Faul's epistles were, but to those whose native language was Syriac. This circumstance is so very singular in itself, and so unlike the course that is usually adopted in such cases, that if the epistle did proceed from the Apostle, he must have on purpose departed considerably from his usual style, and possibly allowed this to be chiefly modelled by some Grecian coadjutor, and none more likely than Luke, who went with Paul to Rome. And we think a sufficient reason may be discovered for such a procedure, in the jealousy that was entertained towards Paul personally among the Jewish churches. If the epistle had either borne his name expressly on its front, or had been marked by his well-known characteristics of style, the parties to whom it was addressed might have been disposed to cast it aside at once, or would have listened with prejudiced feelings to the line of argument, by which it sought to win them from their dangerous attachment to the decayed formalities of Judaism. Certainly, the argument itself, no one might have been expected so readily to handle as the Apostle Paul, as no one could be supposed more deeply alive to the importance of the object it aimed at. And his very eagerness to attain this object might quite naturally have led him to court the kind of disguise, which appears in the withholding of his name, and the adoption of another style than what was properly his own.

The epistle abounds with references to Old Testament Scripture, and with direct quotations from it; as was, indeed, unavoidable from the nature of the subject it discusses. It is in its main theme a reasoning from the Old to the New; not, however, for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Christ promised to the fathers, but rather, taking for granted this as a point mutually held, and shewing from the dignity of Christ's person, and the perfection of his work, as indicated even in Old Testament Scripture, the completeness of his dispensation in itself, and the mingled folly and danger of keeping up the shadowy services of Judaism, which had lost all their importance when their design was accomplished in Christ. To continue still to adhere to them, of necessity betokened at the very outset defective views of the superlative glory of Christ, and a tendency to look to those merely temporary representations of it for more than they were ever intended to impart ; and the probability was, that, if persevered in, the carnal element would carry it entirely over the spiritual, and complete shipwreck of the faith would be made amid the dead observances of an obsolete and now annulled Judaism. Such briefly is the aim and drift of this epistle; and it very naturally leads us to expect that the author, in treating the subject, would make considerable use of passages in Old Testament Scripture bearing on gospel-times; that he would lay especial emphasis on those passages which either substantially implied or expressly announced the pre-eminent greatness of Christ's person, and work, and kingdom; and that he would also draw largely upon the accredited memorials of the past for warnings and expostulations against the danger of backsliding and apostacy, and for incentives to progress in the higher degrees of knowledge and virtue. All this we might have expected, and all this we find, in an epistle full of doctrinal expositions, happily combined with the earnest enforcement of practical duty. But there are some peculiarities in the application of Old Testament passages that appear in the course of the argument, which are not to be met with, at least to the same

extent, in any other portions of the New Testament, and which call for some explanation.

1. First of all, there is a peculiarity in the mode of selection. Out of thirty-two or three passages in all that are quoted from the Scriptures, no fewer than sixteen, or one-half, are taken from the book of Psalms; and these, with only one or two exceptions in the two first chapters, comprise all that are referred to as bearing immediately on the person or work of Christ. There is something very singular in this, and something, we are disposed to think, which should have a degree of importance attached to it in connection with the author's manner of dealing with Scripture. For some reason or another he felt himself, if not absolutely shut up, yet practically influenced to confine almost entirely his proof passages respecting Christ as the head of the new dispensation, to such as might be found in the book of Psalms. What that reason might be we can only conjecture, or probably conclude from the nature and object of the epistle. Possibly it arose from the constant use made of the psalter in the Jewish worship, whereby it was not only rendered more familiar to the minds of the Judaizing Christians than any other portion of ancient Scripture, but was also most naturally regarded as of special authority in matters connected with the devotional service of God. So that arguments drawn from this source in behalf of a more spiritual worship, and for the disuse of those fleshly services with which it had been wont to be associated, could scarcely fail to tell with peculiar force on the subject of controversy-might even seem to come like a voice from the temple itself in testimony against its antiquated usages. At all events, the fact of the Apostle's quotations on this point being derived almost wholly from the Psalms, may justly be regarded as resting on some important consideration which it was necessary to keep in view. And this being the case, we should not so much wonder at testimonies respecting Christ being taken from passages there where he is not so plainly exhibited, while no reference is made to others in the prophetical books of Scripture more direct and explicit. The author deemed it right to draw his materials from a limited field, and he naturally pressed these as far as he properly could.

