvation, but* that is very
different from the effect which a particular priesthood
like the Levitical has upon our thoughts concerning the
scheme of salvation. True prophecy is sacramental, but
a system of " types " in which intellectual notions are
gathered from particular sayings or events is not. Hort
expresses this distinction in a criticism of Ruskin which
he wrote in a letter to J. Ellerton : " As far as I can see,
his great fault is his endeavouring to interpret symbols
into intellectual notions. Now this, though at first sight
it may seem almost completely opposed to the vulgar
notion of beauty, as something having no real absolute
existence except as that which is pleasing to the eye, is
really an offshoot, springing lower and deeper down from
the same root ; for it tacitly assumes that whatever is
spiritual, has a substantive existence, and is communicable
from spirit to spirit, must be capable of interpretation
into intellectual ideas, and therefore into language which
is their exponent; whereas it seems to me most im
portant to assert that beauty is not merely a phase or
(as Sterling calls it) the body of truth, but has its own
distinct essence and is communicable through its own
media, independently of those of truth. And hence that
forms of beauty are valuable (to use a word which most
imperfectly conveys my meaning), not as sensuous ex-

56 The Epistle of Priesthood
ponents of those forms of truth which are emanations
from Him who is the Perfect Truth, but as themselves
emanations from Him who is the Perfect Beauty." 1
This is put roughly, as in a quickly written letter, but
the meaning is clear. Visible things are not merely to
be used as illustrations of thought which they are
arbitrarily chosen to excite, but are themselves media
of their own eternal reality. The difficulty of the con
ception lies in its expression. To get over that difficulty
Platonists use the word " idea " for the reality, the Church
uses the word " sacrament " (or " symbol," or " mystery,"
or sometimes "sign") for the medium. The practical
application of the conception is conditioned by the
honesty with which the natural sign is employed within
its proper limits ; these limits make it a fit means for
what it has to do. When these limits are transgressed,
and the sign is used in an unnatural way, the result is
allegory instead of sacrament. Such is the Docetic
theory of our Lord's suffering, the theory of verbal
inspiration of the Scriptures, the " language of flowers "
(e.g. " pansies for thoughts "), and our author would add,
the continuance of the Levitical priesthood as a type
into which the Christian priesthood should be moulded.
An illustration from painting may not be out of
place. The Florentine school in their intellectual vigour
lean towards allegory in their treatment of the mysteries
of the faith, and, like S. Paul, sometimes employ it nobly.
1 Life and Letters, i. p. 109. Cf. Inge, Faith ( Jowett Lectures for 1909,
p. 204). " The view taken in these lectures is that beauty is one of the
fundamental attributes of God, which He has therefore impressed upon His
world. I hold it to be a quality residing in the objects and not imparted to
them by the observer. I hold beauty to be, like truth and goodness, an end
in itself for God's creation."

The Sacramental Principle 57
The Venetians in their religious pictures are at their
best when they frankly represent scenes and persons as
they might be seen on earth. If, in some instances,
this appears to lessen the sacredness of their work,
the sympathy of second thoughts will often change
that judgement. There can be no doubt that in
Tintoretto's historical realism the sacramental principle
is magnificently vindicated. How near in spirit to his
Crucifixions are the Passion chapters of this Epistle.
Tintoretto has indeed a remarkable affinity to this
Epistle as a whole. He seems to have met, mastered,
and transformed difficulties the same in kind as those
which affected its readers. There appears in his
pictures the same leaning to the visible world, the same
uneasiness in accepting the faith in its old simplicity,
the same wonder at the paradox of the humility of the
days of the Saviour's flesh, and the same sense of God
head through all this, however hard to reach. It has
been said that the power of his pictures springs from
the painter's " visions " ; where no " vision '' was granted
the picture was inferior. This reminds us of the vivid
imaginations of our author. But only those receive
visions who have prepared for them, and it is evident
that Tintoretto had taken pains to realize with historical
imagination the persons and circumstances of the Gospel
days, and this emphasized the difficulties of faith. Our
Lord and His Apostles were to him peasants ; the
Crucifixion was a criminal execution, with the sordid
accessories of such an execution ; miracles could hardly
be accepted at their face value ; Satan was not the
Satan of ordinary tradition, he stood for what seemed
beautiful, and the Gospel life was opposed to it. Tin-

58 The Epistle of Priesthood
toretto took these actualities, and frankly accepting them,
treated them sacramentally. The things that seemed
mean received in truthful but reverent representation
more abundant honour. The dying Man upon the
Cross beneath which the group of peasants were gathered
became more than ever the centre of the scene where
the pomp of the prosaic world was set in array against
Him. Miraculous agents passed into elemental forces,
and became more powerful as they lost their obvious
romance. Death was fairly faced as a violent fact ;
the arrow goes deep into S. Sebastian and the bodily
powers collapse, but that declares death to be no end
but a mysterious act of indissoluble life far more forcibly
than do the conventional representations in which the
arrows seem to effect no real harm.
One last point must be noticed. We saw how the
picture in ch. xiii., while on the one hand it is more
thoroughly sacramental than those that led up to it, is
on the other hand less completely picturesque. The
symbol, we said, trembles here into unison with that of
which it is the symbol. In other words, the author
checks the flow of imagery, and seems to confess that
this method has its limitations. There is a completion
it can only point to and never perfectly disclose. That
confession is necessary in every kind of theological
expression. The true sacramentalist has the advantage
of most people in being more sharply aware of it.
There is a hymn of Alford's in which, after six verses
of varied sacramental imagery, he goes on —
"Nought that city needeth
Of these aisles of stone ;
Where the Godhead dwelleth
Temple there is none.

The Sacramental Principle 59
All the saints that ever
In these courts have stood,
Are but babes and feeding
On the children's food.
On through sign and token,
Stars amid the night,
Forward through the darkness,
Forward into light."
This illustrates the sacramentalist's consciousness that
though definition is necessary for all expression, still
definition itself is a makeshift of time and space. But it
also illustrates his inveterate habit of concrete expression.
Even that confession he has to make in concrete imagery.
So in this Epistle the author does indeed shew by a word
here or by reticence there how conscious he is of the
limits of symbolical reach. But for the most part he
cheerfully works within those limits, and is content to
picture the inward reality as well as the visible event.
Thus the Crucifixion is for him a sacrament. But its
invisible reality is still described in picture as the
entrance of the Highpriest, the Son of God, into the
sanctuary of the divine presence. It was no doubt of
this writer that Dr. Swete was chiefly thinking when he
said in The Ascended Christ (p. xiv.), " However much
we may endeavour to ' dematerialize ' symbols, and get
to the naked facts which lie behind them, as, for instance,
by substituting modern philosophical terms for the
biblical words, we do little more than substitute one set
of symbols for another ; the ultimate truths remain im
penetrable while we are here."

CHAPTER III
The Sacrament of the Incarnation : The
Limitations of Manhood
The sacramentalist starts from faith in God, and sees the sacramental quality
of creation perfected in the Incarnation — The author of this_ Epistle
received from, the Church the doctrine of our Lord's Godhead, and
interpreted it sacramentally, recognizing the limitations of His man
hood — To vindicate that manhood has been the task of criticism, which
in its "apocalyptic" developement insists that the Gospels must be read
more simply, and our Lord accepted as they portray Him, conscious of
Christhood as the circumstances of those days moulded that idea — The
Epistle agrees with this view, which however is but part of a general
movement in modern thought, and needs exacter elaboration — Already
however it assures us of the traditional doctrine of the Atonement ; of our
Lord's abiding life and sovereignty ; of the ideal character of Christian
morality — And it reacts upon the criticism of documents — Nor does it
go beyond the statement in the Epistle : " Though He was Son yet He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered."
We use the word sacrament, then, in a wide sense.
Whenever visible things reach out into the eternal and
carry us with them into God, there is a sacrament. The
visible side must be real. Death may be a sacrament,
but its sacramental truth is impaired when we refuse to
see the pain, the horror, the breaking off of bodily
functions, including, for instance, thought as a physical
act of the brain. Real death, not idyllic death, is the
act of larger life, and the sacrament of our faith in that
life. Again, the outreach, the connexion must be real.
To say " pansies for thoughts," or " the lilies and languors
60

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 6 1
of virtue, the raptures and roses of vice," are fancies, but
the growth, bloom, and seeding of a flower is part of the
universal life of earth, and is a sacrament of the life
indeed. And once more, the visible thing must be fit.
If roses really made for vice they would still be far from
sacramental, for sacraments have to do with reality which
is God not vice, and they must themselves be good. An
imperfect human life may be highly sacramental because
its struggle for the good may be intense, but it is only
sacramental in so far as it does partake of holiness.
And so we are led to the one sacrament of which
the various sacraments of the manifold universe are but
parts, i.e. to the sacrament of the incarnation of the
Word of God.
The sacramentalist starts from God. Unless there
be a meaning in the universe, and a good one ; unless
there be a goal for the movement of life, and a holy one,
there could be no sacrament. Whether such a meaning
and goal can be demonstrated he leaves to the philo
sopher. It may be that demonstration can never get
beyond irdpra pel, but the sacramentalist starts from
God, from whom, through whom, and unto whom are all
things. All that is technical in the art and abstruse in
the science of philosophy he passes over. This is
speaking abstractedly as though of a pure sacramen
talist, with no touch of the philosopher or mystic in him,
a monster of course, apart from all reality, the very thing
a sacramentalist would be the first to confess could have
no personal existence. But such abstraction is often
held to be convenient, and in any case the important
point is that the sacramentalist seeks and finds God
mainly in the manifestation of His Word. That is the

62 The Epistle of Priesthood
convenient Alexandrine term which led the way to the
still more satisfying formula of the Holy Trinity as the
explanation of th'e universe in God, of God beyond the
universe, and of all the aspiration of the creature. It
had been already expressed without technical terms by
St. Paul : " Of him and through him and unto him are
all things." It means that God is not oneness blank and
apart, but all created things are present with Him in His
Word, through whom they come forth from Him ; and
again, that created things have not blank, aimless
existence, but pass forth from Him into life which is
movement, production, and growth through struggle, a
noble process of return unto Him through the life-giving
Spirit. The Word and the Spirit are indeed more than
the creature and the creature's life. They are, from the
point of view of logical measurement, infinitely more.
But the Trinitarian interpretation of Scripture converts
us from the measurement implied by " infinity " to the
goodness implied by " eternal," and shews the chasm
abolished. Because Word and Spirit are God, therefore
creation is raised to the uttermost, and at last (the
Christian hope) God shall be " all in all." When the
Word was known as Jesus of Nazareth, and the Spirit as
inspiring His manhood, theoretical language passed into
sacramental action, and love, the motive of God, could
become, without limit to its reach, the motive of men.
Such a universe being the living expression of such
a God has necessarily been full of sacraments from the
beginning ; yet all that multiplicity of sacrament was
but the many-sided flashing of the one sacrament of
God manifesting Himself through the Word. This, or
something like this, was what our author had in mind

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 63
when he quoted from Ps. xlv. in the prologue to his
Epistle : —
"Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the works of thy hands :
They shall perish ; but thou continuest :
And they all shall wax old as doth a garment ;
And as a mantle shalt thou roll them up,
As a garment, and they shall be changed :
But thou art the same,
And thy years shall not fail."
The earth, sea, sky, and all that is in them reveal
God. S. Paul knew this ; our Lord's parables shew that
He delighted in it; the author of Hebrews says just
enough to make us feel that he did too. But he was in
close enough touch with educated science to understand
how little man knows of his surroundings. He feels the
majesty of nature ; " What is man ? " he quotes. He
knows how spiritual are its forces ; " fire and wind are
angels," he quotes again. But he severely confines his
argument to men, the only beings under God whom he
really knows as persons. " For verily," he says, " not of
angels doth he take hold, but he taketh hold of the seed
of Abraham." A sacrament is a presentment of life in
a manner intelligible to men, and the Incarnation is
therefore the supreme sacrament. It does not however
follow that it is the supreme instance of the divine
activity, or that man is the highest form of life in the
created universe. And leaving such vast speculations,
we must recognize that the sacrament of the Incarnation
itself will not be fully valued if man be separated in our
thought from the rest of nature. Much of our modern
difficulty about the Person of Christ is due to our
enlarged knowledge of nature and deepened reverence for

64 The Epistle of Priesthood
God's revelation therein. This difficulty may bring its
own remedy. We seem to require a new attention to
the Alexandrine doctrine of the Word.1 The theologian
of these days tends to lay exclusive stress on " Thou
hast put all things under his feet." The man of science
and the country labourer think " What is man that thou
art mindful of him ? " So in the synoptic Gospels (as in
the Jewish apocalypses) nature fills a larger space than
in S. John and the Epistles. What a different kind of
feeling is shewn in the narrative of the stilling of the
storm in the synoptists, and in the turning of water into
wine in the Fourth Gospel.
In this Epistle both verses of Ps. viii. are quoted.
Yet in its main argument the view is limited to the
simple line, God and man. And there are reasons for
this. One is indicated by an oracular saying in
Coleridge's Table Talk, " Man does not move in cycles
though nature does. Man's course is like that of an
arrow ; for the portion of the great cometary ellipse
which he occupies is no more than a needle's length to
a mile." But a better reason is, that only along this line
can we recognize persons and the divine affections which
make personality valuable. No one can read Professor
Bethune Baker's Nestorius aud his Teaching without
feeling how deeply Nestorius had entered into the spirit
of this Epistle. He quotes a remarkable reference of
Nestorius to the penalty he had incurred by " not
employing the word ' ousia,' but merely, ' love,' and main
taining that by this He is called Lord and Christ and
Son " ; he narrowed his appeal to the penetrating line of
1 Cf. an article by Mr. Jesse Berridge in The Interpreter, Oct. 1912, on
"Christ in Nature and Nature in Christ."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 65
personal experience, and that is just what the writer to
the Hebrews has done.
In man then, and man's history that writer finds
great sacraments. The Christs of the Old Testament
were sacraments of God's presence in Israel. There has
been a priesthood in the world from the beginning (not
the Levitical) which is a sacrament of salvation. And
yet all these have so far appeared but as various flash
ings of the one sacrament which he is persuaded has at
last been seen in perfection in the days of the flesh of
Jesus the Christ.
Why is he persuaded of this ? Because the Church
of Christ to which he belongs, the family in which he is
a brother, has in one form or another always asserted
it. The life of this family, in which he has found peace
and power, has been sufficient proof to him that the
tradition is true. He is about to present the tradition
in a new form to suit the minds and circumstances of his
friends, but he is not about to proclaim a new truth, or
find new evidences, or prove the faith by logical conclu
sion. We shall not appreciate his letter fairly unless we
remember that this tradition of the Church lies behind it.
Nor is it less important to remember that his aim is moral
rather than intellectual ; he desires his friends to do a
hard duty for Jesus Christ's sake and in Jesus Christ's
power. Let them do that and he is no longer anxious
about their intellectual conviction. No thorough student
of the Epistle will suspect the author of starving the
intellectual part of men, but he does give us a
strong hint as to the proper way of nourishing the
intellect; it must have moral work to do else it will
starve. 5

66 The Epistle of Priesthood
So then, he takes the common faith of the Church ;
that Jesus who walked in Galilee, and died upon the
Cross, is the very Christ of God, who now reigns in
i heaven, and will appear again to His faithful servants.
The fishermen Apostles had known Him in Galilee, and
simply looked forward to His coming in glory. S. Paul
had occupied his Greek converts little with the Galilean
days, but told them how by death He had entered upon
His redeeming power, and how by His Spirit they even
now must dwell in Him. These Alexandrine scholars
are a stage later in time, and a degree more advanced in
reflexion, and probably more closely tied to Palestine
than S. Paul's Gentiles were,1 and they do look back
upon the days of their Lord's flesh. They see the
narrowness and weakness of those days ; the sharing in
the ordinary limitations of men ; nay, in extraordinary
limitations, for no wealth, rank, scholarship, no faculty
for pompous achievement, could be discerned there.
They saw too, the Passion and the Cross, and they were
near enough to the tragedy to realize the details of such
a criminal execution — to the Greeks foolishness; there
is no sign of their friends having to rebuke them for
Greek levity on the subject — to the Jews a scandal;
read the Epistle and judge whether there be no hint that
they had been scandalized. There is the difficulty ; the
scandal of the Cross and of the commonplace human
1 For Palestinian interest in "the days of His flesh," cf. Swete, The
Ascended Christ, p. xv. n. "The words Kal ev avOpuiirois iroXirevtrdnevov,
which Eusebius of Caesarea (Socr. H.E. i. 8), quotes in his appeal to the
ancient creed of his own Church, stand alone as a reference to the Lord's life
in Palestine. See Dean Stanley's remark upon them in Eastern Church,
p. 157." The references to the Holy Land in the Greek Liturgy of S. James
have no real bearing on first century thought, but the creed of Caesarea
probably has.

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 67
days that led up to it. Here is the hope of solution ;
the Old Testament history and the Platonic philosophy,
both of which had accustomed those readers to the idea
of a sacrament ; and (we may venture to add) a delicacy
and courage in their hearts since they were ready to
risk life for a patriotic scruple, and could appreciate
heroism when pointed out to them, however deeply
disguised in what was commonplace and shocking.1 -—
On this hope, then, the author builds. He sets forth
this earthly life, these days of the flesh, this humiliation,
as themselves the sacrament of the divine Christ's ineffable
work for men. He has a magnificent plan. He finds a
deep spiritual idea of priesthood, of bringing Godward, to
be at the heart of all natural life from the beginning of
the world, and he marshals his Lord's earthly life on
those ascending lines which run up into the will of God.
Here is indeed the sacrament of sacraments. In it the
visible and the eternal are really one. They seem two,
because the unity is effected by life, growing, suffering,
loving life, which on its earthly side seems to come to an
end. But no one can contemplate this life without per
ceiving whither it tends, and no one (this is of the
essence of the sacrament) can share this life without
1 This glory in humiliation — more than mere Kenosis — had already been
described briefly and forcibly in Col. ii. 15: direK5v<rd/ievos rds dpxas Kal rds
4£owtas iBety/iAriffev iv irappt\aU{. dpiaiifieiaos a&rovs iv aim#, ' ' having stripped
off the garment of authorities and powers which seemed His right, He
publicly flouted such shows of divinity after having led them like captives in
His truly triumphal progress to the Cross." The wrong Kenotic theory is one
"that eliminates the Divine consciousness of the incarnate Son of God"
(Bethune Baker, Nestorius, p. ix). That Divine consciousness is just what the
apocalyptic view of the Gospel guards. Cf. Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus
Christ, pp. 265 ff. : "This I believe to be the profoundest motive operating in
the Kenotic theories — this sense of sacrifice on the part of a pre-existent
One."

68 The Epistle of Priesthood
passing onward with it. A great plan interwoven with
every sentence of the letter, so that we do violence to it
by analysing it. Yet for our present purpose we must
\ analyse, and in this preliminary view we;will leave out
the priestly idea, and attend as far as possible to the
general aspect of the sacrament only.
l^ First jthere is a perfectly frank recognition of the
real manhood of the Lord.
His life and work are real history handed down from
himself, through those who heard Him, to the author and
his friends (ii. 3). " Jesus " the private personal name,
by which this particular man was known on earth, is the
name regularly used in the Epistle. He has a more
famous name, " Christ," but it too is human, and has
been borne by others before Him, and He has received
it by inheritance from them. Nay, even the still greater
name of Son of God had been enjoyed by those earlier
Christs, and that name too He has received by inherit
ance (i. 4). A Psalm is quoted (ii. 6 ff.) to shew that
all men had from God the promise of glory, which
promise, in the face of the vastness of nature and the
littleness of men, was hard to believe. It has been
fulfilled in Jesus, not as might have been expected, but
by His final and perfect readiness for a; shameful death.
That death was a real sharing in the grim destiny of
; human flesh and blood, but therefore it was the oppor
tunity for sympathy, love, championship, propitiation.
^ So runs the argument in ch. ii., and each time the
exaltation, the completed work of salvation is declared
in this Epistle, it is introduced by a picture of His
humiliation as a means of sympathy and union. How
could He taste death for each and all ? So we ask, and

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 69
so those liebrews asked. The first answer given by their
friend is, " by the grace of God " (ii. 9), God chose it
should be so. The sacramentalist begins from God,
and the author of this Epistle was not one to make little
of the tradition (as we should say, the dogma) of the
Church. But no one can read on without feeling that
the further answer is, "because it was necessary and
natural " ; close linked as,,He was with other men by
nature and by love, His obedience to the will of God
could not but carry theirs with it " if they would."
Obedience seems a cold word perhaps. But like
blood and sacrifice, obedience is a word which takes on
brighter colours in times of danger, hard tried loyalty,
renunciation. S. Paul spoke movingly to the Philippians
of the Lord's obedience. John Inglesant's master said
some fine things about obedience to him, which are more
open to our criticism than they would have been to men
who were about to choose their side in the wars of
Charles I. In a storm at sea obedience is no common
place virtue. Perhaps to those Hebrews in the days of
Titus obedience was a highly sacramental word. If
their Lord's life on earth was a noble act of obedience
its commonplace or shocking character would look
different. In any case ch. x., with its doctrine of con
secration in the will of God, the author's prayer in
ch. xiii., which so unobtrusively shews how his own
will had been lost and found in the divine will, and that
astonishing phrase, " Son though He be, He learned
obedience by suffering," sufficiently declare that the
obedience spoken of in this Epistle was no common
achievement. The obedience of Jesus Christ rightly ^
marked carries the mind very far ; the obedience of Jesus/

70 The Epistle of Priesthood
Christ shared in might lift a man into the eternal sphere,
as no doubt it often has done. Is not that the kind of
thing that sacramental means ?
Dwell a little longer on the assertion that He
" learned obedience." It is parallel to what we read in
S. Luke's Gospel : " Jesus advanced in wisdom and
stature, and in favour with God and men." Those
words immediately follow others which record His
obedience to " His parents," and perhaps we are not for
bidden by the latest science of the Greek language to
infer from the tense gradual progress in that obedience.
But there is more here. The obedience here spoken of
is directly due to the Father in heaven. It is associated
with the strong crying and tears, apparently in Geth-
semane. It issued in the perfection which only appeared
at last in the death of the Cross. That is certainly this
writer's view of the course of our Lord's earthly life ; that
it was not perfect till the end — a view which (like so
much in the Epistle) has a modern colour, as may
be seen by comparing Dr. Tennant's discussion of
" perfection " in The Concept of Sin, ch. iii. In the
passage of ch. ii., already referred to, the crowning with
glory and honour must, on any natural rendering of
the Greek, precede the death ; it is " in order that he may
taste death for every one " ; the Ascension is not yet
spoken of.1 That passage and this in ch. v. explain
one another. The idea is that our Lord gradually
1 The modern opinion that a king enters on kingship by being crowned
has hindered frank acceptance of the Greek phrasing, which Blass recognized
as so clear that (without documentary authority) he altered the verb to
iyeio-aro. But in the Epistle the ancient and especially Jewish opinion that
enthroning made a king still holds. The crown of ch. ii. is the garland of
sacrifice or feasting. To the author's loyal eye the Lord went gallantly to

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 7 1
learned more and more of the will of the Father, and
more and more of perfect submission to and in that will.
Only at last was the way of the Cross and no other way
seen and accepted. There are suggestions of the same
idea in other apostolic writings, for instance in S. John's
Gospel, xiii. 3 1 : " When therefore he was gone out Jesus
saith, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is
glorified in him." The three loving efforts to turn Judas
from his purpose had failed. Retreat was absolutely cut
off. The Lord accepted the sign as from His Father.
In the now inevitable pain and shame obedience was
carried forward to completion. The crowning with glory
and honour had well begun. We know that there was
a further question of the necessity of the Cross in the
Garden of Gethsemane, and the Epistle treats the agony
of that renewed uncertainty, and the deliverance from it,
as a further learning of obedience. How far the lesson was
continued, what was the precise moment when we may
contemplate Jesus finally crowned for the suffering of
death, none dares to say. Only we may be sure that
the author of this Epistle would bid us look for that
supreme moment of earthly honour in the quite supreme
moment of earthly shame, weakness, failure, and he would
hardly be shocked at the suggestion, which has been
tentatively made by some people lately, that the moment
was reached in the cry, " Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani." He
would not be shocked, for you could never go too far for
him in recognizing the real manhood of his Lord. The
the Cross. And in considering his obligations to an oral or written Gospel,
the crown of thorns would come into the question at this point. Cf. The
Epistle to the Hebrews, the First Apology for Christianity, by Dr. A. B.
Bruce, who took the Greek in the natural sense, and defended it by his fine
chapter on " The Humiliation of Christ and its Rationale."

7 2 The Epistle of Priesthood
more real His human limitations, the more utter His
humiliation, so much the more scope for that ever deepen
ing trust and obedience towards the Father which so
transformed appearance into reality, and base appearance
(according to the measure of man) into heroic, glorious,
life-giving reality according to the measure of God and
of God's Spirit in such men as would understand.
" The necessity for compression is a school of literary
virtue." It has certainly had much to do with forming
that literary virtue which is common to all the books of
the New Testament and conspicuous in Hebrews. Of
the six Greek words in this phrase (v. 8) four are pro
verbial. The author has deepened that ancient wisdom
by adding the special object " the obedience," and he has
made the whole vivid by connecting it with the moving
incident of Gethsemane. But the reflective reader
perceives how much more than that one incident lies
behind the phrase. Nestorius used it to sum up a
sketch of the Gospel ministry (see Bethune Baker,
Nestorius, p. 128), and it serves the purpose so exactly
that we may infer from comparison with our written
Gospels that the author of Hebrews knew far more of the
life of our Lord on earth than he has occasion to repeat.
In the symbolical narrative of the temptation we seem
to see our Lord testing and rejecting three possible ways
of accomplishing His purpose. Those three ways are
disallowed as having sin in them, and it is perhaps worth
while to notice at once that our Lord's progress in
obedience cannot imply progress from sinful habit, how
ever slightly sinful, to sinlessness. We say "cannot"
beause the writer of the Epistle says so. He says it
simply, without argument, as he does in all places where

The Sacrament of the Incarnation jt,
the inference may fairly be that he follows a Church
tradition known and accepted by his friends. Progress
in obedience does not mean passing from disobedience
to obedience, but deepening and enriching obedience by
the increase of understanding, joy, peace, love, courage,
and correspondingly by a concentration of general
obedience on a definite act. The reader of this Epistle
is continually brought back to Platonism, and schooled
to refuse the vulgar admiration for the infinite, only he
is nearer to real life in this school than in Plato's. " If
nature is divine, and law the sign of God's presence, the
conclusion is Platonism. If to these we add a third truth,
that through sorrow lies the path of life, the conclusion is
the Gospel," wrote Dr. Bigg in his preface to a transla
tion of S. Augustine's Confessions ; that third truth is
the defining as well as the vivifying one.
At no point then, in this course of learning obedience,
was there the least act of sin ; rather the first stage in
the lesson was the absolute refusal of all sinful methods,
and the narrative of the temptation as it stands in our
written Gospels is highly true to nature ; the lives of all
the mystics corroborate it. It comes at the beginning,
is brief and sharp. It is of the nature of conversion,
though (according to the tradition our author accepts)
supreme in its degree ; it is absolute and final, but the
starting-point of a far-reaching developement of character.
Then this developement may be traced. Even a super
ficial reading of the Gospels illustrates it. We see the
Lord trying the way of kindliness and instruction; that.
was blocked by the opposition roused on the Sabbath in
the Synagogue where he healed the withered hand. He
was put out of the Synagogue, excommunicated, and

74 The Epistle of Priesthood
learned that lesson of obedience ; it was the Father's will
that he should renounce that quiet way. He therefore
appointed the twelve Apostles, and founded even at once
something like a Church of His own ; by gathering a
chosen few round Him, by holding those without at
arm's length for a while, He will win the world. But
even in the sacred circle He is little understood ; after
the feeding of the five thousand all were offended at
His doctrine of the bread of life except the Twelve ; and
presently the Twelve themselves were offended at His
prediction of His death ; and at last one of the brother
hood of the Twelve betrayed him. It would be easy to
elaborate further, to shew for instance the hope aroused
at first by the friendly interest of the Pharisees, and how
this changed into disappointment, till at last the answer
about the tribute money threw the Pharisees into the
arms of the openly hostile party. Wherever we looked
we should find the same process going on ; road after
road tried and proving a blind alley ; the Lord accepting
each disappointment as an intimation of the Father's
will. Finally, all ways shut to Him but the way of
the Cross, and that a way along which He must go alone.
At last the trials before the high priest and Pilate and
Herod, and then the Cross ; through all of which tumult
and confusion He moved as Victor and Lord, with His
mind made up and His purpose clear, " crowned with
glory and honour for the suffering of death."
Even the superficial reader may discover some such
general plan. But it is neither safe nor right to be a
superficial reader of the Gospels in these days. A general
plan must be tested, corrected, reduced to accuracy by
careful observation and severe criticism, if it is to be

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 75
more than a plan ; if it is to live and produce life as an
idea. This testing, correcting and reducing has been going
forward in the study of the Gospels. Two centuries ago
a series of truth-loving men turned from the conventional
notions of Christ to the Gospels, bent on discovering
anew who and what Jesus of Nazareth was. Whether
they were conscious of it or not, their search was a
protest against the Arianism of popular theology, which
had substituted for Him who is truly man and truly God
the figure of one who was neither quite man nor quite
God, but something between the two.1 As so often,
reverence had produced this Arianism, but it was a
spurious reverence because it partook of an untruth, and
its effect was not the word of salvation. These enquirers
were not, perhaps, always reverent. The author of Job
did not imagine his hero as always reverent, and there is
some excuse for the hard words of those who receive
hard words in their protest against popular error. Some
of them, perhaps, concentrated their attention so much
upon the manhood of our Lord that they separated it
from his Godhead — separating instead of distinguishing
— and were careless of the Godhead altogether. Yet
their fault in general was another. They read the
Gospels in the light of their own age. They did violence
to the records instead of practising the scrupulousness
of true criticism. They compelled them to yield such
a Lord as a religious philosopher in eighteenth or
nineteenth-century Europe could understand.
1 Their endeavour might be expressed in the words which Nestorius used
against the Apollinarians : ra ttjs dvOponrorTp-os ry rijs dednjTOS dcu>fj.drip ^.jj
<rwatrwtn.a,TiJlio-w/j(.ep, "let us not do away with the corporeal character of the
things of the manhood because of the incorporeal character of the Godhead."
Quoted by Bethune Baker in Nestorius and His Teaching, p. 113.

76 The Epistle of Priesthood
That however was the first vague working of the
idea which needed to be harnessed to the yoke of science
before it could do service. The harnessing followed
presently. Patient study of the documentary facts com
pelled students to recognize that the fourth Gospel was
of a different character from the three synoptic Gospels,
and not so clearly historical ; that S. Mark was the
earliest of those three, and had been used in the com
position of the other two ; that, as a purely historical
record, S. Mark's claimed special attention. But then
came the inevitable observation that the Christ in S.
Mark was so very different from the Christ whom men
had long expected to find; in some respects more like
the Christ of the Church's obstinate tradition than the
Christ of those who had insisted on His simply human,
benevolent, reforming, teaching character. In S. Mark
He was a wonder-worker, dominating the crowds, more
set on dying for men than on reforming their religion.
" Till our eyes become accustomed to the atmosphere,
it is difficult to recognize the conventional Saviour with
the gentle unindividualized face, in the stormy and
mysterious Personage portrayed by the second Gospel"
(Burkitt, Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus, p. 49).
And with all this new difficulties still arose. This Jesus
claimed to be the Christ, yet often refused to let His
claim be published. There seemed to be an inconsistency
running through even the oldest and most naive record.
There is a non-Messianic picture broken by crude
Messianic lights. And some recent critics have worked
out that inconsistency with such elaborate detail as has
forced them to the conclusion that we possess no trust
worthy account at all of those early days ; we must

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 77
confess that we know next to nothing of the Lord
Jesus. A dreary conclusion ; but even before it had been
reached, another school of students had met it. The
way had been prepared by discoveries made by explorers
in the strange seas of Jewish apocalypse. The last
centuries of Judaism had proved to be filled with far
more varied interests than narrow legalism. Psalms,
wisdom books, fragments of prophecy, belong to those
centuries, and reveal a deeper and broader faith, thought,
and devotion than had marked the earlier times. Beside
these a number of apocalyptic pieces had appeared.
These apocalypses had all the vagueness and extrava
gance of popular emotion. They were inferior in
literary art and in sobriety of temper to the canonical
apocalypse of Daniel, but that perhaps only increased
their influence upon the masses, just as our vulgar
notions of heaven in these days are shaped more from
hymns than from the Scriptures. Or perhaps it was
an influence less of books at all than of a common,
growing thought. Our Lord, according to Reimarus,1
declared the immediate realization of a world of ideas
which were already working in the hearts of thousands.
At any rate, the influence was wide and strong, and it
made in this direction ; it turned men's minds from earth
to heaven, to a heaven beyond this life ; it made them
hope for the coming of the reign of God, the reversal of
all worldly measurements, the glory and happiness of
the humble and meek ; and for the coming of Christ
as King for God, a Christ vaguely and even incon
sistently pictured, yet ever tending, after more pious
1 Schweitzer, Von Reimqrus qu Wrede} p. 16,

78 The Epistle of Priesthood
views had begun to discipline the idea, towards pre-
existence, spiritual power and exaltation, divinity. A
vague hope, but always fiery; apt to degenerate into
a dream of revolutionary politics, but apt also to recover
its purity, since the essence of the hope was that God,
not man, not even the Christ himself, would bring about
the event ; God's will and the acquiescence of His saints
would be the moving power.
The later centuries of Judaism ran into the days of
the Lord's flesh ; it was " at the end of these days "
that He came. In His days Palestine, and especially
Galilee, was full of thoughts like these. Hence, in the
first place, it is not surprizing that the Christ of the
Gospels should be by no means exclusively concerned
with opposing the dryness of legalism ; the theological
position of the Gospels was not just the same as that
of the earlier group of S. Paul's Epistles. Again, what
so many were thinking around Him would naturally
have a large place in the Lord's mind also. Unso
phisticated readers of the Gospels have always supposed
that our Lord claimed to be the Christ ; that the whole
argument from prophecy rests on that claim ; that the
main significance of the Gospel life is just the reality
of His Christship. The more subtle critics of the last
two centuries had been inclined to tell them they were
mistaken, that teaching, reforming, laying down eternal
principles of morality, establishing faith in the Fatherhood
of God in the place of the observance of a rigid law,
was His main work ; the Christhood was but a temporary
Jewish setting ; it might be largely disregarded ; some of
the passages in which it was too crudely presented might
be even excised from the original and spiritual Gospel,

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 79
as added in a later, more literal age. The misgiving
would arise that when such critics said " spiritual " they
really meant " intellectual " ; at any rate this new
apocalyptic school would tell the unsophisticated reader
that he was right — at least with regard to the broad
fact ; the Lord's claim to be the Christ, and His exercise
of Christhood, are the main truths of the primitive
Gospel. It is not a non-Messianic picture broken by
Messianic lights, but a spiritually Messianic picture, in
which every detail gains intensity by being interpreted
in harmony with the Messianic whole.
As to the particular inconsistency, that He claims to
be Christ yet forbids people to hear it, these critics
answer their opponents that the two statements are both
true, but that there is no inconsistency. Once more let
the record be read as it stands and as a whole, and it will
appear that the Lord knew from the first, or at least
from some early point in His ministry, that He was the
Christ, but this knowledge He kept secret, not only for
bidding proclamation but making no acknowledgement
in public of it ; that in the regions of Caesarea Philippi,
just before the going up to Jerusalem to die, He shared
His secret with the Twelve ; that as the Christ He went
to Jerusalem to die for the coming of the Kingdom ;
that this claim and expectation — so blasphemous and
dangerous as it would appear — was what Judas Iscariot
betrayed, thereby giving the chief priests a legal hold
upon his Master ; that before the high priest the Lord
himself confessed His claim and prophesied that they
would see the Son of Man (an apocalyptic title) coming
with the clouds ; and that for this so-called blasphemy,
and in that strangely expressed hope, He died,

80 The Epistle of Priesthood
So far we must admit that this latest critical reading
of the Gospel is remarkably satisfactory. Except the
guess as to the substance of Judas Iscariot's information,
nothing has been read into the text. The text has been
interpreted simply, not subtly. There has been no
cutting out of words, lines, paragraphs. The worst that
could be said would be that little use has been made of
a large part of the Gospels in which the teaching rather
than the action of our Lord is recorded. Let us with
regard to this remark that the same fault might be
found with the Epistle to the Hebrews in which references
are made to the Lord's descent from the tribe of Judah,
His pain, shame, suffering, faithfulness, His education in
obedience, His death outside Jerusalem, His exaltation
and continued life, but there is little or nothing about
His teaching.
But it would, of course, be absurd to suppose that
our Lord did not teach. It is indeed another established
result of modern scientific observation of documentary
facts that a record specially concerned with His teaching
underlies parts of S. Matthew and S. Luke which are
independent of S. Mark. This record is, considered as a
document, still rather shadowy; we do not know, for
instance, how far a narrative of the Lord's doings, and
especially of his Passion and Death, may have been part
of it. However that may be, there is a great deal in our
Gospels about our Lord's teaching, and, on the whole, the
impression left by this series of words and discourses is
that His thoughts on all subjects, and especially on the
coming kingdom, were far more wonderful than other
people's at that time, and that we should be very cautious
in so interpreting the record of His actions, predictions,

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 81
and commands, as to say that He expected precisely this
or that to happen, or that He was affected by the popular
thought of those days in precisely this or that manner.
On the other hand, there is nothing in this mass of
teaching to alter our general impression from the rest of
the Gospels, that our Lord's main hope for the world was
the coming of the Kingdom of God speedily and with
power. And the remarkable and important point is
that the teaching is strongly marked throughout with a
summons to renunciation, to a self and world-forgetting
course, to a heroic humility, and a trust in God so
absolute as to seem hardly right among men who have
to uphold justice in a practical world, and to earn their
own living so that they may always have to give to
them that need. The world has lasted on, and we are
compelled to read the Sermon on the Mount in a modern
translation. So were S. Paul and the Apostolic Church ;
but their translation was more literal than ours is apt
to be. The spirit of " seek first the kingdom," and " take
no thought for the morrow," is evident in the ventures of
faith and the enthusiastic service of those days, as re
flected in the New Testament Epistles, and the appeal
of this Epistle to the Hebrews is just that appeal from
conventional honour and common-sense belief to the
paradox of glory in humiliation and faith in a seemingly
impossible ideal of the divine destiny of manhood, and
in the miracle of cleansing from sin.
That is but a single touch, one of many " undesigned
coincidences " which go to shew how a divine power
really was at work among men in those days. They
really were great days in which it would be rash to say
a priori that any thing which was necessary to salvation
6

82 The Epistle of Priesthood
could not have happened. Only the caution must be
accepted in both directions. There was a greater power
than we should reasonably expect, but that power may
have displayed itself in modes which seem to us almost
incredibly surprising. The more we submit our pre
judices to the evidence that an honest criticism of our
documents yields, the more we are compelled to believe
with S. Paul that this kind of strength is made perfect
in weakness. " How they supposed that this could be we
know not ; many thoughts were doubtless possible then
which do not occur to us now." So said Dr. Hort in
one of his Christmas sermons, anticipating, as he so often
did, in very simple and few words a great deal of recent
criticism. Many thoughts were possible then, to the
Lord as well as to His disciples, even the thought so
strange to us that the Kingdom of God might come —
visibly, symbolically, or in what other conceivable mode —
that perhaps matters not ; but at any rate at once and
effectively — with power.
This was the hope which we observe in that little
circle into which our Lord was born. The " quiet in the
land " that little circle has very beautifully been called.
Yet S. Luke tells us that the mother of our Lord herself
looked for the Son who was to be born to her to put
down the mighty from their seats — for the past tenses
are surely " prophetic — to exalt the humble and meek, to
fill the hungry with good things, and to send the rich
empty away. It was to be the kingdom coming with
power, with revolutionary power ; the language is more
like the language which has ushered in later and violent
revolutions than we are sometimes content to admit.
Has criticism proved that the Magnificat is merely a

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 83
poem of later date put by S. Luke into the mouth of the
blessed Virgin ? No. Critical minds have guessed this,
but no proof has ever been forthcoming. " Dr. Sanday
gives it as his opinion, which is worth something, that
the first two chapters (of S. Luke) are shewn by internal
evidence to be based on one of the oldest Christian
documents," wrote Dr. Headlam in the Guardian,
3rd November 191 1. Perhaps Dr. Sanday's opinion
rests on something short of actual proof, but the apoca
lyptic reading of the Gospel comes to confirm his some
what different arguments. Strange though it may
appear, these apocalyptists, these enthusiasts for an
astonishing idea, are far more akin to sober critics of
Dr. Sanday's type than to the so-called bolder ones.
Like Dr. Sanday, they trust to observation and mistrust
prejudice. Existing evidence is more to them than the
feeling that such and such a thing is likely or unlikely.
Evidence must indeed be sifted. It may be confused or
false. But it is more misleading still to suppose that
what seems unlikely to a sober scholar in these dis
illusioned modern days, would necessarily have been
unlikely in Galilee when " the people were expecting and
reasoning in their hearts whether this one or that were
haply the Christ." The apocalyptists say that Jesus of
Nazareth was in the days of His flesh a Jew of Galilee,
born into times and among people, thoughts, and hopes,
which are highly " unlikely " to us ; that in His own
heart there was lighted a faith and hope which blazed
up 1 in a manner still more unlikely to us ; and that,
1 Cf. S. Luke xii. 49 and the Collect in the Roman Missal (Sabbato
quatuor temporum Pentecostes), " Illo nos igne, quaesumus Domine, Spiritus
sanctus inflammet : quem Dominus noster Jesus Christus misit in terram : et

84 The Epistle of Priesthood
when once we admit this unlikelihood, the sifting of the
evidence becomes much simpler; it turns out to be
significant and therefore trustworthy almost as it stands,
unlikely though that seemed to the earlier critics.
Compare Nestorius again : " Nothing is concealed : all
the human things which men now blush to say of Him
the Evangelists were not ashamed to say" (quoted by
Bethune Baker, Nestorius, p. 155).
There can be little doubt that this apocalyptic idea
will be modified in course of time. To begin with, it is
an idea still, partly old and partly new. By these ideas
thought lives, but in order to make them work ideas have
to be broken into science. We advance in a circling
course which seems monotonous when described, but is
exhilarating when we (as the Epistle puts it) are our
selves being borne onward by the power which is Christ,
in an eternal progress whose goal is perfection with God.
It is a circling course in which again and again the same
points are passed, but with each turn at a higher level.
An idea seizes us. We apply it to all kinds of life,
thought, action, and it explains and heartens us. Then
criticism breaks in. This or that is pointed out to which
our idea will not apply ; here or there it is proved that
we have left off thinking, moving ; that we are repeating
conventions, and that the conventions are no longer true.
We are forced once more to halt as it seems, but really
the halt is the starting-point for fresh advance. We
halt however, and painfully examine again the facts on
which all knowledge rests. The old complain that
voluit vehementer accendi." This Collect illustrates what seems to be coming
more and more into notice, the fidelity of the Western Church to important
elements of primitive tradition. Father Tyrrell pressed this characteristic
with regard to the apocalyptic spirit in Christianity at the Crossroads.

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 85
foundations are being cut away ; the young exult in the
promise of new truth. Presently old and young appear
to be coming together again over a poor compromise ;
and then, when all seems to be settling into dullness, the
new idea rises from, or is sent down upon, the reordered
material, and we perceive that material by itself is not
knowledge, but only the enclosed space in which know
ledge is shaped, refreshed, and made effectual — eV
6r)<ravpol<; aortas irapafioXr) iirtcfT^firj'}, " in the treasuries
of criticism is the mystery of reasonable faith." And so
the new-old idea goes forth, itself presently to be outworn
and criticized again, and then again changed in order to
be effectual. There is perhaps a momentary point at
which idea and criticism are in harmony and full power,
but perhaps not — let us be borne on to perfection and
never boast that it is to be found in human affairs ; the
real power is in the unceasing process of this upward
circling. Only such experience warns us that our
apocalyptic scholars will not prove to have told us the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; rather they have,
in a quasi-sacramental way, flashed a light by which we
see a truth and turn back to work it out.
What they have given us is the new idea which has
just arisen out of a period of discipline. It will have to
undergo discipline in its turn. Even now we can see
that this idea which seems so startling and original is
but part of a more general movement of thought.
Students of ancient Greek religion have said that the
vital thing there was not the majestic serenity of the
Olympian cult, but the repellent faiths of older days and
of the masses all along, because in those faiths the
notions of sin and holiness and propitiation were hidden,

86 The Epistle of Priesthood
notions which in later times were to come to the front
again in the mysteries with their promise of purification,
communion with God, new life.1 Historians of Israel
are not only taking account of the apocalypses, but in
the great prophets of the eighth century they recognize
" gales of passion," in which Jahveh spoke to them,2
rather than the calm reasonable faith with which (as but
a few years ago was taught) they opposed the super
stitions of their day. Artists and musicians are turning
away from conventional forms, and seeking what is strong
rather than beautiful, or even what is bizarre. And the
latest word in philosophy is the proposal to trust less in
intellect and more in will, less in the logical reason and
more in intuition. Mr. Streeter says in his [essay on
The Historic Christ that Schweitzer " himself cannot
quite escape the charge of modernizing, and that his own
boldly out-lined portrait is a little like the superman
of Nietzsche draped in Galilean robes."
Of course we may accept the apocalyptic principle
without following Schweitzer wherever he leads, but more
than the following of Schweitzer is in question. The
whole apocalyptic criticism is in close connexion with
the general tendency of these times. Even the supremacy
of S. Mark's Gospel, from which that criticism sprang,
fits curiously into the tendency. The early philosophiz
ing critics held by S. John ; their successors, who valued
especially the teaching of Christ, held by S. Matthew,
1 Cf. Miss Harrison's Prolegomena to Greek Religion, that delightful book
which might be described as the antidote to the dictum of Maximus Tyrius :
tA jiiv '~EX\i)vikI>v nixq.v rois 0eobs ivdfuae t&v iv yy tois raXXiarois 0Xtf p.h
Ka6apq. fiopipy di dv0puiriv(i rixvy Si dKpiflei (Diss. viii. 3, quoted by Dill,
Roman Society in the Time of Nero, p. 382).
2 See Hamilton, The People of God, i. p. 143.

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 87
the Gospel of the Sermon on the Mount ; the modern
critic holds by S. Mark with its portrayal of " the stormy
and mysterious Personage." The earlier critics, like the
modern, thought they were obeying historical evidence,
and used the most scientific scholarship that was avail
able. We can now perceive their bias. It is hard to
avoid the suspicion that future generations may perceive
our unconscious bias as well as the imperfection of our
literary science. Indeed it is conceivable that a reaction
against taking hard statement of facts for history may
presently set in ; that the claim of the artist to be more
truthful in his large view than the realist in his close
view may be recognized as resting on something more
measurable than mere taste ; and that a generation may
arise to whom S. Luke shall seem the most trustworthy
evangelist, because his Gospel shews less of natural
growth, more of the creative mastery of the artist.
On the other hand, we must remember that such
reactions are not only to be guessed at in the future.
Even now reaction follows fast on former reaction.
Already there are many who feel that the setting up of
intuition against reason is dangerous to philosophy ;
others that the enthusiasm for apocalyptic morality
shews a lack of gratitude for the past and faith for the
future, when they consider the improvement that sober,
legal, brotherly methods have produced ; the apocalyptist
seems to hope for the " saving " of the elect ; the Church
for the " taking away " of the sin of the world. Hence
they are unwilling to allow that the Gospel sprang out
of the apocalyptic stress of the days of our Lord's flesh.
But perhaps these objectors do not sufficiently distin
guish between the apocalyptic beginning and the inter-

88 The Epistle of Priesthood
pretation and adaptation of that beginning by the exalted
Christ himself through the Spirit. That interpretation
and adaptation is already evident in the rest of the New
Testament. Because this evokes especial sympathy is
no reason for rejecting the evidence for the earlier fact.
And however our science may be presently improved, it
is really impossible for this generation to doubt that the
apocalyptic view has shewn, more clearly than was ever
shewn before, what did actually happen, even though a
large margin be left for future correction in the explana
tion offered of those things that happened.1
One possible correction might be this : the difficulty
of distinguishing between what is literal and what sym
bolical in our Lord's language may have to be recon
sidered. That may compel us to take account of
something more secret and more universal in His mind
than the fresh enthusiasm for this idea is inclined to
admit. So the limitations of particular manhood to
which our records witness may prove compatible with
much variety of thought and character. There is noth
ing to forbid our discerning in the heroic Christ of
Galilee wise foresight and a simply but all the more
1 Some of these objections are expressed in a very attractive form by the
Dean of St. Paul's in The Church and the Age, pp. 47 f. The weakness
of his case is that he pays no attention to the historical difficulties which the
apocalyptic critics have so boldly faced.
Some of the writers in the Oxford book of essays, Foundations, express
what seems to be a general misgiving, viz. that the continued life of the
Lord Jesus Christ, His present guidance and teaching through the Spirit,
our communion with Him in His abiding life now, are truths which hardly
appeal to the mass of men in these days. I should have fancied it was other
wise, and that, conscious as we are of historical difficulties, this is apt to
appear to us the more essential and acceptable part of the faith. However
that may be, it is the part of the faith on which the apocalyptic school lay
especial stress. See the very noble words with which Schweitzer concludes
Von Reimarus zu Wrede,

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 89
grandly philosophical intellect. And yet, when these
and other reflexions have been made, the main idea will
still be working — that our Lord was and is truly man ;
that this real manhood involved limitations on the one
hand, but possibilities on the other, which are almost
incredible to us in our land and century ; that His
heroism, love and purity (qualities which He can share
with the humblest) have more sacramental affinity with
His Godhead than any intellectual endowments might
seem to give ; that He himself believed His death
would be for the sake of all men, and that this belief
was, from the earthly point of view, shaped by the
ancient and popular belief of Judaism, while from the
divine point of view (could we attain to it) we should see
the act of the Cross pre-ordained by God as the crown
of that popular belief which God had himself directed ;
and finally, that the Cross becomes to us, as to our
fathers, and to the Apostles, and to the primitive Church,
and to the instinct of the Church in all ages — however
usefully a liberal criticism may from time to time sift
that faith — the central sacramental act of salvation.
Yet that death will appear as no end but as a mysterious
progress of life. In His continued and exalted life it
will still be Christ himself who is interpreting these
great words and deeds of the past, freeing His eternal
purpose from the limitations of the days of His flesh
All this through the Spirit, His Spirit, in a richer sense
since His Incarnation with those so fruitful limitations ;
the apocalyptic criticism brings a new reality into the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And again, no small part
of this interpretation carried forward by the living Christ
through the Spirit will be moral rather than dogmatic,

90 The Epistle of Priesthood
the applying and defining of such large principles as
" Give the other cheek to the smiter," and " Take no
thought for the morrow," and " Sell all and give to the
poor," and " Whosoever would save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
Only His interpretation will always be in conflict with
the loose and selfish interpretation of the merely polite
and prudent man or age. Perhaps in the end the most
abiding and valuable truths which the apocalyptic
criticism is restoring will be just these ; that the heart
of the faith once for all delivered is absolute trust in
the heavenly Father, hope in judgement to come, real
life only through the Spirit of God, renunciation as the
basis of good citizenship — not the converse.
And for the means of testing all this, the apocalyptic
view will perhaps more and more restore confidence in
the Gospel records. It will not do away with the need
of criticism. Different books and passages have their
own different characters and purposes — the fourth
Gospel was certainly not written by the same kind of
author or for the same purpose as the three earlier
Gospels. At every turn allowance must be made for
the writer's point of view, his art or artlessness. But
the day is quickly passing in which it will be considered
scientific to cut out words and passages without external
support for such bold treatment, or to rule that a whole
book may be left out of count by the historian because
it is not simply intended to be a record of fact. The
apocalyptic school have already carried us a good
distance in this direction. Is it rash to prophesy that
they will carry us farther yet? Take as an example
the Magnificat again. Here is a hymn put into the

The Sacrament of the Incarnation g i
mouth of the mother of our Lord by the evangelist, or
as some MS. authority would suggest, into the mouth of
the mother of the Baptist. In either case the older school
of critics were inclined to decide that there could be nothing
really historical here, it was so unlikely. But this hymn,
for all its undertone of deepest spiritual faith, breathes a
naive spirit of apocalyptic expectation, and our new
criticism suggests that this is just what would have been
likely in the circumstances. But now look again at those
early chapters of S. Luke. Another hymn, the
Benedictus, also breathes this spirit, but with a difference.
It looks for salvation in the remission of sins. If the
simple hope of justice and the reversal of hard conditions
was natural in the expectant mother, this righting of a
deeper wrong as a surer means of regenerating the world
would be natural in a priest experienced in the hearts of
men. But yet another hymn remains, the aged Simeon's.
His Nunc Dimittis is still apocalyptic, and still apoca
lyptic in the early Jewish manner. " A light to lighten
the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel," he
seeks. But the hope is wrapt round here in a peace that
passes the understanding of all but the very aged pilgrims
in this world. Natural again, but is there not also a
certain art here ? The three hymns with their continu
ously deeper penetration ; the three poets and the words
which so dramatically fit them ; this suggests art,
while the common apocalyptic character suggests fact.
It follows that the record should be trusted, but should
be recognized as something more than record. It is
what we get all through this Gospel — a simple, often
unconscious, loyalty to fact, but an artist's interpretation
added. Criticism must make allowance for this interpre-

92 The Epistle of Priesthood
tation before the theologian and the poet may enjoy it.
But there is no need for the violence of criticism, the
record is mainly, perhaps it may prove altogether,
harmonious and just.1
So again with the whole question of miracles. It is
not unlikely that this may be reopened and examined
again in consequence of apocalyptic criticism. For this
puts the question in a new point of view, which is
perhaps the old point of view on a higher plane, as the
apocalyptic idea is itself an old idea in a more definite
form — so life goes on :
" If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again."
The historical evidence for miracles will always claim
severe criticism. The pathetic sentence of Paulus is
more than prejudice, it is the protest of conscience;
" Ah ! how empty were religion if all depended on our
believing miracles or not." 2 But in an age when such
strange thoughts were the raw material of such un
exampled holiness and power, it would be rash to rule
out lightly any miracle, however unlikely it may seem
in these calmer days, so long as it was found to touch
life on the moral side. And so again with the Fourth
Gospel. The art of that Gospel, its reflective theology,
its secondary character as a historical witness, are
1 Cf. Mr. Box's Sermon, "The Christian Messiah in the Light of Judaism
Ancient and Modern" (JTS, Ap. 1912). Mr. Box thinks these pieces
" translations of hymns, originally composed in Hebrew for liturgical use in
the early Palestinian community of Hebrew Christians."
2 Quoted by Schweitzer, Von Reimarus, p. 50 : " Ach wie leer ware die
Gottandachtigkeit oder Religion, wenn das Wohl davon abhinge, ob man
Wunder glaube oder nicht."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 93
evident. It will never be used again in the old uncritical
way. But the oftener it is read in the light of the
apocalyptic idea, the more frequent are its points of
contact found to be with the primitive state of things.
The exclamation of the disciple at the beginning, for
instance, that Jesus is the Christ, is so akin to those
anticipatory recognitions which are common in the lives
of the mystics. The scene may be imagined with the
peculiar art of this evangelist ; it may be more an idyll
than a history. And yet it is so probable that it faith
fully represents the way in which the general expecta
tion of Galilee did burst out in an enthusiastic act of
devotion which presently died down again into forgetful-
ness or doubt, and yet still lived and moved not far
beneath the surface. Indeed it seems almost necessary
that there should have been some force of that kind at
work from the first if we would understand the awe and
mystery with which, and even notably, in the record of
S. Mark, the Lord of that Gospel is surrounded in His
advance. Morally the apocalyptic school have insisted on
idealism. Intellectually they are showing the likeliness
of the unlikely when distant times are in consideration.
And that is the recovery of freedom for a generation
which is in bondage to the limitations of a newly
awakened historical imagination. We used not to
exercise historical imagination very strenuously. We
simply expected things in Holy Scripture to be quite
different from things we knew, and scarcely asked our
selves how they could be real. Then the historical
imagination was roused, and we insisted on a Christ
who would be intelligible to ourselves, or with a still

94 The Epistle of Priesthood
deeper scepticism we despaired of realizing events and
persons of so very long ago. Now at last that childish
historical imagination is being disciplined, and we are
learning to realize the distant past, but at the same time
to realize it as far more different from the present than
in our shortsightedness we might have wished. Only
we know the thing is there ; a steady eye can see it.
History is not reduced to fancy by lapse of time. The
days of the Lord's flesh, in which He learned obedience
through suffering, really were the starting-point for the
days of His presence through the Spirit, in which He
removes the original scandals — the scandal of the limited
manhood, of the unlikely, unpromising means of grace, of
the Cross ; and in which He guides His faithful into all
that truth which perhaps the man Jesus himself, while
He was learning obedience, but dimly saw.
That guidance through the Spirit goes on, and has,
ever since the Crucifixion, gone on in very various ways.
But one of the earliest and most evident ways were the
books of the New Testament. Behind them all lies
the primitive Gospel, largely apocalyptic. In each of
them there is an explanation, a drawing out for con
temporary use of the abiding truth of that primitive
Gospel. If we can fix its context in the series, that
will help us to understand the Epistle to the Hebrews.
But it is still more important to remember the previous
fact, that the author has this Gospel to appeal to, and
that he finds in it some things which need explanation.
A very masterly piece of explanation is that phrase from
which our apocalyptic discussion started, " Son though
He was, He learned obedience by suffering." It really
anticipates, in the terse suggestive manner of the

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 95
apostolic men, all those discussions in which our
generation has engaged, on the Kenosis a few years
ago, and now on the apocalyptic disappointments of
our Lord. According to — it would be unfair to say
the apocalyptic school, but according to the tentative
suggestion of some who have written on the subject,
our Lord at an early stage in His ministry expected
the Kingdom of God to come shortly, and by God's mere
act, without further interference of His own. Therefore
He sent forth His Twelve to proclaim the coming, and
to call men to repent. And He promised them that
they would not have gone through the cities of Israel
before the Kingdom actually came. But the Twelve
returned and the expected event had not happened.
The Lord had been mistaken. But starting from that
mistaken hope He revised and deepened it. Hitherto
He had accepted the entirely passive r61e which the old
apocalypses had generally assigned to the Christ. He
did not give that up, but He received or created a more
wonderful conception of Messianic obedience. The
Father who had sent His servants, the prophets, to
suffer and die would now send His Son to be reverenced
after all no more than they had been ; the Christ him
self must die for His people, and then the Kingdom
would indeed come. So He determined to go to
Jerusalem to die. Before He went He shared the secret
of His Christship with His disciples, and declared His
purpose to them. He revealed His Christship and His
hope to the high priest at the trial, and then He died,
and still the Kingdom came not. " My God," he said
on the Cross, " why hast thou forsaken me ? "
Now this scheme of the Lord's life and work has

96 The Epistle of Priesthood
certainly proved a scandal of the Cross to many who
have read it, to many even of those who have been
otherwise gladly convinced of the truth of the apocalyptic
view. How far may this scandal be avoided? How
far raised from a scandal to rank in the power and the
wisdom of God ?
In the first place there may be error, as there of
course must be imperfection, in such a scheme, nor have
any scholars put it forward as more than a possible
explanation. That the Lord did say and do such and
such things is plainly stated in the records. These
words and deeds fall in so reasonably with the apocalyptic
view of His work that honest criticism accepts the record
as true. But what our Lord thought is very largely
hidden from us. We cannot pretend to know much
about the hopes or disappointments of His secret heart,
far less about the certainly very tremendous qualities
which enabled Him to change disappointment into new
and larger hopes. We may believe in the general
apocalyptic purpose without defining the exact course
in which it was carried out. We may venture a little
farther — and the venture will make our Gospels more
credible — and say that it is evident that our Lord did
change or (if the word may be allowed) improve His
hope as He went on, without presuming to suspect that
His very death was an hour of disappointment. And
yet if we ventured to give the most natural and the
most intense meaning to that dreadful cry upon the
Cross — a cry which the evangelists associate with
the three hours' darkness, and seem to set apart, in
unique and dreadful glory, as the very turning point of
the tragedy ; if frankly, though for that reason all the

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 97
more reverently, we do accept the Crucifixion not as a
tragedy, but as the deepest, darkest tragedy in all
history — what then ? Is it not of the essence of tragedy
that it should be sacramental, real within its own limited
bounds, and therefore, so far as can be seen, so far as
the actor in it knows, real disappointment, real failure ?
Yet the actor may have faith that goes beyond his
knowledge, and the thing would be no tragedy but
merely a horror if it did not point to a solution of the
mystery of suffering in a sphere beyond its bounds.1
After the bitter cry there were other, calmer words,
according to some of our documents — and our new
criticism bids us be slow to reject this evidence, especially
as it is so much in harmony with general experience,
for however terrible any death may be there is generally
a respite to mind and body when strength is utterly
flagging. But whether more or less be made of those
last minutes, they are not sufficient to supply the solution
of the mystery of a real tragedy. That always must be
beyond its own bounds in the eternal sphere. If of a
mimic tragedy upon the stage, it will be in the eternal
sphere of that inward life of the spectator where the
indwelling Spirit of God nourishes love, courage, resolu
tion, hopes, which are men's personal hints of a life
deeper than visible life. Such mimic tragedies would
have no meaning if it were not for the Cross, either as
endured on Calvary or as reflected in the suffering
love of men before and after that supreme hour. And
in the tragedy of the Cross the sphere beyond the tragedy
itself was and is the exalted life of Jesus Christ. How
ever clear, however dim, His understanding of these
1 Cf. ^radley, Shakespearean Tragedy, Lect. i,
7

98 The Epistle of Priesthood
divine purposes when He was dying on the Cross, on
His entry into the perfection of that exalted life He
knew — what? Let reverence again check our fancy.
Those who believe in the mystery of manhood taken
into God will not be facile in defining what that still
more secret knowledge is. It is enough for us that He
has taught us by His Holy Spirit, through the pen of
His Apostles, and in very many other ways, that the
Kingdom did come when He the Lord of the Kingdom
died ; not indeed in the form which some had imagined
the old Jewish symbols implied, and yet in a power
which has been more truly imaged by those symbols
than by some of our modern interpretations ; for the
true Kingdom of God has always exercised its sovereignty
when it has been understood to require conversion, re
nunciation, expectation of judgement, life in the Spirit,
treasure in heaven not in this world.
And now let us look back on all this and consider
whether the formula of our Epistle does not cover the
boldest ventures of the apocalyptic critic, as well as the
suspended judgement of the more reverent or the more
timid ; whether it does not cover the meditations of all
who frankly allow this one truth, that our Lord has
lived on earth a real manhood, with the limitations and
therefore with the growth of real manhood — "Son
though He were, He learned obedience through suffering."

CHAPTER IV
The Sacrament of the Incarnation :
Perfection through Limitation
Our Lord's limitations were His opportunities — for perfecting trust in God
the Father — for His own creative activity — and especially for His victory
over sin — His sinlessness fulfilled Messianic expectation, became the
norm of morality, and appears in this Epistle as the evidential miracle
for His Godhead — But it does not separate Him from men ; it unites men
with Him — -As there was community in real temptation, so there is real
participation in the victory — For the Christian ideal may not be denied ;
sin is not one of the natural limitations of manhood.
WE have considered the frank recognition in this Epistle
of the real manhood of our Lord and of the limitations
involved in that manhood.
But it is through limitation that action, devglopement, "
accomplishment^ become possible. That is the idea
which was always in Plato's mind ; God works through
order. The argument of the Timaeus — that strange
dialogue of creation, half philosophy half myth — has a
certain kinship with the doctrine of Christ in Hebrews.
God brings order out of the vague infinite, and so makes
the universe divine. There is the same thought in
Genesis : " There was the earth without form and void
. . . and the Spirit of God moving over the face of the
waters." Then definite step by definite step the form
lessness is evoked into distinct forms of life ; and then
9?

100 The Epistle of Priesthood
at once, in the following chapters, we see the battle of
life begun. There is life all around, but our attention
is concentrated on men. They are shut up in pain,
weakness, all the baffling contradiction of faith' and con
science. " He hath made everything beautiful in its
time : also he hath set eternity in their heart, so that
man cannot find out the work that God hath done from
the beginning even unto the end." Hence the oppor
tunities for sin are opened through the cramped will of
men, and never again till the final vision of the Johannine
apocalypse is the fair goodness of creation recovered.
Yet if all this is the accompaniment of the limitations
God had thus imposed, it is not the real meaning of
those limitations. The real meaning of them is that
they mark the definite path of possibilities which would
otherwise be inconceivable ; of the possibility, in one
word, of that return to God which is more than a return,
because it is a return enriched by life, struggle, and in
the end redemption through suffering.
This paragraph has been Philonic. Not of course
in the sense that it gives all the large, generous philo
sophy of Philo, but because it could not have been
written if Philo had not commented on Genesis, and if
his comment had not become part of the furniture of our
minds whether or no we have read his books. Yet there
is also in it something beyond what Philo could reach,
not because he was not wise or humble or good enough
to accept it, but simply because we have and he had not
known the life of our Lord Jesus as the New Testament
records and explains it. Philo could grasp by faith the
meaning of the struggle of life. He did believe that even
now there is, as it were, a central heart in the storm

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 101
wherein the soul achieves its return to God, and the
good purpose of holiness and peace is accomplished.
But he could see this only by glimpses and mistily.
After all, when we look the realities of men's life in the
face, we have to confess that only rarely and fitfully do
some men for some moments gain an uncertain footing
in that peaceful region. He knew, by inspiration as
he called it, by intuition, conscience, as we would be
more inclined to say — and yet does it matter? both he
and we mean the Spirit of God within us — he knew
that there must be a more permanent connexion between
man and that perfection than these fitful exaltations of
the private soul ; and he expressed his conviction by his
doctrine of the mediating Word. It is a doctrine too
large — in the looser sense of the term, too divine — to be
satisfying, though for a while, and to a superficial seeker,
it may seem more spiritual, more catholic than it became
in the hands of the Christian theologians. They did
indeed confine it, bring it down into the friction of things,
so that all manner of difficulties have ever since hindered
this more defined faith. But they did this because
they were instructed to do so by che limited, definite life
of their Lord Jesus, and by the explanation which the
Holy Spirit suggested to them of that life, the same
Holy Spirit who had suggested to Philo his explanation
of his vaguer material. The same Holy Spirit, and yet
even here we recognize a defining and therefore in some
sense a limiting, for since those days of the Lord's flesh the
Holy Spirit has come to men as the Spirit of Jesus. " And
when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed
to go into Bithynia ; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered
them not " (Acts xvi. 7). The passage is a good com-

102 The Epistle of Priesthood
ment on all this that we are trying to express. The
defined Spirit of Jesus limited and defined the hitherto
free range of the apostolic mission, but defined it in
order to make it effectual. True possibility springs
from real limitation.
Whether the author had read Philo, or much of
Philo, is a question of literary criticism. Philonism is
older than Philo, as Dr. Bigg shows in The Christian
Platonists of Alexandria. Yet it is difficult to avoid
connecting Philo himself with the Epistle when Dr. Bigg
brings together his descriptions of the Word as Arche
typal Seal, Pattern, Divider, Mediator, the Highpriest who
alone might enter the Holy of Holies, who is more than
man, sinless, supplicator, who presents the soul of man
before God, who is Melchisedech, priest of the Most
High God, King of Salem, that is, of peace (pp. 17-20).
This is his final summary : " Philo remained to the last
a devout and trusted Jew. Yet he placed a new re
ligion, a Greek philosophic system, above the faith of
his fathers. He retained the Law as the worship of the
Logos ; high over this stands the free spiritual worship
of the Eternal. The one is but the preparation, and in
its ancient national form not even a necessary prepara
tion, for the other. It will be obvious how this facilitated
the task of the Christian teacher" (pp. 23, 24). Von
Soden says roundly that " the Philonic logology is the
armoury for the Christology of the Epistle," and that
we should recognize its author as "the epoch-making
man who has brought the Alexandrine, and especially
the Philonic, theology into the service of Christianity,
who undertook by its means to make Christianity in
telligible to that age, and who believed that he could

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 103
find in Christianity the completion of Alexandrine specu
lation " (Hand-Commentar, p. 6).
The imperfection of Philo's philosophy is often
pointed out, and no one can turn from his writings to
this Epistle without feeling the surer touch of the
Christian author. It often seems as though he had
indeed borrowed serviceable terms from Philo's vocabu
lary, but had learned little else from him. Yet it would
be rash to judge hastily. F. D. Maurice, in The Kingdom
of Christ (Note D), exercises an insight even more
sympathetic than Bigg's or Von Soden's into Philo's
Christian affinities. He recognizes his defects. But
the power of that little sketch lies in his concentration
upon the religious affections rather than on the in
tellectual system of Philo. He is to Maurice the friend
of " thoughtful men in the heathen world," who shews
them what their philosophers were seeking after, "the
living Word . . . the shepherd and teacher of the inner
man." There, it might seem, is the most intimate point
of contact with the writer to the Hebrews. It is
Philo's aspirations that he seems so often to have in
mind. And he seems to recall them in no hostile or
controversial spirit, but with the same yearning affection
that he feels toward the glories of the Mosaic ritual, or
the good priests he has known in the Levitical order —
Quern te, inquit, redidissem Si te vivum invenissem. Just
so in ch. ii. he renders Philo Christian. "As yet we
do not see all things subjected to man. But the one
man who has been made a little lower than the angels
we do behold, namely, Jesus, already crowned for the
suffering of death with glory and honour, so that by

104 The Epistle of Priesthood
the grace of God He should taste death for each and
all." Here is Philo's vague Word of God limited by
manhood, particular manhood, suffering manhood ; but
in that limitation finding the definite way of rising
through the will of God to do divine work. That
divine work had been in Philo's hope almost wholly
mediatorial. In the Epistle (and in all the books of
the New Testament) it appears as mediatorial in the
special way made possible by the limitation, viz. the
way of redemption. For redemption is heroic work,
and heroism can only be wrought in conflict with the
trials of manhood. When in the Old Testament re
demption is spoken of as God's work, this mode of
expression is made possible by a context in which God
is described in terms of manhood, as in Ex. xv., where
He is called a Man of war, or in Is. lix., where He is
pictured as a warrior arming himself and coming down
to earth for rescue, because He had looked and seen
that there was no man. It is in fact largely because
of this free use of such bold imagery throughout the
Old Testament that the Article (vii.) of the Church of
England can recognize Christ in the Old Testament
as well as in the New Testament. Philo's scrupulous
translation of the imagery obscures the perception of
that truth. Here in this chapter the language is
certainly a natural sequel to the Old Testament, and a
vigorous developement of Philo's vagueness into reality
— " whence He owed it as a debt to be made like to the
brethren in all things, in order that He might become a
pitiful and faithful Highpriest on the God ward side, for pro
pitiating the sins of the people. For in that He himself

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 105
hath suffered in trial and temptation He is able to come
to the rescue of those who are going through like trial."
From all this it appears that it would be unprofitable
to recognize the limitations of our Lord's earthly life,
if we did not go on to consider how these limitations
imply possibilities. We see our Lord on eartfiTTiOt-as
infinite, and therefore vague in power, but as definite,
and therefore concentrated in purpose. For one " con
quering and meaning to conquer " foreknowledge would
be detriment. It is the trustful courage that lifts us
with it to a higher courage than our own.
The concordance shows how characteristic of this
Epistle are the words which express " perfection." This
set of words may have some connexion with Levitical
ritual, or with Philo, or with the Greek mysteries, or
with the manhood suffrage of classical Athens, or with
the meditations of Athenian dramatists on the obscure
interplay of man's self-will with God's righteous purpose :
ZeO Zeu rAete ras ifiids eixcts t4\€l
fii\oi Si rot crol rwvirep av f/.4X\r}s reXeiv
" Zeus, Zeus, Perfecter, these my prayers perfect thou !
Thy care be — yea — of things thou mayst make perfect,"
as Browning paraphrased Clytaemnestra. We can how
ever but guess at what the writer knew of ancient
literature, and what we observe in his Epistle is little
of the pedantry of quotation, but much interest in words
themselves. Like Shakespeare with a word of Latin
derivation, he loves to press the etymological significance,
and in this group of words what he chiefly lays stress
upon is the simple idea of perfecting, of bringing a
life to its own particular completion. In the Gospel
of S. John a single Greek word is used to translate, from

ig-6 The Epistle of Priesthood
the Cross, the summary of our Lord's work on earth ;
TereXeo-Tat, " it has been carried to its appointed
perfection." That might well express the view in
Hebrews of these days of the flesh. They were hemmed
in by limitations; in themselves obscure, weak, full of
shame. That must first be recognized or we shall not
understand them at all. But the great thing about
them is that our Lord was always making the one
right use of His limitations, bringing nobility out of
lowness, exercising in weakness the power given to
Him, still in that contracted sphere of Galilean manhood
<$>epap to, irdpra, carrying on the universe to its destined
perfection, since, however He might be limited in the
reach of His arm or the foresight of His intellect, union
with the will of God could not be hindered by these
physical conditions.
The counterpart of this in ordinary lives is expressed
in that philosophic doctrine of Entsagung of which Bishop
Creighton made so much. In our Lord's own life a
remarkable illustration is suggested by Dr. Burkitt's
interpretation of irdpra fioi trapeSodrj in S. Mt. xi. 27,
S. Lk. x. 22.1 He connects the phrase with its context
instead of with S. Mt. xxviii. 18, and interprets iravra
as " all my experiences, success and failure ... for
both I bless His name, because all things — success and
failure — come to me from my heavenly Father. I
can stand alone unrecognized, for He recognizes me;
I stand alone, I and my disciples, but it is we who
know God and recognize the signs of His visitation."
At first sight this appears to yield a less impressive
testimony to the unity of the Son with the Father
1 JTS, Jan. 1911,

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 107
than the ordinary interpretation does. But is it not
really stronger ? It is mystical rather than supernatural.
It shews a victory of faith over the pressure of circum
stances rather than a claim to immunity; it shews
isolation transformed into a fellowship of divine peace ;
a real " taking of the manhood into God." The
interpretation may not be right. So far as the Greek
is pressed, and its secondary relation to the Aramaic-
speaking ministry overlooked, so far it will be acknow
ledged that the meaning given to TrapeSodr; is not quite
natural. But the meaning obtained for the whole
context is so " synoptical," so deep in its simplicity,
that it becomes more and more convincing on the whole.
It harmonizes in particular with one very noticeable
part of our Lord's character and action ; that part
which psychologists would call intuition, and which the
Gospels describe as trusting the Father. This corre
sponds with that passive rdle of the Messiah which
appears in the Jewish apocalypses. The correspondence,
we may believe, is due not to chance or to our Lord's
premeditated imitation, but to a true " inspiration " in
the apocalypses. And it is worth remarking how this
passivity or trust removes a difficulty which has been
felt in the sketches of the ministry made by apocalyptic
critics. Certain " expectations " have been described
as "mistakes." But these are hardly the proper terms
to use. To one whose motto was " I must," 1 who
1 " You will notice,'' the late Bishop of S. Albans used to say, " how
often in the Gospel our Lord says ' I must. ' " He would add that when
S. Paul on the road to Damascus asked, "What shall I do, Lord?" the
answer was, ' ' Go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must
do " (cf. Acts xxii. 10, ix. 6). If Dr. Festing saw this note he would
wish it added that he said he learned this from the present Bishop of
Gloucester.

