Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Hebrews

Description

Recommended by an SSPX priest as an excellent way to know Christ.

This is St. Paul's most sublime letter.

cf. "What are the oldest Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek MSS of the Epistle to the Hebrews?"

---

My scripture scholar friend—who spent several years in the Holy Land studying Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek—wrote:

About the Epistle to the Hebrews, your assessment is most correct (and I can imagine and may remember a few things from checking it a passage or two many moons ago that St. Thomas offers much worthwhile remarks from his contemplation and analysis to establish the unique value of this paramount Epistle, in his distinctive style and depth). A few years ago, I undertook to read this Epistle in Aramaic, using the Peshitta text, alongside a Hebrew retroversion. Even though I did not complete the whole reading (yet), what emerged from that partial immersion left a deep impression on me. What is immediately evident is how profoundly unified the Epistle appears when approached through that double Semitic lens. From its very syntax to the theological vision it unfolds, the text reveals itself as something far more organic and architectonic than one might perceive in most translations. It reads as a sustained, elevated (sublime , as you rightly put it) Catholic Midrash—one that is not merely interpretive, but deeply contemplative and, in a sense, liturgical in its internal movement. A Catholic Midrash in which St. Paul, in continuity with his Hebraic modes of thought (as a highly trained former Pharisee), yet now elevated within his episcopal and apostolic authority, unfolds several core dimensions with remarkable coherence (leaving no doubt as to the the authenticity of the authorship and the Hebraic mold used to produce such a key piece in the Corpus of Sacred Scripture):

• The metaphysics of Creation and divine Speech: the opening establishes a theology of revelation rooted in God's fatherly (אבא) pedagogical self-disclosure (revelation), culminating in the Son (ברא, the word for "Son" in Aramaic in Heb 1:5 is strictly identical to the form of the conjugated stem of the verb "create"/ברא in Gen 1:1). The Aramaic phrasing lends a certain immediacy and continuity (a continuous present) to this "speaking" across time on account of the kind of grammar used in both biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.
• The continuity and fulfillment of the Old Testament: rather than presenting rupture, the Apostle articulates a profound organic development where the figures, institutions, and rites of the Mosaic religion (pre-Catholicism) are shown as true anticipatory forms (τύπος, the prefigurative imprints).
• The sacrificial structure: most strikingly, the entire argument of the Epistle pivots around the notion and reality of sacrifice —not merely as ritual, but as an ontological and priestly reality. The Temple, the priesthood, the high priesthood, and the offerings are presented as shadows, whose full substance is realized in the Holy Sacrifice (Calvary-Mass).
• The heavenly liturgy: the text moves with a vertical dimension, constantly drawing the reader from earthly figures to their heavenly prototypes (themselves referring to their primordial, transcendent patterns or archetypes, that "which is not of this creation"), reinforcing the understanding that what is visible below participates in an invisible reality beyond the present veil of things...

The Hebraic structure (by which I mean that St. Paul clearly conceived the whole text in total coherence with its title, a Letter to the Hebrews , while letting his own fluency in Aramaic shine through at times)—the parallelisms, the various rhythmic patterns (or modes) and cate-chetical repetitions, the conceptual layering—makes this especially evident (as opposed to a few mere "Hebraisms" found here and there). That Epistle was conceived not only as a tool of apologetics but as a sacred composition where the Apostle's Midrashic-scholastic language is used as the proper (precise) vehicle for communicating sublime Catholic truths (to the Hebrews as well as to all of us up and down the centuries).

Giving a mere example, with the opening verse of the Epistle:

.בכל מנון ובכל דמון מלל אלהא עם אבהין בנביא מן קדים

This is a classic Hebraic distributive construction. The repetition ("in many/בכל … and in many/בכל …") reflects a typical Hebrew/Aramaic mnemotechnic tendency toward rhythmic parallelisms often (in part) erased from translations seeking a literary stylistic "precision" inclined to removing repetitive patterns; whereas, even in its Greek form, said tendency can be clearly seen throughout the Epistle, which comprises a text primarily shaped by a Semitic mind at work—one that didactically thinks in patterns of parallelism, accumulation, balanced oral style (using binary, ternary, and other rhythmic modes), and symbolic correspondence. The Peshitta and a Hebrew retroversion do not impose these characteristics; but they bring them into clearer focus by highlighting them more starkly; which I hope to be able to further dive into some day.

"... qui cum sit splendor gloriae, et figura substantiae ejus, portansque omnia verbo virtutis suae..."

