stify to the Hebrew original of this gospel included,
receive and use our present Greek gospel as the genuine and
authoritative gospel of Matthew; (4) that the original Hebrew gospel, to
the existence of which there is such abundant testimony, was allowed
utterly to perish, while the Greek form of it alone was preserved and
placed at the head of the canonical books of the New Testament.

13. The testimony from Papias, in the beginning of the second century,
and onward to the fourth century, has often been quoted and discussed.
It is not necessary to adduce it here at length. It may be found in
Kirchhofer, in the critical commentaries and introductions, and also in
the modern Bible dictionaries. The words of Papias, as preserved to us
by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., 3. 39) are as follows: "Matthew therefore
wrote the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and every one interpreted them
as he was able." If there were any ground for doubting what Papias meant
by "the oracles," it would be removed by the testimony of the later
writers, as Pantaenus and Origen (in Eusebius' Hist. Eccl., 5. 10; 6.
25), Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 3. 1), Eusebius himself (Hist. Eccl., 3.
24), Epiphanius (Heresies, 29. 9; 30. 3), and others. They who maintain
that Matthew wrote originally in Greek suppose that the early fathers
confounded an apocryphal gospel, the so-called "gospel according to the
Hebrews," with the true gospel of Matthew. Others think, perhaps with
more reason, that the gospel according to the Hebrews was a corrupted
form, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing, a close imitation of
the true Hebrew gospel of Matthew.

The Ebionites and Nazarenes used each apparently a different
form of a Hebrew gospel which is sometimes called the gospel
according to Matthew, but more properly "the gospel according to
the Hebrews" (once by Jerome "the gospel according to the
apostles"). According to Epiphanius that in use among the
Ebionites was "not entire and full, but corrupted and abridged."
Heresies, 30. 13. Jerome says: "Matthew, who is called Levi,
having become from a publican an apostle, first composed in
Judea, for the sake of those who had believed from among the
circumcision, a gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words.
Who was the person that afterwards translated it into Greek is
not certainly known. Moreover, the Hebrew copy itself is at this
day preserved in the library of Caesarea