THE HOLY GOSPEL OF
GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

ACCORDING TO

S. MATTHEW.

S. MATTHEW is generally supposed to have been a native of Galilee. He was taxgatherer, or publican in Capharnaum, when Our Lord called him to the Apostolate. His name was Levi before his call and Our Lord changed it into Matthew. The meaning of the name is God-given, Theodore or Deusdedit. In the lists of the Apostles Matthew gets the seventh place, but he writes himself down in the eighth.

There is very little recorded of him in any authentic history, after the Day of Pentecost. He is received as a martyr by the Church. His feast is celebrated on the 21st September, in the Roman Martyrology, and on the 16th December, in the Greek.

There scarcely ever existed a doubt regarding the authenticity of the first Gospel. It was written originally in Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic, the ordinary language of the country; but translated into Greek at once. Neither the Original nor a copy of it is

preserved.

The time of its writing is agreed upon to be between the 8th and the 12th year after Our Lord's Ascension into Heaven.

The immediate object which the Apostle had in view was to write an account of Our Lord's doings for the behoof of the early Christian converts from Judaism. That the Lord guided his hand for a wider circle of readers belongs to the economy of Providence which made these precious records survive the ravages of time and be handed down to us in such a perfect condition.

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Critics are divided as to the original language of this Gospel, chiefly because of some texts of the Old Testament being taken from the Hebrew version, and some from the Septuagint. In point of fact, early writers were not at all particular about quotations and gave rather the sense than the words. This principle is to be kept steadily before us in examining the Scripture. Servile copying of original documents is a discovery of modern times which was unknown to the ancients.

S. Matthew gives rather the words than the actions of Our Lord in proper order. Indeed he often has a hysteron-proteron for the sake of the doctrine or moral he wishes to convey. He is not so graphic as S. Mark nor so elegant as S. Luke, but there is a noble simplicity and grandeur in the manner he traces the Deeds of the Son of David in founding the Kingdom of "Our Father who art in Heaven."

Some writers divide S. Matthew into three portions but are not agreed as to where each part should be begun and ended. A M. Delitzch has made five books out of this Gospel in imitation of the Pentateuch. These are arbitrary arrangements.