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St. Paul didn’t write it

St. Paul always quoted from the Hebrew Old Testament, the author of Hebrews always quotes from the Greek Septuagint. St. Paul preferred simple Greek words, Hebrews uses compound words. Hebrews is far more elegant than any of Paul’s letters.

The early Church had no consensus on who it was, and it seems some thought it was St. Paul for the same reasons people think so today, nothing else. People assume it was a student of St. Paul due to the similarities, but they never consider that maybe this meant it was one of his teachers.

The author was not ordained

Near the end, the author says to obey our leaders. It doesn’t say “obey us,” showing that the author is not one of the leaders. In context, it means spiritual leaders, since it says those leaders are keeping watch over our souls.

Every other New Testament letter was written by one of the leaders of the infant Church. Why would someone write to people they aren’t a leader of? If the Blessed Virgin Mary wrote it, it would be because it’s a motherly exhortation, which is precisely the duty of a good mother.

No introduction makes perfect sense

It’s universally baffling that this letter has no introduction. It would best be explained if the introduction would be too confusing, too difficult to believe, too difficult to accept, too distracting from the rest of the letter, and a potential cause for scandal.

All of these reasons fully match up to the theory that Mary wrote this letter. She wanted to get right to the point, she wanted to stifle any complaints that a woman shouldn’t write a letter, or that it can’t be inspired Scripture. She was writing an exhortation to her children, and got right to the point.

Mary was in Rome around A.D. 58

Near the end, the author sends greetings from those in Italy, implying they’re in Rome. This letter is dated around year 58. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans was around the same year, and asked the readers to greet Mary who has worked hard among them. It doesn’t say which Mary, because it was the Mary. After 25 years of hard work and remaining sinless, it’s difficult not to become at least a little famous.

This would have been near the end of her life. Tradition says she was probably around 70 when she died. (I maintain that she died before the Assumption.) If she was around 14 at year 1, and 32 years later when her son died she was 46, then about 25 years later she would be about 71, which lines up.

Around this time, many of the leaders of the infant Church had been martyred, the persecution was very strong, and many were afraid, which every single commentary on Hebrews agrees with. Like a good mother, essentially with her dying breath, Mary probably penned this letter, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to encourage her children to follow the New Adam and the New Eve to the New Tree of Life, which is the Cross.

She most likely wrote it herself, and then brought it to someone to deliver to one of the churches in a situation where it would have been ambiguous who wrote it, as to not raise questions. Some have said that it’s unlikely a poor woman would be literate, but if 10 years is enough time for children to learn, why wouldn’t a healthy adult woman be able to learn how in 25 years, with many scribes having converted to Catholicism from Judaism and being willing to teach?

The Holy Spirit wrote it through Mary

All Scripture is God-breathed, or inspired by the Holy Spirit. We know that Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit more than anyone else, and that she is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, as she is the daughter of the Father and the mother of the Son.

The theory is more specifically that Mary and the Holy Spirit co-authored this letter. This resolves two difficulties. One is the use in chapter 11 of a masculine word in Greek, as the Holy Spirit used his own pronouns in that moment. The other is the fact that “we” is used interchangeably with “I”.

It’s clearly a maternal exhortation

The entire letter is filled with the same messages: don’t draw back, keep pushing forward; you can do this, God will help you; don’t give up, we went through it too and survived; your father doesn’t hate you and hasn’t abandoned you, he’s disciplining you because he loves and accepts you. This is what a good mother does.

It has the same tone as the mother of the seven martyrs in the book of Machabees, who encouraged them with her last words to give glory to God through their deaths. Especially chapters eleven and twelve. Near the end of eleven, after the names are exhausted, there’s a short list of heroic deeds, followed by “women received their dead by resurrection,” followed by a short list of martyrdoms. That woman was especially Mary receiving Jesus back and then witnessing the early Church being slaughtered.

It has a reverse curse of excellency

The original Greek is some of the best Greek you’ll ever read. The Latin translation is some of the most beautiful Latin you’ll ever read. The English translation is maybe the best letter in the entire RSVCE2. The reading of it by John Rhys-Davies is definitely the best out of the entire Truth and Life dramatized audio New Testament.

It’s almost like grace follows this letter wherever it goes. Which is exactly what you’d expect of Mary wrote it, since she is overflowing with grace and was since the moment of her Immaculate Conception.

It’s bold in its warnings

Out of all warnings in the New Testament, apart from Jesus, every author is at least a little restrained in warning of the dangers of sinning. This is because sinners are aware that as we judge so will we be judged, so although St. Peter and St. Paul and the other authors warned of the punishments of sin, they were gentle about it, and quickly moved on to the mercy of God.

But Mary, who never sinned once, did not hold back. Hebrews is very, very stark several times in talking about what will happen to those who are lost forever, and even opines that perhaps the reader will be one of them around chapter six. Yet she didn’t exclude herself from the possibility of apostasy, knowing that the higher you are, the harder you fall.

The moral lesson

Someone asked me once, why does it matter who it is, or whether it’s Mary? I didn’t have an answer, but came up with one on the spot: if Mary wrote it, and especially if she wrote it as her dying exhortation to all Christians facing the flaming sword of the garden of Eden and shying away, then this entire letter is an instruction manual to teach mothers how to encourage their children not to be afraid of their fathers, but rather to love and obey them, trusting that their fathers only want what’s best for them.