THE MATTHAEAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS
As we have seen in our study of the later literature addressed to, or
emanating from, the Pauline mission-field, the church teacher and
ecclesiastic who there took up the pen after the death of Paul had
scarcely any alternative but to follow the literary model of the great
founder of Gentile Christianity. Inevitably the typical literary product
of this region became the apostolic letter, framed on the model of
Paul's, borrowing his phraseology and ideas, when not actually embodying
fragments from his pen and covering itself with his name. Homilies are
made over into "epistles." Even 'prophecy,' to obtain literary
circulation, must have prefixed epistles of "the Spirit" to the
churches; and when at last a gospel is produced, this too is
accompanied, as we shall see, by three successive layers of enclosing
'epistles.'
At the seat of 'apostolic' Christianity it was equally inevitable that
the literary products should follow a different model. Here, from the
beginning, the standard of authority had been the commandment of Jesus.
Apostleship had meant ability to transmit his teaching, not endowment
with insight into the mystery of the divine purpose revealed in his
cross and resurrection. "The gospel" was the gospel _of_ Jesus. The
letters of Paul, if they circulated at all in Syria and Cilicia at this
early time, have had comparatively small effect on writers like Luke and
James. At Rome the case was somewhat different. Here Pauline influence
had been effectually superimposed upon an originally Jewish-Christian
stock. The Roman Gospel of Mark, accordingly, has just the
characteristics we should expect from this Petro-Pauline community.
Antioch, too, though at the disruption over the question of
table-fellowship it took the side of James, Peter, and Barnabas against
Paul, had always had a strong Gentile element. But Jerusalem, the church
of the apostles and elders, with its caliphate in the family of Jesus,
and its zeal for Jewish institutions and the Law, was the pre-eminent
seat of traditional authority. No other gospel, oral or written, could
for a moment compare in its eyes with its own cherished treasury of the
precepts of Jesus. Its own estimate of itself as conservator of
orthodoxy, and custodian of the sacred deposit, vividly reflected from
the pages of Hegesippus, was increasingly accepted by the other
churches. 'James' and 'Jude' were probably not the real names of the
writers of these 'general' or 'catholic' epistles; but they show in what
direction men looked when there was need to counteract a widespread
tendency to moral relaxation and vain disputations, or to demoralizing
heresy.
We have also seen how inevitable was the reaction after Paul's death,
even among his own churches, toward a historic standard of authority.
Even more marked than the disposition to draw together in fraternal
sympathy under persecution, is the reliance shown by the Pastoral
Epistles on "health-giving words, even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (1st Tim. vi. 3), and on a consolidated apostolic succession as
a bulwark against the disintegrating advance of heresy. In (proconsular)
Asia early in the second century there is an unmistakable and sweeping
disposition to "turn to the word handed down to us from the beginning"
(_Ep. of Polyc._, vii.) against those who were "perverting the sayings
of the Lord to their own lusts." The ancient "word of prophecy" and the
former revelations granted to apostolic seers were also turned to
account by men like Papias and the author of 2nd Peter against those who
"denied the resurrection and judgment."
This Papias of Hierapolis, the friend and colleague of Polycarp, had
undertaken in opposition to "the false teachers, and those who have so
very much to say," to write (probably after the utter destruction of the
community of 'apostles, elders, and witnesses' at Jerusalem in 135), _an
Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord_. He based the work on authentic
tradition of the Jerusalem witnesses, two of whom (Aristion, and John
'the Elder') were still living at the time of his inquiries. In fact,
this much debated "John the Elder," clearly distinguished by Papias from
John the "disciple of the Lord," may be identified, in our judgment,
with the John mentioned by Eusebius and Epiphanius midway in the
succession of 'Elders' of the Jerusalem church between A.D. 62 and 135.
