MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF 297 brews’ *—along with the lack of any trace of a common Matthzan document in Aramaic or Greek, suggests that all that really belonged to the apostle was a type of oral teaching. In that case our Mt would be related to the apostle much as Mk is related to St. Peter; and the difference in their titles may simply mean that Mark was a well- known apostolic disciple, whereas the name of the author of the Matthzan Gospel was early forgotten. Then posterity, fixing instead on the ultimate source of its tradition, would call the work‘ κατὰ Ma@@aiov.’ ii. INTERNAL DATA AND CHARACTERISTICS—
General ground-plan— i. Messiah’s person, 1-2. ii. Preparation for Messianic ministry, 3-44, iii. Ministry in Galilee, 417-167, (Introductory, 415-35: typical words, 5-7; typical deeds, S-9%; expansion by delegation, 9-10; Messiah’s own estimate of His ministry, 11; attitude of different classes and typical persons, 12-16%), iv. Moving towards crisis at Jerusalem, 10531:--ῶθ' (=Mk 851-16),
(a) OT Quotations.—In this inquiry welcome aid would seem to offer itself in the phenomena of biblical quotation. This has two aspects—a formal and a material. The formal relates to the text used, whether Hebrew or Greek (or even that of the vernacular paraphrase or Targum accompanying the reading of the Hebrew OT in the synagogue); and, if Greek, to the local variety of LXX text implied. The material aspect concerns the mode of thought reflected in the formula of citation, and the degree to which the evangelist’s purpose shines through his use of the words or even modifies what he remembers and writes.*
Formally, then, the quotations in passages peculiar to Mt diverge from the LXX far more than those in parts common to it with Mk or Lk or both. This is specially the case with quotations introduced by the evangelist himself in comments signalizing ‘fulfilment’ (πληρωθῆναι) of prophecy. These are ten in number (173 215. 18.23 4bf g17 ] 218-21 13% 215 27%); and of the words composing the citations nearly half do not oceur in the LXX equivalents. The significance of this is indubitable, when we observe that in nineteen quotations com- mon to Mt with at least one Synoptic, less than a sixth of the words diverge from the LXX. In other words, the homogeneity of our Mt, and so any claim to be a simple version of an Aramaic Mt, is at once disproved.
(b) Chapters 1-2.—Zahn maintains that the first verse of Mt is a title for the whole book, arguing that βίβλος γενέσεως cannot linguistically and by LXX usage mean ‘genealogy’ or even ‘nativity,’ but only ‘history’ or ‘career.’ But as Ivenzeus evidently thought otherwise (adv. Her. 111. xi. 11, οὗ, frag. 27, ap. Harvey, ii. 493, Dial. Tim. et Ag. [see below, p. 803], where γενέσεις Ξε γενεαλογίας. fol. 93 τὸ et v°), one has only to prove the fitness of an introductory section, to which v.! may serve as opening. ‘Thus it might refer to the nativity (cf. Lk 113) and its attendant circumstances, including the antecedents of the seed royal, arranged so as to indicate three great moments in Israel’s fortunes— climax in David, anti-climax in the Exile, and the moment of restored Davidic glory in Messiah. This would be paralleled, not only in the three prefatory chapters of Hosea, especially in the LXX (13 ἀρχὴ λόγου Κυρίου ἐν 'Ωσῆε . . . 41 ἀκούσατε λόγον Κυρίου, υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ), but also in Mk 11], taken as the first verse of a prefatory account of the Forerunner’s ministry
* The idea that this in either form was an enlarged edition of the ‘Ur-Matthfius’ rests only on the assumption that the Apostle Matthew was a Judaizer—an assumption improbable in the case of any of the primitive apostles, who saw the Gospel in its continuity with the prophets.
+ In this section, as in some others, the ‘Statistics and Obser- vations * collected with sch ly care by Rey, Sir J. C. Hawkins, in his ora πορίσαι (Ἱ have been of great
service
298
.- ᾿ς. ..
(cf. Hosea, above). Further, since 118. ‘ Now the birth (γένεσις) of the Christ * was on this wise,’ seems to follow closely on the last clause of 1", ‘until the Christ, fourteen generations,’ and 1" sums up the gist of 1%, the whole of ch, 1 might easily be subsumed under 1}. But it is better to take βίβλος γενέσεως as ‘ birth-roll,’ and see in 118 a fresh section; so also with ch. 2, which sets forth certain prophesied corollaries of the birth of Messiah (on the genealogy itself see below (ἢ), η. 302).
(c) The Sources.—(1) The Logia.— Here two things must be borne in mind, In early days the tradition of Jesus’ Sayings ‘did not remain merely personal reminiscence and communication, but served the Church as law and doctrine, and was accordingly put into the form of didactic pieces.’ ‘ Again, this was done in a spirit and amid associa- tions that prevented the rise of a binding letter’: and hence we must be ready to recognize among the Logia, along with the voice of the Church’s Lord, echoes awakened in the Church’s experience. These conditions have been stated, and applied to the forms in which the Logia meet us in Mt and Lk respectively, by Weizsacker_ in particular, in his Apostolic Age (Eng. tr. ii. 32 ff.); and his views are largely utilized in what follows. The differ- ence in style and standpoint between the Logia groups in Mt and Lk is due to the differing history of the Logian tradition in the apostolic Church. The preoccupation amid which our Mt’s type of Logia took proximate shape was ‘the secession of the Church from Judaism and its authorities. Thus did Jesus Himself oppose the Pharisaism and the seribes of His time.’ So, too, the main lines of our first Gospel reflect the practical wants of the early days—‘the doctrines of righteousness, the disciples’ vocation, the kingdom of God, the duties of the society, the false system of the Jews and Pharisees, the future of the kingdom of God.’ These answer to chs. 5-7. 10. 13. 18. 23-25, sections in which the unity of the parts is didactic rather than historical, kindred matter having gravitated to each considerable nucleus by the exigencies of memoriter instruction. That our evangelist was already familiar with these sections as more or less connected wholes, is probable from the formula which he appends to each of them: καὶ ἐγένετο dre ἐτέλεσεν ὃ ᾿Ιησοῦς τοὺς λόγους τούτους (778 191 261), or τὰς παραϑολὰς ταύτας (1333), or διατάσσων τοῖς δώδεκα μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ (111). We take, then, these didactic sections of our Mt in order.