to Papias, said, that Jesus said, that—­” The days shall come, in which there shall be vines, which shall severally have ten thousand branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand lesser branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs; and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes; and every one of these grapes being pressed shall yield two hundred and seventy-five gallons of wine.  And when a man shall take hold of any of these sacred bunches, another bunch shall cry out “I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me!” There’s a Munchausen for you, reader!  Well! this Papias is the first witness who lived after Matthew, who has spoken of his Gospel.  He lived about the year 116 after Jesus.  And what does he say of it?  Why this.  “Matthew composed a writing of the Oracles (meaning without doubt the Doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew Language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.”  So far as this Testimony goes it is positive evidence, that the only Gospel of Matthew extant in 116, was extant in Hebrew; and there was then no translation, of it, for “every one interpreted as he was able.”  The present gospel called of Matthew was then not written by him, for it is in Greek.  And that it has not at all the air of being a translation is asserted by most of the learned.  As it stands then, it was not written by Matthew:  and that it cannot be a translation of Matthew’s Hebrew, is not only plain from the circumstance of its style, and other marks understood by Biblical Critics, but can also be proved by another story related by this same Papias concerning the manner of the death of Judas.  “His body, and head (says Papias) became so swollen, that at length he could not get through a street in Jerusalem, where two chariots might pass abreast, and having fallen to the ground, he—­burst asunder.

Now though this ridiculous story is undoubtedly false, yet it is not credible that Papias, who had so great a reverence for the Apostles as to collect and gather all “their sayings,” would so flatly by his story of the death of Judas contradict the story of Matthew, if the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew contained that part of the Greek Gospel of Matthew which relates the manner of Judas’ Death.

Justin Martyr lived after Papias, in the middle of the second century; and though he relates many circumstances agreeing in the main with those recorded in the Gospels, and appears to quote sayings of Jesus from some book or books; yet it is substantially acknowledged by Dr. Marsh, the learned annotator on Michaelis’s Introduction, that these quotations are so unlike the words, and circumstances in the received Evangelists to which they appear to correspond, that one of two things must be true; either, that Justin, who lived 140 years after Jesus, had never seen any of the present Gospels; or else, that they were in his time in a very different state from what they now are.