Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

In addition to these authorities from the Fathers, may be quoted the statements appended to the ancient Syriac and Arabic versions, which distinctly declare that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. This was also the opinion of all the learned Syrians.

The great argument with which all this evidence is met, (besides discrediting the witnesses,) is that Matthew ought to have written in Greek, and therefore did. (Matthaeus Graece scribere debuit. Schubert. Diss. § 24.) This sounds very strangely; that, without any direct ancient testimony to support the assertion, but a great number of distinct assertions against it from the very earliest Fathers, moderns should now pronounce themselves better judges of what Matthew ought to do, than those who were so near to his time, and were so well acquainted with his design, and all the circumstances under which it was executed. Yet, strangely as it sounds, an argument of even this presumptuous aspect, demands the most respectful consideration, more especially from those who have had frequent occasion, on other points, to notice the very contemptible character of the “testimony of the Fathers.” It should be noticed however, that, in this case, the argument does not rest on a mere floating tradition, like many other mooted points in early Christian history, but in most of the witnesses, is referred to direct personal knowledge of the facts, and, in some cases, to actual inspection of the original.

It is proper to notice the reasons for thinking that Matthew ought to have written in Greek, which have influenced such minds as those of Erasmus, Beza, Ittig, Leusden, Spanheim, LeClerc, Semler, Hug and others, and which have had a decisive weight with such wonderfully deep Hebrew scholars, as Wagenseil, Lightfoot, John Henry Michaelis, and Reland. The amount of the argument is, mainly, that the Greek was then so widely and commonly spoken even in Palestine, as to be the most desirable language for the evangelist to use in preserving for the benefit of his own countrymen, the record of the life of Christ. The particulars of the highly elaborate and learned arguments, on which this assertion has been rested, have filled volumes, nor can even an abstract be allowed here; but a simple reference to common facts will do something to show to common readers, the prominent objections to the notion of a Greek original. It is perfectly agreed that the Hebrew was the ordinary language spoken by Christ, in his teachings, and in all his usual intercourse with the people around him. That this language was that in which the Jews also commonly wrote and read at that time, as far as they were able to do either, in any language, is equally plain. In spite of all that Grecian and Roman conquests could do, the Jews were still a distinct and peculiar people; nor is there any reason whatever to suppose that they were any less so in language, than they were in dress, manners, and general character. He, therefore, who desired to write anything for the benefit of the Jews, as a nation, would insure it altogether the best attention from them, if it came in a form most accordant with their national feelings. They would naturally be the first persons whose salvation would be an object to the apostolic writers, as to the apostolic preachers, and the feelings of the writer himself, being in some degree influenced by love of his own countrymen, he would aim first at the direct spiritual benefit of those who were his kindred according to the flesh. Among all the historical writings of the New Testament, that there should be not one originally composed in the language of the people among whom the Savior arose, with whom he lived, talked and labored, and for whom he died, would be very strange. The fact that a gospel in the Hebrew language was considered absolutely indispensable for the benefit of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, is rendered perfectly incontestable by the circumstance that those apocryphal gospels which were in common use among the heretical denominations of that region, were all in Hebrew; and the common argument, that the Hebrew gospel spoken of by the Fathers was translated into Hebrew from Matthew’s Greek, is itself an evidence that it was absolutely indispensable that the Jews should be addressed in writing, in that language alone. The objection, that the Hebrew original of Matthew was lost so soon, is easily answered by the fact, that the Jews were, in the course of the few first centuries, driven out of the land of their Fathers so completely, as to destroy the occasion for any such gospel in their language; for wherever they went, they soon made the dialect of the country in which they lived, their only medium of communication, written or spoken.

Fabricius may be advantageously consulted by the scholar for a condensed view of the question of the original language of Matthew’s gospel, and his references to authorities, ancient and modern, are numerous and valuable, besides those appended by his editors.——The most complete argument ever made out in defense of a Greek original, is that by Hug, in his Introduction, whose history of the progress of Grecian influence and language in Syria and Palestine, is both interesting and valuable on its own account, though made the inefficient instrument of supporting an error. He is very ably met by his English translator, Wait, in the introduction to the first volume. A very strong defense of a Greek original of Matthew, is also found in a little quarto pamphlet, containing a thesis of a Goettingen student, on taking his degree in theology, in 1810. (Diss. Crit. Exeg. in serm. Matt. &c. Auct. Frid. Gul. Schubert.)

