L’épître aux Hébreux au regard des Évangiles by Martin Pochon

Abstract

Reviewed by: L’épître aux Hébreux au regard des Évangiles by Martin Pochon Christian Grappe martin pochon, L’épître aux Hébreux au regard des Évangiles (LD; Paris: Cerf, 2020). Pp. 724. Paper €29. The work proposes to stem a “theological drift” that presented, under the influence of the Epistle to the Hebrews, more particularly from the Council of Trent until Vatican II, “the death of Christ . . . as an offering to God which appeased his wrath and satisfied his justice” (p. 13). This drift resulted, in Pochon’s eyes, from an “inversion of the meaning of the Last Supper” (p. 15). The reason was that the latter was understood, because of the prevalence granted to Hebrews by the conciliar texts governing the liturgy, as an offering by the Son of his body and blood to the Father and not as a movement from the Father to the disciples, since the Son “receives himself from the Father in order to give himself to humanity, independently of their dignity” (p. 17). Now, according to P., who has put forward this point of view in previous works, it is the case that, in the mirror of the accounts of the institution of the Last Supper, the passion of Christ is the “fruit of an offering to the Father which led him to offer himself to humanity” (p. 20). As a result, in P.’s eyes, the Epistle to the Hebrews retains only the offering to the Father and neglects “Christ’s offering to humanity in order to do the Father’s will” (p. 22) and “to incarnate the Father’s mercy for all humanity” (p. 17). P. endeavors to explain this discrepancy but, upon reading his work, one cannot help thinking that the argument deployed is largely inspired by a thesis that has been previously posed. In fact, P. joins those who date the epistle “most probably before the fall of the Temple in 70” (pp. 42–43), while putting forward the hypothesis that the central part (7:1–10, 18), which would have been “elaborated by someone like Apollos before his meeting around 54–55 with disciples such as Priscilla and Aquila” (p. 494), would be the earliest part of the text. This same Apollos would also be the author of the first chapters, which would date from after his meeting with Pricilla and Aquila and would testify to a first stage of maturation of the faith. As for 10:19–13, 25, these passages would still emanate from Apollos, who had reached an even more advanced stage of reflection, having been able to meet John in Ephesus in the meantime, which would explain in particular the evocation of the heavenly Jerusalem in Heb 12:22–24. Exegesis and historical reconstitution, as precise as they are adventurous, are mixed together in this book, while all the works that seek to establish the coherence of the writing and its particularly careful organization are ignored. Hebrews is still conceived of as a “document that makes a passage from the Old to the New Covenant” (p. 499), chap. 10 being interpreted as “a chapter of transition between the sacrifices for sin of Leviticus and the sacrifices of praise and charity of the second part [of the chapter]” (p. 500). P. writes, “To call mutual aid, mutual service and giving to the brethren a sacrifice is something new brought by Paul. There is no trace of this qualification in the First Covenant” (pp. 501–2). Disregarding passages such as Hos 6:6 or even a text such as 1QS 9.5, which states that “the offering of the lips in respect of the law will be like a sweet smell of justice, and the perfection of the way will be like the voluntary gift of a delicious oblation,” P. thus abruptly contrasts the Old and the New Covenants, even if it means reviving all the shortcomings of the classic opposition between church and synagogue. Continuing in this vein, he considers that the choice of the feast of Yom Kippur instead of that of Passover as the background to the development in Heb 7:1–10:18 reveals “a distancing from the meaning of...