The Lost and Hostile Gospels / An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain

I. The Gospel Of The Hebrews.

1. The Fragments extant.

Eusebius quotes Papias, Irenaeus and Origen, as authorities for his statement that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel first in Hebrew.

Papias, a contemporary of Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John, and who carefully collected all information he could obtain concerning the apostles, declares that “Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew dialect,137 and that every one translated it as he was able.”138

Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, and therefore also likely to have trustworthy information on this matter, says, “Matthew among the Hebrews wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome, and founding the Church there.”139

In a fragment, also, of Irenaeus, edited by Dr. Grabe, it is said that “the Gospel according to Matthew was written to the Jews, for they earnestly desired a Messiah [pg 120] of the posterity of David. Matthew, in order to satisfy them on this point, began his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus”.140

Origen, in a passage preserved by Eusebius, has this statement: “I have learned by tradition concerning the four Gospels, which alone are received without dispute by the Church of God under heaven, that the first was written by St. Matthew, once a tax-gatherer, afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it for the benefit of the Jewish converts, composed in the Hebrew language.”141 And again, in his Commentary on St. John, “We begin with Matthew, who, according to tradition, wrote first, publishing his Gospel to the believers who were of the circumcision.”

Eusebius, who had collected the foregoing testimonies on a subject which, in that day, seems to have been undisputed, thus records what he believed to be a well-authenticated historical fact: “Matthew, having first preached to the Hebrews, delivered to them, when he was preparing to depart to other countries, his Gospel composed in their native language.”142

St. Jerome follows Papias: “Matthew, who is also Levi, from a publican became an apostle, and he first composed his Gospel of Christ in Judaea, for those of the circumcision who believed, and wrote it in Hebrew words and characters; but who translated it afterwards into Greek is not very evident. Now this Hebrew Gospel is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus the martyr so diligently collected. I also obtained permission of the Nazarenes of Beraea in Syria, who use this volume, to make a copy of it. In which it is to be observed that, throughout, the Evangelist when [pg 121] quoting the witness of the Old Testament, either in his own person or in that of the Lord and Saviour, does not follow the authority of the Seventy translators, but the Hebrew Scriptures, from which he quotes these two passages, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my Son,’ and, ‘Since he shall be called a Nazarene.’ ”143 And again: “That Gospel which is called the Gospel of the Hebrews, and which has lately been translated by me into Greek and Latin, and was used frequently by Origen, relates,” &c.144 Again: “That Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites make use of, and which I have lately translated into Greek from the Hebrew, and which by many is called the genuine Gospel of Matthew.”145 And once more: “The Gospel of the Hebrews, which is written in the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, and in Hebrew characters, which the Nazarenes make use of at this day, is also called the Gospel of the Apostles, or, as many think, is that of Matthew, is in the library of Caesarea.”146

St. Epiphanius is even more explicit. He says that the Nazarenes possessed the most complete Gospel of St. Matthew,147 as it was written at first in Hebrew;148 and “they have it still in Hebrew characters; but I do not know if they have cut off the genealogies from Abraham to Christ.” “We may affirm as a certain fact, that Matthew alone among the writers of the New Testament wrote the history of the preaching of the Gospel in Hebrew, and in Hebrew characters.”149 This Hebrew Gospel, he adds, was known to Cerinthus and Carpocrates.

The subscriptions of many MSS. and versions bear [pg 122] the same testimony. Several important Greek codices of St. Matthew close with the statement that he wrote in Hebrew; the Syriac and Arabic versions do the same. The subscription of the Peschito version is, “Finished is the holy Gospel of the preaching of Matthew, which he preached in Hebrew in the land of Palestine.” That of the Arabic version reads as follows: “Here ends the copy of the Gospel of the apostle Matthew. He wrote it in the land of Palestine, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the Hebrew language, eight years after the bodily ascension of Jesus the Messiah into heaven, and in the first year of the Roman Emperor, Claudius Caesar.”

The title of Gospel of the Hebrews was only given to the version known to Jerome and Epiphanius, because it was in use among the Hebrews. But amongst the Nazarenes it was called “The Gospel of the Apostles,”150 or “The Gospel of the Twelve.”151 St. Jerome expressly says that “the Gospel used by the Nazarenes is also called the Gospel of the Apostles.”152 That the same Gospel should bear two names, one according to its reputed authors, the other according to the community which used it, is not surprising.

Justin Martyr probably alludes to it under a slightly different name, “The Recollections of the Apostles.”153 He says that these Recollections were a Gospel.154 He adopted the word used by Xenophon for his recollections of Socrates. What the Memorabilia of Xenophon were [pg 123] concerning the martyred philosopher, that the Memorabilia of the Apostles were concerning the martyred Redeemer.

It is probable that this Hebrew Gospel of the Twelve was the only one with which Justin Martyr was acquainted.

Justin Martyr was a native of Samaria, and his acquaintance with Christianity was probably made in the communities of Nazarenes scattered over Syria. By family he was a Greek, and was therefore by blood inclined to sympathize with the Gentile rather than the Jewish Christians. This double tendency is manifest in his writings. He judges the Ebionites, even the narrowest of their sectarian rings, with great tenderness; but he proclaims that Gentiledom had yielded better Christians than Jewdom.155 Justin distinguishes between the Ebionites. There were those who in their own practice observed the Mosaic Law, believing in Christ as the flower and end of the Law, but without exacting the same observance of believing Gentiles; and there were those, who not only observed the Law themselves, but imposed it on their Gentile converts. His sympathies were with the former, whom he regards as the true followers of the apostles, and not with the latter.

Justin's conversion took place circ. A.D. 133. He is a valuable testimony to the divisions among the Nazarenes or Ebionites in the second century, just when Gnostic views were infiltrating among the extreme Judaizing section.

Justin Martyr's Christian training took place in the Nazarene Church, in the orthodox, milder section. He no doubt inherited the traditional prejudice against St. Paul, for he neither mentions him by name, nor quotes any of his writings. That he should have omitted to [pg 124] quote St. Paul in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew is not surprising; but one cannot doubt that had he seen the Epistles of the Apostle of the Gentiles, he would have cited them, or shown that they had influenced the current of his thoughts in his two Apologies addressed to Gentiles. He quotes “the book that is called the Gospel” as if there were but one; but what Gospel was it? It has been frequently observed that the quotations of Justin are closer to the parallel passages in St. Matthew than to those of the other Canonical Gospels. But the only Gospel he names is the Gospel of the Twelve.

Did Justin Martyr possess the Gospel of St. Matthew, or some other?

It is observable that he diverges from the Gospel narrative in several particulars. It is inconceivable that this was caused by defect of memory. Two or three of those texts in which he differs from our Canonical Gospels occur several times in his writings, and always in the same form.156 Would it not be strange that his memory should fail him each time, and on each of these passages? But though his memory may have been inaccurate in recording exact words, the differences that have been noticed between the citations of Justin Martyr and the Canonical Gospel of St. Matthew are not confined to words; they extend to particulars, to facts. Verbal differences are accountable for by lapse of memory, but it is not so with facts. One can understand how in quoting by memory the mode of expressing the same facts may vary, but not that the facts themselves should be different. If the facts cited are different, we are forced to conclude that the citations were derived from another source. And such is the case with Justin.

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Five or six times does he say that the Magi came from Arabia;157 St. Matthew says only that they came from the East.158

He says that our Lord was born in a cave159 near Bethlehem; that, when he was baptized, a bright light shone over him; and he gives words which were heard from heaven, which are not recorded by any of the Evangelists.

That our Lord was born in a cave is probable enough, but where did Justin learn it? Certainly not from St. Matthew's Gospel, which gives no particulars of the birth of Christ at Bethlehem. St. Luke says he was born in the stable of an inn. Justin, we are warranted in suspecting, derived the fact of the stable being a cave from the only Gospel with which he was acquainted, that of the Hebrews.

The tradition of the scene of Christ's nativity having been a cave was peculiarly Jewish. It is found in the Apocryphal Gospels of the Nativity and the Protevangelium, both of which unquestionably grew up in Judaea. That Justin should endorse this tradition leads to the conclusion that he found it so stated in his Gospel.

I shall speak of the light and voice at the baptism presently.

St. Epiphanius says that the Ebionite Gospel began with, “In the days of Herod, Caiaphas being the high-priest, there was a man whose name was John,” and so on, like the 3rd chap. St. Matthew. But this was the mutilated Gospel of the Hebrews used by the Gnostic Ebionites, who were heretical on the doctrine of the [pg 126] nativity of our Lord, and whom Justin Martyr speaks of as rejecting the supernatural birth of Christ.160

Among the Nazarenes, orthodox and heretical, but one Gospel was recognized, and that the Hebrew Gospel of the Twelve; but the Gospel in use among the Gnostic Ebionites became more and more corrupt as they diverged further from orthodoxy.

But the primitive Hebrew Gospel was held “in high esteem by those Jews who received the faith.”161 “It is the Gospel,” says St. Jerome, “that the Nazarenes use at the present day.”162 “It is the Gospel of the Hebrews that the Nazarenes read,” says Origen.163

Was this Gospel of the Twelve, or of the Hebrews, the original of St. Matthew's Canonical Greek Gospel, or was it a separate compilation? This is a question to be considered presently.

The statement of the Fathers that the Gospel of St. Matthew was first written in Hebrew, must of course be understood to mean that it was written in Aramaic or Palestinian Syriac.

Now we have extant two versions of the Gospels, St. Matthew's included, in Syriac, the Peschito and the Philoxenian. The latter needs only a passing mention; it was avowedly made from the Greek, A.D. 508. But the Peschito is much more ancient. The title of “Peschito” is an emphatic Syrian term for that which is “simple,” “uncorrupt” and “true;” and, applied from the beginning to this version, it strongly indicates the veneration and confidence with which it has ever been regarded by all the Churches of the East.164 When this [pg 127] version was made cannot be decided by scholars. A copy in the Laurentian Library bears so early a date as A.D. 586; but it existed long before the translation was made by Philoxenus in 508. The first Armenian version from the Greek was made in 431, and the Armenians already, at that date, had a version from the Syriac, made by Isaac, Patriarch of Armenia, some twenty years previously, in 410. Still further back, we find the Peschito version quoted in the writings of St. Ephraem, who lived not later than A.D. 370.165

Was this Peschito version founded on the Greek canonical text, or, in the case of St. Matthew, on the “Hebrew” Gospel? I think there can be little question that it was translated from the Greek. There can be no question that the Gospels of St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, and those of the other Epistles contained in this version,166 are from the Greek, and it is probable that the version of St. Matthew was made at the same time from the received text. The Syrian churches were separated from the Nazarene community in sympathy; their acceptance of St. Paul's Epistles is a proof that they were so; and these Epistles were accepted by them at a very early age, as we gather from internal evidence in the translation.

The Syrian churches would be likely, moreover, when seeking for copies of the Christian Scriptures, to ask for them from churches which were regarded as orthodox, rather than from a dwindling community which was thought to be heretical.