Epiphanius dates his death in 117. Papias gives us practically all the
information we have regarding the beginnings of gospel literature. He
may have known all four of our Gospels. He certainly knew Revelation and
"vouched for its trustworthiness," doubtless against the deniers of the
resurrection and judgment. He "used testimonies" from 1st John, and
probably the saying of Jesus of John xiv. 2; but he seems to have based
his _Exposition_ on two gospels only, giving what he had been able to
learn of their history from travellers who reported to him testimonies
of 'the elders.' Papias' two gospels were our Matthew and our Mark,
whose differences he reconciled by what the Jerusalem elders had
reported as to their origin. Matthew, according to these authorities
(?), represented in its Greek form a collection of the Precepts of the
Lord which had formerly been current in the original Aramaic, so that
its circulation had of course been limited to Palestine. The original
compiler had been the Apostle Matthew. Various Greek equivalents of this
compilation had taken its place where Aramaic was not current. Thus
Papias, in explicit dependence on "the Elder" so far as Mark is
concerned, but without special designation of his authority for the
statement regarding Matthew. It is even possible that his representation
that the primitive Matthew was "in the Hebrew tongue" may be due to
rumours whose real starting-point was nothing more than the _Gospel of
the Nazarenes_, a product of _c._ 110-140 which misled many later
fathers, particularly Jerome. We cannot afford, however, to slight the
general bearing of testimony borne by one such as Papias regarding the
origins of gospel composition, and particularly the two branches into
which the tradition was divided. For Papias had made diligent inquiry.
Moreover his witness does not stand alone, but has the support of still
more ancient reference (_e. g._ 1st Tim. vi. 3, Acts i. 1) and the
internal evidence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves. The motive for his
statement is apologetic. Differences between the two Gospels had been
pointed out on the score both of words and events. Papias shows that
Gospel tradition is not to be held responsible for verbal agreement
between the two parallel reports of the Lord's words. The differences
are attributable to translation. So, too, regarding events. Exact
correspondence of Mark with Matthew (or other gospels) is not to be
looked for, especially as regards the order; because Mark had not
himself been a disciple, and could not get the true order from Peter,
whose anecdotes he reproduced; for when Mark wrote Peter was no longer
living. Mark has reproduced faithfully and accurately his recollection
of "things either said or done," as related by Peter. But Peter had had
no such intention as Matthew of making a systematic compilation
(_syntagma_) of the sayings of the Lord, and had only related his
anecdotes "as occasion required." If the tradition regarding Matthew, as
well as that regarding Mark, was derived from the Elder, he, too, as
well as Papias, knew the Greek Matthew; regarding it as a "translation"
of the apostolic _Logia_, he naturally makes Matthew the standard and
accounts as above for the wide divergence of Mark as to order.
The Jerusalem elder who thus differentiates the two great branches of
gospel tradition into Matthaean Precepts and Petrine Sayings and Doings,
is probably "the Elder John"; for this elder's "traditions" were so
copiously cited by Papias as to lead Irenaeus, and after him Eusebius, to
the unwarranted inference of personal contact. Irenaeus even identified
the Elder John with the Apostle, thus transporting not only him, but the
entire body of "Elders and disciples" from Jerusalem to Asia, a pregnant
misapprehension to which we must return later. In the meantime we must
note that this fundamental distinction between _syntagmas_ of the
Precepts, and narratives of the Sayings and Doings, carries us back as
far as it is possible to penetrate into the history of gospel
composition. The primitive work of the Apostle Matthew, was probably
done in and for Jerusalem and vicinity--certainly so if written in
Aramaic. The date, if early tradition may be believed, was "when Peter
and Paul were preaching and founding the church at Rome." Oral tradition
must have begun the process even earlier.[16] Mark's work was done at
Rome, according to internal evidence no less than by the unanimous voice
of early tradition. It dates from "after the death of Peter" (64-5)
according to ancient tradition. According to the internal evidence it
