This review of the gospel will show us that of the matter peculiar to St. Matthew, the larger part consists of parables and discourses, and that he adds comparatively little to the narrative. Of thirty-three recorded miracles• eighteen are given by St. Matthew, but only two, the cure of the blind men (ix. 27-3o) and the tribute money (xvii. 24-27), are peculiar to him. Of twenty-nine parables St. Matthew records fifteen ; ten, as noticed above, being peculiar to him.
St. Matthew's order of arrangement we have already seen is according to subject-matter rather than chronological sequence, which in the first half is completely disregarded. More attention is paid to order of time in the latter half, where the arrangement agrees with that of St. Mark. The main body of his gospel divides itself into groups of discourses collected according to their leading ten dency, and separated from one another by groups of anecdotes and miracles. We may distinguish seven such collections of discourses—(1.) The Ser mon on the Mount, a specimen of our Lord's ordi nary didactic instruction (v.-vii.) ; divided by a group of works of healing, comprising no less than ten out of eighteen recorded miracles, from (2.) the commission of the twelve (chap. x.) The follow ing chapters (xi. xii.) give the result of our Lord's own teaching, and, introducing a change of feeling towards Him, prepare us for (3.) His first open denunciation of His enemies (xii. 25-45), and pave the way for (4.) the group of parables, including seven out of fifteen recorded by him (chap. xiii.) The next four chapters, containing the culminating point of our Lord's history in Peter's confession fxvi. 13-20), and the transfiguration (xvii.), with the first glimpses of the cross (xvi. 21; xvii. 12), are bound together by historical sequence. In (5), comprising chap. xviii., we have a complete treatise in itself, made up of fragments on humility and brotherly love. The counsels of perfection, in xix. 1-xx. 16, are followed by the disputes with the Scribes and Pharisees (xxi. 23-xxii. 46), which supply the ground for (6.) the solemn denunciations of the hypocrisies and sophisms by which they nullified the spirit of the law (chap. xxiii.), followed by (7.) the prophecy of the last things (xxiv. xxv.)
The view that St. Matthew's gospel is arranged chronologically, was revived by Eichhorn, who has been followed by Marsh, De \Vette, and others. But it has been controverted by Hug, Olshausen, Greswell, Ellicott, and others, and is almost universally held to be untenable.
Reuss, dividing the matter contained in the synoptical gospels into too sections, finds 73 of them in St. Matthew, 63 in St. Mark, in St. Luke, the richest of all, 82. Of these, 49 are common to all three ; 9 common to St. Matthew and St. Mark ; 8 to St. Matthew and St. Luke ; 3 to St. Mark and St. Luke. Only 7 of these are peculiar to Si Matthew ; 2 to St. Mark ; while St. Luke contains no less than 22.
St. Matthew's narrative, as a rule, is the least graphic. The great features of the history which bring into prominence our Lord's character as teacher and prophet, the substance of type and prophecy, the Messianic king, are traced with broad outline, without minute or circumstantial details. We are conscious of a want of that pic turesque power and vivid painting which delights us in the other gospels, especially that of St. Mark. This deficiency, however, is more than compensated for by the grand simplicity of the narrative, in which everything is secondary to the evangelist's great object. The facts which prove the Messianic dignity of his Lord are all in all with him, the circumstantials almost nothing, while he portrays the earthly form and theocratic glory of the new dispensation, and unfolds the gloiious consummation of the kingdom of heaven.' 7. Styleand Diclion.--The language of S t. Matthew is less characteristic than that of the other evan gelists. Of the three synoptical gospels it is the most decidedly Hebraistic, both in diction and construction, but less so than that of St. John. Crcdner and others have remarked the following instances of Hebraistic phraseology : (I.) pao-aeta otipapalv, which occurs thirty two times in St. Matt. and not once in the other evangelists, who use instead it paa. T. Bed, employed also by St. Matt. (vi. 33 ; xii. 23 ; xxi. 35, 43.) (2.) 6 raTi7p 6 iv TOZS apavoir (6 apclmos, four times), sixteen times, only twice in Mark, not at all in Luke.