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The Peschito version of St. Matthew follows the canonical Greek text, and not the Gospel of the Hebrews, in such passages as can be compared;167 not one of the peculiarities of the latter find their echo in the Peschito text.

The Gospel of the Hebrews has not, therefore, been preserved to us in the Peschito St. Matthew. The translations made by St. Jerome in Greek and Latin have also perished. It is not difficult to account for the loss of the book. The work itself was in use only by converted Jews; it was in the exclusive possession of the descendants of those parties for whose use it had been written. The Greek Gospels, on the other hand, spread as Christianity grew. The Nazarenes themselves passed away, and their cherished Gospel soon ceased to be known among men.

Some exemplars may have been preserved for a time in public libraries, but these would not survive the devastation to which the country was exposed from the Saracens and other invaders, and it is not probable that a solitary copy survives.

But if the entire Gospel of the Hebrews has not been preserved to us, we have got sufficiently numerous fragments, cited by ancient ecclesiastical writers, to permit us, to a certain extent, to judge of the tendencies and character of that Gospel.

It is necessary to observe, as preliminary to our quotations, that the early Fathers cited passages from this Gospel without the smallest prejudice against it either historically or doctrinally. They do not seem to have considered it apocryphal, as open to suspicion, either [pg 129] because it contained doctrine at variance with the Canonical Greek Gospels, or because it narrated circumstances not found in them. On the contrary, they refer to it as a good, trustworthy authority for the facts of our Lord's life, and for the doctrines he taught.

St. Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Smyrnians,168 has inserted in it a passage relative to the appearance of our Lord to his apostles after his resurrection, not found in the Canonical Gospels, and we should not know whence he had drawn it, had not St. Jerome noticed the fact and recorded it.169

St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Gospel of the Hebrews in the same terms as he speaks of the writings of St. Paul and the books of the Old Testament.170 Origen, who makes some quotations from this Gospel, does not, it is true, range it with the Canonical Gospels, but he speaks of it with great respect, as one highly esteemed by many Christians of his time.171

In the fourth century, no agreement had been come to as to the value of this Gospel. Eusebius tells us that by some it was reckoned among the Antilegomena, that is, among those books which floated between the Canonical and the Apocryphal Gospels.172

The Gospel of St. Matthew and the Gospel of the Hebrews were not identical. It is impossible to doubt this when we examine the passages of the latter quoted by ecclesiastical writers, the majority of which are not to be found in the former, and the rest differ from the Canonical Gospel, either in details or in the construction of the passages which correspond.

Did the difference extend further? This is a question [pg 130] it is impossible to answer positively in one way or the other, since we only know those passages of the Gospel of the Nazarenes which have been quoted by the early Fathers.173

But it is probable that the two Gospels did not differ from each other except in these passages; for if the divergence was greater, one cannot understand how St. Jerome, who had both under his eyes, could have supposed one to have been the Hebrew original of the other. And if both resembled each other closely, it is easy to suppose that the ecclesiastical writers who quoted from the Nazarene Gospel, quoted only those passages which were peculiar to it.

Let us now examine the principal fragments of this Gospel that have been preserved.

There are some twenty in all, and of these only two are in opposition to the general tone of the first Canonical Gospel.

With one of these I shall begin the series of extracts.

“And straitway,” said Jesus, “the Holy Spirit [my mother] took me, and bore me away to the great mountain called Thabor.”174

Origen twice quotes this passage, once in a fuller form. “(She) bore me by one of my hairs to the great mountain called Thabor.” The passage is also quoted by St. Jerome.175 Origen and Jerome take pains to give this passage an orthodox and unexceptionable meaning. Instead of rejecting the passage as apocryphal, they labour to explain it away—a proof of the high estimation in which the Gospel of the Twelve was held. The [pg 131] words, “my mother,” are, it can scarcely be doubted, a Gnostic interpolation, as probably are also the words, “by one of my hairs;” for on one of the occasions on which Origen quotes the passage, these words are omitted. Probably they did not exist in all the copies of the Gospel.

Our Lord was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness” after his baptism.176 Philip was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord from the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, and was found at Azotus.177 The notion of transportation by the Spirit was therefore not foreign to the authors of the Gospels.

The Holy Spirit was represented by the Elkesaites as a female principle.178 The Elkesaites were certainly one with the Ebionites in their hostility to St. Paul, whose Epistles, as Origen tells us, they rejected.179 And that they were a Jewish sect which had relations with Ebionitism appears from a story told by St. Epiphanius, that their supposed founder, Elxai, went over to the Ebionites in the time of Trajan.180 They issued from the same fruitful field of converts, the Essenes.

The term by which the Holy Spirit is designated in Hebrew is feminine, and lent itself to a theory of the Holy Spirit being a female principle, and this rapidly slid into identification of the Spirit with Mary.

The Clementines insist on the universe being compounded of the male and the female elements. There are two sorts of prophecy, the male which speaks of the world to come, the female which deals with the world that is; the female principle rules this world, the body, [pg 132] all that is visible and material. Beside this female principle stands Christ, the male principle, ruling the spirits of men, and all that is invisible and immaterial.181 The Holy Spirit, brooding over the deep and calling the world into being, became therefore the female principle in the Elkesaite Trinity.

In Gnosticism, this deification of the female principle, which was represented as Prounikos or Sophia among the Valentinians, led to the incarnation of the principle in women who accompanied the heresiarchs Simon and Apelles. Thus the Eternal Wisdom was incarnate in Helena, who accompanied Dositheus and afterwards Simon Magus,182 and in the fair Philoumena who associated with Apelles.

The same influence seems imperceptibly to have been at work in the Church of the Middle Ages, and in the pictures and sculptures of the coronation of the Virgin. Mary seems in Catholic art to have assumed a position as one of the Trinity.

In the original Gospel of the Hebrews, the passage probably stood thus: “And straightway the Holy Spirit took me, and bore me to the great mountain Thabor;” and Origen and Jerome quoted from a text corrupted by the Gnostic Ebionites. The words “bore me by one of my hairs” were added to assimilate the translation to that of Habbacuc by the angel, in the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel.

We next come to a passage found in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, who compares it with a sentence [pg 133] from the Theaetetus of Plato: “He who wondereth shall reign, and he who reigneth shall rest.”183

This, like the preceding quotation, has a Gnostic hue; but it is impossible to determine its sense in the absence of the context. Nor does the passage in the Theaetetus throw any light upon it. The whole of the passage in St. Clement is this: “The beginning of (or search after) truth is admiration,” says Plato. “And Matthias, in saying to us in his Traditions, Wonder at what is before you, proves that admiration is the first step leading upwards to knowledge. Therefore also it is written in the Gospel of the Hebrews, He who shall wonder shall reign, and he who reigns shall rest.”

What were these Traditions of Matthias? In another place St. Clement of Alexandria mentions them, and quotes a passage from them, an instruction of St. Matthias: “If he who is neighbour to one of the elect sins, the elect sins with him; for if he (the elect) had conducted himself as the Word requires, then his neighbour would have looked to his ways, and not have sinned.”184 And, again, he says that the followers of Carpocrates appealed to the authority of St. Matthias—probably, therefore, to this book, his Traditions—as an excuse for giving rein to their lusts.

These Traditions of St. Matthias evidently contained another version of the same passage, or perhaps a portion of the same discourse attributed to our Lord, which ran somehow thus: “Wonder at, what is before your eyes [pg 134] (i.e. the mighty works that I do); for he that wondereth shall reign, and he that reigneth shall rest.”

It is not impossible that this may be a genuine reminiscence of part of our Lord's teaching.

Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, says that Jesus exercised the trade of a carpenter, and that he made carts, yokes, and like articles.185

Where did he learn this? Not from St. Matthew's Gospel; probably from the lost Gospel which he quotes.

St. Jerome quotes as a saying of our Lord, “Be ye proved money-changers.”186 He has no hesitation in calling it a saying of the Saviour. It occurs again in the Clementine Homilies187 and in the Recognitions.188 It is cited much more fully by St. Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata: “Be ye proved money-changers; retain that which is good metal, reject that which is bad.”189 Neither St. Jerome, St. Clement of Alexandria, nor the author of the Clementines, give their authority for the statement they make, that this is a saying of the Lord; but we may, I think, fairly conclude that St. Jerome drew it from the Hebrew Gospel he knew so well, having translated it into Greek and Latin, and which he looked upon as an unexceptionable authority.

Whence the passage came may be guessed by the use made of it by those who quote it. It probably followed our Lord's saying, “I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it.” “Nevertheless, be ye proved exchangers; retain that which is good metal, reject that which is bad.”

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Another passage is not given to us verbatim by St. Jerome; he merely alludes to it in one of his Commentaries, saying that Jesus had declared him guilty of a grievous crime who saddened the spirit of his brother.190 It probably occurred in the portion of the Gospel of the Hebrews corresponding with the 18th chapter of St. Matthew, and may be restored somewhat as follows: “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh, and the soul of his brother be made sore. Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee,” &c.

Another passage is in perfect harmony with the teaching of our Lord, and, like that given last, may very possibly have formed part of his teaching. It is also given by St. Jerome, and therefore in Latin: “Be never glad unless ye are in charity with your brother.”191

St. Jerome, in his treatise against Pelagius, quotes from the Gospel of the Hebrews the following passage: “If thy brother has sinned in word against thee, and has made satisfaction, forgive him unto seven times a day. Simon, his disciple, said unto him, Until seven times! The Lord answered, saying, Verily I say unto thee, until seventy times seven;” and then probably, “for I say unto thee, Be never glad till thou art in charity with thy brother.”192

The Gospel of the Nazarenes supplied details not found in that of St. Matthew. It related of the man with the withered hand, healed by our Lord,193 that he [pg 136] was a mason,194 and gave the words of the appeal made to Jesus by the man invoking his compassion: “I was a mason, working for my bread with my hands. I pray thee, Jesus, restore me to soundness, that I eat not my bread in disgrace.”195

It relates, what is found in St. Mark and St. Luke, but not in St. Matthew, that Barabbas was cast into prison for sedition and murder;196 and it gives the interpretation of the name, “Son of a Rabbi.”197 These particulars may be correct; there is no reason to doubt them. The interpretation of the name may be only a gloss which found its way into the text.

Eusebius says that Papias “gives a history of a woman who had been accused of many sins before the Lord, which is also contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews.”198 Of this we know nothing further, for the text is not quoted by any ancient writers; but probably it was the same story as that of the woman taken in adultery related in St. John's Gospel.199 But then, why did not Eusebius say that Papias gave “the history of the woman accused of adultery, which is also related in the Gospel of St. John”? Why does he speak of that story as being found in a Gospel written in the Syro-Chaldaean tongue, with which he himself was unacquainted,200 when the same story was in the well-known Canonical Greek Gospel of St. John? The conclusion one must arrive at is, either that the stories were sufficiently [pg 137] differently related for him not to recognize them as the same, or that the incident in St. John's Gospel is an excerpt from the Gospel of the Hebrews, or rather from a translation of it, grafted into the text of the Canonical Gospel. The latter opinion is favoured by some critics, who think that the story of the woman taken in adultery did not belong to the original text, but was inserted in it in the fourth or fifth century.

Those passages of the Gospel of the Nazarenes which most resemble passages in the Gospel of St. Matthew are not, however, identical with them; some differ only in the wording, but others by the form in which they are given.

And the remarkable peculiarity about them is, that the lessons in the Gospel of the Hebrews seem preferable to those in the Canonical Gospel. This was apparently the opinion of St. Jerome.

In chap. vi. ver. 11 of St. Matthew's Gospel, we have the article of the Lord's Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The words used in the Greek of St. Matthew are, t?? ??t?? ??? t?? ?p???s???. The word ?p???s??? is one met with nowhere else, and is peculiar. The word ??s?a means originally that which is essential, and belongs to the true nature or property of things. In Stoic philosophy it had the same significance as ???, matter; ?p???s??? ??t?? would therefore seem most justly to be rendered by supersubstantial, the word employed by St. Jerome.

“Give us this day our supernatural bread.” But in the Gospel of the Nazarenes, according to St. Jerome, the Syro-Chaldaic word for ?p???s??? was ???, which signifies “to-morrow's,” that is, our “future,” or “daily” bread. “Give us this day the bread for the morrow,”201 certainly was synonymous with, “Give us this day our [pg 138] daily bread.” It is curious that the Protestant Reformers, shrinking from translating the word ?p???s??? according to its apparently legitimate rendering, lest they should give colour to the Catholic idea of the daily bread of the Christian soul being the Eucharist, should have adopted a rendering more in accordance with an Apocryphal than with a Canonical Gospel.

In St. Matthew, xxiii. 35, Jesus reproaches the Jews for their treatment of the prophets, and declares them responsible for all the 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.”

Now the Zacharias to whom our Lord referred was Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, and not of Barachias, who was stoned “in the court of the house of the Lord” by order of Joash.202 Zacharias, son of Barachias, was not killed till long after the death of our Lord. He was massacred by the zealots inside the Temple, shortly before the siege, i.e. about A.D. 69.

Either, then, the Greek Gospel of St. Matthew was not written till after the siege of Jerusalem, and so this anachronism passed into it, or the error is due to a copyist, who, having heard of the murder of Zacharias, son of Barachias, but who knew nothing of the Zacharias mentioned in Chronicles, corrected the Jehoiada of the original into Barachias, thinking that thereby he was rectifying a mistake.

Now in the Gospel of the Nazarenes the name stood correctly, and the passage read, “from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Jehoiada.”203

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In both these last quoted passages, the preference is to be given to the Nazarene Gospel, and probably also in that relating to forgiveness of a brother. The lost Gospel in that passage requires the brother to make satisfaction. It is no doubt the higher course to forgive a brother, whether he repent or not, seventy times seven times in the day; but it may almost certainly be concluded that our Lord meant that the forgiveness should be conditional on his repentance, for in St. Luke's Gospel the repentance of the trespassing brother is distinctly required. “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”204 In St. Luke this is addressed to all the disciples; in St. Matthew, to Peter alone; but there can be little doubt that both passages refer to the same instruction, and that the fuller accounts in St. Luke and the Gospel of the Hebrews are the more correct. There may be less elevation in the precept, subject to the two restrictions, first, that the offence should be a verbal one, and secondly, that it should be apologized for; but it brings it more within compass of being practised.

We come next to a much longer fragment, which shall be placed parallel with the passage with which it corresponds in St. Matthew.

THE GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS.

ST. MATTHEW xix. 16-24

“Another rich man said unto him: Master, what good thing shall I do that I may live? He said unto him: O man, fulfil the Laws and the Prophets. And he answered him, I have done so. Then said he unto him, Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me. Then the rich man began to smite his head, and it pleased him not. And the Lord said unto him, How sayest thou, I have fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, when it is written in the Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; and lo! many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are covered with filth, and dying of hunger, and thy house is full of many good things, and nothing therefrom goeth forth at any time unto them. And turning himself about, he said unto Simon, his disciple, sitting near him, Simon, son of Jonas, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom, of heaven.”205

“And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thous me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heave: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

[pg 141]

The comparison of these two accounts is not favourable to that in the Canonical Gospel. It is difficult to understand how a Jew could have asked, as did the rich young man, what commandments he ought to keep in order that he might enter into life. The Decalogue was known by heart by every Jew. Moreover, the narrative in the lost Gospel is more connected than in the Canonical Gospel. The reproach made by our Lord is admirably calculated to bring home to the rich man's conscience the truth, that, though professing to observe the letter of the Law, he was far from practising its spirit; and this leads up quite naturally to the declaration of the difficulty of a rich man obtaining salvation, or rather to our Lord's repeating a proverb probably common at the time in the East.206

And lastly, in the proverb addressed aside to Peter, instead of to the rich young man, that air of harshness which our Lord's words bear in the Canonical Gospel, as spoken to the young man in his sorrow, entirely disappears. [pg 142] The proverb is uttered, not in stern rebuke, but as the expression of sad disappointment, when the rich man has retired.

Another fragment from the Gospel of the Hebrews relates to the baptism of our Lord.

The Gospel of St. Matthew gives no explanation of the occasion, the motive, of Jesus coming to Jordan to the baptism of John. It says simply, “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”207 But the Nazarene Gospel is more explicit.

“Behold, his mother and his brethren said unto him, John the Baptist baptizeth for the remission of sins; let us go and be baptized of him. But he said unto them, What sin have I committed, that I should be baptized of him, unless it be that in saying this I am in ignorance?”208

This is a very singular passage. We do not know the context, but we may presume that our Lord yields to the persuasion of his mother. Such is the tradition preserved in another apocryphal work, the “Preaching of St. Paul,” issuing from an entirely different source, from a school hostile to the Nazarenes.209

Another fragment continues the account after a gap.

“And when the Lord went up out of the water, the whole fountain of the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him, and said unto him, My Son, I looked for thee in all the prophets, that thou mightest come, and that I might [pg 143]rest upon thee. For thou art my rest, thou art my first-begotten Son, who shalt reign throughout eternity.”210

But this is not the only version we have of the narrative in the Gospel of the Hebrews. St. Epiphanius gives us another, which shall be placed parallel with the corresponding account in St. Matthew.

GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS.

ST. MATTHEW iii 13-17.

“The people having been baptized, Jesus came also, and was baptized by John. And as he came out of the water, the heavens opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit of God descending under the form of a dove, and entering into him. And a voice was heard from heaven, Thou art my beloved Son, and in thee am I well pleased. And again, This day have I begotten thee. And suddenly there shone a great light in that place. And John seeing it, said, Who art thou, Lord? Then a voice was heard from heaven, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Thereat John fell at his feet and said, I pray thee, Lord, baptize me. But, he would not, saying, Suffer it, for so it behoveth that all should be accomplished.”211

“Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and cometh thou to me? And Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

[pg 144]

That the Gospel stood as in this latter passage quoted in the second century among the orthodox Christians of Palestine is probable, because with it agrees the brief citation of Justin Martyr, who says that when our Lord was baptized, there shone a great light around, and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Both occur in the Ebionite Gospel; neither in the Canonical Gospel.212

This Gospel was certainly known to the writer of the Canonical Epistle to the Hebrews, for he twice takes this statement as authoritative. “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day, have I begotten thee?” and more remarkably, “Christ glorified not himself to be made an high-priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee.”213 In the latter passage the [pg 145] author is speaking of the calling of priests being miraculous and manifest; and then he cites this call of Christ to the priesthood as answering these requirements.

The order of events is not the same in the Gospel of Twelve and in that of St. Matthew: verses 14 and 15 of the latter, modified in an important point, come in the Ebionite Gospel after verses 16 and 17.

There is a serious discrepancy between the account of the baptism of our Lord in St. Matthew and in St. John. In the former Canonical Gospel, the Baptist forbids Christ to be baptized by him, saying, “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” But Jesus bids him: “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then Jesus is baptized, and the heavens are opened. But in St. John's Gospel, the Baptist says, “I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God.”214

Now the account in the Gospel of the Twelve removes this discrepancy. John does not know Jesus till after the light and the descent of the dove and the voice, and then he asks to be baptized by Jesus.

It is apparent that the passage in the lost Gospel is more correct than that in the Canonical one. In the latter there has been an inversion of verses destroying the succession of events, and thus producing discrepancy with the account in St. John's Gospel.

With these passages from the Gospel of the Twelve may be compared a curious one from the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. It occurs in the Testament of [pg 146] Levi, and is a prophecy of the Messiah. “The heavens shall open for thee, and from above the temple of glory the voice of the Father shall dispense sanctification upon him, as has been promised unto Abraham, the father of Isaac.”

The passage quoted by St. Epiphanius is wholly unobjectionable doctrinally. It is not so with that quoted by St. Jerome; it is of a very different character. It exhibits strongly the Gnostic ideas which infected the stricter sect of the Ebionites.

It was precisely on the baptism of the Lord that they laid the greatest stress; and it is in the account of that event that we should expect to find the greatest divergence between the texts employed by the orthodox and the heretical Nazarenes. Before his baptism he was nothing. It was then only that the “full fount of the Holy Ghost” descended on him, his election to the Messiahship was revealed, and divine power was communicated to him to execute the mission entrusted to him. A marked distinction was drawn between two portions in the life of Jesus—before and after his baptism. In the first they acknowledged nothing but the mere human nature, to the entire exclusion of everything supernatural; while the sudden accruing of supernatural aid at the baptism marked the moment when he became the Messiah. Thus the baptism was the beginning of their Gospel.

Before that, he is liable to sin, he suggests that his believing himself to be free from sin may have precipitated him into sin, the sin of ignorance. And “even in the prophets, after they had received the unction of the Holy Ghost, there was found sinful speech.”215 This quotation follows, in St. Jerome, immediately after the saying [pg 147] cited above enjoining forgiveness, but it in no way dovetails into it; the passage concerning the recommendation by St. Mary and the brethren that they should go up to be baptized of John for the remission of sins, comes in the same chapter, and there can be little doubt that this reference to the prophets as sinful formed part of the answer of the Virgin to Jesus when he spoke of his being sinless.

St. Jerome obtained his copy of the Gospel of the Hebrews from Beraea in Syria, and not therefore from the purest source. Had he copied and translated the codex he found in the library of Pamphilus at Caesarea, instead of that he procured from Beraea, it is probable that he would have found it not to contain the passages of Gnostic tendency.

These interpolations were made in the second century, when Gnostic ideas had begun to affect the Ebionites, and break them up into more or less heretical sects.

Their copies of the Gospel of the Hebrews differed, for the Gnostic Ebionites curtailed it in some places, and amplified it in others.

