THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
[Sidenote: The Author.]
St. Matthew is one of the least known of the Apostles. He was first
called Levi the son of Alphaeus, and was a "publican" or collector of
customs at Capernaum. At the call of Jesus, "he forsook all, and rose
up and followed Him." He then made a great feast, to which he invited
his old companions, no doubt that they too might come under the
influence of the Lord. After the appointment of the twelve Apostles,
he was put in the second of the three groups of Apostles. The New
Testament gives us no further information concerning him. An early
tradition narrates that the Apostles remained at Jerusalem until twelve
years after the Ascension, and certainly St. Paul does not seem to have
found any of the Apostles at Jerusalem when he was there in A.D. 56
(Acts xxi. 17). According to Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 190, St.
Matthew led a rigorously ascetic life, such as is also recorded of St.
James. Nothing certain is known of his missionary labours. Parthia,
Ethiopia, and India were believed in the 4th and 5th centuries to have
been visited by St. Matthew. We learn from Clement of Alexandria that
he did not suffer martyrdom.[1] The fact that he disappears almost
completely from the realm of history is an additional reason for
believing the tradition which connects our first Gospel with his name.
A false tradition would have probably connected it with one of the more
favourite figures of early Christian story.
{34}
It is repeatedly asserted by the Fathers that St. Matthew wrote his
Gospel in _Hebrew_, which may either mean the sacred language of the
synagogues, or the popular language of Palestine which we now call
Aramaic. It should, however, be remembered that Papias, our earliest
authority, describes St. Matthew's composition by the word _Logia_,
which seems to point to a list of sacred sayings or "oracles" of our
Lord, rather than to a historical narrative. About A.D. 125, Papias
writes: "Matthew then composed the Logia in the Hebrew tongue, and
every one interpreted them as he was able." [2] About A.D. 185, St.
Irenaeus writes: "Matthew published a Gospel among the Hebrews in their
own dialect." [3] Origen and Eusebius make similar statements. St.
Jerome, in A.D. 392, writes: "Matthew, also called Levi, who from being
a publican became an apostle, first wrote a Gospel of Christ in Judaea,
and in Hebrew letters and words for the benefit of those of the
circumcision who believed. Who afterwards translated it into Greek is
not quite certain." [4] We naturally inquire what became of this
Hebrew Gospel?
St. Jerome, in A.D. 392, believed that he had found it. He says that
it was still preserved at Caesarea, and that the Nazarenes, a Jewish
Christian sect of Palestine, allowed him to transcribe a copy of it at
Beroea (now Aleppo). In A.D. 398, he says that he had translated this
Gospel into Greek and Latin. It is known that it was used by the
Nazarenes and by the Ebionites, a Jewish sect which admitted that Jesus
was the Messiah, but denied that He was divine. Lastly, we find St.
Epiphanius, about the same time as St. Jerome, describing the Hebrew
"Gospel according to the Hebrews" as the Gospel written by St. Matthew.
So at the end of the 4th century it was generally believed that the
Gospel used by the Nazarenes, and ordinarily known as "the Gospel
according to the Hebrews," was the original {35} Hebrew version of
Matt. The opinion arose from the two simple facts that it was known
that (1) St. Matthew originally wrote in Hebrew, and that (2) the
Nazarenes possessed _a_ Gospel in Hebrew. The conclusion was natural,
but it was false. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, who quote the
Gospel according to the Hebrews, do not represent it as the work of St.
Matthew. St. Jerome himself felt doubts. When he first discovered the
Hebrew Gospel, he felt the enthusiasm of a critic who has made an
important find. He believed that he had discovered the original
Gospel. He afterwards became more cautious. His later allusions to
the Gospel say that "it is called by most the original Matthew," [5]
and that it is "the Gospel according to the Apostles or, _as most
suppose_, according to Matthew." [6] In fact, this Hebrew Gospel,
which bore sometimes the title of "the Hebrews," sometimes "the
Apostles," sometimes "St. Matthew," was not the Hebrew original of our
present Matthew, nor could it have been written by an Apostle. The
fragments of it which now remain come from two versions. Both versions
show traces of a mixed Jewish and Gnostic heresy, and are plainly
apocryphal. The Holy Spirit is called the "mother" of Jesus, and
represented as transporting Him by a hair of His head to Mount Tabor,
and our Lord is represented as handing His grave-clothes to the servant
of the high-priest as soon as He was risen from the dead. The Gospel
certainly seems not only to be a forgery, but to betray a knowledge
both of our Greek Gospel according to St. Matthew and that according
to St. John.[7] We are obliged to conclude that it throws no light on
the origin of our Matt., and that the original Hebrew Matt. was lost at
an early date.
