Matthew, Gospel according to
The author of this book was beyond a doubt the Matthew, an apostle of our Lord, whose name it bears. He wrote the Gospel of Christ according to his own plans and aims, and from his own point of view, as did also the other “evangelists.”
As to the time of its composition, there is little in the Gospel itself to indicate. It was evidently written before the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 24), and some time after the events it records. The probability is that it was written between the years A.D. 60 and 65.
The cast of thought and the forms of expression employed by the writer show that this Gospel was written for Jewish Christians of Palestine. His great object is to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah, and that in him the ancient prophecies had their fulfilment. The Gospel is full of allusions to those passages of the Old Testament in which Christ is predicted and foreshadowed. The one aim prevading the whole book is to show that Jesus is he “of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write.” This Gospel contains no fewer than sixty-five references to the Old Testament, forty-three of these being direct verbal citations, thus greatly outnumbering those found in the other Gospels. The main feature of this Gospel may be expressed in the motto, “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
As to the language in which this Gospel was written there is much controversy. Many hold, in accordance with old tradition, that it was originally written in Hebrew (i.e., the Aramaic or Syro-Chaldee dialect, then the vernacular of the inhabitants of Palestine), and afterwards translated into Greek, either by Matthew himself or by some person unknown. This theory, though earnestly maintained by able critics, we cannot See any ground for adopting. From the first this Gospel in Greek was received as of authority in the Church. There is nothing in it to show that it is a translation. Though Matthew wrote mainly for the Jews, yet they were everywhere familiar with the Greek language. The same reasons which would have suggested the necessity of a translation into Greek would have led the evangelist to write in Greek at first. It is confessed that this Gospel has never been found in any other form than that in which we now possess it.
The leading characteristic of this Gospel is that it sets forth the kingly glory of Christ, and shows him to be the true heir to David’s throne. It is the Gospel of the kingdom. Matthew uses the expression “kingdom of heaven” (thirty-two times), while Luke uses the expression “kingdom of God” (thirty-three times). Some Latinized forms occur in this Gospel, as kodrantes (Matt. 5:26), for the Latin quadrans, and phragello (27:26), for the Latin flagello. It must be remembered that Matthew was a tax-gatherer for the Roman government, and hence in contact with those using the Latin language.
As to the relation of the Gospels to each other, we must maintain that each writer of the synoptics (the first three) wrote independently of the other two, Matthew being probably first in point of time.
“Out of a total of 1071 verses, Matthew has 387 in common with Mark and Luke, 130 with Mark, 184 with Luke; only 387 being peculiar to itself.” (See MARK; LUKE; GOSPELS)
The book is fitly divided into these four parts: (1.) Containing the genealogy, the birth, and the infancy of Jesus (1; 2).
(2.) The discourses and actions of John the Baptist preparatory to Christ’s public ministry (3; 4:11).
(3.) The discourses and actions of Christ in Galilee (4:12-20:16).
(4.) The sufferings, death and resurrection of our Lord (20:17-28).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Matthew, Gospel According To
MATTHEW, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO.The power of God unto salvationto the Jew first, and also to the Greek.The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke may be characterized respectively as the Gospel of the Jew and the Gospel of the Greek. St. Luke gives us the conception of the Christ as His Person presented itself to the Greek Churches of the West. To them Christ was the Saviour of the world, the Divine Redeemer, whose Good News was equally available for all the children of men, regardless of distinctions of race, or class, or sex. St. Matthew, on the other hand, presents to us the Christ as He was conceived by the Jewish Christians of Palestine. To them Christ was the King of Israel; and the glad tidings of His coming Kingdom were intended first for the Chosen People. It was true that He had foretold the coming of many from the east and the west to sit down in the Kingdom of God (Mat 8:11), and had bidden His Apostles baptize all nations (Mat 28:19); but then it had always been a part of the Divine plan to suffer aliens to enter as proselytes into the fold of Israel, and to partake of the blessings promised to the Chosen People. So it was to be with the new Israel. In the period of preparation for the Kingdom, the gospel was to be preached to all nations for a testimony (Mat 24:14), and those who entered by baptism into the Christian Church would become members of that new Israel, which in the days of the Kingdom should be judged and governed by the twelve Apostles as viceroys of the King Messiah (Mat 19:28).
Of course the distinction here drawn makes itself felt in two respects. First, in the selection of material by the two writers. Each Evangelist has a certain amount of matter peculiar to himself; and it will be found that whilst in the First Gospel this is very largely matter which lends itself to the Christianity of one who was glad to emphasize the prior claim of the Jew to the blessings of the Kingdom, that in St. Luke is predominantly material capable of a more universalistic interpretation. Secondly, in the treatment of the large amount of material which is common to the two Gospels. A good example is to be found in the discourse on the Last Things. Whilst St. Matthew emphasizes the close connexion between the fall of Jerusalem and the Coming of the Son of Man (Mat 24:29), thus limiting the period during which the gospel could be preached to the Gentiles, St. Luke expands this period to an indefinite length, during which Jerusalem was to be trodden under foot (Luk 21:24), thus making space for a long and protracted preaching to the Gentiles.
In the present article we propose to discuss the chief features in the picture of the Person of Christ drawn for us by the First Evangelist, and to consider the bearing of this upon the questions of the author, the sources, the date, and the historical value of the Gospel.
1. Theology of the Gospel.
(1) The Messiah.Jesus the Messiah was legally descended from David, and through him from Abraham, the father of the Israelite people (Mat 1:1). He was the culminating point in the history of His family. In David it had risen to monarchical power (Mat 1:6), but at the period of the Captivity it had lost this dignity. But now again in Jesus the anointed King it had regained it (Mat 1:16). He was therefore born king of the Jews (Mat 2:2). As King He entered Jerusalem (Mat 21:5). As King He suffered the death of crucifixion (Mat 27:38; Mat 27:42), and as King He would sit to judge all nations at the Last Day (Mat 25:31 ff.). But He was no mere scion of the Davidic stock. Though legally descended from David through Joseph ben-Jacob, He was also in a unique sense Son of God. As such He was born of the Holy Spirit from a virgin (Mat 1:18-25). Hence He was God with us (Mat 1:23), and this Divine Sonship placed Him in a unique relationship to God. He could speak of God and of Himself as the Father and the Son, as though these terms could only be applied to this relationship (Mat 11:27); and David himself had recognized by the Divine inspiration this Divine Sonship of his promised descendant, when he applied to Him the Divine name Lord (Mat 22:44). The history of the supernatural birth was, of course, an easy mark for Jewish calumny, but nevertheless it was a fact which had been Divinely foreordained (Mat 1:22); and in the history of the Davidic family there had been women of old time (Rahab, Bathsheba, Tamar, Ruth) whose lives should have taught the calumniators of the Virgin that God overrules and uses circumstances for His own Divine ends. Moreover, if in Jesus the prophecies of a Coming Davidic king, supernaturally born, had found at last their fulfilment, so also in Him were summed up all the many strands in the web of Jewish anticipation. He was the Beloved (Mat 3:17, Mat 17:5) whom God had eternally chosen (Mat 3:16, Mat 12:18), and to whom God had eternally given all things (Mat 11:27) and all power (Mat 28:18). He was the supernatural Son of Man, who was to come upon the clouds of heaven (Mat 16:28, Mat 26:64, Mat 24:30), and to sit upon the throne of His glory to judge all men (Mat 16:28, Mat 19:28, Mat 25:31). And the events of His life down to the minutest details had been foretold in the OT. Thus Isaiah had foretold the circumstances (Mat 1:22), and Micah the place, of His birth (Mat 2:5). Hosea had foreseen the flight into Egypt, Jeremiah the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem (Mat 2:17); and the settlement of His parents at the ill-famed village of Nazareth had been the subject of prophecy (Mat 2:23). His herald John had been fore-announced by Isaiah (Mat 3:3), and the same prophet had foreseen the Christs ministry in Galilee, with Capernaum as His headquarters (Mat 4:14). That He healed the sick was in accordance with a prophecy of Isaiah, and the contrast between His gracious and gentle work and the noisy clamour of His opponents, found anticipation in another passage of the same prophet (Mat 12:17-21). Zechariah had foreseen His entry as King into Jerusalem (Mat 21:5), His betrayal (Mat 26:24), and the desertion of His disciples (Mat 26:31); and the whole course of His tragic end had been Divinely fore-ordained, and foretold in Scripture (Mat 16:23 [ ] Mat 26:54; Mat 26:56).
