be to steal him, or at any rate to deprive Philemon of the
pleasure of voluntarily sending him to minister to him (verse
14). He therefore sends him back with this Letter, so exquisitely
worded that it cannot but have secured the forgiveness and
cordial reception of Onesimus" (Marcus Dods, D.D., _New Testament
Introduction_).

The Letter to the Hebrews

As regards the date of this Letter, the only sure
conclusion appears to be that it was before 70 A.D. The book
itself claims to have been written at the end of the Jewish Age
(1:2; 9:26), whilst the earthly temple was still in existence
(9:8), and it is inconceivable that such an overwhelming comment
upon the writer's whole position as that afforded by the
destruction of Jerusalem would have been overlooked, had it been
available. Hence 67-68 A.D. may with probability be alleged as
the time of composition. The only fact clear as to the author is
that he was not the Apostle Paul. The early Fathers did not
attribute the book to Paul, nor was it until the seventh century
that the tendency to do this, derived from Jerome, swelled into
an ecclesiastical practice. From the book itself we see that the
author must have been a Jew and a Hellenist, familiar with Philo
as well as with the Old Testament, a friend of Timothy and
well-known to many of those whom he addressed, and not an Apostle
but decidedly acquainted with Apostolic thoughts; and that he not
only wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem but apparently
himself was never in Palestine. The name of Barnabas, and also
that of Priscilla, has been suggested, but in reality all these
distinctive marks appear to be found only in Apollos. So that