was written certainly not long before, and probably some few years
after, the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple (70). At the time of
Papias' writing, then (_c._ 145), all four gospels were probably known,
though only Matthew and Mark were taken as authoritative because
(indirectly) apostolic. At the time of prosecution of his inquiries the
voice of (Palestinian) tradition was still "living and abiding." If, as
tenses and phraseology seem to imply, this means Aristion and the Elder
John (_ob._ 117?) it is reasonable to regard it as extending back over a
full generation. The original Matthew was even then (_c._ 100), and in
Palestine itself, a superseded book. It had three successors, if not
more, two Greek and one Aramaic, all still retaining their claim to the
name and authority of Matthew[17]; but all had been re-cast in a
narrative frame, which at least in the case of our canonical first
Gospel was borrowed from the Roman work of Mark. So far as the remaining
fragments of its rivals enable us to judge, the same is true in their
case also, though to a less extent. It is quite unmistakably true of
Luke, the gospel of Antioch, that its narrative represents the same
"memorabilia of Peter"; for so Mark's gospel came to be called. Thus the
Petrine story appears almost from the start to have gained undisputed
supremacy. But side by side with this remarkable fact as to gospel
_narrative_ is the equally notable confirmation of the other statements
of 'the Elders' regarding the Precepts. For all modern criticism
admits, that besides the material of Mark, which both Matthew and Luke
freely incorporate, omitting very little, our first and third
evangelists have embodied, in (usually) the same Greek translation but
in greatly varied order, large sections from one or more early
compilations of the Sayings of Jesus.
Footnote 16: Some authorities of the first rank think there is
evidence of literary dependence in 1st Cor. i. 18-21 on the Saying
(Matt. xi. 25-27 = Lk. x. 21 f.).
Footnote 17: The orthodox Aramaic _Gospel of the Nazarenes_ borrows
from Luke as well as Matthew, but speaks in the name of "Matthew."
This apostle was also regarded as author of the _Gospel according to
the Hebrews_, a heretical product of _c._ 120, current in Greek
among the Jewish Christians of Palestine (Ebionites).
It is indispensable to a historical appreciation of the environment out
of which any gospel has arisen that we realize that no community ever
produced and permanently adopted as its "gospel" a _partial_
presentation of the message of salvation. To its mind the writing must
have embodied, for the time at least, the message, the whole message,
and nothing but the message. Change of mind as to the essential contents
of the message would involve supplementation or alteration of the
written gospel employed. No writing of the kind would be produced with
tacit reference to some other for another aspect of the truth.
It was not, then, the mere limitation of its language which caused the
ancient Matthaean Sayings (the so-called _Logia_) to be superseded and
disappear; nor is mere "translation" the word to describe that which
took its place. The growth of Christianity in the Greek-speaking world
not only called upon Jerusalem to pour out its treasure of evangelic
tradition in the language of the empire, but stimulated a sense of its
own increasing need. That which could once be supplied by
eye-witnesses, the testimony of Jesus' mighty works, his death and
resurrection, was now fast disappearing. And simultaneously the
appreciation of its importance was growing. It was impossible to be
blind to the conquests made by the gospel _about_ Jesus. Enclosed in it,
as part of its substance the gospel _of_ Jesus found its final
resting-place, much as the mother church itself was later taken up and
incorporated in a catholic Christendom. So it is that in the Elder's
time the church of the 'apostles, elders and witnesses' have done more
than merely supersede their Aramaic(?) _Syntagma_ of the Precepts by
"translations." They had adopted alongside of it from Rome Mark's
"Memorabilia of Peter" as to "things either said or done by the Lord."
We can see indeed from the apologetic way in which 'the Elder' speaks of
Mark's limitations (Peter is not to be held responsible for the lack of
order) that Mark's authority is still held quite secondary to Matthew's;
but the very fact that his work is given authoritative standing at all,
still more the fact that it has become the framework into which the
old-time _syntagma_ has been set, marks a great and fundamental change
of view as to what constitutes "the gospel."
