the epistolary closing of hebrews and pauline imitation 277
other parts of ancient letters. westcott said it well in the early twentieth
century: “a difference in style [in ch. 13] corresponds with the difference
of subject; but the central portion brings back with fresh power some of
the main thoughts on which the writer has before insisted.”38
it has often been pointed out that hebrews 13 contains pauline vocabu-
lary and phrases that do not appear in chs. 1–12. Terms that appear in
hebrews 13 and paul’s undisputed letters, but not hebrews 1–12, include:
φιλαδελφία (13:1; rom 12:10; 1 Thess 4:9), φιλοξενία (13:2; rom 12:13), τίμιος
(13:4; 1 Cor 3:12), κοίτη (13:4; rom 13:13), μοιχοί (13:4; 1 Cor 6:9), ἀνάθω (13:20;
rom 10:7), πρόβατον (13:20; rom 8:36), ἀνέχω (1 Cor 4:12; 2 Cor 11:1, 4, 19),
and many others.39 wedderburn also draws attention to words that appear
in hebrews 13 but not chs. 1–12, but which do have synonyms (or “near-
synonyms”) that appear in the earlier chapters.40 in response to this we
may note again that paraenetic and closing sections will often introduce
new concepts and motifs to a discourse.41
one must also consider how significant it is that ch. 13 contains
vocabulary not found elsewhere in the epistle. Vanhoye, for instance, has
shown that while heb 13:1–6 contains sixteen terms not used in chs. 1–12,
heb 12:14–21 contains twenty-eight words not found anywhere else in
hebrews.42 as another example, a study of heb 6:1–8 reveals twenty-two
words not found elsewhere in the epistle.43 yet, no one argues that these
38 b. f. westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (3rd
ed.; london: macmillan, 1920 [1903]), 429.
39 wedderburn lists over twenty such words (“ ‘letter’ to the hebrews,” 395–97). wil-
liams counts twenty-five words in hebrews 13 that are used by paul but not found (or used
differently) in hebrews 1–12 (“a word-study of hebrews 13,” JBL 30 (1911) 133–35).
40 wedderburn’s examples here are problematic (along with his understanding of syn-
onyms and “near-synonyms”). he cites, for example, that heb 13:7 uses ἀναθεωρέω (“to
think back on”) while previously in the discourse the author used κατανοέω (3:1; “to con-
sider carefully”) and ἀφοράω (12:2; “to fix one’s attention to”). however, as louw and nida
have made clear, technically there are no synonyms (Lexicon, i: xvi). no two lexical items
share the exact range of meaning in all contexts where they might appear. That is to say,
the author of hebrews had a large semantic range and his choice of words depended upon
the nuance of meaning that he wished to convey within a given place in his discourse.
41 Cynthia long westfall notes that heb 13:17–25 is structurally distinct from the rest
of the discourse and attributes this to shifts in the interpersonal structure (A Discourse
Analysis of the Letter to the Hebrews: The Relationship between Form and Meaning [lnTs
297; london: T&T Clark, 2005], 291).
42 albert Vanhoye, “la Question littéraire de hébreux xiii. 1–6,” NTS 23 (1977): 129.
43 These include: καταβαλλόμενοι (6:1), μετάνοια (6:1, 6), ἐπίθεσις (6:2), κρίμα (6:2),
ἐπιτρέπτω (6:3), δωρεά (6:4), παραπίπυω (6:6), ἀνακαινίζω (6:6), ἀναστατρόω (6:6),
παραδειγματίζω (6:6), τίνω (6:7), ὐετός (6:7), πίκτω (6:7), βοτάνη (6:7), εὔθετος (6:7), γεωργέω
(6:7), ἐκφέρω (6:8), ἄκανθα (6:8), τρίβολος (6:8), ἀδόκιμος (6:8), κατάρα (6:8), and καῦσις
(6:8). many of these terms are found in paul’s letters as well. Πίνω (6:7), for example, is
used nine times in 1 Corinthians. Κρίμα (6:2) is another example—appearing in romans