Such was the Person of Jesus. He was the Divinely foreordained Messiah, the supernaturally-born King of Israel, the unique Son of God. What then had been His work? It is clear that the editor of the Gospel is much more concerned with Christs doctrine than with His work, with what He had said than with what He had done. He is interested in the events of the life chiefly in so far as they proved Jesus to be the Messiah of the OT, and with His actions either as proofs of His supernatural power over all the known forces of life, or as illustrative of His attitude towards the orthodox Pharisaism of the day. He could, e.g., heal disease, even leprosy, without use of drugs or medical appliances, by the simple exercise of His will (Mat 8:8 Speak the word only, Mat 8:16 with a word), the cure being immediate and complete (Mat 8:13, Mat 9:22, Mat 15:28, Mat 17:18). He could control the forces of nature (Mat 8:26-27), and could drive out demons from the unhappy beings of whom they had taken possession (Mat 8:28-34). He exercised upon earth the Divine prerogative of forgiving sin (Mat 9:1-8), and raised the dead to life (Mat 9:25). He could feed multitudes with a few loaves and fishes (Mat 14:13-21, Mat 15:32-39). On the other hand, He associated with people who were regarded by the leaders of religion as ill friends for a devout man (Mat 9:11), and seemed negligent of the rules which the Pharisees had framed as the guides of a pious life. His disciples did not fast (Mat 9:14), and broke Sabbath regulations (Mat 12:2). He Himself performed acts of healing on the Sabbath day (Mat 12:10), and His disciples neglected the regulations about purification of the hands before meals (Mat 15:2). After a ministry marked by acts like these, He had been put to death by the Romans at the instigation of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He had expected this fate, and had foretold it to His disciples as being ordained of God and prophesied in Scripture (Mat 16:21 , Mat 16:23 , Mat 17:12; Mat 17:22-23, Mat 20:18-19). He had promised that on the third day He should be raised again, and this was fulfilled; and He had ascended into heaven.
Now it is clear that the details thus sketched furnish a very small part of the significance of the Gospel to the editor. The miracles proved Christs power, or illustrated His attitude towards Pharisaism, or showed Him to be the Messiah of the OT. But to what end was He powerful, and, if the Messiah, where was His Kingdom? We might have expected to find a good deal more emphasis laid on the significance of Christs death, but such emphasis is strikingly absent. The death is rather regarded as without significance in itself, but as a necessary stage in the revelation of the Messiah. He had come to found a Kingdom, but in accordance with the Divine plan had been put to death. Clearly then the Kingdom remained yet to come, and the death was a necessary prelude to glorification. The insistence on the fact that the death had to take place, because it had been foretold in the Scriptures, suggests the inference that to the editor it was a fact which required explanation, a difficult phase in the history of the Messiah rather than the central fact which itself explained everything else in His life. In two passages only is the death referred to as having any purpose or effect, rather than as being simply a thing which had happened as a necessary transition stage from the earthly life to the heavenly monarchy of the Messiah. In one of these Christ is represented as saying that He came to give His life as a ransom for many ( , Mat 20:28); in the other He speaks of His blood as shed for many for the remission of sins (Mat 26:28). It is easy to see how sayings like these could be made the foundation of a theology which would explain the whole of Christs life from the significance of His death. But it is equally clear that the editor of the First Gospel has recorded them because they formed part of the tradition which had come to him, without seeing in them an explanation of the entire earthly life of the Messiah. They are incidental rather than fundamental to his Gospel.
Thus the facts of Christs life as here recorded would have been meaningless to the editor without the teaching which he records. It is in that that he finds the explanation of Christs life. The facts alone were obscure and difficult. Jesus was the Davidic Messiah and also the Son of God. He had entered into human history through the Virgins womb. He had evinced His supernatural power in all that He did. But then He had allowed Himself to be put to death, because, as He said, the Scriptures had foretold it; and rising from the dead, He had gone into heaven again. But how then was He the Messiah, and where was the Kingdom? The main object of the Gospel is to explain this, and the explanation is given in the great discourses which the editor has formed by massing sayings or groups of sayings.
(2) The Kingdom.The central subject of Christs doctrine had been the near approach of the kingdom of the heavens. With this He began His ministry (Mat 4:17), and wherever He went He taught this as a good news (Mat 4:23). The Kingdom, He taught, was coming, but not in His lifetime. After His ascension He would come as Son of Man upon the clouds of heaven (Mat 16:27-28, Mat 19:28, Mat 24:30), would send His angels to gather together the elect (Mat 24:31, Mat 13:41), and would sit on the throne of His glory (Mat 16:28, Mat 19:28, Mat 25:31). This would happen in the lifetime of the generation to whom He spoke (Mat 16:28, Mat 24:34, Mat 10:23), immediately after the great tribulation accompanying the destruction of Jerusalem (Mat 24:29); but God alone knew the exact day and hour (Mat 24:30). Then the twelve Apostles should sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mat 19:28). In the meantime He Himself must suffer and die, and be raised from the dead. How else could He come upon the clouds of heaven? And His disciples were to preach the good news of the coming Kingdom (Mat 10:7, Mat 24:14) among all nations, making disciples by baptism (Mat 28:19). The body of disciples thus gained would naturally form a society bound by common aims (Mat 16:18, Mat 18:17). They would be distinct from the existing Jewish polity, because the Jews as a people, the sons of the kingdom, i.e. those who should have inherited it (Mat 8:12), would definitely reject the good news (Mat 21:32; Mat 21:42-43, Mat 22:7). Hence the disciples of the Kingdom would form a new spiritual Israel (Mat 21:43 a nation) which would include many who came from east and west (Mat 8:12).
In view of the needs of this new Israel of Christs disciples, i.e. of the true sons of the Kingdom (Mat 13:38), who were to await His coming on the clouds of heaven, it is natural that a large part of the teaching recorded in the Gospel should concern the qualifications required in those who hoped to enter the Kingdom when it came. They were still to live in allegiance to the revelation of God made in the OT, which was permanently valid. Not a letter was to pass away from it (Mat 5:18). Its permission of divorce still held good (Mat 5:32, Mat 19:3 ff.). Christ had not abolished the Mosaic distinctions between clean and unclean meats (see notes on Mat 15:20). His disciples were still to take two or three witnesses (Mat 18:16); and the Sabbath was still to be held sacred (Mat 24:20). But they were to search beneath the letter of the OT for its spiritual meaning. Their righteousness was to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, because they were to interpret the Law of Moses in a sense which would make it more far-reaching in its effect upon conduet than ever before (Mat 5:21-48). In particular, their righteousness was to be less a matter of something done that men might see it, and more a right relation to God, taking effect in action known only to God Himself (Mat 6:1-34). In relation to their fellow-men they were to cultivate humility, and to suppress self-assertiveness (Mat 18:1-14); to exercise forgiveness (Mat 18:15; Mat 18:21-35); to be slow to judge their fellows (Mat 7:1-5); to do to others what they would have done to themselves (Mat 7:12). In relation to wealth, they were not to hoard up treasure upon earth, but to trust in Gods care for them (Mat 6:19-34, Mat 19:28), seeking first His righteousness and Kingdom. In relation to sexual morality, they were to be chaste in thought (Mat 5:28); marriage was an indissoluble bond, broken only by adultery (Mat 19:9). But some were called to live single lives for the Kingdom of the heavens (Mat 19:12). In relation to God, they were to pray to Him for their daily needs, for His forgiveness, and for deliverance from the evil that is in the world (Mat 6:9-13, Mat 7:7-11).
In the above sketch of the picture drawn for us in the First Gospel of the Person and teaching of the Messiah, we have purposely omitted the parables. Most of the parables in this Gospel are parables of the Kingdom. With the exception of Mat 18:21-35, they do not, as in the case of many of St. Lukes parables, inculcate some Christian virtue or practice, such as love of ones neighbour, or earnestness in prayer, but convey some lesson about the nature of the Kingdom and the period of preparation for it. Their interpretation will often depend largely upon the conception of the Kingdom with which the reader approaches them. We are not now concerned with the meaning which they were intended to convey when they were originally spoken. But it should be sufficiently obvious that if we ask what meaning they had for the editor of the First Gospel, and why he selected them for insertion in his Gospel, the answer must be that he chose them because he believed that they taught lessons about the Kingdom of the heavens in the sense in which that phrase is used everywhere else in his Gospel, of the Kingdom which was to come when the Son of Man came upon the clouds of heaven. Thus the parable of the Sower illustrates the varying reception met with by the good news of the Kingdom as it is preached amongst men. That of the Tares also deals not with the Kingdom itself, but with the period of preparation for it. At the end of the age the Son of Man will come to inaugurate His Kingdom. A phrase here, shall gather out of his kingdom, has been pressed to support the interpretation that the Kingdom is thought of as present now. But it need convey no such meaning. The good seed is interpreted as equivalent to the sons of the kingdom, i.e. according to Jewish usage, not they who already live in or possess the Kingdom, but those who are destined to inherit it when it comes. It is not inaugurated until the end of the age. Then when the Son of Man comes, the Kingdom comes; and the method of its foundation is not a gathering of the elect out of the mass of mankind, but a gathering of the wicked from amongst the elect, a gathering of them out of the Kingdom that the righteous may inherit it and shine forth in it. There is nothing here or elsewhere in this Gospel to suggest that the scene of the Kingdom is other than the present world renewed, restored, and purified (cf. , Mat 19:28).