II. What were the Materials of Matthew’s Gospel?

This point has been made the subject of more discussion and speculation, within the last fifty years, among the critical and exegetical theologians of Europe, than any other subject connected with the New Testament. Those who wish to see the interesting details of the modes of explaining the coincidences between the three first evangelists, may find much on this subject in Michaelis’s Introduction to the New Testament, and especially in the translation by Bishop Marsh, who, in his notes on Vol. III. of Michaelis, has, after a very full discussion of all previous views of the origin of the gospels, gone on to build one of the most ingenious speculations on this point that was ever conceived on any subject, but which, in its very complicated structure, will present a most insuperable objection to its adoption by the vast majority of even his critical readers; and accordingly, though he has received universal praise for the great learning and ingenuity displayed in its formation, he has found few supporters,——perhaps none. His views are fully examined and fairly discussed, by the anonymous English translator of Dr. F. Schleiermacher’s Commentary on Luke, in an introductory history of all the German speculations on this subject with which he has prefaced that work. The historical sketch there given of the progress of opinion on the sources and materials of the three first gospels, is probably the most complete account of the whole matter that is accessible in English, and displays a very minute acquaintance with the German theologians. Hug is also very full on this subject, and also discusses the views of Marsh and Michaelis. Hug’s translator, Dr. Wait, has given, in an introduction to the first volume, a very interesting account of these critical controversies, and has large references to many German writers not referred to by his author. Bertholdt and Bolten, in particular, are amply quoted and disputed by Wait. Bloomfield also, in the prefaces to the first and second volumes of his critical Annotations on the New Testament, gives much on the subject that can hardly be found any where else by a mere English reader. Large references might be made to the works of the original German writers; but it would require a very protracted statement, and would be useless to nearly all readers, because those to whom these rare and deep treasures of sacred knowledge are accessible, are doubtless better able to give an account of them than I am. It may be worth while to mention, however, that of all those statements of the facts on this subject with which I am acquainted, none gives a more satisfactory view, than a little Latin monograph, in a quarto of eighty pages, written by H. W. Halfeld, (a Goettingen theological student, and a pupil of Eichhorn, for whose views he has a great partiality,) for the Royal premium. Its title is, “Commentatio de origine quatuor evangeliorum, et de eorum canonica auctoritate.” (Goettingen, 1796.) The Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius, (Harles’s edition with notes,) contains, in the chapters on the gospels, very rich references to the learned authors on these points. Lardner, in his History of the Apostles and Evangelists, takes a learned view of the question, “whether either of the three evangelists had seen the others’ writings.” This he gives after the lives of all four of the evangelists, and it may be referred to for a very full abstract of all the old opinions upon the question. Few of these points have any claim for a discussion in this book, but some things may very properly be alluded to, in the lives of the other evangelists, where a reference to their resemblances and common sources, will be essential to the completeness of the narrative.

III. At what time did Matthew write his gospel?

This is a question on which the records of antiquity afford no light, that can be trusted; and it is therefore left to be settled entirely by internal evidence. There are indeed ancient stories, that he wrote it nine years after the ascension,——that he wrote it fifteen years after that event,——that he wrote it while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome,——or when he was about leaving Palestine, &c., all which are about equally valuable. The results of the examinations of modern writers, who have labored to ascertain the date, have been exceedingly various, and only probabilities can be stated on this most interesting point of gospel history. The most probable conjecture on this point is one based on the character of certain passages in Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, which by their vividness in the evangelist’s record, may be fairly presumed to have been written down when the crisis in Jewish affairs was highest, and most interesting; and when the perilous condition of the innocent Christians must have been a matter of the deepest solicitude to the apostles,——so much as to deserve a particular provision, by a written testimony of the impending ruin. A reference made also to a certain historical fact in Christ’s prophecy, which is known on the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, to have happened about this time, affords another important ground for fixing the date. This is the murder of Zachariah, the son of Barachiah, whom the Jews slew between the temple and the altar. He relates that the ferocious banditti, who had possessed themselves of the strong places of the city, tyrannized over the wretched inhabitants, executing the most bloody murders daily, among them, and killing, upon the most unfounded accusations, the noblest citizens. Among those thus sacrificed by these bloody tyrants, Josephus very minutely narrates the murder of Zachariah, the son of Baruch, or Baruchus, a man of one of the first families, and of great wealth. His independence of character and freedom of speech, denouncing the base tyranny under which the city groaned, soon made him an object of mortal hatred, to the military rulers; and his wealth also constituted an important incitement to his destruction. He was therefore seized, and on the baseless charge of plotting to betray the city into the hands of Vespasian and the Romans, was brought to a trial before a tribunal constituted by themselves, from the elders of the people, in the temple, which they had profaned by making it their strong hold. The righteous Zachariah, knowing that his doom was irrevocably sealed, determined not to lay aside his freedom of speech, even in this desperate pass; and when brought by his iniquitous accusers before the elders who constituted the tribunal, in all the eloquent energy of despair, after refuting the idle accusations against him, in few words, he turned upon his accusers in just indignation, and burst out into the most bitter denunciations of their wickedness and cruelty, mingling with these complaints, lamentations over the desolate and miserable condition of his ruined country. The ferocious Zealots, excited to madness by his dauntless spirit of resistance, instantly drew their swords, and threateningly called out to the judges to condemn him at once. But even the instruments of their power, were too much moved by the heroic innocence of the prisoner, to consent to this unjust doom; and, in spite of these threats, acquitted him at once. The Zealots then burst out, at once, into fury against the judges, and rushed upon them to punish their temerity, in declaring themselves willing to die with him, rather than unjustly pronounce sentence upon him. Two of the fiercest of the ruffians, seizing Zachariah, slew him in the middle of the temple, insulting his last agonies, and immediately hurled his warm corpse over the terrace of the temple, into the depths of the valley below.

