CHAPTER XII THE NEW TESTAMENT 291 894 895 896 897 Matthew must have been chiefly an orderly collection of Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, and discourses. This agrees best with the natural and usual Jerome.898 meaning of Logia, and the actual preponderance of the This Hebrew Matthew must not be identified with doctrinal element in our canonical Matthew) as com- the Judaizing “Gospel according to the pared with our Mark. A parte potiori fit denominatio. Hebrews,” the best among the apocryphal Gospels, of 2. The report of a Hebrew original has been set aside which in all thirty-three fragments remain. Jerome and altogether as a sheer mistake of Papias, who confounded other fathers clearly distinguish the two. The latter was it with the Ebionite “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” probably an adaptation of the former to the use of the known to us from a number of fragments.890 It is said Ebionites and Nazarenes.899 Truth always precedes herethat Papias was a credulous and weak-minded, though pious man.891 But this does not impair his veracity or in- whether a Hebrew original, or a Hebrew translation, is meant. 894 In Eus., H. E., VI. 25. Origen, however, drew his revalidate a simple historical notice. It is also said that the port of a Hebrew Matthew not from personal knowledge, but universal spread of the Greek language made a Hebrew from tradition (ὡς ἐν παραδόσει μαθών). Gospel superfluous. But the Aramaic was still the ver895 H. E., III. 24: Mατθαιος μὲν γὰρ πρότερον Εβραίοις nacular and prevailing language in Palestine (comp. Acts κηρύξας, ὡς έ̓μελλε καὶ εφ ἑτέρους ἰέναι, πατρίῳ γλώττῃ 21:40; 22:2) and in the countries of the Euphrates. γραφῃ παραδοὺς τὸ κατ αὐτὸν εύαγγέλιον, τὸ λειπον τῃ There is an intrinsic probability of a Hebrew Gospel αὐτου παρουσίᾳ τούτοις, ἀφ ὡν ἐστέλλετο, διὰ της · γραφης for the early stage of Christianity. And the existence of ἀπεπλήρου. “ M., having first preached the Gospel in Hebrew, a Hebrew Matthew rests by no means merely on Papias. when on the point of going also to other nations, committed It is confirmed by the independent testimonies of most it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the want respectable fathers, as Irenaeus,892 Pantaenus,893 Origen, of his presence to them by his book.” Philo, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Origen (l.c., p. 400 sq.). 890 tzmann, Keim, Delitzsch, Keil. Some of these writers assume that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was an Ebionite translation and recension of the Greek Matthew. So Delitzsch and Keil (Com. p. 23). Keim is mistaken when he asserts (I. 54) that scarcely anybody nowadays believes in a Hebrew Matthew. The contrary opinion is defended by Meyer, Weiss, and others, and prevails among English divines 891 Eusebius (III. 39) calls him σφόδρα σμικρὸς τὸν νουν, “ very narrow-minded,” but on account of his millenarianism, as the context shows. In another place he calls him a man of comprehensive learning and great knowledge of the Scriptures (III. 39: τὰ τάντα μάλιστα λογιώτατος καὶ της γραφης εἰδήμων ). 892 Adv. Haer., III1, 1: ὁ μεν̀ δὴ Ματθαιος ἐν τοισ Εβραίοις τη ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ αὐτων καὶ γραφὴν ἐξήνεγκεν εὐαγγελίου, του Πέτρου καὶ Παύλου ἐν Ρ ώμη εὐαγγελιζομένων καὶ θεμελιούντων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. The chronological reference is so far inaccurate, as neither Peter nor Paul were personally the founders of the church of Rome, yet it was founded through their influence and their pupils, and consolidated by their presence and martyrdom. 893 He is reported by Eus., H.E. 10, to have found in India (probably in Southern Arabia) the Gospel according to Matthew in Hebrew (Εβραίων γράμμασι), which had been left there by Bartholomew, one of the apostles. This testimony is certainly independent of Papias. But it may be questioned
896 Catech. 14: Ματθ. ὁ γράψας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον Εβραΐδι γλώσσῃ. 897 Haer., XXX. 3; comp. LI. 5. 898 Praef. in Matth.; on Matt. 12:13; Dial. c Pelag., III, c. 2; De Vir. illustr., c. 2 and 3. Jerome’s testimony is somewhat conflicting. He received a copy of the Hebrew M. from the Nazarenes in Beraea in Syria for transcription (392). But afterward (415) he seems to have found out that the supposed Hebrew Matthew in the library of Pamphilus at Caesarea was “the Gospel according to the Hebrews” (Evangelium juxta, or secundum Hebraeos), which he translated both into Greek and Latin (De vir. ill., c. 2). This would have been useless, if the Hebrew Gospel had been only the original of the canonical Matthew. See Weiss, l.c., pp. 7 sq 899 The fragments of this Gospel (“quo utuntur Nazareni et Ebionitae,” Jerome) were collected by Credner, Beiträge, I. 380 sqq.; Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test. extra can. rec., IV., and especially by Nicholson in the work quoted above. It is far superior to the other apocryphal Gospels, and was so much like the Hebrew Matthew that many confounded it with the same, as Jerome observes, ad Matth. 12:13 (“quod vocatur a plerisque Matthaei authenticum”) and C. Pelag., III. 2. The Tübingen view (Baur, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld) reverses the natural order and makes this heretical gospel the Urmatthaeus (proto-Matthew), of which our Greek Matthew is an orthodox transformation made as late as 130; but Keim (I., 29 sqq.), Meyer (p. 19), and Weise (pp. 8 and 9) have sufficiently refuted this hypothesis. Nicholson modifies the Tübingen theory by assuming that Matthew wrote at different times the canonical Gospel and those portions of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which run parallel with it.
