Chapter XII: Part 12

[23] Kautzsch, in his profoundly learned article on the "Religion of
Israel," to which frequent reference has been made, exhibits (pp.
669-671) an excess of scepticism, in our opinion, towards the views
propounded by Gunkel in 1895 (_Schopfung und Chaos_) respecting the
intimate connexion between the early Hebrew cosmogonic ideas and
those of Babylonia. Stade indeed (_Z.A.T.W._, 1903, pp. 176-178)
maintained that the conception of Yahweh as creator of the world
could not have arisen till after the middle of the 8th century as the
result of prophetic teaching, and that it was not till the time of
Ezekiel that Babylonian conceptions entered the world of Hebrew
thought in any fulness. Such a theory appears to ignore the
remarkable results of archaeology since 1887. At that time Stade's
position might have appeared reasonable. It was the conclusion to
which Wellhausen's brilliant literary analysis, when not supplemented
by the discoveries at Tell el-Amarna and Tell el-Hesi, appeared to
many scholars (by no means all) inevitably to conduct us. But the
years 1887 to 1891 opened many eyes to the fact that the Hebrews
lived their life on the great highways of intercourse between Egypt
on the one hand, and Babylonia, Assyria and the N. Palestinian states
on the other, and that they could scarcely have escaped the
all-pervading Babylonian influences of 2000-1400 B.C. It is now
becoming clearer every day, especially since the discovery of the
laws of Khammurabi, that, if we are to think sanely about Hebrew
history _before_ as well as after the exile, we can only think of
Israel as part of the great complex of Semitic and especially
Canaanite humanity that lived its life in western Asia between 2000
and 600 B.C.; and that while the Hebrew race maintained by the aid of
prophetism its own individual and exalted place, it was not less
susceptible _then_, than it has been since, to the moulding
influences of great adjacent civilizations and ideas. Cf. C. H. W.
Johns in _Interpreter_, pp. 300-304 (in April 1906), on prophetism in
Babylonia.

[24] There is some danger in too strictly construing the language of
the prophets and also the psalmists. It is not to be supposed that
either Amos or Isaiah would have countenanced the total suppression
of all sacrificial observance. It was the existing ceremonial
observance _divorced from the ethical piety_ that they denounced. The
speech of prophecy is poetical and rhetorical, not strictly defined
and logical like that of a modern essayist. See Moore in _Encyc.
Bibl._, "Sacrifice," col. 4222.

[25] Viz. Budde in _Die so-genannten Ebed-Jahweh Lieder u. die
Bedeutung des Knechtes Jahwehs in Jes. xl.-lv._ (Giessen, 1900); Karl
Marti in his well-known commentary on Isaiah, and F. Giesebrecht,
_Der Knecht Jahwes des Deuterojesaja_. The special servant-songs
which Duhm asserts can be readily detached from the texture of the
Deutero-Isaiah without disturbance to its integrity are Isa. xlii.
1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12.

[26] We have here followed Dillmann's construction of a difficult
passage which Duhm attempts to simplify by omission of the
complicating clause without altering the general sense.

[27] Thus in comparison with the "book of the covenant," Deuteronomy
adds the stipulation in reference to the release of the slave; that
his master was to provide him liberally from his flocks, his corn and
his wine (Deut. xv. 13, 14). See Hastings's _D.B._, arts. "Servant,"
"Slave," p. 464, where other examples may be found. In war
fruit-trees are to be spared (Deut. xx. 19 foll.), whereas the old
universal practice is the barbarous custom Elisha commended (2 Kings
iii. 19) of ruthlessly destroying them.

[28] Driver, _Internat. Commentary on Deuteronomy_, Introd. p. xxx.

[29] It should be noted that in P (Code of Holiness) Lev. xvii. 15
foll. the resident alien (_ger_) is placed on an equality with the
Jew.

[30] We shall have to note the emergence of the doctrine of the
_resurrection of the righteous_ in later Judaism, which is obviously
a fresh contribution of permanent value to Hebrew doctrine. On the
other hand, the doctrine of _pre-existence_ is speculative rather
than religious, and applies to institutions rather than persons.

[31] The legislative portions are mainly comprised in Ex. xxxv.-end,
Leviticus entire and Num. i.-x.

[32] But this term (literally the _chief_ priest) was already in use
during the regal period to designate the head priest of an important
sanctuary such as Jerusalem (2 Kings xii. 11).

[33] Cf. the Phoenician parallel of "Face of Baal," worshipped as
Tanit, "queen of Heaven" (Bathgen, _Beitrage zur Semit.
Religionsgeschichte_, p. 55 foll.); also the place Penuel (face of
God).

[34] Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. Baal Zebub of the Philistine Ekron
became the Beelzebub who was equivalent to Satan.

HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, one of the books of the New Testament. In the oldest MSS. it bears no other title than "To Hebrews." This brief heading embraces all that on which Christian tradition from the end of the 2nd century was unanimous; and it says no more than that the readers addressed were Christians of Jewish extraction. This would be no sufficient address for an epistolary writing (xiii. 22) directed to a definite circle of readers, to whose history repeated reference is made, and with whom the author had personal relations (xiii. 19, 23). Probably, then, the original and limited address, or rather salutation, was never copied when this treatise in letter form, like the epistle to the Romans, passed into the wider circulation which its contents merited. In any case the Roman Church, where the first traces of the epistle occur, about A.D. 96 (1 Clement), had nothing to contribute to the question of authorship except the negative opinion that it was not by Paul (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ iii. 3): yet this central church was in constant connexion with provincial churches.

