ST. MATTHEW'S GOSPEL : A CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY.
St. Matthew's Gospel : a Critical and Exegetical Commentary. By Willoughby C. Allen. (T. and T. Clark. 12s.)—This is a volume of the " International Critical Commentary." Such examination as we have been able to make of this very complete commentary has gone to show the genuinely critical spirit in which it has been put together. Mr. Allen is manifestly not bound to any system of opinions with which he has to make the language of the Gospel agree. He inclines, for instance, to the view that Isaiah in writing (vii. 14) " a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son," was using current mythological terms "and intended to suggest supernatural birth." A little later, however, he remarks that the tense of iyiveereer is "against the tradition of perpetual virginity." He sees in chaps. is ii. " an undercurrent of apology against Jewish polemic." This bears closely on the date. The " Nazarene" difficulty Mr. Allen leaves "unexplained," though making the suggestion that "Christ lived at Nazara, and so fulfilled the prophecies that He should be despised and rejected of men because He was to be known as the Nazoream." He doubts, however, whether or[—laneiLIETCU can be so rendered. There is an excellent example of his method in xxvii. 9-10. "The passage alluded to is no doubt Zech. xi. 13. The good shepherd of Israel received as wages from the rulers of the people a paltry sum. He was bidden to cast it to the potter. So he cast it to the potter in Jehovah's house. The quotation in Matthew seems to play upon the facts of this narrative with reference to this passage. Christ was the Good Shepherd. He had been estimated at a paltry sum, thirty pieces of silver, by the rulers of the people. The sum should therefore be cast to the potter the lig, asp& appears to be due to the translator allowing the facts upon which he is commenting to creep into his translation." Commentators do not deal satisfactorily with the difficulty,—could a field near Jerusalem, large enough to use as 'a burial-ground, be bOught for about XI in our money, oven though it was an exhausted pottery ? This is a valuable addition to the "International" Series.
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