Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Hebrews XIII. 24. 581
grateful mention of his own lately and unexpectedly obtained deliverance.
(Such as : But God be thanked who has done above what
we ask or think, and has dehvered me). Or better, we suppose that
the proper author of the epistle was really in prison (yet according
to ver. 19 not without hope of obtaiaing his freedom), but that the
appendix, vers. 22-25, proceeds not from him, but from that helper,
to whom he did not, perhaps dictate the epistle, but gave him only
the ideas, with whom he had talked over the substance of it,
leaving
the conception to him. This helper had then, indeed, reason to
ask excuse for himself (ver. 22) on account of certain harsh expressions.
This helper relates the deliverance of Timothy. This helper
is free and prepared for a journey—stiU, neither he nor Timothy
can have gone direct to Jerusalem, in order to carry the epistle ;
otherwise, the entire postscript or (if Timothy was the bearer) at
least the notice respecting him had been superfluous. But that
helper hoped indeed to come soon to Jerusalem with Timothy,
went, however, somewhere else before this, so that the epistle was
transmitted through some other person.
From Ver. 24 it appears, that the helper was in Italy; for he
writes salutations from the Christians of Italy. The explanation
" those who have fled from Italy" (Bleek, etc.) cannot well be admitted,
because then it had been strange that only these and not
also the other Christians who lived in the place where the epistle
was written, should have sent by the writer salutations to the readers.
The d-no is easily explained ;
with less propriety could he
have said h^ if he himself was in Italy ;
if he had said " the saints
in Italy," he would thus have designated these so objectively, as to
make it appear that he himself ivas not also in Italy. Hence he
chooses the preposition dno. " The saints of Italy salute you ;"
those who are natives of Italy, those who are there at home, as opposed
to himself, who indeed was in Italy, but was not of Italy.
Thus the Greek says (comp. Tholuck on the passage) ol dnb yrjg and
ol d-rrb daXdaarjg, " the travellers by land, the travellers by sea," so
Polyb. 5, 86, 10, ol dnb riig ^AXe^avdpeiag fiaotXeXg, the Alexandrian
kmgs. Comp. also Acts xvii. 3. Tholuck, indeed, has still a difficulty.
Why does the author not say dnb Tc5,u?/5- ? First, because
he would write salutations from all the churches of Italy ; secondly,
because he himself, as we shall afterwards see, was by no means at
Kome.
The concluding verses of the Epistle lead us naturally to the
critical inquiry respecting its date, aim, and author, which inquiry
having now made ourselves familiar with the contents of the Epistle,
we propose to conduct in an appendix.