original narrative, which only
contains that which seemed to him undisputed or of the greatest
importance; while Matthew, on the contrary, clearly presents the tradition
formed and established among the Jewish Christians and believers in the
Messiah.

If we may speak of communities at this early time, the community for which
the first Gospel was intended manifestly consisted of converted Jews, who
had recognised in Jesus their long-expected Messiah or Christ, and were,
therefore, convinced that everything which had been expected of the
Messiah came true in this Jesus. They went still farther. When they were
once convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, many traditions arose which
ascribed to him what he, if he were the Messiah, must have done. This is
the pervading feature of the first Gospel, as every one who reads it
carefully may easily be convinced. This alone explains the frequent and
frank expression that this and that occurred "for thus it was written, and
thus it was spoken by the prophet." Every idea of intentional invention of
Messianic fulfilments, which has so often been asserted, disappears of
itself in our interpretation of the origin of the Gospel. It must be so,
people thought, and they soon told themselves and their children that it
had been so, and all in good faith, for otherwise Jesus could not have
been the expected Messiah.

If we examine the gospel of Matthew from this historical standpoint in
detail, we find that it begins with an entirely unnecessary genealogy of
Joseph, the ostensible father of Jesus. Then follows the birth, and this
is confirmed in i. 22, "For all this was done, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet," namely, Isaiah (vii.
14), "Behold a maiden is with child and shall bear a son, and shall call
his name Immanuel." This means simply that it will be the first-born son,
and that he will be called "God is with us," and, therefore, certainly
nothing supernatural.

The next story that the birth took place in Bethlehem, and that the wise
men from the East saw the star over Bethlehem, is again founded on the
prophet's word that the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem.

When the flight of Joseph and Mary to Egypt with the Christ child is told,
it is again set forth in ii. 15, that what the prophet said might be
fulfilled, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

The massacre of the children in Bethlehem, with all its difficulties in
the eyes o