The earliest positive traditions belong to Alexandria and N. Africa. The Alexandrine tradition can be traced back as far as a teacher of Clement, presumably Pantaenus (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ vi. 14), who sought to explain why Paul did not name himself as usual at the head of the epistle. Clement himself, taking it for granted that an epistle to Hebrews must have been written in Hebrew, supposes that Luke translated it for the Greeks. Origen implies that "the men of old" regarded it as Paul's, and that some churches at least in his own day shared this opinion. But he feels that the language is un-Pauline, though the "admirable" thoughts are not second to those of Paul's unquestioned writings. Thus he is led to the view that the ideas were orally set forth by Paul, but that the language and composition were due to some one giving from memory a sort of free interpretation of his teacher's mind. According to some this disciple was Clement of Rome; others name Luke; but the truth, says Origen, is known to God alone (Euseb. vi. 25, cf. iii. 38). Still from the time of Origen the opinion that Paul wrote the epistle became prevalent in the East. The earliest African tradition, on the other hand, preserved by Tertullian[1] (_De pudicitia_, c. 20), but certainly not invented by him, ascribed the epistle to Barnabas. Yet it was perhaps, like those named by Origen, only an inference from the epistle itself, as if a "word of exhortation" (xiii. 22) by the Son of Exhortation (Acts iv. 36; see BARNABAS). On the whole, then, the earliest traditions in East and West alike agree in effect, viz. that our epistle was not by Paul, but by one of his associates.

This is also the twofold result reached by modern scholarship with growing clearness. The vacillation of tradition and the dissimilarity of the epistle from those of Paul were brought out with great force by Erasmus. Luther (who suggests Apollos) and Calvin (who thinks of Luke or Clement) followed with the decisive argument that Paul, who lays such stress on the fact that his gospel was not taught him by man (Gal. i.), could not have written Heb. ii. 3. Yet the wave of reaction which soon overwhelmed the freer tendencies of the first reformers, brought back the old view until the revival of biblical criticism more than a century ago. Since then the current of opinion has set irrevocably against any form of Pauline authorship. Its type of thought is quite unique. The Jewish Law is viewed not as a code of ethics or "works of righteousness," as by Paul, but as a system of religious rites (vii. 11) shadowing forth the way of access to God in worship, of which the Gospel reveals the archetypal realities (ix. 1, 11, 15, 23 f., x. 1 ff., 19 ff.). The Old and the New Covenants are related to one another as imperfect (earthly) and perfect (heavenly) forms of the same method of salvation, each with its own type of sacrifice and priesthood. Thus the conception of Christ as High Priest emerges, for the first time, as a central point in the author's conception of Christianity. The Old Testament is cited after the Alexandrian version more exclusively than by Paul, even where the Hebrew is divergent. Nor is this accidental. There is every appearance that the author was a Hellenist who lacked knowledge of the Hebrew text, and derived his metaphysic and his allegorical method from the Alexandrian rather than the Palestinian schools. Yet the epistle has manifest Pauline affinities, and can hardly have originated beyond the Pauline circle, to which it is referred not only by the author's friendship with Timothy (xiii. 23), but by many echoes of the Pauline theology and even, it seems, of passages in Paul's epistles (see Holtzmann, _Einleitung in das N. T._, 1892, p. 298). These features early suggested Paul as the author of a book which stood in MSS. immediately after the epistles of that apostle, and contained nothing in its title to distinguish it from the preceding books with like headings, "To the Romans," "To the Corinthians," and the like. A similar history attaches to the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (see CLEMENTINE LITERATURE).

Everything turns, then, on internal criticism of the epistle, working on the distinctive features already noticed, together with such personal allusions as it affords. As to its first readers, with whom the author stood in close relations (xiii. 19, 23, cf. vi. 10, x. 32-34), it used generally to be agreed that they were "Hebrews" or Christians of Jewish birth. But, for a generation or so, it has been denied that this can be inferred simply from the fact that the epistle approaches all Christian truth through Old Testament forms. This, it is said, was the common method of proof, since the Jewish scriptures were the Word of God to all Christians alike. Still it remains true that the exclusive use of the argument from Mosaism, as itself implying the Gospel of Jesus the Christ as final cause ([Greek: telos]), does favour the view that the readers were of Jewish origin. Further there is no allusion to the incorporation of "strangers and foreigners" (Eph. ii. 19) with the people of God. Yet the readers are not to be sought in Jerusalem (see e.g. ii. 3), nor anywhere in Judaea proper. The whole Hellenistic culture of the epistle (let alone its language), and the personal references in it, notably that to Timothy in xiii. 23, are against any such view: while the doubly emphatic "all" in xiii. 24 suggests that those addressed were but part of a community composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Caesarea, indeed, as a city of mixed population and lying just outside Judaea proper--a place, moreover, where Timothy might have become known during Paul's two years' detention there--would satisfy many conditions of the problem. Yet these very conditions are no more than might exist among intensely Jewish members of the Dispersion, like "the Jews of Asia" (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, _The Letters to the Seven Churches_, 155 f.), whose zeal for the Temple and the Mosaic ritual customs led to Paul's arrest in Jerusalem (Acts xix. 27 f., cf. 20 f.), in keeping both with his former experiences at their hands and with his forebodings resulting therefrom (xx. 19, 22-24). Our "Hebrews" had obviously high regard for the ordinances of Temple worship. But this was the case with the dispersed Jews generally, who kept in touch with the Temple, and its intercessory worship for all Israel, in every possible way; in token of this they sent with great care their annual contribution to its services, the Temple tribute. This bond was doubtless preserved by Christian Hellenists, and must have tended to continue their reliance on the Temple services for the forgiveness of their recurring "sins of ignorance"--subsequent to the great initial Messianic forgiveness coming with faith in Jesus. Accordingly many of them, while placing their hope for the future upon Messiah and His eagerly expected return in power, might seek assurance of present forgiveness of daily offences and cleansing of conscience in the old mediatorial system. In particular the annual Day of Atonement would be relied on, and that in proportion as the expected Parousia tarried, and the first enthusiasm of a faith that was largely eschatological died away, while ever-present temptation pressed the harder as disappointment and perplexity increased.

