Dr. Masch's more complete work on this subject, be cause an answer to his arguments will at the same time contain an answer to those of his predecessors.

But even among the Protestants there are not wanting writers who have ably defended a Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel: for instance, among the Lutherans, Conr. Horneius, George Calixtus, Ægid. Hunnius. J. Conr. Dannhauer, J. Meisner, and even the Magdeburg Centuriators, who, if I mistake not, are quoted to that purpose even in Schröder's disserta tion. The late Schwartz, in his treatise, De solœcismis discipulorum Jesu antiquatis, p. 49, says very decidedly, Omnis antiquitas conspirat in tribuenda ei historia Christi Syriaca. Antiquitatis autem consensui pertinaciter et præfracte refragari temeritatis cujusdam esse videtur et impudentiæ. Among the members of the Calvinist church, I will mention Rhenferd and Reland and Masch" has named several others, as well as members of the church of England, who have adopted the opinion, which he has endeavoured to confute. But as it is not my intention to write an history of the controversy, I shall take no further notice of the authors who have defended my side of the question and those which I have already mentioned I have introduced with no other view, than to shew that the opinion, which I defend, is not heretical.

In the Introduction, which I have prefixed to my Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the reader will find many observations, which are applicable to the present inquiry: particularly in the 19th and 20th sections, where I have shewn that theological proofs, as they are called, which are grounded merely on certain positions laid down in the systems of dogmatic theology, are inadmissible in deciding a question of history'. In fact such proofs ought not to be called theological, for no position can be admitted as theological, unless it can be proved from the Bible: but that St. Matthew wrote in Greek is an article, for which we find no authority

Pag. 8, 9.

in the Bible, the question being purely historical, and having no relation to doctrinal Divinity, though it has material influence on the interpretation of St. Matthew's Gospel.

Equally indecisive are the arguments, which are drawn from the superstition, that a Greek original would have been more consistent with the wisdom of Providence, because the Greek language was more generally known. It is not for us to determine, what the Divine Wisdom ought to have ordained, but simply to examine what actually was ordained. Besides, in the present instance, the supposition of an Hebrew original is by no means inconsistent with Divine Wisdom. The Jews had been hitherto the peculiar people of God: in the very age, in which St. Matthew wrote, they had been distinguished by the presence of the Messiah among them, who preached to this nation alone, nor did the Apostles go forth to convert the Gentiles, till they had first preached the Gospel to the inhabitants of Judæa. The first Christian communities consisted of Jewish converts; and the language then spoken by the Jews, not only in Palestine, but on the borders of the Tigris and Euphrates, and probably in Persia and Arabia, was no other than Hebrew, or, as we more properly term it at present, Syro-Chaldee. Was it therefore unbecoming Divine Providence, that one Gospel out of the four should have been written in Hebrew, that the Eastern Jews might have a Gospel in their own language, as well as they, who lived in countries to the westward of Palestine, and understood only Greek? Was no care to be taken for the many thousands of Jewish Christians, who fled to Pella and the neighbouring cities? Were the Nazarenes, though this name became afterwards an heretical appellation, to be totally neglected? The answers, which Dr. Masch has given to queries of this kind, though not delivered in the same words, the reader will find p. 143, 144, of his above quoted publication. He says, the Greek language was generally understood in Palestine, a position which I

shall examine in the sequel: but however well it might be known in Palestine, it certainly was not understood by the Jews, who lived to the eastward of that country. To other objections drawn from arguments a priori, and from the supposition of what ought to have been performed, I shall make no reply, because they are wholly foreign to a question of historical fact.

SECTION IV.

Testimonies of the Ancients, relative to an Hebrew Original of St. Matthew's Gospel.