The parables of the Mustard Seed and of the Leaven describe the way in which the good news of the Kingdom spreads rapidly and penetrates deeply into human society. Those of the Hid Treasure and of the Goodly Pearl emphasize its value, and teach the lesson that a man must give up all else to enter into it. That of the Drag-Net has much the same application as the parable of the Tares. The doctrine of the Kingdom attracts good and bad alike. But at the end of the age, when the Kingdom is inaugurated, there will be a separation.
In Mat 20:1-16 occurs the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. In its present context this seems to be intended to teach the lesson that in discipleship of the Kingdom priority, whether in date of entrance upon discipleship or of position now, will not carry with it special privilege within the Kingdom when it comes. All shall receive the same rewardeternal life.
Of the other parables in the Gospel, Mat 18:21-35 does not bear directly upon the doctrine of the Kingdom, but emphasizes forgiveness as a qualification in all who wish to enter it. Mat 21:28-32 illustrates the perverse attitude of the Pharisees towards the Baptists preaching. Mat 21:33-46 and Mat 22:1-10 are historical forecasts of the fate of the Jewish nation. Mat 22:11-14 emphasizes the necessity for all who hope to enter the Kingdom of possessing the necessary qualifications. Mat 25:1-13 and Mat 25:14-30 teach the suddenness of its appearance and the necessity of watching for its coming. Mat 25:31-46 describes the test by which the King when He comes will admit the righteous into His Kingdom.
Of several of these parables it will rightly be felt that, as originally spoken, they had a wider meaning and scope than that here given, and one which is inconsistent with the narrow limits of the Kingdom to be inaugurated immediately after the fall of Jerusalem. That is quite true. But the question is not, What did these parables mean when they were originally spoken? but, What interpretation did the editor put upon them when he incorporated them into his Gospel? He everywhere seems to use the phrase kingdom of the heavens in its eschatological sense. In four or five passages he has, instead, the kingdom of God. In Mat 6:33 is probably not genuine (omit Bg1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] k). As regards Mat 19:24, a passage borrowed from Mk., the fact that Mt. in 13 other places where kingdom of God occurs in Mk., substitutes kingdom of the heavens, or omits or paraphrases the passage, makes it very probable that kingdom of the heavens should be read here also. In Mat 12:28, Mat 21:31; Mat 21:43 the editor has retained kingdom of God, not because he regarded it as equivalent to kingdom of the heavens, but because he felt that in these passages the idea conveyed was different from that which his phrase kingdom of the heavens everywhere carries with it; and he therefore retained kingdom of God to mark the difference.
Thus the conception of Christianity as expressed in this Gospel may be summarized as follows. Jesus was the King-Messiah of the OT. He was also the Son of Man of apocalyptic anticipation. But how could the functions ascribed to these two ideals be combined? Only if the King passed through death that He might come again on the clouds to inaugurate His Kingdom. And to those who could read the OT aright, all this had been foretold. Hence the Crucifixion. When Jerusalem fell, the end of the age would come, and the Son of Man would appear. In the meantime the good news was to be preached, and men were to be gathered into the society of disciples of the Messiah.
2. Date and place of composition.If the dominant conception of the book has been rightly sketched, very important conclusions can be drawn as to its provenance and date. It must have been written by a Jewish-Christian, probably by a Jewish-Christian of Palestine, and it cannot date from long after the fall of Jerusalem. For it is inconceivable that any one should so arrange the words of Christ as to convey the impression that He had taught that He would return as Son of Man immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, if many years had elapsed since that event. And this conclusion as to the early date and Palestinian origin of the Gospel is supported by other features of the book. It is markedly anti-Pharisaic, and strongly Jewish-Christian in outlook.
(1) Its anti-Pharisaism.This already underlies the stories of the first two chapters, which are most easily explained as a narrative of facts written to rebut Pharisaic calumnies. Christ was born of a virgin, but He was legally of Davidic descent, and the Virgin Marys marvellous history already found prototypes by contrast in the history of women connected with the ancestors of the Christ. If He went into Egypt, it was in the days of His infancy, and He brought no magical arts thence. If His parents settled at Nazareth, it was that the tenor of prophecy might be fulfilled.
So far the anti-Pharisaic polemic of the writer has been defensive and implicit. In the third chapter it becomes manifest and open. The sayings of the Baptist are so arranged as to form a sermon of denunciation of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are a brood of vipers, who pride themselves on their descent from Abraham. But right action based on repentance is the only ground for hope of Gods favour. The Messiah is at hand, and will sweep away all such false claims with the fire of judgment. In the Sermon on the Mount the same anti-Pharisaic polemic is found. Their righteousness will not admit them into the Kingdom (Mat 5:20). They are hypocrites whose religious observances are based on desire for personal eredit (Mat 6:1-17). In Mat 8:12 they are the sons of the kingdom, but nevertheless they will be cast into the outer darkness. It was the Pharisees who complained that Christ ate with tax-gatherers and sinners (Mat 9:11), and it was they who ascribed His power to cast out demons to Beelzebul (Mat 9:34, Mat 12:24). They accused His disciples (Mat 12:2), and Christ Himself (Mat 12:10), of doing illegal actions on the Sabbath. They plotted to destroy Him (Mat 12:14), and asked a sign from Him (Mat 12:38). They condemned His disciples for eating with unwashen hands (Mat 15:2), and were shocked at His teaching about things clean and unclean (Mat 15:12), being themselves blind guides (Mat 15:14). The disciples were to beware of their teaching (Mat 16:12). In the last days of the Messiahs life the Pharisees took a prominent part in the events that led to His death. They plotted with the chief priests to arrest Him (Mat 21:45). They planned to entrap Him in His speech (Mat 22:15). They tried to entangle Him in argument (Mat 22:34; Mat 22:41). All this leads up to the tremendous indictment of the scribes and Pharisees in ch. 23. In the narrative dealing with the Crucifixion we read naturally rather of the chief priests and elders than of the Pharisees; but it is the latter, with the chief priests, who effect the sealing of the tomb (Mat 27:62 ff.).
(2) The Jewish-Christian element.Of course the whole conception of the Kingdom of the heavens as sketched above is Jewish-Christian in character. But there are other Jewish-Christian features in the Gospel. (a) One is the interest shown in St. Peter. He was one of the earliest of Christs disciples (Mat 4:18), and Christ had healed his wifes mother (Mat 8:14). He was in some sense first of the Twelve (Mat 10:2.), and it was he who walked on the waters at Christs command (Mat 14:28 ff.). It was he who first confessed Christs Messiahship (Mat 16:16), and received the promise of high rank in the Kingdom (Mat 16:19). By inserting this passage the editor blunts the severity of the rebuke (Mat 16:23), which St. Luke altogether omits. It was Peter who was prominent amongst the three who were privileged to be on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mat 17:4), and it was he to whom the tax-gatherers came as to one who was the representative of the other disciples. It was Peter who acted as the spokesman of the rest (Mat 15:15, Mat 18:21, Mat 26:33; Mat 26:35), or who was addressed as representing the others (Mat 26:40). It was he who penetrated into the palace, and there denied that he knew Christ (Mat 26:58-75). If all the Apostles were to sit on thrones in the new age (Mat 19:28), Peter was to have administrative and legislative power in the Kingdom (Mat 16:19).
(b) Another Jewish-Christian feature in the Gospel is the presence in it of sayings which seem to limit Christs mission and doctrine to the Jewish nation. In His own lifetime He had expressly asserted this of His own activity. I was not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat 15:24). On two occasions He had extended His mercy to pagans (Mat 8:5-13, Mat 15:21-28), but on the latter occasion He made it plain that the grace thus extended to a Gentile woman was only as it were a crumb which had dropped from the table of the Jews, to whom He was sent, and had been devoured by a Gentile dog. He bade His disciples go not to the way of the Gentiles, nor to the cities of the Samaritans, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat 10:6); and said they should not have exhausted the cities of Israel before His coming (Mat 10:23). In the new age the Apostles were to rule over a new Israel (Mat 19:28). Of course, side by side with these sayings from his Palestinian sources, the editor has incorporated others from other sources, which prove that he himself was well aware that Christ had on other occasions foreseen and commanded the admission of Gentiles to the discipleship of the Kingdom. Many were to come from east and west (Mat 8:11), and the three parables in Mat 21:28 to Mat 22:14 seem to convey the same truth. Further, the good news was to be preached among all nations for a testimony (Mat 24:14), and the Apostles were to make disciples of all nations (Mat 28:19). But there is nothing in any of these passages to suggest that the editor anticipated the admission of Gentiles to discipleship save on terms similar to those on which proselytes had been admitted to the old Israel;* [Note: At least the Mosaic Law was to be binding upon them.] and it is clear that he saw no difficulty in the preaching to all nations being accomplished within a generation, for the end (Mat 24:14) which was to close this preaching was the period of great tribulation accompanying the siege of the city, followed immediately by the coming of the Son of Man (Mat 24:30).
