These characteristics of the first Gospel forbid us to suppose that it came fresh from the hands of the Apostle in the shape in which we now have it; they also forbid us to identify it with the work alluded to by Papias.  Neither of the two first Gospels, as we have them, complies with the conditions of Papias’ description to such an extent that we can claim Papias as a witness to them.

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But now a further enquiry opens out upon us.  The language of Papias does not apply to our present Gospels; will it apply to some earlier and more primary state of those Gospels, to documents incorporated in the works that have come down to us but not co-extensive with them?  German critics, it is well known, distinguish between ’Matthaeus’—­the present Gospel that bears the name of St. Matthew—­and ‘Ur-Matthaeus,’ or the original work of that Apostle, ’Marcus’—­our present St. Mark—­and ‘Ur-Marcus,’ an older and more original document, the real production of the companion of St. Peter.  Is it to these that Papias alludes?

Here we have a much more tenable and probable hypothesis.  Papias says that Matthew composed ‘the oracles’ ([Greek:  ta logia]) in the Hebrew tongue.  The meaning of the word [Greek:  logia] has been much debated.  Perhaps the strictest translation of it is that which has been given, ’oracles’—­short but weighty and solemn or sacred sayings.  I should be sorry to say that the word would not bear the sense assigned to it by Dr. Westcott, who paraphrases it felicitously (from his point of view) by our word ‘Gospel’ [Endnote 155:1].  It is, however, difficult to help feeling that the natural sense of the word has to be somewhat strained in order to make it cover the whole of our present Gospel, and to bring under it the record of facts to as great an extent as discourse.  It seems at least the simplest and most obvious interpretation to confine the word strictly or mainly to discourse.  ’Matthew composed the discourses (those brief yet authoritative discourses) in Hebrew.’

At this point we are met by a further coincidence.  The common matter in the first three Gospels is divided into a triple synopsis and a double synopsis—­the first of course running through all three Gospels, the second found only in St. Matthew and St. Luke.  But this double synopsis is nearly, though not quite, confined to discourse; where it contains narration proper, as in the account of John the Baptist and the Centurion of Capernaum, discourse is largely mingled with it.  But, if the matter common to Matthew and Luke consists of discourse, may it not be these very [Greek:  logia] that Papias speaks of?  Is it not possible that the two Evangelists had access to the original work of St. Matthew and incorporated its material into their own Gospels in different ways?  It would thus be easy to understand how the name that belonged to a special and important part of the first Gospel gradually came to be extended over the whole.