In reconstructing the primitive lost Gospel of the Nazarenes, it is very necessary to note these Gnostic passages, and to withdraw them from the text. We shall come to some more of their additions and alterations presently. It is sufficient for us to note here that the heretical Gospel in use among the Gnostic Ebionites was based on the orthodox Gospel of the Hebrews. The existence of these two versions explains the very different treatment their Gospel meets with at the hands of the Fathers of the Church. Some, and these the earliest, speak of this Gospel with reverence, and place it almost on a line with the Canonical Gospels; others speak of [pg 148] it with horror, as an heretical corruption of the Gospel of St. Matthew. The former saw the primitive text, the latter the curtailed and amplified version in use among the heretical Ebionites.

St. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, alludes to one of the appearances of our Lord after his resurrection, of which no mention is made in the Canonical Gospels: “After that, he was seen of James.”216 But according to his account, this appearance took place after several other manifestations, viz. after that to Cephas, that to the Twelve, and that to five hundred brethren at once. But it preceded another appearance to “all the apostles.” If we take the first and second to have occurred on Easter-day, and the last to have been the appearance to them again “after eight days,” when St. Thomas was present, then the appearance to St. James must have taken place between the “even” of Easter-day and Low Sunday.

Now the Gospel of the Hebrews gives a particular account of this visit to James, which however, according to this account, took place early on Easter-day, certainly before Christ stood in the midst of the apostles in the upper room on Easter-evening.

St. Jerome says, “The Gospel according to the Hebrews relates that after the resurrection of the Saviour, ‘The Lord, after he had given the napkin to the servant of the priest, went to James, and appeared to him. Now James had sworn with an oath that he would not eat bread from that hour when he drank the cup of the Lord, till he should behold him rising from amidst them that sleep.’ And again, a little after, ‘The Lord said, Bring a table and bread.’ And then, ‘He took bread and blessed and brake, and gave it to James the Just, and said unto [pg 149]him, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep.’ ”217

This touching incident is quite in keeping with what we know about St. James, the Lord's brother.

James the Just, according to Hegesippus, “neither drank wine nor fermented liquors, and abstained from animal food;”218 and though the account of Hegesippus is manifestly fabulous in some of its details, still there is no reason to doubt that James belonged to the ascetic school among the Jews, as did the Baptist before him, and as did the orthodox Ebionites after him. The oath to abstain from food till a certain event was accomplished was not unusual.219

What is meant by “the Saviour giving the napkin to the servant of the priest,” it is impossible to conjecture without the context. The napkin was probably that which had covered his face in the tomb, but whether the context linked this on to the cycle of sacred sindones impressed with the portrait of the Saviour's suffering face, cannot be told. The designation of “the Just” as applied to James is for the purpose of distinguishing him from James the brother of John. He does not bear that name in the Canonical Gospels, but the title may have been introduced by St. Jerome to avoid confusion, or it may have been a marginal gloss to the text.

The story of this appearance found its way into the [pg 150] writings of St. Gregory of Tours,220 who no doubt drew it from St. Jerome; and thence it passed into the Legenda Aurea of Jacques de Voragine.

If the Lord did appear to St. James on Easter-day, as related in this lost Gospel, then it may have been in the morning, and not after his appearance to the Twelve, or on his appearance in the evening he may have singled out and addressed James before all the others, as on that day week he addressed St. Thomas. In either case, St. Paul's version would be inaccurate as to the order of manifestations. The pseudo-Abdias, not in any way trustworthy, thus relates the circumstance:

“James the Less among the disciples was an object of special attachment to the Saviour, and he was inflamed with such zeal for his Master that he would take no meat when his Lord was crucified, and would only eat again when he should see Christ arisen from the dead; for he remembered that when Christ was alive he had given this precept to him and to his brethren. That is why he, with Mary Magdalene and Peter, was the first of all to whom Jesus Christ appeared, in order to confirm his disciples in the faith; and that he might not suffer him to fast any longer, a piece of an honeycomb having been offered him, he invited James to eat thereof.”221

Another fragment of the lost Gospel of the Hebrews also relates to the resurrection:

[pg 151]

“And when he had come to [Peter and] those that were with Peter, he said unto them, Take, touch me, and see that I am not a bodiless spirit. And straightway they touched him and believed.”222

St. Ignatius, who cites these words, excepting only those within brackets, does not say whence he drew them; but St. Jerome informs us that they were taken from the Gospel of the Hebrews. At the same time he gives the passage with greater fulness than St. Ignatius.

The account in St. Matthew contains nothing at all like this; but St. Luke mentions these circumstances, though with considerable differences. The Lord having appeared in the midst of his disciples, they imagine that they see a spirit. Then he says, “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”223

The narrative in St. Luke's Gospel is fuller than that in the Gospel of the Hebrews, and is not derived from it. In the Nazarene Gospel, as soon as the apostles see and touch, they believe. But in the Canonical Gospel of St. Luke, they are not convinced till they see Christ eat.

Justin Martyr cites a passage now found in the Canonical Gospel of St. John, but not exactly as there, evidently therefore obtaining it from an independent source, and that source was the Gospel of the Twelve, [pg 152] the only one with which he was acquainted, the only one then acknowledged as Canonical in the Nazarene Church.

The passage is, “Christ has said, Except ye be regenerate, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”224

In St. John's Gospel the parallel passage is couched in the third person: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”225 The difference stands out more clearly in the Greek than in English.

We may conjecture that the primitive Gospel of the Hebrews contained an account of the interview of Nicodemus with our Lord. When we come to consider the Gospel used by the author of the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, we shall find that the instruction on new birth made to Nicodemus was familiar to him, but not exactly in the form in which it is recorded by St. John.

St. Jerome informs us that the lost Gospel we are considering did not relate that the veil of the Temple was rent in twain when Jesus gave up the ghost, but that the lintel stone, a huge stone, fell down.226

That this tradition may be true is not unlikely. The rocks were rent, and the earth quaked, and it is probable enough that the Temple was so shaken that the great lintel stone fell.

St. Epiphanius gives us another fragment:

“I am come to abolish the sacrifices: if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from weighing upon you.”227

[pg 153]

In the Clementine Recognitions, a work issuing from the Ebionite anti-Gnostic school, we find that the abolition of the sacrifices was strongly insisted on. The abomination of idolatry is first exposed, and the strong hold that Egyptian idolatry had upon the Israelites is pointed out; then we are told Moses received the Law, and, in consideration of the prejudices of the people, tolerated sacrifice:

“When Moses perceived that the vice of sacrificing to idols had been deeply ingrained into the people from their association with the Egyptians, and that the root of this evil could not be extracted from them, he allowed them to sacrifice indeed, but permitted it to be done only to God, that by any means he might cut off one half of the deeply ingrained evil, leaving the other half to be corrected by another, and at a future time; by him, namely, concerning whom he said himself, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise unto you, whom ye shall hear, even as myself, according to all things which he shall say to you. Whosoever shall not hear that prophet, his soul shall be cut off from his people.”228

In another place the Jewish sacrifices are spoken of as sin.229

This hostility to the Jewish sacrificial system by Ebionites who observed all the other Mosaic institutions was due to their having sprung out of the old sect of the Essenes, who held the sacrifices in the same abhorrence.230

That our Lord may have spoken against the sacrifices is possible enough. The passage may have stood thus: “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil; nevertheless, I tell you the truth, I am come to destroy the [pg 154] sacrifices. But be ye approved money-changers, choose that which is good metal, reject that which is bad.”

It is probable that in the original Hebrew Gospel there was some such passage, for St. Paul, or whoever was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, apparently alludes to it twice. He says, “When he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me.”231 The plain meaning of which is, not that David had used those words centuries before, in prophecy, but that Jesus had used them himself when he came into the world. If the writer of the Epistle did quote a passage from the Hebrew Gospel, it will have been the second from the same source.

In the Ebionite Gospel, “by a criminal fraud,” says St. Epiphanius, a protestation has been placed in the mouth of the Lord against the Paschal Sacrifice of the Lamb, by changing a positive phrase into a negative one.

When the disciples ask Jesus where they shall prepare the Passover, he is made to reply, not, as in St. Luke, that with desire he had desired to eat this Passover, but, “Have I then any desire to eat the flesh of the Paschal Lamb with you?”232

The purpose of this interpolation of two words is clear. The Samaritan Ebionites, like the Essenes, did not touch meat, regarding all animal food with the greatest repugnance.233 By the addition of two words they were able to convert the saying of our Lord into a sanction of their superstition. But this saying of Jesus [pg 155] is now found only in St. Luke's Gospel. It must have stood originally without the ?? and the ???a? in the Gospel of the Twelve.

Another of their alterations of the Gospel was to the same intent. Instead of making St. John the Baptist eat locusts and wild honey, they gave him for his nourishment wild honey only, ?????da?, instead of ????da? and e?? ??????.

The passage in which this curious change was made is remarkable. It served as the introduction to the Gospel in use among the Gnostic Ebionites.

“A certain man, named Jesus, being about thirty years of age, hath chosen us; and having come to Capernaum, he entered into the house of Simon, whose surname was Peter, and he said unto him, As I passed by the Sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James, the sons of Zebedee, Simon and Andrew, Thaddaeus, Simon Zelotes and Judas Iscariot; and thee, Matthew, when thou wast sitting at thy tax-gatherer's table, then I called thee, and thou didst follow me. And you do I choose to be my twelve apostles to bear witness unto Israel.

“John baptized; and the Pharisees came to him, and they were baptized of him, and all Jerusalem also. He had a garment of camels' hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was wild honey, and the taste thereof was as manna, and as a cake of oil.”

Apparently after this announcement of his choice of the apostles there followed something analogous to the preface in St. Luke's Gospel, to the effect that these apostles, having assembled together, had taken in hand to write down those things that they remembered concerning Christ and his teaching. And it was on this account that the Gospel obtained the name of the “Recollections of the Apostles,” or the “Gospel of the Twelve.”

[pg 156]

The special notice taken of St. Matthew, who is singled out from the others in this address, is significant of the relation supposed to exist between the Gospel and the converted publican. If we had the complete introduction, we should probably find that in it he was said to have been the scribe who wrote down the apostolic recollections.

There are a few fragments preserved by early ecclesiastical writers which we cannot say for certain belonged to the Gospel of the Hebrews, but which there is good reason to believe formed a part of it.

Origen, in his Commentary on St. Matthew, quotes a saying of our Lord which is not to be found in the Canonical Gospels. Origen, we know, was acquainted with, and quoted respectfully, the Gospel of the Hebrews. It is therefore probable that this quotation is taken from it: “Jesus said, For the sake of the weak I became weak, for the sake of the hungry I hungered, for the sake of the thirsty I thirsted.”234

That this passage, full of beauty, occurred after the words, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,” in commenting on which Origen quotes it, is probable. It is noteworthy that it is quoted in comment on St. Matthew's Gospel, the one to which the lost Gospel bore the closest resemblance, and one which Origen would probably consult whilst compiling his Commentary on St. Matthew.235

[pg 157]

The saying is so beautiful, and so truly describes the love of our Lord, that we must wish to believe it comes to us on such high authority as the Gospel of the Twelve.

