1, If the views of modern critics as to the relation of the first Canonical Gospel to the Logia, compiled by the apostle Matthew, be well founded, then that apostle was not its author. Who the evangelist was is unknown. That he was a Jew is highly probable, that he was a Palestinian Jew has been generally assumed; but Weiss calls this in question. That he wrote in Greek is held to be proved by the use which he makes of the Septuagint in his citations of Old Testament prophecy, and by traces of dependence on the Greek Gospel of Mark. But the view that our Greek Gospel of Matthew is a translation by some unknown hand from a book with the same contents in the Hebrew tongue still has its advocates, among whom may be mentioned Schanz, of Tiibingen.!
2. The destination of the Gospel was in all probability to a community of Jewish Christians, whose faith it was designed to strengthen. How it was fitted to serve this end has been indicated in Section I. § 5.
3. The probable date is shortly after the destruction of the Jewish State. Some things have been supposed to imply a much later date, e.g., the commission to the disciples in chapter xxviii. 18, with its explicit Trinity, its pronounced universalism, and its doctrine of a spiritual presence. On these points the reader is referred to the commentary.
1 Vide his Commentar iiber das Evangelium des heiligen Matthdus: Einleitung,
CHAPTER IV. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE,