Was this Peschito version founded on the Greek canonical text, or, in the case of St. Matthew, on the “Hebrew” Gospel? I think there can be little question that it was translated from the Greek. There can be no question that the Gospels of St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, and those of the other Epistles contained in this version,(166) are from the Greek, and it is probable that the version of St. Matthew was made at the same time from the received text. The Syrian churches were separated from the Nazarene community in sympathy; their acceptance of St. Paul’s Epistles is a proof that they were so; and these Epistles were accepted by them at a very early age, as we gather from internal evidence in the translation. The Syrian churches would be likely, moreover, when seeking for copies of the Christian Scriptures, to ask for them from churches which were regarded as orthodox, rather than from a dwindling community which was thought to be heretical. The Peschito version of St. Matthew follows the canonical Greek text, and not the Gospel of the Hebrews, in such passages as can be compared;(167) not one of the peculiarities of the latter find their echo in the Peschito text. The Gospel of the Hebrews has not, therefore, been preserved to us in the Peschito St. Matthew. The translations made by St. Jerome in Greek and Latin have also perished. It is not difficult to account for the loss of the book. The work itself was in use only by converted Jews; it was in the exclusive possession of the descendants of those parties for whose use it had been written. The Greek Gospels, on the other hand, spread as Christianity grew. The Nazarenes themselves passed away, and their cherished Gospel soon ceased to be known among men. Some exemplars may have been preserved for a time in public libraries, but these would not survive the devastation to which the country was exposed from the Saracens and other invaders, and it is not probable that a solitary copy survives. But if the entire Gospel of the Hebrews has not been preserved to us, we have got sufficiently numerous fragments, cited by ancient ecclesiastical writers, to permit us, to a certain extent, to judge of the tendencies and character of that Gospel. It is necessary to observe, as preliminary to our quotations, that the early Fathers cited passages from this Gospel without the smallest prejudice against it either historically or doctrinally. They do not seem to have considered it apocryphal, as open to suspicion, either because it contained doctrine at variance with the Canonical Greek Gospels, or because it narrated circumstances not found in them. On the contrary, they refer to it as a good, trustworthy authority for the facts of our Lord’s life, and for the doctrines he taught.