epistles agree remarkably, as well in their general style and diction as in their description of existing errors and false teachers.  It is generally thought that Timothy was at Ephesus; and with this opinion agrees the salutation to “the household of Onesiphorus,” who was at Ephesus.  Chap. 4:19 compared with 1:18.  The words of chap. 4:12, however, “Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus,” do not favor this supposition.  Hence some have thought that Timothy was not in that city, but only in its vicinity.  The present is undoubtedly the last of Paul’s epistles in the order of time.  As such we cannot but peruse it with solemnity, as the closing testimony of one who has fought the good fight, finished the appointed course, and kept the faith; and who here instructs all, especially all preachers of the gospel, how they may do the same.  “And thus we possess an epistle calculated for all ages of the church; and in which while the maxims cited and encouragements given apply to all Christians, and especially ministers of Christ, in their duties and difficulties—­the affecting circumstances in which the writer himself is placed carry home to every heart his earnest and impassioned eloquence.”  Alford, Introduction to 2 Timothy.

VIII.  EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

42.  In regard to the authorship of this epistle biblical scholars are not agreed.  Each of the thirteen preceding epistles bears the name of Paul.  But the present epistle is without either name or address, and it omits also at the beginning the apostolic salutation.  Thus it commences in the form of an essay, though it closes in that of an epistle.  These circumstances, in connection with its peculiar style and diction and the peculiar range of the topics discussed in it, have produced a diversity of opinion on the question whether Paul was its author, at least its author in the immediate sense in which he was the author of the preceding epistles.  For the full discussion of the arguments on both sides the reader must be referred to the commentaries, some of which are accessible to all.  Our limits will only permit us to indicate certain facts and principles which have a bearing on the authorship of the epistle and its canonical authority.

The unanimous belief of the Eastern church, where we must suppose that it was first received and whence the knowledge of it was spread abroad, ascribed it to Paul as its author either immediately or virtually; for some, as Origen (in Eusebius’ Hist.  Eccl., 6. 14) accounted for its peculiar diction by the supposition that Paul furnished the thoughts, while they were reduced to form by the pen of some other person.  Another opinion was that Paul wrote in Hebrew, and that our present canonical epistle is a translation into Greek (Eusebius’ Hist.  Eccl., 3. 38; Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius’ Hist.  Eccl., 6. 14).  In the Western church Clement of Rome did indeed refer to the epistle