The Concept of Canon in the Reception of the Epistle to the Hebrews by David Young

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Concept of Canon in the Reception of the Epistle to the Hebrews by David Young Bryan R. Dyer david young, The Concept of Canon in the Reception of the Epistle to the Hebrews (LNTS 658; London: T&T Clark, Zed Books, 2022). Pp. xiii + 176. $115. David Young’s volume sets out to challenge many of the assumptions of NT scholarship regarding how and when a particular text was considered “canonical.” Resisting the urge to find a straight line from a text’s composition to eventual canonical status, Y. argues that the typical evidence used to identify this trajectory—canon lists, citations, manuscript reproduction, and so on—must be examined within the text’s own social context without assuming the result of acceptance into the canon. Further, finding support within this evidence that a particular text was accepted or rejected as canonical proves to be simplistic and unhelpful. As Y. notes, it may well be the case that a book’s availability accounts for its appearance or quotation in patristic sources and that one should not necessarily read too much into that author’s view of the book’s canonicity. Y. chooses to focus his attention on the Epistle to the Hebrews, which proves to be an excellent test case as he explores these ideas. The first chapter offers a history of research on Hebrews’ reception history with an emphasis on issues of canon. Y. challenges the common view that Hebrews was accepted early in the East and initially rejected in the West. Instead, Hebrews’ reception among early Christians demonstrates a more varied and nuanced engagement. Y. sets out to demonstrate this in the remaining chapters of his study. In chap. 2, Y. examines fourth-century discussions pertaining to what books should be accepted as Christian Scriptures. The argument throughout this chapter is that these early Christians reasoned much like other Greek and Roman bibliographers of their era. Y. demonstrates that, like earlier Greek authors, Christians were concerned with the issue of authorship and used this as a means of attaching authority and legitimacy to a written work. To aid in making this determination, Christian writers, like their Greek predecessors, argued in terms of “reports of previous bibliographers, one’s own judgments about a work’s style, and any biographical data that could be assembled” (p. 18). Taking their cue from Greek and Roman bibliographers, the early Christians saw a connection between authorship and authority—eventually adding their own concern with a text’s coherence to developing orthodoxy. These concerns play out in the treatment of Hebrews in the writings of Eusebius, Athanasius, Augustine, and others. In chap. 3, Y. treats citations of Hebrews in patristic sources of the second and third [End Page 171] centuries. Y. argues that the appearances of Hebrews in these patristic writings are often explained by the rhetorical function they contribute rather than by a working understanding of the text’s canonicity. Some writers, such as Origen and Clement, understand the epistle to be Pauline while others, such as Tertullian, attribute it to an associate of Paul. Either way, there is little attention to the epistle’s acceptance or rejection within the canon since these authors are more concerned with the utility that quotations from Hebrews provide within their discourses. Y. goes to great lengths to demonstrate how these patristic authors quote from Hebrews using ancient practices of citation and composition. The fourth chapter examines the placement of Hebrews among editions of the corpus Paulinum in the third through sixth centuries. Generally, Y. shows that Hebrews was consistently included within the Pauline corpus in Greek manuscripts, while more hesitancy was apparent in Latin manuscripts. According to Y., this hesitancy had less to do with concerns over Hebrews’ place in the canon and more to do with questions of its authorship and whether it should be included among Paul’s letters. Further, where the epistle was placed within a Pauline corpus was often influenced by whether its attribution to Paul was assumed, in doubt, or denied. Thus, in Greek manuscripts Hebrews was often placed within the corpus according to common editorial practices, while in Latin manuscripts it appeared at the end (or was...