On the other hand, it is certain that our Greek Matt. was {36} regarded
as authentic in the 2nd century, and it is plain that it records the
sayings of Christ with peculiar fulness.
We must now return to what was stated in our previous chapter when
dealing with the Synoptic problem. We there saw that there is a great
mass of common material in all three Synoptic Gospels, and saw that
Mark was probably used as a groundwork for Matt. and Luke. We
therefore are led to the conclusion that the Gospel according to St.
Matthew is a combination of a Greek version of St. Matthew's original
Hebrew Logia--St. Matthew possibly wrote a Greek version of it as well
as the Hebrew--with the Gospel written by St. Mark. The combination
was apparently made either by the apostle himself, or by a disciple of
the apostle as the result of his directions. The Catholic Jewish
Christians, knowing that the Gospel contained St. Matthew's own Logia,
and that the rest of the Gospel was in accordance with his teaching as
delivered to them, called it "the Gospel according to Matthew." The
less orthodox Jewish Christians, as we have seen, invented a Gospel of
their own.
A little help is given us by the internal evidence afforded by Matt.
The author appears to be writing for Greek-speaking converts from
Judaism, who need to have Hebrew words interpreted to them. Thus he
interprets "Immanuel" (i. 23), "Golgotha" (xxvii. 33), and the words of
our Lord on the cross (xxvii. 46). The numerous quotations from the
Old Testament have for a long time exercised the ingenuity of scholars,
who have believed that they enable us to determine how the Gospel was
written. On the whole these quotations suggest two conclusions: (1)
That the evangelist knew both Greek and Aramaic, (2) that the Gospel is
not a mere translation from the Aramaic or Hebrew. Roughly speaking,
the quotations which St. Matthew has in common with the other
Synoptists are from the Greek (Septuagint) version of the Old
Testament, while those which are peculiar to his {37} Gospel show that
the Hebrew has been consulted. Altogether the quotations number 45.
Of these there are 11 which are texts quoted by the evangelist himself
to illustrate the Messianic work of our Lord, and 9 of the 11 seem to
imply a knowledge of Hebrew. They are i. 23; ii. 15, iv. 15-16, viii.
17, xii. 18-21; xiii. 14-15; xiii. 35b; xxi. 5; xxvii. 9, 10. The
other 34 texts comprise the quotations which are made in the discourses
of our Lord, and they are sometimes called context-quotations or cyclic
quotations, as coming in the cycle of discourses. Perhaps 6 or 7 of
these 34 texts imply a knowledge of the Hebrew. But it is certain that
this class of quotations is far nearer to the Septuagint than the other
class. This conclusion remains good in spite of the fact that even the
Messianic quotations show the influence of the Septuagint, _e.g._ in i.
23 the writer uses the Septuagint, inasmuch as the Greek word
translated "virgin" _necessarily_ implies the unique condition of the
mother of our Lord, whereas the corresponding Hebrew word does not
_necessarily_ imply the same condition. Now, it is plain that if the
Gospel had been translated from the Hebrew, the context-quotations
would probably have been as near to the Hebrew as the quotations made
by the evangelist himself. This is not the case. The quotations in
Matt. show that the writer knew Hebrew but wrote in Greek, and based
part of his work on a Greek document.
The fact that the Gospel was written in Greek does not prove that it
was not written in Palestine. It has been urged that it cannot have
been written in Palestine, because in ix. 26, 31 we find Palestine
called "_that_ land," but the phrase may refer only to a part of
Palestine, and therefore can hardly be urged as proving anything. It
is well known that educated persons in Palestine were acquainted with
Greek, although the majority spoke Aramaic. The two languages existed
side by side, very much as Welsh and English exist side by side in
North Wales. If the Gospel was not written in Palestine, it was
probably written in South Syria.
