Wordsworth on Authorship of Hebrews

With the status and trends of modern scholarship, many times you have to go back to older writers to find defenses of the Pauline authorship of Hebrews. The following quotes are from 19th-century author Christopher Wordsworth, “On the Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in “Introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews,” The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the Original Greek: with Introductions and Notes, St. Paul’s Epistles (Fourth Edition), London: Rivingtons, 1866, pp. 361-374.

“The Epistle was addressed to the Hebrews of the East, especially of Jerusalem and Palestine.”

“Although the author of the Epistle writes anonymously, yet those persons, to whom the Epistle was primarily and specially addressed, were acquainted with the name and person of the Author.”

“These [13:18-19, 23, rlv] and other similar expressions bespeak an individual well known personally to the friend whom he addresses.” He asserts that the Christians of this region addressed, who knew the author, themselves ascribed the writing to Paul.

There were more doubts in the West than in the East about the authorship. According to Wordsworth, “The doubts of the West were dispersed in the fourth century, and did not appear again till they were revived by one or two persons in the sixteenth.”

“The author, whoever he is, in writing anonymously, deviates not only from the usage of St. Paul, but from that of the other writers of the Epistles in the New Testament.”

“The Epistle was designed primarily for the Jewish Christians of Palestine, who were tempted to relapse into Judaism, and for other Jewish Christians, and also for the benefit of Jewish readers throughout the world, and lastly for universal use.”

“It was designed for enemies as well as for friends, for Judaizing Christians, and for unchristianized Jews.”

“Of all the Apostles or Apostolic men of the primitive age, no person would be better qualified, and no one would be more desirous, to write such an Epistle to such parties as these, than St. Paul.”

“But if he had prefixed his name to the Epistle, he would have run the risk of marring his own labor of love.” Why? His name was offensive to Judaizing Christians and unchristianized Jews.

“…the non-appearance of the Author’s name in the Epistle to the Hebrews does not diminish, but rather increases, the probability that the Author was St. Paul.” Why? He deems there are good reasons for Paul to suppress his name, which would not exist for other proposed writers such as Apollos, Barnabas, or Clement.

“Let it be remembered that there was a special token by which his Epistles were to be discerned by his friends.”

“Each of the Thirteen Epistles, to which St. Paul’s name is prefixed, contains near its close his Apostolic Benediction, ‘Grace be with you.’ And, in one of the first Epistles he had written, he had announced that this would be the token in every Epistle, and that so he would write [2 Thess. 3:17-18, rlv]. And no other writer of Scripture uses this token during St. Paul’s lifetime. It was reserved to him as his special badge and cognizance.”

I am not claiming to agree with everything Wordsworth wrote about Pauline authorship of Hebrews, but it is a good resource available online. You can read it on Google Books at the link above.