[CHAPTER VI.]
The Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Papias, the Bishop of Hieropolis (about A.D. 140), wrote a small sentence which, examined critically recently, has revolutionised all our ideas about the four eye-witnesses of Paley.
He tells us that Matthew first in the Hebrew dialect wrote the λόγια [Greek: logia] (sayings), and each person translated as he was able.
This tells us everything. Matthew in Aramaic wrote down all the "sayings" of Christ that he could remember, and our three gospels and a number of other gospels were translations, enlargements, and fanciful versions of this. Matthew's work emerged in the Church at Jerusalem, and was their sole scripture. Jerome (416 A.D.), writing against the Pelagians, says:
"In the Gospel according to the Hebrews—which is written, indeed, in the Chaldee and Syriac language, but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes use to this day—according to the Apostles, or, as very many deem, according to Matthew." ("Dial. adv. Pelag.," ch. iii.)
This gives us its title. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was first called the Gospel according to the Apostles, and sometimes the Gospel according to Matthew. What do we know about this Gospel according to the Apostles? In a great trial, three or four obscure witnesses often unexpectedly assume a dominant importance. In the great trial now going on of Christianity (as distinguished from the religion of Christ), four such witnesses have suddenly surged up.
They are Hegesippus, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenæus. What do they tell us of the Gospel of the Apostles—the Gospel according to the Hebrews?