{38}
[Sidenote: Date.]
The date must be shortly before A.D. 70. A favourite argument of
modern sceptics is that it contains a reference (xxii. 7) to the
burning of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, and therefore must have
been written after that event. The argument rests upon the assumption
that our Lord could not have foreseen the event predicted--an
assumption which no Christian can accept. Even the favoured servants
of God in later ages have sometimes possessed the gift of prophecy.
Savonarola certainly foretold the fall of Rome, which took place in
A.D. 1527, and the prophecy was printed long before the event seemed
credible. Much more might the Son of God have foretold the fall of
that city which had so signally neglected His summons. Such
expressions as "the holy city," "the holy place," "the city of the
great King," suggest that when the Gospel was written it had not yet
become the home of "the abomination of desolation." And a far stronger
proof is afforded by the caution of the writer in xxiv. 15, "let him
that readeth understand." This is an editorial note inserted by the
evangelist, as by St. Mark, before our Lord's warning to flee from
Judaea. We learn from the early historians of the Church that the
Jewish Christians took warning from this statement to flee from Judaea
to Peraea before the Romans invested the holy city in A.D. 70. Now, it
would have been absurd for the evangelist to insert this note after the
Roman forces had begun the siege, as absurd as it would have been to
warn the Parisians to flee to England after Paris had been surrounded
by the Prussians in 1870, or to warn the English to leave Ladysmith in
1900 after it was surrounded by the Boers. Another and final proof
that the Gospel was written before A.D. 70 is given by the form in
which the evangelist has recorded our Lord's prophecy of the end of the
world (the so-called "eschatological discourse" in chs. xxiv.-xxv.).
The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and that of the last
coming of the Lord are placed side by side with no perceptible break.
Ch. xxiv. 29-31 refers to the {39} last coming of Christ, whereas the
verses which immediately precede it refer to the destruction of
Jerusalem, and so do vers. 32-34. It is impossible to resist the
conclusion that the evangelist believed that the judgment upon
Jerusalem would be immediately followed by the last judgment of the
world. He knows that our Lord foretold both, and both events loom
large in his mind. As a traveller in a valley sees before him two
great mountains which appear close to one another, though really
separated by many miles, so the evangelist sees these two events
together. After the fall of Jerusalem he would almost certainly have
made a definite break between the two subjects.
[Sidenote: Literary Style.]
We have already noticed in ch. ii. the fondness for numerical
arrangement, which is a marked characteristic of the style of this
Gospel. There are other proofs of the fact that this Gospel is more
Hebrew in tone than the others. In the other Gospels we find the
expression "the kingdom of God," but here we find it called "the
kingdom of heaven," an instance of the peculiarly Jewish reverence
which shrank from uttering the name of God. There are a few Aramaic
words found in this Gospel--_raca_ (v. 22), _gehenna_ (v. 22), _mammon_
(vi. 24); and we should add the peculiar use of "righteousness" in vi.
1, where the word is used in the sense of "alms" in accordance with a
Jewish idiom. But the Greek phrases are often neat and clear-cut.
They sometimes seem to imply a play upon words, _e.g._ in vi. 16 and
xxiv. 30. This is another indication that the Gospel, as it stands,
was first written in Greek. The Greek is smoother than that of St.
Mark, though not so vivid. The evangelist writes with a joyous
interest in his work. The historical parts of it are full of beauty,
but he uses them mainly as a framework for the discourses of Jesus,
which he preserves with loving fidelity.
In St. Matthew's Gospel the Old Testament is frequently quoted, that
the reader may see that Jesus is the realization of {40} the hopes of
the Jewish prophets. With set purpose the fair picture of the Servant
of Jehovah drawn by Isaiah is placed in the middle of the Gospel (xii.