(c) A third Jewish-Christian feature is the insistence on the permanent obligations of the Mosaic Law; see above, p. 144b.
Now all these characteristics of the Gospel point irresistibly to Palestine, and to Palestine in the period before or very soon after the fall of Jerusalem, as the place and date of the composition of the Gospel. The most obvious feature in this connexion is the belief that the coming of the Son of Man would immediately follow the period of tribulation accompanying the siege of the city. But the other features above mentioned point in the same direction. The prominence given to St. Peter is natural enough in traditions which had been collected and preserved in Palestine in the early days of the Church at Jerusalem. The limitation of Christianity to Jews or proselytes, and the insistence on the permanent validity of the Law, reflect the same primitive Christian atmosphere as we breathe in the first few chapters of the Acts, before the pressure of circumstances had compelled the Apostles to recognize that St. Paul must be right, and that under Christianity Jew and Gentile stood on the same plane in the sight of God.
Lastly, the anti-Pharisaic attitude of the editor would be natural in one who knew something of the difficulties of the Jewish-Christian Church in the early days when Pharisaic hatred pursued its members from city to city.
The date thus arrived at affects the whole Gospel and not only portions of it. It is a literary unity, and apart from a few possible later interpolations, e.g. Mat 6:14 (the doxology) Mat 22:43, Mat 23:35 (son of Barachiah), belongs to one editor, and to one period of final composition. The attempts made to argue for a late date for the composition of the whole book from isolated phrases, or to mark large sections as late additions, fail to account for the unity of idea and conception that runs through the whole work, and neglect the cumulative evidence of the conceptions that characterize it for an early date.
Mat 1:18-25 has been claimed as late because the idea of virgin-birth is quite foreign to Judaism. As a matter of fact this idea is thoroughly Eastern (as well as Western), and must have been familiar to every Palestinian Jew who had read the Septaagint. And in other respects the narrative is Jewish throughout. The occurrence of the word (Mat 16:19, Mat 18:17) and the Baptismal Formula (Mat 28:19) have been said to betray late date. But there is no possible reason why a Jewish Christian writing about the year a.d. 70 should not have used to represent whatever Aramaic word was originally uttered; and if the Triune name in Mat 28:19 is not a later gloss, it may well have been used by a Palestinian Christian who was contemporary with St. Paul (cf. 1Co 12:3, 2Co 13:14, and 1Pe 1:2, 1Jn 3:23-24).
3. The Sources.If, then, we take the year a.d. 70 as an approximate date for the composition of the Gospel, there remain the questions of its sources, its author, and its historical value The facts about the sources are these:
(1) The editor has borrowed the greater part of the Second Gospel, and has made it the framework of his narrative. He has altered the order of Mar 1:1 to Mar 7:24 in order to group the material under subject-heads. He has greatly expanded the discourses. He makes omissions and alterations in phrases relating to the Person of Christ, omitting especially expressions which attribute to Him inability, or desire for information, and terms of human emotion; and makes a series of somewhat similar changes in clauses relating to the Apostles. For the details of his editorial revision of the Second Gospel, see art. Mark (Gospel), and the Com. on Matthew in ICC [Note: CC International Critical Commentary.] , pp. xiiixl.
(2) The Gospel contains, besides this Markan material, a good deal of matter, almost entirely sayings, which is found also in substance in the Third Gospel. It is generally supposed that this was borrowed by the two Evangelists from a common source, viz. a collection of Gospel material compiled by the Apostle Matthew, and referred to by Papias (Eus. Historia Ecclesiastica iii. xxxix.).
The present writer has elsewhere attempted to prove that, so far as St. Luke goes, this is not a very probable theory. Besides these sayings which he has in common with St. Luke, the editor of the First Gospel has also a number of sayings found only in his Gospel. The probability is that he borrowed these peculiar sayings, and most of those common to him and to St. Luke, from the Apostolic collection of sayings mentioned by Papias. If so, it is not very likely that St. Luke had also seen this collection. Rather material from it had passed into some of the many sources which he had used (Luk 1:1), and were borrowed by him from them. See Matthew, l.c. pp. xlilxii. Thus Mt.s second source was the Matthaean Logia or collection of discourses.
(3) What remains of the Gospel, when we have put aside the matter borrowed from Mk. and the sayings drawn from the Logia, consists of a number of narrative traditions. These deal with Christs Birth and Infancy (chs. 1, 2), with a few incidents connected with St. Peter (Mat 14:28-31; Mat 17:24-27), and with some details connected with Christs trial and Resurrection (Mat 27:3-10; Mat 27:19; Mat 27:24-25; Mat 27:51-53; Mat 27:62-66, Mat 28:11-15). They were all drawn, it may be supposed, from current Palestinian Christian tradition.
(4) Lastly, a number of quotations of a peculiar type, which are introduced by a special formula (Mat 1:22-23, Mat 2:5-6; Mat 2:15; Mat 2:17-18; Mat 2:23, Mat 4:14-16, Mat 8:17, Mat 12:17-21, Mat 13:35, Mat 21:4-5, Mat 27:9), were drawn from a catena or list of OT Messianic passages, which had already been translated into Greek when the editor borrowed them.
4. The Author.Now, who was the writer who thus welded together the Second Gospel, the Matthaean Logia, a number of Palestinian traditions, and a series of OT quotations, into our present Gospel? From the end of the 2nd cent. the work has been ascribed to St. Matthew. But there are the following difficulties in this ascription:
(1) The same writers who attribute our Gospel to St. Matthew state that he wrote it in Hebrew or Aramaic. Now it is clear that our Gospel was composed in Greek, and is based upon Greek sources. This is certain so far as the material drawn from the Second Gospel is concerned, and probable for the sayings drawn from the Matthaean Logia.
(2) It does not seem very probable that the Apostle Matthew should have written a Gospel from second-hand materials. The work lacks that freshness of presentation which we should expect from an eye-witness of many of the events.
How then explain the ascription of the Gospel to him? Because the book, in a sense in which the statement is not true of St. Lukes Gospel, is based directly upon the collection of sayings compiled by the Apostle. We must, therefore, suppose that the author was an otherwise unknown Jewish Christian of Palestine, who about the year a.d. 70 compiled his Gospel, using as his framework the Second Gospel, but borrowing largely from the Matthaean Logia, and inserting also some Palestinian traditions with which he was familiar. The Gospel, as it left his hand, represents the conception of Christs Person and work which was dominant in the Palestinian Church in the middle of the 1st cent. a.d. To Christians there Jesus was the Jewish King-Messiah. His life on earth was only the prelude to His sovereignty. For He was to come again as Son of Man at the end of the age, and that was imminent, and would follow immediately upon the final downfall of the Jewish polity.
5. Historical value.So far as the question of the historical value of the detail given in the Gospel is concerned, we may set aside for our present purpose all that is drawn from St. Marks Gospel. The value of that is a consideration for a writer on the Second Gospel (see above, p. 133 ff., and cf. the Dean of Westminsters Study of the Gospels, and Burkitts The Gospel History and its Transmission). The sayings drawn from the Matthaean Logia have behind them Apostolic authority, and, allowing for some change of emphasis and possible accretion in the process of transmission, may safely be taken as representing actual utterances of Christ.
The Palestinian traditions peculiar to the Gospel are probably not all of equal weight. The narrative of the supernatural birth is best attested, because the main fact of the story is supported by the tradition known to St. Luke. Of the rest it is difficult to say more than that they are early Palestinian traditions, and we must abstain from condemning them upon purely fanciful grounds as legendary.
But the question of historical value can be raised in a different form, and one of much greater importance. Allowing the substantial accuracy of the bulk of the detail in the Gospel, and without discussing the precise value and importance to be attached to each separate tradition, how far do the main conceptions of Christ and of His doctrine which run through the Gospel correspond to the historical Christ? Did He teach what is here ascribed to Him?
Something may be learned in this connexion if we consider the method of the Evangelist. He presents to us selections from Christs sayings, arranged in what is clearly often an artificial and literary manner. A good example of this is the Charge to the Twelve. The nucleus of this consists of a few sayings, recorded by St. Mark, addressed to the Twelve when Christ sent them forth on a journey of preaching in Palestine. But the editor of the First Gospel is so little concerned with the actual historical facts that he omits altogether the statements descriptive of their going forth and of their return. The local and temporary mission in Palestine merges itself in his mind in the wider and universal mission to all nations. He draws from his sources many other sayings which had reference to this wider mission work, and adds them to St. Marks short discourse, regardless of the fact that some of them were not spoken on that particular occasion. Now, selection and artificial grouping of this kind, useful as it is, inevitably involves over-emphasis. Teaching, which would have explained and counter-balanced that which is recorded, is left out, and impressions are given which would be qualified, if the selection given had been larger, or the grouping less artificial. And combined with this feature of arbitrary selection and artificial grouping may be linked the local character of the Gospel, and the early date of its material. For it is clear that the Jewish-Christian disciples in the early Church stood too near to the life of the Christ to be able to form any adequate conception of the true meaning of His person or His work. Jesus had, we may be sure, said many things that were obscure at the moment of utterance, had spoken sometimes in parable, sometimes in symbol, sometimes in paradox. And the first Christians of Jerusalem did, it is clear, what, after all, others since them have often done, i.e. they interpreted the life of Christ in the light of their own historical surroundings, and selected from His teaching those elements which enabled them to adapt their ideas of His meaning to their own lives, without making an absolute breach with all that life had hitherto meant for them. The development of history is, as we now see, the truest interpreter of much that Christ said, and not until Jerusalem fell could His teaching about the future of Christianity become clear.
