as authoritative, but without naming the author.  Yet its Pauline authorship was not generally admitted, nor was it received as a part of the sacred canon till the fourth century, when here too the opinion of the Eastern church was adopted.  The Muratorian canon, which represents the belief of the Western church before the fourth century, omits this epistle.  The Syriac Peshito, on the other hand, inserts it in accordance with its uniform reception by the Eastern church.  This uniformity of belief in the Eastern church must have had for its starting point the Hebrews to whom the epistle was sent; and it is a strong argument for the supposition that it did originally come to them under the sanction of Paul’s name and authority; whether dictated to an amanuensis, as were most of his epistles, or written with his knowledge and approbation by some inspired man among his attendants and fellow-laborers who was thoroughly conversant with his views on the subjects treated of in the epistle.  This is as far as we have any occasion to go, since we know that the gift of inspiration was not confined to the circle of the apostles.

As we cannot affirm that all who were associated with the apostles in the work of the ministry had the gifts needful for the composition of writings that should be given to the churches as the authoritative word of God, so neither can we deny to some the possession of these gifts, as is plain from the examples of Mark and Luke.  When men who stood in the second grade of relation to Christ—­apostolic men, as we may conveniently call them—­composed their works, it is not necessary to assume that they wrote under a formal apostolic supervision.  The “discerning of spirits” is a gift which we must concede to all of the apostles.  If, then, an associate of one of the apostles had such relations to him and wrote in such circumstances that we cannot suppose it to have been done without his knowledge and approbation formal or implied, we have for his work all needful authority.  What further connection the apostle may have had with it in the way of suggestion or supervision is a question which we may well leave undetermined.  In judging of this matter we consider first of all the testimony of the early churches, since they enjoyed the best means of ascertaining the origin of a writing; and then the character of the writing itself.  Proceeding in this way we come to the full conviction of the canonical authority of the epistle to the Hebrews, whether we believe, with many, that Paul was its immediate author, or, with Origen, that “the ancients not without reason have handed it down as Paul’s; but on the question who wrote the epistle God only knows the truth.”

43.  That the apostle wrote for the instruction of Jewish Christians is manifest.  The uniform tenor of the epistle indicates, moreover, that they were Jewish Christians without any admixture of a Gentile element.  The salutations at the