1954 Catholic Commentary on Holy Scriptures.

Links to each Chapter provided in the following text.

Chapter 7:1-28 Superiority of Melchisedechian Priesthood

The excellence of the Priest according to the order of Melchisedech is shown from the details of the typal Melchisedech's biblical record, 1-3; his superiority over the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood is shown from the relation of Melchisedech to Abraham, 4-10; the perfection of the new priesthood is shown to be an abrogation of the old priesthood and of the regime to which it belonged, 11-28.

1-3 Extra-biblical speculation on the mysterious figure of Melchisedech need not detain us. Was he a Semite, a Japhetite, or, being a Chanaanite king, did he belong to the cursed seed of Cham? Various fancies clustered around his name and different brands of pseudo-Christian Melchisedechian heretics venerated Him as a manifestation of the Logos, of the Holy Ghost, or even as a divine priestly power superior to Christ Himself. St Paul argues entirely from the positive and negative details of the biblical notice, wh1ch he summarizes from Genesis 14, with close adherence to LXX. Every single point of the summary is utilized. The personal name 'King of justice'; the place of his royalty Salem (Jerusalem) designates him as 'King of peace'; but the royal titles are only incidental to the Apostle's theme; it is as a 'Priest of God Most High' that Melchisedech is here envisaged. No mention is made of the kind of sacrifice he offered, for the Eucharistic significance of Melchisedech does not belong to our Epistle. He met the victorious but still childless Abraham (cf. 10), blessed him, and received from him the honor of a tithe of the booty. 2. The Priest Melchisedech thus blessing and receiving tithe from the Patriarch of the promise, Genesis 14, and the future great grandfather of the twelve tribes, supplies the two essential positive points. But the divinely intended omissions of the sacred text are also significant.

3. On Melchisedech's origin there is complete silence — no mention of father or mother or ancestral line — and he is without certificate of birth or of death. The inspired page presents him in this negative manner as a living Priest, and so, being assimilated to the Son of God in the quality of a type, he remains a priest in perpetuity. Note that the three adjectives: without father, without mother, without recorded descent' should be taken together. St Paul did not think of Christ having no temporal father, having no eternal mother, and having no priestly genealogy, though he had a royal one. It is simply as possessing a divinely given negative certificate of life that Melchisedech is a type of the Eternal Priest. Whether St Paul knew certain facts now revealed by the Tell el Amarna tablets about the kings of Jerusalem claiming kingship not by succession but by divine appointment must remain doubtful and, in any case, contributes nothing to the exegesis of this passage.

4-10 Superiority of Melchisedech over Abraham and Levi

The argument here is easily grasped. 4. That Abraham the Patriarch was great was simply a Hebrew axiom. Yet he gave tithes to Melchisedech from the choicest of the spoils (lit. 'the top things of the heap') and received blessing from him. 5-6. Levitical priests had the right to receive tithes from their brethren, though these also had the dignity of children of Abraham, but in the person of Melchisedech one who was no Levite laid Abraham himself under tithe. Melchisedech also blessed the very Patriarch in whom the promise of future blessing was vested. 7. And undoubtedly the bestowal of authoritative priestly blessing is the act of a superior. 8. Moreover, the Levitical priests, being priests in a line of succession, had death written on them even while they gathered tithes, but Melchisedech lives on without a successor, having that negative diploma of life mentioned above.

9-10. To put the matter almost paradoxically , Levi the tither was tithed by Melchisedech, for Levi was then included in the still potential fatherhood of the childless Abraham. The word 'loins,' 5,10, is a Hebraism for virility or generative power. Aquinas raises the objection: 'But Christ also was in the loins of Abraham when Melchisedech tithed and blessed him!' He answers: Seminally, no; as to the bodily substance taken from the Blessed Virgin, yes. The virginal conception of Christ makes the difference.

