Be this as it may, the epistle is of great historical importance, as reflecting a crisis inevitable in the development of the Jewish-Christian consciousness, when a definite choice between the old and the new form of Israel’s religion had to be made, both for internal and external reasons. It seems to follow directly on the situation implied by the appeal of James to Israel in dispersion, in view of Messiah’s winnowing-fan in their midst (i. 1-4, ii. 1-7, v. 1-6, and especially v. 7-11). It may well be the immediate antecedent of that revealed in 1 Peter, an epistle which perhaps shows traces of its influence (e.g. in i. 2, “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” cf. Heb. ix. 13 f., x. 22, xii. 24). It is also of high interest theologically, as exhibiting, along with affinities to several types of New Testament teaching (see Stephen), a type all its own, and one which has had much influence on later Christian thought (cf. Milligan, ut infra, ch. ix.). Indeed, it shares with Romans the right to be styled “the first treatise of Christian theology.”
Literature.—The older literature may be seen in the great work of F. Bleek, Der Brief an die Hebräer (1828-1840), still a valuable storehouse of material, while Bleek’s later views are to be found in a posthumous work (Elberfeld, 1868); also in Franz Delitzsch’s Commentary (Edinburgh, 1868). The more recent literature is given in G. Milligan, The Theology of the Epistle of the Hebrews (1899), a useful summary of all bearing on the epistle, and in the large New Testament Introductions and Biblical Theologies. See also Hastings’s Dict. of the Bible, the Encycl. Biblica and T. Zahn’s article in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie.
(J. V. B.)
[1] Also in Codex Claromontanus, the Tractatus de libris (x.), Philastrius of Brescia (c. A.D. 380), and a prologue to the Catholic Epistles (Revue bénédictine, xxiii. 82 ff.). It is defended in a monograph by H. H. B. Ayles (Cambridge, 1899).
[2] i.e. a house-church of upper-class Jewish Christians, not fully in touch with the attitude even of their own past and present “leaders” (xiii. 7, 17), as distinct from the local church generally (xiii. 24). The Gospel had reached them, as also the writer himself (cf. Acts xviii. 25), through certain hearers of the Lord (ii. 3), not necessarily apostles.
HEBRIDES, THE, or Western Isles, a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland. They are situated between 55° 35′ and 58° 30′ N. and 5° 26′ and 8° 40′ W. Formerly the term was held to embrace not only all the islands off the Scottish western coast, including the islands in the Firth of Clyde, but also the peninsula of Kintyre, the Isle of Man and the Isle of Rathlin, off the coast of Antrim. They have been broadly classified into the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides, the Minch and Little Minch dividing the one group from the other. Geologically, they have also been differentiated as the Gneiss Islands and the Trap Islands. The Outer Hebrides being almost entirely composed of gneiss the epithet suitably serves them, but, strictly speaking, only the more northerly of the Inner Hebrides may be distinguished as Trap Islands. The chief islands of the Outer Hebrides are Lewis-with-Harris (or Long Island), North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Barra, the Shiants, St Kilda and the Flannan Isles, or Seven Hunters, an uninhabited group, about 20 m. N.W. of Gallon Head in Lewis. Of these the Lewis portion of Long Island, the Shiants and the Flannan belong to the county of Ross and Cromarty, and the remainder to Inverness-shire. The total length of this group, from Barra Head to the Butt of Lewis, is 130 m., the breadth varying from less than 1 m. to 30 m. The Inner Hebrides are much more scattered and principally include Skye, Small Isles (Canna, Sanday, Rum, Eigg and Muck), Coll, Tyree, Lismore, Mull, Ulva, Staffa, Iona, Kerrera, the Slate Islands (Seil, Easdale, Luing, Shuna, Torsay), Colonsay, Oronsay, Scarba, Jura, Islay and Gigha. Of these Skye and Small Isles belong to Inverness-shire, and the rest to Argyllshire. The Hebridean islands exceed 500 in number, of which one-fifth are inhabited. Of the inhabited islands 11 belong to Ross and Cromarty, 47 to Inverness-shire, and 44 to Argyllshire, but of this total of 102 islands, one-third have a population of only 10 souls, or fewer, each. The population of the Hebrides in 1901 numbered 78,947 (or 28 to the sq. m.), of whom 41,031 were females, who thus exceeded the males by 10%, and 22,733 spoke Gaelic only and 47,666 Gaelic and English. The most populous island is Lewis-with-Harris (32,160), and next to it are Skye (13,883), Islay (6857) and Mull (4334).
Of the total area of 1,800,000 acres, or 2812 sq. m., only one-ninth is cultivated, most of the surface being moorland and mountain. The annual rainfall, particularly in the Inner Hebrides, is heavy (42.6 in. at Stornoway) but the temperature is high, averaging for the year 47° F. Potatoes and turnips are the only root crops that succeed, and barley and oats are grown in some of the islands. Sheep-farming and cattle-raising are carried on very generally, and, with the fisheries, provide the main occupation of the inhabitants, though they profit not a little from the tourists who flock to many of the islands throughout the summer. The principal industries include distilling, slate-quarrying and the manufacture of tweeds, tartans and other woollens. There are extensive deer forests in Lewis-with-Harris, Skye, Mull and Jura. On many of the islands there are prehistoric remains and antiquities within the Christian period. The more populous islands are in regular communication with certain points of the mainland by means of steamers from Glasgow, Oban and Mallaig. The United Free Church has a strong hold on the people, but in a few of the islands the Roman Catholics have a great following. In the larger inhabited islands board schools have been established. The islands unite with the counties to which they belong in returning members to parliament (one for each shire).
History.—The Hebrides are mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Ἔβουδαι and by Pliny under that of Hebudes, the modern spelling having, it is said, originated in a misprint. By the Norwegians they were called Sudreyjar or Southern Islands. The Latinized form was Sodorenses, preserved to modern times in the title of the bishop of Sodor and Man. The original inhabitants seem to have been of the same Celtic race as those settled on the mainland. In the 6th century Scandinavian hordes poured in with their northern idolatry and lust of plunder, but in time they adopted the language and faith of the islanders. Mention is made of incursions of the vikings as early as 793, but the principal immigration took place towards the end of the 9th century in the early part of the reign of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, and consisted of persons driven to the Hebrides, as well as to Orkney and Shetland, to escape from his tyrannous rule. Soon afterwards they began to make incursions against their mother-country, and on this account Harald fitted out an expedition against them, and placed Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man under Norwegian government. The chief seat of the Norwegian sovereignty was Colonsay. About the year 1095 Godred Crovan, king of Dublin, Man and the Hebrides, died in Islay. His third son, Olaf, succeeded to the government about 1103, and the daughter of Olaf was married to Somerled, who became the founder of the dynasty known as Lords of the Isles. Many efforts were made by the Scottish monarchs to displace the Norwegians. Alexander II. led a fleet and army to the shores of Argyllshire in 1249, but he died on the island of Kerrera. On the other hand, Haakon IV., king of Norway, at once to restrain the independence of his jarls and to keep in check the ambition of the Scottish kings, set sail in 1263 on a great expedition, which, however, ended disastrously at Largs. Magnus, son of Haakon, concluded in 1266 a peace with the Scots, renouncing all claim to the Hebrides and other islands except Orkney and Shetland, and Alexander III. agreed to give him a sum of 4000 merks in four yearly payments. It was also stipulated that Margaret, daughter of Alexander, should be betrothed to Eric, the son of Magnus, whom she married in 1281. She died two years later, leaving an only daughter afterwards known as the Maid of Norway.