Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Kristos haryav ee merelotz!
The early Church could not come to a conclusion regarding the authorship of this Epistle, the
consensus patrum being it was probably St. Paul but in reality, to quote Origen, “But as to who wrote the epistle, only God knows the truth.” He himself was a fan of the Epistle however and described its content as “wonderful,” and noted many believed the author to be either St. Luke or St. Clement (this idea was held by St. Hippolytus among others, is that St. Clement, third bishop of Rome after St. Linus and author of 1 Clement, which like
The Shepherd of Hermas, nearly made it into the canon, but was rejected on the grounds of being Patristic rather than Apostolic, although the contents of 1 Clement in its opposition to schisms are uncontroversial among most Christians even today).
Other commonly mentioned possible authors besides Saints Paul, Luke and Clement include Priscilla and Aquilas, Apollos and Barnabas. I think I saw Theclas mentioned once.
One common opinion is that the polished Greek was due to this beinf a sermon of St. Paul in “the Hebrew tongue” most likely meaninf Judaean Aramaic (for Hebrew at the time was only used liturgically at the Synagogue and the Second Temple and in phylacteries, mezuzahs and other scribal materials), which was then written down by St. Luke in the highly polished Greek characteristic of Luke-Acts, which lends weight to
@Hammster ‘s opinion, which has the unique benefit of having Patristic, scientific and textual support (it being based on a Pauline sermon explains the mention of St. Timothy as a companion, and the early church strongly believed that Luke and Acts were based on the preaching of St. Paul. So I am going to, on that basis, say that
@Hammster presents the most credible theory as to the actual author, St. Luke, based on the testimony of Church Fathers including Origen*, who was probably the most well read intellectual of any religious or philosophical tradition in the 3rd century, and
@Hammster ‘s theory becomes even more credible if we accept the the Patristic idea (held by St. Clement of Alexandria, and Eusebius of Caesarea, and Origen) endorsed by modern scholars that this was a sermon of St. Paul, written down after the fact by St. Luke.
Do we know for sure? No, but I think there is a 75% chance at least that
@Hammster is correct.
I would also note that when Martin Luther, arguably to his discredit, took it upon himself to propose a revision of the 27-book Athanasian Canon of the New Testament, an act which was blocked, but which did lead to his deprecation of the books he disliked to the back of the Luther Bible, in a section reserved for
Antilegomenna, Hebrews joined James, Jude and the Apocalypse (Revelation).
If this theory is untrue, I think Aquilla, Priscilla, Barnabus and Apollos are the most likely authors, but we can’t know since we have no actual writings of theirs to compare it against (1 Barnabas being pseudepigrapha).
*Although Justinian anathematizes Origen, I have heard the Coptic saints venerate him, and the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia makes a compelling argument against his anathema; he was greatly disliked by Saints Jerome and Epiphanius of Salamis, who blamed Arianism on him, but I think Arianism more likely was passed on from Lucian of Antioch, a theological disciple of the wicked proto-Unitarian heretical bishop Paul of Samosata, whose corruption was so notorious that the Roman Governor helped the Church of Antioch depose him, however, there was also a movement called Origenism which may have been heretical, but given the Cappadocians liked him (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory Nazianzus and St. Gregory of Nyssa), and compiled an anthology of his best works, and to my knowledge St. Athanasius never criticized him, I am inclined to regard him as venerable. One thing is for sure: it is a tragedy that the Church has no surviving copies of his
Hexaemeron, the world’s first parallel Bible, which placed side by side the Septuagint with multiple Hebrew recensions.