11-28 Imperfect and Perfect Priesthood

The appointment of a Priest according to the order of Melchisedech marks the Aaronic priesthood as transitory, 11-14;

(a) 9-12. Perfection is the end of every divine arrangement, and if perfection was to come through the Levitical priesthood — this priesthood being the basis of the whole cultural system of the Mosaic Law — why should another, a different — Priest arise according to the order of Melchisedech and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12. A theocratic law lapses totally when its priesthood lapses. Now the Aaronic priesthood does lapse with the introduction of the Melchisedechian priesthood, and with it lapses the law which has no provision for any other but a Levitical priesthood. 13. It is historically evident that 'Our Lord' — note the title of whom the oracle of priesthood according to the order of Melchisedech was spoken, has come from the tribe of Juda, no member of which tribe ever had access to the altar to perform priestly functions, and moreover, the Law of Moses has no inkling of any connexion between priesthood and that same tribe of Juda.

(b) 15-17. This is still more evident from the mode of duration of the priesthoods. The Priesthood which arises according to the order of Melchisedech is a lasting personal priesthood, not a priesthood transmitted from father to son according to a law of carnal succession. 16. The Melchisedechian Priest holds his priesthood 'according to the power of an indissoluble (or unending) life', for the oracle says: 'Thou art a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech'.

(c) 18-19. Thus, to come back to the idea of or perfection, the former regime is set aside because of its weakness and unprofitableness. Really, the law brought nothing to perfection, for of itself it conferred no interior sanctity and it gave no power to do the good which it commanded. With the setting aside of the law we hail the introduction of a better hope — note the word 'better' three times in this chapter and ten times elsewhere in Hebrews — and through this better hope we draw near to God in the confidence which arises from pardon and the spirit of adoption and the assurance of glory. The realized by the priesthood of Christ is all these things: forgiveness and grace and glory.

(d) 20-22. Another circumstance which marks the superiority of the priesthood of Christ is the solemnity of the oath which ratifies it and confirms its irrevocable finality. The priests of the House of Aaron were inaugurated without any divine oath, but Christ with an oath never to be repented of. In this respect Jesus stands as the sponsor (or surety, or mediatorial guarantor) of a better covenant. Covenant or covenant-testament appears here for the first time and will appear sixteen times in the sequel in eleven changes of context. This sentence, 20a, 22, with its parenthesis, 20b, 21, has an indescribable majesty in our author's Greek.

(e) 23-25. As unending life was contrasted with fleshly succession in 15-17, the oneness and permanence of Christ's priesthood is finally set against the multiplicity of priests whom death prevented from remaining. 23. They were many, for no one of them, all being mortal, could remain, but he, because he remains forever, has a priesthood which does not pass away . 24. The DV here does not represent the full force of the Greek which means: 'He, because he remains for ever, holds his priesthood as a priesthood untransmissible, everlasting'. 25. Hence he is also a perpetual Savior, a perpetual Mediator, an everliving Advocate, 'able to save perfectly — or perpetually (Vg, Coptic, Syriac) — those who come to God through him, always living to make intercession for them'.(cf. Romans 8:34, the tones of which are here echoed). At the end of the sentence Vg substitutes 'us' for 'them'. The presence of Christ's sacred humanity in Heaven is itself a perpetual pleading, our names are better written in his sacred wounds than the names of the twelve tribes on the gems of Aaron's pectoral, and his heart's desire for our salvation is before God always.

26-28 Conclusion

26. Such indeed was the High Priest whom in all fitness we should have — utterly holy and exalted and effective. He is all piety towards God , without any tinge of harmful malice which would diminish our confidence in him, without any defilement to dim the lustre of his holiness — hence separated from sinners with a transcendence which has raised him above the heavens. 27. His work is absolutely efficacious, for he has no need day by day; like the high priests — that is, toties quoties on Expiation Day — to offer sacrifices for his own sins, then for those of the people. For the people alone he came to offer, and this he did once for all, offering himself. 28. In fine — and the sentence sounds like a triumphal chant — the law sets up men as high priests — men having weakness, that is, sin and mortality, but the word of the oath announced through the mouth of David, long after the law, sets up One who is Son (again without the article) and whose perfection is consummated forever in priestly achievement and in glory.

N.B. — 27a creates a difficulty. It was only on Expiation Day (Leviticus 16) and not 'daily' that the high priest was bound to offer sacrifice first for himself and then for the people. Some commentators answer that St Paul is referring to the actual practice of the high priest, who offered the double sacrifice every day; but such practice is not otherwise attested. The most satisfactory answer is that St. Paul's gaze here is entirely on the high priest and Expiation day. He mentions the daily sacrifices of 'every priest' for the first time specifically in 10:11, and in a new context. In the present context, which is entirely high-priestly, , meaning 'day by day', refers to each Expiation day as it came around once a year.

Chapter 8: 1-10 18 Superiority of Christ's Sacrifice

The kernel of Hebrews being the priesthood of Christ, it remains to show in detail the superior efficacy of his priestly work. St. Paul shows this superiority in relation to the old sanctuary, the old covenant, the annual and daily sacrifices of the old dispensation.

Chapter 8:1-5 Superiority of Christ's Sanctuary

At first sight this section seems to be simply a matter of contrasting Heaven with the Mosaic tabernacle, but it will be found that a purely local interpretation of it is difficult to maintain. The contrast is certainly between celestial and terrestrial, and place considerations are included, but it cannot simply be worked out in terms of 'above the sky and on this earth below'. The celestial has to be conceived socially as the Church which is the kingdom of Heaven. The interpretation here followed is that of St Cyril of Alexandria (De adoratione in spiritu et veritate, Bk g, PG 68, 590-631).

1. 'A principal or main point in the subject under discussion is (the following): Such is the High Priest that we have (cf. 7:26) — a High Priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty (cf. 1:4) in Heaven (cf. 4:14; 6:20)'. 2. The enthroned Christ does not offer sacrifice in Heaven, for sitting is not the posture of a ministering Priest; yet 'having made a cleansing of sins', 1:4, He is a minister of the sanctuary. What is this 'Sancta' or Sanctuary? It is generally taken to mean the place of God's special manifestation which we call Heaven; but Christ reigns in Heaven, he does not minister. It seems, therefore, that the Sanctuary; must be the whole Church Militant and Triumphant which is the extension of that Tabernacle of God which is Christ Himself, John 2:19,21, which St. Paul calls by the local name of 'the Jerusalem above', Galatians 4:26. and which St John heard described to him as 'the tabernacle of God with men', Apocalypse 21:3. This is the perfect tabernacle or tent which the Lord — here meaning God) pitched, not man. 3. Christ must have offered a sacrifice belonging to and bringing him into that celestial sphere. Sacrifice is the correlative of priesthood, for every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices (i.e. oblations of all kinds as in 5:1). Christ could not be a priest without having a victim to offer. 4. 'Yea rather, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, because the legal victims were being offered by priests of a tribe to which he did not belong'. His sacrifice had therefore to be offered and consummated outside of the terrestrial sphere of Mosaism. 5. The Levitical priests do not belong to the heavenly sphere, for they serve a sanctuary which is only an image and shadow of the heavenly realities. This is intimated in the history of the institution of the tabernacle itself, Exodus 40, for the oracle addressed to Moses said: 'See that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee on the mount.' The rabbis imagined a design in fire or light shown to Moses in vision and visually representing the tabernacle as it was to be set up. The Epistle, however, indicates that Moses received some revelation of the Messianic and heavenly realities which his Hebrew tabernacle was to foreshadow. 6. A verse of conclusion and transition states that Christ has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as he is the mediator of a better covenant established on better promises. The word 'Mediator' occurs here in Hebrews for the first of three times, also 9:15; 12:24. It is always a title of Jesus and related to 'covenant'. It occurs also thrice in the other Paulines, in two different contexts, Galatians 3:19, 20; 1 Timothy 2:5, once of Moses in relation to the Old Covenant and once of Christ in relation to redemption. As the redemptive character of Christ's sacrifice is here implied (cf. 9:12), the Mediator combines in a higher way the sacerdotal and ambassadorial offices of Aaron and Moses. The 'better' covenant is the alliance based on the redemption-transaction to which our author will later attribute the special character of testament, 9:16,17. The 'better promises' are chiefly pardon, grace and glory.

