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Who Really Wrote the Gospel of Matthew?

Who Really Wrote the Gospel of Matthew?

Last updated on: September 4, 2026 at 4:50 pm by Gabriel Blanchard

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Who Really Wrote the Gospel of Matthew? 2026-09-04T16:50:56-04:00 Gabriel Blanchard

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Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew

i. A Fore-Foreword

As a refresher, here’s our plan of the New Testament. We’ve restructured it on the plan of the Hebrew Bible, or *Tanakh.*1 The Tanakh is the story of the Temple; the New Testament is likewise the story of the Church. The Tanakh begins with the Torah, the Law—Genesis through Deuteronomy—which illuminates the meaning of the Temple (initially, the Tabernacle): it affords mankind a place in which to welcome the Presence of God, and the Israelites are the nation chosen to maintain that Place. Next come the Nevi’im, the Prophets: first, the Former Prophets (in which God teaches the Israelites through historical example in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), then the Latter Prophets (in which God teaches them through directly revealed oracles in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets). Finally, there are the Ketuvim, the Writings, which fill out the body of the Tanakh in the form of poetry, wisdom literature, romanticized history, fabula, and the like.

Even though the jumbled order of the books in the Septuagint obscures the collection’s theological sweep, a similar structure nevertheless appears in the New Testament. Below, I’ve used “Evangel”2 as a term for the common genre of the Gospels and Acts, the equivalent in Christianity of what the Torah proper is in Judaism. Similarly, the Nevi’im are recapitulated in the Epistles: “Protoapostolic” and “Pauline” correspond to the Former and Latter Prophets. (Hebrews is folded in with the literally Pauline books, partly for structural reasons and partly because its themes and method are similar to Paul’s. Finally, the Apocalypse aligns with the Ketuvim, the Writings. (I’ve color-coded the Evangel, Epistles, and Apocalypse in an homage to the refrain of “blue, purple, and scarlet thread” from the design of the Tabernacle in Exodus.)

THE EVANGEL
John
Matthew ⇐ (you are [almost] here)
Mark
Luke
Acts

THE PROTOAPOSTOLIC EPISTLES
I Peter…..I John
II Peter….II John
Jude…….III John
James
THE PAULINE EPISTLES
Romans…………I Thessalonians
I Corinthians….II Thessalonians
II Corinthians…I Timothy
Galatians……….II Timothy
Ephesians………Titus
Philippians……..Philemon
Colossians……..Hebrews

THE APOCALYPSE
Revelation

If you’d like to support my work—translating and commenting on the Bible to make it more accessible for Catholics—prayer is always my foremost need. If you’d also like to contribute financially to my ability to devote the time that’s required to do this, you can do so through Patreon at my page, Our Lady of Antifa: signing up as a recurring patron or making a one-time donation are both deeply appreciated.

Sermon on the Mount (1877), by Carl Bloch.

ii. A Regular Foreword and Table of Contents

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: An Introduction

Alright, gospel the second (as I have it). I’ve spent less time on any of the Synoptics than I have on John, and of the Synoptics, I think I’ve spent the least time on Matthew, funnily enough. No time like the present!

Note: I didn’t want to miss my usual Thursday posting time, so I initially put out a version of this introduction that I was not satisfied with. In hindsight, that was very dumb. Regardless, I’ve now replaced it with this updated version; but, if you feel like you remember seeing a different version that had less in it, you aren’t crazy (or at least, that doesn’t prove you’re crazy).

i. A Fore-Foreword (vid. sup.)
ii. A Regular Foreword and Table of Contents
I. Bibliography and Additional Reading
II. Who, When, and Where: The Composition of Matthew
…1. The Traditional View
…2. Scholarly Views
…3. My Theory
III. What: The Material of the First Gospel
…1. Ye Have Heard That It Was Said: Possible Matthean Influences
…….a. Other Primitive Gospels
…….b. Judaica
…2. “Neither Confounding the Persons”: Unique Matthean Traits
…3. “Nor Dividing the Substance”: The First Gospel and the Other Three
…….a. Matthew Among the Synoptics
……….i. Matthew and Mark
……….ii. Matthew and Luke
…….b. Matthew and John
IV. Why and How: The Style and Aims of Matthew
V. An Outline of the Gospel of Matthew
iii. Postscripts

Mosaic of St. Matthew the Evangelist (c. 500-
525) from the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo
in Ravenna, Italy. Photo by José Luis Bernardes
Ribeiro, used via a CC BY-SA 4.0 license (source).

