Heresy VIII, Of the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews

OF THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE HEBREWS — Heresy VIII (De epistola Pauli ad Hebræos hæresis VIII)

That the epistle to the Hebrews is neither Paul’s, nor to be numbered among the canonical scriptures.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

Philastrius, in his catalogue of heresies, recounts this error among the anonymous heresies, saying: “There are some who do not assert that the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews is his, but say that it is either the Apostle Barnabas’s, or Clement’s, bishop of the city of Rome.” ¹ But Epiphanius, in the first [book] against heresies, writes that the author of this error was Marcion, ² who rejected the present epistle, together with the epistles to Titus and to Timothy, as unworthy of the apostle. Tatian, Eusebius being witness, succeeded him in the same error. ³ Then after these (as Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Jerome narrate), Arius, the Aerians, and the Ariomanites, seeing that this epistle was most repugnant to their dogma, denied it to be Paul’s, and on that account cast it out of the canonical scriptures as adulterine and suspect. ⁴ Whose perfidy the fanatical Anabaptists and the atheist Servetians, imitating, have repudiated it for the same cause. But Luther, as also Calvin, and others out of their workshop, although they do not exclude it from the canon, yet deny it to be the apostle Paul’s, saying that it is worthy neither of the spirit of Paul nor of the majesty of an Apostle; whence, as often as it befalls them to cite some testimony out of this epistle, always passing over the name of Paul, they adduce in his place “the Author of the epistle to the Hebrews.”

IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

Since this heresy asserts two things — namely, both that this epistle is not Paul’s, and that it is not Canonical — therefore each must be confuted by us particularly. Beginning, then, from the author of the epistle, we show first that this most holy epistle is the apostle Paul’s, from the testimony of Blessed Peter: who, himself also writing to the Hebrews dispersed through Galatia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, discloses at once the name of the author of this epistle and its intention, while he exhorts the Hebrews to patience and longanimity, mention being made of the things which are contained in this most sacred epistle; saying thus: “Wherefore, dearest, expecting these things, be diligent that you may be found immaculate and inviolate before him in peace; and count the longanimity of our Lord Jesus Christ as salvation — even as our dearest brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you.” ⁵ Which Paul had assuredly done throughout this whole epistle, ever bent wholly upon this one thing: to lead them to the toleration of present afflictions, and to a firm and certain hope of future rewards. For as Theophylact says, explicating the argument of this epistle: “Paul proves two things in this epistle: both that whatever things befall are to be borne manfully, and that rewards for labors are to be expected. For the Lord will not neglect those whom from eternity he has destined to holiness.” And although Paul pursues this most amply through the whole epistle, yet he treated it more ardently and more vividly in the tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters.

Secondly, it manifestly appears that neither Luke, nor Clement, nor Tertullian, as some have thought, were the authors of this epistle, but Paul himself; and this from the words placed at the end (in calce) of the epistle, in which the author exhorts the Hebrews to pray to God for his welfare, that he may the more quickly return to them. For thus he says: “The more do I beseech you to do this, that I may the sooner be restored to you.” ⁶ These words cannot suit Clement, who was a Roman, and had never been away from Rome, nor had lived among the Hebrews; nor yet Barnabas — for although Clement, in his itinerary (which is reckoned among the apocryphal scriptures), writes that he was at Rome, yet the greater part of writers denies that he came into Italy. Whence [these words] indicate that this epistle was written by Paul,

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the subscription of the epistle itself, which is had in the Greek codices: ἐγράφη ἀπὸ Ἰταλίας, διὰ Τιμοθέου — that is, “written from Italy by Timothy”; and Chrysostom attests that it was written at Rome, and sent thence to the Hebrews by Timothy. But neither can those words be fitted to Tertullian: both because before the times of Tertullian there are found in the writings of the Fathers many testimonies taken out of this epistle; and because Tertullian himself, as Jerome notes in the book On Illustrious Men, brought forth his own opinion concerning the author of this epistle. To this is added that the author, among other things, making mention also of his own chains, writes thus in the tenth chapter according to the Greek truth: καὶ γὰρ τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου συνεπαθήσατε — that is, “For you also had compassion on my chains.” Which words do not seem to suit Clement. And the same [author] asserts at the end of the epistle that he delivered this epistle to Timothy to be carried to the Hebrews; which surely is a great indication that Paul wrote it, and gave it to be borne by Timothy his disciple, to whom he was joined by a most holy intimacy (necessitudine) — which Clement perhaps would not have done, seeing that he was not joined to Timothy by so great a bond of fellowship in the building up of the churches.

