commonly wrote and read at that time, as far as they were able to do either, in any language, is equally plain. In spite of all that Grecian and Roman conquests could do, the Jews were still a distinct and peculiar people; nor is there any reason whatever to suppose that they were any less so in language, than they were in dress, manners, and general character. He, therefore, who desired to write anything for the benefit of the Jews, as a nation, would insure it altogether the best attention from them, if it came in a form most accordant with their national feelings. They would naturally be the first persons whose salvation would be an object to the apostolic writers, as to the apostolic preachers, and the feelings of the writer himself, being in some degree influenced by love of his own countrymen, he would aim first at the direct spiritual benefit of those who were his kindred according to the flesh. Among all the historical writings of the New Testament, that there should be not one originally composed in the language of the people among whom the Savior arose, with whom he lived, talked and labored, and for whom he died, would be very strange. The fact that a gospel in the Hebrew language was considered absolutely indispensable for the benefit of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, is rendered perfectly incontestable by the circumstance that those apocryphal gospels which were in common use among the heretical denominations of that region, were all in Hebrew; and the common argument, that the Hebrew gospel spoken of by the Fathers was translated into Hebrew from Matthew's Greek, is itself an evidence that it was absolutely indispensable that the Jews should be addressed in writing, in that language alone. The objection, that the Hebrew original of Matthew was lost so soon, is easily answered by the fact, that the Jews were, in the course of the few first centuries, driven out of the land of their Fathers so completely, as to destroy the occasion for any such gospel in their language; for wherever they went, they soon made the dialect of the country in which they lived, their only medium of communication, written or spoken.
Fabricius may be advantageously consulted by the scholar for a condensed view of the question of the original language of Matthew's gospel, and his references to authorities, ancient and modern, are numerous and valuable, besides those appended by his editors.—The most complete argument ever made out in defense of a Greek original, is that by Hug, in his Introduction, whose history of the progress of Grecian influence and language in Syria and Palestine, is both interesting and valuable on its own account, though made the inefficient instrument of supporting an error. He is very ably met by his English translator, Wait, in the introduction to the first volume. A very strong defense of a Greek original of Matthew, is also found in a little quarto pamphlet, containing a thesis of a Goettingen student, on taking his degree in theology, in 1810. (Diss. Crit. Exeg. in serm. Matt. &c. Auct. Frid. Gul. Schubert.)
II. What were the Materials of Matthew's Gospel?
This point has been made the subject of more discussion and speculation, within the last fifty years, among the critical and exegetical theologians of Europe, than any other subject connected with the New Testament. Those who wish to see the interesting details of the modes of explaining the coincidences between the three first evangelists, may find much on this subject in Michaelis's Introduction to the N. T., and especially in the translation by Bishop Marsh, who, in his notes on Vol. III. of Michaelis, has, after a very full discussion of all previous views of the origin of the gospels, gone on to build one of the most ingenious speculations on this point that was ever conceived on any subject, but which, in its very complicated structure, will present a most insuperable objection to its adoption by the vast majority of even his critical readers; and accordingly, though he has received universal praise for the great learning and ingenuity displayed in its formation, he has found few supporters,—perhaps none. His views are fully examined and fairly discussed, by the anonymous English translator of Dr. F. Schleiermacher's Commentary on Luke, in an introductory history of all the German speculations on this subject with which he has prefaced that work. The historical sketch there given of the progress of opinion on the sources and materials of the three first gospels, is probably the most complete account of the whole matter that is accessible in English, and displays a very minute acquaintance with the German theologians. Hug is also very full on this subject, and also discusses the views of Marsh and Michaelis. Hug's translator, Dr. Wait, has given, in an introduction to the first volume, a very interesting account of these critical controversies, and has large references to many German writers not referred to by his author. Bertholdt and Bolten, in particular, are amply quoted and disputed by Wait. Bloomfield also, in the prefaces to the first and second volumes