18-21), that we may recognize it as the true portrait of Christ. Close
to it on either side the blasphemies of the Pharisees are skilfully
depicted as a foil to His divine beauty. We have already noticed the
bearing of these quotations on the origin of the Gospel, but we must
speak further of their bearing on the evangelist's view of the Old
Testament. His Messianic quotations are introduced by such phrases as
"that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," or, "then
was fulfilled," etc. The tendency of modern scepticism to ridicule the
supernatural element in prophecy has caused some writers to depreciate
this method of quotation. And we find even a thoughtful Roman Catholic
writer speaking of it as "giving the impression that the supple and
living story of the life of Jesus is only a chain of debts which fall
due, and fulfilments which cannot be avoided." [8] In particular, it
has been alleged that the Greek word translated "that," or "in order
that," and prefixed to these quotations, implies this fatalistic
necessity. But this particular argument is mistaken. In later Greek
the use of the word was vaguer than it had been formerly.[9] It cannot
be narrowed down so as to prove that the evangelist thought that events
in the Old Testament only took place in order to be types which the Son
of God constrained Himself to fulfil. And, speaking more generally, we
may say that the evangelist shows an exquisite taste in his selection
of Messianic quotations. Convinced that Jesus sums up the history of
Israel, he does not hesitate to quote passages in the Old Testament,
whether they directly refer to the Messianic King, or only call up some
picture which has a counterpart in the life of Christ.
{41}
Thus the quotations in i. 23 and ii. 6 directly refer to one who is the
expected King, that in viii. 17 to one who is the ideal martyred
Servant, that in ii. 15 to Israel conceived of as the peculiar child of
God and so a type of Christ. In ii. 23 the evangelist finds in the
name of _Nazareth_ an echo of the ancient Messianic title _Netzer_ (a
branch). In ii. 18 we see that the tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem
reminds him of the mothers of Israel weeping over the death of their
children at the hands of the Babylonians; and as Jeremiah poetically
conceived of Rachel weeping with the mothers of his own day, so St.
Matthew conceives of her as finding her crowning sorrow in the massacre
of the Holy Innocents.
Three other quotations deserve special notice: (1) That in xxvii. 9,
which the evangelist quotes from "Jeremiah." It is often said that
this is a mere mistake for Zechariah. But it is a quotation combined,
according to the Jewish method known as the Charaz, or "string of
pearls," from Zech. xi. 12 and Jer. xix. 1, 2, 6, the valley of the son
of Hinnom being regarded as typical of "the field of blood." (2) That
in xxvii. 34, from Ps. lxix. 21. It is said that the evangelist, in
order to make our Lord's action correspond with the words of the
Psalmist, makes Him drink "gall" instead of "myrrh" (Mark xv. 23), and
thus represents the soldiers as cruelly giving Him a nauseating draught
instead of a draught to dull His pain. The argument will hardly hold
good, for the Greek word translated "gall" can also signify a
stupefying drug, and thus Matt. and Mark agree. (3) That in xxi. 2-7,
where our Lord is represented as making use of both an ass and a colt
for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The other Synoptists mention a
colt only, and it is supposed that the evangelist altered his narrative
of the fact in order to make it agree with a too literal interpretation
of Zech. ix. 9. It must be admitted that the account in Mark and Luke
has an air of greater probability, and it has the support of the brief
account in John. But there is not a decisive contradiction between
Matt. and the other Gospels, and it is therefore unreasonable to pass
an unfavourable verdict on any of them. The story in Matt. cannot be
discredited as containing an apocryphal miracle, and the mere fact that
it is so independent of the other Gospels suggests that it is really
primitive.
[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]
The chief characteristic of this Gospel is the representation of Jesus
as _the Messiah_ in whom was fulfilled the {42} Law and the prophets.