7-13 Superiority of the New Covenant

7. On the principle that God does not lay aside a perfect ordinance for a less perfect one (beginning high and ending low — cf. Galatians 3:3), his introduction of a second covenant must imply censure of the former one. 8. Actually that censure is spoken by God himself through the prophet Jeremiah, 31:31-34 (Heb). The censure indeed falls first on the Israelites, but it also embraces the regime which could not change the nation's 'heart of stone into a heart of flesh', Ezekiel 11:19. The text is taken from an impressive group of Restoration oracles Jeremiah 30-33) in which the Messianic future looms large. Christ our Lord had alluded to the same text in the institution of the Eucharist, Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25, and it is also the background of 2 Corinthians 3· Cited from the LXX 38:31-34 with interesting but merely accidental variations, it announces a new covenant different from that of the Exodus which the people did not keep. 9. Note that whereas DV has 'And I regarded them not', Jeremiah 31:32c has: 'I gave up caring for them', which is probably the true sense (cf. Gesenius-Buhl sub voce II; also Peshitta). God's rejection of the old Israel was very clearly forecast at the Babylonian captivity. 10. This verse describes the new covenant as an interior law under which knowledge and obedience will be a matter of inner light and love rather than external teaching and the discipline of a code. 12. It states that the remission of sins is a special characteristic of the New Covenant, cf. 10:15-18. It is, however, on the word 'new' that the Apostle's present argument rests. 13. To describe the second covenant as 'new' is to declare the former one old, senescent, and near its demise — is very frequent in Jeremiah (LXX) in the sense of 'destruction'. Jeremiah 30-33 should be read as a whole; they are the finest pages of a great prophet.

Chapter 9: 1-28 Superiority of Christ's Sacrifice

Christ was a sacrificing Priest, Minister of a sanctuary and Mediator of a new Covenant, but what is of supreme importance in this Covenant is the sacrifice on which it is based, for there is no religious regime without sacrifice. Hence the logical development of the Apostle's argument leads him to consider the sacrificial ritual of the old alliance and that of the new. He proceeds to do so in terms of the Israelite sanctuary and with supreme emphasis on the greatest sacrificial ceremony of the Jewish year, that of Yom hakkippurim — Expiation Day or Day of Atonement (10 Tisri).

Chapter 9: 1-10 The Tabernacle and Day of Atonement

1.'Of course (this is often the best English equivalent of the former (Covenant) also had ordinances of worship and a sanctuary of this world', i.e. a terrestrial sanctuary, and not in the sense of an ecumenical or universal one. 2. The Apostle describes not the Zorobabelian-Herodian temple but the tabernacle as set up by Moses. There is great argumentative prudence and subtle suggestiveness in thus taking a Pentateuchal basis and in going back to the days when the Ark was still in the midst of Israel. 2-5. The description of the tabernacle and its appurtenances is summary but not wanting in splendor. The first oblong tent which was set up by Moses is mentioned, in which is noted the seven-branched 'lampstand' (DV 'candlesticks') placed to the south or left, and the table (covered with gold) on which stand the twelve loaves of shew-bread, this being on the north or right side. This oblong, called the Holy, is seen to terminate west in a second veil or curtain, thus distinguished from the first or entrance veil. 3. Behind this second veil stands the tent or sacred cube called the Holy of Holies or Most Holy, having as its appurtenances a golden 'alter of incense' (DV 'censer') placed outside the veil, and then, within the veil, the Ark of the Covenant covered completely with gold. In the Ark mention is made of an urn having or containing manna, of the rod of Aaron that blossomed, of the tables of the Covenant 5. Over the Ark stand Cherubim of glory — that is, throne-bearers of God's glorious Majesty — covering with their wings the 'propitiatory' or golden cover of the Ark which is called in Heb. Kapporet, to which Luther gave the happy name of Gnadenstuhl, a reminiscence of Hebrews 4:16 — the 'mercy-seat' of AV. The Greek and Latin propitiatorium designate it as an instrument of expiation or atonement.

In the above exposition, care has been taken to bring out a literary quality of the text which is generally lost sight of. Apart from saying that the first tent 'was set up', there is no past tense in the paragraph, only verbless phrases and present participles. The Apostle evidently wishes the tabernacle to stand before the Hebrews in the 'legal present', for the Messianic age is 'the world to come'. cf. 'the Jerusalem which now is', Galatians 4:25.

