Including fragments, about 680 MSS. of the Gospels are known; but of these only some 50 (including fragments) are earlier than the 10th cent., and only 5 (leaving out fragments) as early as the 6th. The selection put before the reader professes to give him only the earliest authorities-the comparative weight of which is, nevertheless, immeasurably greater than their numerical proportion. In some cases the balance of testimony of the later MSS., versions, and ecclesiastical writers has also been noted. When 'cursives' are mentioned, the reader will understand MSS. written in the running hand which superseded the uncial' or capital hand; one 'cursive' is said by Scholz to be dated 835-no other is known to be earlier than 978.

The chief Critical Editions are those of Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and (just published) Westcott-and-Hort.

The formula Editors read' in the notes means that a certain reading is adopted by all the above-named editors. I have also given (where known) the opinions of Dr. Scrivener and Mr. Hammond.

It must be added that only such various readings have been noticed as seemed to me important enough or interesting enough to call for such notice even in a commentary on the English text.

* I do not in the least underrate the great merits of Lachmann, the founder of the modern school of textual criticism. But the Sinaitic MS. and the Curetonian Syriac version were not discovered when his editions were printed; nor, apart from this, is the range of his authorities wide enough.

There is a common disposition to depreciate Alford. I do not think that sufficient justice is always done to his anxiety to satisfy himself first, and his readers afterwards, of the relative merits of the readings he adopts and rejects.

The Mishnah is a collection of Rabbinical precepts and decisions arranged in the main about 200 A.D., but for a very long time handed down, it is believed, by word of mouth only. The word means either 'taught,' i.e. the traditional law, or 'second,' i.e. added to the written law of the Pentateuch.

The Gemaras are Rabbinical commentaries on the Mishnah ; the word means 'supplement,' or 'study.' Each covers about threequarters of the Mishnah only; nearly one half of its treatises are commented on by both together, of the rest some are dealt with in one Gemara only, some in the other only. The Babylonian Gemara, though covering not quite so much of the Mishnah as the Jerusalem Gemara, is more than four times as large, and is looked on as having higher authority.

The Mishnah and Gemaras together make up the Talmud (a word meaning study'), the 'fundamental code of Jewish civil and canonical law.'

The Talmud is in great part very much older even than the time when its earliest section, the Mishnah, was arranged, much of its tradition being attached to the names of Rabbis who lived in or before the lifetime of Jesus. The Talmud is in fact the tradition of the elders' as received by the 'scribes' ('lawyers,' 'doctors of the law') and 'Pharisees' of the Gospels, enlarged, and handed down by them to their successors and by those successors in turn. It is therefor of the highest value in throwing light on the Gospel-story.

The Midrashim are early Jewish commentaries on Scripture; the date of every Midrash quoted accompanies the quotation.

INTRODUCTION.

Or Matthew the Apostle, whom ecclesiastical tradition names. as the writer of this Gospel, nothing is known but that before his call he was a custom-house officer on the shore of Lake Gennesaret. He has been held to be the same as Levi the son of Alphaeus but see note on ix. 9. It has been guessed that he was the twin-brother of Thomas-see note on x. 3. There is some ground for thinking that he was alive at least as late as 80 A.D. see below. Lastly, the earliest tradition makes him to have died a natural death-see note on ix. 9.

The date of this Gospel is unknown and its original language is a matter of dispute. All ancient writers believed it to have been first written in Aramaic and translated by some & person unknown: with this opinion many if not most of our later English critics agree. On the other hand by far the greater number of German critics follow Erasmus in holding that the Greek text is itself original. The internal evidence cannot be discussed without breaking through the bounds laid upon this commentary, but it will not be 'unfitting to give the external evidenée.

The first writer who mentions the name of Matthew in connexion with a Gospel is Papias whose work can hardly be dated later than 140 A.D. and may have been written much earlier. It is now lost, but Eusebius has preserved several fragments, of which the following is one-Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew [l.e. Aramaic] speech; and (ital.) each interpreted for translated] them as he was able' (Euse a prom bius, Hist, Eccl. iii. 39). The witness of Papias is of special weight because he seems not only to have been a younger contemporary of Matthew but to have known and questioned some

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of Matthew's disciples. For in other fragment quoted by maybe/Eusebius he says If there came any one who had been in the following of the elders I asked the elders' words—what Andrew or what Peter had said; or what Philip, or what Thomas, or.. James; or what John or Matthew or any other one of the Lord's disciples; and the things that Aristion and the Elder

Eusebius, ib.). John, the disciples of the Lord, say

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Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. v. 10) also preserves a tradition that the missionary Pantaenus near the end of the 2nd cent. found among the Indians the Aramaic Gospel according to Matthew, which had been given to them by Bartholomew. But Origen (earlier half of 3rd cent.) is the first writer after Papias who is known to have said that Matthew wrote in Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic): his words are quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. vi. 25).

But there was at least as early as 180 A.D., and probably much earlier, a Gospel commonly known as the Gospel according to the Hebrews,' written in Aramaic, attributed to Matthew, and bearing in great part a strong likeness to our Greek Gospel. As the few fragments left of it prove, the two were not one in substance, nor (as I think I have shown in another work) can the Aramaic Gospel according to the Hebrews' have been the original of our Greek Gospel according to Matthew-though there are weighty reasons for looking on it as a product of the same hand. Nevertheless Irenaeus, who wrote that only 50 or 60 years after Papias, balls this Aramaic Gospel "the Gospel according to Matthew,' without any qualification, and at a later period such men as Epiphanius, Jerome, and Theodoret, Accepted it as the original of our Greek Gospel. And the question arises whether it was not this Aramaic 'Gospel according to the Hebrews' which Papias had in his mind when he spoke of a Gospel written by Matthew in Aramaic-a question which can only be settled, if settled at all, by the finding of the lost writings of Papias.

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Origen (quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 25) says that this Gospel was written for those who believed from Judaism." It certainly seems to have been written in the main for Jews.

*The Gospel according to the Hebrews-its fragments translated and annotated, with a critical analysis of the external and internal evidence relating to it,' 1879.