Chapter XIII · Epistle to the Hebrews (A Sequel to Sophia Solomontos).

In a Theocracy the birth of a new God was not the mere new generalization that it might be in our secularized century,—a deification of the Unknowable, for instance,—of not the slightest practical or moral interest to any human being. Judea was the bodily incarnation, even more than Islam is now, of a deity who said, “I am the Lord and there is none else; I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.” The denial of such a deity, the substitution of one who required neither prayers, sacrifices, nor intercessions, could not be merely theoretical. It must involve the overthrow of a nationality which had no bond of unity except a book, and the institutions founded on that book.

Nor did the theocratic principle admit of a mere philosophical opposition to its institutions. He who touched that system was dealing with people who, in the language of “Sophia Solomontos” were “shut up in a prison without iron bars.” The natural advent of the anti-Jahvist was in the Temple and with the words—

He hath sent me to herald glad news to the poor,

He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to captives,

And recovering of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty them that are bruised.

These miseries had no real relation to the social or political conditions amid which their phrases and hymns were born, but to a burden of debts to a jealous and vindictive omnipotence; a burden not of actions really wrong, but of mysterious offences, related to incomprehensible ordinances and heavenly etiquette. No human vices are so malignant as inhuman virtues.

Bunyan, in depicting Christian’s burden, has, with a felicity perhaps unconscious, made it a pack strapped on. It is not a hunch, not any part of the pilgrim, and had he possessed the courage to examine it there must have been found many spiritual nightmares of the race, and many robust English virtues turned to sins when the merry and honest tinker turned retrospective Rip Van Winkle, and dreamed himself back into the year One. The burden of sins on the poor Israelites had been gradually getting lighter under the scepticism of the Wisdom school, in view of the failure of Jahveh to fulfil the menaces and sentences of the priesthood. Conformity was secured mainly for actual advantages bestowed by the synagogue, or its terrors. But the discovery of the doctrine of a future life and a day of judgment, when all the mysterious “sins” were to be settled for, while smiled at by the Saducees, made the burden of the ignorant poor intolerable. Life was passed under suspended swords. The priesthood had a cowering vassal in every ignorant human being. The time, the labour, the flocks of the peasantry were devoted, but it was all a “sweating” process,—the debts were never paid, and there was always that “certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.” No doubt even the learned supposed these superstitions useful to keep the “masses” in order.

But one day a scholarly gentleman, a man of genius, was moved with compassion for these poor lost and priest-harried sheep: he turned aside from his college and his rank, and became their shepherd; he declared they owed no duties to any deity, and that the heavenly despot they so dreaded had no existence.

A modern gentleman in a fine mansion and estate may be amused at Bunyan’s quaint pilgrim, reading in a book and discovering that he was in a City of Destruction, fleeing with a burden on his back, and rejoicing when it rolls off at the cross. But if this gentleman should suddenly receive from some distant personage papers showing that his estate had been entirely mortgaged by his father, that it would soon be claimed and his family reduced to beggary, he might understand the City of Destruction. And if, soon after, some visitor arrived to state that the holder of the mortgages was dead; that those claims had all legally fallen into his own hands, and that he had burnt them, the rolling off of Christian’s burden might be appreciated,—also the enthusiasm of the personal followers of Jesus.

But one might further imagine a host of hungry lawyers, living on large retainers, not being quite happy at such easy settlements, especially if the generous visitor were found wealthy enough to go about buying up and burning claims, and ending litigation. This, to us hardly imaginable, was, however, actually the condition of things reflected in parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein the bond under which man suffers is clearly to him who hath the Power of Death, the Devil: Jesus ransomed man from the Devil.

The anonymous tractate superscribed solely “To the Hebrews,” though the last admitted into the New Testament, is probably the earliest document it contains. It has no doubt been tampered with, but the evidences of the early date of its conception of Christ remain. Not only was it evidently written before the destruction of the temple (anno 70), but before there was any thought of a mission to the Gentiles, who, with Paul their apostle, are ignored. Some of its phrases and illustrations are found in epistles of Paul, but, as Dr. Davidson pointed out in his Introduction to the New Testament, the general doctrine of this treatise is far from Pauline, and it is difficult to find any reason for supposing that the few borrowings were not by Paul, other than a preference for Paul, and disinclination to admit that there is any anonymous work in the New Testament. The treatise is without Paul’s egotism, or his fatalism, and its conception of the new movement seems decidedly more primitive than that in the recognised Pauline epistles. The sagacious Eusebius, “father of church history,” connects the Epistle “To the Hebrews” with the “Wisdom of Solomon,” and it seems clear that we have here the bridge between the last abutment of philosophic or “broad” Jahvism, and its “new departure” as Christism.

