The destruction of Jerusalem forced this inquiry upon believers with a fresh power. There was an apparent chasm opened in the line of divine revelation. All that had been held sacred for centuries was swept away, and yet the books of the Old Testament, which appeared to find an outward embodiment in the Jewish services, were still the authoritative Bible of Christians.
Could the Old Testament be thus kept? And if so, how were Christians to explain the contradiction between the hallowing of the writings, and the apparent neglect of their contents? The ordinances of the Law had not been formally abrogated: what then were the limits of their obligation? In what sense could writings, in which the ordinances were laid down, still be regarded as inspired by the Spirit of God, if the ordinances themselves were set aside?
A little reflection will shew that the difficulties, involved in these questions which the early Christians had to face, were very real and very urgent. The pregnant thoughts of the Epistle to the Hebrewsall that is contained in the words polumerw'" kai; polutrovpw" pavlai oJ qeo;" lalhvsa" toi'" patravsin ejn toi'" profhvtai" have indeed passed so completely into our estimate of the method of the divine education of the nations and of the people, that some effort is required now in order that we may feel the elements of the problem with which they deal. But we can realise the situation by removing this book from the New Testament, and substituting in imagination the Epistle of Barnabas for it.
Two opposite solutions of the difficulties obtained partial currency. It was said on the one side that the Old Testament must be surrendered: that Judaism and Christianity were essentially antagonistic: that Christ really came to abolish the work of an opposing power: that the separation of the Gospel from the Law and the Prophets must be final and complete. This view, represented in its most formidable shape by Marcion, was opposed to the whole spirit of the apostolic teaching and to the instinct of the Christian Society. It isolated Christianity from the fulness of human life, and it is needless to dwell upon it.
On the other side it was said, as in the Epistle of Barnabas, that God had spoken only one message and made one Covenant, and that message, that Covenant, was the Gospel; but that the message had been misunderstood from the first by the Jews to whom it was addressed, and that the Covenant in consequence had not been carried into effect till Christ came (Barn. 4:6).
This view is not in its essence less unhistorical than the other, or less fatal to a right apprehension of the conditions and course of the divine revelation. But it had a certain attractiveness from the symbolic interpretation of Scripture which it involved, and it seemed to guard in some sense the continuity of God's dealing with men. So it was that, if the Epistle to the Hebrews had not already provided help before the crisis of the trial came, and silently directed the current of Christian thought into the true channel, it would be hard to say how great the peril and loss would have been for later time.
For the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of Barnabas present a complete and instructive contrast in their treatment of the Old Testament Scriptures and of the Mosaic institutions. Both agree in regarding these as ordained by God, and instinct with spiritual truth, but their agreement extends