purged the temple, to mention no other points of difference? If any writer vary from another whom he has before him, it must be for what appears to him a sufficient reason; and so far he must be considered as an original writer, having some other authority for what he advances. There are, besides, many things in Mark that are not to be found in Matthew, or Luke. As to the inconsistencies that are found in the different evangelists, of which Mr. Evanson says, "Those evangelical histories contain such gross, irreconcileable contradictions, that no close reasoning, unprejudiced mind can admit the truth and authenticity of them all;"* nothing can be inferred from them, but that the authors did not write in concert, and did not copy from one another, a circumstance highly favourable to the authenticity of their writings. But these things are much exaggerated by Mr. Evanson, who says, there are many obvious inconsistencies and improbabilities in several of the canonical Scriptures, which it was impossible to account for† on a supposition that the authors were men of that veracity and information of their subject, which must be expected from the apostles and other miraculouslygifted disciples of Jesus Christ." "That many of those scriptures which form the most essential part of the canon of the apostate church must be fabulous and false, seems as certain," he says "as that the word of God is true." § Had any person who contended for the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures advanced this argument, I should not have wondered at it, but that Mr. Evanson should do it, and admit, as I doubt not he does, that the authors of them wrote without any inspiration at all, and a considerable time after the events, (in consequence of which it was natural to expect many variations in their accounts,) does surprise me not a little. They might all be very honest men, and in the main well informed with respect to what they undertook to relate, and yet write their several narratives with all the variations that we find in them. Few persons have noted more real inconsistencies in the different evangelists than myself, as may be seen in the Dissertations prefixed to my Harmony of the Gospels; but it never occurred to me that they furnished any objection to the authenticity of any of them. Dissonance, p. 1. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 17, 18. I am, &c. ]] See supra, pp. 9-14. LETTER IV. Of the Gospel of Matthew in general. DEAR SIR, HAVING considered what Mr. Evanson has advanced for his opinion concerning the preference to be given to the Gospel of Luke, before those of Matthew, Mark, and John, I shall attend to what he says of each of them in particular. Of Matthew he says, "The author himself gives not the slightest hint to suggest to us who he was, much less that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ; so that the mere opinion of the fathers of the orthodox church of the second century is all the foundation there is for its being called St. Matthew's, which, we have seen, is not the case with St. Luke's histories."* But the opinion of the fathers of the orthodox church of the second century" (an expression intended to imply contempt) was not an opinion taken up by themselves: it evidently had its origin in an earlier age; and as no reason can be imagined why this Gospel should have been uniformly ascribed to Matthew, rather than to any of the other apostles, or primitive Christians, there is no reasonable cause of doubt on the subject. If we were to inquire into the reasons why the poems of Virgil or Horace are ascribed to them, we shall find it to be of the same kind, but by no means so full and satisfactory. " Besides, that the Gospel of Matthew, as well as those of Mark and Luke, are plainly alluded to by Clemens Romanus, who wrote A. D. 96, which is little more than thirty years after it was published, Papias," bishop of Hierapolis," who wrote about A. D. 116," and is "supposed to have been acquainted with John the Apostle," mentions the Gospel of Matthew by name.† Irenæus, who was born. in Asia, and in his youth was acquainted with Polycarp, a disciple of St. John," and who wrote "about A. D. 178, says, Matthew, then among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome, and founding the church there.'-In another place he says, The Gospel according to Matthew was delivered to the Jews.'-Eusebius says, Matthew, having first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to * Dissonance, p. 115. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 145. + Lardner, VI. p. 49. (P.) go to other people, delivered to them, in their own language, the Gospel according to him, by that writing supplying the want of his presence with those whom he was leaving." Lastly, Jerome says, "Matthew, called also Levi, of a publican made an apostle, first of all wrote a Gospel in Judea, in the Hebrew language. Who afterwards translated it into Greek is uncertain."+ How will Mr. Evanson account for this uniform tradition beginning so early, and transmitted without the least objection from any of the discordant sects of Christians, (for if this had not been the case, it would certainly have appeared,) in any consistency with his own notion of its having so late a date as he ascribes to it? "If," says he, says he, "we inquire how the Gospel received as Matthew's came to be in Greek, if he wrote it in Hebrew ; the same writers inform us, that it was afterwards translated into Greek: but we find, nobody knows when, nobody knows where, and nobody knows by whom."+ This remark respecting the translation, by no means affects the authenticity of the work itself; it being sufficient that early and uniform tradition ascribes this Gospel to Matthew, though it varies with respect to the circumstance of the language in which it was written. This, being of far less consequence, would not be so much attended to. I am of opinion, with Dr. Lardner,§ that it bears no marks of a translation and I see no reason why Matthew, who, from his employment, was probably better acquainted with the Greek language than the rest of the apostles, should write in any other language than that in which they did. His Gospel might have been translated by himself, or some other person under his inspection, into Hebrew; and this being the only Gospel used by the Hebrew Christians, it would naturally be supposed that it was written originally in their language. The Gospel which usually bore the name of that of the Hebrews and of the Nazarenes, used by the Ebionite Christians, Lardner, with great probability, thinks was "St. Matthew's Gospel translated from the Greek, with the addition of some other things, taken from the other Gospels, and from tradition."