Matthew, Gospel of or Gospel according to Matthew , canonical book of the New Testament containing the history of the life of Jesus Christ, written by St. Matthew , apostle and one of the four evangelists. See Apostle and Evangelist.

St. Matthew was the son of Alphaeus, Galilean by birth, Jewish by religion, and publican by occupation. The other evangelists simply called him Levi which was his Hebrew name, for he always called himself Matthew , which was apparently the name given to him in his profession as a publican, which he quit to follow Jesus Christ. See Publican.

This apostle wrote his gospel in Judea before leaving to go preach in the province assigned to him, which some believe to be the land of the Parthians and others Ethiopia; the faithful of Palestine having begged him to leave them in writing that which he had taught them in person. It is also said that the Apostles likewise solicited the gospel from him and that he wrote it in around year 41 of the vulgar era, eight years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as stated in all the ancient Greek manuscripts, while several writers—including St. Irenaeus, among others—assure us that this gospel was not written until St. Peter and St. Paul preached in Rome, which corresponds to year 61 of the common era.

It is commonly believed that the work was initially written in Syriac, which is to say in Hebrew of the time, mingled with Syriac and Chaldean as the basis of the language, but whose characters were Hebrew: chaldaico syroque sermone, sed hebraicis litteris scriptum [written in Chaldean and Syrian speech, but with Hebraic letters], says St. Jerome, lib. III. adv. Pelag. cap. j., and which was long in use among Jews converted to Christianity: but the Christians not having conserved this fund with enough care, and having dared to make some additions (the Ebionites having notably altered it), it was abandoned by the orthodox churches which cleaved to the ancient Greek version, produced from the Hebrew or Syriac shortly after St. Matthew . By the time of Origen, the Hebrew gospel of the Jewish Christians was already considered inauthentic, having been so profoundly altered; however, it long remained pure in the hands of Nazarenes, whom St. Jerome does not reproach for having corrupted it as he does the Ebionites.

As far as we know, the real Hebrew gospel of St. Matthew no longer exists anywhere. Those printed by Sebastian Münster and du Tillet are modern and translated into Hebrew from Latin or Greek. Some moderns like Grotius, Mr. Huet, and Mille in his prolegomena, have argued that the Syriac gospel of St. Matthew , which is printed both separately and within polyglot Bibles, was the original text; but those who have examined it with more care note that this translation is based on the Greek.

The Greek version of this gospel, which passes for the original today, dates from the time of the apostles. As for the Latin translation, it is agreed that it is based on the Greek and is hardly less ancient than the Greek itself, but the authors of both versions are unknown.

Some moderns such as Erasmus, Calvin, Lightfoot, Whitaker, Smith, Casaubon, Leclerc, etc. maintain that St. Matthew wrote in Greek and that what is said about his supposed Hebrew original is false and misunderstood. For, they say, church fathers like Origen, St. Epiphanius, and St. Jerome do not speak of it uniformly; they cite it, but without giving it as much authority as they ought to have if it were an original. If they believed that it was original, would they have allowed it to perish in the Church? If St. Matthew had written in Hebrew, would we find Hebrew names rendered in Greek in his work? Would he cite Scripture as he does, following the Septuagint? The Greek language was, at the time, common throughout the Orient, the Empire, and even in Rome given that St. Paul wrote in Greek to the Romans, St. Peter and St. James wrote in the same language to the Jews dispersed throughout the Orient, and likewise St. Paul to the Hebrews of Palestine. Finally, while all the other authors of the New Testament wrote in Greek, why think that St. Matthew alone wrote in Hebrew?

But these rationales are not without rejoinder 1. The ancients testified that St. Matthew had written in Hebrew, which they claimed on the basis of having seen and consulted the gospel written in that language. If their testimony is not uniform, it is because there were two sorts of gospels attributed to St. Matthew ; one pure and whole, of which they spoke with esteem; the other altered, which they judged false and apocryphal. 2. It is agreed that the Greek language was common in Palestine, but it is no less true that the common people ordinarily spoke Hebrew, that is to say a language mingled with Chaldean and Syriac. St. Paul, having been arrested in the temple, harangued the multitude in Hebrew, Ac 21:4 . [1] 3. The Hebrew names, rendered in Greek in St. Matthew , prove that the translator is Greek and the original is Hebrew. 4. St. Matthew cites only ten passages of the Old Testament, seven of which are closer to the Hebrew text than the Septuagint version, and the other three of which appear to conform to the Septuagint only because in these passages the Septuagint itself conforms to the Hebrew text. 5. The loss of the original does not negate the proof of its existence: the churches abandoned it little by little because the Ebionites were corrupting it; the Greek version which had remained pure was conserved and considered the sole authentic version. 6. Although the other Apostles had written in Greek to the Jews of Palestine and to those dispersed throughout the Orient, we cannot therefore conclude that St. Matthew did not write in Hebrew for those in Palestine who spoke common Hebrew more commonly than Greek. Finally, it is not asserted that St. Matthew must absolutely have written in Hebrew, but it is a question of knowing whether he did. Now, it is a fact attested to by all the ancients, several of whom saw his original and were very capable of judging the case, such as Origen, Eusebius, and St. Jerome. Are conjectures to be opposed to certified facts? It thus appears consistent that the gospel of St. Matthew was originally written in common Hebrew.

The goal of St. Matthew in his gospel was, according to the venerable Pierre Damien, to show that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. To that end he demonstrates by his miracles that he is the Christ, that Mary his mother is a virgin, that Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it, and that his truly divine miracles were incontestable proofs of his mission. The arrangement of events in Matthew from 4:22 to 14:13 differs fairly significantly from the order followed by the other evangelists, but this in no way impugns their veracity. Several apocryphal works have been attributed to St. Matthew, like the book of Jesus’ childhood , condemned by Pope Gelasius, an Ethiopian liturgy , and the gospel according to the Hebrews used by the Ebionites, that is to say an altered gospel whose base St. Matthew wrote, but not the parts added on. Calmet, Dictionnaire historique, geographique, critique, chronologique et litteral de la Bible, vol. III, p. 646 and following.

Notes

1. [This reference is a typographical error, as Paul addresses the crowd in Acts 21:40.]