Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/829

INTERNAL EVIDENCE] they leave in the mind “ a doubt whether, in this instance, some essential particular may not have been either omitted or left unexplained” (Farrar’s Léfe of C’/uist, vol. ii. p. 46). In its moral teaching this Gospel lays special stress upon the sin of religious osteiitation and hypocrisy. _In a strong passage (xii. 33) consistent undissembliiig wickedness is preferred to disseinbled wickedness, and the Pharisees are described at greater length than in any of the other Gospels. Yet this lospel does not always dwell upon the dark side of Christ’s doctrine. It preserves also some of the Lor;l’s most “ comfortable ” sayings: the blessings upon the meek and merciful ; the saying that the angels of the little ones always behold the face of the Father; and above all that siying which is a gospel in itself, “ Come unto .Ie, all ye that labour, and are heavy ladei1,” &c. (xi. 28-30). In speaking of the date of latthew’s Gospel, so far as it can be determined from internal evidence, we must remem- her that, if the work be composite, the fact that some of .Iatthew's additions are clearly late will not show that others may not be early. The saying, for example, that the disciples shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man shall have come (x. 23), seems to be an early and unaltered reminiscence of a saying of Jesus, which was not generally adopted in the tradition because of its recog- nized difficulty at a later date. It is possible that Matthew may consider the coming of the Son of Man fulfilled prim- arily in the traiisfiguratioii; for whereas in their prefaces to the transfiguration Mark and Luke write, “There are some stlnding here who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God” (Mark adds “coming in power”), .Iatthew substitutes for “ kingdom of God,” &c., “the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” But, Whatever may have been .Iatthew’s theory, the difficulty of the utterance in Matt. x. 23 implies its early date. On the other hand, a decidedly late dite seems implied in the expression “ up to this day,” which is twice fouiid——once in the addition xxvii. 8 (the p3tter’s field) and again in xxviii. 15 (the bribing of the guard by the chief priests). Yet these additions appear to be in the style of the writer both of the preface and the appendix, and of the other passages peculiar to Matthew.‘ It would follow that all these passages are of a late date, not added to the tradition till long after the death of Christ. The interval must have been long enough to allow, for ex- aniple, the “ potter's field ’’——and this argument holds whether the story of the pottcr’s field (xxvii. 8) be historical er not——fii-st, to acquire the name of the Field of Blood, and 1 Va.nt of space renders it impossible to state the grounds on which it seems probable that Matthew consists only of (1) the Triple 'l‘ra(lition ; (2) extracts from a book or tradition of the words of the Lord from which Luke also borrowed; and (3) an introduction, framework, and appendix, all added by one hand; though possibly the introduction and appendix, being borrowed, the former from an Aramaic source, the latter from a Latin source, may show difl'ereiices of idiom not wholly concealed by the overlying style of the author who works up the inatcrials. A similar use of the particles 86' and Kai’, and of participles, runs throughout almost all the non-traditional narrative parts of Mattliew; and the rli_vtliin of the sentences is very similar. But the linguistic evidence has not as yet been so selected, classified, and con- centrated as to obtain any certain results. And until this is done, inferences drawn from isolated phenomena are likely to be very mis- leading. For example, it has been inferred (Yeiss_. 1l[attlic'iuse'rmz- ‘I/fltlltm, p. 502) that the use of the form 'Iepouo'a)’;,u. once only in Matthew (xxiii. 37, in a passage almost identical with Lu. xiii. 34, whereas Matthew uses ‘Iepoo'6)u,u.a eleven times) proves that Matthew l))I‘I‘OWe(1 the passage in which it occurs from an Aramaic source. Now it is true that other reasons make the hypothesis of an Aramaic source for the identical passages in Matthew and Luke extremely pro- bable; but this use of 'Iepouo'a)’;,u. is quite insufticient proof. For a comparison of Paul’s use of 'Iepoo'¢.’:)u,ua (Gal. i. 17, 18; ii. 1) and ‘laps-;o'a)w’;p. (Gal. iv. 25, 26) will show that the same author might use the one form geographically and the other in :1 higher style, tlieo- logically or rhetorically. And this may possibly be held to explain the me of 'lepoiJn':‘c'I');.: by Matthew in the highly rhetorical passage in which alone it is found. GOSPELS 805 secondly, to retain that name for so long a period (nearly at least a generation) as to make it possible for a writer to speak of the acquisition of the name as a far distant fact, writing that the name is still borne, even “to this day.” The same expression in xxviii. 15,—where it is said that the false charge against the disciples, of stealing the body of Jesus, is commonly reported “ unto this day” by “ the J ews,”—warrants the same inference ; and this inference is corroborated by the remarkable use of “the Jews.” The author of the Fourth Gospel, writing at a much later date, habitually speaks of “the Jews” as an alien race, quite separated from the Christians ; but this is not in the manner of the synoptistic tradition. The uncertainty in which Mark left the resurrection of Jesus would naturally seem to later writers to require to be removed ; and accordingly we find that Matthew adds to the vision of angels (two instead of one) a manifestation of Jesus Himself. But the whole of this narrative (xxviii. 9-20), though apparently in .Iatthew’s style (cf., for example, the remarkable use of oi 32', without the oi pév, in the sense of “others,” in xxviii. 17 with that in xxvi. 67), and though containing internal evidence of being composed long after the events narrated (xxviii. 15), is nevertheless strangely disjointed. Yet its very defects, its disconnected- ness, incompleteness, and abruptness, indicate a date earlier than that of the more connected and completer narratives of the Third and Fourth Gospels. Matthew separates from .[ark’s narrative at the departure of the women from the tomb, having previously given an account (repeated by no other evangelist) of the resurrection from the dead of a great number of “saints,” who “went into the holy city and appeared unto many.” To lIark’s simple statement that the women “found the stone rolled away” hfatthew adds a graphic account of a glorious angel visibly descending from heaven, filling the keepers with fear, and rolling the stone away. Then, immediately after the women have departed with the angelic message, to bid the disciples to go to Galilee, Jesus suddenly appears to them. They clasp 1-Iis feet, while He repeats over again the message that the disciples must go to Galilee there to behold Him. Without any further mention of the place of meeting, the disciples are said to have gone to “ the mountain, where Jesus made agreement (enigma) with them (to meet theni).” To avoid this dislocation, there has been suggested the desperate remedy (Yeiss, Jla[l]L(i?(S€l'(l)l_7€l?:Z(711, p. 582) of rendering Erdfaro, “laid down the law,” with reference to the Sermon on the Hount ; but the probable solution is that Matthew here extracts and separates from its context some ancient tradition which is obscured through want of its framework.‘-’ Again Matthew tells us that, upon this mountain, only the eleven were present, and that while some of them worshipped, others “doubted.” This statement is of value as evidence that it was acknowledged, even so late as the compilation of iIatthew’s Gospel, that some at least of the manifestations of Jesus were of such a nature that, while they brought immediate conviction to some beliolders, they did not at once convince others, even of His nearest disciples; in other words, the manifestation of Jesus depended upon other con- siderations than the mere physical sense of sight. But, on the other hand, the statement seems quite inconsistent with the supposition that in previous manifestations in or near Jerusalem Jesus had been recognized and worshipped by all the eleven. The last words of the Gospel represent Jesus as commissioning His disciples to go into all nations, preaching His gospel, and baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The thought con- ” In a somewhat similar manner the author of the Second Epistle of Peter speaks of “the holy mount” (2 Pet. i. 18), assuming that his readers would understand the definite reference to the mountain of

the transfiguration.