I. Bibliography and Additional Reading

For New Testament studies in general:

The Tosefta, compiled anonymously (probably in the mid-to-late third century, after the Mishnah—see below). A compilation of teaching about and commentary on the Oral Torah, principles and traditions believed by Orthodox Jews to have been passed down to Moses alongside the Written Torah in order to ensure its correct interpretation; it overlaps to an extent with the Mishnah, while also offering additional context and commentary on the Mishnah (the very title תּוֹסֶפְתָּא [Tousef’tâ’] means “supplement” or “addition” in Aramaic, and is related to an adjective meaning “one who writes ‘plene‘,” which I think amounts to something like “pedant [as a compliment … sometimes]”).
That I May Dwell Among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative, by Gary Anderson (published by Eerdmans in 2023). This is an outstanding piece of scholarship on the theology of Second Temple Judaism and its relevance as background to the New Testament. I got this in 2025, and was delighted with every page of it.
Studies in Words, by C. S. Lewis (first published by Cambridge University Press in 1960). To be clear, this is a book I strongly recommend to anyone who’s reading anything more than about forty years old, not just the New Testament (which was not Lewis’s academic field, although he did know Greek). Its chapters on “Nature,” “Conscience and Conscious,” “World,” and “Life” are particularly relevant to the New Testament.3
The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, by Bruce Metzger and (as of the 4th edition, published by Oxford University Press in 2005) Bart D. Ehrman. The late Bruce Metzger, requiescat in pace, was one of the most respected scholars of his generation. This little volume discusses the process of making and copying books in Classical Antiquity—a process which remained essentially similar through the Middle Ages, all the way to the middle of the Renaissance—and explains something of the “lore” about the manuscript families from which the New Testament is translated today.
The Mishnah, compiled by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (ca. 180-200—I’m using the Herbert Danby translation, first published by Oxford University Press in 1933). This is a late second-century compilation of the Oral Torah. While the belief and praxis it represents likely won’t be identical to rabbinic Judaism as practiced in the time of Jesus, its attention to templar ritual and strongly conservative bent mean that it won’t be far off, either. (However, if you decide to pick it up, be forewarned that the Mishnah consists mostly in highly allusive discussions of case law.)
Redating the New Testament, by John A. T. Robinson (from Wipf and Stock Publishers, first published in 1976). Though written by a scholar with a reputation for being a theological liberal, this book makes a serious case for the view that all of the New Testament was composed before the destruction of the Temple in 70. I’m not absolutely sold on that conclusion—and, on Robinson’s own showing, the book started out as an academic exercise and became more serious as he went on, so some parts of it may reflect his earlier intentions—but it is in any case a refreshingly exact and well-reasoned piece of scholarship.
Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, by Alan F. Segal (published in 1986 by Harvard University Press). A brief introduction to Jewish history, religion, and society during the Second Temple period (roughly 539 BCE-70 CE) and the formation both of later rabbinic, post-templar Judaism and of primitive Christianity within this cultural context.
The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, by Gerd Theiss and Annette Merz (published by Fortress Press in 1998). This is a review of what primary documents (i.e., contemporary or near-contemporary writings) we have at our disposal for studying Jesus as a historical figure, what they say, and how they concur with and differ from one another. It includes an introduction on the “quests for the historical Jesus” to date (well, to the date of 1998), and discusses sources by authors Christian (proto-orthodox and heretical), Jewish, and pagan.
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, edited by Geza Vermes (my copy is the the revised edition put out by Penguin Books in 2004). The Dead Sea Scrolls, in addition to parts of the Hebrew Bible and a few books of the Catholic Deuterocanon, contains some important documents for the tradition of apocalyptic literature, most famously the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness; Jesus’ teaching is (partly) situated within an apocalyptic context.

The manuscript of the Genesis Apocryphon, one
of the first-found Dead Sea Scrolls. Photo by Geza
Vermes, used via a CC BY-SA 4.0 license (source).

For the Gospel of Matthew in particular:

Sacra Pagina, Vol. 1: The Gospel of Matthew, by Daniel Harrington, S. J. (published by the Liturgical Press in 1991). A guide to Matthew from a structural and thematic perspective—not unlike what I’m attempting, but with the bonus of being by an accredited scholar.
The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and Morality in the First Gospel, by Fr. John P. Meier (published by Paulist Press in 1979). Fr. Meier explores Matthew as the author’s attempt to understand and cope with the transition from an essentially Judaic framework, in which the Church was founded, to a predominantly Gentile-Christian future.

II. Who, When, and Where: The Authorship and Composition of Matthew

1. The Traditional View of Matthew‘s Authorship and Date

According to the unanimous testimony of the ancient Church, the Gospel of Matthew was written by St. Matthew the Evangelist, one of the Twelve Apostles. His name is given as Matthew in, uh, Matthew and in the first chapter of Acts, going unmentioned (or unnamed, at least) in John; he is identified with the Levi bar-Alphæus who appears in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. (This implies that he was the brother of St. James the Less, another “bar-Alphæus.”4)

It was also believed in the primitive Church that St. Matthew wrote his account first of the four, which is part of the reason it stands at the beginning of our New Testament. As far as I know, few if any of the books of the New Testament have traditionally-ascribed dates, only a date range implied by the lives of the authors they are credited to. Given that the customary belief was that Mark was (a) based on Matthew and (b) written while St. Peter was still alive (Peter was martyred by Nero, so his death has to date between the Great Fire in 64 and Nero’s own death in 68), this would imply that Matthew was complete by the late 50s, if not earlier.