Such was the general situation of the readers of this epistle, men who rested partly on the Gospel and partly on Judaism. For lack of a true theory as to the relation between the two, they were now drifting away (ii. 1) from effective faith in the Gospel, as being mainly future in its application, while Judaism was a very present, concrete, and impressive system of religious aids--to which also their sacred scriptures gave constant witness. The points at which it chiefly touched them may be inferred from the author's counter-argument, with its emphasis in the spiritual ineffectiveness of the whole Temple-system, its high-priesthood and its supreme sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. With passionate earnestness he sets over against these his constructive theory as to the efficacy, the heavenly yet unseen reality, of the definitive "purification of sins" (i. 3) and perfected access to God's inmost presence, secured for Christians as such by Jesus the Son of God (x. 9-22), and traces their moral feebleness and slackened zeal to want of progressive insight into the essential nature of the Gospel as a "new covenant," moving on a totally different plane of religious reality from the now antiquated covenant given by Moses (viii. 13).

The following plan of the epistle may help to make apparent the writer's theory of Christianity as distinct from Judaism, which is related to it as "shadow" to reality:

_Thesis_: The finality of the form of religion mediated in God's Son,
i. 1-4.

i. The supreme excellence of the Son's Person (i. 5-iii. 6), as
compared with (a) angels, (b) Moses.

Practical exhortation, iii. 7-iv. 13, leading up to:

ii. The corresponding efficacy of the Son's High-priesthood (iv.
14-ix.).

(1) The Son has the qualifications of all priesthood, especially
sympathy.

Exhortation, raising the reader's thought to the height of the topic
reached (v. 11-vi. 20).

(2) The Son as absolute high priest, in an order transcending the
Aaronic (vii.) and relative to a Tabernacle of ministry and a Covenant
higher than the Mosaic in point of reality and finality (viii., ix.).

(3) His Sacrifice, then, is definitive in its effects ([Greek:
teteleioke]), and supersedes all others (x. 1-18).

iii. Appropriation of the benefits of the Son's high-priesthood, by
steadfast faith, the paramount duty (x. 19-xii.). More personal
epilogue (xiii.).

As lack of insight lay at the root of their troubles, it was not enough simply to enjoin the moral fidelity to conviction which is three parts of faith to the writer, who has but little sense of the mystical side of faith, so marked in Paul. There was need of a positive theory based on real insight, in order to inspire faith for more strenuous conflict with the influences tending to produce the apostasy from Christ, and so from "the living God," which already threatened some of them (iii. 12). Such "apostasy" was not a formal abjuring of Jesus as Messiah, but the subtler lapse involved in ceasing to rely on relation to Him for daily moral and religious needs, summed up in purity of conscience and peace before God (x. 19-23, xiii. 20 f.). This "falling aside" (vi. 5, cf. xii. 12 f.), rather than conscious "turning back," is what is implied in the repeated exhortations which show the intensely practical spirit of the whole argument. These exhortations are directed chiefly against the dullness of spirit which hinders progressive moral insight into the genius of the New Covenant (v. 11-vi. 8), and which, in its blindness to the full work of Jesus, amounts to counting His blood as devoid of divine efficacy to consecrate the life (x. 26, 29), and so to a personal "crucifying anew" of the Son of God (vi. 6). The antidote to such "profane" negligence (ii. 1, 3, xii. 12 f., 15-17) is an earnestness animated by a fully-assured hope, and sustained by a "faith" marked by patient waiting ([Greek: makrothymia]) for the inheritance guaranteed by divine promise (x. ii f.). The outward expression of such a spirit is "bold confession," a glorying in that Hope, and mutual encouragement therein (iii. 6, 12 f.); while the sign of its decay is neglect to assemble together for mutual stimulus, as if it were not worth the odium and opposition from fellow Jews called forth by a marked Christian confession (x. 23-25, xii. 3)--a very different estimate of the new bond from that shown by readiness in days gone by to suffer for it (x. 32 ff.). Their special danger, then, the sin which deceived (iii. 13) the more easily that it represented the line of least resistance (perhaps the best paraphrase of [Greek: euperistatos hamartia] in xii. i), was the exact opposite of "faith" as the author uses it, especially in the chapter devoted to its illustration by Old Testament examples. His readers needed most the moral heroism of fidelity to the Unseen, which made men "despise shame" due to aught that sinners in their unbelief might do to them (xii. 2-11, xiii. 5 f.)--and of which Jesus Himself was at once the example and the inspiration. To quicken this by awakening deeper insight into the real objects of "faith," as these bore on their actual life, he develops his high argument on the lines already indicated.

