s the kind of presumption that we have for identifying the
Logia of Papias with the second ground document of the first
Gospel--the document, that is, which forms the basis of the double
synopsis between the first Gospel and the third. As a hypothesis
the identification of these two documents seems to clear up
several points. It gives a 'local habitation and a name' to a
document, the separate and independent existence of which there is
strong reason to suspect, and it explains how the name of St.
Matthew came to be placed at the head of the Gospel without
involving too great a breach in the continuity of the tradition.
It should be remembered that Papias is not giving his own
statement but that of the Presbyter John, which dates back to a
time contemporary with the composition of the Gospel. On the other
hand, by the time of Irenaeus, whose early life ran parallel with
the closing years of Papias, the title was undoubtedly given to
the Gospel in its present form. It is therefore as difficult to
think that the Gospel had no connection with the Apostle whose
name it bears, as it is impossible to regard it as entirely his
work. The Logia hypothesis seems to suggest precisely such an
intermediate relation as will satisfy both sides of the problem.

There are, however, still difficulties in the way. When we attempt
to reconstruct the 'collection of discourses' the task is very far
from being an easy one. We do indeed find certain groups of
discourse in the first Gospel--such as the Sermon on the Mount ch.
v-vii, the commission of the Apostles ch. x, a series of parables
ch. xiii, of instructions in ch. xviii, invectives against the
Pharisees in ch. xxvi, and long eschatological discourses in ch.
xxiv and xxv, which seem at once to give a handle to the theory
that the Evangelist has incorporated a work consisting specially
of discourses into the main body of the Synoptic narrative. But
the appearance of roundness and completeness which these
discourses present is deceptive. If we are to suppose that the
form in which the discourses appear in St. Matthew at all nearly
represents their original structure, then how is it that the same
discourses are found in the third Gospel in such a state of
dispersion? 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 t