2. Scholarly Views of Matthew‘s Authorship and Date

As touching its author, Matthew is generally considered anonymous and left at that by modern scholars; and it is, in fact, anonymous, like Mark and Hebrews. Accepting the traditional attribution is not unheard of, but most scholars argue that the book dates much later in the first century, perhaps in the 80s—much too late for literal, direct authorship by St. Matthew the Apostle to be likely. The claim that it was the first Gospel composed is for the most part dismissed also, though this is not universal either. Today, Mark is normally considered the earliest of the canonical Four, and Matthew an elaboration based on it.

3. My Theory of Matthew‘s Authorship and Date

St. Matthew Writing the Gospel With an Angel
Holding the Volume (c. 1585), created by Kesu
Das for the Muslim Mughal court.

I see no particular reason to assume such a late date for Matthew; in some ways I find it implausible (we’ll come back to the dating game). This reopens the possibility that our author literally was St. Matthew the Evangelist; to my mind, it’s the natural conclusion to draw.

Tradition among the Church Fathers is not infallible evidence—but it is evidence; and in this case, all of that evidence points in a single direction. It wasn’t unheard of to dispute the authorship of a book back then, whether in Christian circles or not, but again, the Fathers are unanimous on this. And I’m caught on why, if this weren’t true, anybody would settle on Matthew of all people as the author. It would have to be either a mistake or a lie: I can see no particular reason to just mistakenly conclude (from the, uh, total silence of the book about its authorship) that it’s by Matthew, which leaves us with deliberate forgery. But if you’re forging a pseudo-gospel, first of all, you do specifically include an “I, Matthew, definitely wrote this” somewhere in there; and second, maybe you don’t put Matthew? The ideal authority to claim is that attached to a big, heavy-hitting name like Peter or James or Paul—the movers and shakers of the earliest generation of the Church. What you probably don’t want so much is that one disciple whose background is that he worked for the IRS. (I know people call taxation “the ultimate crowd-pleaser for Gentiles and Jews alike,” but I am 99% sure they’re just kidding. Well, 97% sure.)

Yet St. Matthew does work perfectly well, if it’s a genuine identification of the author. As a tax collector, he would have had to be literate. (:iteracy was more common among Jews than the ancient average, but even so, we wouldn’t automatically expect it of fishermen like we would of a financial official). As one of the Twelve, he would have been ideally placed to know most of the material he relates, or to talk to people who did have firsthand knowledge. As a sufficiently lower-middle-class Jew that either greed or need drove him to accept his infamous former job, the tone of his Gospel—literate but practical, in contrast with the mystical atmosphere of John or the equally practical but unpolished Mark—makes perfect sense. I sometimes think New Testament critics deny the truth of traditional ascriptions as a reflex, just because the ascriptions are traditional.

Returning to when Matthew was composed. This is actually surprisingly entangled with exactly how Matthew and Mark are related, so bear with me.

Miniature from a Syriac Gospel (c. 1220)
created in Mosul, depicting Christ before either
Annas or Caiaphas.

Given the time and expense of making a book back then (every step is going to be done by hand, remember), it was a popular practice to compose epitomes—essentially, abridged versions of books. This alone makes the ancient explanation of Mark a lot less forced than it may seem at first. The traditional account of Mark is that it was basically Peter’s memoirs, and left out anything Peter hadn’t seen; this, in tandem with the popularity of epitomes, explains Matthew‘s failure to include details Mark does contain, which would be bizarre if Matthew were based on Mark. If, on the other hand, Mark were based on Matthew, then Matthew ought to date to the late 50s at latest. I don’t see why it couldn’t have been written as far back as the 40s, even. However, I think the early to middle 50s, following the Council of Jerusalem that likely took place around 49 CE, seems the most apropos.

4. The Original Language of Matthew

Uniquely among the Gospels, there is some uncertainty about what language the book was originally written in. The earliest copies of all of the canonical Gospels that we have are in Greek, and John, Mark, and Luke are all agreed to have been written in that language;5 and to be clear, the majority opinion of New Testament scholarship is that Matthew was composed in Greek right from the beginning as well. But a few ancient accounts claim the evangelist first wrote his Gospel “in Hebrew”—which may have meant Aramaic, rather than Hebrew in the strict sense. Papias of Hierapolis, a Church Father from the beginning of the second century, intriguingly relates that “Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.” This phrase, like a lot of things in the surviving fragments we have from Papias, can be taken several ways, with one possible conclusion being that St. Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew (or Aramaic) and that someone else, or multiple someones else, effected a Greek rendering with which we are familiar.

