Down yonder, a reader writes:
Has there yet been proof one way or another as to whether St. Matthew
the Apostle is the Matthew who wrote the Gospel of Matthew? Ray Brown
gives credence to the Apostle via Tradition but some other Matthew by
Content. B16 apparently goes with Tradition. What sayest thou??
I haven’t looked up what Ray Brown said on the subject, so I can’t really comment on that. As to B16, he uses traditional language regarding biblical authorship without intending this language to be a comment one way or another on what critical scholarship would say on the subject. A careful reading of his words in the audience on Matthew shows that he is not trying to settle the question of the authorship of Matthew. Indeed, he is trying to avoid doing so, saying:
We recall, finally, that the tradition of the early Church agrees with
attributing the authorship of the first Gospel to Matthew. This was
already the case beginning with Papias, bishop of Gerapolis in Phrygia,
about the year 130.He wrote: "Matthew took up the Lord’s words in Hebrew, and each one
interpreted them as he could" (in Eusebius of Caesarea, "Hist. eccl.",
III, 39, 16). The historian Eusebius adds this detail: "Matthew, who
previously had preached to the Jews, when he decided to go also to
other peoples, wrote in their maternal tongue the Gospel he was
proclaiming: In this way he tried to substitute in writing what they,
whom he was leaving, lost with his departure" (Ibid., III, 24, 6).We no longer have the Gospel written by Matthew in Hebrew or
Aramaic, but in the Greek Gospel that has come down to us we still
continue to hear, in a certain sense, the persuasive voice of the
publican Matthew who, in becoming an apostle, continues proclaiming to
us the saving mercy of God.
This is a very neutral and ambiguous statement that can mean a number of things, from the (minimalist) idea that the gospel’s treatment of the figure of Matthew allows us in a sense to hear his voice due to learning from his example to the (maximalist) idea that the Greek gospel is just a translation of Matthew’s Hebrew or Aramaic original or anywhere in the middle (e.g., the Greek gospel of Matthew builds on the Hebrew or Aramaic one as one of its sources). B16 is thus trying to honor the traditional authorship of the gospel without committing to it.
When it comes to what I would say on the question, I consider the matter less decisive than the authorship of the Pauline epistles since there is no attribution of authorship contained within the document itself, but I give very significant weight to the authorship tradition for this document in the early Church and would say that there is significant evidence (not the same as proof) that Matthew was the author.
Some have argued this based on internal considerations. For example, W. Graham Scroggie
Even more than Scroggie’s book (which is good for raw data, though I don’t always like what he does with analysis), I’d recommend the introduction to the New Testament by Donald Guthrie
I do think that there are indications that Matthew was not the product of a "community" (though it certainly responds to the needs of a community, and specifically a Jewish one) and that the authorial vision of a single individual is responsible for it. Regardless of what sources this individual may have used, the book exhibits far too much literary architecture and organization to be a patchwork document assembled without a single authorial vision.
As evidence for this fact, I would point both to large-scale structures in the work, like the fact that the sayings of Jesus that are scattered in Mark and Luke tend to be gathered into collected discourses on distinct topics that are then organized chiastically as follows:
1. The Sermon on the Mount: Jesus on the Law (ch. 5-7)
2. The Evangelization Discourse: The Church’s Outer Function (ch. 10)
3. The Kingdom Parables (ch. 13)
4. The Discipline Discourse: The Church’s Inner Functions (ch. 18)
5. The Olivet Discourse: Jesus on the Prophets (ch. 23-25)
If you look within these discourses, one also finds at times intense literary structuring. The Kingdom Parables as presented in Matthew (as opposed to in Mark 4) are themselves structured as a chiast, and the Sermon on the Mount is built around recurring phrases ("Blessed are the . . . " "You have heard, but I say . . . " "When you X, do not Y . . . " etc.) so that it exhibits clear internal structure, and in the Olivet Discourse Matthew organizes material that Luke has scattered all over the place.
The result is that Matthew’s gospel, while following the general synoptic account of the ministry and passion of Christ, has been organized in such a way that the teachings are gathered up into distinct discourses that are both internally structured and arranged in an overall structure that spans the whole book.
Of particular note is the fact that Jesus is presented in the Sermon on the Mount as the new Lawgiver and in the Olivet Discourse as the fulfillment of the Prophet, so the gospel is bookended with major discourses that correspond to the Law and the Prophets.
We also have subtle recapitulations that bespeak the hand of a single author, such as the way Jesus recapitulates the Old Testament history of Israel and Moses in the first four chapters of the book before he assumes the role of Lawgiver in chapters 5-7.
All of this speaks to the authorial vision of a single individual, and that leaves us with the question: Who was that individual? We have no better, more reliable guidance on this point than the voice of tradition, and I see no reason to ascribe the gospel to anybody other than Matthew.
One reason for this–aside from the early date and weight of the tradition itself–is that it is singularly unlikely that Matthew’s name would become attached to the gospel if he were not the author. In fact, if one were looking to fictitiously attach one of the apostles’ names to a gospel in order to give it more authority, Matthew is the last person whose name you’d want to use (except Judas Iscariot, who offed himself before the gospels were written).
Why’s that?
Because not only was Matthew a non-major apostle (we know very little about him), he also is the apostle who would have had the hardest time with a Jewish audience, given that he was a tax-collector for the Romans. He was a former collaborator with the hated enemy, who became even more hated after the two Jewish Wars and the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem.
