eeded" in learning Greek, and wrote a
philosophical and historical treatise in that language. Also that
Matthew, a publican, a member of the most degraded class of the Jews,
was equally learned, and published a history in the same tongue. Yet
these two marvels of erudition were unknown to Josephus, who expressly
states that the two or three who had learned Greek, were "immediately
well rewarded for their pains." The argument does not tell against Mark
and Luke, as no one knows anything about these two writers, and they may
have been Greeks, for anything we know to the contrary. If Mark,
however, is to be identified with John Mark, sister's son to Barnabas,
then it will lie also against him. Leaving aside the main difficulty,
pointed out above, it is grossly improbable, on the face of it, that
these Jewish writers should employ Greek, even if they knew it, instead
of their own tongue. They were writing the story of a Jew; why should
they translate all his sayings instead of writing them down as they fell
from his lips? Their work lay among the Jews. Eight years after the
death of Jesus they rebuked one of their number, Peter, who eat with
"men uncircumcised" (Acts xi. 3); nineteen years afterwards they still
went only "unto the circumcision" (Gal. ii. 9); twenty-seven years
afterwards they were still in Jerusalem, teaching Jews, and carefully
fulfilling the law (Acts xxi. 18-24); after this, we hear no more of
them, and they must all have been old men, not likely to then change the
Jewish habits of their lives. Besides, why should they do so? their
whole sphere of work was entirely Jewish, and, if they were educated
enough to write at all, they would surely write for the benefit of those
amongst whom they worked. The only parallel for so curious a phenomenon
as these Greek Gospels, written by ignorant Jews, would be found if a
Cornish fisherman and a low London attorney, both perfectly ignorant of
German, wrote in German the sayings and doings of a Middlesex carpenter,
and as their work was entirely confined to the lower classes of the
people, who knew nothing of German, and they desired to place within
their reach full knowledge of the carpenter's life, they circulated it
among them in German only, and never wrote anything about him in
English. The Greek text of the Gospels proves that they were written in
later times, when Christianity found its adherents among the Gentile
populations. It might, indeed, be fairly urged t