We shall expect, then, to find in the Gospel an over-emphasis upon certain points arising from artificial grouping of sayings, and from omission of other aspects of Christs teaching. We shall also not be surprised to find interpretations of His sayings which the later developments of history have proved to be mistaken. Let us apply this to the chief conceptions of the Gospel.
(1) The permanence of the Law.If we may judge from the general tenor of the NT evidence, Christ laid down no hard and fast rules for dealing with the difficult problem of the obligations of the Mosaic Law. But on special occasions He seems to have given expression to the idea that particular precepts or sanctions belonged to a bygone age, and had lost their validity. St. Mark (who is here supported by St. Luke and St. Paul) represents Him as teaching that the tacit sanction of divorce by Deu 24:1-4 should be set aside as a concession to weakness, and should, from a Christian point of view, be superseded by an ideal view of marriage as a tie which could not be broken. St. Mark again represents Him as implicitly annulling the Mosaic distinctions between clean and unclean meats, on the ground that defilement was moral and internal, not external and ceremonial. And the fact that He taught views of the Law which were not those of orthodox Judaism, is suggested by the statements that the Pharisees attempted to entrap Him into some statement about the Law, or upon subjects with which the Law dealt, which could be used as an accusation against Him (Mar 10:2 [], Mat 22:35 []). But the history of the early Church proves that it was difficult for the first Jewish disciples to suppose that the Messiah had ever countenaneed the view that any part of the OT Seriptures had lost its original hold upon the conscienees of men. This is the stand point of the editor of the First Gospel. Christ had taught that not a letter should pass from the Law until all had been fulfilled, and that anyone who relaxed the authority of the least commandment of the Law should be least in the Kingdom of heaven (Mat 5:17-20). And not only was there this general statement of the permanent validity of the Law in general, but special laws had been sanctioned and reaffirmed by Christ as still valid and obligatory. Divorce must be sanctioned when there had been fornication () (Mat 15:32, Mat 19:9). The saying about clean and unclean had reference not to the Mosaic Law, but to the Pharisaic traditions about eating with unwashen hands (Mat 15:20). The Christian disciple who had a case against his brother was to take two or three witnesses, that the Mosaic Law might be satisfied (Mat 18:16). And in the great tribulation Christians were to pray that their flight might not fall on the Sabbath, lest the Law should be broken (Mat 24:20). It is clear that the editor regarded the Mosaic Law as still binding in all its details on Christian men. Now it is probable that we must make allowance here for some over-emphasis due to local and national prejudice which interpreted Christs sayings in the direction which the history of the Jewish people seemed to warrant, and which took effect in the selection, and arrangement, and interpretation of such of His sayings as lent themselves to the impression which it was desired to produce.
The most obvious instance of this process may be found in Mt.s treatment of Mar 10:1-12. That narrative is perfectly clear, coherent, and decisive. The Pharisees, who knew well that Christ taught a doctrine about the sanctity of marriage which seemed to set aside the sanction of divorce by the Law (Deu 24:1-4), came to test Him, i.e. to get from Him a direct statement which would enable them to say that He was attacking the Mosaic ordinance. He met their challenge with the expected answer. The permission of divorce by the Law was a concession to human weakness. From an ideal standpoint, the marriage tie was indissoluble. The man or woman* [Note: For divorce by a woman amongst the Jews, cf. Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assuan, p. 12 (London, G. Moring, 1906).] who put away their partner committed adultery. Nothing can be clearer than this, and it is in accordance with the tradition of Christs teaching, preserved by St. Luke (Luk 16:18) and by St. Paul (1Co 7:10-11). But the editor of the First Gospel has introduced hopeless confusion into the narrative. He represents the Pharisees as asking for an interpretation of Deu 24:1-4. The Jewish theologians were divided upon the point. Somethe school of Shammaiargued that by some act of unchastity was intended. Cf. Gttin, 90a: No one shall divorce his wife unless there be found in her something unchaste ( ). They thus placed the emphasis upon the word . But othersthe school of Hillelallowed divorce for any idle pretext, emphasizing the word . Accordingly, the Pharisees in Mt. ask, Is it lawful to put away a wife for every cause? Christ answers, as in Mk., that from an ideal standpoint marriage is indissoluble. The Pharisees appeal to Deuteronomy 24. Now clearly Christ should be represented as reaffirming and supporting what He has said by declaring (as in Mk.) that the permission of Deuteronomy 24 was a concession to human weakness, and that a higher principle was to be found in the purpose of God as declared in Gen 1:27. But, instead, He is represented as saying that constituted an exception to the ideal principle. Thus He is made to reaffirm the Law of Deuteronomy 24, interpreted in the sense of the school of Shammai, and to acknowledge the permanent obligation of a sanction which He had just criticised.
It seems clear that the editor of Mt. has confused Mk.s consistent narrative by introducing into it a clause which entirely confuses the point at issue. Now, if we ask why he has done this, we remember that earlier in his Gospel (Mat 5:32) he has inserted a saying (probably from the Matthaean Logia) in which this same exception to the general rule occurs. The words are not identical. In Mat 5:32 they are , but in Mat 19:9 () (but BDS2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] 33 latt have here also). The two clauses look like alternative renderings of the phrase , which the school of Shammai declared to be the ground of divorce. That is to say, in Mat 19:9 the editor has blended with Mk.s narrative another tradition of the Lords words, which was furnished to him by his Palestinian source; and we have a clear case of a saying of Christ altered in process of transmission to bring it into accordance with the Mosaic Law. Of course the saying of Mat 5:32 may be as genuine and original as Mar 10:11-12. It is quite possible that Christ should have on one occasion taught as Mk. represents Him, and on another have sanctioned the necessity of divorce for . But there is a good deal of probability in the supposition that, as a matter of fact, He appealed to the ideal view of marriage as a principle which should guide men, leaving it to the common sense of His disciples to realize that when the sin of men makes a breach in the ideal law, such sin drags with it the necessity of divorce. In this case the clause which allows an exception will be an accretion to His words, added in the early Palestinian Church to His simple statement that no man must divorce his wife and no woman her husband, in order to harmonize it with the supposed teaching of the OT, and then transferred by Mt. into Mk.s narrative.
Another somewhat similar case may be found in Mar 7:14-23 = Mat 15:10-20. The reading and interpretation of Mar 7:19 are obscure. According to one reading, may be a comment of the Evangelist, to the effect that Christs teaching on this occasion purged all meats, i.e. cancelled the Mosaic distinctions between clean and unclean meats. But however this may be, the narrative leaves on the mind of the reader the impression that the inevitable effect of such teaching as is here recorded would be to make null these distinctions of the Mosaic Law. Now the editor of Mt. clearly wished to avoid this inference. He omits the clause , and at the end of the discourse turns the mind of the reader from the inevitable inference by adding the clause, But to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man, as though the whole discourse had been dealing with the Pharisaic regulations about ceremonial hand-washing. Thus he carries the reader back at once to the previous question, and, so far as possible, prevents him from drawing the natural and inevitable conclusion from the discourse as recorded by Mk.
A somewhat similar desire to avoid words which might seem out of harmony with OT regulations has probably caused the omission in Mat 12:8 of the clause, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, found in Mar 2:27.
Lastly, an example of over-emphasis due to arrangement of sayings may be found in Mat 5:17-20. It is quite probable that Mat 5:18-19 are genuine sayings of Christ spoken on some occasion when their meaning could not be mistaken, as a paradoxical expression of the permanent value of the moral elements in the OT. But as they now stand they hopelessly confuse the plain tenor of the Sermon. The illustrations given in Mat 5:21-43 make it clear that the fulfilling of Mat 5:17 meant to make clear the true spiritual meaning of the Law. But Mat 5:18-19 interpret in another sense; namely, to reaffirm and carry out in detail, which is indeed in harmony with the teaching of Rabbinical Judaism, but is inconsistent with the plain meaning of the rest of the chapter. If Mat 5:18-19 be omitted as extraneous to this context, and due to the practice of the editor of bringing together sayings which in any way bear upon the same subject, the meaning of Mat 5:17; Mat 5:20-43 is quite clear. Christ did not, as His adversaries argued, subvert the Law. He reaffirmed its spiritual principles, and gave to it a deeper meaning than that arrived at by Rabbinical exegesis. The righteousness of His disciples was to exceed that of the Pharisees, because it would be based upon a more spiritual understanding of the principles underlying the OT revelation.
