HKB
that the distinction dimly perceived in the tradition of the Jerusalem elders reported by Papias, and indeed by many later writers, is no illusion, but an important and vital fact.
Footnote 18: It was superscribed "These are the ... words (logoi as in the Pastoral Epistles, not logia as in Papias and Polycarp) which Jesus the living Lord spoke to the disciples and Thomas."
Footnote 19: The possibility should be left open that the Greek Matthew was written in Egypt (cf. Matt. ii. 15), as some critics hold. From the point of view of the church historian, however, Egypt must really be classed as in "the regions of southern Syria." Its relations with Jerusalem were close and constant.
A third big, unexpected fact looms up as we round the capes of critical analysis, subtracting from Matthew and Luke first the elements peculiar to each, then that derived by each from Mark. It is a fact susceptible, however, of various interpretation. To some it only proves either the futility of criticism, or the worthlessness of ancient tradition. To us it proves simply that the process of transition in Palestine, the home of evangelic tradition, from the primitive syntagma of Precepts, framed on the plan of the Talmudic treatise known as Pirke Aboth, or "Sayings of the Fathers," to the Greek type of narrative gospel, was a longer and more complex one than has commonly been imagined. A cursory statement of the results of critical efforts to reproduce the so-called "second source" of Matthew and Luke (Mark being considered the first), will serve to bring out the fact to which we refer, and at the same time, we hope, to throw light upon the history of gospel development.