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



for its kindness in receiving my paper in my absence, and in pro- 

 viding one to read it. 



To begin with Mr. Roberts, the Chairman. I do not think that 

 any reason in favour of the chronological primacy of Mark can be 

 deduced from the opening sentence of his Gospel — it only means 

 that the prophecy of John the Baptist was really " the beginning of 

 the Gospel of Jesus Christ." According to Papias, the early 

 preachers in the locality in which he lived interpreted the Hebrew 

 Matthew as best they could. As he belonged to Asia Minor, his 

 evidence applies to the West. His evidence in date may be regarded 

 as relating to a time which he remembered, but was long past 

 when he wrote, therefore probably not later than A.D. 70. At that 

 time, the Christians had Matthew as a written Gospel, 

 cf. the quotations in the Didache. The alleged special 

 accuracy of Oriental Memories is to me more than doubtful. 

 Sir William Muir's account of the special selected traditions 

 concerning Mohammed is evidence of this. Mr. Roberts has 

 not advanced any evidence that " in Christian circles " Rome was 

 " known as Babylon." Clement writes from Rome, not from 

 Babylon, to the Corinthian Church, Ignatius, a score or 

 so years later, writes to " Rome," not by the pseudonym 

 of " Babylon." There is an ambiguous phrase in the ascension 

 of Isaiah," which, while capable of being understood as identifying 

 Babylon with Rome, is susceptible of another and more logical 

 interpretation. Moreover, "the Ascension of Isaiah" is an 

 " apocalypse," while the first Epistle of Peter is not. Dunedin is 

 a poetical name for Edinburgh. Were I dating a letter so, my 

 correspondent would think I had emigrated to New Zealand, unless 

 the letter were in verse. Peter, in his epistle, is not an apocalyp- 

 tist. While the Sinaitic palimpsest is older than the M.S. discovered 

 by Dr. Cureton, it represents the same recension, as indicated by the 

 use made of it by Dr. Burkitt in his JEvangelion ' Ba-Mepharreshe. 

 St. Matthew's Gospel was only " Jewish " in this respect, that it 

 was directed to meet the prejudices of the Jews. 



I agree with Dr. Schofield's remarks on the Matthaean account of 

 our Lord's birth. Personally, I think Mary must have had no 

 brothers, else they would have taken notice of her condition before 

 marriage. She probably was an heiress, whose residence was in 

 Bethlehem, but came to be betrothed to Joseph in Nazareth. As 

 an heiress, she would be obliged to marry into her own family, 

 hence it was necessary that she should accompany her husband to 

 Bethlehem. Thus, it was needless to show her connection with 

 Davidic stem. The relation of the Lucan genealogy with the 

 Matthaean has already been wrought out in the article on that 

 subject in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," by Lord Arthur 

 Hervey. Luke's gives the natural actual pieuealogy, whrreas 

 Matthew's is the legal, in which are combined the natural and the 

 adopted descendants. 



