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



lated from the Greek. Our Lord is called Yesous, not Yeshu'a, 

 the Apostle Peter is always Petros, not as in Peshitta and the 

 Curetonian, Kepha. So with the other Apostles, Matai instead of 

 Mati, Ya'qohos instead of Ya'qoh, and Yohanos instead of 

 Yohanan. As has already been noted, Dr. Cureton was under the 

 impression that in the version of Matthew which he discovered 

 he came upon a transcript of Matthew's original Hebrew Gospel. 

 Nearly a score of years ago Professor Hjelt, in Zahn"s 

 Forsclmngen, published a study of the Curetonian Matthew, in 

 which he came to the conclusion that " Matthew " is the work 

 of a hand other than that which has translated the other Gospels. 

 The force of Hjelt 's arguments Dr. Burkitt admits to some extent, 

 and fails, as it seems to us, to turn. While differences betweei> 

 the Syriac in the version of Matthew's Gospel and that in the 

 other Synoptists are obvious to the careful student; no one can 

 fail to be struck with the general resemblance in style and mode 

 of rendering. This may be explained if Matthew's Gospel was 

 much the earliest to reach the East, and, as it did in the West, 

 secured a place as a sacred writing before the arrival of the 

 others; in that case the other Gospels would naturally be trans- 

 lated in a similar style. When the missing fragment of the 

 Apocryphal book of Esdras was discovered, it was translated into 

 the * *' Bible English ' ' of three centuries ago. 



Whether Dr. Cureton 's supposition is correct, that we have in 

 the Syriac version discovered by him the original Aramaic 

 Matthew or it be a translation from a Hebrew original, does not 

 matter for our thesis ; it is very early, and is not translated from 

 Greek. This, combined ^^'ith the fact, which we have endeavoured 

 to make clear, that the Palestinian converts did not need a Hebrew 

 cr Aramaic Gospel, and the further fact that, circ. a.d. 189, 

 ]"*ant8enus found a copy in India, enables us to claim that we have 

 ;it least rendered the truth of our thesis probable. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman said : I am sure we shall all feel we are very much 

 indebted to Dr. Thomson for his extremely interesting and instruc- 

 tive paper, wliich has given me more food for thought than any 

 other lately read here. I must confess that it has never occurred 

 to me to regard St. Matthew's Gospel as written for the purpose 

 of circulation in the countries east of Palestine, but I think our 

 lecturer has shown good reasons for holding this view. Its chief 

 importance for us as students of the Gospels is the new reason 

 which it gives for the differences between this Gospel and the other 

 synoptic Gospels, a subject, to my mind, of surpassing interest. 



I still, however, believe that Mark's Gospel was the first written, 

 as I think is shown by its commencing sentence, "The beginning of 

 the Gospel of Jesus Christ," if we remember that the four evan- 