Another saying of Christ is quoted both by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen, without saying whence they drew it, but by both as undoubted sayings of the Saviour. It ran:

“Seek those things that are great, and little things will be added to you.” “And seek ye heavenly things, and the things of this world will be added to you.”236

It will be seen, the form as given by St. Clement is better and simpler than that given by Origen. It is probable, however, that they both formed members of the same saying, following the usual Hebrew arrangement of repeating a maxim, giving it a slightly different turn, or a wider expansion. In two passages in other places Origen makes allusion to this saying without quoting it directly.237

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke puts into the mouth of St. Paul a saying of Christ, which is not given by any evangelist, in these words: “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”238 It is curious that this saying should not have been inserted by St. Luke in his Gospel. Whether this saying found its way into the Hebrew Gospel it is impossible to tell.

In the Epistle of St. Barnabas another utterance of Christ is given. This Epistle is so distinctly of a Judaizing character, so manifestly belongs to the Nazarene [pg 158] school, that such a reference in it makes it more than probable that it was taken from the Gospel received as Canonical among the Nazarenes. The saying of St. Barnabas is, “All the time of our life and of our faith will not profit us, if we have not in abhorrence the evil one and future temptation, even as the Son of God said, Resist all iniquity and hold it in abhorrence.”239 Another saying in the Epistle of St. Barnabas is, “They who would see me, and attain to my kingdom, must possess me through afflictions and suffering.”240

In the second Epistle of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians occurs a very striking passage: “Wherefore to us doing such things the Lord said, If ye were with me, gathered together in my bosom, and did not keep my commandments, I would cast you out, and say unto you, Depart from me, I know not whence ye are, ye workers of iniquity.”241

We can well understand this occurring in an anti-Pauline Gospel.

Again. “The Lord said, Be ye as lambs in the midst of wolves. Peter answered and said unto him, But what if the wolves shall rend the lambs? Jesus said unto Peter, The lambs fear not the wolves after their death; and ye also, do not ye fear them that kill you, and after that have nothing that they can do to you, but fear rather him who, after ye are dead, has power to cast your soul and body into hell fire.”242

[pg 159]

This is clearly another version of the passage, Matt. x. 16-26. In one particular it is fuller than in the Canonical Gospel; it introduces St. Peter as speaking and drawing forth the exhortation not to fear those who kill the body only. But it is without the long exhortation contained in the 17-27th verses of St. Matthew.

Another saying from the same source is, “This, therefore, the Lord said, Keep the flesh chaste and the seal undefiled, and ye shall receive eternal life.”243 The seal is the unction of confirmation completing baptism, and in the primitive Church united with it. It is the sf?a??? so often spoken of in the Epistles of St. Paul.244

Justin Martyr contributes another saying. We have already seen that in all likelihood he quoted from the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Recollections of the Twelve, as he called it. He says, “On this account also our Lord Jesus Christ said, In those things in which I shall overtake you, in those things will I judge you.”245 Clement of Alexandria makes the same quotation, slightly varying the words. Justin and Clement apparently both translated from the original Hebrew, but did not give exactly the same rendering of words, though they gave the same sense.

Clement gives us another saying, but does not say [pg 160] from what Gospel he drew it. “The Lord commanded in a certain Gospel, My secret is for me and for the children of my home.”246

3. The Origin of the Gospel of the Hebrews.

We come now to a question delicate, and difficult to answer—the Origin of the Gospel of the Hebrews; delicate, because it involves another, the origin of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark; difficult, because of the nature of the evidence on which we shall have to form our opinion.

Because the Gospel of the Hebrews is not preserved, is not in the Canon, it does not follow that its value was slight, its accuracy doubtful. Its disappearance is due partly to the fact of its having been written in Aramaic, but chiefly to that of its having been in use by an Aramaic-speaking community which assumed first a schismatical, then a heretical position, so that the disfavour which fell on the Nazarene body enveloped and doomed its Gospel as well.

The four Canonical Gospels owe their preservation to their having been in use among those Christian communities which coalesced under the moulding hands of St. John. Those parties which were reluctant to abandon their peculiar features were looked upon with coldness, then aversion, lastly abhorrence. They became more and more isolated, eccentric, prejudiced, impracticable. Whilst the Church asserted her catholicity, organized her constitution, established her canon, formulated her creed, adapted herself to the flux of ideas, these narrow [pg 161] sects spent their petty lives in accentuating their peculiarities till they grew into monstrosities; and when they fell and disappeared, there fell and disappeared with them those precious records of the Saviour's words and works which they had preserved.

The Hebrew Gospel was closely related to the Gospel of St. Matthew; that we know from the testimony of St. Jerome, who saw, copied and translated it. That it was not identical with the Canonical first Gospel is also certain. Sufficient fragments have been preserved to show that in many points it was fuller, in some less complete, than the Greek Gospel of St. Matthew. The two Gospels were twin sisters speaking different tongues. Was the Greek of the first Gospel acquired, or was it original? This is a point deserving of investigation before we fix the origin and determine the construction of the Hebrew Gospel.

According to a fragment of a lost work by Papias, written about the middle of the second century, under the title of “Commentary on the Sayings of the Lord,”247 the apostle Matthew was the author of a collection of the “sayings,” ????a, of our blessed Lord. The passage has been already given, but it is necessary to quote it again here: “Matthew wrote in the Hebrew dialect the sayings, and every one interpreted them as best he was able.”248 These “logia” could only be, according to the signification of the word (Rom. iii. 2; Heb. v. 12; Pet. iv. 11; Acts vii. 38), a collection of the sayings of the Saviour that were regarded as oracular, as “the words of God.” That they were the words of Jesus, follows from the title given by Papias to his commentary, ????a ????a??.

[pg 162]

This brief notice is sufficient to show that Matthew's collection was not the Gospel as it now stands. It was no collection of the acts, no biography, of the Saviour; it was solely a collection of his discourses.

This is made clearer by what Papias says in the same work on St. Mark. He relates that the latter wrote not only what Jesus had said, but also what he did;249 whereas St. Matthew wrote only what had been said.250

The work of Matthew, therefore, contained no doings, p?a????ta, but only sayings, ?e????ta, which were, according to Papias, written in Hebrew, i.e. the vernacular Aramaic, and which were translated into Greek by every one as best he was able.

This notice of Papias is very ancient. The Bishop of Hierapolis is called by Irenaeus “a very old man.”251 and by the same writer is said to have been “a friend of Polycarp,” and “one who had heard John.”252 That this John was the apostle is not certain. It was questioned by Eusebius in his mention of the Prooemium of Papias. John the priest and John the apostle were both at Ephesus, and both lived there at the close of the first century. Some have thought the Apocalypse to have been the work of the priest John, and not of the apostle. Others have supposed that there was only one John. However this may be, it is certain that Papias lived at a time when it was possible to obtain correct information relating to the origin of the sacred books in use among the Christians.

According to the Prooemium of Papias, which Eusebius has preserved, the Bishop of Hierapolis had obtained his knowledge, not directly from the apostles, nor from [pg 163] the apostle John, but from the mouths of men who had companied with old priests and disciples of the apostles, and who had related to him what Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John and other disciples of the Lord had said (e?pe?). Besides the testimony of these priests, Papias appealed further to the evidence of Aristion and the priest John, disciples of the Lord,253 still alive and bearing testimony when he wrote. “And,” says Papias, “I do not think that I derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still surviving.”254

Papias, therefore, had his information about the apostles second-hand, from those “who followed them about.” Nevertheless, his evidence is quite trustworthy. He takes pains to inform us that he used great precaution to obtain the truth about every particular he stated, and the means of obtaining the truth were at his disposal. That Papias was a man “of a limited comprehension”255 does not affect the trustworthiness of his statement. Eusebius thus designates him because he believed in the Millennium; but so did most of the Christians of the first age, as well as in the immediate second coming of Christ, till undeceived by events.

The statement of Papias does not justify us in supposing that Matthew wrote the Gospel in Hebrew, but only a collection of the logia, the sayings of Jesus. Eusebius did not mistake the Sayings for the Gospel, for he speaks separately of the Hebrew Gospel,256 without connecting it in any way with the testimony of Papias.

According to Eusebius, Papias wrote his Commentary in five books.257 It is not improbable, therefore, that the [pg 164] “Logia” were broken into five parts or grouped in five discourses, and that he wrote an explanation of each discourse in a separate book or chapter.

The statement of Papias, if it does not refer to the Gospel of St. Matthew as it now stands, does refer to one of the constituent parts of that Gospel, and does explain much that would be otherwise inexplicable.

1. St. Matthew's Gospel differs from St. Mark's in that it contains long discourses, sayings and parables, which are wanting or only given in a brief form in the second Canonical Gospel. It is therefore probable that in its composition were used the “Logia of the Lord,” written by Matthew.

2. If the collection of “Sayings of the Lord” consisted, as has been suggested, of five parts, then we find traces in the Canonical Matthew of five groups of discourses, concluded by the same formulary: “And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings” (t??? ?????? t??t???), or “parables,” vii. 28, xi. 1, xiii. 53,. xix. 1, xxvi. 1. It is not, however, possible to restore all the “logia” to their primitive positions, for they have been dispersed through the Canonical Gospel, and arranged in connection with the events which called them forth. In the “Sayings of the Lord” of Matthew, these events were not narrated; but all the sayings were placed together, like the proverbs in the book of Solomon.

3. The “Logia” of the Lord were written by Matthew in Hebrew, i.e. in the vernacular Aramaic. If they have formed the groundwork, or a composite part of the Canonical Gospel, we are likely to detect in the Greek some traces of their origin. And this, in fact, we are able to do.

a. In the first place, we have the introduction of [pg 165] Aramaic words, as Raka (v. 22),258 Mammon (vi. 22),259 Gehenna (v. 22),260 Amen (v. 18).261 Many others might be cited, but these will suffice.

. Next, we have the use of illustrations which are only comprehensible by Hebrews, as “One jot and one tittle shall in no wise fall.” The ??ta of the Greek text is the Aramaic Jod (v. 18); but the “one tittle” is more remarkable. In the Greek it is “one horn,” or “stroke.”262 The idea is taken from the Aramaic orthography. A stroke distinguishes one consonant from another, as ? and ? from ?. With this the Greeks had nothing that corresponded.

?. We find Hebraisms in great number in the discourses of our Lord given by St. Matthew.263

d. We find mistranslations. The Greek Canonical text gives a wrong meaning, or no meaning at all, through misunderstanding of the Aramaic. By restoration of the Aramaic text we can rectify the translation. Thus:

Matt. vii. 6, “Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.” The word “holy,” t? ?????, is a misinterpretation of the Aramaic ????, a gold jewel for the ear, head or neck.264 The translator mistook the word for ?????, or ???? without ? “the holy.” The sentence in the original therefore [pg 166] ran, “Give not a gold jewel to dogs, neither cast pearls before swine.”

