For centuries, scholars and believers have debated the authorship of the Book of Hebrews. While many modern theologians hesitate to affirm it, the early Church spoke with a single voice: the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews. The evidence—from history, language, and Scripture itself—points overwhelmingly to Paul’s authorship. The doubts arose later, not from those who knew the apostles, but from those who found the book’s teachings inconvenient.

The Rise of Doubt

In every age, there has been a tendency to confuse doubt with sophistication. Some imagine that it is more “intellectual” or “moral” to question long-held convictions than to believe them. This so-called virtue of doubt crept into Christianity as certain theologians—beginning in the fourth century—decided that the traditional view of Hebrews must be wrong.

For nearly 300 years after Christ, the Church universally held that Paul was the author. The early believers, especially those in Asia Minor and Judea—the very regions Paul and John personally pastored—never questioned it. But the Roman Church of the West, centuries later, began to challenge that conclusion. Their objections were not literary but doctrinal.

Why Rome Rejected Hebrews

Several teachings in Hebrews directly contradicted developing Roman Catholic doctrines:

  • Hebrews 3 praises Moses and the Law, affirming their enduring place in God’s plan.
  • Hebrews 4 upholds the seventh-day Sabbath, declaring, “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (v. 9).
  • Hebrews 4:15–16 teaches that Christ was tempted yet without sin and that believers may come directly before the throne of grace—no priestly mediator required.
  • Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16 quote God’s promise: “I will put my laws into their hearts, and write them in their minds,” affirming that the New Covenant is still based on God’s law.
  • Hebrews 11 portrays the faithful as pilgrims seeking a future kingdom, not an earthly institution.

Most significantly, Hebrews contradicts the doctrine of the Mass—the notion that the Eucharist re-sacrifices Christ. Paul wrote that Jesus “has no need … to offer up sacrifices day by day … for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself” (7:27; cf. 9:25-26; 10:12). The cross was a single, all-sufficient sacrifice. To repeat it is to deny its finality.

Because Hebrews so thoroughly undermined Rome’s emerging sacramental system, Western theologians sought reasons to dismiss its authority—and therefore to deny that Paul had written it.

Jerome’s Testimony

Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, wrote around A.D. 414 to Dardanus:

“To our own people … we must say that this Epistle, which is inscribed To the Hebrews, is received as the Apostle Paul’s, not only in the churches of the East, but by all the ecclesiastical writers of former times. But the Latins do not receive it among the canonical Scriptures.”

Jerome acknowledged that all early church leaders—without exception—accepted Pauline authorship. Only the later Latin Church refused it. Their rejection had little to do with scholarship and everything to do with theology.

Two Main Objections

The Roman critics and later “Bible minimalists” offered two main arguments against Paul’s authorship:

  1. Paul’s name is missing from the introduction, unlike his other letters.
  2. The Greek style and vocabulary are more refined than in his other epistles.

Both objections were answered long before Rome ever raised them.

Clement of Alexandria’s Explanation

Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150–215), who lived close to the apostolic era, taught that Paul originally wrote Hebrews in Hebrew for a Jewish audience and deliberately omitted his name because the Hebrews were “prejudiced and suspicious of Paul.” To avoid alienating them, he wrote anonymously. Later, Luke—Paul’s close companion—translated it carefully into Greek for wider circulation.

The explanation fits perfectly with Scripture. Paul wrote from prison, asking Timothy to bring “the parchments” and noting, “Only Luke is with me” (2 Tim. 4:11–13). Luke, an educated Greek physician, was well suited to translate and polish Paul’s Hebrew composition. The refined Greek of Hebrews reflects Luke’s pen, not a different author.

Why Paul Withheld His Name

Peter confirms that Paul had written to the same dispersed Jewish believers to whom Peter ministered:

“… just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him” (2 Pet. 3:15).

Those believers—scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia—were the very ones Paul had once persecuted (Acts 8–9). Had his name appeared at the letter’s opening, many might have rejected it unread. Eusebius and Clement both observed that Paul omitted his name not because a later editor removed it, but because he never included it.

Early Manuscript Evidence

Before the codex (book form) became standard, New Testament writings circulated on scrolls. In every complete manuscript before the fifth century, the Epistle to the Hebrews appears within Paul’s letters—between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy. It was only in Jerome’s fourth-century Vulgate that Hebrews was moved to a neutral position between Paul’s epistles and the general letters, a diplomatic compromise for the Roman Church.

Textual scholars confirm this placement:

“In the Pauline epistles, that to the Hebrews immediately follows the second to the Thessalonians in the four great codices—Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi.”
— Scrivener, Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. 1, p. 74

“Even in the West, where the Fathers … were opposed to Pauline authorship, its position in the Canon, when admitted, was next to those of Paul.”
— B. W. Bacon, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 140

Manuscript history therefore supports, rather than weakens, the ancient testimony of Pauline authorship.

Peter’s Confirmation

Peter not only affirms that Paul had written to the Hebrews but also calls those writings Scripture:

“… in all his letters speaking in them of these matters … which the ignorant and unstable twist … as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16).