¶ Mr. Evanson supposes the " Gospels of Matthew and * Lardner, VI. p. 49. (P.) ‡ Dissonance, p. 22. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 40. + Ibid. p. 51. § Works, VI. p. 62. (P.) "Whilst a publican, he would have frequent occasions both to write and speak Greek; and could not discharge his office without understanding that language." Ibid. p. 64. VOL. XX. T Ibid. (P.) 2 C Mark" to have been written in a late period on account of there being in them some "Latin words in Greek letters,— contrary, as he says, to the custom of all ordinary writers in Greek prior to the reign of Trajan." After ridiculing, as many unbelievers have done, the story of Jesus driving the cattle out of the temple with a whip made of small cords, in the Gospel of John, he says, "It is to be observed also, that this supposed apostle, in recording the instrument of violence constructed and used by our Saviour in this extraordinary manner, expresses it by a word neither of Greek nor Hebrew origin, but by a Latin word barbarously written in Greek characters, which, as I have observed in the case of the two preceding Evangelists, of itself affords strong grounds of presumption, that whoever the writer may be said to be, he did not live till after the beginning of the second century; and when corroborated by other circumstances, so highly improbable in themselves, and so directly contradictory to the history of St. Luke, is a very satisfactory proof that he was no apostle, nor any Jew, nor even a respectable Greek convert of the apostolic age; but one of the many composers of spurious and fabulous writings of the second century; and that he deserves not the least credit or attention."† But who can be authorized to say at what precise period such a custom as this commenced, or how the custom might vary in different places, and with different persons, when nothing was necessary to introduce it, but an acquaintance with Latin terms, in consequence of the extension of the Roman empire, which had in fact embraced Judea a century before the writing of the Gospels? To say, with Mr. Evanson, that such a practice as this might be common in the time of Trajan, who came to the empire A. D. 98, and not be known A. D. 64, is not a little extraordinary. To distinguish with so much accuracy as this, a man must have a more nice discernment in the chronology of language, than Sancho Panza's father had in wine; who perceived a twang of iron, and also of leather, in a cask, at the bottom of which was afterwards found a key with a leather thong tied to it. The lateness of the writing of the Gospel of Matthew is also inferred by Mr. Evanson from the phrase "unto this day," which occurs in it. But surely a period of thirty years, which elapsed between the transactions and the time of writing, is sufficient to account for this, Or such a sen * Dissonance, pp. 117, 213. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 147, 257. ↑ Ibid. pp. 225, 226. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 273, 274. tence as this might have been originally written in the margin of some valuable copy, and afterwards have been inserted in the text, which no critic denies to have been the case with similar expressions in other books. The writer of the Gospel ascribed to Matthew, Mr. Evanson says, did not understand "the prophecies of the Jewish Scripture."* But, surely, it does not follow from this, that the writer might not be an apostle. Peter misapplied the Scriptures in his famous speech on the day of Pentecost, as evidently as the writer of this Gospel, whoever he was. I am surprised at such an argument as this from a man who, in other respects, thinks so freely as Mr. Evanson does. Some of the grossest of these misapplications of scripture occur in the two first chapters of Matthew, which contain the account of the miraculous conception of Jesus. But was it right in Mr. Evanson to take it for granted that these two chapters were written by the author of the rest of the book, when it must be known to him, that many persons think they have good reason for concluding that they were not; especially as the Gospel used by the Jewish Christians, which was the same in substance with that of Matthew, had not these two chapters? With a slight variation, this Gospel has a natural and regular beginning at the third chapter, which is also the case with that of Luke, without the change of a single word; though there is not so much external evidence of this Gospel having been originally without its present introduction. Mr. Evanson has suggested several new and valuable arguments against the miraculous conception,† for which I and others think ourselves greatly obliged to him. But we do not apprehend that he has by this means at all invalidated the authenticity of the rest of the Gospels of Matthew or * Dissonance, p. 23. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 41. + See Dissonance, pp. 38-49, where Mr. Evanson thus concludes: "If this story of the preternatural origin of our Lord Jesus had been known and credited by the apostles and first preachers of Christianity, they also must have mentioned it in their discourses and letters of instruction to their converts, and instead of dwelling upon prophecies concerning the descent of the Messiah absolutely incompatible with so extraordinary a circumstance, without once alluding to it, they must have enumerated it amongst the necessary articles of a Christian's belief. Yet in no one apostolic Epistle, in no one discourse recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, is the miraculous conception, or any one circumstance of the history of Jesus previous to John's Baptism, hinted at even in the most distant manner: on the contrary, that baptism is repeatedly referred to and mentioned as the proper commencement of Evangelical instruction; and when the eleven apostles proceeded to elect a twelfth, to supply the place of Judas, the only qualification made essentially requisite in the candidates was, their having been eye-witnesses of our Lord's ministry from the Baptism of John to his Ascension." See Ed. 2, pp. 63-75. |