This was, most evidently, the horrible murder, to which Jesus referred in his prophecy. Performed thus, just on the eve of the last, utter ruin of the temple and the city, it is the only act that could be characterized as the crowning iniquity of all the blood unrighteously shed, from the earliest time downwards. It has sometimes been supposed by those ignorant of this remarkable event, that the Zachariah here referred to, was Zachariah, son of Jehoiada, who in the reign of Joash, king of Judah, was stoned by the people, at the command of the king, in the outer court of the temple. But there are several circumstances connected with that event, which render it impossible to interpret the words of Jesus as referring merely to that, although some of the coincidences are truly amazing. That Zachariah was the son of Jehoiada,——this was the son of Baruch or Barachiah;——that Zachariah was slain in the outer court,——this was slain “in the midst of the temple,”——that is, “between the temple and the altar.” Besides, Jesus evidently speaks of this Zachariah as a person yet to come. “Behold, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and writers; and some of them you shall kill and crucify; and some of them you shall scourge and persecute; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah, the son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. All these things shall come upon this generation.” It is true that here, the writer, in recording the prophecy, now referring to its fulfilment, turns to the Jews, charging it upon them as a crime already past, when he writes, though not at the time when the Savior spoke; and it is therefore, by a bold change of tense, that he represents Jesus speaking of a future event, as past. But the whole point of the discourse plainly refers to future crimes, as well as to future punishment. The multitude who heard him, indeed, no doubt considered him as pointing, in this particular mention of names, only to a past event; and notwithstanding the difference of minor circumstances, probably interpreted his words as referring to the Zachariah mentioned in 2 Chronicles, who was stoned for his open rebukes of the sins of king and people;——a conclusion moreover, justified by the previous words of Jesus. He had just been denouncing upon them the sin of their fathers, as the murderers of the prophets, whose tombs they were now so ostentatiously building; and if this wonderful accomplishment of his latter words had not taken place, it might reasonably be supposed, that he spoke of these future crimes only to show that their conduct would soon justify his imputation to them of their fathers’ guilt; that they would, during that same generation, murder similar persons, sent to them on similar divine errands, and thus become sharers in the crime of their fathers, who slew Zachariah, the son of Jehoiada, in the outer temple. But here now is the testimony of the impartial Josephus, a Jew,——himself a contemporary learner of all these events, and an eye-witness of some of them,——who, without any bias in favor of Christ, but rather some prejudice against him,——in this case too, without the knowledge of any such prophecy spoken or recorded,——gives a clear, definite statement of the outrageous murder of Zachariah, the son of Baruch or Barachiah, who, as he says, exactly, was “slain in the middle of the temple,”——that is, half-way “between the temple-courts and the altar.” He mentions it too, as the last bloody murder of a righteous man, for proclaiming the guilt of the wicked people; and it therefore very exactly corresponds to the idea of the crime, which was “to fill up the measure of their iniquities.” This event, thus proved to be the accomplishment of the prophecy of Jesus, and being shown moreover, to have been expressed in this peculiar form, with a reference to the recent occurrence of the murder alluded to,——is therefore a most valuable means of ascertaining the date of this gospel. Josephus dates the murder of Zachariah in the month of October, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, which corresponds to A. D. 66. The Apostle Matthew then, must have written after this time; and it must be settled by other passages, how long after, he recorded the prophecy.

The passage containing the prophecy of [♦]the death of Zachariah, is in Matthew xxiii. 35; and that of “the abomination of desolation,” is in xxiv. 15.