No mere _syntagma_ of the Precepts of Jesus has ever come down to us,
though the papyrus leaves of "Sayings of Jesus" discovered in 1897 at
Behneseh in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt had something of this
character.[1] It was impossible that any community outside the most
primitive one, where personal "witnesses of the Lord" still survived
"until the times of Trajan," could be satisfied with a "gospel" which
gave only the precepts of Jesus without so much as an account of his
crucifixion and resurrection. And, strange as it may seem, the evidence
of Q (_i. e._ the coincident material in Matthew and Luke not derived
from Mark), as judged by nearly all critics, is that no narrative of the
kind was given in the early compilation of discourses from which this
element was mainly derived. After the "witnesses," apostolic and other,
had begun to disappear, a mere _syntagma_ of Jesus' sayings could not
suffice. It became inevitable that the precepts should be embodied in
the story. And yet we have at least two significant facts to corroborate
the intimations of ancient tradition that this combination was long
postponed. (18) When it is at last effected, and certainly in the
regions of southern Syria,[19] there is even there practically nothing
left of authentic _narrative_ material but the Petrine tradition as
compiled by Mark at Rome. Our Matthew, a Palestinian Jew, the only
writer of the New Testament who consistently uses the Hebrew Bible,
makes a theoretical reconstruction of the order of events in the
Galilean ministry, but otherwise he just incorporates Mark substantially
as it was. What he adds in the way of narrative is so meagre in amount,
and so manifestly inferior and apocryphal in character, as to prove the
extreme poverty of his resources of oral tradition of this type. Luke
has somewhat larger, and (as _literary_ products) better, narrative
additions than Matthew's; but the amount is still extremely meagre, and
often _historically_ of slight value. Some of it reappears in the
surviving fragments of the _Preaching of Peter_. To sum up, there is
outside of Mark _no_ considerable amount of historical material,
canonical or uncanonical, for the story of Jesus. This fact would be
hard to account for if in the regions where witnesses survived, the
first generation really took an interest in perpetuating narrative
tradition. (2) The _order_ of even such events as secured perpetuation
was already hopelessly lost at a time more remote than the writing of
our earliest gospel. This is true not only for Mark, as 'the Elder'
frankly confesses, but for Matthew, Luke and every one else.
Unchronological as Mark's order often is (and the tradition as to the
'casual anecdotes' agrees with the critical phenomena of the text), it
is vastly more historical than Matthew's reconstruction. On the other
hand Luke, while expressly undertaking to improve in this special
respect upon his predecessors, almost never ventures to depart from the
order of Mark, and when he does has never the support of Matthew, and
usually not that of real probability. In short, incorrect as they knew
the order of Mark to be, it was the best that could be had in the days
when evangelists began to go beyond the mere _syntagmas_, and to write
"gospels" as we understand them, or, in their own language, "the things
which Jesus began _both_ to do _and_ to teach" (Acts i. 1). From these
two great outstanding phenomena of gospel criticism alone it would be
apparent that the distinction dimly perceived in the tradition of the
Jerusalem elders reported by Papias, and indeed by many later writers,
is no illusion, but an important and vital fact.
Footnote 18: It was superscribed "These are the ... words (_logoi_
as in the Pastoral Epistles, not _logia_ as in Papias and Polycarp)
which Jesus the living Lord spoke to the disciples and Thomas."
Footnote 19: The possibility should be left open that the Greek
Matthew was written in Egypt (cf. Matt. ii. 15), as some critics
hold. From the point of view of the church historian, however, Egypt
must really be classed as in "the regions of southern Syria." Its
relations with Jerusalem were close and constant.
A third big, unexpected fact looms up as we round the capes of critical
analysis, subtracting from Matthew and Luke first the elements peculiar
to each, then that derived by each from Mark. It is a fact susceptible,
however, of various interpretation. To some it only proves either the
futility of criticism, or the worthlessness of ancient tradition. To us
it proves simply that the process of transition in Palestine, the home
of evangelic tradition, from the primitive _syntagma_ of Precepts,
framed on the plan of the Talmudic treatise known as _Pirke Aboth_, or
"Sayings of the Fathers," to the Greek type of narrative gospel, was a
longer and more complex one than has commonly been imagined. A cursory
statement of the results of critical efforts to reproduce the so-called
"second source" of Matthew and Luke (Mark being considered the first),
will serve to bring out the fact to which we refer, and at the same
time, we hope, to throw light upon the history of gospel development.