As our present question is historical, the decision of it must principally depend on the testimony of ancient writers. It is true that, if we take the testimony in the strictest sense of the word, so as to denote the evidence of persons who were contemporary with St. Matthew, we shall not be able to produce any on this subject. But, where ecclesiastical history fails us in the first century, we must be contented with the accounts, which come the nearest to that period: and for the sake of brevity, I must beg leave to use the terms' witness' and testimony,' though the fact, for which I quote the authority of ancient writers, did not lie within their own actual experience. Maius indeed objects, that we ought not so much to examine what the ancients have reported as whether they have reported the truth. But this objection is totally useless, for these reports alone can determine, what is the truth. On a point of doctrine the objection of Maius would be valid for in such a case the Fathers do not testify a fact, but simply deliver their opinion, which is no proof. Further, I admit that when the Fathers relate what is highly improbable, we are not obliged to give credit to their accounts: but the position 'St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew,' is surely not attended

with the smallest improbability. I shall proceed therefore to examine what the ancients have reported on this subject.

The first evidence for a Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel, is Papias, who lived very near the time of the Apostles. His words are preserved by Eusebius, towards the end of the thirty-ninth chapter of the third book of his Ecclesiastical History, and are as follow: Ματθαιος μεν εν Εβραιδι διαλεκτῳ τα λογια συνεγραψατο ηρμήνευσε δ' αυτα ως ηδύνατο εκατος. According to Papias then, not only was St. Matthew's Gospel written in Hebrew, but there already existed in his time several Greek translations of it, so that the translation, which we have at present, is not the only one, which was made of the Hebrew original, though this alone, in consequence of its superior excellence, has descended to posterity. Dr. Masch indeed interprets the words ηρμήνευσε ως ηδύνατο εκατος in a different manner': but as this part of the evidence of Papias does not affect our present inquiry, I shall not enter into any controversy about it.

The advocates for a Greek original have not only endeavoured to weaken the evidence of Papias in favour of a Hebrew original, but have endeavoured likewise to employ it in such a manner as to weaken the testimony of other ecclesiastical writers on the same side of the question. Papias, they say, was credulous and superstitious in the extreme, a believer in the Millennium, a writer who reported fabulous miracles, and who gave credit to every story which he heard. A witness of this character, says Dr. Masch, is not to be credited implicitly, and even in cases, where it is possible that he speaks the truth, he will find it difficult to procure belief. Thus the evidence of Papias, the oldest writer on this subject, being set aside, the next step is to render all later accounts suspicious, by saying, that they are founded merely on the relation of Papias, and consequently that they must be rejected, if Papias deserves no credit. But that later writers had no other authority

for the assertion, that St. Matthew's Gospel was written in Hebrew, is mere conjecture, for it is supported by no authority whatsoever: and whoever reads the account of Origen in particular must conclude, that he did not report what Papias only had asserted, but what had been handed down by tradition, and was the general belief in the time of Origen. To reject the testimony of every ancient author, on the bare supposition that their accounts were drawn only from the report of a credulous witness, is surely unjust.

But the superstition of Papias does not appear to me to be of such a nature as to weaken his evidence to a plain fact, which is wholly unconnected with the marvellous and his simplicity renders him in my opinion an important witness on this occasion. His heterodox notions and chiliastic dreams, which he had in common with many of the Fathers, cannot affect his testimony, when he relates what is unconnected with such opinions and the force of the objection can apply only to his alleged credulity and weakness of understanding, How far he was weak and credulous we can judge only from the accounts of Eusebius, who read and quoted him for the works of Papias themselves are no longer extant. Now, though it is a rather arbitrary procedure, to make the character of a witness, of whom the Chris tians of the second and third centuries, especially Irenæus, had a good opinion, depend on the judgment of a writer of the fourth century, even though that writer was a man of eminence, yet I have no objection in this instance to follow Eusebius, and will therefore quote his own words, that the matter may not appear worse than it really is. They are as follow: 'I have already related that the Apostle Philip lived with his daughters at Hierapolis, to which I must now add an account of a miracle, which Papias, who lived in the same period, says he heard from the daughters of Philip, namely, that a dead person was in their time restored to life. He mentions also another miracle, which

Hist. Eccles. Lib. III. cap. 39.