HEBREW LANGUAGE 



HEIWEWH 



615 



almost entirely conducted in 'the sacred tongue.' 

 Although tlie majority of \M->IITM Jews, particu- 

 larly among the upper and middle classes, possess 

 hut an impei-iect acquaintance with it, the author- 

 ities manilcst u strong disinclination to cease pray- 

 ing in a language which, it is urged, constitute*) 

 a powerful link between Israel's present and past, 

 mid serves as a homl of union l>etween Jews all the 

 world over. Outside the synagogue, Hebrew can 

 ely 1)0 said to have survived as a spoken lan- 

 gu.-i^e, except tliat in Jerusalem and other eastern 

 chics it forms a sort of Lingua Franca among the 

 Jews of vari<i> nationalities settled there. As a 

 iri-iffi-n and /innti'd language, however, the employ- 

 ment of Hebrew is far more general. It serves as a 

 universal medium of correspondence, both private 

 and official, among Jews in various parts of the 

 world, and particularly between the East and the 

 West. Various weekly journals are also written in 

 it, in Europe as well as in Palestine. Added to 

 this, numerous Hebrew works on all subjects con- 

 tinue to be composed by learned Jews. The Hebrew 

 tlms used for modern purposes is usually not the 

 pure Hebrew of the Bible and synagogue, but the 

 rabbinical dialect in which Jewish doctors of the 

 law have studied and commented, written and dis- 

 puted since the age of the Mishna, and which has 

 ueen developed and amplified by Jewish philo- 

 sophers, poets, and grammarians throughout the 

 middle ages. Both kinds of Hebrew biblical and 

 rabbinical must be carefully distinguished from 

 the jMtuis dialects affected by Jews in countries 

 where they have not yet been fully emancipated or 

 modernised. In Russia and the adjacent parts of 

 Germany and Austria they speak a jargon composed 

 of Hebrew and corrupt German, called Jiiaisch- 

 Deutsch, while in parts of the East a Judreo-Spanish 

 dialect nourishes by its side. The pronunciation 

 of Hebrew differs among the two geographical 

 sections into which Jews are divided, and which are 

 known as Axhkenazim or ' Germans,' and Sephardim 

 or ' Portuguese,' the former being of German and 

 Polish origin, and the latter having migrated from 

 the south of Europe or being still distributed there. 

 The origin of this difference is not exactly known, 

 but it may be assumed that the ' Portuguese' mode 

 of reading originally came from Palestine, where 

 the vocalisation and pronunciation of Hebrew 

 were fixed by the Massorites of Tiberias, and that 

 the German Hebrew originated in the academies of 

 Hal >y Ion under the influence of the Eastern-Syrian 

 grammarians. The Sephardic system is hence sup- 

 p.i-ed to be purer than the Ashkenazic. 



Hebrews, EPISTLE TO THE. The title of the 

 -epistle in the earliest MSS. is simply ' To Hebrews.' 

 'Ibis title is probably not from tlie hand of the 

 writer, but due to some copyist who embodied the 

 writing among others. The term ' Hebrews ' is a 

 national title given to all those descended from 

 Abraham, in opposition to Gentiles or Greeks 

 <2 Cor. xi. 22 ; Phil. iii. 5 ; cf. Heb. ii. 16) ; or in a 

 narrower sense it is applied to Jews still speaking 

 A Semitic language, in opposition to Hellenists 

 or Greek-speaking Jews (Acts, vi. 1). It is prob- 

 ably used in the more general sense here, and the 

 title merely suggests, what is evident, that the 

 epistle was addressed to persons of Jewish descent. 

 Tin- opinion that the letter was addressed to 

 Hebrews in general, wherever they might be, can- 

 not well be maintained, owing to the many local 

 and personal references, and the details of history 

 given by the author. He hoped to see the Hebrews 

 soon, as he had leen with them before (xiii. 19,23). 

