The Books of the New Testament

by Leighton Pullan

[Sidenote: Date.]

The date must be shortly before A.D. 70. A favourite argument of modern sceptics is that it contains a reference (xxii. 7) to the burning of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, and therefore must have been written after that event. The argument rests upon the assumption that our Lord could not have foreseen the event predicted—an assumption which no Christian can accept. Even the favoured servants of God in later ages have sometimes possessed the gift of prophecy. Savonarola certainly foretold the fall of Rome, which took place in A.D. 1527, and the prophecy was printed long before the event seemed credible. Much more might the Son of God have foretold the fall of that city which had so signally neglected His summons. Such expressions as "the holy city," "the holy place," "the city of the great King," suggest that when the Gospel was written it had not yet become the home of "the abomination of desolation." And a far stronger proof is afforded by the caution of the writer in xxiv. 15, "let him that readeth understand." This is an editorial note inserted by the evangelist, as by St. Mark, before our Lord's warning to flee from Judaea. We learn from the early historians of the Church that the Jewish Christians took warning from this statement to flee from Judaea to Peraea before the Romans invested the holy city in A.D. 70. Now, it would have been absurd for the evangelist to insert this note after the Roman forces had begun the siege, as absurd as it would have been to warn the Parisians to flee to England after Paris had been surrounded by the Prussians in 1870, or to warn the English to leave Ladysmith in 1900 after it was surrounded by the Boers. Another and final proof that the Gospel was written before A.D. 70 is given by the form in which the evangelist has recorded our Lord's prophecy of the end of the world (the so-called "eschatological discourse" in chs. xxiv.-xxv.). The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and that of the last coming of the Lord are placed side by side with no perceptible break. Ch. xxiv. 29-31 refers to the {39} last coming of Christ, whereas the verses which immediately precede it refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and so do vers. 32-34. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that the evangelist believed that the judgment upon Jerusalem would be immediately followed by the last judgment of the world. He knows that our Lord foretold both, and both events loom large in his mind. As a traveller in a valley sees before him two great mountains which appear close to one another, though really separated by many miles, so the evangelist sees these two events together. After the fall of Jerusalem he would almost certainly have made a definite break between the two subjects.

[Sidenote: Literary Style.]

We have already noticed in ch. ii. the fondness for numerical arrangement, which is a marked characteristic of the style of this Gospel. There are other proofs of the fact that this Gospel is more Hebrew in tone than the others. In the other Gospels we find the expression "the kingdom of God," but here we find it called "the kingdom of heaven," an instance of the peculiarly Jewish reverence which shrank from uttering the name of God. There are a few Aramaic words found in this Gospel—raca (v. 22), gehenna (v. 22), mammon (vi. 24); and we should add the peculiar use of "righteousness" in vi. 1, where the word is used in the sense of "alms" in accordance with a Jewish idiom. But the Greek phrases are often neat and clear-cut. They sometimes seem to imply a play upon words, e.g. in vi. 16 and xxiv. 30. This is another indication that the Gospel, as it stands, was first written in Greek. The Greek is smoother than that of St. Mark, though not so vivid. The evangelist writes with a joyous interest in his work. The historical parts of it are full of beauty, but he uses them mainly as a framework for the discourses of Jesus, which he preserves with loving fidelity.

In St. Matthew's Gospel the Old Testament is frequently quoted, that the reader may see that Jesus is the realization of {40} the hopes of the Jewish prophets. With set purpose the fair picture of the Servant of Jehovah drawn by Isaiah is placed in the middle of the Gospel (xii. 18-21), that we may recognize it as the true portrait of Christ. Close to it on either side the blasphemies of the Pharisees are skilfully depicted as a foil to His divine beauty. We have already noticed the bearing of these quotations on the origin of the Gospel, but we must speak further of their bearing on the evangelist's view of the Old Testament. His Messianic quotations are introduced by such phrases as "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," or, "then was fulfilled," etc. The tendency of modern scepticism to ridicule the supernatural element in prophecy has caused some writers to depreciate this method of quotation. And we find even a thoughtful Roman Catholic writer speaking of it as "giving the impression that the supple and living story of the life of Jesus is only a chain of debts which fall due, and fulfilments which cannot be avoided." [8] In particular, it has been alleged that the Greek word translated "that," or "in order that," and prefixed to these quotations, implies this fatalistic necessity. But this particular argument is mistaken. In later Greek the use of the word was vaguer than it had been formerly.[9] It cannot be narrowed down so as to prove that the evangelist thought that events in the Old Testament only took place in order to be types which the Son of God constrained Himself to fulfil. And, speaking more generally, we may say that the evangelist shows an exquisite taste in his selection of Messianic quotations. Convinced that Jesus sums up the history of Israel, he does not hesitate to quote passages in the Old Testament, whether they directly refer to the Messianic King, or only call up some picture which has a counterpart in the life of Christ.