2. But does he not press them too far? Does he not really seek for materials in proof of Christ's personal or mediatorial greatness where they are not to be found? So it has been supposed; and it is not to be denied that another peculiarity meets us here, in the extent to which the book of Psalms is used in this epistle for testimonies respecting Christ. Particular psalms are employed in the discussion which are nowhere else in the New Testament applied to Christ. Not, however, it should be observed, to the neglect of those which are elsewhere applied to him; not as if the author were hunting for concealed treasures, and making light of such as lay open to his view. The more remarkable Messianic psalms, the 2d, the 22d, the 40th, the 45th, the 110th, are all referred to at different places as testifying of the things belonging to the Messiah. But besides these (to which we do not need now to refer more particularly), we find in the first chapter alone two other psalms, the 97th and the 102d, quoted without a note of explanation as portions bearing respect to Christ. Thus, at ver. 6, it is said, "When he

bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him," quoting the latter clause of Ps. xcvii. 7. And the concluding part of Ps. cii. is brought forward as spoken directly to the Son, "To the Son he saith, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands," &c.

It should be carefully remembered, however, in respect to the use made of such passages, that the Apostle is not appealing to them for the purpose of proving that Jesus was the Messiah, or that he who became the Messiah in the fulness of time originally brought the universe into being. The Apostle is writing to persons who understood and believed these points-believed both that Jesus was the Christ, and that by him, as God's Word and Son, the worlds had been at first made, as well as redemption now accomplished for a believing people. The question was, what honour and respect might be due to him as such? and whether there was not a glory in him that overshadowed, and, in a manner, extinguished the glory of all preceding revelations? Now, for this purpose the passages referred to were perfectly in point, and contained a testimony which must have been quite valid with believing Hebrews. According to their belief also (in fact they could not have been in any proper sense Christians without having first come to the belief that), the Messiah was, as to his divine nature, the Son of God, and the immediate agent of Godhead in the creation of the world. Hence, as a matter of course, the word, in the concluding portion of the 102d Psalm, addressed to God as the Creator, must have been held as immediately applicable to the Son; it is of necessity his creative energy, and uncreated, unchangeable existence that is there more directly celebrated. No one can doubt this who knows the relation of the Son to the Father as the revealer of Godhead in the works of creation and of providence. And in like manner the 97th Psalm, which points to the manifestation of God's power and glory in the world, as going to bring discomfiture on all the worshippers of idols, and joy to the Church. What believer can really doubt that this was mainly to be accomplished in the person and the work of Christ? Even Rabbinical writers have understood it of Messiah. There is no other manifestation of God, either past or to come, fitted to produce such results but the personal manifestation given in Christ; and the call to worship God, written in the psalm, was most properly connected with the incarnation of the Divine Word. When by that event the First-begotten was literally brought into the world, there was the loudest matter-of-fact proclamation, calling upon all to worship him. It was only then, indeed, that the peculiar displays of divine power and glory began to be put forth, which the psalm announces; and the spiritual results it speaks of always appear according as Christ comes to be known and honoured as the manifested God.

But the use made in the second chapter of the eighth Psalm is thought by some still more peculiar and difficult of explanation. For in that psalm the glory of God is celebrated in the most general way, as connected with the place and dignity of man upon the earth; and how can it be produced as a testimony for Christ? But is it so produced? As far as we can see, the Apostle does not understand what is written in that psalm as pointing at all, directly or exclusively, to Christ. He is answering an objection, which,

though not formally proposed, yet was plainly anticipated as ready to start up in the minds of his readers, to what he had advanced concerning the divine honour and glory due to Christ, as the Eternal Son of God. However he may be so when viewed simply in respect to his divine nature, yet as known to us, he was a man like ourselves; yea, a man compassed about with infirmity, and subject to suffering above the common lot of humanity; and might not the consideration of this detract somewhat from his dignity? Might it not even be justly regarded as placing him below the angels? By no means, says the Apostle, there is a glory of God connected also with man's estate; the Psalmist was filled with wonder and admiration at the imperfect indications he beheld of it in his day, regarding these as pledges of the more complete realisations of it yet to come; and it must be realised and perfected, not in connection with the nature of angels, but in connection with the nature of man. In allying himself with man, the Son of God, indeed, stooped for a time below the dignity of angels, but it was only that he might raise manhood to a higher position even than theirs; he humanized the Godhead, that he might, in a manner, deify humanity, that is, raise it to a participation in his own peerless majesty and fulness of blessing. In a word, the lordship of this world, which from the first was destined for man, and the thought of which filled the Psalmist with rapture and astonishment—this, in all its perfection and completeness, is still to be the inheritance of redeemed man, because the Eternal Son, as Redeemer, has, by becoming man, secured the title to it for himself and as many as are joined to him by a living faith. So that Christ has lost nothing of his proper glory by assuming the nature of man, but has simply made provision for a redeemed people sharing with him in it.

