Is there anything in the New Testament to verify this statement so universally accepted as true among the "Christian" Protestantic world? Or does the New Testament confirm the conclusions we have arrived at in the perusal of the Old?
The New Testament contains five historic books, viz.: the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; fourteen letters written by Paul; three by John, and two by Peter, one letter by James, and one by Jude, to which collection comes one prophetic book by John.
THE FOUR GOSPELS.
The four Gospels are brief, biographical sketches, records of a few of the works and teachings of our Lord.
It may be supposed that those disciples of Christ that were able to write, like Matthew and John, would keep journals while they followed their master, witnessing his works and listening to his teachings. These journals would, after the crucifixion and ascension, naturally be read in private and in public. They would be copied and distributed in the various branches of the church and form texts for discourses, and thus be augmented with such incidents or sayings which were still retained in the memories of those who had been eye witnesses. In this way several versions of the doings and sayings of our Lord began to circulate, some, no doubt, contradicting others, until the necessity became universally felt to have some authentic record, showing exactly what was reliable of the many circulating reports, and what was not reliable. And the result is the four gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
At what precise time these gospels were completed in their present form is a question not yet settled between the various critics. That they, in their present form, were issued by the apostles, whose names they bear, seems irreconcilable with some facts. There are, for instance, words and phrases found, which could hardly have had any significance until some time after the time of the apostles. The word "kephas" (John i, 43) does not occur in classical Hebrew, but is used by later Talmudistic writers signifying something hard, a rock. "Petra" (Matt. xvi, 18) meaning a "rock," has a strong Latin color, while the Hebrew for "rock" is "zur." And the expression "to take up the cross," or "to bear the cross," is all the more remarkable, as in the Hebrew there was at that time no word equivalent to "cross," which is of Latin origin. Even later Jewish writers found it difficult to adequately express the idea of a cross, and hence used the word zelem, which, however, signifies an image, and the translations of the New Testament, both into Hebrew and Arabic, have found no better way out of the difficulty than to adopt the Chaldaic zeliba, gallows. Of this a modern form, zelab, is made to represent the idea "cross." From these and many other circumstances, we seem justified in the conclusion that the four gospels have been subjected to foreign influences, which have modified their form in various ways. But that they are based upon and contain the "memoirs" of our Lord, as published by the apostles, by mouth and pen, need not be doubted. The testimony of antiquity is conclusive on this point.
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW.
According to general tradition in the early church, the annotations of Matthew were written in the vernacular tongue of Palestine, Syro-Chaldaic, a tradition very probable indeed. But as Greek at this time was the literary language, the original was soon translated into this tongue, under the supervision of Matthew himself, about thirty years after the crucifixion. It may be safely assumed that our "Gospel According to St. Matthew" is in the main identical with this original document of the Apostle.
The aim of this gospel is dearly to prove to the Jews that Jesus is the promised Messiah. It frequently refers to the prophets, refutes the various Jewish sects, and tries to prepare the Jewish nation for the acceptance of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God.