The earliest surviving references to the gospel tradition are quoted by Eusebius ( lived c. 263 – 339 CE ), and different but related traditions appear in the works of Papias ( wrote during the first half of 2nd century CE ) and the works of Clement.

Apart from Papias ' comment, we do not hear about the author of the Gospel until Irenaeus around 185 who remarks that Matthew issued a written Gospel of the Hebrews ( Against Heresies 3. 1. 1 ) Pantaenus, Origen and other Church Fathers also believed Matthew wrote the Gospel of the Hebrews ( Church History 5. 10. 3, 6. 25. 4 ) None of these Church Fathers asserted that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek.

The tradition that this was the disciple Matthew begins with the early Christian bishop Papias of Hierapolis ( about 100 – 140 AD ), who, in a passage with several ambiguous phrases, wrote: " Matthew collected the oracles ( logia — sayings of or about Jesus ) in the Hebrew language ( Hebraïdi dialektōi — perhaps alternatively " Hebrew style ") and each one interpreted ( hērmēneusen — or " translated ") them as best he could.

" In this connection, he attributes to Christ the saying about the vine with ten thousand branches, and the ear of wheat with ten thousand grains, and so forth, which he quotes from Papias of Hierapolis.

* Another account was preserved by the early Christian leader, Papias: " Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety ; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

This is what was related by Papias about Mark.

As a result, based on Eusebius ' mention that the writings of Papias contained a story " about a woman falsely accused before the Lord of many sins " ( H. E.

However, Michael W. Holmes has pointed out that it is not certain " that Papias knew the story in precisely this form, inasmuch as it now appears that at least two independent stories about Jesus and a sinful woman circulated among Christians in the first two centuries of the church, so that the traditional form found in many New Testament manuscripts may well represent a conflation of two independent shorter, earlier versions of the incident.

Earlier church fathers were also associated with apostles: Clement with Peter ( associated closely with Rome ) and with Paul ( as the Clement Paul wrote about in Philippians 4: 3 ), Papias and Polycarp with John ( associated with Asia Minor ).

* Fragment about Papias -- from the remains of the Church History preserved in the Bodleian Codex Barrocianus 142.

A third ancient source, Irenaeus, also provides further information about the traditions, especially that of Papias, and possibly adds a third related tradition to the sources.

" Scholars have put forward several theories to explain Papias: perhaps Matthew wrote two gospels, one, now lost, in Hebrew, the other our Greek version ; or perhaps the logia was a collection of sayings rather than the gospel ; or by dialektōi Papias may have meant that Matthew wrote in the Jewish style rather than in the Hebrew language.

Papias does not identify his Matthew, but by the end of the 2nd century the tradition of Matthew the tax-collector had become widely accepted, and the line " The Gospel According to Matthew " began to be added to manuscripts.

Before the 18th century, the belief of many, including the Church Fathers Papias ( c. 60-130 ), Irenaeus ( c. 130-200 ), Origen ( c. 185-254 ), Eusebius ( c. 260-340 ) Jerome ( c. 340-420 ), and Augustine of Hippo ( c. 354-430 ), had been that Matthew was the first gospel to be written.

This hypothesis was based on an argument from authority: the claim by the 2nd century AD bishop Papias that he had heard that Matthew wrote first.

On the question of the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, Holtzmann in his early work, Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter ( The Synoptic Gospels: Their Origin and Historical Character ; Leipzig, 1863 ), presents a view which has been widely accepted, maintaining the priority of Mark, deriving Matthew in its present form from Mark and from Matthew's earlier " collection of Sayings ," the Logia of Papias, and Luke from Matthew and Mark in the form in which we have them.

Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor during the first half of the 2nd century, writes that Matthew composed the logia in the Hebrew tongue and each one interpreted them as he was able.

For this and other reasons, the Gospel of Matthew was composed in Greek and not Hebrew as suggested by Papias.

