2. Ten Parables: the tares; the hidden treasure; the pearl of great price; the draw-net (13:24-50); the unmerciful servant (18:23-35); the laborers in the vineyard (20:1-16); the two sons (21:28-32); the marriage of the king's son (22: 1-14); the ten virgins (25:1-13); the talents (25:14-30).
3. Two Miracles: the cure of two blind men (9:27-31); the stater in the fish's mouth (17:24-27).
4. Facts and Incidents: the adoration of the Magi; the massacre of the innocents; the flight into Egypt; the return from Egypt to Nazareth (all in Matt. 2); the coming of the Pharisees and Sadducees to John's baptism (3:7); Peter's attempt to walk on the sea (14:28-31); the payment of the temple tax (17:24-27); the bargain of Judas, his remorse, and suicide (26:14-16; 27:3-10); the dream of Pilate's wife (27:19); the appearance of departed saints in Jerusalem (27:52); the watch at the sepulchre (27:62-66); the lie of the Sanhedrin and the bribing of the soldiers (28:11-15); the earthquake on the resurrection morning (28:2, a repetition of the shock described in 27:51, and connected with the rolling away of the stone from the sepulchre).
The Style.
The Style of Matthew is simple, unadorned, calm, dignified, even majestic; less vivid and picturesque than that of Mark; more even and uniform than Luke's, because not dependent on written sources. He is Hebraizing, but less so than Mark, and not so much as Luke 1-2. He omits some minor details which escaped his observation, but which Mark heard from Peter, and which Luke learned from eye-witnesses or found in his fragmentary documents. Among his peculiar expressions, besides the constant use of "kingdom of heaven," is the designation of God as "our heavenly Father," and of Jerusalem as "the holy city" and "the city of the Great King." In the fulness of the teaching of Christ he surpasses all except John. Nothing can be more solemn and impressive than his reports of those words of life and power, which will outlast heaven and earth (24:34). Sentence follows sentence with overwhelming force, like a succession of lightning flashes from the upper world. [918]
Patristic Notices of Matthew.
The first Gospel was well known to the author of the "Didache of the Apostles," who wrote between 80 and 100, and made large use of it, especially the Sermon on the Mount. [919]
The next clear allusion to this Gospel is made in the Epistle of Barnabas, who quotes two passages from the Greek Matthew, one from 22:14: "Many are called, but few chosen," with the significant formula used only of inspired writings, "It is written." [920] This shows clearly that early in the second century, if not before, it was an acknowledged authority in the church. The Gospel of John also indirectly presupposes, by its numerous emissions, the existence of all the Synoptical Gospels.
The Hebrew Matthew.
Next we hear of a Hebrew Matthew from Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, "a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp." [921] He collected from apostles and their disciples a variety of apostolic traditions in his "Exposition of Oracles of the Lord," in five books (logion kuriakon exegesis].In a fragment of this lost work preserved by Eusebius, he says distinctly that "Matthew composed the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew tongue, and everyone interpreted them as best he could." [922]
Unfortunately the Hebrew Matthew, if it ever existed, has disappeared, and consequently there is much difference of opinion about this famous passage, both as regards the proper meaning of "oracles" (logia) and the truth of the whole report.
1. The "oracles" are understood by some to mean only the discourses of our Lord; [923] by others to include also the narrative portions. [924] But in any case the Hebrew Matthew must have been chiefly an orderly collection of discourses. This agrees best with the natural and usual meaning of Logia, and the actual preponderance of the doctrinal element in our canonical Matthew) as compared with our Mark. A parte potiori fit denominatio.
2. The report of a Hebrew original has been set aside altogether as a sheer mistake of Papias, who confounded it with the Ebionite "Gospel according to the Hebrews," known to us from a number of fragments. [925] It is said that Papias was a credulous and weak-minded, though pious man. [926] But this does not impair his veracity or invalidate a simple historical notice. It is also said that the universal spread of the Greek language made a Hebrew Gospel superfluous. But the Aramaic was still the vernacular and prevailing language in Palestine (comp. Acts 21:40; 22:2) and in the countries of the Euphrates.
There is an intrinsic probability of a Hebrew Gospel for the early stage of Christianity. And the existence of a Hebrew Matthew rests by no means merely on Papias. It is confirmed by the independent testimonies of most respectable fathers, as Irenaeus, [927] Pantaenus, [928] Origen, [929] Eusebius, [930] Cyril of Jerusalem, [931] Epiphanius, [932] and Jerome. [933]
This Hebrew Matthew must not be identified with the Judaizing "Gospel according to the Hebrews," the best among the apocryphal Gospels, of which in all thirty-three fragments remain. Jerome and other fathers clearly distinguish the two. The latter was probably an adaptation of the former to the use of the Ebionites and Nazarenes. [934] Truth always precedes heresy, as the genuine coin precedes the counterfeit, and the real portrait the caricature. Cureton and Tregelles maintain that the Curetonian Syriac fragment is virtually a translation of the Hebrew Matthew, and antedates the Peshito version. But Ewald has proven that it is derived from our Greek Matthew. [935]
Papias says that everybody "interpreted" the Hebrew Matthew as well as he could. He refers no doubt to the use of the Gospel in public discourses before Greek hearers, not to a number of written translations of which we know nothing. The past tense (ermeneuse) moreover seems to imply that such necessity existed no longer at the time when he wrote; in other words, that the authentic Greek Matthew had since appeared and superseded the Aramaic predecessor which was probably less complete. [936] Papias accordingly is an indirect witness of the Greek Matthew in his own age; that is, the early part of the second century (about a.d. 130). At all events the Greek Matthew was in public use even before that time, as is evident from the, quotations in the Didache, and the Epistle of Barnabas (which were written before 120, probably before 100).
