<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_146" id="Page_146"> </SPAN><br/><SPAN name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>LESSON XXVII</h2>
<h3>A PRESENTATION OF JESUS TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS</h3>
<h4>The Gospel According to Matthew</h4>
<p>The Gospel of Matthew is probably, as has been said, the most
important book that was ever written. Its importance is due to the
information which it contains about Jesus Christ. More fully perhaps
than any other one book, the Gospel of Matthew has preserved
the knowledge of Jesus.</p>
<p>Whatever be the future of the Church, the life of Jesus will now
always remain the central fact of history. Even the secondary influence
of Jesus is incalculable; even if none were left to own him as
Lord and Master, still he would remain incomparably the most influential
man that has ever lived. As a matter of fact, however,
such a condition has never existed and never will exist. From the
very beginning the life of Jesus made itself felt through those who
accepted him, to the exclusion of all others, as the supreme Lord of
their lives. If Jesus had been regarded merely as a quiet teacher of
ethics, the Gospel of Matthew never would have been written, and
probably the very name of Jesus would have perished. The wonderful
influence of Jesus, which has transformed the world from
darkness to light, which alone gives promise of a final reign of
righteousness, has been exerted through the instrumentality, not of
admirers, but of disciples. Jesus has been a Teacher only because he
has been a Master.</p>
<p>To make Jesus Master in the lives of men was the purpose of the
Gospel of Matthew, and it is the purpose of our study of the book.
The Gospel was not written with merely scientific interest; it was not
written merely to preserve certain gems from the lips of an inspired
teacher. The ultimate purpose of the book was to make men fall at
Jesus' feet with the words, "My Lord and my God." Such a purpose
is not inconsistent with the most scrupulous truthfulness.
Adoration of Jesus can be induced best of all, not by fanciful elaboration,
but by sober fact. In the case of Jesus, truth was more
glorious by far than the boldest fiction.</p>
<p>To make Jesus Lord and Saviour is the purpose of our work<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</SPAN></span>
as teachers. That purpose cannot be attained by exhortation or
by threatening, but only by impartation of knowledge. To know
Jesus is to trust him and adore him. Many readers of the Gospels
never attain to the true knowledge. Their failure is due to various
causes—to moral laxness, to preconceived opinions, to spiritual
dullness. One obstacle, however, is of a simpler kind. One thing
that stands in the way of a real understanding of the Gospels is the
habit of piecemeal reading. We read the Gospels bit by bit instead
of allowing the whole to make its impression. We do not see the
wood for the trees. Jesus is concealed from us by his individual acts.
The Gospels should be read as well as studied—read rapidly, like an
ordinary book, preferably in some rational form of printing where
verse numbers and all editorial matters are relegated to the margin
and the lines stretch across the page. These things may seem to be
trivialities, and certainly they are not essential. What is essential—not
in place of detailed study, but in addition to it—is a rapid
reading of the Gospels, by which, through the exclusion of all non-essentials,
the mysterious, holy person of Jesus is brought
simply and freshly before the wondering soul. Not to know
about Jesus, but to know him, is the prime object of our
study. To know about him is a valuable part of education; but
to know him is life eternal.</p>
<h5>1. MEANING OF "GOSPEL"</h5>
<p>The Greek word for "gospel" means "good news." Nowhere in
the New Testament, however, is that word applied to a book.
There is no reference in the New Testament to a "Gospel" of
Matthew or of Mark or of Luke or of John. In the New Testament
the word "gospel" has a more general reference. It designates the
"good news" which lies at the basis of Christian preaching, however
that news may be known. Christianity is based upon "a piece of
information." The subject of that information is the life and death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without Christ we should have
been hopeless, but Christ has saved us. Information about what
he has done for us, however that information be conveyed, is the
gospel.</p>
<p>This broad use of the word "gospel" appears even in the titles
"Gospel according to Matthew," "Gospel according to Mark,"
"Gospel according to Luke," and "Gospel according to John,"
which are not due to the original authors of the books. "Gospel
according to Matthew" did not originally mean the same thing as<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</SPAN></span>
"Gospel of Matthew." It did not mean the Gospel which Matthew
produced, but the one Gospel of Jesus Christ as Matthew narrated
it. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John produced simply four accounts
of the same thing. That common subject of the four accounts is
the gospel, the good news, of what Jesus Christ has done for his
followers.</p>
<p>At a very early time, however, books which had the gospel as their
subject came themselves to be designated as "Gospels." The usage
is convenient, and will be freely adopted in these textbooks. We
may speak indiscriminately of the "Gospel according to Matthew"
and of the "Gospel of Matthew."</p>
<h5>2. AUTHORSHIP OF THE FIRST GOSPEL</h5>
<p><strong>(1) Not Indicated in the Gospel Itself.</strong>—The Gospel of Matthew
should be sharply distinguished from those books which themselves
make definite claims as to their authorship. The Epistle
to the Romans, for example, claims to have been written by the
apostle Paul. If it was not written by Paul, it is a forgery. The
book of The Acts, also, though it does not mention the name of the
author, claims at least—through the use of the first person plural—to
have been written by some companion of the apostle Paul.
Even the Gospel of John, as we shall see, really affords clear indications
about its own authorship. The Gospel of Matthew, on the
other hand, lays no claim to any particular authorship. We might
believe that it was written by some other person than Matthew and
yet be perfectly loyal to the book itself. The self-witness of the
book is confined merely to a claim of truthfulness. If we believe
that the record which the book contains is true, then we might, in
perfect loyalty to the Gospel, believe that it was written by some
one like Luke or Mark, outside of the company of the apostles.
Such a view, however, would display an unreasonable distrust of
Christian tradition.</p>
<p><strong>(2) Papias on the First Gospel.</strong>—The earliest extant information
about the authorship of the First Gospel is to be found in a
fragment which Eusebius, the church historian of the fourth century,
has preserved from a lost work of Papias. Papias was bishop of
Hierapolis in Asia Minor in the former half of the second century.</p>
<p>The fragment from Papias, which is found in Eusebius, Church
History, iii, 39, 16, may be translated as follows:</p>
<p>"Matthew accordingly wrote [or compiled] the oracles in the
Hebrew dialect, and everyone translated them as he was able."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>It seems pretty evident that Papias is here referring to the First
Gospel. Some, indeed, have supposed that he means by "the
oracles" a writing composed almost exclusively of sayings of Jesus,
which formed merely one of the sources of our First Gospel. This
view is probably incorrect. Papias could designate the Gospel of
Matthew as "the oracles" either because of the large place which
sayings of Jesus have in this Gospel, as compared, for example, with
the Gospel of Mark, or else because the whole Gospel, both speeches
and narrative, was of divine, oracular authority. The view that
"according to Matthew" in the ancient title and in Christian
tradition means not that Matthew wrote the book, but that it is
based in some way ultimately on his authority, is opposed by the
analogy of Mark. As we shall see, the Gospel of Mark, in early
tradition, was referred ultimately to the authority of Peter; if,
therefore, "according to" was used in the sense indicated above,
the Second Gospel would have been called the Gospel "according to
Peter" instead of the Gospel "according to Mark."</p>
<p>The testimony of Papias involves two principal assertions: in the
first place, that Matthew wrote the First Gospel; and in the second
place, that he wrote it in the "Hebrew" language.</p>
<p>The former assertion, which is supported by a striking consensus
of early writers, has already been considered. The latter is much
more puzzling.</p>
<h5>3. WAS THE FIRST GOSPEL ORIGINALLY ARAMAIC?</h5>
<p><strong>(1) Meaning of "Hebrew."</strong>—By "the Hebrew dialect," Papias
no doubt means Aramaic rather than what we call Hebrew. The
term "Hebrew" was applied to both of the two closely related
languages. Compare Acts 21:40. It is exceedingly unlikely that
a Gospel would have been written in Hebrew; for before the time of
Christ that had ceased to be the living language of Palestine. What
Papias asserts, then, is that Matthew wrote in Aramaic.</p>
<p><strong>(2) "Everyone Translated Them as He Was Able."</strong>—Papias
asserts further that everyone translated the oracles as he was able.
These words may be interpreted in various ways. Perhaps they
mean that every man who used the original of Matthew had to
translate it for himself; or perhaps that the Gospel was translated
orally in the churches, as the Jews translated the Hebrew Old Testament
into Aramaic in the synagogues; or perhaps that a number of
written translations of the Gospel were made. At any rate Papias
seems to imply that the condition which he here describes had come<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</SPAN></span>
to an end when he wrote. Some one Greek form of the Gospel had
gained general acceptance; the time when everyone translated as he
was able was at an end.</p>
<p>(3) Value of the Tradition.—The tradition of an Aramaic original
of Matthew is not preserved merely by Papias, but appears
in a considerable number of early writers. How far the other
writers are independent of Papias is a disputed question. The
tradition may be variously estimated. Some have supposed that
it is entirely correct—that our Greek Gospel of Matthew is a translation,
by Matthew himself or by some one else, of an Aramaic work:
others have supposed that the tradition is altogether false—for
example, that an Aramaic translation of the Greek Gospel was mistaken
for an original from which the Greek Gospel had been translated:
others hold intermediate views—for example, that one of the
sources of our Greek Gospel was written in Aramaic. An important
objection to the view that there was an Aramaic original of Matthew
is that the Greek Gospel looks more like an original Greek work than
like a translation. The tradition of the Aramaic Matthew places
before us one of the unsolved problems of New Testament criticism.</p>
<p>One thing is certain—the language of the Gospel of Matthew, like
that of the other Gospels, has a strong Aramaic coloring. This,
however, does not require the hypothesis that our Matthew was
translated from an Aramaic original. Undoubtedly, however our
Greek Matthew was written, there was a time in the early days of
the Church when the tradition of the life of Christ was carried on
chiefly or wholly in the Aramaic language. The words of Jesus, at
any rate, as they appear in our Gospels, have at some time or other
undergone translation; for Jesus taught in Aramaic. The Aramaic
coloring of the Gospels is one of the evidences of their trustworthiness.
