Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

of His second coming, "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, and neither the Son." It seems to me that from Matt. xxiv. 14 and similar passages one may legitimately argue that the second coming of Christ is near, but if you argue from a prediction and a date, both given in the Old Testament, up to a date for the second coming of Christ, then you are claiming insight into a point of Old Testament interpretation where insight was expressly disclaimed by Christ. Probably this point of view did not occur to Mr. Langston. I will now ask him to reply to the criticisms on his very interesting paper.

AUTHOR'S REPLY.

In dealing with such a subject as "The Times of the Gentiles in Relation to the End of the Age," of necessity there must be various interpretations and views. I have endeavoured as far as possible not to appear dogmatic in matters that are yet future.

The attitude I have taken up, is that of investigation rather than prognostication, and I am the last person on the face of the earth to fix a date for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and hope that my very indefinite language will be looked upon in that light.

At the same time, we cannot get away from the fact that the Bible gives dates, and surely it is not wrong for us to make a special endeavour tɔ find out what they mean, and their full significance.

With regard to the League of Nations; as a human effort to restrain lawlessness and prevent war, I support it with all my heart but again one cannot help feeling that it may be a preparation for the state of affairs that is depicted by the prophet Daniel in the last days of the "Times of the Gentiles."

The CHAIRMAN said: "It is the custom of the Victoria Institute always to allow the Lecturer the last argument. I will therefore again ask you to accord to the Rev. E. L. Langston a very hearty vote of thanks for his most instructive paper."

L

644th ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM В,

THE CENTRAL HALL, WESTMINSTER, S. W., on Monday, May 29th, 1922, at 4.30 p.m.

THEODORE ROBERTS, ESQ., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed and the HON. SECRETARY announced the election of the following as Members Albert Hiorth, Esq., C.E., Wilson Edwards Leslie, Esq., and as Associate, David Smith Dow, Esq.

The Chairman then announced that the Rev. J. E. H. Thomson, M.A., D.D., the author of the paper, "The Readers for Whom Matthew wrote his Hebrew Gospel," had not been able to make it convenient to come to town, and that Lieut.-Colonel F. A. Molony, O.B.E., would kindly read it in his place.

THE READERS FOR WHOM MATTHEW WROTE HIS HEBREW GOSPEL.

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

66

[ocr errors]

66

66

It is universally admitted that external evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the traditional view that the earliest Gospel was written by Matthew in Hebrew. Archdeacon Allen thus sums up the case in the Introduction to his commentary on Matthew (pp. lxxix., lxxx.): We have a uniform tradition in the second century to the effect that the first Gospel was written by Matthew, the Tollgatherer and Apostle, in Hebrew. . . This tradition is directly contradicted by the testimony of the first Gospel itself." It is misleading to call this tradition." We do not say there is a tradition that the Persians were defeated at Marathon "; yet it was fought six years before Herodotus, our earliest authority, was born. Papias, the earliest witness to the authorship of the first Gospel, was as near the probable date of its composition as was Herodotus to the date of Marathon. But the alleged contradiction of the evidence of history by the contents of Matthew may be challenged. Archdeacon Allen in the most painstaking way tabulates the differences between the first and second Gospels; in his argument he assumes throughout that Matthew borrowed from Mark, and supplies somewhat vaguely reasons why Matthew omitted words or clauses from Mark or added them. He never considers the converse possibility that

66

Mark borrowed from Matthew. Against this may be placed several instances in which Mark appears to correct mistakes in Matthew. Thus compare the mission of Apostles in Matt. x. 10 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. 31 with Mark xiv. 39. Mark, it is generally admitted, had behind him the evidence of Peter, whose hermeneutes he was. He in opposition to all the other Evangelists, relates that our Lord in warning Peter said: "This day, in this night, before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice." If Matthew wrote subsequent 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 evidence, 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.

[ocr errors]

66

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.

66

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.

66

[ocr errors]

To limit the external evidence, it is retorted that Matthew made merely a collection of our Lord's "sayings," ta logia. Against this is the fact that the word logion, which occurs four times in the New Testament, never is translated saying." It occurs some 60 times in the lxx., 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 logo. Irenæus regarded what Matthew had written as the Gospel. According to the text of Routh (Rel. Sac. i. 13) and Gebhardt and Harnack (Barn. Ep., p. 92), Papias applied the same term to Mark's Gospel as to Matthew's.

66

[ocr errors]

For whom, then, was this Hebrew Gospel written? The common answer is: For his countrymen in Palestine. Reasonable 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 commonly 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 Hebrew, or at all events with the Targum. Practically invariably when, in the first Gospel, our Lord Himself quotes, He follows the lxx., 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 peculiarity. 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 dealings 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 Jerusalem, so that early in His ministry Scribes and Pharisees came from thence to Galilee 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.

66

It is to be noted, in the third place, that the Christians of the first generation expected that their Lord's second coming would

not be long delayed. They thought that while men of that generation were yet living, the "Son of Man" would descend from heaven in glory, accompanied by the Holy Angels. As Jews they assumed that Judea would be the scene of His glory. There would not seem to them any need of writing an account for the Jews of Palestine of what had taken place during their Lord's life of Humiliation when that Humiliation would so soon be lost sight of in the Glory of His second Advent.

[ocr errors]

66

If not for the Jews of Palestine, for whom, then, was the Hebrew Gospel written? Again, we have an analogue in Josephus. In his Introduction to his "History of the Wars of the Jews" he says he composed it in the language of our country and sent it . . . to those of our own nation beyond the Euphrates. We are apt to forget the extent and importance of this Eastern Diaspora. Without regarding as perfectly accurate, or historic the picture given in the Book of Esther of the pervading presence of the Israelites in the provinces of the Persian Empire, there are many evidences of the number, size, and the importance of the Jewish communities" beyond the Euphrates." Josephus (Ant. xv. ii., 2), speaking of the later fate of John Hyrcanus II., says: Hyrcanus, having been brought (into Parthia), Phraates the king permitted him to dwell in Babylon, where there was a multitude of Jews." It must be remembered that the captives of Nebuchadnezzar were not the first carried east from Judea. Sennacherib claims (Schrader i. 286) to have led away captive from the land of Judah 200,750 persons; when Esar-haddon took Manasseh captive he would most likely take others also. The successive bands of captives taken by Nebuchadnezzar along with those earlier deportations imply a large Jewish community, of which only a small portion returned either with Zerubbabel or Ezra.

66

Although, so long as the Jewish state existed, Jerusalem was the Qibla of Judaism, with the capture of the Holy City by Titus, and later the crushing of Bar Cochba's rebellion, the national centre of gravity passed eastward till it definitely rested in Babylon. The official Targum of the Law, that of Onkelos, was not accepted as such till it had received the imprimatur of Babylon. The authoritative Talmud to the present day is Talmud Babli, not Yerushalmi. Though this change of centre was not completed till the 5th century, there must have been a large number of Jews in those portions of the Parthian Empire that abutted on that of Rome as early as the days of our Lord. The importance of the Jewish community in Babylon was little likely to be forgotten while the memory of Hillel, who had come from thence, was yet green.

Even had the apostles been liable to forget Eastern Jewry, Pentecost would have forced it on their notice. There was peace

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »