EPISTLE

HEBREWS

7

OF THE

TO THE

One solution to the difficult question of the authorship of this epistle was put forward in 1916 by Dr. J.W.

Thirtle, then editor of The Christian, namely that the Hebrews epistle was a covering (No, Galatians was the

covering letter to the Hebrews not the other way round, see p. 233 JP) letter or enclosure circulated with the epistle

to the Galatians. He pointed out that in early times the epistle to the Hebrews followed that to the Galatians. This is

evident from an examination of the Greek manuscript known as Codex B (Vaticanus) belonging to the fourth

century. This famous manuscript exhibits, in the words of Bishop Westcott:

`A marginal numeration which shows that the whole collection of Pauline epistles was divided, either in its

archetype or in some earlier copy, into a series of sections numbered consecutively. In this collection the epistle

to the Hebrews comes between the epistles to the Galatians and the Ephesians'.

(The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. xxx).

This arrangement approximates to that of the Thebaic and Bashmuric versions, in which the epistle comes

between 2 Corinthians and Galatians. The mass of later Greek MSS follow the Syriac and place the epistle after the

pastoral epistles and Philemon, which order has passed into the Received Text probably under this influence, and so

gives us its present place in the New Testament Dr. F.H. Scrivener gives a similar testimony in his Introduction to

the Criticism of the New Testament, p. 54:

`The Pauline epistles are reckoned throughout as one book in the older notation, with however this remarkable

peculiarity, that though in the Codex Vaticanus itself the epistle to the Hebrews stands next after the second to

the Thessalonians, and on the same leaf with it, the sections are arranged as if it stood between the epistles to the

Galatians and Ephesians .... It plainly appears then, that the sections of the Codex Vaticanus must have been

copied from some yet older document, in which the epistle to the Hebrews preceded that to the Ephesians'.

This arrangement undoubtedly exhibits this association as obtaining in very early times, possibly the

sub-Apostolic age, and that originally the one epistle followed the other with nothing between. In which case, in a

professedly Pauline section of the New Testament, we find Galatians and Hebrews merely separated the one from

the other by two words: Pros Hebraious, To Hebrews, and this, as we have noted, may not have formed part of the

original text.

Dr. Thirtle asks: `Was this in reality dividing? Why not - sub-dividing?' He goes on to propound the theory that

the epistle to the Hebrews was a covering letter to the Galatian letter and circulated with it, being specially

addressed to a Hebrew Christian section in Galatia. In which case, the problem of the introduction without the

author's name is solved, as the name of the apostle Paul is evident in Galatians 1:1, and would not need to be

repeated in the covering letter. As these two epistles became detached in course of time the anonymity of Hebrews

naturally became a problem and its position in the New Testament writings became lost, being finally located after

the Pastoral Epistles and Philemon, its present position.

Another problem would also be solved if Galatians and Hebrews circulated together and that is the extraordinary

omission of the passing of the privilege of circumcision in Hebrews, one of whose main objects is to show that the

types and shadows of Israel's economy had been fulfilled in the Antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus had

become redundant. Yet circumcision, one of the main bases of Jewish pride and privilege, is not mentioned in the

epistle to the Hebrews. This is understandable if these two epistles were designed to be kept together, for

circumcision had been adequately dealt with in Galatians.

Dr. Thirtle leaned toward an Aramaic original. He felt that Galatians 6:11, `Ye see how large a letter I have

written unto you with mine own hand', refers not to large lettering due to defective eyesight, but to an epistle written

by the apostle `with my own handwriting', possibly Aramaic; just as some have held to have been the case with the

Gospel of Matthew. That gramma, `letter', in the plural can mean this is confirmed by Arndt and Gingrich:

`A document, piece of writing, mostly in the plural even of single copies 1 Esdras 3:9,13; Esther 8:5, etc.' (A

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).

To the objection to an Aramaic original (the writer of Hebrews citing generally from the LXX and not the

Hebrew text) he states that this feature `is consistent with a translation made by someone who saw reasons for

following the general guidance of the LXX, but has not troubled to tell us why'. And as regards the difficulty of the