ili, THEORIES OF ORIGIN AND CHARACTER.— From these extracts, reminding him now of one of the Gospels of the NT and now of another, and in some cases appearing to add to what these Gospels give, the reader will readily see what questions are here suggested to scholarship. That ‘sec. Hebr.’ was a translation from Greek into Aramaic, drawing its information from the can- onical Gospels, mostly, no doubt, from Matthew, but also from Luke, has now ceased to be believed. If, however, Matthew wrote a Gospel-work in Hebrew, as Papias declares and as early Christen- dom believed, our Gospel may be related to that Apostolic work. This is held by Hilgenfeld, Nicholson, and Zahn, in different ways. Hilgen- feld, as the principal opponent of the now pre- vailing view of the priority of Mark to Matthew, is naturally led to claim for ‘sec. Hebr.,’? which agreed on the whole with Matthew, but was more Jewish and less universalistic, a very early and independent position. He considers ‘sec. Hebr.’ to be the work of Matthew of which Papias speaks, and to be the earliest Gospel, from which the study of the Gospels must set out as its point of Archimedes. Nicholson, in a book full of learn- ing and of interest, concludes ‘that ‘ Matthew,’ not necessarily the Apostle, wrote both ‘sec. Hebr.’ and canonical Matthew, the latter of which may have been translated from Aramaic, and was probably first produced. This would be another instance in the NT of an author who wrote two versions of his book, both of which got into circulation, Zahn considers that Matthew wrote, as Papias says, in Hebrew, and that ‘sec. Hebr.’ followed him, but was written in a broader and more popular style (as some of the fragments show), which caused the original Matthew to dis- appear before it. It follows that on points of language the non-canonical Gospel, being nearer Matthew’s original than the canonical, is more correct, but that its tradition is derived from Matthew, and is to be regarded as secondary.
The present state of opinion as to the origin of the Synoptic Gospels is opposed to the views of these scholars, and none of them has found fol- lowers on this subject. If, as is now generally believed, the sources of Matthew, Mark, and Luke alike were Greek ; and if Matthew, as appears to many to be capable of demonstration, composed his Gospel with Mark before him, and another work, also Greek, before him from which Luke uso drew, then any Aramaic work Matthew used
AGRAPHA
must have been subsidiary to his main sources. That canonical Matthew was originally composed in Greek, not translated, is not now questioned.
The position, accordingly, is that we know the Gospel tradition to have been put into Greek by A.D. 70, when attempts were made to construct out of it continuous Gospels for the use of Christians. These underwent various modifications, the textual critics assure us, after they were written, and tended to become always more dignified, more intelligible to men of all lands, and to part with any features they might have at first of too great naiveté and simplicity. But the tradition, though translated into Greek, continued to exist in its original Aramaic; and it is no matter of wonder if it was seen in course of time to be different in some respects from that of the Church, if it re- mained more Jewish, more particular, and in many instances more realistic and quaint. Zahn ex- plains these features of ‘sec. Hebr.’ as due to the exuberance of a popular preacher, and therefore quite secondary; but they may also be explained as signs of an earlier stage of the tradition which, while the Church outgrew it, survived among ‘the Hebrews.’
The date of the work Jerome translated cannot be fixed with any precision. Papias may not have known it, as Hilgenfeld thinks, nor Ignatius, as Harnack. Its anonymity, its primitive character, and the authority it afterwards enjoyed, point to a very early origin. It may have come into existence about the same time as the Synoptic Gospels, and in obedience to some at least of the same motives as led to their appearance.”
LITeRATURE.—In addition to the works mentioned in the body of the above article, which are the most recent and important, the student may consult, for the history of the subject, Lessing’s Theol. Nachlass, p. 45; the NT Introductions of Hichhorn, Hug, de Wette, Reuss, and a een Weizsicker’s Unter- suchungen diber die evangelische Geschichte ; Baur’s and Holtz- mann’s works on the Gospels; Lipsius’ art. ‘ Apocryphal Gospels’ in Smith’s Dict. of Christian Biography. The subject is discussed by Strauss and Keim in their works on the Life of Christ, while the most recent publication of this kind, Oscar Holtzmann’s Leben Jesu (1901), treats ‘sec. Hebr.’ as a co- ordinate source with the Synoptic Gospels and weaves its
statements into the narrative. ALLAN MENZIES. AGRAPHA.—
i. Name. ‘ ii, Certain Sayings not to be included. iii. Method and Results of criticism of the Agrapha. iv. List of Agrapha. (a) 1-15: Agrapha from the NT or from some NT manuscripts. (b) 16-25: from Gospel according to the Hebrews ; 26: from Gospel according to the Egyptians. (c) 27-33: the Oxyrhynchus ‘Logia.’ , (d) 34-46: from various ancient documents, Catholic and heretical. (e) 47-48: from the Mishna. | P (f) 49-66 : from early Christian Writers. (g) Agrapha from very late sources. (A) Agrapha from Mohammedan sources (1-51). Literature.