As far as I can tell, Matthew has no particular traits to suggest that it was translated from Hebrew or Aramaic. The text does reproduce and explain a few Semitic words and phrases, but less than, say, Mark. Matthew‘s Greek is better than Mark‘s though not so smooth as that of Luke, and it also lacks the foreign-feeling elegance of John, so that … basically tells us nothing about whether it was first composed in a Semitic tongue.

A world map created for a 1482 edition of
Claudius Ptolemy’s 2nd-c. book Geography, an
atlas and cartographic manual (with a discussion
of the geometric problem of projection).

There is one point which perhaps lends a little credibility to the “Hebrew/Aramaic Matthew first” theory—namely, the procedure adopted by Josephus in writing The Jewish War. (This is our principal source to this day for understanding the causes, progress, and final issue of the First Jewish War of 66-73, during which the Second Temple was destroyed.) He oversaw the creation of a Greek version of the text in Rome, for largely Gentile consumption; but this was not his first edition of the book. He first wrote a version in, you guessed it—Aramaic, then the lingua franca of practically all Jews outside the Roman Empire and a great many Jews within it, and particularly of the Jews of Babylonia, which in terms of Jewish intellectual and cultural life was the rival of pre-war Jerusalem if not her outright superior. Hence, for St. Matthew to do much the same thing doesn’t strain credulity (though it’s not positive evidence that he did do so).

III. What: The Material of the First Gospel

1. Ye Have Heard That It Was Said: Possible Matthean Influences

a. Other Primitive Gospels

It is not known, but it is widely theorized, that Matthew (or whoever the author was) was working not only with the oral traditions of ancient Christianity, but with earlier written sources. In the opening of his own account, St. Luke informs us that “many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us … which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word”: this could, technically, just be about Matthew and Mark, but it sure makes it sound like there were a variety of proto-orthodox gospels floating around in the first century, not only a literal couple. One source in particular has been theorized by many scholars since the nineteenth century—a lost gospel known as Q (from the German term Quelle “source”), which is supposed to account for the material shared by Matthew and Luke that’s absent from Mark. Obviously, any documents St. Matthew may have used in creating his Gospel would, by definition, have been influences on him. Whatever they were, and indeed whether they existed, is unfortunately not a question we can answer.

b. Judaica

While we probably can’t pinpoint any specific documents that the evangelist may have used, we at least know something about the literature that was current among Jews at the time. A handful of books that we might call “Biblical remixes” were popular: these were retellings of parts of the Bible, most frequently the narrative passages of the Law, with elaborations drawn from Jewish legend, speculative theology, or both. The best-known example of such literature is the book of Enoch, which is part not only of the Ethiopic Bible, but of the Bible of Beta Israel, i.e. the Ethiopian minhag of Jews.7 Like Enoch in some respects, and retelling some of the same material, we also have the book of Jubilees, which came up in the postscript to my post on John 13:1-30. Occasionally, works of this kind stray pretty far into “fan fiction” territory, like the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (which professes to relate the final words of the twelve sons of Israel to their own sons), but these remain a useful index to the interests and ideas of contemporary Jewry. St. Matthew (or whoever the author was) may have read works of this kind, but if so, they don’t appear to have left much trace on his thinking.

Another genre of Judaica, distinct from these “Biblical remixes” but related to them, was apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic books professed to be divine revelations, either as a fictional device or quite literally. (The hekhalotic genre, the literary side of Merkavah mysticism, was related, developing not long after this period.) The most celebrated apocalypse, Revelation, had probably not been written when Matthew was, but there were several apocalypses or partially-apocalyptic volumes circulating. Some of these gained acceptance into the Tanakh, like Daniel, or parts of books like Ezekiel and Zechariah. Others were popular reading in some circles, but never so highly esteemed, such as the Apocalypse of Abraham, III Baruch (a.k.a. the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch), or the Life of Adam and Eve.8 St. Matthew may have dabbled in this; he certainly records the Lord’s own apocalyptic teachings. However, it’s also possible that he directly absorbed apocalypticism only from Jesus (or, only from Jesus and the apocalyptic parts of the Hebrew Bible).

A third genre, evidenced mostly (I gather) at Qumran, is what I’ll call “rules,” as in the kind of rule written for a society or a monastic order. On the whole, Matthew does not show clear evidence of going in for Essene-style religious weirdness: the standards prescribed by e.g. the Sermon on the Mount are terrifyingly high, but they’re extremely grounded, which is part of what makes their height so scary. But, weird though the Essenes—or whoever it was at Qumran—may have been, they were practical too: you can’t have life in community, and especially not commonly-held property of any kind, without a standard of conduct that’s clearly known to everyone.

2. “Neither Confounding the Persons”: Unique Matthean Traits

For the most part, if something appears in Matthew, you’ll find it in Mark and Luke as well, or at least in Luke. Nonetheless, Matthew has its store of peculiarities.