It is not of especial importance to the present inquiry to determine that Paul might not at some youthful period have written this work, though I cannot see how any critical reader can so imagine; but it will bear indirectly on that point if we read successively the following corresponding passages:

Wisdom of Solomon.—“For Wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me ... she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty; therefore can no unclean thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness. And alone she can do all things; herself unchanged, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and prophets.”—(vii. 25–27.) “And Wisdom was with thee: which knoweth thy works, and was present when thou madest the world.” (ix. 9.)

Epistle to the Hebrews.—“God, having in time past spoken to the fathers by many fragments and divers ways in the prophets, at the end of these days spake unto us in Son whom he constituted heir of all things, by whom also he fashioned the ages; who, being the brightness of his light and the image of his substance, and guiding all things by the word of his authority, having made purification of sins, sat on the right of majesty in high places.” (i. 1–3.)

Epistle to the Colossians.—“Who (the Father) delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his son of love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and above the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (i. 13–17.)

Fourth Gospel.—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory—glory as of an only begotten of a Father full of grace and truth.” (i. 1–15.)

Although this Epistle contains the principle ascribed to Jesus, “charity and not sacrifice” (xiii. 9) and substitutes for beasts the “sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips harmonious with his good name” (verse 15), the letter that killeth brought forth from the same chapter the fatal doctrine that the body of Jesus was a sacrifice to be eaten. And although this emphasizes the completeness of his humanity to an extent inconsistent with his deity, it is on the letter of this Epistle that the deification of Christ is founded.

He is represented as “made perfect through sufferings,” as “tempted in all points like (?others) without sin,” and as having without assistance of temple or sacrifices, “obtained eternal redemption” (ix. 12). Thus he also needed redemption.

The new covenant of which Jesus was the founder is described in the words of Jeremiah (xxxi.):

I will put my laws into their mind,

And on their heart will I write them

And I will be to them a God,

And they shall be to me a people:

And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,

And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:

For all shall know me,

From the least unto the greatest.

In quoting this the writer to the Hebrews adds: “In that he saith, ‘A new (covenant) he hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is near unto vanishing entirely.’” Here is a primitive Quakerism, but more conservative; not like George Fox at once sweeping away priesthood sacraments and ecclesiastical laws before the Inner Light, but pointing to their near vanishing.

The writer of this Epistle is a philosophical conservative; he shudders at the idea of a swift and complete overthrow of the traditional system, and even borrows its old thunders against levitical sin to menace offences against the new moral God. “Our God [also] is a consuming fire.” It is evident by his very warnings that a great anti-sacerdotal and anti-levitical revolution had taken place, and that the free spirit was burgeoning out in excesses. But such is his culture that one may suspect his thunders of being theatrical, and that he thinks some superstition necessary for the masses.

The fatal and subtle character of the detective Holy Spirit is imported into this Epistle from the “Wisdom of Solomon” (i. 6), though not so distinctly personified. The sin afterwards called “unpardonable” is here a sin against Christ for which repentance, not pardon, is impossible. We may perhaps find in some of the expressions germs of the legend of Judas. “As touching those who were once enlightened, and tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age that is come, and fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, seeing they individually impale the Son of God afresh and put him to open shame” (vi. 5, 6). The believers are “not of them that shrink back into perdition” (x. 39); and they are warned to look carefully “whether there be any man that falleth back from the grace of God,... like Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright” (xii. 15, 16). The words “tasted,” “perdition,” “sold,” might start a legend of the betrayal, first alluded to by Paul (if 1 Cor. xi. 23 be genuine, which is doubtful), though had the legend of Judas then existed this writer would naturally have alluded to him along with Esau.

From the legend of Solomon and the Solomonic Psalms the Epistle to the Hebrews brings its exaltation of Christ. From Ps. lxxxix. 26–7, as reproduced in 2 Sam. vii. 14, is quoted (i. 5) the divine promise, “I will be to him (Solomon) a Father and he shall be my Son,” along with the manifesto at Solomon’s enthronement (Ps. ii. 7), “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” Solomon is the “first-born” alluded to in Heb. i. 6: “When of old bringing the first-born into the inhabited earth (οἰκουμένην) he saith, And pay homage to him all angels of God?”

And here we have an interesting example of evolution in the Solomon legend. The term “first-born,” as indicating the relation of a human being to the deity, occurs but once in the Old Testament, namely, in Psalm lxxxix. 27. It occurs in a strange passage that must be quoted:

19. Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy ones,

And saidst, I have laid help upon a youth;

I have raised one elected out of the people.

