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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 652. His Later Life
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His Later Life
While no writings have come down to us under the name of Apollos, there is a widely accepted opinion, first suggested by Luther, that he may have been the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. There is no external evidence or authority for this view. It rests entirely upon the internal characteristics of the book.
The principal consideration in favour of the authorship of Apollos is that he is described in the Acts as a cultured and rhetorical Alexandrian, who was well versed in the Greek Old Testament. This fact might account for the elaborate style, the Alexandrian cast, the kinship with Philo and the Book of Wisdom, and the copious use of the Septuagint in the Epistle, while the fact that Apollos had come under the influence of St. Paul might be regarded as explaining its kinship to St. Paul's thought. On the other hand, Apollos was not a disciple of the primitive Apostles, as the author of Hebrews seems to have been (Heb_2:3). The argument carries us only thus far: The author, if not Apollos, was some such man as Apollos was-a literary Hellenist, familiar with the philosophical ideas which were current at Alexandria and practised in the argumentative use of the Septuagint.
The apocryphal book called the Wisdom of Solomon has also been attributed to Apollos.