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The dates of these documents can be only approximately known. It is probable that the "logia" collected by the apostle Matthew were written not later than 60 to 65 A.D., while the Gospel of Mark dates from before the fall of Jerusalem in 70.
It matters little for our present object to push this delicate analysis further, and to endeavor to reconstruct in some manner, on the one hand, the original Logia of Matthew, and, on the other, the primitive narrative such as it left the pen of Mark. The Logia are doubtless represented by the great discourses of Jesus which fill a considerable part of the first Gospel.
M. Renan here expresses the very general opinion as to the existence of a collection of "logia," having a different origin from the text in which they are embedded, in Matthew. The text of the so-called Matthew supposes the pre-existence of that of Mark, and does little more than complete it.
On the other, it puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses of which the tone, the style, the treatment, and the doctrines have nothing in common with the Logia given us by the synoptics. In this second respect, the difference is such that we must make choice in a decisive manner. If Jesus spoke as Matthew represents, he could not have spoken as John relates.
It is, indeed, possible that this Gospel was the source from which all this second series of "Logia" was derived, or they, or some of them, may perhaps have been taken from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, to which Professor Harnack and others have referred the "Logia" found in 1897.
Of course this has its place, but it must always be subordinated to a larger view, as in one of the newly discovered logia ascribed to Jesus, who, when he found a man gathering sticks on Sunday, said to him, "If you understand what you are doing, it is well, but if not, thou shalt be damned."
We feel we have to do with a compiler with a man who has not himself seen the witnesses, but who labors at the texts and wrests their sense to make them agree. Luke had probably under his eyes the biographical collection of Mark, and the Logia of Matthew. But he treats them with much freedom; sometimes he fuses two anecdotes or two parables in one; sometimes he divides one in order to make two.
It was already known in Spain, in France, and in Italy, and no doubt had begun to make its way in the Orient. In the early part of the century the Spaniards had discovered its virtues. It is stated by John Neander, in his "Tobaco Logia," published in Leyden in 1626, that Tobaco took its name from a province in Yucatan, conquered by Fernando Cortez in 1519.
Although it quickly passed away and became forgotten, Ebionism left a leaven in the whole history of Christian institutions which has not been lost. The collection of the Logia, or discourses of Jesus, was formed in the Ebionitish centre of Batanea. "Poverty" remained an ideal from which the true followers of Jesus were never after separated.
Perhaps it was this that suggested to him the idea of writing the Logia, which are the basis of what we know of the teachings of Jesus.
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