EXERCITATION III.

THE TIME (AND OCCASION] OF THE WRITING OF THIS EPISTLE

TO THE HEBREWS.

1. The time of the writing of this Epistle to the Hebrews-The use of the right stating thereof. 2. After his release out of prison-Before the death of James -Before the Second [Epistle] of Peter. 3. The time of Paul's coming to Rome. 4. The condition of the affairs of the Jews at that time. 5. The martyrdom of James. 6. By whom reported. 7. State of the churches of the Hebrews. 8. Constant in the observation of Mosaical institutions. 9. Warned to leave Jerusalem. 10. That warning what, and how given-Causes of their unwillingness so to do. 11. The occasion and success of this Epistle.

1. THAT was not amiss observed of old by Chrysostom, Præfat. in Com. ad Epist. ad Rom., that a due observation of the time and season wherein the epistles of Paul were written doth give great light into the understanding of many passages in them. This Baronius, ad an. 55, n. 42, well confirms by an instance of their mistake who suppose the shipwreck of Paul at Melita, Acts xxvii., to have been that mentioned by him, 2 Cor. xi. 25, when he was "a night and a day in the deep," that epistle being written some years before his sailing towards Rome. And we may well apply this observation to this Epistle unto the Hebrews. A discovery of the time and season wherein it was written will both free us from sundry mistakes and also give us some light into the occasion and design of it. This, therefore, we shall now inquire into.

2. Some general intimations we have, in the Epistle itself, leading us towards this discovery, and somewhat may be gathered from some other places of Scripture; for antiquity will afford us little or no help herein. After Paul's being brought a prisoner to Rome, Acts xxviii., "two whole years" he continued in that condition, verse 30; at least so long he continued under restraint, though "in his own hired house." This time was expired before the writing of this Epistle; for he was not only absent from Rome, in some other part of Italy, when he wrote it, Heb. xiii. 24, but also so far at liberty, and sui juris, as that he had entertained a resolution of going into the east as soon as Timothy should come unto him, ver. 23. And it seems likewise to be written before the martyrdom of James at Jerusalem, in that he affirms that the church of the Hebrews had "not yet resisted unto blood," chap. xii. 4; it being very probable that together with him many others were slain. Many great difficulties they had been exercised withal; but as yet the matter was not come to "blood," which shortly after it arrived unto. That is certain, also, that it was not only written, but communicated unto, and well known by, all the believing Jews before the writing of the second Epistle of Peter; who therein makes mention of it, as we have declared. Much light,

I confess, as to the precise time of its writing is not hence to be obtained, because of the uncertainty of the time wherein Peter wrote that epistle. Only it appears, from what he affirms concerning the approaching of the time of his suffering, chap. i. 13, 14, that it was not long before his death. This, as is generally agreed, happened in the thirteenth year of Nero, when a great progress was made in that war which ended in the fatal and final destruction of the city and temple.

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3. From these observations it appears that the best guide we have to find out the certain time of the writing of this Epistle is Paul's being sent prisoner unto Rome. Now, this was in the first year of the government of Festus, after he had been two years detained in prison at Cæsarea by Felix, Acts xxiv. 27, xxv. 26, 27. This Felix was the brother of Pallas, who ruled all things under Claudius, and fell into some disgrace in the very first year of Nero, as Tacitus informs us; but yet, by the countenance of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, he continued in some regard until the fifth or sixth year his reign, when, together with his mother, he destroyed many of her friends and favourites. During this time of Pallas' declension in power, it is most probable that his brother Felix was displaced from the rule of his province, and Festus sent in his room. That it was before his utter ruin, in the sixth year of Nero, is evident from hence, because he made [use of] means to keep his brother from punishment, when he was accused for extortion and oppression by the Jews. Most probably, then, Paul was sent unto Rome about the fourth or fifth year of Nero, which was the fifty-ninth year from the nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ. There he abode, as we showed, at the least two years in custody, where the story of the Acts of the Apostles ends, in the seventh year of Nero, and sixty-first of our Lord, or the beginning of the year following. That year, it is presumed, he obtained his liberty. And this was about thirteen years after the determination of the controversy about Mosaical institutions, as to their obligation on the Gentiles, made by the synod at Jerusalem, Acts xv. Presently upon his liberty, whilst he abode in some part of Italy expecting the coming of Timothy, before he entered upon the journey he had promised unto the Philippians, chap. ii. 24, he wrote this Epistle. Here, then, we must stay a little, to consider what was the general state and condition of the Hebrews in those days, which might give occasion unto the writing thereof.

4. The time fixed on was about the death of Festus, who died in the province, and the beginning of the government of Albinus, who was sent to succeed him. What was the state of the people at that time, Josephus declares at large in his second book of their Wars. In brief, the governors themselves being great oppressors, and rather mighty robbers amongst them than rulers, the whole nation was

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filled with spoil and violence. What through the fury and outrage of the soldiers, in the pursuit of their insatiable avarice; what through the incursions of thieves and robbers in troops and companies, wherewith the whole land abounded; and what through the tumults of seditious persons, daily incited and provoked by the cruelty of the Romans, there was no peace or safety for any sober, honest men, either in the city of Jerusalem or anywhere else throughout the whole province. That the church had a great share of suffering in the outrage and misery of those days (as in such dissolutions of government and licence for all wickedness it commonly falls out), no man can question. And this is that which the apostle mentions, chap. x. 32-34, "Ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used;.... and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods." This was the lot and portion of all honest and sober-minded men in those days, as their historian at large declares. For as, no doubt, the Christians had a principal share in all those sufferings, so some others of the Jews also were their companions in them; it being not a special persecution, but a general calamity that the apostle speaks of.