In terms of material, Matthew has unique content in both its narratives and its doctrine. Narratively, a few events (like St. Joseph’s dreams, the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, or the appearances of other saints to people around Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Crucifixion, are related only by St. Matthew. More often, there is some detail of an event which only his account preserves, like St. Peter joining the Lord, briefly, in walking on the sea (ch. 14).

As for teaching, quite a number of points in Matthew are found only there, or have details which appear only there. (Good examples of the latter include the Matthean versions of the Beatitudes and the Our Father—both have Lucan parallels, but the versions in Luke are differently worded and a little shorter.) Much of the material in the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the interpretation of specific laws that occupies the bulk of chapter 5, is specific to Matthew. There are also eight parables are unique to St. Matthew’s Gospel, four short ones and four rather longer ones:

- The Treasure in the Field, 13:44
- The Pearl of Great Price, 13:45-46
- The Sorting of the Net, 13:47-52
- The Obedient and Disobedient Sons, 21:28-32
- The Wheat and the Tares, 13:24-43
- The Unforgiving Servant, 18:21-35
- The Treacherous Vineyard-Workers, 20:1-16
- The Wise and Foolish Virgins, 25:1-13

Malheur à Vous, Scribes et Pharisiens
[Woe to You, Scribes and Pharisees]
(c. 1890-1900), by James Tissot.

Furthermore, of all four canonical evangelists, Matthew simultaneously lays the most emphasis on observing the Torah and also most accents the Lord’s conflict with fellow Pharisees. John paints a picture that becomes more subtly ambiguous the longer you look at it; in Mark, it is as much or more the Sadducees who are the enemies of Jesus; Luke‘s focus is less specific to the Pharisees than it is to the rich. In Matthew, with little if any qualification, the rest of the Pharisees—not infrequently joined by the Sadducees, and the scribes—are the principal critics and enemies of Christ, culminating in the text known as the Seven Woes (ch. 23).

In terms of style, Matthew reads as if aimed at a Jewish audience, referring to Jewish customs more allusively than the other three; it is also Matthew which most frequently and explicitly quotes the Tanakh, applying its references with what can seem to modern readers like a bizarre illogic, almost like free association—but which enjoys some precedent in a rather whimsical interpretation of the rules of midrash, and also has quite a future ahead of it as an interpretive technique.

3. “Nor Dividing the Substance”: The First Gospel and the Other Three

a. Matthew Among the Synoptics

The Synoptic Gospels generally—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—share a large amount of material in contrast with the Fourth Gospel, hence the term “Synoptic” (from συνοπτικός [sünoptikos] “seeing together, seeing as a whole, taking in at a glance”). This is normally explained by the theory that the Synoptic evangelists drew upon each other’s work, one or more now-lost common sources, or both. Today, the Gospel of Mark is usually credited with being the first written, as it’s the shortest, and Matthew and Luke are assumed to be written by elaborators who were both familiar with Mark (but not necessarily with each other). In the ancient Church, the canonical Gospels were thought by most people to have been written in the order in which they appear in modern Bibles, with Matthew being penned first, Mark relying on him, and Luke building on both.

i. Matthew and Mark

These two Gospels are easily the two which correspond the most exactly: Matthew reproduces 660 verses out of Mark‘s 667, often word for word! Matthew contains about four hundred more verses, is differently organized, and in some places is worded differently from Mark, making the two more contrastive than this may sound; yet even in antiquity, people referred to Mark as an epitome of Matthew.

The beginning of Matthew from
the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 715).

That said, Matthew also shows clear structural and thematic dissimilarities from Mark. In structure, the most obvious places where the two are separated are at the beginning and the end (chapters 1, 2, and 28 of Matthew), which mostly correspond with nothing in Mark. I would also argue that Mark is probably the Gospel that is most strictly chronological in what it presents, while the author of Matthew organizes some of his material topically; cf. point b just a little further on from here.

ii. Matthew and Luke

The stuff shared by Matthew and Luke alone, sans Mark, is what the theoretical lost Gospel of “Q” was hypothesized to explain (Q here represents the German Quelle “source”). With or without Q‘s assistance, the shared material—largely but not solely teaching—includes:

- - - An account of Christ’s birth stating that it occurred in the Judean village of Bethlehem (even though both Gospels also state that both St. Joseph and the Theotokos were from Nazareth, a village in the Galilee)
    - Detail about the preaching of St. John the Baptist, particularly his own fiery rhetoric against Pharisees
    - A description of the temptation of Christ
    - Most of the famous precepts from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), including most of the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemies,” and the Our Father
    - A selection of parables, including those of the Lost Sheep, the Wise and Foolish Builders, the Wedding Feast, and the Talents

Interestingly, given its focus on Judaic practice, Matthew betrays little interest in the Temple, unlike Luke (and John as well); he seems more concerned with day-to-day practice than mystical or contemplative theology. Yet at the same time, it is in Luke that we get what seems like a rationale for one of the oddities of Matthew (an oddity which stands out among the Gospels but is right at home in the Pauline epistles), namely his use of quotations from the Hebrew Bible.

b. Matthew and John

Matthew and John have relatively little in common stylistically, with two exceptions: first, a tendency to arrange their material as much by topic as in chronological order; and second, a liking for lengthy discourses, albeit of slightly different varieties. John favors what sometimes seem like formal homilies, delivered in the Temple or at a synagogue; Matthew is a little more disposed to record “talks” given before mixed audiences and usually out of doors.

