Reception and Legacy

No Gospel was more used in the early Church than Matthew: it stood first in the canon, was the most quoted Gospel of the second century, shaped the Church’s catechesis and worship, and drew the fullest patristic commentaries. This file traces that reception — the Gospel’s primacy in canon and lectionary, its early citation (the Didache, the Apostolic Fathers), the great commentaries from Origen and Chrysostom to Theophylact, and the shape of the modern scholarship.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)

First and Most Used

From the earliest evidence Matthew holds the first place among the four Gospels and the largest place in the Church’s use. The canonical order lists it first (Origen in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.25.4; NPNF II/1), and it is the Gospel most frequently cited in the literature of the second century. The Apostolic Fathers already echo it — the Didache draws its form of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew (Didache 8; cf. Matt. 6:9–13) and its baptismal command from the Great Commission (Didache 7; cf. Matt. 28:19), and Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp reflect Matthean phrasing — and by the time of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen, Matthew is the Gospel of choice for catechesis, controversy, and moral instruction. The reasons are not far to seek: Matthew’s ordered discourses made it the most teachable of the Gospels, its fulfilment-citations made it the natural arsenal for showing Christ as the goal of the Scriptures, and its Sermon on the Mount, Lord’s Prayer, ecclesial texts (Matt. 16; 18), and Great Commission supplied the Church with the texts it most needed for its life and order (see The Ecclesial Gospel).

In the Church’s Worship and Catechesis

Matthew’s primacy passed into the Church’s worship. The Beatitudes are sung at the Divine Liturgy at the Little Entrance; the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s form is the Church’s universal prayer; the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 is the form of Orthodox baptism; and the Matthean cycle of Gospel readings occupies the long stretch of the liturgical year after Pentecost. The Sermon on the Mount became the charter of the Church’s moral and ascetical teaching, expounded in the East from Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa onward and woven into the whole tradition of the inner life. The parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31–46) is read on the Sunday of the Last Judgment that opens the approach to Lent, shaping the Orthodox theology of mercy. In catechesis the Gospel’s ordered teaching — the Beatitudes, the Our Father, the commandments deepened in the antitheses — made it the natural text for instructing the faithful, a role it has never lost.

The Great Commentaries

The fullest patristic expositions of the Gospels are commentaries on Matthew, a measure of the Gospel’s standing. Origen wrote an extensive Commentary on Matthew in the third century, of which substantial portions survive in Greek and Latin. St. John Chrysostom’s ninety Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, preached at Antioch in the 390s, are the longest and most influential patristic commentary on any Gospel and remain the key homiletic anchor for the Orthodox reading of Matthew — verse-by-verse exposition joined to searching moral application (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew; trans. Prevost/Riddle, NPNF I/10; see the sibling collection on St. John Chrysostom). In the West Jerome wrote a concise Commentary on Matthew and Hilary of Poitiers an earlier one; Augustine treated the Sermon on the Mount and the harmony of the Gospels. The Byzantine tradition continued the line: Theophylact of Ohrid (eleventh–twelfth century) produced a widely used commentary drawing heavily on Chrysostom, and Euthymius Zigabenus another; these were the standard exegetical companions of the medieval and later Orthodox Church. The catena tradition — the chains of patristic comment compiled verse by verse — likewise made Matthew its principal field.

The Modern Scholarship

The modern study of Matthew has grown into one of the largest fields in biblical scholarship, organized around the questions this collection has treated: the synoptic problem and Markan priority (Streeter, Farmer, Goodacre; see The Question of Priority), the Hebrew-Matthew and logia questions (Kürzinger and others; see Papias and the Logia), the Gospel’s structure and Christology (Bacon, Kingsbury), and its setting in the conflict of church and synagogue after 70 (W. D. Davies). The major modern commentaries — the three-volume International Critical Commentary of W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison (1988–1997), the Hermeneia commentary of Ulrich Luz (Eng. 2001–2007), and the NICNT volume of R. T. France (2007) — are the standard scholarly references, and are cited throughout this collection. Redaction criticism, which studies how the evangelist shaped his sources, took Matthew as one of its founding test cases (G. Bornkamm and his school), and the “Matthean community” behind the Gospel has been a continuing object of reconstruction. Through all of this the Gospel that the called publican is held to have written remains, as it has been since the second century, the first and most studied of the four — the bridge Gospel between Israel and the nations, the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Church, and the enduring foundation of the Church’s catechesis and worship.

See Also

References

  • Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 6.25.4 (Matthew first in the canon). Trans. McGiffert. NPNF II/1.
  • The Didache 7–8 (baptism and the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew). In The Apostolic Fathers, ed./trans. M. W. Holmes. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Trans. George Prevost, rev. M. B. Riddle. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 10.
  • Theophylact of Ohrid. The Explanation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (Eng. trans. Chrysostom Press.)
  • Davies, W. D., and Dale C. Allison. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. ICC. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–1997.
  • Luz, Ulrich. Matthew: A Commentary. Hermeneia. 3 vols. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001–2007.
  • France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.