108 The Epistle of Priesthood
waited for His "hour," to whom all things were delivered
by the Father, to do or bear as the season came, and
who took " no thought for the morrow," there could be
neither expectation nor mistake in the path of duty ; the
agony in Gethsemane shewed less the shrinking of the
flesh than the effort of the Son to hear the next direction
plainly — " being Son, He learned obedience through
suffering." That would be the course of duty. So far
as He was a teacher as well as the destined Redeemer
it might be rather different. Life may be reached by
intuition, but a logical exercise of reason is the only
method of teaching. Because our Lord obeyed as a
mystic, He would not therefore refuse to think reasonably.
If we follow the exact lead of this or that critic, it may
seem impossible that He who " expected " the Kingdom
to come at latest when He died should have also fore
seen the fall of Jerusalem. If we read our documents
as a whole we get at least a general impression that
He did foresee the fall of Jerusalem. About the
expectation of the coming of the Kingdom they give,
in fact, far less clear information — " But of that day or
that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
The problem is superfluous. In the mystical process
of redemption through obedience there was no " expecta
tion " but an always present intuition of the Father's
will. The foreseeing of the fall of Jerusalem on the
other hand was but a part of the common-sense of all
shrewd observers of those times.
Such interplay of logic with intuition must appear
wherever the conditions of human activity operate. In
the Apocalypse of S. John there seems to be an

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 109
expectation of the end repeatedly expressed, repeatedly
disappointed. That seeming is due to the necessities
of composition ; a book, however apocalyptic, must
have some logical arrangement. The ultimate reality
of all apocalypse is timeless. In S. Lk. xxi. 14,
we read, " Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to
meditate beforehand how to answer : for I will give
you a mouth and wisdom." Here we see the combina
tion of deliberate purpose, " Settle it in your hearts ''
(which is, perhaps, due to the reflective experience of
S. Lk., cf. S. Mt. x. 19), with the intuitional rule.
This intuitional rule seems to cover more and more
of the New Testament the more simply we take its
narrative. Was S. Paul's appeal to Caesar a piece of
prudence on a lower level than his Masters' passivity,
or was it simple obedience to the divine impulse of
the moment? In the very composition of the books
of the New Testament, in the heightening or eliminating
of the miraculous, the interpretation of the original
apocalyptic in new terms, was not the guidance of the
Spirit a more literal fact than our analysis allows ? That
guidance seems the more absolute just because it has
not always produced the kind of truth we have fancied
should be the most essential.
Such intuition is far beyond ordinary experience,
but we can understand how the limitations of Galilean
Judaism made it, so to speak, more natural to our Lord
than it would be in England now. Throughout the
Gospel limitation means possibility. " Therefore, he
saith, when he entereth into the ordered world : sacrifice
and offering thou wouldest not, and a body didst thou
fit for my purposes. In burnt-offerings and sin-offerings

no The Epistle of Priesthood
thou hadst no pleasure. Then said I, ' Lo ! I come
to do Thy will, O God.'" "And," adds our author,
" we too have been sanctified in that will through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ." It is but a
matter of literary interest that " body " here comes only
from the Septuagint version and not from the Hebrew
original. The author is not seeking Old Testament
authority, but a form of words which shall be
well known and fit to express the purpose of the
Saviour's life on earth. His use of "body" in xiii. 3,
'' Remember those in evil case, as being yourselves also
in the body, bound in the toils of this earthly state," —
shews the sense in which he regards this offering of
the Lord's body here. It was a sanctification, a conse
cration, of the limitations of His manhood. He may
have shared the strange, narrowly-bounded conception
of His place and day about the coming of the Kingdom
of God. When once we have recognized the probability
of that we need spend little more time upon it, except
as critical historians. As theologians, i.e. as sinful men
anxious about the reality of Christ's salvation, the
important thing for us to believe is that He created
from this material an invincible purpose of love,
" love without end and without measure grace."
Crucifixion was a horrible punishment quite commonly
borne by compulsion by criminals and sometimes by
miserably ill-used men. Unless we reinforce our
familiarity with ornamental crosses and our conventional
language by setting a real crucifixion before the eyes
of historical imagination, we cannot understand what the
Lord did for us. But having done so, the great thing
to recognize is th^t He came to His Cross of His own

The Sacrament of the Incarnation i 1 1
free will ; and that out of this pain and shame He
created an unexampled act of heroism. Really un
exampled because of those very limitations out of which
it sprang. No one else has ever chosen to die because
he believed himself to be the Christ of prophecy, and
that his dying would bring salvation in the highest
prophetical and spiritual sense to his brethren. And
really creative in the fullest sense, for no one has ever
made his choice, devised his plan, with so absolutely
a free will ; for our Lord's will was free as being no
longer His own private will, but His will lost and found
in the Father's will. He chose perfectly because He of
himself did not choose at all, but " learning obedience "
simply accepted the will of the Father. And here
again, the perfection of the act was not original in the
vulgar sense, for this obedience was part of the traditional
r61e of the Christ. Yet in our Lord's handling of it
it was not mere passivity ; He took the traditional
line of passive obedience and made it active in hitherto
inconceivable intensity, transcending the old form with
His love. Dr. Bigg writes of S. Augustine : " Augustine
is commonly spoken of as a Predestinarian. But those
who read the Confessions will see that what he means
by predestination is not the fiat of an arbitrary will,
but the attraction of one personality for another. Why
do we love anybody? Those who can explain this
can solve the problem of free will." His words help
us to go a little deeper here. For we are concerned
here too with this "predestination." It is not only
our Lord's heroism and our Lord's faith that are before
us. We too believe what He believed ; that He was
the Christ, and that the Father was guiding Him, and

1 1 2 The Epistle of Priesthood
had His inconceivably great purpose in so guiding
Him. That we believe though we cannot prove it. On
the other hand we can see our Lord, if we trust our
records, answering to this inheritance of Christhood
and to this guiding in a remarkable way. The in
heritance and the guiding manifest themselves in what
we call circumstances, and circumstances are just the
limitations of real life on earth. He used these circum
stances in a manner that transformed them, that created
something new out of them, though of course seen from
the other side this new thing is the purpose of the
Father, there from the beginning and inevitable. A
hopeless paradox, yet perfectly acceptable to those who
believe that God is the God of the living, and that it
is only persons who live, and those only live who love.1
The narrow range of the Galilean ministry, the
strangeness of the Lord's Messianic hope, the scandal
of the Cross in whatever form it shapes itself to suc
cessive generations, as they press to more accurate
apprehension of the days of His flesh, remain the material
upon which His creative power works. It is always
that creative yet predestined power which makes the.
glory of His life, and this is apprehended less by intellect
than love — though " love " itself must be understood in
1 Cf. Von Hugel, The Mystical Element of Religion, ii. p. 131 : "There
are the two currents. The one tends so to emphasize the sense and reality
of the soul's simple receptivity, and of what the soul receives at such,
apparently, purely receptive times, as to ignore, or even practically deny,
the undeniable fact that this very receptivity is inevitably an act of its own.
Its decisive terms are Passivity, Fixedness, Oneness. The other current
realizes that Grace does not destroy, violate, or supplant Nature, either
entirely or in part, but that it awakens, purifies, and completes it, so that
every divine influx is also ever a stimulation of all the good and true energy
already, even though latently, present in the soul. And its characteristic
terms are 'Action' (as distinguished from 'Activity'), Growth, Harmony."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 1 3
no attenuated sense ; it is the " charity " of the New
Testament, and it includes (according to men's oppor
tunity) that disciplined observance of other men and of
discovered laws which the Old Testament terms " wis
dom." This creative power is expressed by a phrase
in ch. ix., " the Christ who offered himself without spot
to God through eternal Spirit." These two words would
not have their full significance if the apostolic doctrine
of the Holy Spirit did not lie behind them. Yet they
are not a simple allusion to that doctrine. They define
it for a special emphasis. They make us think first of-
the spirit of Christship in like manner as we speak of
the spirit of statesmanship or scholarship. Then they
remind us that this spirit is an eternal potency in man
which raises him above the fleeting shows and hindrance
of this imperfect life. Finally, they tell us that this is
no fancied endowment, but springs from the interaction
of God's Holy Spirit with man's own particular spirit.
Comparing meaner things with this supreme one, we
might say that Shakespeare by eternal spirit created his
poetry out of the raw material of other men's plays, within
the very limited conditions of the Elizabethan stage.
These obligations to predecessors, these limitations, sur
prise us as we gradually discover how large they were.
But the creative act by eternal spirit remains the same,
or rather becomes more wonderful when we perceive the
definite lines within which he created so new a life.1
1 Cf. A. C. Bradley, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, pp. 23, 24. It is
necessary to recognize the actual, necessitated touch on contemporary fact from
which our Lord's apocalyptic starts. But it is even more necessary, after doing
so, to breathe the larger spirit in which He created His own ever-growing
apocalyptic. The Apocalypse of S. John in the New Testament supplies,
perhaps, a more suitable parallel than those given above. A true instinct
8

U4 The Epistle of Priesthood
This is indeed a comparison of the small with the
very great. Yet it is not irreverent, for it may perhaps
help us to remember an important truth about our
Lord's work of salvation — a truth which runs all through
the New Testament, is insisted on in this Epistle, and
is necessary for a real belief in our Lord's Godhead. It
is the truth that, as He was man on earth, so He is
still man in heaven ; that as He was made like in all
points except sin to His brethren on earth, so He is
one with them in heaven ; that He is not God as being
separated, cut off from mankind, but as having taken
up manhood into God, as being really the mediator
between God and men, as having made the unity of
God with men an effective unity. The doctrine of the
Holy Trinity is not a formal doctrine ; it is not altogether
beyond the range of man's intellect ; if not simple to the
intellect, it is at least a beautiful and simple answer to
the yearning of man's heart for holiness ; for it tells him
that because he is " a member of Christ " his true self
is already part of God. This is the apostolic doctrine
which the Dean of Wells brought out so clearly from
the Epistle to the Ephesians. It has been preserved by
the Roman Church in a vivid if to us a strange manner
in their cultus of the saints ; our English doctrine of the
led Dr. Swete to pass lightly over Archbishop Benson's Apocalypse when
he made his own commentary. Archbishop Benson has too much belittled
the historical starting point of the Apocalypse. And yet his book is one
of the greatest ever written on that vision. He grasps its real significance,
its vitality. On p. 31 he has a paragraph which might stand as a figure
of our Lord's relation to the apocalyptic theology of His day : " In the high
heavens which the Seer enters by the door the central object is the interior
of a Temple. The Temple is so unimportant in comparison with its Occupant
that it is only touch by touch that it is perceived to have been there from
the first. It is, so to speak, obscured by the glory of the Throne and of the
Train which fills it."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 115
communion of all saints in Christ preserves it, less
boldly perhaps, but, if accepted as the Prayer Book
presents it, not less safely ; and indeed our Prayer Book
brings it home to us even more closely by so clearly
applying it to the saints we ourselves have known and
to the imperfect saints. " All the company of heaven"
is in Christ and therefore in God. Christ not only
shared His manhood with us, but His Godhead means
that in the deepening progress of His life He unites
us to His whole self. As yet this unity is certainly
imperfect; we still look forward to the end when God
shall be all in all. But though it is impossible to relate
by measurement the present union with the consummation,
that logical difficulty does not forbid our sacramental
apprehension of so great a truth. And notice above
all that this is not a proud doctrine. It does not mean
that man is equal to God, but that man is nothing
independently of God. It does not tend to lower man's
thought of God, but it does purify and raise man's hope
of holiness ; it explains the Lord's precept, " Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is
perfect," and the baptismal motto of our Prayer Book,
" Remembering always our profession, which is to follow
the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like
unto him."
This doctrine has been summed up in some famous
words of S. Athanasius : " He became human that we
may become divine " (de Incarnatione, liv). Newman, in
The Development of Christian Doctrine, viii. 1 ., wrote :
" the sanctification, or rather the deification, of the nature
of man is one main subject of St. Athanasius' theology."
Just before, in the same section, he had remarked, what

1 1 6 The Epistle of Priesthood
is of interest in the study of this Epistle, how the
Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy " had the
immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood texts
which had hitherto been understood more commonly of
His Divine Soriship . . . and in this way the doctrine
of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed
so prominent a feature in ante-Nicene theology, com
paratively fell into the shade."
To Newman himself the Athanasian point of view was
the satisfying one. " We speak of Him in a vague way
as God, which is true, but not the whole truth ; and, in
consequence, when we proceed to consider His humilia
tion, we are unable to carry on the notion of His person
ality from heaven to earth. He who was but now spoken
of as God, without mention of the Father from whom
He is, is next described as a creature ; but how do these
distinct notions of Him hold together in our minds ? We
are able to continue the idea of a Son into that of a
servant, though the descent was infinite, and, to our
reason, incomprehensible ; but when we merely speak first
of God, then of man, we seem to change the Nature with
out preserving the Person. In truth, His Divine Sonship
is that portion of the sacred doctrine in which the mind
is providentially intended to rest throughout, and so to
preserve for us His identity unbroken " (Parochial and
Plain Sermons, vol. III., xii). The text of this sermon
is Heb. v. 7, 8, and so keen is Newman's insight into
this Epistle that a series of passages gathered from his
sermons would make a fine commentary upon it. Yet
it seems that after the introductory verses the author
himself contemplates the divine Son steadily from the
point of view of earth, not as Newman finds possible

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 1 7
immediately, but always through the manhood. " Beyond
the assumption of the pre-existence of the Son," wrote
Dr. Davidson on i. 2, " the Epistle seems nowhere to
desert the region of history."
Men^goz, taking a point of view more like Newman's,
finds it impossible to recognize any confession of the
essential divinity of Christ in the Epistle. " The Christ-
ology of our author is manifestly the essay of a Philonian
Christian seeking to render account, with his philosophical
premisses, of the mysterious personality of the Christ.
His notion is sensibly different from that of the later
orthodoxy. It approaches the doctrine of the Arians
rather than that of Athanasius. It was bound to dis
appear from the Church with the belief in aeons, and to
give place to the teaching of the essential divinity of the
Christ. It was soon understood no longer; it was
interpreted in the orthodox sense ; and in our days there
are still theologians who understand it in the sense of the
Christology of the council of Nicaea. That is an optical
illusion " (La thdologie de I'Epitre aux Hebreux, pp. 1 oO,
1 01). Quite opposed though the Epistle is to anything
like the demigod of Arianism, it is not difficult to see
how Mdnegoz was led to the opinion which he thus loosely
expresses. But the sacramental interpretation of the
manhood, suggested by Bruce's view of the glory being
in not after the humiliation, and reinforced by the
apocalyptic criticism of the last few years, seems to bring
all parts of the Epistle into due relationship and propor
tion. This is the explanation of the Epistle which was
anticipated by Nestorius, and has been defended by Pro
fessor Bethune Baker. " It is the human nature which
qualifies our Lord to act as our highpriest ; it is the

1 1 8 The Epistle of Priesthood
human nature, perfected through temptations and suffer
ing, perfectly obedient to the Father's will, and sinless
through them all, that constitutes the offering. Is it
dividing the natures to say with Nestorius that it is not
of God the Word that these things are said ? Must not
some such distinction be made, if we are to attempt to
embody in accurate doctrine the profoundly edifying and
ennobling conception of the highpriesthood of our Lord
— a distinction which we may feel to be logical rather
than real, but one that is forced upon us by the conditions
under which we think and express our thought ? "
(Nestorius, pp. 1 1 6, 117). This defence has been
criticised by Dr. Loofs in some lectures (not yet pub
lished) which he gave in the University of London
during the Lent term, 191 3. But if Dr. Loofs corrects
a detail in Professor Bethune Baker's defence, he confirms
its broader justice. When Cyril's interpretation finally
triumphed, he says, Nestorius was necessarily confessed
heretical ; for Cyril's interpretation was irreconcileable
with his, if accepted exclusively. Yet Nestorius was
orthodox till that exclusion was ratified. He represents
one line of early tradition which was preserved in the
Western Church even by Leo. This line of tradition did
not sharply divide " inspiration " from " incarnation." It
springs from the New Testament, and must be reckoned
with in all logical thinking upon the Person of Christ,
That is Dr. Loofs' view, and it seems to follow that
Nestorius' comments upon Hebrews are of orthodox
value in one very real sense. It is not (as Menegoz
supposed) Athanasius and Nicaea, but Cyril and the later
Greek theology, which present a difficulty to the student
of this Epistle.

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 1 9
But this is a digression from which we must now
return. The comparison with Shakespeare helps us to
remember the unbroken connexion of our Lord with men,
a connexion made still more effectual by His exaltation
and Godhead. Yet it is a true instinct which makes us
shrink from such comparisons. All works of men, so far
as they are right works, do touch that supreme work
of manhood and Godhead, yet with a difference so great
that we cannot measure it. And this is not because such
works are works of art or intellect, while our Lord's was
a work of more sublime quality. Nothing that we have
observed in the limitations to which He submitted suggests
that we should make little of His intellectual power.
Intellectual power is not estimated by the amount of
information on which it is exercised. Most men now
know more things than Plato knew. And we should
feel it almost irreverent to call our Lord learned. Yet
the impression left upon a reader of the Synoptic Gospels
is that he has been in the presence of the most command
ing intellect, and all the more commanding for its
simplicity. It would also be his impression that the life
he had been studying was the truest work of art the
world has ever seen. It is perhaps part of the witness
to the fidelity of the synoptic narrative that this impres
sion of intellect and art is less distinctly made by the
Johannine Gospel ; the author there contributed more, the
Lord himself less.
The point on which our author insists as marking the
difference between our Lord's work and all others is His
sinlessness. In the last passage we have referred to this
is expressed by a sacrificial term, " without blemish."
The immediate context explains the choice. In other

1 20 The Epistle of Priesthood
places the idea is expressed quite directly : " One that
hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin" (iv. 15); "Such a high priest became us,
holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners " (vii. 26).
But the sacrificial term is especially useful to start from
in a consideration of this doctrine of the Lord's sin
lessness, for it points to the preparation for the doctrine.
As from the Levitical ritual, with its rule of perfect
soundness in the victim, so from Psalms, Prophets, and
apocalyptic writings, a series of passages might be
gathered which point to innocence, justice, righteousness,
in the persons whom they celebrate. This innocence,
justice, righteousness, hardly ever seems to mean anything
so beautiful and perfect as the sinlessness which the
tradition assigns to our Lord. The sense is as a rule
more ordinary; a king is promised who will be juster
than other kings ; a psalmist asserts his innocence of
sins which are laid to his charge, or that he has done
nothing to deserve the troubles that are fallen upon him.
Yet the accumulated language of such passages would
tend to mould the conventional portrait of the expected
Christ; His sinlessness would be part of His destined
career. So then on the first closer look we take at this
tradition, the claim seems to be slipping away into some
thing not very wonderful after all. Men said the Christ
would be very righteous ; therefore Christians have said
their Lord was sinless. That is because we have not
yet looked close enough. Is not the history, the life of
this doctrine parallel with that of the doctrine of the
Cross? Why should we believe that salvation was
wrought by our Lord's dying on the Cross ? If we start
from our modern ideas and interpretations we never

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 2 1
reach a clear answer. We are obliged to start from the
other side, from the expectation which had been prepared
by literature, or by the early, sometimes even crude, hopes
that had grown round the idea of the Christ in the
century or two before our Lord's birth. No doubt the
death of the Christ had not been the precise form in
which these hopes had shaped themselves ; that particular
act may have sprung from our Lord's own creative
handling of the convention ; yet even that we do not
absolutely know. But we do know that a belief, strange
to us but natural to those ages of more direct, less
mediated, trust in God, had been formed, that God
would — not by teaching, example, or a process of gradual
improvement of mankind, but by a single, astonishing
act, bring in His Kingdom. From that belief all the
rest has naturally followed ; the Lord's choice and heroic
act, the Apostles' preaching, the Church's continual
proving of the efficacy of what her Lord had wrought.
Leave out that preparatory belief, as we have sometimes
tried to do, and all becomes dim and vague ; the
Christian faith is no longer a centre round which all
true faith among men may gather and consolidate and
grow, but it becomes itself one of many faiths which have
no centre more defined than Theism. So is it with the
fundamental doctrine of the Cross. So is it also with
this ancillary doctrine of the Lord's sinlessness. But for
that preparation we should still miss the full significance
of the doctrine. Yet the preparation affects in no wise
the reality of our Lord's creative act of sinless life. Nor
is the preparation our evidence for the truth of the
Christian tradition of His sinlessness. That evidence is
found first in the synoptic narrative, where it is quite

1 2 2 The Epistle of Priesthood
evident that there is no studied purpose to display
our Lord as sinless ; the sinlessness appears as though
here at any rate there was no presupposition about it.
Indeed the " guileless, undefiled " of our Epistle would
seem faint in comparison with the active holiness of the
Gospel, if it were not that " holy '' is also part of the
description, and if the negative presentment were not
due to the author's insistence on the reality of the
temptation — the Lord is to him " tried in all points like
as we are, yet without sin." Still the synoptic picture is
richer ; and its touches are as subtle as the whole effect
is simple. Take this one touch : the tenderness with
which our Lord treats every sin except cruel self-
righteousness ; how little He talks about sin, how
cautious He seems of extracting confession ; how calmly
He waits for God's own appointed time instead of
pressing the conversion of this man or that ; in what
an indescribable harmony He joins His own absolute
consciousness of rectitude with a pity that claims no
superiority — a harmony which would be impossible in
any sin-stained mind.1
That first for evidence. Then the tradition as it
appears in such an early document as this Epistle, and
then the building up and continual refashioning of the
Church's ideal memory, which is saved from becoming
fanciful by the repeated correction it undergoes in
criticism and experience. And this correction is always
made in the end by reference to the early, simple record.
If any novel scheme of ethics has ever been proposed,
it has always proved, sooner or later, to be partly a
recovery of something in our Lord's principle which has
1 Cf. Hastings' Diet, of the Bible, art. "Sin," by Canon Bernard.

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 123
been forgotten, partly to need correction itself from His
principle. Is it too bold to foretell that it will be so
with the criticism of the doctrine of self-sacrifice which is
current to-day, and that with all such novelties in the
future it will still be so ? It might be bold to prophesy
that all future theology will be corrected by the standard
of our present creeds, or even that future creeds will
always be so scriptural as future ethics ; but in the
ethics of the Gospel there can be found nothing to leave
out. The title Interimsethik designates a difficult
ideal, not an inadequate ideal, not even a sermo
ininterpretabilis. It is in this sinlessness then, as our author suggests,
that the Godhead of our Saviour shews visibly in His
manhood. In this sinlessness we see Him, as it were,
transfigured. Or, it might be said, this sinlessness is our
author's evidential miracle. That is of some importance.
Miracles certainly have been considered at most periods
in the Church's history to be of evidential value. Just
now our somewhat increased knowledge of natural law
and of the habits of historians has made it difficult for
us to use miracles as evidence. To most they are a
difficulty; to some mere lumber. No doubt the last
word about miracles is far from having been said. But
it is noticeable that there is almost nothing about
miracles, in the common acceptation of that term, in this
Epistle. God has borne witness to the word of salvation,
we read in ch. ii., by signs and wonders and various
powers and by impartings of Holy Spirit according to
His will. This is conventional language borrowed from
the Old Testament to express the whole wonderful
course of the Gospel ; the kind of phrase which a person

124 The Epistle of Priesthood
might use who felt it wise to be reticent about miracles,
in part the very phrase which was used by the author
of Deuteronomy when he made his grave selection from
the more childlike narrative of Exodus. In ch. xi. some
miracles from the Old Testament are alluded to, but
briefly, and again in borrowed language. The Lord's
Resurrection and Ascension are the very foundation of
the whole Epistle, but there is not a word about those
points in the Gospel narrative which provoke modern
controversy. And for the purposes of his sacramental
picture, the author has not hesitated to foreshorten the
sequence of the manifestations, so that the death on the
Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension appear as
momentary and simultaneous. This affords no argument
for or against the accuracy of the narratives. It does
not justify controversy about them. It does confirm the
honesty of perplexed churchmen, even priests, who feel
that there may be questions open, or likely to be opened
presently, concerning which it is right to keep silence
until further knowledge shall make a larger answer
possible. But the interesting thing for students of this
Epistle is its insistence on this one miracle, the miracle
of our Lord's sinlessness.
Controversy makes attackers simple and apologists
subtle in definitions. There can be no doubt that it is
extremely difficult to define a miracle, so difficult that
it would be foolish to attempt a new definition and
almost useless to quote an old one.1 But this is plain,
that so far as the lives of men have been observed
1 The best I know is one given by Dr. Headlam at the Church Congress
in October 1912 : " A miracle means really a supremacy of the spiritual force
of the world to an extraordinarily marked degree over the mere material."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 125
hitherto sinlessness does transcend the law of nature.
On the other hand, though there is difficulty in proving
the other Gospel miracles which transcend all known
laws of nature, whether with regard to strict evidence
or with regard to vaguer prejudice, there is no good
reason at all for rejecting the evidence for our Lord's
sinlessness, and there seems to be nothing in the con
stitution of men's minds to give rise to prejudice against
it. On the contrary, the word ewpeirep — " for such a
Highpriest even became us (nal eirpeirev), holy, guileless,
undefiled " — rings true to all Christian ears ; such sinless
ness was proper in the divine Saviour ; we could not
conceive of Him otherwise.1
And yet this language about transcending • laws of
nature is surely out of place. We do not know those
laws, and the more we do learn of them and the
Saviour's life the closer they appear to come together.
What is remarkable is the manner in which this author
appears to link the Lord's sinlessness with the lot and
even with the nature of ordinary men. " Tried in
all points like as we are, yet — in this alone different —
without sin." He seems to anticipate the exception
which a timid convention will afterwards make. " He
hath not need, day after day as the highpriests, first
for His own sins to offer sacrifice, then for those of the
1 It might almost be said that the practical line of division is thus drawn
between the "lowest" Christian and the "highest" Jewish doctrine of Jesus
Christ. Mr. Montefiore comments thus on S. Mk. x. 18 ("Why callest thou
me good ? ") : " It is a noble character that peeps through the fragmentary and
one-sided records — none the less noble because we may be sure that of Jesus,
both in the fact and in his own estimate of himself, the adage was true :
' there is no man that sinneth not'" (The Synoptic Gospels, i. 247). There
seems no difficulty in the saying itself. It is in harmony with our Lord's
habitual reverence, but implies no consciousness of sin in Him.

126 The Epistle of Priesthood
people. For this He did once for all when He offered
himself." Surely the important contrast here is between
" day after day " and " once for all," not between " His
own " and " those of the people." When we say He
took our sins upon Him, we mean something real not
figurative. " I do not know," writes Dr. Du Bose,
" how better to express the truth of the matter than to
say, in what seems to me to be the explicit teaching of
our Epistle, and of the New Testament generally, that
our Lord's whole relation to sin in our behalf was
identical with our own up to the point of His unique
and exceptional personal action with reference to it.
Left to our nature and ourselves it overcomes and slays
all us ; through God in Him He overcame and slew it.
He did it not by His own will and power as man, but
as man through an absolute dependence upon God.
And He made both the omnipotent grace of God upon
which He depended, and His own absolute dependence
upon it, His perfect faith, available for us in our salvation.
He re-enacts in us the victory over sin and death which
was first enacted in Himself" (High Priesthood and
Sacrifice, p. 201). And again, " It is not to be supposed
that our Lord had not that which was to be put off in
the flesh, as well as needed or was in want of that
which was to be put on in the spirit" (The Reason of
Life, p. 160).
There then is the link on the one side. The Lord's
struggle against sin was quite the same, up to the point
of victory, as ours. No later drawn-up scheme of
original sin, or anything else, must be allowed to
obscure that truth. In His temptation the divine
Saviour is really united with the men who through

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 127
bonds of heredity, environment, tradition, have been
most sorely tried.
Then there is the link on the other side, the side of
victory. There are signs of such a link in most of the
Epistles, for these writers do claim sinlessness in those
who have put on Christ. " We know that whosoever is
begotten of God sinneth not ; but he that was begotten
of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not "
(1 Joh. v. 18). This is a typical sentence, and it
harmonizes with an impression which the Acts and
Epistles make upon us, that most of those who entered
the Church at that period went through a marked
conversion in which they visibly became new men.
" Saved " in the New Testament means what the
mission preacher means by that word rather than what
the Catechism suggests by " being brought into this
state of salvation." Then as now conversion had its
varieties. Besides that very personal change from which
S. Paul's larger activity of holiness started, there was
the more social change which S. John expresses —
" We know we have passed out of death into life, because
we love the brethren." But whatever its varieties, there
it is, cutting deep characters in the pages of the New
Testament, and certainly a natural sequel to our Lord's
call to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand.
And in the sign and wonder of such conversion there is
a link, if frail and insecure, between sinlessness gained by
the Lord in himself and sinlessness imparted by Him
to men. Yet that link by itself is frail. For other passages
shew a different feeling, and nowhere more remarkably
than in S. John who writes so boldly on Christian sinless-

128 The Epistle of Priesthood
ness, and draws so dark a line between the family of
Christ and the hostile world. We think of " If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," and still more of
that most tender passage, " Hereby shall we know that
we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before
him whereinsoever our heart condemn us ; because God
is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things"
(i Joh. iii. I9f). And we know that among those
whom S. Paul addressed as "saints" there were some
whom he rebuked for serious sins.
A developement may be traced in the apostolic
attitude to the sins of Christians.
S. Paul sets the ideal as high as it possibly can be con
ceived ; he also exercises discipline in some cases of grave
sin, and he urges his converts in a very practical manner
to break off their bad habits. There is a contradiction
between this assumed ideal and this practical recogni
tion, but he does not formally notice it. The explana
tion lies in his forward-looking, apocalyptic spirit. His
ideal is an anticipatory ideal, and his concern is with the
vital process of achievement, not with scholastic adjust
ments of facts to theory, or with the arrangement, as in
a code, of laws of discipline. His ideal is mainly used
as the living source of peace and power ; " Brethren, we
are debtors, therefore, etc."
The author of Hebrews is writing to his own par
ticular friends who have a particular duty to do. He
represents the ideal as set before them, as ready to be
realized at once if they will make the corresponding
effort. If they will not, the circumstances are such that
they will be traitors to their Lord, and by their own
choice will be putting away from them the whole Chris-

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 29
tian belief in forgiveness and renewal. No general law
is laid down, no theory of sin or forgiveness is opened.
Partly circumstances, partly the cast of his own and still
more of his friends' mind, prevented the author from
using S. Paul's appeal to the converted heart. The
ideal stands over against his readers' lives ; the antici
patory victory through the Spirit is hardly noticed.
In the first Epistle of S. John we have reached a
period when " conversion " is no longer the all but uni
versal experience. The early ideal of Christian sinlessness
is in danger of becoming a conventional claim. The
Apostle checks the " lawlessness " of some who " have
tended to deny that the peccadilloes of Christians were
sins." His apostolic greatness is seen in this ; he keeps
the ideal as high as ever, and shews that the sincere
churchman will never be satisfied with any lower stan
dard, and, what is remarkable, he insists that true
Christianity realizes the ideal. On the other hand, he
recognizes the fact of sins and — what is no less remark
able — says that the claim to be sinless is an untruth.
Like S. Paul with his contradiction, so S. John leaves
this contradiction unexplained ; such explanations would
neither be possible nor profitable. What is possible and
profitable he shews ; that Christians should bear one
another's sins and pray for one another's forgiveness.
He comes nearer than S. Paul both to a rule and to a
theory, but is still in the apostolic stage of practical
developement, not formulated discipline. " There is a sin
unto death ; not concerning this do I say that he should
make request"; only by reading later discipline into this
brief sentence can we make it either a dogma or a
definite rule. It is a sincere man's recognition of reality ;
9

1 30 The Epistle of Priesthood
prayer may not be enjoined when it would be obviously
unreal.1 In the apostolic age the sins of the brethren were
regarded as violations of the Christian life, as being in
fact so far from " natural " that they were contradictions
of the law of regenerated nature. In Holy Scripture the
ideal is the law. That is the truth which the apocalyptic
movement — so important because it is chiefly a moral
movement — is recovering. As time went on discipline
was organized. Necessary though that was it weakened
faith in the ideal. In these later days the interplay of
civilization with Christian charity has brought it about
that idealism in politics, economics, almost in personal
morality, is mistrusted. But in the New Testament,
and if the progressive enlightenment of conscience be
allowed for, in the Old Testament also, the only morality
recognized is absolute, ideal morality. Holy Scripture isthe
history of men who aimed at that ideal. There were none
but fell short in some way or at some time except One.
And because that One was always firm to the ideal, His
disciples recognized Him as the light that lighteth every
man, the source and sustainer of their very life.
In that unflagging venture of His towards the ideal
we understand our Lord's sinlessness aright. It was no
mere abstinence from sin. It was, as this Epistle recog
nizes, a continual pressing forward to perfection. And
from that divine example we learn how we should judge
of man's loyalty to it and of his participation in the
1 See Brooke, International Critical Commentary on I Joh. ii. I, and
Burkitt's review of this commentary in the Cambridge Review, Nov. 14,
1912. I do not feel able to accept Dr. Burkitt's summary of the doctrine in
Hebrews — " The author of Hebrews will allow no forgiveness for Christian
sinners."

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 1 3 1
regenerated life. Holy Scripture does not say that men
cannot become sinless. Sin, as Dr. Tennant reiterates,
would not be sin if it were inevitable.1 Scripture does say
that there is no man who has not sinned, and whether or no
such language is to be understood as definite theological
statement, the " stupendous difficulty " of passing a whole
life without sin is obvious, as is the exceeding misery
which our sins are still causing in this present world.
But to ask whether any one man can possibly pass
through his whole life on earth without sin is not the
practical question. It is a question which obscures the
ideal aim, and therefore obscures our relationship to the
Lord. In the interpretation of that relationship the sign
and wonder of conversion itself does not carry us so
very far. No doubt that was never the only way of
entrance, and the solid phalanx of the apostolic Church
moved behind the splendid fires which dazzle us at first.
The abiding link between the Lord's sinlessness in him
self and His sinlessness imparted to men is better per
ceived in such a passage as Rom. vi. 1 — 1 1, where S. Paul
gives his doctrine of Baptism as the anticipation of the
new creation. It is the assurance of realization in the
appointed season, and of that freedom from the bonds of
the " inevitable " which the Lord's victory has given men.
The humility of the true saint's hope is as evident in the
New Testament as in later times. His own failure has
always been more evident to him than the success which
nevertheless he does perceive in many others. But his
failure is failure, not hostility to God, and much of the
failure itself is conditioned by the lengthening series of
1 See The Concept of Sin, passim, and especially the note on p. 260, in
which he refers to his former book, The Origin and Propagation of Sin.

132 The Epistle of Priesthood
partial victories. [So long as the fight is strenuously fought,
conscience becomes clearer and demands more.
The saint learns obedience through failures. The
Lord learned only by the things that He suffered. Yet
the parallel is a real one. In Heb. vii. 26, '' separated
from sinners '' is joined immediately with " made higher
than the heavens." In Heb. ix. 28, it is when the Christ
shall be seen a second time that He shall be, in this
full sense, " apart from sin." Even in the Lord there
could be no absolute freedom from sin in the days of the
flesh.1 The final victory was not won till the final trial.
He was not separate from sin and sinners till He had
learned all His obedience and was made perfect through
the suffering of death.
Of course we feel the difference. He was victorious
at each point of the contest; He was stained by no
memory of personal sin. If there were not this difference
the likeness would be worthless. Yet the likeness is a
likeness of promise. There is more than we can see.
There is the Father's will working for us, as well as the
Lord Jesus carrying out that will. There is not only the
picture of the Lord Jesus as He lived long ago and
gained victory over sin ; there is also Jesus Christ ever
living to make intercession for us. And above all, that
life of intercession is only one aspect of what this Epistle
calls His perfecting as Highpriest, and what we, less
figuratively, call His Godhead. For though we have
been considering His sinlessness as a special evidence for
1 Not " separate from sinners" nor "apart from sin," yet sinless. The
paradox is explained, and a hint is given of the possibility of its fuller applica
tion to mankind, in an aphorism of G. F. Watts: "Good and evil are
interwoven, or even in spirals ; nature does not tangle her work " (Life and
Writings, iii. p. 297).

The Sacrament of the Incarnation 133
that Godhead, acceptable to modern, perplexed thought,
we are to remember that this truth really rests for us, as
it did for the author of the Epistle, on a tradition that
goes back to the Galilean ministry, and beyond that into
Judaism, till its sources are dispersed in the dim aspira
tions of remote antiquity — " as the clear and living
brooks are to the obscure fountains whence they rise."
It is only through His manhood that we know this
Godhead. That does not diminish its glory for us ; it
increases it, for it shows it serviceable. It shows this
Person as the only sinless man, but as such not in isola
tion but in communication. He is " separate from
sinners," i.e. from those at any time who are not men of
goodwill towards His holiness ; with those who in spite
of their present sin are fighting on His side He is one
Christ, one with not apart from them. It is easy to say,
" Not here and now, but some day, somewhere, men shall
be sinless according to God's purpose in Christ," but as
we say the words we feel that we are shelving the diffi
culty. The fallacy involved in them is apparent when
we try to conceive that " sinless world," and realize that
we can only describe it in a phrase which still further
passes understanding — " that God may be all in all."
But in that phrase S. Paul is still expressing a purpose
an aim for effort. And his very syntax warns us that
though a "some day, somewhere," may be easier, we
express a truer thought when we say that the Lord's gift
of forgiveness is indeed the gift of sinlessness also ; but
that it is the gift of His own life and therefore of His
Godhead, and to think of this as a mere gift given is not
to think at all. His Godhead is revealed to us in man
hood striving against sin ; our partaking of that Godhead

134 The Epistle of Priesthood
can only be when we too are striving against sin, and
are therefore in a sinful world. This leaves much
unexplained. May we not severally hope that here and
now we may be sinless even as He was? We cannot
conceive of such a hope without odious pride. If the
world remain sinful how can God's will be achieved " that
all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth ? " To that question too we can conceive no
answer. There is something in these puzzles which runs
out beyond our powers. But happily that something is
hope. The hope seems " natural " to us ; the sinless
Highpriest " became us." This Epistle touches no
promise of man's ever being separated here from the
limitations of his natural intellect, or from suffering, but
it does appear to put his purpose — if he will purpose it
— of moral victory in a different line. Its doctrine of
the Highpriest who partook of flesh and blood prepares
for the hope which is epitomized in the Johannine record,
" Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of
the world " — for we would fain believe that translation
legitimate. Only that purpose must be held, as almost
everything is presented in the apostolic interpretation of
the Saviour's work, not by men severally each for himself,
but by men together as one body in Christ. And it
must be held with that humility and that reverence
towards the Master as towards One who cannot be fully
understood, which makes us recognize that our unity in
Him depends upon His immeasurable superiority over
us ; if He is indeed " taking away the sin of the world,"
it is because He was alone on earth the sinless Rescuer
of impotent men.

CHAPTER V
Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek:
the Priesthood
Priesthood as analogy of Christ's redemptive work — Levitical priesthood the
starting-point of the analogy, but not the type ; it had no principle of
growth — But from the beginning of the world there has been a truly
typical priesthood which has grown to its consummation in our Lord.
This priesthood has been at work wherever influence was exercised "on
the Godward side " — The Alexandrine title for this priesthood, " after
the order of Melchizedek," might be translated into modern terms by
"natural priesthood — It is to be seen in the world of nature, in history,
especially in Israel's history — Since this priesthood reached its consum -
mation in our Lord the priesthood of the whole Church has been
endowed with fuller effectiveness as being part of Plis priesthood — The
Epistle gives no rationale of ministry and sacraments. But its very real
churchmanship appears in its main purpose, viz. to prepare the readers
to brave the risk of martyrdom.
The whole view of our Lord's work in the Epistle to the
Hebrews is sacramental. Through the visible the in
scrutable is revealed ; through the manhood, the God
head. And if nature here, as everywhere, " half reveals
and half conceals," that makes the revelation only the
more real since this way is natural and requires the mind
and will of the recipient to co-operate with it. That
salvation which began to be spoken through the Lord
was confirmed in its course to us by those that heard
him (ii. 3), we are partakers of the Christ if we hold the
beginning of our confidence firm to the end (iii. 14), our
faith is the substance of things hoped for (xi. 1), and the

136 The Epistle of Priesthood
entrance into peace is our going forth to our Lord outside
the camp (xiii. 1 3 f). At every point man's answer joins
God's purpose to make reality.
The whole view is sacramental, but the whole is
concentrated upon a particular line. " Think of Christ
as priest," says the author, " and I will make you under
stand." The Priesthood of Christ is the main theme of
the Epistle. It comes almost at once, like a motif in a piece of
music. First, the Son is said to have made priestly
purification of the sins that priests are busy with (i. 3),
then comes an echo of the idea in i. 7, 14, where the
angels are called sacerdotal ministers in the eternal
Temple. Then at the end of ch. ii. the picture of divine
and victorious humiliation is broken off with the phrase :
" Whence it behoved him to be made in all things like to
the brethren, that he might become pitiful and faithful as
Highpriest on the Godward side for the propitiating the
sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered
being tried in temptation, he is able to come to the
rescue of those who are in trial." Why Highpriest? As
yet the title is not explained ; only our ears are prepared.
Then section by section the letter takes up the same idea ;
the title is repeated ; more and more is said about it ;
and at last in chs. vii. to x. the meaning is worked out.
If we ask why the author chose this particular
analogy, various answers might be given, as for instance
that Philo had called the Word of God a highpriest, and
had elaborated the analogy ; or that there is a great deal
in the Old Testament about priests and priesthood, and
the author knew the Old Testament remarkably well,
and does in fact draw all his illustrations from it rather

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 137
than from the practice of the day ; or there may have
been at about that time a popular interest in a Levitical
Messiah, and of this we have a certain amount of evidence
in a lately published Jewish Apocryphon.1 If literary
antecedents are worth searching for anywhere, it might
seem that they are specially useful in a study of this
academic Epistle. Yet when we have an opportunity
of comparing it with such antecedents, what strikes us
most forcibly is the freedom of the author ; he uses his
predecessors to supply a language, a mould for his
expression, but what he has to express is so inde
pendently his own. In this free manner he seems to
use Philo and S. Paul and the Gospel tradition and even
the Old Testament. So that after all it seems very
possible that the simplicity of the early Church was
right, and the simplicity of uninstructed readers in later
times, who entitled the Epistle " To Hebrews," and
supposed its form to have been suggested by the interest
of the author and his friends in their ancestral Jewish
ritual. That ritual is described in language taken from
1 See Mr. G. Margoliouth's review of Schechter's Documents of Jewish
Sectaries, in Athenaum, Nov. 26, 1910, and his article in JTS, Ap. 1911.
And now see Dr. Charles' Fragments of a Zadokite Work, Introduction, § 12 :
"The development actually realized and the tendencies in the process of
evolution in these books find a not unnatural culmination in our author. The
steady glorification of Levi in Sirach, Jubilees, and the Testaments had only
served to reduce Judah to the second place of authority and honour in the
nation, but not otherwise to depreciate that great tribe. In no case had this
process degenerated into a hostile attack on Judah. And yet this and naught
else could be the inevitable outcome of the tendencies which were actively at
work in the second century before the Christian era. These tendencies came
to a head in the Zadokite Fragments. Therein the glorification of the Zadokite
priests is carried on pari passu with the disparagement of the Davidic family
and claims and an attack on Judah." Heb. vii. 11-19 might be explained as,
in part, a protest against these tendencies, but it would be a frigid explanation.
Dr. Charles dates the Fragments between 18 B.C. and 70 a.d., probably
between 18 B.C. and 8 B.C.

138 The Epistle of Priesthood
the Old Testament. It is certain that the author had
read about the Tabernacle in Exodus ; it is by no
means certain that he had ever seen the Temple at
Jerusalem. Yet the simplest explanation of his analogy
remains this : that he and his friends had been brought
up, wherever they were brought up, under the ordinances
of the Levitical priesthood, that for some years they had
still obeyed those ordinances, Christians though they
had become, and that now at last they are preparing
with deep regret to break away from them.
" Every highpriest being taken from among men is
appointed on behalf of men on the Godward side, that
he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, being able to
bear patiently with the ignorant and erring since he
himself also is compassed with infirmity, and because of
that infirmity he ought, as for the people so also for
himself, to offer for sins" (v. 1—3). We think of the
adaptation of this passage in the Greek Liturgies, e.g.
S. Basil: —
" Thou, Lord, hast shewn to us this great mystery of
salvation. Thou hast deemed us worthy, Thy humble
and unworthy servants, to become ministers of Thy
holy altar. Do Thou enable us by the power of Thy
Holy Spirit for this service, that without condemnation
standing before Thy holy glory we may offer to Thee
sacrifice of praise. For Thou art He who worketh all
things in all. Grant, Lord, that on behalf both of our
sins and of the ignorances of the people, our sacrifice
may become acceptable and well-pleasing in Thy sight."
And it is difficult not to feel, and to suppose that
the composer of that most priestly supplication felt also,
that our author when he wrote was thinking of good

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 139
priests whom he had known, whose humility, sympathy,
and single-heartedness had brought some measure at
least of true salvation to himself and his brothers. He
writes (himself an early type of unassuming modernist)
as Fogazzaro wrote of Don Flores and the good priests
he had reverenced in Italy. Of course this may be but
his delicate, accomplished art ; there is no way of proving
it anything else. But come back to this passage, or to
the beginning of ch. x., where the futility of the Levitical
sacrifices is proved by their frequency and by their
yearning outstretch after holiness ; come back to such
passages after patient study of the critical discussion of
the Epistle, and listen how refreshingly they sound when
the affections and relationships of real life are allowed to
take their place behind them.
But however this may be; whether Temple or
Tabernacle, books or everyday experience, started this
analogy, there is the starting-point. The Levitical ritual
as observed, written or practised, is the visible institution
in this present world which the writer bids his friends
contemplate ; then from the contemplation to turn to
their Lord. " Wherefore brethren of our communion of
saints, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the
Apostle and Highpriest of our profession (our creed and
ritual) Jesus." " Think of Him as a priest such as you
know priests, and I will make you understand." x
1 Such interest in Levitical rites on the part of Christians has indeed very
little parallel in the New Testament. S. Luke tells of disciples and Apostles
going to the Temple ; the Temple is the background of the opening chapters
of his Gospel ; our Lord frequented the Temple court in His last week at
Jerusalem, and according to S. John at other times. But little interest is
shewn in the Temple sacrifices. The Apostles went up to the Temple at the
hour of prayer ; our Lord quoted ' ' My house shall be called a house of
prayer." This only proves, what is everywhere evident, that this Epistle has

140 The Epistle of Priesthood
But he uses this Levitical priesthood and ritual just
as he uses books. It provides him with a starting-point,
and then with a grammar and vocabulary, by means of
which he will express quite other ideas of his own. For
in this Epistle the Levitical priesthood is never treated
as a symbol or sacrament. It is a starting-point, it
provides an analogy. If it were not for it there would
be no calling Christ a priest at all. But except for this
convenience in analogy, Christ's priesthood has nothing
in common with the Levitical. The Levitical could
never develop into His priesthood. What likeness it
has to His is merely artificial. If there is death in
both, in the one it is a willing act of love, in the other
it is inflicted by man upon beasts in a kind of masque
or make-believe. If blood is offered in both, one is the
life of the Lord of creation offered by himself, the other
offerings are of the blood of beasts, shed without their
consent for a kind of fictional connexion with the
shedder. " The idea is that the covenant does not bind
while the covenanter still lives." Certainly the blood of
bulls and goats can never take away sin. It is hard to
suppose that any thoughtful Jew believed it did, or that
the Old Testament was meant to say it did. The
question was, could any blood do so? A prophet
(Is. liii.) had thought long ago that a man's blood
sometimes might. Our author was convinced that now
in the very fullest sense such blood had done so — " the
blood of the Christ shall purge your consciences from
a peculiar place among the books of the New Testament ; in this respect the
Apocalypse of S. John comes nearest to it. Father Tyrrell (Scylla and
Charybdis, p. 33), was too imaginative when he wrote, " Christ and His
Apostles, Jews as they were, and lovers of the Temple with its soul-stirring
symbolism."

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 4 1
dead works to serve the living God." Here is reality —
as he would say " eternity," there was imitation merely.
The one does not touch the other. There is fancy in
the Levitical fiction, like " pansies for thoughts," but no
sacrament. That does not mean that the worshippers who used
those strange imitations never touched eternity. " Else
would they have ceased to be offered because of the
worshippers having no longer any consciousness of sin,"
being not " purified " but dulled and insincere. In the
ceremonies themselves there was " remembrance of sins."
And in the sorrow and yearning and brave endeavour
and onward-pressing faith of simple Israelites, and in the
sympathy and diligence of their priests, there was a very
real partaking of the Christ, a real dependence on His
eternal priesthood. " These all had witness borne to
them through their faith though they did not carry home
the harvest of the promise, God having provided a better
thing concerning us, that not without us they should be
perfected" (xi. 39, 40).
" A better thing " ; for there was a difference.
Coleridge puts it well in Aids to Reflection (Introd.
Aphorisms xxiii.) : " The outward service of ancient
religion, the rites, ceremonies, and ceremonial vestments
of the old law, had morality for their substance. They
were the letter, of which morality was the spirit ; the
enigma, of which morality was the meaning. But
morality itself is the service and ceremonial of the
Christian religion." And to the writer of this Epistle the
Christian was a continuous whole with the Jewish religion,
but not with the Levitical sacrifices. They were a
shadow, not the icon, type, sacrament, of realities. They

142 The Epistle of Priesthood
were ordinances of flesh imposed until a season of
reformation. They belonged to an order of things that
was wearing out and nigh unto passing away (viii. I3,ix.
10, x. 1). They were "things made," mechanical con
trivances, which were to be shaken and removed so that
the realities which are not shaken might abide (xii. 27).
And as the ritual acts so the arranged order. The
Levitical priesthood was carried on by succession of
physical descent. Because a man was born of the tribe
of Levi or the family of Aaron, he might very likely
grow up under influences which would fit him to be a
good priest. Such influences are spiritual things most
plainly manifested in affection, authority, example, and
all like self-sacrificing motions of men's hearts. So far
again the Levitical priesthood did touch the eternal
priesthood. But in like manner there is a spiritual
training for all good services in the societies of men, and
sometimes it has seemed as though it went on better for
the succession not being hereditary by physical law.
It certainly appears that every now and then such
physical law becomes " old and wearing out and nigh to
vanishing away," and, on the whole, the " seasons of re
formation " have justified their claim. The break has
been sharp, and romantic regrets last long, and often the
noblest hearts have been on the side of the old order,
learning one way or another obedience by suffering.
The change has always been, as in the days when this
letter was written, a " shaking not only of the earth but
also of the heaven," and sometimes mistakes have been
made. The test in those crises has been whether in
deed a power of endless life has taken the place of a law
of fleshly ordinance, And to return to the burning

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 143
question of that day, there can be no denial that the
mere physical succession of the tribe of Levi, stripped of
its spiritual associations, perhaps sometimes clogged with
evil associations, was mechanical not eternal in character.
And therefore the author sternly sets all this priest
hood of Levi or Aaron aside. It is a shadow not a
type. It may have been a useful law, but men have
outgrown that law, and there is no principle of growth
in it to fit it anew for growing times. Those who have
read the Epistle with the thought of the Levitical priest
hood being the " type," may be surprised when they turn
back to it again to find how little after all is said about
that priesthood. So little in comparison with the whole
argument, and that little simply concerned to show that
it was not a fruitful sacrament, but a mechanism now
worn out and to be thrust aside. Like the angels in
ch. L, so Levi and Aaron here are only mentioned that
we may be told to pay more attention to them.
In strong contrast to this stands the treatment of
that other priesthood which is the subject of the Epistle.
There is hardly a paragraph without some allusion to
it. In one place it is presented generally as a universal
principle in the life of men (v. 1-4) ; in another a special
example of it is chosen from ancient history (vii. 1—3).
1 Again and again the need and yearning of men for such
a priesthood is recognized.
There are hints even of its extension into the world
of nature outside mankind (i. 2, 3, ii. 10), and always
it is shewn to be leading up to and completed in the
earthly life, the death, the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This kind of priest is a real type of the Son of
God (vii. 3), ordered in the course of divine and natural

144 The Epistle of Priesthood
law, with a kinship which promises at last unity and
consummation. This priesthood is characterized by a
true physical relationship to men (ii. 17), by pitifulness,
faithfulness, sympathy, by being of divine appointment
and involving the choice of one out of many who shall
deal with the sins and weaknesses of the many and bring
them near to God (v. 1 ) ; it propitiates sin, cleanses the
conscience for service to God (ii. 17, ix. 14). The priest
of this priesthood suffers, sheds His own blood, operates
through His own will, but through His own will lost and
found in the will of God (x. 9 f.) ; 1 that is, He obeys
and therefore governs natural law, and is not bound by
artificial rules. His whole work has to do with mind, will,
affection ; He offers prayers and tears, and one mode in
which His priestly work is shared by men who come after
Him is their almsgiving and praise (v. 7, xiii. 1 5 f.).
Yet that is but one, and a lighter mode. This priest
suffers even to the death, and in a willing devotion to
Him and with Him in life and death other men make
His sacrifice their own. His will and their will, His
affection, courage and theirs, are the ritual means. This
priesthood is therefore according to the power of an end-
1 Cf. Bethune Baker, Nestorius, p. no: "There was wanted, as the
means through which the promise should be realized, at highpriest — by birth
a descendant of Abraham, by dignity higher than the prophets, sinless and
gentle, capable of suffering, inasmuch as he was kith and kin with Abraham,
but knowing how to cry to God in moments of peril ' Only not what / will,
but Thou.'" These last words (from the analysis of Nestorius' sermon on the
Highpriesthood of Christ) might be taken as a summary, or symbol, of the
whole doctrine of the Epistle. The Lord's sinlessness, the author's practical
apprehension of His Godhead, the sacrificial imagery and its inner meaning,
the author's own peace, and the strength he desires for his friends, the aspira
tion in the types and the consummation of Priesthood, Christship, Sonship,
in the Lord Jesus Christ — all this runs up into the transformed will of
chap. x.

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 45
less life, not according to the law of a material ordinance.
It has to do with eternal power, not with visible and perish
ing splendour. And the whole of this endless circle of
priesthood has for its centre the unchanging Jesus Christ,
in whose sinless achievement all that has been is com
pleted and all that shall be is anticipated. This priest
hood is one, not many ; one since God's decree first
stood, and till all expectancy shall be transformed into
full salvation (i. 2, ix. 28). From the beginning of the
world the whole priestly instinct of life x has been striving
towards its perfect manifestation, throwing out partial
manifestations, but less and less imperfect, as it moved
onward. At last the steady onward movement was
completed in the humility of the days of His flesh who
had been the agent of that movement, " bearing the
universe onward by the decree of God's power."
The universal priestly instinct was defined, carried to
its utmost intensity, and made a historical achievement
for the possession of mankind in the moment of His
death on the Cross. That moment was significant as
the consummation of the long life of obedience through
suffering which the whole world had been always learn
ing. He, by His being chosen, appointed, educated in
a special place of eminence, had been fit to learn it in
a special manner. He had so learned it, for He, however
tempted, was yet without sin. That moment in history
marked the consummation of the ages (ix. 26). It was
(as the Lord had expected when " in great tumult at the
third hour of that day he ascended the Cross ") the " end
1 Cf. Bergson, V evolution criatrice, iii. p. 251 : "II n'est pas douteuxque
la vie, dans son ensemble, soit une evolution, c'est a dire, une transformation
incessante. Mais la vie ne peut progresser que par l'intermediaire des
vivants, qui en sont depositaires."
IO

146 The Epistle of Priesthood
of the world." And so quite naturally this priesthood is
recognized throughout the Epistle to be the priesthood
of the king, and in ch. xii., " A kingdom that cannot
be shaken " is substituted for the term priesthood. In
that moment, in that one unrepeatable offering, the
expected Kingdom of God came, the old order passed
away. Henceforth men have but to take the kingdom,
live in the indissoluble sacrificed life, be in their turn what
their Lord has been before them ; for the way of access
to God has now once for all been opened. It is " a new
and living way " ; there has been much that was like this
way before, but never itself; there will be much that falls
short of it in future, but never for the same reason as
before. Then it was the baffled striving of the imperfect
type, now the hindrance is the weariness of those who
forget. The way is open ; the priest has brought the
people near to God.
It is to be noticed how that expression of access to
God punctuates the Epistle. It closes the introduc
tory section, ch. iv. ; the digression in ch. vi. ; it comes
just before the end of the second division, ch. x. ; and
in a slightly altered form it ends the whole argument
in ch. xii. There is a twice-repeated phrase (ii. 17,
v. 1) which has been well translated, "on the Godward
side." That translation seems to sum up with excellent
terseness the whole character of this real priesthood
which the Epistle is engaged upon. Whenever any
moving power has been found " on the Godward side "
there has that priesthood been operating. The perfection
of our Lord's power was just that; it was always and
entirely and effectually on the Godward side.
But the difficulty in understanding the Epistle itself

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 147
arises so largely from the author having chosen to desig
nate this priesthood by another term. He calls it priest
hood " after the order of Melchizedek." It is not at first
sight obvious why priesthood " after the order of Mel
chizedek " should be a truer thing than priesthood after
the order of Levi or Aaron, and the single chapter (vii.)
in which he essays to give a formal proof of the
superiority of Melchizedek to Levi, and hence of the one
order of priesthood to the other, is just the one part of
the Epistle which seems least satisfactory to us. It is
indeed more like the ingenuity of Philo than anything
else in the Epistle, and if we are to make good use of it
we have to remember how different are the forms of
logical process in different ages, and how, in a document
belonging to another period than our own, we must often
break through the now inconclusive logic to reach the
remarkable idea. And often this is the more necessary
just in proportion as the idea is remarkable, because a
commanding mind is apt to outrun its contemporaries
in eccentricity, and so to cause more trouble to posterity
than commonplace authors do. Think of Dante; the
great idea of his De Monarchia ; the extraordinary fashion
of the argument which controls that idea. Another
instance in the New Testament of like logical disguise is
S. Paul's argument from the singular " seed," not " seeds "
(Gal. iii. 16). Somewhat less dryly logical, yet still
examples of a habit of thought alien to our minds are
many of the other quotations in the New Testament from
the Old Testament. Such again is the symbolism of the
Apocalypse, and we may venture to add of some of our
Lord's parables. In all these the meaning is clear, and
the true, underlying argument easy to discern, but too

1 48 The Epistle of Priesthood
strict attention to the surface argument is mischievous.
And so in this chapter of our Epistle it is necessary to
break the shell of a few verses, and by help from the
context to get at once to the meaning beneath them.
Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek ; Levi was in
Abraham's loins, therefore Levi gave tithes ; therefore
Levi is less than Melchizedek — all this is another way
of saying what is said more plainly elsewhere, that the
Levitical priesthood is unimportant in comparison with
priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. But as this
chapter is but one of thirteen, so these dry verses are but
a very few out of the whole chapter. The rest of the
chapter is full of direct and striking utterances, such as
¦' another priest ariseth who hath come not according to
a law of carnal ordinance but according to the power of
endless life," and " the bringing in of a better hope where
by we draw nigh to God." And the dry logic itself is
introduced more artistically than pedantically — it is not
pressed to wearisomeness, but comes as a light, half-
playful touch — to provide a suitable setting for the
reference to Melchizedek. For that reference, though
academic in strict form, is far from merely academic to
the careful reader. Far from merely academic, for what
could be more suitable to the main purpose? The
author has in his mind a priesthood which is universal,
has been in the world from the beginning, and possesses
an unbroken life of growth running up at last into the
perfect achievement of our Lord Jesus Christ. In
Genesis he found a record of a king-priest not of Israel's
race, who was nevertheless recognized by the founder of
Israel, and is entitled by the author of Genesis " Priest
of God most high." He blessed Abraham, that is he

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 149
stood on his Godward side ; through him, on that day in
the far-off beginnings of the world's history, Abraham
drew near to God. The author has also to shew that
this ancient, abiding, universal priesthood has never been
superseded by the Levitical, but has gone on side by side
with it, and at last outstays the aged and worn-out
Levitical institution. And ready for his purposes he found
a Psalm in which a later king of Israel is hailed priest
after the order of Melchizedek. The narrative in Genesis
and the appeal to it in the later Psalm give him the
illustration, the argument, above all the name he wants,
and he describes this priesthood as Priesthood after the
order of Melchizedek.
He finds further suggestion in the solemn language
of the Genesis narrative. Melchizedek there comes
suddenly upon the scene, with no mention of father,
mother, or family, of origin or end ; suddenly he comes,
suddenly he passes out of sight again. His name and
the name of his city have significant meanings. There
is just as much or as little authority for pressing these
philological significances as for pressing the suddenness
and silence. He chooses to press both. He finds here
a picture of one who is " made like unto the Son of
God," a symbol of the divine, the living, the eternal.
And this helps us to understand how he judged of
the historical value of the narrative. It is not the only
place in the Epistle where we are tempted to suppose
that he looked upon the Old Testament with something
not unlike our modern critical eye — a habit which was
beginning to be shocking to the Pharisaic party of the
Jews, but which Hellenists did not condemn, nor did the
Christian Church for some centuries yet. We nowadays

150 The Epistle of Priesthood
discuss Gen. xiv. a good deal. The result of our dis
cussions is perhaps this. Some details in the narrative
appear to be unhistorical. There is no proof that the
whole, taken generally, is not historical, and no sub
stantial evidence can be alleged against the historical
character of the Melchizedek incident. Yet the whole
is a somewhat shadowy sketch of things that happened
in dim antiquity, and we read it more as legend than as
history in the strict sense of the term. So to the author
of Hebrews the point of interest seems to be the picture
which he finds in his national records of a foreign king-
priest which — the picture rather than the man — stands
out as a remarkable type of eternal priesthood. The
stress he lays is on silences and suggestions, not on plain
deeds or words ; Melchizedek " stands there in pictured
resemblance to the Son of God." Dr. Cheyne believes
that both in Genesis and in the Psalm the very name
Melchizedek is due to corruption in the text ; there was a
time in the composition and transmission of record and
of poem when this person who had no existence was also
without mention. Whatever criticism this writer knew,
it is not likely he had ever heard of that. But if he had,
it may be doubted whether it would have made much
difference to him. The picture would still be standing
in the record, the later Jews who used the Psalm would
still be appealing to it as witness to a more abiding
priesthood than that Levitical priesthood, " on the basis
of which the people observed the existing law" (vii. 11).
There might be matter for critical discussion, but the
authority of the canonical books and the mind of
Judaism would be still the same. And he would still
have a well-known, solemn, literary phrase to express

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 151
tersely what he meant by this eternal priesthood of
which he was writing.
For the author's passion for drawing from the Old
Testament is so necessary to be noticed if we would
understand this title. Critical reader though he may
have been, he used the Old Testament with the greatest
reverence and affection. This ch. vii. has some far
away reminiscences of Philo ; it is steeped in meditation
on the Old Testament itself. The author wanted a short
phrase, a label, for his idea of priesthood. "~ None
would suit him but one that came from his Scriptures.
Hence he chose this : " after the order of Melchizedek."
There was good reason for his preference besides the
reason of reverence. The Old Testament is the only
record known to us which tells the history of the ancient
world with direct reference all through to the living
God. That direct reference makes no small part of
what we mean by its inspiration. Take that record
as a whole, and you see that it does recognize through
out a priesthood of the whole nation — and here and ¦*
there a larger priesthood still — running side by side with
the Levitical institution. The Chronicler, with his
particular Levitical enthusiasm, represents but one part
, of the whole national mind and literature. The phrase
here chosen was not just one out of many possible
phrases ; it sums up the whole larger history of priest
hood as the Old Testament preserves it. The phrase
has peculiar merits for all who consider the Old
Testament the best religious history of priesthood in
the ancient world.
In one sense of course we all do consider it so.
But there are many possible senses of the word " best."

152 The Epistle of Priesthood
We should hesitate to apply it here in the sense of
" most scientific." And in one way or another our
interests have become so widened and distracted that
even so good a phrase from so good a book does not
at once explain itself to us. If a translation of " priest
hood after the order of Melchizedek" into modern
language might be risked, it might be rendered " natural
priesthood." Of course to a sacramentalist " what is
spiritual is natural, and what is most natural is most
spiritual." 1
Do we not see that there has been this "standing
on the Godward side " throughout all life ? Even in the
large sphere of nature outside man, a working upwards
has been always going on, and going on by that rule.
In spite of later modifications of the theory we may
still use the word " evolution " to describe this. The
Epistle hints at the same process when it says that
God appointed the Son heir of all things, and that by
God's decree He bears all things on to their destined
goal in Him for whom and through whom are all things
(i. 2, ii. 10). The same idea shews itself in xi. 3, "the
fitting together of the successive ages," only here the
history of man is in view ; it too is no mere congeries
of visible events, but one age has taken its place on
the Godward side of another and caused an onward
developement. Another developement has worked
1 Of course by "natural" I do not mean "physical." That epithet
belongs rather to the Levitical succession, which therefore breaks off short
of union with the spiritual Christ. I think "natural" the best word, for it
includes the hint of vaguer application to nature beyond the personal line
"man — God"; otherwise "voluntary" would almost do. Compare the
stress always laid by Nestorius on free-will, not compulsion (or logic), being
the bond or impulse of the sacrament of the Incarnation (of which this
priesthood is but one aspect).

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 153
especially by means of concentrated effort and appoint
ment. In the history of the world Israel has been set
on the Godward side of other nations, and within Israel
kings, prophets and priests have been appointed to be
on the Godward side of their people. As noticed above,
the artificial character of the Levitical institution did
not hinder good priests from exercising the true priest
hood, but they did this not because they were of the
tribe of Levi, but because, being of the tribe of Levi and
engaged in certain duties, they performed those duties
in the true manner, " through eternal spirit." It
is evident that many kings, prophets and priests did
very little of such true priestly work ; the best of them
did it imperfectly. But the imperfect efforts were more
than preparations for our Lord's perfect fulfilment;
they were themselves manifestations of that Christ of
whom the Old Testament is full. It is especially through
kings and prophets that the developement of this natural
priesthood is traced up to our Lord. And as a matter
of fact we do not find very many Levites in the Old
Testament conspicuous in that kind of service. Ancient
history and perhaps modern thought were supporting
this bold removal of the Levitical institution from the
line of true priestly life. But how bold it was. It
goes far beyond anything S. Paul had said about the
Law, and yet how much more easy it is to reconcile
with the Gospels than S. Paul. Of the Law our Lord
had said that not one jot or one tittle should pass away
till all was fulfilled. We can interpret that so as to
justify S. Paul, yet we are bound to admit that the
Judaic disciples had a case against him if they cared
to plead it. But for or of the Levitical priesthood how

154 The Epistle of Priesthood
little our Lord said at all. Here again we seem to see
a certain special connexion between this Epistle and
the Galilean days of the Lord's flesh. It is at least
as nearly " synoptic " as " Pauline."
One noticeable point in the matter is this : that in
the Old Testament as in the Epistle the finest acts of
priestly intercession on the Godward side were done
through suffering. The crown of them all, perhaps, is
that martyrdom which is so solemnly celebrated in
Is. liii., the .last of the four poems on the servant of
the Lord. Only in ix. 28, "to bear the sins of many,"
is there definite verbal reference to that passage in the
Epistle, but no sympathetic reader will doubt that to
its author, as to the other New Testament writers, that
passage was the key to the mystery of the Crucifixion, and
a glowing illustration of his priestly theory. But more
of this presently when we consider the priestly sacrifice.
For the present let us end by making briefly a
further translation of his language, and consider how
this principle of natural priesthood still operates. He
speaks of almsgiving and the offering of praise as the
Church's sacrifices (xiii. 1 5 f.), but there he seems to be
suggesting a kind of substitute for Jewish sacrifices, not
to be describing the general priestly service of the
Christian Church; he calls these "sacrifices," he would
hardly have called them our " sacrifice." He would no
doubt agree that in every branch and relationship of life
the faithful are united with their Lord, re-enacting in their
own place and time His priestly action on the Godward
side of those who are placed in their care, and doing
this with a perfect confidence and unaffectedness because
His one completed act of priesthood has taken private

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 155
doubt or pride out of theirs, and abides as foundation,
complement, and spirit, to make perfect what their
weakness mars. Thus the father is priest to his family ;
the colonel to his regiment ; the elder workman to the
boy who works under his direction ; the head of a
business firm to all employed therein ; the '"curate "
in his parish ; the king in his nation. All strong
persons exercise priesthood to weaker ones, though of
course strength is not only bodily strength, and many
most priestly lives are spent in sickness. And that
again reminds us how eminently a doctor is priest
in a sickroom, a sister or nurse in a hospital ward.
Is " priest " perhaps, rather than " a priest " ; just ,
as Christians are members of Christ, not severally
Christs — indeed it is remarkable how little is said about
what we call the " individual," under any aspect, in the
New Testament. The New Testament records the
experience of a family, and the second person singular
is seldom employed in apostolic grammar. The priest
hood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the
natural and universal priesthood of the ancient world.
It is the source of the general priesthood of the Christian
Church which is exercised in the " natural " callings of
its members, not only in what is commonly styled
church work. That is the doctrine of the whole New
Testament, not of this Epistle alone. So it might have
been expected to be, for it was already known as the
doctrine of the Old Testament, though there might be
parts of the Old Testament where it was obscured by
the more limited doctrine of the Levitical ministry.
Thus in 1 Pet. ii. 9, the Apostle takes up the words
of Ex. xix. which expressed the large ideal of pre-

156 The Epistle of Priesthood
Levitical Israel, and says to all his readers, " Ye are a
chosen race, a royal priesthood," and three times in the
Apocalypse are the faithful addressed generally as priests.1
That title " priest " is never applied in the New
Testament to the elders or bishops. In this Epistle
those terms are not used (" elders " in xi. 2 has another
sense) ; the word here for Church officers is " leaders "
(xiii. 7, 17), which, both in its simple and compound
Greek form, is used in Clement's Epistle. If it be asked
how the author applies his theory of priesthood to the
ministry of the Christian Church, the answer must be
that he does not say anything at all on that subject.
This omission cannot be quoted on any side as evidence
for the origin of that ministry. The Epistle is not a
general treatise on theology or on church discipline.
It was written to certain friends of the author to en
courage them to do a particular duty. For that purpose
he developes a particular view of the Person and work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and applies it to his friends'
trial. He adds nothing which would distract attention
from that appeal. Hence he has nothing to say about
the priesthood of the officers of the Church, nor about
the two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist. As
his doctrine of priesthood is larger than that special
application of it, so the altar of which he speaks in
xiii. 1 o is neither the Cross nor the " Lord's Table," but,
if the phrase be allowed, the whole altar of life. There
1 Hebrews, 1 Peter, and the Apocalypse form a group together in which
the priesthood of our Lord and His Church is part of the subject. But
in 1 Peter we have but a sketch of this analogy. The author passes
quickly from our Lord's sacrificial priesthood to His pastoral priesthood.
He bears men's sins on the Cross ; He fulfils Is. liii. ; His blood is
sprinkled ; He is bishop or overseer ; but chiefly He is the good Shepherd
of the Parables, dpxLwolp.T)v instead of apxiepefc.

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 157
are references in the Epistle to the two sacraments, as
there are to the officers of the Church. Behind the
letter there is a background of church life with a
ministry and sacraments. It has been argued by those
who have a right to speak on the matter that ministry
and sacraments were closely connected from the first,
and that the " Episcopate " grew out of the need for a
president at celebrations of the Holy Communion. It is
therefore more than likely that the " leaders " whom the
author bids his friends to reverence were engaged, in
their supreme function, upon the ministry of the sacra
ments. But he says nothing about this. From this,
the most sacramental and priestly book in the New
Testament, nothing can be drawn for the filling up
of the history of special priesthood and sacrament.
Naturally its priestly phraseology has been found emi
nently fit for adaptation in the language of the litur
gies ; with still greater propriety its thought has been
borrowed to deepen the intention of these sacramental
services. But all this lies beyond its original purpose.
Had the author been asked what was the relationship of
the priesthood of the ministry to the priesthood of the
Lord, he would no doubt have answered that they were
all one; the ministers exercised their functions as part
of the Lord's priesthood. Yet perhaps the question
would have occurred to no one before they had read his
Epistle with its priestly analogy for the Lord's work of
salvation. As for the Eucharist, S. Paul had already
connected it — or used words which witness to the
Church's already connecting it — with the Lord's death.
In one place (1 Cor. v. 8) he had used a sacrificial
analogy for the Lord's death which may itself be a

158 The Epistle of Priesthood
witness to church feeling at the time, and may also have
been one of the suggestions from which the elaborate
analogy of this Epistle (with very altered terms) arose.
What is certain is that neither S. Paul nor this
writer would have separated the institutional functions of
the ministry from its pastoral functions, nor the ritual
communion in the sacrifice from the whole communion
of life in that same sacrifice. Both would have laid
stress on the union of priests' and worshippers' wills
with Christ's will in the will of God. One simple con
sideration will persuade us how little this lack of definite
instruction on the subject should affect our admiration
for the sincere churchmanship of this writer. The very
purpose of his letter was to prepare his friends, as he
was himself prepared, for the doing of a hard duty which
might quite probably involve martyrdom. That was the
way in which they were to share the priesthood and the
sacrifice of their Lord.
And this in ancient days was recognized as the
eminent and truest communion. We know the sacra
mental honour paid to martyrdom in the early Church.
Here is a Collect from the Leonian Sacramentary which
illustrates this reverence ; it shews also the salutary feeling
of later days of ease that the " sacrifice " which had once
been " unto blood " in its partaking might haply become
unreal to those who knew it only as " devotion " :
" Offerendorum tibi munerum Ds auctor et
dator praesta ut quod scis martyribus in persecutione
contulit claritatem nobis fiat in devotione praesidium
per." 1
1 Sacr. Leonianum, ed. Feltoe, p. 88. Another version is given on p. 90,
in which " hoc sacrificium singulare " has been interpolated before "quod."