Yet Matthew’s gospel, as is clear, is the one most written for a Jewish audience. There could scarcely be anything more offputting for such an audience than having the gospel story told to them by a tax-collector/collaborator, and thus "Matthew" strikes me as a name unlikely to become attached to the most Jewish of all the gospels if he were not the author.
I just found this interesting web site, thanks to Karl Keating’s recent e-letter:
http://www.churchinhistory.org/
One of the many articles on this site deals at length with the question of the authorship, dating, and order of composition of the four Gospels — thus dovetailing nicely with the subject of Jimmy’s post. He agrees that Matthew wrote Matthew’s Gospel, and moreover that he wrote it first, prior to the composition of the other three Gospels. The first page (of five pages) of the article can be found here (each page contains a link to the next page):
http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/authors-gospels-1.htm
Or the complete article in Jimmy’s favorite file format 😉 can be found here…
http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/authors-gospels.pdf
I mention this article because it may be interesting to some folks here as further reading on this issue.
For those that do not have a copy of Father Brown’s book on the New Testament:
From Father Ray Brown’s 878-paged, An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, New York, 1996, p. 172, (with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur (with regard to Matthew’s Gospel)
Date: 80-90 AD,give or take a decade
“Author by traditional (2nd century) attribution. Matthew a tax collector among the Twelve, wrote either the Gospel or a collection of the Lord’s sayings in Aramaic. Some who reject this picture allow that something written by Matthew may have made its way into the present Gospel.
Author detectable from contents: A Greek-speaker, who knew Aramaic or Hebrew or both and was not an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry, drew on Mark and a collection of sayings of the Lord (Q) as well as on other available traditions oral or written. Probably a Jewish Christian.
Locale Involved: Probably the Antioch region
Unity and Integrity: No major reason to think of more than one author or sizable additions to what he wrote.”
As per Crossan and many contemporary biblical scholars:
” THIRD STRATUM [80-120 AD]
22. Gospel of Matthew [Matt]. Written around 90 CE and possibly at Syrian Antioch, it used, apart from other data, the Gospel of Mark and the Sayings Gospel Q for its pre-passion narrative, and the Gospel of Mark and the Cross Gospel for its passion and resurrection account (Crossan, 1988).”
See Crossan’s complete list of scriptural references at
http://www.faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan1.rtf
For another list of early Christian documents and the date of publication, see: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
From this reference:
“It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew. Such an idea is based on the second century statements of Papias and Irenaeus. As quoted by Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. 3.39, Papias states: “Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.” In Adv. Haer. 3.1.1, Irenaeus says: “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church.” We know that Irenaeus had read Papias, and it is most likely that Irenaeus was guided by the statement he found there. That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not the author’s first-hand experience.”
The referenced lists have rather extensive review links. Interesting information if you have time to read it all.
I’ve found it interesting that the Gospels of Matthew and John are the two whose authorship are most questioned, while the authorship of Mark and Luke are rarely questioned. Matthew and John claim to be eyewitness accounts, while Mark and Luke do not (although Mark, who was a boy at the time, may have witnessed some of the events he chronicled). Those who wish to debunk the Faith just can’t allow those eyewitness accounts to stand.
Realist –
“It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew”
Crossan, et all, consistently operate from a hermeneutic of suspicion – that is, they assume that the NT documents are not genuinely Apostolic and then interpret all the evidence to support their assumption.
They engage in circular reasoning, dismissing all the evidence that stands against their pet theories with statements like “That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded…” (meaning considered *by them* to be unfounded).
Crossan (like many modern sceptical scholars)sees what he wants to see.
I misread “Ray Brown” as “Dan Brown” and I thought, “Why on earth should we care what DAN BROWN thinks of the authorship of the Gospels??”
I’m going to go get some coffee now.
“…the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark”
Realist –
The Hebrew text of Matthew did exist and was said to be present in the library at Caesarea:
“Among other priceless lost treasures in the library, Jerome knew the copy of the Aramaic (so-called “Hebrew”) text of the Gospel of Matthew.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pamphilus
Irenaeus quoted Papias as stating that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew letters.
Further, according to Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, ii:
Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour, quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son,’ and ‘for he shall be called a Nazarene.’
I don’t have my copy of Called to Communion handy, but I believe that Ratzinger refers to the Pastorals as “post-apostolic” or “sub-apostolic” indicating that he rejects Pauline authorship.
In addition, here he referes to “Duetero-Pauline Epistles” epistles also indicating that he denies Pauline authorship of some that the NT says Paul wrote.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFECCL.HTM
Both Irenaeus and Papias are quite unreliable. Eusebius says that Papias records many fabulous tales, one of which is that Judas head expanded to the width of a wagon trail and that the place where he died mantained a stench such that even to this day nobody would go near it. Irenaeus tells us that Jesus lived to the age of 50 and that he got this tradition from those who knew the apostles themselves. You cannot count on either of them for reliable historical information about such things. The argument must rest on something else.
Please provide sources to support your conjectures.
Further:
Origen also wrote that the very first account to be written was by Matthew, once a tax collector but later an apostle of Jesus Christ. Matthew published it for the converts from Judaism and composed it in Hebrew letters. This is affirmed by Eusebius who stated that the Apostles were led to write only under the pressure of necessity. Matthew, who had first preached the Gospel in Hebrew, when on the point of going to other nations, committed the Gospel to writing in his native language. Therefore he supplied the written word to make up for the lack of his own presence to those from whom he was sent.(Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.24.6).
Jon,
Could you cite the Irenaeus’ quotes?
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J