(2) The near approach of the Kingdom.A still more difficult problem is raised by the question, Did Jesus Christ promise that He would come again on the clouds of heaven within the lifetime of the generation to which He spoke? The Palestinian Church, as represented by the First Gospel, certainly believed that this was the case. But did they misunderstand Him? And the question may be raised in an earlier form. Nearly all the terms used in sayings of this nature were familiar technical theological terms in use in the apocalyptic writings, which expressed one side of contemporary Messianic expectation. e.g. the Son of Man, the clouds of heaven, the coming of the Son of Man, the throne of glory, the coming age, the day of judgment, the division between righteous and wicked, the condemnation to Gehenna, the inheritance of the Kingdom by the righteous, the feast in the Kingdom, and eternal lifeall these formed part of the ordinary mental equipment of every writer who tried to express the hopes of Israel under apocalyptic imagery. Did the Lord use them of Himself, or did the Palestinian Church try to express her faith and belief in Him as the Divine Messiah by transferring to Him the phrases and the imagery of current Messianic belief? Attempts have been made to show that the second supposition is the more probable,* [Note: E.g. it has been argued on linguistic grounds that Christ could not have spoken of Himself as the Son of Man, and that much of the apocalyptic imagery in Mark 13, Matthew 24, is due to the blending of a Jewish Apocalypse with genuine sayings of Christ. But the former theory is still unproven, and the second is an unsuccessful exegetical device to solve a difficulty.] but, so far as the present writer can judge, they have failed in their aim. For it is impossible to disentangle all apocalyptic imagery from Christs teaching, without entirely destroying the credit of the Gospels as historical records. This kind of imagery and metaphor is, of course, more accumulated in the First Gospel than in the others, and one or two phrases, as, e.g., the end or consummation of the age, and the throne of glory, occur only in it, but still all the Gospels contain a good deal. If Christ did not speak of Himself as the Son of Man and of His coming at the Last Day, and of other similar things, then we have no solid ground for believing that any saying recorded of Him is genuine.
But if we assume that Christ did use of Himself this apocalyptic language, what shall we say of the more important question, Are, then, the conceptions which His sayings, as they are arranged in the First Gospel, seem to convey, to be taken as a part of the real teaching? And here we shall necessarily have to take into consideration the following facts amongst others.
(a) It seems clear that Christ must have given utterance to words which left upon the minds of the early disciples the impression that He had promised to come again shortly. For this conception not only pervades the Synoptic Gospels, but is found in almost every part of the NT literature.
(b) It was, however, inevitable that any expressions of time to which He gave utterance should have been interpreted by His Jewish adherents to imply a short time literally. For if we grant for a moment, for the sake of argument, that He had foreknowledge of the future development of history, it is clear to us now that it would have been inconsistent with His methods of teaching to have unveiled to His disciples the historical details of future ages. On the other hand, He may well have wished that His return should be, as it has been, the souls pole-star of His lovers in every successive age, and have left the period of His Coming veiled in ambiguous language. In that case the early Jewish Church has been influenced by the contemporary Messianic belief which always placed the coming of the Messiah in the near future, and has selected from Christs sayings those which were most easily interpreted to convey the impression of the nearness of the Kingdom.
This will partly explain the large part which sayings referring to the near approach of the Kingdom play in the First Gospel. Some of these occur only in this Gospel, as, e.g., Mat 10:23; Mat 13:24-30; Mat 13:36-43; Mat 13:47-50; Mat 19:28 a, Mat 25:1-13; Mat 25:31-46. In other cases a saying, the original form of which was found in the Second Gospel, has been modified so as to make it express clearly this idea. For example, in Mar 9:1 occur the words until they see the kingdom of God come with power. Although a reference to the immediately preceding verse would naturally suggest that this coming of the kingdom of God was identical with the coming of the Son of Man with His angels, the words taken by themselves might be interpreted by the reader to refer to the Transfiguration which follows, or to some later event, such as the Day of Pentecost, or the Fall of Jerusalem. The editor of the First Gospel has been unwilling to leave them in this ambiguity, and by changing them into the Son of Man coming in His kingdom, interprets them unmistakably of the coming in glory with the angels (Mat 16:27), which he then believed to be about to take place during the lifetime of some to whom the words were originally spoken. Again, in Mar 14:62 occur the words you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. The editor of the First Gospel (Mat 26:64) inserts before you shall see the words . This phrase is difficult, because the words should mean from this present moment (cf. Matthew, l.c.). But since the period between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection must on any interpretation be excluded, it is probable that the words mean you shall soon, shortly, see, etc. That is again an expression of the belief of the editor that the Second Coming was near at hand. A similar case is found in Mat 24:29, where the editor inserts into Mk.s discourse the word immediately, thus again linking the Second Coming closely with the Fall of Jerusalem.
These facts suggest irresistibly the conclusion that the editor or the tradition which he follows has, by accumulating sayings of one kind, and by modifying others to some slight extent in order to give them the required meaning, given the impression that the Lord taught a nearness of His coming to inaugurate the Kingdom, which goes beyond what He Himself originally intended. He spoke, no doubt, of the coming of the Son of Man in glory, using apocalyptic language, which He may or may not have intended to be taken literally. The early Jewish Church has interpreted it quite literally, and read into it that element of immediacy which is presupposed in all apocalyptic writings. He forecast, no doubt, the catastrophe to which the shortsighted policy of the Jewish authorities was hurrying that illstarred people. The early Church linked together these two classes of utterance, and believed that both would receive their fulfilment at the same period.
If, then, we must allow for some over-emphasis, some foreshortening in the presentation of this conception in the First Gospel, we shall naturally ask if there is not evidence that Christs teaching anticipated, in fact, a longer development of history than that here presupposed. Even within the First Gospel itself many of His sayings suggest a different interpretation from that put upon them by the editor (e.g. the parables of the Mustard Seed, the Drag-net, and see below). And when we pass to the writers who have emancipated themselves from Jewish theological conceptions, we see that Christs words were regarded as presupposing a longer development of historical events than that suggested by the First Gospel. This, of course, is true of the later Epistles of St. Paul, of the Fourth Gospel, and of St. Luke. And the verdict of the historian must be that the Jewish-Christian interpretation of Christs words upon this point is not likely to be most accurate, because it is Jewish and because it is early. Rather these two factors would, in the nature of things, concur to impel the first Jewish Christians to an interpretation of His sayings which is one-sided, and in part overemphasized, just because it is local and early. The best interpreter of much that Christ taught has been the later development of history.
(3) The scope of the Gospel.It is known that the later Jewish theologians had no strictly formulated views of the relation of the Gentiles to the future Messianic salvation. In some few passages of their writings, especially in the Sibylline Oracles, it would seem as though they looked forward to the admittance of Gentiles into the Kingdom on equal terms with the Jews, simply on the ground of obedience to God (cf. Sib. Or iii. 740). But the prevailing tendency was very different. When the Kingdom came, the Gentiles would be annihilated; or they would be condemned to everlasting punishment in Gehenna; or they would, if they were righteous, participate in the Messianic salvation, but only as proselytes, or as subjects of the Jewish people.
To the early Jewish Christians, who had been trained in such conceptions as these, it was inevitable that Christs teaching, if it were universal in ultimate scope and intention, implicitly rather than explicitly should seem to point to a national rather than a universal Kingdom. That this was the belief of the first disciples at Jerusalem, the first half of the Acts bears witness. Only the pressure of circumstances could force the Apostles to go back to Christs words, and to see that they bore within them the seeds of a belief in a universal, spiritual monarchy, which was quite unlimited in scope. It needed a vision to convince St. Peter of this, and Galatians 3 shows how difficult the lesson was for him. In this respect the First Gospel has a twofold outlook. Underlying the surface there may clearly be seen, in the words of Christ which are recorded, expressions which would naturally convey the implication that Christianity was intended to influence all mankind. The gospel was to be preached to all nations (Mat 24:14). The disciples were to make disciples of all nations (Mat 28:19). Many were to come from east and west, and sit down within the Kingdom (Mat 8:11). The Kingdom was to be given to another nation, and to be taken from the Jews (Mat 21:43). But these sayings have all the appearance of words which were interpreted in a limited sense by the editor of the Gospel. If the Kingdom was to come immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, then the preaching to the Gentiles could be but a superficial process. It was to be for a testimony. Moreover, there is nothing in the Gospel to suggest an unconditioned equality of Jew and Gentile. The supposition is rather probable that the editor assumed that such Gentiles as became Christians would do so as proselytes of the Jewish-Christian Church. They were to be made disciples, that is to say, to be merged in the Jewish-Christian Church. If they had not the fitting wedding garment, they would be excluded from the Kingdom; and the garment probably symbolizes, in the editors mind, the righteousness which was to be greater than that of the Pharisees, only as being based upon a deeper insight into the spiritual intention of the Mosaic Law, which by no means permitted any relaxation of its obligations.
Here again we must, as it would seem, make some allowance for over-emphasis, due partly to artificial arrangement of Christs sayings, partly to a limited insight into their true scope and meaning, which was due to past religious training. Some lapse of time, some clearing of spiritual vision by the actual facts of life when Christianity came into contact with pagan peoples, was needed before it could be realized that if Christianity was intended for the Jew first and also for the Greek, it nevertheless was to include them both in a position of absolute equality, and to appeal to men without respect to differences of race or creed. See also Gospels, Logia, Luke (Gospel), Mark (Gospel), Papias, Sermon on the Mount, etc.
Literature.Willoughby C. Allen, Com. on St. Matthew in ICC [Note: CC International Critical Commentary.] , 1907 (see List of Authorities on p. lxxxix ff.); Th. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthus, 1903, the same authors Forschungen f. Gesch. d. NT Kanons, 18811903, Gesch. d. NT Kanons, 18881890, and his Einleit. in das NT, 18971899; II. J. Holtzmann, Handkom. Die Synoptiker, 1901; Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Matthaei, 1904, the same authors Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, 1899, and his Einleit. in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905; A. Merx, Das Evangelium Matthus, 1902; Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission, 1906; the Comm. of Broadus (1887), Morison (1875), Alford7 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] (1874), Schanz (R. C., 1879), Meyer-Weiss (1898), Maclaren (1892), A. B. Bruce (in EGT [Note: GT Expositors Greek Testanent.] , vol. i.). See also Scholten, Das Aelteste Evangelium, 1869; Renan, Les Erangiles, 1877; Roehrich, La composition des Evangiles, 1897; Bruce, With Open Face, 1896, pp. 124; Sir J. C. Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, 1899; Dalman, Die Worte Jesu [English translation 1902]; P. Wernle, Die Synopt. Frage, 1899; F. Blass, Textkritische Bemerkungen zu Matthus, 1900; the Introductions of Hilgenfeld, S. Davidson, Bleek-Mangold, Westcott, Salmon, B. Weiss, H. J. Holtzmann, Jlicher, Godet; artt. Matthew (by J. V. Bartlet) in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible and Gospels (by Schmiedel) in EBi [Note: Bi Encyclopaedia Biblica.] . Special points are dealt with in such works as Reschs Kindheitsevangelium in TU [Note: U Texte und Untersuehungen.] x. 5; Hoelmann, Bibelstudien (on the Eschatological Discourse), 1860; Weifferbach, Der Wiederkunfisgedanke Jesu, 1873; Schwartzkopff, Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi, 1896 [English translation 1897].
Willoughby C. Allen.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Matthew, Gospel According To
MATTHEW, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO.
1. The First Gospel in the Early Church.Papias (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 140 or earlier), as quoted by Eusebius (HE iii. 39), says: Matthew, however, composed the logia in the Hebrew dialect, but each one interpreted them as he was able. This remark occurs in his work The Exposition of the Lords logia, and is practically all the external information that we have about the Matthan Gospel, except that Irenus says: Matthew among the Hebrews published a Gospel in their own dialect, when Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and founding the Church (Hr. iii. 1). Irenus is probably quoting from Papias. In the 4th cent., Eusebius tells a story of Pantnus finding in the 2nd cent. the original Aramaic Mt. in India, but the story is very uncertain; Epiphanius says that the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew existed in his day, in the possession of an Ebionite sect (distinguished in modern times as Elkesaites), and describes it; and Jerome describes what he alleges to be the original of Mt. as in use among the Nazarenes, and says that he translated it into Greek. We have therefore first to interpret Papias, and then to deal with the later testimonies.
(a) What does Papias mean by the logia?The word may be translated oracles or discourses, and it is much disputed which sense we should take here. The interpretation of many (Westcott, Lightfoot, etc., who choose the translation oracles) is that it is an early word for the Gospels. The Lords logia which Papias expounded would be the story of our Lords life and teaching, and Papias would mean that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew (cf. Rom 3:2 where oracles may mean only Gods sayings, but more naturally may be taken to mean the whole of the OT). Certainly the word in the 1st cent. was used of any sacred writing, whether discourse or narrative. Others deny that at so early a date a NT writing as such could be called the Lords oracles, and take logia to mean discourses. But from this point critics have diverged. Many understand Papias to mean that Matthew wrote our Lords sayings only; but this does not appear from his words. The argument against the translation oracles is deprived of force if we understand the reference to be, not necessarily to a written record, but to the Gospel story pure and simple, whether written or oral. Papias would then mean that Matthew wrote down the Gospel story in Hebrew. Even if we take the translation discourses or sayings, it is extremely unlikely that Papias meant that Matthews Gospel contained no narrative, though it is quite likely that discourse predominated in it. (For Renans theory, see art. Mark [Gospel acc. to]).
(b) What does Papias mean about the original language of Matthew?All the testimony as to its being Aramaic [Hebrew] probably reduces itself to this one sentence. One interpretation is that Matthew wrote down Jesus sayings in Aramaic, but did not expound them, and that Papias own book had this object. But most writers understand Papias to mean that individuals translated Matthews work into their own language for themselves. If so, this period must have been over in Papias time, for he uses the past tense interpreted; he must have had a Greek Matthew before him. And our Mt. is clearly an original composition, derived from Greek sources, such as Mk. and other documents, at any rate for the most part (see art. Gospels), and is not a translation from Aramaic. There is no reason for thinking that the Matthan Gospel actually used by Papias was other than ours. We have then to ask, Did Papias make a mistake about the original language? We know that there was a Gospel of the Hebrews current early in the 2nd cent., known to Hegesippus, probably to the writer of the Clementine Homilies, perhaps to Ignatius. Jerome knew of it and gives us extracts from it; and Epiphanius knew of a derived or kindred Gospel, used by the sect of the Nazarenes and containing several episodes different from our canonical narrative, e.g. in connexion with our Lords baptism, and His appearance to James after the Resurrection (cf. 1Co 15:7). In this Gospel the Holy Spirit is called the Mother of Christ, the word Spirit being feminine in Aramaic. Most critics (but Hilgenfeld and Harnack are exceptions) agree that this Gospel is later than our canonical four; Zahn gives good reasons for thinking that it is derived directly from our Mt.; and it is possible that Papias made the mistake fallen into later by Jerome, and, knowing that there was an Aramaic Gospel in existence purporting to be by Matthew (though he had apparently never seen it), thought that it was St. Matthews in reality. Eusebius says that he was a man of not much understanding. He may, then, have erroneously thought that St. Matthew, writing in Palestine for Jewish Christians, must have written in Aramaic (Salmon). Another solution, however, is more commonly received. Papias is our only authority before Irenus for attributing a Gospel to St. Matthew. Possibly then the Apostle Matthew may have written in Aramaic a document incorporated in, or largely drawn upon by, our First Gospele.g. the original of the Greek non-Markan document (see art. Gospels); and this fact may account for his name being attached even early in the 2nd cent. to the First Gospel. Both these solutions seem to be quite possible; but it is not possible to suppose that our First Gospel was originally written in Aramaic.
Quotations from Mt. are found in the Epistle of Barnabas (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 100?), one with the formula as it is written.
2. Contents, sources, and characteristics of the Gospel. The Birth narrative (chs. 1, 2) rests on an unknown source (see Luke [Gospel acc. to], 3), and is independent of the other Synoptics. The Baptists preaching, Jesus baptism and temptation, the early ministry, and the calling of Simon, Andrew, James, and John (chs. 3, 4) follow the Petrine tradition with additions from the non-Markan source (esp. in the Baptism and Temptation), from which also the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 57) comes. The narrative of the Galilan ministry (which extends from Mat 4:12 to Mat 16:20) is taken mainly from these two sources, but the order of neither is strictly adhered to. It includes the Charge to the Twelve (ch. 10), a large number of parables (ch. 13), and many miracles, some peculiar to Mt. From Mat 16:21 to the end of the book is the story of the Passion with the preparation for it, including the Transfiguration (Mat 17:1-8), the Discourse on the End (ch. 24), the parables which specially speak of the Passion and of the End of the World (Mat 20:1 ff., Mat 21:33 ff., Mat 22:1 ff., Mat 25:1 ff., Mat 25:14 ff.), and warnings against Pharisaism (esp. ch. 23). In the story of the Passion itself Mt. follows Mk. very closely, but has some additions.