Their situation was so dangerous just because it combined inward debility and outward pressure, both tending to the same result, viz. practical disuse of the distinctively Christian means of grace, as compared with those recognized by Judaism, and such conformity to the latter as would make the reproach of the Cross to cease (xiii. 13, cf. xi. 26). This might, indeed, relieve the external strain of the contest ([Greek: agon] xii. 1), which had become well-nigh intolerable to them. But the practical surrender of what was distinctive in their new faith meant a theoretic surrender of the value once placed on that element, when it was matter of a living religious experience far in advance of what Judaism had given them (vi. 4 [ff]., x. 26-29). This twofold infidelity, in thought and deed, God, the "living" God of progress from the "shadow" to the substance, would require at their hands (x. 30 f., xii. 22-29). For it meant turning away from an appeal that had been known as "heavenly," for something inferior and earthly (xii. 25); from a call sanctioned by the incomparable authority of Him in whom it had reached men, a greater than Moses and all media of the Old Covenant, even the Son of God. Thus the key of the whole exhortation is struck in the opening words, which contrast the piecemeal revelation "to the fathers" in the past, with the complete and final revelation to themselves in the last stage of the existing order of the world's history, in a Son of transcendent dignity (i. 1 ff., cf. ii. 1 ff., x. 28 f., xii. 18 ff.). This goes to the root of their difficulty, ambiguity as to the relation of the old and the new elements in Judaeo-Christian piety, so that there was constant danger of the old overshadowing the new, since national Judaism remained hostile. At a stroke the author separates the new from the old, as belonging to a new "covenant" or order of God's revealed will. It is a confusion, resulting in loss, not in gain, as regards spiritual power, to try to combine the two types of piety, as his readers were more and more apt to do. There is _no use_, religiously, in falling back upon the old forms, in order to avoid the social penalties of a sectarian position within Judaism, when the secret of religious "perfection" or maturity (vi. 1, cf. the frequent use of the kindred verb) lies elsewhere. Hence the moral of his whole argument as to the two covenants, though it is formulated only incidentally amid final detailed counsels (xiii. 13 f.) is to leave Judaism, and adopt a frankly Christian standing, on the same footing with their non-Jewish brethren in the local church. For this the time was now ripe; and in it lay the true path of safety--eternal safety as before God, whatever man might say or do (xiii. 5 f.).

The obscure section, xiii. 9 f., is to be taken as "only a symptom of the general retrogression of religious energy" (Julicher), and not as bearing directly on the main danger of these "Hebrews." The "foods" in question probably refer neither to temple sacrifices nor to the Levitical laws of clean and unclean foods, nor yet to ascetic scruples (as in Rom. xiv., Col. ii. 20 ff.), but rather to some form of the idea, found also among the Essenes, that food might so be partaken of as to have the value of a sacrifice (see verse 15 foll.) and thus ensure divine favour. Over against this view, which might well grow up among the Jews of the Dispersion as a sort of substitute for the possibility of offering sacrifices in the Temple--but which would be a lame addition to the Christianity of their own former leaders (xiii. 7 f.)--the author first points his readers to its refutation from experience, and then to the fact that the Christian's "altar" or sacrifice (i.e. the supreme sin-offering) is of the kind which the Law itself forbids to be associated with "eating." If Christians wish to offer any special sacrifice to God, let it be that of grateful praise or deeds of beneficence (15 f.).

In trying further to define the readers addressed in the epistle, one must note the stress laid on suffering as part of the divinely appointed discipline of sonship (ii. 10, v. 8, xii. 7 f.), and the way in which the analogy in this respect between Jesus, as Messianic Son, and those united to Him by faith, is set in relief. He is not only the inspiring example for heroic faith in the face of opposition due to unbelievers (xii. 3 ff.), but also the mediator qualified by his very experience of suffering to sympathize with His tried followers, and so to afford them moral aid (ii. 17 f., v. 8 f., cf. iv. 15). This means that suffering for Christianity, at least in respect of possessions (xiii. 5 f., cf. x. 34) and social standing, was imminent for those addressed: and it seems as if they were mostly men of wealth and position (xiii. 1-6, vi. 10 f., x. 34), who would feel this sort of trial acutely (cf. Jas. i. 10). Such men would also possess a superior mental culture (cf. v. 11 f.), capable of appreciating the form of an epistle "far too learned for the average Christian" (Julicher), yet for which its author apologizes to them as inadequate (xiii. 22). It was now long since they themselves had suffered seriously for their faith (x. 32 f.); but others had recently been harassed even to the point of imprisonment (xiii. 3); and the writer's very impatience to hurry to their side implies that the crisis was both sudden and urgent. The finished form of the epistle's argument is sometimes urged to prove that it was not originally an epistle at all, written more or less on the spur of the moment, but a literary composition, half treatise and half homily, to which its author--as an afterthought--gave the suggestion of being a Pauline epistle by adding the personal matter in ch. xiii. (so W. Wrede, _Das literarische Ratsel des Hebraerbriefs_, 1906, pp. 70-73). The latter part of this theory fails to explain why the Pauline origin was not made more obvious, e.g. in an opening address. But even the first part of it overlooks the probability that our author was here only fusing into a fresh form materials often used before in his oral ministry of Christian instruction.

Many attempts have been made to identify the home of the Hellenistic Christians addressed in this epistle. For Alexandria little can be urged save a certain strain of "Alexandrine" idealism and allegorism, mingling with the more Palestinian realism which marks the references to Christ's sufferings, as well as the eschatology, and recalling many a passage in Philo. But Alexandrinism was a mode of thought diffused throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, and the divergences from Philo's spirit are as notable as the affinities (cf. Milligan, _ut infra_, 203 ff.). For Rome there is more to be said, in view of the references to Timothy and to "them of Italy" (xiii. 23 f.); and the theory has found many supporters. It usually contemplates a special Jewish-Christian house-church (so Zahn), like those which Paul salutes at the end of Romans, e.g. that meeting in the house of Prisca and Aquila (xvi. 5); and Harnack has gone so far as to suggest that they, and especially Prisca, actually wrote our epistle. There is, however, really little that points to Rome in particular, and a good deal that points away from it. The words in xii. 4, "Not yet unto blood have ye resisted," would ill suit Rome after the Neronian "bath of blood" in A.D. 64 (as is usually held), save at a date too late to suit the reference to Timothy. Nor does early currency in Rome prove that the epistle was written to Rome, any more than do the words "they of Italy salute you." This clause must in fact be read in the light of the reference to Timothy, which suggests that he had been in prison in Rome and was about to return, possibly in the writer's company, to the region which was apparently the headquarters of both. Now this in Timothy's case, as far as we can trace his steps, was Ephesus; and it is natural to ask whether it will not suit all the conditions of the problem. It suits those of the readers,[2] as analysed above; and it has the merit of suggesting to us as author the very person of all those described in the New Testament who seems most capable of the task, Apollos, the learned Alexandrian (Acts xviii. 24 ff.), connected with Ephesus and with Paul and his circle (cf. 1 Cor. xvi. 12), yet having his own distinctive manner of presenting the Gospel (1 Cor. iv. 6). That Apollos visited Italy at any rate once during Paul's imprisonment in Rome is a reasonable inference from Titus iii. 13 (see Paul); and if so, it is quite natural that he should be there again about the time of Paul's martyrdom. With that event it is again natural to connect Timothy's imprisonment, his release from which our author records in closing; while the news of Jewish success in Paul's case would enhance any tendency among Asian Jewish Christians to shirk "boldness" of confession (x. 23, 35, 38 f.), in fear of further aggression from their compatriots. On the chronology adopted in the article Paul, this would yield as probable date for the epistle A.D. 61-62. The place of writing would be some spot in Italy ("they of Italy salute you") outside Rome, probably a port of embarkation for Asia, such as Brundisium.