It is in connection with this branch of the argument also that the Apostle refers to a passage in Isaiah, which has been thought not strictly applicable to Christ. It is Isa viii. 17, 18, where the prophet, in his own name or another, says, “I will wait (or trust) upon the Lord; behold, I and the children which the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders," &c. The prophet, it has been thought, speaks there of himself, and of his own proper children, as specially raised up by the Lord, to encourage the people to trust in the divine power and faithfulness for deliverance. That, however, is by no means so clear as some would have it. It is fully as probable, and the opinion is certainly growing among commentators, that the prophet rather rises here above himself and his children to those whom they represented, to the Angel of the Covenant, and his spiritual seed. For he says immediately before, "Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples, and I will wait," &c. Who could speak thus of his disciples, and command the testimony to be bound up? Surely a higher than Isaiah is there. But even supposing that the prophet spoke of himself, supposing that in what follows, at least in the words quoted here, he does speak of himself and his own children; yet, as these must unquestionably have been viewed as personating the Immanuel and his spiritual offspring, the passage, even in that view of it, was a perfectly valid proof of the point for which it is quoted. It plainly indicates a oneness of nature in the Head and the members of the Lord's covenant people, and a common exposure to the ills of humanity.

3. A third peculiarity, and one that has been thought still more characteristic of the Old Testament quotations in this epistle from those elsewhere made in the New Testament, is, that they are uniformly taken from the Septuagint (i. e. the old Greek translation of the Old Testament), even where that differs materially from the original Hebrew. The New Testament writers generally, and the Apostle Paul in particular, very frequently quoted from that version, because it was in common use in the synagogues, and had acquired a kind of standard value. But they also, in many cases, departed from it, when it did not give at least the general sense of the original. This, however, is never done in the Epistle to the Hebrews; the Septuagint version is almost uniformly quoted from, whether it comes near or not to the exact meaning. Thus the words of the ninety-seventh Psalm, rendered in chap, i. 6, "Let all the angels of God worship him," are literally Worship him all ye gods." So again in the quotation from the eighth Psalm in the second chapter, what is literally "Thou hast made him want a little of God," is given from the Septuagint, "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." A still greater deviation occurs in chap. x. 5, where the words from Psalm xl., which are in the original, "Mine ears hast thou bored," or opened, stand thus, "A body hast thou prepared me." And once more, a passage taken from Habakkuk, in chap. x. 38, which, accordding to the Hebrew, is, "Behold, his soul is lifted up, it is not upright in him," appears in the much altered form of the Greek version, "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."

In

We omit other and less important variations. Those we have adduced undoubtedly shew a close adherence to the Greek version, even where it is not strictly correct. At the same time, it is to be observed, that nothing in the way of argument is built upon the differences between that version and the original, and the sentiment it expresses, so far as used by the Apostle, would not have been materially affected by a more literal translation. deed, in the last instance referred to, the passage from the prophet Habakkuk is not formally given as a citation at all; and as the order of the clauses also stands differently in the epistle from what it does in the Septuagint, so as to suit more exactly the object of the writer, we may rather regard him as adopting for his own what was found in the Septuagint, and giving it the sanction of his authority, than intending to convey the precise sense of the ancient prophet. And, after all, it is only a differently expressed, not by any means a discordant, sense with that of the prophet. The swollen, puffed-up soul is not upright, or does not maintain the even course of integrity. When the prophet says this, he only expresses more generally what is more fully and specifically intimated by the Apostle, when he speaks of such as draw back in times of trial, and incur thereby the displeasure of God. The passage taken from the fortieth Psalm admits of a similar explanation. The Apostle lays no stress upon the words, “A body hast thou prepared me;" he lays stress only on the declared readiness of the speaker in the psalm to do the will of God, by a personal surrender to its requirements; and as to say, "Mine ears hast thou opened," means, Thou hast made me ready to listen to all the demands of thy service; so to say, "A body hast thou prepared me," is but to turn it from a part of the body