The mere process of subtraction above described to obtain the element Q
offers no serious difficulties, and for those who attach value to the
tradition of 'the Elders' it is natural to anticipate that the remainder
will show traits corresponding to the description of an apostolic
_syntagma_ of sayings of the Lord translated from the Aramaic, in short
the much-desired _Logia_ of Matthew. The actual result is disappointing
to such an expectation. The widely, though perhaps somewhat
thoughtlessly accepted equivalence Q = the _Logia_ is simply false. Q is
_not_ the _Logia_. It is not a _syntagma_, nor even a consistent whole,
and as it lay before our first and third evangelists it was not (for a
considerable part at least) in Aramaic. True, Q does consist _almost_
exclusively of discourse material, a large part of which has only
topical order, and is wholly, or mainly, destitute of narrative
connection. Also we find traces here and there of translation at some
period from the Aramaic, though not more in the Q element than in Mark.
But to those who looked for immediate confirmation of the tradition the
result has been on the whole disappointing. Some, more particularly
among English critics, have considered it to justify a falling back upon
the vaguer generalities of the once prevalent theory of oral tradition.
In reality we are simply called upon to renew the process of
discrimination. Most of the Q material has the saying-character and is
strung together with that lack of all save topical order which we look
for in a _syntagma_. But parts of it, such as the Healing of the
Centurion's servant (Matt. viii. 5-10, 13 = Luke vii. 1-10), or the
Preaching of the Baptist and Temptation Story (Matt. iii. 7-10, 12; iv.
2-11 = Luke iii. 7-9, 17; iv. 2-13), obstinately refuse to be brought
under this category. Moreover, the latter section has the unmistakable
motive of presenting Jesus _in his character and ministry_ as "the Son
of God," precisely as in Mark. It begins by introducing Jesus on the
stage at the baptism of John, after the ancient narrative outline (Acts
i. 22; x. 37 f.), and cannot be imagined as forming part of anything
else but a _narrative_ having the conclusion characteristic of our own
type of gospel. Other considerable sections of Q, such as the Question
of John's Disciples and Discourse of Jesus on those that were 'Stumbled'
in him (Matt. xi. 2-11, 16-27; Luke vii. 18-35; x. 13-22), share with
the Baptism and Temptation section not only the doctrinal motive of
commending Jesus in his person and ministry as the longed-for Son of
God, but in a number of characteristics which set them quite apart from
the general mass of precepts and parables in Q. We can here mention only
the following: (1) the coincidence in language between Matthew and Luke
is much greater in these sections of Q, often even greater than in the
sections borrowed from Mark, showing clearly the existence of a common
document written not in Aramaic, but in the Greek language. (2) This
material, unlike most of Q, has served as a source and model in many
portions of Mark. (3) It is for the most part not included in the five
great blocks into which Matthew has divided the Precepts by means of a
special concluding formula (vii. 28; xi. 1; xiii. 53; xix. 1, and xxvi.
1) but appears outside, in the form of supplements to the Markan
narrative (iii. 7--iv. 11; viii. 5-13, 18-22, xi. 2-27; xii. 38-45,
etc.). Finally (4) the Q material of this type seems to be given more
copiously by Luke than by Matthew, and with something more than mere
conjecture of his own as to its historical occasion. In fact, since it
appears that at least this element of Q was known to Mark, there is
nothing to justify exclusion from it of such material as the
Transfiguration story, though in this case it would be needful to prove
that Mark was not the source. Similarly it would be reasonable to think
of Luke's wide divergence from Mark in his story of the Passion as
occasioned by his preference for material derived from this source.
