SECTION II

the authenticity of the first gospel

The Gospel, entitled the Gospel according to St Matthew, was unanimously attributed by the early Church to the apostle of that name, who, before his call to the apostleship, was a publican living on the shores of the Lake of Galilee (Mat 9:9). The most ancient testimony is that of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, who, according to the before-cited account of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iii. 39), declared, when speaking of this Gospel, that Matthew first wrote it in the Hebrew language, and that every one translated or explained it to the best of his power.¹ From a mistaken view of this evidence, a doubt of the genuineness of this Gospel first arose, and it is from its true sense that a due estimation of this book must proceed. Pantænus, the founder of the Alexandrian catechetical school, found, during a missionary journey, a Hebrew Gospel of St Matthew among the Christians of Southern Arabia (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 10). Irenæus also informs us (advers. Hæres. iii. 1) that Matthew brought out a Gospel among the Hebrews, in their own language. Origen (according to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 25), Eusebius (iii. 24), Epiphanius (Hæres. 30, 3), Chrysostom (Hom. in Matt. i.), Jerome (Catal. de vir. ill. c. 3), and others, also assert the same fact.

This tradition is corroborated by the relation in which the Greek Gospel of St Matthew stands both to the Hebrew language and to the Old Testament text. With regard to the first relation, this Gospel is interspersed with Hebrew words and constructions. The quotations from the Old Testament are generally not taken from the Septuagint, the current Greek translation, but are fresh translations of the Hebrew text.² Errors of translation, said to be found in the Greek text, seem, however, to have been somewhat arbitrarily discovered.³

Schleiermacher, in his essay on the testimony of Papias (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, Jahrg. 1832), tries to prove that Papias only knew of a collection of sayings from St Matthew, because the expression τὰ λογία could only mean sayings or discourses, and could not also be applied to acts. Lücke, on the other hand, shows that the words τὰ λογία are certainly used to designate a Gospel, comprising not only the sayings of the Lord, but also His deeds; adducing the fact, that Papias uses the same expression when speaking of the Gospel of St Mark, and employs the words τὰ λογία in the same sense as the expression: what Christ both said and did (τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα). It may also be remarked, that it would be a bold step for any grammarian so to limit the meaning of the expression τὰ λογία, as to cast upon the whole of the Greek Church (which certainly believed τὰ λογία and the present entire Gospel of Matthew to be identical) the reproach of being ignorant of the Greek language. It must also be taken into account, that Papias does not here define τὰ λόγια as τὰ λόγια of the Lord. He seems rather to use the word as a current one, and therefore in an absolute sense. How very probable, then, is the supposition that, in his train of thought, this word might signify the oral communications of the Gospel history then current, in contrast to the written narratives. He tells us that he carefully investigated the words of the presbyters (τοὺς τῶν πρεσβυτέρων λόγους). In this case the word in dispute would designate the Gospel history then still current in oral discourse (τῶν λόγων).⁴ The argument of Schleiermacher is, at all events, untenable. In bringing it forward, it seems also to have been lost sight of, that by the composition of so partial a Gospel, a Gospel of sayings only, St Matthew would but ill have corresponded with the vigour and concrete copiousness required in an Evangelist and apostle. One of our modern abstract evangelists indeed, by whom miracles might be regarded as the suspicious matter from which he was to separate as far as possible the spirit of the words, in order to attain to the genuine or supposed sublimity of the Gospel, would, under the influence of such spiritualizing notions, according to which the Gospel fact, the Word was made flesh, has not yet been entirely fulfilled, have been more likely to hit upon the expedient of communicating the sayings of the Lord not merely separately, but exclusively. The whole argument, however, is overthrown by the fact, hereafter to be proved, that a deep and comprehensive unity is the foundation on which St Matthew’s Gospel rests. This unity is a pledge that in the Greek Gospel of St Matthew we possess, on the whole, a transcript, though a free translation of the Hebrew. Since, however, tradition declares the original Gospel of this Evangelist to have been a Hebrew one, we must, with the certainty that a translation was made, concede the possibility of trifling emendations having been made also. Even Papias was acquainted with several versions, which did not all seem to satisfy him equally. It may, however, be supposed, that the better translations, and those most faithful to the original, were most in use in the Church, till that which was the best prevailed over the rest.

Sieffert and Schneckenburger have felt it incumbent upon them to attack the genuineness of St Matthew’s Gospel, on internal grounds.⁵ First, the author is said to have been entirely ignorant of many things, which an apostle must have known. This conclusion is drawn from the incompleteness of his communications. But a like incompleteness might be charged upon each of the Evangelists successively, if they had bound themselves to afford a complete and verbally accurate representation of our Lord’s life. This is, however, an utterly erroneous assumption. The second argument also, that the Evangelist has not reported successive events in their chronological order, arises from an erroneous assumption. For it is evident from the whole construction of this Gospel, that the Evangelist prefers such an arrangement of events as must naturally often break through the chronological order, and displace many occurrences. Hence there may arise inaccuracies in the order of the narrative, but not in the matter of the events themselves. Thirdly, it is said that separate occurrences are combined in this Gospel, in a manner which is the fruit of tradition. The examples enumerated, however, would seem rather to prove the contrary; as, for instance, the supposed origination of a twofold miraculous feeding of the multitude, from a single event. In this case, however, it is taken for granted, instead of proved, that this miracle was but once performed. Besides, could inaccuracies occur in the description of an event at which the apostle, as such, must have been present? The mention of the foal which, according to Matthew, ran beside the ass, at Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, is said to have arisen from a misunderstanding of Zec 9:9. It is certainly possible that the translator might, in such particulars, have made additions which he thought improvements. Thus even a critical examination seems gradually to lead to this view, ⁶ and consequently to corroborate the testimony of Papias in the natural and correct meaning attributed to it before the explanation of Schleiermacher.