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 159
O God, who art author and giver of the gifts to
be offered to Thee, grant that what to the holy
martyrs in persecution brought splendour may
become to us in devotion patronage and defence.
Cf. Life of Archbishop Benson, ii. p. 147. This would not affect the fitness
of the collect for my illustration, but it may be noticed as an example of the
narrowly defining tendency which is so conspicuously absent from the Epistle
to the Hebrews.

CHAPTER VI
Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek :
the Sacrifice
(i.) "On the Godward side'' describes part of priesthood— The description
is completed by "apart from shedding of blood there is no remission"
— The treatment of sin by cleansing is a characteristic idea of the priestly
books of Old and New Testament — In this Epistle, as in Leviticus,
cleansing is effected by blood, which signifies life enriched by death —
For death was an important part of ceremonial sacrifice — and in real
sacrifice men have spent their own lives for the cleansing and renewing
of life — That involves death, i.e. the losing of self to share a larger self.
(ii.) Levitical imagery is used to describe the union of the believer with
Christ — Whose abiding life is vouched for by the tradition of the Church
interpreted with reverence and confirmed by experience — The appeal to
experience obscures the uniqueness of Christ — But if [that term be just it
must imply freedom to include men in Himself, not necessity to exclude
them — The supremacy of our Lord in the days of His flesh corresponds
to the paradox of the Gospel morality, and the argument of loyalty is
stronger than logic — But the days of His flesh were the passage to the
exalted life, which manifests itself in the moral progress of the world
and especially in its faculty for recovery — Christ's intercession is a con
tinuous process of creation, and His sacrifice is repeated in the will or
each believer.
We have examined the phrase, " after the order of
Melchizedek," and we have translated it into the modern
term, " natural priesthood." Whereas the Levitical
priesthood was a mechanical institution serving a par
ticular purpose of edification for a while, this natural
priesthood has been always at work throughout the
world and always must be. It is natural and universal,
and therefore stands in the line of eternal movement

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 6 1
towards God. Our Lord's work was the centre of this
movement. This natural priesthood in His work and
elsewhere too is a true type or sacrament of eternal
salvation. If we look at Him on earth we see Him
performing the visible sign of this sacrament. If we
think of Him " in heaven," we ought, in strict propriety,
to drop such figured language, since there the tran
scendent virtue of the sacrament is reached. But even
there the Epistle calls Him priest, and rightly. For if
we utterly cast away sacramental imagery, we cannot
think of heavenly things at all. And our Lord in
carrying His manhood into the heart of the Godhead
has allowed us to pursue Him thither with this inade
quate but not unreal language. Thus the author of the
Epistle cares for no subtler mode of describing His
exaltation and supreme achievement than by picturing
Him as Highpriest within the eternal sanctuary which
He has entered through the veil by the way fresh-slain
and living of His flesh,1 and he says that if He were but
on earth He would not be priest at all ; the use-and-
wont of Levitical ordinances would leave no room for
His supremacy (viii. 4). It is not, we see, his criticism
of books or history that has overthrown the Levitical
tradition, but the spiritual act of Christ in His taking
up of manhood into God, and so making it impossible
for the divine priesthood to endure its mechanical rival
any longer among men.
The spiritual act of Christ, i.e. the act of His
death; one sacramental act, whatever sacramental
margin of teaching, example, memory, may have pre
pared or followed it. In this act He offered His
1 See Westcott on x. 20,

1 62 The Epistle of Priesthood
sacrifice. Any description of His priesthood would
be worse than imperfect which stopped short of the
sacrifice. We have indeed touched upon this already,
but it still remains to consider it at length.
We have thought of priesthood as an influence upon
the Godward side, and saw that through all the history
of the world this priestly influence had been at work,
till at last it reached its perfect manifestation in our
Lord Jesus Christ. And when we asked why the mani
festation in Him was perfect and in no one before Him,
we found ourselves shut up (as far as our observation of
things on earth could go) to the argument of His sin
lessness. But we did also notice that in all history the
greatest acts of influence on the Godward side had been
connected with suffering, and that our Lord was pre
eminent in His suffering. And this prepares us to consider
the fulfilment of priestliness in sacrifice, of His priestli-
ness in sacrificial death. In our study of priesthood
the phrase, " on the Godward side," gives a title to the
first series of thought, but for the second we have, " apart
from shedding of blood there is no remission " (ix. 22).
Priesthood is no mere influence. It is gallant and
generous. The priest stands ever giving rather than
receiving, offering gifts and sacrifices, and his ultimate
offering must always be his own life.
There was nothing about this in Melchizedek. Yet
Melchizedek appeared upon a troubled scene of violence
and rapine and war — a king of righteousness from the
city of peace, offering mystical gifts to Abraham who
made peace by victory in war. This comparison is not
drawn out in the Epistle, but the thought underlies the
whole of it, " Now the God of peace who brought again

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 163
from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep in the
blood of an eternal covenant." So that collect begins
in which argument is summed up. It is because of the
war and violence, the struggle, stain, and sin of the
world that sacrifice must mean death. Throughout this
Epistle the weight of sin is in the balance with the death
of Christ. We almost wish it were not so. We turn
again and again to the Synoptic Gospels, because this
oppression is not so felt in them. It is indeed not our
Lord's own isolated sinlessness which evokes so strong
a sense of the divine in these Gospels, but even more
the dissolving effect of His character upon sin. There
are indeed sins and cruel enmities in the Synoptic
Gospels, but they never dominate the clearer life that
shines throughout them. In the presence of the Son
of Man His holiness does away with some sins, softens
some hardness, and everywhere lights up an ineffable
hope in the goodness of God's purpose. We see love
conquering, and we are sure that even its failures cannot
be part of the eternity of things.
So He, whose earthly life was the perfect sacrament
of Godhead, could look upon the ruining world which
He did not doubt He would save. It was not meet
that even the best of His disciples should see things so
steadily and whole. In S. Paul, " the spirit is willing
but the flesh is weak," becomes " the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh " ; the weak
friend has become an enemy to prevent us doing the
things that we would (Gal. v. 1 7). And this harsher view
of life runs through the rest of the New Testament. It is
well that is so. Else the New Testament would not be
the real book it is to us, " This world that presses upon

164 The Epistle of Priesthood
us with all its evil " does press upon us. The Apostles
acknowledge it and open glimpses of the holy world of
peace within the outward struggle. The Synoptic
Gospels assure us that these glimpses are not glamour
but true, for in their simplicity (which no unfamiliar
modes of Jewish thoughts can impair) we move at
large in that other world. No wonder this author looks
back with affection and reverence on those days of the
flesh. If he had not seen them, or even read of them,
he had heard of them, especially in quiet hours of
worship, and he recognized in them the eternal sanctuary,
the sabbath rest, the heavenly city, of his imaginative
dreams. But from those dreams he returned, refreshed with
hope and knowledge, to rescue some friends who were
still struggling in that outer world where sin and death
ruled ; sin and death which were tangled together in a
seeming hopelessness of evil, but which could be ex
tricated and set one against the other, so that death
should make life and cleanse sin.
Of all the words which have been used to express
the divine action upon sin, " cleansing " is the one which
this Epistle prefers. This helps us to assign its author
to his class in the sacred writers. Among the many
cross divisions which may be made in the books of the
Old and New Testament this is one : those that deal
with sin by repentance stand on one side, those that deal
with sin by cleansing on the other. To the first class
the earlier prophets belong. Amos, Micah, Isaiah, rebuke
their people's sins, and bid them cease from sin and do
righteousness. Sin with them is injustice, and their
message is that God bids the sinner turn, and in turning

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 165
he shall find life. In the main S. Paul follows those
prophets. So did our Lord in the parable of the
Prodigal, and perhaps in His teaching generally. Of
course both He and S. Paul go deeper, yet even so this
doctrine does not satisfy all consciences. For there are
sinners who feel the stain even more than the chain of
past sin, and who cry not so much for the freeing as for
the cleansing of their conscience. For such our Lord
took thought when he said to the sick man, " Son, thy
sins are forgiven." And among the apostolic writings
the Johannine books, and Hebrews and to some extent
1 Peter, belong to this class. In the Old Testament we
find traces of this manner of thought in the imperfect
records we have of early priesthood. It is probable
from the analogy of the history of other creeds, that if
we knew more of this early priestly thought we should
find it tinged with superstitious gloom but instinct with
a germ of inestimable truth. What we do actually
find is that it emerges at about the time of the exile in
a pure and deeper theology, in which sacrifice for sin,
cleansing through blood, is the promise of a lofty spiritual
hope. Ezekiel reaches out a hand on either side.
"When the wicked man turneth away from his wicked
ness and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall
save his soul alive," is in the old prophetic style. " I
will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean :
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I
cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you," is priestly, and the words
about the new heart shew how the elaboration of the
sacrificial system at the end of his book is to be under
stood. The mere rules, the rubrics, of those chapters are

1 66 The Epistle of Priesthood
a sketch of the completer rubrics of Leviticus, and lay
down the lines of mechanism for the Levitical priesthood
which (whatever its origin and earlier history) did appear
prominently and effectually in Israel after the Captivity.
But the spiritual faith of Ezekiel also runs on in
Leviticus, and makes one of those connecting links
we found ourselves bound to recognize between the
Levitical artificiality and the eternal mind of priest
hood. We owe more than we can ever repay to the great
German critics who have arranged the tangled records of
Old Testament history and made God's revelation of
himself through that real history so living. But they did
perhaps exaggerate the spiritual eminence of the early
" puritan " prophets in comparison with the ceremonial
mode of expression which the later prophets and the
more priestly writers preferred. The balance begins
already to be redressed. We learn that the post-exilic
age was far from being a barren tract of legalism. On
the contrary, it was a broad and various age in which the
devotion of the Psalter, the thoughtful wisdom books,
new kinds of prophecy, and the fervour of apocalypse
interplayed with ritual enthusiasm. And all this varied
evidence of living faith part sprang from and part moulded
a deeper purer creed than any Israel had known before
Nor may we separate the ritual, Levitical spirit itself
from this living growth. We forget sometimes that
Leviticus is but a prayer-book without the prayers. It
is a set of rubrical directions for divine services which
had much in them strange or even offensive to us
When we remember the shambles in the Temple, or
when we look at Holman Hunt's picture of the scape-

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 167
goat, we begin to estimate how much we owe to the
author to the Hebrews for so boldly freeing us from this
ugly ritual of blood and suffering. Yet there is some
thing real behind that ritual ; tragic rather than ugly we
might call it. And in Lev. xvii. we get something better
than a rubric. We get an explanation of this tragic
theology, shewing how a true doctrine of sacrifice was
perhaps evolved from a primitive custom of taboo ; at
any rate declaring the true doctrine, and something near
the very mind of God.
" And whatsoever man there be of the house of
Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that
eateth any manner of blood ; I will set my face against
that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from
among his people."
So far the primitive taboo ; then follows the Judaic
theology —
" For the life (or soul) of the flesh is in the blood : and
I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement
for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh atonement
by reason of the life (or soul)."
If the old puritan prophets led the way to the parable
of the prodigal Son, this tragic theology led the way to
fiercer apocalyptic enthusiasm, to our Lord's venture of
His life upon the Cross for the people, and to the ex
planation which S. Paul, our author, and the whole
apostolic Church gave of the Cross. S. Paul of course
comes forward here. If he has characteristics which
distinguish him from the priestly class of New Testament
writers he is not separated from them. These lines of
distinction are always apt to fade, for they are but
artificial. The harmony of the New Testament is more

1 68 The Epistle of Priesthood
remarkable than its differences. It is like a mind which
gathers thought from many other minds, and grows by
gathering, yet holds those thoughts in a unity. The
Levitical theology has certainly some affinity with S.
Paul. In particular this " Pauline " idea should be
noticed in the passage of Leviticus : that so far from
God requiring himself to be propitiated, it is God who
gives the blood for atonement of men's souls. God's
mind to men is always good ; it is their mind towards
Him that needs changing. But this doctrine is only
called Pauline because S. Paul asserted it so strongly
against pagan and popular religion. It is the doctrine
of Old Testament and New Testament throughout. It
is the doctrine of what Ewald calls " the true religion,"
that faith of Christ which according to this Epistle was
in the world even before Jesus was born.
What is " atonement '' or " propitiation " ? In
Hebrews the Greek words are rare which seem to belong
strictly to that idea. The author's favourite words are
those connected with " purifying " or " cleansing." Herein
he differs from the general usage of the Septuagint, but
it is possible that he preserves the true idea of the
Hebrew ritual word. That Hebrew word is generally
explained as meaning " to cover." It is used with " sins "
as its object and with persons — one " covers '' a man's
face with a gift. Some think that the primitive idea in
its ritual use was the like " covering " of God's face.
But there is no clear instance of that usage in the Old
Testament ; if it was primitive, the true faith has cor
rected it. But material objects such as " altar " are also
found, and " cover " hardly seems to fit them. Dr. Driver
says, " in actual usage, the primary sense of covering

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 69
was probably altogether forgotten." 1 A proposal, how
ever, has been made to connect the Hebrew term with a
Babylonian ritual word which signifies " cleanse." 2 This
explanation would suit all the ritual or theological usages
in the Old Testament, and would bring this Epistle into
close relationship with them. For its author at any rate
" atonement " is mainly " cleansing." Priesthood is for
him a cleansing office, as it was for Keats —
" The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores."
And for him, as in Leviticus, this cleansing is effected
by blood. " How much more shall the blood of the
Christ cleanse your consciences from dead works to
serve the living God." A strange idea to us, but
Leviticus again shews how to understand it. The life is
in the blood ; the blood is the life, it says. And we do
not grasp the vigour of the passage till we notice that in
the Hebrew there is but one word for " life " and " soul."
Life is given by God to cleanse life, soul to cleanse soul.
The important thing is not that the Hebrews had strange
ideas about blood, derived from barbarous ancestors
perhaps, but that they had such large and daring ideas
about life. About life, not so much in merchant's
phrase about its value as about its power. To a Christ,
sprung from that race, a life offered for love and hope
and obedience' sake might well seem powerful for salva
tion. The force of this thought may be partly felt if we
substitute " life " for " blood " in those passages of the
Epistle where the word occurs : " Through his own life
1 Deuteronomy, in International Critical Commentary, pp. 425 f.
2 See Enc. Biblica, art. " Ritual," § 8.

1 70 The Epistle of Priesthood
he entered once for all into the sanctuary, having found
eternal redemption " (ix. 12); " the life of the Christ,
who through eternal spirit offered himself without spot to
God, shall cleanse our conscience from dead works to
serve the living God " (ix. 1 4). The connexion thus
becomes impressive between the blood which is the life
and the " dead works," " the living God," and the repeated
" eternal." So, too, we perceive how appropriate is the
phrase " not by a law of carnal ordinance but by a power
of indissoluble life " (vii. 16). And we think of the Lord's
words in S. John's Gospel, " I came that they might
have life, and have it more abundantly " (x. 1 o).
Yet those Johannine words are followed immediately
by, " I am the good shepherd ; the good shepherd
layeth down his life for the sheep." There is nothing
there, any more than in this Epistle, about death being
a punishment or a price paid. But the truth is very
strongly expressed that this abundant life can only
come through death, and that death, the death of the
shepherd for the sheep. The former idea is implied in
the " indissoluble '' of Heb. vii. 1 6 ; this life is one that
has passed through the shock of death and yet is not
dissolved by it. The latter had been already suggested
in Leviticus by the sentence, " And I have given it upon
the altar," etc., and it runs all through the Epistle.
Men's participation in it, their response to the divine
generosity, the effectiveness of it all in their lives, is
declared by the Lord in the Synoptic Gospels : " Who
soever wills to save his own life shall lose it. And
whosoever shall lose his own life for my sake and the
gospel's shall save it." In recognizing life as -the main
principle of sacrificial cleansing, we must not take any-

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 7 1
thing away from the reality of sacrificial death. The
visible act of slaying sheds the blood and so sets it free
for ritual sprinkling and offering. The spiritual act of
voluntary death sets free true life for its highest service.
But if we believe in that high service we must be obsti
nate to believe also in the reality of death. We shall
not understand the sacrificial doctrine of our Epistle if
we substitute for " blood " simply " life," but it may help
us if we sometimes substitute " life enriched by death,"
and then restore the word " blood," in order to feel
vividly what a terrible thing death is, how mysteriously
bound up with pain and that still obscurer trouble sin.
It is necessary to dwell somewhat laboriously on
this point, because it has been rather forgotten in the
reaction against the long-continued interpretation of this
sacrificial Epistle in terms of the price paid. That
interpretation certainly dominated the Middle Ages and
lasted on into our own.1 It was itself based on an
exaggeration of one side of S. Paul's teaching. It made
our Epistle a metaphorical repetition of that teaching,
and so aided the popular confusion of Hebrews with the
Pauline canon. To some extent it still exercises a
sway even upon critical minds, and hinders them from
recognizing the originality of the Epistle. A protest
was made against it by the Arminians and Socinians of
the sixteenth century, but it was Westcott's commentary
which finally proved its perversity. When he wrote, the
researches of Robertson Smith and others before him
had discovered much of the root ideas of Semitic sacrifice.
This new knowledge was in the air, but perhaps affected
1See Menegoz, La Thtologie de V&pitre aux Hibreux, ch. vii., Influence
theologique de l'Epitre.

172 The Epistle of Priesthood
Westcott indirectly. What gave him his power was his
intimate sympathy with S. John. He came to Hebrews
with a heart full of the Johannine hope in life, and
found the same hope here, though somewhat differently
expressed, and he so insisted upon it in his commentary
that we can never read the Epistle in any other sense
again, even though vague recollections of the earlier
interpretation hang about us.
But Westcott's disciples have been apt to simplify
his complex mysticism by hardening his outlines and
omitting part of his thought. Westcott did recognize
the reality and importance of death as the chanrfel of
life. He has been corrected — whether mistakenly or not
— in his interpretation of v. 7. He writes : " The phrase
covers two distinct ideas, ' to save from physical death so
that it should be escaped,' ' to bring safe out of death
into a new life.' In the first sense the prayer recorded
in Joh. xii. 27 was not granted, that it might be granted
in the second." The hasty literalist rejects the second
interpretation as being an unnatural meaning to give to
ordinary words ; the hasty disciple seizes on the second
interpretation as being consonant to Westcott's doctrine
of life. But Westcott himself recognized both meanings,
both have their place in the doctrine of the Epistle, and
he knew that his author would enjoy the subtle Virgilian
use of one select phrase to convey a twofold thought.1
'Professor Bethune Baker says of Nestorius (Nestorius, p. 174): "He
cannot find any peace of mind in the fog, or golden haze, whichever we
prefer to call it, of the ambiguous phrase which half conceals and half reveals
the truth he sees so clearly. " This is of course said in a different connexion
from the remarks above. But I have quoted Nestorius so often to illustrate
the Epistle in spite of the prejudice against him (which it seems to me
Professor Bethune Baker successfully removes) that it may be worth while
adding this : Nestorius is generally in harmony with our author, but he does

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 173
At any rate this is one of many places where Westcott
shewed that the thought of the power of indissoluble
life did not displace in him the complementary thought
of death as the means of life. It has, since he wrote,
sometimes tended to do so. And Westcott's own argu
ment receives adjustment of emphasis from later studies
in the Gospels. Other things as well as that apocalyptic
view which we noticed in an earlier chapter have recalled
our attention to the sacramental limitations of the days of
our Lord's flesh. But the apocalyptic view in particular
has shewn how our Lord's heroic will operated mainly in
the sphere of suffering and through actual physical death ;
we perceive that the spiritual possibilities of His act are
diminished if we forget the physical facts at all. Part of
the reason for which we recognize the supreme signifi
cance of the Crucifixion certainly lies in this : it was so
awful. The analogy of Levitical sacrifices points in the same
direction. Westcott notices that nothing is said in the
Old Testament about the suffering of the victim. But
there seems little significance in that omission, since
these passages are generally but rubrical directions. It
is true that the callousness to such suffering rather
surprises us in all sacrificial references, e.g. in the classical
poets ; and it must also be remembered that in a well-
ordered sacrifice the suffering of the victim would be
small; some people might observe with almost equal
surprise the callousness with which we to-day consider
sometimes clarify or harden, "whichever we prefer to call it," what the
Epistle expresses more largely and poetically ; and so far there is a presump
tion that the Epistle may sometimes be the more orthodox. But this com
parison might be made between the New Testament generally and later
writers,

1 74 The Epistle of Priesthood
the preparation of butcher's meat. Since most sacrifices
did indeed end in a feast, this last consideration is not so
impertinent as it might appear. Still there is the
difference that the sacrifice was a religious ceremony,
and being so, it must have invested with solemn awe
even the painless death of the victim. When the blow
was struck its visible life was irrevocably cut short.
However faith might declare that the streaming blood
was still its life, and that the sequent operations with
this blood were higher uses of life than could have been
enjoyed while in the body, nevertheless strange thoughts
would occur; the awful sense of the unknown darkness,
the feeling of pity, and in those modern times in which
our author wrote the oppression of doubt. Was, after
all, this physical blood, so helpless in the hands of the
priest, life ? Was there, after all, any virtue — even in its
appeal to the mental feelings — in such make-believe?
At first there was the awe and pity of faith ; later there
was the sadder pity of doubt, pity for a wasted life.
And then it was high time to sweep it all away. A
wasted life could be no sacrifice ; it could be nothing but
a dark shadow, with the one consoling quality that it was
but a shadow and would pass away when the true light
filled the world.
And so once more we turn away from Levitical
analogies. Again they have done all they can do for
us by supplying a language in which real thought may
be expressed. We turn to the living history of men in
which real life has been willingly spent for the purifying
and renewing of life. And there we see that this has
always been achieved at the cost of real life, which how
ever has not been wasted or destroyed, but has itself

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 175
flourished more gloriously by its renunciation. Every
one can find examples for himself from history, or
probably in the circle of his own age and acquaintances.
Ch. xi. in the Epistle is mainly a list of such examples.
To take one where the language emphasizes this point
— Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Here the renunciation
was made, and though the act of son-slaughter was
hindered, nevertheless the sacrifice was recognized as
sacrifice, and if there was no reality of bloodshed there
was all the reality of mental suffering and victory. Or
the prophets might be taken, all of whom renounced
everything that might seem worth living for; Jeremiah,
for instance, who left the old paths of sacerdotal order
and the quiet paths of scholarship, and stood in public
gaze as a new-fangled Puritan, a free thinker, and a
traitor to his country. There was no reality of blood
shed here, though he came very near even to that ;
doubtless that kind of reality would have been a far
easier death to Jeremiah than the spiritual death he
did endure. But there was no waste, though it was an
essential part of the reality of his service that all should
seem wasted in his own day. As far as common glory
goes he has received a hundredfold more now in this
present world than Homer or Aeschylus or Plato or
Virgil. And as for eternal life, that was just what his
renunciation did give to Israel at the very moment
when all seemed lost. And in like season of crisis his
gospel has still renewed life, as we see, for instance, in
this Epistle; Jeremiah's doctrine of the New Covenant
is quoted at length (viii. 8-12) as containing the source
of life when the old and worn out ordinance was nigh
unto passing away,

176 The Epistle of Priesthood
Some have thought that the poem of the suffering
servant (Is. liii.) was originally a celebration of the
life and sacrifice of Jeremiah. If it indeed was written
by the " great unnamed " of the exile, this may well
be. If so, we can hardly doubt that the poem refers
to his actual and physical death as a martyr. Dr.
Kennett believes it is a later piece, and refers it to
the nation which had just come through its martyr
struggle with the Maccabees, and by its terrible sufferings
had found a new life not for itself alone but for the
world outside as well. He believes, though he hardly
proves, that this missionary hope was not thought of
before those later days. He believes too that the
nation must be meant and no particular man, because
even in Maccabean days the idea of a particular man's
life continuing and growing after death had not been
heard of. The author of Hebrews, who read 2 Maccabees,
judges otherwise about this, and it might be argued that
the end of Daniel justified his judgement. And indeed
it seems by no means clear that such a faith was unfelt
by pious Israelites at a much earlier time. " Unfelt " ;
for it would have been no clear-cut dogma of resurrection
and judgement to come such as Daniel contains, but a
mystical conviction of indissoluble life in God, a mystical
conviction free from the perplexities which modern or
even post-exilic notions of personality have brought in.
But is not such a mystical conviction sufficient to explain
the language of Is. liii. ? And if so, need we be anxious
for our present purpose about the date, authorship and
historical foundation of the passage? It is with this
passage as we saw it was with the narrative of
Melchizedek, There the historical basis mattered little,

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 177
here the precise historical base matters little. The record
stands as a picture of true priesthood or true sacrifice.
Behind it, whenever it was written, lie the life and
death of actual men who have endured real martyrdom.
Their love and heroism is interpreted in the light of
God's character by one who knew God well. He threw
his whole meditation into a dramatic form and pictured
a particular martyr. And the picture shews just this,
that true, spiritual, eternal life comes forth from the
caverns of death, and when it comes forth it comes
for others : " unless the grain of wheat fall into the
earth and die, it remaineth by itself alone ; but if it die
it beareth much fruit" (S. Joh. xii. 24).1
But though suffering is part of the reality of sacrifice,
it is only such as being one of the most frequent
opportunities for the action of will and love. Sacrifice
is the supreme act of life, and it implies far more than
can be adequately described as suffering. What is
1 For another explanation of the "Servant Songs" see Cheyne, The
Mines of Isaiah Re-explored, pp. 27-33. He finds in these passages an
ancient myth deepened and corrected by later inspiration, which was however
unconscious of the origin of its material. ' ' The Divine Guardian of Israel "
had been in the most ancient faith a "mythical" Person, rudely conceived
but always divine, "a god friendly to man, who for man's sake subjected
himself to death, but came to life again — a tale of mystic meaning, told and
retold in the sanctuaries to the devotees." This may have been applied to
faithful Israel, but the application scarcely fits. "If in later Judaism Israel
itself was said to have pre-existed, that can only have been due to a
deepening of the conception of God, who was now thought of as enfolding
Israel, and all who recognized the true God, in the depths of His Being.
It was a step in this direction that Israel acknowledged in its Guardian not
any transient angelic being, but a Divine Person, whose being was not
terminable so soon as the need for His services had ceased, but was as
necessary and endless as that of the Lord Yahweh Himself."
Dr. Cheyne's imaginative erudition suggests the possibility of combining
mystical enthusiasm with historical experience in the intense expectation of
these truly Messianic poems.
12

1 78 The Epistle of Priesthood
surrendered when life passes through death? In the
Analogy (I. i.) Butler says that death is certainly the
destruction of our " present powers of sensation," but
probably neither the destruction nor the suspension of
our " present reflective powers." Readers of Shelley
will remember how much of his poetry is almost like
a commentary upon that passage. What are those
reflective powers which are or have become independent
of the bodily organization ? Shelley is always very
honest about that question, and his unshaken faith in
immortality has been misjudged in consequence. But
there can be no doubt that his hope for the life that
survives is high ; that life is alone life to him. Some
times he describes it in such conventional language as
vivid description demands. Sometimes he goes beyond
this and dissolves into uncertain phrases which have
earned him the reproach of inconsistency and pantheism.
He seems however to be feeling after a quite scriptural
idea which may be put in this way : that when we speak
of God as Person we mean something larger, more
inclusive, than any conception we can develope of a
person in this state of limitations. Such is S. Paul's
idea in his hope for the end, " that God may be all in
all." Now whatever this may imply, we are of course
assured by our faith in God's purpose as absolutely
good, that it implies increase not decrease of such
eternal affections as love. Hence Shelley's other, more
figurative, language is justified so far as it is calculated
to serve this faith, and our simple hopes of recognition
of one another in the eternal world are justified when
they express our self-forgetting love. Indeed it may
be, as some have held, that our present limited con-

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 179
ception of ourselves as persons is the highest and most
far-reaching conception of life and love that can be
used even for philosophical purposes. Only S. Paul's
phrase does not appear quite to support that view.
And it is obvious that this limited conception is apt
to spoil our best affections by importing something
selfish into our love and hope.1 Hence our Lord's words
about losing life for His sake if we would indeed find
it come in to reinforce and explain S. Paul. The Greek
word for life or soul may often be best translated by
" self," and real death, from which springs enriched life,
seems always to involve the ridding from the idea of
" person " the corroding element of " myself." " I live,
yet not I ; Christ liveth in me " : again and again we
return to that central confession of Paulinism — Paul-
aCf. Von Hiigel, The Mystical Element of Religion, ii. p. 195 f. : "It
is not worth while to attempt to rescue, Aristotle-wise, just that single,
and doubtless not the highest, function of man's spirit and character, his
dialectic faculty, or even his intellectual intuitive power, for the purpose
of thus escaping, or at least minimizing, the difficulties attendant upon the
belief in Immortality. If we postulate, as we do, man's survival, we must
postulate, without being able to fill in or to justify any details of the scheme,
the survival of all that may or does constitute man's true and ultimate per
sonality. How much or how little this may precisely mean ... we evidently
know enough to be confident that it means more than the abstractive, in
creasingly dualistic school of Plato, Philo, Plotinus, Proclus would allow."
Mr. Streeter (Foundations, p. 132) finds satisfactory expression of "the
survival of a full and distinct personality " in Tennyson's lines :
" Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside ;
And I shall know him when we meet."
Certainly no hope- of Immortality is a hope for less than that knowledge.
But "form" and "knowledge" seem too parallel with the "dialectic
faculty," "the intellectual intuitive power," to be quite adequate ex
pressions. The larger hint is given by Tennyson in his "Christ that is to
be. " " Enough to be with Him " said a wise man once when such speculation
was going on. The utmost reach of this hope has been marked by our
Lord's creative restoration of the Old Testament's mystical faith, "Into Thy
hands I commend my spirit — Father."

180 The Epistle of Priesthood
inism in expression, but in sense universal Gospel. In
this Epistle ch. x. expresses it in another way by its
teaching of Christ's will made one with the divine will,
and our own wills consecrated in that divine will also.
In the final collect there is the same idea ; Jesus learning
obedience ; Jesus Christ exalted by the will that has
been lost and found in the divine will ; the author at
peace because he has gone through the same transforma
tion ; his prayer for his friends that their will too may
be thus lost and found and they too enter into peace,
brought back from the dead in the life of eternal covenant.
And if these two passages are prominent examples of the
author's argument, the plain and definite purpose of the
whole letter is, from beginning to end, of like character.
Now here in this good will to lose all that may be
called self, and so not to lose true self, but gain a larger
self for others to share, we do find a spiritual reality in
our Lord's death which cuts it quite off from all likeness
to Levitical sacrifices, joins it with all noble sacrifice in
the history of men, and opens immense possibilities for
His faith and purpose in dying for men.
And is not this after all the spiritual essence of that
apocalyptic view of the Gospel which we have discussed ?
It may reveal unexpected limitations in our Lord's
historical environment. The more we meditate on the
whole Gospel the more we may hesitate to define those
limitations, and the more assuredly shall we adore the
love and faith and courage that transformed them into
glories. But there is no need to discover the whole of
the Messianic secret. We already see that to die in
order that God's Kingdom may come is the most com
plete laying down of all that is meant by self that we

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 8 1
can conceive. In the apocalyptic history of the Synop-
tists this sacrifice of selfhood is presented in that simple
manner. In the reflective reproduction of our Lord's
mind which we have in S. John's Gospel it appears in
another manner. " I am the way, the truth, and the life,"
said the Christ of the last discourses, when the going to
the Father was spoken off. Hort's Hulsean lectures
have forbidden us ever again to interpret that saying as
a mere metaphor for " I lead the way, I shew the truth,
I give the life." The " I am " is (so to speak where no
words are adequate) literal. Christ promises to be, claims
to be already, the principle and universal heart of all
history, thought, life. We recognize the claim as in
harmony with Nicene theology. We embrace it as an
answer to all misgiving and a power in all trial. But we
perhaps forget how all that we understand by " selfhood "
must be laid aside by One who would make such a claim
His own. It is indeed the welling up of tremendous life,
but it is also the veriest reality of death.
II
Let us recapitulate so far. The Epistle describes the
sacrifice of Christ in language borrowed from Levitical
use, but connects it in no other way with Levitical sacrifices.
They were not types fulfilled in His sacrifice. They were
shadows which pass away and leave nothing but a pictur
esque language behind them. As with the Godward-stand-
ing function of His priesthood, so with the sacrifice. The
types were the manifestations of it in history. These
had been imperfect ; but the same in kind. Those who
had offered such sacrifice — the suffering servant in Isaiah
is the pre-eminent example — offered themselves in their

1 82 The Epistle of Priesthood
own lives. The offeringwasmade byjneans of death which,
endured in all reality, set free their life, in larger reality
to serve their brethren ; to bring them to God. Bringing
into the presence of God is salvation in terms of sacrifice.
Standing on the Godward side and offering sacrifice are
not after all two functions of priesthood, but one process.
Sacrifice of life completes the standing on the Godward side. J
So far we have concentrated attention mainly on the
death through which the life is freed or enriched. We
go on to consider the enriched life itself. The death in
our Lord's supreme manifestation of sacrifice was the
death on the Cross. The author describes it, in Levitical
language, as a sacrifice in the most humiliating aspect
of sacrifice. When all the solemn ritual of the sin offering
was finished, the meaner parts of the victim were burnt
without the camp. So our Lord suffered without the
camp. His death was the off-scouring of a sacrifice
rather than a sacrifice itself in the Levitical sense. Thus
we are carried beyond the mere imagery. Thus there is
seen to be no Levitical sacrifice here at all. " We have
an altar " outside the institutional Temple or Tabernacle,
in the wide world of life itself, where the visible pains and
humiliation of men are the ritual of spiritual union with
God in Christ.
But this spiritual union is the partaking of the other
side of the sacrifice. It springs from Christ's life, set free
and enriched by His death. How does our Epistle help
us to believe in that life ?
Once more the language is borrowed from the worn-
out rites of the Tabernacle. Jesus entered within the
veil (vi. 19 f.), having made a new way through the veil
into the holy place (x. 1 9 f). He cleanses the heavenly

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 83
sanctuary and appears in the presence of God on our
behalf (ix. 23 f.). He has entered once for all into the
better and more perfect sanctuary, having found eternal
redemption (ix. 1 1 f.). He has been hailed by God on
His entrance as Highpriest after the order of Melchi
zedek (v. id). His offering has been made once for
all, but He remains in the divine presence, exercising a
priesthood which does not pass away, ever living to make
intercession for us (vii. 25 fit.).
Such are the liturgical formulae which are used to make
vivid pictures of this priestly life enriched by death.
But even in the references made there are phrases — like
eternal redemption — which go beyond the formulae. In
like manner other pictures are interspersed with the
Levitical ones, such as the repeated mention of the royal
throne on which Christ sits at the right hand of God, and
the unshaken kingdom which the faithful are receiving
from Him (xii. 28). And the passage on the covenant (ix.
1 5 ff.) is indeed connected with sacrifice, but goes beyond it.
All this reminds us that we are to understand this
picture-language reasonably, and are not to be limited
by the analogy in our meditation on the truth it only
helps to demonstrate. In the same way certain slight
inconsistencies are not troublesome but satisfactory, for
they point in the same direction, warning us against a
mischievous literalism. Thus our Lord is regularly
represented as having entered the heavenly sanctuary as
our forerunner, opening the way for us to follow, and the
Christian faith clearly must consist in following ; so long
as we remain outside we are not true Christians. Yet
the verse which speaks of His making intercession for us
seems rather to imply that His people are still outside,

184 The Epistle of Priesthood
and there is no doubt that the Epistle as a whole is a
" word of exhortation," urging to follow, not (as is
S. Paul's habit) claiming an already effected union. This
is partly due to the actual position of the men to whom
the letter was written — a particular knot of friends, with
a particular duty before them, which as yet they shrank
from doing. Yet closely as the author deals with them,
there is a wider outlook in his mind, and he seems to be
expecting a general trial, which will bring many waver
ing churchmen into the very place of peace. The cloud
of Jerusalem doomed hangs over this Epistle as it does
not hang over any of S. Paul's. So far the inconsistency
is so natural as to be hardly an inconsistency at all. But
in ch. ix. Christ is pictured as priest within the sanctuary,
and the people waiting for Him to come forth, when He
shall appear a second time without sin for salvation.
Here the idea is really different. Before we have had
Christ entering, His people to follow. Here we have
Christ entering, His people to wait for His coming forth.
The former is what ought to be the result of Levitical
sacrifices, though it is not, because they are not real. The
latter is indeed what takes place in Levitical sacrifices,
and it is represented as a proper thing. There is an
inconsistency here in the presentation of the truth itself,
and this is one which must continually force itself upon
us in actual life. The kingdom has come, yet we still
use the prayer " Thy kingdom come." We are " in
Christ," as S. Paul expresses our present state, yet we
expect Christ's coming. We believe in the communion
of saints, yet we also look for the resurrection of the
dead and the life everlasting. It is one of those
paradoxes which must always be accepted if we would

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 185
try to grasp truth which is truth indeed. Yet for this
author there is again a special reason for his twofold
point of view. We shall consider this more carefully in
another place, but we may say at once that the imminent
crisis of Jerusalem seems to put him in quite a peculiar
position among New Testament writers in respect to the
•' second coming " of the Lord.
Into that we do not go now. All we observe at
present is that these slight inconsistencies and varieties
of imagery warn us to pass beyond the imagery, and
consider, as we may, the truth which lies behind it.
That truth is the enriched, abiding, effective life of
the exalted Christ. And we must begin by asking what
reason we have for believing in such a life at all.
The author's first answer would evidently be that we
have the Church's tradition of the Resurrection. He
refers to this directly in his final collect (xiii. 20), "Now
the God of peace who brought again from the dead the
great shepherd of the sheep in the blood of an eternal
covenant, our Lord Jesus." The reference is clear in
itself, but becomes more forcible still when we compare
it with the saying recorded in S. Mk. xiv. 26 ff. and
S. Mt. xxvi. 30 ff., "when they had sung a hymn they
went out unto the mount of Olives. And Jesus saith
unto them, All ye shall be offended : for it is written, I
will smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after I am risen I will go before you into Galilee."
And besides this plain reference the whole Epistle is
founded on the tradition; every passage in which the Lord's
exaltation is celebrated presupposes His resurrection.
At the same time it must be observed that the
Resurrection is referred to only in general terms. Nothing

1 86 The Epistle of Priesthood
is said of the women going to the tomb and finding it
empty, nothing of any appearance of the risen Lord. It
might even seem that the author leaves no room for such
appearances, since his argument is that the sacrifice is the
entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, and that at the
very moment when Jesus died on the Cross, Jesus the
acknowledged Christ, hailed Highpriest, was exalted
above the heavens. To him resurrection and ascension
are all one. Is this evidence for an earlier tradition,
different from that in our Gospels ? It is unnecessary to
think so. The appearances might all be appearances of
the exalted Christ, as two in the Acts, to S. Stephen
and S. Paul, obviously were. And in a letter, which is
written for a special purpose, and is felt by its writer to
be too long already (xiii. 22), there was no obligation
to go at length into the narrative of the first Easter
morning. Nevertheless some readers of the Epistle will
feel that these omissions and modifications are significant.
Whatever the author's own mind was, the friends he
addressed were evidently men of limited belief, and he
(it might seem) spares them difficult problems as far as
he may. It is significant that he and they should desire
this sparing ; it is also significant that he should be able
to write thus without objection being raised. And
private though the letter may have been, his deference
to authority (x. 25, xiii. 17) and the early and admiring
use of his Epistle by S. Clement of Rome justify our
supposing that objection would not be raised to it.
Once more we are led to give thought to modern
difficulties, — the difficulties which are now so widely
felt about the Gospel narratives ; how the body of our
Lord was not found in the tomb, how S. Peter went into

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 187
the tomb and saw the empty grave clothes. These
difficulties have been treated as questions of evidence.
The evidence may be more or less strong for different
points in the narrative. Encouraged by the new
apocalyptic criticism of the Gospels, we shall be wise if
we recognize that even uncertain evidence may prove to
fit better than we expect into the whole story, and that
the strangeness of these assertions is by no means a good
argument for doubting them. But the question is not —
at least for us in our present-day stage of thought — a
question mainly of evidence, but rather one of interpre
tation, and of what must be called, for want of a better
term, religious philosophy. Accept the narratives as
they stand, and still we have to ask, what do they mean ?
Still we have to ask (as Dr. Sanday so often bids us ask),
if we with our modern ways of observation, of translating
the message that our senses give us, of describing
thought in words, — if we would have told the story just
as the evangelists told it. The fourth Gospel is in some
respects very modern (though in others still further
removed from our habits of thought than the synoptists),
and in some places we almost suspect that its author
has already begun to refine the interpretation of the
primitive report. He tells us for instance what S. Peter
saw in the tomb ; of the other disciple he only says that
" he saw and believed." The four Gospels evidently
declare that the different persons engaged in that Easter
drama saw different things, A few years ago it was
acute criticism to set those differences one against
another, as though discrediting the historical character
of the narratives. We outgrow that criticism now and
recognize that a spiritual act, involving the influx of

1 88 The Epistle of Priesthood
another order of life into the sphere of space and time,
would surely present itself with such variety of visible
manifestation. We recognize that " sacrament " and
" symbol " do not spell unreality,1 and we allow that it
must have been by symbols that the risen Lord declared
His indissoluble life.
The old-fashioned rationalism was bound up with
the preconception that we shall best appreciate and use
the life of Christ if we clear away metaphysics, and
reverence it simply as the noblest life ever lived by man
on earth. If there be more than that, we cannot and
need not know that more. The example, teaching,
memory, are the highest things within our reach. Some
influence springing from that example and love still
abides and works among us. But what that influence
is in itself we cannot know. It is insincere and contrary
to true religion to insist . on more. This was a strong,
austere, unselfish faith, stoical if not Christian ; and yet
more Christian than stoical, since that vague doctrine of
the Spirit was rich in possibilities of growth. Yet it was
not the faith of the New Testament and the early Church ;
it has never been the faith of the vigorous missionary
Church ; and in spite of beautiful exceptions those days so
lately past were perhaps not very happy days for thinkers ;
there was still faith but it was an anxious faith.
Those days are past or quickly passing. We are
more generally ready to welcome the idea of the other
world breaking in upon this world. The latest philosophy
seems, or almost seems, to encourage this. And ordinary
1 See Dr. Sanday's chapter on "The Symbolism of the Bible" in The
Life of Christ in Recent Research. And cf. Pascal, Pense'es, "Tout ce qui
ne va point a la charite est figure. L'unique objet de l'Ecriture est la
charite. Tout ce qui ne va point & l'unique but en est la figure."

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 89
people are willing to be surprised ; they scarcely recognize
real greatness unless there is something awful and un
expected in it. And here, when we read of our Lord's
resurrection, we rise to sympathy with those ancient
historians who so clearly mean to make us understand
that after the Lord's visible death the eternal and in
visible did, as it were, break through the mist of use and
wont, and the Lord " presented himself living after his
passion by many proofs " (Acts i. 3).
But all this makes some interpretations of the
evangelists' narrative more difficult than ever. Some
who have been cheered by hopes like these hear of
discussions about what became of the Lord's body in
space and time, and suffer the same kind of disappoint
ment as when they are asked to believe in life beyond
death on the evidence of " psychic phenomena." These
phenomena may possibly prove the continuance of
physical life, but they spoil, or at least they seem to
us in our present imperfect knowledge of the connexion
of physical and spiritual, to spoil faith in the communion
of saints. It would seem such an earthly, limited life
that was thus continued.
Such are the reflexions that flit from brain to brain
of us modern men, who enjoy such a variety of knowledge,
yet lack depth often ; who think more quickly perhaps
than our grandfathers, yet not generally so strongly.
They are reflexions of very imperfect wisdom. Yet
such as they are they merit some indulgence, and it
would be pleasant to suppose that those persons are
guilty of no dishonesty who use the Creed, and are
unwilling to go beyond the few words in which it
declares the resurrection. They use the words and

190 The Epistle of Priesthood
do not care to say how far those words are literal or
symbolical ; how far they simply repeat the Gospel
language, or how far on the other hand they affix a
particular interpretation upon that language. It would
be pleasant to suppose this. And perhaps the reticence
of the Epistle to the Hebrews permits us to suppose
it. The reticence of this Epistle suggests that such
indulgence was admitted in the early Church, and the
appeal of our Articles to Scripture permits us to fall
back upon the Epistle as an example for these later
days. Only it should be remembered ' that reticence is
one thing ; express denial, freedom of speech is another.
Freedom like truth may be praised in an ambiguous
sense. There are times for courage and honesty in
proclaiming what we know ; but that is the prior
question, do we know, or are we only in doubt? And
with regard to the Resurrection it should be noticed
that the Epistle to the Hebrews — even if its reticence
have the utmost significance- — is but a small part of
the evidence that makes for fuller knowledge. The un-
likeness of other parts of the New Testament is important.
Indeed, we may perceive an important limitation in the
general Christian doctrine of this Epistle itself, which
may be connected with its peculiar attitude to the
Resurrection. Baron von Hiigel says in The Mystical
Element of Religion, ii. p. 201, that "the body and
human fellowship " are " two subjects which are shewn
to be closely inter- related by the continuous manner in
which they stand and fall together throughout the history
of philosophy^ and religion." And we cannot but feel
that the human fellowship of the Church, so largely
treated in the Pauline Epistles, is not made so much of

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 1 9 1
in this Epistle. We have indeed a glorious picture
of the saints in their multitude beyond the veil, but
the doctrine of the communion of saints on earth is not
so clear. We have indeed, as in the old Jewish writings,
generous precepts about service to the needy and alms
giving, but there is an aristocratic ring about it all
which, noble as it is, falls short of the boundless
simplicity of S. Paul and the Synoptists. The Epistle
in this respect is aristocratic as Plato is aristocratic,
and it is hard not to suspect that the Platonic attitude
towards the body had affected those Hellenists, and
even to some extent the author of the letter, and that
the cautious language about the Resurrection and the
silence about the Church are rather too closely connected
together. The bold language of the synoptic narratives,
the obstinate literalism of popular Christianity, the
reverence which forbids the catholic thinker to meddle
rashly with what may be symbol, but may also be more
scientific than he knows — these are salutary antidotes —
" Wanderers come home ! when erring most
Christ's Church aye kept the faith, nor lost
One grain of Holy Truth."
But secondly, though it is this author's way to
appeal to tradition, it is not his way to make a bare
appeal, as to an absolute authority which may not be
questioned or confirmed by reason. Naturally it is not,
since he is writing to men who were not altogether
willing to submit to authority. Hence he confirms the
tradition from the present experience of men upon
earth. We recognize once more that his mind is
sacramental rather than mystical or intuitional. To
him the only way confirmation is possible is through

192 The Epistle of Priesthood
experience ; only through visible, earthly, natural life
can he find the divine, the eternal. Thus the reason
for believing in Christ's continued life fuses itself with
the description of what that life is. We shall know it
is there if we perceive it working.
Now according to the imagery of the Epistle this
exalted life is a larger life. Jesus has become Jesus
Christ ; He has been hailed Highpriest ; He is now
separate from sinners ; and there is no need for varieties
of curious doctrine, because Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.
This last passage reminds us of the Johannine " I
am the way, the truth, and the life." As often in
this Epistle, it reads like a first sketch, whereas the
Johannine is the " perfection of ultimate utterance."
But it too sets the Christian faith once for all in its
permanently supreme place among the faiths and hopes
and criticisms and progress of mankind.
The difficulty is often felt of upholding the uniqueness
of Christ. If He was Son of Man because He was with
real limitations man ; if the Godhead is reached by the
sacrament of this common manhood ; how can we say
that He differs in kind from other men ? Again, if
there is so much truth in other religions as we find
ourselves bound to admit there is, and if the truth of
Christianity, as we hold it, is mingled with elements
that are not pure truth — and again we find ourselves
bound to admit this — how can we say that Christianity
is different in kind from all other religions and is bound
to supersede them ?
The first reply to this would be that though we
may be surprised, and though we may have lately

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 193
discovered the difficulty for ourselves, it is not a modern
difficulty at all, but is fully recognized in the New
Testament. There may be verses in the Synoptic
Gospels which will bear an interpretation that looks in
another direction, but their general account is that our
Lord based His whole teaching on His being the same
in kind as other men, and that He accepted Judaism as
true religion.1 S. Paul more than once asserts that
God did shew truth to heathen nations of the same
kind as that which He has shewn more abundantly in
Christian. Heathen truth, as really as Jewish Law, has
been a pedagogue to lead to Christ. This Epistle, in
harmony throughout, sums up that doctrine in the
phrase, " priest after the order of Melchizedek."
Melchizedek, who was priest of God most high among
the heathen, is the true type of priesthood, and our
Lord's priesthood is the continuation of that type.
Again, the Epistle to the Ephesians sets forth
distinctly what the other Pauline Epistles and the
Gospel according to S. John, and we may believe the
Lord Himself who speaks through that Gospel, imply ;
that whereas Jesus was " a man " 2 on earth, the exalted
1 Cf. Hamilton, The People of God, I. p. vi : "Christianity is simply the
religion of the Jews reorganized by Jesus the Messiah."
2 I keep the expression "a man," though with doubt as to its sufficiency.
Something is gained by removing the particularizing article, but the gain
seems to involve the loss of something else which we cannot spare. The
point is argued by Dr. Mackintosh (The Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 385—
390). Dr. Mackintosh criticizes Dr. Du Bose and Dr. Moberly, and says :
"The writers I have named constantly suppose that we must choose between
saying that Christ was not a man, but humanity inclusive, and dismissing Him
as but one more good man, a simple member of the race, to whom we are
related exactly as one unit is to his neighbour. The alternative is quite
unreal. . . . The individual, in short, is not the contrary of the universal ;
in varied degree he is the universal in concrete form. Hence without ceasing
x3

1 94 The Epistle of Priesthood
" Jesus Christ " embraces in his Christhood all His
followers. And this doctrine too runs through Hebrews.
At first in a form which is very interesting to the
historian of theology ; the saints of the Old Testament
were partakers of the Christ in their days, and the new
partaking is but the completion of the old ; part of the
honour of the Christian faith is derived from its ancient
ancestry. Then in that final collect (to which we have
to refer so often, as to the brief utterance in which our
self-effacing author shews us his whole deep heart) we
have the full Pauline doctrine ; while his friends have
still to follow the path of discipline which Jesus trod, his
own life is hid with Jesus Christ in God.
" Unique " is indeed by no means a happy word to
describe our Lord's Person, Life, Work. His manhood
is manhood because it began by a real partaking of the
common flesh and blood ; His Godhead is Godhead
because it does not separate Him from, but joins Him
more intimately with men.
Dr. Strzygowski, in a lecture at King's College,
London, gathered up for a popular audience the conclu
sions to which his long study of Christian art has led
him. The impression left upon one of that audience was
that whereas we used to see a school of art born like a
man in a certain place at a certain time, growing to
maturity, dying, and leaving an influence behind, we
to be individual, Christ may be the universal, focal member of our organic
race. No incongruity obtains as between these two things. On the contrary,
it is matter of common knowledge that the greater a man is — the more
numerous the points at which he has contact with, and affects, the human
environment — the more self-possessed and concrete his individuality. We can
only think of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ideal limit of this conjunction,
linked to all men in His Divine outflowing love, yet always master of His
self-conditioned life,"

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 195
now find — at least with respect to the early origins —
that we cannot really see this. What we do see is a
river, flowing on and growing greater as it flows. Its
stream is impelled and fed and circles into eddies from
the force of many currents, coming we know not whence,
and losing themselves in the endless river whose life they
share and increase. So Constantinople and Rome are
not sources of Christian art, but rather foci (to shift the
metaphor to Dr. Strzygowski's own language) which
gather up rays from hundreds of sources in Asia Minor
and elsewhere, and from which those rays are again
distributed. This might seem to illustrate the stream of life and
truth in Christ. It flows on for ever, a great and grow
ing river. Currents of thought and action come into it
from a hundred sides. They have been coming since
the world began ; He is Priest after the order of
Melchizedek. They still come in ; from the philosophies
of successive generations ; from the changes and chances
in the careers of men and nations, which stir doubts,
hopes, heroisms, processes of civilization, revolutions of
government, leaps of intellect, and miracles of saintliness
and secret devotion. They come from the troubles and
deliverances of private consciences, and from the quiet
knitting of family affections ; from patriotic enthusiasm
and the mutual necessities of nations ; from schisms,
heresies and the patience of the Church ; from the
championship of ancient faiths, from their supersession,
renewal and transformation. They come from all
manner of scattered and hidden beginnings ; they are
purified as they run ; the foul and false is purged away,
and the courage, holiness, and truth which the purging

1 96 The Epistle of Priesthood
reinforces, become part of that growing truth and life,
which we call the Faith of Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever.
All this might very well represent the mind of the
first readers of our Epistle, Jews broadened by Hellenism,
whose Christian churchmanship — so their friend thought
— was too broad to be thoroughly Christian. For the
Christian Church does go farther. To her this endless
river has a source — in the Word of God. So far again
those readers would no doubt also go. But to the
Christian Church " the days of the Lord's flesh " are
much more than one of many gathering points of life ;
they have a more direct connexion with the source.
The Church expresses this by the doctrine of the one
Person, Jesus Christ, both God and man. As far as this
Epistle had an intellectual aim, it was to confirm that
doctrine, traditional then though perhaps not as yet
thus formulated, in the understanding of the author's
friends. So far as it had a moral aim, it was to urge
them to be loyal to that Person. To different minds
different arguments avail for the recommending of this
doctrine. Not least powerful among the arguments to
the intellect is that one of which this Epistle makes so
much ; the fitness of humiliation for the priestly work of
salvation. He who has been convinced by the self-
evident sublimity of the Gospel ethics will recognize that
the obscurity of the Lord Jesus, the seeming unlikeliness
of that one life out of many being the cause of salvation,
is the appropriate paradox. But this will be when the
Gospel ethics have convinced him. And few modern
readers will doubt that in this Epistle it is ultimately the
moral argument which convinces. If the first readers

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 197
responded to the claim upon their loyalty, they accepted
the reasoning of the Epistle. If things happen in our
own days to rouse the sense of loyalty to Jesus the
" captain " (xii. 2), the dogmatic problem is solved.
That is the truth which gives this Epistle all its fire.
The doctrine of the " One Person " is expressed
dogmatically, in a sentence with a predicate, by S. John ;
" the Word was made flesh." The same is expressed in
our Epistle in the ancient style of Israel by — no
predicate and sentence — but by the battle-cry ; " Jesus
Christ, yesterday, and to-day the same and unto the
ages."1 That shews the spirit of the author and the
temper of the times — times in which loyalty was the
Church quality chiefly needed.
But after all that is only the beginning of the
Christian argument. The New Testament concentrates
upon the Cross as being the passage to a life that has
continued, operated, and increased in effect ever since.
The argument is partly the same as that with which
Heb. xi. opens. " There is such a real power as faith " ;
and then the chapter goes on to prove the assertion by
rehearsing deeds which can be accounted for in no other
way but by virtue of this real energy. That first ; in
Christianity there must always be sooner or later the
1 Deut. vi. 4, the Shema, is Israel's creed, yet not really a creed but a cry :
" Hear, Israel ; Yahweh our God, Yahweh one ! " In the Septuagint this is
turned into a sentence by the insertion of ianv, a natural change from
oriental "spirit" to western logic. When some years ago a second century
fragment was discovered containing the Hebrew of this verse, it was found
to have an inserted predicate, and Dr. Burkitt argued shrewdly that the
Massoretic text was more primitive for that reason. Our Revised Version
inserted "is" in the passage in the Epistle, and the "Two Clerks,"
who have since made a "strictly conservative" revision of A.V. , have
done the same.

198 The Epistle of Priesthood
venture of faith. But next, the venture is never an
unreasonable one. It is rather a necessary, unavoidable
one. We may put the argument in either of two forms,
which are not mutually exclusive. We may say that
always, in the midst of an evil world, some have found
not merely peace in Christ, but power for service. Or
we may say that there is a steady purpose in the world
itself. Men do become wiser, kinder, gentler, stronger ;
they do come closer together and learn to live less and
less each for himself; public opinion does become juster,
more righteous, more charitable ; on the whole the
goodness of the world grows. Much of this may be
accounted for by our observation of man's wits, by
necessities of juxtaposition, and so on. But there always
remains something which cannot be accounted for in
that way, and this inexplicable remainder answers to
those deep movements of conscience in men and nations
which govern real peace and joy. To fall back on the
inexplicable may argue laziness of thought, but it does
not always. The difference between the older and the
modern " rationalism " largely consists in the recognition
of the inexplicable. In this case we have one inexplicable
force answering to another ; the spiritual untiredness
of the world answering to the conviction of the first
generation of disciples that their crucified Lord lived
and was exalted and was exalting them. Put the two
together and you have the doctrine of the living Christ,
the director of this stream of moral progress among the
men of whom He was once one and is now the head.
The head ; we are slipping into that picture-language
which cannot be long avoided. In the picture-language
of the Epistle He is the Highpriest bringing us all

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 199
to God. The " intercession " He makes for us as High
priest is the whole of this world-movement. But it
includes forgiveness, the cleansing of the stains that
are incurred in the dangerous process. We see how
far from steady the progress is, how often it is con
tradicted by merely material progress.1 But we see
also a faculty for recovery which assures us of the
indissoluble life.
Thus the faith and worship of the Church is not
directed merely to her Lord Jesus as He was in the
days of His flesh, but to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday, to-day, yea and for ever, i.e. in
Him, ever living, exalted, and reigning, is gathered all
the Christhood that worked in the world before the
Gospel days, all that shone forth during those days,
and all that springs up still and shall grow hereafter.
All true religion, wherever active, is part of the perfected
life of Jesus Christ. Observation of the facts of visible
life here shews this manifold growth, but shews it separate,
divided, " by divers portions and in divers manners."
1 The speciousness of material progress has led to mistrust of real progress
in the world. This mistrust is impressive in Newman's sermons. Pascal
wrote : "La nature de l'homme n'est pas d' aller toujours, elle a ses allees
et venues. La fievre a ses frissons et ses ardeurs ; et le froid montre aussi
bien la grandeur de l'ardeur de la fievre que le chaud meme. Les inventions
des hommes de siecle en siecle vont de meme. La bonte et la malice du
monde en general en est de meme : plerumque gratce principibus vices "
(Pensdes, ed. Victor Giraud, Paris, 1907, p. 82). But the Port Royal
editors gave this: "Les inventions des hommes vont en avancant de siecle
en siecle. La bonte et la malice du monde en general reste la mgme " (Paris,
Didot, 1830, p. 307). Pascal makes the true reservation elsewhere (Giraud,
p. 108) : " La gr&ce sera toujours dans le monde, — et aussi la nature, — de
sorte qu' elle est en quelque sorte naturelle. Et ainsi toujours il y aura
des pelagiens, et toujours des catholiques, et toujours combat ; parce que la
premiere naissance fait les uns, et la grace de la seconde naissance fait
les autres. "

200 The Epistle of Priesthood
Our faith brings order and unity into the mass. It
refers all the parts to the living, sanctifying whole in
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the man in God. This
Epistle sometimes speaks of Him as ever remaining the
same, as being, so to speak, the " idea '' perfect in itself,
which is gradually unfolded, remembered, realized in
the world. That is a mode of expression which modern
philosophy does not praise. But the main image of the
Epistle is of Jesus Christ as the Highpriest, perfected
indeed in His one offering, but perfected for the purpose
of continual onward process- — ever living to make
intercession. If " Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
to-day, yea for ever " is Platonic idealism in Hebraic
guise, the perpetual intercession is " creative evolution,"
and indeed the arresting interest of this Epistle is the
same that we feel in the actual life of religion as we
know it in our own battle for holiness, or in the battle
that goes on around us. There is creative struggle;
it is the forming of the Christ that is to be. In our
author's exhortation to his much-tried friends we have
looked on at this process of creating part of the Christ.
Only it must be still remembered ; the light of faith has
been thrown by him upon the process, that we may
see it with that keen vision of affection which is im
possible to the mere psychological observer.
This is really an answer to the question which is
sometimes put ; may we consider that the sacrifice of
the divine Highpriest is in any sense repeated ? That
it cannot be repeated in the strict sense is plainly
asserted in the Epistle; it was "once for all," ix. 26, 28,
x. 12. May we then say that it is an "eternal"
sacrifice, once offered but evermore continuing? The

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 201
phrase in x. 12 might seem to justify that, but the
Greek there means, not " eternally " but " in perpetuity,"
" for the future." It is not the eternity of the sacrifice
itself that is meant, but its effect for the future. May
we then express that effect in the words which are so
commonly used ; Christ offered His sacrifice once, and
now He pleads it before the Father ? Except that the
term " plead " is hardly a rendering of any word in
the Epistle, out of which alone among the New Testa
ment books we draw our sacrificial language, there
seems to be no objection to that ; the meaning is the
same as in vii. 25, "ever living to make intercession for
them," and it is just what we have been .drawing out
above. But something besides this has been suggested above,
and something perhaps which goes nearer the root of
the matter. That intercession is made for men ; it is
of the essence of the sacrifice that men should join their
will with it ; and while receiving make its virtue their
own. Christ's sacrifice means our union with Him.
Now of course, in the strict, verbal sense a sacrifice
cannot be repeated. It is an offering, a gift, and that
must be given once and cannot be repeated ; if it were
repeated, that would only mean that the former offering
was incomplete, part of the gift was kept back. But
the whole sacrificial language is language of figure, and
the imagery must serve not dominate. As soon as the
sacrifice is thought of as being an act of universal life,
it is obvious that in the most real, living sense, it can
and must be repeated. S. Paul wrote to the Galatians
of Christ being formed in them, as though by a repetition
of the Nativity. As naturally does the writer to

202 The Epistle of Priesthood
the Hebrews bid his friends go forth outside the camp
to Jesus, the sacrifice, and join Him there, bearing His
shame. The praises and alms He speaks of directly
afterwards he calls " sacrifices " (in the plural). He
means that they are in Christian worship a substitute
for the Levitical sacrifices of the Jews; Christian worship
has as good a ritual as the old religion. But he would
never >use the plural of Christ's sacrifice, nor think of
it as a substitute for Levitical rites. It was different
altogether, and it was one ; it was not divisible into
many. What he evidently does want, and he wants
it too much to keep to his figured language in urging
it, is that his friends should repeat the one sacrifice
of their Lord in their own wills, their own obedience
to the duty He lays upon them.
-^That is the sense in which Christ's sacrifice is
repeated. It is repeated in each believer when he
absolutely offers himself in Christ to God. And if we
venture to go beyond this Epistle which is all concerned
with the one repetition of the sacrifice by a particular set
of men, and think of ourselves and life in general, we
may no doubt hope that even offerings of self which are
not absolutely thorough are yet real sacrifice in Christ.
For the heart of the Christian faith is trust in His com
pletion of our imperfection. But if so, then it seems
possible that we may repeat Christ's sacrifice not only
(as some are happy enough to do) once for all in our
several lives by a " conversion " ; but also (as the many
must) again and again, as duties press, and we progress,
fall back, and are renewed. . And so the course of argu
ment leads to the sacrifice we each and all in Christ offer
at Holy Communion. For since real worship is not

Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek 203
separated from but is the flower of life, it appears that
there, even supremely, this repetition of sacrifice, this unity
and reuniting of the will with God's will in Christ takes
place. But, as was shewn in a former chapter, this con
sideration carries us away from our Epistle.

CHAPTER VII
The Coming of Christ, and the
Doctrine of Loyalty
(i.) Loyalty in the Epistle is an act of imaginative faith made real by the
appeal of the crisis, in which the Lord was recognized as coming — This
loyalty seems to make against patriotism, but accords with the Gospel
ideal of peace. The Epistle adapts that ideal to growing times — With
a clearer hope than the Ezra and Baruch Apocalypses it expects a
renewal of the world in the immediate coming of Christ — This is a call
to loyalty, which is the romance of faith, and precursor of the " imita
tion " of Christ — Imitation raises historical and speculative problems
which are met by sacramental theology, and the spirit of loyalty in
imitation keeps sacramental theology sincere.
(ii. ) Thus Hebrews stands between S. Paul and S. John in the developement
of the New Testament — Our Lord concentrated the primitive apocalyptic
hope upon His own death. Henceforward faith moved upon the line
which starts from the Cross and reaches forward to the Parousia — S. Paul
deepened the realization of present union with the exalted Christ through
His Messianic Spirit. Christ remains for S. Paul the Jewish Messiah,
Son of God, divine ; but he gives no definite^answer to later questions
about Godhead — S. Paul's doctrine of mystical union was hard for less
ardent believers. A new trial introduced that idea of union through loyal
following of the Lord which is presented in Hebrews, and (with differences)
in I Peter and the Apocalypse — This was connected with new interest in
the days of His flesh, and therefore with new intellectual difficulties — The
Epistle meets these difficulties by a first sketch of sacramental theology —
That sketch is elaborated in S. John's Gospel. Union of Hebraic and
Hellenistic thought in this Gospel. The author checks tendency to
mechanical use of the sacraments ; declares the Lord's truly spiritual
presence ; refines apocalyptic conceptions ; and displays the earthly life
of the Lord as instinct with divine glory — The apocalyptic spirit how
ever persists to the last in the Johannine writings.
I.
WE spoke a few pages back of the author's appeal to
the loyalty of his readers towards the Lord. This is a

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 205
characteristic point in the theology of the Epistle, which
in this, as in other respects, is specially close to the
Gospel tradition ; it points to the Lord who is to be
followed rather than to the Spirit of Christ in whom the
believer lives. Yet S. Paul's doctrine has united with
the earlier stream. S. Paul has given the mystical idea
apart from which there could be no lasting consciousness
of the exalted Christ's presence. Touched with that idea
the author of this Epistle shapes his simpler, imaginative
faith. He returns, as from travel in new lands, to walk
with widened recollections in the Galilean " way." In
that way the disciples followed their Master visibly.
S. Paul passed to mystical union with Him. The writer
to the Hebrews fashions a rule of loyalty out of a poetical
conception. The value of this fashioning must be
measured by its sincerity, by its distance from fancy, and
its nearness to sacrament.
This nearness to sacrament is commended to us as
probable by the necessity for such a conception at the
time when the letter was written ; fact and experience did
lead the way to it. The approaching trial of the Jewish
war with Rome was a call to a simple loyalty to the
Lord as a person — a person in a sense which could be
understood by plain men. In spite of its academic
language, a great part of the letter is devoted to an
appeal to the Hellenists it addresses to be true to the
plain man's sense of honour. " You have given allegiance
to the Lord Jesus as the Christ ; no other considerations
can over-ride that," is what their friend writes to them.
But as a mere recollection of the days of His flesh this
loyalty to the Lord was an ineffectual emotion. It was
necessary to know Him still present as a captain who

206 The Epistle of Priesthood
leads, as one whom they could join outside the
camp, bearing His shame, and sharing His new hope
(xiii. 13-16).
" Still present," or may we say, " again present ? "
In the poetry of sacrament the latter image is not too
bold. Might not those times of trial be thought of as
the season in which God " brings again his first begotten
into the world " (i. 6) ? The approaching trial, the
catastrophe with which it would end — as a shrewd, not to
say an inspired observer of the time, could hardly fail to
foresee — might not these be in a very real sense the
promised Parousia of Christ ?
It is perhaps a weak point in the apocalyptic school
of Gospel critics, that so far they have not found room
for our Lord's political foresight. Was his gaze so simply
set on the near advent of the Kingdom of God that He
never considered the natural upheaval of society and
institutions which the restless insurrectionary zeal of
those days promised ? May we not follow its own rule
about reading the Gospels as they stand, 'more absolutely
than that school as yet permits ? May we not accept
the whole of the eschatological chapter in S. Mark as our
Lord's own vaticination, and recognize in it, as well as
more mysterious things, His clear foreboding of the fall
of Jerusalem ? And may we not therefore suppose that
our Lord himself prepared in His disciples' minds the
interpretation and adaptation of His eschatology which
we find them working out in various ways throughout
the later part of the New Testament ? l It is almost
1 No doubt the reference to Jerusalem is clearer in S. Luke than S. Mark.
But it is natural to find it in S. Mark also. Is there not a good deal of truth
in what Dr, Mackintosh says ? " We must not exaggerate the importance of

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 207
impossible to suppose that the belief in the spiritual
" coming " of the Lord who had " gone," arose without
any germ which He had himself planted. The discourses
in the fourth Gospel may be the freest possible reflexion
of the evangelist, but it is so much more probable than
not that they should be reflexion on something the Lord
himself had taught. And more natural still, because
more obviously linked with the pictorial transcendental
form of the primitive tradition, is the belief that in the
siege of Jerusalem the Lord came, and that He had
himself taught that it should be so.
At the beginning of this essay we discussed the pre
valent opinion of the late date of the Epistle and found
reasons for traversing that opinion. The chief reason was
the difficulty of accounting for the intensity of the Epistle
in a later period, and the ease with which it could be ex
plained if it were written when the Jewish revolt against
Rome was beginning, to a small group of friends of like
mind and education with the author, who were hesitating
to break with their nation, and who felt themselves called
in honour to forsake Christ, to adopt unchristian politics,
and to take up arms for the old religion. We must
of course remember that the author was not mainly
engaged — though he was primarily — in talking about
this war. It was important to him, for his friends'
decision to hold aloof would be the immediate act of
faith to which he was urging them. But ultimately
he rises above such questions of national obligation to
the question how far the picture of Jesus, furnished by the Synoptics, has been
substantially affected by later Christian experience. The possibility of this
cannot be denied. But it is only upon the hypothesis that the Christian view
of Jesus is mistaken that the incidence of this modifying force would form a
legitimate subject of complaint " ( The Person of Jesus Christ, p. 8),

208 The Epistle of Priesthood
consider the Person and the work of Christ. Hence the
references are often casual ones, which except for their
frequency might be otherwise explained. Some indeed
may have been unconscious ones, but such unconscious
references to an oppressive sense of trouble are even
specially significant. And there are some — e.g. at the
end of ch. ix. — which may have been primarily in
tended in a theological sense; but they have a
secondary, ominous ring. Both to us and to the first
readers there might be a certain " irony " about them.
It would be tedious to start a second time upon this
argument, however possible we believed it to multiply its
force. Some suggestions however may be briefly in
dicated of the author's belief that this crisis was connected
with the expected coming of Christ.
There is, first, the general consolation that runs
through the Epistle, that in the " temptation " of those
days — the word " temptation " in its full New Testament
sense implies the travail pangs of the kingdom's birth —
Jesus Christ will be the stay of His people.
Then there are plain references to the " Second
Coming," of Christ in ix. 28, and to " the day " in x. 25.
In each place there are undertones which sound in
harmony with approaching events. " A second time
shall Christ be seen, apart from sin, by those who are
waiting for him, unto salvation." Was the violence of
the Gentiles glanced at in the sin ? Was it the quiet
in the land that were truly waiting for Him as they held
aloof from the strife? Would He be found of them
outside the sphere of strife and violence, bringing them
spiritual safety ? " Let us hold fast the profession of
hope unwaveringly, let us consider one another unto

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 209
emulation of love and goodly deeds, not forsaking the
gathering of ourselves together, but encouraging one
another, and that so much the more as ye see approach
ing — the day." Such is the emphatic order of the
Greek. There is certainly an allusion to "the day of
the Lord," which here as in the Didache (xvi.) is associ
ated with assembly or worship. But the allusion is
peculiar, definite ; a novel turn is given to the general
idea. The readers actually see that day gradually draw
ing near. Its coming will be in things which are already
beginning to happen. The natural meaning of the
passage is that in the crisis of the times the author
expects to meet his Lord. But he hardly expects it in
the form which S. Paul had pictured when he wrote to
the Thessalonians or the Corinthians.
In x. 34-39 resemblance is to be noticed to
S. Luke's report of our Lord's eschatological discourse.
The importance of this for our present purpose is that
in S. Luke's report the fall of Jerusalem is so plainly
connected with the Coming. In x. 34 there seems
almost a reference to our Lord's words in Lk. xxi. 19
about winning soul or self. And we are not surprized
to find that after an exhortation to do God's will, and a
distinct assertion (adapted from ancient prophecy)
that the expected Lord will come shortly, the very
phrase occurs which the comparison has prepared us for,
" we are not of shrinking back unto perdition, but of
faith unto the gaining of soul."
And finally, ch. xii. distinctly contemplates the
overthrow of a present order and the coming of a divine
kingdom. But it ends on the quiet note of continuous
service. It leads on to the assurance of protection
14

210 The Epistle of Priesthood
through the approaching trial, and to the appeal to go
forth to the Lord Jesus. This is the same expectation
as we hear of at the beginning of Acts : " Lord, dost
thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " But
it is the same with a difference. There is no political
feeling here, nor is there any eschatological literalism.
It is like Lk. xxi., and still more like modern readings
of history in the light of the Faith. About the " final "
coming little or no doctrine is offered — the needs of the
readers did not require it. Of the immediate coming of
the Lord there is bold assurance. The Master had said
that He might come at even or at midnight or at cock-
crowing or in the morning (Mk. xiii. 35). To the
writer of this letter the thought has occurred that those
hours may be not merely alternative but successive.
And now that the first of them has sounded warning he
bids his friends be ready.
The occasion of the Epistle seems to be the out
break of the war with Rome. In that crisis it promises
new life, freedom, a reborn world. It speaks of the
coming of the Lord Jesus, and of a kingdom to be
received. The closer its details are studied the more reasonable
it appears to infer that in the approaching peril of
Jerusalem the author found that interpretation of the
Church's primitive hope which his own friends and his
own day needed.
If so, a certain moral difficulty is presented. The
Epistle checks patriotism ; but is not patriotism one of
the noblest motives of life ?
This difficulty recurs throughout the history of the
Church. The argument of Celsus cannot seem a bad

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 211
one to European nations to-day : "If all men were
to do as you do, nothing will prevent the Emperor
being left alone and deserted, and all things on earth
falling into the power of the most lawless and barbarous
savages, with the result that neither of your religion
nor of the true wisdom would there be left among men
so much as the name." And so he calls on the Christians
" to come to the help of the Emperor with all their
might and labour with him as right requires, fight on
his behalf, take the field with him, if he call on you, and
share the command of the legions with him — yes, and
be magistrates if need be, and do this for the sake
of laws and religion."1 The obvious comment is that
if the Church's refusal in Celsus' day was a menace to
the Empire, the exhortation of our author was on the
Empire's side, and that he was in fact following the
example of the Lord in the Gospels, who was the friend
of soldiers, did not denounce war, and bade men render
unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's. But, though
obvious, this does not go deep enough. It is as though
one said with M. Loisy that the eighth century prophets
of Israel were partisans of Assyria, or Jeremiah (what
his contemporaries thought him) a Chaldaizer. It can
hardly be denied that in those prophets, and in our
Lord's aloofness from politics, and in our author's ideal
of rest, there is something which corrects commonplace
patriotism, and complicates even the nobler impulse of
patriotism. In Fogazzaro's Piccolo Mondo Antico, after
the tragic death of the little Maria, so tragic because it
draws the father and the mother still further apart —
1 From Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire,
ch. viii. pp. 256 f.

