Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

APPENDIX. 603
the whole immense Church of the West have declared an epistle to
be
spurious, which according to tradition was apostolical, merely in
order to' be able to get rid of a single argument of a sect! It might,
on the same principle, have declared the entire New Testament to
be spm-ious, on account of the Gnostics and Ebionites!
These two theses then may be considered as thoroughly confirmed,
that the tradition of the East held the Epistle to he Pauline,
that, on tlie other hand, the West came to hioio it in general at a
later period, and then very decidedly held it to he wi-Pauline. The
question now arises, what critical inferences are to be drawn from
this phenomenon? Not a few draw from it the simple result, that
" the external testimonies contradict each other, and, consequently,
that the internal reasons alone must decide." Such a procedure,
however, deserves to be characterized as hasty and groundless. The
eastern and the western traditions are not two equal, but opposite,
mathematical quantities which cancel each other and reduce each
other to nothing, but they are facts which are to be iveighed, nay
more, which are to be explained.
In weighing the two traditions against each other, that of the
East is the heavier in the scale. First of all, it is reasonable to expect
a surer and more general knowledge concerning the author of
an epistle in the district to which that epistle was written, than in
ihsitfrom which it was written. In Jerusalem, whither the epistle
had been sent, it must have been known and learned who the author
was ; for, although he does not name himself in the inscription, the
bearer of the epistle would certainly not deliver it with the words :
" Here I bring you an epistle out of Italy from somehody;. who that
somebody is however you must not know"—for then had the authority
of the epistle been but ill cared for ! but the bearer must,
in all probability, have brought to the teacher of that circle of
readers an additional private writing, and to the circle of readers
themselves have mentioned and certified the name of the author.
From thence, along with the epistle (which soon indeed came to
have a high significance for the whole of oriental Christendom,
being, as it were, a divinely authenticated document for the loosing
of the band between Christianity and Judaism), the knowledge
of its author, too, must have spread—first, and most surely, to
Lesser Asia, Sp'ia, Egypt ! What we learn there respecting the
Epistle to the Hebrews we shaU have to consider as the surest information.
It was altogether different in Italy, where the author wrote.
True, he writes salutations from the Italian Christians, but this
surely does not necessitate the supposition that he first sent round
everywhere to the Christian churches of Italy, announced his intention
to write to some Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and obtained