ITV's "Letters  to the Editor"
editor@insidethevatican.com

August - September 2012

And Mr. Ed Smetana wants to know:


"I recently read this sentence in a book about early Church history..."

Our brother - man Ed's quote:

"St. Eusebius and St. Jerome spoke of a scholar  named Pantanaeus, who found in India, near Bombay, a copy of the Gospel of Matthew, in Hebrew, which had been brought by St. Bartholomew in 60AD (from C. Bernard Ruffin, The Lives of the Apostles After Calvary, p. 116)."

 Thus:

"Would this confirm that Matthew's was the first Gospel?"

"The editor replies

"You raise an interesting question not yet settled by scholars.

"Around 130 AD, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, wrote about the various Gospels.

"He tells us the Apostle Matthew put together the discourses of Jesus in the Aramaic language.

"In other words, he says, Matthew collected Jesus' words and made a book of them.

"This book was written in Aramaic, that is, in the language spoken by Jesus himself..."

Yes! This is just a snippet of the original! :)