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The Authorship of ‘The Gospel According to Matthew’:. A Reconsideration of the External Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

C. Stewart Petrie
C. Stewart Petrie
Affiliation:
Ashfield, N.S.W., Australia
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Extract

Until the latter half of the eighteenth century, the apostolic authorship of ‘the Gospel according to Matthew’ seems to have been generally accepted. But questions and doubts began to arise from different points of view in the examination of what were regarded as the relevant documents; and it would be a reasonable assessment of the general opinion of current scholarship to say that, whilst it may be agreed that Matthew is probably in some sense behind the Gospel that bears his name, there are few, if any, who would claim for him complete responsibility for the work. Yet, in the second, third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, the authorship of Matthew was not merely unquestioned: it was repeatedly and positively affirmed. These affirmations, however, have been subjected to close scrutiny, and even the basic declaration of Papias of Hierapolis, a declaration that belongs to the earlier part of the second century, has been used to refute the claim to apostolic authorship. It is the purpose here to examine the early evidence again, in the hope of finding some solid ground in the critical morass where so many seekers are apt to lose their way.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , October 1967 , pp. 15 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

page 15 note 1 For the text of Eusebius, I have used the Loeb edition, as readily accessible; and in the main I have followed Lawler and Oulton for the translation, consulting Lake (Loeb), and sometimes giving my own rendering. Differences are generally the subject of comment. For the Papias Fragments, I have used Karl Bihlmeyer's text, with J. B. Lightfoot (and Lake) at hand, and J. A. Kleist's translation (in Ancient Christian Writers).

page 16 note 1 The Latin translation of Irenaeus—Against Heresies, v, 33. 4—is extant, so that the accuracy of this quotation may be checked.

page 16 note 2 This looks like a tilt at some of the heretical teachers, perhaps gnostics or others, or even at long-winded commentators; we cannot be certain.

page 16 note 3 Αλλότριος can be used to indicate what is alien, forced, unnatural. See Lampe, G. W. H. (ed.), A Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. p. 77.Google Scholar

page 16 note 4 According to Liddell and Scott (revised edition, Jones, H. S.), Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. pp. 1313f., παρακολουθέω means ‘follow or attend closely, dog one's steps’, and then, metaphorically, ‘follow closely, attend minutely to; follow with the mind, understand’Google Scholar. The word occurs in Luke i. 3, on which Cadbury, H. J. has a long note (Beginnings of Christianity, ed. Jackson, and Lake, , vol. ii, pp. 501–2)Google Scholar, accepting as probable the broad meaning of ‘keeping in touch with things done’. Moulton and Milligan (Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. pp. 485 f.) after some discussion are disposed to follow Cadbury and render: ‘having acquired familiarity with’. Kirsopp Lake (Eusebius, Loeb edn., vol.1, p. 293 and n. 1) regards the meaning of the Greek as doubtful, but, after referring to Cadbury's treatment for guidance, translates: ‘if ever anyone came who had followed the presbyters’. Arndt–Gingrich (Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament, etc., s.v. p. 624), under the meaning, ‘follow, accompany, attend’, with dat. of pers., quote the Papias phrase as used of ‘direct discipleship’.

The long discussions are inconclusive; and the words in their context are perhaps most reasonably rendered by Kleist, J. A. (in his volume in Ancient Christian Writers, p. 115): ‘But when someone turned up who had been closely associated with the presbyters.’Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 For πρεσβύτερος see Moulton–Milligan, , op. cit. p. 535Google Scholar; and Arndt–Gingrich, , op. cit. pp. 706 f.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 The Latin text is given in Bihlmeyer, K., Die Apostolischen Väter, p. 133.Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 Or ‘inquire about the words’, Arndt-Gingrich, , s.v. άνακρίνω, 1. a, p. 56.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 Cf. Blass-Debrunner, , Greek Grammar (trans. Funk), § 443 (3).Google Scholar

page 19 note 3 The above seems to be a fair representation of what Papias means in the passage cited by Eusebius, having due regard to the terms used and their given context. (For what the fact is worth, άπόστολος is not used in the few fragments that remain to us of Papias' own words.)

Schmiedel, Paul W. (Article: ‘John, Son of Zebedee’, in Cheyne and Black's Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. 11, 2507–9)Google Scholar offers another explanation: ‘…I ascertained (first of all) the sayings of the elders (“as to this”: not “to wit”), what Andrew’ and the others ‘(had said) and (secondly) what Aristion and John…say’. (The parentheses are Schmiedel's.)

This would alter the whole bearing of the passage. On the first interpretation that has been offered above, Papias inquired about the words of ‘the ancient worthies’ (τοὐς τ⋯ν πρεσβυτέρων…λόγους), and the words of these worthies are what Andrew and the others had said; that is, if Papias encountered any of their associates, he sought the words of Andrew and the rest.

