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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
How can the Letter to the Hebrews apply priestly, cultic language to Christ while the gospels always present him as a lay man? In them he is shown ignoring the rules of cultic purity, touching lepers and corpses, declaring all food clean and cleansing the Temple. The priests are primarily to blame for his death. I am not concerned here with what the historical Jesus actually thought about purity or the cult, but with a clash of theologies. Is Hebrews a retreat from the lay spirituality of the gospels? Having killed Jesus, do the clerics subvert his gospel? One can only answer that question by looking at the function of the cult in the Jewish tradition and at what Hebrews does with the language of liturgy. Why was the image of a celestial cult, shared with ‘innumerable angels in festal gathering’ (12:22) quite so attractive? Would not an eternal banquet be a more obviously appealing image of heavenly bliss than a never-ending service?
It is an intriguing fact that in the first century many Jewish and Christian groups could imagine nothing more exciting than sharing with the angels in the celestial liturgy. Perhaps the most remarkable parallel to the Letter to the Hebrews is ‘The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice’, the Sabbath Shirot, found at Qumran. According to Carol Newsom this cycle of thirteen songs, describing the angelic liturgy, was supposed to give the singers a mystical experience of being transported to heaven to worship with the angels.
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