Matt. v. 37, “Let your conversation be Yea, yea, Nay, nay.” This is meaningless. But if we restore the construction in Aramaic we have ???? ??? ?? ??, ??? ???, and the meaning is, “In your conversation let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay.” The yea, yea, and nay, nay, in the Hebrew come together, and this misled the translator. St. James quotes the saying rightly (v. 12), “Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.” It is a form of a Rabbinic maxim, “The yea of the righteous is yea, and their nay is nay.” It is an injunction to speak the truth.

We have therefore good grounds for our conjecture that St. Matthew's genuine “Sayings of the Lord” form a part of the Canonical Gospel.

We have next to consider, Whence came the rest of the material, the record of the “doings of the Lord,” which the compiler interwove with the “Sayings”?

We have tolerably convincing evidence that the compiler placed under contribution both Aramaic and Greek collections.

For the citations from the Old Testament are not taken exclusively from the Hebrew Scriptures, nor from the Greek translation of the Seventy; but some are taken from the Greek translation, and some are taken from the Hebrew, or from a Syro-Chaldaean Targum or Paraphrase, probably in use at the time.

Matt. i. 23, “A virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son.” This is quoted as a prophecy of the miraculous conception. But it is only a prophecy in the version of the LXX., which renders the Hebrew word pa??????, “virgin.” The Hebrew word does not mean virgin exclusively, but “a young woman.” We may therefore conclude that verses 22, 23, were additions by [pg 167] the Greek compiler of the Gospel, unacquainted with the original Hebrew text.

Matt. ii. 15, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” This is quoted literally from the Hebrew text. That of the LXX. has, “Out of Egypt have I called my children,” t? t???a. This made the saying of Hosea no prophecy of our Lord; consequently he who inserted this reference can have known only the Hebrew text, and not the Greek version. But in ii. 18, the compiler follows the LXX. And again, ii. 23, “He shall be called a Nazarene,” ?a???a???. The Hebrew is ??? of which ?a???a??? is no translation. The LXX. have ?a???a???. The compiler was caught by the similarity of sounds.

Matt. iii. 3. Here the construction of the LXX. is followed, which unites “in the wilderness” with “the voice of one crying.” The Hebrew was therefore not known by the compiler.

Matt. iv. 15. Here the LXX. is not followed, for the word ?? is used in place of ???a. The quotation is not, moreover, taken exactly from Isaiah, but apparently from a Targum.

Matt. viii. 17. This quotation is nearer the original Hebrew than the rendering of the LXX.

Matt. xii. 18-21. In this citation we have an incorrect rendering of the Hebrew ?????? “at his teaching,” made by the LXX. “in his name,” adopted without hesitation by the compiler. He also accepts the erroneous rendering of “islands,” made “nation,” “Gentiles,” by the LXX.

But, on the other hand, “till he send forth judgment unto victory,” is taken from neither the original Hebrew nor from the LXX., and is probably derived from a Targum.

Thus in this passage we have apparently a combination [pg 168] of two somewhat similar accounts—the one in Greek, the other in Aramaic.

Matt. xiii. 35. This also is a compound text. The first half is from the LXX., but the second member is from a Hebrew Targum.

Matt. xxvii. 3. In the Hebrew, the field is not a “potter's,” nor is it in the LXX., who use ???e?t????? “the smelting-furnace.” The word in the Hebrew signifies “treasury.” The composer of the Gospel, therefore must have quoted from a Targum, and been ignorant both of the genuine Hebrew Scriptures and of the Greek translation of the Seventy.

These instances are enough to show that the material used for the compilation of the first Canonical Gospel was very various; that the author had at his disposal matter in both Aramaic and Greek.

We shall find, on looking further, that he inserted two narratives of the same event in his Gospel in different places, if they differed slightly from one another, when coming to him from different sources.

The following are parallel passages:

iv. 23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.	ix. 35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
v. 29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.	xviii. 9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.	8 Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.	xix. 9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
vi. 14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:	xviii. 35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
vii. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?	xii. 33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
ix. 13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.	what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.
ix. 34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.	xii. 24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
x. 15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.	xi. 24. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
17 But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;	xxiv. 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.
xii. 39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it; but the sign of the prophet Jonas.	xvi. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
xiii.12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.	xxv. 29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
xiv. 5 And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.	xxi. 26 But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet.
xvi. 19 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.	xviii. 18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
xvii. 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.	xxi. 21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
xxiv. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.	xxiv. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect.
xxiv. 23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.	xxiv. 26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chamber; believe it not.

The existence in the first Canonical Gospel of these duplicate passages proves that the editor of it in its present form made use of materials from different sources, which he worked together into a complete whole. And these duplicate passages are the more remarkable, because, where his memory does not fail him, he takes pains to avoid repetition.

[pg 172]

It would seem therefore plain that the compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel made use of, first, a Collection of the Sayings of the Lord, of undoubted genuineness, drawn up by St. Matthew; second, of two or more Collections of the Sayings and Doings of the Lord, also, no doubt, genuine, but not necessarily by St. Matthew.

One of these sources was made use of also by St. Mark in the composition of his Gospel.

According to the testimony of Papias:

“John the Priest said this: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy, but not, however, in the order in which it was spoken or done by our Lord, for he neither heard nor followed our Lord, but, as before said, he was in company with Peter, who gave him such instruction as occasion called forth, but did not study to give a history of our Lord's discourses; wherefore Mark has not erred in anything, by writing this and that as he has remembered them; for he was carefully attentive to one thing, not to pass by anything that he heard, nor to state anything falsely in these accounts.”265

It has been often asked and disputed, whether this statement applies to the Gospel of St. Mark received by the Church into her sacred canon.

It can hardly be denied that the Canonical Gospel of Mark does answer in every particular to the description of its composition by John the Priest. John gives five characteristics to the work of Mark:

1. A striving after accuracy.266

2. Want of chronological succession in his narrative, which had rather the character of a string of anecdotes and sayings than of a biography.267

[pg 173]

3. It was composed of records of both the sayings and the doings of Jesus.268

4. It was no syntax of sayings (s??ta??? ??????), like the work of Matthew.269

5. It was the composition of a companion of Peter.270

These characteristic features of the work of Mark agree with the Mark Gospel, some of the special features of which are:

1. Want of order: it is made up of a string of episodes and anecdotes, and of sayings manifestly unconnected.

2. The order of events is wholly different from that in Matthew, Luke and John.

3. Both the sayings and the doings of Jesus are related in it.

4. It contains no long discourses, like the Gospel of St. Matthew, arranged in systematic order.

5. It contains many incidents which point to St. Peter as the authority for them, and recall his preaching.

To this belong—the manner in which the Gospel opens with the baptism of John, just as St. Peter's address (Acts x. 37-41) begins with that event also; the many little incidents mentioned which give token of having been related by an eye-witness, and in which the narrative of St. Matthew is deficient.271 St. Mark's [pg 174] Gospel is also rich in indications of the feelings of the people toward Jesus, such as an eye-witness must have observed,272 and of notices of movements of the body—small significant acts, which could not escape one present who described what he had seen.273

That the composer of St. Matthew's Gospel made use of the material out of which St. Mark compiled his, that is, of the memorabilia of St. Peter, is evident. Whole passages of St. Mark's Gospel occur word for word, or nearly so, in the Gospel of St. Matthew.274

Moreover, it is apparent that sometimes the author of St. Matthew's Gospel misunderstood the text. A few instances must suffice here.

Mark ii. 18: “And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. And they came to him and said to him, Why do the disciples of John, and the disciples of the Pharisees, fast, and thy disciples fast not?” It is clear that it was then a fasting season, which the disciples of Jesus were not observing. The “they” who came to him does not mean “the disciples [pg 175] of John and of the Pharisees,” but certain other persons. ?a? ?????ta? is so used in St. Mark's Gospel in several places, like the French “on venait.”

But the compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel did not understand this use of the verb without a subject expressed, and he made “the disciples of John” ask the question.

Mark vi. 10: ?p?? ?? e?s????te e?? ????a?, ??e? ??ete ??? ?? ??????te ??e??e?. That is, “Wherever (i.e. in whatsoever town or village) ye enter into a house, therein remain (i.e. in that house) till ye go away thence (i.e. from that city or village).” By leaving out the word house, Matthew loses the sense of the command (x. 11), “Into whatsoever town or village ye enter—remain in it till ye go out of it.”

Mark vii. 27, 28. The Lord answers the Syro-Phoenician woman, “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.” The woman answers, “Yes, Lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.” The meaning is, God gives His grace and mercy first to the Jews (the children); and this must not be taken from the Jews to be given to the heathen (the dogs). True, answers the woman; but the heathen do partake of the blessings that overflow from the portion of the Jews.

But the so-called Matthew did not catch the signification, and the point is lost in his version (xv. 27). He makes the woman answer, “The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.”

Mark x. 13. According to St. Mark, parents brought their children to Christ, probably with some superstitious idea, to be touched. This offended the disciples. “They rebuked those that brought them.” But Jesus was displeased, and said to the disciples, “Suffer the little [pg 176] children to come unto me.” And instead of fulfilling the superstitious wishes of the parents, he took the children in his arms and blessed them. But the text used by St. Matthew's compilator was probably defective at the end of verse 13, and ended, “and his disciples rebuked....” The compiler therefore completed it with a?t??? instead of t??? p??sf????s??, and then misunderstood verse 14, and applied the ?fete differently: “Let go the children, and do not hinder them from coming to me.” In St. Mark, the disciples rebuke the parents; in St. Matthew, they rebuke the children, and intercept them on their way to Christ.

Mark xii. 8: “They slew him and cast him out,” i.e. cast out the dead body. The compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel did not see this. He could not understand how that the son was killed and then cast out of the vineyard; so he altered the order into, “They cast him out and slew him” (xxi. 38).275

Examples might be multiplied, but these must suffice. If I am not mistaken, they go far to prove that the author of St. Matthew's Gospel used the material, or some of the material, out of which St. Mark's Gospel was composed.

But there are also other proofs. The text of St. Mark has been taken into that of St. Matthew's Gospel, but not without some changes, corrections which the compiler made, thinking the words of the text in his hands were redundant, vulgar, or not sufficiently explicit.

Thus Mark i. 5: “The whole Jewish land and all they of Jerusalem,” he changed into, “Jerusalem and all Judaea.”

[pg 177]

Mark i. 12: “The Spirit driveth,” ?????e?, he softened into “led,” ??????.

Mark iii. 4: “He saith, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath-days, or to do evil?” In St. Matthew's Gospel, before performing a miracle, Christ argues the necessity of showing mercy on the Sabbath-day, and supplies what is wanting in St. Mark—the conclusion, “Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days” (xii. 12).

Mark iv. 12: “That seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not hear.” This seemed harsh to the compiler of St. Matthew. It was as if unbelief and blindness were fatally imposed by God on men. He therefore alters the tenor of the passage, and attributes the blindness of the people, and their incapability of understanding, to their own grossness of heart (xiii. 14, 15).

