HEBREWS 



commanded by Moses to appear 

 before Yahweh at the Matstsoth 

 Festival or Feast of Unleavened 

 Bread, at the Feast of Weeks or 

 Harvest Festival, and at the Vin- 

 tage or Feast of Tabernacles ; all 

 were originally agricultural fes- 

 tivals (Exod. xxxiv, 14-26). 



The rise of a priesthood was in- 

 evitable. This was hereditary. An 

 early example of the teaching of the 

 priests is provided by the Book of 

 the Covenant (Exod. xxi, 1-xxiii, 

 13). The cultus, of course, was not 

 yet centralized. Yahweh was iden- 

 tified with the local Baals of the 

 Canaanites, and Bethel, Gilgal, 

 Dan, and Beersheba appear as 

 favourite places of pilgrimage. At 

 about the time of the institution of 

 the monarchy we hear of a body 

 called the " sons of the prophets." 

 These seem to have constituted a 

 prophetic guild or fraternity, the 

 members of which were able to 

 arouse in themselves and others 

 great religious enthusiasm (1 Sam. 

 xix, 20). 



They were organized by Samuel, 

 called the seer of Ramah ; and 

 with them the prophets have 

 emerged as a power to be reckoned 

 with. In the reigns of Ahab of 

 Israel (876-854 B.C.) and Jehosh- 

 aphat of Israel (873-849 B.C.), in 

 the persons of Elijah and Elisha 

 the prophets begin to assume an 

 active and commanding role as reli- 

 gious and social reformers. Hebrew 

 religion now begins to lay stress on 

 ethics rather than on ritual. With 

 the emergence of the great pro- 

 phets, we arrive at a development 

 of Hebrew religion which may be 

 described as monotheism. 



Monotheism of Early Faith 



The earlier religion tolerated 

 other deities ; the prophetic reli- 

 gion does not. In spite of the 

 curious and doubtful phenomenon 

 presented by the Egyptian king 

 Amenophis IV or Akhenaton, this 

 ethical monotheism is the distin- 

 guishing feature of early Hebrew 

 religion. The prophets wished to 

 purge the religion of all heathen 

 contamination. They opposed 

 strenuously the sacrificial cultus, 

 and proclaimed that Yahweh takes 

 no pleasure in sacrificial feasts 

 (Amos v, 21-24, iv, 4; Hos. vi, 

 4-6; Isa. i, 10-17; Jer. vi, 20). 

 They rejected the use of an image 

 as a representation of God (Hos. 

 viii, 4-6, x, 5, xiii, 2). They even 

 denied the superiority of the Israel- 

 ites The dark-skinned Ethiopians 

 are just as dear to Yahweh as the 

 children of Israel. Amos found cher- 

 ished amongthe people a well-estab- 

 lished doctrine of the Day of Yah- 

 weh as a day when Yahweh would 

 make them triumphant over all 

 their enemies. He transformed it so 



3909 



radically and ethically that " in- 

 stead of Israel triumphing over her 

 enemies on that day, she is herself 

 to be humiliated, and that by 

 Yahweh himself." (See Amos and 

 Hosea, p. 131, W. R. Harper, 1905, 

 in Int. Crit. Comment.) 



The eighth century prophets 

 exercised a very great influence on 

 the Hebrew religion ; but they 

 were idealists, and the immediate 

 circles of their influence were not 

 large. In the reign of Manasseh 

 (686-641 B.C.) there was a religious 

 reaction during which old super- 

 stitions were revived and new cults 

 were imported. The prophetic 

 party had to wait patiently for a 

 new opportunity. In the meantime 

 they drew up a new ethical code, 

 the Deuteronomic law (roughly 

 equivalent to Deut. v-xxvi, and 

 xxviii). When the inevitable 

 counter-reaction came in the reign 

 of Josiah, this code was produced 

 and made the basis of a great 

 religious reform (621 B.C.). Various 

 heathen superstitions were dis- 

 carded, local sanctuaries were 

 abolished, and the cult was cen- 

 tralized in Jerusalem. 



Jeremiah and Isaiah 



Peake points out that in the au- 

 thor or authors of the new code the 

 priest and the prophet have met. 

 An interest is shown in the externals 

 of religion which was foreign to the 

 great prophets of the 8th century. 