20. I have discovered David, my servant:

With my holy oil have I anointed him,

21. By whom my hand shall be established,

Whom also mine arm shall strengthen.

22. The enemy shall not do him violence,

Nor the son of evil afflict him.

23. I will beat down his adversaries before him

And smite them that hate him.

24. But my faithfulness and my mercy end not with him,

And in my name shall his horn be exalted.

25. I will extend his hand on the sea also,

And his right hand on the rivers:

26. He shall address me, “Thou, my father,

My God, and the rock of my support”;

27. In answer I constitute him first-born,

Elyon of the kings of the earth.

Although in all of these verses the Davidic royalty is exalted, the reference to David’s own reign passes at verse 24 into a celebration of Solomon. Here, as in Psalm cxxxii. 17, Solomon is the “horn” of David: he was distinctively the power on sea and river, phrases inapplicable to David, and there is a contrast between the anointed “servant” (verse 20) and the “first-born” (verse 27). The next title, “Elyon” (Most High), comes very near to that of the deity (El Elyon) of the mysterious priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek, whose mythical character and identity with the legendary Solomon will be hereafter considered.

Here we have no doubt the germs of the narrative in 2 Sam. vii. of the formal adoption of Solomon as Jahveh’s son, with the addition of a metaphysical connotation of the sonship not found in the Psalm. In the Psalm the fatherhood is that of support, the position of “first-born” is that of chieftainship among kings; and it is further said (31, 32) that if any of the sons of the Davidic line profane the divine statutes, “Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” But in 2 Sam. vii. 14, Jahveh applies this warning to Solomon alone, and with a remarkable modification: “I will be his father and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men; but my mercy shall not depart from him.” That is, though a son of God he may be chastened like the sons of men,—an intimation of a difference between Solomon and ordinary human nature not intended in the words of the Psalm.

The Epistle to the Hebrews, finding in this Psalm an introduction of “first-born” into the world, for there is no article preceding the word, follows it so closely as to omit any article before “son” (i. 2). He finds this in an address of the deity to his angels (“holy ones” or saints), and understands verse 27 of the Psalm to mean that they, the angels, are to worship the “first-born” as the Elyon, or Most High on earth. From 2 Sam. vii. the Epistle gets sufficient authority for ascribing an eternal personality to the sonship, anciently represented by Solomon, and we may thus see that the gesture of Hebrew religion towards a doctrine of incarnation was much earlier than is generally supposed. And this, too, is the Hebrew contribution to a Psalm which, in the nine verses above quoted, imports ideas foreign to Judaism. The reciprocal help of the deity and the king (19–21) is Avestan, and inconsistent with monotheism. Elyon is the name of an ancient Phœnician god, slain by his son El, no doubt the “first-born of death” in Job xviii. 13, and the violent “son of evil,” in verse 22 of our Psalm. The exaltation of both David and Solomon in the Psalm is primarily in reference to service and deeds, not majesty, essence, or title; of these Avestan religion made little, but Hebraism made much, and the deification of Solomon, though warranted by other Psalms, is added to this eighty-ninth by Samuel and the Epistle to the Hebrews.

In Ecclesiasticus it is written: “In the division of the nations of the whole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord’s portion: whom, being his first-born, he nourisheth with discipline, and giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him.... For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal. What is brighter than the sun? Yet the light thereof faileth; and flesh and blood will imagine evil” (xvii.). Now in the Zoroastrian theology there could be no direct contact of God with matter: the devil’s empire could be invaded and death conquered only by a perfectly “blameless” Man. (Cf. “Wisdom of Solomon,” xviii. 21, with the “sinless” of Heb. iv. 15, the “guileless” of vii. 26, and “without blemish,” ix. 14). The spotless one can use no carnal weapon. In the Zoroastrian theology the divine potency is that of the Word, and formulas exist to be wielded against every variety of demon. So in this Epistle the supremacy of the Son is by “the word of his power”, (i. 3), and “the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword” (iv. 12).

The enterprise of the Son of God was to fulfil these conditions. He must become a complete man, share all the infirmities of man, all his liabilities to temptation, receive no assistance from his Father, no angelic help,—placed lower than the angels,—and confront the powers of Death and Hell without any material weapon. If he succeeded in remaining sinless, faithful to the divine law, even unto death, even while in hell, unshaken by threats, sufferings, or seductions, it must be a purely human achievement. There was no miracle; even the suspicion of using supernatural power would have tainted the whole work of Jesus as conceived in this Epistle.

