Note 10 — Chapter VI · EARLY BOOK-MAKING

Save for the two namings of Jesus (i, 1; ii, 1) at the beginnings of chapters, there is no trace of Jesuine doctrine; the epistle is addressed to “the twelve tribes of the Dispersion”; and there is a reference (ii, 2) to “your synagogue,” not to “your ecclesia.” When therefore we note the extremely suspicious character of the second naming of Jesus, “our Lord Jesus Christ of glory,” we are doubly entitled to diagnose interpolation; and the first naming at once comes under suspicion. It is not surprising therefore that such a critic as Spitta pronounces the epistle a Jewish document.10 Even if it were true, then, that the eschatological matter has a gospel colouring, that would carry us no further than a surmise that the Jewish document had been slightly developed for Jesuine purposes. And this may be the solution as to the anti-Pauline element. An originally Jewish document may have been used by a Judæo-Christian to carry an attack on a doctrine of Gentilizing Christism. The residual fact is that a section of the Jesuist movement in the second century was satisfied with a quasi-apostolic document which has no hint of the teaching of a historical Jesus. Naturally it soon passed into “catholic” disfavour.