If either of the four gospels is to be accepted as biography it must be the first, as being the earliest in date, and as containing less than either of the others of speculative admixture. The first gospel rests, according to an ancient tradition, on memoranda or notes taken by a companion of Jesus and afterwards written out, in the popular language of the country, for the use of the disciples and others in Judæa and Galilee. The disappearance of all save a few fragments of this book, and of any writing answering in description to it, the impossibility of identifying it with the present Gospel of Matthew, or of proving that the existing Gospel of Matthew rests upon it;[10] the comparatively late date to which our Greek Matthew must be assigned--thirty years at least, probably fifty or sixty after Jesus' death, and the absolute failure of all attempts to trace its records to an eye witness of any sort, (say nothing of a competent eye witness, clear of head, tenacious of memory, veracious in speech,) all conspire to stamp with imprudence the conjecture that the Christ of Matthew and the Jesus of history were one and the same. This would be the case were the picture harmoniously proportioned, as it is not. [Footnote 10: The character and influence of the "Gospel of the Hebrews" and of other books of the same kind is considered in full by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in "The Lost and Hostile Gospels." Mr. Baring-Gould argues that while neither of our present Gospels is entitled to be called genuine in the ordinary sense, they contain authentic biographical materials. It is his opinion that "at the close of the first century almost every Church had its own Gospel, with which alone it was acquainted. But it does not follow that these Gospels were not as trustworthy as the four which we now alone recognize." (p. 23.) Mr. Baring-Gould's argument is not strong. The first mention of the "Gospel of the Hebrews" is no earlier than the middle of the second century; the remaining fragments of it are too few and too undecisive to be of weight; and it was, by all confession, written in the interest of the Nazarene or Judaizing Christians. Mr. Baring-Gould himself classes it with the Clementine writings and calls them "The Lost Petrine Gospels."]