The two also share certain topical interests. Both take a distinct interest in St. Peter, presenting him as the leader of the Twelve. Both are also concerned with Jesus as the new law-giver, a role they accent with apocalyptic language and motifs; however, where John makes this role part of a kind of mythically-scaled liturgy, cosmic in scope, Matthew‘s focus is more practical than contemplative. It is arguably the Gospel of Matthew, more than any other, which treats Christ first and foremost as a rabbi: that is, a teacher, someone imparting instructions to students who are learning from him. (These two interests come together dramatically in Matt. 14:25-31, a detail of this story which only this evangelist shares.)

Jesus Saves Peter From Drowning (1370), by
Lorenzo Veneziano. Even well into the Late
Middle Ages, Byzantine influence on Italian
painting remains clear and pronounced.

IV. Why and How: The Style and Aims of Matthew

Note: As I said up top, I’ve spent comparatively little time on Matthew before now. It’s accordingly possible that I will need to revise some of what I have to say in this section, and/or rework the outline in §V! I’ve done my best to keep my claims duly limited, and to be especially clear about what I do or don’t have backing for.

Others have long since pointed out before me that the First Gospel is concerned to establish Christ as the new Moses, mediating a new covenant and indeed founding a new Israel. All of that is true, and we’re going to run into it a lot.

I think there’s a further note detectable here. One of the other bits of common wisdom is that, of the Gospels, Matthew is “the Jewish one” (though as I’ve said elsewhere, I think Matthew and John are equal claimants to that title); but that, when you come to think of it, is perhaps a little odd. I mean, Christianity remained majority-Jewish for at least a generation and probably longer, easily till around the end of the first century. None of the premises of Christianity, none of the prophecies it professes to fulfill, make any sense except with a Judaic background. What, did this writer have something to prove?

Well—maybe. My dating (above, §II.3) is, perforce, conjectural. But I think that the immense emphasis this book lays on the Lord’s role as a rabbi and interpreter of the Torah may, at least in part, have been an appeal or protestation on St. Mathew’s part, made to fellow Jews, in the wake of the Council of Jerusalem. This council was convened to determine whether Gentile converts to Christianity (people like Cornelius) just needed baptism, or baptism and circumcision—whether there could, in fact, be such a thing as a “Gentile Christian.” Their decision that, yes, this could and should be allowed, was the point at which Christianity started to take on the character of a new religion, not simply another variety of Judaism. At this change, Jews outside the Church would surely have grown a degree more suspicious of it than whatever they had felt till then; moreover, I’m sure plenty of Jewish Christians felt pretty uneasy on learning of the decision their leaders had made, and not necessarily out of ethnic bigotry—this was a colossal change!

Enter Matthew. He remains “zealous for the Law,” not as something he wishes to impose on Gentile converts (though he doesn’t necessarily have them foremost in his mind anyway), but as God’s. He recalls that, even though he was one himself—or, maybe, because he was one himself—the Lord had been very severe with other Pharisees, while at the same time upholding their doctrines and even the dignity of their position as teachers. What could be better, as a way of proving that this group of messianists who had just started admitting goyim to their ranks were not just giving up on being Jews, than to lay out exactly how Christ had balanced these two aspects of his teaching, the criticism of Pharisaic disobedience and the assertion of Pharisaic authority?

This may not even be a provable theory, and it is most certain not one I have proven! I set it forth as a possibility that seems plausible to me: nothing more.

V. An Outline of the Gospel of Matthew

I am by no means sure, but I have a hunch that the three sets of “fourteen generations” in Matt. 1:1-17—Abraham to David, David to the Exile, and the Exile to the time of Christ—may be a hint to this book’s conceptual structure.

Fourteen is not a number that comes up much in Biblical symbolism, and when I say “much,” I mean “ever.” But it is two times seven; and seven, that’s one of the richest numbers in Judæo-Christian9 numerology. It has meanings ranging from completeness to the heavens to creation to holiness to terrestrial time, and I could keep going. To multiply any number by two is a common “move” in numerology, most often understood as presenting the significance of that number in two contrasting aspects. These two aspects may be in conflict, like the seven virtues arrayed against the seven vices; they may be complementary, like male and female or past and present. In Christian use, the available complementary sets increase, embracing pairs like Jew and Gentile or the Old and New Covenants.