Be this as it may, the epistle is of great historical importance, as reflecting a crisis inevitable in the development of the Jewish-Christian consciousness, when a definite choice between the old and the new form of Israel's religion had to be made, both for internal and external reasons. It seems to follow directly on the situation implied by the appeal of James to Israel in dispersion, in view of Messiah's winnowing-fan in their midst (i. 1-4, ii. 1-7, v. 1-6, and especially v. 7-11). It may well be the immediate antecedent of that revealed in 1 Peter, an epistle which perhaps shows traces of its influence (e.g. in i. 2, "sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," cf. Heb. ix. 13 f., x. 22, xii. 24). It is also of high interest theologically, as exhibiting, along with affinities to several types of New Testament teaching (see Stephen), a type all its own, and one which has had much influence on later Christian thought (cf. Milligan, _ut infra_, ch. ix.). Indeed, it shares with Romans the right to be styled "the first treatise of Christian theology."

_Literature._--The older literature may be seen in the great work of
F. Bleek, _Der Brief an die Hebraer_ (1828-1840), still a valuable
storehouse of material, while Bleek's later views are to be found in a
posthumous work (Elberfeld, 1868); also in Franz Delitzsch's
_Commentary_ (Edinburgh, 1868). The more recent literature is given in
G. Milligan, _The Theology of the Epistle of the Hebrews_ (1899), a
useful summary of all bearing on the epistle, and in the large New
Testament Introductions and Biblical Theologies. See also Hastings's
_Dict. of the Bible_, the _Encycl. Biblica_ and T. Zahn's article in
Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_. (J. V. B.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Also in Codex Claromontanus, the _Tractatus de libris_ (x.),
Philastrius of Brescia (c. A.D. 380), and a prologue to the Catholic
Epistles (_Revue benedictine_, xxiii. 82 ff.). It is defended in a
monograph by H. H. B. Ayles (Cambridge, 1899).

[2] i.e. a house-church of upper-class Jewish Christians, not fully
in touch with the attitude even of their own past and present
"leaders" (xiii. 7, 17), as distinct from the local church generally
(xiii. 24). The Gospel had reached them, as also the writer himself
(cf. Acts xviii. 25), through certain hearers of the Lord (ii. 3),
not necessarily apostles.

HEBRIDES, THE, or WESTERN ISLES, a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland. They are situated between 55 deg. 35' and 58 deg. 30' N. and 5 deg. 26' and 8 deg. 40' W. Formerly the term was held to embrace not only all the islands off the Scottish western coast, including the islands in the Firth of Clyde, but also the peninsula of Kintyre, the Isle of Man and the Isle of Rathlin, off the coast of Antrim. They have been broadly classified into the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides, the Minch and Little Minch dividing the one group from the other. Geologically, they have also been differentiated as the Gneiss Islands and the Trap Islands. The Outer Hebrides being almost entirely composed of gneiss the epithet suitably serves them, but, strictly speaking, only the more northerly of the Inner Hebrides may be distinguished as Trap Islands. The chief islands of the Outer Hebrides are Lewis-with-Harris (or Long Island), North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Barra, the Shiants, St Kilda and the Flannan Isles, or Seven Hunters, an uninhabited group, about 20 m. N.W. of Gallon Head in Lewis. Of these the Lewis portion of Long Island, the Shiants and the Flannan belong to the county of Ross and Cromarty, and the remainder to Inverness-shire. The total length of this group, from Barra Head to the Butt of Lewis, is 130 m., the breadth varying from less than 1 m. to 30 m. The Inner Hebrides are much more scattered and principally include Skye, Small Isles (Canna, Sanday, Rum, Eigg and Muck), Coll, Tyree, Lismore, Mull, Ulva, Staffa, Iona, Kerrera, the Slate Islands (Seil, Easdale, Luing, Shuna, Torsay), Colonsay, Oronsay, Scarba, Jura, Islay and Gigha. Of these Skye and Small Isles belong to Inverness-shire, and the rest to Argyllshire. The Hebridean islands exceed 500 in number, of which one-fifth are inhabited. Of the inhabited islands 11 belong to Ross and Cromarty, 47 to Inverness-shire, and 44 to Argyllshire, but of this total of 102 islands, one-third have a population of only 10 souls, or fewer, each. The population of the Hebrides in 1901 numbered 78,947 (or 28 to the sq. m.), of whom 41,031 were females, who thus exceeded the males by 10%, and 22,733 spoke Gaelic only and 47,666 Gaelic and English. The most populous island is Lewis-with-Harris (32,160), and next to it are Skye (13,883), Islay (6857) and Mull (4334).

