xxviii. 18-20, the apostolic seat cannot be removed, but remains as in

x. 23, among "the cities of Israel" to the end of the world.

There is probably no more of intentional opposition to Paul or to his gospel in all this than in James or Luke. We cannot for example regard it as more than accidental coincidence that in the phrase "an enemy hath done this," in the parable of the tares, we have the same epithet which the Ebionite literature applies to Paul. But enough remains to indicate how strongly Jewish-Christian prejudices and limitations still affected our evangelist. With respect to date, the atmosphere is in all respects such as characterizes the period of the nineties.

It does not belong to our present purpose to analyze this gospel into its constituent elements. The process can be followed in many treatises on gospel criticism, and the results will be found summarized in _Introductions_ to the New Testament such as the recent scholarly work of Moffatt. We have here but to note the general character and structure of the book as revealing the main outlines of its history and the conditions which gave it birth.

Matthew and Luke are alike in that both represent comparatively late attempts to combine the ancient Matthæan _syntagma_ with the 'Memorabilia of Peter' compiled by Mark. But there is a great difference. Luke contemplates his work with some of the motives of the historian. He adopts the method of narrative, and therefore subordinates his discourse material to a conception (often confused enough) of sequence in space and time. Matthew, as the structure of his gospel, no less than his own avowal shows, had an aim more nearly corresponding to the ancient Palestinian type. The demand for the narrative form had become irresistible. It controlled even his later Greek and Aramaic rivals. But Matthew has subordinated the historical to the ethical motive. He aims at, and has rendered, just the service which his age demanded and for which it could look to no other region than Jerusalem, a full compilation of the commandments and precepts of Jesus.

The narrative framework is adopted from Mark without serious alteration, because this work had already proved its effectiveness in convincing men everywhere that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of God." Like Luke, Matthew prefixes an account of Jesus' miraculous birth and childhood, because in his time (_c._ 90) the ancient "beginning of the gospel" with the baptism by John had given opportunity to the heresy of the Adoptionists, represented by Cerinthus, who maintained that Jesus _became_ the Son of God at his baptism, a merely temporary "receptacle" of the Spirit. The prefixed chapters have no incarnation doctrine, and no doctrine of pre-existence. They do not intend in their story of the miraculous birth to relate the incoming of a superhuman or non-human being into the world, else they could not take up the pedigree of Joseph as exhibiting Jesus' title to the throne of David. Miracle attends and signalizes the birth of that "Son of David" who is destined to become the Son of God. Apart from the mere question of attendant prodigy the aim of Matthew's story of the Infancy is such as should command the respect and sympathy of every rational thinker. Against all Doketic dualism it maintains that the Son of God is such from birth to death. The presence of God's Spirit with him is not a mere counterpart to demonic "possession," but is part of his nature as true man from the beginning.

But the doctrinal interest of Matthew scarcely goes beyond the point of proving that Jesus is the Christ foretold by the prophets. Doctrine as well as history is subordinate to the one great aim of teaching men to "observe all things whatsoever Jesus commanded."