Two objections must be briefly deal with. (1.) The 'altar of incense' (thymiaterion) is placed within the Holy of Holies, instead of outside it. The answer is that the verb used, namely, 'having' not 'containing', expresses the close relation of the altar of incense with the inner sanctuary. In 3 Kings 6:22 this altar is called 'the altar belonging to the or inner sanctuary' while Exodus 40:5 calls it 'the altar of incense before the Ark'. Moreover, according to the letter reproduced in 2 Maccabees 2:5 Jeremias hid the altar of incense together with the Ark and Tabernacle, for they went together. (2) The assertion that in the Ark were manna, and Aaron's rod, and the tables of the Covenant, seems to contradict 3 Kings 8:9 which says that the Ark contained only the tables. A possible answer would be that the author of 3 Kings and the author of Hebrews speak of different times, but we have no positive information on the point. A satisfactory reply is that the urn of manna and the sacerdotal rod which were beside the Ark are comprehended or lumped together with the stone tables which were within the Ark.

6-7 Day of Atonement

The Apostle does not intend to go into details about liturgical symbolism, but he wishes to note one important thing. 6-7. Officiating priests enter the Holy at all times—twice a day for the offering of incense, and at other times to perform blood ritual, to see to the lamps, to change the shew-bread on the Sabbath; but into the second tent or Holy of Holies entrance is allowed only once a year (actually four times in the performance of one liturgy), the only privileged person being the high priest, who enters not without blood but for the purpose of sprinkling the propitiatory and sanctuary with the blood of the bull which he has offered for his own sinful ignorances and also with the blood of the goat which he has offered for the sins or ignorances of the people. 8. The intention of the Holy Spirit in arranging Israelite worship in such was that the outer sanctuary should retain its position as the usual place of priestly access to God, and that the inner sanctuary should be an annual high-priestly reserve is to show that the way to the antitypal Holy of Holies of heaven has not yet been opened. 9. The outer sanctuary is really a parable-image of the present pre-Messianic (not Messianic) time—a parable according to which such oblation, and sacrifices of every kind are offered as are powerless to purify the conscience and interiorly perfect the worshipper. 9-10. These oblations and victims are really nothing more than part and parcel of the system which included food distinctions and drink prohibitions and various ritual washings, and, just like these, are really only fleshly regulations (DV 'Justices of the flesh': read in apposition to 'gifts and sacrifices', omitting 'and' before 'justices'). These fleshly regulations are merely temporary, imposed until the time of Messianic reform or betterment, .

11-28 The Day of Eternal Atonement

Firstly, the work of Christ the High Priest is described in a magnificent synthesis, 11-14; secondly, in relation to the Covenant which his blood sealed, 15-22; thirdly, in its absolute efficacy and finality, 23-28.

11-14 Synthesis

This passage which, with the addition of two verses from the next paragraph, is the Epistle for Passion Sunday and the Feast of the Precious Blood, continues in the symbolic language of the Tabernacle and Day of Atonement. Its chief difficulty—a very considerable difficulty—is to determine what is the tabernacle through which Christ passed. 11. The Apostle says in a tone of majestic contrast: 'Christ having come into the world in the quality of High Priest of the spiritual and eternal good things of the Messianic future, passed through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, and entered ... the sanctuary'. The sanctuary is everlasting glory, or, in the simpler language of place, Heaven; but what is the tabernacle 'through which' he entered? As the entrance was made through the Passion, the only satisfactory answer seems to be: his own mortal Body, cf. 'the veil, which is his flesh', 10:20. This would explain why the Apostle not only says 'not made with hands' but adds the words: 'that is, not of this creation', for the Body of Christ was formed as a temple of God by the Holy Ghost. It is, of course, impossible to deny that the writer is thinking of the two localized poles, earth and heaven; but he evidently does not regard the blue curtain of the sky as the veil of a sanctuary. Christ passed from the condition of mortality to glory. Thus the glorified Christ, finding of course his proper habitation in Heaven, constitutes the interior sanctuary. 'The flesh is a veil', says St. John Chrysostom, 'as concealing the Godhead; and likewise a tabernacle as holding the Godhead'. There is no express reference in the Epistle to the Ascension of Christ. He, as it were, enters Heaven from the Cross in the sprinkling of his blood, and at the end of the Epistle it is in the Blood of the New Testament that God brings him forth from the dead, 13:20. Not that our author was unaware of the three days (some thirty-five hours) of entombment and the forty days of glory on earth, but he is thinking in the juridical terms of Atonement Day. Christ expiating sin on the Cross and, sacerdotally sprinkled with his own blood, de jure enters eternal glory at the moment that the veil of His mortality is broken; and at the same moment the veil of the temple—surely the inner veil—is rent, with a synchronism which seems to find its tremendous explanation in Christ's sixth word: 'It is consummated' . With all the prophecies about the Messianic redemption now fulfilled, the Old Covenant and the Ritual of Leviticus 16 have come to an end. 12. 'Not by the blood of goats nor of calves but by His own blood (Christ) entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption'. The heavenly sanctuary is opened once for all and forever, for the blood of expiation is an eternal ransom, that is, the infinite price of eternal freedom. 13. The cleansing efficacy of blood belongs to two different spheres, that of outer purification and that of interior purification. The sprinkled blood of sacrificial goats and calves and the lustral water made from the ashes of a red heifer offered in sacrifice, Numbers 20, cleanse those who have contracted legal defilement of one kind or another, that is, cleanse them externally in view of externally unimpeded communion with God's people. These sprinklings have limited but real legal efficacy in the sphere to which they belong. 14. But how much more shall not the blood of Christ be efficacious in the interior sphere of conscience? 'By the Holy Ghost (Greek, 'eternal spirit', probably meaning the Holy Ghost; otherwise' his own eternal Godhead') He offered himself unspotted unto God'. He was Priest and Victim — a Victim utterly without blemish (cf. 1 Peter 1:19). 'Cleansing' (cf. 1:3; Ephesians 5:20; Titus 2:14) is wrought within the conscience so that the beneficiary receives new life to serve the living God. The impressive phrase 'Living God' occurs four times in our Epistle, and five times in the other Paulines. It reminds us that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Hebrew Fathers and of the Apostles was no idol and no mere philosophical abstraction.