Of the total area of 1,800,000 acres, or 2812 sq. m., only one-ninth is cultivated, most of the surface being moorland and mountain. The annual rainfall, particularly in the Inner Hebrides, is heavy (42.6 in. at Stornoway) but the temperature is high, averaging for the year 47 deg. F. Potatoes and turnips are the only root crops that succeed, and barley and oats are grown in some of the islands. Sheep-farming and cattle-raising are carried on very generally, and, with the fisheries, provide the main occupation of the inhabitants, though they profit not a little from the tourists who flock to many of the islands throughout the summer. The principal industries include distilling, slate-quarrying and the manufacture of tweeds, tartans and other woollens. There are extensive deer forests in Lewis-with-Harris, Skye, Mull and Jura. On many of the islands there are prehistoric remains and antiquities within the Christian period. The more populous islands are in regular communication with certain points of the mainland by means of steamers from Glasgow, Oban and Mallaig. The United Free Church has a strong hold on the people, but in a few of the islands the Roman Catholics have a great following. In the larger inhabited islands board schools have been established. The islands unite with the counties to which they belong in returning members to parliament (one for each shire).

_History._--The Hebrides are mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of [Greek: Eboudai] and by Pliny under that of _Hebudes_, the modern spelling having, it is said, originated in a misprint. By the Norwegians they were called _Sudreyjar_ or Southern Islands. The Latinized form was _Sodorenses_, preserved to modern times in the title of the bishop of Sodor and Man. The original inhabitants seem to have been of the same Celtic race as those settled on the mainland. In the 6th century Scandinavian hordes poured in with their northern idolatry and lust of plunder, but in time they adopted the language and faith of the islanders. Mention is made of incursions of the vikings as early as 793, but the principal immigration took place towards the end of the 9th century in the early part of the reign of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, and consisted of persons driven to the Hebrides, as well as to Orkney and Shetland, to escape from his tyrannous rule. Soon afterwards they began to make incursions against their mother-country, and on this account Harald fitted out an expedition against them, and placed Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man under Norwegian government. The chief seat of the Norwegian sovereignty was Colonsay. About the year 1095 Godred Crovan, king of Dublin, Man and the Hebrides, died in Islay. His third son, Olaf, succeeded to the government about 1103, and the daughter of Olaf was married to Somerled, who became the founder of the dynasty known as Lords of the Isles. Many efforts were made by the Scottish monarchs to displace the Norwegians. Alexander II. led a fleet and army to the shores of Argyllshire in 1249, but he died on the island of Kerrera. On the other hand, Haakon IV., king of Norway, at once to restrain the independence of his jarls and to keep in check the ambition of the Scottish kings, set sail in 1263 on a great expedition, which, however, ended disastrously at Largs. Magnus, son of Haakon, concluded in 1266 a peace with the Scots, renouncing all claim to the Hebrides and other islands except Orkney and Shetland, and Alexander III. agreed to give him a sum of 4000 merks in four yearly payments. It was also stipulated that Margaret, daughter of Alexander, should be betrothed to Eric, the son of Magnus, whom she married in 1281. She died two years later, leaving an only daughter afterwards known as the Maid of Norway.

The race of Somerled continued to rule the islands, and from a younger son of the same potentate sprang the lords of Lorne, who took the patronymic of Macdougall. John Macdonald of Islay, who died about 1386, was the first to adopt the title of Lord of the Isles. He was one of the most potent of the island princes, and was married to a daughter of the earl of Strathearn, afterwards Robert II. His son, Donald of the Isles, was memorable for his rebellion in support of his claim to the earldom of Ross, in which, however, he was unsuccessful. Alexander, son of Donald, resumed the hereditary warfare against the Scottish crown; and in 1462 a treaty was concluded between Alexander's son and successor John and Edward IV. of England, by which John, his son John, and his cousin Donald Balloch, became bound to assist King Edward and James, earl of Douglas, in subduing the kingdom of Scotland. The alliance seems to have led to no active operations. In the reign of James V. another John of Islay resumed the title of Lord of the Isles, but was compelled to surrender the dignity. The glory of the lordship of the isles--the insular sovereignty--had departed. From the time of Bruce the Campbells had been gaining the ascendancy in Argyll. The Macleans, Macnaughtons, Maclachlans, Lamonts, and other ancient races had sunk before this favoured family. The lordship of Lorne was wrested from the Macdougalls by Robert Bruce, and their extensive possessions, with Dunstaffnage Castle, bestowed on the king's relative, Stewart, and his descendants, afterwards lords of Lorne. The Macdonalds of Sleat, the direct representatives of Somerled, though driven from Islay and deprived of supreme power by James V., still kept a sort of insular state in Skye. There were also the Macdonalds of Clanranald and Glengarry (descendants of Somerled), with the powerful houses of Macleod of Dunvegan and Macleod of Harris, M'Neill of Barra and Maclean of Mull. Sanguinary feuds continued throughout the 16th and 17th centuries among these rival clans and their dependent tribes, and the turbulent spirit was not subdued till a comparatively recent period. James VI. made an abortive endeavour to colonize Lewis. William III. and Queen Anne attempted to subsidize the chiefs in order to preserve tranquillity, but the wars of Montrose and Dundee, and the Jacobite insurrections of 1715 and 1745, showed how futile were all such efforts. It was not till 1748, when a decisive blow was struck at the power of the chiefs by the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, and the appointment of sheriffs in the different districts, that the arts of peace and social improvement made way in these remote regions. The change was great, and at first not unmixed with evil. A new system of management and high rents was imposed, in consequence of which numbers of the tacksmen, or large tenants, emigrated to North America. The exodus continued for many years. Sheep-farming on a large scale was next introduced, and the crofters were thrust into villages or barren corners of the land. The result was that, despite the numbers who entered the army or emigrated to Canada, the standard of civilization sank lower, and the population multiplied in the islands. The people came to subsist almost entirely on potatoes and herrings; and in 1846, when the potato blight began its ravages, nearly universal destitution ensued--embracing, over the islands generally, 70% of the inhabitants. Temporary relief was administered in the shape of employment on roads and other works; and an emigration fund being raised, from 4000 to 5000 of the people in the most crowded districts were removed to Australia. Matters, however, were not really mended, and in 1884 a royal commission reported upon the condition of the crofters of the islands and mainland. As a result of their inquiry the Crofters' Holdings Act was passed in 1886, and in the course of a few years some improvement was evident and has since been sustained.

