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John and Hebrews: The Background of Hebrews 2.10–18
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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Spicq's impressive list of theological features shared by St John's Gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and peculiar to them among the writings of the New Testament, has been neglected in the continuing attempt to solve the ‘riddle’ of the religious background of the latter document. The conclusions Spicq drew from this list read strangely today: few would share the confidence with which he deduced the dependence of Hebrews on a ‘catechesis’ lying behind the Johannine writings, and in turn the influence of the Author to the Hebrews on St John when he came to write his gospel. Nevertheless, the cumulative weight of so many affinities between works apparently so different is remarkable. They occur with striking frequency in Hebrews 2. 10–18, where, indeed, Spicq's list can be extended. Since these verses are of considerable christological and soteriological importance, it may be useful to review the resemblances to Johannine thought and expressions which occur here, and to offer an alternative explanation.
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NOTES
[1] L'Éiptre aux Hébreux, 1, Paris, 2 1952, pp. 102–38.Google Scholar
[2] Schenke, H. M., ‘Erwagungen zum Rätsel des Hebräerbriefes’, in Betz, H. D. and Schottroff, L., edd., Neues Testament und christliches Existenz (Festschrift for H. Braun) (Tübingen, 1973), pp. 421–37, here especially pp. 422 ff.Google Scholar
[3] if, as is generally agreed, έξ νός refers to God (though this should not, perhaps, be altogether taken for granted. Readers of this passage, in context, will not necessarily have assumed this. Did the author intend to be enigmatic? God, Adam and Abraham may all be thought of as father both to Christ and to believers: cf. for Abraham, v. 16. His point surely is that, however έέξ νός is taken, Christ is Son in a pre-eminent sense). From Käsemann onwards, this verse has been seen as particularly clear evidence of the gnostic affiliation of Hebrews; cf. recently E. Grässer, ‘Die Heilsbedeutung des Todes Jesu in Hebräer 2,14–18’, in Andresen, C. and Klein, G., edd., Theologia Crucis — Signum Crucis (Festschrift for E. Dinkier) (Tübingen, 1979), pp. 165–84, here pp. 169, 183. If the contention of the present article is correct, this is an over-simplification. See further below, note 11.Google Scholar
[4] Longenecker, R. N. notes that in the Gospel of Truth (= 1,3 in Robinson, J. M., ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, Leiden, 1977), 38. 6–20 and the Gospel of Philip, logion 12 (= II, i, 54. 5–10),Google ScholarGod is said to give his own name to the Son, and in both cases it is somewhat obscurely implied that there are some to whom this name is revealed (The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity, Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series, 17, London, 1970, pp. 41 f.). Longenecker includes these passages with the evidence he presents for the importance of the ‘’name as a christological concept in Jewish Christianity, but it may be questioned whether, in this instance, these gnostic writings conserve a ‘Jewish Christian’ motif, and despite their limited resemblance to the texts in Hebrews and John they probably cast no light on the nature of the common background of these two New Testament books.Google Scholar
[5] ‘An Early Christian Theopoetic?’, Semeia 12 (1978), p. 204.Google Scholar
[6] On the assumption that νūν refers to the moment of the Son's anticipated glorification in death, cf. Leivestad, R., Christ the Conqueror (London, 1954), p. 206,Google ScholarSchnackenburg, R., The Gospel according to St John (London, 1980), pp. 392 f. John 14. 30 and 16. 11 probably imply the same idea.Google Scholar
[7] A further affinity between Hebrews and John may be tentatively added here. Hebrews 2.9, by employing the phrases τό πάθημα το
θανάτον and γεύηται θανάτον seems to feel a certain indelicacy in actually stating that Jesus died, cf. the ambiguity of παρέδωκεν τό πνεμα (‘handed over’ as well as ‘gave up’) at John 19. 30.Google Scholar
[8] The recent denial by Dunn, J. D. G. (Christology in the Making, London, 1980, pp. 206 ff.) and G. B. Caird (‘Son by Appointment’, forthcoming in the Festschrift for B. Reicke) that personal pre-existence is ascribed to Christ in Hebrews is not convincing (I am grateful to Professor Caird for kindly allowing me to see his article in typescript).Google Scholar
[9] Cf. Moloney, F. J., The Johannine Son of Man (Rome, 1976), pp. 184–5, 212–5.Google Scholar
[10] The last of these is a background judged to be ‘probable’ by Williamson, R., ‘The Background of the Epistle to the Hebrews’, E.T. 87 (1975–1976), pp. 232–6, in agreement with H. M. Schenke, art. cit. (note 2), pp. 433 f.Google Scholar
[11] Gnostic influence on the christology of Hebrews has been seen in the importance he attaches to the σνγγενεία between Christ and the redeemed; see above, note 3. But Philo can on occasion ascribe a very exalted status to men who seek God rightly, even to the extent of saying that their mind is not human but divine (Quis rerum divinarum haeres, XVI, 17);Google Scholarcf. Bréhier, E., Les Idées Philosophiques et Religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (Etudes de Philosophie Médiévalc, 8, Paris, 1950), pp. 230”5. This thought may indeed illustrate Philo's accord with later gnosticism, but it has nothing to do with an alleged redeemer-myth. The Author to the Hebrews (and the Fourth Gospel) surely arrived at their respective beliefs about the divine origin of believers by other routes, and could easily have done so through contact with a community influenced by Judaism of a Philonic kind.Google Scholar
[12] ‘The author of Hebrews is the heir of Christian predecessors’, Thompson, J. W., The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy: the Epistle to the Hebrews (C.B.Q. Monograph Series, 13, Washington, 1982), p. 154. Dr Thompson underlines the extent to which influences present in the Jewish and Hellenistic background were mediated to this author through Christian tradition, presumably of a somewhat scholarly kind.Google Scholar
[13] Cf. Murray, R., ‘Jews, Hebrews and Christians’, Novum Testamentum XXIV (1982), p. 205.Google Scholar
[14] It is interesting that, while Hebrews has recently been interpreted against a possible background in merkabah mysticism, the late Dom John Howton some years ago presented extensive arguments (in an unpublished MS at Nashdom Abbey) to show that the Fourth Gospel, too, should be understood in this light.Google Scholar