Though written in Greek, they are evidently rooted deep in
the original Palestinian soil.</p>
<h5>4. DATE</h5>
<p>The date of the Gospel cannot be determined with accuracy.
Some indication, however, is afforded by the assertion of Irenæus,
of the latter part of the second century, that Matthew published his
Gospel while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome. Even if this
assertion should prove not to be absolutely correct, it would exhibit
an early tradition for the years between about A. D. 60 and 70 as
the date of the Gospel. This tradition is confirmed by the widespread
view among early writers that Matthew was written before
Mark; for Mark is now generally admitted to have been written<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</SPAN></span>
before the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. There is really
no serious objection to the traditional dating of Matthew. It was
probably written in the sixties of the first century, and probably, as
tradition says, in Palestine.</p>
<p>There are traces of the use of the Gospel in writers of the early
half of the second century. On the other hand, there is no clear indication
that it was used by any New Testament writer. The absence
of citations from our Gospels in the epistles of Paul would tend to
indicate that in the very earliest period the gospel tradition was
carried on by word of mouth rather than by books.</p>
<h5>5. THE APOSTLE MATTHEW</h5>
<p>In the four lists of the apostles, Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19;
Luke 6:13-16; Acts 1:13, Matthew is designated by the bare
name, except in his own Gospel, where he appears as "Matthew
the publican." In Matt. 9:9, his call is narrated. In the
parallel passages in Mark and Luke, Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27,28,
the name of the publican who was called is given only as "Levi."
Without the Gospel of Matthew we should not have been able to
identify Levi and Matthew. Evidently the apostle had two names,
as was the case with so many others of the persons mentioned in the
New Testament. After his call, Matthew made a great feast for
Jesus. Luke 5:29; compare Mark 2:15. Matthew himself,
alone among the Synoptists, does not even make it perfectly clear
that it was he in whose house Jesus sat at meat. The peculiarities
of the First Gospel in what is said about Matthew become significant
when the authorship is known. Of course of themselves they would
be quite insufficient to indicate who the author was. The assertion
by early writers that Matthew wrote the Gospel, was based not upon
indications in the Gospel itself, but upon independent tradition.</p>
<h5>6. "THE BOOK OF THE GENERATION OF JESUS CHRIST"</h5>
<p>The first verse of the Gospel is evidently based upon the formula,
occurring for the first time at Gen. 5:1, which marks off the
divisions of the book of Genesis. It is most naturally regarded as a
heading for the genealogy that follows in Matt. 1:2-17. There is
only one objection to that view. In Genesis "the book of the generations
of Adam," or "the generations of Shem" or the like, introduces
an account, not of ancestors of the persons in question, but of their
descendants. In Matt. 1:2-17, on the contrary, we have an account
not of descendants of Jesus, but of ancestors. This objection has led<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</SPAN></span>
some scholars to regard Matt. 1:1 as the title not of the genealogy
but of the whole Gospel. The title would then represent Jesus as
the beginning of a new race, or of a new period in the history of
humanity.</p>
<p>This interpretation is unnecessarily subtle. It should rather be
admitted that there is a difference between the phrase in Genesis and
that in Matthew. The difference is very natural. In the case of
Abraham the descendants were in view; in the case of the Messiah,
the ancestors. Adam and Noah and Abraham were bearers of a
promise; Christ was the culmination. Genesis looks forward;
Matthew looks back. The difference in the use of the phrase is
natural and significant.</p>
<p>The title, with the whole genealogy, is significant of what is to
follow. At the very start, the ruling thought of Matthew's Gospel
finds expression. Jesus is son of David, and son of Abraham; he is
the culmination of the divine promise.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p><span class="smcap">In the Library.</span>—Purves, "Christianity in the Apostolic Age," pp.
270-272, 290-293. Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": Purves (supplemented),
articles on "Gospel" and "Matthew." M'Clymont, "The New
Testament and Its Writers," pp. 1-20. Stevens and Burton, "A Harmony
of the Gospels." Ellicott, "A New Testament Commentary for English
Readers," vol. i: Plumptre, "The Gospel According to St. Matthew,
St. Mark, and St. Luke," pp. xli-xliii, 1-186. Zahn, "Introduction to the
New Testament," vol. ii, pp. 367-427, 506-601. The last-named work
is intended primarily for those who have some knowledge of Greek, but
can also be used by others.</p>
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