Panel with scenes from the ministry of Christ
(c. 1480-1490), artist not named.

Now, the Gospel According to St. Matthew does not show anything like the preoccupation with numerology John has, and this guess may be off-base. Nonetheless, by starting from the “five great discourses,” which the book does invite us to see as distinctive elements of its text (each one concludes with the phrase “When Jesus had finished these sayings” or a close equivalent), it isn’t difficult to arrive at a sevenfold division of Matthew. Treat the discourses as the nuclei of five conceptual “volumes” that echo the five scrolls of the Pentateuch. Then, as one “volume” apiece, add the infancy narratives contained in the first two chapters and the narrative of the Passion and Resurrection in the last three. This nets you a set of seven volumes: not only that, but a set of seven in which each volume can be split at least somewhat neatly in half. Each of the discourses is preceded by a distinct narrative section; the infancy narrative can be easily divided into “the Christmas part” and “the Epiphany (and Childermas) part”; and if the Passion and Resurrection don’t make a related but contrasting pair, —I can’t even think of a joke, frankly.

Coïncidentally, this also allows us to see a threefold structure in Matthew that aligns with the genealogy’s three sets of fourteen. In the outline below, §I (the infancy narratives) aligns naturally with the generations “from Abraham to David,” even recapitulating the sojourns in Egypt; §§II-VI (the discourses) align with the generations “from David to the Exile,” when the bulk of the prophets lived in Israel and Judah; and §VII (the Passion and Resurrection narratives) aligns with the generations from the Exile to Christ’s own birth.

I. א Alef:10 Son of David (1:1-2:23)
…A. Narrative: The Nativity (1:1-25)
…B. Narrative: The Epiphany (2:1-23)
II. ב Beyt: Son of God (3:1-7:29)
…A. Narrative: Ordeals (3:1-4:11)
…B. Doctrine: The Sermon on the Mount (4:12-7:29)
III. ג Gimel: Sons of Abraham (8:1-10:42)
…A. Narrative: Many Miracles (8:1-9:34)
…B. Doctrine: The Mission of the Twelve (9:35-10:42)
IV. ד Dalet: Son of David (11:1-13:52)
…A. Narrative: Controversies (11:1-12:50)
…B. Doctrine: The Book of Parables (13:1-52)
V. ה He: Son of God (13:53-18:35)
…A. Narrative: The Transfiguration (13:53-17:27)
…B. Doctrine: The Homily on the Kingdom (18:1-35
VI. ו Waw: Son of Berechiah (19:1-25:46)
…A. Narrative: Confrontation in Jerusalem (19:1-23:)
…B. Doctrine: The Olivet Discourse (24:1-25:46)
VII. ז Zayin: Son of Abraham (26:1-28:20)
…A. Narrative: The Passion (26:1-27:)
…B. Narrative: The Resurrection (28:1-20)