It was probably placed first in the New Testament because this
Messianic doctrine is the point of union between the old covenant and
the new. St. Matthew's representation of the Messiah is the result of
very careful reflection, and it shows that the evangelist wrote in a
spirit which was philosophical and in one sense controversial. He is
philosophic because he is not a mere annalist. He groups incidents and
discourses together in a manner which brings out their significance as
illustrating the Messiahship of Jesus and the majestic forward movement
of the kingdom of God. He is in one sense controversial because he
wishes his picture of Christ to correct that false idea of the Messiah
and His reign which was ruining the Jewish people. The best kind of
controversy is that which is intent upon explaining the truth rather
than eager to expose and ridicule what is false. So the evangelist
presents to his readers Jesus as the Lord's Anointed with inspired
powers of persuasion. The manner in which he records our Lord's urgent
warnings against going after false Jewish Messiahs at the time when the
destruction of Jerusalem should draw near, is a witness to the depth of
his convictions. Like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who
wrote shortly before him, he cannot endure the thought of any waverers
or deserters. The Jewish Christian must be loyal to Jesus, even
although the invasion of the holy land by Gentiles may sorely tempt him
to throw in his lot with his patriotic but unbelieving kinsmen.
The very first verse suggests the nature of the Gospel--"The book of
the generation" (_i.e._ the genealogical tree) "of Jesus Christ, the
son of David, the son of Abraham." This "book" includes the first 17
verses of the Gospel. While St. Luke traces the genealogy of our Lord
back to Adam, the head of the human race, St. Matthew desires to show
that our Lord, _as the son of Abraham_, is the child of promise in whom
all the families of the earth shall be blessed, and, _as the son of
David_, {43} is heir to the kingdom of spiritual Israel. The genealogy
is partly based on that of the Greek version of 1 Chron. i.-iii., and
is intended to teach certain special truths. It is arranged so as to
be a kind of summary of the history of the people of God, each group of
14 names ending with a crisis. Jesus is the flower and fulfilment of
that history. It furnishes a reply to Jewish critics. They would say
that Jesus could not be Messiah unless Joseph, his supposed father, was
descended from David. St. Matthew shows that St. Joseph was of Davidic
descent. Again, the Jews would say that in any case the Messiah would
not be likely to be connected with a humble carpenter and his folk.
The evangelist's reply is that David himself was descended from
comparatively undistinguished men and from women who were despised.
Thus St. Matthew meets both points raised by the Jews.
Of recent years another criticism has been passed on this pedigree of
our Lord. A copy of the Old Syriac version of the Gospels, discovered
at Sinai and published in 1894, says that Joseph begat Jesus, and in
this way denies that Jesus was born of a pure virgin. Some writers who
wish to believe that our Lord was brought into the world in the same
manner as ourselves, have said that this Syriac version represents what
was actually the fact. There is, however, no reason for believing
anything of the kind. There is no ground for the notion that the
Syriac genealogy was taken from a primitive Jewish register. It is
merely a translation of the Greek, probably from some Western Greek
manuscript which had "Joseph begat Jesus." When the evangelist wrote
the genealogy, he can only have meant that Joseph was by Jewish law
regarded as the father of Jesus; for his whole narrative of our Lord's
infancy assumes that He was born of a virgin mother. The truth that
our Lord was born miraculously is asserted by St. Luke as well as by
St. Matthew. It is assumed by St. Paul, when he argues that the second
Adam was free from the taint of sin which affected the rest of the
first Adam's descendants. It {44} was also cherished from the earliest
times in every part of the Christian world where the teaching of the
apostles was retained, and was only denied by a few heretics who had
openly rejected the teaching of the New Testament on other subjects.
Connected with the representation of Jesus as the Messiah is the record
of His continual teaching about the "kingdom of heaven." The "kingdom
of heaven" or "kingdom of God" signifies the reign and influence of
God. The meaning of it is best expressed by the words in the Lord's
Prayer: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on
earth" (Matt. vi. 10). The second petition explains the first. The
kingdom comes in proportion as the righteous will of our loving Father
is done among men. The kingdom therefore includes the influence of God
in the heart of the believer, or in great movements in the world, or in
the organization and growth of His _Church_ (xvi. 18; xviii. 17). The
kingdom has both a present and a future aspect. In xii. 28 our Lord
says to His hearers that it "is come upon you," and in xxi. 31 He
speaks of people who were entering into it at the time. But the night
before He died He spoke of it as still future (xxvi. 29). It is plain
that He taught that it was already present, though its consummation is
yet to come. The kingdom is spiritual, "not of this world," it is
universal, for though the Jews were "the sons of the kingdom" (viii.