But, on Schmiedel's interpretation, Papias asked the associates what the ‘ancient worthies’ (he says ‘elders’) were saying about what Andrew and the others (Schmiedel inaccurately speaks of the ‘apostles’) had said. ‘Thus’, he adds, ‘we have to distinguish four steps: the apostles, the elders, the companions of the elders, Papias.’

Against Schmiedel's view it is to be objected that (i) it interrupts the flow of the sentence and strains its meaning (‘the words of the ancient worthies, viz. what Andrew and the rest had said’) by interposing between ‘the words of the ancient worthies’ and the appositional clause that follows (‘what Andrew and the rest had said’) some explanatory term of relationship such as ‘concerning’, ‘in regard to’—which, instead of offering a translation, propounds a point of view; (ii) it follows the bad example of Eusebius, about which we have already complained, by introducing a new term, and consequently an additional ‘step’, in the form of ‘apostles’, a term which does not appear in the passage from Papias. See also n. 1, p. 20.

page 20 note 1 This bears out the interpretation which has been given above against Schmiedel. In this statement of what Papias has said, Eusebius is right, because he uses the terms of Papias himself, except that he substitutes again άπόστολοι of for πρεσβύτεροι. This time, however, his substitution is not important to the argument, for Papias himself has, as we have already seen, listed several of those whom we, this time with Eusebius, refer to as ‘apostles’, among ‘the ancient worthies’.

page 20 note 2 Here he does not quite so accurately represent Papias; for, in the quoted extract, Papias says that he had learnt from ‘the ancient worthies’, without mentioning particular names; and when he does mention these two, he refers only to the inquiries he made from their associates. The statement may in itself be true, but Eusebius would not be right in extracting it from the Papias passage he uses.

page 21 note 1 In 1891 Conybeare, F. C. found in the Patriarchal Library of Edschmiatzin an Armenian manuscript of the Gospels, in which the last twelve verses of Mark (xvi. 9–20) are introduced by a rubric written in the first hand, Of the presbyter Ariston. The Armenian and Syriac versions of Eusebius have this spelling, reading ‘Ariston and John, the elders’. Conybeare has had some support for his suggestion that ‘the Presbyter Ariston’ is the same person as Papias' Aristion. See H. B. Swete, The Gospel according to St Mark, p. cxi.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 The grammarians call this the anaphoric, or pointing-back, article. See Blass-Debrunner, , Greek Grammar (trans. Funk), § 260; and Nigel Turner in Moulton's Grammar, vol. iii (Syntax), pp. 165f.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 Cf. Kleist, J. A. (Ancient Christian Writers, ad loc.): ‘It is, however, also possible, if not in fact probable, that ό πρεσβύτερος in this context means, not “the presbyter”, as Eusebius explains, but, simply, “the Old Man John”. Any reader of St John's second and third Epistles knew at once whom Papias meant. The expression was a sort of affectionate nickname for the aged and dearly loved Apostle’ (p. 111). “‘The Grand Old Man”, an affectionate reference to the aged Apostle, perhaps current among his disciples’ (p. 207).Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 This seems to be clutching desperately at a straw, considering that the New Testament can supply at least five Johns.

page 22 note 3 Yule, Alex. (Who Wrote the Fourth Gospel?, Love Lecture, 1929, p. 28) points to two monuments to the South African War that are found in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, within a couple of hundred yards of each other; and asks if this requires the conclusion that there were two campaigns, not one.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 See especially Headlam, A. C., The Fourth Gospel as History, pp. 55–9.Google Scholar

page 23 note 2 Eusebius, vol. 11, p. 103.

page 23 note 3 τήν άρχαιότητα τάνδρός προβεβλημένοις, ‘relying on his antiquity’, Lake (Loeb edn. 1, p. 297); or almost, ‘protecting themselves behind his antiquity’. Cf. Irenaeus' reference to Papias in iii, 39. 1, above: άρχαīος άνήρ, the phrase more accurately rendered ‘a man of primitive times’.

page 24 note 1 A little earlier in his work (111, 36. 2) Eusebius has these words: ‘In (Polycarp's) day, Papias was well known, also a bishop, but of the community at Hierapolis’, with some textual authority for the addition: άνήρ τά πάντα őτι μάλιστα λογιώτατος καί τ⋯ης γραφ⋯ης είδήμων, ‘a man highly proficient in all kinds of learning and expert in Scripture’.