But the author himself also closes the end of this epistle with that most happy prayer of grace, saying: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Which prayer Paul himself, at the end of the second epistle to the Thessalonians, attests to be his sign and token (tesseram), with which he was accustomed to subscribe all his epistles: “The salutation (says he) of me Paul, with my own hand; which is the sign in every epistle: so I write: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” ⁷

There persuades us also that this epistle is Paul’s that most ardent zeal and fervor with which the whole soul of Paul burned for the conversion of the Hebrews to the truth of the faith; which, writing to the Romans, he openly indicates, saying: “I wished to be an anathema for my brethren, who are my kinsmen, of whom is Christ according to the flesh.” ⁸ And again: “As long as I am the Apostle of the gentiles, I will honor my ministry, if in any way I may provoke my flesh to emulation — that is, the Jews — and may save some of them.” ⁹ How then should Paul not write to his own Hebrews, whom he loved so ardently? And since he had written many epistles to others who were not joined to him according to the flesh, why did he not write at least one epistle to his own? And if he wrote it, this is certainly that one: in which Paul, stirred by that divine fire, exhorts the Hebrews that, the oldness of the law being laid aside, they should hasten, through patience and the endurance of labors, to that heavenly Jerusalem, and to that more perfect tabernacle of eternal redemption, designated in the shadows of the Mosaic tabernacle. That this same epistle is Paul’s, the common testimony of all the most ancient fathers proves. And before others, Blessed Dionysius, the disciple of Paul, in his works cites a testimony out of that epistle as composed by his own (as he calls him) preceptor, leader, and instructor. To him subscribes Blessed Clement, third after Blessed Peter bishop of the city of Rome; of whom Eusebius, in the third book of the History, speaks thus: ¹⁰ “Clement, in the epistle which he writes to the Corinthians, remembers the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, and uses its testimonies. Whence it is well established that the Apostle wrote it in his native speech, as one to be sent to Hebrews; and (as some hand down) Luke the evangelist — but others say this very Clement — interpreted it [into Greek]. Which latter is also the more true: because both the very style of Clement agrees with this epistle, and the sense of each writing indeed preserves a very great likeness.” ¹¹ Thus far Eusebius. With whom Clement of Alexandria agrees, who in the books of his ὑποτυπώσεων [Hypotyposes] asserts that this same epistle was written by Paul, and afterward translated into Greek by Luke. And Origen, on the first psalm, writes of the author of this epistle in this manner: “Although some have doubted concerning the epistle written to the Hebrews, on the ground that there does not seem to be preserved in it that opinion of his which he pronounces of himself, saying that he is unskilled in speech — yet I say, as it has been handed down to me from my elders, that it is most manifestly Paul’s, and all our ancient elders always received it as the Apostle Paul’s.” The same is the judgment of Chrysostom; whose abbreviator Theophylact inveighs thus against those who deny this epistle to be Paul’s: “I cannot indeed but marvel at the impudence of many men, who, although they understand that by the exordium of this epistle so many heresies have been confuted, nevertheless do not cease to affirm that this epistle does not befit blessed Paul, as though foreign to the rest of his epistles. But I would have them not be ignorant that both the sense of this epistle, and its profundity, and that irrefutable force, can be no other’s than Paul’s, who has Christ speaking in him.” And that I may not recount the several testimonies of the Fathers — namely of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and others, who confess it to be Paul’s — let one single testimony of the whole catholic church suffice us: which, in the natal solemnities of our Lord Jesus Christ, sings the beginning of this epistle in the divine mysteries under the name of Blessed Paul the apostle. From all which it becomes perspicuous that this epistle is no other’s than Paul’s.

But that the present epistle is to be received in the canon of the divine scriptures, the sacrosanct decrees of the Councils show first of all: above all, the most sacred Synod of Nicaea received it among the sacred volumes as written by the apostle Paul; and the Council of Laodicea related it in its catalogue; and the third Council of Carthage, and the Council of Orange (Aurusicanum), inserted it in the canon. To which subscribe the decrees of Innocent the first, and of Gelasius, and of Eugenius the fourth, which enumerate this epistle in the catalogue of the divine scriptures. And that it was also always received in the church as canonical, and reprobated by none except heretics, the common consensus of the Greek fathers demonstrates; of whom — lest I run through all their testimonies — I shall adduce the single sentence of Theodoret, which he expressed against the Arians who repudiated this epistle: “They accomplish nothing (says he) who labor under the Arian disease, if they rage against the apostolic letters, and separate the epistle to the Hebrews from the rest, and call it adulterine. For they who move their tongues against God and our Savior — what would they not have dared against his well-wishers, the grand-speaking heralds of the truth?”