Mark v. 37: “The ship was freighted,” in St. Matthew, is altered into, “the ship was covered” with the waves (viii. 34).

Mark vi. 9 “Money in the girdle,” changed into, “money in the girdles” (x. 9).

Mark ix. 42: “A millstone were put on his neck,” changed to, “were hung about his neck” (xviii. 6).

Mark x. 17: “Sell all thou hast;” Matt. xix. 21, “all thy possessions.”

Mark xii. 30: “He took a woman;” Matt. xxii. 25, “he married.”

But if it be evident that the author of St. Matthew's Gospel laid under contribution the material used by St. Mark, it is also clear that he did not use St. Mark's Gospel as it stands. He had the fragmentary memorabilia of which it was made up, or a large number of them, but unarranged. He sorted them and wove them [pg 178] in with the “Logia” written by St. Matthew, and afterwards, independently, without knowledge, probably, of what had been done by the compiler of the first Gospel, St. Mark compiled his. Thus St. Matthew's is the first Gospel in order of composition, though much of the material of St. Mark's Gospel was written and in circulation first.

This will appear when we see how independently of one another the compiler of St. Matthew and St. Mark arrange their “memorabilia.”

It is unnecessary to do more to illustrate this than to take the contents of Matt. iv.—xiii.

According to St. Matthew, after the Sermon on the Mount, Christ heals the leper, then enters Capernaum, where he receives the prayer of the centurion, and forthwith enters into Peter's house, where he cures the mother-in-law, and the same night crosses the sea.

But according to St. Mark, Christ cast out the unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum, then healed Peter's wife's mother, and, not the same night but long after, crossed the sea. On his return he went through the villages preaching, and then healed the leper.

The accounts are the same, but the order is altogether different. The deutero-Matthew must have had the material used by Mark under his eye, for he adopts it into his narrative; but he cannot have had St. Mark's Gospel, or he would not have so violently disturbed the order of events.

The compiler has been guilty of an inaccuracy in the use of “Gergesenes” instead of Gadarenes. St. Mark is right. Gadara was situated near the river Hieromax, east of the Sea of Galilee, over against Scythopolis and Tiberias, and capital of Peraea. This agrees exactly with what is said in the Gospels of the miracle performed [pg 179] in the “country of the Gadarenes.” The swine rushed violently down a steep place and perished in the lake. Jesus had come from the N.W. shore of the Sea to Gadara in the S.E. But the country of the Gergesenes can hardly be the same as that of the Gadarenes. Gerasa, the capital, was on the Jabbok, some days' journey distant from the lake. The deutero-Matthew was therefore ignorant of the topography of the neighbourhood whence Levi, that is Matthew, was called.

St. Mark says that Christ healed one demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum, then crossed the lake, and healed the second in Gadara. But St. Matthew, or rather the Greek compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel, has fused these two events into one, and makes Christ heal both possessed men in the country of the Gergesenes. In like manner we have twice the healing of two blind men (ix. 27 and xx. 30), whereas the other evangelists know of only single blind men being healed on both occasions. How comes this? The compiler had two accounts of each miracle of healing the blind, slightly varying. He thought they referred to the same occasion, but to different persons, and therefore made Christ heal two men, whereas he had given sight to but one.

In the former case the compiler had not such a circumstantial account of the restoration to sound mind of the demoniac in the synagogue as St. Mark had received from St. Peter. He knew only that on the occasion of Christ's visit to the Sea of Tiberias he had recovered two men who were possessed, and so he made the healing of both take place simultaneously at the same spot.

An equally remarkable instance of the fact that St. Matthew's Gospel was made up of fragmentary “recollections” by various eye-witnesses, is that of the dumb man possessed with a devil, in ix. 32. At Capernaum, [pg 180] after having restored Jairus' daughter to life and healed the two blind men, the same day the dumb man is brought to him. The devil is cast out, the dumb speaks, and the Pharisees say, “He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.”

This is exactly the same account which has been used by St. Luke (xi. 14). But in xii. 22 we have the same incident over again. There is brought unto Christ one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb; him Christ heals; whereupon the Pharisees say, “This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” Then follows the solemn warning against blasphemy.

It is clear that the Greek compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel must have had two independent accounts of this miracle, one with the warning against blasphemy appended to it, the other without. He gives both accounts, one as occurring at Capernaum, the other much later, after Jesus had gone about Galilee preaching, and the Pharisees had conspired against him.

St. Matthew says that after the healing of Peter's wife's mother, Jesus, that same evening, cured many sick, and in the night crossed to the country of the Gergesenes. But St. Mark says that he remained that night at Capernaum, and rose early next morning before day, and went into a solitary place. According to him, this crossing over the sea did not occur till long after.

The following table will show how remarkably discordant is the arrangement of events in the two evangels. The order of succession differs, but not the events and teaching recorded; surely a proof that both writers composed these Gospels out of similar but fragmentary accounts available to both. The following table will show this disagreement at a glance.

[pg 181]

St. Matthew.	St. Mark.
(At Capernaum), iv. 13.	(At Capernaum), i. 21.
1. Goes about preaching in the villages of Galilee (23), 1.	Heals man with unclean spirit (23-28).
2. Sermon on the Mount (v.-vii.).	5. Peter's mother-in-law healed (30, 31).
3. Leper cleansed (viii. 2-4).	6. At even heals the sick (32-34).
4. Centurion's servant healed (5-13).
5. Peter's wife's mother healed (14, 15).	Next day rises early and goes into a solitary place (35-37). (Leaves Capernaum).
6. At even cures the sick (16).	1. Goes about the villages of Galilee (38-39).
7. Same night crosses the sea (18-27).	3. Heals the leper (40, 41).
(In the country of Gergesenes).	(Outside the town of Capernaum), 45.
8. Heals two demoniacs (28-39).
(Returns to Capernaum), ix. 1.	(Returns to Capernaum), ii. 1.
9. Sick of the palsy healed (2-8).	9. Sick of the palsy healed (2-13).
10. Calls Matthew (9).
11. Hemorrhitess cured (20-22).	10. Levi called (14).
12. Jairus' daughter restored (18-26).	19. Plucks the ears of corn (23-28).
13. Two blind men healed (27-30).	20. Heals the withered hand (iii. 1-5).
14. Dumb man healed (32, 33).	21. Consultation against Jesus (6). (Leaves Capernaum), 7.
15. Warning against blasphemy (34).	6. Heals many sick (10-12).
(Goes about Galilee), 35 and xi. 1.	Goes into a mountain and
16. Sends out the Twelve (x).	chooses the Twelve (13-19).
(Probably at Capernaum).	15, 23. The Pharisees blaspheme;
17. John's disciples come to him (xi. 2-6).	warning against blasphemy (22-30).
18. Denunciation of cities of Galilee (20-24).	24. Mother and brethren seek him (31-35).
19. Plucks the ears of com (xii. 1-9).	25. Teaches from the ship; parable of the sower (iv. 1-20).
20. Heals the withered hand (10-13).	7. Crosses the lake in a storm (35-41).
21. Consultation against Jesus (14).	(In the country of Gadarenes).
(Leaves Capernaum), 15.	8. Heals the demoniac (v. 1-20).
22. Heals deaf and dumb man (22).	(Returns to Capernaum), 21.
23. Denunciation of blasphemy (24-32).	11. Hemorrhitess healed (25-34).
	12. Jairus' daughter restored (22-43).
24. Mother and brethren seek Jesus (46-50).	16. Sends out the Twelve (vi. 7-13).
25. Teaches from the ship; parable of sower (xiii. 1-12).
(Returns to his own country), 53.

The order in St. Luke is again different. Jesus calls Levi, chooses the Twelve, preaches the sermon on the plain, heals the Centurion's servant, goes then from place to place preaching. Then occurs the storm on the lake, and after having healed the demoniac Jesus returns to Capernaum, cures the woman with the bloody flux, raises Jairus' daughter and sends out the Twelve.

In the Gospel of St. Mark, the parable of the sower is spoken on “the same day” on which, in the evening, Jesus crosses the lake in a storm.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, this parable is spoken long after, on “the same day” as his mother and brethren seek him, and this is after he has been in the country of the Gadarenes, has returned to Capernaum, gone about Galilee preaching, come back again to Capernaum, but has been driven away again by the conspiracy of the Pharisees.

It would appear from an examination of the two Gospels that articles 23, 24 and 25 composed one document, for both St. Matthew and St. Mark used it as it is, in a block, only they differ as to where to build it in.

19, 20 and 21 formed another block of Apostolic Memorabilia, and was built in by the deutero-Matthew in one place and by St. Mark in another. 5 and 6, and again 9 and 10, were smaller compound recollections which the compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel and St. Mark obtained in their concrete forms. On the other hand, 3 and 16 formed recollections consisting of but one member, and are thrust into the narrative where the two compilers severally thought most suitable. We are [pg 183] therefore led by the comparison of the order in which events in our Lord's life are related by St. Matthew and St. Mark, to the conclusion, that the author of the first Gospel as it stands had not St. Mark's Gospel in its complete form before him when he composed his record.

We have yet another proof that this was so.

St. Matthew's Gospel is not so full in its account of some incidents in our Lord's life as is the Gospel of St. Mark.

The compiler of the first Gospel has shown throughout his work the greatest anxiety to insert every particular he could gather relating to the doings and sayings of Jesus. This has led him into introducing the same event or saying over a second time if he found more than one version of it. Had he all the material collected in St. Mark's Gospel at his disposal, he would not have omitted any of it.

But we do not find in St. Matthew's Gospel the following passages:

Mark iv. 26-29, the parable of the seed springing up, a type of the growth of the Gospel without further labour to the minister than that of spreading it abroad. The meaning of this parable is different from that in Matt. xii. 24-30, and therefore the two parables are not to be regarded as identical.

Mark viii. 22-26. By omitting the narrative of what took place at Bethsaida, an apparent gap occurs in the account of St. Matthew after xvi. 4-12. The journey across the sea leads one to expect that Christ and his disciples will land somewhere on the coast. But Matthew, without any mention of a landing at Bethsaida, translates Jesus and the apostolic band to Caesarea Philippi. But in Mark, Jesus and his disciples land at Bethsaida, and after having performed a miracle of healing there on a blind man—a miracle, the particulars of [pg 184] which are very full and interesting—they go on foot to Caesarea Philippi (viii. 27). That the compiler of the first Gospel should have left this incident out deliberately is not credible.

Mark ix. 38, 39. In St. Matthew's collection of the Logia of our Lord there existed probably the saying of Christ, “He that is not with me is against me” (Matt. xii. 30). St. Mark narrates the circumstances which called forth this remark. But the deutero-Matthew evidently did not know of these circumstances; he therefore leaves the saying in his record without explanation.276

Mark xii. 41-44. The beautiful story of the poor widow throwing her two mites into the treasury, and our blessed Lord's commendation of her charity, is not to be found in St. Matthew's Gospel. Is it possible that he could have omitted such an exquisite anecdote had he possessed it?