212 The Epistle of Priesthood
for a while — Fogazzaro makes these reflexions on the
secret thought of the two.
" He, a Christian, was thinking of an insurrection of
wrath and arms against brothers in Christ for the love of
a point of earth on one of the smallest of the stars : she
was thinking of an immense rebellion, a liberation of the
universe. Her thought might be larger, her intellect
might appear stronger ; but He who is better known in
the generations of men as they ascend higher in civiliza
tion and in knowledge ; He who consents to be honoured
by each generation according to its power and who
gradually transforms and raises the ideals of the people,
employing for his government of the earth, in the fitting
time, even the inferior and perishing ideals ; He who,
being himself Peace and Life, allowed himself to be
called the God of Hosts, had impressed the seal of his
judgement on the face of the woman and on the face of
the man. As the dawn lightened Franco's face became
bright with an inner light, his eyes glowed through his
tears with the vigour of life ; Luisa's face grew darker
and darker, the shadows sank deeper in her eyes."
Fogazzaro takes a side here but he recognizes the
problem. In this particular case Luisa's larger thought
was not a simply right thought, any more than the final
attitude of the Church to patriotism in Italy was simple
and self-forgetting ; and, on the other hand, the Italian
Risorgimento was one of the purest movements of
patriotism that the world has seen. Yet an insurrection
of wrath and arms against brothers in Christ, and indeed
all war, must remain among the inferior and perishing
ideals that God uses, so to speak, only in the economy
of evolution. And the Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount,

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 2 1 3
the Cross, belong to that other ideal which we call ac
cording to our mood, absolute, divine, impossible, or
necessary. It is in fact necessary, for it alone is ideal ;
and it is the test of a generation whether this ideal has
become somewhat less impossible than it was in the last
generation. And it is one of the proofs of the — not
isolated but pervasive — divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that this ideal, which can be only gradually worked out
in our growing world, presents itself in the Synoptic
Gospels as natural. In the homely simplicity of that
perfectly human, but transfigured world of Palestine ideal
hopes are seen predestined.1
But the Epistle to the Hebrews belongs already to
the later stage on which these ideals began to be worked
out by adjustment to a wider life ; and the author's
attitude to Jewish patriotism needs to be justified in that
light also. To read the history of the war in Josephus
is almost enough to justify him. The patriotism of that
movement was — when all allowances are made — fierce
1 I cannot refrain from adding to what is already too discursive, this
quotation from Weigall's romantic history, The Life and Times of Akhnaton
Pharaoh of Egypt : " Looking back across these thirty-two centuries, can
one yet say whether the Pharaoh was in the right, or whether his soldiers
were the better-minded ? On the one hand there is culture, refinement, love,
thought, prayer, good-will, and peace ; on the other hand, power, might,
health, hardihood, bravery and struggle. One knows that Akhnaton's
theories were the more civilized, the more ideal ; but is there not a pulse
which stirs in sympathy with those who were holding the citadels of Asia ?
We can give our approval to the ideals of the young king, but we cannot see
his empire fall without bitterly blaming him for the disaster. Yet in passing
judgement, in calling the boy to account for the loss of Syria, there is the
consciousness that above our tribunal sits a judge to whom war must assuredly
be abhorrent, and in whose eyes the struggle of the nations must utterly lack
its drama. Thus, even now, Akhnaton eludes our criticism, and but raises
once more that eternal question which as yet has no answer " (p. 245 f. ). This
is quoted for the general idea in it ; I do not know whether Mr. Weigall's
estimate of Akhnaton is justified by history or not. He certainly feels that

2 1 4 The Epistle of Priesthood
and unlovely. The quotation in the Epistle; " Vengeance
is mine, I will repay," was apt. And this impression is
confirmed by two Jewish books which deal with the fall
of Jerusalem : the Apocalypse of Baruch, and 2 Esdras,
Each of these books is composite. Several pieces have
been joined together by a redactor, or — if we prefer to
put it in another way — -the authors have used various
material.1 The question in each finished book is : what
hope for Israel in the future, now that Jerusalem is
destroyed ? And the answer in each is twofold. On the
one hand there is the large hope of the end, of the new
age with which earthly politics have nothing to do ; on
the other there is the hope of vindication in this present
world, and the downfall of Rome. But there can be no
doubt which hope has produced the finest theology in
these books. In both, though perhaps especially in
4 Esdras, the hard, narrowing effect of passion against
Rome is evident, and the deepening which came with the
other-worldly hope. There is a great difference between
that hope and the hope of the Epistle, but nevertheless
Akhnaton stands in what this essay would describe as the sacramental line.
But he is very sane in appreciation, and says that, in contrast with the times
of this hero, "to-day God is known to us, and the peace of God is a thing
hoped for " (p. 228). If not a definition, that sentence is a beautiful indica
tion of Christianity. We must also remember, in considering this problem,
that Wordsworth once said to " Almighty God " —
But thy most dreaded instrument
For working out a pure intent
Is Man arrayed for mutual slaughter.
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter.
Cf. Bradley, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 102. But did not Ezekiel mean
the same as Wordsworth when he called the sword one of the Lord's sore
judgements ?
1 For 2 Esdras see the discussion in Box's Ezra Apocalypse, a treasury of
material, and a guide to the study of late Judaism and its relations with
Christianity.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 215
they are akin ; whereas the prophecy against Rome
belongs to another order of faith." 1
But these Jewish books bring us back to our
former question about the date and occasion of Hebrews.
They centre upon the fall of Jerusalem, and make it
quite clear that it was an all-important event in the
religion of those times. But in their final form both, and
2 Esdras in almost all its parts, look back from a certain
distance upon the catastrophe. The crisis they meet is
the consequence of the fall of the Temple. Is it not
possible that our Epistle too is as late as most critics say ?
May it not still be Jewish Christian ; still concerned with
the severity of this terrible trial ; and yet intended to
meet, not the danger which preceded, but the danger
which followed it ? For the final alienation of the Church
from the Synagogue did not come for fifty years or so
after the fall of Jerusalem. This is of course perfectly
possible. We can only make conjectures from the
Epistle itself as to the circumstances out of which it rose,
and such conjectures must be uncertain. The reasons
for still holding to the earlier date are in the main two.
First, the hypothesis of the call to arms fits the Epistle's
1 It might be argued that the Apocalypse of S. John corresponds in some
degree to the anti- Roman parts of Baruch and Esdras. Thus Hebrews and
the Apocalypse would give the twofold Christian consolation, the double
Baruch and 2 Esdras the twofold Jewish consolation, in face of the over
whelming power of Rome, whether with special reference to the event of
a.d. 70, or with wider reference to subsequent action of that power. If so no
slight evidence is involved of the really Christianizing energy of the Gospel.
Dr. Swete allows the historical data in the Apocalypse full weight, but he can
justly sum up its plan and purpose without any notion of bitter feeling in it ;
" a series of visions arraying themselves under two great actions of which the
work of the ascended Christ and the destinies of the Christian Church are the
respective subjects ... it is the movement of great spiritual forces rather
than of historical persons and events " ( The Apocalypse of St. John,
p. xxxviii).

2 1 6 The Epistle of Priesthood
intense language better than anything else which we can
definitely imagine. And, secondly, there is an air
throughout the Epistle of hope new born through
expectant dread, of which we are even more sensible, by
contrast, when we read 2 Esdras.
The expectant dread would be difficult to account
for with the later date, yet circumstances are conceivable
in which it might be felt, and if we knew the history of
those late years we might find something to take the
place satisfactorily of the call to arms. Only it is not
enough simply to point to the persecution under
Domitian ; there must be also a connexion with that
Jewish retrospect which, in spite of recent criticism, still
impresses most readers of the Epistle. In any case the
fall of Jerusalem remains the special impulse, and we
may return now to our author's thought that in that trial
there was or would be a coming of Christ.
We must say " a coming," rather than " the coming."
Mr. J. Stuart Russell in his book The Parousia 1 essayed
to prove that when our Lord spoke of His Parousia He
definitely said it would be in the fall of Jerusalem, and
that all the references to the Parousia in the Epistles
and Apocalypse are references to the fall of Jerusalem.
But, whatever may be said of the Apocalypse, few would
agree that all the Epistles, e.g. 1 John and 2 Peter, were
written before Jerusalem fell ; and this uncritical treat
ment of the documents is partly the cause of Mr. Russell's
far too fixed dogma about the mysterious hope. What
we really find in the New Testament after the Resurrec-
1 The Parousia : a Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of
our Lord 's Second Coming. Newed. Fisher Unwin, 1887. (Original preface
dated 1878.)

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 2 1 7
tion is at first a simple expectation of the speedy coming
of the Lord. Then a modification or interpretation of
this hope. This proceeds in one direction, as is generally
recognized, along the line laid down by S. Paul. In
place of the immediate, visible coming there is a spiritual
indwelling of the believer in Christ, more often indeed
spoken of as a union of the whole family of believers in
Christ. This presently developes into a large doctrine
of the Church, its wide reach and purpose ; this we have
in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and it is being accepted
more and more generally among critics as S. Paul's own
growth in faith. It is perhaps a weakness in Schweitzer's
book on S. Paul that he pays little attention to the later
Epistles. In another direction we find the thought of
Christ's own coming by the Spirit to be with the faithful.
This is characteristic of the Johannine writings, and is
elaborated in the discourses of the Gospel before the
Crucifixion. But the Johannine writings are after, or
perhaps with the Apocalypse start from, the fall of
Jerusalem, and when we compare Hebrews and the
Apocalypse with the eschatological chapters in the
Synoptists, and observe how the coming of the Son of
Man is there mysteriously linked with the trials of the
siege, we feel again that the one set of passages supports
and interprets the other, and that it is reasonable to
suppose that the Church of the first century did accept
these trials as being in a special sense a coming of the
Lord. Of late, critics have laid less stress on the fall of
Jerusalem in their studies of the apostolic Church, and
more on the trial in the reign of Domitian, but if we take
A.D. 70 as a mean date for the culminating point of a
catastrophe of which the oppression lingered, we may

218 The Epistle of Priesthood
still say as Renan did 1 that we can feel in reading a
New Testament book whether it belongs to the period
before or after the fall of Jerusalem. Before, the Church
is struggling into settled life ; there are disputes between
the Jewish and Gentile parties, disputes in which its
very being is risked ; there are fightings without and
fears within. Paulinists are secure in hope by reason of
a deeply spiritual conception of life in Christ which is
however too spiritual in form for the mass to appre
hend. After the fall of Jerusalem there are still dangers,
new heresies, and severer persecutions, but Christ is there
in a manner all can understand, and no doubt can ever
recur as to the abiding life and progress of the Church.
With the fall of Jerusalem He had come ; if not at once,
as Renan might put it, in due sequence all felt this.
This does not mean however that the expectation
of what may be called the final coming was lost. On
the contrary, the coming of Christ to judge the quick
and dead is, with the acknowledgement of God as our
Father, and the exercising of all the energy of new life
through the Holy Spirit, one of those truths which
modern criticism has proved more certainly than ever to
have been the foundation of the primitive creed, though
they are so difficult for the modern man in an age of
material progress to accept.2 Yet in the later part of the
New Testament there are signs of this belief being held
1 In L'Antechrist, Introd. , " Cet evenement introduisit dans la situation
du Judaism and du christianisme un tel changement, qu'en discerne facilement
un ecrit posterieur a la catastrophe de l'an 70 d'un ecrit contemporain du
Wroisieme temple."
11 Cf. Burkitt, The Limits of Biblical Criticism, Church Congress, 1908.
Dr. Burkitt ends the paper, from which I have borrowed, thus: "The days
of purely external authority are gone, and in some ways the Christian path
is intellectually darker now than in other ages. But no one can say it looks

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 219
in a more thoughtful, less literal manner. It is difficult,
for instance, to suppose that the 6'rt iap of 1 Joh. iii. 2,
has merely a grammatical interest for the modern reader :
" we know that if he shall be manifested (on iap <papepa>8f))
we shall be like him, for we shall see him even as he is." x
And both in Hebrews and in the Apocalypse it is often
difficult to decide whether the bold picturesque phrases
intend the final coming or that nearer coming in the
trial which filled the horizon of the writer and his readers.
" He which testifieth these things saith, Yea : I come
quickly. Amen : come, Lord Jesus." So, but for the
so dark or so hopeless as when our Lord went on His way to Jerusalem, and
told those who would to follow Him if they dared make the venture. If the
Christian cause perishes at last, it will not be because historical critics have
explained the Gospels away, but because the followers of the Christ are too
faint-hearted to walk in the steps of their Master and venture everything for
the sake of the kingdom of God. "
1 Brooke pays no special attention in his commentary to this idv, but he
expresses what I feel about it very clearly. " The Parousia, which the writer
of the Epistle expected, perhaps more eagerly than when he wrote the Gospel,
was nevertheless a spiritual fact rather than an apocalyptic display " ; "For
him the ' Presence ' is no sudden unveiling of a man from heaven who in the
twinkling of an eye shall destroy the old and set up the new. It is the con
summation of a process which is continuously going on. It is the final
manifestation of the things that are, and therefore the passing away of
all that is phenomenal" (The Johannine Epistles, pp. xxi. 37). The
emphasis in the verse quoted is on the Johannine word <pavepw8-r) — "if we
may think of 'manifestation' rather than of 'coming.'" Dr. Brooke says
that " the conception of many partial ' comings ' has a very important place
in the elucidation of the permanent value of the New Testament expectations
of the coming of the Christ, but it is not to be found in those expectations
themselves" (p. 51). In this essay I venture to suggest that in a certain
sense, answering to certain special circumstances, one "partial coming" is
recognized in one group of New Testament books. The suggestion does not
appear to me to conflict with Dr. Brooke's idea of the developement, but I
have learned from him that my scheme must be completed by a final stage,
in which, at the very end of the apostolic evolution of the doctrine, the aged
S. John returns with richer faith to the early simplicity, and "seems to have
expected the final manifestation within the remaining years of his own
lifetime."

220 The Epistle of Priesthood
Grace added, ends the Apocalypse, and our New Testa
ment. A magnificent ending. But did the words
when first written refer to the end of the world, or
to an immediate coming of the Captain whom the
seer had beheld at the head of His armies, moving
among the mists which shewed and again concealed Him,
while the powers of the too present evil world seemed to
be gathering all their strength ? Or may we say that
the power of the words lay then, as it lies now, in their
accumulative significance. The cm-' apri, '' Henceforth
ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of
power and coming," of Mt. xxvi. 64, may be no accurate
rendering of a remarkable nuance in the Lord's Aramaic,
and yet may be more than a chance felicity of Hellenistic
Greek. It may represent a manner of thought in the
apostolic Church, some part of which at any rate
recognized that the coming of the Lord was to be not
merely a perpetual presence, nor yet one speedy or far-
off event, but a continuous movement with well-defined
seasons1 in which it could be observed. Is this too
modern an idea for those primitive men ? Or is it
possible that the apostolic age was more akin to modern
days in some respects than the centuries which followed
it? The Judaism of the first century was larger, finer,
1 Cf. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, lvii. . " From what has
been said, it will appear that when the Apostles ask the Lord, ' Wilt thou
at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel ? ' and He makes answer,
' It is not for you to know the times or the seasons,' ' the times ' (xpbvoi)
are in S. Augustine's words, 'ipsa spatia temporum,' and these con
templated merely under the aspect of their duration, over which the Church's
history should extend ; but * the seasons ' (Kaipot) are the joints or articulations
in these times, the critical epoch-making periods fore-ordained of God (Kcupoi
¦wporerayixivoi, Acts xvii. 26; cf. Augustine, Conf. xi. 13: 'Deus operator
temporum ') ; when all that has been slowly, and often without observation,
ripening through long ages is mature and comes to the birth in grand decisive

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 2 2 1
more like the modern Christian Church than it became
in its second century stiffening ; perhaps something of
the same kind happened in the Church also. There are
surely signs in considerable variety of such modernism in
this Epistle, and throughout the apostolic division of the
New Testament there is a joyous hope in the coming
age which can with difficulty be explained unless these
men believed that the coming of Christ was opening for
them a vista of glad service upon this earth.
And here again we may refer to 2 Esdras, and note
the contrast between its interpretation of the trial at the
end of the first century and the treatment of that trial
in this Epistle. In that book the hopes that remain are
either the crude hope of vengeance upon Rome, or a
hope, religious and beautiful indeed but nigh to despair,
of the new age on the utter ruin of this world. In
Hebrews, as we would understand it, the hope is of the
presence of Christ surrounded by a band of faithful
brethren, who shall subdue and transform this broken
but redeemed and recovering world. " Not to angels
did he make subject the world to come of which we
speak ; " 1 " Ye have come to mount Sion and the city
events, which constitute at once the close of one period and the commence
ment of another. Such, for example, was the passing away with a great
noise of the old Jewish dispensation . . . such, above all others, the second
coming of the Lord in glory (Dan. vii. 22)."
Lancelot Andrewes had already had the same thought, which he turns to
exhortation quite in the temper of our author. " So for this great and
weighty business there is not only ny but iyiD, not only xpiicos but Katpbs, not
only a time but a set season. Which season is in time as the joint in a
member : if you hit on the joint you may easily divide; if on this side or
beyond you shall not do it, or not do it so well : therefore to do it when it
is." (Sermons, i. p. 351).
1 Archdeacon F. B. Westcott, in a privately printed paper on the Epistle,
would interpret this "to come" from the standpoint of Gen. i. To God

222 The Epistle of Priesthood
of the living God " ; " Wherefore taking over as we do
a kingdom which cannot be shaken, through which to
do well pleasing service to God with reverence and fear,
let us shew gratitude " ; " Wherefore let us go forth to
him outside the camp bearing his shame, for we have
not here an abiding city, but are seeking the city that
is to be " ; — these phrases do not indeed shut out a final
hope of consummation, but on the other hand they do
not simply point to a " new world " into which " the
righteous will pass through the resurrection." x
The only key to the apparent confusion in the
Epistle between present and future, the immediate and
the far-off hope, is the recognition of the author's faith
not only in the consummation of all things, but also in
the immediate coming of Christ in the trial of those days.
And he holds this nearer faith not as a speculation but
as a practical call to loyalty.
In this as in so much else he carries us back to the
mind of the disciples in Galilee. Conspicuous in the
Gospel story are those passages in which the loyalty,
often the blind loyalty, of the disciples is described. The
Gospels begin and end with " following." The denial
of S. Peter is not so wonderful as his having gone to the
high priest's house at all ; women are following to Calvary ;
a Rabbi buries the crucified Lord. And if it is in the
fourth Gospel that this loyalty is so to speak underlined,
it is surely the perversity of historical caution to under-
creating, this world was to come ; to man who dwells in it, it is present.
This seems to me one of those explanations which might suit the Epistle if
it were a treatise of theology, but are unlikely if it was a letter written to meet
an imminent upheaval. Cf. The Epistle to the Hebrews, an Experiment in
Conservative Revision, Appendix, p. 37.
1 R. H. Charles in Enc. Biblica, art. " Eschatology," § 5.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 223
value that touch of sympathy, however achieved. S.
Thomas' " Let us also go that we may die with him,"
may have phrased itself perhaps in a dramatic memory,
but it helps dull imaginations to understand the rare and
loving perseverance with which a few trustful men left
their livelihood and tramped the roads and mountains,
and went off two by two on an adventurous errand at
their Master's mere command, and ventured with Him
into Jerusalem though He had told them His doom, and
believed Him when He accepted the title of Messiah,
and after a fearful disappointment trusted Him again
when He shewed himself living in a resurrection which
must have been far harder for the immediate witnesses
to accept as proved, than it is for us who read of it
with ample leisure to weigh, consider, and compare.
The resurrection, the gift of the Spirit, the apostolic
prayers and breaking of the bread, are all spiritual
realities, which can only find full expression through
natural channels. It is a commonplace to observe how
the Apostles who had received the Holy Spirit were
far stronger than the same men had shewn themselves in
the visible presence of their Lord. But the operation of
the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the training
they had received, and the basis of the apostolic
character, as we see it in the Acts, is the same as had
already been laid in the Gospels ; it was the loyalty of
faithful servants to Him whom they style above all else
their Lord. And it is to just that simplicity of loyal
faithfulness that this author makes his repeated appeal.
" Hold fast your profession " ; " Go forth to him without
the camp " ; " Wait for him " ; " Bear his shame " ; " No
drawing back " ; " He is for you Christ however much or

224 The Epistle of Priesthood
little you understand " ; " To take part with those who
crucify him — impossible for you ! " Such are the brave
notes which go resounding through this Epistle and
make it a favourite even with simple minds that hardly
trouble to follow its argument.
And it is such notes especially which deepen its
importance in these days of ours. For one cause or
another we can to-day sympathize only too well with
the imperfect Christianity and still more with the im
perfect churchmanship of those first readers. Happily
there are also reasons which enable many to appreciate
the Christological arguments of the author with peculiar
readiness. But what is needed to-day above all is the
sense of loyalty as a nobler thing than the mere assur
ance of the intellect. A doubt need not be the same
thing as a denial. It is modest to hold to the faith one
has received. Christianity is a life and a service. The
believer is more like a soldier than a philosopher. Some
of the finest spirits of the last generation denied them
selves honour, emoluments, the happiness of fellowship,
for the sake of intellectual honesty. They were martyrs,
and as we read the role of the heroes of faith in this
Epistle we silently add to them honoured names that
were held scarce Christian in their own days, but whom
we now believe to have gone forth to the Lord of truth
himself outside the camp. And what they ventured has
not been ventured in vain. We know now that some of
the truths they suffered for were part of the true creed
all the time. Others were but half-truths and already
we perceive the reconciliation of some of the contra
dictions which perplexed them. Anyhow they have won
for the Church a spirit of tolerance, patience, teachable-

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 225
ness. And the venture of this younger generation is
not to be intellectual rebellion, but intellectual patience,
modesty and progress on the basis of active service,
obedience, loyalty. What was noble in them may be
conceit in us. Their lot was the austerity of science for
the few distinguished minds, our lot is the romance of
loyal obedience to the Master whom we think of less
philosophically, but picture as present with us by a
sacramental act of feeling.
For feeling is no longer the opprobrious term that
it was a generation ago. Feeling, instinct, intuition are
coming out of the margin into the text. There seems
to be a scientific justification for this movement, but it
is interesting to notice how the Gospels, and indeed the
whole of the Scriptures, fit in with it. When our Lord
bade us call God our Father, when Israel called Him
Jahveh, Jahveh of Hosts, and besought Him to stretch
forth His arm, to shew the light of His countenance, to
come down, feeling or intuition was at work. And the
importance of it was, just as the modern philosopher
says it should be, that this feeling brought all into touch
with life. The author of Hebrews has the same con
viction when he reiterates his phrase "the living God,"
or writes that God " was not ashamed to be surnamed
their God." And so again in this conviction of his that
the Lord is coming in the approaching trial, we recognize
the same impulse at work. It is, or at least it seems to
be, more consonant with sober reason to postulate a
heavenly sphere beyond the limitations of sense, in which
the risen Christ lives eternal life, and in which His
faithful enjoy communion with Him in spiritual mode
transcending space and time, than to imagine Him as
J5

226 The Epistle of Priesthood
present though invisible amid earthly conditions at a
particular time and place. Yet as soon as emotion is
allowed to count there is much to be said for this
imaginative conception as being in its own way not less
true. For it is at particular times and places that duty
has to be done, and duty, in the true language of
romantic religion, is the following of Christ.
The following of Christ, or the " imitation " of Christ.
This conception of relationship to Him in part produces,
and in part itself springs from, augmented interest in the
days of His flesh. It means that the Lord Jesus as He
once lived on earth is accepted as a pattern, and His
commands are heard and understood by later genera
tions through their memory of His leadership then. It
does not belong to the first impulse of the faith ;
though it seems the simplest, it is (like other simplicities)
the outcome of accumulated experience, and generally
appears when some strong cause from without has com
pelled thought to fuse its complexities in action.
Harnack in his Mission and Expansion of Christianity
(i. p. 88, note) says that " to imitate " or " be like " Christ
" did not occupy the place one would expect among the
ethical counsels of the (earliest) age ... in the early
church the imitation of Christ never became a formal
principle of ethics (to use a modern phrase) except for
the virtuoso in religion, the ecclesiastic, the teacher, the
ascetic, or the martyr . . . even the injunction to be like
Christ, in the strict sense, occurs comparatively seldom
... for one thing, the Christology stood in the way
... for another, the literal details of imitation seemed
too severe. Those who made the attempt were always
classed as Christians of a higher order, though even at

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 227
this early period they were warned against presumption."
Thus we hear S. Ignatius praying that he may " begin
to be a disciple " when he goes to martyrdom, " flying
to the Gospel as to the flesh of Jesus."
Yet this thought of " imitation " is part of the New
Testament faith. Whenever our Lord was recognized,
in the early mission preaching " as Messiah, as the Son
of God, as Saviour, and as Judge, the ideas of imitation
and likeness had to give way, although," to quote
Harnack again, "the apostles still continued to urge
both in their Epistles, and to hold up the mind, the
labours, and the sufferings of Jesus as an example." Yet
even in the New Testament these two aspects of His
Lordship are presented by the different writers in vary
ing proportions, and it is the Epistle to the Hebrews
which may be regarded as the precursor of S. Bernard,
S. Francis, the Jesuits, perhaps even of the Synoptic
Gospels themselves, in this offering of Jesus the Master
and Example even to ordinary Christians.
The author indeed did not (as it would seem) do this
for the mass of believers, but for certain men who stood
rather apart with special opportunities and special per
plexities — men who had their share in worldly wit and
worldly honour, and who were faced by a trial to faith
which could be better met by soldierly obedience than
by prolonging their philosophical discussions. We
see, if the comparison may be allowed again, so much the
same situation imagined by Shorthouse in fohn Inglesant :
a delicate, well-bred, learned mind ; a time of civil war
when duty is not clear ; an acceptance of the Jesuit
theology of the imitation of Christ, partly in providen
tial preparation for, partly in consequence of, the per-

228 The Epistle of Priesthood
plexities of the crisis ; and then (most important of all)
this idea of imitation becomes itself confused and un
certain as it deepens, but issues at last in new simplicity
through a discipline which becomes severer while it
appears to become vaguer. The faith which the writer
to the Hebrews would instil into his friends, and would
have them hold the firmer because the heavenly as well as
the earthly things are about to be shaken, is seen (in the
small field of this romance) illustrated in the loyalty of
the Christian cavalier, lifted through the chastisement
of his honour towards his earthly king to a straiter
following of his heavenly king. A commentary upon
this kind of Christianity may be seen in S. Stephen's
Church at S. Albans, where Veniet Rex has been cut in
the stone of one of the pillars. The story goes that it
was cut by an officer in the Royalist army, who passed
a night there as a prisoner after a defeat.
Two reflections remain to be made upon all this.
First, that the loyalty of imitation, strictly understood,
requires a critical study of the days of the flesh. Diffi
culties arise which provoke such study, and the study
itself seems at first sight only to increase the difficulty ; so
arduous a task it is to discover the very features of the
exemplar, and still more arduous to copy them when
they are more exactly known. This Epistle is an early
example of such study, undertaken because of difficulties
already felt. The result was to accentuate the difficulties
when the humiliation of the real Jesus of Nazareth was
made plainly visible. The final outcome was a piece of
creative theology which reconciled the contradictions by
a sacramental theory of life in general, and by a practical
appeal to imitate the Lord in a particular act of loyalty

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 229
which the troubles of the day shewed to be needed. In
the imaginary field of romance we can trace just the
same threefold process in John Inglesant. In our own
day two stages have been passed through already.
Various difficulties, more or less vaguely felt, have pro
duced a more and more exact criticism of the Gospels.
That has discovered what seems to be the most accurate
portrait of the Lord as He lived on earth which later
generations have ever known. It seems to be so to us.
Of course our own eyes are dimmed by the mists of our
contemporary prejudices, and generations yet to come
will find much to correct in the portrait now shewn to us.
But there it is, and it brings a fresh set of difficulties
with it ; we had not realized how startling the limitations
of such a life would be, nor how different its whole
environment from our own. " Imitation " seems impos
sible. The reconciliation is still to come. This essay is
but an echo of the voices which are heard to-day around
us, and it may be that what that echo repeats shall prove
part of the reconciliation. An honest sacramental theory
may shew that sublimity only comes by limitation, and
that recognition of real manhood is the truest way to
faith in real Godhead. Again, a cure and not a shelving
' of intellectual difficulties may be found in a simpler
spirit of loyalty ; a loyal following may be discerned as
a quite possible though not an exact " imitation." And
— though here prophecy is shut out — this Epistle would
bid us expect and be ready for some particular oppor
tunity, some " trial," which shall make the path of loyalty
plain. The Christ we follow is dpfflyos, a Captain ; His
imitation is mediated ; as S. Paul said to the Corinthians,
" Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ."

230 The Epistle of Priesthood
And secondly (as the reference just made to S. Paul's
" imitation " suggests), in the New Testament pre
eminently, and in the history of the Church in varying
degrees, we find the philosopher and the sacramentalist,
the champion of instinctive loyalty and the searcher of
the deep things of the Spirit, never isolated in their own
peculiarity. One saint leans in this direction, one in
that, but each shares in the mind of the other. Every
one knows how Dr. Bigg brought this out in the intro
duction to his commentary on the Epistles of S. Peter
and S. Jude, and more lately Baron von Hiigel in The
Mystical Element of Religion, with his three types, the
institutional, the intellectual, and the mystical. No
analysis of the mind of mankind can be exhaustive, and
perhaps there is another type which is not precisely the
same as any these authors notice. Is there not also
what may be called the scholar's mind ; one that watches
the enthusiasms of the others from outside, and looks on
at the stream of life, and sometimes leaves such narratives
as S. Luke's to trouble the schemes of later historians
who have taken one side or another in the period they
are studying? One reason against accepting S. Luke
as author of Hebrews is that the man who wrote this
Epistle had such a very different mind from that. And
yet he too has his scholarship, and S. Luke too is a friend
of the poor and is by no means cold to other enthu
siasms also. Brother needs to share with brother or no
faith is strong enough to stand ; type must be fortified
by contact with other types. That, as Baron von Hiigel
shews, is found in the experience of all saints ; it appears
more clearly still in the New Testament, but the perfect
synthesis is only in the Synoptic Gospels. " Tout

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 231
auteur a un sens auquel tous les passages contraires
l'accordent, ou il n' a point de sens du dout . . . il faut
done en chercher un qui accorde toutes les contrariety
. . . mais en Jdsus-Christ toutes les contradictions sont
accord^es" (Pascal, Pens/es, ed. Giraud, p. 142).

II.
At this point we are already able to go back to
what was but indicated at the beginning of this essay,
and to shew that Hebrews does represent a developement
in the interpretation of the apostolic tradition. That
tradition, with its high doctrine of the Person and work
of Christ, is its starting-point. The author does not
make a new doctrine ; he leads his friends onward to a
full acceptance of the old, unchanging doctrine of the
Church. But he gives them the particular interpretation
of it which their character and circumstances require. This
is what S. Paul and S. John have done or are still to do
in their time and place, and these successive interpreta
tions form a connected series, in which this Epistle has
its own position, its relationship to what goes before
and after.
The primitive Gospel was apocalyptic. The Lord's
own proclamation was that the expected Kingdom of
God was at hand, His moral teaching was a call to
the repentance which converted the wills of men to the
will of God. Behind this particular apocalyptic temper
there was no doubt much of that more sober, universal
faith, which is commonly called the prophetic, which
Mr. Hart calls Catholic Judaism, and which was really
wider, and in our Lord's mind deeper, than either of

232 The Epistle of Priesthood
those names define it — a steadying, unifying reasonable
ness, which cynics call " the religion of all sensible men,"
and Ewald called "the true religion." But this was
only the eau souterraine, the energy of the Gospel was
apocalyptic. Apocalyptic however in no hard, un
alterable form, but by creative Spirit inspiring the creative
action of our Lord upon its own material. To Him the
apocalyptic hope of all the world, and the whole will of
the Father, was concentrated upon His own death. He
reformed the Jewish faith by awaking its heart in the
heroic love of its crucified Messiah.1 Henceforth the
true faith moved with clear purpose along the line of
life which started from the Cross and reached forward to
the Parousia. The death of Jesus had gathered up all
the hope of the old world and taken away the evil of it.
The Resurrection had proved the Messianic reality of
that death, and the hope that had now arisen was
perfectly simple and satisfying; Jesus who died would
do what He had promised, He would come as Jesus
Christ with the Kingdom of God.2
In the opening chapters of the Acts we see the little
Jewish church living in Jerusalem in that hope. It is
simply waiting. It is pure, sinless— the first offence at
once stamped out — unworldly. It believes in the
forgiveness of sins and in its hope, but has no more
elaborate theology. It does nothing ; the outside world
is let alone. It takes no thought for the morrow, nor
for the heathen, but leaves all in the hands of God.
Thus begins that vanishing away of the Jewish-Christian
1 The Hope of Catholick Judaism : an Essay Towards Orientation, by
J. H. A. Hart (Parker, 1910).
2 Cf. Hamilton, The People of God, i. p. vi. I hope I have not spoiled
Dr. Hamilton's very impressive thought by this paraphrase.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 233
Church which Dr. Scott Holland has described as " The
tragedy of the Acts." :
Then into that quiet society burst S. Paul like a
firebrand, requiring the admission of the Gentiles, and
gaining his point. With the admission of the Gentiles
new problems arose. To some extent at least those
Oriental-Hellenic influences, which were afterwards to
come to the front, were already felt in S. Paul's churches.
But he appears in his letters as directing and largely
even checking these. Education at Tarsus would not
change the strongly marked religious character of an
apocalyptically minded Jew. And such was S. Paul.
The "modernizing" touches of sympathy in his writings
are not inconsistent with that estimate ; the apocalyptic
strain that runs throughout, and the quite definitely
apocalyptic language which is frequent, cannot be
explained except on that estimate. The sacraments to
him are sacraments of hope, anticipations of the new
creation, shewing forth the Lord's death until He
come. The salvation wrought by His death stands in
need of no explanation such as modern readers now in
one way now in another search for. It is the expected
acts of God in His age-long purpose of salvation ; it
stands not by itself but in its destined place in the
divine, world-wide vindication of righteousness, which
was mercy and life for the people of God. And that,
because Jesus was proved Messiah and Son of God by
the resurrection ; the Messianic claim granted, the rest
was what had already been expected. Thus what has
1 In this paragraph and the beginning of the next I am drawing upon
recollections of a lecture of Dr. Scott Holland's. I do not know whether he
has published it.

234 The Epistle of Priesthood
sometimes appeared arbitrary in S. Paul's doctrine of
the atonement is seen to be, at least' to him, the Hebrew
of the Hebrews, perfectly consecutive. To us the
difficulty remains that S. Paul's conception is " super
natural," but even that is lessened by sympathetic study
of the apocalyptic thought. Not " supernatural " but
'¦ mystical " is the relationship in that sphere of ideas,
and our difficulty in accepting S. Paul's doctrine of the
atonement is more akin to our difficulty in accepting our
Lord's ideal morality of finding life by losing it, than to
our difficulty about the historical evidence for miracles.
And in accordance with that mystical bent we find
that S. Paul's great contribution to the Church's faith so
far is his intense realization of (what was no doubt in
more commonplace measure the faith of all) the believer's
present union with the exalted Christ by the might of
His Spirit. As the Christ now in heaven, and presently
to come, is endowed with the Spirit of God, so His
brethren on earth who expect His coming are endowed
with the same Spirit. They are lifted thereby to Him
where He is; their lives are already hid with Him in
God. So far there is a conflict beween their real inner
life and the present evil world that presses round them.
But the anticipation is more than hope, it is the Messianic
peace already victorious in the Messianic family. With
out are strifes, within are fears, but the Spirit in them says
Abba, Father, and they enjoy the trustfulness of the Son
of God. All this is really Judaism, only completed by
acceptance of Jesus as Messiah. If developement, it is
natural, indeed inevitable, developement of doctrine.
There is no change, no novelty. The Trinitarian
doctrine is still Hebraic. The Holy Spirit is personal,

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 235
but that was just what a Jew could understand more
easily than a Christian of later days. In later days
" spirit " has come to be used as a highly abstract term,
for " influence," sometimes for little more than " temper." x
But the Spirit of God in the Old Testament leaps upon
Saul, possesses prophets, and suggests continually just
what the later dogma attempts to express. And S.
Paul's doctrine of Christ should be noted in comparison
both with what precedes and what follows it. In the
Synoptic Gospels we have .the picture of our Lord as He
lived, a man among men, in Galilee and Jerusalem.
There is something more which is at last accounted for,
though we would not presume to say explained, when
S. Peter confessed Him to be the Christ. That is, S.
Peter confessed Him to be that divine Person, Son of
God, who would come in the appointed season, as King
in the Kingdom of God. The Apostles knew Him as
man ; they looked for Him to be revealed in heavenly
glory. S. Paul takes up this faith one stage further on.
Whatever be the precise intention of his words in
2 Cor. v. 16, "If we have even known Christ according
to flesh, yet now we know no longer," it is evident that
the days of His flesh are not what he lays stress upon.
He guards the manhood of Christ chiefly by entitling
Him " Christ (still) crucified," and proclaims Him as
exalted in heaven, expected to come. He knows Him
as Son of God, as divine in a truer sense than any
ancient Apocalypse describes the Christ, yet he never
says anything so definite about His " Godhead " as
S. John's prologue does, nor has he any outburst of
devotional reverence parallel to — what seems so natural
3 Cf. Kirsopp Lake, The Earlier Epistles of S. Paul, pp. 202 f.

236 The Epistle of Priesthood
when it is taken as an outburst of emotion — S. Thomas'
" My Lord and my God." x This does not imply that
S. Paul in any way witnesses against the full Catholic
faith. It only means that some questions which were
afterwards asked had not yet been asked in his day or
in his circle. In what might be called " energy " his
doctrine of Christ is as high as any that was afterwards
formulated ; it is to the philosophical problem of " sub
stance" that he contributed nothing. And as in the
Old Testament we are accustomed to recognize the
several prophets telling one thing at a time concerning
the nature of God and His dealings with men, so in the
New Testament also we ought to recognize that the
doctrine of Christ is unfolded through the answers given
to successive questions by the several apostolic writers.2
It is from the whole New Testament that the whole
Catholic doctrine is drawn.
1 An exception will at once be remembered in Rom. ix. 5. Some com
mentators avoid the difficulty by putting a stop before the last clause, thus
making it a doxology of God the Father. Others think that the absence of
the article before 8e6s makes an important difference. Nearly all recognize
that there is something startling in the passage, which needs reconcilement
with S. Paul's other language. Mr. Hart's conjectural emendation is so
slight, and gives such consistency to the series of relative clauses in the
passage itself, that it is at least tempting to accept it. He would read S>v 6
iwl tt&vtwv 8e6s — "who are Israelites, whose are the adoption, etc., whose
are the fathers, from whom is the Christ, whose own is He that is over all
God blessed for ever " (The Hope of Catholick Judaism, pp. 57 f.).
The passages in the Pastorals, 2 Tim. iv. 1 (tov Seov Kal Xpurrov 'Itjo-oC),
Tit. ii. 1 3 (tov /j.eyd\ov deov Kal <raTijpos i)/ji.(ov ' Ir/croS X/jiotoO) might also be cited
as exceptions (cf. 2 Pet. i. 1), but it is not necessary in these phrases to take
both nouns under the one article. If they were so taken, it would be an
argument against direct Pauline authorship ; if Pauline authorship be allowed,
that would be a reason for taking the nouns apart.
2 Cf. Luther: "The Scriptures begin very gently, and lead us on to
Christ as to a man, and then to one who is Lord over all creatures, and after
that to one who is God." Quoted by Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus
Christ, p. 232.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 237
So far then we have the synoptic history and St.
Paul's epistles dominated by a simple apocalyptic
expectation, and representing our Lord first as a man
on earth who will come as Messiah, then as the Messiah
in heaven pre-existent and divine, who is expected by
His Church and in whom they already " live proleptically "
in the Kingdom. The divine work of Christ is intensely
conceived, but no clear account has as yet been suggested
of the union of manhood and Godhead in His Person.
The simple apocalyptic expectation is dominant in
S. Paul from first to last.1 But in his long ministry there
was no doubt some progress in his thought about these
subjects. The delay of the expected Parousia, the
controlling of foreign tendencies, intellectual or ritual,
in his Gentile converts, the statesmanship required in
ruling the churches, — all this prepared for the vision of
the one Church growing up, through possibly long ages
in the future, that at least flashed across his brain in
imperial Rome. His faith did not stand still, nor did
the faith of the Churches who looked to him and in
whose fellowship he himself was being educated. There
was a forward moving thought, a forward moving
devotion towards Christ. If the Pastorals be included
in the Pauline letters they would be in some points an
indication of this movement. The difficulty about
including them is that their spiritual insight seems —
not everywhere but in some places — inferior to S. Paul's.
1 In the Pastorals the apocalyptic expressions are sometimes even more
striking than in the other eriistles of the Pauline collection, where the
Apostle's passionate and at the same time intellectual devotion always
deepens and complicates the simple tradition — as our Lord had already
done in a different style. The double phenomenon allows no facile inference
^s to authorship.

238 The Epistle of Priesthood
We can imagine a country labourer, simply but deeply
imbued with the mind of S. Paul, passing from Romans
to these Epistles, and saying, " This is not the Paul I
know." They give us the impression of Pauline frag
ments collected and edited by some more ordinary
churchman of the Pauline age. And if that were
possible, they would be evidence for what is in itself so
likely, the difficulty experienced by the mass of Christians,
when the first vigour of conversion died down, in grasping
S. Paul's consciousness of union in Christ by the Spirit.
That vigour was renewed by a fresh conception of the
believer's relationship to Christ, brought in by a fresh
kind of trial, a fresh claim of duty.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews little is said of the
Holy Spirit as effecting union with Christ.1 That union
is here based upon the ancient Jewish conception of the
Christ in whom the people of God are partakers. It is
to be realized by the men to whom the letter is written
through their loyalty to Jesus Christ their Lord. A
crisis of trial is imminent. In that crisis He is
" coming," and when He comes He claims the steadfast
1 Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus Christ, p. 336, refers to E. A. Abbott,
The Message of the Son of Man, "for a striking argument that the Epistle
to the Hebrews takes the same line" as S. Paul— "the believer has so lived
himself by faith into Christ's personal being that old things have passed
away, and all things — including and centring in his old self — have become
new." Such is certainly the "rest of God" into which the author has
entered, and into which he desires to bring his friends. But his "line " is a
special one, conditioned by special circumstances. He expresses the union
in terms of " will." The losing and finding of will, which is the union,
shall be achieved in the doing of a particular duty. In each case there is
surrender. But while S. Paul says, "We are one with Christ; His love
constrains us," and says it to Christians generally ; this author says, " Follow
Christ and you shall know what being one with Him means ; loyalty to the
Lord Jesus constrains you," and he says it to a group of men in special
circumstances,

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 239
allegiance of His followers. A new stage has been
reached in the interpretation of the primitive apocalyptic
hope. The final " coming " is still of course the con
summation of the Church's hope. But for the author
and his friends that is for the moment of less importance
than this immediate coming in which their duty is
involved. The Lord had said He would come in such
a trial as theirs. That trial is at hand ; their business
is to take no thought for the (perhaps distant) morrow,
but to be ready and loyal " to-day." Christ therefore is
conceived not present so much in spiritual mode such
as transcends the limitations of time and space, and
makes the believer's life a living already in the heavenly
sphere, as about to be present in the manner of a leader,
in a manner which imagination realizes, and realizes
more intensely the more it postulates a likeness to the
ordinary conditions of earthly movement. It is not a
philosophical, it is a romantic conception.
Such a conception naturally brings with it a new
interest in the Lord Jesus as He did move on earth in
the conditions of manhood. But as soon as that interest
is indulged, those conditions are found to be limitations.
There may have been other reasons also for turning
attention to the days of His flesh at this time, but in
any case the point is that attention so turned brought
into view all the difficulties which the limitations of the
Lord's manhood put in the way of faith. The Alexandrine
Platonism of the author and his friends suggested an
excellent answer to these difficulties. The "doctrine of
Platonic ideas is a sacramental doctrine. He therefore
adopted the sacramental method. He applied it especi
ally to the humiliation, suffering and death of Christ

240 The Epistle of Priesthood
but he also gave a first sketch of the sacramental
interpretation of the whole Person and work of the
Christ ; a first sketch which S. John was presently to
elaborate in his Gospel. In the Epistle this sacramental
principle is but sketched. It is half concealed by the
liturgical imagery of the Highpriesthood which is em
ployed to make it interesting and intelligible. But it is
a step forward in the exposition of the Person of Christ.
As we read this Epistle we feel that no vague terms
of Christhood will ever again' satisfy the thoughtful
worshipper of the Lord Jesus Christ. Godhead and
manhood are here brought together in full significance,
and if the sacramental view of their unbroken unity is
not a philosophical explanation, it is not the less con
vincing to one who has been carried away by the
pictorial vigour and the moral earnestness of the letter.
The power of the sacramental theology is just that ;
it is not a proof, but it is a theoria, a view of life as a
whole, and it is an appeal to natural affection, to loyalty ;
it is wonder and romance in religion.
Two other books of the New Testament may be
classed with Hebrews, viz. 1 Peter and the Apocalypse of
S. John. Their dates and occasions may be more or
less far removed. They are in some respects very
different. But they too shew interest in the days of
the flesh, in liturgical imagery, and in a " coming " of
Christ which is connected with a season of trial. And
in them too the appeal is made to be loyal to Jesus
Christ who comes to help in time of need, and who
satisfies human affection and demands faithful follow
ing, in a time of mutual need — there must be no
crucifying of Him afresh ; He is ready to be revealed

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 241
in a season of extremity,1 The Spirit and the Bride
say, Come.
Hebrews gives, in sketch, a sacramental view of the
full Godhead and full manhood of Jesus Christ. That
view excludes henceforth any such " confusion " as might
be implied in a term like " Heavenly Being," 2 or carried
out into Arianism. In Hebrews we have but a first sketch,
though it has the frankness and simplicity of the sketch,.
a frankness and simplicity which no afterwards elaborated
work can rival. That elaborated work is given in S.
John's Gospel, where the earthly life of the Lord is
recounted at length, and with just that aim, to shew
the heavenly through the earthly, the Godhead through
the manhood. The measure of the advance may be
appreciated if the prologue to the Gospel be set side
by side with the opening of the Epistle, as is done in
the Church's Christmas Day worship. In the Gospel
we recognize the new sacramental language, perfectly
1 I Pet. i. Si Gurriplav irol/iriv dvoKaXvipdrivai iv Kaip$ i&xaT<#. So Hort
renders the phrase in his fragmentary commentary on the Epistle. It is one
of many in this Epistle, in which (as in Hebrews) what seems at first sight
to refer to "the last day," proves capable of application to a present or
imminent season of trial. In Apoc. i. 10, iyevbinjv iv Meti/tari. iv tt} KvpiaK-rj
il/iipa surely does refer (as Hort preferred, though Swete thinks it alien to
the context) to the Lord's great day, the day of the coming of the Kingdom.
But the Apocalypse was plainly occasioned by some immediate trial ; whether
or no that trial is conceived as the beginning of the end itself, depends on
the extension which is allowed to the symbolic language of the Book ; but
in any case the Apocalypse is a X070S irapaK\^aeus, welcoming Jesus Christ
who "comes quickly."
2 Cf. Schweitzer, Paulinischen Forschung, vii. p. 174 : " Der paulinische
Christus aber, wenn er auch Gottes Sohn genannt wird, ist nicht Gott,
sondern nur ein himmlisches Wesen." To the sympathetic reader this
is unobjectionable, but it must be remembered that it is but a summary in
very unapostolic terms of S. Paul's doctrine. S. Paul himself could say, in
its context, 6 vp&ros dydponros iK 777s xoiV6s, 6 Setirepos dvSpwTos i% oipavov,
but he could not have summed up his idea of Christ in such a phrase as
" a heavenly Being."
16

242 The Epistle of Priesthood
mastered and used with practised simplicity. In the
Epistle we have magnificent philosophical language
which nevertheless is still clothing the older, more Jewish
idea. The Epistle starts from the Christ, the Son of
God who was to come, and proceeds to the man Jesus
whose humiliation reveals His glory, whose manhood is
the sacrament of His Godhead. The Gospel starts
from " the Word made flesh," and proceeds to illus
trate that truth by a " life of Jesus," very simply
told. In the Epistle the doctrine is seen bursting
through its early mould by the help of Alexandrine
language ; in the Gospel it is already free from the
primitive mould and is easily expressed in a narrative
told in the simple language that a Jew might use
who had enjoyed no training in philosophy or rhetoric,
but had lived for many years in an Asiatic Greek city.
That might serve as a description of the origin of
S. John's Gospel, however freely we interpret the tradition
that he was, not the writer, but the author, of it. There
are difficulties in even a free interpretation of that
tradition, but it is not necessary for our purpose to
discuss them. It is worth noticing that the Greek
element in the Gospel may have been sometimes
exaggerated.1 There is Greek thought in it, but it
plays upon a Hebraic ground. The sacraments have
JDr. Burkitt writes ("A New MS. of the Odes of Solomon," JTS,
April 1912), "Like the Fourth Gospel, the religion of the Odes may be
described as the Greek Mystery-religion, transfigured by the historical event
of the Incarnation, an event which brought the life-giving irvev/ia to men
and thereby gave them salvation and a foretaste of apotheosis." Every
one must recognize the insight of the last lines in which so much is gathered
into so brief a space, but surely the first lines are an exaggeration. The
Mystery-religion does not shape the Gospel, but the Gospel controls while
it accepts the influence of Mystery-religion upon the original Hebraic faith.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 243
by this time become the centre of Church life.1 They
express the Church's consciousness of Christ's perpetual
presence, and doubtless there is already a tendency to
use them in too mechanical a fashion. S. John, like
S. Paul, checks and directs the tendency of his day.
He shews the truly spiritual character of the two sacra
ments by the discourses on the New Birth and on the
Bread of Life. He explains at large the truly spiritual
nature of Christ's presence by the discourse at the Last
Supper. Again, as in S. Paul's teaching, the Spirit is
prominent, but now the Spirit does not lift the believers
into the future Kingdom ; through the Spirit the Lord
"comes" and dwells in the Church. In S. Paul the
Spirit is a fire burning upwards and carrying him to
Christ in heaven ; in S. John the Spirit is a lantern
Dr. Abbott's description seems to fit the author of the Odes, and to give
at least a hint for an estimate of the Gospel : " A Jewish Christian, writing
in the first century, under the influence of Palestinian poetry, Alexandrian
allegory, Egyptian mysticism, and — most powerful of all — the influence of
the Spirit of Love and Sonship, freshly working in the Christian Church,
at a time when Jesus was passionately felt to be the Son revealing the
Father through such a love as the world had never yet known ; but before
the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit had begun to be
hardened by controversial iteration into a dogma accepted by the lips
of almost all Christians, including many that did not feel the beauty and
necessity of the doctrine in their hearts" (Light on the Gospel from an
Ancient Poet, p. xxix).
The most striking contrast between the Odes of Solomon and the
Johannine writings seems to me to be the absence of apocalyptic feeling in
the Odes ; whereas in S. John I expect to find that strange and antique
Hebraic spirit more and more recognized as the Gospel and Epistle are
more studied in the unprejudiced manner to which we have lately become
used in the study of the Synoptists and S. Paul. If the Odes really do
come from the first century, their affinity with "liberal" rather than with
"apocalyptic" Christianity is remarkable. The Odes would stand to
S. John in something like the same relation as Mr. Streeter thinks Q
stands to S. Mark and S. Matthew, cf. Studies in the Synoptic Problem,
Appendix. 2Cf. Kirsopp Lake, Earlier Epistles of S. Paul, p. 45.

244 The Epistle of Priesthood
unto the feet, and a light unto the paths of men. The
older apocalyptic language is not rejected, but it receives
a subtle interpretation, as in ch. v., where the disciples
are bidden not to marvel at the naive expression of
the truth of the resurrection and judgement to come,
but at the same time an application of that truth is
made to the present life which the Son of God renders
even now eternal life. But the large meaning of this
Gospel is not found in isolated passages. It is grasped
by reading the whole story of the human life of Jesus
on earth, which, as the evangelist looks back upon it,
appears instinct with divine glory. There is to him no
way to be compared with that for understanding the
divine glory ; through the manhood, and through the
manhood only, can men apprehend it.
We are apt to object that in this Gospel the manhood
is not, in fact, sufficiently shewn as real manhood. It is
true that the fresh naturalness- of the Synoptists could
never be repeated ; it is also true that the bold, frank
touches of the sketch in Hebrews were impossible in this
elaborate, reflective portraiture. It is a growth, with the
necessarily accompanying loss, in art rather than a change
in theology. But this difference too may be exaggerated.
It is not felt by uninstructed readers but by critics, and
critics feel it for this reason among others, that they are
obsessed by the problem of miracle. That problem, like
all critical problems, must be faced, but it should also be
remembered that the evangelist is not at all likely to
have been obsessed by it. If we could read his Gospel
in the spirit in which he wrote it, we should pass lightly
over many things which trouble our reading to-day, and
we should sympathize more with that wondering awe at

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 245
the divine possibilities involved in human life, which he
felt, and which all reverent students of the theology of
Christ's Person have felt since he led the way in their
studies.1 That is what he is expressing in this life of the
divine Jesus.
The authoritative utterances take on a theological
colour from his reflections ; the miracles may be narrated
as the Apostle told them, or as his scribe had heard them
told in the church at Ephesus. We do not know what
influences shaped these details of the composition, any
more than we know — apart from his telling — what the
miraculous actions exactly were from which the evangelist's
record starts. But we shall not use the Gospel happily
or well, unless we are content to acknowledge that critical
obscurity and pass it by ; to recognize that this evangelist
writes in simple good faith, and that his childlike sim
plicity is as beautiful as his deep insight ; and that both
simplicity and insight are due to what we may term
inspiration in a more absolute sense than has perhaps
been fashionable of late — he thought, he trusted, he
1 This sense of the greatness, beauty, and peace, of Christological study is
what characterizes Dr. Mackintosh's book, The Person of Jesus Christ. It
would be impertinent to praise its excellence in those qualities which are
more commonly expected in a treatise of its kind. Dr. Mackintosh writes :
" A recent writer on some cardinal elements of the Gospel has insisted on
' the demand they make for an enlargement of human faculty to take in the
unimagined greatness newly revealed to them by God ' ; and this sense oi
dilation, of infinity, of inexhaustible and unending magnitude, is the element
we are most of all bound to pass into our theoretic statements. It may be
taken as certain that the student of Christology will undergo in the field of
theory the same experience of perpetually renewed effort to grasp a trans
cendent object as he encounters in the realm of devotion. In both spheres,
of doctrine as of faith, it transpires that each new conception of Christ we
form, only to dismantle and re-shape it later on the score of inadequacy, gives
place to one always more broad and deep and high" (Bk. III., i. I, pp.
301 f., and see the whole chapter).

246 The Epistle of Priesthood
wrote, not with self-consciousness, nor with much con
sciousness of the literary and historical difficulty of his
undertaking, but because the Spirit of God constrained
him.1 In a word, the apocalyptic impulse still rules in
this late Jewish work.
The apocalyptic impulse is still there, nor has the old
apocalyptic expectation died away. S. John's doctrine
of the continual presence of Christ in His Church, and the
application of this doctrine in the instituted sacraments,
do indeed fit the believers to live on in a world that may
last for generations or ages, but they are to live in a
manner that keeps them ready for the end, and that
keeps them ready for such upheavals of the civilized world
as the author of Hebrews would call " comings " of Christ.
The sacraments and the Lord's continual presence are
spiritual, therefore moral, truths. They mean that the
Christian ideal is (what men think impossible) sinless
ness ; that the believers are bound together in a fellow
ship whose mutual charity not only goes beyond the
ordinary rules of civilization, but reaches even to this —
that the brethren must be willing to lay down their lives
for one another ; and S. John almost shocks us by the
accumulated severity with which he marks off this
indefinitely waiting Church from the unexpectant world
in the midst of which it lives — " We know that we are
of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one."
" This indefinitely waiting Church " ; and yet that may
be too rash a phrase. Dr. Brooke, in his Commentary on
the Johannine Epistles 2 shews reason to think that in his
1 This is brought out by Browning in " A Death in the Desert."
2 The International Critical Commentary : The Johannine Epistles, pp.
xxi., 37, 51.

Coming of Christ and Doctrine of Loyalty 247
first Epistle, written after the Gospel, and probably in
the author's extreme old age, he returned to the simple
expectation of earlier days, and believed that his Lord's
coming might be even before he departed this life. But
Dr. Brooke also shews that the Apostle has enlarged and
deepened his thought on the subject. Instead of a mere
" coming '' he has learned to conceive of that great event
as a "manifestation." The primitive imagery of apocalypse
is dropped ; faith now leaves the mode of the act un
defined ; place is made for all that is really spiritual, but
for nothing else.
Such is the effect of criticism, discipline, the modesty
of church fellowship, on an apostolic mind, aided by the
habit of sacramental contemplation. Some faint reflec
tion of a like process is perhaps to be discerned in the
movement of theology to-day.

CHAPTER VIII
The Epistle and the Old Testament
The sacramentalist penetrates through the book to the author's mind ; he reads
critically — Hence the writer of this Epistle is careful of the original in
tention of his quotations. But some of them probably had an originally
Messianic reference — Influenced both by the schools and by the unlearned
wisdom of our Lord, he represents the reasonable, scholarly-trained
moiety of the apostolic Church — But in the main he treats the Old
Testament as the voice of God conversing with him — Hence he shews
freedom in his treatment of the mere letter and of the limits of the Canon ;
but at the same time a remarkable reverence which appears especially
in his doctrine of the Holy Spirit — That freedom, characteristic of early
Judaism and early Christianity, has been lost and recovered more than
once in later times — The influence of the Septuagint on the Greek style
of the Epistle and of the New Testament generally — New Testament
Greek, its developement and variety as a reinvigorating of literary Greek
by contact with colloquial language under the government of sincere
and simple art. This, already prepared for by the Septuagint, made a
new start in the Greek language, like the rise of Byzantine architecture.
But it was narrowly bounded and short-lived.
A SACRAMENTALIST will have respect for books ; but
he will never care much for books in themselves. Books
are sacraments of their author's mind, and the sacra
mental reading of a book is converse with the author.
But here, as in all other sacramental operation, the
visible phenomenon must be treated honestly and
reasonably ; it must be taken for what it really is, and
must not be re-shaped according to the fancy of the
reader. The sacramentalist turned scholar will always
be something of a critic ; he will take his book in the
248

The Epistle and the Old Testament 249
proper historical sense, and will never forget the meaning
it had for the people who first read it.
Such is the attitude of the author of Hebrews to the
Old Testament. The prophets are not mere books to
him, but men in whom God spake. But again, God
spake in them to the fathers, and he recognizes the
limitations of a message thus delivered. God spake in
them, " by divers portions and in divers manners." He
did not give the whole truth by any one of them ; " The
word of the beginning of Christ," or (as we might say)
Old Testament Christology, was of gradual growth ; each
generation received what it could in its own circumstances
receive.1 We are not then surprized to find that this author
is careful of the original intention of the texts he quotes.
Thus in the introduction, ch. i. 1—6, the three verses
quoted referred in their context to kings of Israel and
to the people of Israel. The exegesis of the passage is
1 Cf. the Rabbinic idea that the Divine Voice at Sinai came to each one
according to the comprehension of each. " This is a commentary on the
Psalmist's expression, ' The voice of the Lord is powerful. ' It was not the out
wardly audible voice of God, for the universe would be unable to endure
this. It was the inner voice as each one comprehended it. At the time of
the Revelation on Sinai every man felt a Voice within him — a Voice which
gave him the counsel which best answered his own needs " (Abelson, The
Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature, p. in). Deuteronomy ap
proaches this spiritual interpretation of Exodus in ch. v. , where, in verbal
opposition to the earlier narrative, it is written of the Ten Commandments :
" These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of
the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great
voice ; and he added no more." Abelson also quotes this saying : " No
day passes but God is making new Halachah in the Beth Din of Above"
(p. 113). He understands " that God is daily creating new rules and regula
tions for the guidance of mankind." But it seems possible to compare it
with our Lord's sayings in Joh. xiv.-xvi. about the guidance and teaching
of the Holy Spirit, as though the Rabbis meant that God is ever applying
the Law afresh, developing theology.

250 The Epistle of Priesthood
confused by ignoring this. The argument is that the
Lord has inherited the name of Son which had been
already given in the past to those who in the Old
Testament were entitled " Christs." And a large pro
portion of his quotations have no clear application unless
we remember that " anointed " in the Old Testament is
the same word as " Christ," and that the earlier mani
festations of Christhood are to be regarded not as
arbitrary prophecies of Gospel days, but as standing in
one line of life with Jesus who inherits, gathers up, and
completes them. Thus in xi. 26 Moses is said to have
"thought the reproach of the Christ greater wealth than
the treasures of Egypt " ; but this is said in the words of
a Psalm in which the people of Israel were meant by the
Christ, and the author used no unnatural principle of
allegorizing the Old Testament, though doubtless his
sense of the continuity of Israel's history with the Lord's
added much richness to his allusion.1 Of his reference
to Melchizedek we have already spoken ; evidently that
would be pointless unless attention were directed to the
original context of both passages, in Genesis and in the
Psalms. The same may be said of the quotation from
Jeremiah in ch. viii. In ch. x. 5-7 we have another
type of quotation. Here our Lord is represented as
1 Cf. Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrews, " On the use of the Old Testament
in the Epistle," ad fin. ; " It is of the greatest moment for us as Christians to
strive, as we may, to enter into the spirit of Judaism ; to study it not as a
stereotyped system, but as an advancing manifestation of the Living God. . . .
If we regard Judaism in this way, the history of Christianity itself will be
quickened for us with a' new life. We shall have before our eyes what is
really by anticipation a divine commentary upon its most perplexing pas
sages. ... In this respect the Epistle to the Hebrews brings before us a
forgotten aspect of the Divine working. It marks the office of the Messianic
nation no less than the office of a personal Messiah,"

The Epistle and the Old Testament 251
declaring, '' when he comes into the world," that He
comes to do God's will. His declaration is expressed
in the words of a Psalm. The author does not mean
that the Psalmist directly foretold things or wrote his
words (so to say) for our Lord to use. He takes
them as suitable words to express our Lord's purpose,
the more suitable of course in that they are sacred words,
inspired by the same Spirit of God who inspired the
Lord's whole action and teaching.
It seems easy to explain all the quotations in the
Epistle in this reasonable manner ; the original intention
of the words is never forgotten ; arbitrary applications
are not forced upon them ; the spirit of their prophecy
works through the " indissoluble life " of Christ which
binds together the old and the new as childhood, man
hood and martyrdom have been bound together in the
growth of a saintly life.
The quotations have not always been so explained.
That is perhaps due to their having been compared with
the less exact usage of some other New Testament
writers, or with the allegorizing of Philo. But whatever
the usage elsewhere may be, it is not even likely that
this author's should be the same. He has his own
idiosyncracy ; he is more modern in this respect than
his companions. It is not an a priori assumption that
prompts this claim for him, but observation of his written
Epistle considered apart from other books ; the prejudice
is rather in coming to this Epistle with other books in
mind, and feeling it impossible that he can be peculiar.
There can be little doubt that this Epistle is
characterized among the other New Testament books
by the predominance in it of such historical method.

252 The Epistle of Priesthood
But when that is clearly perceived, it is necessary to
examine it again and see whether the absolute statement
does jiot need modification. Now the last quotation
made in it is in xiii. 20, " who brought again the
shepherd of the sheep ... in the blood of an eternal
covenant." This is adapted from two passages in the
Old Testament, Is. lxiii. 11, and Zech. ix. 11. The
original context in both places is (in the language we
have found it so often necessary to use in this essay)
apocalyptic ; the reference was from the first to no con
temporary person, but to the great, expected Redeemer.
We know how much of this apocalyptic expectation is
expressed in the later parts of the Old Testament. We
learn from Gunkel how far back its roots run. We begin
to perceive that the " reasonable " interpretations of many
passages which the Wellhausen generation of critics
referred — with a necessarily diminished appreciation of
the astonishing sublimity of the language — to con
temporary persons, are insufficient. Supposing for
instance we could fix the date of the composition of
Ps. ex., so often quoted in this Epistle, how far would
that help us to interpret it? Was it not perhaps
" Messianic," in the narrower and intenser sense of the
term, from the first? If not, is its remote origin the
important historical fact about it ? Is it not more
important to recognize that we can only trace it clearly
in its liturgical use ; that this brings us to the Synagogue
of late Judaism ; and if used there its Messianic in
tention would give it its value ? Certainly it was so
understood in later times, e.g. by S. Peter in Acts ii. 34,
and by our Lord in the Gospels. Mr. Box has shewn
that the Jews used it so in our Lord's time, but dis-

The Epistle and the Old Testament 253
continued that interpretation in later times.1 If our
author recognized the directly Messianic import of this
Psalm, that might not be an exception to his principle ;
the historical interpretation itself might be mainly the
Messianic. We find in the Old Testament and in the Judaism,
of which the Old Testament was the inspiration and the
expression, a complex web of Messianic thought. There
is (1) the ancient oriental myth of the Deliverer. This
may be studied in its various forms in the books of
Gunkel, Jeremias, Oesterley. In the Old Testament
there may be vestiges of it in such passages as Gen. ii.
iii., but only vestiges. As Jeremias says, the Old
Testament writers did not believe in the mythology; it
merely gave them an alphabet in which to write their
own purer faith.2 But the old and crude beliefs lingered
among the people. Hence we find (2) the severe
1 "The Christian Messiah in the Light of Judaism Ancient and Modern,"
JTS, Ap. 1912.
2 The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East (Beaumont's trans
lation), ii. p. 276: "The mythology is the popularizing of a teaching the
religious ideas of which are related to those of the Bible. The mythology
itself can only enlighten and explain the alphabet of the religious expression."
Cf. p. 290 : " From these kinds of figures of speech we should draw con
clusions as to religious history with great caution. Sometimes what we
should call popular superstition presents itself. But often it is only a question
of a deep religious idea presented in mythological phraseology," and i. p. 82 :
" The writers are only partially skilled in the mythological manner. To some
it is agreeable, others have suppressed it, others favoured it. The pseudo-
graphists turn it into frank opposition to some of the writers of the Canon
who use the mythological style delicately and sensitively." Mr. L. W. King,
in his article "Israel, Greece, and Babylon," Church Quarterly Review, Jan.
1913, shews that Jeremias must be read with some caution, especially with
regard to his astral theory. But the passages I have quoted are safe, though
Jeremias means more in them than what I quote them for.
The sketch I offer of the developement through the Prophets and post-
exilic writers, is suggested by what Cheyne has said in The Origin of the
Psalter, and other places.

254 The Epistle of Priesthood
doctrine of the early prophets, discouraging the super
stition involved in those crude ideas, banishing the
language in which they were expressed, and concentrat
ing faith on the LORD'S union with His people and
direction of events in this present life. Then (3) when
the prophets' victory was won the old mythological
language is again used, but innocently ; it is a literary
adornment, taken symbolically by every one, since no
one any longer believes in the old mythology. But
more important than this revival of mere language is
(4) the return on a higher spiritual plane of the old
faith itself. The forward-looking, other-worldly hope of
the divine Deliverer comes back in that apocalyptic ex
pectation of the reign of God, which appears in Daniel
and in many of the later pieces of prophecy in the
Canon. Within the Canon this apocalyptic hope is
nearly always tinged with the earlier prophetic tradition.
Contemporary needs fire the impulse ; the action of God
is still a present action though its consummation is
delayed ; there is no " despair of this world." Perhaps
indeed that is more or less true of all Jewish Apocalypses.
There is a certain danger of our overlooking their full
spiritual significance through our hasty satisfaction with
a neat phrase. But the phrase does express a real dif
ference between the canonical Books and developements
outside the Canon, and we have to recogniee (5) another
class of apocalyptic writings, such as Enoch and The
Psalms of Solomon, which shews the older Messianic
hope branching out into various interpretations of the
Scriptural faith. These in one direction ; while in
another (6) we have the allegorizing of the Alexandrines
and the Philonic doctrine of the Word. In following

The Epistle and the Old Testament 255
out the subject it would also be proper to distinguish
the political from the spiritual apocalyptic idea, as in
the two divisions of 2 Esdras, or in a comparison of
the religious temper shewn in the opening chapters of
S. Luke with the Zelotism which just appears in the
Gospels and played so fierce a part in the revolt against
Rome. And finally the new simplification of faith would
have to be noticed which Legalism and Rabbinism
brought about, at first itself in two forms but finally
(after the Barcochba revolt) hardened into strict Pharisaic
legalism, and the substitution of the Law for the
Messiah. A complex web ; but more puzzling than its mere
complexity is the difficulty of deciding where and when
the several strands first come in. Even in the earlier
prophets it would be prejudice only that prevented our
recognizing something more than the puritan " reason
ableness" we have noticed. There are passages in their
writings too where the thought of " the Day of the LORD "
seems to burst out in fire and strange sublimity. The
return of the ancient, crude, half-pagan idea, upon its
higher spiritual plane was after all no sudden return ; it
had never departed, and the prophet-reformers them
selves had been sanctifying it in one way or another all
along. What are we to think of Is. ix. 1-6? Is it a
later piece? Does the Septuagint text shew that at
least its most striking phrases are the apocalyptic inspira
tion of a more Judaic age ? Or does Isaiah of Jerusalem
himself, like S. John in his Epistle,1 turn to the popular
faith in the divine Person, other than Yahveh, who shall
" come " and redeem His people in the " later days " ?
1 Cf. supra, p. 247.

256 The Epistle of Priesthood
This at least we may assert, that later criticism has made
it impossible to accept the reference to Hezekiah or any
merely Hebrew king as an adequate explanation of this
tremendous prophecy.
Now the Epistle to the Hebrews follows mainly the
reasonable lead of early prophecy ; so the author signifies
in his opening verse. Hellenism also however influences
him with its quasi-philosophical brooding over abstruse
suggestions in Old Testament texts. But there is besides
a touch of the most ancient and most enduring of all the
Jewish styles, viz. the apocalyptic, and it is impossible to
be sure how far the merely rational explanation of such
quotations as those in ch. i. is to be insisted upon ; how
far a more uncompromising Messianic use must be allowed
for. To some extent it certainly must be allowed for;
the Christ of the Epistle is not deduced from the Old
Testament by mere logic.
Here, as so often, account must be taken of the
influence of our Lord himself, an influence which directly
affected the Galilean disciples, which flowed out from
them upon the apostolic Church, and thence in turn
reached the author of Hebrews.
Mr. Box shews — with the weight of his Judaistic
erudition reinforcing the vaguer assertions of his pre
decessors — that our Lord was imbued from the first with
the very spiritual Messianic ideas of that small circle
of faithful Jews which is sketched in Lk. i. ii. ; that
Is. liii. deepened Dan. vii. for Him ; and thus His
Messianic doctrine became new as well as old. This is
a valuable truth, but perhaps it is described in rather too
literary a form. It is a beautiful touch in the Gospel of
the scholar evangelist, that shews our Lord at the

The Epistle and the Old Testament 257
beginning as a studious boy. Yet the impression made
upon us by the Gospels as a whole is that our Lord by
no means lived in a world of books. If it may be
reverently said, He could not have been so great had He
been more learned. The unfaltering decisions of His
trustful faith, the intuitive directness of His Messianic
action, are not merely not drawn from books, but (so far
as ordinary experience suggests) are inconsistent with
book-learning. His words, again, seem to be the doc
trine of a pure, strong mind, educated but comparatively
unlettered. Hence that secure faculty for simplifying,
and at the same time gathering up a still larger com
plexity of thought in the simplification ; that penetration
to the living heart of discussions, or of Scriptural pro
blems ; that masterly rejection of bewildering superfluity ;
and also that bold unconcern for verbal consistency, and
that disconcerting vigour of paradox.
The Epistle reveals as its author a man of letters,
highly appreciative of this fresh, unlettered wisdom ; using
all his own school training to get through barren scholar
ship to an instructed simplicity. His personal bent in
dealing with the Scriptures is towards the reasonable,
historic interpretation ; Alexandrine by education, he is
" Antiochene " in temperament. But he has also, partly
by way of conscious art, partly as a second nature, the
directness which goes straight to the heart of a passage,
and draws from it, as by a short cut, a spiritual value to
serve the immediate purpose of truth. His Epistle was
nearer than any other book of the New Testament to
the critical mind of the generation which is just now grow
ing old ; how often have treatises that mediated between
that criticism and earlier thought been summed up by a
J7

258 The Epistle of Priesthood
quotation of its opening verse. But, more closely con
sidered, it is nearer still to the mind of the generation
now growing up, which has learned to press beyond the
mechanism of the schools and to use the principle of
criticism for the interpretation of the Old Testament with
caution and exactness, yet still as a collection of oracles,
as one sacred and mystical book ; a generation too which
has learned that reason and logic are but instruments to
direct the larger reach of intuitional apprehension.
This skill of the author in interpretation is then
derived from our Lord himself. But in our Lord's
grasp the various aims of many earlier minds were
gathered up. And in the Church of the first century
His synthetic faculty was again distributed. The con
nexion and difference between S. Paul, S. John and this
Epistle, and again between them and the thought of the
Synoptic Gospels, is only understood when the Church is
presupposed with its catholic consciousness behind them
all. These writers bring to expression, correct, and carry
deeper, the mind of certain groups, and these groups are
held together by the common life. Hebrews may repre
sent a smaller group than the others — its author " left
great prose to a little clan," but he does represent the
reasonable scholarly-trained mind of the early Church.
The ancient guess that S. Luke was the writer is a
recognition of this scholarship in general. To that mind
the Old Testament was a divine book, full of deep sur
prising harmonies, yet to be treated according to the
laws of reasonable scholarship. The modern guess that
Apollos was the writer recognizes this special kind of
scholarship in the Epistle. And, as far as scholarliness
goes either guess is defensible. Only scholar as he was

The Epistle and the Old Testament 259
the author was so much more. He took a side in a
political controversy ; he knew it was the truly Christian
side ; and he used not merely scholarship, but the special
rhetoric in which he had been trained to persuade his
friends to find peace where he had found it.
He used his scholarship for a purpose, and so he is
never pedantic, never even detached. His learning was
deepened and simplified by the tradition of the Church
in which the influence of the Lord's inimitable wisdom
was still fresh. Out of this scholarship thus held in
check and stimulated, there has arisen, in this Epistle, a
new Alexandrine form of theology which has broken free
from the classical restraints — already growing old and
nigh unto vanishing away, — has gained a new reality, is
actually a new form, a new creation. And with respect ~P
to the Old Testament, the difference is this. The school
of Alexandria treated the Old Testament as an inspired i
word. The written word was the great thing. Almost
every syllable had its significance and could be operated
with by the skilled manipulator. There are hints of this ;
author's apprenticeship in such a school, but in the main ,'
he treats the Old Testament as the voice of God con
versing with him.
Hence we are not surprised to find that he uses the <-
mere written word somewhat boldly. He selects what
suits him. In ch. i. his argument is that angels are not,
as certain men were, called sons of God. But they are
so called in Job and even in Genesis ; he ignores that. In
Exodus it is said that Moses was afraid and fled from
Egypt. It is possible to make xi. 27 agree with this,
but the natural interpretation of the passage shews the
author deliberately contradicting what the whole narrative

260 The Epistle of Priesthood
led him to consider inconsistent with the character of
Moses. These are trifling liberties, but the sweeping
away of the whole Levitical ordinance is a bolder stroke
than any that S. Paul ventured. There are two justifica
tions for it. First, that he takes a wide view of the Old
Testament as a whole, instead of submitting to the
express but really limited authority of some passages.
Secondly, that he hears the teaching of the Holy
Spirit not only in the written word but also in the signs
of the times ; as the age moved on it had become clear
that God intended those ordinances to pass away.
That wide view of the whole library of sacred
Scriptures is somewhat remarkable in one who had been
trained in the school of Philo. For though Philo
accepted the larger Canon, it is evident that the five
books of the Law stood for him in quite a peculiar
position of authority. The Christians were not the first
to pay increased reverence to Prophets and Psalms, but
the larger interest shews at least that the Christians
were in sympathy with the more liberal school of Jewish
theology from the first, and that such theology came
more naturally home to them than even to a Hellenist
like Philo.1 It is also to be noticed that this correction
of the authority of particular books by the general
1 Cf. Gamaliel's action on behalf of the Apostles in Acts v. And for
Jewish interest in the larger Canon, R. H. Charles, Fragments of a Zadokite
Work, Introd. § 8 : " In the eyes of the Zadokite Party, the Prophets were
at all events not less important than the Law, though theoretically the Law
was held in highest honour. In this respect this Party are at variance with
the practice of Judaism as a whole after the year a.d. 70, but not with the
Apocalyptic or more spiritual side of Pharisaism before the Christian era.
The chief studies of Apocalyptic Pharisaism were devoted to Prophecy, and
hence to them the Law and the Prophets were practically of equal worth,
however differently they might view this question theoretically.'"