Peter, who was crucified before Paul’s death, recognized Paul’s letter to the Hebrews as divinely inspired and part of the biblical canon.

Paul’s Signature Closing

Every one of Paul’s epistles ends with the same benediction: “Grace be with you. Amen.” This unique closing appears nowhere else in the New Testament except Hebrews 13:25—“Grace be with you all. Amen.” No other apostle uses this formula. It is Paul’s unmistakable signature.

Paul’s Circumstances and Companions

Hebrews 13:23-24 mentions both Timothy and believers “from Italy,” implying imprisonment in Rome. Paul wrote several epistles from that very setting: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and 2 Timothy. Philemon 1:1 even opens, “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother …” Exactly the same pairing we find in Hebrews.

Every historical and internal clue—the author’s imprisonment, his association with Timothy, his greeting from Italy—matches Paul’s situation perfectly.

Overwhelming Evidence

When we consider all of the evidence together it becomes incredibly compelling that Paul was the author:

  1. Early Church consensus unanimously affirmed Pauline authorship.
  2. Jerome testified that only the later Latin Church denied it.
  3. Clement of Alexandria explained both the missing name and the stylistic differences.
  4. All ancient manuscripts place Hebrews among Paul’s epistles.
  5. Peter recognized the letter as Pauline Scripture.
  6. Paul’s trademark closing appears in Hebrews.
  7. The author’s imprisonment with Timothy in Italy fits Paul alone.

The evidence is cumulative and overwhelming. The objections are late and theological, not textual.

Why Modern Scholars Still Resist

If the early Church’s testimony is so clear, why do many modern commentators still resist Pauline authorship? Because Hebrews shatters the convenient idea of progressive revelation—the theory that God’s moral expectations changed over time. According to that theory, the patriarchs and prophets understood little of God’s true will; the Mosaic Law was temporary; and only with Paul did “grace” supposedly replace obedience.

But if Paul wrote Hebrews—and he did—that narrative collapses. Paul’s final letter reveals perfect continuity between the faith of the patriarchs and the gospel of Christ.

The Faith Once Delivered

Hebrews 11, the “faith chapter,” declares that the heroes of old “were strangers and exiles on the earth” (v. 13) and that they sought “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (v. 16). Their hope was not in an earthly institution but in the future Kingdom of God—the same kingdom we await today.

Paul’s message in Hebrews is clear: the faith of Abraham, Moses, and David is the faith of Christians. Their obedience and endurance are the pattern for us.

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9 ESV).
“For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (v. 10).

Paul points directly to the seventh day of creation (4:4) and urges, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (v. 11). Far from abolishing the Sabbath, Hebrews affirms its spiritual and prophetic meaning for the people of God.

Likewise, Hebrews 10:25 admonishes believers not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together,” a command directly tied to Sabbath worship and fellowship. Paul connects this continued obedience with perseverance “as you see the Day approaching.”

The New Covenant Based on God’s Law

Paul explains that Christ is the mediator of a new covenant “based on better promises” (8:6) but not on new laws. He quotes Jeremiah 31 verbatim:

“I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (8:10).

The same words are repeated in 10:16-17. The New Covenant does not erase God’s commandments; it internalizes them. Sin is still defined as “lawlessness” (10:17-26), and deliberate sin after receiving truth leaves “no sacrifice for sins.” This is not “once saved, always saved.” It is a call to faithful obedience.

Christ, the Unchanging Savior

The centerpiece of Hebrews is its exalted portrait of Christ:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).

That verse alone dismantles the idea that God’s moral expectations evolve. The way of life God required of Abraham, Moses, David, and the apostles is the same He requires today. Faith and obedience are inseparable because the Savior does not change.

Hebrews 5:7-9 describes Christ’s own submission:

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”

Those are Paul’s words—the same apostle who taught justification by faith. Faith that does not produce obedience is counterfeit.

The Faith of All Generations

Hebrews unites the Old and New Testaments into one continuous story of redemption. Through its pages we learn that Melchizedek, the King of Salem who received Abraham’s tithes, prefigured Christ’s eternal priesthood; that the faithful of old “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”; and that the hope of the saints has always been the same Kingdom of God.

Moses, we are told, “chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin” (11:25), esteeming “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (v. 26). He “endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (v. 27). That is the same faith we are called to live by today—to fear God more than men, to value eternal reward over temporary comfort, and to see the unseen Kingdom as our true homeland.

Conclusion

When all the evidence is weighed, the conclusion is inescapable: the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by the Apostle Paul. The early Church knew it. Manuscripts preserve it. Scripture supports it. And its message harmonizes completely with the rest of Paul’s writings.

The denial of Pauline authorship serves only those who wish to separate grace from obedience, faith from law, and the New Testament from the Old. But Hebrews joins them all together in one seamless revelation of the unchanging God.

The same God who spoke at Sinai speaks still. The same Christ who offered Himself once for all now intercedes for us. And the same faith that sustained Abraham, Moses, and the prophets is the faith that must sustain us.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)