THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
it was a complete Gospel or that it purposed more than to give an introduction to the teaching of Jesus. Indications do not suggest its attribution to the Apostle Matthew, yet as one of the two sources of the present Matthew Gospel there is the highest probability that an Aramaic collection of the words of Jesus was used, and Matthew's name may have been attached to it. It would be no surprise that such a collection, attributed to this apostle, should bestow its supposed author's name upon the completed Gospel, though this was written by one who was neither an apostle nor the disciple of one. In other words, Matthew is based upon Mark and other sources, one of which was also employed in the Gospel of the Hebrews on other soil, with other helps, and with a different purpose.
An examination of the material does not permit the assertion that the compiler had in mind a sharply defined plan which included division into six or five or three parts, only that he gathered similar materials into great groups and left it to be discovered what was his point of view in the arrangement. The time idea is dominant in chaps, i.-ii.,
xxvi.-xxviii., and in part also in iii.-
4. Content, xxv. The connectives also give an
Structure, impression of attention to chronology.
and Purpose. But all this is only the employment of
a literary form which is merely external. Thus, after a painting of Jesus' deeds (iv. 17-25) the Gospel illustrates his method of teaching (v. 1-7, 27), and then exhibits him as a helper in every kind of need by adducing ten examples of his instruction. It is more difficult to expound the difference between ix. 35 and xx. 34. The apostle shows first how Jesus educated the disciples to assist in his work of evangelization by showing the necessity of help (ix. 35-38), and sketched the plan of operations (x. 5-42), though elsewhere in the Gospel, in spite of these earlier lessons, he is engaged in showing how to do the work; second, Jesus finds himself hindered by the dulness of the masses, for whom he adopts the method of teaching by parables (chaps, xi., xiii., xv., xxi., sqq.); third, he combats Pharisaic obtuseness and prejudice (xii. 1-14, xii. 22 sqq., xv. 1-20). One may say that ix. 35-xviii. 35 (or xx. 34) contains the transition from the first period of success to the turning away of Jesus from the crude people and the fanatical Pharisees to the little flock of devoted and true disciples. Of the purpose of this Gospel two opposing views have been held. One regards it as expressing a narrow type of Jewish Christianity, interested in the Davidic descent of Jesus, in the eternal worth of the law, and in prophecy (v. 17-20, x. 6, xxi. 2-7); the other sees in Matthew an anti-Jewish and anti- Judaistic tendency, especially in viii. 10-12, xii. 41-42, xv. 28, xxvii. 22-23, 25. Zahn thinks that Matthew wished his book to be read especially by Jews as yet unconverted. But this book was intended rather for the faithful, to whom it was meant to prove that in Jesus were realized the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament. It is not a narrative produced for the delights of authorship, nor a polemic writing against unbelieving Israel; it is a positive justification of the Gospel of Christ, the strong apologetics of which is directed
less against antagonistic reproach than against particular doubts, and least of all against heretical parties. Thus, the genealogy, arranged in three parts of fourteen steps each, from Abraham to David and then to Jechonias, is intended to prove that with the birth of Jesus a new era had begun. Moreover, in its closing words it is distinctively universalistic; and it recognizes that outside of Christ there is no salvation (xxv. 1-13).
While nothing further can be said of the author than that he was a Jewish Christian, acquainted with both Hebrew and Greek, a resident of Palestine and acquainted with numerous written and oral sources, there yet remains the task of setting his date. If Matthew was the author, 5. Date the date would be not far from 70 a.d. and Value. Passages like x. 23, xvi. 28 echo the earliest period of Christianity, and x. 18 does not contradict this impression. For a time later than 70 a.d. speaks xxii. 7, but how much later? The reign of Trajan (98-117 a.d.) is the latest date allowable because of the testimony of Papias. If Luke is dependent upon Matthew, the date must be put prior to 100 a.d. The trinitarian formula (xxviii. 19) does not presume a very early date; xxiv. 25 does not seem to express immediate expectation of the parousia; the impression of development of the Church is quite marked, suggesting a date later than 75 a.d.; and there is no trace of a conflict such as Paul waged with the idea of the Jewish law as a principle of salvation. Argument as to the date derived from the amount of textual corruption as compared with the other Gospels is inconclusive, because the wide diffusion of the Matthew Gospel in the early Church gave larger opportunities for corruption. Distinction between a proto- and a deutero-Matthew does not seem justified in view of the unity of the book m its dogmatic, literary, and religious characteristics. The regard in which the book was held in the early Church as compared with the popularity of Mark and Luke (the Gospel of John is so different in genius as not to come into comparison) is due to the fact that it expresses the spirit of the early Catholic Church, while the other Synoptics are more individualistic in character. The material is rich, derived from good sources, effectively and strongly presented, and the literary method preserves the mean between inartistic hardness and artificial plainness. And in neither of the other Synoptics does the figure of Jesus so stand out as teacher and helper as in this of Matthew. For the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew see Apocrypha, B, I., 2. (A. Julicher.)
Bibliography: On the apostle the articles in the dictionaries, e.g., DB, ii. 295-296; EB, iii. 2986-87; E. C. A. Riehm, Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums, pp. 976- 977, Leipsic, 1894; F. Vigouroux, Djfitionnaire de la Bible, Paris, 1905.
Questions of introduction are treated in the commentaries (below), in the works on New-Testament introduction (see Biblical Introduction), especially tho«p of Godet, Holtzmann, Julicher, and Zahn; much of the literature on the life of Christ discusses the subject; the literature on the Synoptic relations is given under Gospels. Note may be made here of the following special works: J. H. Scholten, Das Mteste Evangelism, Elberfeld, 1869; P. Schanz, in TQ, lxiv (1882), 517-560; E. Massebieau, Bxamen des citations de I'A ncien Testament dans . S. Matthieu, Paris, 1885; A, B, Bruce, With Open Face,