---

Caput 1

04/14/26Caput 1 : 55

Non autem est iustus, qui non amat iustitiam.

04/14/26Caput 1 : 67

omnes creaturae corporales ordinantur ad spirituales, et totus motus deserviens generationi et corruptioni ordinatur ad generationem hominis. Cessante ergo generatione hominis, quod erit quando completus erit numerus electorum et praedestinatorum, cessabit motus ille.

Caput 2

04/18/26Caput 2 : 120

videtur quod magis debuerit naturam angelicam apprehendere quam humanam naturam

04/18/26Caput 2 : 123

Matth. c. XII, 7: discite quid est, misericordiam volo, et non sacrificium,

Caput 4

04/23/26Caput 4 : 181

Matth. I, 2: Abraham autem genuit Isaac, id est, fides genuit spem,

Caput 5

04/24/26Caput 5 : 191

Tales ergo debent assumi, qui non se ingerunt. Unde antiquitus signo visibili ostendebantur, sicut patet de beato Nicolao, et multis aliis.

04/24/26Caput 5 : 202

II Tim. III, 7: semper discentes, et numquam ad scientiam veritatis pervenientes

describes modern academia well

04/25/26Caput 5 : 205

In aliis ergo scientiis sufficit quod homo sit perfectus secundum intellectum, in istis vero requiritur quod sit perfectus secundum intellectum et affectum.

said by a Dominican!

Caput 6

04/26/26Caput 6 : 220

Qui ergo iterato baptizantur, rursum Christum crucifigunt.

Caput 7

04/28/26Caput 7 : 274

Efficacia eius est, quia causa est semper potentior suo effectu, et ideo causa temporalis non potest producere effectum aeternum.

succinct syllogism against naturalism

Caput 9

04/30/26Caput 9 : 341

Melius enim non dicitur, nisi respectu boni.

Jerome says this, too, in Ep. 22.

04/30/26Caput 9 : 345

senium incipit a sexagesimo anno

Caput 10

04/30/26Caput 10 : 357

Maius est placere quam velle,

05/01/26Caput 10 : 369

originali, quod est quasi corporale, quia anima ipsum contrahit per unionem ad carnem foedam

succinct explanation of original sin propagation

05/01/26Caput 10 : 372

Quia enim caritas est amor, proprium autem amoris est unire, quia, ut dicit Dionysius, amor est vis unitiva Io. XVII, 22 s.: ut sint unum sicut et nos unum sumus, et cognoscat mundus, quia dilexisti eos, sicut et me dilexisti ideo recedere ab invicem, est directe oppositum caritati.

05/01/26Caput 10 : 381

Ingratitudo autem super tantis beneficiis aggravat peccatum.

05/02/26Caput 10 : 390

Prov. XVI, 32: melior est patiens forti viro.

Caput 11

05/02/26Caput 11 : 400

Et si geometria esset essentia beatitudinis, qui haberet principia geometriae, haberet quodammodo substantiam beatitudinis.

so faith is a science

05/03/26Caput 11 : 413

Iac. IV, 8: appropinquate Deo, et appropinquabit vobis.

à la "God helps those who help themselves"

05/04/26Caput 11 : 421

Homines enim assumentur ad ordines angelorum.

Caput 12

05/07/26Caput 12 : 494

Esau autem non solum fuit gulosus, sed etiam luxuriosus: quia contra voluntatem parentum duxit uxores alienigenas. [Genesis 26:34-35]

05/07/26Caput 12 : 495

poenituit Esau, non quia vendiderat primogenita, sed quia perdiderat. Unde non dolebat de peccato venditionis, sed de damno perditionis. Et ideo poenitentia eius non fuit accepta, quia non erat vera. Sic enim poenitent damnati in Inferno, ut dicitur Sap. V, v. 3: poenitentiam agentes, non quia peccaverunt, sed quia exclusi sunt.

isn’t attrition sufficient?

05/07/26Caput 12 : 510

Io. III, 12: si terrena dixi vobis, et non creditis, quomodo si dixero vobis caelestia credetis?

A-T thesis

Caput 13

05/08/26Caput 13 : 541

Pax enim nihil aliud est, nisi unitas affectuum.

different from St. Augustine’s, “tranquility of order”?

Chapter 5

04/25/26Chapter 5 : 757

For the doctrine of sacred Scripture contains matters not only for speculation, as in geometry, but also matters to be accepted by the will

bad transl: affectus, not voluntas