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“…heralds of the truth? For it is the voice of the Lord himself: ‘If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also.’ And it behooved them, if nothing else, at least to reverence the long duration of the time through which the fosterlings of the truth have read this epistle perpetually in the churches. For from the time when the churches became partakers of the apostolic letters, from that same time they receive also the profit of the epistle to the Hebrews. But if not even this suffices to persuade them, they ought at least to believe Eusebius of Palestine, whom they call the patron of their own decrees; for even he confessed that this epistle is the most divine Paul’s. But bidding farewell to all these, they impudently fight against the truth, not bearing the splendor of the apostolic Theology with which he adorned the proem. For since they could not resist the things which had been openly said concerning the divinity of the Only-begotten, they dared to reject the whole epistle; although both its decrees and its sentences have a great kinship with the other epistles of the same [Paul].” Thus far Theodoret. And Augustine, when he had heard that certain Latins did not receive this epistle, said that he preferred to follow the authority of the eastern churches, among whom there was never any ambiguity concerning this epistle. And Jerome, writing to Dardanus, judges the most efficacious argument of its authority to be this: that the longest-continued use of the church has approved it by unbroken reading. Let these things suffice against the enemies of this epistle. Now let us pass to the things which they object against its authority.

OBIECTIONES HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

There are two kinds of adversaries with whom our contest concerning the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews lies: the first (as we have already said) cast the epistle — whosesoever it may be — out of the canon as adulterine; the others, although they receive it as sacred and divine, yet deny it to be the apostle Paul’s. Those, then, who explode it from the canon of the divine scriptures are moved by these causes (as Philastrius relates): ¹²

1. First, the epistle to the Hebrews is to be disowned because its author, immediately in the very exordium, seems to think ill of the only-begotten Son of God, together with the Arians: both because he makes the Son diverse from the substance of the Father, when he names him not the substance of the Father, but “the splendor of his glory, and the image of the substance of the father” — of which assuredly neither is the substance; and because he shows the Son not begotten of the Father, but made together with the other creatures, when he adds: “Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name above them.” ¹³

2. To this is adjoined that the same author, in the sixth chapter of this epistle, seems to favor the cruelty of the Novatians, which denies pardon to the lapsed. For he says: “It is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have tasted moreover the good word of God and the virtues of the world to come, and have fallen away — to be renewed again to penance.” ¹⁴ And again, in chapter 10 of the same epistle, confirming this same thing, he adds: “For if we sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins.” ¹⁵ Which sentences are so cruel that they lead the weak consciences of sinners into desperation. These things Philastrius relates as objected by the ancient heretics.

3. But the more recent Anabaptists and Servetians infest it with other calumnies, accusing first its author of interpreting the testimonies of the old testament perversely, and of introducing them far from their purpose: as he did in the beginning of the epistle, where, intending to demonstrate that Christ is the son of God, he violently wrested that testimony out of the second volume of Kings, namely: “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” ¹⁶ — which words were uttered not of Christ, but of Solomon. For thus in that place the Lord speaks to David through Nathan the prophet: “I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall go forth out of thy womb, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house to my name, and I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And if he commit any iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and with the stripes of men; but my mercy I will not take away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before my face.” ¹⁷ Which sayings — so far is it from being the case that they speak of Christ — cannot be accommodated to him without the greatest contumely. For how could those words be fitted to Christ: “Who, if he commit any iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men” — since Christ not only never committed sin, but could not even sin?

4. Next, the author assumes certain fictitious things out of uncertain assertions of the Hebrews, asserting that in the ark of the covenant of the Jews there was a certain golden urn with the manna that rained in the desert, and that rod of Aaron which had budded; ¹⁸ whereas it is written in the third volume of Kings that there was nothing else in the ark except the two stone tables which Moses had placed in it at Horeb, when he made the covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁹

5. Hence it appears to have come about that the Latin church did not receive it into the canon, and did not take it up for the proving of dogmas — as is discerned from the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, and Arnobius, who never used its testimony. And Jerome attests that even down to his own times it had not been taken up into the canon. For he says, upon the sixth chapter of Isaiah: “Whence also Paul the apostle, in the epistle to the Hebrews — which the Latin custom does not receive…”; and upon the eighth chapter of Isaiah: “But for the rest (says he), the blessed Apostle, in the epistle which is written to the Hebrews — although the Latin custom does not receive it among the canonical scriptures…” Nay, Jerome himself seems to attribute little to the authority of this epistle, since he is accustomed always to cite it with a mark of doubt prefixed. And these are the arguments used by those who endeavor to break the canonical authority of this epistle.