Only, since Matthew has preferred to follow Mark, we have no means of
determining whence Luke did derive his new and here often valuable
material.
The existence, then, of an element of Q which quite fails to correspond
to what we take the Matthaean _syntagma_ to have been by no means proves
either the futility of criticism or the worthlessness of the ancient
tradition. It only shows that our synoptic evangelists were not the
first to attempt the combination of discourse with narrative, but that
Luke at least had a predecessor in the field, to whom all are more or
less indebted. Criticism and tradition together show that there are two
great streams from which all historically trustworthy material has been
derived. The one is Evangelic Story, and is mainly derived from Mark's
outline of the ministry based on the anecdotes of Peter, though some
elements come from another source, principally preserved by Luke, which
we must discuss in a later chapter devoted to the growth of Petrine
story at Rome and Antioch. The other stream, "Words of the Lord," comes
from Jerusalem, and is always associated in all its forms with the name
of Matthew. We have every reason for accepting the statement that as
early as the founding of the church in Rome (45-50) the Apostle Matthew
had begun the work of compiling the Precepts of Jesus, in a form
serviceable to the object of "teaching men to observe all things
whatsoever he had commanded." Our present Gospel of Matthew, however, is
neither this work nor a translation of it; for the only three things
told us about the apostle's work are all irreconcilable with the
characteristics of our Matthew. The compilation of "Words of the Lord"
was (1) a _syntagma_ and not, like Mark, an outline of the ministry. It
was (2) written in Aramaic; whereas our Matthew is an original Greek
composition. It was (3) by an apostle who had personal acquaintance with
Jesus; whereas our first evangelist is to the last degree dependent upon
the confessedly defective story of Mark. Still if we take our Matthew as
the last link in the long chain of development, covering perhaps half a
century, and including such by-products as the _Gospel according to the
Hebrews_ and the _Gospel of the Nazarenes_, we may obtain a welcome
light upon the environment out of which has come down the work which an
able scholar justly declared, "the most important book ever written, the
Gospel according to Matthew."
The language in which it was written was alone sufficient to place the
Greek Matthew beyond all possible competition in the larger world from
Aramaic rivals. But its comprehensiveness and catholicity still further
helped it to the position which it soon attained as the most widely used
of all the gospels. Matthew is not only in its whole structure a
composite gospel, but shows in high degree the catholicizing tendency of
the times. Just as it frankly adopts the Roman-Petrine narrative of Mark
with slightest possible modification, so also it places in Peter's hand
with equal frankness the primacy in apostolic succession. Almost the
only additions it makes to Mark's account of the public ministry are the
story of Peter's walking on the sea (xiv. 28-33), and his payment of the
temple tribute for Christ and himself with the coin from the fish's
mouth (xvii. 24-27). The latter story introduces the chapter on the
exercise of rulership in "the church" (ch. xviii.), beginning with the
disciples' question: "Who _then_ is greatest in the kingdom?" Peter is
again in it the one salient figure (xviii. 21). An equally important
addition, connected with xviii. 17 f. is the famous committal to Peter
of the power of the keys, with the declaration making him for his
confession the 'Rock' foundation of "the church." This addition to
Mark's story of the rebuke of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, is one which
decidedly alters its bearing, and seems even to borrow the very language
of Gal. i. 16 f. in order to exalt the apostleship of Peter. In fact,
the Roman gospel and the Palestinian almost reverse the roles we should
expect Peter to play in each. Matthew alone makes Peter "the first" (x.
2), while Mark seems to take special pains to record rebukes of the
twelve and the brethren of the Lord, and especially the rebukes called
down upon themselves by Peter, or Peter and John.