The Epistle and the Old Testament 261
authority of the whole, was the principle on which critics
of the Wellhausen school have worked. The result of
their criticism, it is sometimes said, has been to reverse
the position of the Law and the Prophets. The epigram
in which this is expressed is, like all epigrams, but a
half truth ; yet it is a half truth which might also be
applied to this Epistle.
It is however of still more interest to recognize that
the appeal to a power beyond the book itself is in line
with the larger criticism which is already in movement.
We have just now illustrated this criticism with reference
to the Messianic idea, not merely as it is recorded in the
words of the Old Testament, but as those words are
explained in the light of the whole life and thought of
the people among whom the Old Testament was formed.
For the New Testament the developement has been
something like this. The crude worship of the letter
was succeeded by a scholarly attention to niceties of
language, to Greek articles and aorists. Then came
inferences from internal evidence as to the dates
and relationship of documents. Now the whole growing
life of the Church and its connexion with other life
outside itself is recovered, as far as may be, and indica
tions drawn from a limited range of literature are
corrected by the larger living environment. Both
problems and solutions that are merely literary become
less importunate. Thus Mr. Box can appeal to the early
chapter of S. Luke for illustration of the thoughts of a
certain circle of Judaism at the time of our Lord's birth.
But those chapters are explained by and co-ordinated
with a mass of other evidence from many sources. The
outcome of it all is a view of a life which includes more

262 The Epistle of Priesthood
than the little circle pictured by S. Luke. In the light
of that larger life S. Luke's narrative becomes exceedingly
credible and natural, but some minute literary questions
are seen to be unanswerable and at the same time of
comparatively small importance. It does not after all
matter very much whether the Hymns are the actual
words of the persons to whom they are assigned, or
whether S. Luke is using an ordinary device of the
literature of his day, and expressing the thoughts that
were in the hearts of persons of that time and place, in
poetry of his own choosing. In any case he is true to what
we are assured, with a fuller certainty than before, was
the faith and joy of those persons — a select band in a
larger brotherhood, to whom the general hope had
become something more. May it not be that this altered
point of view will presently make a difference in the
critical appreciation of S. John's Gospel ?
S. John's Gospel suggests another illustration of
the parallel. The Reformers appealed to antiquity, and
so did Rome. But Lancelot Andrewes already perceived
that the true appeal was a longer one — ad antiquitatem,
immo ad ultimam antiquitatem ; and of late it has been
to the very mind of Christ that men would fain have
recourse. And for a while the very mind of Christ
seemed to be recoverable in the simple teaching of Jesus
of Nazareth. Then it was suspected that there was
difficulty in discovering the precise form of that teaching
Then it began to seem that the discovery was indeed a
simpler matter than the scrupulous and learned had
supposed, but that the teaching though plain enough was
very startling, and needed adaptation even for a Paul or
a Pascal or a Tolstoi. And so at last we take to heart

The Epistle and the Old Testament 263
the doctrine of S. John's Gospel, the doctrine of the
living Christ and the continued teaching through the
Holy Spirit, and we look to the experience of all history,
and to the conscience of the present generation, as co
operating with the written word and interpreting it. The
mind of Christ as we need to know it, and as indeed
it really is, is the mind of the still living Lord ; the means
of knowing it are not merely books, however sacred.1
Yet our interest in these books increases and our
reverence for them. Their authority may have become
less precise. " The Bible," writes Dr. Hamilton, " is no
longer the final court of appeal ; there is a standard
behind it by means of which it is proved to be inspired,"
and he goes on to shew that this new standard cannot be
accepted — " To the Apostles, the Scriptures proved the
authority of Jesus ; there was no need to call in His
authority to prove them. And to Jesus Himself also the
Scriptures were of divine authority." 2 But Dr. Hamilton,
in his own impressive book, interprets this " divine
authority " in quite a modern sense. He too " tries "
the Word and persuades acceptance by arguments of
reason. It must be so. His statement is true, but it
does not exclude comment. Our Lord did criticize the
Scriptures while He recognized their authority. So did
S. Paul, and when he appealed to the Covenant that was
1 Cf. Westcott, The Use of the Old Testament in the Epistle, ad fin. :
"The Epistle reminds us that there is a correspondence between the Word
of God in the heart, and the written Word : that both deal with the fulness
of hope in man and in nature (iv. n, 13). Trusting to this living Word,
therefore, we must gladly allow ourselves to be ' borne forward ' to further
knowledge, leaving that which we have already gained, or rather regarding it
as our starting point (vi. 1 ). . . . The outward ritual, the earthly kingdom,
suggested hopes which they could not satisfy. So perhaps it is still. "
2 The People of God, i. pp. xxii. xxvi.

264 The Epistle of Priesthood
older than the Law, he was not only in harmony with a
criticism which was to come centuries later, but he was
quite loyally following where the Lord had led the way.
Now if it is the Book that we are considering, this means
that the New Testament was coming into being. And
the rise of the New Testament makes a great difference.
At about1 the time of our Lord's ministry the Old
Testament was complete, accepted, authoritative. But
for us the New Testament is even greater than the Old,
and its gradual growth, collection and canonization
cannot but affect our interpretation of the claim to
authority : " The law was given through Moses, the
grace and the truth came into being through Jesus
Christ." We do recognize a standard behind both
Testaments. We rightly recognize it, for it is nothing
less than the mind of Christ, and that mind can only be
reached when it is widely sought, " God also bearing
witness with the earlier witnesses, both by signs and
wonders, and by manifold powers, and by distributions of
the Holy Spirit according to his own will."
Yet whatever minor disagreements we may venture
upon, it is certain that Dr. Hamilton has laid emphasis
/on an important truth. The books of Holy Scripture
are different from other books, and the difference does
lie just there ; they are books of divine authority. That
is what the Church has always asserted, while leaving
their inspiration undefined. It is possible that much of
our difficulty in explaining their value has come from
asking the wrong question : " What, in the abstract, is
1 This necessary qualifying adverb suggests a difficulty in Dr. Hamilton's
argument. What were the Scriptures which our Lord recognized as of
divine authority? Were they quite the same as the final Jewish Canon?
Cf. infra, pp. 267, 275.

The Epistle and the Old Testament 265
divine inspiration ? " instead of, " What do we mean by r
obeying the divine authority of these books ? " And when
we do put our enquiry in the latter form, it is not hard
to see that the authority is greater than ever, though, or
because, it is diffused. Look at the sacrament of the -
Book in the light of the sacrament of the Person. " Et
fortasse," said Erasmus, " latius se fundit spiritus Christi
quam nos interpretamur," i.e. the Spirit of Christ is more
diffused, more interbreathed (or rather interbreathing) -
with the Spirit in men and the Spirit in nature than our
interpretations allow. Who would contest that? Yet
who would fear that the Person of Christ suffered
diminution by the recognition ? The developement of
Christology has not weakened the authority of Christ by
recognizing Him more and more as one who is " being
all in all fulfilled." Authority is more nobly authorita
tive as it becomes less patient of definition.
Both in Christology and in the interpretation of the
Old Testament the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
took the step his time and place demanded. In each
case it was a step towards the recognition of a less
defined but really deeper authority. The authority of
his Highpriest is not so precise and direct as the
authority of Jesus the Christ seemed to S. Peter outside
Caesarea Philippi, nor yet as the authority of the expected
Messiah seemed to S. Paul. "Jesus Christ yesterday,
to-day, yea and unto the ages," is less easy to receive as
a watchword than Maran atha. His treatment of the
Levitical Priesthood is bolder criticism than S. Paul's
treatment of the Law in general. His application of
Ps. viii. to the paradox of human glory is more subtle than
S. Paul's proof from the Scriptures of the call of the

266 The Epistle of Priesthood
Gentiles. But might not a literalist doubt whether his
careful and delicate Alexandrinism concerning Melchizedek
did not betray a weakened sense of the authority of the
letter when compared with S. Paul's bold Rabbinism,
" he saith not, And to seeds, as of many ; but as of one,
And to thy seed, which is Christ ? " Both are examples
of the apostolic writers in their more provincial character,
but it can hardly be doubted that our author (in this
comparison) respects the true authority of the Old
Testament more than S. Paul, though he treats it with
the caution of a student who fknows that it has a history
just as all books have.
He knew that, and his knowledge restrained him
from some kinds of exegesis. The mind of Christ was
to him a standard behind the books themselves ; he read
that mind not only in the books but even more in the
signs of his own swift times. He treated the letter of
the books with a certain freedom in consequence. But
no writer in the New Testament had a greater reverence
for the ancient Scriptures, none so keen an insight, so
beautiful a sympathy. In addition to what has been
already said in many places of this essay, let us dwell
for a moment on one particular illustration of this, his
treatment of the subject of the Angels. In his day there
was much elaborate speculation on this subject. On the
other hand, his own view of Angels had probably been
already set forth by others with a good deal of fanciful
detail. But for him the Old Testament was enough.
He made one quotation from Ps. civ., " He maketh his
angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire." He
placed this quotation in such a position among others as
to bring out clearly his main argument, that man and

The Epistle and the Old Testament 267
God stand (so to say) on the line of personality, and the
Lord Jesus Christ connects man with God along that
line. The Angels are in another line ; they are winds
and flames, or as we might say to-day " forces of nature."
But that is not all. Such a conception illustrates the
sacramental principle which runs through his letter.
What is evident here to the senses is the sacrament of
the eternal being which God contemplates. It is not
that Angels are degraded, but nature is exalted; its
reality, which is glorious, is sacramentally suggested.
Hence he presently speaks of the Angels as liturgic
ministers in the eternal sanctuary, sharing by their
ministry in God's purpose of salvation. And again, in
ch. xii., the Angels keep festival in the heavenly Jerusalem ;
this glorious, sacramental system of nature has part in
the perfection of eternal life. It is a theme which S.
John too touches in his Gospel of " the Word " ; it is
more fully worked out in the Apocalypse. But what we
have to notice is that in this Epistle the allusion, so
brief but so pregnant, was only possible to one who used
the Old Testament with a very reverent as well as
scholarly love.
Closely connected with this subject of the Angels is
his one mention of the devil. Here again there was in
his day a copious popular lore of evil spirits. On the
other hand there was a growing tendency among philo
sophical Hellenists and in one school at least of Rabbin-
ism x to ignore or rationalize this popular belief. Our
1 Cf. Box, Ezra-apocalypse, p. xlf. ; "It is noteworthy that the form of
the apocalyptist's conception is specifically Rabbinic. He bases his conclu
sions on the doctrine of the yeser ha-rd ; there is no suggestion that the
introduction of evil into the world was due to external agents or forces. . . .
The corruption of the human race is regarded as due to a development of

268 The Epistle of Priesthood
Lord had both sanctioned it and checked it, S. Paul had
employed it in a very noble way (Eph. vi. 1 2) to correct
the fierce religious temper which had perhaps threatened
to descend to the Church from the " imprecatory psalms "
and other parts of the Old Testament — our battle, he
said, is not against human flesh and blood but against
the spirits of darkness. All through the New Testament
runs the thought that these spirits are no immortal
persons like men, but have been conquered and abolished
by Christ.1 Within the Church the Christian is removed
something inherent in man's nature (the yeser ha-rd). Though this doctrine
is sometimes combined, in the Rabbinical literature, with the popular view of
Satan (Satan works his evil purpose by the instrumentality of the yeser ha-rd),
it probably really represents a theological refinement which was intended to
supersede the older crude popular ideas about demonic agency ; cf. e.g. the
saying of Simon b. Laqish : Satan and yeser and the angel of death are one."
The Ezra-apocalypse is later than our Epistle, and Simon ben Laqish
much later, but it is not unreasonable to infer that the developement had
already begun some years before the Ezra-apocalypse was composed. Mr.
Box speaks of "the older mythological view" as "found in Genesis and in
the older apocalyptic literature," but though in Genesis that "mythology" is
used, it is used with no mythological character. The narrative of the Fall is
a tale or parable, not a piece of mythology, and "the old serpent" appears
in the tale simply as a serpent, one of the beasts of the field. As for the
Satan being one of the Lord's angels, on the side of good, in Job (and there
fore in Zechariah) few readers of Job will doubt that ; none certainly who
were present at Miss Amherst's "Drama of Job" in December 1912. It
was bold to assign Elihu's words to the Satan ("Would that Job were tried
unto the end "), as he watched Job's affliction and recovered steadfastness
under his first trial, but the angelic sympathy which they expressed was
dramatically consistent in the highest degree.
1 Dr. Swete speaks of " the personal or quasi-personal ' Satan ' " ( The Holy
Spirit in the New Testament, p. 370). Cf. p. 284 : " In the thought of the
Apostolic age the spiritual forces of evil take shape in the form of personal or
quasi-personal existences." I think Dr. Swete's expression supports what I
have ventured to say, but there is always danger in such speculation of
ignoring the reality of the battle with evil, and I gratefully add to this note a
paragraph from his book which corrects that tendency.
" However this may be, it seems that the teaching of the New Testament,
both in the Gospels and the Epistles, supports the doctrine that there is a
spiritual order of beings or forces which is directly antagonistic to Christ and

The Epistle and the Old Testament 269
already from their sphere. The business of the Church
is to carry on the potentially accomplished work of the
Master, and free the whole world of men from that
shadowy malignant power. As an Alexandrine there
could be little doubt as to the point of view from which
the author of Hebrews would regard the question. As
one steeped in the Old Testament where Satan is named
but three times 1 and only then as an angel obedient to
God, he would hold that point of view still more strongly.
But as a disciple who believed that our Lord had con
quered the devil he could not speak of the work of
salvation without reference to that great act. The
problem is not one of ordinary fact, but of the interpre
tation of spiritual reality. He declines controversy and
assertion alike. He employs the Old Testament anti
thesis of life and death, and in a very few skilfully
selected words he expresses all the essential points ;
"that through death he might abolish him who is the
potentate of the realm of death, that is the devil ; and
to His Spirit in the Church. In the days of His flesh, our Lord, full of the
Holy Spirit, cast these unclean spirits out of the bodies of the possessed, even
as He himself in the Spirit had driven away their Ruler. When after the
Ascension He came again in the Spirit the same antagonism appeared, but
the battle was fought thenceforth in the inner life of man. The Ruler of this
world (Joh. xii. 31 f., xvi. 11), the Ruler of the power of the air (Eph. ii. 2),
already potentially condemned and cast out by the victory of the Cross, still
retains his precarious hold on the world of heathendom, and wages war upon
the Body of Christ (Eph. vi. 12, tariv tj/uv i) wd\ri . . . irpis rds dpxds),
working through his agents, the countless forces of spiritual evil which only
the Parousia will finally disperse. Such a view of the mystery of life may be
inconsistent with present modes of thought, but that it was held by the
generation to whom we owe the New Testament, and that they represent our
Lord as having held it, there is no reason to doubt " (p. 371).
1 At least in the Palestinian Canon. Again the question arises, What were
the Scriptures to our Lord, His apostles, and to this writer ? Certainly he
used some of the Greek books. But whether he recognized their ' ' authority "
is doubtful,

270 The Epistle of Priesthood
might deliver all those who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage."
One more characteristic of the Epistle may be noticed,
which is, at least in part, to be explained by the author's
instinctive sympathy with Old Testament modes of
thought. " The Apocalypse," writes Dr. Swete, " concerns
itself chiefly with one particular mode by which the
Spirit communicated His mind to the Apostolic Church.
The Spirit of this book is ' the Spirit of prophecy.' " l
This might be said of Hebrews also, in the sense that the
Holy Spirit is pre-eminently represented by the author
as the Spirit of God who inspires the Old Testament ;
for it is surely a misreading of the Epistle that would
induce us to suppose that he himself wrote as a
" prophet " in the Church. For an analysis and rationale
of his methods of quotation we should of course turn to
Dr. Westcott's excursus " On the use of the Old Testa
ment in the Epistle." Dr. Milligan in his book, The
Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (p. 204 f.), shews
how the author's treatment of his quotations as the direct
words of God " is in striking harmony with the high view
of inspiration which prevailed at Alexandria," and how
" Philo again supplies frequent parallels " to the indefinite
mode of citation which he twice employs (ii. 6, iv. 4).
Alexandria has indeed helped him, but has only helped
him to use more skilfully what he had already learned
from the Old Testament. There he found the Prophets'
word was always the word that came to them from the
LORD. He found also that this " coming " was not
unfrequently defined further as being the operation of
God through His Spirit. Hence he is content in general
1 The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 276.

The Epistle and the Old Testament 271
to refer his quotations directly to God. In one place
(ii. 6) the argument requires that the expression of man's
hope by a man should be declared, and he therefore
recognizes the human side of the written word, and
introduces a Psalmist " calling God to witness." Philo
may have suggested the formula, but he uses the formula
for his particular purpose, not in vague imitation. And
finally, in three places (iii. 7, ix. 8, x. 15), he recalls the
more defined doctrine of inspiration from the prophetical
books, and notices the mediation of the Holy Spirit.
In these three passages only does he add the article
to " Spirit." To this book-student the most distinctly u
personal manifestation of the Spirit of God was as the
inspirer of the prophetic word. From the current which
was rapidly carrying forward a new conception of the
• Spirit of God as the Spirit of Christ, a conception not
less vigorous, but more precise, than the Old Testament
had given,1 he seems to be somewhat aloof. Nothing
indeed could have been a more natural preparation for
the recognition of the Spirit as Person than the mighty
Spirit of God pictured in the Old Testament, but to him
the picture is not so impressive in that form. He is
perhaps more checked than others by the Old Testament
watchword " The LORD our God, the LORD one ! " For
1 Cf. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 359 f. : " We have
seen the Divine Energy, of which the Old Testament spoke as the Spirit of
God, manifesting itself in new relations, and by new processes of spiritual life.
It has been revealed as the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the Body of
Christ ; it has made for itself a sanctuary in the heart of man, consecrating his
whole being to the service of God, in whose image it has created him anew.
The whole amazing picture is drawn for us by men who speak of what they
knew and had seen in the life of the age which immediately followed the
great day of Pentecost. If at any time they go beyond their personal know
ledge, it is only to give expression to hopes which were justified by events
which had occurred jn their own day."

272 The Epistle of Priesthood
him it is God who directs the distributions of Holy
Spirit. It is Christ the Highpriest who maketh interces
sion. Believers are made participant of Holy Spirit, as
though of the Spirit [of God rather than of " the Holy
Spirit " of whom his master Paul so often spoke. Perhaps
the concentration of his letter may have something to do
with it. God, Jesus Christ, his friends, are the " persons "
on whom his thought is fixed ; they are acting for the
moment in one limited scene, in one engrossing drama of
life and death ; according to his habit he pictures this
visibly, and he adds no touches which might confuse the
intense clearness of his picture.
Yet this hardly reaches the heart of the matter.
There is an element in the Epistle which seems the
very antithesis of that concentration. Even pictorially,
its Temple is all reality, and the whole visible world is
the outer shrine. And beyond his picture the author's
thought runs out to all men, all life ; and the contracted
struggle on which he fixes our attention gains its worth
from the universal and eternal setting. Is it rash to
suppose that he would be in sympathy with that modern
trend of thought which finds difficulty in reverencing the
Holy Spirit (or God at all) as Person, not from lack of
faith, but because of the common associations of the word
" person," and because faith is bursting its older mould,
and is trying to assimilate new ideas of vastness ? Such
faith has not yet found clear utterance, in spite of all it
has learned of late about the larger view of personality,
as an inclusive not exclusive idea. And in this author's
reticence about the Holy Spirit he too seems to confess
that on this subject he has not yet found clear speech.
Neither. S, Paul nor the general language of the Church

The Epistle and the Old Testament 273
(as reflected in the histories of S. Luke, for instance, the
scholar who is not the theologian) satisfies him. The
vagueness of the Old Testament seems to him to leave
the way open for a more complete expression. Alex
andrine hints of " the cosmic significance of the work of
the Spirit " x have deepened and complicated his medita
tions. For the present he restrains his pen, and is con
tent with such a pregnant phrase as that in ch. ix., " Who
through eternal Spirit offered himself in perfect purity to
God." Once more we observe this Epistle standing
between S. Paul and S. John. It brings a new thought
into S. Paul's system. The result is disturbance and
complication. The possibility of further harmony is
indicated by a phrase, a picture, a sketch. Then
S. John completes the synthesis of old and new, express
ing the whole with what seems unstudied and unconscious
simplicity. No one in these days would argue from or about
the Old Testament who did not read it in the Hebrew.
There is nothing in this Epistle to shew that its author
could do so. He is certainly content to quote from the
Greek version ; that was, speaking generally, the Bible
of the New Testament writers, but it was his Bible
as frankly as it was Philo's. And he read it in a text
which, as far as we can at present judge, does not
appear to have been the best text. So much must be
allowed, but it cannot be objected that this has, for
his purposes, made any real difference.
In the quotation from Ps. viii. in ch. ii., the original
has " a little lower than God," and he quotes " a little
lower than the angels." The chief importance of the
1 Cf. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 5,
18

274 The Epistle of Priesthood
variation is that it enabled him to make one of those
artistic connexions of paragraphs which he loved. The
original implied, " nearly as high as God," and in the
actual quotation that sense remains the more appropriate
one, though of course the substitution of " angels " lessens
its force somewhat. Then in his description of Jesus
glorified in humiliation we may either keep the same
sense and understand the qualifying phrase as a con
trast to the " suffering of death," or we may take it as
an adaptation of a well-known phrase in a new sense,
such as is often made in sermons with good taste ; a
touch of reverent irony. The use of the Greek version
has made all this possible ; it has not involved any
ignorant or misleading inference from the Psalm.
Again, in ch. x. a quotation is made from another
Psalm in which the phrase, " a body hast thou prepared,"
is an inaccurate translation of the Septuagint. But
that makes no difference to the argument, which is
entirely concerned with what is written about the
" will " of the Psalmist, of Christ, of God, and of the
readers. It is only the influence of later discussion
about the Eucharistic sacrifice that has given the word
" body " special importance in this place.
It would seem too that he used not only the Greek
version, but also the "Greek Bible." Wisdom, 2 Maccabees,
perhaps Sirach, perhaps yet other writings outside the
Palestinian Canon, might be reckoned among his sacred
books. It may be so, and no hurt in it. It may be that
he uses those books in a different manner from the
Hebrew ones. But is the question a practical one?
Can we fancy him caring very much for official lists of

The Epistle and the Old Testament 275
inspired books ? Besides the Law and the Prophets,
was there a third such list in his day ? He makes what
has (with doubtful accuracy) been styled a definition of
faith ; if he had made one of inspiration it would have
been on the like broad lines, no exclusive, academic
formula, but an encouragement to the enjoyment of
inspired books. He has, in fact, very nearly done this
in the opening lines of his letter, and we have lately
been inclined to recognize that no stricter one is safe.1
We can hardly imagine him making much use of Esther
or Canticles, whether or no they were in the official
Canon of his day. On the other hand, he does owe
something more than a convenient terminology to
the Philonic school, and to its influence he may
have owed a respect for the Greek books of the
Alexandrine Bible which was unusual in the Church of
his day.2 But in all these Scriptural matters he uses a large
freedom. And this freedom was generally enjoyed in
his day. S. Paul protests against bondage to the letter,
but the protest betrays the pupil of the Rabbis, reared
in the straiter sect of the religion. There was a strait
1 Cf. what Gregory writes of the Canon of the New Testament. " The
criticism of the Canon shews, then, that in the sense in which the word
used to be understood, and is by some to-day still understood, there never
was a canon. At no period in the history of Christianity did the necessity
make itself apparent to say just what was and just what was not Scrip
ture " (Canon and Text of Die New Testament, pp. 286 f.). Cf. Souter, The
Text and Canon of the New Testament, p. 156, who marks the difference
between the Greek idea of Kaviiv, "a list," and the Latin of Canon,
"a rule."
2 For "the coincidence ... of the language of the Epistle to the
Hebrews with that of Wisdom," see Goodrick, The Book of Wisdom, in the
Oxford Church Bible Commentary, p. 8, and for S. Paul's use of Wisdom see
Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 51 f.

276 The Epistle of Priesthood
legal school but there were other schools also. The
Hellenistic Jews were different. To many of them
S. Paul's elaborate quotations in favour of the call of
the Gentiles would have been unnecessary. So again
Professor Lake says that " ' the Seven ' . . . attracted
attention by their developement of certain lines of thought
which were probably present in the teaching of Jesus
himself, but were not taken up by the original Jerusalem
community. These lines were concerned with the
Temple and the official class connected with it," and he
adds that an attitude of comparative detachment from
the Temple and the Law "was perhaps not uncommon
among Hellenists entirely apart from Christianity" (The
Earlier Epistles of S. Paul, pp. 1 8 f.). Only after
Jerusalem was finally lost in Barcochba's revolt did
Judaism come to coincide with Legalism. And an
additional justification for the author's disapproval of
the seemingly patriotic party in the earlier revolt is
that his disapproval may have been less anti-national
than anti-legal ; he was breaking with a sect, not with
" Catholic Judaism."
After that final ruin the Jewish Church narrowed
into Rabbinism. But the Christian Church went forward
as the heir of larger Judaism. Part of her early heritage
was freedom in Scriptural study ; witness Origen, and
the school of Antioch. Yet even Origen with his interest
in the Hebrew text, perhaps also as forerunner of a later
and more dogmatic theology of Alexandria, prepared
the way for a check to this liberty. Presently S. Jerome
learned something of Rabbinic prejudices about Canon
and Text, and when the Septuagint gave place in the
West to the Vulgate, the poetry of Scriptural interpreta-

The Epistle and the Old Testament 277
tion began to harden into prose. For a while this
caused but little difficulty since the allegorical method
kept historical and literary problems at a distance.
That method, however, wore out at last. It had been,
in the beginning, a naive but noble recognition of the
truly prophetic character of Scripture as a whole, a
safeguard against the unnatural application of isolated
texts as particular foretellings of the details of the
Gospel. It recognized an Old Testament full of Christ,
instead of a series of selected proof-texts. But later
generations repeated the allegories of their fathers, till
that method grew conventional and in its turn de
generated from poetry to prose. Then that dulled
prose was interrupted by the Renaissance and the
Reformation, which began with a promise of new
liberty. They could not revivify the poetic intuition
of the Church in its youth, but they could fashion fine
prose instead of debased. Conventional interpretation
made room for the attempt to recover the original
intention of the sacred writers ; Calvin's commentaries
in the terse, lucid Latin that a Frenchman could write
so well, are brilliant examples of this new learning.
Yet Calvin lost and added something in the stress of
controversy, and presently both on the Protestant and
Roman side an unnatural authority and character were
attributed to the Bible. Its rich variety, the sweet
mystery of language, the sacramental service of its
human writers, all was forgotten ; every word was
read as matter of fact history and compelled to express
matter of fact accuracy.
In the English Church at least, this popular travesty
of inspiration was guarded against by the Articles of

278 The Epistle of Priesthood
Religion which asserted, gravely and charitably vindi
cating primitive liberty, that what --Holy Scripture
containeth is " all things necessary to salvation," and
that '' whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved
thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should
be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought
requisite or necessary to salvation." No doubt other
problems than our present ones were in the minds of
those who framed that Article, but the " Declaration "
prefixed to the Articles, in its restriction to " the literal
and grammatical sense," clearly was intended to safe
guard modern meanings in the antique words, whenever
such modern meanings were natural ones. And it is
perfectly natural to reflect that few questions of date or
authorship in the Old Testament can be answered out
of Scripture itself, and that even the more daring
reasonings of New Testament critics are but seldom
concerning matters " necessary to salvation.'' Modern
criticism has caused some pain ; sometimes, not surely
as a rule, it has been arrogant or irreverent ; it has been
sometimes hasty, and of course its very scholarship
implies that it is uncertain of " results " and perpetually
advances by means of correction. But it can hardly be
denied that it may appeal for its liberty to the Article
and to the primitive Church. Nor can it be denied that
it has gone far to revive interest in the Scriptures and,
if not to confirm the comparatively modern form of
faith which it found in possession, at least to prepare
the way for a larger form which is also akin to the
Apostolic. Yet as with allegory, and the new learning of the
Reformation era, so modern criticism has appeared to

The Epistle and the Old Testament 279
degenerate from its first vital promise into mere analysis
of documents and academic detail. For some years at
least this has been threatening. But those who read
the newest signs of the times will say that reaction has
already set in. There are influences from without.
Philosophy, the example of the natural sciences, are
such invigorating influences. The character of our
leading critics, the pathetic need of a generation which
cares much, in spite of or because of great material
hindrances, for the things necessary to salvation, are
inner impulses that seem to be arising from the critical
studies themselves, and all this is tending in the same
direction. The studies of the critics began in the face
of opposition, and one of the Articles of the English
Church strengthened their position by its primitive and
catholic good sense. They are now tolerated, and by
many favoured ; by some they are even appealed to for
spiritual help. The issue is that their interest begins
to be centred on that ideal interpretation of the whole
Scriptures as one Gospel which is vindicated in the words
of another Article : " The Old Testament is not contrary
to the New : for both in the Old and New Testament
everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is
the only Mediator between God and Man, being both
God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard
which feign that the old Fathers did look only for
transitory promises."
The use of the Septuagint by the author of Hebrews
suggests one other point ; its influence on his language
and style. Von Soden notices his rhetorical skill, and
shews that it is a technical skill such as might be
compared with the Greek rhetoric of the schools of his

280 The Epistle of Priesthood
day, and suggests that the Epistle is less a letter than
an example of the formal oratory which might even
then be heard in Christian communities, at least in
Rome. But he also allows that it would be a remark
able example, and recognizes in its composition not
only the general tradition of rhetoric, but in particular
the peculiar character which the author's familiarity
with the Septuagint has given it. " He is securely
master of the Septuagint. Words and images from
it crowd abundantly upon him in his own singular
diction." 1
There is perhaps rather more to be said than that.
Not only is the author's diction singularly his own. It
is less like the literary prose of the century than Von
Soden's description might suggest. It is easier, simpler,
more natural. The sentences are shorter, more com
fortable (for an English ear at least) to take in. This
may be readily tested by reading a page or two of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus on the " Attic " side, or
Philo on the Jewish. And this ought to be remembered
before we allow the suggestion about Christian oratory
to impress us over much. The Epistle is not oratorical
in any ordinary sense, though Christian oratory may
have been more like it than pagan oratory was ; for
Christian oratory too would probably have been in
fluenced by the Septuagint. For that seems important.
This author certainly is a master in his use of the
Septuagint, but he is moulded by it also. How far is
that singular force, freshness, and simplicity of his due
to the short, direct sentences of the Septuagint ?
But that is part of a wider question. How far can
1 Hand-Commentar, p. 7.

The Epistle and the Old Testament 281
it be said that there is a common New Testament style ?
What are the causes which have combined to produce it ?
What is its relationship to the spoken and the literary
language of the century ? The answer seems to be that,
in spite of marked differences within itself, the New
Testament is written in a style of its own ; that the
Septuagint has had much to do with forming that
style; that it represents an invigorating of the literary
language by the spoken language; that the differences
in the style of the several books might be measured by
the varying proportions of common speech or literary
rule in them ; and that throughout the whole the
governing power of more or less conscious art has been
at work, an element in the process which was the more
naturally accepted because its operation had from the
first helped to shape the Greek of the Septuagint1
Dr. Adolf Deissmann sketches in his Light from
the Ancient East, ch. ii., the changes of opinion about
the character of New Testament Greek. Pagan con
troversialists once called it a boatman's idiom. The
Christian apologists answered that its simplicity was
their glory. Latin apologists however defended its
artistic perfection. So did some reverent people in
comparatively modern times. But that was impossible
for classical scholars ; they saw how different this Greek
1 Cf. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, II. iv. p. 295 :
" While the colloquial Greek of Alexandria was their chief resource, they
were also influenced, in a less degree, by the rise of the later literary style
which was afterwards known as the KOivij." This indicates, as I suppose,
not merely the difference between the ruder style of the Law and the more
literary style of such a book as Job, but also that peculiarity in the language
of books which no readable book is without — however, simple or even careless
it seem to be, it is not the language of conversation ; literary art has induced
order, or at any rate, a particular kind of order.

282 The Epistle of Priesthood
was from the Attic, and therefore isolated it and " raised
it to the rank of a separate linguistic entity under the
title of ' New Testament ' Greek." Of late, however,
the discovery of inscribed stones, papyri, and potsherds,
has brought us back to the glad confession that "the
boatman's idiom " was the true description. " The
New Testament has been proved to be, as a whole, a
monument of later colloquial Greek, and in the great
majority of its component parts a monument of the
more or less popular colloquial language." And again,
ch. iii., " The texts composing it come from the souls of
saints sprung from the people, and therefore the New
Testament is the Bible for the many." Of course Dr.
Deissmann distinguishes. The Epistle to the Hebrews
seems to him " to hang in the background like an
intruder among the New Testament company of popular
books." There are some other Epistles which are not
really letters, but more or less set, literary pieces ; " the
Epistle to the Hebrews gains immensely in importance
if really considered as literature : it is historically the
earliest example of Christian artistic literature. What
had been shyly attempted in some other epistles has
here been more fully carried out." But even so does
he not press this popular, colloquial character of the
New Testament as a whole too far ? He supports his
thesis with immense learning delightfully displayed.
After the enjoyment of so rich and genial a piece of
scholarship as this book it would be as ungrateful as it
might be presumptuous to question the author's conclu
sions. What is meant by the question just asked is
merely this : " popular and colloquial," if used in a
strict sense does not quite sufficiently describe the

The Epistle and the Old Testament 283
whole character of the New Testament. It may be
that almost every word, phrase, and syntactical con
struction can be illustrated from the vulgar tongue of -
the papyri. There may be striking resemblances in
points of style. But there remains a difference between
the New Testament, even in its simplest parts, and
these letters and inscriptions except in those careful
examples where something like literary skill comes in.
The New Testament is not composed of carelessly
written letters ; it does not reflect the diffuse, half-
ungrammatical manner of ordinary conversation. Its
language has undergone that discipline which makes
proper book-style. It is so in all readable books.
The Pilgrim's Progress, Burns' poems, are written in
the unsophisticated language of the people ; but they
are not written just as the people speak. Benvenuto
Cellini wrote his memoirs in an exceedingly popular
language, but those memoirs would not be the remark
able thing they are, if he had used no art to govern that
language. That is the main point. The New Testament owes
a good deal to art. It is not the same thing as the
artless letter of the papyri, nor as the speech of peasants.
Our Lord and His disciples and those who wrote about
Him and them in the New Testament were not peasants.
Had they been He would have been able to use and
direct that lot aright, and there are probably few men of
rank, business or letters, who do not sincerely honour the
peasant's outdoor life, endurance and simple depth of
character. But it is not easy for peasants, it is harder
still for narrowly educated tradesmen to write great
prose. And the New Testament is very great prose ;

284 The Epistle of Priesthood
in the Synoptic Gospels greatest of all. The truth is
surely this. In the New Testament we read the
language of common life raised to a very noble literary
form by a more or less conscious art ; in some parts of
it, however, it would be more exact to say, an old literary
form recreated by touch with the language of common
life.1 And the Septuagint had led the way. Its earliest
versions, e.g. of the Law, come nearer perhaps than any
version since to the contemporary language of the people,
the rude Greek of the Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria.
But there are literary touches, and throughout there is
the artist's impress of order. Not in its choice of words,
not in its syntax, but in the direct, terse sentence, carved
to be easily comprehended in the synagogue, partly by
the translator's conscious will, partly by the Hebraic
brevity of his original,2 a rough model was given, which
1 Cf. Wendland, Die Hellenistisch-Romische Kultur, p. 31 : " Die auf ein
kiinstliches Sprachniveau gehobene Literatur ist den befruchtenden Beriih-
rungen mit der volkstiimlichen Sprache entzogen." Also Jebb, Appendix
to Vincent and Dickson's Modern Greek, p. 292 : ' ' The vocabulary of
classical Greek is, in this Hellenistic phase, going through a furnace, and
being recast by the moulding power of oral use." Jebb also says, "But
while the Greek of the New Testament is colloquial, it is still the spoken
language of the educated, and is not divided by any impassable gulf from the
literary Common Dialect."
2 Cf. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, pp. 297, 298 :
" In the works of Philo we have a cultured Hellenist's commentary on the
earlier books of the LXX, and as he quotes his text verbatim, the student
can discern at a glance the gulf which divides its simple manner, half Semitic,
half colloquial, from the easy command of idiomatic Greek manifested by the
Alexandrian exegete." Yet who that knows Plato, Philo, and the LXX,
would not prefer the rough dawn of the LXX to the cloudy evening style of
Philo ?
Cf. Tatian, Or. 29 : Siw^S?; ypa<pais tutiv ivrvxeiv flappapiKats . . . Kal
pot ireurdijvat. ratfrcus o'vvifiri Sid re r&v Xi^ettjv tS drvipov Kal tCov elirbvTtav rb
dvGTnrijSeVTov Kal rr\% rod iravrbs Tronjtrews to ivKardXTjirrov Kal twv fie\\6vT(t)v
¦jrpoyvbxrTiKbv Kal twv irapayyeXfidroiv t6 i£alo~iov Kal t&v SXojv t6 p.ovapxiKbv.
Quoted by Harnack in Bible Reading in the Early Church, p. 42. See also
Mission and Expansion of Christianity, i. p. 282, where Harnack comments

The Epistle and the Old Testament 285
later translators of other Old Testament books, and
afterwards Christians in their newwritings.might approach,
sometimes miss, and finally surpass.
The Christian writers so far surpassed it, that theirs
is a new creation, at least in the same sense that
Byzantine architecture was a new creation.
" We may assert," said Munro, " that in Lucretius'
day the living Latin for all the higher forms of composi
tion both prose and verse was a far nobler language than
the living Greek . . . Hardly had Demosthenes and
Aristotle ceased to live, when that Attic which had been
gradually formed into such a noble instrument of thought
in the hands of Aristophanes Euripides Plato and the
orators, and had superseded for general use all the other
dialects, became at the same time the language of the
civilized world and was stricken with a mortal decay.
It seems to have been too subtle and delicate for any
but its wonderful creators." 1 " That which is becoming
old and waxeth aged is nigh unto passing away," said
our author. And as his " youthful covenant " rose from
the decay of the Levitical forms, so out of that aged
classical form of language rose the young style of the
New Testament. In S. Mark we see it in its utmost
simplicity. S. Matthew and S. Luke bring a rather
more conscious art to bear. S. Paul had perhaps the
on the same passage of Tatian : "In the first place, the form of this book
(i.e. the LXX) made a deep impression, and it is characteristic of Tatian the
Greek, though he would remain a Greek no longer, that its form is the first
point which he singles out. The vigorous style of the prophets and psalmists
captivated the man who had passed through the schools of rhetoric and
philosophy. Vigour coupled with simplicity — this is what made the book
seem to him so utterly different from those treatises and unwieldy tomes in
which their authors made desperate efforts to attain clearness of thought upon
questions of supreme moment."
1 Lucretius, ed. 3, p. 306.

286 The Epistle of Priesthood
Greek university education of a Jewish gentleman ; he
talked well, and dictating his letters, came as near as the
written word may to good colloquial speech. Blass
found a rhythm in his letters which is not inconsistent
with that process, and may have been part of the
unconscious art with which he raised his common speech
to the dignity of the Christian " style " ; in Romans
and Ephesians there is an added elaboration. In S. John's
Gospel and Epistles, as in the early Septuagint, the
influence of Hebraic simplicity seems apparent. The
Apocalypse baffles classification ; it seems a first attempt
of that " John " who wrote it, rough but exceedingly
splendid ; we might compare it with such a vigorous,
rude translation as we have in Codex D of our Epistle.
All these are on the popular side. They might
be fore-runners of S. Ignatius or the Didache} Per
haps they were too close to the Hebraistic2 or Septua-
gintal naivite to satisfy even the Church at large,3
1 If the Didache be, as the Dean of Wells has gone far at least to prove it,
a comparatively late piece which describes a merely ideal state of things in
the primitive Church, this imitation of the early style has an interesting
significance. See his article in JTS, April 1912.
2 This epithet has of course no reference to "Hebraisms," i.e. pecularities
in the use of prepositions, genitive cases, and special phrases, such as Mr.
Moulton has shewn to be merely colloquial, and probably not derived from
Hebrew at all. It indicates the terse, direct style, which being repeated in
sentence after sentence by men who were familiar with the Septuagint, if not
with the Hebrew Scriptures, does appear to be really connected with the use
of Hebrew books. Cf. Jebb, Appendix to Vincent and Dickson, p. 291,
" the style is to that of Plutarch much what the elpo/nivr) Xi^is of Herodotus is
to the KaTeo-Tpap.iJ.ivri X^|is of mature Attic prose."
3Cf. an article in JTS, Oct. 1912, by F. H. Colson on "Tifci in
Papias." Mr. Colson shews that Tiifei, in Papias' statement about S. Mark's
Gospel had its technical sense of "rhetorical order, that ordering which will
produce a satisfactory and readable work." S. Mark lacked rdfis because
his Gospel, was incomplete at beginning and end, and because it was not
written with a rhetorician's care for proportion — in one place superfluous (we
of course call them "graphic") touches, in another but a line or two for the

The Epistle and the Old Testament 287
much less those churchmen who were imbued in
any degree with the secular skill in letters. On
the other side stands Hebrews, pre-eminent in a
group which also includes the Epistles of S. James
and S. Peter, and those introductions which shew
S. Luke writing in his own style. In Hebrews Von
Soden points to the arrangement of its matter according
to the rules of rhetoric.
Blass has analysed its regular interwoven rhythm.1
No one can read the Epistle without recognizing its
character of classical, or if not classical at least of the
best Hellenistic diction. Yet the contrast with con
temporary examples is more striking than the affinity.
The Christian simplicity, directness, sincerity, runs
through it. In part this may be accounted for in the way
of craftsmanship ; study of the Septuagint has affected
the writer. In larger part there is another cause ; its
subject is a greater one than the contemporary philo
sophers had touched. And that is but a partial way of
putting it. With more completeness we must say that
whole narrative of the Temptation. This operated against the popularity of
this Gospel in the second century, and Mr. Colson adds : " such a judgement
probably reflects the feeling of Christians at all times. While it is true that the
very defects of Mark's i&pyaola commend him to those who have the spirit of
historical criticism, because they bear the signs of primitiveness and simplicity,
it is none the less true that they weigh against him with the general reader.
Mark has never been a favourite : note, for instance, his practical exclusion
from our series of liturgical Gospels. And if I am not mistaken this is largely
because he has the characteristics mentioned above."
1 (Barnabas) Brief an die Hebraer, Text mit Angabe der Rythmen,
herausgegeben von Friederich Blass. Halle, 1903. This device had been
practised by Isocrates, in whom a certain trick of style may also be observed
which appears rather excessively in Hebrews' — a tendency to drop into iambic
metre. In xii. 13 the Oxyrhynchus papyrus must now be added to the
authorities which break the hexameter by giving icoiehe. So WH text, with
ironJo-aTe in the margin.

288 The Epistle of Priesthood
it springs out of a new life ; it is a new creation in style
as it is in meaning.
And that perhaps is one reason why this revival of
Greek in so manly a form had little effect upon the
future of the language. In a real sense the Apostolic
style is part of the Apostolic inspiration.
It lingers in the Apostolic Fathers, though even there
a difference is perceptible. Clement, and the Homily too
called 2 Clement, have much of the New Testament
simplicity ; but Clement falls away from the clear beauty
of Hebrews and if he reminds us of the New Testament
it is rather of such a part of it as 2 Peter. Notice for
instance the delicacy of Hebrews in the use of resonant
compound words, and the comparatively reckless abund
ance of Clement. Nearest to the line of true descent
from Septuagint and New Testament stands Ignatius;
both in words and in thoughts he shews what looks
like a Semitic ancestry. Indeed this rare style we speak
of is no common colloquial idiom, it has something of
that other-worldly and ideal simplicity which was the
heritage of the Jew and can so hardly be transformed
into the conditions of progress.
Yet another reason for its brief life may also be
noticed. Wendland shews how the whole movement of
the age in Greek literature was towards " Atticism," and
how Dionysius of Halicarnassus " with triumphant words
over the victory won that cause " ; a romantic ideal was
formed that looked backward, and it was formed to last.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva
tion, and it mattered not that a victory in style was
denied it. Yet we cannot but dream of what might
have been. Here was a new creation like Dante's of

The Epistle and the Old Testament 289
Italian. For such a Greek, so popular yet so sincere and
strong, what a future there might have been. Some
would answer that even in the New Testament the
supreme good taste was not the authors' own, but due
to a Christian scholarship of revision at Alexandria.
It seems more likely that at least the coarser touches
in the " Western text " should be reckoned among the
other indications of this inspired style being above the
general comprehension. However that may be it begat
no posterity, unless we trace something of it in the
beautiful language of the Greek Liturgies. Origen had
a style of his own, as unaffected and often as vigorous,
but quite without its ease and inexpressible charm. His
was a scholar's natural running talk, and perhaps for
once we really do hear in his writings a colloquial, or
at least a professorial, speech untempered in reduction
to book form. Something of the same freshness returns
whenever we meet with an author who is quite natural,
as for instance Epictetus. Even Lucian in quite another
manner has some of that natural ease and charm. But
he might rather be compared with Erasmus writing good
classical Latin in the sixteenth century.

u)

EPILOGUE
This Epistle is a commentary upon the apostolic
tradition that He who was known on earth as Jesus is
the Christ of God, and that being the Christ He is very
God of very God. The method by which it brings
further clearness to this astounding 'truth is the method
of analogy. But before we have read far we perceive
that analogy as the author uses it is a far more powerful
instrument than it commonly appears. His analogy is
part of a large faith in the divine character of the whole
of visible life ; " the powers of the world to come invade
the present, and already move towards the victory which
shall be hereafter " ; this sentence from Francis Paget's
Essay on Sacraments in Lux Mundi might be a para
phrase of Heb. vi. 4 f. Thus not by an arbitrary scheme
of fanciful resemblances or suggestions, but in view of the
eternal existence in God of all that God has created for
goodness, he sets the days of our Lord's flesh before
us and bids us recognize in their supreme goodness the
sign, pledge, and instrument of His eternal perfection.
Humiliation, limitation, he shews, make for not against
that recognition ; for (at least since our Lord himself
opened men's minds to see it) supreme goodness comes
to its own when, not merely power or glory, but life
itself is lost for love's sake.
As the author took a phrase from the Old Testament
to define his theory according to the fashion of his day,
290

Epilogue 291
so we have taken a phrase from the current language of
theology to describe in brief our interpretation of his
theory ; we have called this principle the sacramental
principle. It was perhaps Dr. Paget who suggested the
term, for the instructiveness of that fine essay comes just
from this : it is on " Sacraments " not " The Sacraments,"
and it shews the spiritual value of the instituted,
church sacraments by setting them in the midst of the
universal sacramental order.
Some might prefer to find another word. The
same essay might suggest another word. It is from
Wordsworth and the poets that Dr. Paget draws his
illustrations, illustrations which are as religious and
solemn as they are fit. In fact the broad significance
of " sacramental " might be best indicated by setting
" poetic " over against " philosophic." " The poet," if
we may give a slight turn to Dr. Peake's meaning
by isolating some words of his about Job, " the
poet is an Oriental, with far less care for pure
reasoning." Now the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is a
sacramentalist or poet (whichever title be preferred) ; he
reaches truth by vision rather than by the severity of
logical thought ; his thorough-going and earnest delight
in this method marks his distinct place among the writers
of the New Testament. But in bringing this study of
the Epistle to a close, in looking back upon it, and the
older Jewish books from which it sprang, and the con
temporary books among which it stands, do we not feel
that its poetic, sacramental character makes it different
from the rest only in degree, not in kind ? Here indeed
is the first of three main impressions which our study

292 The Epistle of Priesthood
leaves upon us, viz. that all expression of Christian faith
must be more akin to the vision of poetry than to the
exactness of philosophy; it is remarkable that the
earliest Christian creed, in 1 Tim. iii. 16, is in verse.
This appears true whether we consider dogmatic pene
tration or moral vigour. Philosophy moves within
invincible barriers, poetry transcends them ; philosophy
is most sincere, and therefore in its own sphere most
moral, when it shuts its ears to those emotions in which
the larger morality has its life, but poetry apart from
intense morality is mere literature. " It is given some
times to a poet to sink a shaft, as it were, into the very
depths of the inner life : to penetrate its secret treasuries,
and to return, Prometheus-like, with a gift of fire and of
light to men. The venturesome words that record such
a moment of penetration and insight never lose their
power : they seem to have caught something of the
everlasting freshness of that world of which they speak :
and one man after another may find in them, at some
time of need or gladness or awakening, the utterance of
thoughts which else he might have been too shy or too
faint-hearted to acknowledge even to himself." So wrote
Dr. Paget of the poets, but he might seem to be
describing the Holy Scriptures and the Creeds. He is
in fact indicating a certain limitation to which all must
submit who would think, speak, or discuss concerning
the mysteries of faith. Yet the limitation itself becomes
a faculty — a faculty for eternity — when it is submitted
to. And such submission makes for reverence and peace
as well as for understanding.
The second impression that remains upon us is of
the hopeful, forward look of the Epistle. This again is

Epilogue 293
characteristic of the whole New Testament, but it is
especially remarkable here because the Epistle is so
largely engaged with the renunciation of a valued past.
We may or may not be right in our explanation of the
circumstances of that renunciation ; that critical enquiry
does not after all affect the broad fact ; this is an Epistle
of renunciation. But that would be a poor description
of it. The renunciation appears as a new start with high
hopes ; there is no looking back. Now this forward look
is the healthy state of faith whether creed, conduct, or
organization is considered. It is the temper of the New
Testament, but it seems to be a difficult temper to
continue. At least it seems to have been much oftener
the habit of the Church in later times to look back upon
the first six or the first three centuries, or upon the
apostolic age, as golden ages, to be regretted, or if
possible recovered. Whether the Dean of Wells be right
in his suggestion that the Didache is no contemporary
witness to a mainly charismatic ministry, but the later
dream of an imaginary prime, remains to be proved.
But the persistent recurrence of such interpretative dreams
of history is, so far as analogies go, very much on his
side. This kind of feeling is exquisitely expressed in
Mr. Thomas Hardy's Dynasts in the scene where the
spirits look upon the coronation rite in Milan Cathedral :
Spirit of the Pities.
What is the creed that these rich rites disclose?
Spirit of the Years.
A local thing called Christianity,
Which the wild drama of the wheeling spheres
Includes, and divers other such, in dim,
Pathetical, and brief parentheses,

294 The Epistle of Priesthood
Beyond whose reach, uninfluenced, unconcerned,
The systems of the suns go sweeping on
With all their many-mortalled planet-train
In mathematic roll unceasingly.
Spirit of the Pities.
I did not recognize it here, forsooth ;
Though in its early, loving-kindly days
Of gracious purpose it was much to me.

That puts the natural yearning strongly, and so does
the Epistle. Not indeed in its tender memories of the
ancient Jewish cult. There is a tenderness about that,
but no strength of regret. All is described, book
fashion, from the Old Testament and is austerely put
aside as a shadowy unreality. But it is different with its
memories of the early generous zeal of the readers, and
still more with its glorious memory of the days of the
Lord's flesh. Once or twice in our study we have been
carried away by that memory, and have looked back upon
the ideal Gospel days as though they were the most com
pletely Christlike days that the world can ever see. So
far as we followed Baron von Hiigel, with his admiration
for the rich theology of the Synoptic Gospels, we were
doubtless right in this. If otherwise, perhaps not. The
Epistle is the precursor of all the " imitations " of Christ
that have ever been taught. But the Epistle itself uses
even " the days of His flesh " only as a means for the
fuller and more loyal following of the exalted Captain of
Salvation when He manifested His presence in a time
of increased complexity and trouble, and therefore of
increased nearness to reality. The " early loving-kindly
days " can only be really recovered when they are faced
with the loving-kindness of courage as they come to

Epilogue 295
meet us in the growing future. And this holds for
doctrine as well as for discipline.
The last of our three abiding impressions is perhaps
the most serious. Let us approach a definition of it by
putting two quotations in juxtaposition. The first of
these quotations shall be from The Dynasts again :
Chorus of Intelligences.
The Prime, that willed ere wareness was,
Whose brain perchance is Space, whose Thought its laws,
Which we as threads and streams discern,
We may but muse on, never learn.
The second shall be from Baron von Hiigel's Eternal
Life: " But the element of inexorable Fate, of impersonal
Law, and of opaque Thing, must be placed somewhere in
the totality of my life, even of my spiritual life ; and
placed in the middle-distance of this my life, and used
rightly by me, so largely still a mere natural individual
in the foreground, I can touch and pass through that
element, ever again, as through an awakening and purify
ing river, out on to the background and heights, having
become. thus, more and more, a spiritual person."
Thus then the sternly philosophic, realistic chorus
of " Intelligences " — mere Intelligences or aweful Intel
ligences, as our rnood may choose to term them, — and
the religiously-philosophic idealist, alike recognize " the
element of inexorable Fate." To the one that element
is in the foreground, blocking farther vision ; to the other
it is in middle-distance, a means of progress to — not after
all, even for him, to knowledge, — but to the life of a
spiritual person. Sacrament or poetry is the best means
for religious expression, but it is not logical proof, nor

296 The Epistle of Priesthood
does it remove the terrible " opaque Thing " in the life
which men have to live. The churchman as well as the
" intelligences " admits this.
In the face of such admission any faith which is real
faith must indeed insist upon that condescending might
of Godhead which is thus defined in the sacramental
poetry of the Creed : " Who for us men, and for our salva
tion came down from heaven." But on the other hand
how terrible it would be if any infringement upon the
doctrine, so much insisted on in this Epistle, of the
perfect manhood of the Lord Jesus, forbade us to believe
that He, " the compassionate," shared our humility and
" godly fear " in the presence of that " element of inexor
able Fate."

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE.

NOTE. — This Exposition should be read with the English of the Revised
Version or the Greek of Westcott and Hort by the side of it. The A. V.
represents the Textus Receptus, or later form of the Greek text, which is not
followed in the Exposition ; and, since minor variations from il are not
specially noticed, difficulties may arise if the Exposition is applied to that
text either in English or in Greek form.
Nestles Greek text, published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, or
The Reviser's Greek Text, published by the Clarendon Press, will also be suit
able ; the best edition of the latter is Dr. Souter s Novum Testamentum Graece
with an apparatus criticus of selected readings. Westcott and Hort's Greek
Testament will however be found most convenient because the Exposition is
based on its divisions into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, and because it marks
by distinct type the quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament which
are so important for the interpretation of this Epistle. The smaller edition
is not only cheaper and more handy, but it gives at the end a brief and simple
account of the principles of textual criticism which will explain the paramount
importance of using a pure text, if the true meaning of the apostolic writings
is to be sought.
Greek words are sparingly used in the Exposition. A translation is
generally added when they are used ; where that is lacking a reference to
the Revised Version will clear up any difficulty for those who do not read
Greek.

Son of God, Christ : who is He whom we thus name
and who has inherited such great titles from
Israel's heroes ?
One who seems far lowlier than they. But His
glory was revealed in humiliation, and His
humiliation was the means of His highpriestly
sympathy with men.
For He shared their trials that, priestlike, He
might bring them to God.
Think of Him as Highpriest and you will never give
Him up. Holdfast to Him in your approach
ing trial and you will know what His priestly
salvation really is.
As Highpriest ; but not in the mechanical line
of Aaron. That shadowy ordinance is fading
ineffectually away before our eyes. Rather as
Highpriest in that eternal line of world-wide
ancestry and living growth which the Psalmist
symbolically named, " after the order of
Melchizedek. "
fesus, our Lord, standing on the Godward side
of all men, and sacrificing His life for love of
men, is the evident fulfiller of all that line of
loving priestly life which has been throughout
all history the visible sacrament of Godhead on
earth. 298

Believe then that He as Highpriest has opened the
way for you to the presence of God.
The visible shame of Calvary was the sacrament
of His entrance into the sanctuary of Gods
presence on our behalf. It remains for us to
make the sacrament our own and to follow
Him.
Remember your courage in former trials.
Imitate the courageous faith of your forefathers.
Follow Jesus your acknowledged Lord in the
course He has run before you — do that hard
duty which is now specially set before you.
Break old ties. Go forth to Him outside the
camp. Enter the city of God.
Following Jesus you shall be united with the
Christ.

299

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE
The Epistle must be read as a kind of treatise
called forth by letters or conversations which we have
not seen. There may have been a covering letter
addressed to one of the group of friends for whom
the Epistle was intended, but the last chapter itself
passes into the form of a regular letter, and throughout
there are touches of intimacy which remind us that
after all the treatise is a letter, while they often
add to the difficulty of interpretation to those who
are strangers to the private interests of these friends.
A trial, Treipaa/j,6<;, is threatening or already touching
them. The author exhorts them to do their duty in
spite of any loss it may involve. But the question has
arisen : " Which way does duty really lie ? " And a more
insidious question : " Is it worth while ; what is this Jesus
to whom, perhaps too hastily, we have given allegiance ? "
The author answers, or perhaps has answered before, and
is now fulfilling a promise in sending this elaboration of
his earlier suggestion : " I can make you understand by
using a symbol. Consider Him as our Highpriest and
let me shew how perfectly He satisfies all that the symbol
suggests, how deep it carries us into the reality of things. "
The theme of the Highpriesthood is worked out in v.— x.
1 8. The argument is the argument from analogy, which
can indeed never be conclusive, and is here preparatory

An Exposition of the Epistle 30 1
to a venture of faith. The argumentative core of the
Epistle is therefore enclosed by a prelude, i.-iv., on the
one side, which prepares for the argument and disposes
the mind to enter on it favourably ; on the other side,
x. 19-xiii., by an exhortation to faith that shall realize
itself in action.
The reasoning of the Epistle is not so loose that it
needs to claim extraordinary allowances ; it is a con
dition of such an argument that it should need to be
entered upon sympathetically, as well as that it should
be clinched by practical testing. The author indeed
puts it forward in no meek spirit of apology. Again
and again he breaks in with stern appeals to the moral
consciousness of his friends, their sense of honour at
its deepest. Even if all else were indistinct, he seems
to insist, loyalty to Jesus once yielded cannot be
broken. And this last consideration has a reflex influence on
the argument, for loyalty to Jesus includes holding fast
to the confession they have made that He is the Christ
(cf. iii. 14, x. 23), and it is in this Christship
that the connexion is found between Jesus the Son of
God and those who were named sons of God in the Old
Testament, between the final manifestation of God in
man and the earlier, incomplete manifestations. The
cogency of the argument of the Epistle only appears
when it is remembered that its readers were not supposed
to need a proof of Jesus being Christ, though they did
need to learn the deeper significance of their con
fession (cf. vi. 1).

302 The Epistle of Priesthood
PART I.— CHAPTER I.-IV.
Prelude
The whole prelude falls into three divisions :
A. I. — II. 4. The eternal Son of God continually
manifested in the world.
B. II. 5- 1 8. Jesus perfected in manhood to be the
Highpriest of men.
C. III. 1— IV. 16. Jesus Christ the Son of God and
great Highpriest with God.
A. ends with exhortation. C. passes into exhortation
from which the argument emerges again in a new form ;
then closes with an invitation to draw near, thus striking
one of the notes of the Epistle's common chord — priest,
offering, propitiation, access.
A. (i). i. 1-4. The author expresses his thought
throughout in what may be termed a picturesque rather
than a philosophical manner. He brings images before
the eye of the mind ; indeed the whole Epistle is an
elaboration of one great image of this kind — Jesus Christ
entering the presence of God as a priest entering a
sanctuary. By bearing this in mind we shall best
understand the opening chapter. The first words,
7roX^6jOW9 Kal TroXvTpoTrco*; (" by divers portions and in
divers manners "), suggest by their very sound a great
rolling sea whose waves are the voices of all those in
whom God has spoken in time past to Israel. Now all
those various, onward-rolling voices have been gathered
up in the voice of Him who is styled " Son." (i. 2).
But this speaking is the commentary on the actual
history. It is the chorus of the drama ; something that

An Exposition of the Epistle 303
has been done is the main thing, and though in His
words the Son completes the line of the prophets, and
though reference will again be made from time to time
to his words (e.g. ii. 3, ii. 12, x. 5), yet the Epistle
is chiefly concerned with Him as completing another
line^a^ine of action rather than of teaching, to which
kings and leaders rather than prophets or lawgivers
belonged, those eminences in Israel's history who received
the name of Son or Christ of God.
Hence verse 2 introduces another picture. We seem
to be set in heaven itself contemplating how God the
invisible continually manifests himself through One who
is the light ever streaming from the hidden glory, the
expression of the Godhead as the figure carved upon a
seal is the expression of the idea in the mind of the
artist who carved it, and who also impresses his idea by
means of that visible figure on other objects (3). For
our eyes are turned swiftly from heaven through the
whole universe to earth, as we are made to realize in a
few lines how this effluence and figure is truly a Person,
as really in personal and subordinate relation to God as
He is eternally one with Him in origin and operation ;
the Heir appointed by God to gather to himself arid
complete all things just as He has gathered and com
pleted prophecy, and who naturally does so since this
all, whether measured by space or by time, has been
made by God through Him (2). We see Him bearing
all onwards to this goal effectually commissioned to so
majestic a task, and in the course of this onward motion
we behold how He has worked on earth the priestly
purification of men's sins, and has then ascended to the
most royally glorious place in heaven, the same Person

304 The Epistle of Priesthood
as He ever has been, yet with an added honour ; one
part at least of the inheritance has been taken by Him
never to be let go again — the name of Son — which indeed
sums up all that would have been too vaguely suggested
if the author had not anticipated and defined his picture
by its title, " in the essential Son whom," before setting
it before us.
A. (ii.) i. 5-14. In the opening verses the whole
vast picture has been flashed upon us at once; time
emerging (as it were) out of eternity, God's work through
-the Son rushing onwards to its first resting-point, whence
the new era begins with which this Epistle is to be
practically concerned (cf. ii. 5). Henceforth this effluent
light and character of God is clearly recognized as a
Person, who rules the still onward-moving world from
His throne in heaven. It is not that He has become
a Person now for the first time, any more than that His
further action or " coming " will change Him in the future
(cf. xiii. 8). But it is only by analogy from the visible
life men live that they can rise to any clear conception
of eternal truths, and as in the past it was through God's
operations in the visible world that men could realize that
the Living God rather than the Absolute was His proper
title, so that distinction of Persons in the Godhead by
which God is the Living God, could only be clearly
grasped by men when the man Jesus had come into
being and the second Person of the Holy Trinity had
taken His inheritance to himself by indissoluble union
with that man. Moreover when His action in the world
could be only vaguely expressed, as by the phrase <pipa>v
to iravra, " upholding or bearing forward all things," there
was a danger that He, the author of life and movement,

An Exposition of the Epistle 305
should be confused with His instruments, and therefore
the section which now follows has a double purpose, to
shew that the Son is not to be, and in the Old Testament
never was classed with Angels, as well as to establish the
main point, that He was, in actual personal form, to be
recognized in Israel's history ; the name He has inherited
is an inheritance that He found there.
To take the secondary point first : the Angels, the
mention of whom makes the bridge of transition from
v. 4 to 5, had formed no doubt a subject of speculation
among the Jews for many generations. There is however
no sign that the readers were apt to run into extrava
gances like those against which the Epistle to the
Colossians was directed; the Angels throughout this
Epistle are the Angels of the canonical books not of the
apocryphal literature. We may suppose that the readers
agreed with the writer in his theory of Angels, a theory
which represented them as corresponding nearly to what
we (with a meaner religious imagination) call forces of
nature — they are made by God winds and fires (7).
This theory did not detract from the angelic glory —
xii. 2 2 ff. disproves that ; it deepens our awe in the con
templation of nature, and it is not surprising that Origen
and Newman adopted it. But it does divide them from
those beings of whom we can form any distinct idea as
persons. To that class man does belong — his Self is his
great possession (cf. x. 34); and from the relationships
and activities of human life we are able to rise by
analogy to some conception of the divine character and
operations. We are not however able to rise by the
same analogy to a conception of the character of Angels.
As Newman says, the Angels and the brutes are mysteries

306 The Epistle of Priesthood
on either side of us. Hence the author, wishing to
establish the Son as a Person in our minds, distinguishes
Him from the angelic powers by whom His creation and
advancing of all things are carried on ; but in doing this
he is able to do more, and establishes at the same time
His actual connexion with man, and first, with the chosen
race of Israel. For after the swift glance over the whole
course of creation and redemption (1—4), we are now
made to turn again and with more leisurely gaze to
contemplate this effluent light striking upon certain
eminences in Israel's history ; this seal impressing its
character on now a king, now the whole people of Israel
(5 f.) ; then manifested, in contrast to the mutability of
the shifting forms of angelic power (7), in the steadfast
ness of the King whose throne is God (8 f), and in the
divine energy which abides unchanged beneath the
changing garment of nature (10—12). Finally, having
brought to perfection all that human royalty promised,
and having swept all through the curve of visible life
on earth, this divine Person is contemplated as having
entered anew the presence of God, where, in virtue of
the inheritance of manhood He has assumed, not de
tracting from but perfecting His divinity thereby, He
can be described as enthroned in kingly fashion, ruling
over the world in a manner intelligible to the thoughts
of men, which are bound by laws of time and space.
Thus He rules till the complete victory of salvation shall
be achieved (13). He rules "enthroned in the centre";
the spiritual, wind-like Angels are sent forth therefrom
continually, as sacred servants from the royal sanctuary
to minister for His destined companions in the divine
perfection that is named salvation.

An Exposition of the Epistle 307
A. (iii.) ii. 1—4. Here the author pauses to inter
pose a solemn appeal to the readers' sense of duty, no
less than to their sense of peril. The transition is made,
as is usual in the Epistle, somewhat artificially. Because
the Angels are less than the Son, therefore it is a duty
to give more earnest heed to an utterance which came
through the Son than to one — the Law — which came
through Angels. But the appeal breaks through the
logic. It is not yet proved that He whom the author
calls " the Lord " is the Son of whom he has been
writing hitherto. Personal loyalty supplies for the
moment the place of proof. Besides this, there is the
experience they have had of the actual working of the
salvation their Lord proclaimed ; the signs of God's
presence in the Christian life. The argument will
presently be resumed, but for the moment there is no
need of formal proof; the readers know Him too well
of whom all this is being written.
Some have thought that the word spoken by Angels
means the message sent by angelic visitors to various
persons in the Old Testament, such as Abraham and
Balaam. But this would not very well suit the larger
view of the nature of Angels which has been suggested
in ch. i., whereas the traditional explanation of the
storm in which the Law was given at Sinai, as being
a ministration of Angels, exactly suits that view; the
Angels were winds and flames there. Moreover the
same verse (2) beems to contain the remarkable idea
of this " word " becoming confirmed in the actual
ministration of justice, the confirmation of the law by
practice, the perfection of the code by the continued
developement of case-law. This of course does fit the

308 The Epistle of Priesthood
Law of Sinai. Indeed modern investigations into the
developement of that Law seem so curiously fore
shadowed by the words, that the explanation might
be suspected of bringing merely modern notions into
an ancient document. But the author is so often
curiously modern. He writes at the end of an age,
and the first words of his letter lent themselves naturally
as a motto to those critics of the Old Testament who
realized most vividly that they too were passing from
an older age of interpretation to a new. So again the
verses that follow (3, 4) present a like picture of the
developement of the Gospel message, as a " salvation "
which took a beginning of expression through the Lord ;
was sketched by Him, and confirmed up to the readers'
own time not merely by repetition, but by a continued
divine witness in acts of power and distributions of
Holy Spirit from God to men. Once more this seems
too like a modern tracing of the process by which the
Gospel was carried on into the apostolic theology by
stress of circumstances and inspired reflexion. But
our author actually is influenced throughout by thoughts
not unlike these modern ones. He too has laboured
to assimilate the teaching of S. Paul with a more
primitive idea, and it is with an impending develope
ment of doctrine or at least of its expression, that he
is largely occupied in this letter. Yet he is confident
that no developement can mean a new Gospel, and the
stress is on " steadfast," " confirmed," " lest we drift
away"; cf. iii. 14, iv. 2, 12 ff, vi. 1, 19, x. 26, xii. 27 f.,
xiii. 8,
B. ii. 5— 1 8. In this section the earthly life of the
man Jesus is put before us as the preparation for that

An Exposition of the Epistle 309
priestly act of His which, accomplished by His dying,
will be fully dealt with presently. The Angels are
again mentioned, but chiefly as forming a convenient
introduction to the quotation from Ps. viii. It is
expressly stated both in 5 and 1 6 that the business in
hand is not connected with Angels but with men ; the
new world with which the Epistle deals is " the inhabited
world," the world of men. Hitherto the new world
has been in the future, a world hoped for. Now it
will appear that the opposition between things present
and things hoped was not the true opposition. The
hope is the reality of things as they are, a reality about
to be revealed in the approaching trial for which this
Epistle is an encouragement. The opposition is vividly
expressed by the words of a Psalmist. Who he was, and
whether he had any particular man in view, matters
not. The point is that he recognizes how small and
feeble man is in comparison with the huge universe,
and yet he calls God to witness that his faith is well
founded ; God really has crowned man with glory, and
appointed him master of all. That mastery the author
says cannot even yet be seen by ordinary sight, and
this part of the problem he leaves alone for the present ;
he has already given a hint of its solution in i. 13, "till
I make thine enemies, etc." But to the contemplative
eye one man may be seen, standing as a figure in the
picture of " the end of these days," crowned with glory
in preparation for death. The difficulty had been to
reconcile apparent, actual humiliation with faith in the
glory of man. In the life of Jesus there was a moment
when all His earlier humiliation reached a climax ;
nothing remained but the certainty of a shameful death.