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Notes

1. Ammon, in his Geschichte des Lebens Jesu, vol. i. p. 53, &c., endeavours to identify the Gospel of St Matthew with the Gospel of the Hebrews, often named by the fathers. He says that the Hebrew Christians must have needed a short history of the life of Jesus, in their own language; and that according to credible testimony, they were provided with one. ‘It bore the name of the Gospel of the Hebrews or Nazarenes, and was attributed to the twelve apostles, but especially to St Matthew.’ A frequently corrected Greek translation, he says further on, banished the Aramæan original. ‘This Hellenistic translation of the original Aramæan Gospel is included by Justin Martyr among his memoirs of the apostles, because it coincided with the early oral tradition of Palestine, and was first attributed exclusively to St Matthew, when the appearance of other Gospels, representing respectively the views of St Peter, St Paul, and St John, no longer suffered the names of the twelve apostles to be given to it.’ Upon this hypothesis, it is inexplicable why the fathers who quote this Gospel of the Hebrews, e.g., Origen and Jerome, should so emphatically distinguish it from the Gospel of Matthew. It might also fairly be asked, why a Gospel of the twelve apostles, composed in a Jewish-Christian spirit, should, when it was afterwards found desirable to designate its author, have received the name of St Matthew rather than that of St James. Besides, the title secundum Hebrœos, seems from the first to denote an apocryphal production. Hence the hypothesis is in every respect untenable.⁷

2. Sieffert, in his above-mentioned essay, endeavours to prove the view frequently expressed by others, that St Matthew, whose name is included in the apostolic catalogue, and whose call is related (Mat 9:9), is not identical with Levi, whose conversion is described in Mark (chap. 2:13) and Luke (chap. 5:27). Levi is said to have received a more general call, and not such a one as brought him within the apostolic band. This view is, however, very improbable. If Levi were formally called from the receipt of custom to follow Christ, as related by St Mark and St Luke-and if the same occurrence took place with respect to St Matthew, according to his own Gospel, and we afterwards find the name of St Matthew in the list of the apostles, but not that of Levi,—it is most probable that Matthew was known by the name of Levi to the two Evangelists, who both relate the history of a conversion coinciding with his.

1) Ματθαῖος μὲν αὗνἙβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τὰ λόγια συνγράψατο. Ἡρμήνευσε δ̓ αὐτὰ ὡς ἠδύνατο ἕκαστος (Var. i. ὡς ἦν δύατος ἕκαστος).

2) See Credner, Einleit. in das Neue Testament, p. 75. [A very ingenious application of these quotations is made by Westcott, Introd. p. 208. He says that they are of two kinds, those quoted by Matthew himself, and those woven in with the discourses of our Lord; and that the former are always original renderings of the Hebrew, the latter, in the main, agreeing with the LXX. This he thinks helps out his theory, that the Greek Gospel was not so much a translation as a substitute for the Hebrew, both having been current from the first as oral Gospels, The same distinction had been already made by Bleek, and is discussed by Ebrard, p. 524. Of the additions made by the translator, Davidson speaks, p. 47, vol. ii—ED.]

3) When, e.g., it is asserted that Christ did not say, according to Matt. viii, 22, ‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ but, let other (men) bury their dead; viz., not מֵתִים מֵתֵיהֶם, but מְתִים מֵתֵיהֶם. [So good a judge as Wetstein has’ so little idea of errors in translation that he says, ‘Nullum certe in nostro Matthæo reperitur indicium, unde colligi possit, ex alia in aliam linguam fuisse conversum; plurima vero aliud a Reuss (Geschichte der Heil. Schriften, p. 183) is of the same opinion.—ED.

4) [The readiest proof of the meaning of λογια is the title of Papias’ own work, κυριακῶν λογίων ὲξήγησις, a work occupied with events as well as with sayings. For further proof, see Davidson’s Introd. i. 66 ; or Ebrard’s Gospel History, p. 527, note. One thing, however, is to be observed, that if Papias referred to Matthew’s Gospel, then the Greek translation was unknown in his time, or at least to him.—ED.]

5) See my essay on the authenticity of the four Gospels in the Theol. Stud. und Kritik. 1839, No. 1; Sieffert, Ucber den Ursprung des erst. canon. Evang. Konigsberg 1832 ; Schneckenburger, Ucber den Ursprung d. erst. canon. Evang. Stuttgart 1834,

6) Compare Kern: Ueber den Ursprung des Evangelimus Matthai; Tübinger Zeitschrift ; 1834, No. 2.

7) [The quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews collected in Append. D. of Westcott’s Introd. prove that it was not identical with Matthew’s Gospel ; at the same time, they seem almost as distinctly to prove that the two were intimately related. This relation is determined by Ebrard, p. 527, but most ably and satisfactorily by Davidson, vol. i, pp. 12-36. And it may be added, that if the Aramaic original of Matthew existed in the latter half of the second century, only in the form of heretical, or at best, suspected recensions, then there is no difficulty in seeing how the Greek Gospel should have become the canonical, while the original was only ranked among the Antilegomena.— ED.]