In respect to the primacy of Peter we can observe a certain difference
even among the Palestinian gospels which succeeded to the primitive
_syntagma_ of Matthew. Little, indeed, is known of the orthodox _Gospel
of the Nazarenes_, beyond its relatively late and composite character;
for it borrowed from Matthew, Mark and Luke in turn. Its list of
apostles, however, begins with "John and James the sons of Zebedee,"
_then_ "Simon and Andrew," and winds up: "Thee also, Matthew, did I
call, as thou wert sitting at the seat of custom, and thou followedst
me." The anti-Pauline _Gospel according to the Hebrews_ shows its
conception of the seat of apostolic authority by giving to "James the
Just" the place of Peter as recipient of that first manifestation of the
risen Lord, which laid the foundation of the faith. Why then does the
Greek Palestinian gospel, in contrast with its rivals, lay such special
stress on the primacy of Peter?
From the cautious and (as it were) deprecatory tone of the appendix to
John (John xxi.) in seeking to commend the "other disciple whom Jesus
loved" as worthy to be accepted as a "true witness" without detriment to
the acknowledged authority of Peter as chief under-shepherd of the
flock, we may infer that not at Rome alone, but wherever there was
question of 'apostolic' tradition, the authority of Peter was coming
rapidly to the fore. The tendency at Antioch is even more marked than at
Rome, as is manifest from Acts. If, then, it seems stronger still in a
region where we should expect the authority of James to be put forward,
this need not be taken as a specifically Roman trait. We must realize
the sharp antagonism which existed in Palestine from the time of the
Apostolic council down, between (1) the consistent legalists, who
maintained down to the period of Justin (153) and the _Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions_ (180-200), their bitter hostility to Paul and
his gospel of Gentile freedom from the Law; and (2) the 'catholic,' or
liberal, Jewish-Christians, who took the standpoint of the Pillars. It
is but one of many indications of its 'catholic' tendency that our
Matthew increases the emphasis on the apostolic authority of Peter to
the point of an actual primacy. The phenomenon must be judged in the
light of the disappearance or suppression of all evangelic story save
what came under the name of Peter, and the tendency in Acts to bring
under his name even the entire apostleship to the Gentiles. Peter is not
yet in these early writings the representative of Rome, but of
_catholicity_. The issue in Matthew is not as between Rome and some
other dominant see, but (as the reflection of the language of Gal. i.
17 f. in Matt. xvi. 17 shows) as between 'catholic' apostolic
authority and the unsafe tendencies of Pauline independence.
Nevertheless, for all his leanings to catholicity the Greek Matthew has
not wholly succeeded in excluding materials which still reflect
Jewish-Christian hostility to Paul, or at least to the tendencies of
Pauline Christianity. Over and over again special additions are made in
Matthew to emphasize a warning against the workers of "lawlessness." The
exhortation of Jesus in Luke vi. 42-45 to effect (self-)reformation not
on the surface, nor in word, but by change of the inward root of
disposition fructifying in deeds, is altered in Matt. vii. 15-22 into a
warning against the "false prophets" who work "lawlessness," and who
must be judged by their fruits. They make the confession of Lordship
(_cf._ Rom. x. 9) but are not obedient to Jesus' commandment, and lack
good works. In particular the test of Mark ix. 38-40 is directly
reversed. The principle "Whosoever is not against us is for us" is not
to be trusted. A teacher may exercise the 'spiritual gifts' of prophecy,
exorcism, and miracles wrought in the name of Jesus, and still be a
reprobate. A similar (and most incongruous) addition is made to Mark's
parable of the Patient Husbandman (Mark iv. 26-29), in Matt. xiii.
24-30, and reiterated in a specially appended "interpretation" (xiii.
36-43). This addition likens the "workers of lawlessness" to tares sown
alongside the good seed of the word by "an enemy." A similar incongruous
attachment is made to the parable of the Marriage feast (Matt. xxii.