15-22 Covenant Significance

The Redeemer is a Mediator, and what he mediates is the new covenant of friendship between God and mankind. 15. With language partly similar to that of the great redemption passage of Romans 3:21-26 the Apostle insists that the New Covenant is enacted by a death that redeemed the transgressions which were without atonement under the former Covenant, so that those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance made to the Patriarchs. Christ, the Mediator, dying to establish a Covenant, is evidently a testator and the Covenant is a Testament receiving its validity through death. There seems to be no doubt that in 16 and 17 is not simply the equivalent of the Hebrew (Hebrew translation) meaning pact or alliance, but that it has its most usual Greek signification of 'last will or testament'. 16. 'Where there is a testament, the death of the testator must receive public attestation' . 17. For a testament is effective only after death — it has no legal force while the testator lives.

18-20. It was in view of this testamentary character of the Messianic Covenant that the inauguration of the Sinaitic Covenant and the dedication of its sanctuary and its holy things were accompanied by the death of victims of sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood. The actions of Moses are described and the words of Exodus 24:8 (alluded to in the consecration of the chalice at the Last Supper) are textually cited. Many ceremonial details mentioned are not found in Exodus, but are gathered from analogous ceremonies elsewhere described in the Pentateuch, Leviticus 14:4,5; 16:15; Numbers 19:9. 21. An anointing of the tabernacle and its utensils is all that is mentioned in the sacred page, Exodus 40:9; Leviticus 8:10, but on the analogy of the consecration of Aaron and his sons, aspersion of blood is presumed for all great consecrations. 22. Very few purifications and those minor ones were carried out without blood, and even such a permission as that of a sin-offering of meal for the poor, Leviticus 5:11, did not alter the general principle enunciated here and also current as a rabbinical Mashal: 'Without shedding of blood there is no remission'.

23-28 Finality of Christ's Sacrifice

Four chief ideas are conveyed in these lines: (a) 23. The purifications of the Old Law were shadows and affected shadow types of heavenly things only, and yet animal blood was required; but the heavenly things themselves must be purified by better sacrifices (plural of category really meaning only one sacrifice applied in many ways). As purifications fall only on the Church Militant that must be the primary meaning of (Chrys. Theodoret.). These things of the Church combatant are 'heavenly things', for they are of heavenly origin, belong to the sphere of eternal life and end in Heaven. 24. It really was no hand-made sanctuary that Christ entered but Heaven itself, to appear now before God on our behalf. Entering he has opened the road for ever. (b) 25-26a. He does not offer himself again and again to effect a periodical expiation like the annual expiation made by the Israelite high priest. If that were so, he should have suffered many times over, since the beginning of the world. (c) 26b. But now once and once only, in the last age of the world, he has appeared for the abolition of sin through His sacrifice. (d) 27-28. As far as Christ's work is concerned, nothing remains but the consummation. Just as death comes to men once and is not repeated — only judgement next — so also Christ offered himself once' to take away the sins of many' (any number Isaiah 53:12), and at his second coming shall make his appearance in order to gather in those who expect him as Savior, Philippians 3:20,21.

