A critical examination of St. Matthew’s Gospel reveals _four_ sources whence it was drawn, three threads of different texture woven into one. These are: 1. The “Memorabilia” of St. Peter, used afterwards by St. Mark. These the compiler of the first Gospel attached mechanically to the rest of his material by such formularies as “in those days,” “at that time,” “then,” “after that,” “when he had said these things.” 2. The “Logia of the Lord,” composed by St. Matthew. 3. Another series of sayings and doings, from which the following passages were derived: iii. 7‐10, 12, iv. 3‐11, viii. 19‐22, ix. 27, 32‐34, xi. 2‐19. Some of these were afterwards used by St. Luke.(287) Were these by St. Matthew? It is possible. 4. To the fourth category belong chapters i. and ii., iii. 3, xiv. 15, the redaction of iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, v. 1, 2, 19, vii. 22, 23, viii. 12, 17, x. 5, 6, xi. 2, xii. 17‐21, xiii. 35‐43, 49, 50, the redaction of xiv. 13_a_, xiv. 28‐31, xv. 24, xvii. 24_b_‐27, xix. 17_a_, 19_b_, 28, xx. 16, xxi. 2, 7, xxi. 4, 5, xxiii. 10, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, the redaction of xxiv. 3, 20, 51_b_, xxv. 30_b_, xxvi. 2, 15, 25, xxvii. 51‐53, xxvii. 62‐66, xxviii. 1_a_, 2‐4, 8, 9, 11‐15. Was this taken from a collection of the recollections of St. Matthew, and the series 3 from another set of Apostolic Memorabilia? That it is not possible to decide. Into the reasons which have led to this separation of the component parts 3, 4, the peculiarities of diction which serve to distinguish them, we cannot enter here; it would draw us too far from the main object of our inquiry.(288) The theory that the Synoptical Gospels were composed of various disconnected materials, variously united into consecutive biographies, was accepted by Bishop Marsh, and it is the only theory which relieves the theologian from the unsatisfactory obligation of making “harmonies” of the Gospels. If we adopt the received popular conception of the composition of the Synoptical Gospels, we are driven to desperate shifts to fit them together, to reconcile their discrepancies. The difficulty, the impossibility, of effecting such a harmony of the statements of the evangelists was felt by the early Christian writers. Origen says that the attempt to reconcile them made him giddy. Among the writings of Tatian was a Diatessaron or harmony of the Gospels. Eusebius adventured on an explanation, “of the discords of the Evangelists.” St. Ambrose exercised his pen on a concordance of St. Matthew with St. Luke; St. Augustine wrote “De consensu Evangelistarum,” and in his effort to force them into agreement was driven to strange suppositions—as that when our Lord went through Jericho there was a blind man by the road‐side leading into the city, and another by the road‐side leading out of it, and that both were healed under very similar circumstances.