9) divorce, Matt.x.38, 39 (= Matt.xvi.

24, 25) bearing the cross, loss and gain; and there are various others.
These characteristics of the first Gospel forbid us to suppose that it came fresh from the hands of the Apostle in the shape in which we now have it; they also forbid us to identify it with the work alluded to by Papias.

Neither of the two first Gospels, as we have them, complies with the conditions of Papias' description to such an extent that we can claim Papias as a witness to them.
* * * * * But now a further enquiry opens out upon us.

The language of Papias does not apply to our present Gospels; will it apply to some earlier and more primary state of those Gospels, to documents _incorporated in_ the works that have come down to us but not co-extensive with them?
German critics, it is well known, distinguish between 'Matthaeus'-- the present Gospel that bears the name of St.Matthew--and 'Ur-Matthaeus,' or the original work of that Apostle, 'Marcus'-- our present St.Mark--and 'Ur-Marcus,' an older and more original document, the real production of the companion of St.Peter.Is it to these that Papias alludes?
Here we have a much more tenable and probable hypothesis.

Papias says that Matthew composed 'the oracles' ([Greek: ta logia]) in the Hebrew tongue.