Note 1 — Chapter XIII · Epistle to the Hebrews (A Sequel to Sophia Solomontos).

Since this work was sent to the press the world has been enriched by Dr. McGiffert’s “History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age.” He pronounces the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews “without doubt the finest and most cultured literary genius of the primitive church,” but believes the Epistle to be somewhat later than those of Paul. He thinks its detailed description of proceedings in the temple might have been written after its destruction, as Clement’s account was, and remarks that the writer always calls it the “tabernacle.” This peculiarity I attribute to the emphasis in the “Wisdom of Solomon” on the temple being “a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which thou hast prepared from the beginning” (ix. 8). It seems unlikely that the Epistle could have said “the priests go in continually” etc., had the temple not existed. Dr. McGiffert finds in some expressions indications that there were Gentiles among those to whom the Epistle was addressed, but even admitting this it is natural to suppose that there must have been some fellowship of this kind among educated people before Paul’s propaganda. The passages referred to by Dr. McGiffert, if they imply what he supposes, render it all the more improbable that if Paul and his mission to the Gentiles preceded this Epistle, there should be no allusion to them in it.