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THERE are two epigraphs to Edmund Wilsons's Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. The first is attributed to John Brown. It is printed on the title page with Brown's name under it.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.1

Later in the book in his chapter on abolitionist writers he attributes the quote to Brown again, describing it as ‘an article of John Brown's creed’.2 The words are a quotation from Hebrews 9:22 (the second half of the verse), although Wilson in no place in Patriotic Gore indicates this. There are numerous references to Brown in the book, his role in the abolitionist movement, and the raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia that led to his death. That the quotation is from Hebrews is apparent. McPherson, for instance, describes it as ‘One of his [Brown's] favorite biblical passages’.3 Wilson takes great care to link Brown's actions to the prophetic literature that Brown knew so well, and that was a great resource of Calvinist preaching and literature. Yet this New Testament (NT) quotation from the apostolic letter that reaches back most often to the Old Testament (OT) seems to have eluded him.

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