Chapter 10:1-18 Superior Efficacy of Christ's One Sacrifice Abolishes Legal Sacrifices

Here the Apostle's gaze is still more on the Church Militant, as it undergoes sanctification for Heaven. Christ's sacrifice is compared once again with the yearly liturgy of atonement and subsequently with the perpetual daily round of Israelite sacrifices. Here also four points seem to sum up the text : (1.) Sacrifices incessantly repeated show their powerlessness by their very repetition, 1-4; (2.) Christ's one obedience, as the Scriptures show, replaced them all, 5-10; (3.) the daily liturgy of simple Levitical priests is as powerless as that of Atonement Day and even more palpably powerless, 11; (4.) the sacrifice of Christ is the consummation of everything, for it really remits sins, 12-18.

1-4 Legal Sacrifices Powerless

The best way of conceiving the Apostle's terminology (shadow, image, things), seems to be this. 1. The Law had only mere shadow signs, the new economy of the Church Militant has the image (the object itself, the reality) in the institutional means of grace, while the good things to come embrace both grace and glory. The impotence of the yearly expiation, shown by its constant repetition, was its inability to give interior perfection or effect pardon of sin. 2. The sacrificial ritual was really only a yearly amnesty, not a purification of consciences once for all. 3. In fact the amnesty included a yearly anamnesis or commemoration of sins. 4. It was, of course, impossible that the blood of calves and goats should take away guilt.

5-10 Christ's Obedience

Christ himself in a programmatic Psalm-text, 39:7-9a, announces the abolition of legal sacrifices of every sort and their replacement by his own obedience—which obedience actually was sacrificial obedience unto death. 5. Coming into the world he speaks the words of this Psalm which may well be directly Messianic as most of the ancients and also post-Tridentine commentators of note, like Agellius and Bellarmine, held. It is at the very least typically Messianic. In this latter case, David must have been in such a situation that God wanted no sort of material sacrifice from him. The language used is, it seems, the most absolute rejection of legal sacrifice in any Old Testament passage, cf. Psalms 49:8, 50:18, and 68:32. The verses are cited according to LXX, which differs from the Hebrew mainly which reads 'Ears thou hast opened for me', instead of Paul's 'a body thou hast fitted to me'. In spite of the high editorial authority of Rahlfs, this seems to be the original Alexandrian Greek reading. The sense of the verse is not substantially changed, for the obedience of Christ (open-eared promptness) was exercised by offering his body. Hence St Paul can lawfully emphasize the word 'body ' from the LXX. 5-10. The Psalm text, as expounded here is a five-point oracle: (1.) 'Thou wouldst not', 5, removes legal sacrifices; (2.) 'Behold, I come', 7, marks a new era, but, of course, not an era without sacrifice; (3.) the sacrifice of the Messias, though instinct with obedience, is not metaphorical but real, 8-9; (4.) it is the sacrifice of his body, 10; (5.) it is the will of God, 10, that this obedience unto death be our sanctifying sacrifice offered once for all used since 7:27 for the third and last time with a thud of emphasis).

11-18 The Daily Liturgy and the One Eternal Sacrifice

11. Repetition, repetition, repetition—that is the law of the daily sacrifices of Mosaism, for they can never take away sin. Christ's sacrifice for sins is, on the contrary, one and unrepeatable. 12-13. Having offered it, he sits forever at the right hand of God, awaiting the full actualization of his sovereignty in the subjection of all his enemies. 14. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are undergoing sanctification. 15. Once again, under the name of the Holy Ghost the Inspirer, part of the oracle of Jeremias is quoted in inverted order, to show that the New Covenant brings the remission of sins. 18. Then the Apostle concludes: 'Where there is remission of these, an oblation for sin finds no place any longer'. What then of all our Masses? one may ask. The answer is that they are only the one Sacrifice of Christ perpetually commemorated, re-presented, applied to our daily needs, individual and social. The unity of Christ's sacrifice is a tremendous truth, and nowhere is it so tremendously driven home as in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Paraenetic Part, Chapter 10:19—Chapter 13:17

This moral part is an exhortation to perseverance in the faith. Its first section, 10:19-39, opens with an encouraging 'we-exhortation' to faith, hope and charity, 19-25, continues with a severe warning against apostasy, 26-31, and terminates in a direct and comforting appeal based on past good deeds, 32-39.

