Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

THE EXORDIUM,
(Chap. i. 1-3.)
While all tlio rest of the New Testament epistles begin bymentioning
the name and oflSce of their authors, as also the churches
for which they are intended, this form of introduction which was
usual in ancient times is wanting in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Some have sought to account for this circumstance by saying that
the author intended to compensate for the effect of a formal superscription
by the solemn and highly oratorical style of the introduction.
This supposition, however, will not suffice fully to explain the case.
The impression that would have been made on the readers and
hearers by the name of an apostle or some other authoritative person,
might indeed be compensated by the impression which the lofty
utterance of the heart and mind of such, a person could not fail
produce ; they could, so to speak, hear the man from the force of the
words, and believe, as it were, that they saw him before them. But
the want of the superscription itself was not thereby compensated.
We can scarcely conceive that any one would have addressed a letter
to a church without mentioning his name at all. It only remains
therefore to be supposed, that this writing which we hold under the
name of the Epistle to the Hebrews was originally accompanied by
a shorter epistle properly so called, and therefore that the epistle
itself was not one in the proper sense of the term. And this supposition
is confirmed by a number of considerations drawn from the
substance of the epistle, to which our attention will be directed at
the proper time, and of which we will here specify some of the most
striking. The hortatory passages are not, as in most of the other
epistles, closely engrafted on the didactic, so that the doctrinal
parts pass naturally into the practical ; but the former are wound
up in a strictly scientific manner without any hortatory and practical
side-glances, and the latter are abruptly placed between the doctrinal
sections (chap. ii. 1-3, iii. 1-19, v. 11, vi. 12, etc.) The practical
parts too, show a systematic form, the result of reflexion,—an intended
transition to a new doctrinal section is introduced in the form
of a short hortatory or personal remark (iii. 1, viii. 1). The particular
sections of the doctrinal parts are, however, marked by a pecu-
to