 In their earlier history they had suffered persecu- 

 tion ;ind the spoiling of their goods (x. 32), some of 

 them had been or were in bonds (xiii 3, x. 34), 

 although their afflictions had not yet gone so far as 

 martyrdom (xii. 4), unless it may be that some of 



having the rule over them had o Huffered 

 (xiii. 7). Their circumstances and the lapse of 

 time, and probably also the diwapjM>intni<-nt of their 

 hopes of the coming again of Christ ( x. 37 ), had not 

 been without a wearing effect upon them ; their 

 Christian enthusiasm had grown cold (x. 25), and 

 they had not advanced, or rather had fallen back, 

 in their Christian knowledge and exirtjrience (v. 11- 

 14); and though distinguished by liberality to their 

 poorer brethren, as they had always been (vi. 10), 

 they were wavering in their faith, and in danger of 

 falling away from it (ii. 1-3, iii. 12, vi. 4, x. 25-29); 

 they Bad need of patient endurance ( x. 36, xii. 1 et 

 seq. ) and fear lest any of them should seem to come 

 short of the rest of God (iv. 1, xii. 15). Terrible 

 warnings are uttered by the author in regard to the 

 sin of apostasy and the impossibility of recovering 

 to the faith those who fall away after being 

 enlightened (vi. 4-8, x. 26^31, xii. 15-17), although 

 that for which they were in danger of renouncing 

 their Christian faith is nowhere distinctly stated. 

 From the general drift of the epistle, however, it 

 may be inferred that what the author feared was a 

 relapse into Judaism, and hence he exhorts them to 

 break conclusively with the old dispensation and go 

 forth without the camp (xiii. 9-14). 



The question of the locality where persons having 

 such a history and living in such circumstances 

 must be sought has been very differently answered. 

 The traditional view has been, under the assumption 

 of the Pauline authorship of the epistle, that the 

 church in Jerusalem was addressed. And perhaps 

 this is still the prevailing opinion. There are, how- 

 ever, serious obstacles in the way of this opinion. 

 The church in Jerusalem must have still contained 

 many who had seen and heard the Lord, while those 

 here addressed had only been evangelised by those 

 who heard him ( ii. 3 ). Such facts as these : that the 

 epistle is in Greek, and by a writer who knows the 

 Scriptures only in Greek, and who, though hardly 

 a native of Palestine, stands in such relations to 

 the Hebrews as he does ; that they are interested 

 in Timothy, the devoted minister of St Paul 

 (xiii. 23) ; that the church, so far from being poor, 

 is able to minister to the necessities of the saints 

 ( vi. 10) ; and that the author seems to count upon 

 the sympathy of his readers with his advanced 

 views these facts are rather against Jerusalem. 

 On the other hand, the idea that the Hebrews must 

 have been exposed to the seductions of an imposing 

 ritual, which could only be the Temple service, has 

 little support in the epistle. The author's refer- 

 ences to the Old Testament ritual are purely 

 theoretical, and have no bearing on the existing 

 practices ; he reasons entirely on the written scrip- 

 ture, on Judaism as founded by Moses, and his 

 arguments would be understood by Jews every- 

 where, as the system of thought and the feelings 

 against which lie directs them were common to 

 them in all places. Others have thought of Alex- 

 andria. The author is certainly a man of Alex- 

 andrian culture, and the line of thought he pursues 

 would be very natural if addressed to Alexandrian 

 Jews. It is almost a fatal objection to this view, 

 however, that, though the epistle was early known 

 and highly valued in the church of Alexandria, not 

 a trace or a tradition appeal's that they were the 

 recipients of it. Clement believed that the epistle 

 >vus written in Hebrew, and addressed to Jerusalem 

 by St Paul. In modern times some have advocated 

 the claims of Home. The first references to the 

 epistle are found in the letter of the Roman Clement 

 to the Corinthians (c. 96 A.D.). The consistent 

 tradition in Rome, too, is that the epistle is not by 

 St Paul ; and the reference to Timothy, and to 

 those of Italy (xiii. 24) would, on this view, find a 

 natural explanation, and also, perhaps, some re- 

 markable coincidences between the epistle and that 



