180 THE REV. J. E. H. THOMSON, M.A., D.D., ON 



To limit the external evidence, it is retorted that Matthew made 

 merely a collection of om^ Lord's " sayings," ta logia. Against 

 this is the fact that the word log ion, which occm^s four times in 

 the New Testament, never is translated " saying." It occurs 

 some 60 times in the Ixx., and with one doubtful exception it 

 means either the High Priest's breast-plate or a divine oracle, 

 never an ordinary " saying." It is a rare word; Moulton and 

 Milligan record no instance of it in the papyri. The " sayings 

 discovered by Grenfell and Hunt are never called by the collector 

 logia, always logoi. Irenaeus regarded what Matthew had written 

 as the Gospel. According to the text of Eouth (Eel. Sac. i. 13) 

 and Gebhardt and Harnack (Barn. Ep., p. 92), Papias applied 

 the same term to Mark's Gospel as to Matthew's. 



For whom, then, was this Hebrew Gospel written? The com- 

 mon answer is : " For his countrymen in Palestine. " Eeasonable 

 as this answer seems, we venture to regard it as incorrect. In the 

 first place, it was not necessary to write in Aramaic for the Jews 

 in Palestine, as they all, speaking generally, knew Greek. It 

 seems almost certain that our Lord addressed the multitude com- 

 monly in Greek. Had our Lord spoken to them in Aramaic, when 

 He quoted the Law of the Prophets, He would have done so in 

 accordance with the ITebrew, or at all events with the Targum.. 

 Practically invariably when, in the first Gospel, our Lord Him- 

 self quotes, He follows the Ixx., even where it differs from the 

 Hebrew. In the narrative when the Evangelist himself is the 

 speaker, the Hebrew is generally followed. Other proofs might be 

 produced. When our Lord uses Aramaic, it is marked as a pecu- 

 liarity. The crowd in Jerusalem expected Paul to address them in 

 Greek, but gave more heed when they heard that he was speaking 

 in Hebrew. Pilate — or Lysias — needs no interpreter in his deal- 

 ings with the people. The Palestine converts would be as well 

 acquainted with Greek as a Belgian with French. 



In the second place, Palestine is a small country ; about the 

 size of Wales. Not only so, but as it was incumbent on every 

 male to present himself three times a year before the Lord at 

 Jerusalem, the Jewish inhabitants were more closely in touch 

 with each other than were the members of any other nationality 

 of similar size. The fame of our Lord was soon known in Jeru- 

 salem, so that early in His ministry Scribes and Pharisees came 

 from thence to GaHlee to learn more particularly about Him. 

 For years after His Ascension there would be no need to write 

 or publish any account of His Words or Deeds for the inhabitants 

 of Judea or Galilee. Paul could presume on Agrippa's knowledge 

 of the history of our Lord. " These things were not done in a 

 corner. ' ' 



It is to be noted, in the third place, that the Christians of the 

 first generation expected that their Lord's second coming would' 



