Tillemont was born in Paris in 1637 and became a priest in 1676. Shortly thereafter he retired to an abbey near Paris, but subsequently moved to his family estate (Tillemont) near Paris, where he completed two masterful works, one on ecclesiastical history and the other on the history of the Roman emperors, both covering the first six centuries of the Christian Church.1 The anonymous English translator of his ecclesiastical history introduces Tillemont by quoting the high praise of Du Pin: “These works of Mr. Tillemont are the product of a prodigious labor, and almost infinite industry, and are composed with all possible exactness.”2
For our purposes, Tillemont is of interest as he asserted that Matthew’s Gospel was published in AD 36 in Jerusalem, three years after the resurrection, and that Mark’s Gospel was published in AD 45 in Rome.3 A number of excerpts from Tillemont are provided below, that the reader may gain a fuller sense of this testimony from four-hundred years ago. The text provides extensive footnotes, which I have not aspired to replicate here.
The ancients then inform us, that S. Matthew having preached some time in Judea, and being ready to leave that country that he might go to preach in others, wrote his Gospel while he was yet in Judea and at Jerusalem. He did it through some kind of necessity, and that those from whom he was obliged to depart might supply the want of his presence by his book.4
He composed it particularly for the converted Jews, who had desired him, and according to the commission which had been given him to that purpose and by the apostles. For which reason he wrote it in the language of the Jews, and in Hebrew, as several of the Fathers assure us, that it is commonly in a language compounded of the Syriac and Chaldea, which the Jews made use of at the time in Palestine.
It is not known by whom it was translated into Greek, though it is cited from Anastasius Sinaita, that it was done by S. Paul and S. Luke. … The Hebrew words in it are sometimes explained, as was done likewise in the translation of Genesis. [Tillemont goes on to speak of the report that a Gospel of S. Matthew was found in the hand of S. Barnabas when his body was found around 488. And also, the tradition that Pantaenus found a copy when he went to preach in India; however, Tillemont reports that it was determined that this was the gospel of the Hebrews, not the Gospel of Matthew.]5
Some moderns have asserted that Matthew wrote in Greek. But they produce no reason that is strong enough to oblige us to give up the opinion of so many Fathers, who say that he wrote in Hebrew.6 [Elsewhere, I offer an argument for how we can understand the Fathers as stating that it was written in Greek.]
As to the time of S. Matthew writing the Gospel, we have already said that he wrote it the first of all. Therefore, since S. Mark wrote his either in the year 43, as we must say if we will follow Eusebius, or at least before the year 46; we think ourselves obliged to say that S. Matthew wrote before that time, though S. Irenaeus seems to place it much later, at a time when it is very probable that S. Luke had likewise already written his.
It even seems necessary to say, that S. Matthew wrote only three years after the death of Jesus Christ. For Baronius says that everybody asserts that this Gospel was written before the apostles left Jerusalem, and separated from each another to go and preach in the provinces. He cites no one who says this expressly, except the imperfect work upon S. Matthew. But we may probably infer it from those who say it was written in Judea. The time of this separation of the apostles is uncertain. It seems however as if it was about the year 36, since it appears that there was no apostle at Jerusalem when S. Paul came thither in 37, except S. Peter and S. James the Minor; that S. Peter had been before, as is thought, to found the church of Antioch; and that he went soon after to preach in Asia, and as far as Rome.7
- “The Translator to the Reader,” Ecclesiastical Memoirs of the Six First Centuries, vol. 1, 2 vols. (London, 1733), v–vi. ↩︎
- “The Translator to the Reader,” vii, with reference given to “Du Pin’s nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, tom. 18.” ↩︎
- Lewis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Memoirs of the Six First Centuries, vol. 1, 2 vols. (London, 1733), 647. ↩︎
- Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Memoirs, 314. ↩︎
- Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Memoirs, 315. ↩︎
- Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Memoirs, 316. ↩︎
- Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Memoirs, 316. ↩︎