310 The Epistle of Priesthood
This might seem to strangers a mere necessity ; to those
who knew, it was a glorious act, a heroic choice, a
purpose of self-sacrificing love. The moment of utter
humiliation was the moment of the completed act of
will, cf. v. 9, x. 10. The humiliation was the glory, and
the answer to the Psalmist's riddle was found. The
Psalmist, it will be noted, had not put the glory and
mastery in the future; that was a turn which Jewish
apocalyptists had given to faith. He had simply set
down the actual present contradiction in life, and re
corded his faith in the harder side of the paradox.
Now that faith is justified in the glory through humilia
tion of Jesus. The world of men is the world to come.
This brings us to the end of verse 9. But that
verse closes by declaring a remarkable purpose of Jesus.
He meant to die on behalf of every one. How could
that be? The question will need the whole Epistle
to answer it. Meanwhile the author is content to
suggest two partial explanations. First, it could be
" by the grace of God," by God's choosing that it should
be. This is not a mere shelving of the difficulty. It
is a necessary preface to all that shall be said later,
and rules throughout the argument. The search for
truth must start from man's life, from things known ;
but the answer to the search, the truth itself, comes from
God — " 'tis Revelation what thou thinkst Discourse."
But secondly, it is not an unreasonable preface. For
if the Psalmist's faith was right, if there is a glory in
life and a goal to the universe, and a way of rescue
from the apparent misery of things, it was befitting the
character of the God of such a universe, to appoint a
leader along that way and to bring that leader's enter-

An Exposition of the Epistle 311
prise to perfection. And it would also befit His
character to do this in the manner that the history
of man shews to be natural ; by allowing him to share
the dangers, trials, disabilities, in a word the sufferings,
of those He was to save. It is a law of life that the
consecrator should always be of one kind with those
who are to be consecrated. This new word " conse
crated " prepares for the title "Highpriest" in v. 17,
which in turn prepares for the fuller answer to the whole
question that is to be worked out in the body of the
Epistle. Three quotations are made. One is from a
Psalm which describes the power of sympathy gained
from suffering in words which all who knew the life of
Jesus would feel to be specially applicable to Him.
The application does not necessarily carry with it any
assumption that the Psalmist was consciously foretelling
the events of that life ; here, as in the quotation from
Ps. xl. in x. 5—7, words are used which quite properly
might have been uttered by our Lord about himself.
This use of the Psalm colours the other two quotations,
which are from Isaiah. In these too the readers would
find the thought of their Lord suggested. Yet in none
of these quotations is minute stress laid on the special
circumstances in which the words were originally spoken.
It is enough for the purpose to notice that a leader and
consecrator of old time, whose words and acts have
become part of the sacred history of Israel, did insist
upon the common weakness and the common need he
shared with his followers — -he called himself their brother,
he called them his little children. So Jesus, purposing
to destroy the spiritual power that made death horrible
and linked it with the terrors of conscience, took share

312 The Epistle of Priesthood
with His little children in all the essential weakness
and apparent grossness of humanity. A base, material
task it might seem ; certainly different from the ethereal
angelic visitations. It was ; and therefore He who
essayed it had to pay the debt of His courageous love
and touch the lowest depths of relationship. For His
purpose was so high ; and glory in humiliation, height
in lowness, is the secret of salvation. He meant to
become their Highpriest, searching the depths of
humanity and rising thence Godward, — to the end that
He might deal as a Priest deals with the sins of a people
for forgiveness and renewal.1
Formally this section follows the last, being connected
with it by " for," and the renewed mention of the Angels.
But really it is a fresh start on a line that converges
with ch. i. The Epistle opened with a poet's guess at the
explanation of the history of the universe (i. 1—4). This
was illustrated and to some extent confirmed by certain
facts of ancient history recorded in Israel's sacred books.
Here the author takes his stand on earth and among the
events of his own time, and shews how remarkably Jesus,
a man about whom he and his readers are at least well
informed, answered to the yearning faith in humanity
that a Psalmist had expressed. In the next chapter the
two converging lines will meet when Jesus is entitled
Christ. Meanwhile His earthly life alone is dealt with.
There is no thought, or at least no expressed thought,
here of one who is God and greater than all, being
humiliated by becoming a man. The humiliation of
Jesus in this chapter is the same in kind as the humilia-
1 Cf. dpKeiv ydp olfiat k&vtI fivplwv p.lav
fvx^v rdS' iKrlvovo-av f/v eOvovs iraprj. — Soph. O.C. 498.

An Exposition of the Epistle 313
tion of other men, of such ordinary men as the Psalmist
spoke of. Whether " a little lower than angels " refers
(as in the original of the Psalm) to comparative glory,
or (as it might be taken here) to humiliation, at least it
means the same both in v. 7, and in v. 9 — what the
Psalmist's man was, that in all respects is Jesus. Yet
He is also styled " Captain of Salvation," and it is
evident that the author expects his friends to acknow
ledge that in some very important manner Jesus shewed
himself superior to all other men. What this peculiar
excellence was is never fully explained in the Epistle.
His sinlessness, iv. 15, vii. 26, is definitely claimed, but
little more description is attempted. The fact is that this
excellence is what every " Life of Jesus " has attempted
to make clear, and attempted in vain. In the Gospels
this is not attempted ; and the impression made is the
more vivid. Next to the Gospels this Epistle conveys
the same impression more vividly than does any other
book, and it does so by a like reticence. In our effort
to feel the effect of the author's argument we must
remember this. Beside the formal arguments, the im
mediate proximity of the memory of the Lord swayed
the first readers.
It must be noticed how strictly the outlook is limited
in this section to the earthly life of Jesus before the
death on the Cross. The syntax of the Greek in v. 9
compels us to recognize the " suffering of death " as the
object of the " crowning," not the crowning as the
consequence of the death. In other words the crowning
marks the victim, or the hero going gallantly to his
contest, not the victorious king. Enthronement not
crowning is the sign of royal exaltation in this Epistle,

314 The Epistle of Priesthood
as in ancient thought generally. But the purpose that
ran through those " days of His flesh " is distinctly
expressed. All looks forward ; " for the suffering of
death," " in order that He might destroy," " in order that
He might become," " for the purpose of making propitia
tion." The Cross is there, but just beyond the horizon as
yet. It is not discussed, but every thought runs out to it.
And indeed in the last two verses even the Cross is
passed in this anticipation. Perhaps the tense of
lXdcrKe(T0ai (" to be making propitiation "), certainly the
tense of nrktropQep (" hath suffered and retains the effect
of suffering," a phrase like " Christ crucified "), carry us
into the continuing present. Whatever " propitiation "
may be found to mean, it seems to include the continued
aid of Him, who having suffered abides " a sufferer " for
ever, towards those who need unceasing aid in their
" stern trials " (rot? ireipat,oixkvoi,<i).
C. iii. 1— iv. 16. This section brings together the
converging lines of ch. i. and ii., by shewing that Jesus,
who stood out so pre-eminently in ii. as the leader in
man's salvation, belongs to the line of those leaders who
were referred to as sons of God in i., leaders whose title,
Son, He who is the effluence and character of God has
taken to Himself by inheritance. He belongs to this
line because to Him, as to them, the title Christ is
assigned (iii. 6). Then the readers are urged to shew
their loyalty in the immediate crisis to Him whom they
have already saluted as Christ. The urgency of the
appeal is driven home by a quotation from Ps. xcv.
beginning " To-day " (iii. 7, iv. 7). The last line of the
quotation yields another thought, that of "the rest of
God," which is complementary to the former thought

An Exposition of the Epistle 315
of immediate and strenuous action (iv. 3-1 1), and the
elaboration of these two thoughts leads to a vindica
tion of the author's method of interpretation, which is
interfused (as indeed is the whole section) with warning
and appeal (iv. 12, 13). Finally the result of the whole
preliminary argument is summed up (iv. 14-16) in the
recitation, with deepened significance, of the " brethren's
confession" — Jesus, the Son of God, our tempted yet
sinless Highpriest.
Thus this whole section falls into five divisions,
each of which may be marked by its own characteristic
word: (a) iii. 1—6, Christ.
(/8) iii. 7— iv. 2, To-day.
(7) iv. 3-1 1, Rest.
(S) iv. 12, 13, Word.
(e) iv. 14-16, Highpriest.
(a) iii. 1-6. The picture sketched in the last chapter
of the Master, beloved and wonderful in the patience of a
divine purpose, leads the author to address his friends in
terms of deeper affection than before, yet terms which at
the same time recall the allegiance they have professed
and the immeasurable height of its promise. He sums
up what he has said about the Master in two strong,
clear words significant of the whence and whither of His
earthly life ; He is sent from God, and as Highpriest He
goes into the presence of God. And he bids them
consider this human Lord — -whose image haunts their
minds — more diligently than has been their wont. His
purpose is to help them to understand more perfectly
what they mean by their profession " Jesus is the Christ."

316 The Epistle of Priesthood
This title Christ, the Lord's Anointed, has been the
distinctive title of Israel's kings, sometimes of Israel
itself as God's chosen people, those kings and that people
of whom mention was made in ch. i. Since those days
of old, from such beginnings, the idea of the Christ had
developed. The developement had not always been
wholesome, and now perhaps the very danger that beset
the readers was lest they should forsake the Christ they
had acknowledged in the vain hope of completer
satisfaction in some revolutionary leader of the nation
who should revive the false ideal of Christship for deny
ing which their Lord had suffered death. He wishes
therefore to explain what is the essential quality of
Christship, and he attempts this (after his usual manner)
by a comparison. The comparison is with Moses. It
has been prepared for by the word " faithful," which was
used in the last chapter to sum up Jesus' loyalty and
trustworthiness in carrying out the promise made to
mankind in Ps. viii. That word now serves to introduce
a quotation from Numbers. about Moses which sets him
(as it might seem) side by side with Jesus ; both are
faithful. But another expression in the same passage
suggests a difference. " Faithful in the house " may be
said of one who belongs to the number of servants of
whom a household is composed. For all the greatness
of Moses that is how he may be spoken of. He was as a
servant whose particular duty was to be a witness to some
thing in the future which he did not himself apprehend
(cf. Joh. viii. 56). Never was that other name applied to
him, which became part of Israel's constitution when the
monarchy was introduced, and belonged to those kings
who were saluted as sons of God — the name Christ,

An Exposition of the Epistle 317
They were set over the house not in it, as being of
founder's kin not servants. This distinction is to be
observed in all houses, says the author, and the analogy
holds ; there is the same distinction in the universal house
founded by God. Over it, of its founder's kin, is one
who is called Christ. The title is hardly a proper name
here. If it were not defined by the following relative
clause (cf. i. 3) we should hardly see that the general
truth is here concentrated upon One, the One whom the
readers have acknowledged as alone entitled in their own
days to bear the name.
So then the essential quality appears. He who is
Christ is kin to God, Son of God ; and as Son, is Lord
over the house, not servant in it ; himself a part of God's
revelation, not one who points to a revelation from out
side it. Thus Jesus' commanding work on earth is
brought into line with the Sons of ch. i. On them the
light fell that streamed from the divine glory. He who
is that light has no name in this Epistle given Him in
His eternal being but the name inherited from them, of
Son. The Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity,
are terms to which the Church's lips were not yet accus
tomed. They will presently facilitate the defining of the
problem which arises at this point ; how can that super-
celestial splendour be conceived as one with a man born
on earth : or in another form ; what is the ultimate differ
ence between the Christship of Jesus, and the Christship
of a king of Israel? But that problem, though it may
be better and better defined, remains as yet insoluble,
and this author has made no attempt to solve it. Nor
is he anxious to define it. His aim is to make the
divinity of his Lord understood in its working, as a

3 1 8 The Epistle of Priesthood
ground of devotion, a reason for loyalty, a foundation in
slippery times. It is to him a truth into which men do
see more and more clearly and steadily as they nourish
wonder and reverence, and do their duty, and just then
he believed that it lay upon his friends to make a
momentous choice, on which their chance of such growth
depended. He argued in order that they might act.
Their action would carry out the unfinished argument —
" His house we are, and you shall know it, if you will act
upon the old watchwords : Boldness, gallant boast, hope."
(/3) iii. 7-iv. 2. The exhortation with which the
last division ended is fortified by the application of
Ps. xcv., in which Israel was bidden to be faithful " to
day," taking warning from the unfaithfulness of their fore
fathers in the wilderness. "The stress laid on the word
" to-day " points to the crisis through which the readers
of the Epistle are about to pass ; there is a definite choice
for them to make, an immediate act of will is required.
To fail will be " unbelief," inconsistent with the faithful
ness which characterizes the Christ. It will be apostasy
from God as living God, as God manifested through the
Son and in the near and vivid life of Jesus. The readers
themselves must encourage one another every day during
the brief period in which it still remains for them to
make up their mind, for if they look only outwards the
temptation is very strong. The sin involved is insidious;
there is a " deceitfulness " in it, rooting honour in dis
honour, which may harden them to act as a tender
conscience would never allow.
The need of falling back on one another, on the
traditions of their common life as followers of the Lord,
is enforced by a phrase which corrects or enlarges the

An Exposition of the Epistle 319
" whose house are we " of v. 6, and reminds them of
the Messianic quotation of i. 8 f. No mere servants of
the household, but partners in the Christship ; no heretical
outsiders, but sharing the noblest life of ancient Israel
will they be ; nay, have they already become and will
prove to be, if they will thus hold fast to the idea, so
deeply founded in the past, of the Christ in Israel, that
it may be carried on to perfection. "If only you will do
this," the writer repeats his ancient consecrated words
with the emphasis of intense feeling, " while To-day is
being still proclaimed ! "
This all reads as though more would be understood
by the recipients of the letter than is expressed in so
many words. There would be sense in it if the letter
were addressed to Christians at any crisis of approaching
trial, even to Gentile Christians. But addressed to Jewish
Christians when their fellow countrymen were appealing
to them by all that patriots hold sacred to render whole
hearted allegiance to the old faith, and join the orthodox
enthusiasts in the defence of country and Temple, it
would bear a specially appropriate force. So would the
verses that follow, in which the author reminds them how
their forefathers forfeited the promised rest through lack
of the long sight of faith. They thought themselves
bold in protesting, proving doubtful authority, rebelling,
but their wilfulness was really a timid betrayal of a hope
that was a trust, a thing for brave men to hold fast —
the very mistake these readers are in peril of making.
Mistake however is an inadequate word. Such mistakes
appear in the sacred history as sin. They were opposi
tion to God, and produced a perversion of the relations
between God and His people of which visible disaster

320 The Epistle of Priesthood
was a kind of sacrament. These perverted relations are
described by three terms borrowed from the Psalm, in
which with an increasing boldness the analogy of human
passions suggests the movement of the divine mind. Yet
this analogy is applied with care. The oath of God is
not to be considered an oath of exclusion, but a ratifying
of the necessary consequence of man's failure of will (cf.
vi. 4-8, x. 26 f). The promise remains unchanged. If
it is again missed, it will be because men have again
fallen short. The doctrine of reciprocal action between
God and man is briefly set forth. The difficulties of the
doctrine are not explained ; how for instance the failure
of those ancient Israelites with its terrible consequence
could have been allowed to happen by God if He were
of infinite love and power. Here as throughout the
Epistle the aim is practical and immediate. God is
contemplated as He manifests himself, and He does not
manifest himself in His infinite quality. In ancient
history God has appeared to limit himself; there has
always been room for the interplay of man's will with
His. So it is now, says the author ; the same good
word of promise abides ; the same need of choice in
appropriating it. He ends however with a note of
confidence (cf. vi. 9). " They," he says, " dropped
out of the line ; they failed to achieve that venture
of faith which would have made them one with those
who have now listened and obeyed. For there are
such ; we who have made our venture are now entering
into rest." This " we " he leaves undefined. He knows
it includes himself (cf. xiii. 21); he hopes it includes, as
he is persuaded it shall include, those to whom he writes.
(7) iv. 4-1 1. Verse 3 is transitional. It ends the

An Exposition of the Epistle 321
last argumentative series, but it introduces a deeper
meditation on the Psalmist's phrases. For now the
disasters of the wilderness are treated, after the author's
manner, as having a sacramental significance ; the death
of a generation of men was what could be seen, the
alienation from God was the reality lying behind the
visible. But a deeper sacrament than that was involved.
The rest of the land of promise was the visible symbol
of the eternal rest entered by God when the work of
creation was finished, and destined by Him for His
people in all ages. " If they shall enter ! " implied that
the rest was there. " To-day," in the Psalm of a later
age, " To-day, if they shall enter ! " implied that the rest
remained. Whatever may have been the result of the
Psalmist's appeal, the author and his friends know well
that the appeal has force for them. The word " rest "
reaches their heart in the turbulent times to which they
have been born. A rest in the eternal, invisible sphere,
a rest which subsists in the midst of danger, a rest, not
like the military success of Joshua, but one with the
seventh-day rest of the Creator, still remains open to
the people of God. Into such a rest the readers are
actually entering if they make their one bold venture.
Into such a rest the writer (as he shews in xiii. 2 1 ) has
himself already entered. And when we consider the
opening words of this chapter, and the chapter that led
up to it, and the subject of the whole Epistle, we feel
that here too light is flashed upon the mystery of the
earthly life and the death of Jesus ; " For he that is
entered," . . . of v. 1 o prepares for, " who hath passed
through the heavens," of v. 1 4.
(8) iv. 12, 13. The exhortation to diligence and
31

322 The Epistle of Priesthood
zeal, with which the last paragraph closed, makes the
passage to the next easier, " let us be zealous, for the
word of God is so keen." But this paragraph has a
further import. It explains the principle upon which
the author interprets these passages from the sacred
books. It might be objected that he had been forcing
more from Psalms and other writings than, treated
simply, they would yield. The answer is that the
word of God wherever heard — in a written book, a
hero's life, or in conscience — lives and operates, reaching
to the very centre of a man's being, in whatever times
or circumstances he may happen to live. So long as
it is treated conscientiously and practically, its meaning
can never be exhausted. " For us," the author says,
" the word is intimately bound up with God and is ever
coming freshly from His presence" (13 Greek). He adopts
expressions that Philo applies to the all but personal
Being he names " the Word " in his treatises. From this
it would seem that the reference here is not to the
written word, the Old Testament. Yet if not, the point
of the verses, standing where they do, would be lost.
The fact is the term is used here in a wide sense (which
covers both v. 1 2 and v. 13), and the author would have
us understand that such passages as he has quoted, are
not merely fixed and written sayings. The words of a
book are signs of a life behind them ; the words of the
Old Testament are manifestations of the mind of the
living God ; they are not the premisses of an argument,
but conversation still going on. Philo's idea is neither
excluded nor adopted, though his terms are found
convenient. It is gathered up into a larger idea which
is here applied in a particular direction. Yet all this

An Exposition of the Epistle 323
is rather suggested than sharply expressed. What is
insisted upon is that the living power behind the written
or spoken word is aweful. The solemn earnestness of
these verses assures us that the author will never be
merely fanciful in his interpretations.
(e) iv. 14-16. The picture in ch. i. of the Sons of
God illumined by that Effulgence of the Godhead who
inherited their name of Son ; and in ch. ii. of Jesus
glorified in suffering ; finally the thoughts and appeals
of chs. iii. and iv., form converging lines of argument.
Here at last they are brought together. The inference
by which the junction is effected is not quite logically
drawn. It is rather justified by two phrases. The first
is, "great Highpriest, who hath passed through the
heavens, Son of God," the force of which dwells in its
appropriateness, as often happens in poet's logic. We
meditate on all that has been said, and our vague desire
to express the result is satisfied by the completeness and
sincerity of these few words. But secondly, since colder
reason might complain that after all it has been cheated
into false assent, " let us hold fast our confession " is added.
That is the confession or profession of the Christian
family ; the " creed," less formal perhaps than ours,
but even intenser as being a battle-cry in face of perse
cution. It is an appeal to that sense of duty which
runs through the Epistle and which, though painful
when resisted or shirked, will (so the author hopes for his
friends) be in the end the instrument of peace — "for we
which have hearkened, believed, obeyed (ol Triarevcrawi),
do enter into that rest." Then having just touched
that stern chord again, he invites his readers to use
even now the faith which as yet perhaps is only half

324 The Epistle of Priesthood
gained. So human, so sympathetic is this divine
Highpriest, that even His wavering followers may draw
near with Him to the heavenly presence of which His
graciousness is the symbol ; and so may gain the help
without which they can advance no farther through
their impending test.

PART II.— CHAPTER V.-X. 18
High Priesthood
In the four opening chapters the idea of our Lord as a
Highpriest has been introduced. " Would you under
stand what Jesus your Lord really is," the author says
in effect, " consider Him as a Highpriest, and I think I
can make you understand. And it is not unreasonable
so to consider Him. Compare what you know of His
life on earth and the deep feeling it rouses in you, with
those deep thoughts about God's eternal operations
which the national history and sacred books of Israel
suggest, and you will see how this idea of the true
Highpriest promises to bring all into harmony."
Having thus introduced this analogy, he now proceeds
to work it out in v. to x. 1 8, shewing in detail what such
Highpriesthood is and what it effects, viz. real access to
the presence of God. This is naturally followed in
x. 19-39 by exhortation to use this right of access
and to follow the Lord into the divine presence, which

An Exposition of the Epistle 325
is not a place far away, but that eternity in the midst
of temporal things which the Highpriestly work of Jesus
Christ has made it possible for men to know, and which
the readers of this Epistle will know if they do the
particular duty that now lies before them.
The argument will be more easily followed if it is
first presented in the briefest possible form. The
familiar priesthood of the Tabernacle shews what the
aim of priesthood is ; to offer sacrifice by means of
which their sin being cleansed away, the people of God
may enter His presence. This priesthood has never
succeeded in its aim ; the whole thing, priest sacrifice
and entrance, has been but a kind of representation,
make-believe, or shadow. But there has been a real
priesthood in the world from early times which the
Psalmist calls highpriesthood after the order of Mel
chizedek. This is the Highpriesthood of the Christ in
history, and has effected something ; this is a real
symbol of eternal truth. After this order of high
priesthood our Lord Jesus Christ offered himself as a
visible sacrifice on Calvary, which was a real symbol
of an operation in the eternal sphere. And this opera
tion is effectual for men. Analogy again shews that
priesthood and sacrifice have to do with the Covenant
between God and His People ; they are meant to reach
out to men in their effects. Jeremiah's prophecy of the
New Covenant shews that God has implanted in man's
heart an expectation of such effects being really pro
duced ; a Psalmist has already testified how to him they
have actually been produced, because he received the
influence of God by his own participation in God's
will. There is the point of union. Our Lord Jesus

326 The Epistle of Priesthood
Christ offered His sacrifice by a real act of His will,
an act of union with God's will. By a like act of their
will, an act of union with His will, the readers may find
(what of course no logic will ever prove) that His
sacrifice has been effectual for them.
Or more tersely still : " You know the Levitical
priesthood, its aim and its failure. But there is
another priesthood in the world connected with another
covenant, and treated in Scripture as a true symbol of
an eternal fact. Scripture witnesses to the hope of its
success, indeed to its actual success where the human
will went with it. This is the Highpriesthood of our
Lord, and in our union with His will it reaches full
effect." V. I-10. The characteristics of highpriesthood in
general are described, are shewn to belong to the priest
hood of the Christ, and hence to Him who has inherited
that title. These characteristics are (1) manhood and
the sympathy that goes with it ; (2) the duty of offering ;
(3) appointment by the voice of God.
The paragraph begins quite generally. If " even as
was Aaron " be genuine,1 it does not limit these verses to
the Aaronic priesthood, but merely asserts that they may
be applied to that as they may to any other highpriest
hood that may anywhere be seen. Indeed it is remark
able how small a part of this central division of the
Epistle, which deals entirely with priesthood, is concerned
with the Aaronic order. That order however must be
considered, and considered in a special way, for that is
the order with which the readers were actually familiar,
1 The words are omitted in the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, which gives an early
and apparently a very pure text resembling B.

An Exposition of the Epistle 327
and it is therefore the starting-point of all their thought
on the subject. And these opening verses, for all that
they are the statement of a general truth, seem to contain
a particular significance. It is not the scheme of priest
hood in a book, but good, generous, simple-minded priests
whom he and his readers have known, that these words
of the author call to mind. Here, as so often in the
course of the argument, a hearty human interest breaks
in, and saves it from being merely artificial.
(1) The characteristic of manhood. A highpriest is
" taken from among men," one " who can bear gently
with the ignorant and erring," and he offers " as for the
people, so also for himself." This was all true of our
Lord " in the days of his flesh," which were the days
from which all knowledge of Him started ; whatever else
might be learned about Him, He was evidently taken
from among men to be Highpriest. His weakness was
evidently as real as any human weakness could be — the
scene of tears and cries in Gethsemane proved that
notably. At the end of the last chapter His sinlessness
has been so strongly asserted that there could be no fear
of the readers, supposing the correspondence to be carried
so far as a common fall. There is however no real need
for this caution. In vii. 27 the Aaronic highpriests are
said to offer for their own sins. Here where the whole
passage is general, the application of the offering is also
general ; the highpriest offers with respect to sins, with
respect to himself as well as with respect to the people.
The sins of the people do touch him of course ; so in the
crying and tears of Gethsemane the sins of men did
touch our Lord ; but neither He nor the highpriest
described in 1-4, are thought of as themselves sin-stained

328 The Epistle of Priesthood
though they are sin-burdened. Only emphasis is laid
upon the reality of our Lord's connexion with the sins of
men. Whatever burden and hindrance the sins of his
people are to the best kind of man, the highpriestly
man, at least so much the sins of men burdened and
hindered our Lord in the days of His flesh. " Without
sin " in iv. 15 is not used in quite the same way as
in ix. 28, and is quite different from "separated from
sinners " in vii. 26. Jhe two later passages do not
refer directly to the days of the flesh.
(2) The duty of offering. This is the "end," or
" perfection " of the priesthood, " that he may offer." A
highpriest is appointed to make offerings ; it is a
generous office to which giving not receiving is natural.
And this offering is a bringing near to God on whose
side of man he stands (to irpbs top 0e6p)} The word
irpoo-fyepeiv ("offer to"), far more common in the Epistle
than dpa<pepeip (" offer up "), strikes the keynote of the
whole argument from the first ; the highpriest's business
is to bring near to God, and the purpose of this letter is
that certain persons may trust their Highpriest to bring
them near. The word is repeated in 7 ; the supplica
tions and cries of our Lord were an offering, and issued
in the benefit of others.
(3) Appointment by the voice of God. To look
steadily at the humility of things is not to empty them
of greatness ; the greatness appears in the humility.
This truth, already acknowledged in ii., is firmly grasped
by the author. So here the growth of highpriesthood
1 Cf. Ex. iv. 16. The Lord promises Moses that Aaron shall be His
spokesman ; <rii Si aiTtp &rj; to. irpbs rbv Bebv, " and thou shalt be to him on
the Godward side," inspiring the spirit of the message which he must express
in words.

An Exposition of the Epistle 329
out of human needs and relationships is acknowledged as
a general and evident fact. But when that fact has been
recognized the deeper source of highpriesthood can be
understood. Not every man, not every sympathetic,
generous man, is made a highpriest. There are rules
and conditions of appointment, and rightly viewed these
are seen to spring from the divine call as their ultimate
source. That which viewed from one side, is an evolution
from human society, viewed from the other side, is from
God. So it was with Aaron and the Levitical priest
hood. Various events are recorded in the Old Testa
ment as the immediate occasions of the separation of the
tribe or family for the service of the sanctuary, but there
is also the record of the call of God which lay behind
all these occasions. So was it also with the Christ.
" The christ," 6 ^pio-rd?, in 5 , as elsewhere in the Epistle
when the word is used with the article, points to the
visible Christ of the Old Testament, "the Lord's
Anointed," that is, to speak generally, the reigning King.
That these kings did offer sacrifice and perform priestly
duties, just as the ancient king-priest Melchizedek had
done, is a fact often recorded in Israel's history. If this
had merely rested on national convenience, or human
fashion, the right would be hard to justify, for in a large
part of the Old Testament the priestly office is distinctly
separated from the king. But behind the variations of
law and practice lay the sanction of God's call. God
who hailed His Anointed as His Son, appointed Him
also to be Priest, not according to the order of Aaron
from which as a matter of fact He had been excluded,
but according to that primaeval and really symbolical
order, the order of Melchizedek. God's appointment of

330 The Epistle of Priesthood
the Christ to this order, plainly recorded in the Psalm,
justifies our author in his whole argument.
But "the Christ" in 5, is the antecedent to "who"
in 7, and this " who " introduces three verses which clearly
refer to our Lord and not to the Christs of the Old
Testament. This warns us against defining the meaning
of "the Christ" too sharply. The title had been given
to our Lord when this Epistle was written. It had
already become, without the article, His surname. It
was now possible to use the title " the Christ " in either
of the two senses ; the Lord's Anointed of the Old
Testament, or the Anointed One par excellence, Jesus.
The context might determine which use was intended
in any given sentence ; or the speaker's or hearers' habits
of thought might determine it. Hence a risk of am
biguity, and on the other hand an enriching of many
quotations and modern utterances with mysterious depth.
So here the thought of Jesus lies behind the reference to
the Old Testament in 5 f. and emerging fills the field in
7—10. The emergence is helped by the addition of "in
the days of his flesh " in which perhaps the visible presence
of Jesus is contrasted with the sacramental presence of
the Son through the Christs of old, as well as with the
spiritual presence of Jesus Christ the exalted Saviour.
However that may be, the author claims as evidence of
God's appointment of Jesus to highpriestly rank, the
fulfilment in Gethsemane of the other conditions of
highpriesthood, the sharing in human weakness, the
sympathy, the offering. As evidence ; for this passion
and action issued in that final and perfect determination
to die that was described as crowning and perfecting in
ii., and is here also styled perfecting, — TeXeitoflet?, " having

An Exposition of the Epistle 331
been made perfect." Perhaps this word may be taken
as marking the hour of His " becoming " Highpriest, but
the addition " named of God," introducing the quotation
again from the Psalm, warns us against too prosaic an
enquiry into dates and places. What is visible in its
" becoming " answers in this Epistle to a divine and in
visible act in the eternal sphere, and even apart from
such considerations, it is plain that He who was then
" perfected " had already through the Psalmist been
" hailed as Highpriest." These anticipatory phrases in
the Old Testament are the rudder of our author's Old
Testament exegesis. They had their primary, con
temporary meaning and he does not ignore it. Philo an
allegorist might do so ; he a sacramentalist would stultify
his whole system of thought if he did. But what im
presses him and what he tries to impress upon his readers
is the aptness of these phrases to the work of their Lord.
Hence he sometimes, as here, seems to think of some
thing which was accomplished in the life of Jesus, as
already done by God in Old Testament times — already
done rather than predicted. So in ii. 10 the aorist
participle dyayopra, properly "having brought," should
be explained as referring to the Psalm just quoted ; God
had already brought many sons to glory through the
declaration of the ancient Psalmist.
V. II.-VI. 20. The argument about " the order of
Melchizedek" seems to some modern readers little else
than an elaborate piece of trifling, which they tolerate
only because they realize that in this strange form an
important truth is somehow expressed. The difference
between our minds and the original readers' may perhaps
be exaggerated. At any rate the author seems to fear

332 The Epistle of Priesthood
something of the same kind, and before he launches
fairly upon his argument he makes a strong remonstrance
against treating the subject lightly. He begins this
remonstrance indeed almost playfully, with a literary
reminiscence of S. Paul, whose language (addressed to his
brothers, I Cor. iii. I f), about food for babes, he applies
to these learned babes, his own intimate friends. But
the half-playful allusion to " milk " and " alphabet," is
his courteous, affectionate way of introducing a warning
terribly in earnest.
The whole passage falls into three divisions, the first
of which is again divided into three parts : —
A. v. i i-vi. 8. (i.) Remonstrance, v. 11-14.
(ii.) Appeal, vi. 1—3.
(iii.) Warning with illustration, vi.
4-8.
B. vi. 9— 12. Encouragement introducing thought
of promise.
C. vi. 13—20. Explanation of promise ending with
illustration that brings the argu
ment back to Melchizedek.
A. (i.) v. 11 — 14. The chief point to be noticed in
this remonstrance is its practical character. It was
difficult to express the idea of highpriesthood after the
order of Melchizedek to men who were not interested in
eternity and its symbols, as we should say, in theology.
The readers of the Epistle appear to be losing that
interest, perhaps under stress of the practical anxieties
of the impending crisis. But the author points out that
this interest is itself the most practical matter. " The
word of righteousness," and " to discern good and evil,"
are not the phrases he might have been expected to use ;

An Exposition of the Epistle 333
they might be paraphrased by " ethics " and " honour."
That is the strong food of full-grown men, of which
babes engaged upon the alphabet have no experience.
Dropping theology, these men had lost more. They no
longer held firm the simple and essential truths of
religion. But if they really needed to go back to
spiritual infancy and study these again, how could they
make the difficult decision which the pressure of those
times forced upon them, and for which a disciplined
sense of right and wrong was demanded ?
Did they really need it? The next paragraph will
shew that the author thought not. The repetition " ye
have need," " such as have need," sounds as though he
might be quoting their own words, giving them a re
proachful turn. With some such phrase they had perhaps
been excusing their failure to take the bold step he
demands. If that step really was breaking with their
Jewish friends and refusing to join in the national
rebellion ; and if that failure was accompanied by the
assertion that they saw nothing in the Christian faith
which need be added to the old and simpler creed of the
Jew; and if they were inclined to hold that honour
made the course they contemplated needful ; then this
paragraph gains a sharply distinct meaning. " You say
you cannot distinguish these niceties of creeds, and
might be well content to learn the old faith' better and
act up to it more sincerely ; you say you must needs
join your nation. I will shew you what this need implies.
You must needs learn over again the Jewish elements of
your faith in order to decide whether or no this new
faith contains anything better than the old. You need
babe's milk just when a choice is offered you that

334 The Epistle of Priesthood
demands the clear judgement of a mature and disciplined
conscience. You speak of obligation and honour, but
this return to childhood in religion prevents your judging
about so delicate a matter with the sure instinctive
certainty of manhood."
A. (ii.) vi. 1-3. The last paragraph shewed that
the readers had so far lost hold of religious truth,
that it seemed to them needful to go back to the
beginning and learn the very alphabet again. Whatever
that may mean, the author appeals to them to do no
such thing. The threatening signs of the times them
selves might give them confidence. Changes were in
progress which would affect life and thought. To a
weak faith this might seem to imply that what they had
accepted for truth was doomed. A stronger faith would
reason otherwise. The movement was from God; it
must be towards more perfect truth,, whatever of seeming
value had to be given up. In that strongly running tide
let them be borne on together; its onward moving
strength would counterbalance their weakness. $epa>p&6a,
" let us be borne onwards to perfection," carries back the
mind to (pipcop rd irdpra in i. 3. Once again the idea
occurs of finding the highest in the lowest ; the troubles
of the times reveal the presence of the eternal Son.
Here again the hope of finding a new beginning of
religion in Judaism seems to be deprecated. In the last
paragraph, " the rudiments of the beginning of God's
oracles," would most naturally mean the simplest and
most obvious instruction that could be drawn from the
Old Testament. Here " the argument of the beginning,
or first doctrine of the Christ," would be that doctrine of
the Christ in the OJd Testament which even to a Jew

An Exposition of the Epistle 335
meant much, though a Christian at once learnt to fill it
with a new significance. The doctrine of washings, of
imposition of hands, of resurrection and of eternal judge
ment, could all be found in those books of the Old
Testament in Greek which the author habitually used.
Repentance from dead works and faith towards God is
indeed not what S. Paul would go to Judaism to find,
but much as he has learned from S. Paul this author
does not see everything with his eyes. And S. Paul
himself would have acknowledged that the words are a
fair summary of the teaching of the Prophets, and that
the baptisms or washings (cf. the same plural word in
ix. 10), laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgement,
in v. 2, represent the system of orthodox Judaism.
But perhaps rather more than that is implied in v. 1,
and its allusion is not merely to literature. As in
v. 1—3 he thought of good priests whom he had known,
so here the author recalls good repentances that he has
known (whatever S. Paul's experience might be) under
the Jewish Law. So far he might go with his readers ;
why he cannot go further he will shew presently.
A. (iii). vi. 4-8. The hope of finding a fresh
starting-point in the simplicity of the old faith from
which the readers had emerged into Christianity, was
shewn to be an unpractical dream for men who were
confronted with such a moral choice as lay before them
(v. 1 1 -14). They were urged to give it up and press
forward to the fuller truth that the movement of events
was bringing in (vi. 1, 2). And in vi. 3 the author with
a very solemn restraint of language claims that they
should thus press forward with him. For doing so he
adds now another reason. The dream is not only

336 The Epistle of Priesthood
unpractical; it is a dream of something which in the
very nature of things is impossible. For this backward
step would not be (as they fondly imagined) a mere
renunciation of unnecessary subtleties of thought and
disputes about abstractions. It would be a despite
ful act of violence and scorn against the eternal Son of
God. To start men anew on a life of innocence while
that very start was interlinked with and dependent upon
an act of guilt, would be a plan contradictory of itself,
and in the nature of things impossible. That the act
would be of such a nature was certain to all who considered
in detail and as a whole what the entrance upon the
Christian faith was, how deeply it reached into eternal
things. To give up what was thus entered upon would
be no indifferent matter ; it would be to fall away from
the sphere of eternity, to perpetrate a deed as far-
reaching in its sacramental significance as the crucifixion
had been, or to repeat the crucifixion in their own lives
as infliction, not reception. S. Paul had taught that
Christ was born in the birth of His faithful, and they
crucified in their conversion. Our author remembering
that doctrine (which, of course, was the Church's not
S. Paul's alone), tells his friends that their desertion of
their post will be a caricature — a preposterous perversion of
it. The faithful are crucified with Christ. The cowards
crucify Him to save themselves. There is no need to
give the unusual sense of crucify again to dpaaravpovp,
though the versions do, and the assonance with dpaKaip^eip
suggests it. The main idea is the horrible perversion
of the Christian doctrine of the universal character of the
one crucifixion. Such dull childish indecision, such ineffectual re-

An Exposition of the Epistle 337
petition of half-hearted efforts, is illustrated by a com
parison — drawn partly from actual observation of nature,
partly from the language of the Old Testament — with
land that produces naught but weeds and must at last
be set on fire. And in contrast is set that land which,
receiving rain, and also being laboured at by its owners,
takes its share in a blessing from God and so progresses
in fertility even though some of its natural advantages
be checked. The land is talked of as though it were en
dowed with life and will. It represents the general law
that cheerful effort receives the addition of a further inex
plicable impulse, while sullen rebellion comes to ruin even
more quickly and thoroughly than mere external circum
stances would warrant ; the laws of nature as of history
are instinct with the blessing and the curse of God.
B. vi. 9—12. The author has faced, and forced
his friends to face, a fearful possibility. It has not
however as yet been realized ; so far they are still true
to their profession, and the right choice still lies before
them within reach. And he insists on believing that
they will make that choice. Their own character and
God's memory rest upon a past when not only their
several actions, but their whole consistent course of
action and the motive that underlay that course gave
good hope for the future. This memory confirms that
character. The nobler kind of honour is their own,
so is their kinship with God's healthful purpose of sal
vation. And that motive is so important. He lays
stress on it by repetition ; " beloved," " work of love,"
" children of my love and of God's love you have learnt
the secret of love, the generous, priestly, giving habit,
which binds together all those receivings, all those

338 The Epistle of Priesthood
privileges that by themselves might be insufficient to
assure constancy " — for in vi. 4—6 there was no
mention of imparting anything. How this love had
been shewn in time past is evident if the phrase " unto
the saints" be compared with x. 32-34 and xiii. 1-3.
They had been good friends to the brothers who shared
their possession and consecration in some past time of
need. The present participle 8iaK0Povpre<} may by its
emphatic position escape the usual limitations of parti
cipial construction and imply that they are still practising
like kindness, however their theological convictions may
be wavering. But the author tells them more is needed.
That love was no mere temporal kindliness. It was
" unto God's name " ; it reached into the eternal sphere.
And it must now shew that it is directed to a deeper
relationship in which it takes on a new aspect and name
— " diligence," " zeal." 1 This zeal will work for the
completion of the hope unto the end. The articles are
expressive. This hope, this end, belong to the faith of
the " beloved " and the " saints." They centre in their
Lord, and zeal means loyalty to Him as well as kindness
to the brethren. This zeal again is no new thing, but is
the mark of the true keen spirits of the older age, the
trusting, long enduring heirs of the unchanging promises,
which were not then but are now near to be grasped.
C. vi. 1 3—20. This paragraph brings the readers
back to the Melchizedek priesthood and the main
argument. It takes up the words hope, long-suffering,
1 oirovS^i (otrevSto), cf. 2 Pet. iii. 12, TrpocrSoK&VTas Kal aireltSovTas tt\v
irapovoiav t?)s tov deov i)/j.ipas. Is there a thought of that wapowla which the
Church has waited for and which our author believes may be in an unexpected
sense near ? Whether our Lord really comes in the expected Treipao-p.bs partly
depends on the loyal anticipations of His faithful.

An Exposition of the Epistle 339
promise ; confirms, defines and concentrates their mean
ing ; shews that they stand for realities in the past, and
are now realities within reach. The promises made to
Abraham of seed, dominion, and wide-spread blessing
extending to all mankind, were gathered into one com
prehensive, pregnant promise at the definite time when
he shewed his long-suffering by the supreme act of trust
in sacrificing Isaac — for we shall see in ch. xi. that the
author considers that sacrifice to have been effectually
offered. And at that time God confirmed His promise
by an oath, acting thus as a mediator between Himself
and His servant.1 Thus a double assurance was handed
on to Abraham's children, Isaac and Jacob fellow-heirs
with their progenitor of the promise (xi. 9) ; promise
and oath combining with the divine character to make
the truth irrefragable. Yet they, like Abraham, but
obtained, they did not carry home (i/cop-lo-apro, xi. 39) the
promise. That remained for the rising generation of
the new world. And now to that generation the great
opportunity is offered. They are those who find in the
troubles and changes of their time a means of larger
hope. Out of the storm they have run to port that they
may lay hold on the hope which is now already part of
actual everyday life, just as much as their contemporary
trial is. A picture follows which explains what that
hope is, namely the hope of entering into the very
presence of God. They are like the crew of a ship which
has reached the haven. They have let down the anchor
1 Cf. Job xvi. zi, xvii. 3. " There is no stranger thought in the book than
that God may be surety to Himself for Job. It is as though God suffers the
knowledge of His future attitude to mitigate the full sweep of His anger. He
is to take sides against Himself, to secure Himself against vain regrets "
(A. S. Peake in the Century Bible).

340 The Epistle of Priesthood
into the deep. It already holds the land. The captain
has gone ashore — on their behalf, as the captains of
ships in which the author and his friends may have
sailed would do, to transact the necessary preliminaries
for the unloading of the ship and the landing of those
who sail in it. But the picture thus vividly sketched
fades and passes into more serious lines as it is com
pleted. The mysterious deep becomes the veil of the
tabernacle ; the day on which the voyage ends is the
ancient Day of Atonement ; and yet again the name — the
bare human name — Jesus, carries recollection forward from
the ancient book of Israel's ritual to the execution on
Calvary, a tragedy still fresh in the minds of those who
have fled for refuge. And then the double recollection
becomes one harmonized whole. The sacramental
principle raises the visible to the eternal, and the moment
of death is recognized as the moment of priestly entrance
into the true sanctuary, and the prophecy of the Psalmist
is fulfilled concerning the Highpriest, eternal, after the
order of Melchizedek.
With the picture suggested by these last two verses,
two other pictures should be compared, the arena in
xii. I, 2, and the sacrifice in xiii. 10-13. These three
pictures mark stages in the course of the Epistle. Here
the argument is brought to the point where the elaborate
analogy of the Priesthood begins, and this first illustra
tion brings out the simplest truth of the divine priest
hood, i.e. that the Lord Jesus has entered as forerunner
into the presence of God. He is thought of as preparing
for His people, but as hidden, beyond their sight. In
ch. xii. the appeal to faith has been emphasized by the
roll of honour in ch. xi. and the followers of the fore-

An Exposition of the Epistle 341
runner are exhorted to take up their task and press after
Him. Here Jesus is represented as at a distance still,
but within sight. The runners are to run His race,
endure His contest, but their encouragement is in keeping
their eyes fixed on Him who has run and endured before
them, and is now to be beheld throned at the goal. In
ch. xiii. the end of argument and exhortation is already
reached. The picture or sacrament here passes im
perceptibly into the reality it symbolizes. Jesus is here
not merely within sight, but is to be reached, touched,
partaken in. It is the picture of a sacrifice, or rather of
the off-scouring of a sacrifice. The crucifixion to out
ward sight was like the burning of the offal outside the
sacred precincts. There, outside the camp, by entering
upon a like humiliation in the same spirit of heroic love
and courage, author and readers will find themselves trpb<s
avrop — in nearest possible relationship with their Lord,
and St' avTov — able to make offering themselves in union
with His sacrifice to God.
VII. The argument in this chapter shews some
thing of the Philonic manner. But while Philo, delighting
in the exercise of word play, lets his pen run away with
him, the author of the Epistle is remarkably terse. Like
Philo he has a practical end in view, but he hastens to
reach it. That end is to shew the correspondence of the
exalted Christ to the needs of men (26), and to prepare
for working out this correspondence in terms of the
Covenant (22).
There are four main divisions, the third of which may
be subdivided :
A. 1—3. Melchizedek, a mystery to which the key is
to be sought. The passage of Genesis by

342 The Epistle of Priesthood
its eloquent silence, the continuity suggested
by the reference in the Psalm, present him
as a type or sacrament of a Priest who is
divine and eternal.
B. 4-10. The subjection of Levi to this Priest is argued
by verbal subtlety. The formal priest
hood appears a laity in relation to this
antique figure of a living principle.
C. 11—25. This subjection is shewn to be real by the
actual imperfection of the Levitical service.
(a) 11 — 14. The appeal of the Psalmist presupposes
need of change and plainly points to
Jesus Christ.
(/3) 15-19. Reflexion upon that appeal and the depth
of the hope it rouses are an argument
still stronger than any obvious coin
cidence that amendment has come and
that Jesus Christ is the author of it.
(y) 20—22. The immutable purpose signified by
God's oath (which rests upon an em
phatic phrase in the Psalmist) introduces
(8) 23—25. the bold and definite application of the
Psalmist's promise of his Highpriest's
abiding life to the Lord whose abiding
life is proved by the experience of the
faithful. To His intercession the author
appeals as to a power that has been
tested.
D. 26—28. All this is concentrated upon the person and
position of the exalted Christ, which the
author declares to be in harmony with the
needs and expectations of His people.

An Exposition of the Epistle 343
Three ideas stand out as we contemplate the whole
passage :
(i.) The ancient words of the Old Testament are full
of meaning which unfolds in length of time.
Either the writers themselves are to be credited
with deep mystical thought, or the Holy Spirit
still speaks through them more than they
themselves perceived ; they were " hierophants
of an unapprehended inspiration."
(ii.) The words reveal an indissoluble life running
through the changing course of history and
gradually emerging into clearness.
(iii.) The words approach interpretation and the
stream of life rises into sight in answer to a
yearning in men for moral perfection which
will not be denied.
A. 1-3. Ps. ex. has already been quoted more
than once, and Melchizedek's name and office are already
therefore in the readers' mind. In the last verse of the
last chapter the entrance of Jesus within the veil has
been described as taking place on His becoming High
priest after the order of Melchizedek. The introductory
" for " here shews that this statement is about to be
justified, and after the argument has run its course
through the chapter, the author re- affirms his statement
(26-28), considering that he has justified it.
First he sets out, keeping as far as possible to the
very words of the Septuagint, what is told of Melchizedek
in Gen. xiv. 17-20. He does not repeat the words of
Melchizedek's blessing, nor does he notice the bread and
wine which the kingly priest brought forth. But he
does lay stress on the meaning of His name — King of

344 The Epistle of Priesthood
righteousness, and of His title — King of Salem or peace.
This name and this title are indeed striking in Genesis,
coming abruptly as they do in the midst of the narrative
of Abraham's dealings on the same occasion with the
bearer of so ominous a title as King of Sodom. He also
notices Abraham's tribute of a tithe, upon which he
intends to found argument in the next section. More
surprising is his description of Melchizedek as " without
father, mother, genealogy, having neither beginning of
days nor end of life." All this is drawn not from any
statement in Genesis but from the absence of statement
to the contrary. Yet when we turn to Gen. xiv. we do
not find the inference unreasonable. The episode is
introduced so suddenly ; its deep, holy tone contrasts so
strongly with the warfare that surrounds it — Salem peace
in the midst of strife, King of righteousness in the midst
of rapine, God most high acknowledged by this King
who reigns among heathen neighbours ; who is he ? we
ask, and the record gives no answer. Then the Psalmist
long afterwards takes up the same name which from that
dim pre-historic day till his own has never been named
in the written history again ; gives continuance (ek to
Sir/petces) to his memory ; and speaks of a royal priest
hood, such as the LORD had assigned to Israel (Ex. xix.),
being after his order and so eternal. All this gives food
for thought and suggests analogies and applications to
one who is accustomed to trace the "branching thoughts"
of holy writ. The participles epp,r)pevop,epo<; and dcfrcoftoi-
<o[i^po<! warn us in what sense the daring epithets are to
be taken. This is a matter of interpretation and not of
prosaic fact. Here is a sketch, a note which none but
the divine author could explain till the completed picture

An Exposition of the Epistle 345
was seen. But, says our author in v. 26, that picture has
now been seen (cf. ii. 9), and all who will may fill up the
outline of these antique characters. Moreover dyepea-
\0717T0? directs the reader how to take dirdrmp dfi-qrwp
k.tX. A man without a pedigree is not a man of super
human origin, but one whose ancestry is not declared ; so
is it with the father, mother, beginning and end of Mel
chizedek as with his pedigree. For a reason — and here
the reason is a far-reaching one — these things have not
been declared in Scripture about him.1
He stands likened to, or as a type of, the Son of God.
Unbiassed readers of the Epistle will probably agree with
the early commentators that the author does think of the
" Son " of God almost as S. John thinks of the " Word "
of God. Perhaps his mind being less philosophical
dwells less upon the eternal being than upon that
presence of the Son with and in Israel all through
recorded time. However that may be, he would con
sider the type to represent life before the Incarnation
as well as after it. That is the first suggestion of
d<pa>p.oimfji,epo<;. There is perhaps a second, not contra
dicting but supplementing that first one. The lowly
estate of Jesus in whom the divine Sonship was perfectly
manifested, was righteous, peaceful, worthy of the tithe
of homage from the seed of Abraham, yet how obscure.
His royal descent might be " openly evident " (TrpoBrjXov)
to those who owned Him Lord ; to Roman governors and
the Jewish aristocracy He was dnrdTwp k.t.X. And in
fiTjre dpxrjp i)p,ep5ip k.tX. it would be hardly fanciful to
1 Cf. [Longinus] irepl S^ous, ix. "OOev Kal <po>vr)s Slxa 6av/j,d^eTal Tore fCXi)
KaQ' iavT^jv tj h/voia SI avrb r6 fieya\b<ppov , ws i] too AtavTos iv NeKvia oiojttt}
fiiya Kal irdvTOS vT/T}\6repov Xbyov.

346 The Epistle of Priesthood
find a reminiscence of Is. liii. : ip ttj Taireipwaei r)
Kpicrt<s avTov r\p6rf tt/p yepedv avrov Tt's SirjyrjaeTai ; oti
a'ipeTai dirb Tr}? yr)<; r) for) avrov . . . iap Biore nrepl dp,apria<;,
77 Tfrvyr) rj/icoP oyjrerai arrkpp.a /AaKpofiioP . . . Sid tovto avTO?
ic\T)povop,i]crei iroWow, Kal tcop layypStp p.epiel aKvKa.
B. 4-10. The first words of the section again direct
attention to the author's method of argument. We are
to look at, take a comprehensive view of what stands
visibly pictured in the ancient narrative : cf. ii. 8, 9, opwfiev,
fiXeTrofiev, and contrast iii. 1, KaTaporjo-aTe. Then this
point will stand out. Melchizedek, a stranger, took tithe
from Abraham the father of the chosen race. Taking
tithe indeed is no extraordinary privilege. The priests
of the tribe of Levi also do so ; but how differently.
They do this according to an ordinance which is divine
indeed yet affects only the nation to which the sons of
Levi themselves belong ; it is according to the Law, a
private matter within the family of God. In spite of the
high ancestry of Israelites they are still Levites' brethren
and mutual obligations are natural between them. But
here is something more than kindred or custom explains.
A stranger unconnected by tie of blood stands for all time
in the nation's sacred book as the receiver of tithe from
the nation's revered founder, and as one who exercised
the priest's , prerogative of blessing towards this same
founder who, as the holder of the divine promises to the
nation, should be the only channel of such prerogative.
The argument in this section seems to us to rest on
verbal subtlety. Yet if we could put ourselves into the
position of a ]ew of that period and think with his mind
the subtlety would be almost lost in the clearness of the
national appeal. This is indeed just one of those passages

An Exposition of the Epistle 347
which make strongly against the readers of the epistle
being other than " Hebrews." It presupposes a habit of
thought and feeling, a set of sympathies, which spring
from a long ancestry of Jewish churchmen. To the Gentile
all might seem an academic exercise in book learning.
The Hebrew reader understood the Hebrew writer's
heart. The section ends by summing up the greatness
implied by both tithe and blessing, and by emphasizing
the contrast between the mortal transitory honour of
Levi and the Levitical priests with this priest, who, as
the Psalm witnesses, lives. The Melchizedek of history
and the Abraham of history fade imperceptibly, as the
sentences succeed one another, into their successors —
nation, Levites, the order of Melchizedek, and the Psalm
ist's royal priest who complete that order. Then the
thought of this long succession and developement is made
vivid by the brief final recalling of the day on which for
an hour or two these ancestors, on whom so much
depended, met.
C. 11—25. This introduction made, the author comes
seriously to the real point, namely the need of reform
in the priesthood which the facts of life compel the
true Hebrew to acknowledge ; and the supreme perfection
of the reform which has actually appeared in Jesus
Christ. The progress of the argument through this
section may be measured by putting its opening and
concluding phrases in juxtaposition. El pAp ovp
TeXeioMTis Sid rij<; AeviTiKr)? lepaxrvprj<s — a cold technical
term for perfection, an ordinance for agent, a nation for
object, and all hypothetical ; "O&ep Kal am^eip eh to
irapTe\e<s Svparai tovs Trpocrep-^ofiepovs So avrov rut Oea>,

348 The Epistle of Priesthood
rrdpTore %a>p et? to ivrvyj(dveiv iiirep avr&p — an established
conclusion, terms of power and affection emphatically
placed to express the work accomplished, a Person
bringing persons to God, completion of power, perfection
of life. (a) 11-14. The Levitical priesthood and the Law
are bound up together. They have been for centuries
and still are the apparent basis of Israel's life. A change
is a serious matter, nothing could justify the thought
of it but the failure of this priestly Law to do what
God means to have done. But that is the perfection of
His people. Perfection is a technical term of priestly
ritual ; the essential meaning of the ritual term is the
bringing of man to God ; it is a natural term to use if
the real end of Law is to be described, which is to make
men innocent. Does the Levitical ordinance accomplish
such perfection ? The author first appeals to his
Psalmist. If it had done so in his day he would not
have recalled Melchizedek and proclaimed another kind
of priest after his order. Another kind, for such words
imply no participation in Levitical kin or service. So
it was with Melchizedek, so with the King whom the
Psalmist saw upon the throne in his own day and for
whom perhaps he composed his psalm. So the principle
stands throughout the series he contemplated, and now
it is clear for all to see if, like the author and his friends,
they acknowledge Jesus as the Lord to whom the LORD
God speaks in the opening verse of the Psalm. Those
who call Him " our Lord " know that He is of the
royal tribe of Judah.
The repeated " for " is puzzling. The two first
clauses where it appears are parentheses justifying that

An Exposition of the Epistle 349
connexion of priesthood with law, which the term
" perfection " suggests. " For he of whom these things
are said " confirms " another." " For it is evident "
justifies the general principle by the conspicuous example.
This may seem too subtle. But a comparison with
ch. iv. 7 shews that the author did treat the Psalms as
referring first of all to the Psalmists' own times. He
probably cared less than we do now to distinguish
between the primary and the ultimate references. The
critical question had not been so sharply defined as it
has been in these later days, and on the other hand
his sense of continuity between Jesus the Christ and the
ancient national life was clearer than ours.
(j8) 15—19. UpoSrikov, "openly evident," referred to
the patent fact of the Lord Jesus' Judaean descent.
KardSip^v, " evident by inference," takes up the evi
dence again and gives it another direction. " All that I
have just said about the need of change which appears
from the Psalmist's appeal, is still more abundantly
clear from further reflexion on the nature of the work
which (as we assert) our Lord has accomplished." This
is what the author has now to say. The proof of the
assertion rests on the experience of the faithful. The
"if" in ». 15 warns the reader that the proof is not
absolute, nor as yet taken for granted ; for though et
might be used of mere fact, there would be always some
nuance in the choice of such a word — either a meiosis
to emphasize the actual, or a hypothesis to emphasize
the conditional character of the assertion. But the
Psalmist's appeal will be abundantly justified if another
priest shall really be found now rising like the sun upon
the expectant world, whose characteristic is power to

350 The Epistle of Priesthood
accomplish the need of men and the purpose of God —
that power springing from an unfailing source of in
vincible life ; all of which is in marked contrast with the
mechanical ordering of the Levitical ministrations. The
one belongs to the spiritual fount of life, the other to
the fleeting fashion of the dying world. The proof is
not absolute, yet even at this point it begins to appear
reasonable, for this mechanical, arbitrary order has as
a matter of fact begun to run its course out and to
submit to abolishing. It has proved weak and ineffectual.
And in proportion as this long accepted authority breaks
down, there grows nearer and nearer in its place a hope
which is more than a substitute for it, a better and
stronger possession altogether. Even by the mere hope
men are doing what the old authority never enabled
them to do, finding the reality of worship and drawing
towards the presence of God. For the comparative
neglect of ritual and recourse to more simply spiritual
approach to God was not confined to the Christian
Church. It had already begun to shew itself within
Judaism. (7) 20-22. No oath of God went with the appoint
ment of the tribe of Levi or the family of Aaron to
priestly functions. With the Psalmist's priest it was
different. An oath of God confirmed his priesthood
as one that should never be superseded. There is the
point. If God had signified in any way that the Aaronic
priesthood was to abide for ever, its supersession could
not be contemplated ; the oath of God, as has been
already declared in ch. vi., is but an addition to the
divine purpose which is in itself immutable. But there
is no indication of such immutable purpose with regard

An Exposition of the Epistle

OJ

to the family of Aaron ; the change of arrangement may
be expected without irreverence. How far greater in
strength and majesty is then this eternal agreement or
covenant — for so by a general application of the term
the way is prepared for the technical use of Sia9r)K.r)
below — of which the surety is who ? Not indeed by
way of surprise, since all has been leading up to it,
but by a bold substitution of the name Jesus for the
unnamed subject of the Psalm, is the gate opened for
the plain speaking with which this lesson in develope
ment shall conclude. Melchizedek, a priest-king after
the order of Melchizedek, a growing glory round this
historic king, a mystery which calls more and more
loudly for explanation — those are the steps. And now
in the author's judgement the time has come, and the
name and character of Jesus will properly crown the
ascent. The argument will be completed by the disciples'
experience of their Master. He is the eyyvos, " surety,"
not merely the fieo-lTTji, " intermediary " or introducer
of this covenant. Those who know the life and deeds
of Jesus of Nazareth can have no doubt of God's will
and purpose for the new world on which the day is now
dawning. (8) 23-25. One short word further about the
Aaronic priests — their mortality is ever driving them
as it were from their posts, "they are hindered from
continuing," — and then the author passes to the realities
of the Church's life. Jesus (who has now been openly
named) can never be disturbed in His inviolable priest
hood. The ultimate cause of this inviolable right lies
in that eternal appointment which the Psalmist's pro
clamation indicates. The ftkpei of v. 3 is repeated with

352 The Epistle of Priesthood
et? top alwpa in order to make the principle as it were
visible in a picturesque phrase, and the simple verb is
the more striking here in contrast with the compound
and relative irapaphieip ; He does not survive, He
absolutely abides. The eternal appointment is the
ultimate cause, and from that flows the perfect sacerdotal
ability which the faithful experience in its actual working.
This experience is the key-stone which holds the whole
argument of the chapter together. To this experience
there is a double appeal : those who do set themselves
to approach God through the Lord Jesus know it ; and
S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (from whence the
phrase " to make intercession for them " is derived) has
stamped the experience with an emotional phrase which
has made it current coin.
D. 26-28. "Such" looks back to the short
description which is now to be amplified, but the
emphatic word of connexion (as the scribe felt who
prefixed Kal, "even") is eirpeirep, "became us." The
response of the larger faith to the best aspirations of men
completes the argument. Here follows therefore a Creed
or Psalm of belief. Mankind has indeed a Godward
impulse, gathered up in its Highpriest who draws it into
God. Such a Highpriest must be, and His people
confess Him to be, divinely pure, innocent. He has
won His way out of the sphere in which the criminal
and inimical can hinder. He has risen to the region of
free eternal Spirit beyond the shadows of artificial things.
He has won His way, and He has risen, for He did first
move with mortal difficulty through that lower sphere of
conflict, in which the many highpriests in their broken
succession still perform shadowy functions daily repeated

An Exposition of the Epistle 353
and daily in vain ; for they still remain on a level with
the other worshippers and have never yet so treated sin
as to stand out clear on the Godward side of them. But
that the true Highpriest has done. He too has offered
for the sin of the people and for His own, since in a
very real sense He shared those sins ; up to the utmost
limit of possible trial. His relation to sin was just the
same as other men's up to that point. But at that point
He rose above them. He made their sin His own and
overcame it in himself and did away with it in himself
by a gradual process of more and more perfect obedience ;
never checked in developement by His once yielding to
evil ; and at last completed by one decisive act of self-
sacrifice in which " sinlessness " became freedom, the will
being wholly and for ever lost and found in the divine
will, the hindrances of mortal discipline transfigured by
eternal Spirit.
The paragraph ends with an antithesis which else
where might be considered even too elaborate ; as a
conclusion to this Philonic chapter it is suitable. " Law "
with its rigid severity is answered by " word " with all
the associations of life and growth that had gathered
round that term : '' mortal men " in the plurality of brief
succession by " Son," one, defined as by a conspicuous
title, and associated with the same quoted words which
have already (v. 5 f.) attended on it — carrying with it
an air of divinity. And these last words themselves set
perfectness and eternity against the infirmity of the
earlier generations. The second member of the antithesis
is enlarged by the addition of " oath " to " word." Nor is
this without effect. The oath adds sanction to the change
which the whole chapter has, by a kind of venture, traced
23

354 The Epistle of Priesthood
and commended. And the note of time " after the law,"
brings this change under the author's favourite principle of
developement, which is part of his idea of priestly efficacy.
VIII. The pith of the argument, as already stated
and as it is to be carried on to its deepest issue, is
that we have a Highpriest, who in one definite past
moment entered upon his regal state of priesthood in
heaven the true sanctuary. That sanctuary (2-6) is
figured by the ancient ritual term a-Ki\pr\, Tabernacle,
which enables the author to explain his idea of a heavenly
sanctuary more clearly. The priestly offering to which
he refers as the occasion of the great Priest's exaltation,
was sacramentally one with His death on the Cross, and
found no place in the common round of priestly offices
on earth, not even of the lowest rank. That is all to
its advantage, for they with all their ritual were ancient
indeed, and divinely appointed imitations of heavenly
patterns, but only imitations — in fact fleeting shadows.
The great highpriestly service belonged to a different
order. It was not imitative but sacramental ; even its
earthly manifestation was one with its eternal reality.
And though the actual offering was sacramentally fixed
to a definite moment in time the priestly consummation
which it brought with it is lasting (rkrv)(e.p, 6), and may
better be described by deepening the image, and taking
up the idea (already introduced in vii. 22) of the
Covenant which lies beneath all ordinances of worship.
The heavenly priesthood belongs to the real and spiritual
covenant, which (like all these realities) may be found
promised in the Old Testament when it is read as a
prophetic (cf. i. 1) rather than as a ritual book.
Then follows the passage from Jer. xxxi. Modern

An Exposition of the Epistle 355
critics doubt whether Jeremiah himself used these words.
It might seem a question which would little interest the
writer of this Epistle, since he merely assigns the quota
tion to its primary author, the LORD God. Yet that is
not certain. For if he were indeed writing this letter
when the Jewish war with Rome was imminent,
Jeremiah's situation when Jerusalem was besieged by the
Chaldaeans, would rouse his sympathy and commend the
quotation to his friends. Perhaps he would have
answered, had he heard the critical objection, that whether
Jeremiah's actual words or no, they excellently express
the heart of all his prophetic doctrine and may be quoted
as his. They also express the very heart of his own
doctrine. First they sanction what he has already
ventured to write about the shadowy, temporary
character of Levitical ritual ; they shew that so long ago
as Jeremiah's time its removal was contemplated and
promised ; and he sums up this part of his deduction
from the prophecy in a sentence (13) the solemnity of
which chimes in with the signs of his own times, and
suggests that the hour of fulfilment is at hand. Then
(11) the Prophet's declaration that in the coming days
the bonds of merely national religion shall be broken and
all men (for so he might fairly enlarge the sense) shall
know the LORD, entirely suit his own exhortation to his
friends not to fall back into Judaic narrowness, but to
trust the larger faith of the Christian Church and serve
the cause of true Christship, expecting and co-operating
with universal salvation in the despised ways of peace.
And thirdly it is to be remembered that our paragraphs
and chapter divisions are not the author's, and that the
emphasis of v. 13 is not so final as our printers make

356 The Epistle of Priesthood
it appear. It is the " Covenant," not the " vanishing
away," that is taken up again in ch. ix., and it is the
forgiveness of sins which is repeated in x. 1 8 where the
quotation is at last dismissed. That is to say, the
Levitical priesthood, the servile term in his analogy, is
not the great thing in the author's mind. We read his
Epistle with our eyes fixed upon Leviticus, and by turn
admire his courage in superseding that document, or
reverse his judgement and still force the divine priest
hood into the mould of the antique forms. But he,
pathetic though his resignation of a ritual which perhaps
in its later form he had actually practised may be, sets
it aside in his letter with little talk about the matter, and
presses on from the mere analogy he started from, to the
sacramental expression of reality, and then to the
correcting of the besetting error of sacramentalists by
insistance on the spiritual essence of it all. The intro
duction of Jeremiah's " New Covenant " is an important
step in this last process.
The lightness with which he sits to the ritual detail of
his analogy is ever to be remarked. Thus in the earlier
verses of this chapter (3, 4) it is vain to ask whether a
hint can be discovered for dating the Epistle before or
after the fall of Jerusalem. If the particular reference be
to the moment of death on the Cross, there were of
course Jewish priests performing their services at that
time and the conditional sentence is past not present,
and says nothing about the day when the letter was
written. But the reference, as a whole, is more general
than that, not to Jewish priests but to all earthly priest
hood ; and this would rule out the appeal to the verse
for fixing a date, even though the conditional sentence be

An Exposition of the Epistle 357
construed as a present one. In like manner Ka6' r)p,kpav,
"daily," in the last chapter (vii. 27) is no mistake about
the Day of Atonement or the particular duties of a
Jewish highpriest, but a general term to express the
whole use and wont of earthly rituals in which priests
and people are alike involved. This looseness of inter
pretation is the more allowable in that place, since
dp^epetn; (highpriest) is frequently used in later Greek,
(perhaps in the Gospels) as all but a synonym for lepevs,
(priest). But if this writer drops into that abuse of language
sometimes, it is evident from viii. 4, ovS' dp rjp lepevs,
that he still uses dp^iepevs with precision when he wishes,
and like dp^iirol^rjp in 1 Peter, so dp-^iepevs in this Epistle,
when applied to our Lord, has its special significance;
He stands in the line of priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek, but He fulfils that line as consummation
and source, including in His liturgic efficacy all the
priesthood of mankind.
IX. The word tXeeo?, " merciful," at the end of
the quotation from Jeremiah gives a priestly ring to its
promise of forgiven sin, and is the essential link (as
opposed to dfyapiap.op, " vanishing away," the immediate
link) with this following chapter. For here the main
subject is the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. This
will be explained in its most penetrating significance
in ch. x. Here, according to his habit, the author
first sets it forth in a pictorial manner, using for that
purpose analogies from Old Testament. And, as in
other places, we recognize that these analogies are
marshalled with a light hand ; exact correspondence
and consistency is not his aim. Thus the Day of
Atonement (6-8) gives place to Jeremiah's New

358 The Epistle of Priesthood
Covenant (15 — 17); that leads back to the Sinaitic
Covenant and its sacrifices (18—22); and in the next
verse (23) a passage is contrived to the Day of Atone
ment again.
Throughout the chapter " blood " is the ruling word.
The Levitical theology, that the blood is the life, no
doubt underlies the whole : if blood did not mean life,
it would be a very formal thing to say (14) that the
blood of Christ shall cleanse conscience. But though
that Jewish theology was doubtless presupposed by
author and friends alike, the undertone of reference in
that verse (14) would be to Calvary and the Cup at the
Last Supper. That Cup and the Lord's recorded words
in giving it to His disciples explain the introduction of
the word SiaOiJKr), " covenant," at this point. The un
usual turn given to the language in v. 16 is perhaps
due to the memory of the Lord's anticipatory declara
tion of His shed blood and death. It is possible that
the language of Roman testamentary law has been
adopted by the writer (who is apt to take his advantage
wherever he finds it) but it is misleading to say roundly
that he changes the meaning of SiaOrjKr). In whatever
sense the Synoptists used Siadf)tcr) to represent our Lord's
Aramaic, in that sense he uses the same Greek word here.
That there should be a reference here to the Last
Supper is not a very bold hypothesis. Mr. Kirsopp
Lake speaks of the developement of Christian doctrine
" from the belief that the Messiah was Jesus and that
He was speedily coming to set up the Kingdom of
God, to the creed in which the original meaning of
the word ' Messiah ' or ' Christ ' was almost wholly
forgotten, and Jesus was regarded as a Redeemer God,

An Exposition of the Epistle 359
and the Sacraments became the real centre of Chris
tianity. That we find one type dominant in Jeru
salem in the middle of the first century, and the other
type dominant in Rome in the middle of the second
seems incontrovertible"; and he suggests that "the
existence of the eclectic type of God-fearer is an ex
tremely important factor in the situation." Now in the
Gospel of S. John there is no narrative of the institu
tion of the two church sacraments, but there are ex
planations of their spiritual meaning, as though to
correct a tendency to degrade what had already become
a, if not the, dominant influence in church life. It is
remarkable that in this Epistle less interest or sympathy
is shewn towards this tendency : we seem to be dealing
with inheritors of the " type dominant in Jerusalem."
But there are references which are hardly ambiguous,
and here too it would seem that this sacramental system
of the Church was taken for granted. There is in fact
just the likeness and the difference between this Epistle
and S. John which might be expected, if the date of
the Epistle is shortly before A.D. 70, and if its writer
and readers were not Greeks of Asia Minor nor even
eclectic God-fearers, but men of Jewish descent ; not
indeed of the same class as those simple Jerusalem
believers who fled before the siege to Pella and planted
that trans-Jordanic Christianity which (as some think)
preserved a continuity with Ebionism (cf. Renan),
but though unlike them in their Hellenic education and
intellectual fitness for developing doctrine, still like them
in their retrospective fidelity to the days of the Lord's
flesh. For whether the secondary reference here to the

360 The Epistle of Priesthood
institution of the Church sacrament be clear or faint,
it is but indirect. The main interest is in the larger
principle of all sacrament, and it is concentrated upon
the Cross itself. The sacramental character is brought
out by a contrast. In the earlier part of the chapter
the golden magnificence of the ancient ritual is depicted.
Then over against this is set the eternal worth of the
Christian realities. There is no sacrament there, only
an antithetical correspondence ; the one does not touch
the other, there is no interaction ; the one is to be let
go because the other is within reach. But the blood
of Christ, His visible shame and death, is not contrasted
with His indissoluble life and eternal work of salvation.
These two interact ; they are in fact one. The blood
was seen, on earth, the salvation was wrought in heaven.
Elo-fj\0ep . . . evpdfievos, He entered at the moment He
had found ; the temporal moment of death passed into
the eternal, spiritual moment of heavenly sacrifice. The
power of that sacrifice is signified by three terms in this
chapter. It is eternal redemption (12), the remission of
sin (22, 26, 28), and the hope of Christ's coming "a
second time" (28). And the reality of the sacramental
grace is further defined by the claim upon the wor
shippers for their co-operation ; they have been called
(15), and they must be watchful, expectant, with hearts
sincerely set towards salvation (28).
The chapter falls into three main divisions :
A. 1 — 10. The transitory ritual.
B. 11—22. The real priest, sanctuary, covenant, and
sacrifice.
C. 23-28. The Highpriest in heaven, his present ad
vocacy, and His expected appearance.