5. One Joseph, the son of Cabias, was in the beginning of those days high priest; put into that office by Agrippa, who not long before had put him out. On the death of Festus he thrust him out again, and placed Ananus, his son, in his stead. This man, a young rash fellow, by sect and opinion a Sadducee (who of all others were the most violent in their hatred of the Christians, being especially engaged therein by the peculiar opinion of their sect and party, which was the denial of the resurrection), first began a direct persecution of the church. Before his advancement to the priesthood, their afflictions and calamities were, for the most part, common unto them with other peaceable men. Only the rude and impious multitude, with other seditious persons, seem to have offered especial violences unto their assemblies and meetings; which some of the more unsteadfast and weak began to omit on that account, chap. x. 25. Judicial proceeding against them as to their lives, when this Epistle was written, there doth not appear to have been any; for the apostle tells them, as we before observed, that as yet they had "not resisted unto blood," chap. xii. 4. But this Ananus, the Sadducee, presently after being placed in power by Agrippa, taking advantage of the death of Festus, and the time that passed before Albinus, his successor, was settled in the province, convenes James before himself and his associates. There, to make short work, he is condemned, and immediately stoned. And it is not unlikely but that other private persons suffered together with him.

6. The story, by the way, of the martyrdom of this James is at large reported by Eusebius out of Hegesippus, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. xxiii.; in the relation whereof he is followed by Jerome and sundry others. I shall say no more of the whole story, but that the consideration of it is very sufficient to persuade any man to use the liberty of his own reason and judgment in the perusal of the writings of the ancients. For of the circumstances therein reported about this James and his death, many of them, -as his being of the line of the priests, his entering at his pleasure into the sanctum sanctorum, his being carried up and set by a great multitude of people on a pinnacle of the temple,—are so palpably false that no colour of probability can be given unto them, and most of the rest seem altogether incredible. That, in general, this holy apostle of Jesus Christ, his kinsman according to the flesh, was stoned by Ananus, during the anarchy between the governments of Festus and Albinus, Josephus, who then lived, testifies, and all ecclesiastical historians agree.

7. The churches at this time in Jerusalem and Judea were very numerous. The oppressors, robbers, and seditious of all sorts, being wholly intent upon the pursuit of their own ends, filling the government of the nation with tumults and disorders; the disciples of Christ, who knew that the time of their preaching the gospel unto their countrymen was but short, and even now expiring, followed their work with diligence and success,-being not greatly regarded in the dust of that confusion which was raised by the nation's rushing into its fatal ruin.

8. All these churches, and the multitudes that belonged unto them, were altogether, with the profession of the gospel, addicted zealously unto the observation of the law of Moses. The synod, indeed, at Jerusalem had determined that the yoke of the law should not be put upon the necks of the Gentile converts, Acts xv. But eight or nine years after that, when Paul came up unto Jerusalem again, chap. xxi. 20–22, James informs him that the many thousands of the Jews who believed did all zealously observe the law of Moses; and, moreover, judged that all those who were Jews by birth ought to do so also; and on that account were like enough to assemble in a disorderly multitude, to inquire into the practice of Paul himself, who had been ill reported of amongst them. On this account they kept their assemblies distinct from those of the Gentiles all the world over; as, amongst others, Jerome informs us, in his notes on the first chapter of the Galatians. All those Hebrews, then, to whom Paul wrote this Epistle, continued in the use and practice of Mosaical worship, as celebrated in the temple and their synagogues, with all other legal institutions whatever. Whether they did this out of an unacquaintedness with their liberty in Christ,

or out of a pertinacious adherence unto their own prejudicate opinions, I shall not determine.

9. From this time forward the body of the people of the Jews saw not a day of peace or quietness: tumults, seditions, outrages, robberies, murders, increased all the nation over. And these things, by various degrees, made way for that fatal war, which, beginning about six or seven years after the death of James, ended in the utter desolation of the people, city, temple, and worship, foretold so long before by Daniel the prophet, and intimated by our Saviour to lie at the door. This was that "day of the Lord" whose sudden approach the apostle declares unto them, chap. x. 36, 37, "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Mixpòv öσov öσov,—““A very little while," less than you think of, or imagine;' the manner whereof he declares, chap. xii. 26, 27. And by this means he effectually diverted them from a pertinacious adherence unto those things whose dissolution from God himself was so nigh at hand; which argument was also afterwards pressed by Peter, 2 Epist. chap. iii.

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10. Our blessed Saviour had long before warned his disciples of all these things, particularly of the desolation that was to come upon the whole people of the Jews, with the tumults, distresses, persecutions, and wars, which should precede; directing them to the exercise of patience in the discharge of their duty, until the approach of the final calamity; out of which he advised them to free themselves by flight, or a timely departure out of Jerusalem and all Judea, Matt. xxiv. 15-21. This, and no other, was the oracle mentioned by Eusebius, whereby the Christians were warned to depart out of Jerusalem. It was given, as he says, rois doxíμors, to "approved men" amongst them; for although the prophecy itself was written by the evangelists, yet the especial meaning of it was not known and divulged amongst all. The leaders of them kept this secret for a season, lest, an exasperation of the people being occasioned thereby, they should have been obstructed in the work which they had to do, before its accomplishment. And this was the way of the apostles also as to other future events, which, being foretold by them, might provoke either Jews or Gentiles if publicly divulged, 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6. But now, when the work of the church among the Jews for that season was come to its close, the elect being gathered out of them, and the final desolation of the city and people appearing to be at hand, by a concurrence of all the signs foretold by our Saviour, those intrusted with the sense of that oracle warned their brethren to provide for that flight whereunto they were directed. That this flight and departure, probably with the loss of all their possessions, was grievous unto them, may easily be conceived. But that which