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The Pastoral Epistles of Saint Paul
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), part 40, Hebrews 1:1-4
August 8, 2023

Topics include:
(1) Verses 1-4 are one of the core confessions of Christianity and a foundation for the Ecumenical Councils. The Son is "the exact character of His [God's] hypostasis". The Ecumenical Councils worked out the meaning of hypostasis over 200 years. In this passage it means "substance";  "Upholds the universe by the word [rhema, breath] of His power", cf. "Logos" used by John; "Purged our sins", a cosmic atonement, for the sins of the whole world, purifying the world and our human nature, cleansing the cosmos from the stain of sin; Jesus Christ, Son of God, greater than the Prophets and the Angels. He is the Great High Priest, achieving this great cosmic atonement by his own self-sacrifice. A more excellent name than they: Jahweh; The Royal Cult of the First Temple: the King, the Anointed One, the Christ, anointed with Chrism, the sacrament of the presence of God with His people. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Davidic Kingdom, the Christ, sitting forever on the throne of David, the Great High Priest who offers himself; 
(2) An extensive discussion, based on the name of the book, of the distinction between "Hebrew" and "Jew". The former is an ethnic description of the common people, and the Levites among them, who in the past, at least, spoke Hebrew. They kept in their memory the worship of the First Temple, prior to Josiah's reforms, and opposed the reformed religion of the Jews. The latter, the "Jews" are the ruling elite, Pharisees and Sadducees, of whom Jesus was a very sharp critic, and their religion of Judaism. Judaism was created in Babylonian exile by the elite who were carried away into captivity. It had a radically reformed mono-personal God, cf. the multi-personal God of the First temple (God most high, and Yahweh, His Son, and Wisdom), essentially like converting Holy Orthodoxy to Islam or Jehovah's Witness! Judaism also emptied out much of the temple worship; 
(3) A supporting discussion of the recreation of the Biblical texts after return from Exile (2 Edras 14) and of Josiah's reforms, the Deuteronomic reforms: 2 Chronicles 34 cf. Exodus 12. These reforms centralised worship from the villages to the Temple and downplayed the Day of Atonement, or merged it with the Passover. 
(4) The upshot: The context of this history and these themes helps us to understand the book of Hebrews. You cannot take the Old Testament at face value --- it is not an empirical history, but a sacred history. There are lots of holes in our knowledge of that time.