Item indiculum novi testamenti
evangelia IIII. Matheum vr II DCC
Marcus ver 8 DCC
Johannem vr 8 DCCC
Luca vr III CCC
fiunt omnes versus X eplae Pauli n XIII actus aplorum ver III DC apocalipsis ver 8 DCCC eplae Iohannis III. ur CCCCL una sola.
eplae Petri II. ver. CCC una sola.
Thus at the earliest date at which we find a collection of St Paul's Epistles in circulation in the Church, the Epistle to the Hebrews was by some definitely included in his writings, occupying a place either among or at the close of the Epistles to Churches: by others it was treated as an appendix to them, being set after the private letters: with others again it found no place at all among the Apostolic writings.
IV. ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
The earliest direct notice of the Epistle, quoted by Eusebius (
H. E.
6.14) from Clement of Alexandria, states that it was written (by Paul) to Hebrews in the Hebrew language (
i.e.
the Aramaic dialect current in Palestine at the time, Acts 22:2) and translated (into Greek) by Luke. (See § XI.) This statement was repeated from Eusebius (and Jerome who depended on him), as it appears, and not from Clement himself, by a series of later writers both in the East and West (Theodoret, Euthalius, John of Damascus, OEcumenius, Theophylact, Primasius, Rabanus Maurus, Thomas Aquinas: see Bleek, 8 f.; Credner,
Einl.
533), but there is not the least trace of any independent evidence in favour of the tradition, nor is it said that any one had ever seen the original Hebrew document. The unsupported statement of Clement, which Origen discredits by his silence, is thus the whole historical foundation for the belief that the Epistle was written in Hebrew. The opinion however was incorporated in the
Glossa Ordinaria
, and became the traditional opinion of the mediaeval Western Church. When Widmanstadt first published the Syriac text of the New Testament, he even argued that the text of the Epistle to the Hebrews was the original of St Paul. The belief in a Hebrew original was maintained by one or two scholars in the last century (J. Hallet, J. D. Michaelis); and lately it has found a vigorous advocate in J. H. R. Biesenthal (
Das Trostschreiben d. Ap. Paulus an d.
Hebraer
, 1878; comp. Panek,
Comm. in Ep. Prolegg.
§ 2; 1882), who thinks that the Epistle was