any extended argument respecting it. He simply refers to several of the Christian fathers, who have expressed an opinion in favour of such an original; and then adds, that as there is no intrinsic improbability against this, we must believe it, unless we reject the testimony of all Christian antiquity.' He moreover alleges, that nothing has been objected to this testimony, which he regards as of sufficient force to justify a protracted discussion;' Add. Notes, p. xlv.

In terms scarcely less confident than these, does Olshausen express himself, in his work on the Genuineness of the four canonical Gospels, p. 28. He even goes so far as to say: "We have scarcely a testimony for the existence of Matthew, if we deny that his Gospel was written in Hebrew." All this is said too, by a writer who has laboured abundantly, and much to the purpose also, to shew that Matthew's Greek Gospel is quoted from the very earliest times. He even lays it down (p. 93) as incontrovertible, that in the time of Papias,' i. e. very little after the close of the first century, the Greek translation of Matthew was every where current in the church, and constituted a part of the canonical four Gospels.'

Another German critic, J. E. C. Schmidt, Professor of Theology, etc., at Giessen, in his Historico-critical Introduction to the New Testament (Giessen, 1818), in a style appropriate to a certain class of Neologists in Germany, declares, that if we do not admit the Hebrew original of Matthew, he knows not how to prove at all that this publican ever wrote a Gospel; Pref. p. iv.

If assurance of being in the right could make a cause good, we might regard it, then, as quite beyond the reach of probability, that any doubts which are of serious moment can be raised respecting the views which these authors, and others of the like sentiment, have defended. After all, however, we may with propriety say, that any question ought surely to be made very clear, before critics should venture to assert so categorically as has been done in the present case.

It is not a fact, at any rate, that all who have studied this subject, and written upon it, have come to the same result as the authors just named. If there are critics entitled to high respect, (which I readily concede), on the list of those who have adopted such views as Mr. Norton, yet there are others deserving of equal deference, who are found on an opposite

Omitting the ancient writers, we find among modern critics who have declared in favour of a Hebrew original, Corrodi, Michaelis, Weber, Bolten, Adler, Storr, Haenlein, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Kuinoel, Schmidt, Harwood, Owen, Campbell, A. Clarke, and Olshausen, authors comparatively recent ; also Simon, Mill, Cave, Grotius, Bellarmin, Casaubon, Walton, Tillemont, Elsner, and others, of preceding times. But on the other hand, as being in favour of a Greek original, we can appeal to Erasmus, Paraeus, Calvin, Le Clerc, Fabricius, Pfeiffer, Lightfoot, Beausobre, Basnage, Wetstein, Rumpaeus, Hoffman, Leusden, Masch, Vogel, C. F. Schmid, Lardner, Jortin, Hey, Jones, Gabler, Paulus, and others. Besides these, the leading works which have recently been written on the literature of the New Testament, I mean the Introductions of Hug, De Wette, and Schott, defend a Greek original.

One would be naturally prone to think, on looking at this second list of names, that something worthy of notice may be or has been said, in favour of an opinion adopted by men of such a cast as these. However, as it is no part of my design to make an appeal to authorities, in respect to a question of such a nature as that before us, I shall endeavour to exhibit the real state of facts in regard to it, so far as I have been able to form an acquaintance with them.

2. Testimony of the Christian Fathers.

First of all, let us attend to the testimonies of the ancient Christian Fathers, with respect to the language in which the Gospel of Matthew was originally written. On these, great stress has often been laid; or rather, as I might truly say, the question has been oftentimes assumed as decided, or frequently been declared to be decided beyond the reach of any appeal, by the testimonies which the ancients have bequeathed to us. The first and most important testimony is that of PAPIAS; who was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia of Asia Minor, and flourished at the close of the first century and the beginning of the second. None of his works are now extant, excepting a few fragments preserved in quotations. Eusebius has given a particular account of him, in his Hist. Ecc. III. 39, and Jerome in his Lib. de Viris Illust. c. 18. It appears that he wrote five books, entitled Aoyiov Kvotaxav Enynosis, i. e. explanations or interpretations of divine oracles or sayings. Irenaeus

(adv. Haeres. V. 33) adverts to these books; and at the same time he says: Παπίας ̓Ιωάννου μὲν ἀκουστής, Πολυκάρπου δὲ ἑταῖρος γεγονώς, ἀρχαῖος ἀνήρ· i. e. Papias was a hearer of John, and moreover a friend of Polycarp, a man of primitive times.'

The reader, however, would form, as it seems to me, quite an incorrect opinion respecting Papias, should he make it up merely from this declaration of Irenaeus. Eusebius, who makes this quotation from Irenaeus (ubi supra), immediately adds: "But Papias himself, in the proem of his book, does not say at all that he was an eye or ear-witness of the apostles, but only that he learned the things which respect the Christian faith from those who were the familiar acquaintances (Tv yvooluar) of the apostles." The quotations which Eusebius then makes from Papias himself, whose book was before him, seem to me fully to justify his remark which I have just quoted. Papias explicitly says, that he had made it a business to collect together, as much as possible, all the oral traditions and sayings to which he could have access, and which were deserving of credit, respecting the declarations of the apostles and other disciples of Christ; of which latter class, he names Aristion and John the presbyter (o großuregos). Papias does not seem to intimate that he himself had access personally to the apostles, and thus made inquiries of them; he says expressly, that he made his inquiries of elders who were conversant with apostles—παρὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καλῶς ἔμαθον . ... παρακολου θηκότων τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις, i. e. I learned well of the elders ... who were conversant with the Tooẞurέpois,' which means, in this latter case, the apostles and primitive disciples.