12) by privilege, it is free to others. The worst sinner might come in
(xxi. 31), if he came with repentance, humility, and purity of heart.
The teaching of Christ with regard to the kingdom was based upon an
idea of God's personal rule, which runs through nearly all the Old
Testament, beginning with the Books of Samuel and revealing itself in
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. But our Lord's teaching is original and
distinctive. And it is more distant from the popular Jewish idea of a
Hebrew counterpart to the Roman empire than the east is distant from
the west.
Nowhere else is our Lord shown to have given such an unmistakable
sanction to the Law. It is here only that we {45} read, "Think not
that I came to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I came not to destroy,
but to fulfil" (v. 17).[10] Here, too, we find an allusion to the
observance of the sabbath _after_ the Ascension (xxiv. 20), a temporary
prohibition of preaching to the Gentiles and Samaritans (x. 5), and the
statement of our Lord, "I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel" (xv. 24). Most remarkable of all is the direction to
obey the scribes and Pharisees (xxiii. 3). On the other hand, there is
a rigorous denunciation of the rabbinical additions to the Jewish Law.
Mercy is preferable to sacrifice (xii. 7), the Son of man is Lord of
the sabbath (xii. 8), moral defilement does not come from a failure to
observe ceremonial (xv. 11), the kingdom will be transferred to a more
faithful nation (xxi. 43), even the strangers from the east and the
west (viii. 11), the Gospel will be for all people (xxiv. 14), and the
scribes and Pharisees are specially denounced (xxiii. 13).
It has been said that there is an absolute opposition between these two
classes of sayings; that either Jesus contradicted Himself, or the
evangelist drew from one source which was of a Judaizing character, and
from another source which taught St. Paul's principle of justification
by faith _versus_ justification by the Law. But the same divine
paradox of truth which we find in Matt. runs through most of the New
Testament, and is found plainly in St. Paul. In the Epistle where he
exposes the failure of contemporary Judaism most remorselessly, he
asserts that "we establish the Law." The true inner meaning of the
divine revelation granted in the Old Testament _is_ fulfilled in
Christ. Not only so, but Christ Himself was "the servant of the
circumcision," living "under the Law." The limits which He imposed
upon His own ministry (xv. 24) and that of His apostles (x. 5) were
entirely fitting until Christ at His resurrection laid aside all that
was peculiarly Jewish with its limits and humiliations.
{46}
ANALYSIS[11]
The infancy of our Lord: i. 1-ii. 23.--Genealogy from Abraham,
announcement to Joseph, birth, visit of Magi, flight into Egypt,
massacre of innocents, settlement at Nazareth.
A.
Winter A.D. 26 till after Pentecost 27.
The preparation for the ministry: iii. 1-iv. 11.--
The ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus, the
threefold temptation.
B.
Pentecost A.D. 27 till before Passover 28.
The preaching of the kingdom of God by Jesus in Galilee: iv. 12-xiii.
58.--The call of the four fishermen, Jesus preaches and heals (iv.).
The Sermon on the Mount--Jesus fulfils the law, the deeper teaching
concerning the commandments (v.). False and true almsgiving, prayer
and fasting, worldliness, trust in God (vi.). Censoriousness,
discrimination in teaching, encouragements to prayer, false prophets,
the two houses (vii.). The ministry at Capernaum and by the lake is
illustrated by the record of many works of _Messianic healing power_
(viii.-ix.), the apostles are chosen and receive a charge (x.), and the
ministry is illustrated by words and parables of _Messianic wisdom_
(xi.-xiii.). We find a growing hostility on the part of the scribes
and Pharisees (ix. 11; ix. 34; xii. 2, xii. 14; xii. 24). Jesus
returns to Nazareth (xiii. 53-58).
[Perplexity of Herod and death of John the Baptist, xiv. 1-12.]
{47}
C.
Passover A.D. 28 till before Tabernacles 28.
Climax of missionary work in Galilee: xiv. 13-xviii. 35.--Christ feeds
the 5000, walks on the sea, heals the sick in Gennesaret (xiv.).
Christ now labours chiefly in the dominions of Herod Philip, the
journeys are more plainly marked in Mark. Teaching about defilement,
the Canaanite woman, Christ feeds the 4000 (xv.).
Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Peter's confession of Christ,
Christ's first prediction of His death (xvi.). Transfiguration,
lunatic boy cured, second prediction of death, the shekel in the fish's
mouth (xvii.). Treatment of children, Christ saving lost sheep,
forgiveness (xviii.).
D.
Tabernacles, September A.D. 28 until early 29.
The ministry in Peraea; xix. i-xx. 34.--Christ forbids divorce, He
blesses children, the rich young man, the difficulties of the rich
(xix.). Parable of the labourers, Christ's third prediction of His
death, the request of the mother of Zebedee's children, the two blind
men of Jericho (xx.).
E.
Passover A.D. 29.
Last days at Jerusalem, and afterwards: xxi. 1-xxviii. 20.--Entry into
Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, the withered fig tree, Christ
challenged, parable of the vineyard (xxi.). The marriage feast, three
questions to entrap Christ, His question (xxii.). On not seeking chief
places, denunciation of scribes and Pharisees, lament over Jerusalem
(xxiii.).
Predictions of destruction of temple, siege of Jerusalem, the second
coming (xxiv.), three discourses on the judgment (xxv.).
{48}
The Council discuss how they may arrest Jesus, the woman with the
ointment, Judas' bargain, the Passover, Gethsemane, the betrayal, the
trial before Caiaphas, Peter's denial (xxvi.). Jesus delivered to
Pilate, Judas' suicide, Jesus tried by Pilate, Jesus and Barabbas, the
mockery, crucifixion, burial by Joseph of Arimathaea, guard granted by
Pilate (xxvii.).
The women at the sepulchre, the angel, Jesus meets them, the guard
bribed, Jesus meets the eleven in Galilee, His commission to baptize
and teach (xxviii.).
_Note on the Date of Matthew._--Irenaeus, apparently following Papias,
says, "Matthew published a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their
own dialect, Peter and Paul preaching the Gospel at Rome" (_Adv. Haer._
iii. 1). This would fix the date of the Hebrew Matt. about A.D. 63, if
it was the intention of Irenaeus to give chronological information in
this sentence. But the context makes it more probable that this is not
the case, and that he simply wished to make it clear that the teaching
of the four chief apostles, Peter and Paul, Matthew and John, has come
down to us in writing. That of Matthew and John survives in their
Gospels, that of Peter and Paul, though they wrote no Gospels, survives
in Mark and Luke. Eusebius, in his _Chronicle_ dates the composition
in A.D. 41. This he probably does in order to make it fit with the
supposed departure of the apostles from Jerusalem after twelve years
from the Crucifixion. His statement is very improbable. At any rate
our Greek Matt. must have been written after Mark. The frequent
quotations from it in primitive literature from the Epistle of Barnabas
and the _Didaché_ onwards, bear witness both to its early date and its
high authority. Internal evidence points to the same conclusion. In
addition to what is said above (p. 38), we may note some passages
likely to perplex the reader. Such are ii. 23, "the ass _and the
colt_" in xxi. 7, the "three days and _three nights_ in the belly of
the whale" mentioned as typical of Christ's rest in the tomb (xii. 40),
the absence of all reference to the _burning_ of the temple in xxiv. 2,
the reference to Zachariah the son of Barachiah (xxiii. 35; contrast 2
Chron. xxiv. 20). Such verses would probably have been altered if the
Gospel had not gained an authoritative position at a very early date.
[1] Strom. iv. 9.
[2] Eusebius, _H. E._ iii. 39.
[3] _Adv. Haer._ iii. 1.
[4] _De Vir, Ill._ 3.
[5] _In Matt._ xii. 13.
[6] _Con. Pelag._ iii. 1.
[7] So Prof. Armitage Robinson, _Expositor_, March, 1897.
[8] Batiffol, _Six Leçons sur les Evangiles_, p. 48.
[9] Burton, _Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of New Testament Greek_,
pp. 92-95.
[10] In this Gospel only is sin called "lawlessness."
[11] These analyses of the Gospels are not complete, but are arranged
with the hope that the readers, by studying all the four, may gain a
clearer conception of the life of our Lord.
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