One conjecture, however, remains to be noticed, not indeed for its own intrinsic worth, but because it has found favour with many scholars. Luther, as we have seen, with characteristic originality conjectured that it was the work of Apollos. The sole ground for the conjecture is the brief description of Apollos which is found in the N. T. (Acts 18:24 ff.; 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4 ff.). But the utmost which can be deduced from these notices is that Apollos, so far as we know, might have written the Epistle; just as what we know of Silas is consistent with the belief that he wrote it, and has even suggested it. But on the other hand it is to be remembered that there is not the least evidence that Apollos wrote anything, or that he was the only man or the only Alexandrian in the Apostolic age who was learned...and mighty in the Scriptures, or that he possessed these qualifications more than others among his contemporaries, or that, in the connexion in which they are noticed, they suggest the presence of the peculiar power which is shewn in the Epistle. The wide acceptance of the conjecture as a fact is only explicable by our natural unwillingness to frankly confess our ignorance on a matter which excites our interest.
And yet in this case the confession of ignorance is really the confirmation of an inspiriting faith. We acknowledge the divine authority of the Epistle, self-attested and ratified by the illuminated consciousness of the Christian Society: we measure what would have been our loss if it had not been included in our Bible; and we confess that the wealth of spiritual power was so great in the early Church that he who was empowered to commit to writing this view of the fulness of the Truth has not by that conspicuous service even left his name for the grateful reverence of later ages. It was enough that the faith and the love were there to minister to the Lord (Matt. 26:13).
In the course of the last century the authorship of the Epistle has been debated with exhaustive thoroughness. Bleek's Introduction to his Commentary is a treasury of materials, arranged and used with scrupulous fairness. It would be difficult to make any important additions to his view of the external facts. All the recent Commentaries discuss the question more or less fully. It will be enough to refer to some representative writers who advocate the claims of particular men to the authorship. The case for St Paul is maintained, with various modifications, by Ebrard, Hofmann, Biesenthal, Kay: for St Luke, by Delitzsch: for Apollos by Alford, Kurtz, Farrar: for Barnabas by Grau, Renan, Zahn: for St Mark by E. S. Lowndes (comp. Holtzmann,
Einl.
318 f.).
XII. THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS AND THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS
Two Epistles, as has been already noticed, were circulated in the third century under the name of Barnabas. Both were for some time on the verge of the Canon of the N. T., and at last, a century later, one was by common consent included in it and the other excluded. Both deal with a question which was of momentous importance at the close of the apostolic age, and the manner in which they respectively deal with it illuminates the idea of inspiration, and reveals a little of the divine action in the life of the Church.
The question arose of necessity from the progress of the Faith. As the Gentile churches grew in importance, Christians could not but ask how they were to regard the Scriptures and the institutions of Judaism?