An impartial survey of the above evidence leads to the conclusion, that in the face of so many inde pendent witnesses we should be violating the first principles of historical criticism if we refused to accept the fact that St. Matthew wrote his gospel originally in Hebrew. But whether this original was ever seen by Jerome or Epiphanius, is more than questionable.
What, then, is the origin of our present gospel ? To whom are we to ascribe its existing form and language ? What is its authority ? These are the questions which now meet us, and to which it must be confessed it is not easy to give a satisfactory answer. We may, at the outset, lay down, as indisputable, in opposition to Cureton (who asserts, a. s., that a careful critical examination of the Greek text will afford very strong confirmation' of the IIebrew original), that the phenomena of the gospel as we have it—its language, its coincidences with and divergences from the other synoptists, the quotations from the 0. T. it contains, and the citations made from it by ancient writers, all oppose the notion of the present Greek text being a translation, and support its canonical authority. (r.) An important argument may be drawn from the use made of the existing gospel by all ancient writers. As Olshausen remarks (Clark's ed., 1. xxviii.), while all the fathers of the church assert the Hebrew origin of the gospel, they without exception make use of the existing Greek text as canonical Scripture, and that without doubt or question, or any thing that would lead to the belief mat they regarded it as of less authority than the original Hebrew, or possessed it in any other form than that in which we now have it. (2.) Another argument in favour of the authoritative character of our present gospel arises from its universal dif fusion and general acceptance, both in the church and among her adversaries. Had the Hebrew gospel been really clothed with the authority of the sole apostolic archetype, and our Greek gospel been a mere translation, executed, as Jerome as serts, by some unknown individual, quis postea in grxcum transtulerit non satis certum est' (De !fir. Ill. 3), would not, as Olshausen remarks, u.s., objections to it have been urged in some quarter or other, particularly in the country where Matthew himself laboured, and for whose inhabitants the Hebrew was written ? Would its statements have been accepted without a cavil by the opponents of the church ? No trace of such opposition is, how ever, to be met with. Not a doubt is ever breathed of its canonical authority. (3.) Again, the text itself bears no marks of a translation. This is especially evident in the mode of dealing with the citations from the O. T. These are of two kinds : (a), Those standing in the discourses of our Lord himself, and the interlocutors ; and (b), Those in troduced by the evangelist as proofs of our Lord's Messiahship. Now, if we assume, as is certainly most probable (though the contrary has been maintained by Hug, the late Duke of Manchester, and more recently by the Rev. Alexander Roberts, whose Reamed and able Discussions on the Gospels' demand attentive consideration from every Biblical student), that Aramaic, not Greek, was the language ordinarily used by our Lord and His Jewish contemporaries, we should certainly expect that any citations from the O. T., made by them in ordinary discourse, would be from the original Hebrew or its Aramaic counterpart, not from the Septuagint version, and would stand as such in the Aramaic record ; while it would argue more than the ordinary license of a mere translator to substitute the LXX. renderings, even when at variance with the Hebrew before him. And yet what is the case ? While in the class (b), due to the evangelist himself, which may be supposed to have had no representative in the current Greek oral tradition which we assume as the basis of the synoptical gospels, we find original renderings of the Hebrew text ; in the class (a), on the other hand, where we might, a priori, have looked for an even closer correspondence, the citations are usually from the LXX. even where it deviates from the
Hebrew. (In (a) we may reckon iii. 3 ; iv. 4, 6, 7, To ; xv. 4, 8, 9 ; xix. 5, 18 ; xxi. 13 ; xxi. 42 ; xxii. 39, 44 ; xxiii. 39 ; xxiv. 15 ; xxvi. 31 ; xxvii. In (b), called by Westcott (Introd. p. 208, note I), Cyclic quotations,' i. 23 ; ii. 6, 15, t8 ; iv. 15, 16 ; viii. 17 ; xii. IS, ff. ; xiii. 35 ; xxi. 5 ; xxvii. 9, to.) In two cases St. Matthew's citations agree with the synoptic parallels in a deviation from the LXX., all being drawn from the same oral ground work. St. Matthew's quotations have been exa mined by Credner, one of the soundest of modern scholars, who pronounces decidedly for their deri vation from the Greek (Einleit., P• 94, cf. De Wette. EinE, 10). We may therefore not unwar rantably find here additional evidence, that in the existing Greek text we have the work, not of a mere translator, but of an independent and autho ritative writer. (4.) The verbal correspondences between St. Matthew and the other synoptists in their narratives, and especially in the report of the speeches of our Lord and others, are difficult to account for if we regard it as a translation. As Alford remarks (Gr. Test., Proleg. i. 28), The translator must have been either acquainted with the other two gospels, in which case it is incon ceivable that, in the midst of the present coinci. deuces in many passages, such divergences should nave occurred, or unacquainted with them, in which case the identity itself would be altogether inexplicable.' Indeed, in the words of Credner (Ein/dE, 94, 95), the Greek original of this gos pel is affirmed by its continual correspondence with those of Mark and Luke, and that not only in generals and important facts, but in particulars and minute details, in the general plan, in entire clauses, and in separate words—a phenomenon which admits of no explanation under the hypo. theses of a translation from the Hebrew.' (5.) This inference in favour of an original Greek gospel is strongly confirmed by the fact that all versions, even the Peshito Syriac, the language in which the gospel is said to have been originally written, are taken from the present Greek text. It is true that Canon Cureton (Syriac Reccns., p. lxxv., ff. ) argues with much ability against this, and expends much learning and skill in proof of his hypothesis, that the Syriac version of St. Matthew published by him is more ancient than the Peshito, and may be regarded as, in the main, identical with the Aramaic gospel of St. Matthew ; which he also considers to have been identical with the Corp/ according to the Hebrews, used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites, 'modified by some additions, inter polations, and perhaps some omissions.' His statement (p. xlii.) that there is a marked differ ence between the recension of St. Matthew and that of the other gospels, proving that they are by different hands—the former showing no signs, as the others do, of translation from the Greek'— demands the respect due to so careful a scholar : but he fails entirely to explain the extraordinary fact, that in the very country where St. Matthew published his gospel, and within a comparatively short period, a version from the Greek was substi tuted for the authentic original; nor have his views met with general acceptance among scholars.