6. But those who receive the epistle, yet deny Paul to be its author, strive to persuade this by many conjectures and by testimonies of the fathers — but especially from this (as Philastrius says): that its author wrote in a plausible style, rhetorically, ²⁰ with a more splendid oration and a grander style, by no means observing that sentence which Paul pronounces of himself, saying that he is unskilled in speech; and, “I came not to you in loftiness of speech” ²¹ — inasmuch as he was more eloquent [than Paul], and could not imitate the simplicity of Paul which appears in his epistles.

7. But lest anyone should perhaps say that Paul, writing in Hebrew,

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[lest anyone should say that Paul,] writing [in Hebrew], was more eloquent in this epistle than in the others written by him in the Greek tongue, it must be known that it was first composed not in Hebrew but in Greek. Of which thing these are the indications. First, because it is not found written in Hebrew; nor was there ever anyone who testified that he had read or seen it in the Hebrew language; nor is it at all established who turned it from the Hebrew tongue into Greek — some asserting, with uncertain authority, that Luke, others that Clement, was its interpreter. Next, because its author, in the seventh chapter of the epistle, interpreting the name of Melchisedech king of Salem, says: “which is interpreted king of justice, and of peace.” ²² But if he — himself a Hebrew — was writing to Hebrews, and in Hebrew speech, I ask, for what reason did he wish to explicate what the word, most well-known to Hebrews, showed of itself? And then, in what language did he interpret it? Not in Hebrew — lest he should expound the same by the same, with a superfluous fault of trifling. It remains, therefore, that the epistle was put forth in Greek, and that the name Melchisedech — as being unknown to Greeks — was interpreted in the Greek tongue. To these things is added that the author uses testimonies of the old instrument not according to the Hebrew truth, but according to the Greek edition of the Seventy; which it is by no means verisimilar that a Hebrew writer, writing chiefly in Hebrew to Hebrews, would have done. For why, forsaking the fountain of the Hebrew tongue, should he have begged Hebrew testimonies from the rivulets of foreign interpretations?

8. This moreover seems to persuade that the epistle is not Paul’s: that he did not prefix his name to this epistle, as he was accustomed to do in his other epistles. Nor is the occasion of doubting removed by what they say — that the Apostle did this deliberately, lest the Hebrews, hostile to him, upon seeing the name of Paul on the front of the epistle, should straightway cast it away. For the Apostle, if he had feared this, could have inserted his name either in the middle of the epistle or near the end, as he was wont to do in all his epistles. ²³

9. To these are added many testimonies, and first of all of the author himself: because in the second chapter of this epistle he numbers himself among those in whom the evangelical salvation was confirmed through those who heard it from the Lord Jesus; the opposite of which Paul proclaims of himself, saying that he learned neither from man nor through man, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ, the apostles conferring nothing upon him. ²⁴

10. But neither can that suit Paul which the author writes at the end of the epistle concerning Timothy: “Know that your brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.” For how is it fitting that Paul — who had already appealed to Caesar, and for no other cause than to slip out of the hands of the Jews — should so suddenly be changed, and wish to return to them again, and promise that he will return the more speedily to the very place whence a little before he had fled for fear of death?

11. Furthermore, the testimonies of the scriptures, adduced by the author otherwise, and otherwise understood, than they are wont to be adduced and understood by Paul, indicate that someone other than Paul wrote it. For what the writer of the present epistle took out of Psalm 2 to show that Christ is greater than the angels, saying: “To which of the angels said he at any time: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee?” — Paul understood otherwise, taking it up to prove the resurrection of Christ, when he expounded it in the synagogue of Antioch, saying: “And we declare unto you that the promise which was made to our fathers, this God hath fulfilled to your children, raising up Jesus again, as it is written in the second Psalm: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.” ²⁵

12. The common consensus also of all the Latins, and of some Greeks, shows that the author of this epistle was not Paul — as Jerome has noted repeatedly: as in the book On Illustrious Men, where he says, “This epistle, among the Romans even to this day, is not held to be Paul’s” ²⁶ — and again in the same book: “The epistle (says he) which is carried about as ‘to the Hebrews’ is believed not to be Paul’s, on account of the distance of style and speech, but either Barnabas’s, according to Tertullian, or Luke the evangelist’s, according to some; or even Clement’s, of the city of Rome.” The same he confirms also in the epistle to Paulinus, and in the epistle to Evagrius, and in very many other places. And among the Greeks, as Eusebius relates, Gaius — by no means to be contemned among the ecclesiastical writers — rejects it from the other epistles of Paul the apostle. ²⁷

13. Finally, whosesoever it may be, it matters nothing. For we can affirm, without any crime of heresy, that it is not Paul’s; nor ought he who believes otherwise to be reckoned a heretic — Jerome so determining in the epistle to Dardanus, where he speaks thus: “That epistle most men judge to be either Barnabas’s or Clement’s. But it makes no difference whose it is, since it is an ecclesiastical man’s, and is celebrated daily in the reading of the churches.” These things the adversaries of this epistle are wont to bring forth.

DILVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. Answering these, we say, to the first: that those words of Paul are so far from favoring the Arians that they are opposed to them in the highest degree. For, as Theophylact says, ²⁸ these words — according to the explanation of Gregory of Nyssa — Paul, teaching that the Son is the splendor and the figure of the Father, does not signify him to be less than the Father; but by “splendor” he shows the unity of essence, whereby the Son is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, no otherwise than splendor is to light; and by “figure,” the equality of nature: because neither does the subject (suppositum) exceed its figure, nor is the figure exceeded by its subject; for the subject does not transcend the lines of the figure, nor do the lineaments of the figure go out beyond the amplitude of the subject. And when he said the Son was “made,” he did not understand him made in divinity (says Philastrius), but demonstrates him made in body and in humanity. ²⁹

2. Nor do those words of the sixth chapter agree in any way with the dogma of Novatus. For when Paul says that those who have fallen away cannot be renewed to penance, he does not exclude sinners from repentance, but (says Philastrius) shows the diverse grade of dignity between him who has kept himself whole and him who has sinned. ³⁰ For it is more glorious not to have fallen into the deformity of sin than to rise again from the deformity of sin after a fall. There is therefore a detriment of dignity in him who has sinned, but not a loss of salvation. For just as, when the ensign of virginity’s ³¹

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[just as, when the] beauty [of the ensign of virginity has been lost,] it is impossible to be corporally renewed to it again, so, when the dignity of pristine justice has been lost, it is impossible to be renewed again through penance to that same dignity of justice and innocence. For it cannot come to pass that he who has even once fallen into sin should any longer be able to glory that he has never at any time fallen into sin. But just as to him who has lapsed from virginity there still remains the second honor of continence, so to him who has fallen after the laver [of baptism] there still remains a second remedy. ³² Moreover, Paul in these words excludes not absolutely all penance, but the penance of the rebaptizers, who did not receive sinners to penance after a lapse except by a baptism reiterated a second and a third time after sin; which Epiphanius witnesses that Marcion did not long after Paul’s time, expiating penitents by a threefold washing of baptism for the remission of each grave fault. ³³ And since this had begun to be done even in the time of Paul, the Apostle pronounced that it cannot be that sinners should be renewed to penance through the iteration of baptism. ³⁴ And that the words of the tenth chapter are to be understood in this sense, Chrysostom shows, whose words are these: “Here again rise up those who take away penance, saying: it is not safe to give the sacraments to sinners, since there is no second remission after sin. What then shall we say? That in this place he excludes neither penance, nor the propitiation which is made through penance; nor does he repel and cast down the delinquent by desperation — for he is not such an enemy of our salvation. But what then? He excludes a second laver. For he did not say, ‘there is no further penance’; nor did he say, ‘there is no further remission’; but, ‘a victim (hostia),’ says he, ‘there is no more.’ There is no second cross any more — for by ‘victim’ he here means this.”