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Thus the quotations in i. 23 and ii. 6 directly refer to one who is the expected King, that in viii. 17 to one who is the ideal martyred Servant, that in ii. 15 to Israel conceived of as the peculiar child of God and so a type of Christ. In ii. 23 the evangelist finds in the name of Nazareth an echo of the ancient Messianic title Netzer (a branch). In ii. 18 we see that the tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem reminds him of the mothers of Israel weeping over the death of their children at the hands of the Babylonians; and as Jeremiah poetically conceived of Rachel weeping with the mothers of his own day, so St. Matthew conceives of her as finding her crowning sorrow in the massacre of the Holy Innocents.

Three other quotations deserve special notice: (1) That in xxvii. 9, which the evangelist quotes from "Jeremiah." It is often said that this is a mere mistake for Zechariah. But it is a quotation combined, according to the Jewish method known as the Charaz, or "string of pearls," from Zech. xi. 12 and Jer. xix. 1, 2, 6, the valley of the son of Hinnom being regarded as typical of "the field of blood." (2) That in xxvii. 34, from Ps. lxix. 21. It is said that the evangelist, in order to make our Lord's action correspond with the words of the Psalmist, makes Him drink "gall" instead of "myrrh" (Mark xv. 23), and thus represents the soldiers as cruelly giving Him a nauseating draught instead of a draught to dull His pain. The argument will hardly hold good, for the Greek word translated "gall" can also signify a stupefying drug, and thus Matt. and Mark agree. (3) That in xxi. 2-7, where our Lord is represented as making use of both an ass and a colt for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The other Synoptists mention a colt only, and it is supposed that the evangelist altered his narrative of the fact in order to make it agree with a too literal interpretation of Zech. ix. 9. It must be admitted that the account in Mark and Luke has an air of greater probability, and it has the support of the brief account in John. But there is not a decisive contradiction between Matt. and the other Gospels, and it is therefore unreasonable to pass an unfavourable verdict on any of them. The story in Matt. cannot be discredited as containing an apocryphal miracle, and the mere fact that it is so independent of the other Gospels suggests that it is really primitive.

[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]

The chief characteristic of this Gospel is the representation of Jesus as the Messiah in whom was fulfilled the {42} Law and the prophets. It was probably placed first in the New Testament because this Messianic doctrine is the point of union between the old covenant and the new. St. Matthew's representation of the Messiah is the result of very careful reflection, and it shows that the evangelist wrote in a spirit which was philosophical and in one sense controversial. He is philosophic because he is not a mere annalist. He groups incidents and discourses together in a manner which brings out their significance as illustrating the Messiahship of Jesus and the majestic forward movement of the kingdom of God. He is in one sense controversial because he wishes his picture of Christ to correct that false idea of the Messiah and His reign which was ruining the Jewish people. The best kind of controversy is that which is intent upon explaining the truth rather than eager to expose and ridicule what is false. So the evangelist presents to his readers Jesus as the Lord's Anointed with inspired powers of persuasion. The manner in which he records our Lord's urgent warnings against going after false Jewish Messiahs at the time when the destruction of Jerusalem should draw near, is a witness to the depth of his convictions. Like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who wrote shortly before him, he cannot endure the thought of any waverers or deserters. The Jewish Christian must be loyal to Jesus, even although the invasion of the holy land by Gentiles may sorely tempt him to throw in his lot with his patriotic but unbelieving kinsmen.