AUTHORITIES.--Martin Martin's _Description of the Western Islands of
Scotland_ (1703); T. Pennant's _Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the
Hebrides_ (1774); James Boswell's _Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel
Johnson, LL.D._ (1898); John Macculloch's _Geological Account of the
Hebrides_ (1819); Hugh Miller's _Cruise of the "Betsy"_ (1858); W. A.
Smith's _Lewisiana, or Life in the Outer Hebrides_ (1874); Alexander
Smith, _A Summer in Skye_ (1865); Robert Buchanan, _The Hebrid Isles_
(1883); C. F. Gordon-Cumming, _In the Hebrides_ (1883); _Report of the
Crofters' Commission_ (1884); A. Goodrich-Freer, _Outer Isles_ (1902);
and W. C. Mackenzie, _History of the Outer Hebrides_ (1903). Their
history under Norwegian rule is given in the _Chronica regum Manniae
et insularum_, edited, with learned notes, from the MS. in the British
Museum by Professor P. A. Munch of Christiania (1860).

HEBRON (mod. _Khulil er-Rahman_, i.e. "the friend of the Merciful One"--an allusion to Abraham), a city of Palestine some 20 m. S. by S.W. of Jerusalem. The city, which lies 3040 ft. above the sea, is of extreme antiquity (see Num. xiii. 22, and Josephus, _War_, iv. 9, 7) and until taken by the Calebites (Josh. xv. 13) bore the name Kirjath-Arba. Biblical traditions connect it closely with the patriarch Abraham and make it a "city of refuge." The town figures prominently under David as the headquarters of his early rule, the scene of Abner's murder and the centre of Absalom's rebellion. In later days the Edomites held it for a time, but Judas Maccabaeus recovered it. It was destroyed in the great war under Vespasian. In A.D. 1167 Hebron became the see of a Latin bishop, and it was taken in 1187 by Saladin. In 1834 it joined the rebellion against Ibrahim Pasha, who took the town and pillaged it. Modern Hebron rises on the east slope of a shallow valley--a long narrow town of stone houses, the flat roofs having small stone domes. The main quarter is about 700 yds. long, and two smaller groups of houses exist north and south of this. The hill behind is terraced, and luxuriant vineyards and fruit plantations surround the place, which is well watered on the north by three principal springs, including the Well Sirah, now 'Ain Sara (2 Sam. iii. 26). Three conspicuous minarets rise, two from the _Haram_, the other in the north quarter. The population (10,000) includes Moslems and about 500 Jews. The Bedouins bring wool and camel's hair to the market; and glass bracelets, lamps and leather water-skins are manufactured in the town. The most conspicuous building is the _Haram_ built over the supposed site of the cave of Machpelah. It is an enclosure measuring 112 ft. east and west by 198 north and south, surrounded with high rampart walls of masonry similar in size and dressing to that of the Jerusalem Haram walls. These ramparts are ascribed by architectural authorities to the Herodian period. The interior area is partly occupied by a 12th-century Gothic church, and contains six modern cenotaphs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. The cave beneath the platform has probably not been entered for at least 600 years. The numerous traditional sites now shown round Hebron are traceable generally to medieval legendary topography; they include the Oak of Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18 R.V.) which has at various times been shown in different positions from 3/4 to 2 m. from the town.

There are a British medical mission, a German Protestant mission with church and schools, and, near Abraham's Oak, a Russian mission. Since 1880 several notices of the Haram, within which are the tombs of the Patriarchs, have appeared.

See C. R. Conder, Pal. Exp. Fund, _Memoirs_, iii. 333, &c.; Riant,
_Archives de l'orient latin_, ii. 411, &c.; Dalton and Chaplin,
_P.E.F. Quarterly Statement_ (1897); Goldziher, "Das Patriarchengrab
in Hebron," in _Zeitschrift d. Dn. Pal. Vereins_, xvii.
(R. A. S. M.)

HECATAEUS OF ABDERA (or of Teos), Greek historian and Sceptic philosopher, flourished in the 4th century B.C. He accompanied Ptolemy I. Soter in an expedition to Syria, and sailed up the Nile with him as far as Thebes (Diogenes Laertius ix. 61). The result of his travels was set down by him in two works--[Greek: Aiguptiaka] and [Greek: Peri Uperboreon], which were used by Diodorus Siculus. According to Suidas, he also wrote a treatise on the poetry of Hesiod and Homer. Regarding his authorship of a work on the Jews (utilized by Josephus in _Contra Apionem_), it is conjectured that portions of the [Greek: Aiguptiaka] were revised by a Hellenistic Jew from his point of view and published as a special work.

Fragments in C. W. Muller's _Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_.

HECATAEUS OF MILETUS (6th-5th century B.C.), Greek historian, son of Hegesander, flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus, to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus v. 36, 125). In 494, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities (Diod. Sic. x. 25). He is by some credited with a work entitled [Greek: Ges periodos] ("Travels round the Earth"), in two books, one on Europe, the other on Asia, in which were described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being especially comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander's map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The authenticity of the work is, however, strongly attacked by J. Wells in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxix. pt. i. 1909. The only certainly genuine work of Hecataeus was the [Greek: Geneelogiai] or [Greek: Historiai], a systematic account of the traditions and mythology of the Greeks. He was probably the first to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and the other poets as trustworthy authority. Herodotus, though he once at least controverts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus not only for facts, but also in regard of method and general scheme, but the extent of the debt depends on the genuineness of the [Greek: Ges periodos].

