matthaean

Updated: May 8, 2025

Whether this correction was made before either the Apocalypse or the Gospel were written, or whether it appeared in these works for the first time and from them was copied into other Christian writings, must remain an open question. Dr. Keim thinks that St. John supplied him with a commentary oh the Matthaean text; but the coincidence may be after all accidental. Apol. i. 61.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

How is it, for instance, that the parallel passages to the Sermon on the Mount are found in St. Luke scattered over chapters vi, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xvi, with almost every possible inversion and variety of order? Again, if the Matthaean sections represent a substantive work, how are we to account for the strange intrusion of the triple synopsis into the double?

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

The passage is one where almost every word and syllable might easily and naturally be altered as the third Gospel shows that they have been altered and yet in the Clementines almost every peculiarity of the Matthaean version has been retained. Matt. vi. 32. Clem. Hom. iii. 55. Luke xii. 30.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

It is out of the question that this only should have been present to the mind of the writers; and, in view of the repetition of Nicodemus' misunderstanding by Justin and of the baptism by water and Spirit in the Clementine Homilies, it seems equally difficult to exclude the reference to St. John. It is in fact a Johannean saying in a Matthaean framework.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

In any case the difference between the Matthaean and Lucan versions shows what various shapes the synoptic tradition naturally assumed, and makes it so much the less likely that the coincidence between St. Luke and the Clementines is merely accidental. Another similar case, in which the issue is presented very clearly, is afforded by the quotation, 'The labourer is worthy of his hire.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

A comparison of the other Synoptic parallels, and of the Septuagint in the case of the quotation from Isaiah, will make the agreement with the Matthaean text still more conspicuous.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'