THE READERS FOR WHOM MATTHEW WROTE HIS GOSPEL. 179 



Mark borrowed from Matthew. Against tliis may be placed 

 several mstances m which Mark appears to correct mistakes in 

 Matthew Thus compare the mission of Apostles m Matt. x. iO 

 with Mark vi 8, 9 ; or the reward of self-denial, Matt. xix. 29 

 with Mark x. 29, 30 ; and most striking of all compare Matt xxvi 

 S^. with Mark xiv. 39. Mark, it is generally admitted, had behind 

 him the evidence of Peter, whose hermeneutes he was. He m 

 opposition to all the other Evangehsts, relates that our Lord m 

 warning Peter said: " This day, in this night, before the cock 

 •crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice." If Matthew wrote sub- 

 sequent to Mark, and " transferred almost the whole of the 

 second Gospel " to his own pages, as Dr. Allen says he did, why 

 did he, in making the transference, introduce such a change as 

 ^omitting " twice "? Especially is this a difficulty when we 

 remember that Matthew knew that Mark recorded Peter's_ evi- 

 dence, which, on all the incidents connected with this painful 

 episode, was by far the best. If, however, Mark wrote last with 

 Matthew before him he might, on the authority of Peter, make 

 the alteration. Dr. Allen gets over the difficulty by saying: 

 " Mark's dis is of doubtful authority." Lachmann, Alford, 

 Tischendorf, Tregelles, W. and H. retain it; the great 

 majority of the uncials have it; it is in the Old Syriac, the 

 Diatessaron, the Vulgate, and the Peshitta. What motive could 

 induce a copyist to introduce this word and arrange the subsequent 

 narrative to suit ? Harmonistic reasons would strongly impel him 

 to omit it in the three passages in which it occurs. 



We then venture to maintain that internal, as well as external, 

 evidence supports the view of Clement of Alexandria, that Mark's 

 was the last of the Synoptic Gospels to be written. 



Patristic evidence contains another element more pertinent to 

 our present object ; that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. Most modern 

 scholars hold that this means Aramaic. For our present purpose 

 this is not important. It is maintained rightly that our Greek 

 Matthew presents none of the phenomena of a translation, but 

 every symptom of a work composed in Greek. There is, however, 

 a nearly contemporary analogy in the case of Josephus, who, as 

 he tells in his Introduction, wrote his History of the " Wars of 

 the Jews " first in the language of our country " and then 

 translated it into Greek. His history has all the appearance of 

 having been written originally in Greek. An author who, having 

 written a work in one language translates it into another with 

 which he is equally familiar, really composes anew. If Matthew 

 did as Josephus, his Gospel would read as if it had been composed 

 in Greek. This, if it is correct, explains why the Fathers, in 

 quoting the first Gospel, never show any consciousness that they 

 are quoting, not from the original Gospel, but from a "translation. 