Mark xiv. 51, 52. The account of the young man following, having the linen cloth cast about his naked body, who, when caught, left the linen cloth in the hands of his captors and ran off naked—an account which so unmistakably exhibits the narrative to have been the record of some eye-witness of the scene, is omitted in St. Matthew. On this no stress, however, can be laid. The deutero-Matthew may have thought the incident too unimportant to be mentioned.

[pg 185]

Enough has been said to show conclusively that the deutero-Matthew, if we may so term the compiler of the first Canonical Gospel, had not St. Mark's Gospel before him when he wrote his own, that he did not cut up the Gospel of Mark, and work the shreds into his own web.

Both Gospels are mosaics, composed in the same way. But the Gospel of St. Mark was composed only of the “recollections” of St. Peter, whereas that of St. Matthew was more composite. Some of the pieces which were used by Mark were used also by the deutero-Matthew. This is patent: how it was so needs explanation.

It is probable that when the apostles founded churches, their instructions on the sayings and doings of Jesus were taken down, and in the absence of the apostles were read by the president of the congregation. The Epistles which they sent were, we know, so read,277 and were handed on from one church to another.278 But what was far more precious to the early believers than any letters of the apostles about the regulation of controversies, were their recollections of the Lord, their Memorabilia, as Justin calls them. The earliest records show us the Gospels read at the celebration of the Eucharist.279 The ancient Gospels were not divided into chapters, but into the portions read on Sundays and festivals, like our “Church Services.” Thus the Peschito version in use in the Syrian churches was divided in this manner: “Fifth day of the week of the Candidates” (Matt. ix. 5-17), “For the commemoration of the Dead” (18-26), “Friday in the fifth week in the Fast” (27-38), “For the commemoration of the Holy Apostles” (36-38, x. 1-15), “For the commemoration of Martyrs” (16-33), “Lesson for the Dead” (34-42), “Oblation for the beheading of [pg 186] John” (xi. 1-15), “Second day in the third week of the Fast” (16-24).

To these fragmentary records St. Luke alludes when he says that “many had taken in hand to arrange in a consecutive account (??at??as?a? d????s??) those things which were most fully believed” amongst the faithful. These he “traced up from the beginning accurately one after another” (pa???????????t? ????e? p?s?? ?????? ?a?e???). Here we have clearly the existence of records disconnected originally, which many strung together in consecutive order, and St. Luke takes pains, as he tells us, to make this order chronological.

Some Churches had certain Memorabilia, others had a different set. That of Antioch had the recollections of St. Peter, that of Jerusalem the recollections of St. James, St. Simeon and St. Jude. St. Luke indicates the source whence he drew his account of the nativity and early years of the Lord,—the recollections of St. Mary, the Virgin Mother, communicated to him orally. He speaks of the Blessed Virgin as keeping the things that happened in her heart and pondering on them.280 Another time it is contemporaries, Mary certainly included.281 On both occasions it is in reference to events connected with our Lord's infancy. Why did he thus insist on her having taken pains to remember these things? Surely to show whence he drew his information. He narrates these events on the testimony of her word; and her word is to be relied on; for these things, he assures us, were deeply impressed on her memory.

The “Memorabilia” in use in the different Churches founded by the apostles would probably be strung together in such order as they were generally read. How early the Church began to have a regulated order of seasons, an ecclesiastical year, cannot be ascertained [pg 187] with certainty; but every consideration leads us to suspect that it grew up simultaneously with the constitution of the Church. With the Church of the Hebrews this was unquestionably the case. The Jews who believed had grown up under a system of fasts and festivals in regular series, and, as we know, they observed these even after they were believers in Christ. Paul, who broke with the Law in so many points, did not venture to dispense with its sacred cycle of festivals. He hasted to Jerusalem to attend the feast of Pentecost.282 At Ephesus, even, he observed it.283 St. Jerome assures us that Lent was instituted by the apostles.284 The Apostolic Constitutions order the observance of the Sabbath, the Lord's-day, Pentecost, Christmas, Epiphany, the days of the Apostles, that of St. Stephen, and the anniversaries of the Martyrs.285 Indeed, the observance of the Lord's-day, instituted probably by St. Paul, involves the principle which would include all other sacred commemorations; for if one day was to be set apart as a memorial of the resurrection, it is probable that others would be observed in memory of the nativity, the passion, the ascension, &c.

As early as there was any sort of ecclesiastical year observed, so early would the “Memorabilia” of the apostles be arranged as appropriate to these seasons. But such an arrangement would not be chronological; therefore many took in hand, as St. Luke tells us, to correct this, and he took special care to give the succession of events as they occurred, not as they were read, by obtaining information from the best sources available.

It is probable that the “Recollections” of St. Peter, written in disjointed notes by St. Mark, were in circulation through many Churches before St. Mark composed [pg 188] his Gospel out of them. From Antioch to Rome they were read at the celebration of the divine mysteries; and some of them, found in the Churches of Asia Minor, have been taken by St. Luke into his Gospel. Others circulating in Palestine were in the hands of the deutero-Matthew, and grafted into his compilation. But as St. Luke, St. Mark, and the composer of the first Gospel, acted independently, their chronological sequences differ. Their Gospels are three kaleidoscopic groups of the same pieces.286

Had St. Matthew any other part in the composition of the first Canonical Gospel than contributing to it his “Syntax of the Lord's Sayings”? Of that we can say nothing for certain. It is possible enough that many of the “doings” of Jesus contained in the Gospel may be memorabilia of St. Matthew, circulating in anecdota.

A critical examination of St. Matthew's Gospel reveals four sources whence it was drawn, three threads of different texture woven into one. These are:

1. The “Memorabilia” of St. Peter, used afterwards by St. Mark. These the compiler of the first Gospel attached mechanically to the rest of his material by such formularies as “in those days,” “at that time,” “then,” “after that,” “when he had said these things.”

2. The “Logia of the Lord,” composed by St. Matthew.

3. Another series of sayings and doings, from which the following passages were derived: iii. 7-10, 12, iv. 3-11, viii. 19-22, ix. 27, 32-34, xi. 2-19. Some of these were afterwards used by St. Luke.287 Were these by St. Matthew? It is possible.

[pg 189]

4. To the fourth category belong chapters i. and ii., iii. 3, xiv. 15, the redaction of iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, v. 1, 2, 19, vii. 22, 23, viii. 12, 17, x. 5, 6, xi. 2, xii. 17-21, xiii. 35-43, 49, 50, the redaction of xiv. 13a, xiv. 28-31, xv. 24, xvii. 24b-27, xix. 17a, 19b, 28, xx. 16, xxi. 2, 7, xxi. 4, 5, xxiii. 10, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, the redaction of xxiv. 3, 20, 51b, xxv. 30b, xxvi. 2, 15, 25, xxvii. 51-53, xxvii. 62-66, xxviii. 1a, 2-4, 8, 9, 11-15.

Was this taken from a collection of the recollections of St. Matthew, and the series 3 from another set of Apostolic Memorabilia? That it is not possible to decide.

Into the reasons which have led to this separation of the component parts 3, 4, the peculiarities of diction which serve to distinguish them, we cannot enter here; it would draw us too far from the main object of our inquiry.288

The theory that the Synoptical Gospels were composed of various disconnected materials, variously united into consecutive biographies, was accepted by Bishop Marsh, and it is the only theory which relieves the theologian from the unsatisfactory obligation of making “harmonies” of the Gospels. If we adopt the received popular conception of the composition of the Synoptical Gospels, we are driven to desperate shifts to fit them together, to reconcile their discrepancies.

The difficulty, the impossibility, of effecting such a harmony of the statements of the evangelists was felt [pg 190] by the early Christian writers. Origen says that the attempt to reconcile them made him giddy. Among the writings of Tatian was a Diatessaron or harmony of the Gospels. Eusebius adventured on an explanation, “of the discords of the Evangelists.” St. Ambrose exercised his pen on a concordance of St. Matthew with St. Luke; St. Augustine wrote “De consensu Evangelistarum,” and in his effort to force them into agreement was driven to strange suppositions—as that when our Lord went through Jericho there was a blind man by the road-side leading into the city, and another by the road-side leading out of it, and that both were healed under very similar circumstances.

Apollinaris, in the famous controversy about Easter, declared that it was irreconcilable with the Law that Christ should have suffered on the great feast-day, as related by St. Matthew, but that the Gospels disagreed among themselves on the day upon which he suffered.289 The great Gerson sought to remove the difficulties in a “Concordance of the Evangelists,” or “Monotessaron.”

Such an admission as that the Synoptical Gospels were composed in the manner I have pointed out, in no way affects their incomparable value. They exhibit to us as in a mirror what the apostles taught and what their disciples believed. Faith does not depend on the chronological sequence of events, but on the verity of those events. “See!” exclaimed St. Chrysostom, “how through the contradictions in the evangelical history in minor particulars, the truth of the main facts transpires, and the trustworthiness of the authors is made manifest!”

In everything, both human and divine, there is an [pg 191] union of infallibility in that which is of supreme importance, and of fallibility in that which concerns not salvation. The lenses through which the light of the world shone to remote ages were human scribes liable to error. Te?a p??ta ?a? ?????p??a p??ta, was the motto Tholuck inscribed on his copy of the Sacred Oracles.

Having established the origin of the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are able now to see our way to establishing that of the Gospel of the Twelve, or Gospel of the Hebrews.

No doubt it also was a mosaic made out of the same materials as the Gospel of St. Matthew. There subsisted side by side in Palestine a Greek-speaking and an Aramaic-speaking community of Christians, the one composed of proselytes from among the Gentiles, the other of converts from among the Jews. This Gentile Church in Palestine was scarcely influenced by St. Paul; it was under the rule of St. Peter, and therefore was more united to the Church at Jerusalem in habits of thought, in religious customs, in reverence for the Law, than the Churches of “Asia” and Greece. There was no antagonism between them. There was, on the contrary, close intercourse and mutual sympathy.

Each community, probably, had its own copies of Apostolic Memorabilia, not identical, but similar. Some of the “recollections” were perhaps written only in Aramaic, or only in Greek, so that the collection of one community may have been more complete in some particulars than the collection of the other. The necessity to consolidate these Memorabilia into a consecutive narrative became obvious to both communities, and each composed “in order” the scraps of record of our Lord's sayings and doings they possessed and read in their sacred mysteries. St. Matthew's “Logia of the Lord” was used in the compilation of the Hebrew Gospel; one of the [pg 192] translations of it, which, according to Papias, were numerous, formed the basis also of the Greek Gospel.

The material used by both communities, the motive actuating both communities, were the same; the results were consequently similar. That they were not absolutely identical was the consequence of their having been compiled independently.

Thus the resemblance was sufficient to make St. Jerome suppose the Hebrew Gospel to be the same as the Greek first Gospel; nevertheless, the differences were as great as has been pointed out in the preceding pages.

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