This undertaking was not simply for the sake of mankind. All things are not yet subjected to the divine sway (Heb. ii. 8). Heaven itself was shaken, when the old covenant failed, and trembled for the result of the tremendous conflict of the Son of Man on earth with its Prince and his hosts (Heb. xii. 25–29). This was “the joy in front of him” (xii. 2), as well as the rescue of men.

Thus was the man left entirely to the devil, not even his life being reserved, as in the case of Job. He loudly cries for help, even with tears, at the sight of Death; he is heard, pitied, but no help comes. He must trust to his human merits, and not miracles, for his Sonship is of no value in this conflict. By his obedience learned in his sufferings, by his sinlessness under all trials and temptations, he fulfilled the conditions of deathlessness. By his own heart’s blood, not by offerings of bloody sacrifices, not by supernatural power, he reached the place of holiness, “having obtained eternal redemption.” From first to last there was no divine aid. His unanswered loud cries (Heb. v. 7) may be connected with the legend of his expiring cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Much of the thought here is similar to the “Wisdom of Solomon” (ii. 22–4, iii. 1–9), where however the ideas are conflicting. It is said, “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity: nevertheless, through the devil’s envy came death into the world, and they that hold of his side do find it.” But then Jahvism puts in with the declaration that the seeming destruction of the righteous is God’s chastisement and probation of them. The Epistle to the Hebrews does not regard the sufferings and death of Jesus as God’s work at all, but all from the devil. Though God spoke by him there is no suggestion that he sent Jesus, or that his coming was not voluntary.

And there is also, I believe, in the scheme of redemption set forth in this Epistle, an influence from the story of King Usinára in the Mahábhárata, of which there were various versions which must have been familiar to the Buddhists in Alexandria. A dove pursued by a falcon takes refuge in the bosom of Usinára; the falcon demands its surrender. The King quotes the law of Manu that it is a great sin to abandon any being that has taken asylum with one. The falcon urges that it is the law of nature that falcons shall feed on doves, and that unless this dove is surrendered its little falcons must starve. The King offers other food, but the only substitute that is adapted to the falcon’s nature is a quantity of Usinára’s own flesh equal to the weight of the dove. To this the King agrees. Balances are produced, and the dove placed in one scale, in the other a piece of the King’s flesh, which seems large enough, but is insufficient. Though the King cuts off piece by piece all of his flesh, the dove outweighs it, until at length Usinára gets into the scale Himself. That outweighs the dove, which is really Agni, the falcon being Indra. The gods who had assumed these forms in order to test Usinára’s fidelity to the law of sanctuary, resume their shape, and the King ascends transfigured to paradise. In one version a King (Givi) sacrifices his son, Vrihad-Gasbha in obedience to sacred requirements, the story resembling that of Abraham and Isaac. Alford calls attention to the emphasis on the word “himself” in the Epistle of the Hebrews ix. 14: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself, without blemish, unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Pulpit ignorance has wrested from the Epistle to the Hebrews fragments of texts, in support of a dogma of atonement which only a fortunate lack of logic prevents from amounting to a doctrine of human sacrifice. A favorite clause is, “Without the shedding of blood there in no remission,”—which is really this epistle’s stigma on the system it is abolishing! The sacredness of the blood of Jesus was that it was the price he had to pay to the devil in order to preserve his sinlessness, and so rise from death, and demonstrate to others that they also could rise by sinlessness to eternal life. It might cost their blood also, but would be lost if they “resisted unto blood.” Jesus thus brought life and incorruption, as distinguished from living-death in sheol, to light. And the devotion to Jesus for this was due to the belief that he had laid aside his heavenly glory and become a complete man, and had thus risked his all, his greatness, his very immortality, to make for both heaven and earth the tremendous venture; the slightest misstep, the least sin, or wrath, or impatience, and he would have had his abode in sheol, in bonds of Satan, through all eternity.

When this Epistle was written the believers already found immortality in such faith; with such hope and joy before them they were able to despise sensual joys, to conquer temptations, and to fulfill those duties and conditions of personal holiness which are described in this Epistle,—“Peace with all men, and holiness without which no man can see the Lord.” The ecstasy did not last long, but it was a marvellous phenomenon while it lasted, and the most complete reflection of it may be found in this Epistle to the Hebrews, especially if it be approached by its prologue,—the “Wisdom of Solomon,”—but it is subtle, and can only be comprehended by patient and comparative studies.

At the heart of this earliest and swiftly lost Christianity was a sublime effort to humanize God.