 At the same time, in the spirit of 

 the prophets, a striking humani- 

 tarianism is displayed, and " love 

 of others is made secondary only to 

 the love of God." The prophet 

 Jeremiah, whose call had come in 

 the thirteenth year of the reign of 

 Josiah (627 B.C.), substituted in- 

 dividualism for nationalism in re- 

 ligion, and emphasised the inward- 

 ness of religion (Jer. xxxi, 31-34), 

 The prophet known as Deutero- 

 Isaiah developed universalism. 

 Yahweh wills the salvation of the 

 whole world (Isa. xlii, 1-6, xlix, 6, 

 Hi, 10). And Israel is the " Servant 

 of Yahweh," the vicarious sufferer 

 for the sins of all the nations, who 

 by her sufferings makes Yahweh 

 known to the world. 



Here we reach what is perhaps 

 the high-water mark of Hebrew 

 religion, but it was too high an 

 ideal. Ezekiel, who was a priest 

 as well as a prophet, understood 

 the limitations of human nature 

 better, and was able to effect a 

 compromise. He was one of the 

 exiles taken to Babylonia in 597 

 B.C. A disciple of Jeremiah, he re- 

 inforced his teaching there (from 

 592 B.C.) ; and then, after the cap- 

 ture of Jerusalem and the destruc- 

 tion of the temple in 586 B.C., com- 

 forted himself with visions of a 

 restoration of a Hebrew state in 



HEBREWS 



Palestine. To Ezekiel ceremonial 

 and ritual seemed essential, and 

 the direction of the new develop- 

 ment represented by the Law of 

 Holiness (about 500 B.C.), and the 

 reform of Nehemiah (about 444 

 B.C.), had been determined by the 

 activity of Ezekiel. 



Day o! Atonement 



When the cultus was centralized 

 at the rebuilt temple of Jerusalem, 

 the old connexion of the festivals 

 with agriculture was severed, and 

 they were transformed into memor- 

 ials of historical events. More- 

 over, a new yearly festival was 

 added, the Day of Atonement (Lev. 

 xvi). A special official class now 

 becomes necessary, a higher order 

 of priests (in contrast to a lower 

 order, the Levites), with a high 

 priest at the head of them (Lev. 

 xxi, 10; Zech. hi, 8). 



Bibliography. Hebrew Religion 

 to the Establishment of Judaism 

 under Ezra, W. E. Addis, 1906; 

 The Religion of the Old Testament, 

 K. Marti, 1907 ; The Religion of 

 Israel, A. S. Peake, 1908; The Re- 

 ligion of the Hebrews, J. P. Peters, 

 1914 ; The Religions of the World, 

 G. A. Barton, 1917 ; The Religion of 

 Israel, G. A. Barton, 1918. 



Hebrews, EPISTLE TO THE. One 

 of the canonical books of the N.T. 

 In the English versions it bears the 

 title The JEpistle of Paul the 

 Apostle to the Hebrews. In the 

 epistle itself, however, there is no 

 claim to any particular authorship, 

 and in the oldest MSS. the super- 

 scription is simply " to Hebrews." 

 The epistle is less like a letter and 

 more like a treatise than any other 

 of the N.T. epistles. It can hardly 

 have been written by S. Paul, since 

 it differs radically in language, 

 style, and thought from the other 

 Pauline writings. 



The epistle is not included in the 

 Canon of Marcion or in the Mura- 

 torian Canon, but it is quoted by 

 Clement of Rome. Clement of 

 Alexandria states that it was 

 written by S. Paul in Hebrew and 

 translated by S. Luke into Greek. 

 Hippolytus and Irenaeus were 

 acquainted with it, but they do not 

 accept the Pauline authorship. 

 The " Hebrews " seem to have 

 been a Jewish Christian commu- 

 nity, and most probably they 

 were a section of the Church 

 in Rome. 



The use made of the O.T. by the 

 writer suggests that his purpose 

 was to save his Dreaders from a re- 

 lapse into Judaism. The epistle is, 

 in fact, as Prof. Peake says (Crit. 

 Intro, to the N.T., 1909), "an 

 elaborate many-sided demonstra- 

 tion that Judaism is inferior to 

 Christianity." It would seem to 

 have been written towards the end 

 of the 1st century A.D. 