I have been thus particular in stating these facts, because they enter essentially into the dispute about the credit due to the declarations of Papias which are yet to be cited. On the one hand he has often been represented as an apostolic man, i. e. a hearer of the apostles themselves, and we are called upon to give him almost the credit due to an inspired witness; on the other, vigorous efforts have been made to weaken the force of his testimony, particularly because Eusebius calls him (III. 19), σφόδρα σμικρὸς τὸν νοῦν, i. e. a man of very small talents, or of very little compass of mind. The statement of Irenaeus above recited, if taken in a limited sense, may, after all, be regarded as correct; that is, Papias may have heard or seen the apostle John at Ephesus, or in its neighborhood, near the close of this apostle's life. That Papias was well-acquainted with

Polycarp, there can be no good reason to doubt. But that this author, when his book was written which has been already named, had been conversant with any number of the apostles and had derived his 'Enynotes from their oral testimony, there is not a shadow of evidence to prove; nay, directly the contrary is manifest. He does not even name Polycarp as a source from which he drew; at least this is not done in the passages quoted by Eusebius. Moreover, the place in which he lived and the time when he flourished almost preclude the possibility of his being a γνώριμος τῶν ἀποστόλων.

But while we are cautioned by such circumstances as these not to claim too much for Papias, I can not, on the other hand, assent to what Hug and many others have endeavoured to make out, viz., that Papias is not worthy of credit, because he was devoted to the collection of oral traditions and has been called a simpleton by Eusebius. Papias himself, as quoted by Eusebius, says: "I took no pleasure (ov... xaoov) in such as talked a great deal, but in those who taught what was true; [I did not give heed] to those who related strange doctrines, but to those [who related] things which were added to the faith [i. e. to the Christian religion] by the Lord, and which had their origin in the truth itself." He then goes on to say, that whenever he met with any one who had been conversant with the Elders, he inquired of them what Andrew, Peter, Philip, etc., had said. In all this, now, I do not perceive, as some writers affect to do, any marks of an enthusiastic and undiscerning collector and retailer of stories or reports, but merely the natural and ardent curiosity of a mind deeply intent on the collection of sayings and doings, that were connected with individuals whose. characters were highly venerated, and whose opinions were matters of lively interest to sincere Christians of the second generation.

But Eusebius, in the sequel, names several matters which he found in the volume of Papias, that have respect to miraculous things said to have taken place in regard to Philip one of the apostles, and Barsabas or Justus chosen in the room of Judas, Acts 1: 23; which, however, are nothing peculiarly strange, provided Mark 16: 17, 18 be regarded as true. Besides these, Eusebius says that Papias sets forth ξένας τέ τινας παραβολὰς τοῦ Σωτῆρος, καὶ διδασκαλίας αὐτοῦ, καί τινα ἄλλα μυθικώτερα, i. e., 'certain strange parables of the Saviour, and doctrines of his, and some other things of rather a fabulous hue.' By strange VOL. XII. No. 31.

18

parables Eusebius doubtless means, such as are not contained in the Gospels. Among the uvixarεpa he names especially the millennial and visible personal reign of Christ upon earth, after the first resurrection. Eusebius, who was himself a strenuous anti-millenarian, then declares, at the close of these representations, that "Papias was ogóðọa oμixoòs ròv vovv, if one may venture to judge from his book."

Now here the principal ground of Eusebius' opinion respecting Papias seems to be laid open to our view. First, he gave too much credit to traditionary stories; and secondly, he was a believer in the millennium as understood in the grosser sense. Both of these reasons are good ones, I acknowledge, for distrust to a certain extent, viz., so far as it concerns traditional stories with which the wonderful is intermixed, and so far as it regards ability to interpret the prophetic Scriptures which are highly figurative. But if every man is a simpleton, who exhibits the like traits with Papias as to credulity or ability to interpret that part of the Apocalypse which has respect to the thousand years of Christ's reign, then we might easily make out a large list of simpletons, from ancient and from modern, yea, from recent writers-men too of great eminence and learning in many important respects.

In a matter, then, which does not concern the wonderful, nor yet the mode of interpreting prophecies clothed in language highly figurative, there appears to be no good reason why the testimony of Papias should be any more suspected, than that of any other well meaning and honest witness, who, on some speculative points, would not be able to form an opinion entitled to much consideration, but in the statement of a simple matter of fact would tell the truth without prejudice and without embellishment. Such is the result to which our investigation with regard to Papias seems to conduct us; and his testimony may now be produced and examined to some good advantage.

According to Eusebius, Papias relates a traditionary account which he had heard from John the Presbyter, respecting the composition of the Gospel of Mark, viz., that Mark wrote it down, as he had heard it for substance in the often repeated preaching of Peter. Papias then passes immediately on to a brief mention of the Gospel of Matthew; but he does not tell us explicitly whether what he then relates was also received from John the Presbyter, or not; although, from the connection in which the passage stands, it seems most natural to con