iii. Postscripts

Footnotes

1Tanakh is an acronym based on the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah, i.e. “Law” or “Teaching” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy); the Nevi’im, i.e. “Prophets,” split into Former (Joshua, Judges, I & II Samuel, and I & II Kings) and Latter (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi); and the Ketuvim, i.e. “Writings” (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra & Nehemiah, Daniel, and I & II Chronicles). I discuss these divisions and some of their theological and liturgical implications in greater detail starting in this post.
2This term is rare, but I have not coined a neologism: evangel goes all the way back to Middle English, which got it from Greek (εὐαγγέλιον [euangelion], “good news”). One of the very few contexts in which I’ve encountered this word “in the wild” is in discussions of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, which in Christian circles is sometimes called the Proto-evangel or “first gospel.”
3My reasons for recommending this book so strongly should be clear upon reading its introduction, from which the following is selected: “One of my aims is to facilitate, as regards certain words, a more accurate reading of old books; and therefore to encourage everyone to similar explorations of many other words. … If we read an old poem with insufficient regard for change in the overtones, and even the dictionary meanings, of words since its date—if, in fact, we are content with whatever effect the words accidentally produce in our modern minds—then of course we do not read the poem the old writer intended. … So far from being secured against such errors, the highly intelligent and sensitive reader will, without knowledge, be most in danger of them. His mind bubbles over with possible meanings. … Where the duller reader simply does not understand, he misunderstands—brilliantly, triumphantly. … The wise reader, far from boasting an ingenuity which will find sense in what looks like nonsense, will not accept even the most slightly strained meaning until he is quite sure the history of the word does not permit something far simpler.”
4Their father’s name is sometimes given in Greek as Ἀλφαῖος [Alfaios] or Ἁλφαῖος [Halfaios], and sometimes as Κλωπᾶς [Klōpas]: all three are most likely Hellenizations of the Hebrew name חלפי [Chalfi], or maybe of its Aramaic form, חילפאי [Chilfai]. As this was the Clopas of “Mary of Clopas”—Miriam of Chalfi would be closer—who is widely held to be the Virgin’s sister, this would probably make St. Matthew as well as St. James the Less a member of the Holy Kinship, the Lord’s close relatives beyond his Mother and his adoptive father. (I say “probably” because, while we’re given no reason to suppose this, it is strictly possible that James and Matthew were half-brothers: if Matthew were the elder of the two, Chalfi might have been widowed of Matthew’s mother—or could perhaps have divorced her, though this seems less likely, as divorce has long been frowned upon among Jews—and subsequently married Miriam thenceforth-of-Chalfi.)
5The Syriac tradition of Christianity6 has long claimed that the entire New Testament was originally composed in Syriac. (Syriac was a standardized diplomatic and literary form of Aramaic spoken in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran, which became standard at the end of the first century.) This claim is not generally accepted by modern Biblical scholars.
6Syriac Christianity indicates those Churches which have historically used Syriac as their ritual language. These originate mostly in a wide arc stretching from Lebanon to southern India, though today there is now a diaspora as well. It traditionally falls into two liturgical rites and (independently of rite) into three theological groupings. The two liturgical traditions are associated with two dialects of Syriac, West and East. The West Syriac Rite was developed in Antioch, and is also linked with term Malankara used by some of the Mar Thoma Churches of India. The East Syriac Rite took shape in Mesopotamia, and is associated with monikers like Assyrian, Chaldæan, and the Malabar Churches. The three theological alignments are: “Nestorians,” a.k.a. the Church of the East; Miaphysites, or the Oriental Orthodox; and several Eastern Catholic bodies. There are also Protestant Syriac bodies, both of the Mar Thoma branch; Eastern Orthodoxy has a limited representation among Syriac Christians.
7A minhag is a cultural variety of Judaism; it’s a little bit like a rite in Catholicism, though it applies to more than just the liturgy. The best-known minhagim are the Ashkenazim and Spharadim (or Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews). Ashkenazim are Jews whose ancestry comes mostly from Central Europe, and who historically spoke Yiddish. The ancestry of Sephardi Jews, whose language was Ladino, lies in Medieval Spain and Portugal before the 1492 genocide of the Jews in those countries; thereafter, the Spharadim mostly fled to the Low Countries or the Ottoman Empire, mingling with and influencing the minhagim they found in those places. Other minhagim include the Mizrahim of the Near East and North Africa, the Romaniotes of Greece, the Italkim of Rome, and the Temanim of Yemen.
8Ah, and while we’re talking apocalyptica, who could forget II Esdras, THE ACTUAL WORST BOOK. This work is also known as Latin Esdras, or as IV Esdras, or, in the Armenian tradition, III Esdras. Also, be aware that the name IV Esdras is also applied to just chapters 3-14 of II Esdras; when this convention is used, II Esdras 1-2 is called V Esdras, and II Esdras 15-16 is called VI Esdras, are you starting to see why I hate this so much?
9For once, this compound adjective is actually called for. (Not that Christian and Judaic numerology are identical, but they’re genuinely interrelated.)
10If Matthew were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and were divided into seven sections, they probably would be labeled with these first seven letters of the Assyrian abjad, since ancient Jews (like Greeks) used the letters of their script as numerals. However, I was extra tickled to learn that these seven letters have the following fanciful associations in rabbinic midrash:
• א: Alef (letter 1) is praised for its humility, because although it is the first letter of the script, it did not insist on beginning the Torah; it also begins each of the three Hebrew words in the phrase “I AM THAT I AM,” and is held to represent God himself.
• ב: Beyt (letter 2) does begin the Torah, symbolizing its double character—both Written and Oral.
• ג: Gimel (letter 3) is said to resemble a running man, more specifically a rich man pursuing a poor one in order to give him alms; it is also one of a handful of letters which, in a properly-written Torah scroll, receives a decorative “crown.”
• ד: Dalet (letter 4) is the first letter of דַּל [dâl], meaning “needy, lowly, weak, poor” (thus giving gimel its significance); dalet can also at times be used to represent (rather than write out) the Names of God.
• ה: He (letter 5) is also used to symbolize the Names of God, more frequently than dalet; because it is also the numeral 5, it can indicate the five fingers of the hand as well, a common amulet in the Near East.
• ו: Waw (letter 6), or vav, denotes man, whom God created on the sixth day; moreover, waw can play certain striking roles in Hebrew grammar, controlling—sometimes inverting—the (implied) tenses of verbs.
• ז: Zayin (letter 7), as we might expect, has some of the same associations as the number seven, including representing the sabbath.

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About Gabriel Blanchard

Gabriel Blanchard is a Catholic convert, gay author, radical leftist, unprofessional linguist, and Japanese food snob. He grew up as an evangelical Navy brat and got a degree in Classics from the University of Maryland. He currently lives in Baltimore and is a member of a local parish of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter. The everything notwithstanding, he is in fact not a vegan. You can read more about the author here.

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