We may now consider the manner in which the First Evangelist has treated his sources. We are at once struck with a great difference of order. Incidents are grouped together according to subject rather than to chronology. The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings which were uttered at different times, as we see from Lk., where they occur in various contexts (Luk 6:20-34; Luk 11:2-4; Luk 12:22 ff., Luk 12:58 ff. etc.). It contains a passage (Luk 5:20) which would suggest (if Mt. were a chronological work) that the breach with the Pharisees had already, at that early stage, taken place; whereas Mk. shows how gradual the breach was (see the various stages in Mar 2:18 ff., Mar 2:24; Mar 3:22; Mar 7:5). At first Jesus treats the Pharisees gently, and gives them explanations of difficulties; only when they are obstinate does He denounce them. This shows that Luk 5:20 is not in its chronological order. Then, again, many of the parables in Mt. are grouped together (see ch. 13), but they would not have been spokes all at one time. The Charge to the Twelve (ch. 10) includes much of the Charge to the Seventy and other sayings to the disciples in Luk 6:1-49; Luk 12:1-59; Luk 13:1-35; Luk 14:1-35; Luk 17:1-37. The Discourse on the End in Mt. is grouped (see 5). The groups in Mt. are often closed with a formula taken from Deu 31:1 [LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ]; thusMat 7:28 (Sermon on the Mount), Mat 11:1 (Charge to the Twelve), Mat 13:58 (group of parables), Mat 19:1, Mat 26:1 (groups of warnings). In fact, the First Evangelist aims at a synoptic view of Christs teaching as a whole rather than at a chronological statement. In one or two particulars only, Mt. seems to borrow the grouping tendency from Mk., as in the case of the anointing at Bethany (Mat 26:6 ff., Mar 14:3 ff.), which is related in close connexion with Judas compact with the chief priests (the Evangelists seem to mean that the waste of the ointment greatly influenced the traitors action), whereas Jn. (Mat 12:1) gives the more chronologically correct position of the incident, six days before the passover.
Another feature of Mt. is the frequency of quotations from the OT, and the mystical interpretations given. The interests of the First Evangelist lie largely in the fulfilment of prophecy (Mat 5:17). The principles of interpretation common among the Jews are applied; a text, for example, which in its literal sense applies to the Exodus, is taken to refer to the departure of the Child Jesus from Egypt (Mat 2:15, Hos 11:1), and the Evangelist conceives of events as coming to pass that prophecy might be fulfilled (Mat 1:22 f.; cf. Mat 2:15; Mat 2:17 f., Mat 2:23, Mat 4:14 ff., Mat 8:17, Mat 12:17 ff., Mat 13:35, Mat 21:4 f., Mat 27:9 f.). It is thought that the second ass, which is found only in the Matthan narrative of the Triumphal Entry (Mat 21:1 ff., the ass and a colt the foal of an ass), is due to the influence of the words of the prophecy, Zec 9:9; for the narrative is taken closely from the Petrine tradition, but the second ass of Mt. is an addition to it. So the wine mingled with gall (Mat 27:34) for the wine mingled with myrrh (lit. myrrhed wine) of the Petrine tradition (Mar 15:23) seems to be due to Psa 69:21. The treatment of the non-Markan source is similar. In Luk 11:29 f. Jesus refers to the sign of Jonah and to the repentance of the Ninevites, to whom, by his preaching, Jonah was a sign; but the First Evangelist sees (with justice) a type of our Lords Resurrection in the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale (Mat 12:39 ff.; see, further, Robinson, Study of the Gospels, p. 96f.).The matter peculiar to Mt. is large in amount. Besides the Birth narratives we have the healing of the two blind men (Mat 9:27 ff.), and of the blind and dumb demoniacs (Mat 9:32 f., Mat 12:22 f., thought by some to be one incident), the walking of St. Peter on the water (Mat 14:28 ff.), the coin in the fishs mouth (Mat 17:24), Pilates wifes dream and Pilates washing of his hands (Mat 27:19; Mat 27:24 f.), and some other incidents, especially in the Passion; also many sayings, and part of the Sermon on the Mount.
3. Purpose of the Gospel.That it was written for Jewish Christians appears from the frequency of OT quotations, from the mystical interpretations, and from the absence of explanations of Jewish customs. Yet the author was no Judaizer. He alone tells us of the visit of the Gentile Magi; with Lk, he relates the healing of the Gentile centurions servant (Mat 8:5 f.); and the admission of the Gentiles to the Kingdom and the rejection of some of the Jews is announced in Mat 8:11 f. (cf. Mat 21:43). The Gospel is to be preached, and baptism and discipleship are to be given, to all nations (Mat 28:19).
4. Author.The question of authorship has partly been anticipated in 1. The earliest MSS give the title simply as According to Matthew, and similar titles to the other Gospels. The titles need not be, indeed almost certainly are not, those of the original authors, but they must have been applied at a very early date. What do they imply? It has been thought that they meant merely that the Gospels reflected the preaching of the persons named (so Bartlet in Hastings DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] iii. 297). But in that case the Second Gospel would be entitled According to Peter, a title very close to Justin Martyrs Memoirs of Peter, which probably refers to Mk. (see art. Mark [Gospel acc. to], 1). There can be little doubt that those who used the title in the second half of the 2nd cent. meant it to imply authorship. It is a question, however, whether at the first the phrase actually meant that the Gospel in its latest form was the work of the author named. For lack of external information as to the First Gospel, we are driven to internal evidence. But this would not lead us to think of the author or (if the phrase be preferred) the editor who brought the Gospel into its present form as an Apostle and eye-witness. Unlike Jn., which claims to be written by an eye-witness (Joh 1:14; Joh 19:35),a claim fully borne out by internal evidence,and unlike Mk., which abounds in autoptic characteristics,though in that case we have reason to think that they come not from the writer, but from the writers teacher,the First Gospel has none of the marks of an eye-witness. The autoptic characteristics of the Petrine tradition have in many cases been taken away by the alterations introduced by the First Evangelist (see art. Mark [Gospel acc. to], 4). The conclusion is that it was not the Apostle Matthew who gave us the Gospel in its present form. The name comes simply from ecclesiastical testimony of the 2nd cent., and not from the sacred writings themselves. Yet the Matthan tradition is strong. Even Papias, apparently, thought that the Greek Matthan Gospel which he used was a translation of the Apostles work. And there is no rival claimant to the authorship. On the other hand, Matthew, as an Apostle, was a sufficiently prominent person for an anonymous work to be assigned to him, especially if he had written a work which was one of its sources. These considerations may lead us to prefer the second solution mentioned above, in 1 (b)that Matthew the Apostle composed the Aramaic original of the Greek non-Markan document, the Logia (not consisting of sayings only, but of sayings and narrative combined), and that in this way his name became attached to the First Gospel. The real author must remain unknown. That the work of an Apostle should have entirely disappeared is not a very serious difficulty when we reflect on the number of St. Pauls Epistles that have perished.
5. Date.Irenus (Hr. iii. 1. 1) explicitly states that Matthew wrote first, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome, but that Mark wrote after their departure. In the Muratorian Fragment (c [Note: circa, about.] . 180200?), a list of NT books, Mt. seems to have come before the rest, though, as it is incomplete at the beginning, this is not certain. This probably was also the general opinion of the succeeding ages, and finds an echo in Augustines dictum that Mk. is an abbreviation of Mt. But internal evidence strongly negatives the idea of the priority of Mt. (see Mark [Gospel acc. to]). Though it is possible to make some reservations as to editorial touches, Mk. is seen to have been in the hands of the Matthan writer; and whatever date we fix for it must be the earliest limit for Mt. We can get a further indication from the Discourse on the End (Mat 24:1 ff.). Both in Mt. and Mk. (whatever be thought of Lk.) the discourse is reported as if the fulfilment were only in prospect, and in a manner that would be unlikely if the siege of Titus had already taken place. This conclusion becomes still more likely when we compare the three Synoptics together. They all three begin with the destruction of the Temple (Mar 13:1-2 and || Mt. Lk.). In Mk. and Lk. there follows a discourse which apparently speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem (Mar 13:5-20), and then there comes in Mk. and partly in Lk. a passage which seems to refer to the end of the world (Mar 13:21-37). But the First Evangelist, as so often, weaves together the sayings of Jesus which in Mk. are distinct, and makes the two events apparently one. (Cf. Mat 24:3 with Mar 13:4, Luk 21:7). Thus the writer must have thought that both events would be synchronous, and therefore must have written his account of the prophecy before the Fall of Jerusalem. That this is so we may see by a contrast. The Fourth Evangelist gives a prophecy of our Lord which had been fulfilled when he wrote; but he refers to the fulfilment (Joh 21:18 f., the death of St. Peter). It is, of course, possible that the Discourse was written down as we have it in Mt. before a.d. 70, and that a later writer incorporated it unchanged. But would not the later writer have betrayed some consciousness of the fulfilment of the prophecy? For these reasons a date before a.d. 70 is probable. But this conclusion is much disputed, and in any case we must acknowledge that the authorship and date of the First Gospel are among the most perplexing of all NT problems.
A. J. Maclean.