See fragments in C. W. Muller, _Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_, i.;
H. Berger, _Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen_
(1903); E. H. Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_, i.; W. Mure,
_History of Greek Literature_, iv.; especially J. V. Prasek,
_Hekataios als Herodots Quelle zur Geschichte Vorderasiens. Beitrage
zur alten Geschichte (Klio)_, iv. 193 seq. (1904), and J. Wells in
_Journ. Hell. Stud._, as above.

HECATE (Gr. [Greek: Hekate], "she who works from afar"[1]), a goddess in Greek mythology. According to the generally accepted view, she is of Hellenic origin, but Farnell regards her as a foreign importation from Thrace, the home of Bendis, with whom Hecate has many points in common. She is not mentioned in the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_, but in Hesiod (_Theogony_, 409) she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and Asterie, in a passage which may be a later interpolation by the Orphists (for other genealogies see Steuding in Roscher's _Lexikon_). She is there represented as a mighty goddess, having power over heaven, earth and sea; hence she is the bestower of wealth and all the blessings of daily life. The range of her influence is most varied, extending to war, athletic games, the tending of cattle, hunting, the assembly of the people and the law-courts. Hecate is frequently identified with Artemis, an identification usually justified by the assumption that both were moon-goddesses. Farnell, who regards Artemis as originally an earth-goddess, while recognizing a "genuine lunar element" in Hecate from the 5th century, considers her a chthonian rather than a lunar divinity (see also Warr in _Classical Review_, ix. 390). He is of opinion that neither borrowed much from, nor exercised much influence on, the cult and character of the other.

Hecate is the chief goddess who presides over magic arts and spells, and in this connexion she is the mother of the sorceresses Circe and Medea. She is constantly invoked, in the well-known idyll (ii.) of Theocritus, in the incantation to bring back a woman's faithless lover. As a chthonian power, she is worshipped at the Samothracian mysteries, and is closely connected with Demeter. Alone of the gods besides Helios, she witnessed the abduction of Persephone, and, torch in hand (a natural symbol for the moon's light, but see Farnell), assisted Demeter in her search for her daughter. On moonlight nights she is seen at the cross-roads (hence her name [Greek: trioditis], Lat. _Trivia_) accompanied by the dogs of the Styx and crowds of the dead. Here, on the last day of the month, eggs and fish were offered to her. Black puppies and she-lambs (black victims being offered to chthonian deities) were also sacrificed (Schol. on Theocritus ii. 12). Pillars like the Hermae, called Hecataea, stood, especially in Athens, at cross-roads and doorways, perhaps to keep away the spirits of evil. Like Artemis, Hecate is also a goddess of fertility, presiding especially over the birth and the youth of wild animals, and over human birth and marriage. She also attends when the soul leaves the body at death, and is found near graves, and on the hearth, where the master of the house was formerly buried. It is to be noted that Hecate plays little or no part in mythological legend. Her worship seems to have flourished especially in the wilder parts of Greece, such as Samothrace and Thessaly, in Caria and on the coasts of Asia Minor. In Greece proper it prevailed on the east coast and especially in Aegina, where her aid was invoked against madness.

In older times Hecate is represented as single-formed, clad in a long robe, holding burning torches; later she becomes _triformis_, "triple-formed," with three bodies standing back to back--corresponding, according to those who regard her as a moon-goddess, to the new, the full and the waning moon. In her six hands are torches, sometimes a snake, a key (as wardress of the lower world), a whip or a dagger; her favourite animal was the dog, which was sacrificed to her--an indication of her non-Hellenic origin, since this animal very rarely fills this part in genuine Greek ritual.

See H. Steuding in Roscher's _Lexikon_, where the functions of Hecate
are systematically derived from the conception of her as a
moon-goddess; L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, ii., where
this view is examined; P. Paris in Daremberg and Saglio's
_Dictionnaire des antiquites_; O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie_,
ii. (1906) p. 1288.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] J. B. Bury, in _Classical Review_, iii. p. 416, suggests that the
name means "dog," against which see J. H. Vince, ib. iv. p. 47. G. C.
Warr, ib. ix. 390, takes the Hesiodic Hecate to be a moon-goddess,
daughter of the sun-god Perseus.

HECATOMB (Gr. [Greek: hekatombe] from [Greek: hekaton], a hundred, and [Greek: bous], an ox), originally the sacrifice of a hundred oxen in the religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans; later a large number of any kind of animals devoted for sacrifice. Figuratively, "hecatomb" is used to describe the sacrifice or destruction by fire, tempest, disease or the sword of any large number of persons or animals; and also of the wholesale destruction of inanimate objects, and even of mental and moral attributes.

HECATO OF RHODES, Greek Stoic philosopher and disciple of Panaetius (Cicero, _De officiis_, iii. 15). Nothing else is known of his life, but it is clear that he was eminent amongst the Stoics of the period. He was a voluminous writer, but nothing remains. A list is preserved by Diogenes, who mentions works on _Duty_, _Good_, _Virtues_, _Ends_. The first, dedicated to Tubero, is eulogized by Cicero in the _De officiis_, and Seneca refers to him frequently in the _De beneficiis_. According to Diogenes Laertius, he divided the virtues into two kinds, those founded on scientific intellectual principles (i.e. wisdom and justice), and those which have no such basis (e.g. temperance and the resultant health and vigour). Cicero shows that he was much interested in casuistical questions, as, for example, whether a good man who had received a coin which he knew to be bad was justified in passing it on to another. On the whole, his moral attitude is cynical, and he is inclined to regard self-interest as the best criterion. This he modifies by explaining that self-interest is based on the relationships of life; a man needs money for the sake of his children, his friends and the state whose general prosperity depends on the wealth of its citizens. Like the earlier Stoics, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, he held that virtue may be taught. (See STOICS and PANAETIUS.)