3. But as to the calumny of the Anabaptists and Servetians against Paul — that he violently wrested that scripture of the second of Kings to Christ — it is beyond doubt most false. For many things which were said to the letter of certain persons in the old testament have been fulfilled, according to the spirit and the perfect truth, in Christ; and most of all the present testimony, which, as Lactantius says, cannot according to the letter be understood at all of Solomon. ³⁵ For neither can the kingdom of Solomon — which failed in the transmigration of Babylon — be called perpetual, as the words of that vaticination promise, when God says: “I will establish the throne of his kingdom even for ever”; nor can the words which follow be understood wholly of Solomon: “And thy house shall be faithful, and thy kingdom for ever” — because the house of Solomon was full of foreign women, worshipping false gods and driving Solomon himself to the same. It remains, therefore, that these things were completed in Christ, the son of David according to the flesh: whose house — that is, the assembly of the faithful — has been and will be faithful unto everlasting; whose kingdom — that is, the church of the Christians — is perpetual, according to the sentence of Daniel: “His power is an eternal power, and his kingdom [a kingdom] that shall not be corrupted.” ³⁶ Wherefore, just as the preceding and the following words of that vaticination are understood of our Savior, so also those which are placed in the midst of them — namely, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” — are to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God. Nor do the subsequent words at all stand in the way: “If he commit any iniquity, I will correct him”: because, although the very person of Christ cannot sin, yet the mystical Christ — that is, his members — can sin, and do sin at times, and their iniquities are visited with a rod, and their sins with stripes (as the Psalm says); but the mercy of the Lord is not taken away from them. ³⁷

4. To that which they commemorate concerning the ark of the testament, Theophylact, in the explanation of the ninth chapter to the Hebrews, meets them in this manner: ³⁸ “You will ask, perhaps — since it is well known that it is recorded in the letters of the book of Kings that nothing else was laid up in the ark besides the tables — why Paul has now joined to them both the Urn, and concluded that rod of Aaron [to be there]? Perhaps he said this because, as one instructed by Gamaliel, he was excellently versed in Hebrew history, and had received by the tradition of the elders that the matter stood thus; especially since the Hebrews who follow the Pharisees both think and profess this very thing — not, however, in the very beginnings, but a long time afterward, when it was necessary that in the times of Jeremiah the ark should be hidden: [at that time,] they say, both the urn and the rod were stored away in it.” ³⁹ Thus far Theophylact; who, a little above, rendering the cause why these three things were placed in the ark, says it was done by divine providence, that in it the chief monuments of Jewish ingratitude might be preserved. His words stand thus: “These things without doubt are all monuments of the ingratitude of the Jews. For that the manna was preserved in the urn — that manna at which they had once murmured while being nourished by it — was ordained to this end, that the fame of this thing might pass to posterity, and that it might be handed down to memory how they had exasperated God; the rod of Aaron, that their contumacy might be made known, and how they had once withstood Aaron himself; and the tables of the testament convicted them of infidelity and inconstancy — for it was on their account that those [first tables] were worn away [broken], because they had molten a calf for themselves and had served idols.”

5. But concerning that which they say — that this epistle is not cited by the ancient Latins, as being one which was not in the canon among them, and that by their example it is lawful for us to cast the same out of the canon — we answer that the opinion of the heretics is as rash as it is false. False indeed, since we read it cited by the most ancient fathers of the Roman church: and first of all by Clement of Rome, who, in the first epistle to James the brother of the Lord, produces out of it those words which are had in the eleventh chapter: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” And Evaristus, the first Pope [of that name], in his second epistle, cites from the fourth chapter of this epistle that sentence: “There is not any creature invisible in his sight: and all things are naked and open to his eyes.” And Hyginus, the first Pontiff of that name, in his epistle to all the faithful of Christ, brings forth a testimony from the 2nd chapter of [the epistle to] the Hebrews in this manner: “For in that wherein he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those also who are tempted.” ⁴⁰ And lest I weary my readers in recounting all the testimonies which are found received among the most ancient fathers concerning the present epistle: let us grant to them that this epistle was nowhere cited by the ancient fathers, and (what is more) that even by them there was at times doubt