Papias provides a very early source for the idea that the canonical Gospels were either based on some non-Greek written sources, or ( in the case of Matthew ) possibly " composed " in a non-Greek language.

Papias of Hierapolis ( c 60-130 AD ) was an Early Christian Bishop of Hierapolis in Anatolia, whose book, " Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord ", in which he stated that " Matthew compiled the logia ( τὰ λόγια ) in the Hebrew language, and each person interpreted them as he was able ", survives only in quotations made by Irenaeus and Eusebius.

As stated above, some scholars identify the work that Papias attributed to Matthew with the hypothetic Q document that would explain the many similarities between the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke that are not accounted for in the presumedly earlier Gospel of Mark.

In his work Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke Wenham wrote regarding the book of Matthew the following: " The fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias ( c. 60-130 ), Irenaeus ( c. 130-200 ), Pantaenus ( died c. 190 ), Origen ( c. 185-254 ), Eusebius ( c. 260-340 ), Epiphanius of Salamis ( c. 315-403 ), Cyril of Jerusalem ( c. 315-86 ) and others write in this vein.

A date past 110-115 is unlikely, as parts of the 1John and 2 John are quoted by Polycarp and Papias.

However, the exact identity of the " elder John " is wound up in the debate on the authorship of the Gospel of John, and scholars have differing opinions on that, e. g. Jack Finegan states that Eusebius may have misunderstood what Papias wrote, and the elder John may be a different person from the author of the fourth gospel, yet still a disciple of Jesus.

Papias ( circa AD 125 ) refers to a story of Jesus and a woman " accused of many sins " as being found in the Gospel of the Hebrews, which may well refer to this passage ; there is a very certain quotation of the pericope adulterae in the 3rd Century Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum ; though without indicating John's Gospel.

This association is mentioned by a number of early Christian writers, including Papias, Origen, and Eusebius.

Philip may be the last writer to quote Papias, and is best known for his statement that in the second book of the latter's five book treatise, Papias reported that the Apostle John was " killed by the Jews ".

" A similar claim comes out more clearly in a text by Irenaeus, but this testimony is later than ( and probably based on ) Papias.

He appears in fragments from the church father Papias of Hierapolis as one of the author's sources and is first unequivocally distinguished from the Apostle by Eusebius of Caesarea.

* The testimony of Eusebius is disputed, as his statement that Papias " was not himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy apostles " is contradicted by a passage in Eusebius ' Chronicle which expressly calls the Apostle John the teacher of Papias.

The double occurrence of John is explained by Papias ' " peculiar relationship " to John, from which he had learned some things indirectly and others directly.

" The benefit of historical immediacy, as argued by D. H. Fischer is one of the key determinants of historicity, and the church father Papias is a very early source in regard to testimony that the Matthew wrote his gospel first.

This source claims multiple authorities of antiquity, not merely Papias ; this is taken as evidence against the view that the testimony of the Fathers is based solely upon the witness of Papias.

A small number of other authors, now only known in fragments, such as Papias and Hegesippus, were more concerned with the apostolic continuity of the individual churches and their histories.

Irenaeus gives here another tradition in accord with Papias, though containing more information.

And these things are borne witness to in the fourth book of the writings of Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp .” ( 5. 33. 3 ) Apparently Irenaeus also held to the sexta -/ septamillennial scheme writing that the end of human history will occur after the 6, 000th year.

: And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles from those that followed them, but says that he was himself a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John.

Thus Papias reports he heard things that came from an unwritten, oral tradition of the Presbyters, a " sayings " or logia tradition that had been passed from Jesus to such of the apostles and disciples as he mentions in the fragmentary quote.

Such a collection of sayings of Jesus are believed to be referred to by Papias of Hierapolis.

The Talmudic evidence for early Christian gospels, combined with Papias ' reference to the Hebrew " logia " ( Eusebius, Church History III.

" ( the ' Hebrew language ' referred to by Papias has often been interpreted as Aramaic )

Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome all agree that the original Matthew was written in Hebrew.