Lightfoot, J. B., who cites the latter passage in his Commentary on Colossians, p. 49, n. 1, says: ‘This passage is found to be a spurious interpolation…, and was probably added by some one who was acquainted with the work of Papias and desired to do him justice.’ On the other hand, may it not have been deleted by some one who favoured Eusebius' less flattering estimate, or by some busybody who sought to remove the apparent inconsistency? In any case, Eusebius is disposed to quarrel with Papias in matters of opinion, not of facts; although, as we have seen, he may turn the latter to his own account.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 See Lampe, G. W. H. (ed.), Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. p. 534.Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 See Lampe, G. W. H. (ed.), Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. p. 628.Google Scholar

page 26 note 2 For Socrates, see Bernard, J. H., St John (I.C.C.), p. xl, n. 1Google Scholar; cf. also Headlam, A. C., The Fourth Gospel as History, p. 51.Google Scholar

page 26 note 3 George attributes to Papias a statement that John was slain by Jews. Kleist, J. A. (op. cit. p. 210, n. 41) observes: ‘Of twenty-seven manuscripts of Georgius's Chronicon, only one, the Codex Coislinianus here cited, carries the testimony attributed to Papias (§2) and Origen (§3). It is undoubtedly an interpolation. Moreover, the other twenty-six manuscripts contradict the statement that John died a martyr's death, saying that “he died a peaceful death”.’Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 Following the Greek text in Lightfoot, Ignatius and Polycarp, vol. iii, p. 333.

page 27 note 2 Quoted by Eusebius, v, 20. 6.

page 27 note 3 Eusebius (Loeb edn.), vol. 1, p. xlviii.

page 27 note 4 Eusebius, iii, 39. 16; with Lawler and Oulton's translation.

page 27 note 5 Early Church History to A.D. 313, vol. 11, p. 109.

page 28 note 1 ‘It is recorded’ (Lawler and Oulton) may perhaps say just a little too much; Lake's ‘tradition says’ may be nearer the mark. The phrase is κατέχει λόγος, ‘report has it’, the ‘report’ being probably, but not necessarily, verbal rather than written.

page 28 note 2 Lawler, and Oulton, (Eusebius, vol. 11, p. 165)Google Scholar suggest that this may have been the Gospel of the Hebrews (referred to in Eusebius iii, 25. 5). But Eusebius knows of both gospels, and there is no evidence that he confuses them.

Of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, James, M. R. (The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 1) says: ‘It was a divergent yet not heretical form of our Gospel according to St Matthew… What may be regarded as established is that it existed in either Hebrew or Aramaic, and was used by a Jewish Christian sect who were known as Nazaraeans (Nazarenes), and that it resembled our Matthew closely enough to have been regarded as the original Hebrew of that Gospel. I believe few, if any, would now contend that it was that original. It is generally, and I believe rightly, looked upon as a secondary document.’Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 Eusebius, vol. 11, p. 163.

page 30 note 1 The meaning ‘translate’ is given for Papias here by Arndt-Gingrich, : Greek-English Lexicon of N. T., etc., s.v. p. 310Google Scholar. Lampe, G. W. H. (ed.), Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. p. 549, gives the meaning ‘interpret, expound, comment on’, adding ‘perhaps…“translate”’.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 For Papias and Ignatius as contemporaries, see Eusebius 111, 36. 1–2.

page 30 note 3 See Srawley, J. H., The Epistles of St Ignatius, p. 29.Google Scholar

page 30 note 4 E.g. Bacon, B. W., Studies in Matthew, pp. 24 f.: ‘There will be general assent to the statement that clear evidence of the use of Matthew appears first in the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch… All critics draw inferences from the undoubted employment of Matthew by Ignatius.’Google Scholar

page 30 note 5 The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, p. 79.

page 30 note 6 So Arndt-Gingrich, : Lexicon, s.v. p. 212Google Scholar. See Dalman, , The Words of Jesus, pp. 6 fGoogle Scholar. Cf. Cadbury, H. J. in Beginnings of Christianity, vol. v, p. 63 and n. 1.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Matthew and Levi are regarded as the same person: see Matt. ix. 9–10, x. 3, Mark ii. 14; Luke v. 29. For discussion of the Twelve, though not of names in detail, see Lake, Beginnings…, vol. v, pp. 37 ff. See also the Commentaries.

page 31 note 2 Grimm-Thayer, , Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. p. 379.Google Scholar

page 31 note 3 Moulton, J. H., Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 11, p. 341.Google Scholar

page 31 note 4 See the Lexicons: Liddell & Scott (Jones); Arndt-Gingrich; Lampe (ed.).

page 32 note 1 The relevant sections are Eusebius, 111. 39. 14–16. Τά λόγια is considered at length by J. Donovan, The Logia in Ancient and Recent Literature. The discussion above follows a rather different line, but the conclusion is similar to that of Donovan. N. B. Stonehouse, Origins of the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 14 f., recently observed: ‘It is noteworthy that many others [Stonehouse included himself] including Jülicher, Bacon, Ropes, Kittel, and Kilpatrick, as well as Lightfoot and Zahn, have firmly insisted that the statement clearly must have been intended to refer to the Gospel.’

page 32 note 2 Novum Testamentum, vol. 111 fasc. 1–2, 1959: “‘Q” Is Only What You Make It.’