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[that even by them there was at times] doubt concerning it. What then? Will it therefore be lawful for us also to doubt of it again? By no means, assuredly. For although those most ancient fathers, before the universal determination of the whole church, were permitted to entertain doubt about this epistle, and not rashly to receive it into the canon, yet to us, after so many decrees of councils and the common sanction of the catholic church, it is by no means lawful to do the same: since by these all those causes of doubting have been removed which could induce Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, and other fathers not undeservedly to hesitate about this epistle, and accordingly not to produce testimonies out of it for the confirmation of our faith. Now among the other occasions of suspicion the first was this: that this epistle was of the kind of those scriptures which came to the notice of the whole catholic church not immediately from the beginning of the nascent church, but a little later. Of which sort are the epistle of James, the second of Peter, the second and third of John, and the Apocalypse of the same; concerning which, before they were placed in the canon, there was deservedly disputation among the fathers, lest they should decide a matter of such moment without long and diligent examination. And the other cause is this: that since the authority of the whole church had not yet decreed anything about this epistle, it was free for anyone, without peril of heresy, to doubt and to discourse about it. But now, when this epistle, after so great a multitude of years, has been taken up into the canon by the decrees of so many councils, it is not only rash but heretical to call its authority into doubt again. And as for what they subjoin — that this epistle in Jerome’s time was not in the canon, and that Jerome himself attributed little to its authority — they lie. For Jerome himself brings forth both his own opinion and that of the church of his time, in the epistle to Dardanus concerning the land of promise, speaking thus: “The epistle which is inscribed ‘to the Hebrews’ is received as the apostle Paul’s not only by the churches of the East, but by all writers of the Greek speech; although most judge it either Barnabas’s or Clement’s. But it makes no difference whose it is, since it is an ecclesiastical man’s, and is celebrated daily in the reading of the churches. And if the custom of the Latins does not receive it, neither indeed do the churches of the Greeks receive the Apocalypse of John with the same liberty. And yet we receive both — by no means following the custom of this time, but the authority of the ancient writers, who for the most part use the testimonies of each, not as they are sometimes wont to do with the Apocrypha, but as ecclesiastical and canonical.” From which words it is plain that although the irrational custom of the vulgar in the time of Jerome did not receive this epistle, yet Jerome, and the other presidents and moderators of the church — whose office it was to decide concerning the authority of the divine letters — contemning the custom of the uncertain vulgar, received the epistle to the Hebrews as canonical. So much for those who cast this epistle out of the canon.

6. I come now to those who, receiving the epistle, deny it to be Paul’s: because its author, wandering at large through Rhetorical places, uses a more splendid style than the Apostle is wont. ⁴¹ To whom we say that this is not to be wondered at, since it is natural to each man to be stronger in his own than in a foreign tongue. For the Apostle composed the other epistles in foreign speech — that is, in Greek — but this one, being a Hebrew, [he wrote] in Hebrew, that is, in his own eloquence, in which he was the more fluent, the more eloquently. And it is credible also, as Origen says on the first psalm, that what Paul had written eloquently in the Hebrew tongue, the Greek interpreter (whoever he was) translated into the Greek speech even more eloquently.

7. Now as for what they allege — that this epistle was not written in Hebrew, because neither is the name of the interpreter known, nor is it found written in Hebrew — it is of very little moment. For what does it matter whether it be found written in Hebrew or not, since all consent that it was turned out of Hebrew into Greek? And who the interpreter was — whether Luke, as Clement of Alexandria thinks in the book of the Hypotyposes (Hypotiposeon), or, as others judge, Clement of Rome — is a matter of such trifling weight that it needs no consideration; but, as Origen says, if it be asked by whom its speech was composed, “God assuredly knows for certain; ⁴² yet the opinion which has come down even to us is either that Clement, the disciple of the Apostles and bishop of the city of Rome, polished it in Greek speech (though not in its senses), or that it was Luke, who wrote the Gospel and adorned the Acts of the apostles.” And as to that which they say — that the interpretation of the name Melchisedech betrays a Greek writer — it is most trifling: since no one but will straightway recognize that this was done by the Greek interpreter, if he considers that it is a thing most usual in the sacred letters for interpreters frequently to interpret names of this kind, as was done in Genesis and in Exodus with the names Benoni, and Beniamim, and Phase: of which the Seventy turned the first “son of my sorrow,” the second “son of the right hand,” the third “the passover of the Lord.” And what we say of the interpretation of these names — that it was done by the interpreter — the same we say also of the testimonies of the old testament adduced in this epistle according to the Seventy. For it is verisimilar that the interpreter (whoever he was), in turning the testimonies of the old scripture which Paul had cited according to the Hebrew truth, used the edition of the Seventy, as being more familiar to himself, who was a Greek.

8. But concerning the name of Paul — that it is neither prefixed to the epistle nor written within it — D. Jerome gives satisfaction, saying: ⁴³ “But if this epistle is not Blessed Paul’s because it does not have his name prefixed, then it will be no one’s, since no other man’s name is prefixed to it. How much more prudent, then, even for this very reason to judge it to be Blessed Paul’s — because there was in it a singular reason for suppressing the name.” And that reason was twofold: one, that writing to those who had believed out of the circumcision, as the Apostle of the gentiles and not of the Hebrews — knowing also their pride, and himself demonstrating his own humility — he would not set the merit of his office before them. For in like manner the apostle John, on account of humility, for the same reason did not prefix his name in his epistle. The other cause is that Paul was odious to the Hebrews, to whom he seemed both the Apostle of the Gentiles and a destroyer of the law. And so he did not set his odious name at the head of the epistle, lest the envy of the prefixed name should shut out the profit that was to follow,

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should shut out [the profit] of the reading; and for that cause he neither wrote his name within nor subscribed it, as he had done in his other epistles, so that the epistle might travel more safely among the Hebrews who were hostile to him, without the impediment of his own name, and might the more willingly be read through entire, from beginning to end, by all.

