Hebrews

THE ARGUMENT

First of all it must be seen why the apostle Paul, in the writing of this epistle, did not keep his own custom, of setting down either the word of his own name or the dignity of his order. This is the cause: that, writing to those who had believed out of the circumcision, being as it were the apostle of the Gentiles and not of the Hebrews, and knowing also their pride, and himself showing his own humility, he was unwilling to put forward the merit of his office. In like manner also the apostle John, by reason of humility, did not for the same reason set his own name before his epistle. But this epistle, written to the Hebrews, the Apostle is reported to have sent in the Hebrew tongue: whose sense and order Luke the evangelist retained, and after the departure of the blessed apostle Paul composed it in the Greek tongue.