An Exposition of the Epistle 361
A. 1-10. This may be subdivided into (1-5)
the golden magnificence of the past; (6-10) what it
points to in the present.
The ritual structure and ornament of the first
covenant is described as it is seen in the Tabernacle of
Exodus. Two predicative expressions emphasize its
character. It was Xarpelas, " a matter of ceremony,"
and Koo-piKop, "of the world-order not of heaven," —
" logical " we might say in our modern fashion, not
" real." There is no reference to the later temple, and
no argument can be drawn from the passage as to the
author's familiarity with the ritual of his own day. Like
Symmachus and Theodotion he calls the altar of in
cense 6vfiiarrjpiop instead of 6vo-iao-rr)piop, and since the
Highpriest used to enter the Holy of Holies under its
cloud of incense, he says it belongs to the Holy of
Holies. But the impressive thing in his selection from
the books of the Law, is the repetition of " gold," the
religious cadence Karao-Kid^ovcra to iXaaTrjpiop, and the
pathos of his affection for these glorious rites, from
which he nevertheless turns to the reformation which
awaited them.
For in 6—10 he describes the priestly and high
priestly services, and the Day of Atonement. Once
more in a beautiful phrase " for himself and for the
ignorances of the people " (adopted from him by the
Greek Liturgies) he confesses the more than formal
attraction of the old order. Then declares that all this
was but a presignifying by the Holy Spirit, who inspired
written books and all the mechanism of the past, of the
opening of the way into the real sanctuary, and the
perfecting of the worshipper, not externally with ritual

362 The Epistle of Priesthood
initiation, but according to inner consciousness of God
with personal fulfilment. Such access and such com
pletion of aspiring human nature was to come. The
season or crisis of reformation was determined, which
would be the end — and here he changes his yearning
note to an almost brutal assonance of mean names — of
meats and drinks and diverse washings, conventionalities
of flesh. B. 11—22. The yearning and the severity are
natural and necessary. Antiquity always seems romantic
and reformation dull. To defend reformation by the
plea that it is to pass from shadow to reality is but
cold. Yet reformers have their poetry as well as their
zeal, and this author as much as any of them. His
poetic touch is to oppose " eternal " to " golden," and
to bring into his new sphere of religion a sense of
vastness, tragedy, and loyalty. The section may be
subdivided into (n- 14) the better sanctuary and the
cleansing blood, (15-17) the new covenant, (18-22)
remission of sin.
In the first subdivision (1 1 — 14) we are at once con
fronted with a question of text. Authority, grammar,
and context, combine for the defence of yepop,kpa>p. But
this participle must not be taken by itself as meaning
" which have come on the scene of life," but in close
construction with Sta; then (12) ovSe carries on the
participle irapayep6p,epo$ (its rather ugly jingle with
yevop,epo<; is one of many instances of a certain unpro
fessional carelessness ip the scholarly author), and ovSe
has its proper meaning " nor . . . either." It is probable
that the correction peXkopTcap, " to come," arose from
scribes, or public readers, not noticing this idiomatic

An Exposition of the Epistle 363
construction of the sentence. The argument may be
thus stated :
Christ as contrasted with the ministers of that
artificial order, came forward (not now only but' in the
age-long series of His manifestations) as Highpriest of
a tabernacle greater, more complete, not built in the
material sense at all ; the same in fact as what in S. Joh.
xiv. 2, and perhaps S. Lk. ii. 49, is called " His father's
house," i.e. the whole spiritual universe. By the supra-
ritual service of this universal tabernacle that good which
is the real though obscured quality of creation and
human hope, had ever been ready for the true Highpriest
to operate with. Now, in the consummation of that
priesthood, He has entered at a definite moment once
for all, into the sanctuary of that tabernacle. Nor in
this temporal act is there imitation or make-belief, any
more than there had been in the whole sacramental re
presentation of the spiritual tabernacle. By the function
of blood, which is His own priestly death and life, He
made this priestly entrance ; dying He found, and living
out of death He entered with, eternal redemption. This,
alwviav XvTpaxrip, is one of the concentrated phrases of
the Epistle. The substantive carried with it certain
definite historical associations, the redemption from
Egypt (Ex. xv. 13), the redemption from Babylon
(Is. xli. 14, al.). It, or its corresponding verb, had in
Isaiah, and still more in the Psalms, gathered to itself
a more inward, universal significance. Here the epithet
carries that significance to completion. Something may
no doubt remain in the author's sacramental mind of the
time idea, but it is less " lasting for ever," that is implied
than " in no way to be reversed," and the essential

364 The Epistle of Priesthood
character of the word is shewn by Sod irpevp.aTo<s alcoplov,
" through eternal Spirit," and KaBapiel rrjp avpe'&qaip,
"shall cleanse conscience," in v. 14. The heavenly life
is the invisible power of the sacrament of the death,
the eternal salvation is the power " passing under
standing " which answers in the heavenly sphere to all
that humanly intelligible virtue of the Cross which might
be summed up in the Johannine sentence " greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends." The idea of "the good things" (11) is
elucidated by the sentence which follows. As the ritual
of the Day of Atonement had in the outward sphere of
human life, where even morality depends on conven
tional institutions, an effect of consecration by way of
cleansing contracted impurities, so in the sphere of
reality, where Christ interacts with the promptings and
influences of the divine Spirit of true life, His blood may
be trusted to wash away the alien evil which clogs man's
natural consciousness of God. The result will be that
he is set free from all the use and wont which seems to
be the necessary condition of action, but is really fatal to
true action, and is enabled to respond to the ideal
morality of the Gospel which is the supra-ritual service
of God who lives and has fresh stores of growing life to
satisfy all the developing needs of duty, as for instance
that new and not yet paralleled perplexity of the readers
of this letter.
(15—17). These verses take up again the term
" new covenant " in order to develope the thought of
Christ's death. A Siadr/Kr) involves death ; that is why
He is presented as a mediator of a covenant. Possibly
the other sense of SiaOr/KT], " will or testament," is glanced

An Exposition of the Epistle 365
at, though the analogy would hardly be complete, since
the mediator of a will would hardly be the testator but
what would now be called the executor, and his death
would not come into the matter. But in any case there
is no necessity to bring in that other meaning, for
covenants were made with sacrifice, and the sacrifice
might be understood as representing the death of some
party to the transaction, and there seems no conclusive
reason to deny that 6 Sia9kp,epo<;, " the one who has
arranged things," might be used of the " mediator."
Certainly eVt peKpol<i, " over dead bodies," (pkpecrdai, " to be
represented," and p,r) Tore (if that reading be accepted),
" the idea is that not then," are all phrases which seem
to be chosen to express a theory of sacrificial covenant.
But still more remarkably do they suit our Lord's words
and action at the Last Supper where He, still living in the
flesh, spoke of the Bread and Wine as His broken Body
and His shed Blood. According to S. Mark He spoke
then of the Covenant, and other accounts actually give
the phrase " new covenant " which may be said to be
implied in the apocalyptic language of S. Mark. The
author's meaning seems to be this. We have contem
plated Christ's death. It is to explain the necessity and
efficacy of that death that we use the analogy of the
Covenant. Jeremiah had associated his promise of
forgiven sin and communion with God, with a " new
covenant." The Lord took up the same idea in His
Last Supper when, anticipating His death and the
Kingdom of God which should be inaugurated by His
death, He stood between God and man as the mediator
-of this new covenant ; representing His death as death
always must be represented in covenants, but representing

366 The Epistle of Priesthood
His own death which was really to take place and did
take place. We may well believe, as He did, that His
death, thus solemnized, was able to bring in the new age
in which all the transgressions of the past would be taken
away and the children of the Kingdom, the summoned
guests and heirs, should realize the promise that hitherto
had been entrusted to their faith.
So the author continues, doubling back upon his
thought (18-22), by stating the general principles of
covenant - making through sacrifice, and illustrating
them by a reference to the covenant inaugurated or
" mediated " by Moses ; there too the rule was observed,
there was a transaction by means of blood. It may be
that in the tradition of the Church, our Lord's words
were commonly associated with that Sinaitic covenant,
and the writer does not wish to ignore the tradition.
But it is also convenient to him to make once more this
definite reference to the ritual death of brute victims.
He can thus sum up his general principle in the forcible
sentence " apart from blood-ritual remission does not
take place," and also lead on to his final statement of
the absolutely spiritual character of the sacrifice of Christ.
C. (23-28). That statement is made in the last
section of the chapter. The artificial rites are distin
guished from the real by an accumulation of contrasted
terms ; " copies," " made with hands," " like in pattern
only " — " the heavenly things," " the super-celestial sphere
itself," " the essentially true," " heaven itself," and at last
" the face of God." Besides that there is an evident
attempt to break free from the language of analogy, and
as it were to proclaim the sacramentalist's ultimate faith
in a reality beyond all sacramental description. Thus

An Exposition of the Epistle 367
" better sacrifices " in the plural though the divine sacri
fice is essentially one, is perhaps a studied carelessness.
'Ep.<j>apio-6fjpai, "to appear," a word which carries as
sociations of divine self - manifestation, is deeper yet
simpler than a merely ritual term would be. And at the
end, though a picture is again suggested of the worship
ing people waiting outside for the return of their priest
from the sanctuary (cf. Lk. i. 2 1, 22) yet o^drjaerai, " shall
be seen," is still barer in its simplicity than ip,<papio-0r)pat.
Another simple word of the same class is vrefapepcorai,
"hath been manifested" (26), which has a different con
notation here from both the others, and seems to point
to the manifestation on the scene of human history of
the Christ who has been present, but hitherto imperfectly
recognized, all through Israel's life. So that the argu
ment of the whole section has three steps, which may be
thus described :
(1) Evidently from these considerations it follows
that something better than the ancient ritual applies to
anything that may be imagined as a sanctuary in heaven.
And so the fact has been; for Christ did enter heaven
itself, to be at this very moment shewn as in theophany
for us before our God (23, 24).
(2) A theophany which surpasses all sacrificial
analogies yet springs from a single offering of himself,
once for all offered in time on earth, at that moment of
crucifixion — it would be terrible to fancy that it had been
repeated and we may not do so — wherein the Christ of
all the ages has been perfectly and finally manifested in
the manhood of our Lord (25, 26).
(3) That moment was a real death, like men's deaths
not to be repeated, and like men's deaths followed by its

368 The Epistle of Priesthood
consequence. Yet eminent above the death and judge
ment of the mass, for His death was the sin-bearing and
sin-removing of which the prophet (Is. liii.) uttered his
oracle ; and the sequel to His death is that coming (like
the priest's coming forth to the expectant people from
the sanctuary where he has finished his ritual atonement)
in which He shall be seen as with the eyes by those who
are waiting in their faith; and that sight shall be salva
tion, i.e. separation from all evil, the consummation of the
purpose of God (27, 28).
One point of considerable interest remains. What
is implied by pvv, "now," in v. 24? In 26 vwl seems
to be a logical conjunction = " as things actually are " ;
so vvp or pvpI (there is a doubt about the reading) was
used in viii. 6. But pvp in 24 is evidently a particle of
time, and though it would be possible to understand
it as referring to the sacramental moment of the cruci
fixion and the corresponding offering, as if it stood
placarded before the world for all time (cf. Gal. iii. 1
with Lightfoot's note), that is not natural here. Nor
does the aorist ip,<papia07jpac suit the interpretation that
the ascended Lord's perpetual intercession on the basis
of the one offering is meant ; contrast the present
ipTvy%dpet,p, vii. 25. It remains to suppose a reference
to the special trial of the readers in the troubled times
which were imminent when this letter was written. If
so a further propriety may perhaps be recognized in the
choice of this peculiar word. The Lord (it seems im
possible to doubt this) had connected His " Coming " with
a season of severe trial, which was to arrive within the
lifetime of some who heard Him. He seems to have
described this season of trial as being the time of the

An Exposition of the Epistle 369
overthrow of Jerusalem. If He meant that, and if this
letter was written when the Roman war was breaking
out, the coincidence was striking. But even though
either of those hypotheses be doubtful, some coincidence
remains, and this is the most remarkable of those hints
and suggestions of which there are many in the Epistle,
that the author saw in the crisis of his days a real though
not the final coming of the Lord. This insight of his
marks a definite step in the developement of the Church's
apocalyptic faith. As the Epistle puts it a little further
on (x. 37), in "but a very little while" the anxious
expectation of the end will be allayed. Christ will have
come, and for the final coming His disciples may wait
without haste, and without careful dogma as to the
manner in which it shall take place (cf. 1 Joh. iii. 2, iap
<papepco0{)). Meanwhile He will have indeed come; the
days of " fightings without, fears within " are over ; and
a new loyalty to Christ as the present leader and captain
of His church militant begins.
X. I— 18. In this section the simplifying of the
thought so as to carry it beyond analogy into its essence,
is completed. The sacrifice of Christ was the union of
His will with God's ; that is the gist of it. But terms of
analogy come in, though mainly to be again rejected,
because the author, as his habit is, uses a passage from
the Old Testament to express his mind, and this passage
itself is so constructed as to present the essential truth
by contrasting it with the analogy.
There are four divisions: (a) 1—4 introduction, (b)
5-10 the doctrine of "will," (c) 11-14 the whole con
sistent scheme displayed, (d) 15-18 the witness of con
science to its truth.
24

370 The Epistle of Priesthood
(a). 1—3. An introduction in which the author sums
up again what he has been elaborating, i.e. the ineffectual,
transitory character of the ancient rites. But in doing
this he makes, as it were, a happy find of an expressive
definition of that character, a definition too which does
justice to their comparative value; they are an dpdp,vr)ai<i
dfiapTi&p, " a recollecting of sins." It is perhaps really
justifiable to call this " a happy find," for the broken
grammar of the sentence preceding (1, 2) as it is written
in the best MSS., may be due not to a primitive error in
copying, but to a certain carelessness of the author him
self such as might be possible in a letter written by a
scholarly person even though he had planned his whole
argument carefully. If the Epistle be really a letter the
separate sentences would not have been all thought out
beforehand ; indeed there are other signs of a like care
lessness, such as his tendency to drop into metre. And
just at this point a slip (which a less literary person
would feel obliged to correct) is particularly natural ; he
is hurrying to the point which these lines merely serve to
introduce. (b). 5-10. The difference between Christ's sacrifice
and the ancient rites has been already marked by the
word tStou, " his own " (ix. 1 2). They were imitative
and conventional, and operated in an alien life ; His was
His own and therefore a real and personal transaction.
It is a person's mind or will that makes an act his own,
and if one of those personal functions is to be chosen to
represent the whole, a man of Jewish descent would
certainly choose "will," though a Greek, at least an
ancient Athenian, might prefer " mind." This author
accordingly chooses " will," and in terms of will describes

An Exposition of the Epistle 371
the deepest significance of that act of Christ which he
has hitherto spoken of by the analogy of sacrifice. But
he has found the way to this solution of his theological
problem in the Old Testament. A Psalmist had spoken
of the ritual sacrifices only to reject them, and to declare
his resolve to do God's will, and his belief that such
obedience, such sympathetic obedience, was what God
himself preferred to sacrifices. Nothing, thinks our
author, could better describe the Lord's attitude to
religion and life ; and by a very natural form of expres
sion, he puts the words into the Lord's mouth, dramati
cally, as His own utterance on entering upon His
ministry. And first we notice how true to history this
is. Psalmists had comparatively ignored the sacrifices
against which Prophets had even strongly spoken. Philo
and many of the Jews of the dispersion, perhaps more
definitely still certain religious societies among the Jews,
had put sacrifices very much in the background of their
piety. Not sacrifice but a more reasonable service was
already the essence of religion to many good men in
Israel when our Lord was born. And the Gospels shew
that He did, though in no party spirit, throw in His lot
with that quiet and progressive party. " Sacerdotal " is
not a word which need have other than a good meaning.
But it is plain that the Gospels are not " sacerdotal."
However the negative aspect of the quotation is of
secondary importance. The main point is that it ex
presses so aptly our Lord's obedience, His losing and
finding His own will in the will of His Father. All the
accumulated analogy of sacrifice fails to reach so deep
as that ; indeed we can go no deeper. For in that will
the whole purpose of the creation is folded up (10). In

372 The Epistle of Priesthood
the centre as a focus stands the Cross. That is the
picture language which comes most readily to our lips.
The author too knows that he must get back to such
language if he would be terse and clear ; but he prefers
his own imagery to that which we have learned from
S. Paul, and says " the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all." That word " body " is from the
Septuagint not from the original Hebrew. There is no
need to labour this. The author uses the Septuagint
and therefore quotes its rather remarkable word ; and
he is not the person to let a remarkable word lose its
character in his citation of it. But " body " has nothing
to do with the chain itself of his argument ; the argu
ment would be just as strong without it, and there is no
need to dwell upon it in an exposition of the Epistle.
To return then ; running up to that focus is all the past
age of the world. Christ's death was no solitary in
explicable event ; it was part of the divine scheme of
salvation. Flowing forth from it again is all the future.
The consequence of Christ's death — seen to be the
necessary consequence when this divine scheme of life is
recognized, and the Lord Jesus is placed as Christ within
it — is (according to the old Galilean phraseology), the
coming of the kingdom of heaven (cf. xii. 28), according
to this new Alexandrine phraseology, the consecration of
God's people — " in which will we have been sanctified
or consecrated " (r)yiaap,kpoi). All is predestined and
accomplished in that will which was completed or satis
fied by union with the returning or " entering " will of
Christ. (C). 11-14. This paragraph continues the last
division with hardly a break. It shews the whole ritual

An Exposition of the Epistle 373
of Judaism, perhaps rather of the wide world, testifying
to man's natural desire for this consecration. It then
holds forth as it were to view, the destined task now
accomplished by Christ. The implied comment is " See
how natural and consistent it all is." Once seen, once
accepted, there can be no more doubt ; the truth of it is
self-evident. This is the ultimate argument of all
religion, an argument which passes from the intellect to
the will ; which is a satisfying argument only to the
" converted " man. For whom too the paradox that
follows presents no difficulty. He understands how the
thing is done once for all and completely, while yet if
remains that the end should " come " or " become " (to
Xolttop ewSe^o/iiei'o? k.t.X.) ; and how ol rjytaap.kpot, " those
who have been perfectly consecrated " in the will of God,
are still ol dyta^bfjiepoi, those who are in process of con
secration in the world. It is best to take et? to SirjpeKe<;,
" for perpetuity," with " having offered one sacrifice for
sins." The emphatic p.iap prevents any misconception as
of a repeated sacrifice. The Greek phrase (et? to St^e/ee'?,
not et? top alSipd) shews too that the idea of an " eternal "
sacrifice would be out of place ; and this Greek phrase is
what makes the connexion with eKaOto-ev improbable. It
was " for ever," rt eternally," that the Lord took His royal
seat. This " in perpetuity " simply indicates the abiding
efficacy of the sacrifice.
(D). 15-18. The last paragraph followed the pre
ceding without logical break, yet it was a fresh paragraph
for it brought in a highly important idea of its own,
not indeed for the first time in the Epistle. That idea
was the forgiveness of sins. Here that idea is brought
into clearest light. The completeness and consistency of

374 The Epistle of Priesthood
God's scheme, with Christ's death for its central point, has
been held forth for the believer to recognize. Now the
author reminds us that Jeremiah (in the quotation already
made) had promised this ; the aptness of ancient prophecy
is the final coincidence which quite completes that self-
revealing scheme. But, he adds, Jeremiah's chief thought
was of the remission of sins in the happy days to come,
and now it is the conscience, sin-burdened once but
cleansed at last, that recognizes this truth as really
standing self-revealed.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is a priestly book. A
man with a priestly mind wrote to friends like minded ;
else what use to choose the priestly analogy. But it is
the mark of such minds to sympathize with consciences
that feel the stain even more than the chain of sin.
Throughout this chapter that hidden sympathy underlies
the visible logic.
And perhaps a little more needs to be said. It can
hardly fail to be noticed that the author felt something
of this sympathy even towards the Levitical rites. They
were in themselves but shadows, yet even so something
of tenderness and yearning, some touch of true priest
hood, was about them. It might be explained by saying
that so far as they were ceremonies they were shadows,
but so far as they involved the sympathetic ministry of
men, they passed out of the region of shadows. Or we
may frankly confess that there is a certain, not unpleas-
ing, looseness in the logic of the Epistle. It must almost
necessarily be so. Life cannot absolutely be divided into
separate sections. No part that has any, even the slightest,
touch of real life can be wholly a shadow. And if (as the
Epistle certainly recognizes) even the Levitical sacrifices

An Exposition of the Epistle 375
did offer Israel some measure of consolation and encourage
ment, it is only in a scheme on paper that they can be
thoroughly set aside. There is a certain looseness in the
logic of the author. It is partly caused by his own sym
pathy being larger than his formal plan. But it does not
spoil his plan, for that plan is more than a formal one ;
the ultimate argument he employs is addressed to the
will and not to the intellect. Nor does it spoil even his
formal argument, for that too is more genial than
formal ; he appeals to man's general instinct for self-
sacrificing love, and he does find more of this in the
world at large than at the altars of the Old Covenant ;
yet if there be some there too, it is worth while to mar
the neatness of a syllogism in order to give thanks for it.
However the line of eternal priesthood which our
Lord has completed is greater than the Levitical line
and really different from it. All action " on the Godward
side" which the world has ever seen led up to Him,
" after the order of Melchizedek." His death is to the
author of this Epistle the perfection of all the self-
sacrificing love that ever has appeared or ever shall be
spent in the whole world ; and it is effectual for cleansing
and so for opening access to God.

PART III.— CHAPTER X. 19-XIII.
Exhortation
Argument is ended. By analogy of priesthood the
author has tried to raise his friends' low estimate of

376 The Epistle of Priesthood
Jesus, whom they had acknowledged as Christ but only
in an imperfect sense. Unlike the early Church of
Jerusalem they had looked upon Him merely as an
example and a teacher. He tried to lead them to the
more sublime Christology of tradition by shewing that
He was the divine Christ expected by Israel and
recognized by the Apostles. This he did by insisting
upon His position as heir of all the Christship manifested
in the Old Testament and in Israel's history.
But it is never possible to revive an old tradition
without going forward, and developing its essential mean
ing in accordance with the demands and difficulties of
new minds. Thus he accepted his friends' feeling for the
real manhood of the Lord and acknowledged the diffi
culty which this involved. Manhood means likeness to
other men and obscures what is unique in the person
contemplated. The manhood of the Lord meant even
more ; His despised life and shameful death seemed to
make Him even less fit than other men to be an author
of salvation. Hence the writer faced this shame. He
shewed that suffering was, so to say, the greatest common
measure of manhood ; the Lord's sufferings made Him
brother, not merely to Israel but to all the human race ;
and more than that, His glory was realized in His
humiliation. From this he was able to take up and elaborate his
analogy of priesthood. As a priest stands on the God
ward side of men and by outward actions works eternal
good, so Jesus the Lord, through His humiliated life and
above all in His death on the Cross, achieved for men
eternal salvation.
But a mere analogy is of little worth. The thing

An Exposition of the Epistle 377
needed was to shew that this action of the Lord was real :
analogy with the unreal liturgies of the Levitical or other
institutional priesthoods did not prove this.
Therefore he looked beyond them, and saw running
all through history a service of men on the Godward side
of men by which really and truly God ever had been
bringing men and all things to Himself. For this
" natural " and eternal priesthood the Old Testament
furnished an artificial name — " after the order of Mel
chizedek " — and adopting this term he elaborated and
illustrated his idea. In doing this he sometimes fell into
artificial reasoning himself, and in so far as he did this,
his words fail to touch us closely. But he only did so
now and then ; the main impulse of his thought is as
effective now as ever. We understand his sacramental
principle, that what is natural is spiritual ; and having
once grasped his conception of a natural priesthood in all
life, we accept his conclusion that this natural priesthood
must culminate in its own perfection ; that as it has
always been manifested in service, so it must culminate
in suffering, even the suffering of shame and death ; and
finally, we are ready to drop analogy with him, and to
recognize that in the sinless will of our Lord the desired
consummation has been attained.
But " will " brings in again a thought which has never
been allowed to slumber throughout the argument. God's
will, Christ's will, the will of men ; this is " the one and
many." All three wills are real, and none of them can
force another, but all interact. Through " free will," and
only so, unity is possible. The salvation of which the
Lord became author cannot be imposed upon men ; it
must be willingly accepted. The readers of this letter

378 The Epistle of Priesthood
cannot be persuaded by mere argument ; they must share
the will of the Christ, and do His duty themselves as He
did. But this can be done ; for the will of God is the
source and home of all wills, and the death of Christ, the
sacrifice of the supreme High Priest, was ordered by
God's will, and accepted by His Son's will, as a means
for cleansing conscience, for renewing life, for freeing wills
to follow His.
At this point then the author passes from argument
to exhortation. " Do the duty set before you," he says,
" resolve to share the will of Christ, and doing this you
will yourselves clinch my argument."
But before starting upon the last, hortatory, division of
the Epistle a remark must be interpolated. It may be
objected that in this summary, as well as in the course
of exposition, a good deal has been read into the text
which is not expressed therein. That is true, but no
ancient letter can be interpreted otherwise. A letter
presupposes a community of unexpressed thought
between the writer and his readers. The idea of the
natural eternal priesthood presupposes all that Old
Testament history and doctrine which is suggested by
the titular phrase, " after the order of Melchizedek."
The belief in the effect of Christ's death and its central
position in the foreordaining will of God was part of the
inheritance of the early Church from later Judaism ; the
Jews had believed in a world scheme of divine salvation,
and the Lord had taught His apostles that the turning-
point of that scheme must be His death. The author
had not to teach this as something new, but to approach
it and to turn it to his friends' view in such a manner as
to make it a reality to them. So again his argument

An Exposition of the Epistle 379
about the will of God and Christ and men, is rich in
associations with S. Paul's "in Christ," and with that
national communion and unity which informs the whole
Old Testament ; already there a summing up of the
many in the Christ had been displayed, and a moral,
that is a free-will explanation of it given by the Prophets.
Such presuppositions lie behind the letter. The
letter itself, especially by its Old Testament master-
phrases, affords hints for our guidance in recovering
them. We may be mistaken sometimes when we think
we are recovering them ; but the risk must be run.
Without consideration of that background we cannot
interpret our author at all.
And on the whole we shall recover the background
more certainly by following his Old Testament hints
and by remembering the common inheritance of the
Church, than by comparing him phrase by phrase with
Philo. His language is peculiar to him among the
Apostolic writers and the Alexandrians had taught it
him, but his thought is, like all artistic thought, tradi
tional, and his great tradition was the same as that of
the general Church.
X. 19 to end. The argument is finished and from
this point to the end the author presses the exhortation
to which his argument leads. The whole falls into four
divisions corresponding to the modern chapters.
A. x. 19—39. The Highpriest has opened the way
into the sanctuary of God ; let us enter,
making a venture of faith. -
B. xi. The reality and power of faith.
C. xii. The imminent contest ; its consolations and
its perils ; the largeness of its issue.

380 The Epistle of Priesthood
D. xiii. Rules of life and direct appeal to loyalty.
Prayer for the necessary strength of will,
and greetings.
All moves upon the basis of a dominant note ; that
the unseen Lord Jesus is speedily to be met, and in that
meeting a new life is to begin.
A. x. 19—39. The subdivisions are —
(i.) 19—25. Let us draw near to God; His day
is quickly coming.
(ii.) 26—31. And disloyalty is terrible now.
(iii.) 32—39. Renew the courage of former days,
, for the faith is ours.
(i.) 19—25. Argument is completed by action
(" therefore "), and so far as the author has convinced his
friends, he calls upon them to act upon their conviction ;
so far as their intellect still hesitates, he urges them to
clinch the matter by exercise of will. " Jesus, as we
hold, has opened the way of approach to God ; let us
walk His way and draw near."
It is impossible not to feel that this drawing near is
not a pious generality, but a particular step forward in
the face of particular difficulty. The author's language
becomes still more significant in xii. 1—3, and at last in
xiii. 1 3 he says something which must have been quite
without ambiguity to his readers, though it remains
partly obscure to us.
The word Trapprjaia, " boldness," cf. iii. 6, iv. 1 6,
suggests that special confidence towards God which is
the property of the community of the faith. It is akin
to the " good conscience " of xiii. 1 8, the " conscience of
God" (1 Pet. ii. 19) which is the normal consciousness
of man, and though degraded by his contact with the

An Exposition of the Epistle 381
realm of death into " conscience " in the popular sense
of the word, has been restored through the sacrifice of
Christ (ix. 14). In accordance with this double aspect,
outer and inner, of " the faith " we have a double descrip
tion in v. 22 of the concomitants of access — cleansed
heart and baptized body. Of course washing with water
had long been a ritual preparation even in pagan worship ;
cf. Aesch. fr. 32, KaXolai Xovrpols iKXeXovpkvo? Sepas I et?
v-^rtKprjppop 'Ipkpap d^>iKop.r)p. But whether or no the
influence of mystery-religions had anything to do with it,
the two sacraments were becoming by this time the
groundwork of church life, and though this author pays
little special attention to them, it is natural that he
should presuppose them. And the reference to the
external rite is the more probable here, since in the
antithesis of Jesus' own entrance (20) stress is laid on
its sacramental visible character. The way irpoo-cpaTov Kal
£ai<rap is the way of this visible death and indissoluble
life ; Trp6o-<parop being no doubt intended in what the
writer believed to be its etymological sense, " a way,
' fresh slain ' yet living." Westcott thinks that rovr
iarip t»5? aapKos avrov, "that is the way of His flesh,"
should be connected with " way " not with " veil." This
does make the whole sentence consistent and is probably
right. An emphatic final genitive is rather characteristic
of rhetorical style (cf. Jam. ii. 1, and Origen's sugges
tion about evSoKia? in Lk. ii. 1 4). But the " common-
sense " of readers of all ages has accepted the other
construction, " through the veil, that is His flesh." And
though Westcott says truly enough that " it is surprising
that ' the flesh ' of Christ should be treated in any way
as a veil, an obstacle, to the vision of God in a place

382 The Epistle of Priesthood
where stress is laid on His humanity," there is not quite
so much in this argument as might appear at first sight.
In S. John where the Sacrament of the Incarnation is
finally expressed, such looseness would indeed be sur
prizing. In Hebrews where that sacramental principle
is more tentatively sketched, it might perhaps be appro
priate. Popular taste accepts the image readily ; it may
have also pleased the earlier writer's fancy. And there
is in him a certain tendency to Platonic imperfection in
the consideration of the flesh, cf. xiii. 3, xii. 23 ; he
exalts " the days of His flesh " so nobly just because they
were a problem to him.
Verses 19-22 are a transition from the analogy to
the exhortation, and their picturesque imagery gives
vigour to the opening sentences. But already the author
has shewn a desire to pass beyond his analogy and here
again he breaks away from it. In plain terms he urges
steadfastness, fellowship, and readiness.
Readiness for what? He had brought the ancient
church doctrine of the coming of Christ forward in
ix. 28; almost abruptly it then seemed. But there had
been a hint of it at the beginning of his letter, i. 6, and
now it begins to be plain that he had had this thought in
mind all through, and is about to take up again his
earlier hints, and explain and emphasize them. In
v. 25 he no doubt means by imavvaywyrfp, the Christian
assembling for common worship, and rio-lp, "some," is
his urbane and playful way of administering a rebuke
to these friends of his ; they with their broad, educated
minds, and perhaps with their well-to-do delicacy, do
not care for these assemblies, nor for the ordinary dis
cipline (cf. xiii 17 and Jam. ii. 1-9). But iiriavpayayrj

An Exposition of the Epistle 383
had other associations also, especially to readers of S. Paul
(cf. 2 Thess. ii. 1), and in our author's subtle philological
manner it leads to his solemn mention of " the day "
which already more and more they behold approaching.
" The day " of course is the regular term for the day of
the Lord, the Parousia. But why and how do the
readers of this letter " behold " it drawing near ? If we
may assume, as the latest criticism encourages us to do,
that Mk. xiii. contains our Lord's own warnings of the
signs of His coming, the natural answer will be that the
writer recognizes those signs in the political disturbances
of his own time, and is urging his friends to shew their
loyalty to Christ by some definite act of allegiance which
the crisis calls for. St. Luke's version (xxi.) shews that,
after the event at all events, the Jewish war with Rome
and the fall of Jerusalem were understood by the Church
as a fulfilment, or a first fulfilment, of the Lord's warn
ings. Heb. xiii. 1 3 is most easily interpreted in con
nexion with that judgement of the Church, and it is at
least plausible to suppose that this Epistle, written when
that war had broken out and the coming catastrophe was
evident to the unprejudiced eyes of the author, led the
way to a modification of the Church's eschatological
expectation. The final coming might still delay, but in
the " trial " of those times the Lord would come in a
real sense, and would inaugurate a new era for those who
held faithful to Him and His supra-political peace ;
refusing to partake in revolutionary dreams of new
Messiahship. (ii.) 26-31. That is the thought which comes out
in this next section. The wilful sin (26) is the desertion
of the Lord and His truth for the long-drawn-out error

384 The Epistle of Priesthood
of militant Judaism, wherein no fresh deliverance can be
found to take the place of that salvation which has been
called in this Epistle " sacrifice." What that error will
bring is that fiery judgement of God, which has ever
been manifested when He overthrows cities (27), cf.
Is. xxvi. 5 and 11. Here as in vi. 4 ff. no dogma is
uttered limiting faith in the forgiveness of sins, but a
natural consequence of a particular act is vividly
declared. Not but what the sin and sadness of that act are
deeply felt (28, 29), but whereas in the old Law the
punishment which hurt the offender was the marked
thing, here the despite done to the Son of God trans
forms the whole idea of punishment. The Blood of
the Covenant, the Spirit of Grace ; these terms express
what we call personality in its deepest sense. The
offence is a violation of personal bonds ; the punishment
is a moral and mutual wound. Finally (30) the author
concludes with a quotation from Deuteronomy (xxxii. 3 5 f.)
which emphasizes the pitifulness of such a lapse, and
entirely suits the circumstances as we have imagined them
above. For the point of the passage in Deuteronomy
is that the Lord will avenge His people without their
needing to shew violence. This later Jewish war is lack
of trust in the Protector of the nation, and those who
take up arms put themselves in the position of His
enemies instead of His dependents.
(iii.) 32—39. As in ch. vi. so here, a severe warning
is followed by encouragement based on the remembrance
of former faithfulness. That earlier faithfulness was
the enduring of persecution soon after the readers had
accepted the faith ; fywrioQkvrvs, " after enlightenment,"

An Exposition of the Epistle 385
is a mode of expressing conversion, like that already
used in v. 26, and is probably not yet a technical term
for Baptism. The persecution seems to have been
chiefly borne in their willing and active sympathy for
brethren who suffered more sharply. The A.V., "for
ye had compassion on me in my bonds" (Tot? Sec/iot?
p.ov), is perhaps a modification of a reading known to
Origen, " ye had compassion on bonds " (rot? Seo>ot?),
probably made by some one who read the Epistle as
S. Paul's. But the true reading is represented by R.V.,
" on them that were in bonds " (to*? Seoyuot?). Such
practical kindness to prisoners is recommended in
ch. xiii. as likely to be required again in the new
troubles which were imminent. Yet they had not only
shewn such sympathy. They had themselves lost their
property, thereby learning the Church's lesson of sim
plicity. For eavrov<} is the same as -i/rtr^a? in the Gospel
— " if a man gain the whole world and lose his soul,
himself." They endured even worse. The word that
describes their personal suffering, 6eaTpi£op,epoi, " made
a spectacle as on a stage," would fit so well the cruelties
of Nero that the reference is commonly supposed to be
to his persecution. The inference follows that the letter
is a good deal later than S. Paul's death, and that it
was written to Rome. Obviously those inferences need
not be drawn. The reference might be to a persecution
at any time or place ; we know too little of the earliest
persecutions to decide. And a prejudice has been raised
by Clement's apparent reference in somewhat similar
language to Nero's abominations. The word may be
simply an expressive one which suited the author's taste.
It may even more probably be a literary reminiscence
25

386 The Epistle of Priesthood
of S. Paul's phrase in 1 Cor. iv. 9, " we are made a
theatrical spectacle unto the world." 1
For however come by — and an Apostle need not
have died long since to allow his letters to be read —
there are reminiscences of S. Paul in this section of
the Epistle. It might be mere coincidence that led the
author to quote Deuteronomy (30) in the words of
S. Paul (Rom. xii. 19) instead of the Septuagint, but
it seems more likely to have been intentional since
S. Paul's text on faith from Habakkuk follows immedi
ately after (37 f., cf. Rom. i. 17, Gal. iii. 11). Yet this
text is quoted here with a difference. The faith
contemplated is essentially the same faith as S. Paul's,
springing from union with Jesus Christ. But it is
thought of in a particular way which corresponds more
obviously than S. Paul's idea with the original intention
of the words in Habakkuk. The writer of this Epistle,
like the Prophet, is face to face with an imminent trial ;
like him he calls upon his friends to be steadfast in
their trust towards God ; and like him he expects a
deliverer. Only this expectation is definite in the
Epistle. The Lord Christ for whom the brethren are
waiting is the deliverer. And this definite assurance
is marked by the addition of the article to the participle
ip%6p.epo<;, which in the Septuagint stands without it
and merely emphasizes r/fet ; " he (the unnamed subject
of the prophet's vision) shall surely come and shall not
linger." And as the simple Old Testament idea of
faith is thus brought forward, so another Old Testament
1In D* the reading is simply 6veiSttfp.evoi, "being shamed." Of course
that cannot be the original word, but the variation perhaps shews that
OearpitfiLevoi, was not so striking a term to early readers as it is to us,

An Exposition of the Epistle 387
idea is used to express the issue of such faith ; it is for
the acquiring or possessing of soul, life, person, self —
the thought of v. 34 (eavrovs:) is gathered up into this
final encouragement. The term irepinroiqa-is is the one
used in Mai. iii. 17 where Israel is termed God's own
possession (cf. 1 Pet. ii. 9) and this gives depth to the
hope here offered ; it is not merely the hope of private
survival from the coming catastrophe, but also of in
creasing the divine lordship of the souls which are
God's. With that thought again 2 Thess. ii. 14 (et?
•jrepiirovr)<rip Soltys tov Kvplov) may be compared, and
it should be noticed that the noun is used three times
by S. Paul, 1 Thess. v. 9, 2 Thess. ii. 14, Eph. i. 14.
Throughout the latter part of this chapter the memory
of S. Paul is strongly felt.
XI. And so ch. xi. opens with eo-rip, no mere copula
or enclitic, but an emphatic assertion of the reality of
faith. It is as though the writer knew how his master
Paul's doctrine of faith had been spoken against, and
therefore, having made use of it, he would also stand
up for it — " And, let them say what they will, there is
such a thing as faith ; the whole record of our fathers'
courage proves it ; faith it was that made them brave."
That is the main and simple idea in this roll of
heroes. They were courageous through faith, and the
application to the readers of the letter was obvious. But
though mere examples do act upon the will, this writer
and his readers were men of intellect and were more
impressed when they could see somewhat deeply into
the hidden springs of will. Nor was this other than a
laudable desire, since it is just in those hidden springs
that the union of the divine will with the wills of men

388 The Epistle of Priesthood
is realized. Therefore a rationale (rather than a definition)
of faith is given before the achievements of faith are
rehearsed (xi. 1 ). Faith is a reaching into the unseen ;
this will appear in all the examples that follow.
It is described as being eXm^opeptop vTroa-racris, " that
which underlies all hope." This word viroo-Taais has
been already used twice in the Epistle. In i. 3 it
signified that absolute being of God which is in itself
unseen but is expressed and manifested in the Son of
God. In iii. 14 a later reading for viroo-Tdaecas is
trio-Tews, and the English version is content with a
paraphrase, " confidence," which would suit either term.
The Vulgate however keeps substantiae and adds (with
some Greek MSS.) eius. This is nearer the true
meaning ; that Christship which underlies the whole Old
Testament is signified ; the readers are urged (as we
might say) to be loyal to an idea. So here we might
paraphrase " faith is the essence of hope " ; wherever
there is true hope a reality lies behind it. " Foundation "
is a possible rendering of viroaracns, as in the Psalm
(lxviii. 2) ipeirdyijp et? l\i>v fivdov Kal ovk eanp vTrocrrao-ts,
" where there is no bottom," cf. cxxiii. 5 , to vSmp to
apviroo-Tarop, " fathomless water " ; but that is not
personal enough for any of the passages in this Epistle.
Though faith is not described here quite as S. Paul describes
it, the emotion behind both descriptions is the same ; it is
personal attachment to the Lord. The author makes
use of terms from the Alexandrine philosophy, but even
exacter philosophers than he is would wish to employ
their abstract terms in such a way as to reach through
them to the living or personal heart of truth. He
certainly does this, and his doctrine of faith will be best

An Exposition of the Epistle 389
understood if attention is paid to its likeness to rather
than its difference from the Pauline or Johannine. Deep
in the thought of all these apostolic writers works that
affection towards the Lord Christ which they shared with
the whole Church. Thus we are brought to a more
satisfactory paraphrase than our first, and may say that
faith is the inspiration, or the heart of hope.
Then according to the manner of this Epistle, the
former half of the sentence is balanced by a second
clause irpaypdrwp eXey^os ov ftXeiropkpmp, "the proof or test
of matters which the eye does not behold." The riddle
of composition lies in just that " balance " ; why is that
necessary to the sense which seems merely a luxury to
the ear? The addition here is necessary to the sense.
It prevents the whole idea from being merely fanciful.
To the first clause the objection might be brought : you
buoy up false hopes by a sentimental faith. The answer
follows in this latter clause : no ; true faith is a test of
ideas. If faith in the Lord Jesus can be applied to a
hope or an enthusiasm that hope or enthusiasm may be
trusted. The readers would apply this to those
enthusiasms of their own troubled times from which their
friend warns them, and to the other enthusiasm, their
Christian " boldness," to which he strives to keep them
steadfast. One was specious, the other stands the test.
And, since a close reasoner might say that this was
begging the question (though unfairly, since one of the
premisses in every syllogism in this Epistle is : " you
have already given your allegiance to Jesus as the
Christ "), he continues by asserting that this is what may
be observed all through the history of Israel, — or even of
the world, as told in Israel's sacred books, for v. 3

390 The Epistle of Priesthood
looks back to the history of the Creation in Gen. i. Yet
it does more than that. It reminds the readers of their
own faith as a whole ; the faith they have inherited from
their fathers, by which they accept the authority of their
scriptures, and recognize the spiritual and divine source
of all creation. But there is more than this. The term
alobpas is used here, as in i. 2, in the exacter sense an
Alexandrine would prefer. It is "the ages," the life of
the world in its successive yet continuous and developing
stages, which is thought of. The construction, et? to p,r]
. . . yeyopepai, has afforded a puzzle for the grammarian, but
it makes the most consistent sense if it be taken accord
ing to the strict rules of Attic Greek ; " to the end that
the thing which is beheld should be recognized as having
come into being out of more than mere phenomena " —
our popular use of this Greek word phenomena comes
nearer to the sense than any native English one would.
What is implied is this. It seems as though all went on
by measurable cause and effect, great victories from the
great battalions, etc., the trials of the present age from
the actions of the last, the issues in the age to come from
the accidents of this, and no purpose, no personal will, in
the matter. But the faith of the Church, Jewish and
Christian, says otherwise. Not only has God created all
things, but by His decree the course of the ages has been
ordered and fitted together so that the changes and
chances of history are the manifestation of His will, and
(it follows) in the present appearance of things His will
is directing, and right faith tests the claims of either side
in the contest and leads His servants to join their wills
to His and co-operate to the appointed end. All this
should be Jewish faith as much as Christian. Christian

An Exposition of the Epistle 391
faith adds (i. 2) that the Son through whom God
manifests himself in history, and through whom He
made the ages, and who by the decree of His power (i. 3)
is bearing all things on to their goal, is the Lord Jesus
Christ ; so that in the crises of the times the Lord's
presence or " coming " must be acknowledged.
But it is time to arrange the chapter more formally.
It falls into three divisions (a) 3-16, (b) 17-31, (c) 32-
38, preceded by an introduction (1,2) and concluded by
an epilogue (39, 40).
Introduction (1,2). The reality and character of faith
as proved from the divine his
tory of Israel.
(a) (3-16). The origins ; from the creation to
Abraham ; the patriarchs' dis
tant view of the city of God.
(b) (17-31). The early history of the chosen
people; from the sacrifice of
Isaac to the entry into Canaan ;
the making of the nation.
(c) (32—38). The nation's heroisms, especially
in Maccabean times, the period
of the " Saints."
Epilogue (39, 40). The whole history a looking for
ward ; " martyrdom " and pro
mise ; realization now at hand.
The introduction has been dealt with above. In
(a) there is a marked resemblance both in words and
ideas to Philo. The series Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
corresponds with his order and selection : Noah con
demning the world ; the city of God ; God deigning to
be called the God of the patriarchs — these ideas might

392 The Epistle of Priesthood
be gathered independently from the Old Testament, but
the coincidences even with the phraseology of Philo are
remarkable. There is however no need to dwell on
them. Whatever impulse Philo (or the school of quasi-
philosophy which lies behind Philo) gave to our author's
thought, the thought itself is his own. Philo turns all
into allegory ; e.g. the land in which Abraham sojourned
is the body ; the author of the Epistle is concerned with
actual examples of courageous faith. The whole of this
chapter is to him a chapter of living history. We now
criticize that history and question facts in the sacred
records. Philo's allegorizing was another mode of
this criticizing tendency, but in this author's judgement
not a profitable method. His own is also a critical
method but different. He simply passes over the things
which chiefly trouble us ; e.g. the hiding of Moses in the
bulrushes, the ten plagues. He is simple and reasonable
in his selection and writes with his eye on Genesis,
Exodus and the Books of Scripture, not on Philo's com
mentary, though he may have read it and kept what was
useful to his purpose in his mind.
4. Abel. — With our modern theory of the com
position of the Pentateuch, we may suppose that this
narrative was placed at the beginning by the editor in
order to illustrate the moral and spiritual character of
sacrifice; a right heart rather than a punctual gift is
required. That is very much what is meant here by the
emphasis on Abel's faith. It is also much to the point
in this chapter that Abel should have been a hero who
died for his faith, and thus enables the author to illustrate
his Christian view of death. It is not an end but a
mysterious act of life ; " through faith Abel having died

An Exposition of the Epistle 393
still speaketh." The later reading XaXelrai, "is still
spoken of," is a curious perversion of a fine thought.
Our English translators must have read it in their Greek
and they noticed it in their margin, but in their text they
happily kept the sense they had been accustomed to in
the Latin. Philo has a comment which (though it
weakens the original by generalizing) is worth quoting :
£VJ (lev yap o redpdpat Sok&p e'cye Kal weeTJ/? wv Oeov Kal
tfxopj} xpapiepos eiplo-Kerai, " for he liveth who seemeth to
be dead, if only he is found God's suppliant speaking
with a suppliant's voice."
5. Enoch. — The Septuagint in Genesis says only that
Enoch " was not found, for God translated him." Sirach,
xliv. 1 6, like Philo, simply adds that this was an example
to posterity ; but xlix. 14, implies that this " translation "
was more than a passing into life through death : " No
man was created upon the earth such as was Enoch ; for
he was taken up from the earth." The Hebrew of
Gen. v. 24, " and he was not, for God took him," does
point to a death of peculiar blessedness, and does assert
Enoch's immortality, but it does not imply immunity
from the physical death of men. But there was in later
times a large literature concerning Enoch which is based
on a belief in such immunity, and is no doubt derived
from legend far more ancient than the Jewish Torah.
Here, as often, Genesis has purified ancient legend.
The author of Hebrews goes as far as Sirach but no
farther. He resolves the problem of the miraculous into
a scriptural phrase rov p,r] ISelv Odparop, " that he should
not see death," and so leaves it without closer defini
tion. That he would not insist on the physical miracle
seems the more probable from the quasi-allusion in his

394 The Epistle of Priesthood
own favourite Wisdom of Solomon, iv. iof, where the
phrase £&v fiereredr) is applied to the good man who is
taken from the evil world by a death which seems
premature but is indeed the peace of immortality. Some
such interpretation of the Enoch story would probably
commend itself to him, though he would not interfere
with the different belief of others. And for his purpose
the question is not important ; what he sees is that, both
here and beyond, Enoch knew God and trusted His
loving care for men, even though that care might not be
visible to superficial observation. That is the idea of
purda-KoSorrjs, " rewarder " ; not a utilitarian philosophy of
reward for goodness, but a personal faith in God who,
with personal affection, responds to those who seek to come
near him. It is what the Book of Job teaches, the blessed
ness of communion, not the justice of compensations.
7. Noah. — The phrase, " concerning things not seen
as yet," explains the point of his example, since it refers
plainly to v. 1. In the latter part of the passage the
relative pronoun should be connected with the emphatic
antecedent " faith," and KareKptpev should be understood
in a general sense, not a technical ; " condemned " not
" damned." It may be remarked however that, except
in S. Mk. xvi. 16 (the supplement to that Gospel), God
is never said in the New Testament to " condemn " (Kara-
Kplpeip) ; that is reserved for man's limited scope. " Be
came heir," in this Epistle means nearly the same as
" received the promise " ; it implies a future participation,
and the " righteousness in accordance with faith " (Kara,
irlo-rip), is no doubt the same as the righteousness which
S. Paul saw " springing out of faith " (e« nrlo-Tems, Rom.
ix. 30, x. 6 ; cf. Rom. iii. 22, iv. n, 13, Phil. iii. 9). The

An Exposition of the Epistle 395
difference is that S. Paul thinks mainly of faith as a new
power since Jesus Christ ; this author of faith as the
ancient characteristic of Israel's saints though they had
been as yet debarred from its full effects.
8—12. Abraham. — His journey into a new country
which he undertook at God's call without knowing
whither God meant to lead him ; his nomad life of
expectation of the city of God ; and even his wife
Sarah's acceptance of a promise which at first sight she
seemed to hear with indifference — note the Kal before
'Sdppa ; in Romans it is Abraham's age, here it is Sarah's
habit of mind, which is noticed as heightening the
difficulty of acceptance, cf. Rom. iv. 19— 21.1 These are
obviously ventures into the unseen world which faith
makes real.
A few MSS. prefix 0 to KaXovp,epos, "who was called "
instead of " being called," as though the new name
" Abraham " were the point. This might be a correction
made by some student of Philo ; the real point is that
Abraham was " called " by God to leave his native land
and "while yet the call was sounding" obeyed. In v. 9
a name is given to Canaan which has become a pos
session to after generations, et? yrjp tt)s iirayyeXias, " the
land of the promise," poorly vulgarized into " the promised
land." The omission of t»J? before avrrjs at the end of
the verse is perhaps a mere slip of a high authority K*,
but it makes a fine echo to that title ; " with Isaac and
Jacob the fellow heirs of its (the land's own) promise."
13-16. The patriarchal stage has now been re-
1 The addition of western MSS. and versions areipd, i) sreipd, crTeipd oSoa,
is a misleading exegesis. The harsh impression made by Gen. xviii. of
Sarah's character is what the author feels.

396 The Epistle of Priesthood
viewed. It was the nomad stage and the nomad life in
all after time that moulded Israel's puritan ideal, — tents
not magnificence, shepherd life not the settled and more
comfortable life of the Canaanitish landowner. Hence
the symbolic title which the Christian inherited from the
Jewish Church for its true saints ; " strangers and pil
grims"; at first "in the land of Canaan" (v. 13, Gen.
xxiii. 4), then "on this earth" (1 Chron. xxix. 15, Ps.
xxxix. 12, cf. infra, v. 38). That is the main idea of this
summary. It begins with a repetition of the author's
peculiar phrase Kara irlorw, which might be rendered by
an equivalent " in the way of faith." It has been re
marked that TroppwOep ISopres gives the picture of nomads
on their way to a city across the desert, who descry its
towers from a distance but cannot reach it in that day's
march ; they greet the sight, but encamp once more afar
off. The metaphor in Kopio-dpepoi (cf. 39) would by
itself be like our " carrying " a harvest, but in this
context it might be paraphrased by " getting home to " ;
in any case it implies the full enjoyment of what hitherto
has been possessed without satisfaction. But even the
full reception of the promises is not the final satisfaction ;
their fulfilment still remains, as is declared at the end
of the chapter (40). The pvp (16) fluctuates between a
temporal and logical sense. Followed by the present
tense (opkyoprat) it suddenly transforms past history into
a present spectacle. " And now we behold these ancient
saints reaching out towards a more august and heavenly
fatherland." It would perhaps be fanciful, yet with such
a fancy as befits this letter, to take it even more strictly
as present, and to suppose that the writer represents
them as still aspiring to a rest which the hesitation of

An Exposition of the Epistle 397
Christ's people still delays, cf. iv. 9. However that may
be the heavenly city has ever been their true home, and
the author finds a confirmation of this in the name the
LORD of Israel and all the world chose for himself, " the
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." There is a
certain resemblance to Philo in this. But Philo lays
stress on "God"; whereas, he says, "Lord" and "Master"
are God's names for lesser souls, to such pure hearts as
these He is absolutely " God." Here the stress is on
" their " ; the Creator of the world, whose Being passes
all understanding, has deigned to use this surname of
affection, to be known as our fathers' God. It is like
our Lord's "When ye pray, say, Our Father"; and no
doubt the inference He drew from the ancient name to
the continued life of the patriarchs is not far from the
author's mind — that would make for the stricter present
sense of pvp Se bpkyoprai, " even now they are seeking."
(b) 17—31. — Abraham links this with the former
section. The Sacrifice of Isaac marks a new stage in
his career. His journey and sojourning gave Israel their
pilgrim ideal ; the sacrifice gave them their consecration.
For the sacrifice is contemplated here as completed. The
modern thought of a cruel and heathenish act of supersti
tion mercifully averted, of Abraham's " temptation " being
his divine guidance into a better understanding of God's
true will, does not appear in this passage. Rather the
thought is " by faith Abraham though long and sorely tried,
issued from his trial as a priest who has offered his only
son to God ; the sacrifice is completed and its effect has
power on the whole life of God's Church ever since."
The perfect " hath offered," has its proper force ; the trial
was not the temptation to do what later ages would abhor

398 The Epistle of Priesthood
but the proving trial so hard for father, patriarch, and
receiver of national promises, to endure.
The faith by which he prevailed was that faith in the
unseen world which overleaps the mystery of death ; in
what way God could " raise from the dead ones " is not
defined ; the faith is the same as that which animates Job
and the Psalmists when they reach through Israel's
mythology and their own fainting spirits to the ground
of their hearts. And so, continues the Epistle, he did
get him back from the very house of death (89ep = eV
peKpobp), even in the moment and act of perilling all (xal
ip irapafioXfj), for this interpretation of the sixteenth
century is attractive and it would seem, from what a
scholiast on Thucydides says, possible. It gives proper
emphasis to the Kal, and points an antithesis with
iKoplaaro. If however TrapafioXrj be taken in its common
sense, as in ix. 9, the meaning will be " and he did get
him back from the dead in such a way as to make the
episode a parable of instruction as well as a manifestation
of faith and the answer to faith."
20, 21. Isaac and facob looked into the future by
their faith, giving their blessings in an unexpected
because divinely guided manner. Again the author
reads his Old Testament simply and does not allow the
crookedness of the human means by which the blessing
of Isaac was turned from Esau to Jacob, to obscure the
larger issues or the depth of the patriarch's words. He
had met such objections to the imperfection of the
medium in the first lines of his letter ; our theory of
" progressive revelation " was familiar and natural to his
mind. The divine character of these acts of blessing is
emphasized by the quotation from Genesis of Jacob's

An Exposition of the Epistle 399
worshipping, which was like our Lord looking up to
heaven when he blessed the bread. The Septuagint had
adopted a pointing of the Hebrew word which gave
it the meaning " staff" instead of that preferred by the
scholars who afterwards fixed the Hebrew text, but it
makes no real difference to the sense here. If staves
ever bore idolatrous images neither the Septuagint trans
lators nor the writer of this Epistle were thinking of such
antiquarian matters. We are apt to wonder why the
great blessing of '' Israel " by Jacob in Gen. xlix., with
its outlook on " the last days," is not rather selected.
Does the author feel with the modern critic that this
piece, though so ancient, must be " national " rather than
personal? Or does he more simply keep to the spirit of
Genesis as a whole by selecting passages which shew the
fathers looking forward but one stage at a time, while
the elect family is gradually separated from its lesser
branches ?
22. Joseph ends Genesis and introduces the exodus,
realizing his hope by faith. The word used for his dying
is of course common in that sense in Greek, but it has a
special appropriateness for this man of affairs (cf. xiii. 7)
whose " end " inaugurated a new stirring of his people to
life. 2 3-29- Moses. — Here the courage of faith is very
plainly represented. Both of Moses himself and of his
parents it is particularly noticed that they " did not fear "
(vv. 23, 27). It may be questioned whether Moses' fear
lessness in leaving Egypt (27) refers to his exodus with
the people (so that ^.27 would be a general anticipation
of what is treated in detail in 28, 29), or to his departure
for Midian after killing the Egyptian, The former was

400 The Epistle of Priesthood
an ancient interpretation, for some " Western '' documents
insert the killing of the Egyptian as another example of
faith, not here, but after v. 23. And this gets rid of a
verbal difficulty — that in Genesis it is said that Moses
was afraid when he found his act was known. But such
an artificial objection would have had little weight with
this author, and the fine phrase which follows, "he
endured as seeing the invisible one" seems inspired by
the narrative of the Burning Bush. This arrangement
too of Moses' life, corresponding pretty closely with S.
Stephen's in Acts vii., has a significant consistency. After
the mention of his parent's example of courageous faith,
his own career is divided into three parts; (i.) 24— 26, his
secular education in Egypt, (ii.) 27, his deeper education by
converse with God in the wilderness where old mythology
and purified faith alike taught Israel to believe that com
munion with God was most sure to be attained, (iii.)
28—29, his actual work of "redemption." It may be
wondered why nothing is said here about the giving of
the Law. That will be handled in ch. xii. ; yet even
there the treatment is by way of contrast with the
heavenly voice of later revelation, and in this Epistle of
reformation Sinai would not be conveniently included in
the heroisms of faith. Indeed that term carries with it a
sufficient answer. The abandonment of the pomp of
Egypt, the sojourn in the wilderness, the institution of
the Passover in the face of hostile Egypt, the passage
of the Red Sea — these are heroisms of faith ; the giving
of the Law had another kind of excellence. Notice in
passing the perfect ireirolt)Kep (28) standing alone
among so many aorists ; it implies " he has left us the
institution of the Passover," and may be taken for what

An Exposition of the Epistle 401
it is worth (among other considerations) as pointing to
the Jewish upbringing of the author and his friends.
A remarkable expression is that in v. 26, "consider
ing the reproach of the Christ (top dpeiSiapbp rov ^pio-rov)
greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt." But the
difficulty disappears when we remember what lias already
been noticed often in the Epistle, that " the Christ " is the
title used in the Old Testament for the Christ-bearing
people of Israel itself. Here the very words are closely
reminiscent of Ps. lxxxix. (Ixxxviii.) 5 1 , where " thy
Christ " seems to mean the people. Of course it is no com
mon title for a people to bear. Of old it implied a God-
inspired community, such as S. Stephen describes in Acts
vii. 38, "in the church in the wilderness with the angel
that spoke (or ' the angel of him who spoke ') in mount
Sinai," and in the retrospection of the writer and readers
of this Epistle it suffused the whole past history with the
person of Him whom they knew as Jesus their Lord.
30. The taking of Jericho is another example of the
author's modest treatment of " miracle." The act was
God's, the means faith, the rest he leaves undefined.
31. Faith is extended (as in Jam. ii. 5) beyond the
chosen people ; true faith like true priesthood, and true
sonship (cf. xii. 8) is natural and universal. This is in
accordance with the Old Testament as a whole, though
it conflicts with some parts of it.
(c.) 32—38. The later history especially that of the
Maccabean period.
The judges, the beginning of the monarchy, and
the course of prophecy are rapidly touched (32-33).
Part of v. 33 might be referred to the Books of the
Kings (which in the author's Bible were continuous
26

402 The Epistle of Priesthood
with Samuel). " Stopping the mouths of lions,"
" quenching fire," is from Daniel, but cf. also I Mace.
ii. 59, 60 ; it would be interesting to know how far he
connected the Book of Daniel with the Maccabees ;
he certainly passes at once from this point to
the Maccabees. For that period he uses not only
1 Maccabees, but also 2 Maccabees with its praise of
martyrdom and its confession of faith in the resurrec
tion. The important passage is 2 Mace. vi. and vii.
where not only the incidents, but most of the remark
able words here used will be found ; it also supplies a
parallel to v. 3 supra, and to the praise of chastisement
in xii. 7 ff. The word itrplo-Q^aap, " sawn asunder," in
v. 37 is sometimes referred to the martyrdom of
Isaiah as it is recorded in an apocryphal book, but this
is uncertain ; the horrible mode of execution seems to
have been commonly practised (cf. 2 Sam. xii. 31,
Amos i. 3 LXX) ; following i-n-eipdaOrjo-ap as it does, it
may be used quite generally, and there is some con
fusion in the text which forbids too definite an inference
from the words. The sudden introduction of Isaiah
would be peculiar. So in v. 35 (where the grammatical
slip yvpaiKas for yvpacKes need not be noticed except as
a possible parallel to ix. 1 — a preservation in the ancient
MSS. of an actual carelessness in the original letter) the
reference may possibly be to the raising from the dead
of the sons of the widow at Sarepta ( 1 K. xvii. 1 7 ff.)
and the woman of Shunem (2 K. iv. 1 7 ff), but it is
more likely that the whole section is predominantly
Maccabean and that the faith of the mother of the
seven martyrs is quoted, who spoke so nobly of the
mystery of life to her youngest son and bade him

An Exposition of the Epistle 403
(2 Mace. vii. 29) fear not the tyrant but die worthily
of his brothers " so that in the divine mercy I may
receive thee with thy brothers " (ipa ip tw e'Xeet aw rots
aSeX<pois <rov Kopu'o-wpal <re). This gives a fuller sense
to "by resurrection," which may as well be explained
by, as contrasted with " better resurrection "in 35; and
though the tense of " received " may cause difficulty to
us with our formal eschatology of Paradise, Judgement,
etc., there is no reason to suppose that the author of
this Epistle, much less the Jewish mother, would have
felt that difficulty.
Westcott and Hort's arrangement of v. 38 gives an
antithesis which the author might well have enjoyed,
and seems almost necessary to bind together the rhythm
of the whole clause — " those of whom the world was
not worthy wandering in wildernesses, etc."
It is perhaps not too fanciful to point out that where
as each of the former divisions of this historical review
come to rest, as it were, on the stable words " city,"
" peace," this third division passes away in " wanderings."
Thus it prepares naturally for the Epilogue (39, 40) in
which the waiting and expectant character of the ancient
faith is reasserted.
Epilogue 39, 40. All these heroes of the old world
had witness borne to them through their faith. In one
case, Abel's, this witness was pre-eminent. Genesis
implies (einSep 6 6eos) that God himself was the
witness.1 In all a witness has been put upon record
in the sacred books ; we might paraphrase " they were
1 The Oxyrhynchus papyrus now confirms the reading airnp in xi. 4 hitherto
preserved only in Clement's quotation, " God bearing witness to him over the
gifts." It seems possible that ai/rov tov Beov might be defended (on intrinsic
evidence) as " God himself" (bearing witness).

404 The Epistle of Priesthood
canonized " ; but they did not carry the harvest of the
promise.- God who has fitted the successive ages to
gether in His foresight (cf. xi. 3) reserved that con
summation for the Gospel days when the perfecting of
His whole family was destined. The question occurs
whether the author considered that the perfecting of
the ancient saints was already accomplished when he
wrote this letter. From xii. 23 it might appear that
he did. But since that refers to the City of God " in
heaven " and since his Alexandrine thought rested on
an ideal perfection " there " which was from the be
ginning and had to be realized in human experience,
it is not safe to press this ; and yet though the Epistle
makes as it were excursions into that ideal home, its
outlook is in general very closely concentrated on a
particular earthly scene in which the author and the
friends to whom he writes are shut up for the doing of
a particular duty — "The world is wide
For you I say — for me a narrow space
Betwixt the four walls of a fighting place."
But again he shews that narrow duty to himself and
them as the issue of all the ages that had passed, and
also as itself efficient of far larger things. On the whole
it seems most consonant with the tenor of the whole
Epistle, and especially of the passage which immediately
follows, to take " apart from us " in the strictest sense,
as applying to the little group for whom this letter
came into being, and to interpret the sentence as
meaning that the satisfaction of these expectant heroes
depends, for its hastening or delay, on the conduct of
the readers of the Epistle.

An Exposition of the Epistle 405
XII. And this expectancy of the ancient saints
explains the passage from the passive paprvprjOePTes
to the active p,apTvpa>p in xii. 1. Their faith had been
witnessed to by the sacred historians for the encourage
ment of those who came after them. Now they are to
witness to the faithfulness of their descendants, on their
report of which to God the consummation of the promises
shall be endorsed. With this word, as in so many other
respects, the Epistle holds a middle place in the New
Testament. In the Gospels p.dprvs is hardly used and
only in a general sense except in Lk. xxiv. 48, though
in the fourth Gospel the verb papTvpkm is very frequent.
S. Paul does not develope the sense of it, unless 1 Tim.
vi. 13 be 'allowed him, where the verb is used in a
manner significant for later thought of our Lord
" witnessing the good profession " before Pilate. At
the beginning of Acts the Apostles are described as
witnesses of the resurrection, cf. Lk. xxiv. 48, but in
xxii. 20 S. Stephen is styled the witness of the Lord.
This comes near to the usage of the Apocalypse, where
pdprvs has all but taken its technical sense, as in later
times, of one who lays down life for the faith. In the
Apocalypse this is aided by the corresponding use of
papTvpia — the witness of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy
(xix. 10) means something more than that the prophets
speak or think of Jesus. In this Epistle pudprvs is
derived from p,aprvpe2adai,, and here too ch. xi. shews
that courage and suffering are implied in the idea, but
the Epistle is one stage further from modern usage than
the Apocalypse is.1
1 The Konlakion in the Horologion of the Greek Church calls the
Maccabean heroes, irpb Mapripuv fiiyiOTOi Mdprvpes.

406 The Epistle of Priesthood
The exhortation really ends with this chapter, though
it is taken up again in xiii. where it is concentrated into
one final appeal and fortified by prayer.
This is the plan of xii.
A. i — 1 3. Strive and endure.
(a) 1-3, Picture from arena; regard
directed to Jesus who endured and
is now visible in glory.
(3)4-13, The philosophy of chastise
ment.
B. 14-29. The end is near.
(a) 14—17, The responsibility of privilege
in general,
(b) 18-24, and in particular in the state
of salvation ;
(c) 25— 27, which includes expectancy of
a heavenly change,
(d) 28-29, i.e. the coming of the
kingdom in permanence with fire.
A. (a) 1—3. "Not without us," continues the letter,
" could they be perfected. It follows then by the cogent
logic of affection and honour that we must carry on the
tradition of loyal faith. We stand as athletes in the
arena. Those heroes, witnessed to of old look down on
us to be witnesses in their turn of our faithfulness. Let
them not be disappointed, but casting off the wraps in
which we wait the signal to start let us run the race with
enduring courage. And see ! Jesus our Lord who ran
a like course before us is there visible in glory at the end
of the race-course. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Him,
and (dropping metaphor) consider what a real encourage
ment His endurance of harsh treatment provides."

An Exposition of the Epistle \o>7
This is the second of the three picture scenes in the
Epistle, cf. vi. 19 f., and xiii. 10 ff. It is an advance on
the first in that it shews the Lord within sight — notice
that iKaOicrep has here become KeKaOwep, perfect tense,
which not only suggests the present relationship of the
session to the course of events, but also marks a completed
stage in the argument. But it still falls short of xiii.
10 ff, inasmuch as there actual contact with Him is
contemplated. The picture is of an athletic contest, of a
stadium, cf 1 Cor. ix. 24 and 2 Tim. iv. 8 — the whole pass
age is influenced by Pauline language. The heroes of
the Old Testament are more than spectators — there is no
room in this serious contest for mere entertainment or
display, they are witnesses who must make report of the
proceedings. They are described as surrounding the
place like a cloud, a common metaphor but used here
with studied accuracy of these " Spirits " from behind the
veil. The author associates himself with his friends so
long as his picture-language continues, and urges them to
cast away the sin, i.e. the vain glorious fallacy (cf. dirdrr},
iii. 13) which hinders their allegiance to the unpopular
cause of Christ. He compares it to the wrap in which
the athletes stand waiting (with that expectant nervous
ness which every athlete knows) the signal to start.
The meaning " celebrated " or " specious " for evirepiararop
would suit the character of the " sin " ; it is perhaps
impossible to decide upon a certain rendering of this
rare word, but the A.V., " that doth so easily beset
us " — an amplification of the Vulgate circumstans — better
fits the metaphor which we have imagined. The influence
of the Vulgate is also seen in the (original text of) A.V.,
"let us run with patience unto the race," curramus ad

408 The Epistle of Priesthood
propositum nobis certamen, but this addition is not in the
original Vulgate, and spoils the sense ; for the present
rpk^mpiep agrees with St' viropoprjs and implies that more
than a good start is needed (cf. x. 36, xii. 28), there
must be enduring perseverance. In that perseverance
however there will be the continual encouragement of Jesus
the Lord ; He is the finisher as well as the source,
leader, captain of loyal faith1 — dp^rjybp here as in ii. 10
is a " romantic " title which sounds an echo of soldiership
as well as its plain sense of "beginner." The verb
rpk^apep might be used of any kind of contest, but even so
it would be metaphorical and k is simplest to suppose
one metaphor or picture consistently carried out. There
is a race-course, with the cloud of witnesses hanging
over it on both sides throughout its length ; Jesus him
self has run the same course with like pain and the
imminent prospect of like victory — so imminent that it
gave a "joy of battle" even to His suffering; and now
He sits at the goal in divine glory, the mark (cf. Phil.
iii. 14) to whom the gaze of the runners must be con
stantly directed. Then suddenly the author drops his
imagery, speaks directly to his friends, and bids them
compare facts with facts, the Lord's endurance in the
days of His flesh with the present trial which all but
causes their spirits to flag. And it is remarkable, yet
natural if high-minded men are being directed to such a one
as Jesus Christ, that physical suffering is omitted — though
there is a grim reminder in the next verse that the bravest
men should not presume to count on facing physical
suffering unmoved — and the pain of words, of misrepre-
1 "He who trod the path of faith before us and trod it perfectly to the
end,"from Foundations, p. 192, brings out another aspect of the meaning well.

An Exposition of the Epistle 409
sentation, of intellectual honour assaulted, is specially
considered. This is one of the most notable passages
for confirming that view of the Epistle which connects
it with the Jewish appeal to patriots and the national
scorn of those who hang back. And the true text of the
quotation made from Num. xvi. 38 (Hebrew notation, for
either the words are a loose reminiscence of the sense of
the LXX, or they come directly from the Hebrew) suggests
a deep and truly Christian answer to this feeling, which
may be compared with the Lord's words on Calvary,
Lk. xxiii. 34. These harsh upbraiders are to be forgiven
in charity (cf. 1 4, infra) ; they sin against themselves and
know not what they do.
(b) 4-13. There follows, introduced by the warning
just referred to, a kind of philosophy of suffering con
sidered as chastisement, and as therefore evidence of
filial relationship to God the Father of Spirits. It is
arranged as a little sermon on a text from Proverbs.
Philo has something like it, but it seems to be naturally
suggested by the passage in 2 Maccabees which ch. xi.
so largely rests upon — for in that passage the philosophy
of suffering is treated in a very like manner. Notice
the vivid feeling of an unseen world in which what we
call abstractions have substantive existence, shewn in
the quoting of " the consolation " as a person who speaks ;
" L'heroisme," says V Hugo, " dans la region immaterielle,
a un contour." So this voice from the spiritual world
declares the spiritual issue of chastisement. It springs
from the filial relationship of men to God ; and the life
of families in this world is its sacrament. Its end is
the participation of the sons in the deeper life of the
father which mere physical relationship cannot give ; and

410 The Epistle of Priesthood
this life as fully realized in the divine is holiness, which
is the complement of consecration (cf. I o with 1 4, dyiorrjs
with dyiaapop), and may be recognized in the rough ways
of this world as righteousness with peace (11). This
seems a fair statement of the logical connexion, but
the text itself is somewhat confused in the Greek, and
may perhaps be another instance of epistolary careless
ness in a practised writer.
It will be felt that merely disciplinary value is not
enough to make a true philosophy of suffering, and it
might be enough to answer that the author only goes
so far as is necessary for his immediate purpose of
encouraging his friends. This is in fact one of the
passages where a certain academic coldness is all but
to be acknowledged. Yet not so, after all. As in
vi. 1 0 f. the cold self-centred view of grace is corrected
by an appeal to zealous charity, so here the tone is
heightened first by the thought that as suffering is
universal, so is the capacity for divine sonship in all
mankind (8); secondly by the appeal (12, 13) to
strengthen the weak-hearted and make the paths straight ;
thus the loyalty of the readers may become a bracing
example to their brethren in the faith — for this seems
the largest and therefore the most likely sense of the
abstract neuter to ^wXw in v. 13, cf. 15.
B. (a) 14—17. This section is closely connected
with the last ; elprjp-qp, rrdvrwp, dyiacrpop are suggested
by rrdpres (8) dyiorrjros (lO) elprjptKop (il) but this is
the artificial interweaving manner of the Epistle ; the
junctures are concealed. And the phrase which comes
almost at once, " apart from which no man shall see
the Lord," points forward to the great concluding subject

An Exposition of the Epistle 411
of the chapter; the nearness of the end, in fact the
Parousia of Christ; an article of the Church's faith
which is not the less firmly held by this author because
he has a particular interpretation to offer of it, which
may seem new though it goes back to the suggestion
of the Lord himself. It is that the troubles of these
times are the " pangs of the coming age," and that even
at once the Lord Christ shall be seen (14), and the
Kingdom, to which His people have already drawn near
(22 f), shall come in deed and life (28 f.).
He begins with words which have an Old Testament
ring but also in their context recall S. Paul (cf.
Rom. xii. 1 8), " Seek peace with all, yet not so as to
betray the special consecration which is the privilege
of the Christian Church." We discuss to-day what
this consecration means ; is it institutional, the fact of
membership ; or is it moral, the character of life ? Such
discussion would not have occurred to the author and
his friends. The moral value of faith was pre-supposed
by them ; the ordinary " sins " such as S. Paul had so
often to write about are not suspected in them. There
is a hint of too much anxiety about money, but that
would be a concomitant of the one temptation which is
assailing them, i.e. to be faithless to their profession,
their brotherhood, their Master. These men are akin
to those perplexed believers of all ages whose struggle
for clear knowledge of faith and duty is so intense that
it makes them immune from common temptations. And
to them their friend declares, with a severity of which
he has already shewn himself capable, that it is true
what the bigots say ; outside the consecrated family
" salvation " is not, for salvation means at that time,

412 The Epistle of Priesthood
and for the men they know, seeing — the recognition of
and by — the Lord Jesus when He " comes."
Nor is this a private matter. Their faithfulness or
unfaithfulness will affect the mass of believers. Even
the alienation of sincere hearts on conscientious grounds
from the divine source of strength, will be like a weed
choking the garden by its swift, rank growth, and there
is also the possibility of self-deception. A certain
anxiety about worldly gear seems to be glanced at here
and there in the letter, and now their friend warns these
scholars in their sheltered lives that what they think
disinterested patriotism may prove but a mercenary
bargain. In his quotation from the Septuagint of Dt.
xxix. 1 8 the writer either follows an unusual reading
epoxXy for iv %oX$ (" hinder " or " choke " for " in gall "),
or else his ipo%Xf] is not part of the quotation at all,
but merely an apt verb for his own sentence which has
got into our MSS. of the LXX from a scribe's reminiscence
of this passage. This however is not a problem of
general interest. What most readers to-day would wish
to decide is whether the author denies in certain cases
the possibility of repentance ; " he found no place for
repentance, though he had sought it with tears." It
must first be noticed that there is an ambiguity in the
actual words. "It" (the feminine pronoun in the
Greek) might refer either to "the blessing" or to
" repentance." " Repentance " stands nearest in the
sentence and seems most naturally to be meant ; and
however that may be, the hopelessness of Esau's case
is the point, and so far as Esau is concerned, it would
be difficult to extenuate the harshness of the judgement.
But the special character of the reference — to Esau —

An Exposition of the Epistle 413
makes all the difference. His blessing and his repentance
were not bound up with the Christian doctrine of salvation,
and though his case may well be cited as a warning,
there is no reason for pressing an exact correspondence
in all the details. The other passages in this Epistle
in which a like harsh doctrine seems to be involved do
shew that the author considered the choice of action
offered in the present crisis to his friends to be fraught
with immeasurable consequences, but neither there nor
here is he adding a dogma to the scheme of salvation.
" Choose rightly," he says, " while this particular choice
is open ; it will presently be too late." The phrase
" place of repentance " is used in the Apocalypse of
Baruch, lxxxv. 1 2, and the sense is also found in the
Ezra Apocalypse, vii. 102— 115. There is so much in
the Epistle which seems akin to these books that the
question might arise whether the severity of their doctrine
should not affect our judgement of the meaning of the
Epistle. But if so, it would really confirm what has
just been said. For neither Ezra nor Baruch limit the
opportunity for repentance in this life ; what these books
insist on is that no intercession by man for man will
be accepted in the Day of Judgement. Mr. Box thinks
that the Ezra-apocalyptist " is aiming at some counter-
doctrine of intercession for the dead," and that " we
may detect the influence of Alexandrine theology which
tended to lay all stress upon the present life as
determining the eternal fate of every man " (Ezra-Apoc.
p. 154); compare ix. 27, supra, and notice that this would
not affect our discussion of xi. 40, since there is no
doubt there of God's final purpose of perfecting the
heroes of faith.

