MATTHEW, THE GOSPEL OF. It used to be thought that Papias in the first half of the second century A.D. was referring to the Gospel of Matthew when he said that " Matthew composed the Login in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted these as he was able." But it is now widely recognised that the work referred to by Papias was not our Gospel of Matthew, but an earlier document. The Gospel of Matthew, like the Gospel of Luke, would seem to have been based in the main upon two sources, a collection of discourses (Logia), and a narrative resembling our Gospel of Mark (Urtnarkns). It was not the work of the Apostle Matthew, of whom comparatively little is known, but incorporates work of his. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke have a large amount of matter that is common to both. But there is also matter peculiar to Matthew, which shows that the compiler of this Gospel made use of other traditions, written or oral, or both. This matter peculiar to Mat thew comprises the narrative of the birth and infancy of Jesus (chapters i. and ii.), the teaching about alms giving and fasting in the Sermon on the Mount (vi.), certain parables (xiii., xviii., xxi., xxv.), certain sayings in xii. 5 ff., 11 ff., xviii. 10, xix. 10-12, xxv. 31-40, and the promise to Peter (xvi. 10 ff.). Some of the peculiarities may be further explained by the fact that " both Matthew and Luke had conceptions of the character and rOle of Jesus based partly on reflections of their own, partly on the growing prophetic gnosis of the age, in obedience to which they remodelled Mark's narrative " (F. C. Cony
beare). The compiler of the Gospel of Matthew would seem to have been a Jewish Christian. This is suggested by the genealogy at the beginning of the book, by familiarity with Messianic prophecies, by the quotations from the Old Testament, which are not dependent upon the Septuagint, and by sympathy with the Jewish point of view (for which cp. v. 18, x. 6, 23, xv. 24, xix. 3, 28, xxi. 43, xxiv. 20). These characteristics might seem to imply that the work was composed in Palestine or Syria. But they do not preclude composition at Rome, which is favoured by the ecclesiastical character of the gospel and its interest in Peter. According to Currie Martin and others, the gospel has upon it the mark of the early Catholic Church. And " part at least of the Church in Rome was strongly Jewish in character." Th. Zahn thinks the work was composed about A.D. S5, Sanday about A.D. 80, Currie Martin about 90 A.D. See J. Armitage Robinson, The Study of the Gospels, 1903; C. F. Nolloth, The Person of Our Lord and Recent Thought, 190S; W. F. Slater, St. Matthew in the " Cen tury Bible "; G. Currie Martin; Arthur S. Peake, F. C. Conybeare, N.T. Grit., 1910.