[Footnote 5: It is probable enough that the first of the
Gospels for the use of the Jewish converts was composed in
the Hebrew or Syriac idiom: the fact is attested by a chain
of fathers - Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Jerom, &c. It is
devoutly believed by the Catholics, and admitted by
Casaubon, Grotius, and Isaac Vossius, among the Protestant
critics. But this Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew is most
unaccountably lost; and we may accuse the diligence or
fidelity of the primitive churches, who have preferred the
unauthorized version of some nameless Greek. Erasmus and his
followers, who respect our Greek text as the original
Gospel, deprive themselves of the evidence which declares it
to be the work of an apostle. See Simon, Hist. Critique,
&c., tom. iii. c. 5 - 9, p. 47 - 101, and the Prolegomena of
Mill and Wetstein to the New Testament.]