The practical judgment of Alexandria found formal expression in a Festal Epistle of Athanasius (A.D. 367). Among the books of the Old and New Testaments which he reckons as held canonical and divine, he enumerates fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul in the order of the oldest MSS. (... 2 Thess., Hebrews, 1 Timothy...). And from his time this reckoning of the fourteen Epistles became universal among Greek writers; but there is no reason to suppose that either he or the other fathers who followed him wished to go beyond the testimony of Clement and Origen and Eusebius.
The Epistle is used without reserve as a writing of St Paul's by Alexander of Alexandria in writing to Arius (Theodor.
H. E.
1.4; Socr.
H. E.
1.6), and there is no reason for thinking that on this point Arius differed from the other teachers of Alexandria. At a later time some Arians denied the Pauline authorship of the Book while still they used it (Epiph.
Haer.
69.14; comp. Theodoret,
Praef. ad Epist.
). The Epistle is also quoted as St Paul's (not to mention lesser names) by Didymus (
de Trin.
i. p. 23; Migne,
P. G.
39.307), Isidore of Pelusium (
Epp. Lib.
1.7; 94, Heb. 4:13), Cyril of Alexandria (
de ador. in spir. et ver.
ii. p. 58; Migne,
P. G.
68.226) and other Alexandrine fathers; by Cyril of Jerusalem (
Cat.
4.36
ta;" Pauvlou dekatevssara" ejpistolav"
, by Jacob of Nisibis and Ephrem Syrus (Bleek,
Einl.
§ 39); by the Cappadocian fathers Basil (
adv. Eunom.
1.14; 4:2) and the two Gregories, Gregory of Nyssa (
In Christi Resurr.
ii.; Migne,
P. G.
46.639) and Gregory of Nazianzus (
devka de; Pauvlou tevssarev" tj ejpistolaiv
, Migne,
P.
G.
37.474); by Epiphanius (
Haer.
lxxvi. p. 941
ejn tessareskaivdeka ejpistolai'" tou' aJgivou ajpostovlou Pauvlou
. Comp.
Haer.
xlii. p. 373), and by the representatives of the Church of Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia (Kihn
Theodor v. Mopsuestia
61 ff.) and Chrysostom (
Praef. in Com.
).
From the fourth century the canonical authority of the Epistle came to be recognised in the West, and in part, as a consequence, its Pauline authorship. Fathers, like Hilary, who were familiar with Greek writers naturally adopted little by little their mode of speaking of it. Still the influence of the old belief remained; and Jerome shews that the judgment which Eusebius notes in his time still survived unchanged: The custom of the Latins he says does not receive it among the canonical Scriptures as St Paul's (
Ep. ad Dard.
129). And while he himself rightly maintained its canonical authority and used it freely, he was ever scrupulously careful to indicate in his quotations that he did not by so doing decide the question of its authorship. Augustine adopted the same general view as Jerome, and under his influence lists of Books for use in Church were authorised at three African Councils, at Hippo in 393, and at Carthage in 397 and 419. In all of these the Epistle to the Hebrews was included; and henceforward, while the doubts as to the authorship of the Epistle were noticed from time to time, the canonical authority of the Book was not again called in question in the West till the time of the Reformation. The Catalogue of the second Council of Carthage was transcribed in a letter