4 1 4 The Epistle of Priesthood
B. (b) 18-24. The general responsibility of privi
lege, illustrated by the case of Esau, is here pressed
home upon the readers. Israel with the divine Law had
much ; they with their heavenly Jerusalem made new by
the triumph of the Lord Jesus, have far more both to
enjoy and to lose.
The contrast is eloquently drawn between the terrors
of Sinai and the joy of the heavenly Sion. In the first
part the language is strongly coloured by reminiscences
of Ex. xix. and Dt. iv. The passages are impressive.
In Deuteronomy especially is the privilege of Israel
insisted on. They alone of all the nations upon earth
have heard God speaking to them out of the fire and
lived ; they alone have been so loved by Him. But
Deuteronomy is severe as well as tender, and the author
is right in laying stress on the harsher and sadder aspects
of that revelation ; the terrors which accompanied it, the
people deprecating further communication, and the un
faithfulness which was prefigured by that deprecation.
The vividness of the description is mainly due to
the author's skilful selection and juxtaposition of words
from the Septuagint. Dr. Selwyn (JTS, Oct. 19 10)
thinks that " mountain " must be supplied with the
participles in v. 18, and that " a mountain seared and
burned with fire " is the author's reference to the volcanic
mountains which still mark the scene, and which he had
himself visited. But this is doubtful, and the vague
phrase — vague in logic and vague perhaps in grammar
— yjrr)Xa<po)pjkpa> Kal KeKavpkpa trvpl — serves excellently to
point the contrast between the spiritual and living glory
of Sion, and the material tempest of Sinai ; our R.V.
margin well follows the Latin with its " palpable and

An Exposition of the Epistle 415
kindled fire." Such elemental powers have in ch. i. been
called " angels," but it is easy to contemplate the angels
with earth-bound eyes, and this suggestion of " mere
matter" is fitly followed by the record (v. 19) of Israel's
deprecation of the divine word. In v. 23 the nature
powers appear again, but now (as in the Apocalypse) in
their true aspect of " angels in festal assembly." So it
seems best to punctuate. Even the partial weakness of
the author's rhythm demands it ; the corresponding frag
ments of iambic lines, pwpidaup dyyeXcop iraprjyvpei —
diroyeypap>pLkp<ap iv ovpavols, are quite according to his
wont. Here the Latin is very splendid, multorum
milium angelorum frequentiae ; cf. the Roman Preface for
Feasts of Apostles, " cumque omni militia caelestis
exercitus." It is difficult to say precisely what is meant by " the
church of the first-born enrolled in heaven," and " the
spirits of just men made perfect." But " church,"
iKKXrjala, is no part of this Epistle's terminology for the
Christian life, and here as in the first eight chapters of
Acts, the word probably refers, as a title, to the Old
Testament Church or to the founders of that Church, the
patriarchs who in Genesis lived in ideal simplicity and
closeness of communion with God. Thus the author
would give largeness and spirituality to the late Jewish
dogma that certain select persons enjoyed a special
immortality. Then if we take " spirits of just men per
fected " to mean the servants of Jesus Christ who have
died in the faith, we escape the difficulty noticed at
xi. 40, and we are able to divide this description of the
heavenly Jerusalem into two parts ; the first including
the elect of the old world, and ending with the thought

41 6 The Epistle of Priesthood
of " God judge of all" the second consecrated to the
" world that was to come," and grouped round Jesus,
" mediator of a covenant that is freshly new."
For the change from Kaipfjs to vias in v. 24 seems
designed to express an idea which has never been quite
lost sight of ; cf. the Rabbinic, " God is always young to
the world," and Watts' line (in its original form), " When "
I survey the wondrous cross, where the young Prince of
glory died." The Blood of sprinkling is a Levitical
figure for the life of the Lord Jesus, set free by death,
and effectual for cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary — a
stronger (Kpelrrop) force than Abel's unconscious appeal
for vengeance in the blind, earthly sphere.
B. (c) 25-27. That thought, half concealed in the
terse reference to Abel, is developed in this clause. A
heavenly change is about to take place. In " heaven " it
has just been shewn completed. But in the sacramental
style of the Epistle that which is completed in heaven is
contemplated as it is worked out on earth, where human
logic arranges even the heavenly life in terms of progress.
As once in the days of Haggai when the second Temple
was in building, and Israel's hidden life with God began
anew ; so now, when a later temple is threatened the
divine voice heard then is heard again. It announces
that a more essentially divine operation than even the
giving of the Law is taking place. The complications of
politics in which the people of God have found them
selves more and more involved do but draw them more
and more into the reality of holiness. At the Captivity,
at the Restoration, at the fresh embarrassments and dis
appointments which followed the Restoration, and now
at this latest point most of all, there is divine Spirit

An Exposition of the Epistle 417
involved in the outward signs ; heaven as well as earth is
being shaken ; a new era is beginning, not only in secular
history, but in those spiritual relationships of men with
God which secular history symbolizes, partly hindering
them, while it gives them a "place wherein they may
go on " ; and the way of simple duty is cleared by the
commanding voice of God. The political confusion is
the means of grace. The way to use those means is the
narrow way now offered for choice ; it leads out of the
confusion, and he who takes it escapes the tottering
manufactures (to? TTeiroirjp,eviDV, 27) of man's artificial
society or religious use, and finds the abiding simplicity
of the incoming Kingdom of God.
(d) 28, 29. For at this point, remarkably and
startlingly, the sacerdotal imagery of the Epistle mingles
with that other imagery which the apostolic Church took
over from prophets, apocalyptists, and late Jewish
popular religion — the imagery of the Kingdom. That
Kingdom is now coming in permanence. Or does the
author rather imply it has always been here — permanent
and unshakeable amid all the passing variations of merely
tangible progress — like Christ beneath the perishable veil
of nature (i. 10-12); but now a step in its realization is
made possible? It is possible, and its effectiveness
depends on his friends' present choice — whether they will
with thankful hearts receive it, " take it over."
The transition of imagery is remarkable, but the
" Priest- King " Melchizedek has prepared for it, and even
here, with Xarpevcapep — " ritual service well pleasing,
reverent and awful " — the priestly analogy returns.
And then the section closes with a quotation from
Dt. iv. 24. It follows Xarpevccpep fitly, for in Deuteronomy
27

41 8 The Epistle of Priesthood
this fiery zeal or jealousy of God is held out as a reason
for pure worship. But so much more than that is implied.
Indeed this is a place where the difficulty of analysing
this author's meaning is felt conspicuously. Like Virgil
and the other conscious artists in words he sets a train
of analogies and inferences at work ; he is distinct yet
surrounds himself with an atmosphere of thought and
reminiscence — a vk<f>os paprvpcop. So here the consuming
fire (which is God) completes that separation of the arti
ficial from the eternal which has been inaugurated in the
".shaking" of the former verses. It is again a vivid
image which finds its vigour in the fierce menace of the
present troubled times. And besides that it stands in a
peculiar relationship to what has been said about Sinai
and the giving of the Law. It is certainly strange that
the author should insist on the material, earthly, character
of that great event. This suits the lines of the Epistle,
but the question forces itself upon us ; Is there not some
thing arbitrary in this judgement? Was not Sinai as
truly sacramental as the second Temple or this later war
with Rome? The answer must be that there is some
thing arbitrary ; that this Epistle is a work of conscious
art and its selection, arrangement, interpretation, are
therefore in some degree a degeneration from such pure
art as we find in the Synoptic Gospels ; it implies to
some degree the artificial. But the author is conscious
of the peril and in the present instance he meets it
allusively by this quotation from Deuteronomy. For
Deuteronomy is itself a book of conscious art. It selects
from the earlier Law, arranges, interprets, separates the
essential, and shews that aspect of the Lawgiving which
is indeed sacramental, So to the understanding readers

An Exposition of the Epistle 419
these last verses had an inner voice. The firm kingdom
does go back even to the times of Joshua and Moses.
The thankful heart demanded is the heart of Joshua,
Moses, David, as contrasted with the heart of earth-
bound Israel. The consuming fire divine is the reality
which Israel did not perceive in the fires of Sinai, but
which has ever been consuming the unreal from out of
the living world of God. In the present crisis a particu
lar and therefore real coming of Christ is recognized in
the Epistle. This is a reasonable recognition just be
cause this particular coming is eternal and has been
developing throughout the history of Israel from the
beginning. Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and this Epistle
are chapters in one Book which is always engaged in
"taking the precious from the vile" and discovering
eternal spirit through the veil of sense.
XIII. A conclusion, treating of —
(a) 1—6 Certain duties ;
(b) 7-17 discipline and the narrow road of the
Gospel which discipline keeps open and
rejoices in ;
(c) 18-23 personal ties of affection bound up in a
Collect with the whole doctrine of the
Epistle ;
(d) 24-25 greetings and the Pauline "grace."
(a) 1-6. Certain points of conduct are briefly
touched such as the circumstances, or the character of
the readers, or perhaps some former letter from them
has suggested. 1-3. Love of the brethren, or as we might say, the
spirit of churchmanship, apt, as the whole letter shews,
to be forgotten by those to whom it was sent. This

420 The Epistle of Priesthood
involves hospitality, the sacramental beauty of which is
half playfully indicated by the allusion to Abraham and
Lot entertaining angels unawares — the austere philosophy
of angel-lore is here laid aside. It also involves good
ness to prisoners, as it had done in an earlier crisis
(x. 32—34), and other hardly used persons. The sanction
for this precept might be explained from 2 Cor. xii. 2 —
" Be kind in these troubles of this world, and do not let
your philosophy cheat you into thinking you are rapt
away from their sphere " ; but it is more simple to explain
" in body " as the unpremeditated phrase of a Platonist
whose thought ran oftener on, "the life of the world to
come," than on, " the resurrection of the body." He is a
Paulinist too, but did not feel obliged to use " flesh,"
" body," " spirit," just like his master.
4. In this precept about marriage there may be a
direct reference to S. Paul who had advised against
marriage (1 Cor. vii. 26) "because of the pressing necessity"
of his times. It is possible that one of the author's
friends had asked about that advice of the Apostle,
having regard to the pressing necessity of these later
times. The second half of the verse also finds a parallel
in the same passage of S. Paul ( 1 Cor. vi. 1 3 ff, where
notice the use of " body "). But it has its own turn,
characteristic of the Epistle. It concentrates attention
on this little group of friends and their duties — " as for
those who offend God will judge their cases ; no business
of yours or mine."
5-6. Generosity about worldly goods, and risking
them — a subject already touched on and perhaps a sore
one with the readers. If so their friend softens while he
strengthens his appeal by his beautiful quotations from

An Exposition of the Epistle 421
Deuteronomy and the Psalm, and by the cheerfulness
he sheds upon it all with his one choice participle
dappovvras, " with good courage."
(b) 7-17. Brotherly love and brotherly duties lead
to this memorial of certain officers of the Brotherhood.
The difficulty of being generous and " detached " suggests
the picture of their simple but much occupied lives.
Who they were, how they died, whether they were in
Holy Orders (as is probable) or just " leaders " who came
to the front in time of need, we cannot tell. Particular
persons not types of a class appear to be meant, and
their faithful laborious example is well represented in the
happy phrase, " Contemplating again and again their exit
from the unresting activity of business, imitate their
other-worldly faith " ; only the Greek manages this in a
harmonious cadence of nine words.
8—16. The leaders pass from the visible scene, but
the Captain abides, Jesus who is Christ. The name and
title, Jesus Christ, is the simple creed of the primitive
Brotherhood. It is here taken up and applied in a
special manner. " To-day " recalls the argument from
Ps. xcv. (ch. iii. and iv.) and that leads the mind back to
the doctrine drawn from Ps. cii. in i. 1 0 ff. ; thence it
moves again through the whole Epistle with its recogni
tion of the Christ in ancient history (i. 5 ff, iii. 6, etc.) of
the divine kinship and destiny of men (ch. ii.), of its
fulfilment in the Lord Jesus (iv. 1 4 f.), and of the author's
conviction that this revelation in a Son whose sonship is
full inheritance and all embracing priesthood (i. 2), is a
complete and ever satisfying revelation — "yesterday and
to-day the same, yea and for the ages." The phrase also
meets the anxiety of the present crisis — " to-day," and

422 The Epistle of Priesthood
calms it. Nor is it without consolation for those, who
fear that this "reformation" (ix. 10), and especially the
abrupt severance of ancestral ties which the letter urges,
may make a real severance between " Christianity and
Judaism." The Christ is still the Christ of the Old
Testament and Israel ; Jesus is still Jesus of Nazareth
who " in the days of His flesh " lived, believed, worshipped,
and died, a Jew. And notice the ancient Hebrew ring.
It is an exclamation not a sentence, a rallying cry not a
formal creed. As in the Hebrew of Dt. vi. 4, so in the
Greek here, there is no verb.
9. " The same," passes naturally to its contrast,
"divers and strange." These diverse and strange
doctrines have been cited to prove that the letter was
written during a late reaction to Jewish practices, for
which reaction there is some evidence. Taken by itself
the passage does suggest this. But it is the whole
tenor of the Epistle which commends the earlier date,
and there is no difficulty in imagining that there were
earlier instances of such reaction — indeed Galatians, not
to add Colossians, proves it. And even if that be not
imagined, the national leanings of the readers might be
enough to account for the warning. To a Paulinist, an
Alexandrine, and a reformer, who finds his fathers' faith
in the Book of the Law and not in the later Temple, a
good half of the Jewish system of his own day might
seem " divers and strange doctrines." And it must be
remembered that many even within the Jewish Church
would agree with him at that time.
10-16. In any case the warning is dropped as it
were in passing, and it forms an apparently logical
introduction to the assertion which follows of the one

An Exposition of the Epistle 423
altar. Apparently; for no doubt there was a serious
reason for inserting it, and throughout the following
section there is a good deal of artistic, if not of artificial,
logic. The analogy from the sacrifice of the Day of
Atonement does not and is not intended to fit the
sacrament of Calvary exactly. It is not a ritual type
which fixes, as by authority, the sequence and interpreta
tion of the Crucifixion. It simply gives a point of view
from which that event may be vividly imagined. Nor is
the Sio, "therefore," a strictly logical, but only an
analogical conjunction. The main thing is the sacra
mental picture — the third of the great pictures of the
Epistle, cf. vi. 1 9 f., xii. 1 f. — of the Crucifixion. To the
outward eye that criminal execution, outside the Holy
City, on the shameful hill, was like — not an ancient
sacrifice, but the offscouring of a sacrifice. In reality it
was the moment when the Son of God entered the
heavenly sanctuary in His richer life, made atonement
for His people — and the noun with its article, top Xaop,
seems to include those sinners against themselves who
had brought this terrible sacrament into being — and
henceforth will be not merely seen in the distance as in
xii. 2, but in closest touch with those who will share this
sacrament, and find the holiness which is His through
the visible shame which is also His.
For toipvp, " therefore " (v. 1 3), is used in its strictly
logical sense. The reality of a sacrament is proved by
its capability of being shared. " Therefore," says the
author, " the practical application must be made." His
first person plural probably narrows the appeal to the
little circle whom he is addressing. Probably; for he
addresses them certainly in v. 17, and prays for them

424 The Epistle of Priesthood
in v. 21. They are to meet their Lord outside the
hallowed limits of national relationship. They are to
lose seeming honour as He lost His. But though the
mystical Pauline phrase, " in Christ," is not employed,
the same close communion is really meant by the " unto
Him " and " through Him," 7rpo? avrop, Si avrov, which
describes their future life in more pictorial language.
This will be their compensation, full gain for seeming
loss, and a fellowship of visible brotherhood which rests
on deeper foundations of charity and hope than that
which they hesitate to part from. Outside the camp, the
transitory ordinance of Israel's polity, they will enter the
city with foundations (xi. 10), the country of their
fathers (xi. 14), the ideal polity of Israel in which all
nations of the earth were destined to be gathered to
God (v. 14). It is difficult for one who has read the
whole Epistle, it must have been impossible for the
original readers, to think of " the city that is to be " and
doubt that S. Paul's hope for final union with that
brotherhood of Israel which was being renounced, would
in that city be knit up again and perfected.
That these few friends of his should desert the
militant nation, leave Jerusalem to fall, and " go out " to
the Lord Jesus " as seeing Him who is invisible," was the
immediate application which the author made of his
sacramental doctrine. But that little movement quickly
grows larger, as he meditates upon it. From this crisis
onward, he sees the Lord present in a new and intenser
manner. The promised city is still to seek, they will be
pilgrims in this world. But there are other pilgrims with
them. The present life goes on, but as soon as it
becomes a pilgrimage it becomes beautiful. They have

An Exposition of the Epistle 425
already " come to " the city they seek, though as yet the
seeking is different from fruition. There is worship, the
gladder for its simplicity and still (as his reminiscences
of Old Testament language prove) not severed from the
truest worship of ancient Israel. There is charity within
the Brotherhood which has all the essence even of the
ancient sacrifices now to be given up, for it pleases God.
When we remember all that recent scholarship has
shewn us of the likeness of this ideal to that of so many
within Judaism at that time, we recognize a larger
hopefulness in the author's hopeful touches than used
to be allowed, without at all diminishing the sublime
privilege which he embraces in his " unto Him " and
" through Him," or the seriousness of his warning in xii.
15. Certainly he contemplated the beginning of a new
and vigorous age, the joy and power of which sprang just
from that one conviction, that as far as the present need
of His people required the Lord Jesus Christ was coming
in His kingdom.
17. Such happiness in the Brotherhood cannot be
without discipline ; on the other hand good discipline
makes for such happiness. Therefore the readers, who
are apt to slight authority and good fellowship (cf. vi. 9,
x. 25, xii. 14Q are bidden to cheer the heart of their
superiors by ready and habitual obedience. The reason
added, "for this were unprofitable for you," is not a
counsel of utilitarianism. The phrase is a litotes — an
urbane fashion of saying, " that would be bad for every
one." The turn of the phrase perhaps implies also
that in the day of account the rebellious churchmen will
be held responsible for such failure in their officers as that
perversity has provoked. But this cannot be pressed.

426 7he Epistle of Priesthood
The Epistle keeps to the rule of Holy Scripture and pre
sumes not to foretell the details of the life to come.
18, 19. Like S. Paul (1 Thess. v. 25 ; 2 Thess. iii. 1 ;
Col. iv. 3), the author asks for his friends' prayers. Such
request would be vain if he were not himself trying in
all sincerity to do God's will. He claims that sincerity,
but he claims it modestly. As in v. 21, he uses the plural
number, associating himself with his brethren. In vi. 9
he had expressed his certainty about the final decision of
his friends by employing the perfect irkireiapai, " I am
sure " (cf. Rom. viii. 3 8, xiv. 1 4, and Phil. i. 25 with
Lightfoot's note) ; here he writes -rreido/tai, " I feel a per
suasion," " I do indeed think." The repetition of KaXfjp,
kuX&s, implying not merely " goodness " but " honour ''
(cf. v. 14, x. 24, xiii. 9) may refer indirectly to the con
troversy which runs through the Epistle : " I do indeed
believe that the course to which I urge you is the honour
able course, even though patriotism and old associations
point the other way."
Then in v. 19 he changes to the first person singular.
He concentrates his request upon his own special need.
Where he was ; what kept him from the readers, we do
not know. We seem to catch a glimpse of danger, of
possible martyrdom. And the word he uses for his
desired " restoration " is sometimes a solemn one (cf. Acts
i. 6, iii. 21); it is almost as though he enlarged his par
ticular request, as soon as made, to the mysterious reach
of God's will. Certainly in v. 21 he seems to renounce
such particular desires. However that is just the inconsis
tency which true prayer despises not. Besides there is
a difference between a man's own prayer for his friends
and their prayer for him, and again his direction of their

An Exposition of the Epistle 427
prayer. He allows them more than he allows himself,
and his restoration to them would be (so his own affec
tion tells him) their most earnest desire.
Where he was and what detained him we do not
know. From v. 24 we may perhaps conjecture that he
was in Italy. The letter shews that there was a good
deal of imprisonment going on, and if his absence was
of that forced nature much pathos accrues to these
references. 20, 21. Dr. Wickham Legg in the Journal of Theo
logical Studies, July 191 2, has some "Notes on Collects,"
in which he shews that certain prayers in 2 Mace, i.,
Wisd. ix., 1 Mace, iv., and in the Jewish Prayer Book,
have the fourfold structure with more or less of the
terse convolution of the Western Collects. Perhaps the
collect form has been the natural expression of prayer
for some minds in all places and ages. Certainly the
author uses it in this passage. He has the fourfold
structure, with the addition of the pleading of the merits
of Christ with which Christian Collects generally end.
A tabular statement will make this plain.
1. Invocation .... Now the God of peace,
f who brought again from the dead the
2. Sentence relative to Invocation \ great shepherd of the sheep in the
Iblood of the eternal covenant,
,, . . . ("make you perfect in every good to do
3. Mam petition . . . \^J^
4. Secondary petition which often 1
expresses the end for which main I working in us that which is well-
petition is made, but here is a parallel | pleasing in his sight,
accompaniment ... .J
5. Pleading of merits of Christ and \
doxology (the collect form makes it ^ . Jesus christ) tQ whom be the
almost certain that the doxology is to V for eyer and eyer Amen>
be referred to " Christ " not to " the & '
God of peace") . . . .J

428 The Epistle of Priesthood
This differs from ordinary Collects in that it is a
blessing addressed to the readers instead of a prayer
directly addressed to God ; otherwise the correspondence
is exact. It may be contrasted with the prayer of
S. Paul in Eph. iii. 14-21. That does indeed so far fit
the collect-analysis as to shew how that form, like the
scale in music or the sonnet in poetry, shapes itself by
certain natural laws, but while S. Paul's words flow freely
like the Greek and Eastern liturgical prayers, the author
of Hebrews is terse and symmetrical and firm like the
Western Collects.
But not only in terseness and symmetry does this
prayer differ from S. Paul's. S. Paul had begun his
prayer in Ephesians more than once, but had been led
away from it to pursue a train of thoughts which a word
(as by chance) had started. At last the prayer is
completed ; it marks a stage in the course of the Epistle,
but does not conclude it. The prayer is but one im
pulse in the impetuous pouring forth of his inspired mind.
In this Epistle the prayer is the conclusion of all. It
is shaped and placed deliberately, and it sums up and
by its " reverence " (cf. xii. 2 8) intensifies the whole of
the long argumentative appeal. In this too it is like a
Collect. For whatever be the right derivation of its
name, a Collect does commonly sum up teaching or
meditation. The Collects in the Roman Missal or the
English Prayer Book do so. Still more remarkably do
the Collects which follow the several psalms in the
Mozarabic Psalter.
In like manner this prayer sums up the doctrine
and purpose of the Epistle. But before that can be
seen it is necessary (as is done in the table above) to

An Exposition of the Epistle 429
restore the ancient text in two places where it has
been altered in later times. Instead of reading " you "
twice in verse 21," you " must be read in the first
clause, " us " in the second. Thus the first clause is
recognized as a prayer for the readers ; the second for
the writer himself, or for the writer and the companions
of his .sequestration ; or again for the writer and all
those who like him are united in God's will — those who
(as Mr. A. C. Benson once expressed it) " are of the
City." Then instead of " in every good work," we must
read " in every good thing," as RV translates. Yet
that translation obscures the generality of the Greek
iv rraprl dyadw, which is almost an adverbial phrase;
" in all good ways," or " by all good means," would
perhaps be a better equivalent, though not a translation.
The petition is not that the readers may do many things,
but that they may do the one duty which is for them,
at that time, God's will ; in fact the one duty which
their friend has been urging upon them all through his
letter. That duty may possibly be something unknown
to us ; on the hypothesis we have allowed ourselves,
we may say it is the hard duty of going forth to the
Lord Jesus outside the camp, and breaking with the
Jewish nationalists. This concentrated application to
one single act is emphasized by the aorist, iroir)crai, as
contrasted with the present participle, iroicop, which
follows; iroirjo-ai means "to do one act once"; ttoicop
means " continuing to do."
Thus we see the writer on his knees before God as
he ends his earnest appeal. Keeping the mediaeval
text we do not quite see that, but we have instead an
edifying prayer for congregational reading; a prayer

430 The Epistle of Priesthood
of colourless phraseology and therefore capable of wide
application. A change of like character was made in
the text of the Benedictus, S. Lk. i. 78. The original
text gives eVto-Kei/reTat, " the dayspring shall visit us."
That was what Zacharias said before the ministry of the
Lord began. But in the Psalter with Odes of Codex
Alexandrinus we find that already altered to i-ireaKe^aro,
" has visited us." In the Service Book of later genera
tions who look back upon that ministry, the expectation
has been changed into a retrospective confession of faith.
Both there and here it would seem that Church use has
adapted the apostolic text for the devotional needs of
post-apostolic times.
These corrections then made we find a prayer of
which the main petition corresponds to the main purpose
of the letter, viz. that the readers may do a certain hard
duty. Its secondary petition corresponds to the promise of
the letter that such obedience brings peace or " the rest
of God." The author has no special request to make
for himself; he only asks that God will continue to do
with him what is well pleasing in His sight. He has
in fact entered that rest where "In la sua voluntad e
nostra pace." This is the nearest approach he makes
to these unveilings of his own experience which S. Paul
so often ventures upon, and this unique breaking of his
reticence is the most effective step in his argument.
He knows the truth he urges because he has proved it.
This road to peace by duty is the road of God's
will, and that corresponds to the interpretation of the
whole analogy of the Epistle, which was given in ch. x.
And thjs road of the will, this losing separate, and

An Exposition of the Epistle 431
finding personal will in the will of God, is the way of
His flesh which Jesus went. That is signified in the
second clause of the prayer, " who brought again from
the dead . . . the Lord Jesus." Notice the name of His
manhood here without addition.
And it led to His being perfected, exalted, hailed
Highpriest, and to His entering upon that inheritance
of Christhood which is indicated in ch. i. and more fully
explained as the Epistle proceeds. That is signified in
the final clause with its doxology, in which the name
and title are conjoined, " Jesus Christ."
This final clause contains the phrase, " through Jesus
Christ," which sums up the author's whole doctrine of
priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, a doctrine or
analogy which has already been more pictorially ex
pressed in the " blood of the eternal covenant," of the
second clause. It implies not merely that the readers
are to do as the Lord Jesus did, but that they can do
it in that " fellowship with the Christ " (iii. 1 4) who is
for them the divine exalted Jesus Christ. And their
opportunity is offered in the trial and crisis of their
own troubled times. The antidote to that perturbation,
that political and religious confusion, is asserted in the
opening of the prayer ; " the God of peace " who makes
peace in the midst of the restless nations, and has from
the beginning of time prepared a " sabbath rest " for His
people (iv. 9).
The letter now hastens to its close. In v. 22 the
intensity is relieved by a touch (such as has been felt
before) of the author's intimate, affectionate urbanity.
The conjunction Kal yap is often but a single compound
one, a stronger "for," But it may be taken in its

432 The Epistle of Priesthood
separate parts, " for also," and the context favours this.
There will then be a play upon the two meanings of
¦n-apaKaXS), TrapaKXr)o-ea>s, which can hardly be reproduced
in English, and the whole sentence is a gentle insistance
on the letter being a real letter, not an authoritative
treatise which might stiffen the relations between the
writer and his friends. " I beseech you, my brothers,
bear with this long and severe treatise of exhortation,
for you see I do also send a short communication of
pure epistolary friendship just for yourselves." The
aorist, iireo-reCXa, is epistolary and in English the
present tense must be substituted for it, and the vplv
coming last is perhaps rather emphatic. " How could
it be otherwise to you ? " it seems to imply.
23. Timothy has been released and the author, if
soon joined by him, hopes with Timothy to come to his
friends and see them. Why his journey should depend
on Timothy's coming, or (understanding him differently)
why he could not wait longer for Timothy we do not
know. Nor do we know where or why Timothy was
imprisoned or detained. Dr. Bacon, in his Introduction
to the New Testament (dating Hebrews later) says " the
suggestion that both the author and his companions
' from Italy ' may have been exiled by Domitian is
entirely reasonable." It seems hardly less reasonable
to hazard the guess that both the author and Timothy
may have been brought to Italy by the peril of their
master S. Paul — that S. Paul has perished in Nero's per
secution, that Timothy has been imprisoned, and that the
freedom of both Timothy and the author is now assured.
Bacon interprets the ol drrb rr)s '.ZVaXta? of the next
verse as " those who belong to Italy and are now away

An Exposition of the Epistle 433
from Italy." It is perhaps a little more likely in so
idiomatic a writer that it should mean, " those who are
in Italy and send their greetings with mine from Italy,"
but either interpretation is possible.
All that is certainly to be inferred from these verses
is that the letter is in some way connected with Italy
and that the author belongs more or less intimately to
S. Paul's circle. In accordance with that relationship
he ends his letter with S. Paul's grace. We might
paraphrase, " And now I will say farewell in the
hallowed words of one we all know and shall ever
love."

28

INDEX TO PERSONS AND SUBJECTS

Aaron, 326 m
Abel, 392.
Abelson, J., 249.
Abbott, E. A., 238, 243.
Abraham, 395, 420.
Aeschylus, 105, 175, 381.
Africa, 4.
Akhnaton, 213.
S. Albans, 228.
Alexandria, 2f., 4, 276, 284, 289.
Alexandrine, 8, 10, 31, 36 f., 62, 64,
66, 239, 254, 266, 269, 273,
372, 422. See Hebrews.
Alexandrinus, codex, 430.
Alford, H., 5, 58.
allegory, 37, 56.
allegorical interpretation, 277 ff.
altar, 26, 156, 182, 423.
Amherst, Hon. S., 268.
analogy, 30 f., 37 ff., 54, 290, 300,
369, 376. See priesthood.
Andrewes, Lancelot, 221, 262.
angels, 136, 259, 266 f., 273 f., 305 ff.,
312, 415, 420.
Antioch, 257, 276.
apocalypse, Jewish, 28, 64, 77, 235,
254, 310. 417-
Baruch, 214 ff., 413.
Enoch, 254, 393.
Ezra, 214 ff., 221, 255, 267, 413.
martyrdom of Isaiah, 402. See
S. John.
apocalyptic criticism, 28, 33, 77 ff.,
93, 180 f., 187, 206, 231 ff.,
252 ff. , 256.
apocalyptic character of Gospel, 231;
transformed by our Lord, 232 ;
interpreted in Acts, 232 ; in
Paul, 233 ff. ; in Heb., 1 Pet.,
Apoc, 238 ff, in Gosp. and
Ep. of John, 241 ff. ; in apos
tolic church, 87 ff., 109, 206,
217 ff, 417.
Apollos, 258.

Apollinarian, 75.
Aramaic, 30, 71, 107, 220, 358.
arena, 47, 340.
Arian, 75, 117, 241.
Aristotle, 179.
Arminian, 171.
art, 42 f., 87, 90 {., 379.
Athanasius, 115 ff.
Atonement, Day of, 340, 357 f., 361,
3^4. 423-
dyeveaX&yirros, 7, 345, 345.
dyidfa, ayiao-fibs, 372 f., 410.
alfhv, 390.
al&vi.os, 363.
avd/j.v7}<ris, 370.
dvatTTavpovv, 336.
dva<pipeiv, 328.
dpxvyos, 229, 408.
dpxtepeis, 357.
d<p(i}p.OLWfi.ivOS, 344.
Bacon, B. W., 432.
baptism, 15, 52 1, 156, 385. See
Hebrews, Paul.
Barcochba, 255, 276.
Barnabas, 3f., 287.
S. Basil (liturgy), 138.
beauty, 55.
Benedictus, 91, 430.
Benson, A. C., 429.
Benson, E. W., 114, 159.
Bergson, H., 38, 145, 200.
S. Bernard, 227.
Bernard, E. R., 122.
Berridge, J., 64.
Bethune-Baker, J. F., 64, 67, 72, 75,
84, ii7f., 144, 172.
Bigg, C, 73, 102, m, 230.
bishops, 156.
blood, 9, 12 f., 17, 140, 167 ff., 358,
3°3. 366, 384, 416.
Box, G. H., 92, 214, 252 f., 256,
261 f., 267, 41 3.

Index to Persons and Subjects

435

Blass, F., 70, 286 f.
Bradley, A. C, 97, 113, 214.
Brooke, A. E., 130, 219, 246 f.
Browning, 105, 246.
Bruce, A. B., 71, 117.
Burns, 283.
Burkitt, F. C, 6, 19, 36, 76, io6f.,
130. I07i 218 f., 242.
Butler, Joseph, 178.
Byzantine architecture, 283.
pteironev, 346.
Caesarea Philippi, 79, 265.
Calvin, 277.
canon, 3, 254, 264, 269, 274 f.,
276.
captain, 12, 46, 205, 229, 313, 340,
408, 421.
Caird, E., 38.
Canticles, 275.
Cellini, Benvenuto, 283.
Celsus, 210 f.
Charles, R. H., 137, 222, 260.
Cheyne, T. K., 150, 177, 253.
chief priests, 6.
Christ, in Old Testament, 16 f., 65,
68, 249f., 279, 298, 301, 314,
3i6f., 319, 329 1; 334 P 388,
401, 421 f.
inclusive, 114, 133, 179, 193P
200, 213, 299.
one person, Jesus Christ, 196 ff.,
299, 431-
Son of God, 298, 303 f., 317.
the coming of Christ, 9, 206 ff,
2i6f., 232 ff., 360, 369, 383.
the manifestation of Christ, 219,
247. See Hebrews, John,
Paul, priesthood.
Chronicles, 151.
Chrysothemis, 22.
Church, 19, 25, 191, 196, 241, 415,
419.
and individual, 155.
founded by our Lord, 74.
Jewish and Christian, 14, 19, 22,
193, 397. 4' 5-
Judaistic in Jerusalem, 232 f.
of England, 3 ; articles, 104,
277 ff.; catechism, 18, 51, 127 ;
prayer book, 28, 44, 115, 428.
of Rome and the West, 4, 6, 84,
114, 118, 277.
protestant, 277.

Church, organization and ministry,
25 f.; creed, 23, 123, 139,
189, 218, 292, 296, 421 ; sacra
ments, 25, 53, 156 ff, 202, 291,
359 f- > 385- See priesthood.
city of God, 8, 299, 425, 429.
Claromontanus, codex, 5,15, 286, 386.
cleansing. See priesthood.
Clement, Alex., 2, 403.
Clement Rom., 2, 4ff, 26, 288, 385 ;
Ep. II, 288.
Clytaemnestra, 105.
Coleridge, S. T., 52 f., 64, 141.
collect, 21, 69, 83, 158, 180, 185,
427 ff.
Colson, F. H., 286 f.
Constantinople, 195.
conversion, 73, 127, 202, 373.
covenant, 18, 183, 356.
new, 325, 356 f., 365.
Creighton, Mandell, 106.
crown, 70 f., 309, 313.
crucifixion. See under priesthood.
Cyril, Alex., 118.
Daniel, 77, 176, 402.
Dante, 147, 288, 430.
Davidson, A. B., 117.
De Imitatione, 42.
Deissmann, A., 10, 281 f.
Deuteronomy, 38, 124, 169, 197,
249>384, 386, 418 f.
devil, Satan, 57, 267 ff.
Dickson and Vincent, 284.
Didache, 209, 286, 293.
Dill, S., 86.
Dionysius, Hal., 280, 288.
Domitian, 24, 216 f., 432.
Driver, S. R., 168 f.
Du Bose, W. P., 37, 126, 193.
SeajiXoix, Sea/ioh, 385.
SiaSiiKr,, l8f., 351, 358, 364 f.
SiyveKis, 344, 373.
Electra, 22 f.
Ellerton, J., 55.
English versions, 47, 197, 297, 407.
energy, 236, 271.
Enoch, 393. See apocalypse.
Entsagung, 106.
Epictetus, 289.
Erasmus, 265, 289.
Esther, 275.
eternal and infinite, 62, 73.
Eusebius, 2, 66.

436

Index to Persons and Subjects

Evangelion da-mepharreshl, 19.
lyyvos, 351.
elK&v, 38, 141.
iKKhyala, 19, 415.
ifKpaviffdTJvai, 367.
iirayyeKla, 395.
imelKeia, 34.
iinffvvayorrt, 382 f.
iwpt<r$ri<rav, 402.
ip/irjvevbfievos, 344.
eiireplaTaros, 21, 407.
'Maith, 386 ff.
fate, 295 f.
Festing, J. W., 107.
Fogazzaro, A., 139, 211 f.
forgiveness, 373 f.
Foundations, 51, 88, 408. See
Streeter.
S. Francis, 227.
ipavepovv, 219, 367, 369.
<pipo>v, (pipeaBai, 18, 304, 334, 365.
<pwTia0ivTes, 384.
Gamaliel, 260.
gentiles, 7, 25, 45. See Paul.
Glover, T. R., 211.
Gobar, Stephen, 5.
Goethe, 38.
Goodrick, A. T. S., 275.
Gothic architecture, 52.
Greek religion, 85; theology, 118;
thought, 242.
Gregory, C. R., 275.
Gunkel, H., 253.
yevo/iivwv, 362.
Habakkuk, 386.
Haggai, 416.
Hamilton, H. F., 86, 193, 232, 263 f.
Hardy, Thomas, 293 ff.
Harnack, A., 6, 226 f., 284 f.
Harrison, J. E., 86.
Hart, J. H. A., 34, 231, 236.
Headlam, A. C, 83, 124, 275.
Hebrews, Epistle to—
a real letter, 7, 10, 282, 300, 370,
378. 432-
Judaic, 14 ff., 196 f., 216, 346 f., 401.
Alexandrine-Hellenistic, 8, 14, 196,
256 f., 259, 388, 390, 404, 422.
"Antiochene" and critical, 150,
251, 257 f., 266, 308, 355.
connexion with —
gospel tradition, 2, 35, 65, 72,

80, 94, 133, 137, 153, 185,
191, 205, 213, 227, 231,
256 {., 269, 313.
S. John, 2, 36, 51, 192, 197,
240, 258, 273, 345, 359,
382, 389-
Old Testament, 151, 194, 248(1".,
290, 301, 333, 346, 355,
369, 379, 419-
S. Paul, 2, 137, 153, 183 f., 194,
205, 237 f., 258, 265, 272 f.,
3°8, 335, 379, 386 ff, 394,
407 {., 411, 420, 422, 424,
428, 430, 433.
I Pet. and Apoc, 156, 240.
Philo, 37, 102 ff, 136, 147, 251,
260, 273, 275, 322, 341 ff,
391 ff, 409.
Roman war, 22, 30 f., 205 ff.
Septuagint, 273 ff, 372, 386, 399,
409, 412.
its creed, 33, 197, 352, 422.
its doctrine of_angels, 266 f. , 305 ff.
of the cprhing%f Christ, 30, 33,
i84<205ff.,l246,368f.,382ff.,
39t, 412, 419, 424 f.
of the Holy Spirit, 113, 238,
260, 3-52, 361, 364.
of the intercession of Christ, 33,
132, 183 f., 200.
of the manhood of Christ, 68 ff.,
99ff., 117, 192, 228 ff., 296,
298, 312, 315, 327 f., 376.
of miracles, 123 ff, 393, 401.
of the resurrection, 33, 124,
1856"., 190 f.
of the one sacrifice, 145, 154,
200 ff, 340, 369.
of sin and sinlessness, 72, 1 19 ff. ,
128 ff., 313, 319, 328, 4iiff.
of the will, 65, 69, 132, 144,
180, 202, 301, 320, 325 f.,
370 f., 377 f., 429 ft,
its background of Church life, 1 56 ff. ,
381, 421. See apocalyptic
criticism, canon, Judaism, law,
Origen, priesthood, Rome,
style, etc.
Hellenistic, 7, 10, 14, 21, 31, 34 f., 47>
149, 191, 196, 256, 276, 284,
359-
Hermas, 3.
Herodotus, 286.
Hertford, 47.
Hippolytus, 5.

Index to Persons and Subjects

437

Holland, H. Scott, 233.
Hunt, W. Holman, 166 f.
Homer, 175.
Hort, F. J. A., 21 f., 54f., 181, 241,
297, 403-
Hiigel, F. von, 14, 112, 179, 190, 230,
294 ft
Hugo, Victor, 409.
idea, ideal, 56, 84, 129 f., 200, 213,
239, 279, 294, 3^4, 404, 41 6.
See Synoptic gospels.
Ignatius, 227, 287 f.
imitation of Christ, 226 ff.
incarnation. See priesthood.
Inge, W. R., 38, 40, 55,
intercession, 154, 183, 199ft, 3'4,
352-
Interimsethik, 123.
intuition, 101, 107 ft, 225, 257.
inspiration, 56, 101, 107, 118, 245 f.,
253, 264 f., 275, 288.
Irenaeus, 5.
Isaac, 397 f.
Isidore, 5.
t\em, 357.
S. James (liturgy), 66.
Jebb, R. G, 286.
Jeremiah, 175, 325, 355, 374, 419.
Jeremias, A., 41, 253.
Jericho, 401.
Jerome, 5, 52, 276.
Jerusalem, 9, 20, 22, 29, 31, 79, 95,
108, i84f., 2o6f., 217 f., 355,
376.
Jesuit, 227.
Job, 75, 268, 291, 339, 394.
S. John, 2, 27, 34, 51 f., 64, 71, 134,
139-
Gospel, 51, 53, 92f., I05f., 119,
181, 207, 223, 242 ff., 262, 267,
286; prologue, 27 f., 235, 242.
Epistle, 129, 216, 286.
Apocalypse, 22, 24 f., 52, 108,
H3f., 140, 147, 156, 2i5f.,
219 f., 240 f., 267, 270, 286,
405, 415.
relation to earlier gospel, 64, 76,
93, "9, 181, 207.
to Hebrews, 2, 36, 51, 192, 197,
240, 258, 273, 345, 359,
382, 389-
doctrine of Holy Spirit, 217, 243,
263.

S. John, doctrine of sacraments, 53,
242 f., 359.
of sin, 129 f.
of the coming of Christ, 246 f.
style, 286.
John Inglesant, 69, 227 ff.
Joseph, 399.
Josephus, 213.
Joshua, 321, 419.
Judaism, 14, 125.
catholick, 34, 231, 276.
Hellenistic, 14, 21, 47, 149.
militant, 22, 384, 424.
Pharisaic, 47, 74, 149, 260.
Rabbinic, 24, 73, 78, 220 f., 249,
252, 267 f., 276, 416.
Christian inheritance of, 14, 121,
141, 232 ft, 378.
creed of, 197, 334 f., 422.
ideal of, 288, 396, 415.
reality in, 138ft, 335, 361, 374f.
ritual practice in, 15, 24, 137, 182 f.,
360ft, 371, 422.
doctrine of sacrifice, 13, 17 f., 182,
35o, 371-
of saints, 415.
of evil spirits, 267 f.
prayer book, 427.
Keats, 169.
Kennett, R. H., 176.
kenosis, 67, 95.
Kingdom of God, 146, 180, 183, 206,
209, 231ft, 241, 365^,411,417.
Kaiv&s, 9, 416.
KOipbs, 220.
Ka\6s, 15, 426.
KaTdSrjXov, 349.
KaraKpiveiv, 394.
KaTavcrfyyare, 346.
(caret irlonv, 394, 396.
KOtv/i, 281.
KO/iltraoSai, 339, 403.
KOfftuxbs, 361.
KpeiTTov, 416.
KvpiaK-r] Tj/j.ipa, 241.
Lake, Kirsopp, 235, 243, 276, 358.
ben Laqish, 268.
Latin, Old, 6, 15.
Laud, Archbishop, 13.
law, 8, 78, 153, 261, 264, 276, 307 f.,
348, 416, 422.
Leibniz, 46.
Legg, Wickham, 427.

438

Index to Persons and Subjects

Lelant, 47.
Leo, 118.
Levi. See priesthood.
Levitical Messiah, 137.
liberal theology, 26 f., 75 f., 224.
Lightfoot, J. B., 26, 426.
liturgy, 26, 28, 44, 241, 252, 267,
43°-
S. Basil, 138.
S. James, 66.
horologion, 405. '
Roman, 6, 83, 415, 428.
English, 428.
Leonian sacramentary, 158L
Mozarabic psalter, 428.
collects, 21, 69, 83, 158, 180, 185,
427 ft
living God, 13, 45, 304, 318.
Loisy, A., 211.
Longinus, 345.
Loofs, F., 118.
Lucian, 289.
Lucretius, 285.
S. Luke, 2, 30 f., 70, 82 f., 87, 139,
261, 405; artist, 87, 90 f.,
285; scholar, 230, 256 ff.,
273 ; hymns in his gospel, 82,
90 ff, 262 ; references to siege
of Jerusalem, 31, 206 f., 209.
See Synoptic gospels.
Luther, 236.
Lux Mundi, 290 ff.
\arpeta, \aTpeieiv, 44, 361, 417.
\vrpioais, 363.
Maccabees, 1 76, 401 ff.
Mackintosh, H. R., 67, 193 f., 206 f.,
236, 238, 245.
Magnificat, 82 f., 90 f.
Maran atha, 30, 265.
Margoliouth, G., 137.
S. Mark, earliest gospel, 28, 76, 206 ;
its apocalyptic character, 28,
76, 93 ; its style, 285 f. See
Synoptic gospels.
marriage, 420.
martyr, II, 47, 158, 176 f., 224, 426.
See priesthood.
S. Matthew, 285. See Synoptic
gospels.
Maurice, F. D., 103.
Maximus Tyrius, 86.
Melchizedek. Sn* priesthood.
Menegoz, E., 117, 171.
Messiah, 14, 26, 29, 137, 253 ff.

Milligan, G., 270.
Milton, no.
miracle, 39, 92, 124 {., 244 f., 401.
Moberly, R. C, 40, 193.
Moffatt, J., 6ft
Montefiore, C. G., 125.
Morris, William, 404.
Moulton, J. H., 286.
Moses, 316 f., 366, 399 ff-, 4*9-
Munro, H. A. J., 285.
mystery-religion, 242 f., 358 f., 381.
fiaprvpelv, fidprvs, II, 405, 418.
fiiveiv, 351.
/Aeo-lT7]s, 351.
I^TeriBri, 394.
fiurffaTToSbrris, 394.
,U7j Tore, 365.
nature, 54, 63 f., 125, 134 f., 143, 152,
267, 279, 306, 337, 415. See
under priesthood.
Nero, 385, 432.
Nestorius, 64, 67, 72, 75, 84, 117 f.,
144, 152, 172.
Nestle, E., 298.
Newman, J. H., 115ft, I91, '99i3°5-
Nicene theology, n6ff, 181.
Nietzsche, F., 86.
Noah, 394.
Nunc Dimittis, 91.
vios, 9, 416.
veKpoTs, iirl, 365.
vvv, 368.
oath, 320, 339, 350, 353.
obedience, 69 ff, 371, 425.
Oesterley, W. O. E., 253.
Origen, 2 f., 6, 25, 276, 289, 305, 381.
Oxyrhynchus papyrus, 287, 326, 403.
bpdfiev, 346.
OKpS-qaerai., 367.
oiSi, 362.
Paget, F., 290 ft
painting, 56.
Papias, 286 f.
papyri, 282 ff. See Oxyrhynchus
papyrus.
Pascal, 188, 199, 231, 262.
Pastoral epistles, 34, 236 f.
patriotism, 22, 210 ff., 276, 409, 426.
S. Paul, apocalyptic, 41, 232, 237.
mystical, 41, 109, 234, 424.
philosophic, 41.
statesmanlike, 237.

Index to Persons and Subjects

439

S. Paul, connexion with gospel tradi
tion, 66, 81, 153, 235.
with Greeks and Gentiles, 66,
193, 233, 276.
with Epistle to Hebrews, 2, 137,
153, 183 f-, 194, 205, 237 f.,
258,265, 272 f., 308, 335, 379,
386ft, 394, 407 f., 411, 420,
424, 428, 430, 433.
with prophets, 164 f.
with rabbinic Judaism, 275.
doctrine of baptism, 53, 131.
eucharist, 53, 157 f.
law, 153, 263 f., 335.
sin, 128 ff, 411.
spirits, 268 f.
the coming of Christ, 30,
237-
the Holy Spirit, 234, 243.
doctrine, developement of his, 27,
217.
final hope, 62, 133, 178 f.
style, 286.
Paulus, H. E. G., 92.
Peake, A. S., 291, 339.
Pella, 359.
perfection, 70 f., 105 f., 130, 404.
person, 40, 64, 112, 178 f., 196, 205,
235, 271 f., 295, 303ft, 370,
384, 387-
S. Peter, 235, 265.
2 Peter, 288.
Pharisee, 15, 47, 74.
Philo, 16, 34, 37, 100 ff., 136, 147,
179, 251, 254, 260, 270, 273,
280, 284, 322, 341, 379, 391 ff,
397, 409. See Hebrews.
philosophy, 9, 22, 40 ff., 61, 87, 188,
224 f., 291 f., 302, 420.
picture-language, 38 ff., 182 f., 198,
302, 407 f., 423.
pilgrim, 45, 396, 424.
Pilgrim's Progress, 283.
Plato, 36, 38 ff, 56, 73, 99, 119,
175, 179, 191, 200, 239, 382,
420.
Plotinus, 179.
Plutarch, 286.
poetry, 41 f., 43, 205, 276 f., 291 f.
priesthood, cleansing conscience, 134,
136, 164ft, 3°3, 3i2, 3&7f-,
373 f-
death, 49, 89, 96, 105 f., I45f., 299,
330, 34°, 352 ff, 378, 423 ff,
431-

priesthood, of exalted Christ, 94, 97,
185ft, 352,431.
incarnation, 51, 6 iff, 66 ff, 290,
312 f., 326 f., 431.
Levitical, 17, 49, 55, i37ff, 153,
i64f., i8off, 298, 325, 342,
347, 350, 354 ft, 374 f^, 423-
Melchizedek, 6f., 147ft, i62f., 298,
325, 329, 341 ff, 377 P 431-
"natural, "36, 65, 143 ff, 152, 177,
181 f., 193, 298,325,375,377.
of the faithful, I54ff, 421.
"on the Godward side," 45, 67,
136, 146, 152, 298, 328.
perpetual, 5of., 114 f., 133, 195 f.,
198, 299, 364, 378, 421, 423 ff,
431- s
redemption, 89, nof., 298, 363.
sacrament, 30 f., 36^,48, 59, 135 f.,
298, 300.
sacrifice, 144, 154, 177 ff, 200 ff,
430 f.
Priscilla, 6.
prophet, 14, 32, 86, 164ft, 211,
236, 249, 260, 303, 417.
propitiation, 168 f., 302, 314.
Prometheus, 36, 292.
iravqylipet, 415.
irdvTa pel, 61.
irapafiokT), 85, 398.
¦wapaKakelv , irapaKkTiais, 432.
irapapiiveiv, 352.
¦wapp-qala, 380.
ireipao^ds, 300.
TrepiTrolr]Ot.s, 387.
Tro\vp.epQs Kal TroXvrpdTrws, 302.
irdppudev ISbvres, 396.
Trp657p\ov, 349.
wpbotpaTos, 381.
Tpo<r<pipelv, 328.
^¦xv, 385-
rationalism, 188, 198.
redemption. See priesthood.
reformation, II, 14, 22, 142, 232,
262, 277, 362, 422.
Reimarus, H. S., 77.
Renan, E., 218, 359.
repentance, 11, 13, 16, 231, 335,
412 ff.
rest, 315, 321, 430.
resurrection, 15, 26, 39, 185 ff, 232,
402 f.
Robinson, J. A., 25, 114, 286, 293,
306.

440

Index to Persons and Subjects

Rome, 4ff, 83, 195, 214, 221, 359.
'Roman war, 22, 30, 205, 369.
Ropes, J. H., 29.
Ruskin, John, 55.
Russell, J. Stuart, 216.
sacrament, 36ff,4off., 51, 60 ff, 188,
228 f., 290 f., 298 f., 321, 354,
418, 423. See Church, John,
Paul, priesthood.
sacrifice, 17, 49, 145, 154, 176 ff.,
200ft, 325, 340, 369, 423,
425. See priesthood.
Sainte-Beuve, 34.
salvation, no, 233, 278, 288, 298,
306, 368.
Sardinia, 5.
Satan, devil, 57, 267 ff.
Schechter, S., 137.
Schweitzer, A., 41, 53, 77, 86, 88,
92, 217, 241.
seal, 303, 306.
S. Sebastian, 58.
Selwyn, E. C., 414.
Septuagint, 197, 255, 273 ff, 276,
279, 361, 372, 386, 399, 409,
412,414. See Hebrews, style.
Servant of the Lord, i76f., 181.
shadow, 38, 49, 141, 181, 354.
Shakespeare, 105, 113, 119.
Shelley, 133, 178.
shepherd, 156, 185.
ship, 46, 339 f.
Shorthouse, J. H.,- 227. See John
Inglesant.
Sidgwick, H., 40.
sign, 56.
sin, sinless, 21, 33, 72 f., H9ff,
128 ff, 313, 319, 328, 411 ff.
See John, Hebrews, Paul.
Sinaiticus, codex, 395.
Sirach, 274.
Smith, W. Robertson, 17, 171.
Socinian, 171.
Soden, H. von, 102, 279 f., 287.
Solomon, Odes of, 19, 242 f.
Psalms of, 254.
Wisdom of, 275, 394.
Sophocles, 22 f., 312.
Souter, A., 5, 275, 297.
Spirit,27,62,88f.,94,97f.,ioif.,ii3, 188,205,217 f., 223, 232, 234 f.,
238, 243, 246, 260, 263, 265,
270 ff., 308, 343,361, 384, 4°5-
eternal, 113, 153, 352, 364.

Spirit, cosmic, 188, 273.
spirits, 407, 409, 415.
evil spirits, 267 f. See John,
Hebrews, Paul.
Stanley, A. P., 66.
S. Stephen, 400, 405.
Sterling, John, 55.
Streeter, B. H., 51, 179, 243.
Strzygowski, J., 194 f.
Style, 219, 261, 277.
of New Testament, 281 ff. ; of its
several books, 284 ff.
of Septuagint, 284 ff.
of Apostolic Fathers, 288.
of Greek liturgies, 289, 428,
abstract neuter, 410.
antithesis, 403.
article, 47, 193, 386, 395, 423.
artificial connexions, 274, 305, 307,
357, 4io, 423-
cases, 15 f., 38.1 f.
emphasis, 209, 352, 387, 395, 398,
425, 432-
epistolary carelessness, 370, 402.
indefinite citation, 270 f.
large connotation, 159, 172 f., 414,
418, 426.
participles, 13, 331, 338, 360, 395,
421.
particles and prepositions, 2i9f.,
34i, 349, 362, 365, 394, 396,
423 f., 431 {., 432 f.
predicate, 197, 361, 422.
resonant compounds, 288, 302.
rhetoric, 46, 279 f.
rhythm, 286 f., 361, 389, 415, 421.
similes, 46.
tenses, 12 f., 70 f., 314, 360, 368,
390, 396 f., 400, 407, 428 f.,
432-
terse phrases, 72, 273, 323, 370,
395, 428, 431.
various readings, 15 f., 19, 197, 236,
255, 287, 326, 362, 365, 370,
386, 388, 393, 395, 400, 402 f.,
409, 429 f. See Alexandrine,
Deissmann, Origen, picture-
language, poetry, von Soden,
Swete, etc.
substance, 236.
supernatural, supra-natural, 36, 107,
234-
Supper, Last, 18, 358 ff.
Swete, H. B., 24 f., 59, 66, 114, 215
241, 268 f., 270, 273, 281, 284.

Index to Persons and Subjects

441

symbol, 37 f., 40, 48, 56, 59, 188, 191,
325-
Symmachus, 361.
synagogue, 22, 24, 73, 215, 252.
Synoptic gospels, their ideal morality,
90, 123, 130, 196, 213.
their portrait of our Lord, 75ff.,
U9ff, 193, 244, 313; as
teacher, 80 f., 108, 256 f.
their relation to S. John, 76, 181,
187, 243.
to Judaism, 125.
to Hebrews, 185, 227.
to one another, 28, 76, 80 f., 86 f.,
243-
to S. Paul, 235.
to Q., 8of., 243.
their simple and rich theology, 41 ,
64, 107, 191, 294.
their style, 285, 418.
Syriac version, 19.
erovSi), 338.
tabernacle, temple, 7, 24, 138 f.,
182, 215, '272, 276, 319, 325,
354, 3^3, 4i6, 422.
Tatian, 284 f.
temptation, trial, 13, 72, 126 f., 208,
229,300,368, 383, 397 f., 431.
Tennant, F. R., 70, 131.
Tennyson, 179.
Tertullian, 3, 40.
Theodotion, 361.
Thucydides, 398.
S. Thomas, 236.
Timaeus, 99.
Timothy, 432 f.
Tintoretto, 57 ff.
Titus, 69.
Tolstoi, Leo, 262.
tradition, 30, 35, 51, 65. See John,
Hebrews, Paul.
tragedy, 97.

Trench, R. C, 220 f.
Trinity, 62, 304, 317.
Tuker, M. A. R., 6.
" Two Clerks," 197.
type, 49, 55, Hi, 143, 181.
Tyrrell, G., 84, 140.
9eaTpi£6[ievoL, 385.
dvpuariripiov, 361.
t& irpbs Tbv 8ebv, 45, 328. See priest
hood.
tc££is, 286 f.
TeXewvv Te\etoi<ns, 105 f . , 330 f. , 347 f.
Tirvxev, 354.
Tpix^^V, 408.
Vaticanus, codex, 15.
versions, English, 47, 197, 297, 385,
393, 414, 429-
Old Latin, 5f., 15, 286.
Vulgate, 5f., 276, 388, 393, 407,
414 f.
Syriac, 19.
Vincent and Dickson, 284.
Virgil, 34, 172, 175, 418.
vTrboTaais, 388 f.
Watts, G. F., 132.
Watts, Isaac, 416.
Weigall, A. E. P., 213 f.
Wellhausen, J., 252, 261.
Wendland, P., 284, 288.
western text, 289, 395, 400.
Westcott, B. F., 221.
Westcott, F. B., 3, 161, 171ft, 250,
263, 270, 297, 381 f., 403.
Wickham, E. G, 50.
will, 370 ff, 377 ft See Hebrews.
Word, 27 f., 44, 62, 64, 101 ff., 136,
196P254, 263,267, 315,317-
Wordsworth, William, 214, 291.
Wrede, W., 10.
Zahn, T„ 4.

REFERENCES TO PASSAGES , QUOTED

PAGE

PAGE

Gen. i., .

• • -389f.

Ps. cii., .

421

i. 2., .

• 99

ex.,

¦ 252, 343

iv. 4, .

. 403

cxviii. 6,

. 421

v. 24, .

• 393

exxiii. (iv. ) 5,

. . . 388

xiv. 17-20,

. I48ff,343ff.

xviii. .
• 395
Prov. iii. 1 1 f. ,
. 409 f.
xxiii. 4,
• 396
xlix., .
• 399
Job xvi. 21,
• 339
Ex. iii. 15,
• 397
xvii. 3,
¦ 339
iv. 16,
. 328
Eccl. iii. II, .
. 100
XV., .
104
xv. 13,
• 363
xix.
155, 344, 4'4
Is. ix. 1-6
• 255
xxvi. 5, II, .
• 384
Lev. xvii. 10-12,
. 167
xli. 14,
• 363
liii.,
140, 156, 176 f., 256
Num. xvi. 38,
. 409
lix. ,
. 104
lxiii. n,
. 252
Deut. iv.,
• 4H
iv. 24,
• 4'7
Jer. xxxi. 31-34
325, 354 ff, 357,
v.,
. 249
365, 374
vi. 4, .
• 197, 271, 422
Ez. xviii. 27, .
. . . 165
xxix. 18,
412
xxxvi. 25, .
¦ 165
xxxi. 6,
. 421
xxxii. 35, .
¦ ¦ • 384
Dan. vii.,
. 221, 256
2 Sam. xii. 31,
402
Amos i. 3,
. 402
1 Ki. xvii. I7ff.,
402
Hab. ii. 3,
• • • 386
2 Ki. iv. 17 ff.,
402
Hagg. ii. 6, .
. 416
1 Chron. xxix. 15,
• 396
Zech. ix. n, .
• 252
Ps. viii., . 64, 265, 273 f., 316
Mai. iii. 17,
• • • 387
xxii. 22,
¦ 3"
xxxix. 12, .
• 396
Wisd. iv. 10, .
¦ 394
xl. 6-8,
¦ 3", 37i f-
ix.,
• 427
xlv., .
63, 251, 325, 37i
lxviii. (ix. ) 2,
. . . 388
Sirach i. 25,
. . . 85
lxxxix. 51, .
401
xliv. 16,
• 393
xcv. , .
. 3i4ff., 348, 421
xlix. 14,
• 393
442
References to Passages Quoted 443

PAGE

PAGE
1 Mace, ii, 59 f.,
. 402
Joh. xv. 13, . . . . 364
iv 
• 427
xvi. 11,
xx. 28,
269236
2 Mace, i.,
• 427
vii. 29,
¦ 403
Acts i. 3,
i. 6, .
l89
426
2 Esd. vii. 102-115,
• 413
i. 22, .
»¦ 34, •
405
252 f.
Apoc. Baruch, lxxxv
12,. . 413
ii. 47, .
iii. 21, .
19
426
Mt. v. 22,
. 19
v- 34, •
260
v- 39, •
. 90
vii. 38,
401
v. 48, . .
. 115
ix. 6, .
107
vi. 34, •
90, 108
xvi. 7, .
101
xi. 9, .
. 109
xvii. 26,
220
xi. 27, .
.io6f.
xxii. 10,
107
xvi. 18,
• 19
xxii. 20,
405
xvi. 25,
90, 170
xviii. 17,
• 19
Rom. i. 17,
386
xxvi. 30 ff., .
. . 185
iii. 22,
394
xxvi. 64,
. 220
iv. 11, 13,
394
xxvii. 46,
7L 95
iv. 19-21,
vi. Iff,
395 131
Mk. viii. 35, .
90, 170
viii. 12,
128
x. 18, .
. 125
viii. 38,
426
xiii. 32,
. 108
ix. 5, .
236
xiii. 35,
. 210
ix. 30, .
394
xiv. 26ft, .
. . 185
x. 6, .
394
xv. 34,
71, 95
xi. 36, .
62
xvi. 16,
• 394
xii. 18,
xii. 19,
411 386
Lk. i. 21,
• 44, 3^7
xiv. 14,
426
i. 78, .
. 430
u. 14, .
. . 381
1 Cor. iii. 1 f.,
332
ii. 49, •
• 3^3
v. 8, .
157
ix 24, .
. 90, 170
vi. 13 ft,
420
x. 22, .
.io6f.
vi. 20, .
17
xii. 49,
. . • 83
vii. 23,
17
xvii. 33,
. 90, 170
vii. 26,
420
xxi. 14,
. 109
xi. 1, .
229
xxi. 19,
. 209
xi. 17ft,
53
xxm. 34,
• 179, 409
xv. 28,
(
>2, 133, 178
xxiv. 48,
• 405
xv. 47,
xvi. 22,
. 241
3°, 265
Joh. i. 14,
• 197
i. 29, .
• 87, 134
2 Cor. v. 16,
¦ 235
viii. 56,
¦ 316
xii. 2, .
. 420
x. iof.,
. 170
xii. 9, .
. 82
xii. 24,
• 177
xii. 27,
. 172
Gal. i. 4,
. 163
xii. 31 f., .
. 269
ii. 20, .
4', 179
xiii. 31,
. 71
iii. 1, .
. 368
xiv. 2, .
• 3^3
iii. 11,.
. 386
xiv. 6, .
181, 192
iii. 15,.
. 18
444

References to Passages Quoted

PAGE

PAGE

Gal. iii. 16,

147, 266

Heb. i. 2, 33, 117, 143, 145, 152,

iv. 19, .

• 336

303, 390 f., 421

v. 17, .

. I63

i- 3, •

106, I36, 317, 334

i. 4, .
. 68
Eph. i. 14,
• 387
i. 5, .
• 33, 3046"-. 421
iii. 14-21, .
. 428
i. 6, .
43. 206
vi. 12, .
.268f.
i. 7, •
136, 266 {., 305 f.
i. 8, .
• 3°6, 319
Phil. i. 23, .
• 179
i. 10, .
63, 306, 417, 421
i. 25, .
. 426
i. 11, .
• 45
nt. 9, .
¦ 394
i- 13, •
33. 306, 308
111. 14,.
. 408
i. 14, .
• 43, 136
Col. ii. 14,
• 67
ii. 1, .
307 ft
iv. 3, .
. 426
ii. 2, .
• 307
"• 3. •
11, 68, 135, 303,308
1 Thess. v. 9, .
. 387
11. 4, .
¦ 123
v. 25, .
. 426
ii. 5, .
. 221, 304, 308 ff.
ii. 6, .
. 63 (., 68, 270 f.
2 Thess. ii. 14,
• 387
ii. 7, •
. 273 f., 313
iii. 1, .
. 426
ii. 8, .
• 103, 346
ii. 9, .
33. 43. 68, 70, 274,
1 Tim. ii. 4, .
• 34
309, 313, 345
iii. 16, .
. 292
ii. 10, .
143. 152, 33i, 408
vi. 13, .
• 405
ii. II, .
• 21, 45, 53
ii. 12, .
• 303
2 Tim. ii. 18, .
• 34
ii. 13, .
. 45
iv. 1, .
• 236
11. 14, .
• 43, 269
ii. 16, .
. . . 63
Tit. ii. 13,
. 236
ii. 17, . 45,
104 f., 136, 144, 146,
296, 314
Jam. ii. 1,
. 381
ii. 18, .
• ". 314
ii. 5, .
. 401
iii. 1, .
•139. 3M ff. 346
1 Pet. i. 5, .
. 241
iii. 3, .
20
ii. 9, •
1 55, 387
iii. 6, .
ti, 33. 3M. 319, 380,
ii. 19, .
. 380
421
iii. 7, ¦
271, 3i4f-. 3i8ft
2 Pet. i. 1, .
• 236
iii. 13,
21, 239, 407
iii. 12, .
• 338
iii. 14, 1
35, 301, 308. 388, 431
1 Joh. ii. 1,
. 130
iv. 1, .
11
iii. 2, .
219, 369
iv. 2, .
• 45, 308
iii. 14, .
. 127
iv. 3, ¦
• 3i5
111. 19,.
. 128
iv. 4, .
. 270, 320 f.
v. 16, .
. 129
iv. 7, .
• 314. 349
v. 18, .
. 127
iv. 9, .
• 43, 43i
iv. 10, .
¦ 321
Apoc. i. 10,
. 241
iv. 11,.
. 263
vi. 2, .
. 105
iv. 12, .
44. 3°8, 3I5> 321 ft
xix. 10,
270, 405
iv. 13, .
. 263, 322
xxii. 20,
. 219
iv. 14, .
315, 321, 323 f., 421
iv. 15, .
33, 120, 328
Heb. 1. 1, 33, 249, 302
ff, 354, 398
iv. 16, .
11, 44, 146, 380
References to Passages Quoted

445

PAGE

PAGE

eb. v. I, i

9, 45. 138, 144, 146,

Heb. ix. 10, .

11, 142, 335, 422

324 ft, 326 ft, 335

ix. 11, .

. 183, 360, 364

V. 2, .

9, 296

ix. 12, .

17°, 360, 362 ff, 37°

v. 4, ¦

. 326

ix. 14,. 11, 45, 113, 1.44, 170, '73.

»• 5. •

• 329. 353

358, 364, 381
v. 7, ¦ 33. n6, J44. 172, 296,
ix. 15,. 183, 35S, 36-""-. 3'>4».
328, 330 f.
ix. 16, .
• ¦ 18, 358
v. 8, . .
69, 72, 94, 98, 108
ix. 17,.
. 140
v. 9, .
¦ 33
ix. 18, .
358, 362 ft, 366
v. 10, .
• 6, 44, 183
ix. 22, .
11, 162, 360
v. II, .
• 123, 33lff-> 335
ix. 23, .
183, 358, 360, 366 ff.
v. 14, .
11, 21, 426
ix. 24, .
• 44, 368
ix. 26, .
145, 200, 360, 367
vi. 1, .
26, 33, 263, 301, 308,
ix. 27, .
• 368, 413
334 f.
ix. 28,. 33, 44, 13:4 '-3.3. 1.54: 200,
208, 328, 360, 382
vi. 4, . 11
, 13 f., 143, 224, 290,
320, 335 f-, 338,384
*. 1, .
• 139, 142, 369 ff-
. . . 46
*.. 4, .
. 19
vi. 9, .
320, 332, 337 f., 425
*• 5, •
109 f., 250, 274, 303,
vi. 10, .
20
311, 369 ft
vi. 12, .
11
x. 7, •
. . . 69
vi. 13, •
332, 338 ff.
x. 9, •
¦ 144
vi. 17, .
• 44
x. 10, .
¦ 371
vi. 18, .
. . . 46
X. II, .
¦ 369, 372 f.
vi. 19, •
182, 308, 407, 423
X. 12, .
. 33, 200 f.
vi. 20, .
• 44, 146
x. 15, •
• 271, 369, 373 f.
x. 18, .
¦ • • 356
vii. 1, .
143, 341 ff, 343 ff.
A. 19, .
44, 146, 182, 379 ff.
• 143
X. 20, .
44, 146, 161, 381
vii. 4, .
342, 346 f.
X. 22, .
. • 381
vii. 11,
• 137. 150, 342, 347 f-
x. 23, .
. 208 f., 301
vii. 15,
349 f-
x. 24, .
. 426
vii. 16,
45, 148, 170
a. 25, . 10,
22, 186, 208, 382, 425
vii. 19,
. 148
x. 26, . 30
3, 320, 380, 383 f., 385
vii. 20,
350f.
x. 27, .
11, 384
vii. 22,
¦ 354
x. 28, .
. 384
vii. 23,
• 351 f-
x. 30, .
. 214, 384, 386
vii- 25, 3.
j, 183, 199 {., 201, 368
x. 31, .
",45
vii. 26,
33, 120, 125, 132, 134,
x. 32, .
¦ 338, 380, 384 ff, 420
328, 342, 345, 352 f.
x. 33, •
21
vii. 27,
¦ 327, 357
x. 34, •
• 209, 305, 387
*¦ 35. •
11
viii. 1, .
• • • 354ff
x. 36, .
. 408
viii. 3, .
• 354,356
*• 37, •
• 369, 386
viii. 4, .
. 161
*• 39, •
. 209
viii. 6, .
. . . . 368
viii. 8, .
• i75. 250
xi. 1, . 11,
135, 197, 379, 387 ff-,
viii. 11,
• 355
39i, 394
viii. 13,
¦ 45. 355
xi. 2, .
. . . . 156
xi. 3, .
152, 389, 39i, 402, 404
ix. 1, .
19, 357 ff, 3fio P 402
xi. 4, .
392f-
ix. 6, .
• 357. 361
xi. 5, .
393f-
ix. 8, .
. 271
xi. 7, •
394 f-
446

References to Passages Quoted

PAGE

PAGE

Heb. xi. 8,

• 395

Heb. xii. 23, . 19, 382, 404, 415

xi. 9, .

• 339, 395

xii. 24, .

9, 416

xi. io, .

• 424

xu. 25, .

406, 416. f

xi. 12, .

¦ 45

xii. 26, .

. 2&2

xi. 13 f,

¦ 45, 395 f-, 424

xii. 27, .

45, 142, 308, 417

xi. 16, .

• 21, 44, 225, 396

xii. 28, .

I46, 183, 222, 296, 372,

xi. 17, .

• 39i, 397 f-

406, 408, 411, 4i6f., 428

xi. 20, .

398 f-

xii. 29, .

34, 44, 417

xi. 22, .

¦ 399

xi. 23, .
399 f-
xiii. 1, .
338,419 ft
xi. 24, .
. 400
xiii. 3, .
. 382
xi. 26, .
17, 21, 33, 250, 401
xiii. 4, .
. 420
xi. 27, .
• 259, 399 1-
xiii. 5, .
420 f.
xi. 28, .
399 f-
xiii. 7, .
45, !56, 419, 421
xi. 30, .
. 401
xiii. 8, .
197, 200, 265, 304, 308,
xi. 31, '.
. 401
421 f.
xi. 32, .
391, 401 ff.
xiii. 9,
• 44, 422, 426
xi- 35, ¦
402 f.
xiii. 10,
. 26, 48 f., 156, 340,
xi- 37, ¦
. 402
407, 422 ff.
xi. 38, •
• 396, 403
xiii. 12,
• 48, 58, 423
xi. 39, •
141, 39i, 396, 403 f-
xiii. 13,
12, 21, 136, 206,
xi. 40, .
¦ 396, 413
222, 380
xiii. 14,
 424
xii. 1, .
[2f., 46 f., 340, 379 f.,
xiii. 15,
¦ 144, 154
404 ff, 407 f., 423
xiii. 17,
10, 45, 156, 186, 423,
xii. 2, .
21, 33, 197
425 f.
xii. 4, .
9, 11, 406, 409 f.
xiii. 18,
. 380, 419, 426
xii. 7, .
. 402
xiii. 19,
426 f.
xii. 8, .
. 4IO
xiii. 20,
. 21, 69, 162 f., 185;
xii. 10, .
. 4IO
252, 427 ff.
xii. 12, .
. 4IO
xiii. 21,
. 321, 426
xii. 13, .
. 287, 410
xiii. 22,
• 33, 186, 431 f-
xii. 14, . 12,
33, 44, 406, 409 ff, 425
xiii. 23,
 432
xii. 15, .
. 425
xiii. 24,
• 5, 419, 427, 432 f-
xii. 17. .
¦ 413
xiii. 25,
 433
xii. 18, .
406, 414 f.
xii. 22, . 12,
43,45, 221 f., 305, 411
Clem. R.,
I. xliv., xlvii. . . 26
Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
3 9002

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