Each of the three subdivisions ends in the thought of judgement. The second section (Chapter 11) opening with a practical definition of faith, 1-3, is a Martyrology of heroic examples of faith from the primitive age, 4-7, the patriarchal age, 8-22, the days of the Exodus, and Conquest, 23-31, followed by more miscellaneous examples out of the long period from Judges to Maccabees, 32-38. The Martyrology is crowned by the remark that all those heroes of faith attained the perfection of glory only in our Christian age. 39. The third section (Chapter 12) resumes exhortation especially to patience, firstly, with a 'we-appeal' centering in the example of Christ, 1,2 — this continues in the second person plural with consolatory remarks on God's paternal discipline, 3-13; then, in a special admonition to peace, holiness and fidelity which ends in a grandiose characterization of the Mosaic Sinai and the Christian Sion, 14-24. There follows a final warning, 25-29, in which, as it were, the sound of the last trumpet itself accompanies the proclamation that there can be no refusal of this final revelation of God now spoken in the Messianic end of time. The Epistle, in a sense, ends here; 13:1-I7 is of the nature of an appendix and contains a set of precepts loosely strung together but skillfully attached to the main theme of the Epistle.

X 19-26 Steadfastness

19. 'Unwavering confidence rooted in faith and working in charity' is the watchword. 20. Christ is the inaugurator of the newly opened way to the Sanctuary through the veil of his flesh, and since he is also High Priest over the House of God, he inspires the boldness of our confidence. 22-24. Sincerity, fullness of faith, the sprinkling and washing that come from repentance and baptism give the conscience freedom of access. 'Let us approach . . . let us hold fast ... let us consider each other' are the three exhortatives which urge the practice of the three divine virtues. Hope particularly is founded on the fidelity of God to his promises, and charity must be social. 25. The necessity of 'provoking' charity, of frequenting liturgical gatherings, of mutual exhortation is all the greater 'as you see the day approaching'. The Parousia is meant, but the judgement on Jerusalem (five years hence) is probably included.

26-31 Apostasy

26-29. The sin contemplated is deliberate and persistent rejection of the truth once sufficiently received. For such sinners, on account of their moral condition, no sacrifice is operative and there is no prospect but the wrath of God. Much worse than the capital crime of blasphemy, mercilessly punished with death under the old legislation, is the sin of him who has trampled on the Son of God, treated the sanctifying blood of the Covenant as a common "thing of nothing", and outraged the Spirit of grace. 30. The vengeance text from Deuteronomy 32:35 verbally differs from both Hebrew and LXX but agrees with St Paul's citation in Romans 12:19. The judgement text as uttered by Moses, Deuteronomy 32:36, really refers to judgement in favour of God's people, but every such judgement entails punishment of enemies. 31. The Apostle ends with one of the three terrible dicta of Hebrews, cf. 6:8 and 12:29.

32-39 Old Memories

Remembrance of days of fervor is a most powerful antidote against relaxation. The Hebrews had 'endured a great contest of sufferings' and proved themselves good spiritual athletes. Pain, shame, active sympathy with persecuted fellow Christians, and spoliation fell to their lot—in the days of Stephen, for example. 35. This courage of confidence must not be thrown away, and patience is necessary in order to keep doing God's will and thus secure salvation. 36-39. Prefaced by the words: 'a little while, a very little while', Isaiah 26:20, the well-known text of Habakkuk 2:3c, 4a, and 4b is cited in the order 3c, 4b, and 4a. Thus an eschatological warning is made to end in the chiasmus: faith gives life, withdrawal displeasure to God — 'but we are not persons of withdrawal to our perdition, rather of faith to the saving of our souls'. The homiletic 'we' concludes this direct appeal.