Gospel of St Matthew

Authorship.

The internal evidence of the Gospel has shown us that the author was a Christian Hellenist, probably ignorant of Hebrew, who depended for his knowledge of the life and teach ing of Christ upon tradition. Only a very intimate knowledge of his sources, however, would enable him to use them as he does, and the popularity of the book in the early Church is a witness to his ability.

But these results are in many respects curiously at variance with the traditional account of the authorship of the Gospel. According to Irenaeus, Origen and Eusebius the book was corn posed in Hebrew by the Apostle Matthew. Indications of the origin of this tradition are not wanting. (I) The Gospel itself bears witness to an interest on the part of the local Church in Matthew, for the editor identifies that Apostle with Levi the tax collector (ix. 9, x. 3). (2) According to Eusebius, Papias in his "Expositions of Dominical Oracles" stated, apparently on the authority of John the Elder, that "Matthew composed the Oracles (Logic) in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could." If, before the composition of the First Gospel, the most treasured Gospel record possessed by the local Church was a Greek translation of Matthew's "Oracles," Apostolic authority for the Gospel in which this work was incorporated might well be claimed at a time when the rival merits of various gospels began to be discussed : it could be regarded not as an improved edition of the work of Mark, who was only a follower of Apostles, but as an improved edition of an Apostolic record. It is possible indeed that the extract from Papias belongs to such a discussion of the claims of the leading Gospels. In Eusebius it is preceded by another extract from Papias which gives an account of the origin of Mark's Gospel. The tone of this is somewhat critical and suggests that the book is being compared to its disadvantage with another Gospel, presumably the Fourth. The same note of disparagement may also be read into the second extract : "the First Gospel contains only a translation of Matthew's work. Matthew composed the Oracles in Hebrew, and the ability of translators varies." It will be noted that in Papias' statement we have the prob able origin of the tradition that the First Gospel was written in Hebrew. None, however, would have thought of connecting the statement with the First Gospel unless the tradition of its Apos tolic authorship already existed.

The attempt to identify one of the sources of the First Gospel as Matthew's Logia is complicated by the obscurity of the extract from Papias. The word logion (oracular utterance) was fre quently used in the Greek Old Testament for the "word" of the Lord, and passed into Christian use to describe "the words of the Lord Jesus" (see the title of Papias' own work). It is pos sible to take the phrase "the Logia" to mean "the Oracles of God" (see Rom. iii. 2) and to suppose that the Apostle's work

was a collection of Old Testament "proof texts" from which the evangelist drew his peculiar Old Testament quotations (see above), but the existence of these quotations as a separate source apart from narrative matter is doubtful. It is more probable that the phrase should be interpreted of the "Sayings" of Christ. Ap parently the evangelist made use of at least two collections of Christ's sayings, one which Luke also used (Q) and one which was marked by "particularist" tendencies. If the identification of Matthew with Levi the tax-collector is correct, it is more probable that he was the author of the former collection.

Date.

The internal evidence shows that the composition of the book must be dated after the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (see xxii. 6, 7). A date after A.D. 70 must be assigned to Luke (see xxi. 2o) and since neither evangelist used the other's work it is probable that their Gospels were composed about the same time. Details in Mark's picture of Christ and his first disciples must now be revised to be in keeping with the presuppositions of a later age. Liturgical and doctrinal formulae are beginning to crystallize (see xxviii. 19). The earliest certain external evi dence for the existence of the First Gospel is provided by the Ignatian epistles (c. 110--115). These indications all point to a date between A.D. 8o and ioo as the time when the book was composed.

Place of Origin.

The evangelist had access to Palestinian tradition, but apparently only limited access. His Gospel was used by Ignatius of Antioch. Both facts suggest the probability that the community for which the book was written must be looked for in Syria. It is tempting to suppose that the Gospel which concludes with the message of Christ to make disciples of the Gentiles comes from the Church of Antioch itself, the home of the Gentile mission. The veneration for Peter here displayed is an argument in favour of this supposition, for Peter was claimed by the later Church of Antioch as its first bishop. Against it must be set the fact that evidence of the influence of the teaching of St. Paul, abundant in the Ignatian epistles, is lacking in the First Gospel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-For

general introduction see Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission; Streeter, The Four Gospels (1924). Standard commentaries in English on the Greek text are those by Allen (1907) which is largely concerned with literary problems, Plummer (19°9), which aims at supplementing Allen's work, and by McNeile (1915) : there is a small commentary by B. T. D. Smith in the Cambridge Greek Testament (1927). A full bibliography will be found in Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament.