Indeed, if Irenaeus believes this Hebrew gospel to be the source of our Greek text, he is almost certainly wrong (it is possible he has in mind an entirely different document, which has not survived). What is striking is that neither Irenaeus nor Papias explicitly identifies the author of the Greek text of Matthew. Papias reports only that the evangelist compiled a collection of Jesus’ sayings in Hebrew/Aramaic, while Irenaeus, writing later in the second century, explains that Matthew “issued a written gospel for the Hebrews in their own language’ (Against the Heresies 3.1.1). The earliest attestations of Matthean authorship are recorded by Papias, the second-century bishop of Hierapolis, and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (ca. 9:9 10:3)-there is no verifiable evidence indicating that the apostle or anyone named Matthew actually wrote the text. Though the title “according to Matthew” was likely attached to the text in the second century-and the Matthew in question is almost certainly the apostle (and tax collector) twice identified in the gospel itself (Mt. The authorship of the Gospel according to Matthew is largely untraceable.
While these attributions remain affixed to the canonical gospels down to the present day, their historical veracity is unclear.
In the second and third centuries, Christians began to associate the authorship of these anonymously written gospels with particular figures in the early Christian movement. Authorship: All four Gospels in the New Testament-the Greek word for gospel is euangelion, which literally means “good news”-were written anonymously, despite their ascribed authorship (“the gospel according to…”).
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