The Greek Matthew.
The Greek Matthew, as we have it now, is not a close translation from the Hebrew and bears the marks of an original composition. This appears from genuine Greek words and phrases to which there is no parallel in Hebrew, as the truly classical "Those wretches he will wretchedly destroy," [937] and from the discrimination in Old Testament quotations which are freely taken from the Septuagint in the course of the narrative, but conformed to the Hebrew when they convey Messianic prophecies, and are introduced by the solemn formula: "that there might be fulfilled," or "then was fulfilled." [938]
If then we credit the well nigh unanimous tradition of the ancient church concerning a prior Hebrew Matthew, we must either ascribe the Greek Matthew to some unknown translator who took certain liberties with the original, [939] or, what seems most probable, we must assume that Matthew himself at different periods of his life wrote his Gospel first in Hebrew in Palestine, and afterward in Greek. [940] In doing so, he would not literally translate his own book, but like other historians freely reproduce and improve it. Josephus did the same with his history of the Jewish war, of which only the Greek remains. When the Greek Matthew once was current in the church, it naturally superseded the Hebrew, especially if it was more complete.
Objections are raised to Matthew's authorship of the first canonical Gospel, from real or supposed inaccuracies in the narrative, but they are at best very trifling and easily explained by the fact that Matthew paid most attention to the words of Christ, and probably had a better memory for thoughts than for facts. [941]
But whatever be the view we take of the precise origin of the first canonical Gospel, it was universally received in the ancient church as the work of Matthew. It was our Matthew who is often, though freely, quoted by Justin Martyr as early as a.d. 146 among the "Gospel Memoirs;" it was one of the four Gospels of which his pupil Tatian compiled a connected "Diatessaron;" and it was the only Matthew used by Irenaeus and all the fathers that follow.
[902] Maththaios, Matt. 9:9 (according to the spelling of ' B* D, adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort), or Matthaios(as spelled in the text. rec.), like Matthias and Mattathias, means Gift Jehovah ( hytm , hyntm, y'tm, ytm ), and corresponds to the Greek Theodore. He perhaps took this name after his call; his former name being Levi, Leuis, Leueis ( vyl , a joining), according to Mark 2:12; Luke 5:27, 29. The new name overshadowed the old, as the names of Peter and Paul replaced Simon and Saul. The identity is evident from the fact that the call of Matthew or Levi is related by the three Synoptists in the same terms and followed by the same discourse. Nicholson (Com. on Matt. 9:9) disputes the identity, as Grotius and Sieffert did before, but on insufficient grounds. Before Mark 3:16 Peter is called by his former name Simon (Mark 1:16, 29, 30, 36), and thereby shows his historical tact.
[903] Hence called Maththaios ho telones ,Matt. 10:3. He inserts his previous employment to intimate the power of divine grace in his conversion.
[904] Matt. 10:3, compared with Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15. But in the list in Acts 1:13 he is associated with Bartholomew, and Thomas with Philip.
[905] Clement of Alexandria represents him as a strict Jewish Christian who abstained from the use of flesh. This would make him one of the weak brethren whom Paul (Rom. 14:1sqq.) charitably judges. But there is nothing in the first Gospel to justify this tradition.
[906] The priority and relative superiority of Matthew are maintained not only by Augustin and the catholic tradition, but also by moderately liberal critics from Griesbach to Bleek, and even by the radical critics of the Tübingen school (Baur, Strauss, Schwegler, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, Davidson), and especially by Keim..
[907] So Luke 5:29. Mark 2:15 ("many publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples") and Matt. 9:10 ("many publicans and sinners") agree; but Matthew modestly omits his own name in connection with that feast. Some commentators understand "the house" to be the house of Jesus, but Jesus had no house and gave no dinner parties. Luke says expressly that it was the house of Levi.
[908] Carr, Com., p. 6.
[909] Luke 5:28; Mark 2:14; Matt. 9:9.
[910] Matt. 5:35 (" Jerusalem is the city of the great king"); 23:1 (sit on Moses' seat") 23:16 (" swear by the temple"); 16:28; 24:15 (" in the holy place;" " let him that readeth understand"), and the whole twenty-fourth chapter.
[911] Matt. 5:17; 15:24; comp. 10:6.
[912] Hug, Bleek, Olshausen, Ebrard, Meyer, Reim, Lange, and most commentators fix the date between 60 and 69, other writers as early as 37-45 (but in conflict with Matt. 27:8; 28:15). Baur's view, which brings the Greek Matthew down to the second destruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian, 130-134, is exploded. Even Volkmar puts it much earlier (105 to 115), Hilgenfeld (Einleitung in das N. T., p. 497) immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, Keim a.d. 66. Dr. Samuel Davidson, in the second ed. of his Introd. to the N. T. (London, 1882, vol. I. 413-416), assigns the present Greek Matthew with Volkmar to 105, but assumes an Aramaean original and Greek paraphrases of the same which were written before the destruction of Jerusalem. He thinks that "the eschatological discourses which connect the fail of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple and the end of the world, have been falsified by history" (?); that consequently Jesus did not utter them as they are recorded, but they were revised and altered by writers who incorporated with them Jewish ideas and expressions (I. 403).