1-14; _cf._ Luke xiv. 15-24) to warn against the lack of the 'garment of
good works.' Finally, Matthew closes his whole series of the discourses
of Jesus with a group of three parables developed with great elaboration
and rhetorical effect, out of relatively slight suggestions as found
elsewhere. The sole theme of the series is the indispensableness of good
works in the judgment (Matt. 25; _cf._ Luke xii. 35-38; xix. 11-28, and
Mark ix. 37, 41). A similar interest appears in Matthew's insistence on
the permanent obligation of the Law (v. (16) 17-20; xix. 16-22--in
contrast with Mark x. 17-22), on respect for the temple (xvii. 24-27)
and on the Davidic descent of Jesus, with fulfilment of messianic
promise in him (chh. i.-ii.; ix. 27). He limits the activity of Jesus to
the Holy Land (xv. 22; contrast Mark vii. 24 f.), makes him in sending
forth the Twelve (x. 5 f.) specifically forbid mission work among
Samaritans or Gentiles, and while the prohibition is finally removed in
xxviii. 18-20, the apostolic seat cannot be removed, but remains as in
x. 23, among "the cities of Israel" to the end of the world.
There is probably no more of intentional opposition to Paul or to his
gospel in all this than in James or Luke. We cannot for example regard
it as more than accidental coincidence that in the phrase "an enemy hath
done this," in the parable of the tares, we have the same epithet which
the Ebionite literature applies to Paul. But enough remains to indicate
how strongly Jewish-Christian prejudices and limitations still affected
our evangelist. With respect to date, the atmosphere is in all respects
such as characterizes the period of the nineties.
It does not belong to our present purpose to analyze this gospel into
its constituent elements. The process can be followed in many treatises
on gospel criticism, and the results will be found summarized in
_Introductions_ to the New Testament such as the recent scholarly work
of Moffatt. We have here but to note the general character and structure
of the book as revealing the main outlines of its history and the
conditions which gave it birth.
Matthew and Luke are alike in that both represent comparatively late
attempts to combine the ancient Matthaean _syntagma_ with the
'Memorabilia of Peter' compiled by Mark. But there is a great
difference. Luke contemplates his work with some of the motives of the
historian. He adopts the method of narrative, and therefore subordinates
his discourse material to a conception (often confused enough) of
sequence in space and time. Matthew, as the structure of his gospel, no
less than his own avowal shows, had an aim more nearly corresponding to
the ancient Palestinian type. The demand for the narrative form had
become irresistible. It controlled even his later Greek and Aramaic
rivals. But Matthew has subordinated the historical to the ethical
motive. He aims at, and has rendered, just the service which his age
demanded and for which it could look to no other region than Jerusalem,
a full compilation of the commandments and precepts of Jesus.
The narrative framework is adopted from Mark without serious alteration,
because this work had already proved its effectiveness in convincing men
everywhere that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of God." Like Luke,
Matthew prefixes an account of Jesus' miraculous birth and childhood,
because in his time (_c._ 90) the ancient "beginning of the gospel" with
the baptism by John had given opportunity to the heresy of the
Adoptionists, represented by Cerinthus, who maintained that Jesus
_became_ the Son of God at his baptism, a merely temporary "receptacle"
of the Spirit. The prefixed chapters have no incarnation doctrine, and
no doctrine of pre-existence. They do not intend in their story of the
miraculous birth to relate the incoming of a superhuman or non-human
being into the world, else they could not take up the pedigree of Joseph
as exhibiting Jesus' title to the throne of David. Miracle attends and
signalizes the birth of that "Son of David" who is destined to become
the Son of God. Apart from the mere question of attendant prodigy the
aim of Matthew's story of the Infancy is such as should command the
respect and sympathy of every rational thinker. Against all Doketic
dualism it maintains that the Son of God is such from birth to death.
The presence of God's Spirit with him is not a mere counterpart to
demonic "possession," but is part of his nature as true man from the
beginning.
But the doctrinal interest of Matthew scarcely goes beyond the point of
proving that Jesus is the Christ foretold by the prophets. Doctrine as
well as history is subordinate to the one great aim of teaching men to
"observe all things whatsoever Jesus commanded."