9. Now concerning the words of the Apostle by which he seems to number himself among those who received [the faith] not from Christ but from the apostles: it is said that Paul in these words asserts that he learned from others not the doctrine, but the salvation — which salvation was confirmed in him through those who heard from the Lord; namely by Ananias, the disciple of the Lord, to whom he was sent, that through him the Salvation might be confirmed in him by the washing of baptism and the restitution of his sight. And yet, if we speak of his doctrine, this too was confirmed through those who seemed to be the pillars of the church: even as he himself testifies to the Galatians that he conferred with the apostles his gospel, which he preached among the gentiles, lest perhaps he should run in vain. ⁴⁴

10. Nor should it seem marvelous to anyone if Paul — who for fear of the Jews had appealed to Caesar — desired, as if his counsel were changed, to return again to the Jews; seeing that Christ willed to return into Judaea, whence a little before he had scarcely escaped from the hands of those who would stone him, even while the apostles reproved him: “for there are twelve hours of the day,” as Christ then said. ⁴⁵ Whence it is also possible that Paul, then admonished by the Spirit of God, desired that from which his mind before shrank — especially since, the two years at Rome being completed, he believed he might more safely return to Jerusalem: either because he hoped the envy of the Jews was now calmed; or, if he believed it not yet calmed, nevertheless, being now released, he could easily promise himself, from Caesar, a safe return to his own people.

11. But that which is objected concerning the testimony of the second Psalm — that it is adduced here otherwise than by Paul in the Acts — Bede most easily dissolves, saying that the testimony of the psalm recited by Paul in the Acts pertains not to the resurrection of Christ, of which the Apostle was about to speak next in his discourse, but to both nativities of Christ — namely the eternal and the temporal — of which he had spoken a little above in the same discourse, saying that he was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and was proclaimed by John, as the Messiah, the true Son of God. ⁴⁶

12. To all the testimonies of Jerome we answer, as was already said above: that he speaks not according to his own opinion, but according to the opinion of certain Latins, and especially according to the custom of the vulgar, introduced at that time by usage rather than by reason or by the judgment of the learned. And although at that time some even of the illustrious among the Latins doubted concerning this epistle, whether it should be received into the Canon, yet in our age, after the church’s determination, so long-continued and so certain, it is no longer lawful to doubt of it.

13. And lest anyone should say that he can at least doubt of the author of this epistle without the crime of heresy, because Jerome said, “Whosesoever it may be, it makes no difference” — it must be known that he brought forth that word not in the manner of one asserting and determining, but out of the opinion of his adversaries: so that, according to the law of disputants, he might show the absurd inference of those who, from the uncertainty of the author, inferred that this epistle is not canonical. Jerome, then, rejecting this consecution, says that whosesoever the epistle may be, it neither matters nor hinders but that it can be canonical, provided it be an orthodox and ecclesiastical man’s. Let these rash men therefore cease to marvel if we pronounce them heretics when they refuse to believe, against so many testimonies. And let them no longer say: “What great matter is it, if one doubt about the author of this epistle?” For it matters enough, and much. For the Arians, Servetians, and Anabaptists took from this their first handle for rejecting this epistle — which assuredly they would not have dared to do, had they seen it received by all, for certain, as the apostle Paul’s. Moreover, many books of holy men have been rejected by the church from the canon for no other cause than that it was not believed that they were the works of those authors under whose names they were fore-noted: as happened with the book of Enoch, and very many other books which are cited in the holy scriptures, which Augustine says the church spurned — not because it reprobated the authority of those men who pleased God, but because it did not believe those books to be theirs whose they were said to be. ⁴⁷ Finally, it matters very much that the authority of so many fathers, who have attested this to us, be preserved whole, undoubted, and immune from every suspicion of deception. For if we concede that in this one thing so many fathers were deceived, what hinders but that in other things also they be rendered suspect of error and imprudence? — since he who is deceived, and deceives, in one thing, must be believed capable of being deceived and of deceiving in others also. Thus far concerning the epistle to the Hebrews.