Hebrews 8:1

κεφάλαιον ἐπὶ τοῖς λεγομένοις, not, as A.V., “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum” (cf. Grotius “post tot dicta haec esto summa”), but with Field “Now to crown our present discourse” or with Rendall “Now to crown what we are saying”. κεφάλαιον is used to denote either the sum, as of numbers added up from below to the head of the column where the result is set down, and in this sense it is here understood by Erasmus, Calvin and A.V.; or, the chief point as of a cope-stone or capital of a pillar, as in Thucyd., Hebrews 6:6. λέγοντες ἄλλα τε πολλὰ καὶ κεφάλαιον, οἱ Συρακόσιοι, κ. τ. λ. Other examples in Field's O.N., to which add Plutarch, De Educ. Puer., 8, ἓν πρῶτον καὶ μέσον καὶ τελευταῖον ἐν τούτοις κεφάλαιον ἀγωγὴ σπουδαία. This latter sense alone satisfies the present passage, and also agrees better with ἐπὶ τοῖς λεγομένοις for ἐπὶ must here be taken in a quasi-local sense, as Vaughan paraphrases “as a capital upon the things which are being said as a thought (or fact) forming the headstone of the argument we add this”. Cf. Luke 16:26 καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσι τούτοις. That λεγομένοις is in the present is manifestly no objection to this rendering. The absence of the article before κεφάλ. does not involve, as Lünemann supposes, that the writer means “ a main point” among others, for such words do not in similar situations require the article, cf. Demosth., p. 924, τεκμήριον δὲ τούτου. κεφάλαιον is most easily construed as a nominative absolute (cf. Buttmann, p. 381) not, as Bruce, “an accusative in apposition with the following sentence”. τοιοῦτον ἔχομεν ἀρχιερέα … “so great a High Priest have we as took His seat (or, is set down) on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens”. τοιοῦτον, not, as Farrar and Rendall, “retrospective,” although as contrasted with τοιόσδε this is its proper meaning; but here, as frequently in classics [Soph., Antig., 691, λόγοις τοιούτοις οἷς σὺ μὴ τέρψει κλύων, and Demosth., p. 743, followed also by ὥστε] it finds its explanation in ὃς ἐκάθισεν [τοιοῦτον weist naturlich nicht rückwǎrts sondern vorwärts auf den dasselbe erläuternden Relativsatz. Weiss.] The greatness of the High Priest is manifested by the place where He ministers. His greatness is revealed in his sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. Westcott thinks that the thought of a High Priest who … “is King as well as priest is clearly the prominent thought of the sentence”. And Moulton on Hebrews 10:12 says: “The words ‘sat down' (Psalms 110:1), add to the priestly imagery that of kingly state”. But undoubtedly Weiss is right in saying “Durch den Relativsatz soll nicht auf die königliche Herrlichkeit Christi hingewiesen werden”. The writer means to magnify Christ's priesthood by reminding his readers that it is exercised “in the heavens”; as he says in Hebrews 9:24 he has passed εἰς αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανόν into heaven itself, the very presence of God and eternal reality, the ultimate, highest possible. On the words cf. note on Hebrews 1:3. ἐκάθισεν is considered by Buttmann to be one of those aorists which stand for the perfect (see his instructive remarks on the aversion to the perfect, Gram., p. 198); but this may be doubted, as the sitting is not mentioned as the permanent attitude, but merely as suggesting the exaltation of the High Priest, and the finality of His purification of sins, as in Hebrews 1:3. Augustine, De Fide et symbolo, 7, warns against the suggested anthropomorphism of the words “sitteth at the right hand” and says “ ad dextram intelligendum est dictum esse, in summa beatitudine, ubi justitia et pax et gaudium est”. Here, however, it is rather Christ's majesty that is suggested, and as Pearson on this clause of the Creed says, “The belief of Christ's glorious session is most necessary in respect of the immediate consequence which is his most gracious intercession,” rather his availing intercession. Cf. Hooker, Book V., chap. 55.