Matthew.
Christians believe that Matthew’s Gospel was written in Hebrew. Our Matthew was written in Greek. An attempt has been made to explain the discrepancy by assuming that Matthew wrote his book in Hebrew, and subsequently rewrote it in Greek, or translated it into this language. But another difficulty remains. The quotations from the Old Testament in Matthew, and there are many, are taken, not from the Hebrew, but from the Septuagint (Greek) version. This proves that it was originally written in Greek and not in Hebrew.
The Gospel According to the Hebrews, it is affirmed, was the Hebrew form of Matthew. If this be true, then our Greek Matthew cannot be a correct translation, for the passages from the Gospel of the Hebrews which have been preserved are not to be found in Matthew. The following quotations are from the Gospel of the Hebrews, this supposed original Gospel of Matthew:
“He who wonders shall reign, and he who reigns shall rest.”
“Then the rich man began to smite his head, and it pleased him not.”
“The Holy Ghost, my mother, lately took me by one of my hairs, and bore me to the great mountain Tabor.”
“I am a mason, who get my livelihood by my hands; I beseech thee, Jesus, that thou wouldst restore to me my strength, that I may no longer thus scandalously beg my bread.”
If these passages are from the original Gospel of Matthew, then the accepted Gospel of Matthew is spurious.
This Hebrew Gospel was the Gospel of the Ebionites and Nazarenes. Eusebius says: “They [the Ebionites] made use only of that which is called the Gospel According to the Hebrews.” Epiphanius says: “They [the Nazarenes] have the Gospel of Matthew most entire in the Hebrew language.” St. Jerome refers to it as “the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use.”
Referring to these sects, Dr. Hug, the eminent Catholic critic, says: “The Ebionites denied the miraculous conception of Christ, and, with the Nazarenes, looked upon him only as an ordinary man.” The Gospel which these sects accepted as their authority could not have been our Gospel of Matthew, because the most important part of this Gospel is the story of the miraculous conception.
While the claim that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew is vigorously maintained, the claim that he afterwards translated it into Greek himself is so manifestly untenable that many have conceded its improbability. Jerome says: “Who afterwards translated it [Matthew] into Greek is not sufficiently certain.”
The consequences of this admission are thus reluctantly expressed by Michaelis: “If the original text of Matthew is lost, and we have nothing but a Greek translation: then, frankly, we cannot ascribe any divine inspiration to the words.”
Two texts may be cited from Matthew which prove a later date for the Gospel than that claimed. Jesus, in upbraiding the Jews, is reported to have used the following language:
“Upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar” (xxiii, 35).
Zacharias, the son of Baruch (Barouchos), who is undoubtedly meant, was slain in the temple about 69 A.D. Thus Matthew makes Jesus refer to an event that occurred forty years after his death and twenty or thirty years after the Gospel of Matthew is said to have been written.
Dr. Hug admits that this is the Zacharias referred to. He says: “There cannot be a doubt, if we attend to the name, the fact and its circumstances, and the object of Jesus in citing it, that it was the same Zacharias Barouchos, who, according to Josephus, a short time before the destruction of Jerusalem, was unjustly slain in the temple.”
Regarding this passage in Matthew, Professor Newman, of University College, London, says: “There is no other man known in history to whom this verse can allude. If so, it shows how late, how ignorant, how rash, is the composer of a text passed off on us as sacred truth” (Religion Not History, p. 46).
“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (xvi, 18, 19).
This passage was written at the beginning of the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, for the purpose of securing the recognition of the Church of Rome (the founding of which tradition assigned to Peter) as the church of Christ.
Bishop Marsh, in his Michaelis, says: “If the arguments in favor of a late date for the composition of St. Matthew’s Gospel be compared with those in favor of an early date, it will be found that the former greatly outweigh the latter.”
Dr. Davidson admits that Matthew is an anonymous work. He says: “The author, indeed, must ever remain unknown” (Introduction to the New Testament, p. 72).