word is used of the Old Testament Scriptures in Rom. iii. 2, without any hint of limitation to sayings, and a.gain in the same way in Heh. v. 12, where such a limitation is excluded by the author of that epistle eliciting the Divine teaohing quite &s muoh from the history as from the direct precepts of the Old Testament. So again it is found in Philo and in Clement of Rome with the same wide reference, narratives being treated as part of the Divine oracles as well as sayings. When, therefore, we find Polycarp speak- ing of" the oracles of the Lord" era AOyUl TOV Kvp{ov), or Irenreus, immedi- ately after having used a similar term (Ta KvpU1Ka. >..oyta), referring to the healing of the daughter of Jairus, it is natural to consider_ that neither of them intended (&8 some have supposed them to have done) to limit the application of the word to our Lord's sayings in contrast to his works. From the consideration of these and other arguments brought forward by Bishop Lightfoot, it seems clear that Papias used the term in the same way as we might use the word "oracles" at the present day, viz. as equivalent to the Scriptures. Hie book may well have been composed with reference to our present Gospels, and the volume which he says St. Matthew wrote may have been (so far as this one word is concerned) that which we now know by the e.poetle's name.1 • § 6. Compelled, then, as we are, to reject all fictitious aid from externe.l evidence, since this has been misunderstood, it is the more necessary to inquire into the intern.e.l evidence afforded by the First Gospel itself and into the evidence afforded by its relation to the Third Gospel. In some respects, indeed, the evidence continues to be unfavourable to the view put forward above, that the Discourses existed ae a separate work before the writing of our First Gospel. For, first, it might fairly be expected that, if the Discourses were already distinct, they would show traces of this original distinction in their difference of language and style, So no doubt they do to some extent, but not to a greater degree than can be accounted for by the fact that they are discourses, and, as such, deal with matters different from those oont.ained in the Framework, and treat them, naturally, in a different way. Indeed, the wonder is, if they represent real speeches by the Lord-if, that is to say, they are reproductions of sustained argument by him-that they do not show more divergence from the type of 1 Mr. A. Wright gives a wrong impression of the bishop's view when(' Composition of the Four Gospels,' 1890, p. 66) he writes, 11 Thtl phrase, • Utterances of the Lord,' by which Papi.as designates the book [i.e. • the IIOOOild cycle' of the apostolic teaching according to Mr. Wright's terminology], though it plainly indicates that discourses formed the distinc- tive feature, yet, as Bishop Lightfoot has shown (Essays reprinted from the Oont.emporarv &mew), does not preclude a considerable intermixture of historical matter." This agrees more with the view of Dr. S. Davidson (' In trod. New Test.,' i. 369, aq., edit. 1882), who, while disagreeing with Bishop Lightfoot's further conclusions, yet holds that the closely suooeeding words about St. Peter, quoted in the preceding note, compel us to regard the Logia as more than discollJ'lles. He ea.ye, 11 When Papi.as tells 118 that Matthew wrote the Logia, he means a work which contained the sa.yings and doings of Christ; and as the former predomina'ted, the name took it. origin from the principal part." But this i1 hardl7 11Ufl"ir:i1:11t. 'I'HE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. vii
the short, pointed temarkA common in the Framework. Observe, als0, that the quotations in the Discourses from the Old Testament generally agree with those of the Framework in being taken from the LXX. ( contrast infra, § 12). Thie· points to both Diecousee and Framework being formed at much the ea.me time and among congregations of similar culture and acquirements. Secondly, a similar negative result ie obtained by comparing the dis- courses found in the First Goepel with those that are found in the Third. It has been already pointed out (§ 2) that some are found in the latter, but not in their entirety, and that detached portions are also found sometimes in a context that gives the impression of more originality than that in which St. Matthew embeds them. Do we see that St. Luke knew of a collec- tion of Discourses such as has been supposed above? The answer is purely negative. We see separate discourses, and these BO far varying in Ian• guage· from those in Matthew ae to make it clear that they had had a history before being recorded by either St. Luke or St. Matthew, but there ie no sign of these discourses being collected together. Certainly, if they were, St.· Luke did not regard their arrangement. Dr. Salmon, indeed (p. 139, edit. 1888), goes as far as to say that a comparison of St. Luke's order in narrating our Lord's sayings " gives the deathblow" to the theory of a collection of Discourses. St. Luke, however, may have had many reasons· for not adopting a particular order. If, for instance, he was acquainted both with s11ch a collection and also with narratives containing the utterances in more historical connexion, there seems no reason why he should have preferred the former to the latter. His aim was not that of the author of the First Gospel, to present clearly before his readere the Lord Jesus as a Teacher, to bring out his relation to the religion of the day, but much more to exhibit him as the Saviour of the world ; and for this purpose narratives of his aotione and records of his other teaching bringing out the universality of hie love would be more effective. St. Luke's object, so far as we are in a position to argue on a priori grounds from the nature of his second treatise ( and apart from the actual state of hie first), was to show how fitted the gospel of Christ was to become the religion of the whole world. The idea of universality running through the Acts· and the Third Gospel is a reason of no little weight why we should suppose that the author should have deliberately rejected the arrange- ment of the collection of Discourses, even if this lay before him. For in the form in which they a.re found in the First Gospel they would not have suited hie purpose. It is true that St. Luke did not refuse to follow the general order of the Framework, but this was probably in the main chrono- log'!oal, e.nd even if it had not been so this would not affect him, but the Discourses must have been (ez hypothesf) summaries of our Lord's teaching upon different 11ubjects, ma.de from the Judaio-Christia.n standpoint. St. Luke's use, therefore, of the Framework in such a way as to keep the order of it weighs little as an argument for the conclusion that ho woulu have viii INTRODUCTION TO