Note 1 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

Among the reproaches which modern criticism has heaped on the gospel of Matthew, a prominent place has been given to its want of individualized and dramatic life; a want which is thought to prove that the author was not an eye-witness, since an eye-witness is ordinarily distinguished by the precision and minuteness of his narration.1 Certainly, when we read the indefinite designation of times, places and persons, the perpetually recurring τότε, then, παράγων ἐκεῖθεν, departing from thence, ἄνθρωπος, a man, which characterize this gospel; when we recollect its wholesale statements, such as that Jesus went through all the cities and villages (ix. 35, xi. 1, comp. iv. 23); that they brought to him all sick people, and that he healed them all (iv. 24 f., xiv. 35 f., comp. xv. 29 ff.); and finally, the bareness and brevity of many isolated narratives: we cannot disapprove the decision of this criticism, that Matthew’s whole narrative resembles a record of events which, before they were committed to writing, had been long current in oral tradition, and had thus lost the impress of particularity and minuteness. But it must be admitted, that this proof, taken alone, is not absolutely convincing; for in most cases we may verify the remark, that even an eye-witness may be unable graphically to narrate what he has seen.2